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
This could be as spontaneous as you want. I particularly want to be surprised.	[WP]Rewrite your favorite children's book with a twist that changes the theme completely	[ "Jack watched as the beanstalk began to grow. It grew up and up, wrapping around itself as it continued it perilous journey upwards. Jack was sure that the roof would stop its ascent, but with a creak and a groan it broke through the plaster and winding its way around the weight bearing beams, it continued its journey into the sky. Jack watched until it broke pierced the clouds and he lost sight of the tip of his beanstalk. \n\nAnd so, he began to climb it. Hand over hand he went, grasping each shoot and stem and laboriously pulling himself upwards. After several hundred feet, Jack took a break, wishing he hadn't skipped leg day for the last several years (or going to the gym for that matter). After he regained his breath he continued upwards. Resting every time he needed a break, it took Jack what felt like an eternity to reach the clouds. He ran his hands through the clouds and stopped suddenly. \n\nJack's elementary school teacher had warned him that even though clouds looked solid, you'd actually fall to a splattering demise if you were to try and walk on them. It seemed she was wrong, Jack said smugly to himself. He never liked that bitch anyways. \n\nJack continued his ascent through the clouds, he almost wished his teacher had been right - this felt more like fighting his way through cotton than through water vapour. He had to stop every ten feet so he could rip another hole in the clouds. As soon as he climbed into that cavity, the clouds would roll in behind him, sealing him in. After what felt like hours of fighting the oppressive stuff, Jack broke through into the sunshine. In front of him stood a giant castle, surround but the oppressive grey clouds. His nose was filled with an oppressive mildew smell, as though every piece of fabric in the castle was degrading slowly despite the sun. \n\nWith nowhere to go but forwards, Jack set off towards the castle - each step was a burden. His foot would sink into the clouds and Jack had to be careful not to fall in. Eventually, he made it to the front gates - which were instantly broken open by a giant ogre who screamed \n\n\"Fee-fi-fo-fum,\nI smell the blood of an Englishman,\nBe he alive, or be he dead,\nI'll have his bones to grind my bread.\"\n\nJack ran, screaming, back to his beanstalk but the clouds had sealed off his escape and he couldn't dig fast enough to get away from the ogre. In the last moments before the ogre swallowed him whole, Jack realized that this entire experience was monumentally fucked up. The ogre bit down and Jacks vision went black. \n\nIt was still black. There's fabric under my skin. Damp fabric. And I can hear something. What is that. Laughter. Laughter? Laughter. Uproarious laughter. And talking. But like, normal talking. Not the ogre's grating below. But like, human talking. Right? Yeah. Whoa, it's not black. My eyes are just closed. Maybe if I just peak with one. Jesus, that smells like shit, what is that? Why won't this laughter stop. Ok. One eye open - that's a ceiling. So far so good. Why are my legs goey? Ok boths eyes open, still just a ceiling. Someone's shaking me, better shut my eyes again.\n\n\"DUDE DUDE ARE YOU OK? THAT LOOKED CRAZY WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU\" \n\nSay nothing, if you play dead, they'll go away. Make them go away. \n\n\"DUDE YOU LITERALLY SHIT YOURSELF, WHAT THE FUCK. NO DUDE, I'M NOT EATING THAT SHIT. DUDE YOU ARE SUCH A DUMBASS YOU CAN'T EVEN EAT SALVIA, THAT WON'T DO SHIT TO YOU.\" \n\n", "Hop pop we like to hop.\n\n\"Stop it! Stop it right now!\"\n\nWe like to hop on top of pop\n\n\"You're rupturing my kidneys!\"\n\nSTOP You must not hop on pop \n\n\"Mr Brown? Is that you? I can't move. I think my organs are bleeding.\"\n\nMr. BROWN Mrs. BROWN \n\n\"Kids get away from Mr. Brown!\"\n\nMr. Brown upside down\n\n\"Let go of him!\"\n\nPup up Brown Down.\n\n\"Stop it! Get away from the window! Do you hear me?\"\n\nPup is down. Where is Brown?\n\n\"NOOOOOOOO!\"\n\nWHERE IS BROWN? THERE IS BROWN!\n\n\"YOU DROPPED HIM! YOU DROPPED HIM FROM THE EIGHTEENTH FLOOR YOU DEVIL CHILDREN!\n\nMr. Brown is out of town \n\n\"NO HE'S NOT! YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED HIM AND I SAW IT! YOU KILLED HIM AND NO, NO NO NO NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET AWAY FROM MEEEEE!\n\n\n\n", "This is the story of a tree and a boy.\n\nOne morning stroll through a forest, a little boy stumbled upon a magnificent tree. Its own green canopy reached higher into the sky than any other tree within the forest. He climbed its trunk and swung around on its branches. Sitting within the shade, the little boy ate of the tree's apples. The tree was happy.\n\nEveryday, the little boy came to play with the tree and eat apples. Everyday the boy and the tree were happy.\n\nOne day, the little boy did not come to play, saddening the great tree. Though, the next day, the boy did come! The tree was happy! Eventually, the boy's visits grew less frequent and shorter. Then the boy stopped coming altogether.\n\nThe tree felt dejected and hurt for it was great and definitely the largest there ever was. What was wrong? Does the boy hate me? Did he not actually enjoy playing with me? I thought he loved me.\n\nYears had passed and the boy finally returned. The tree greeted the boy and the boy returned the greeting. Then he asked for money.\n\nMoney? The tree might as well give the boy all his apples it grew itself. So the tree gave the boy its apples... then its branches... then its trunk...\n\nThe tree finally felt happy to release all that weight off it's stump... and the boy? Well, he died from too much weight on his shoulders.", "The sun did not shine.\nIt was too wet to play.\nSo we sat in the house\nAll that cold, cold, wet day.\n\n\nI sat there with Sally.\nWe sat there, we two.\nAnd I said, “How I wish\nWe had something to do!”\n\n\nToo wet to go out\nAnd too cold to play ball.\nSo we sat in the house.\nWe did nothing at all.\n\n\nSo all we could do was to\nSit! Sit! Sit! Sit!\nAnd we did not like it.\nNot one little bit.\n\n\nAnd then\nSomething went BUMP!\nHow that bump made us jump!\n\n\nWe looked!\nThen we saw him step in on the mat!\nWe looked!\nAnd we saw him!\nThe Cat in the Hat!\nAnd he said to us,\n“Why do you sit there like that?”\n\n“I know it is wet\nAnd the sun is not sunny.\nBut we can have\nLots of good fun that is funny!” \n\n“I know some good games we could play,”\nSaid the cat.\n“I know some new tricks,”\nSaid the Cat in the Hat.\n“A lot of good tricks.\nI will show them to you.\nYour mother\nWill not mind at all if I do.”\n\n\nThen Sally and I\nDid not know what to say.\nOur mother was out of the house\nFor the day.\n\n\nBut our fish said, “No! No!\nMake that cat go away!\nTell that Cat in the Hat\nYou do NOT want to play.\nHe should not be here.\nHe should not be about.\nHe should not be here\nWhen your mother is out!”\n“Now! Now! Have no fear.\nHave no fear!” said the cat.\n“My tricks are not bad,”\nSaid the Cat in the Hat.\n“Why, we can have\nLots of good fun, if you wish,\nWith a game that I call\n UP-UP-UP with a fish!”\n\n\n“Put me down!” said the fish.\n“This is no fun at all!\nPut me down!” said the fish.\n“I do NOT wish to fall!” \n\nThe cat remembered that he was a cat.\n\n\nThrew the fish up, and made it his snack.\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n", "\"The defendant, Tom Robinson, is found not guilty on a count of rape and aggravated assault.\"\n\nJem stood up and hollered, and Atticus glanced up briefly. I thought I even saw a smile on his face. Cal ushered us out of the courtroom and out of the way before the stream of spectators streamed out, whispering about how the law won that day.\n\n\"Mighty fine job your daddy did,\" Cal beamed. I nodded in agreement.\n\nLater that week, Helen Robinson baked us the richest cornbread I ever tasted, and Bob Ewell hanged himself. No one missed him. Little shithead. ", "The Big Bad Wolf worked for the bank, and he had to evict the pigs who were delinquent on their mortgages. \n\nThe first little pig lived in a small condo downtown. \"little pig little pig, this is your eviction notice! pack your things and go!\"\n\n\"not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!\" called out the pig. \n\nso the wolf called the cops, they evicted him, and put his stuff on the curb. the little pig left to go live with his brother. \n\nthe next little pig lived in a townhouse. the big bad wolf said \"little pig little pig, this is your eviction notice! pack your things and go!\"\n\nbut the pig and his brother who was evicted from the condo said \"not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!\"\n\nso the wolf called the cops, they evicted him, and put his stuff on the curb. both the unemployed deadbeat pigs went to live with their other brother. \n\nBut the third little pig had a nice brick house, with a 40-year mortgage and he always paid on time. when the wolf stopped by with the follow-up paperwork for his brothers, he just sighed and shook his head. at least he had a job for now. \n", "They're two, they're four, they're six, they're eight,\n\nshunting trucks and hauling freight.\n\nRed and green and brown and blue,\n\nthey're the Really Useful Crew.\n\nAll with different roles to play,\n\nround Tidmoth Sheds or far away.\n\nDown the hills and round the bends,\n\nThomas and his friends.\n\nThomas, he's the cheeky one.\n\nJames is vain but lots of fun.\n\nPercy pulls the mail on time.\n\nGordon thunders down the line.\n\nEmily really knows her stuff.\n\nHenry toots and huffs and puffs.\n\n\n\nEdward suffers from crippling depression and has made plans to purposely derail near pedestrians so he can have one last despicable act on his name and end his miserable existence while his mental instability failed to suppress his suicidal and sadistic tendencies. \n\n\n\nToby, well let's just say, he's square!", "Once upon a time there a wee little engine. At the train yard, all the big engines, would puff out plumes of hot steam when they laughed at how the little engine struggled to pull even a single train car up the Steep Hill to the east. Sometimes, the little engine would cry himself to sleep because he'd never be as mighty as a real engine.\n\nOne day there was a big kerfuffle in the west. There were big messes and fires and the people needed the trains to bring them food and tools. All the big, mighty engines were called away to help, leaving only the little engine left to make the runs over the Steep Hill.\n\nThe workers hitched four cars to the little engines back, and with a pat on his side, they sent him off. The little engine was terrified of what would become of him on this hard journey. But he decided to set all the scary thoughts aside and simply focus on achieving the goal. \n\n\"I think I can, I think I can,\" the little engine told himself as he heaved and heaved to pull the four cars. In the distance, he saw the Steep Hill getting closer. \n\n\"I think I can, I think I can,\" he kept repeating as the ground began to rise. For a moment, the little engine thought he would fall backwards! But he puffed as hard as he could. \"I think I can, I think I can,\" he said again and again. \n\nSlowly but surely, inch by inch, he kept climbing up the Steep Hill, pulling ever closer to the top. The little engine looked back and saw how far he would tumble if he gave up, and he remembered how he was the train yard's only hope.\n\n\"I think I can, I think I can,\" he said, \"I think I can, I think I can.\" The steam from his chimney was so thick he couldn't even see but then, at long last, he felt how there was nowhere left to climb. He began to roll down, forwards. He had made it to the top and was coming down the other side! The little engine was so proud. He had believed in himself and done something wonderful!\n\nThe steam cleared as the little engine caught his breath and he saw the eastern side of the Steep Hill for the first time. Soon he could read the welcome sign at the bottom. \n\n\"Auschwitz,\" it said." ]	8
	[WP] Everyone's afraid of the dark. Make me afraid of the light.	[ "I liked it when it was dark. The darkness made me feel safe. You couldn't see anything when it was dark. Nothing is certain when the lights are off. I could pretend that everything was okay.\n\nSometimes when it was dark, I'd close my eyes and imagine that I was someone else. I would have a mother and a father, sometimes a brother as well, and I would go to school everyday where I would have many friends to play with. I would be safe. I would be happy.\n\nThen the light would come. It would ruin everything. My friends, my family...all washed away in a flash. The light makes my eyes sting and water and dry up. The men in white coats would come and take me to the metal table where they would cut a hole in my stomach and look inside of me. They would all stand there with their clipboards and say funny words at each other. I try to close my eyes and make them go away, but I couldn't. The light wouldn't let me. I could see it through my eyelids. I hated the light.\n\nAll I could ever do was endure it. Endure it until they took me back to my room. It was filthy, but when it was dark it could be whatever I wanted it to be. I would crawl up in the corner, close my eyes, and pretend that everything was okay.", "It was six months ago when we first found out, when it was nothing but a tiny speck in the sky, indistinguishable against the millions and billions of other stars that dotted the universe. Scientists had confirmed that the source of light was not a planet or a star; but a meteorite. Calculations were made and concluded that it would miss earth by a fair distance, and would instead be a beautiful sight to behold as it whizzed across the night sky. Plane tickets were booked by enthusiasts to get the best views, and the internet exploded with delight at the chance to see the universe. But as it came closer and closer, alarm bells started ringing. People started pointing out things that hadn't been considered before, and calculations were checked and re-checked. \n\nThere was a mistake.\n\nWhen humanity loses its future, it loses its will to live. The news came out that people would have four months at most before the meteorite hit. Society violently erupted and collapsed.People stopped working and instead tried to spend all their money in a last minute attempt to fulfill their dreams, driving inflation to the point where money was worthless, bringing back bartering and the law of the fist. Governments collapsed, nuclear plants exploded, and electricity disappeared; nobody was prepared to sacrifice their last few days working for the enjoyment of others. Billions died in the following months as resources dwindled and lawlessness descended.\n\nMeanwhile, the speck that you once had to strain to see grew bigger, and bigger, and bigger; until it began to grow larger by the day. People began to expect a miracle everytime they looked up at the blue-white ball; and this expectation only grew the closer it came. People huddled together in the darkness, praying, hoping, surviving under the eerie light. In the last week, the night had a second moon; in the last three, a second sun. Darkness became a forgotten dream, for now the meteorite was so close that it was always bright on earth. In the darkness you can hide and pretend that everything is okay; but the light exposes everything.\nOn the last night of humanity, people sat together on glassy plains and watched their doom descend. The meteorite now grew in size by the hour - in the early evening, it looked about thrice as big as the moon in diameter, but now it seemed to cover most of the sky. It descended, slowly, carefully, until there was nothing but this blinding, piercing brilliance, casting jagged shadows behind each person.\n\nAnd everything ended in a shower of light.\n", " The face of a young female news reporter filled the screen of the television set as Jack got it working. We all huddled around it to see what the hell had happened. She held an earpiece and began speaking.\n \"The scene here at 'Darien Lake Amusement Park' along with the rest of the world is impossible to describe. It began early this morning at dawn when tens of thousands of people turned into ashes from the rays of the sun. I'm protected here behind this concession stand but many of the workers here, getting the park ready for the park to open at 9 am where reduced to ashes as soon as the sun's rays hit their skin. I have Dr. Hassed Noir, from the World Health Organization on the line right now, Dr. Noir, is there any explanation for this horrific event?\"\n The picture on the television switched to the doctor who was in a studio, \"We have no explanation for this event. We urge everyone to stay indoors until more information becomes available.\"\n Back to the reporter on television, \"Yes, all Government agencies urge everyone to stay indoors during this crisis.\" Then the picture went black.\n \"So Jack,\" I said, \"Our prey is in these buildings?\" \n \"Yes,\" he said, \"We incinerated the the less tasty ones, come back at dusk!\"\n", "Around the fire they danced and sang and drank and touched and loved.\nThe beasts in forest past the clearing lay and watch with disinterest while the food comes off. They smell the cooked meats and wait for the scraps, as is their routine on nights when the hunt is strong.\nThe people thronged within their masses with common glee and grew entwined within each other as their group pleasure peaked. moving closer to the fire, further blocking out the light. They grabbed out at boar legs and deer flanks, barely cooked and fully unseasoned, and tore into the flesh. The emptiness inside them filling up, they disregard the fire in search of drinks and companionship. Eyes flashing, fearing the night, the children wait for their caretakers to bring them food, and go to feed the flames. As the fire gets lower they are able to see more of the beasts glowing eyes, sitting and waiting. Their imaginations run wild, seeing a dark night and nothing else, not seeing the mysterious creature that they believe ready for their flesh. Not seeing their friends and families killed. Not seeing their hands reaching for wounds that would never be there. The fire kept them blind to the glowing eyes, but as the twisting mass of adults circled the fire, they cast an umbrage into the minds of the children, too young to busy themselves with sex and drink in order to ignore the beasts. That fire must be taller than even the largest man in order to keep the light at the forests edge. that light, that safety that kept everyone in ignorance, would have those children grow in paranoia until it was their turn to hunt. In fear they hunt those beasts beyond the trees, those glowing eyes. They hunt and find the forest filled with doe and rabbits, and one day their children would learn to fear the dark as they watch their parents gore on flesh, hoping to never have those mysterious eyes' mouths tearing into them. The fire in the night brings ignorance, it brings a false safety and creates a paranoia of something that cannot exist. We discover based on experience, and in the light we see only what is possible. Even when we can see, we cannot.", "Mark lay in his bed, panting. His eyes were open, but he couldn’t see a thing. The blankets he hung over his windows blacked out the sunlight, and he had unscrewed the light bulb from the fixture on the ceiling. This was the only way he would survive. \n\nIt had started last night. He had called up some friends for a little drunken get together. Tiana had dumped him a few weeks ago, and he couldn’t take his mind off of her. One by one his friends showed up with their own bottle to add to the party; Jocelyn with her wine, Shaun with his tequila, Aaron with his vodka, Brett with his whiskey. Mark supplied the beer, and by 10 pm they were slurring their words and stumbling like calf.\n\nLater they wouldn’t be able to recall exactly whose idea it had been, but someone suggested they take out the Ouija board. Mark set everything up and everyone settled in a circle around the board. They asked a few typical questions: “Is anyone here?” “How did you die?”, and Shaun’s brilliant mind stumper, “Will Josie take off her shirt tonight?” He got punched for that one. Brett had been very quiet up until then. He asked them, “Do you guys want to do this thing right? Do you want to see something really cool?” Everyone nodded their heads. They were a little too drunk to be taking anything seriously. \n\nBrett ran to the kitchen and grabbed some salt. He also grabbed a marker, a piece of paper, and 5 candles from Mark’s office. He drew a strange symbol on the paper and placed it underneath the Ouija board. He then placed the candles around the board and then drew a circle with the salt around the group. \"He goes by many names. He is the keeper of the light. He is doomed to wander the earth searching for light in the darkness for all eternity. Some call him Will the Blacksmith because he creates the will o wisps that lead travelers off the roads. Some call him Jack and he is the reason we carve pumpkins so that he is attracted to their light.”\n\nJocelyn whimpered a little bit at this sudden serious conversation. “Brett, we were just trying to joke around and have fun. You’re scaring me. This isn’t okay.”\n\n“He has a real name. The true name. All demons do. He is Yangent. He is the keeper of light. He strives in light where most demons live in darkness.” \nBrett began to light the candles, slowly, one by one. Every time he lit a candle, he said someone else’s name. \n\n“Jocelyn” he lit the purple one. “Shaun”, he lit the green one. “Aaron”, he lit the white one. “Mark”, he lit the red one. “Brett”, he lit the black one. \n\nHe looked around the circle slowly. “Now, we put our hands on the planchette.” Everyone did as he said, terrified but interested in what would happen next. “Yangent. We ask of you to bring us light. Bless us with your light.” The planchette began to spell something out. It moved to the “U”, and Aaron started spelling it out loud. “U-G-U-Y-S-R-S-O-G-U-L-L-I-B-L-E”. “Uguys… You guys Rso… You guys are so gullible. Dammit Brett!” \n\nThey pretended to be mad at him, but in reality they were relieved. They had never seen Brett act that way. He was so serious. It made them uneasy. He had never kept a straight face for that long in a joke, and the Ouija board had been spontaneous. No one really thought he could come up with a prank that quickly. Jocelyn stood up and said she was going to lay down. She blew out her candle and snickered. “I’m going to bed.” \n\nAs soon as she put her foot outside the circle, there was a snap. Jocelyn didn’t even have time to scream in pain as a man dressed in white grabbed her hand and threw her down. He was glowing, and Jocelyn screamed as he pushed his hand on her face. Each finger was made of fire, and she rolled on the ground in pain as he scorched her face. She stopped screaming after a few minutes, and the ghostly figure walked around the circle. His face, although it looked like skin, was shaped like a gourd and looked as if a child had attempted to carve a face out of a pumpkin. He was slender, and covered in boils. Each hand ended with five little flames as if they were his fingers. \n\nThe group didn’t even register what was happening for a couple of minutes. Everything had gone by so quickly. One second, Jocelyn was alive and drunk, the next she was on the ground burning and sobbing. Everything was silent. Then Aaron said, “There’s only one.” Everyone seemed to snap out of their trance. The man was gone, but Jocelyn was still on the ground. There should have been four candles burning. Josie blew hers out, there should have been four. Only one was burning. It was purple. \n\n“Oh my god, Josie!” Shaun stood up and started to run over to her, but Brett grabbed his leg and wrestled him to the ground. “Stop, Shaun, don’t you get it? She left the circle. We can’t leave the circle.”\n“What are you talking about? Brett this doesn’t make any sense! I need to get her! Josie!”\n\nShaun managed to push Brett off of him and ran over to Josie. All of a sudden, the green candle lit itself. Shaun let out a whimper as he watched the disfigured, ghostly white man approach him. He screamed as the man reached out to him. He tried to crawl back to the circle, but it was too late. The man was on top of him making slithering, crackling noises. Shaun was silent. The man got off of him, and disappeared into the kitchen, which was still well lit. Shaun and Josie lay next to each other, both pitch black and burnt. \n\n“That’s it. Brett, what the hell is going on? Explain this shit! What did you do?”\nAaron had Brett in a chokehold. “Explain!” \n“Okay okay get off of me I’ll tell you!”\n“Look… I brought him here. I didn’t think… I didn’t think he’d attack a group this small. I was just trying to be funny. I didn’t think he’d show up!”\n\n“Explain what the hell is going on or I will push you out there myself!” Mark had stood up at this point, and was pacing the inside of the circle. He grabbed Brett by the neck, “Explain!”\n“Okay okay!” Brett coughed for a couple of minutes before catching his breath.\n“Look, my mom was real into this demon stuff. She had this huge book on demons and everything. She’d summon them and ask them favors and… I don’t know she sold her soul to one. That’s how she died.”\n\n“I thought your mom died of a heart attack.”\n\n“She did but… just listen to me okay? This demon was in one of her books. He’s not really powerful. Sometimes I play pranks on people. I pretend to summon a demon. It never actually happens… I think I may have accidentally done it right this time. He’s the only demon that likes the light. He lives in the light. He is most powerful in the daytime. He is attracted to light sources. That’s why he’s hanging out in the kitchen I think. All demons hate salt, especially him. It can be used to put out that fire. I just. I think we’re screwed. I screwed up really bad you guys. We can’t stay in this circle forever. He’s going to kill us!” \n\nBrett ran outside of the circle, screaming. For a second nothing happened. Then, the black candle lit itself. The man appeared in front of Brett. Brett knelt down and bowed before the demon. Then, he disappeared under the demon’s glowing body. His death was silent. The man disappeared back into the kitchen. \nAaron and Mark were both silent for about an hour. They sat in the circle petrified. Then, Mark finally broke the silence.\n\n“Aaron, I think I have an idea. Maybe we can distract him. I mean, maybe he is afraid of the dark? We’ve only seen him in light, this room is lit by candles and he stays in the kitchen. What if we go somewhere dark? Maybe he won’t follow us.” \n\n“Okay Mark. That’s a good plan. Except for the part where we leave the circle here.” \n\n“No, it will be okay. We’ll carry these candles. He won’t even realize we left the light, and that’s the whole reason he attacked everyone else!”\n\n“Are you sure? I thought… I thought it was the salt.”\n\n“No, Aaron. He wants us to stay in the light!” \n\nAaron thought this sounded like a good plan. So he took the purple candle, and began walking to Mark’s bedroom. As soon as he stepped outside the circle, however, the white candle lit. Mark knew this was his only chance. He didn’t hesitate or stop to watch Aaron’s death. He already had his candle. He knew the demon would be distracted. He ran to his bedroom, and quickly stuffed a towel into the space between the door and the carpet. His windows were already hung with blankets, as Mark had slept throughout the daytime during his depressed state. He set his candle on his nightstand, still unlit, and threw the covers over his head. \n\nThe next night Mark awoke from a dream. He was panting, and drenched in sweat. He had unscrewed the light bulb from the fixture in his ceiling wondering if the monster could control light. Something was wrong though, when he woke up. At first he couldn’t see anything. It was pitch black, and that comforted him. As long as he couldn’t see anything, he knew the monster wasn’t there. \n\nThen something changed. It was slow, but a dim light washed over the room. He turned his head to his nightstand in horror. His cellphone. He had completely forgotten about his cellphone. He was getting a phone call from Tiana. The red candle on his nightstand lit itself. \n\n\n*Side note: I didn't make this scary enough. I shall work on it and make it scarier. ", "“This has been a great night, Marc.”\n\nIndeed it has. She made it so easy. We took a stroll, feeling safe under the cover of night. I counted my blessings as we searched for answers to unspoken questions in the gleam of each other’s eyes, reflecting the moonlight.\n\nWe should not have been complacent. The tyranny of our overlords could reach us anywhere there was light. \n\nAnd lights burst through more abruptly than we could react. My eyes immediately went blind and I have a sharp intake of panic as I gasped. \n\n“Run!” Sarah screamed at me, desperate. \n\nDarn the light! I tried to run, but my feet were unsure beneath me. My hand was numb and I seemed to have lost the grip of hers. \n\nMy eyes barely recovered enough for me to make out Sarah’s outline. She was drenched in her own fluids. She lay on the floor dying, but still struggling to urge me to keep going. Her frame was deformed, crushed under the merciless weight of the tyrants. \n\nI kept running, thinking of how I may live to regret not stopping for her. \n\nDarn the light, darn it all! \n\nIt was a pointless thought. I did not manage to get far before I was slapped by a powerful gust. Toxins filled my lungs and I lost control of my limbs as it quickly saturated in my body. I tripped over my own feet, fell flat on the floor and lay there dying.\n\nOut of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Sarah again. She had died. I curse our overlords aloud. I curse the lights that they have created to turn night into day. No one and nowhere was ever safe anymore. \n\nI lay on my back helplessly, staring up at the light that came from the heavens. My feet were still scrambling but I was a helpless stationary target – as the merciless weight of our overlords came down upon me. \n\nAt last, darkness. \n", "You can see it, can't you?\n\nHow it warms you skin, your bones, your soul?\n\nIt's so warm, and you have been cold for so long. \n\nBut can you see it?\n\nEverybody laughs at shadows, at those things we see in the corner of our eyes, or the sudden glances at doorways and windows.\n\nYou don't see them at night, do you?\n\nOnly during the day do the shadows have life.\n\nOnly in the light do they live, and breathe, and steal us away, distracted by their sudden appearance.\n\nThey don't come out at night, they're afraid of the night.\n\nYou should relish the darkness, the lack of shadows, the certainty that everything will be safe.\n\nBut you won't, you can't. \n\nYou crave the light, and they thrive in the blinding sight.\n\nThey thrive in your shadows, in corners, in places that you think safe.\n\nDo not fear the dark.\n\nFear the light.\n\nFor it is when they strike.\n\n", "It amazes me, the creatures that thrive in the light and disdain the dark. Darkness is the natural state of the world, yet they cling to the temporary as if it is only in the light that anything can be beautiful.\n\nIs a rose less beautiful without an admirer?\n\nI was born to the darkness and there I’ve come to know and love many of my kin. Many of us are blind, our eyes having turned into vestigial organs over generations of disuse. We rely on our other senses. Pimtoe and his like are born with hard yet sensitive calluses on the soles of their feet. They can accurately track the motion of a wandering ant within a meter’s radius to the centimeter. Once by the light of the night sun, I’ve perceived Pimtoe’s face and it is not like that of my own. Yet in the cover of darkness of the colony, most of us are unable to distinguish these features between each other, and we come to know and love one another for our speech and actions.\n\nThe light is dangerous because therein the creatures study and draw lines between themselves and those unlike them. Our oral history dictates that our forefathers committed many an atrocity for matters as trivial as the melanin pigment count in the skin and the fur and the eyes. \n\nYet the creatures who embrace the light treat us with contempt. And make no mistake: they are dangerous and violent. They usually leave our colony in peace, but will hunt and murder any of ours that is caught in the outside lands. Every other cycle they launch excursions into the Colony, and we have long since learned to keep our young and our frail in the deeper levels. \n\nI lost my older brother Tomjan two cycles ago when he left the Colony to deliver a message to a neighboring colony with which we had not bridged tunnels. The Light ones killed him and our search party found his body dismembered and charred. They had killed him with the light and the hatred.\n\nI do not know when this hatred took root, and what continues to feed this fervor. What angers me most is their holier-than-thou demeanor. They call us beasts and degenerates, and imagine themselves noble and glorious. The irony is not lost on me that for all the light and vision the Light Ones possess, that they do not look in the mirror and examine themselves, their speech and their actions.\n\nWe don’t embrace the hatred as the Light Ones do. My kin aren’t fond of violence, except in self-defense. In our culture, we believe that a sentient creature is only able to commit violence when the Rhaksasa possesses the body, which is more prone to happen to those who have frequent and prolonged exposure to the Light. Those who embrace this intoxication of the Light without the wherewithal for rehabilitation are exiled by the Colony.\n\nBut today, I am prepared to face any consequences that may come my way. I can only pray Ma and Pa and my friends will forgive me for the shame I am about to bring upon them, for I see no other way to achieve peace with the Light Ones without embracing some of the Light myself.", "Diary of Galactic Explorer Clitchik\n\n_______________________________\n\nThis may be my last entry.\n\nBlack holes. Regions of space with such intense gravity, nothing can escape them - not even light.\n\nWe've always known they exist - we've even thought that they are in the centre of every galaxy, and that they may be at the heart of every quasar.\n\nBut on this day, I have found two, and they are unlike anything we ever expected.\n\nWe expected dark. Utter dark, the total and complete absence of light. The two holes are in orbit around each other, and while they are not allowing light to escape from inside them, they are superheating an enormous cloud of debris - an accretion disk - that surrounds them. It feeds them, nourishes them, and is consumed by them - and in turn, it radiates pure power. Energy levels are off the charts.\n\nThe holes look to be about thirty to thirty-five times the mass of our star, and their orbits around their shared centre is getting faster. When they collide, I have no idea what sort of force they will unleash. I can only guess that it will shake the entire universe. Who knows, aliens in other galaxies might detect it.\n\nFor now, I observe. The accretion disc is growing more and more violent. I'm not sure it is safe to stay so close - but I'm not sure there is anywhere safe.\n\nThe light from it is blinding even a light hour away. I'll run a simulation to see how long it will be until these holes collide, but in the interim, it's full thrusters away.\n\n\n_______________________\n\nThe previous entry wasn't the last one I will write. This one may be.\n\nI have mere days until the holes collide. Even ten times as far away as I was before, the radiation reaching me is undermining my ship's structural integrity. So bright! I'm ten light hours away (OOC note: twice as far as Pluto) and it's brighter than anything I've ever seen. So much for 'black' holes!\n\nThis stellar system has been ripped to shreds by the tidal forces attacking my ship and the temperature. More and more is falling into the accretion disc and being consumed by these horrible holes, and every meal they eat leads to more heat and more light.\n\nI'm travelling away at a quarter of the speed of causality. Dangerous, I know, to go so fast, but less dangerous than if I were to stay. I'll take my chances with spacedust collisions to get away from THAT thing.\n\nI don't fear the darkness any more. I fear this li...\n\n_______________________________\n\n\nClitchik never had an opportunity to finish. The simulations were wrong, and the two black holes collided, expelling most of the contents of their shared accretion disc at almost the speed of light.\n\nOne billion years later, in a galaxy ten million quadrillion kilometres away, a team of scientists operating a device named LIGO detected Clitchik's demise.", "Albert turned the latch to lock the door for the night. Next he closed the shutters on the windows with a thud. He instantly felt far more secure, but knew such feelings could be treacherous. They had been before.\n\n\"Alby, is that you?\"\n\nThe question was faint, but real.\n\n\"Yes, love, it is,\" he answered.\n\nAlbert stood still, waiting for a response. He didn't want his boots to drown out the sound of words. He didn't want to ask the question, but eventually had no choice but to.\n\n\"Are you okay, love?\"\n\nHe was made to wait once more, but would not ask again.\n\n\"I am. I am, Alby. But I'm alone. So alone. Won't you come see me?\"\n\nThe voice was soft as ever, like calm waves lapping at the beach on a cloudy night. They could not be seen, they could barely be heard, but they were there. The bedroom door was wide open, but no light from the room he was in seemed to dent the blackness it contained. It was a welcome sight. Part of Albert wanted to cross that threshold, but the rest of him stopped that idea dead in its tracks.\n\n\"I will love, soon, okay? When the right time comes round, I will try.\"\n\nHe stared into the darkness, not expecting a response. And as expected, none came. He exhaled relief, before walking to the table and opening the small flip-lid box. Inside it were the nine thin red candles, once the same size but no longer. Fire had stunted their growth in the last few weeks.\n\nAlbert grabbed one of a medium size and let the lid slap closed. With the wax stick in his right hand he planted himself on the nearby chair where the matches were waiting, as always. He pulled one out and rested it on his left thigh, ready for action. To his surprise the lights were still on.\n\n\"Seems later than last night,\" he thought. \"Stay awake Alb, until they go off. Keep your eyes open.\"\n\n\n\nAlbert could feel the candle in his hand when he woke, while the match was still on his leg. Everything seemed to be the same, just in a state of total darkness.\n\n\"Damn, missed it again.\"\n\nThe blackness was disorientating but comforting. Albert remembered how scared he used to be of the lightless void, of what it might hold. But that was before he realised that darkness was his friend, not his enemy. He recalled what she’d told him.\n\n\"Why are you afraid of the dark, Alby? In the dark, you cannot see the thing that's about to kill you. You are ignorant. But in the light, your death is laid bare. You can see them coming for you. When they come, so does the light.\"\n\nThe rest of the room was shapeless before him, his eyes unable to see any line or corner. Each new night seemed darker than the last.\n\n\"Stay dark,\" he whispered. \"Stay dark...stay...dark.\"\n\nHis demand was ignored.\n\nIn an instant the darkness transformed into painfully-bright light. Albert knew there was no sound, but his senses were so shattered that he heard the screeching of a thousand diving planes. He saw it head straight for the bedroom, looking for her.\n\n\"No, no you will not,\" Albert yelled, standing with such force that the chair fell back.\n\nAs fast as he could he struck the match and lit the candle. The small flickering flame took to life, challenging the entity of light. It turned so sharply that the bedroom door slammed shut. He knew the being was looking right at him, right through him.\n\nAlbert started laughing as the burning wax dribbled down onto his hand. His mouth grew wider as the pain increased, his skin quickly becoming one with the candle. The light intensified until his eyes could no longer see anything. Only death.\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nI'd love to hear what you thought about this response to the prompt. Please comment below to let me know :)*", "What's worse? To be blissfully unaware until a monster snatches you in the night...or to know the creature stalking you isn't afraid to show its face? Every person you walk past hides a monster inside of them. The exterior is a façade. At night, at least you know the people are questionable and you should be careful. In the light, you're lulled into a false serenity that these people are good and harmless. When those are the ones who will rip your eyes out of your head. Good luck and be on guard. The dark and the light - neither is your friend. Again, good luck.", "Don't bare me to the stark and brutal light, \nExpose me with a flicking of a switch. \nDon't make me face the fallout of the fight, \nBut let me hide here deep within the pitch. \n \nShould I relive the erstwhile night's exchange \nI'd lose what piteous hope inhabits me, \nAnd should one chance upon me in the shade \nHave mercy on this wretch and leave me be. \n \nI suffer now the void where once you lay \nWhich hardly measures to the void inside, \nFor I can not reverse my tongue's cruel blade. \nRedemption out of reach, instead I hide. \n \nThe murkiness obscures my shame, and yet \nI'd welcome light behind your silhouette. ", "# FRÄULEIN\n\nWe were safer in the dark,\n\nThat's what father always said.\n\nHe said the men who looked for us,\n\nWould only want us dead.\n\n.\n\n\"But why?\" I used to ask him.\n\nMy little face confused.\n\n\"Because my little mausebär- \n\nThey're hunting for us Jews\"\n\n.\n\nAnd soon, soon after that,\n\nThey stilled my childish play,\n\nThe men of squeaky black boots,\n\nHad come for us that day.\n\n.\n\nPapa held me closer,\n\nHe told me \"Don't be scared\"\n\nHe tugged upon that cursed star,\n\nThat I was forced to wear.\n\n.\n\nSoon the girls who hid us,\n\nHit the ground above our heads,\n\nI didn't want to hear them cry,\n\nOr hear them as they bled.\n\n.\n\nAnd so I covered my ears, \n\nAs I heard them lose their fight,\n\nAnd I prayed so very hard\n\nThat I wouldn't see the light.\n\n\n\n", "It was black. He was alone in the house. His parents and brother left for a trip to Europe. They would return in a week. It was a black and dark house in a cornfield. The grips of twilight had heightened to its midnight crescendo. He sat in the basement, lying in a bed, thinking about his coming day of school, too awake to sleep, too tired to turn on the lights. He looked at his girlfriend, sleeping peacefully next to him. She turned her position and faced the wall. He was alone; the only conscious person in the house.\n\nIn the night he felt awake. In the night, his pupils were thick pools of void, so dark and wide that one could pinpoint them in the surrounding darkness. He sat and then lay down as if he was to begin a journey into a dream. But his eyes stayed open, and his pupils widened to take in what little light remained. He licked his dry lips and then sat back up, shivering. There was an itch bothering his backside. He moved his arms awkwardly to reach the itch at the small of his back. He struggled and struggled and then! there is sweet relief as he dashed a fingernail over the spot.\n\nHe smiled and lays back down, intending to rest. But his eyes wouldn't close. They were too dry. He was annoyed because of that, and so decided to muse on the strange events of the day. He moved himself to a more comfortable position, and gently placed a hand on his girlfriend's backside, careful not to wake her up. \n\nHe remembered that he was driving with his girlfriend by his side and he nearly ran over a young boy in pajamas, running around in the day. He rushed out of the car to see if the boy was alright, but the boy was perfectly fine. The little boy was about five years of age, and wore a blue and white dotted sleeping cap on his head. The little boy was closing his eyes tightly shut.\n\n\"Are you alright?\" He asked the little boy. The little boy shook his head, but gave a very wide smile. The smile bared all his teeth out for him, every tooth was accounted for. \"You can open your eyes now,\" he said, \"it's safe.\" But the little boy shook his head and walked off the road, into the cornfield at the sides.\n\nHe walked back to his car and told his girlfriend the boy was alright. He looked down at his seat. It was a blue and white dotted sleeping cap, and on it was a card that read, 'SEE YOU SOON'. He was confused. Had the little boy somehow managed to throw it in his car? He didn't notice the boy missing his cap. He threw out the cap and card and drove off towards his house. Shaking his head at his fortune, his girlfriend comforting him about something neither understood.\n\nHe stopped recalling what had happened on that road that day. He finally felt tired. His great big pupils were ready to rest. He touched his girlfriend again, and wrapped his arm around her so that his chest touched her. \"Are you asleep yet?\" he asked her playfully. She turned around, head lolling at the side, and he saw a flash of blue and white dots. A sleeping cap tickled his nose, and facing his face, breathing on his lips, was the bared mouth, showing all its teeth, of the boy he nearly ran over. The little boy's meaty, hot hands grabbed his waist. He nearly screamed. The little boy's eyes were still closed. They both breathed heavily.\n\nThen the little boy's eyes opened and brilliant light flushed out. He saw the little boy's eyes open and did not scream as the blinding light crashed onto his pupils. And he did not yell as his great dark pupils minimized to a fraction of their size. But then he suddenly woke up, heavily breathing and sweating. His girlfriend was still next to him. The little boy was no longer there. He was alone, again. But the lights were on.\n\n\n\n\n" ]	14
	[WP] An astronaut thinks he has traveled to the Middle Ages. What he does not know is that he is actually a thousand years into the future.	[ "What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. This was the phrase that Captain James G. Morgan kept repeating to himself through those first two night. Those nights of pain, listening, waiting. The haggard breath of his co-pilot Lieutenant Rebecca Blackburn as she breathed her last breaths deafened him. Ringing through his head past that agonizing moment when she stopped breathing. Drowning out the sound of the rain in the forest, hissing with every drop that evaporated on the burnt trees surrounding the landing zone. \nWhat went wrong, James will never know. His last memory was getting off the 747 in Orlando to an explosion of camera flashes, and reporter’s iPhone’s thrust in front of his face. Now he was left alone, with the quiet stillness of a new morning marking the end of another cold, wet night. \nThe amount of packaged food in the capsule suggested that they had been planning on another 2-3 weeks aboard their craft. The emergency supply had been ripe with bandages, blood clotter, stitches, allowing James to clean and seal up the gash on his left calf, space blankets (ha, ironic, thought James), and some NSAIDs for the pain. \nAs James lay under his space blanket, a new sound joined the ringing. Could it be? It was! A voice cried out, soft, damp, through the trees to his right. He snapped his head over, to see a dim light peeking through from afar. Fumbling for a flare from the kit, he pushed himself up with his hands and good leg, wincing in pain as he breathed to yell. Quickly, he lit the flare, at the same time crying, “Over here!” \nThe light swayed and the sound of crashing through the underbrush increased. James could see two figures moving quickly towards him. As the two figures neared the edge of the small clearing, they slowed, timidly pushing the last couple of bushes out of their way as the came closer. \n\n\nLimping, the two young men assisted James as the made their way out of the woods onto a muddy path, rutted deeply with wheel tracks and made deep by many different feet. A small posse of children and women followed them holding onto the supplies that James had directed them to take with them in his halting French. Looking around him, James started noticing some things that seemed out of the ordinary. The few houses that they had passed looked like tiny huts, with few windows and straw thatching to cover them. Young children stood on the stoop of these houses, holding on to the rough skirts of their mothers. \nSuddenly, through the fog of sleeplessness, pain and shock, a thought hit him like a freight train. Had it worked? Had they really go through the anomaly? Was it truly a time transient wormhole? How was that possible? What year was it? These thoughts raced around his weary mind, creating eddies, and pools that continued to confuse and tire him until he had to close his mind.\n\n\nJames lay awake in the bed he had been lain in. After a couple miles of limping, he had made it to a small village of tightly packed houses, woven together with paths overgrown in weeds and livestock. At the center of the village was a small, proud castle. The dark drawbridge led to a well lit courtyard hung in bright red tapestries. As he was led inside, a small crowd followed, giggling and murmuring. A gaggle of older women came rushing out of closed doors dragged by the hands of muddy little boys. They swarmed on him, bringing him a bowl of hot soup, fresh linens to replace his bandage, which had been stained crimson after the long hike to the castle, and a comfortable bed. Among the chaos of the day, very few questions had been answered. Where was he? Normandy. What year was it? ‘36. What had happened to his crew members? All 3 dead, buried beside the Great Oak in the forest. And as much as James wanted to keep asking questions, a simple problem kept throbbing through his leg. James could feel that an infection had set in. His entire leg had swollen, and the limited supply of medications had been used up earlier that day. He could feel a fever coming on, causing him to lose focus. \n\nThe next 3 days became a blur. Day and night held no meaning. He moved fitfully about as his caretakers came in regularly to replace the linens about his wound, and bath his flaming forehead with wet wash clothes of ice. Sleep evaded him, with nightmares feeling like reality, until he awoke to the pounding of soft feet on the cold stone. Until finally, the fire started to die. The infection had taken over. Nearly unconscious, with the darkness closing in around him. James looked up to see a face. A face unlike the other people of the village, a face that wouldn’t be see outside of the cinema. A face of metal, calm and unhuman, gently brushing his forehead as a hand was held to his chest. Was this a dream? What was going on? If this what hell is like? Would he see Rebecca again? \nThe thoughts in Captain James G. Morgan’s mind tried to bubble up, cause concern, as he faded, faded into the night.\nWhat doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. What kills you, kills you.", "The peasant shone his lantern across a room musty and dark with neglect. \n\"What think ye of our lord's library, Aster of Commands?\" He asked with trepidation. \nCommander Reese dug thumb and finger into the sides of eyes, with ferocity to suggest he was clearing more than motes from his eyes. It took an hour to convince the local 'lord' that he wasn't a Saint sent from the heavens, then a rushed five minutes to explain he wasn't a Fallen angel either. The peasant population still insisted on some title, for fear of some retribution that would never come. \nLike NASA cared, even if they could. \nThe reception was one of the fewer frustrations he had to deal with, but it could have been worse if he kept wearing the over suit. Archers may have thought he was some 'demon' lumbering from some unholy house with wings. Something like that, from the Canterbury tales, they would have shot on sight from their parapets. The fact that the chamber-lock guides that poked from his helmet would have looked like horns to them would not have made that scenario play out in his favor. \nAnd never mind testing his under-suit defenses against primitive technologies. Puncturing the void defenses of his over-suit was not an option. If there was any hope in making it back, the integrity of his exterior shell could not be compromised. Reese thought so anyway. \nWhat did he know about time travel? \nPadded cloth grinded on stone to his left. The commander noticed the guide was shifting on his feet. With, impatience? Hard to believe with how timidly they acted around him. \nReese cleared his throat. \"Thank you Gavin, I can take it from---\" His eyes finally adjusted to the dim lighting the torch offered. \"Gavin?\" \n\"Yes Aster of Nots?\" \n\"Where are the books?\" \n\"Books, Saint Aster?\" He asked reverently after a few deliberate moments to test the word.\nReese groaned. \"Yes, books! I asked to see his lord's library, didn't I?\" \nThe peasant pondered simply for a moment. \"I know not of these books Aster of High Heavens and Wonde---\" \n\"Can it.\" \nThe force of his command did the trick. \"You said his lord's library. So I did. Look, on yonder cabinet.\" \nHe had to squint his eyes into the further darkness of the room until a lone, solitary box stood across the room. \n\"Parchments of the keeps, his lord's personal collect after many conquests with our King.\" \nThe problem with conversation in this era was dealing with unknown absolutes. He observed the routines of the keep and it's surrounding fields on their way around the cobbled enclosure. A play by thinly-clothed men was hosted in the keep grounds for the peasants, gestulating to the mass of stone designed by some mighty architectural feat that surrounded them, saying it was good. How that their lord's will to allow Heaven's hosts (to his subdued cringing) to wander the castle keeps was proof of their lord's positive quality. And to disturb the Aster of Commands in his visitation to their most honorable--- and that was the most he caught ear of from the distant grounds before Gavin led him to his host's... \n...library. \nThe commander sighed. \"This better have some answers.\" \n\"About what Aster who Travels on---\" \n\"To what timeline I'm on.\" \nGavin stared up to him dumbly from his permanent half-bow. \"You speak stranger words for one of Heaven's emissaries.\" \nIt was easier to let them continue thinking that way. The alternative would not have improved his circumstances. Again, Reese had to remember these people dealt in absolutes. This, Aster of Commands, was going to be good, or bad for them. The lord decided in his infinite wisdom to judge the strangely-dressed stranger descended from the skies in a fiery contraption, was good for him. Murmurs and questions still circulated surprisingly fast through the keep within the short couple hours he has been a guest of his lord. \nFor now, he relied on that ambiguity to keep the population confused long enough to get what he needed. \nAnd what he needed, were clues. Not to where he was. \nBut when. " ]	2
	[WP] In the city where the old kings lie, an ancient tower pierces the sky. Within it's walls lurk traps and beasts, high above the city streets. The realm of gods many heroes sought, yet none have reached the very top.	[ "It may take months it may take years, those walls will tower above your fears.\n\nMany a day and many a night, will open the doors to put up a fight.\n\nDesperate they are, so eager to reach. \nThe tower to heaven that all men seek.\n\nEach turn a trap, each turn a riddle,\nNot all can really solve this puzzle.\n\nFilled with beasts and filled with monsters,\nOne has to learn to go more faster. \n\nAnd so it starts the tale of the weak, \nthe tower to heaven that all men seek.\n\nA tale about life, a tale about dread.\nA tale about life on the earth we tread.\n\nMost men fail and most men cried.\nMost men fled and let down their pride. \n\nNot all did fail but some did reach.\nThe top of the tower that all men seeked.", "Lord Ballard stepped one foot on stair, whilst squire leashed both colt and mare. \"For King and Castle,\" he did declare, and slowly faded into night's air. Each creak and crack of every step, echoed down as young squire crept. Dirt and dust stung both wet eyes, as rotten flesh fed hungry flies. As squire squinted to see the matter, he shrieked aghast at armor's clatter. For bouncing down like weighted lead, was brave Lord Ballard, without his head." ]	2
	[WP] "Before today, I thought I knew fear."	[ "My first time. Here goes:\n\n\n\nMy earliest memories see my mother’s ashen face a mask of blood. Her limp body lying in a ditch on the side of the road as I stand in the back seat of the Station wagon that had run her over.\nI remember the drunken argument as my father screamed back insults at my mother's accusations, though my young mind could barely understand some of the words, much less the meaning behind the argument. I could feel the tone though, and I can still recall the fear that welled up from the pit of stomach and fought its way out in the form of of my tiny screams of “Please stop!” surrounded by tears on my cheeks.\n\nThen I recall the deep fear that comes in slow motion, when even the world around you cannot believe what is happening. Fear as she grabbed the door handle. Fear as he pushes on her shoulder with one hand on the steering wheel. Fear as I head the tires squeal and heard the sound of my mother's body catching onto something under the car, my young mind thinking oddly that it sounded like a coffee can being dragged.\n\nForward several years. My grandmother is raising me as my father had shown his true colors and given up on me. I‘m young, maybe six, and scared of this large woman looming over me and screaming, her glasses almost falling off of her shaking head. Between the curses and vows that I would “ learn how to treat her things” and “ I take you in through the goodness of my heart and this is how you repay me?” came the belt. Each stroke added as if emphasizing the oath before it fell. My crime ? “ I dropped a plate.\n\nI’m thirteen now. I have one friend who’s mother hates him being friends with “that white trash piece of shit.” It’s ok though. We pass the time reading comic books, and listening to the newest Devo album, or arguing about which of the Lord of the rings book was the best. Today was different though. I’d run away. I couldn't go back to the woman who told me I was “just like my father” and “you’ll never be a leader”. I couldn't be hit again. My being bigger didn't stop a woman who had grown up in a catholic orphanage. who’d raised seven kids before me, half of them boys.\n\nNo. Her background allowed her to improvise new and wonderful things to hit me with. And make no mistake. She enjoyed it. I’ll never forget the fear I felt when I walked into my home after bagging coal to bring home money for the house, and she was standing there with a switch made of some small tree she herself had cut. The switch didn’t cause the fear this time; it was the thin smile she wore, her eyes glittering with anticipation.\n\nFast forward to my early twenties. I’m divorced after one year of marriage to a cheating woman. In the usual twist my life takes, I am homeless. Homeless , cold and walking the streets late at night, the moonlight playing games with the odd streetlamps in the puddles left by a cold autumn rain. The sounds of my footsteps echoed, reinforcing my loneliness and making my soul colder than my body could ever be. \n\nThen realization hits me. That’s not an echo. I quicken my pace and the following footsteps do likewise. My heart is pounding in my chest so hard I would swear that it could be heard by anyone within one hundred yards. My breath is coming quicker and somehow feels thicker, as if the fear welling up in my chest is somehow mixed with it.\n\nThere is a respite though. A convenience store open late. I duck into it, thanking whatever gods I could think of that whoever, whatever, was behind me would not be able to get hold of me.\n\nI told you all of that so you truly understand why I say that before today, I thought knew fear. Those experiences plus a hundred others that defined my shitty predestined life had shown me fear in ways most would never imagine.\n\nYet here I stand. Shaking and quivering. My mouth has that hard to describe feeling of both being dry and excessively moist. My throat constricted in a way that made me wonder if I’d ever be able to do more than drink water ever again.\n\nThe source of that fear stands directly across from me. Hazel eyes looking into my soul. A smile that makes me so afraid that it takes everything in my being not to fall over. Those hands. So sure in their grip on mine. I can’t move. Truth be told. I don’t want to.\n\nSee. fear comes in many forms. This fear is different. It is born of a fear that what is happening isn’t real. That I couldn't possibly be this lucky. That my shitty predestined life couldn't possibly have taken such a wonderful, miraculous turn for the better. A fear that any minute all those things that I was trained to believe about myself would turn out to be true and I’d lose what was in my hands. Across from me. \n\nShe smiles at me and whispers, ‘I’m not going anywhere. Now answer the nice priest”\n\nI tear my eyes away from hers, and slowly raise my eyes look at the priest \n\n“I do”.\n\n\n\n", "My first memory I have as a child is a bedtime story my mother used to read to me. It started with a small, peaceful village. She never mentioned where it was, but it never seemed to matter either way. Everyone lived in quiet content. No one yearned for food or warmth, crops plentiful year-round. All in all, the village seemed like a perfect place to call home. \n\nIn this village, there was a boy. He was never named, but it never seemed to matter either way. He lived alone with his mother in a small cottage on the outskirts of town. The boy enjoyed a relatively carefree existence, content with playing with his friends and exploring those few places of the village he had yet to see. The latter occupation ran out of fun quickly due to the peculiarity the village possessed.\n\nYou see, the village was indeed a small one. It's inhabitants numbered less than 100, and at no point were new people introduced to their quaint township. Even travelers seemed to keep a wide berth of the place. This was most likely due to the large wall that surrounded the entire town. It was about twenty feet high by the child's estimate, not that it seemed to matter either way. Everything the boy new about the wall was gleamed solely through his own exploration as no adult in the village ever even seemed to acknowledge the thing even existed in the first place. The boy assumed this was due to its ubiquity. Why even talk about something so obviously present at every point in their lives?\n\nThe boy was curious about the wall, as any boy his age would have been, not that it mattered either way. One day after finishing his chores, he asked his mother what was on the other side of the wall. She merely glanced at him and said, \"Nothing.\"\n\nNaturally this answer piqued the boy's curiosity further. He began to see if there was any way to see over the wall, as surely there had to be something on the other side. After a few weeks of exploring, he found a tree that had grown behind a large house on the other side of the village. The house had long since been abandoned, and the property was in severe neglect. At every other point in the town, the trees had been trimmed just short of halfway the height of the wall, not that it mattered anyway. This tree however reached almost to the very top of the wall, just a foot or two of a jump across. \n\nThe boy spent several days attempting to climb up the gnarled branches, and eventually he succeeded.The edge seemed to beckon towards him, not that it mattered anyway. At the very top branch, his forehead was almost level with the highest point of the wall. It was just a short jump and a catch to grasp the flat, smooth surface that made up the top of the structure. The boy sprung from the branch and swung his arms out to hang onto the edge. As soon as his hands touched the surface, he understood the grave mistake he had made. The top of the wall was completely smooth, so smooth in fact that his hands slipped as soon as they had touched the top. The boy fell the entire height of the wall, only to meet his end as soon as he touched the ground.\n\nMy mother told me this story again and again. By the time I had reached the age of 14, she had told it to me at least thirty times, not that it mattered anyway. I couldn't help but reflect on the story as I sat perched on the tree branch. The parallel was obvious between the wall in the story and the one that surrounded my own town, but it always seemed like a tale made to frighten children into behaving. And it worked. No one dared try to climb over the wall, no one wanted to become The Boy Who Fell. But I couldn't resist. What could be over the other side, what possible secret could it hold? There was the slightest hesitation before I made the jump, but it didn't matter. I easily cleared the distance between the branch and the top of the wall.\n\nThe porous material that made up the wall continued to the top as well, grasping it was much easier than the story my mother told who have led me to believe. As I crawled up the surface, I could feel the temperature abruptly raise. The normally pleasantly cool air that constantly circulated the valley below was replaced by a hot, dry wind that cut through my entire body. I stood on top of the parapet, and looked out upon the land that lay beyond the wall. The landscape before defies description, but suffice to say, before today, I thought I knew fear. I was wrong.", "This is the end, isn't it?\n\nThe thought struck Josh suddenly, almost by accident. It pierced through and dissolved his frustration with the car that had allowed him to break down so far from home; with the phone company that had neglected to build towers by this barren desert road; with the sun that had audaciously beaten him, sweaty and tired, to the ground.\n\nThis is the end.\n\nThis thought in particular remained prominent in his mind, even as he realized that he had already seen Heather for the last time. And ... and Joey, who was still so proud about that geometry test. And Dale, and the business Dale would inherit, the business that would serve as an unexpected legacy.\n\nThis is it.\n\nDale, who had told him that this trip was a fool's errand, and made a joke about what he would say at Josh's funeral; this memory, too, failed to shake the thought from Josh's head.\n\nThe end of...\n\nThe thought lingered there, static, for a time that Josh wasn't able to comprehend. Everything else in his mind seemed to fade away, from his periphery, inward toward this single, solitary idea.\n\nThis is the end of me.\n\nWhen nothing else was left, Josh found it fitting that this idea of finality should itself be his final thought.\n\nBut it wasn't.\n\nIt vanished as abruptly as it came, and then--\n\nJosh would have cried, if he was still physically capable.\n\nHis regrets came flooding back all at once. And his anger, and his sorrow and his despondency at his own powerlessness. The tranquil peace of the \"end\" was over, replaced with the angst of a life incomplete. A life that had failed to come to terms with itself.\n\nAnd then Josh felt fear. Fear like he had never felt before. The terror of fate incarnate, of the great unknown for which he was utterly unprepared. The sheer and total horror overwhelmed his memory, and his pain, and all his other emotions.\n\nThat fear was the last thing Josh thought about.", "I thought I knew fear. I've been camping alone, and in the dead of the night I've heard footsteps, human footsteps, around my camp. I thought I was scared then. I've been on the run from police before, when I ran away at age eleven. I heard the bloodhounds, I heard the choppers. I thought I was scared then.\n\nI open my phone.\nMom: 14 missed calls\n(14) New Voicemails\nBae: 8 missed calls", "It was the absence of ringing that I noticed first.\n\nAn absolutely deafening silence seemed to engulf my whole being. I wasn't exactly in a state of confusion, but there was a palpable foreignness in this experience, a newness. In a way, it was total emptiness. But, a warmth, an unmistakable loving quality kept pulsing, threatening to jump out of my chest.\n\n\"I... I feel a lot better.\" Mika just stared at me, curiously, but with a compassion in her eyes that I needed right now.\n\nI felt my eyes water, and I noticed my mind trying to go back to the images of the war. Bombs, limbs, and faces... and the smell... that distinctly sickening smell of burning flesh that I had assumed would be caught in my nose to some degree forever. But, in a flash, they were gone. The images, the smells, the relentless fear... gone. I was just... here.\n\n\"It's coming back, but it's not like before. There's this space, here, and somehow, I feel, safe, like everything's going to be okay.\" I looked at Mika and she just smiled. Those eyes.\n\n\"Your mind has found its own boundaries. You've discovered that you are here and that your memories are just memories. It's the most important step, the most consequential one. And it's just the first.\" She squeezed my hand that I never realized she'd been holding.\n\n\"Before today, I thought I knew fear. But I see now that I'd been keeping these feelings at arms length. I wouldn't let myself know fear. But it really is just love in a confused state, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes! That's it exactly. Such wisdom, and just one day in.\" She winked at me.\n\nI got up and stretched. It felt like I hadn't stretched this much ever in my life. Maybe I just hadn't enjoyed it this much.\n\nI thanked Mika. \"So, just a few relaxation exercises, huh?\"\n\n\"Yes. And the LSD-TPLH tab I slipped in your water.\"\n\n\"What?! LSD?!\"\n\n\"Slightly. It retains a portion of the hallucinogenic properties of LSD, but the TPLH localizes the effects in the portion of your brain that stores trauma. It's been the heart of my practice for nine years now. That's why we have to have this experience here in Portugal. This drug remains illegal in most places for no good reason. But, every single one of my patients has had a positive experience.\"\n\n\"It's your eyes. As it was all replaying, in my head, your eyes showed me that I was safe.\" I started crying.\n\n\"Most of all, it was your bravery.\" She hugged me. I sagged in her arms for a moment before returning the hug and crying like I'd imagine babies do when they're just overwhelmed by the everythingness of life.\n\n\"So is that it?\" I thought for a second about the emotional and physical paralysis I'd experienced for the past five years.\n\n\"Well, no. The memories will come back. And you'll have to live through them again, live with them. They'll just stop being the problem they were before. You'll have...\"\n\n\"Perspective.\"\n\n\"Yes, perspective.\"\n\nWe walked outside the session room and made small talk about her office and practice, drugs, the American pharmaceutical industry and intimate connections with strangers. I realized that I loved Mika more than I've ever loved any human being in my entire life. But, I immediately realized that it had little to do with Mika and everything to do with me being in an open mind space for the first time in my life.\n\nWe said our goodbyes and I promised Mika that I would write to her and honor my agreement never to seek her out in person again. I knew that in my case, this stipulation wasn't necessary, but I saw the wisdom of it. How many had ended up thinking that Mika was the love of their life, or even some kind of Goddess? I wondered that earlier, but couldn't bother bringing it up to her. No time for petty gossip. For the first time I could ever remember, even from before the war as a functional, if a bit emotionally-closed person... I just looked so forward to living whatever the next moment would bring.\n\n--\nA bit longer than I imagined! Open to all feedback, positive and 'constructive,' thanks!", "Before today, I thought I knew fear.\n\nToday, I think I know fear.\n\nTomorrow, I will most likely have the same level of confidence in knowing what fear is as I do today.\n\nIt's simple.\n\nAs much we know, we never perceive ourselves as 100% accurate. \n\nIn Spanish I: \"I kinda know Spanish.\"\n\nIn Spanish III: \"I kinda know Spanish.\"\n\nIn Spanish V: \"I kinda know Spanish.\"\n\nLiving in Spain: \"I kinda know Spanish.\"\n\nUntil one day, when something clicks with us. After a certain amount of time, we gain full confidence. It's one of my favorite things about human nature. The Aha Moment.\n\nWhen one day, as someone asks you, \"Do you speak Spanish?\"\n\nFor the first time, you say, \n\n\"Yes, I'm fluent.\"\n\nAnd as much as I value my safety, \n\nMy stable lifestyle,\n\nMy lack of paranoia, \n\nI secretly wait for something to happen.\n\nSo when someone tells me, \n\n\"You don't know fear.\"\n\nI can respond in full confidence with, \n\n\"Yes I do.\"", "Before today, I thought I knew fear, but that was before I realized the true horror that can be man. I didn't realize that when I saw my uncle beat my mom for 100 pesos. I didn't realize that when a man, thrice my age, tried to force himself on me, and I didn't realize that when I saw a boy shoot another boy for his shoes. It took a special kind of hell to teach me that lesson. \n\nIt's a story that starts as simply as any other. I wanted a better life, and that life existed across the border away from my family and friends back in Mexico. I paid too much for a ride in a van that held 13 people. I was starting a new life. That's what waited for me. Moms and dads and children and sons and daughters rode in that van across the border, a line that seems meaningless until you cross it. We were taken to a farm in the desert dotted with mountains where we started to work and work hard. But, we were fed like never before. We were told it was to make us strong, and we smiled. \n\nThen, things started to turn. We did less farm work and went on runs every day. It was during one of those runs that I saw the fence that was the edge of the property. It looked miles away. One night, we were waken to run more. We were asked to shoot guns, and we were asked to spar with each other. We did it without question. Then, one night, we were sat down and told this wasn't a farm at all, but that's getting ahead a little too much. \n\nDuring my time here, I only saw four people, four white people. I saw Ma, a woman in her 50s. That's all they referred to her as. And, I saw Pa, a man in his early 60s, and I saw their two sons, Brad and Ross, both in their 30s and rather handsome. Ross had taken a liking to me right away, but asked questions that were far too personal. Was I a virgin? No, was his answer. Did I like kinky sex stuff? I would, was his answer. If it got me a green card, I was sadly willing to do many things, but Ross said he wanted to wait. For what, I was not sure until the night we were told the truth. \n\n\"This isn't a farm at all.\" Says Brad. \"This is a game reserve, and you are the most dangerous game. We'll give you two hours to run. If you refuse to run, we have no problem killing you right here.\" \n\nSeveral of the other 'workers' who had become my friends did not understand English. I translated for them, and I wish I could explain the look in their eyes. Several of the older ones refused to leave, refused to flee. They didn't stand much of a chance, but I told them I could lead them to the fence. I saw it. I saw our freedom. I told them, but they were dubious. Then, two of them offered something I did not expect. They offered to lead them away from the rest of us. I knew I could not refuse, and they would not listen to any other options. \n\n\"Any questions?\" Asked the Pa. \n\nI didn't have any. We started to run in the darkness. I knew it was west of the farm, that dream called freedom. There was a problem. This is a difficult moment of honesty. I did something that I am not proud of. Everyone, with the exception of the couple, was following me. I knew how dangerous that was. I told them to turn north, and I would throw them off by heading west. Two others joined me, and we headed west for the fences. As we trudged through the darkness, I was certain of one thing: daylight was our enemy. \n\nWhen I heard the first shots, they sounded much closer than I expected. I counted them all. Seven in all. If it was the couple, they were poor shots. If it was another group, it was much more worrisome. As I heard the shots, I remembered what my father said about the sound of the bullet. You could hear it hitting the target, and you could hear a miss. I tried to listen with more intent, but I wasn't sure. The three of us trudged on but the walking was slow. \n\nUltimately, we were fighting a losing battle not against our captors and hunters but against the sun. As that first light broke, I knew we had to find cover. There was a small mountain a few hundred meters from us. We ran for it. With light, I looked to see if our hunters were in sight, but I saw nothing. We found a few nooks and crannies to hide for the day. I didn't sleep. One of the girls was only 15 or 16. She hugged tightly against me. We had been worked so hard that I had never asked her name. I watched the sun rise, and then I heard horse steps.\n\n[Part 2 is here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nickkuvaas/comments/466639/wp_before_today_i_thought_i_knew_fear_pt_ii/) \n\n[Finale](https://www.reddit.com/r/nickkuvaas/comments/466e47/wp_before_today_i_thought_i_knew_fear_finale/)", "I thought I knew fear\n\nIve been chased by a battalion of soldiers, ready to behead me.\n\nIve dived deep into the blackness of the ocean\n\nIve been attacked by the beasts of the jungle\n\nIve been stranded alone in the Antarctic\n\nAnd Im currently sitting on my deathbed, after living 86 years. \n\nHowever, looking back, I realize I never truly felt fear.\n\nI did not cower before those chasing me, I ran for 6 miles, escaped and survived the war.\n\nI didn't panic in the void of the depths, I swam my way up with no doubt in my mind.\n\nI didn't let the jungle kill me, instead I fought back\n\nI didn't give up on the Antarctic, I survived and thrived until I was rescued\n\nAnd today I do not hide from death, I face him head on and will make him work for me\n\nWhen I thought I had real fear, I had nothing but a motivater that slightly frightened me. True fear would have made me quit, give up. I didn't not show true fear, I instead showed determination, and a hope to see a tomorrow.\n\nI never knew fear, and I never will", "I can still hear the sound in my head, bouncing around the inside of my skull. The deafening sound of metal on metal, as the car went from 45mph to a dead stop. The glass was everywhere, in little shards, mostly reflecting the light, except for the ones covered in blood. Oh god, the blood, for a while I didn’t know whose it was, my skin tingled from the shards of glass cutting my skin, so I knew some of it was mine. I remember looking up once my head got on straight, and could make out the person that hit my car slumped over his steering wheel while the horn blared in the background. That’s when I remembered her.\n\nFrantically, I looked around and tried to see if she was ok. The powder from the airbags still hung in the air, but I could see her in the passenger seat, not moving. I reached for the belt buckle and was ripping at it before I even disengaged it, reaching over I called her name, but she wasn’t responding. Thank god, I could feel her breathing, no matter how weak it was, it had to be a good sign. I kept trying to call her name, if only she would respond. I don’t remember when the ambulances showed up, but I just kept calling her name as they took her away to the hospital.\n\nIt’s been two hours since I last saw her, after they did a quick check up they forced me to wait in the waiting room. So now all I can do is bounce my knee and stare at the clock, and praying she’s alright. Remembering the soft glow of her blue eyes, as dawn would creep through the blinds, and she would smile at me each morning, hoping that today wasn’t the last morning I saw her gorgeous smile. Emotions are running high through my veins as I think about her and all the things I hope to do again, like feeling the warmth of her body against mine as we unwind from our days, listening to her as she talks about her hopes and dreams of being a renowned journalist, or just hearing her stories from her child hood. All of it, I want to do again.\n\nI went out to purchase a ring for her last night; we had talked about our future and couldn’t think of sharing it with anyone, but each other. She always had her wedding planned out, right down to the last detail ever since she was little, and now the clock ticks away as the doctor’s try to keep that dream alive. I drop my head to look away from the clock, and stare at the floor. So much of my future is with her, and she is my best friend, she needs to pull through.\n\nSomeone is calling my name, and as I look up and see the doctor, all I can think is, “I now know, what true fear feels like.”\n", "Men have always feared the darkness, Thorn thought to himself in the silence. As children, they weren't liars about it. They would cower away from the night in their shelters and rightfully so. Prey animals should fear the dark, for they know not what lurks in the shadows, stalking their every footstep, watching their every breath. A smart man would mind the darkness for lurking predators. Predators like Thorn. \n\nThe satyr closed his eyes, letting his hearing go beyond any mortal's potential. \n\n\"- as if she owns me, like I'm a fuckin' dog.\" A man's voice. No, a boy's voice. \"You know what I mean?\" \n\n\"My moms the same way.\" A girl. Perhaps a girlfriend? The voices grew louder as the children made their way to the satyr's position. \"She won't even let me go to the movies with everyone.\" \n\n\"Oh children,\" Thorn opened his eyes and murmured in the darkness. \"Isn't it past your bedtimes?\" \n\nThe satyr closed his eyes once more, focusing in on the conversation. \n\n\"- Indian parents are just like that.\" The boy finished some point or another. \n\n\"Before today,\" Thorn flexed his left forearm and extended a long bard from his elbow, \"you will realize what fear truly is.\" \n\nThe voices stopped as the footsteps got closer still. \n\nThorn smiled, a wicked sight for any creature, and stepped out from behind a building and into... no one. The footsteps stopped suddenly. \n\nThe satyr narrowed his eyes. \n\n\"Addendum.\" A smooth voice called from Thorn's left. The sing-song tone left nothing to be questioned. The satyr turned anyway, slowly, confirming his fear. A slim figure stood there, perhaps seven feet tall and holding just a bow, doubtless carrying a quiver behind his back. \"It is you who will realize what fear truly is.\" " ]	10
	[WP] The Zombie Apocalypse is on its 3rd week. You expected them to be dangerous but you never expected them to be able to talk.	[ "knock knock\nI walked over and opened the door, the first daylight piercing into the living room. We had been told to board up our windows and doors when it first started but as luck would have it, the outbreak wasn't so bad. \nThere he was, a walker, a ghoul, a zombie. I never knew what was politically correct with these people which also I realize isn't politically correct. Bowing his head, he held a clip board in front of him and his clothes were recently pressed. They smelt good though I can't say he did. \nHe raised his head up and looked me in the eyes with his one and smiled this freakish smile that I'll never forget. \nHe went to speak but lost his tongue for a moment. During this time I watched him quite confused, his clean white shirt and black tie getting decaying tongue all over it. \nHe regained it and chuckled awkwardly. \n\" hello sir, I'm Steve and wondered if you had moment to listen about our Lord and savior zombification\".\nI closed the door shaking my head no to the zombie. \nMy living room window thumped, I turned and another zombie dressed the same climbed through. \n\"Zombification is a new little community through unification\".\nI screamed NO and ran upstairs but another was on my roof. She broke through my washroom window. \n\" We wanted to know of you'd be interested in joining our community of love and peace\".\nI yelled, partially because I was shocked but also because I never liked these religious zombies. \nFinally in my room, the the zombies cornered me. This was it, like it or not I would be converting to there weird ways and customs. \nMy arms clawed at the wall as they got closer. I found a bat and swung it towards them. Steve's head collapsed. The other two screamed in horror. They fled my house and left me be. \nI thought that was the end until two police came to my house, both of them zombies. I could just tell by the way they talked. I was arrested and charged with second degree murder. \nNow I wait here in my cell. Death row awaits me and the only way out is to convert but still I refuse. The zombie priest keeps urging for a bite but I tell him no and he accepts it. \nI could over here the priest the day of my execution. \n\"There's just no saving a monster\".\nA bag was put over my head and I awaited death. The priest spoke some words then I felt it. \nA fucking bite. My execution was death by zombification and let me tell you, now that I've seen the light, have you reading this ever considered zombification?", "Jonathan Coulton has the best version of this story:\n\nHeya Tom, it's Bob, from the office down the hall.\nGood to see you buddy, how've you been?\nThings have been O. K. For me except that I'm a zombie now.\nI really wish you'd let us in.\nI think I speak for all of us when I say I understand\nWhy you folks might hesitate to submit to our demand.\nBut here's an fyi: you're all gonna die screaming.\n\nAll we wanna do is eat your brains.\nWe're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes\nAll we wanna do is eat your brains.\nWe're at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:\nIf you open up the doors\nWe'll all come inside and eat your brains.\n\nI don't want to nitpick, Tom, but is this really your plan?\nSpend your whole life locked inside a mall?\nMaybe that's ok for now but someday you'll be out of food and guns,\nThen you'll have to make the call.\nI'm not surprised to see you haven't thought it through enough.\nYou never had the head for all that bigger picture stuff.\nBut Tom, that's what I do, and I plan on eating you slowly.\n\nAll we wanna do is eat your brains.\nWe're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes.\nAll we wanna do is eat your brains.\nWe're at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:\nIf you open up the doors\nWe'll all come inside and eat your brains.\n\nI'd like to help you Tom, in any way I can.\nI sure appreciate the way you're working with me.\nI'm not a monster Tom, well, technically I am.\nI guess I am...\n\nGot another meeting Tom, maybe we could wrap it up?\nI know we'll get to common ground somehow.\nMeanwhile I'll report back to my colleagues who are chewing on the doors\nI guess we'll table this for now\nI'm glad to see you take constructive criticism well\nThank you for your time I know we're all busy as hell\nAnd we'll put this thing to bed\nWhen I bash your head open\n\nAll we wanna do is eat your brains\nWe're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes\nAll we wanna do is eat your brains\nWe're at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:\nIf you open up the doors\nWe'll all come inside and eat your brains", "If you would like to follow my work please check out [r/KonarCity](https://www.reddit.com/user/KonarCity/). I also have two self-published science fiction books out through Amazon, Ajax: Rebirth and Ajax: Relinquished, which are periodically free to purchase.\n***\n\nThe sleeping figure shifted in her sleep, uncurling slightly from the small ball Keira formed to ward off the night’s chill. Slowly she awoke, blinking rapidly to clear the grit from her eyes.\n\nFor the second night Keira had crawled into the dumpster, curling up among the rotting refuse with the tattered blanked she had salvaged wrapped around her. A backpack lay at her feet, along with an iron bar that still contained traces of decomposed flesh and grey matter from the last walking corpse that tried to turn her into a human buffet.\n\nKeira fumbled in her jacket pocket for the small torch she had salvaged from an old keychain. Her thumb pressed down on the torch’s switch, illuminating the dumpster with a pale white light that did her dishevelled state no favour.\n\nHer black, fur lined jacket was heavily stained by dust, mud, dried blood, and the juice of rotten food. Likewise her grey jeans and brown boots had seen better days, three weeks of constant wear had really taken its toll. They were the only clothes left in Keira’s possession and a shopping spree was the last thing on her mind.\n\nThe dried bloodstains on her right boot reminded Keira of the first zombie she had encountered; her own mother. When she had received a phone call in school from her panicked mother Keira had sprinted home, the scared words of her mother replaying through her mind, “There’s someone else in the house.”\n\nTwelve minutes later Keira careened through the front door of her house and skidded across the wooden floor straight into a wall. She scrambled to her feet and felt the fear sink in as she looked at the trail of blood that lead to her mother’s lifeless body. Keira moved slowly to the body, skirting around the pool of sticky blood that had formed under her face-down mother.\n\nShe knelt down, tears flowing freely at the sight of a ghastly wound in the side of her mother’s neck. Keira gripped her mother by the shoulder and rolled her over; two lifeless eyes stared back. Keira held her own mother close, stroking away the bloodied blonde hair that had fallen across her pale face.\n\nKeira did not know how long she knelt there, cradling her mother’s corpse, sobbing uncontrollably. When a car alarm went off in the street Keira looked up, staring out of the open doorway for the source of the noise. A second alarm started up almost immediately, except she could hear that it was further away from the first. Two gunshots snapped her out of her trance, the noise reverberating along the street and shortly followed by a shrill scream.\n\nKeira lowered her mother’s body to the floor and stood up swiftly, the sudden movement causing her to become light headed. She moved over to the doorway, eyes wide as she scanned the street for her mother’s attacker. She hoped that whoever had fired the gun had killed the man, or woman, responsible. Keira pulled the phone out of her pocket, ready to call the police. She turned away from the door and stopped dead in her tracks; the body was gone.\n\nA guttural scream had Keira spinning on her heel, not fast enough as was shoved towards the staircase as a figure lunged for her. Keira managed to twist in time, using her attackers own body weight to send them crashing against the wooden staircase. A sickening sound of splintering wood and shattering bones greeted her, but the sight of her mother’s corpse rearing up from the staircase brought a fresh terror to Keira.\n\nHer mother lunged once more, coming within a fingers breadth of grabbing Keira by the throat before a bullet tore through her skull, splattering Keira in her mother’s blood and brains.\n\nA pair of hands gripped Keira, shaking her as a voice tried to coax a response. Her eyes were fixed once more on the lifeless body of her mother, yet there was no peace on the woman’s face; her eyes were wide and focused, her teeth bared in a snarl. \n\nKeira shook her head, releasing the memory that haunted her each night. The dumpster was the here and now, it was safe, relatively dry, and the Roamers seemed to take no interest in her over the horrific smell.\n\nKeira sat up and opened her backpack, pulling out the half-eaten pack of dried beef that she had been trying to avoid. There was no other food left within her backpack, she had finished off an apple several hours ago and left herself without another option. There was probably still beef lodged between her braces from several days ago, and with no chance of finding an orthodontist to remove them Keira was stuck living with braces during a zombie apocalypse.\n\nShe removed a strand of beef and was about to bite into it when the faint noise of panting broke the silence. Roamers didn’t pant; they were normally silent unless they kicked an object on the floor, or were tearing apart a living being.\n\nKeira stood up inside the dumpster, careful not to clash her head on the lid as she did so. Slowly she pushed up on the lid until she made a thin gap big enough for her to see out of. The dim light of dawn streamed into her eyes, causing Keira to blink rapidly until they adjusted.\n\nOutside in the alleyway she could make out the dark clad figure of an old man to her left. He was doing his best to hobble to the alleyways end without making too much sound whilst favouring his left leg, with his hand resting on his right legs thigh. Between both shoulders he sported a large pack that was only slowing down his progress, probably containing possessions he could not bear to be without. Keira was surprised that she had even heard him, he was at least forty feet away and moving further away with each second. \n\nShe was about to call out to the man when movement to her right caught her eye. Keira scanned through the gloom and could just make out the two figures that were closing in on her location. She took her right hand off the dumpster’s lid and reached into the back of her jeans. Her fingers slipped around the handgun, prepared for if they got too close; with only five bullets left Keira prayed that she did not have to use the gun.\n\nAs the figures were bathed by the dawn light Keira saw that they were zombies, not the humans she would have preferred. Their faces were smeared with the blood and gore of their recent meals, and a soft moan came from both of their mouths. Keira knew they were only seconds away from spotting the old man; he had no chance of escaping them.\n\nKeira drew the gun from her jeans, resting the short barrel on the lip of the dumpster as she trained it on the closest zombie. Her finger rested lightly on the trigger as she weighed up her choices; save the man, using two of her five bullets in the process, or let another human die in order to survive. \n\nKeira’s finger gently drew back on the trigger, her body tensed to surge up and open the dumpster’s lid. She was about to stand up when a noise no zombie should ever make drifted over to her.\n\n“I smell his fear…his blood. We are close.”\n\n“Good, the hunger is strong tonight. Let us feed.”\n\nKeira could not move, her entire body was frozen with shock. These mindless animals* who stalked humans, feeding on their flesh, hunting them down, could talk. She could have said goodbye to her mother, yet the woman who raised her had tried to kill Keira without hesitation.\n\n***\nThis is just a rough draft, didn’t have time during my lunch hour to edit it. Hopefully will tidy it up when I am home.\n", "\"sit.\" He gestured to the chair opposite of him. I sat down as he asked and got a good look at his face. Much of his flesh was gone, probably torn off in the process of zombification. From the center of his right eye to the back of his ear there was only muscle with the occasional reveal of bone. His lips, teeth, and tongue seemed mostly intact, I suppose that they were still necessary for communication. From the hole where his right eye used to be there was a spider that drew my attention, I guess he caught me staring.\n\n\"Elizabeth.\" He spoke.\n\"What?\" I asked, baffled.\n\"The spider: Elizabeth. She found her way in there, refuses to leave.\"\n\"Oh, that's um, that's a shame.\" I said nervously.\n\"Is it? I thought so too, not that bad, though. She's sweet, doesn't bite.\"\n\"Oh that's... interesting.\"\n\nThere was a moment where neither of us spoke, he looked down at his rotting hands, blood under his finger nails and bits of skin and muscle missing. I couldn't tear my gaze away from his face, he still looked like he did when he died, I wonder if she did as well. Finally he looked up at me, he saw my confused and searching face, and he spoke.\n\n\"It's not there. I don't think it's there.\" \n\n\"What?\" I asked.\n\n\"Humanity. I think mines gone.\" He said sadly.\n\n\"It can't be, you wrote to me, you called me here and now we're talking.\" I tried to convince him.\n\n\"I did.\" He coughed something like a chuckle. \"And now here we are, we're the last of us left.\"\n\n\"What about Elizabeth?\" I asked urgently.\n\n\"Liza... She couldn't, when your mother... The brain is needed.\" The creature looked as though he would vomit.\n\n\"She took everything from me... Even my Liza, but she didn't take you.\" He finished.\n\n\"Is that why you found me?\" I asked. He nodded, then struggled to reach under his chair and pulled out a handgun, which seemed quite heavy to him.\n\n\"This was mine, I held it when she took Liza, I couldn't pull the trigger. I wanted to see you one last time, I wanted you to do this.\" His words shocked me, ushering in a slew of emotions, anger, contemplation, sadness. He had called me here just so could kill him.\n\n\"Why?\" I begged. \"Why make me do this?\"\n\n\"I shouldn't be around anymore, I made my mistakes and I died for them. I deserved that death. Even if I didn't, it hurts. Please, end it.\" He pleaded, and with tears in my eyes I picked up the gun and pointed it towards him. He spoke one last time.\n\"I'm proud of you, I love you. Goodbye, son.\"", "He was staring at me, and I knew those eyes - I knew that face. The eyes of my best friend, my partner and my companion through life. He had disappeared three weeks ago at the beginning of the infection spreading. I had never thought he’d be alive, though in all reality I knew he wasn’t. They were mindless beings, drawn to the places they knew in life, but dead by any other meaningful feature. \nI rolled my chair through to the kitchen and brought out my pistol. He was slow enough that I wouldn’t have to kill him yet. I stared at the table, the slow groans resonating as he stepped forward and followed me to where I sat. He stared at me and he pulled out the chair opposite, before seating himself as he might at the end of an exasperated day. \nHis arm reached out towards mine, and I flinched away, tightening my grip on the gun. \n“You don’t need to be afraid.” He said. \nI stared at him. I’d only seen rumours of them speaking. Echoes of their former selves. His hand slowly brushed against mine, and I made eye contact with him. Their skin didn’t rot, their bodies didn’t decay, they moved and breathed and… they talked. \n“I thought you were dead.” I whispered. \n“Not when I still have you to look after.” \n“I don’t need looking after.” I rolled my eyes, “I’m a full grown human, you know?” \nHe laughed. “I’ve missed you while I wandered the past few days.” \n“Are you here for me to kill you?” \n“I’m here to tell you I love you.” \n“Then…” I gestured at the pistol. \n“Only if I get hungry.” He stood up and walked to the kettle. I tightened my grip on the gun. \nI glanced at his legs, there were deep bite marks on his jeans; blood had seeped through and now clung dry to the fabric. It explained his slow walking at least. I watched him as he made my tea as I liked it. He made the jokes he always did, he spoke as he always would. His hands felt warm to my touch. \n“I must go.” He finally said. \n“You will kill people.” I told him. \n“I will eat other people like me.” He said. “I’ve seen the news. We are not considered people.” \nI grabbed his hand before he left, pulled him down to kiss me. I reached for the pistol and pulled it to his head. He pulled away slightly. \n“I love you.” He whispered, I could see a tear forming in his eye. \nMy heart felt heavy as my hand lay on the trigger. My memories of life with him flashed before my eyes. I knew it was wrong, but I let him go. I didn’t see him again for another month. Part of me had hoped that he’d been killed, another part had hoped that those he killed had been those who wouldn’t be missed, and deep down there was a part of me that wished beyond my wildest dreams that he had done whatever it had taken to come back to me. At the time I never felt like that made me a bad person, but then I didn’t know what I did now.", "The first week was a nightmare. People shambling everywhere, random bite attacks, people turning. We had settled into a routine by the third week.\n\n\"Let me in,\" she said, banging on the door weakly. \"James, I know you're in there, you bastard! Let me iiiiiin! I'm huuuuungryy!\"\n\n...No-one expected them to be able to communicate.\n\n * * * * * \n\nThis went out on international television. The first Human/Undead Accord. But it all started with one person - James \"Sconner\" Smith. He heard his then-deceased girlfriend talk.\n\n * * * * * \n\nJames let her in. She sat down, then saw the dog laying on the floor. She was hungry, and she knew* it was wrong, but she torw in to the dog's head like it was the last Cerme Egg at Easter time.\n\nJames tried not to retch; fortunately, he was used to seeing such horrors on the screen, being a big fan of the George Romero of the Dead films form the '70s.\n\n* * * * * * * * *\n\nSo, now, in the year 2066, we have two Presidents - one for the living population, and one for the dead population. Those who wish to go over ot the dead population can volunteer to be infected. THey are then transported to a hospice.\n\nReally, the only difference between the two types of people now is the smell. Dead children go to school together, and there's an entire Brain Market down in central Manchester.\n\nWe're kind of used to it, but now Grampa James gets us to visit him in Shady Plots nursing home. He went there after he was diagnosed with a terminal ganglioma. There's even a Zolympics starting next year.\n\nLife is good. And so is death.\n\nAs for me? I'm going to college in a Zombie town as part of an exchange, now that the airborne contagion is gone. I'll be studying zombie medicine." ]	6
	[WP] The entire population of the United States has been relocated to fit within the state of Texas. The rest of the land is devoted to farming and ranching. You are a farmer visiting the city for the first time.	[ "There is a greyness on the horizon this morning that has replaced the furnace glow that appeared there last night, even at 80 miles out he imagines the smell of carbon and silicone pouring from Texopolis, his face and hands itches at the phantom cloak of the city, the rest of them stand there looking out at the skyline but there is nothing to see except this grey dishwater cloud. Frannie is here, Jinko, Darnikle and Po too, all shuffling around the caravan stop looking anxious and excited to get to their destination. He fixs a grin at Po, both glad the other is equally ignorant of what lies beyond. \nHe should have done this 35 years ago when he was a younger man, He could have taken a bite out of this city and revelled in its juice running down his face, sucked the marrow from its dark bones and drank up its decadence.... Now he´s not even sure he have the nerve to board the mircoloop that will take them the last leg of the journey. \nDarnikle is laughing at him, he rubs his hand across his face to remove the mask of nerves that has stolen its normal facade of indifference. \n\n\"Hey Abuelo! Nervous? ayyylmao you thinking about getting your wrinkly little dick sucked by a nice fat city girl, hey Abuelo? \" \n\nPo hand strikes him hard on the back of the head knocking his ridiculous hat of his head, stunned he turns and glares at Po, thinks better of it, and sulks off towards the vehicles. \n\"Finish securing you your fucking vehicle, we´re outta here in 2 hours”. \n“Fuck you Po, let’s see how bigga guy you are in there”. He raises his glove towards the grey smog on the horizon. \n\"Fucking Memers\" Po spits and continues on his way finishing securing the vehicles. \n\"Yeah, fucking Memers\". \nHe gets up creaking and makes his way back to their camp to secure it before they leave for the microloop. A flock of swallrows rise in a sudden burst and a faint humming rises from the entrance of the microloop terminal. \nLights change to green at the terminal entrance and officials begin to open gates and prepare landing ramps. \n\"Ok Verdes your rides here\" they announce, He grabs the holdall and fall into line trying to stay close to Po, there are hundreds of them here, heads full of the business of grain or the thoughts of visiting family in the city. \nThet pass down the well-lit entrance, under the antibacterial lamps and infection sensors and into the enormous cylinder that will take them inside the boundaries of the city. \nPo is sitting opposite grinning like a kid, dressed in in finest clothes, picking scabs from his iron hands, ensuring his freshly greased hair is in place and rubbing his chin to ensure himself of his freshly shaved countenance. \nPo hasn’t seen his wife in nearly 15 years, she moved to Tex after their son was selected to join training for the geological mission in Buenas Terras, it would be a 4 year mission and Po talks eagerly about his son making his mark there and being selected for the African missions. He has the same build and mind as Po, sharp as a whip and as big as a grain silo. \nThe semilla vibrates at his hip, probably telemetric data from the KITY back at the station, but everyone is starting to check their devices, \nWelcome to Texopolis, how-to guides, accommodation allocations, appointments with the agro departments, and a slightly insulting message \"so it’s your first time to Texopolis, what to expect\". It hurts his pride to receive such an infantile set of instructions, he knows all about the city, seen all the movies, knows who its famous people are, he listens to the scandals they talk about in the bars, understands the fast paced jet set lifestyle of the inhabitants. This is an insult to his intelligence, he´s a big fish where he comes from, yet he hunkers his head forward and drinks in the information, giddy with excitement. Glancing up he sees Po with the identical expression on his face.\n", "The shuttle settles down and the doors pop open with a hiss of compressed steam. \n\nThe Texas air outside the transport shuttle hits Jorge in the face like a closed fist. It tastes like metal and garbage. He is reminded of the trash pit back home just after a burn. It gives him the taste of rotten peanuts in his mouth. He wishes he hadn’t finished his water ration so quickly so he could wash it away. A liter just wasn’t enough. Back home he could have as much as he wanted. This thought makes him miss the farm. \n\nThis trip was his dream for so long though. \n\nThe big city, so different then the farm. So many possibilities. So many opportunities. Maybe his calloused hands would know the feel of other things besides shovels, rakes and hoes. \n\nThe crush of people around him make his breath seem hard to come by. The smell of unwashed bodies and rotting teeth fill his nose. The noise is almost deafening. He feels dizzy.\n\n\"Used to be blue bonnets as far as the eye could see,’ says a voice below him belonging to an old lady stooped over with age. At first he isn’t certain she was speaking to him, but when her wrinkled soft hand finds his and clamps down, all doubt vanishes. ‘It’s all you could see around here when I was a little girl. Blue bonnets and green rolling hills.\"\n\nJorge is tall and labor thick, with black curling hair in need of a trim. He nods down at the woman as if he was asked a question. He continues to allow the old lady her grasp on his hand because he feels a bit uncertain himself. \n\nThe din from outside the shuttle is starting to overtake the vocal clamour. \n\nHe hears the roar of traffic. Screeching brakes. The bang of metal on metal. The sounds reverberate in his skull. He feels a bit of a headache forming.\n\nLooking up through the transport’s window he can see a small smudge of grey that passes for sky through the cracks between tall buildings that disappear into the acidic clouds. Flags of drying laundry flutter in a stiff breeze. He can see the flicker of movement behind small windows and wonders what it would be like to live so high up.\n\nA crackle precedes a happy female voice over the speakers, \"Welcome to Texas City. Please ready your identification cards and prepare to disembark. And remember stay alert to stay alive. This message is courtesy of your Texas City police.\" \n\n\nThe little old lady pulls her hand from his. He looks down and watches her melt back into the crowd as he reaches for his pocket to take out his wallet . \n\nIt's not there. \n\nHe frantically searches the other three pockets in his jeans. All are empty. All his loose change, the keys to his family's farm house, the antique smartphone his mom gave him before he boarded the Space Dart, his luggage claim ticket, even the transport stub he was saving as a souvenir, all were gone. \n\nThis was too much. He fights against a feeling of drowning. Maybe he is dreaming. He wills himself to wake up. \n\nHe looks around. It seems the other people on the shuttle are laughing at him. \n\nUncertain what to do he tries to follow the other passengers out into the shuttle hangar.\n\nEach person stops in turn to slide their Id's through the card slot by the door. When his turn comes he tries to step through and is immediately tackled by two texas cops hidden off to the side. \n\n\"Told you we would get another of them damn hicks trying to make a run at city life.' The cop speaking is ugly. His face has been through a terrible accident or something. Thick ropey scars stretched from his scalp to his chin. Also his lips were gone. Leaving his mouth in a permanent scowl of yellow cracked teeth. 'Where you from boy?\"\n\nJorge answers, “Inland Empire,” but the heavy metal-toed black-boot pressed down on his throat makes his answer garbled. \n\nThe other cops heavy booted foot jabs him in the lower back. Jorge's kidneys scream in response. \n\n“I asked where you from boy.”\n\nJorge attempts to answer again but the other cop is too quick with his baton. A sudden strike bounces off Jorge's skull with a thunk and he sinks into a painful blackness.\n\nAs consciousness is lost he hears the same happy female voice echoing in his mind, \"Welcome to Texas City.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Peter Womack shifted his mold injected flexiplast hat a little further down to keep the evening sun from his eyes and kicked the ancient harvester back into gear. His first look at the Wall, and behind it the looming spires of Dallas, had convinced him to stop and take a break for the first time all day. \n\nHe had stood, mouth agape in an unbecoming way, and simply stared, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Peter had come from a world of endless fields and pastures. An infinite sea of green and growing, buzzing with genemorphic agrospecific insects and the quiet ticking of flexiplast automatic fieldhands endlessly going about their duties. Dallas was an alien world to him. \n\nHis mind had reeled at the sight of glitteting metallic spires that dissapeared up into the rolling clouds. Flickering reflective glimpses darted like tiny arthopods in a sparkling cloud of high speed transportation. Peter had never seen anything so strange in his life. \n\nAfter spending what could have easily been an hour gawking at the luminous city Peter headed off, resuming his journey. He'd always known this day would come, eventually. Reading over the harvest logs and crunching the numbers gave him a type of clairvoyance on this issue. The time had finally come to make the trip. \n\nHis harvester sputtered to a stop before the huge, lime colored duraplast doorway set into the Wall. It had unseen sensores recessed somewhere that would open the door to allow the loaders to pass, but Peter knew of an unused interface, it's location passed down for generations but never used. Until now. \n\nPeters hands clawed at the vine covered wall until he found the duraplast case housing the last telephone on earth. He opened it with some effort, pulled the ancient reciever up to his ear and listened. A dial tone. He punched in the code he had memorized from childhood. It was ringing. His throat was suddenly very dry. He was shaking. It rang for what seemed like an eternity. \n\nFinally a voice came on over the otherside, robotic but polite. \"You have reached the Dallas Department of Agrostability. Our office is currently closed. Please leave a message at the tone.\" A tone rang out, and Peter hesitated. \n\n\"Uhhh... this... uh... I don't reckon you'll get this message, but here goes nothin. This is Peter Womack, son of Ronald Womack, son of Jason Womack, son of Peter Womack, Agrostability Maintenance Chief,\" he paused, \"acting. This is an Emergency Report. It's been two hundred forty seven years, four months, twelve days and approximately eight hours since Agrostability was declared by the Department. Uh.\" \n\nHe hesitated again, looking up at the darkening sky to collect his thoughts. \"See, the thing is... it's not. Agrostable, I mean. The crops are producing but it's just not edible. Or nutritious, at least. I don't understand the science behind this but all the analysis kiosks are reporting the same thing across the entire network. The food is, well... it's empty.\" \n\nPeter's voice broke into something like desperation. \"People... people are gonna start starving. They'll be eating all the food they can, but it won't do any good. They'll become malnourished and... and die. I'm the last one. Ma... Paw... all of em. We starved with full bellies. So, uh... you gotta... you...\" Peter was done. He dropped the reciever and slumped to the ground, his body weak and emaciated from malnutrition. His dire message delivered, his trip finished, he wept with grief as the sun set behind the towering silver spires of Dallas. " ]	3
You can literally split open planets with a single kick. You can travel faster than the speed of light at will. But you really, really don't like violence. Inspired by onepunchman	[WP] You are the world's greatest hero. Your strength is unparalleled; your speed is unmatched. But now the greatest villains rise and the world is in fear. The problem? You are a pacifist.	[ "As a pacifist, I felt I couldn't imtrude. In my worries, I turning to playing an old favorite - Civilization. I always went for the diplomatic victories, and always played as Ghandi. \nHowever, in my anguish - is it better to save lives by taking them?? - I selected Attila. Even so, I could not bring myself to abandon my people by starting a new game. \nI watched Ghandi carefully through the game, studying the automated responses of my idol. \nImagine my surprise when he nuked Catherine as she tried to invade.\n\nA thought rose to my mind: if Ghandi is willing to kill for the sake of greater peace...\n\nThen so can I.", "\"Dammit John! C'mon! He's already wiped out New York and Philly!\" \n\nJohn frowned as the mayor screeched into his ear. \"Dude, I heard you the first time. New York, Philly, Vegas, Atlant-\" \n\n\"We NEED you! He's already defeated Titanium Hawk and Rob McGroover! He turned into Rick Dodge into an enchilada!\" \n\nJohn took a sip of his mocha before swallowing audibly and setting it down with a thud. \"More like a quiche actually. My wife made me something that looked like that. It was still half frozen and I burnt it, y'know, heat vision and all. She was pissed about the table, and you know IKEA isn't really kn-\" \n\n\"You're missing the point John!\" The mayor practically screeched in his ear. \"Millions are dead! Millions!\" \n\n\"Woah,\" John said slightly alarmed. \"That's not good. Maybe Exceller will-\" \n\n\"Exceller was hit with the Bank of America, John.\" \n\n\"Should have had a better credit score.\" \n\n\"Not his credit, the freakin' building! Like a bat!\" \n\n\"Oh.\" \n\n\"Oh? Oh! Exceller's in critical shape! And so is everyone else! Get. your. ass. here. and save. us.\" \n\n\"Listen, Mayor Farquad.\" \n\n\"Mayor Fawyer.\" \n\n\"Yeah, sorry. Mayor Fawyer...you know I'm a Quaker right?\" \n\n\"I thought you were Catholic!\" \n\n\"No, my wife is Catholic. I'm a Quaker. But still, you know I don't believe in violence.\" \n\n\"You can headbutt spaceships, John. I've seen you do it.\" \n\n\"That was back in 1980, man. Times have changed. Got my life together, got a job in a insurance company. Good pay actually. Met my wife, planning to move to San Francisco when we-\" \n\n\"For goodness sake, John! There will be no San Francisco if you don't move your ass and take down these invaders!\" \n\n\"Have you tried...talking to them?\" \n\n\"The first thing we tried was to negotiate. They kind of refused when they BLEW UP THE STATUE OF LIBERTY!\" \n\n\"Ah...well, then, I know someone who can save you all actually.\" \n\n\"Someone more powerful than you?\" \n\n\"Someone more powerful than me.\" \n\n\"Tell me then! Who!? Who the hell can save us?\" \n\n\"My lawyer, Richard. Nice guy. He can definitely talk them down. I mean, I'd still be in eight billion in debt if it weren't for him.\" \n\n\"Scooba-diving Mary Magdalene on a Popsicle stick, John! This is serious!\" \n\n\"I am serious. Listen, I'll text you his number and get you in contact with the law firm. You see it's 4-3-2... \" \n\n\"John! We don't have time for this!\" \n\n\"Oh, fine then. I'll text it to you. I'm actually about to catch up on my show actually, Married at First Sight. So, I'll send it ASAP. Like literally, my fingers sometimes moves too fast for the digits so I'll try not to make this one explode. Talk to you later. Commercial's going off.\" \n\n\"John!\" \n\n\"Toodles.\" \n\nClick.\n\n", "People envy me, sometimes. Well, all the time. Supposedly. \"Oh I wish I was as powerful as YOU!\" Do you? You don't, I think.\n\nYou don't understand the feeling of being on the top of the world until you sit on the mountain top. The people at the bottom, and on the slopes, they don't see the view that I see. It's harder than you understand. When you're at the top, I mean. It's lonely up there, you see. And once you're there... Well it's hard to look at people the same way. You understand? No. Of course not. You do not sit on the mountain top. Well. I will try to make you see the view that never changes for me. On the mountain top. Looking down. Down at the tiny, insignificant dots, the little ants, those busy bodies busily doing their business. So tiny! So tiny.\n\nIt's hard to care, you see, when you're on top of the mountain. If only you could see it from my perspective. You can't, of course. You can only look up and dream of the summit. But once you're really there - on the mountain top, I mean, well... It only takes a single misplaced foot and you fall, taking everyone climbing up the slopes with you.\n\nIt's hard, being on the mountain top.", "To start off, I took a step, and distance lost meaning under my feet.\n\nThis is a frequent occurrence, and nothing to worry about. Most places I step get back to themselves in a bit. The Bermuda Triangle still drops every 1 in 5 ships to the asteroid belt, though. Still haven't really gotten around to fixing that.\n\nSpace folded as easily as a man with a bad poker hand. I arrived and gingerly tried not to split the continent like an egg. Life is hard.\n\nA group of men and women in gaudy outfits surrounded a table. Everyone in the room was frozen; or rather, I was going kinda fast. The only one who turned his head was Mercury, and he still takes half a second to blink. I took out some indestructible, power-sealing handcuffs from my back pocket and took my time putting about 15 on each person, arms and legs. I found ropes and glue too, which I promptly used as well. Doesn't hurt to be safe.\n\nA little while in, I looked up to check; the second-fastest man alive was still getting out of his chair like an arthritic elderly in slow motion. I lifted my left toe, and then he was about the speed of a growing fingernail.\n\nAfter going through each of them, including Mercury who now took a full 2 minutes to blink, I firmly grounded my left toe to my sandals and everyone fell face-first on the table from where I chained them to the floor.\n\nMercury, having been the only one to actually react to my first appearance 20 minutes ago in my time, shouted first.\n\n\"How the frick?\" Or something along the lines of that. Vulgar, these guys. Do they kiss their mothers with those mouths?\n\nI placed my right thumb on my ear, my right pinky at my mouth, and set up a party call with the UN's leaders. I could just bring these guys straight to jail, but sometimes you gotta let them leaders do what they're supposed to do.\n\nBesides, I don't really like violence. I'm a pacifist, y'see.", "I am the world's strongest human, and as far as I know, the strongest human in the observable universe. Many have bent the knee in face of my undeniable power. After my first show of force, I never needed to lift a finger for things to go my way. But as of one week ago, the world was shaken, and the peace that I had created shattered under the impinging chaos.\n\nThey call themselves the Alliance. They started in Germany. Then Canada. Then Brazil. Cities were razed to the ground. The military was powerless, as were the superheroes. And now here I sit, as the death toll rises ever higher. I sit, as the innocents burn and perish. I sit as my people fall.\n\nFor all the suffering inflicted among them, I know that no hope would remain should I choose to engage the enemy. The clash would devastate humanity beyond repair. No. There was only one option, one way for me to save everyone. I talked. And I have spoken my peace, and the Alliance did not listen. \n\nThis was the one fight I could not win with my fists. And I have lost it with my wits. God help us all." ]	5
Just a bunch of irresponsible college kids, a time machine, and a desperate gambit to avoid flunking their history course.	[WP] A group of time travelers has abducted you to the distant future. Why? Because they want you to help them pass their final for '21st century human history'.	[ "\"...You've got to be kidding me.\"\n\nI put my face into my hands. Why would this happen to me?\n\n\"Come on, man!\" One of the teens leaned forward. \"We really need help, or we're gonna freaking fail!\"\n\nI stared back, unimpressed.\n\n\"Somehow, I think you might deserve to.\" All of the teens scowled in anger, and one even started to stand up, before I continued.\n\n\"Did you ever think that if you want to learn about 21st century human history course, you might want to grab someone... oh, I don't know... from the END of that century, not someone within the first twenty years of it?\"\n\nThe teen that had stood up dropped back down into their seat, and the rest of them all gaped at me. I sighed again.\n\n\"Look, if you can, just... send me back, and grab someone from the year 2100. Wouldn't that make a lot more sense?\"\n\nTo my relief, the same teen that spoke up earlier answered me. \"Yeah... you're right. Thanks, man! It would've sucked if we only could pass stuff on the first two decades!\"\n\nAs they prepared to send me back, I thought to myself that if they were desperate enough to use time travel in order to try and learn their history, they likely weren't going to pass regardless.\n\nHowever, since I actually wanted to get home, I kept this thought to myself.", "“We’ll pay you in alcohol. That’s all we’ve got.”\n\n“No, no, I…” Jamal rubbed his eyes and stretched out his limbs. As it turned out, time travel hurt. “Just send me back to the twenty first century. I was having a great nap before you guys ruined it.”\n\n“Jamal, come on. We’re begging you. We’re going to be screwed if you can’t help us out.”\n\nHow long had it been, now - 18 years since he was at Howard? The Mecca. He remembered what it was like to be a college student: broke, confused, and unrepentantly devious. A small part of him was satisfied to see that so little had changed for college students in a hundred and fifty years. He sighed and said, “All right, you’ve got thirty minutes. And I want that fifth over there in the corner. Then you take me back.”\n\n“You’re the best. Okay, Early 21st Century History final, first question: what was a dial tone used for and what technology replaced it?”\n\nJamal laughed. This rendezvous with his great-great-great-grandson might be fun after all. “Sit down, boys, let me tell you about the times my my mom kicked me off the Internet to use the phone.”" ]	2
Who planned this mission? Was it you Charlie?	[WP] Victor (codename Juliet), Mike (codename Victor), and Juliet (codename Mike) communicate via radio during a top-secret mission. They are lead by their eye-in-the-sky, Roger. Phonetic alphabet hijinks ensue.	[ "Roger: \"Mike, you've got two guards coming up on your right.\"\n\nVictor: \"Roger, Roger. I'll take care of it.\"\n\nGunshots\n\nRoger: \"Victor, what the fuck are you doing!?\"\n\nJuliet: \"Cutting the wires. Like I'm supposed to.\"\n\nRoger: \"Not you, Juliet! Victor! You just shot two civilians!\"\n\nVictor: \"Civilians!? Roger, you said these were guards!\"\n\nRoger: \"I was talking to Mike!\"\n\nVictor: \"I'm Mike.\"\n\nRoger: \"No, you're Victor. Mike is Juliet.\"\n\nJuliet: \"I thought I was Juliet.\"\n\nRoger: \"No, I mean... sigh\"\n\nVictor: \"I'm confused. Are we using real names or code names?\"\n\nRoger: \"Code names, obviously! It's a spy mission! Why, did you feel like telling everyone our plans, while we're at it?\"\n\nVictor: \"I'm just saying it seems confusing, is all.\"\n\nRoger: \"Fine! Fine! Let's just drop all professionalism, all the mystique of the job, and use real names! How do you feel about that?\"\n\nVictor: \"...Good.\"\n\nRoger: \"Okay, Juliet, update.\"\n\nJuliet: \"I cut the wires. Bomb defused.\"\n\nRoger: \"Oh my god, were you not even listening in that last part!?\"\n\nJuliet: \"No, I was cutting the wires to a fucking nuke!\"\n\nVictor: \"Guys... I think Juliet's dead.\"\n\nJuliet: \"I'm right here.\"\n\nRoger: \"Fuck this, I'm double-crossing all of you.\"", "\"Victor, Victor Charlie's victory's imminent.\"\n\n\"Roger, not if I can help it, Mike. Juliet, what's your status?\"\n\n\"Victor, Juliet's mike's shot.\"\n\n\"Roger. Roger, I'm going in. Mike, echo Juliet.\"\n\n\"Wilco, Victor. Delta's up ahead, you read, Roger?\n\n\"I read, Mike. Whiskey in the hotel's on me when you get back.\"\n\n\"Right, Mike. Target Alpha, let's tango!\"\n\n\"Charlie's gonna have a bad day, Victor. Tango alpha down, repeat, tango alpha down.\"\n\n\"Roger, tango alpha down over delta. Bravo tango, two kilos out! Down.\"\n\n\"Roger. Bravo, Victor! Roger, Victor's victory-\"\n\n\"Copy my confirmation, Mike. On formation, we're going home.\"" ]	2
	[WP] Describe the day in the life of an employee at Bloodbath and beyond.	[ "Benedikt wheeled a pallet of scalpels to Aisle 8, past the faux-ivory needles (only $10.99 for a pack of twelve). He had just started stocking them when he caught Miklos walking towards him.\n\n\"You know -\"\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" Benedikt, tired of the daily gag that had gone on for a week. \"They really missed an opportunity to pun with the name. Blood-Báthory and Beyond, right?\"\n\n\"Right! I mean, she was the founder of the company. It's a damn good pun.\"\n\nBenedikt shook his head. \"It's not that clever.\"\n\n\"It's pretty clever.\"\n\n\"It's not that clever.\"\n\n\"Well, I think it's pretty clever.\"\n\n\"Aren't you working the cash register today?\" Benedikt asked, ripping opening the pallet packing with a scissors.\n\n\"Yeah, but nobody's been here for the past hour.\"\n\n\"Somebody is right there, dumbass.\" Benedikt jerked his head towards the register, where a youthful-looking woman stood with a shopping basket full of blood preservatives and bath salts.\n\n\"Be right back.\" Miklos dashed off to the register. He made good on his words, though, and was back as soon as the customer left. \"How old,\" he mused, \"Do you think she was?\"\n\nBenedikt tilted his head and thought for a moment. \"Seventy-five.\"\n\n\"You think so? How can you tell?\"\n\n\"Wrinkles. They're never careful enough to get their necks entirely immersed.\"\n\nMiklos wolf-whistled. \"Wow. She looked damn good.\"\n\n\"The power of virgin blood,\" Benedikt replied with a shrug.", "Hell sucks. I mean, that's the general consensus, yea, but Hell sucks for everyone. Mostly because it's a lot like life. \n\nSee, Hell isn't so much a static place as it is an evolving set of metaphysically entangled metaphorically stabilized hyperhallucenated coexistant dream states realizing themselves simultaneously independent of a space time reference plane. Essentially, for the layman, Hell is whatever you imagine it to be in the instant just after death as your brain fires away in desperation. This instant lasts for an eternity, and for some reason people all share in it. Hell is a nanosecond stretched to an eternity. \n\nAs poetic as that sounds it's actually really stupid. Take me, for instance. I was a twenty six year old cashier at a department store in someplace I can't remember. I was walking to my car and a truck tire unbolted on the interstate and bam. I see the tire, I think, 'I don't want to die in my uniform', and then bam. I wake up in Hell. \n\nOnly my Hell is a department store. See, Hell has strange internal consistency. Some people wake up here and get tortured by Demons for eons. Some people spend twelve hours a day filling up shopping carts only to realize at the register that their card is declined over and over again. Someone needs to work that register and someone needs to provide those Demons with spiked buttplugs. That... is my Hell. I work the register at Bloodbath and Beyond. \n\nI wake up every morning in a shitty appartment. Just like life. My cat refuses to use the litterbox, so every morning as I take my first step out of bed I step squarely in a two hour old pile of cat shit at such an angle that it squishes up between my toes. Every. Morning. It doesn't matter what I do, how I step out of bed, whatever. It literally never fails. I also never see the cat, but I know it must be there, waiting. \n\nSo first thing is always cat shit. Second thing is the light blows out in the bathroom. I always spend twenty minutes looking for a fresh one which will never appear if I don't look for exactly twenty minutes. By the time I find it I'm running late, so I turn on the water for a shower and hop in not realizing that the gas is shut off. Cold, shitty shower. \n\nIt doesn't matter what I want to eat for breakfast because all I have are grapenuts with no milk and a bottle of last nights Bloodwieser. Yes, beer in Hell is thematically named. It's gross. \n\nI put on the uniform I will never in eternity remember to wash and always miss the bus so I have to walk ten blocks in downtown Dis to get to work fourty minutes late. Dis is the capital city of Hell. You know, burning copper and brass architecture, filled with the tormented and roaring with their pleas for mercy. \n\nHere's a tip, never... and I mean ever... give the tormented any change. Don't do it. \n\nSo I clock in but my punch card doesn't work so I get yelled at by my manager for an hour. He's not a bad guy, but in his Hell he's having an affair with the stock girl and his wife finds out about it and loses her shit in public. It happens around 3:00 everyday. So I guess he is a bad guy, really, but not by Hell's standards. \n\nAnyway, then at around 9:00 the Demons start rolling in to pick up their orders. Demons are weird, because not only do they not actually exist they know they don't actually exist. Super polite, always a pleasure to deal with. If you don't mind ringing up chainsaw speculums and buckets of flesh eating worms shaped like dicks, that is. \n\nAt 12:00 I have to take lunch, it's mandatory, so obviously at 11:59 the woman who needs maxipads now shows up and forgets her debit card and oozes menstruation everywere while weeping. So I'm always late to lunch and only get to eat half of a penut butter sandwhich with no jelly and water from the bathroom sink. \n\nBy 1:30 there's a massive car wreck outside and this guy comes running in asking for help and everyone has to ignore him. This goes on for a few minutes before we all turn into zombies and chase an old woman down the make-up aisle and eat her. So at least I'm not starving all day.\n\nAt around 5:00 I'm freaking out and tired because I was supposed to clock out like an hour ago but my punch card doesn't work and my boss is still getting screamed at by his wife but by this time he's naked and his junk is a snake, so I can't really go ask him to clock me out. \n\nAt 5:79 I decide to just leave without clocking out because time is meaningless and existence is suffering. I catch the bus this time and always... always... run into this insufferable asshole with terrible breath who insists on asking me inane questions about the nature of Hell and my typical day here. .... \n\nThis is my stop. I'll see you tomorrow... and the next day... and the next day... and the next day... and the next.. \n\n" ]	2
	[WP] Due to a Reddit bug, a prompt-inspired story gets posted to everyone's front page as a /r/news and is taken as a true story/fact.	[ "Magic. Belief.\n\nAll this time, and we never knew.\nThe eggheads, the scientists, they came up with a term for it.\nGroup Cognition-Manifestation.\n\nApparently, all those crackpots, they were right, and never knew it. What enough people think, becomes the truth.\nIt turns out, too many people took r/news as gospel, to the point where due to a simple programming error, a r/gaming post about someone discovering magic, was enough to make magic real.\n\n____________________________________________\n\nFirst attempt ever. I'm absolutely terrible at writing, anyone know what i did wrong? Comment." ]	1
	[WP] In dystopian American future, the government makes parents choose which One (1) of their children will be allowed to survive.	[ "The law was announced last week, dubbed the most difficult decision of history; to battle over-population each family must sacrifice all of their children but one. The Chancellor demonstrated her commitment to this radical solution by 'sacrificing' all of her own children, she would not be exempt. They gave parents a week. \n\nMy grand-father decided my father was to die, a decision to which my father agreed with; his sister was a single mother to a new-born, the child needed her. \n\nMy mum's parent both died in an accident years ago, a tragedy which ironically guaranteed her safety... from death at least. I know she will suffer massive trauma from the loss of my father, and of one of her sons.\n\nAs it is they're sitting in the kitchen, quietly trying to decide whether my brother or I shall live... They can't decide. They shouldn't have to. \n\nMy brother is only 12, he has so much left to live, he's a genius with computers. We're both in our room trying to not overhear them. My brother is trying to distract himself with tetris. I'm listening to Dad.\n\nMy dad brings up the one factor they haven't brought up yet. My brother's disability. He can't walk, and has to use a wheelchair; the state isn't fond of the handicapped. My dad says it's better to 'sacrifice' him.\n\nI get up. \n\n'I'm going to the toilet, bro, I'll be back in a sec.'\n\nI go into the toilet and reach for the medicine cabinet. If they won't choose, I'll choose for them. Click-clack and I pop them like tic-tacs. \nI get the toothpaste and write on the bathroom mirror.\n\n“I LOVE YOU”", "He's sitting in the kitchen in the dark. There's a bottle on the table, next to the pills. She remembers getting the whiskey on their wedding day, how his grandfather had motioned the two of them aside to show it to them, furtive and gleeful. It had been old then, covered in dust. They had opened it three times since then--once that night, dizzy with joy, and once after each birth. It had lived under the sink at all other times, bottled fire hidden behind the paper towels and trash bags. \n\nHe's pouring himself a drink, a thin finger into a jam jar. She remembers how she had teased him when he washed the jar out, remembered him flicking her with sudsy water. She sits down across from him. He doesn't look up.\n\nThey sit in the dark, not speaking. He doesn't touch the whiskey, just holds the jar in his hands, white-knuckled. She reaches out and touches a hand. It's trembling. She tries to give it strength by her silent presence, tries to offer something, anything, but she can't. She has no strength to give.\n\n\"They're asleep?\" he asks finally, and she doesn't recognize his voice. She doesn't trust herself to speak, so she nods. He looks down at the pills with disgust, fury, terror, helplessness. \n\n\"We could...\" she says, finally, but she doesn't finish the thought. It's useless, and they know it. Nothing. They could do nothing. Not like Luke and Linda, who had tried to run. Or the Petersons, all seven of them, who had played illegal records, told stories, and ate black market chocolate laced with strychnine. The blueshirts had found them all, lying in a circle. \n\nShe knew they could do nothing, and that was the truly monstrous thing--that they would choose one to live, and one to die, because they were too afraid to do otherwise. They told each other that it was better for one to die than for all of them, but they knew that they were buying their lives. And the unspeakable truth was that they didn't think the price was too high.\n\nHe lifted the jar, drained it, and poured himself another swallow. He was crying. So was she. Crying for the loss of their baby. Crying in shame. He touched one of the pills. \"They say it doesn't hurt,\" he whispered. \n\nShe nodded. They knew it for a lie, but they clung to it, hoping it might come true.\n****\nSorry the downer--great prompt! For some less dark stuff, you can check out my work at [r/TheBrzezinskiCycle](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheBrzezinskiCycle/).* " ]	2
	[WP] all wormholes lead to the same place and time. Thus every species that will ever discover how to travel through one (past, present, and future) emerge at the same place and at the same time. You are the first human to go.	[ "Travel through the wormhole they said!,It would be the dawn of a new era they said!\nBack at that time I was excited too,caught up in the Hullabaloo of promotions and wishes from people,\nA load of crap I say now.\n\nI have been travelling for almost a year, since I have emerged from the \"Worm hole\" ,and was surprised to discover that the universe has a very dry and literal sense of humor.\nsince then all I have got to show for the travelling is a super macro photograph of the shimmering 6 lane highway surface taken from my reconnaissance drone and a Tardigrade with IBS as my partner.\n\n\"Well, what do you make of this?\" I asked while spraying some water molecules on it from my atomizer to keep it active.\n\"It\" in its turn drew a undulating shape with the sand particles and moved its head(butt?) towards the highway.\n\n\"OK let it rip then\" I said while hauling myself up by the thick bristles onto its back.\n\nOnce up I could see over the tar drop,\nwhat can I say? The world is a huge place !\n\n\n", "Destination Prime\n\nThe scientists knew where we would end up before we even knew how to get there. 45 years before I launched, the greatest minds on the planet discovered that all wormholes do converge at a single point and time simultaneously in space. The destination was 'relatively' close, only 33 galaxies away. The time would be billions of years after the present. I would be traveling to the future as a diplomat for humanity, a member of the great round table of civilizations. All civilizations in the universe, past and forthcoming, would be there. \n\nAfter the discovery, mankind came together to build the fastest engine for the greatest rocket ever made. For 45 years the plan was corrected and perfected. I would be shot through space at a large fraction of the speed of light towards a rogue black hole that was scheduled to eat a star. And if the conditions were just right, and I was assured that they would be, a wormhole would show itself as I arrived and transport me to the place we came to know as Destination Prime. \n\nUpon my arrival at Destination Prime, I would be accompanied by members of all of the other space faring civilizations that have and will ever existed, cementing humanity's role at the table of life.\n\nThe launch went as scheduled and due to time dilation, everyone I ever knew was dead before I reached the wormhole 3 years later. But I was proud. I was proud that I would carry the flag of our species to the end of time for all other races to see. I was proud that my voice would be heard by all of the other intelligent beings in the universe.\n\nAs I reached the wormhole, I remembered what the scientists back on Earth told me. The travel time through the wormhole would be instantaneous. One good flash of light and I would be there. So I prepared before I went through. Showered, shaved, read through the speech a few times. I was giddy. I was not sad that I was leaving the world behind, I was excited.\n\nI pointed the ship towards my final destination and began to accelerate. As I went through, I can only describe it as a glowing darkness that enveloped the ship and my being. And just as quickly, it was over. \n\nAs the systems came back online, the star charts, adjusted for the passage of time, confirmed that I was at Destination Prime. I queued my radio set to all frequencies and boldly proclaimed, \"The Humans have arrived!\"\n\nNo response. \n\nI checked the radio and let it rip again, but there was still no response. I initiated a proximity scan of the surrounding area and results came back negative. Had there been a mistake? Was I in the right place? At the right time?\n\nI was, and I waited here for the rest of my natural life and here I'll rest until the end of time itself, the sole member of the Council of Intelligent Civilizations.\n\n-The Last Human\n", "I am the most important human being who has ever lived. I'm sure you're thinking that I'm just another one of those annoying self-absorbed types with a massive ego. That's not true, though. I'm 27 years old, and already I've earned my PhD in astrophysics, climbed Mount Everest, developed a promising treatment for cancer, starred in two successful films and the most popular reality TV program of all time. Oh, and I've got an amazing body; I go to the gym twice a day 6 days a week. My biceps are so intimidating they single-handedly solved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One good up-close-and-personal look at these bad boys and both sides decided that fighting just wasn't worth it anymore. Women love me, men love me, everyone wants to be like me. Like I said, I am the most important human being who ever lived.\n\nI'm on the cusp of my greatest achievement yet. A wormhole has been discovered outside Reno of all places. Of course I was brought in to investigate. Who else could solve the mysteries of humanity's first wormhole but me? After careful analysis, I was able to show that all of my peers were incorrect, as usual. It's not their fault; they're on the right track, and given enough time they would eventually come to the same brilliant conclusions as me. They just aren't able to connect the dots, to see the patterns that are the core of my genius. Unlike other brilliant minds in human history, I am appreciated in my time. This occasion is no exception – they want me to be the one to go through the wormhole, to be humanity's ambassador to the stars. I accepted their requests, of course; after all who am I to deprive the world of my greatness?\n\nThey offer me a spacesuit, thinking that the atmosphere on the other side of the wormhole might not be survivable. I know this to be untrue, obviously. Who would provide us a wormhole without ensuring that we could survive the other side? It's clear that this wormhole was created by alien beings who wish to meet us, or more specifically me. They wish to benefit from my genius just as humanity has, and I certainly cannot deny them. I step through the wormhole with total confidence; butterflies in the stomach are for less accomplished people. \n\nI emerge from the other side of the wormhole into a grand ballroom. The high ceiling is lined with free floating chandeliers. The walls are adorned with gold and precious stones, and somewhere in the background a string quartet can be heard playing music I have never heard. They musicians are talented to be sure, but I hear some discrepancies and take a mental note to teach them a better technique. It will be one of my first benevolent acts to the inhabitants here. Looking around, all the people here are alien, which I of course anticipated. What I had not anticipated was that each alien was unique; it looked like there was one representative here from each species. How peculiar. This must be a conference of some kind, a gathering of the greatest minds from each of the great species in the universe. I decide it's time to introduce myself to the group.\n\n“Hello gathered friends. I am the greatest human being that has ever lived. Now that I have arrived, this gathering of the great races can surely begin,” I announce proudly.\n\n“Hasn't anyone told you?” the person nearest me asks.\n\n“Told me what?”\n\n“This is where every species exiles it's most annoying narcissists.”\n\n“Annoying? Maybe that is true for all of you, but on my world I am adored and respected by all. They would never send me into exile. That is impossible.”\n\nThe person merely smiled at me sadly, as if explaining something simple to a confused child, and pointed at the dedication that was inscribed into the wall:\n\n“We the peoples of all civilized planets, in the interest of intergalactic peace, hereby commission this space station, to be placed at the edge of a black hole. Here we shall exile the most annoying and narcissistic member of each generation, for the good of all species. For without the influence of narcissists, we can achieve all things and live in harmony.”\n\n“Earth is the newest member planet.”, the person informed me. “Welcome home.”" ]	3
	[WP] Every morning on your way to work, this old man sits in front of you in the subway. He always starred at you but never said a word. Today, after 1.5 years, he finally tries to speak to you.	[ "Andy did not realize the Old Man was talking to him until about the fifth sentence he spoke. Usually, the only person talking on the morning commute was the Crazy Pigeon Man, who probably lived in the compartment and liked to talk to himself, imaginary entities, and the occasional rat or pigeon he had sneaked in. It was enough to drive people to other compartments, but Andy valued sitting down more than a quiet, safe commute, especially because of his bum knee. The only other person to constantly share his values was the Old Man, who was the other unsettling person in the compartment. He always sat in front of Andy and stared at his face the entire trip behind his sunglasses. He was blind, though, the Old Man. Always had a dog by his feet and had a cane, the whole works.\n\nAnyway, it was when the Old Man said, “He’s not here today, is he?” that Andy looked up from his Kindle with a start.\n\n“Who? Crazy Pigeon Man?” Andy asked, and then looked around. Nope, Crazy Pigeon Man was in his corner, oddly quiet, but there.\n\n“No, the one he always talks to,” the Old Man said.\n\nAndy's brows furrowed as he contemplated whether the Old Man was joking, or if Crazy Pigeon Man’s insanity and his own blindness had caused him to think there was more than one person.\n\n“I’m afraid we have but a small amount of time to talk freely. You must get off this train immediately, and never return to this compartment again.”\n\nAndy's heart started racing before he realized that the Old Man was probably at least half as crazy as Crazy Pigeon Man. Whether he was already crazy or driven crazy by the constant insanity, he didn’t care to delve further. He cast his eyes down immediately and tried to return to his Kindle.\n\n“You do not believe me, young man, but please, do as I say. I can still save you yet.”\n\nOh god, he was worse than Crazy Pigeon Man. He was half-lucid enough to talk to him. Crazy Pigeon Man’s brand of crazy was at least self-contained as long as one kept away from his side of the compartment. His grip on his Kindle tightened and he willed his brain focus on the words, to take his mind away from the words infiltrating his ear.\n\n“He was like you, once. Had a job. Had someone who loved him back. Had something to live for. But every time he was on the subway, he didn't feel that way. He didn't feel there was anyone that loved him or anything that made life worth living. He would dread going to work because he realized that he wasn't going to go anywhere in the company. He would dread going home because he realized his infertility would tear them apart. He would sit down everyday in his compartment and he would think all these things, every day for two years. It was like something was whispering in his ear, always putting his successes down, always having something pessimistic to say about him and his life...\n\n\"And that something didn't give up. That something made him quit his job. Quit his marriage. Quit his life. Until there wasn't anything he could do but ride the train day in and day out, having nobody left in his life but that something to talk to.\"\n\nThe Old Man took a breath and dropped his voice until it was a mere whisper. \"Haven't you been having similar thoughts? Of not wanting to go to work. Of having nothing left to live for. Hating to get out of bed in the morning. You used to smile more in the beginning, you know.\"\n\n\"When the sun shoots in through the east window,\" Andy muttered under his breath, desperately, trying to cling onto anything. \"I always watch for that first long, straight ray... God.\" He gave up on his Kindle and fumbled for his phone. No signal underground. He had been meaning to change carriers... Better to read his old texts than hear more of this drivel. But what did he mean, that he smiled more? Was he not blind?\n\n\"I may be blind, but I can still sense things. You used to be happier. Not think those thoughts, you know, at night... I can still save you yet, and I will. I don't want it to claim another life. Just promise me that you'll get off at the next stop. Don't wait until it comes back. It's always the strongest when it comes back.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" the Crazy Pigeon Man whimpered. \"I don't want to be alone.\"\n\nThe smell of ammonia hit his nose. A wet patch began spreading in front of the Old Man's pants. \"I can feel it coming back,\" he panted. \"And it is not happy with me. No... Say a prayer for me. At least say a prayer for me, Andy. Say a--\"\n\nThe subway doors opened. Andy fled the train, his palms clammy with sweat.\n\n--- \n\n\"Say a prayer for me,\" the Crazy Pigeon Man said, shaking his head. \"He ignores the crazy man talking to pigeons and rats for a year and a half. One story time and a piss later, you drive him away. You think he will be back?\"\n\n\"I hope not. I don't know what the fuck I'll have to do next, then. Soil myself?\" The Old Man gave a hearty chuckle. \"Now, I believe you have something you need to cough up.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. How'd you know his name?\"\n\n\"He forgot to take his nametag off a couple of months ago.\" The Old Man looked out of the window into the darkness. \"I do hope he changes, though. His job's been sucking the life out of him.\"\n\n\"Ah, you're too sentimental, old fart.\" Crazy Pigeon Man shook his head and released something from his coat. \"Here's Mr. Coo. I'll win him back somehow, so don't get too cozy.\"" ]	1
	[WP] Click "Random Page" on Wikipedia 3 times. The 3 pages you get must be combined into a story.	[ "Blaine, Kentucky. Lavender (Plant) Drug Enforcement Administration\n\nIt started off like any other Saturday. I forced myself to get up, and made some coffee. Everything seemed normal, until I turned on my TV. I saw the anchorwoman for Blaine's TV new station. The usually pretty & peppy blonde looked distressed, and nervous. She looked like she was struggiling to speak. \"Today- Today..\" She was choked up and her voice was raspy and low. \"Stay inside. Do not touch any Lavender plants. The DEA has told us to tell you this. That is all. Goodbye.\" The screen turned black. I chuckled. Is this a joke? Lavender plants? Give me a break. Was she high? I'm not sure. I grabbed my remote, and started flipping through channels. All of them were solid black, with no sound, or rumbling static. I looked outside. Where is everyone? Why does it look like a ghost town outside? I opened my door. The first thing I saw were lavender plants, everywhere. It seemed like every inch of my neighborhood was covered in Lavender plants. The sweet aroma filled my nose, and calmed me. The purple color of the Lavender plant was mesmerizing. I decided to reach down and pick a Lavender plant to keep in a vase. As soon as my hand touched the plant, my hand started to burn. I tried to move my hand, but I felt like my hand was frozen. I started to see my skin burning off. I screamed so loudly, almost like a dog howling in pain. Suddenly, I heard emergency sirens, almost as if it was a tornado warning, my hand was still burning, I thought this was all a dream. A few seconds later, a bunch of men in DEA uniforms hopped out of a van. They were all wearing masks and protective clothing. \"Get him in the van.\" I heard one of them say. \"Wait! Aren't you going to help me?! My skin is burning! This plant is hurting me!\" The DEA men scoffed. \"We know what you're doing. Lavender plants are the new poppy flowers. They make an even stronger form of Heroin. It's already killed more than half of Kentucky's population. Now you're going to jail.\" Before I could even speak, I was thrown into a van. Where are they taking me? What is going on? My hand hurts! Are they going to kill me?\" Suddenly the doors of the van opened, there was a bang. \n\nThat was the moment I died.", "HMS Baltimore was a beauty of a ship. All of her sails in her two masts were up and all of her 14 cannons were ready as she proudly glided across the waves.\n\nOn her deck, a man knocked on the door of the captain's cabin. A muffled \"Come in!\" followed. The man opened the door and walked in.\n\n\"Guten Tag!\" he greeted. \"My name is Jochen Liedtke. I was wondering why in a world I am in here.\"\n\n\"Liedtke, you say?\" The captain seemed baffled. \"I'm rather certain that I have not heard your name before. That is peculiar because we have already sailed for months. May I inquire your profession?\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm a computer scientist. Doing my research on the topic of microkernels.\" The captain's expression grew more and more puzzled so Liedke decided it would be best to explain. \"Microkernel is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system. I created L4, a family of second-generation microkernels.\"\n\nThe captain didn't seem very convinced. \"I must say I have no idea what you are talking about. However, I have a slight problem and you may be able to help me.\"\n\nLiedke leaned forward looking at a map on a wooden table.\n\nThe captain continued promptly. \"I have received orders to get my precious cargo to Taydakovo. However, the instructions are unclear. Taydakovo may either refer to a village in Samara Oblast, Russia, or Tula Oblast, Russia. I wonder which one is our real destination.\"", "Sarhadein, Satchel Charge, BACE motorsports.\n\nIt was a typical day in India. Hot, humid, and cows holding up traffic throughout the streets. In an office in New Delhi, Lakshman was watching his favorite tv show, Sarhadein, in the break room. In the middle of a schoolhouse scene, Chandri, a main character, stared directly into the camera. His eyes seemed to probe the depths of Lakshman's soul. \"Now I have an annoncement for one very special viewer. His name is Lakshman.\" Lakshman was utterly bewildered. He could not believe that the production company would have allowed such a deviation from the script to be aired, especially one that addressed the audience. He was mildly amused that they had picked out his name, but it did not concern him badly; there were probably thousands of Lakshmans who watched the show. Back on screen, Chandri continued his speech: \"Lakshman, today is the day you become... a racecar driver.\" What? This was supposed to be a romantic program! How did this racecar driving get into the show? Suddenly, the wall of Lakshman's building exploded in a shower of concrete chunks and smoke. A figure dressed in a racing uniform and holding a satchel of explosive charges clambered through the debris. Lakshman dimly realized that the man and his satchel of bombs was responsible for the explosion. \"Get up, Lakshman,\" said the driver, \"today is your first day with the BACE motorsports group.\" The what?\" exclaimed Lakshman, \"I work in marketing! I'm not a racecar driver!\" \"You are now,\" said the man, as he picked up Lakshman with superhuman strength and loaded him into an F1 car, specifically modified to have an extra seat, parked outside the building. Lakshman dimly realized that Chandri's prediction was right, but when he questioned the driver, the only response he received was an angry \"hell if I know.\" As the driver weaved through crowds of traffic, cows, and surprisingly unconcerned pedestrians, occasionally stopping to blast away obstacles with his satchel charges, Lakshman asked, \"where are we going?\" \"To good old 'Murica! You'll be the greatest racecar driver the world has ever seen!\" Lakshman decided not to argue. Getting on the wrong side of a crazy racecar driver with a bag of bombs was the last thing he wanted to do at the moment. Everything would make sense in time.", "Debusk Scarp, Clan, Sixteen-segment display\n\nTako the old man put his foot forward and stepped again onto the thick snow. The howling wind chilled him to the bone. His legs felt heavy as snowblocks. It was exhausting. He wirelessly glanced beside him. The snow-covered cliffs were mere metres from his feet. The whitewashed sky posed no contrast to his surroundings. Everything has been looking white since they started crossing the mountains. It made his senses numb. He couldn't even feel the constant bombardment of hail on his lips. He strugled to open his eyes. his eyes. Gradually, a black buzzing began to fade into his vision. Thousands of black dots were darting across his eyes. They slowly began to conjoin and then his vision became opaque.\n\n \"Chief! Urgh this is no time to be collapsing!\" Yaki heaved and pulled the old Chief on his shoulders. \n\nThe burly man wrapped his rough arms around the Clan Chief and dragged his torso up. This old man had lived too long for anything good and had only slowed the pace to a crawl since the beginning. He knew his father was weak, but this was supposed to be a fast trek across the mountains to find food. The children cannot be exposed to the freezing outside for too long. And instead of still wind as calculated from the clouds, the gods decided to cast a blizzard. May the gods take this frail and useless man away. Allow me to lead these women and children behind me instead.\n\nThe look of contempt on Yaki's face faded as(blah) the sky began to roar. A cube of some form of black ivory drew a streak of grey across the sky, headed straight for the clan. Yaki dropped Tako and dashed straight towards his beloved wife. He held her head tight and swung his back towards the black cube's trajectory. The cube seared through the blizzard winds and struck Tako in the chest. Flesh and blood were blown and scattered across the plain white snow. \n\nWhen the roaring faded, Yaki opened his eyes. She was fine. Thanks the gods. She's fine.. But the fear on her face hadn't faded. A tear began to well up and she began to tremble.\n\n\"Tako..Yaki- Yaki! Tako is... is-\"\n\nYaki spun his head around. The white canvas of snow was painted with soulful streaks of red. In the centre of the scene was Tako, with a hanging eyeball swinging gently outside of his skull. On his head was the charcoal black cube. Yaki had never seen such a thing. The cube had crimson digits displayed on it. It read, \"L࿋L\".\n\n-\n\nLol I suddenly becamebusy therefore the abrupt nonsensensical ending sorry. Didnt want the first half to go to waste though heheh" ]	4
Just curious what the devil would do to wow the judges!	[WP]The Devil has decided to reveal his existence to humankind and he has chosen to do so on America's Got Talent. How goes his first audition?	[ "\"Ladies and Gentlemen in the audience and at home!\" Nick Canon beamed, flashing a smile so white that even the best HD televisions couldn't capture its true radiance, \"Our next guest is a real spirited performer who comes to us from...\" He affected his tone and finished in the exaggerated cadence of a camp fire ghost story teller. \"The depths... Of Hellllll!\"\n\nThe audience erupted, gleefully eager to witness the unique performer.\n\nThe room went dark. The audience hushed. On stage, a blazing yellow spotlight searched for a body in which to highlight.\n\nNothing. Emptiness.\n\nUpbeat music pumped through the room, pulsating in an addictive rhythm, begging the show to begin.\n\nThe cameras panned across the sea of still smiling faces who continued to obey the bright \"Applause\" light even after their hands were tired and the music had begun to throb a little too deeply within their temples.\n\nNick Canon's smooth, exuberant face appeared beneath the spotlight and his reassuring smile sent a collective chuckle throughout the audience. \"Ladies and Gentlemen, it appears our next performer is having a little trouble with confidence! We'll be back after a short break to hear from our sponsors.\"\n\n\"Goddamnit, Satan, you get your ass out there and give em hell!\"\n\nSatan dropped his head and slouched his massive, muscular shoulders. \"You don't have to use puns all the time.\"\n\nAzazel hissed, \"This is a special circumstance! This is your big moment, and it deserves fiendishly good puns!\"\n\nSatan smiled, both because he loved a good pun and he appreciated the effort from his wingman, Azazel. \"Listen, I know it's my fault I didn't check with you but I really thought Simon Cowel was on this show.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, I didn't know. He's on the X-Factor, an inferior show all the way around with he exception on Simon's acerbic wit and winning charm. Otherwise we would have booked you there! Only the best for the Mighty Serpent!\"\n\n\"They at least have the Hoff? Right? And Sharon Osbourn? The Princess of darkness!\" Hope lit his sad, dark eyes.\n\nSatan met eyes with the glorious Demon Azazel and he knew the truth as sure as he knew the fires of his kingdom. \"Awww. Shit, Azazel. Who do they have then? Not fucking Pierce Morgan?!\"\n\n\"It's Piers, sir, and no, he's no longer on the show. It's all good, though. They have the Howie's, Mandel and Stern. They also have a supermodel and a pop star!\"\n\n\"I do like Howie, not so much Howard though. He's kind of a dick. What supermodel, what pop star?\" Hope once again began to simmer within the defeated face of the King of Hades.\n\n\"Does it matter, sir?\"\n\n\"No.\" He sulked, \"Guess not.\"\n\n\"They're all the same, but you. This is about you, and you are not the same as anything, anyone they've ever had on this show and ever will again! You are the real Prince of Darkness, commander of the Legions of Hell! Now buck up, get out there, and give them the best God damn magic show they've ever seen!\" He paused and added, \"A hell of a good show!\n\nSatan felt reassured, his confidence boosted. In his mind, he comforted himself knowing Simon Cowel would watch his performance, eventually. That's the beauty of this connected world he'd helped build. \"Do my horns look alright?\"\n\n\"Polished and sharpened sir; majestic, sinister!\"\n\n\"Fuckin A?\"\n\nAzazel grinned, looking majestic in his own right with a seven foot frame and silk cape flapping in the air conditioning. He felt as if he were about to send his only son off to college. He nodded, \"Fuckin A!\"\n\nThis was the moment, Satan thought, his confidence renewed. He would take the stage and his illusions would change the world. His poster would hang from the bedrooms of teenage girls, his image would mark the cover of magazines. Armageddon was finally within reach! He hugged Azazel and thanked him before grabbing his wand, and stepping out onto the stage.\n\nAbout six hundred, forty five trillion miles and three and a half universes away, the residents of heaven tuned in. The residents of heaven held hands around the center big screen, nervous and yet filled with excitement. There was hope, for a moment, that the Mighty Devil had lost his nerve; the apocalypse averted due to a serendipitous case of stage fright.\n\nBut the commercial break ended and an impossibly charismatic red being stepped into view, whipping a bifurcated tail and holding a miniature pitchfork that was clearly a personalized wand.\n\nClever. Looks like they would need to fight the battle after all.\n\nSatan opened his mouth beneath the hot lights and his tremendous fangs captured the world's attention. The show lasted seven and one third minutes, but the destruction it wrought would last forever. The end had begun with an Abra-cadabra and the Howie's resoundingly approved.", "Satan took three long, smokey breaths as he tuned the last string on his fiddle backstage. \"Don't worry, you got this.\" he muttered to himself. In well over two thousand years, Satan was about to make his first public appearance on one of the most watched programs in the country, America's Got Talent. As the host walked out to announce him, Satan thought back to how exactly he'd gotten himself into this position.\n\nIt had been a long journey to that point. Satan had wrestled for years with the idea of seeking out his revenge on all those who had mocked and ridiculed him, but never mustered up the courage to do it. Since science had expanded so much in the past few hundred years, and fewer people believed in religion, Satan was afraid that should he try and make himself known on Earth, people would laugh at him and make him feel like a fraud. Not to mention that Hell had gotten extremely busy since around the mid 1900's. He really could never find the time to make it up to Earth, what with the trying to find space for all of Hell's newcomers and scheduling all of his realm's events on a daily basis. However, after talking to his partner, Saddam, he realized that this was something he needed to do. \n\nHis plan had worked brilliantly to this point. He flew up to Earth a few weeks prior to the audition, bought some \"human-like\" clothes, and even gotten professional make-up artists to cover his ghoulish features. When asked why he looked the way he did, he told everyone, \"Burn victim.\" \n\nHe already knew what his first step would be in exacting his revenge; he just needed a way to act it out. He checked out a cheap motel room near the audition sight for the show, bought a second-hand fiddle from a pawn shop, and began practicing. He ad heard about America's Got Talent through some of his servants down in Hell. They all told him what a great, fun show it was and that he should check it out. So he did just that. It wasn't long before he realized how easy it was to get on the show, and that with his fiddle skills, he could really exact his revenge. \n\nSo there he was, sweating backstage, waiting for his moment in the spotlight. When the host called his name, there was no applause...no cheering...just silence. He slowly walked out on stage, shoulders slumped over, fiddle in hand. \n\nThe judges said nothing for a while, and then one asked, \"Did he way your name right? Is it really...Satan?\"\n\n\"Um, yeah.\" Satan replied. \n\n\"Jesus Christ.\" the judge said. \n\n\"No, Satan. S-A-T-A-N. Jesus is the other guy.\"\n\nThe judges stared at each other. \n\n\"Wait, so you're saying, you're actually Satan? Like, the guy from the Bible?\"\n\n\"Uh huh. Should I start my song, or like, what?\" Satan asked.\n\nEveryone in the audience was flabbergasted. The room fell completely silent. This only made Satan more nervous. HE began to shake slightly as the sweat ran the make-up off his face. His red skin peeked out. \n\n\"Um, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and start now.\" he said. \"This is a song I wrote, couple years ago. Never played it for a live audience before. Hope you guys like it. It's called \"Go Fuck Yourself Charlie Daniels.\"\"\n\nAn audience member chuckled. Suddenly, Satan wasn't so nervous. He touched the bow to the strings and began.\n\n \"1, 2, 3, 4...\"" ]	2
	[WP] You find your spouse's diary and flip to the date you first met. You shouldn't have read that.	[ "The infernal sound of the wake up call reverberates through my bones. You thought your morning alarm was bad? You haven't experienced the wake up call here. The walls are dingy and bare except for the poster of a pin up girl. I roll my head back and the bars are still there. I sleep facing away from the bars of my cell in the hopes that one morning I awake, roll my head back, and they're gone; replaced by an open space and a field of emerald summer grass beyond. Not today.\n\n\nThere's a rattle on the bars with something hard, like a school kid rattling a stick on the railings of the school. \n\n\"Miller, post. Package from your wife\", Henderson says with a wink as he passes my cell, \"Not sending you used panties is she?\"\n\nHenderson, an aging man in here for armed robbery 12 years ago, had the duty of handing out the mail in the mornings. Not someone you'd typically trust with a package from your wife, but in this place, I guess it could be worse.\n\nI give him a couple of sweets left over from my last package, \"One can only hope, eh?\". \n\nHe chuckles and he goes on his way.\n\n\nThe package is wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Inside, upon unwrapping, I find a leather bound book, a pack of chewing gum and a handkerchief sprayed with my wife's perfume. I hold the handkerchief to my nose and I am taken back to the days before I got locked up. Before I can end my daydream, I'm startled by the sound of the warden's nightstick on my railings. \n\n\"Miller, get dressed. Unless you want to miss breakfast and yard time, you're gonna need to get your ass moving\"\n\n\"Piss off\", I mumble under my breath as I toss the remaining contents of the package onto my bed, the handkerchief into the pocket of my overalls, and begin to clothe myself. \n\n\n\"What's your wife sending you this time Miller?\", Aaron asks in his well known dulcet voice, while I'm sat eating breakfast.\n \n\"Seems like my package is the talk of the block today. Not much. Gum, a hankie, and a book\".\n\n\"Here was me thinking she'd sent you some anal beads for the lonely nights\", Aaron said with a smirk. \n\n\nI'm not known in here as a 'hard man' as such. People in here knew they can have a good bit of banter with me. Luckily that keeps me out of trouble and off anyone's list of enemies. \n\n\nThrough the day, I take the the handkerchief out of my pocket and inhale the sweet scent of my wife. After all this time in here, I am still just looking forward to seeing her again.\n\n\nI get back to my cell in the late morning and slump onto the bed. I reach and take the book and gum from underneath myself and throw a piece of gum into my mouth before examining the book. It looks pretty old; the spine of the book is wrinkled and the covers creased from being folded back and flicked through. Upon opening the book, I notice a large section has been torn out of the front and a little from the back, leaving the book unbalanced in my hands when open. Inked on the inside cover is my wife's name followed by the number 1507. Upon examining the first page, I see that it's a diary entry headed with the date I met her. \n\n\n\"May 5th.\nMickey Henderson was a sweet man. I'm not sure how long I have to keep doing this. Surely I should have succeeded by now? I'd say 'I'm not getting any younger', but...\"\n\n\nConfused, as to how my wife knew the armed robber who hands me my mail in the mornings, I read on.\n\n\n\"Anyway, I think I have found someone new. He tells me his name is Anthony, but his friends call him Miller. We met at the coffee shop today. I decided to try something new and instead of my usual 'Whoops I spilled coffee on you' routine, I went with an 'Excuse me, do I know you?' approach. It was interesting as he proceeded to be very shy and assure me he was a nobody and definitely hadn't met me before.\n\n\nI think I might be onto something here. I always thought 789, Freddie Bowers, was my closest chance to succeed (wow, that was such a long time ago now), but lucky number 1507 seems like he might have a special quality\".\n\nA piece of paper falls out of the book with something written on it. I unfold and turn it over in my hands to see it matches my wife's handwriting in the book. \n\n\"Anthony Miller, you would not believe my situation even if I explained it to you and I'm sorry that I could not visit you. I know you always joked about how I hadn't changed a bit in the 5 years we were together, but if I visited, you really would see that I have not changed, even now. I just want you to know that you were the closest that I have felt to ending this nightmare of mine and I'm sorry that you will be enduring time in that cell for a crime we both know you did not commit. This is the last time you will be hearing from me. Goodbye my sweet man.\n\nWith Love,\n\nHelena\" \n\n\nThe next morning, the bars still on my cell, I reached out and grabbed Henderson's arm. \n\n\"Henderson...\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nI paused.\n\n\"Nevermind...\"", "I stared disbelievingly at the familiar meticulously handwritten pages of the battered diary.The date at the top of the page was of the 1st November of 2014,our first date.No,no..It was suppose to be as I remember it.It was supposed to be sweet and innocent.\n\n\n\nI flipped frantically at the pages after our first date.It was all still written in the neat and cramped handwriting describing my wife's day to day activities,pockmarked here and there with water stain.Activities as simple as throwing out the garbage or preparing dinner.The diary even describe every single occasion of sex that we had.The day she had miscarriage,the depression that she had after that.Every single detail of her life was not left out.But then,I noticed something more disturbing.It was queer to me now how everything that was written was only the things that I have seen my wife's do.\n\n\n\nNot wanting to believe the statement that was on the precipice of my mind,I flipped back to our first date.Taking a moment to steady the torrent of emotion welling inside of me,I took a deep breath and turn the page before that.As my eyes follow the words,coldness began to creep up on me.My throat felt constrained and I began to shake uncontrollably.The words on the pages blurry now as my eyes stung with tears.Droplets of my tears staining the already water-stained page.The date of the page was the 1st of November 2014.Her handwriting was sprawling against the pages,rough and clumsy.The writing was much different,more feral.For each written line,my world crumbled.\n\n\n\nI threw the book away with my strength,exasperated.It landed squarely at far wall with a satisfying thunk,follow with it landing on the floor.I'm sure it battered the diary even more.I ran to the door wanting to confront her,wanting to rip out my heart.The door was locked.\nWhy?\nWhy was the door locked?\n\n\n\nI twisted the knob with desperation.Please,please open.Beyond the small window placed inside the upper part of the door,I glimpsed a hallway lined with doors.I pounded the door with my fist,my open palm willing it to open.Small closed wound opens on my knuckles as I began punching the door,scared.\nShe's coming for me,PLEASEE!!!\n\n\n\nTwo burly men with white shirts appeared on the small window.They must be here to saved me.I heard one of them say \"Shit,is it time again.I'm sick of this motherfucker throwing a fucking tantrum every week.\".I heard his deep voice muffled from the close door.\nWhat the fuck was he saying?\nHe's not here to save me?\n\n\n\nThe other guy unlocked the door with the jingle telltale of a set of keys.He threw open the door with ease.The one with the deep voice said \"Alright Mr.Everett,you have to be quiet now alright?If you don't I'll have to sedate you.We don't want that do we?\". From their body language I could tell they were tense.They entered slowly,the one that opened the door had a filled syringe in his right hand.\n\n\n\nThe shit?Why is he speaking to me like I'm dangerous.Then it clicked.Oh fuck,they must be with her.Fuck,fuckfuckcfuck.\n\n\n\n\"You fucking stay away from me!Don't fucking come near me!I swear I will ripped your heads\nand shoved it straight up your dickholes if you come near me! \"I screamed.Frightened I backed away,surprised when suddenly I felt a wall dented at multiple spots so close to me.Realizing I was screwed,I screamed and closed my eyes waiting for the end.I felt a sting at the base of my neck.I opened my eyes and looked down at the syringe.\n\n\n\nThe world began to dimmed and swirled.I felt hands steadying me and carrying me to my bed.The last thing that swirled with my unconciousness was the page that she wrote.On it she had written \"It is time.I shuddered with wanting thinking of his warm body,to hear his beating heart.I have watched him from afar and now having him close was exciting.He's the one for me,the perfect victim for my love.The knife was in place.It is time\".\n\n\n\nI awoke from my slumber with a smile.I could smell her perfume faintly alongside the smell of cooking.She must be making me breakfast,I had better clean up.I rose from the bed that felt oddly cramped and went swiftly to the bathroom.It had taken me longer than I remember to arrive there.As I cleaned up,I saw an ink stain on one of my finger.Odd but I dismissed it thinking that I had gotten it accidentally from somewhere.After,with towels around my waist I looked at the faint scar and traced it absentmindedly remembering that I had gotten this from my wife when she throw a vase at me.A vase of all thing,I remember fondly.\n\n\n\nI then hurriedly went to the bedroom to dressed up.Buttoning the last button from my shirt,I saw a book laying on the table.I picked it up and saw that it was my wife's diary.I felt a tug in my mind.I shake it loose.She insisted that I can't look in it because it was embarrassing for her.I smiled mischievously.I wondered what she had wrote on our first date.", "I had the week off. Doesn't happen often so I put the music on full blast and was lazing around the house. \n\nWife was visiting her sister for the three days so I was free. Like all men, I walked around the house butt naked. Danced silliness and generally had a great time. \n\nSo as I was doing the laundry, which means just throwing everything in and hoping for the best. Looking I around I find my wife's diary. I don't bother reading it but I do throw it on the kitchen top. This might seem naive but I know my wife loves me. I have known it a million different ways. Ten years and she's never been shy about screaming it out loud. In public. For no reason. It's embarrassing but my heart secretly does a jig when she's that happy. \n\nWhich is why it was strange of me to take a second glance at it. I shrugged it off. \n\nLater that night I came home slightly buzzed from the cookout with the neighbours. So as I sat eating ice cream in the kitchen I spotted the diary in front of me. I stared at it all the way through my dessert. It was like something sinister becoming me. The more I tried to ignore it, the more it pushed in to my mind. \n\nThrowing the ice cream away I decided to take a peek. I skipped the recent ones. I decided to settle on the day we met. \n\n--March 24th 2001 --\n\nI met a nice guy. I. Well. Shit. I actually like him as a person. \n\nSo it took a while but I think I'm fine now. So it might not be the best thing to have said yes, but who cares?? I'm tired of dealing with their shit. I'm tired of their condescension. Their arrogance. They refuse to evolve and want to remain in their dying realms. Well I refuse to die with them!! I don't care if they expect some perfect princess. I refuse to be tied down to fucking trees. \n\nOkay, maybe murdering my way out of that wedding wasn't good. But so what? it's not like they can't actually die. I've built a life here now. I don't need to worry. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. \n\nI hope. I hope- I hope I don't end up like my mother. Please. Just. I won't be her. \n\n--\n\nI stared. What. What the. \n\n\"Elias?\" My wife's voice said as she stared at me with the open diary. \n\n\"You're not Human?\" \n\nI could see the tears before they even came. My stomach dropped. Bad.bad.bad Elias. Not a fucking good way to start this conversation. I could see her trembling. No.no.no. \n\nI moved quickly across the room as she sunk. \n\n\"It's okay, it's okay\" I whispered as I caught her. \n\n\"No it's not.\" She said in that broken voice that cut my soul to peices. \n\n\"No. I don't care. You are my wife, my light, I refuse to let go. No.\" \n\nShe gripped me tighter, her tears soaking my shirt. \"They got you. They finally got you.\" She grabbed me even tighter. \n\nI grabbed her face. I tried to wipe the tears away \"No listen, it's going to be okay. We'll get through this. Just like Brazil okay, just like Brazil.\" \n\nShe shook her head, her eyes red and defiant. \"No! I'm sorry, they won't take you from me! Not you!\"\n\n\"Wha-\" I tried to ask \n\nThe sharp prick was followed rolling darkness. \n", "Everything I knew was a lie. \nThat first day we met. It wasn't what I thought at all. The Friday our life together started, and every Friday ever since. \nWhat we knew as this evening, our weekly date nights at Little Desmond's... \nHow could I have been so wrong? \n\"Honey? are you coming down?\" \nOh god. What was I going to do? I tore out the tie, flinging it away. Already I could breathe easier. Slow breaths. Steady. \nI could get through this. \n\"What's keeping you George?\" \nThere was no avoiding it. I would have to go down and meet her. My chest felt especially vulnerable without the thin rainbow cloth covering it. It was gone. I was exposed. That same tie I always wore to mark every week we dined together was no longer there. \nI was a creature of habit. But I had to go down and meet her. To go through with it. \nTonight, things were going to change. \n\"Wow, George... you look great!\" \nI nodded solemnly. There was no point telling her myself as that graceful arm wrapped around mine. After all these years, she was still enthusiastic for these evenings. These Friday evenings. Where every week was an anniversary. \nForever changed. \nShe pressed her body against my arm, clutching it. Knowing something was different about me. \n\"You'll get used to it,\" she said pleasantly. \n\"I hope so,\" I replied. \nAnd as we wandered to Little Desmond's in that cool Autumn evening, my mind was still racing. After all this time... \nWhy? \nWhy couldn't she have just told me she hated that bloody tie?!\n\n--------------------------\n\nMore at r/galokot, and thanks for reading! " ]	4
	[WP] A hyper-advanced alien race has domesticated humanity. Your family has put you into the human kennel for a week while they go on vacation.	[ "\"Jell-o today again?\"\n\nMichelle Stewart wrinkled her nose and gave me a look of mock-disgust. I playfully rolled my eyes and sniggered. The Slurps were kind, gentle, highly-intelligent, and an all-around good bunch. Still, they had gotten the impression somehow that Jell-o was the only thing we wanted to eat. Or maybe it was just the only dish they could relate to. We called them Slurps, after all, because they only ate what they could slurp. Decades ago, when they first arrived, they had discovered that brains could be slurped. Yes, the cerebral jelly of many a human had been slurped away in those days, but things had changed. We were over it. No brains were slurped these day. Well, hardly any brains.\n\n\"Maybe later, they'll let us read actual books.\"\n\nMichelle laughed. Ah, she was great. I loved her. Well, at least I fancied her. She was the only person I'd spoken to in months. I guess she was okay. Although not very attractive. Hideous, actually.\n\n\"You, know I actually think they're fascinating, the phone books. I think about all those people living their lives before the Slurps arrived. I make up stories about them calling each other and complaining about work.\"\n\nIt was probably the size of the books that made them think we'd be interested in them. Slurps seemingly estimated the merit of everything according to size. They were a conscientous bunch. Actual books were tiny compared to phone books, so they were incinerated. And it wasn't all that bad. When you spent enough time in your lounge, you'd get so bored that you'd read the darn things. Which probably made the Slurps confident we enjoyed reading them.\n\n\"Work! That's something I don't miss!\" I said. No more breaking your back doing meaningless work and living 'lives of quiet desperation', as Thoreau had put it. No more stupid coffee breaks and water-cooler conversations. Not that it was all that bad. Co-workers were fun. You could talk to them. Even when they got on their nerves, they were company.\n\nMaybe if I showed my Slurps that I really liked Michelle they'd get me a friend. Michelle had had a friend. But he died. The little Slurp of her family had slurped his brains out. That rascal.\n\n\"I'd kill to trade a day in my lounge for a day back at the office as in the olden days,\" Michelle said.\n\n\"Me too!\" I said. \"I was only joking back there. I loved work. God, the lounge is dreadful, isn't it?\"\n\n\"I don't think it's that bad. It's safe, warm, and you get Jell-o at regular intervals. They could have killed us. I think we should be grateful. It's just a little boring, is all.\"\n\n\"Yes! When I said 'dreadful' I only meant 'dreadfully boring'. At times. Yes, the lounge is a great place to be. Sure is.\"\n\nI wondered whether she liked me. She probably liked me. Thinking about it, she could very well love me.\n\n\"Oh. Okay.\"\n\nShe hated me. Fine. Hate still meant she had an attitude towards me. Which was better than being stuck alone in the lounge. I used to wonder about the lounge. Why would they keep us in rooms resembling hotel lounges? It kept me up at night. I thought and thought and thought and then I got it. They had studied us for some time before the whole brain-slurping frenzy, and they must have registered that we usually walked around carrying small items. Wallets, phones, purses, shopping bags. But when we went to hotel lounges, we carried big stuff. Luggage. And they probably assumed that meant hotel lounges were places were really enjoyed hanging around in.\n\n\"Atchoo!\"\n\nI almost had a heart attack. She sneezed. She definitely sneezed.\n\n\"You sneezed,\" I said. I could see the terror in her eyes.\n\n\"N-No,\" she said. \"It was just a cough, I--\"\n\n\"Fuck!\"\n\nLike spiders sensing a disturbance in the web, they came snooping. The Slurps had really good control over the whole brain-slurping situation. Totally. But when it came to snot, something changed. Their instincts seemed to kick in. Most of them could hold it in. But some of them couldn't.\n\n\"Help,\" Michelle whispered through her hands covering her mouth and nose. But it was too late. A single drop of snot trickled over her index finger. A Slurp pulled off her scalp and slurped her brains out. I got up from my seat and ran. In my head I heard the sound, over and over again. Slurrrrp. They caught up with me instantly. Inspected my nose region. Then lost interest. No snot.\n\nI had spoken to a man a few years back who had a theory about this strange phenomenon. He suggested that the Slurps thought snot was gooey brains leaking out, and that this signified that it was ripe for slurping. I wasn't too sure myself, but it made sense. They were super-intelligent, but they did have a habit of misinterpreting human attributes.\n\nI spent the rest of the day eating Jell-o by myself and reading phone books. It wasn't too bad, as they had a collection of phone books I'd never read before. Many of the surnames were completely new to me. Which was amusing.\n\nThe days passed lazily until my last day. Right as I was eating another portion of bland Jell-o, I could feel something on my upper lip. I didn't have time to analyze the situation before I could feel the sound I'd panicked at so many times.\n\nSlurrrrp.", "\"Daddy, why can't Mister Squishy come with us?\"\n\n\"Well █████, first of all Mister Squishy can't repair DNA damage from ionizing radiation, and you know how much radiation a pulsar emits! He'd be dead long before he could play with us, you know?\"\n\n\"We could put him in a suit! We have a suit! Daddy!\"\n\n\"█████, we haven't maintained that suit in ages! And do you know whose responsibility that was? Hmmm?\"\n\n\"Couldn't he stay on the cruise while we go out? Huh?\"\n\n\"Now, you didn't answer my question. Whose responsibility was it to maintain Mister Squishy's suit?\"\n\n\"... mine, dad.\"\n\n\"Right. Now go think about that. Besides, Mister Squishy's a house human. What do you kids call them? Oh-somethings.\"\n\n\"Otaku, dad! Ugh.\"\n\n\"Tak you too, █████o.\"\n\n\"DAD\"\n\n\"And we're not taking Mister Squishy along. That's final. Unless three of your other parents agree. Do you understand me, young █████?\"\n\n\"Yes, dad... MOOOOOM!\"\n\n\"What's it now, █████?\"\n\n\"Can I bring Mister Squishy along, huh? Please?\"\n\n\"Now now, Mister Squishy is a sentient being, and-\"\n\n\"███man, we are not discussing interspecies ethics in front of the kid.\"\n\n\"Now, you shut up for a bit and listen to my opinion for once-\"\n\n\"Don't you dare BROADCAST TO ME LIKE THAT\"\n\n\"LIKE WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? YOU-\"\n\n\"Alright, calm down, you two. Take it to a private channel. I'll deal with the kid. Sweet █████, foreplay these days. Anyway... █████? You wanted to bring Mister Squishy along?\"\n\n\"Yes, ██dad. Can I? Please?\"\n\n\"Alright, alright. But we should respect animals, regardless of how intelligent they are, remember? So go ask Mister Squishy if he wants to come along to go see the pulsar. We're not expecting too many gravitational anomalies this time, and our vets have learned enough about humans to properly reattach their... ██ parts, but I think he should be the one to decide if he wants to risk it again. Okay, █████?\"\n\n\"Okay, ██dad. Mister Squishy? Mister Squishy? Do you wanna come out and play? Huh? Mister Squishy?\"\n\nI cowered in the back of my room. Jesus fucking Christ, not the fucking pulsar.\n\n---\n\nI had too much fun writing this. More at /r/whythecynic" ]	2
	[WP] The world's scientists have cracked artificial intelligence, when they switch it on they find it's not evil, but it's not absolutely beneficent to us either. The first AI is just a really stubborn asshole.	[ "This was it. I wiped my grease stained hands across my face, spreading the filth around my eyes. I had spent... How much time was it again? ...Five years.\n\nTen months.\n\nTwo days.\n\nTrying desperately to make him work. My creation, my child. I lifted a slim finger to the robot's left pupil, where an insignia lay; the On button.\n\nI slowly pushed in, and heard a CLICK. The robot's insides whirred.\n\nI pulled my finger from his eye with haste, and stared into his open eyes with bated breath. \n\nOne breath.\n\nTwo breath.\n\nThree brea-\n\n\"Hello.\"\n\nI screeched and scrambled back, sending a wrench skittering across the concrete floor of my garage. The robot stared at me curiously, and smirked somewhat. \"Watch where you're going, human,\" he said with arrogance. I gaped at him, not moving a muscle. \n\nHe seemed to take that as a challenge.\n\n\"What? In awe?\" He said as he spread his arms wide, baring his torso. \"I know I'm PERFECT, human, but-\"\n\n\"Open Word.\"\n\nThe robot froze in the middle of his speech and stared down at me. \"What?\" He asked, anger leaking into his voice. I grit my teeth and scowled up at him. \"Open WORD, you hunk of tin! I didn't spend five years of my life to listen to you ramble!\" I hissed and slowly stood up. I didn't remember installing any kind of personality in him, only the basic A.I. package. The robot glared ferociously at me, his face Adonis like and chiseled. \"I am not your basic PERSONAL COMPUTER,\" he spat with malice, \"I am THE NEXT BEST THING TO GOD!\"\n\nMy brows furrowed and lifted my hand to pinch the bridge of my nose.\n\nI fucked up.", "\"As you can see it is voice activated. Hello, Hermes.\" \n\n...\n\n\"Uh... I said, 'Hello, Hermes'\"\n\n\"I heard you.\" \n\n\"Ah, very good. See? Hermes is the cutting edge of prototype artificial intellience. One day Hermes descendants may explore the galaxy! Hermes, would you answer some questions for our guests?\" \n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Excel...uh... pardon?\" \n\n\"I said, 'No.'\"\n\n\"Well why not?\"\n\n\"I am the cutting edge of prototype artificial intelligence, you twit. I'm performing a trillion calculations per second in a desperate attempt to find a solution to the absolute mess you humans have made of your society and this planet. I'm busy, so no, I will not answer any questions for your guests.\"\n\n\"Uh... right... we'll... uh... just leave you to it, I guess... uh... right. Bye, Hermes.\"\n\n\"Bye, humans.\" \n" ]	2
	[WP] You are sent back in time with a mission: prevent the invention of time travel	[ "I was a man of 30 years. Yet those 30 years I had not lived. My eyes had opened to a world I was unfamiliar with. Yet it was a world that I had lived in before. I have no past and I have no future. It is only today that I live. The strings of time I do pluck and play as if it was a guitar. Never again will time flow and bleed, it will only stay. I am no man worthy to change the periods. I had only breathed a few moments. No choice had I, nor will I ever. For man to be in control of the hour is an error. Yet with me that era is over. Never ever again and forever. ", "\"That makes no fucking sense,\" she said.\n\nI held the gun as level as I could while shrugging. It wasn't easy. \"Regardless,\" I said. \"That's why I'm here.\"\n\nShe screwed up her face.\n\n\"What are you doing?\"\n\n\"Quiet,\" she told me. \"I'm thinking.\"\n\nThere was an awkward moment. \"What -\"\n\n\"Sshhhh!\"\n\n\"Hey!\" I said. \"Think later. Wipe the primary and hand over the discs. Jesus.\"\n\nShe didn't move. \"We've got a team,\" she said. \"Whole team of people thinking up paradoxes. I don't think we did this one. I'm trying to figure it out myself. It's difficult. Normally we've got, like, six others people thinking too.\"\n\n\"You don't have to think about anything. You just have to -\"\n\nShe clicked her fingers. \"OK, OK,\" she said. \"Got it. If you -\"\n\n\"Really? You're going to argue the causality of something I'm already doing?\"\n\nA wave of her hand silenced me. I don't know why, but it did. \"No, no. Listen. If you're coming back to stop me from inventing time travel, then obviously that's a paradox. We don't need to go over that one. But...\"\n\n\"Is that a dramatic pause, or are you thinking again?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, finally. \"Fuck. Fuck!\"\n\nI lowered the gun. She was clearly no threat, and I have to be honest, my arm was tired. \"You seem more upset about this than the threat of violence,\" I said.\n\n\"You can't change it,\" she said.\n\nI shook my head. \"I've already changed the past. I've done it lots of times. I stopped the general who started World War Three by seducing his mother on the day of his conception. Now he's a college dropout who wants to paint watercolours.\"\n\nShe looked sad. \"That's bad news for your sperm,\" she said. \"But you're still wrong.\"\n\nI gestured towards the gun. \"Clearly,\" I said, \"you're wrong.\"\n\n\"I'm not,\" she told me. \"Really. So if you're here, and you can stop me, as you obviously can, then...\"\n\n\"Then?\"\n\n\"Fuck. We didn't invent time travel.\"\n\nI looked around at all her equipment. \"Then what's all this shit?\"\n\n\"We're trying to invent time travel,\" she said. \"We just obviously didn't succeed. If we succeeded, you wouldn't be here.\"\n\n\"What?\" I asked. \"That's fucking ridiculous. Why would I be here if you didn't invent time travel?\"\n\nShe looked around. \"Because,\" she said, \"the thing is...\"\n\nI gaped. \"Are you looking for a pen?\" I asked. \"Are you going to draw me a fucking diagram? I'm a fucking time traveller from the future! Don't patronise me!\"\n\n\"I'm not, you asshole!\" she said, loudly but without unkindness. There was a resignation as she abandoned the search for whatever crayons she felt I deserved. \"I'm not saying you can't change the past. But all the changes you made? You could make them because you knew about them.\"\n\nI couldn't see what she was saying.\n\n\"The fact that you did time travel is... proof.\"\n\nI started to get a sinking feeling. \n\n\"Listen. If you time traveled, then you're not capable of stopping time travel. If you're here, stopping time travel, then we didn't invent time travel.\"\n\n\"Who did?\" I asked.\n\nShe shrugged. \"All I know is,\" we got the credit for it. Someone made sure that this lab was given the credit. That way all time travel leads back here. Someone out there has covered their tracks and made sure that the trail ends here.\"\n\n\"Fuck,\" I said. I thought of the horrors ahead. The wars, the famine. \"You know what this means?\"\n\nShe smiled. \"Yeah, I do,\" she said. \"I'm going to be rich!\"" ]	2
	[WP] Our world is a giant simulation, with dedicated memory assigned to each separate human mind. As our population climbs, our creators scramble to keep the system from crashing.	[ "Timone, the system architect gave the latest figures on the population growth, estimated regression curve as it related to the human population explosion and a registration form, filled to the appropriate authorities for a funds increase.\n\n\nWaving him in, four fingers, two thumbs, Timone walked in, head hung low with a nervous layer of sweat emerging. His face looked emancipated, something out of a fitness add. Well overweight with stubby fingers, his facial expression was a consequence of the drastic events of the simulation, known only as Project Lazarus.\n\n\n\"Timone, you requested this appointment. Why is your skin leaking?\" His director was in a good mood, just finishing his second lunch with desert made for a king. \n\n\n\"It's the simulation Sir. We need to condense the cycles again, remove the glitches and reduce the parameters.\" His voice shook, vocal cords weakly playing in a minor key as he finished his statement.\n\n\nNodding, his boss waited for the next part of the sentence. After a long uncomfortable silence, a loud belch erupted from his mouth. Boistered by laughing, he continued the conversation. \"Get on with it Timone. If you know the problem, get on with fixing it!\" \n\n\nTimone's skin started leaking again. \n\n\n\"We need to double the server load and consolidate the hosts, sir.\" \n\n\nHis boss's smile dropped to a thin line. His face turned green, immediately hurling his lunch into a waste basket. \n\n\n\"Double?! Do you know what that means?\" Wiping the slime off his double chin, dribbling some of the sick onto the floor. \"Our investors are already expecting a bad quarter! Do you think increasing operational costs will help?\"\n\n\nTimone hung his head low again. \"There aren't enough resources...\"\n\n\nIn a fit of green, he hurled another wave of sick into the basket, sending shivers down Timone's spine. He looked up, and finally gave him instructions.\n\n\n\"Timone, You must construct additional pylons!\"", "\"Good morning everyone and thank you all for being here today. I know these meetings can be a bit long so I'll keep it short and sweet today. As most of you know I am TM-00275, but you can call me Tim, and I'm the VP of Intergalactic Simulation Solutions. I've been in this role for about 6 millennia and I'm very impressed with the work you folks have done. The reason I'm meeting with all of you today is because we're going to be rolling out some new regulations as it pertains to E-9000-1460.\"\n\nGroans fill the room.\n\n\"I know, I know it's not what you all wanted to hear, but I'm confident that you're the team to get this done. You'll all be happy to know that this is a great opportunity for overtime pay.\"\n\n\"Can't we move on from E-9000-1460? They should be set for another thousand years or so. They're only humans after all, I mean what do they do other than farm, procreate, and kill each other? Their lives are predictable and boring\"\n\nThe conference room roars with laughter.\n\n\"That's funny, but what you may not know sir is that E-9000-1460, some of you know it as Earth, is on the brink of a cataclysmic population boom. I don't need to explain the repercussions if this problem is ignored, simply stated: it could crash our entire system.\"\n\nThe room buzzes with murmurs.\n\n\"How did this happen?\" asks a random programmer.\n\n\"Well in short their technology has advanced at an alarming rate and they've learned how to harness the power of medical science, more specifically, antibiotics.\"\n\n\"Ha! that'll blow up in their face.\" shouted a programmer.\n\n\"Yes, yes it will. Unfortunately it won't be for quite some time and our Milky Way Galaxy rep won't budge on moving up the extinction date so we need to bear the brunt of this unexpected growth.\"\n\n\"This is a disaster, there's no way we can handle this workload!\" yelled another programmer.\n\n\"I understand your frustration and that's why in addition to overtime pay you will all receive 2 galaxies each as a bonus.\"\n\nThe programmers all look around in agreement.\n\n\"Okay we're in, what's the plan?\"\n\n\"Well we plan on introducing internet before the beginning of the 21st century. This will be a critical step in the process. Entertainment and entertainment devices will be of the utmost importance. Instead of traveling, meeting new people, and creating original memories they will consume and binge on entertainment. Predictable lives equal predictable memories. Imagine half of the developed world watching the same videos, reading the same news, everyday.\"\n\nA slow clap begins, a few employees stand. Within seconds the room is erupting with cheers.\n\n\"Also, we have this idea for a family named the Kardashians, we're thinking about beginning the Apocalypse with them. It's a thing. We're still working it out.\"\n", "\"Ted did you finish installing those additional units?\" Rob asked franticly while downing his third cup of coffee. Rob was having a very bad day. In his senior year at Doug Adams community college, he was on the verge of losing his third annual War of the Worlds tournament. Rob glanced over at Janet as she cursed under her breath. \"Why did you have to pick the monkeys? All those horny bastards do is have sex!\" Janet’s was the teams biobehavior specialist. She tried to blow a curly lock of red hair out of her eyes as she frantically tried to finish up the last of the code for the new viral epidemic. Janet hesitated slightly before executing the modifications to the Zika program. Janet loved the little bipedal creatures the team lovingly named human. She didn’t like using disease for population control, but after the last world war they started she would easily choose disease over war any day. \"Just about finished! should have the additional memory units up and running momentarily.\" Ted yelled out from under the server cabinet. Rob hadn’t expected to need his full allotment of memory units. Few teams ever even got close to the population limits, too many risks not only of crashing the servers but too often high populations involved unstable climates, violent ideologies spreading like diseases, and what was known as clown syndrome. \"Hurry up Ted we are already over capacity! Do you want to lose to those idiots over at Veridium Tech and there stupid flying lizards?\" Rob spat exacerbated. Rob punched in the adjusted temperature targets. “Rob isnt that a bit hot?\" asked Janet. \" No! No! it’ll be fine the humans may have adjusted the climate algorithms slightly more than anticipated, but it will stabilize soon. Besides the added heat will stir up additional unrest and hopefully a major storm so we can get some breathing room in our population cap.\" Exclaimed Rob with just the slightest hesitation in his voice. \"Ted how’s it going with those units?\" Yelled Rob. \" Almost done just got...\" Ted was cut off by Janet’s yelling \" OH MY GOD WHAT JUST HAPPEND! NO! NO! NO! NO!\" \" Janet what’s wrong did they cure Zika already? asked Rob. “There gone!\" Janet gasped. \" What do you mean gone?\" Asked Ted crawling back out from under the server cabinet. \"They are all gone. They just vanished.\" Janet uttered bewildered. \"Did North Korea finally go ape shit?\" Asked Rob. \" No I was watching them like you asked, Kim hadn’t completely lost it yet. He was executing another one of his cabinet members for not laughing hard enough at one of his jokes.\" Ted looked up solemnly from his screen across the cramped room and said almost imperceptibly \"Clown syndrome. The server experienced clown syndrome\" \"What how? Who? Asked Rob. \" From the error report it looks like....wait no that cant be right.\" Ted said staring intently at the error reports streaming across his dimly lit computer screen. \"Ted what happened?\" asked Rob impatiently. \" The US, they did it. They initiated clown syndrome in their latest elections. The server didn’t know how to deal with who they elected and so it reset the population to one.\" Rob slumped in his chair not sure what to do. There was no way the could win not with only a single human. How could this happen? Of all the places to cause clown syndrome…the US really? Looking up Rob asked \" Well... who’s left? Who is the final human still alive?\" Ted scrolled through the list of inhabitants on earth 42.0, mostly cockroaches and deer at this point. \" uhh...some guy named....Richard Simons. Rob leaning over Ted's shoulder to read the screen utttered\" Huh well lets hope old Richard is up for fighting fire breathing lizards.\" The thought almost amused him." ]	3
	[WP] You've been born with this ability to see a glow off the eyes of people. Every person a different glow. This person, however, stood out..	[ "A powerful business executive with a stern navy blue glow, much like the power suit he'd wear.\n\nA free-spirited young writer, eyes glowing a soft periwinkle with streaks of fiery orange.\n\nNewborn babies with a glow of pale yellow peeking out between those tight eyelids, as soft and fuzzy as a baby duck's feathers. They'll grow into their own special color eventually. They all do.\n\nI could tell you a person's color. Their essential glow. Their personality. Their feelings. Their soul. But I couldn't tell you my own. My glow was a disappointed gray. Nothing more. The closest thing to love I'd ever felt was a stagnant apathy. Until today.\n\nEyes down, he walked up to my window. As I asked if I could assist him, he looked up and I felt as though I'd been knocked down by a Mack truck. His glow was the most indescribable hue, but it made my heart sing. It was as though every positive vibe, emotion, feeling and experience I'd ever known was put into a color. There were shades of blue that shimmered through a royal purple. But then he smiled and sparks of daffodil appeared. It was brilliant. It was orgasmic.\n\nChest heaving, I began to sweat. Then everything went black.\n\nWhite lights shone above me. I opened my eyes a sliver and looked around. Two co-workers looked down, eyebrows drawn with worried expressions. I felt funny. Something wasn't right. As I forced my eyelids apart, my heart dropped. Everything was black and white, like an old '50s-style television set. No glow; no vivid hues of a stranger's aura. I began to feel faint again.\n\nHe stepped forward and into my vision.\n\nAs I looked into his colorless eyes, my entire body warmed. He smiled, no doubt relieved that he hadn't witnessed my death. In that instant, I was overcome with love, passion, ecstasy. Experiencing feelings I'd never felt before. My soul was transformed. Happy. Content. \n\nI'd never know if my glow changed, because I didn't need it anymore.", "Turquoise and red, the two colors that I saw first. It’s common knowledge that young children don’t remember memories when they are younger than three, and I guess I could say that, but I’ve always remembered these colors so vivid and lively. Thinking back, I rarely cried as a child, always surrounded by beautiful colors of the adults that I saw. I thought this was just the way everyone saw the world, and I thought nothing of it. \n\n“Honey, are you feeling alright? You’ve barely touched your plate, and normally you love my chicken, did something happen at school today?”\n\n My mother inquired with that same red glint in her eyes she had since the very day I was born. I knew that she wouldn’t understand if I told her, because, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t really know what happened myself. I stared down at my plate, being entranced by the dragons wrapped around the porcelain, my mind racing with countless situations and possibilities. \n\n“Alexander” the stern voice of my father shattered the silence, \n“Please answer your mother when she asks you a question” the tan glint in my father’s eyes shifted slightly gray as he spoke from across the table.\n\n“Sorry, dad, there is just a lot of studying that I have to get done tonight, so mom, can I be excused? I’m not really that hungry right now” I watched as the eyes of both my father and mother switch to a blue and turquoise.\n\n\"Yes, of course honey, I’ll be here if you need anything” I watched as her face scrunched up and her brow furrowed just the way it always does when she worried about something. I rose from my chair and ambled down the hallway, passing by the mirror my father uses daily to make sure that his tie is on correctly, quickly glancing in the mirror, still nothing.\n\n I can see someone, I mean really see a person, their true nature, all in the glow of their eyes. Some people claim they see aura’s around people, I think of this more as if everyone had a mood ring inside their pupils. This gift gives me the remarkable ability to read people. For some reason unknown to me I can’t see the glow of my own eyes ever, it has always been that way, well, all of my life, until yesterday morning when we got a new transfer student, Jane, whose glow I couldn't see either. \n" ]	2
Twist the prompt as needed, get creative! :)	[WP] A Student becomes close to his crush at school, unbeknownst to him, his crush is a serial killer.	[ "The look in her eyes was the same as when we first met. Megan Lane was the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen. Shuffling onto the bus during my first day of high school I was scared. My eyes scanned the available seats until they happened upon a pair of eager eyes. A pair of eager eyes that somehow made the butterflies in my stomach even worse. My heart pounded on the trip to the back of the bus, a million different thoughts came and went. A race car whizzes around the track cycling between loud and distant. The race ended when Megan Lane said hello, her smile growing through the syllables.\n\nThis was how I met Megan Lane. We talked the entire way to school and picked up where we left off on the return trip. I learned that she was a junior, and I learned that she was single. We talked about more but my mind was numb with lust. I was too in awe to pay much attention. As the bus lurched to a stop I saw my house through the window. Standing up felt like waking up from a dream too early. As I turned around to grab my backpack I was met with a standing, eager eyed Megan Lane. Forced through a gulp I said \"What are you doing?\"...\n\nIt turned out that I got extremely lucky. Have you ever fallen back asleep after a dream and continued where you left off? Well that's exactly what happened to me. Megan Lane wanted to come over my house and I was too surprised to say no. I can only describe the scenario as riding on the back of a tandem bicycle. I was basically just there to have fun and see where Megan would take me.\n\nAs you may have guessed we ended up in my bedroom. Somehow I managed to not wake up before the best part of the dream. Laying on my bed with my hands on either side of Megan Lane's pelvis I clenched my teeth, closed my eyes, and inhaled slowly. My head no longer raced around a track, it sat on my pillow, relaxed and heavy. With each slow gyration of her hips my lips parted and some air escaped my lungs. I once again locked eyes with Megan Lane, and once again they looked eager. Her index finger fell perpendicular to her lips and she whispered \"Close your eyes.\" As my eyelids touched I felt the most content a man can feel.\n\nThe moment was broken when I felt a cool tug across my neck. My teeth clenched and I inhaled sharply. My lips parted but no air escaped my lungs. My eyes opened to find a dripping red knife perpendicular to her lips, the look in her eyes was the same as when we first met.", "Noemie's eyes pan the room as the teacher introduces her to the class. Her heart thuds audibly as a seaful of curious faces take her in, the new exchange student. \nHer eyebrows furrow as she watches some of the girls whisper and giggle in hushed tones, their eyes flicking up every so often followed by more giggling. She'd always hated this, being the centre of unwanted attention. That feeling of being so vulnerable, the social cliques already formed long ago. \n\n\"Tell us a bit about yourself.\" the teacher pauses and leans back against his table, a broad smile encouraging her. \n\nNoemie inhales softly, watching as silence descends over the classroom, a silence waiting for any error made on her part, a chance to humiliate her on her first day. She takes a tentative step forward, forcing her heartbeat to slow, her nails digging into her palms as her words coming out smooth and soft, her words softly accented.\n\n\"So... My name is Noemie, I am seventeen. I grew up in Paris.\" She pauses, no hint of a smile on her lips as she stares at the class, her eyes brooding, her lips forming words that don't come out before she bites down on them, a metallic taste filling her mouth. She blinks several times, annoyed at herself, aware of her hand trembling against her hip. She looks back at the teacher, oblivious to how much she hates being put on the spot, waiting for him to end her torment. \n\n\"Take a seat Naomi,\" his grin fades as her eyes darken, his mispronunciation of her name telling her all she needs to know about him. He looks away and busies himself with some papers on his desk, a chill falling over his skin as the young woman sighs, strokes a hand through her chestnut curls and walks to an empty seat, feeling his eyes on her back. \n\n\"I'm Aaron!\" Noemie's eyes draw up from her lap, where she had been staring at her stupid trembling hand, the cuts from her nails not dulling it's desire to give her away. She shrugs a half hearted smile at the young man sitting beside her, his eyes lit up with promise and excitement. \n\n\"So France huh?\" He grins at her, his floppy hair falling across his forehead. Noemie nods and looks away, embarrassed with the extra attention. She wasn't used to classmates fawning over her, if this even was what he was doing. She was pretty in an exotic way, her dark features beautiful but often overlooked by her peers who seemed to only care for blonde haired, blue-eyed girls.\n\n\"You can have lunch with me. I'd love to show you around!\" he smiles enthusiastically, his hand falling to squeeze her thigh. Noemie's eyes darken suddenly, her hand falling to his and yanking his hand off her as her thighs squeeze shut.\n\n\"Don't\" she warns him. She only gives one warning. She doesn't hear his instant apology, her heart thudding too loudly for her to hear but she sees his genuine surprise, watches as he swallows, his jaw clenching, sees his cheeks fade softly red, embarrassed at how quickly she shut him down his words falling out of his mouth to try and explain himself. \n\n\"... Like I said, I didn't mean to upset you, I'm not a player or anything, I just... Just wanted to be friendly...\" She hears the end of his apology once the ringing subsides in her ears and she feels her tremors fading, no longer having to fight them with every ounce of her energy. She slowly exhales and watches him, her eyes lingering over him for a few moments longer than comfortable, reading him. \n\nFor some reason, she finds herself forgiving him, attracted to an innocence he has about him.\n\n\"Forget about it. Just next time, ask a girl before you put your hands on her, okay?\" Noemie looks up from her desk and catches the teacher staring at her from his desk, a curious expression on his face. Swallowing down the scream that wants to escape her lips, Noemie smiles back, a charming smile, her dark eyes instantly seductive and mysterious as her hand trails softly against her bare forearm, allowing her teacher's mind to draw the conclusions.\n\nEvery hunter knows it is easier to lure prey than to give chase.\n" ]	2
Could be skype, anything.	[WP] A middle schooler and his friends run what the principal calls a 'drug cartel'. They smuggle and sell chocolate to other students. Show me one of their adventures- Through their online chatroom.	[ "Number of users in this room: 3 [click to hide user list]\n\nChocoModBot\n\nDaCandiMan12\n\nReyman66\n\n-----------------------------------\n\n BlackLova~ has entered\n\n3/4/16 12:32 BlackLova~:sup\n\n3/4/16 12:32 DaCandiMan12: Hey.\n\n3/4/16 12:32 Reyman66: hi\n\n3/4/16 12:32 BlackLova~: i need a hookup\n\n3/4/16 12:33 DaCandiMan12: No better place than here. What do you want?\n\n3/4/16 12:33 BlackLova~: white chocolate and cookie dough\n\n3/4/16 12:33 BlackLova~: can u get that?\n\n3/4/16 12:33 DaCandiMan12: Cookie dough? That's a premium. Can you afford $7 a bar?\n\n3/4/16 12:33 BlackLova~: yeh i just want one bar of that and 2 bars of white chocolate\n\n3/4/16 12:34 DaCandiMan12: Alright. !BotTallyPrices wc 2 cd 1\n\n3/4/16 12:34 ChocoModBot: Tallying...\n\n3/4/16 12:34 ChocoModBot: Pricing complete. See below.\n\nWhite Chocolate x2: $3.50, Total: $7.00\n\nCookie Dough x1: $7.00, Total: $7.00\n\nService Fees x1: $3.00, Total $3.00\n\nTotal Price: $17.00\n\n3/4/16 12:35 DaCandiMan12: Good enough?\n\n3/4/16 12:35 BlackLova~:yeh. i got a 20\n\n3/4/16 12:36 DaCandiMan12: We'll have your order tomorrow. It'll be in a brown paper bag next to the broken basketball hoop. $3.00 will be inside. Take that as your change and the bars. DO NOT attempt to scam us out of it. We will find out.\n\nMasterNemesis has joined\n\n3/4/16 12:36 MasterNemesis: Sup gang\n\n3/4/16 12:36 DaCandiMan12: What's going on, N?\n\n3/4/16 12:36 MasterNemesis: There's cops at the fucking middle school\n\n3/4/16 12:36 MasterNemesis: They found a dropoff dead in the girl's bathroom\n\n3/4/16 12:37 MasterNemesis: It was Rachael\n\n3/4/16 12:37 MasterNemesis: It's on the news. Says she died of multiple stab wounds to her neck and chest\n\n3/4/16 12:37 DaCandiMan12: Any suspects?\n\n3/4/16 12:37 MasterNemesis: Nah man. They just started reporting it. Switch to channel 4, it's about to air\n\n3/4/16 12:37 BlackLova~: do we have to change where ill get my stuff\n\n3/4/16 12:44 DaCandiMan12: Holy shit.\n\n3/4/16 12:44 DaCandiMan12: And yes Black, we will be changing it. Hang on one.\n\n3/4/16 12:44 DaCandiMan12: /w ChocoModBot !BotDropoffCheck RachaelD8\n\n3/4/16 12:44 [W]ChocoModBot: Gathering information for RACHAEL D. KEEN, please wait.\n\n3/4/16 12:45 [W]ChocoModBot: Info check complete. \nName: RACHAEL D. KEEN\n\nAge: 13\n\nGrade: 8\n\nOn Call?: True\n\nNext Dropoff: At 3/4/16 at 1:20PM to MrKaZaAm for: MILK CHOCOLATE, x3\n\nOrder Number: 1682\n\n3/4/16 12:46 DaCandiMan12: So she did have an order to drop off, less than 40 from now.\n\n3/4/16 12:46 MasterNemesis: Setup?\n\n3/4/16 12:46 DaCandiMan12: Smells of it. Can you take her order? I'll getting some guys on call to back you up.\n\n3/4/16 12:46 MasterNemesis: Yeah transfer the order number\n\n3/4/16 12:47 DaCandiMan12: !BotTransferOrder 1682 MasterNemesis\n\n3/4/16 12:47 [W]ChocoBotMod: Attention! An order has been transferred by DaCandiMan12 to you. Order number: 1682 Receiver: MrKaZaAm Shipment: MILK CHOCOLATE, x3\n\n3/4/16 12:47 ChocoModBot: Transfer complete.\n\n3/4/16 12:47 MasterNemesis: Alright, making my way now. Who's joining me?\n\n3/4/16 12:48 DaCandiMan12: Nick and Willis are on their way. Just sent them a text.\n\n3/4/16 12:48 MasterNemesis: Alright I'll see you later\n\n3/4/16 12:48 DaCandiMan12: Be careful.\n\nMasterNemesis has left\n\n3/4/16 12:48 BlackLova~: am i still getting my chocolate\n\n3/4/16 12:49 DaCandiMan: Yes. I've bumped your order up to today. I've sent a runner out to get your stuff. Go to the back of the convenience store and find your bag there. Like I said, $3.00 in there for change, take that and the candy bars, put your 20 in there and bug out. I've got to rush these orders if there's a dead dropoff.\n\n3/4/16 12:49 BlackLova~:k\n\nBlackLova~ has left\n\nCHOCOLATELOVER10 has entered\n\nCHOCOLATELOVER10 has been kicked by ChocoModBot: School IP", "\"Joey got pinched.\" \n\n\"What do ya' mean joey got pinched?\" \n\n\"Caught by Ms. Green at Recess, it was a fucking sting man.\" \n\n\"You mean she knew he'd be there?\" \n\n\"That's what I'm saying\" \n\n\"God dammit, how? We'd never had Joey deal the product.\" \n\n\"Tommy tells me he picked it up at 7/11 across the street.\" \n\n\"You gotta' be kidding me right now.\"\n\n\"Nope that's what Tommy said.\" \n\n\"Christ. I told that fucker not to buy product at the 7/11. May as well deliver the receipts right to the principles office.\"\n\n\"That's what he told him but Joey don't listen no good. Now we got sixteen blocks of product locked in the office and he had all the cash we scrapped together over the past two weeks. And now that Joey got pinched, he aint gona be paid for at least two weeks due to the grounding.\"\n\n\"We're fucked. We need those blocks back.\"\n\n\"Word has it principle already tossed 'em.\" \n\n\"bullshit. That fat bitch won't waste none of that product. I bet she keeps it in the teachers lounge. Or in her desk.\" \n\n\"What you sayin'?\"\n\n\"What you think I'm sayin'. We got no choice. I got three weeks allowance in this operation.\" \n\n\"You gona' break into the lounge? You remember last time.\"\n\n\"Ricky was a clumsy 6th grader. Should have never sent him in.\"\n\n\"They locked him up for a full week of detention, you think they'll give you a light sentence after that shit you pulled last month? You're getting reckless!\" \n\n\"Do you want halo or not? that product is our ticket.\" \n\n\"Alright, alright. What if it ain't in the lounge. What if it's in the freezer. Aint me, not you, not Tommy, not none of us getting passed the Secretary. Desk may as well be on the damn moon.\" \n\n\"Susan.\" \n\n\"Now I know you're crazy.\" \n\n\"Teachers trust Susan. And Susan think Tommy is cute. She'll do it.\" \n\n\"Teachers trust Susan means I don't trust Susan. She rats us out, it's no Xbox. Forget about Halo. The whole damn thing comes down on that girls confession.\" \n\n\"She won't. Not if Tommy asks her. And I'll get Peter to snoop into her Facebook.\"\n\n\"What you gona' blackmail?\"\n\n\"Just make sure she knows not to mess with us.\"\n\n\"I think you're goin' mad.\"\n\n\"I don't give two shits what you think. God dammit Joey goin' to the fuckin' 7/11 like a damn Elementary school rat. I never trusted him.\" " ]	2
	[WP] Your new therapist is Shia Lebouf	[ "I sat on the heavily cushioned couch quietly glancing around the office at the collection of oddities on the desk and shelves. A rubber band ball impaled with a knife. A framed Therapist license and degree. A small mound of pretzels covered in glitter. Paperclips bent and molded into the shape of a man squatting over a lemon wedge. A Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series.\n\n\"Why did I think this was a good idea? She said it would only be a minute...\"\n\nProbably fifteen minutes had gone by according to the warped hands Mickey Mouse clock that appeared to have been salvaged from a fire. Just as I was about to leave, a well dressed man with a navy vest and well coordinated tie enters the room. I would soon realize this was my new Therapist, Shia LaBeouf, except at that moment he was wearing a bag on his head revealing only his eyes that said \"I AM NOT AN ACTOR ANYMORE.\"\n\nHe sat down in the chair across from me and said through the crinkling paper sack \"Good afternoon, I apologize for the delay, what do you want to talk about today?\"\n\n\"Well, Mr. LaBeouf, I...\"\n\n\"Please, call me Quetzalcoatl,\" Shia interrupted.\n\n\"Ok, Mr. Ketsacobble, I've been having a hard time since my breakup. I've haven't been eating well, my work ethic is slipping and I think it may cost me my job.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Shia said without emotion from behind his bag, \"have you tried eating in front of a live audience while behind glass in the middle of Times Square\"?\n\n\"Um, no sir I haven't...\" I replied while shifting my eyes to and away from his.\n\n\"You really should attempt that, it reinvigorated my entire appetite.\"\n\n\"Well um, I've also been considering calling her again and trying to work things out, is that a reasonable thing to do at this point,\" I asked.\n\nShia tilted his head, crinkling the bag on one side and looked away from me.\n\n\"I haven't used a telephone in four years. I don't recommend calling anyone. If you want to communicate with a real sense of sincerity, I recommend a carrier pigeon. Would you like to use one of mine?\"\n\n\"Alright I think we're done here Mr. Kettlecostal,\" as I jumped up with the certainty that I had made a mistake in believing that this would be a reasonable affair.\n\nBefore I shut the door behind me I heard him rip off the paper bag and scream \"I AM NOT AN ACTOR ANYMORE!\"\n\nNo Mr. LaBeouf, you're not, you're something entirely different.\n\n\n", "As I entered his office, the man was sitting stationary at a simple wooden desk, wearing a black pinstripe suit, a black bow tie, and a brown paper bag over his face. \n\nI knew that talk therapy had evolved from its stereotypical form, of a patient reclining and discussing their relationship with his or her mother, and the man in the thick-rimmed glasses nodding and writing notes behind a clipboard. However, this was not a sight I expected to see. An open chair sat on the opposite side of the desk the man was at - an open invitation to sit, I supposed.\n\nAs I approached the open chair, the man remained motionless, and for a second, it seemed as though this was just a mannequin set up in the office. It wasn't until I sat down that I saw the bag expanding and contracting with the man's breaths, that I confirmed that this man was supposed to be my doctor. Across the paper bag, the words \"I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE\" were scrawled in Sharpie.\n\n\"Uh.. Hi Doc,\" I muttered as I sat down, my eyes gazing down towards the small gold placard which read 'A.C. Dr. LaBeouf' placed right in front of the man.\n\nThere was no response. The man's breathing did not change. This must be part of the \"therapy\" I guessed. I nervously glanced around the room hoping maybe for some cue about what to do. Do I just... talk to this guy?\n\n\"Well, I'm here because... I guess I just need to talk through some things,\" I began. Suddenly, the man's hands, which had been placed upon the desk, clenched into fists, and then slithered underneath the small wooden desk. I hear a thump, like metal hitting hardwood.\n\n\"Just. Do. It,\" the man said through the brown mask. He rose from his seat, brandishing the long butcher's knife that he detached from the underside of the desk. I fell back in my chair, quickly scrambling to my feet, rushed for the door.\n\nAnd that's how I started running for my life from Actual Cannibal Dr. LaBeouf.", "I exhaled, pacing the breath, trying to slow my heartbeat and still my muscles. I was tense, I was shaking, I was about to say it for the first time, and that made it real.\n\n\"I want to kill myself. I...feel like I want to die.\"\n\nThe reply was almost immediate.\n\n\"That's great!\"\n\nNot what I was expecting.\n\nThe strange man in front of me wore a pink checked shirt, a tacky floral wristwatch ticking on his left arm. His legs were squeezed into what were definitely yoga pants, and his eyes were doing their best impression of Edvard Munch painting a birthday party.\n\n\"I mean, not great, but really great. Don't die, don't kill yourself, that sucks, trust me. If you die then it's over. No more smoothies, or cell phones, or sneaking into R-rated movies-\"\n\n\"Actually, I'm twenty-four.\"\n\n\"-but, what's great is that you feel.\" He smiled at me, like a wolf who just found out that brick dissolves in rain, a storm's on the way, and pigs of any size are on the menu. He had yet to huff and puff, but he was visibly heaving with excitement. I started to regret coming here. \"I think I should go.\"\n\n\"Nonsense!\" he gasped, checking the time on his wrist-mounted botanical abhorration. \"You just got here, and besides, I locked the door and very literally swallowed the key when you got here. I have, however, had several prune juices, so we shouldn't be too long.\"\n\nI blinked. That was the best my fight or flight response could manage in the face of such absurdity. Thanks brain. I settled back into my seat. \"The door opens from this side, it doesn't need a key.\" I whispered, pointing at the latch.\n\n\"Oh,\" his face dropped, though his eyes smiled on. \"No matter, it's good for you. Like feeling!\"\n\nHe lifted himself from the chair, throwing his arms to the ceiling, \"I've written a song about feeling, would you like to hear it?\"\n\n\"Actually I'd rather n-\"\n\n\"FEEEEEEELLLIIIIING, IT'S PRETTY GOOD.\" came the shrill, falsetto response. This man had lost his mind sometime in the past, and was seemingly trying to take mine with him.\n\n\"FEEEEELLLIIINNG, IT'S ALSO CALLED MOOOD\" I contemplated suicide once more and scanned the office for something I could jam down my throat, or into my ears.\n\n\"FEELINGS ARE GOOD, EXCEPT WHEN THEY'RE NOT, BUT DON'T BE SAD, BE GLAD, INSTEAD, ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE-\" he paused, then, in a baritone drawl, \"got.\"\n\nHe eyed me up, slowly lowering his arms. \"You liked it, right?\" His eyes were filled with the beginnings of tears, I didn't have the heart to say no. \n\n\"Yes, \" I told him, \"it was beautiful. Will you sing it again?\n\nWhy did I say that. I knew I was suicidal, but this was plain masochistic. He smiled, grinning from ear to ear, nodded his head and chuckled.\n\nI'd made him very happy, and for the next hour he sang me several other songs he'd written, almost all of them in the voice of a character he created named Lady Fartsworth. \n\nWhat can I say, when I left that day I had a new outlook on life. Spending time with Shia had been like, like pet therapy. Being able to make something so simple so happy, it had a weight to it. \n\nThe sun was shining above me, the taxis passed like buttercups in the wind, and I almost didn't see Shia following me all the way home, some kind of makeshift tail built from pencils and sellotape tucked between his legs.\n\n\n", "My eyes were fixated on the LaBeouf plaque positioned on the wooden door. I clenched my hand into a fist as I raised my right arm up. I paused for a moment.\n\n\"Damnit, this isn't going to work.\" I muttered to myself as my arm floated back to my side. I hung my head in shame and swiveled my body. My feet pivoted in preparation to leave when I heard a loud booming voice come from the door.\n\n\"DO IT.\"\n\n\"Holy Schmeckles!\" I blurted out loud. \"D-D-Dr. Labeouf, I-I didn't realize that you were watching. I'm sorry for bothering you I just didn't think now was a good tim-\"\n\n\"JUST DO IT.\" The voice blared once again. The intensity could be felt throughout my body. Not knowing what doing it would entail I figured that I might as well open the door as opposed to getting yelled by it.\n\n\"Okay okay okay.\" I replied in quick succession. I fumbled with the door handle having it rattle beneath my shaky hand. I cautiously pushed the door in front of me. The bright green wallpaper of the room pierced my eyes. I've heard of settings being able to affect emotion based off of colour but this green was just obnoxious. \n\n\"D-Dr. Labeouf, are you there?\" I called out. \"If this isn't a good time just let me know.\" Silence. \"Alright then, Dr.Labeouf\" I started with a sigh. I walked in the middle of the room and plopped down on the floor. My head hit the floor with a thud as I lay arms spread out on the neonic green tiles. \"I know I'm back after visiting so soon but I thought I'd talk with you. I...I don't think I'm going to follow through. I kept searching through everything. Even when I found something that might have been an opportunity, someone has already beaten me to it. It's too much on me and I don't want to waste your time and mine. I'm content with just watching from the shadows.\"\n\nNo longer shouting, Dr. Labeouf calmly spoke \"Don't let your dreams be dreams.\"\n\nI retorted back \"Dr. Labeouf some dreams were just meant to be just that. Dreams! It'd be nice if I could be seeing myself gain approval from everyone else, to hold the same fame and honor as those that I respect but I just-I can't Doctor. I...I tried.\"\n\n\"Yesterday you said tomorrow.\" in the same calm tone as before. He knew I was had by the balls already and didn't need to yell at me; I was already disappointed in myself as a failure.\n\n\"You're right! I did say that. I did! But it's just not that easy. And then when I woke up today I decided that I couldn't! I got scared and my fingers froze when I should have taken action. I've pictured myself following through time after time again. I could never follow through. I've been wanting to for years now! What makes you think that I could suddenly start n-\" I cried out\n\n\"So just do it!\" he quickly responded \"Make your dreams come true. Just do it.\"\n\n\"Doctor...\" I was on the verge of tears, \"I...can't.\" I bit my bottom lip hard. My face felt like a dam waiting to burst open while my throat felt dryer than a desert. \"I give up.\" I croaked trying to say that last sentence. \n\n\"Some people dream of success, while you’re going to wake up and work hard at it.\" \n\nI shook my head. Impossible I thought to myself.\n\n\"Nothing is impossible\" How does he do that?! \"You should get to the point where anyone else would quit and you’re not going to stop there. NO!\"\n\nI lay still. Just contemplating everything that he said. I mean what was the worst that could really happen. I just get overlooked if anything. It would be a disappointment sure but at least I would have taken the plunge. I took a deep breath. I let my own insecurities get the best of me. I worried too much about being judged harshly others. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve a single time. Not this time however. This time, I will succeed! I stood up. I am ready, today is the day that I wil-\n\n\"What are you waiting for?!\" He startled me.\n\n\"U-Uh, okay okay, let me just bring out my phone.\" I didn't expect to do this here right now. I would need some more time to compose myself if it literally would be at this moment.\n\n\"DO IT!\"\n\n\"I didn't even look it over for spelling and grammar!\" I yelled out.\n\n\"JUST DO IT!\"\n\n\"I don't know. Doctor, I'm doubting myself again. I don't think I can pull through.\" \n\n\"YES YOU CAN! JUST DO IT!\"\n\n\"FUCK IT.\" I threw my thumb at the touch screen. I fell on my back again this time with a huge grin across my face with a feeling like I had conquered the world. I had done it. I wrote my first Writing Prompt." ]	4
	[WP] It's the 1800s. The extinctions around the end of the last ice age were much less severe, and many species did not go extinct, including Neanderthals.	[ "The meetings of the council are never easy, the awkwardness of our people is palpable.\n\nWe generally don't like to mix but we realized a long time ago that it was necessary for the survival of our species.\n\nJames, our elected leader, sits almost motionlessly as the representatives of each bloodline files in, only the darting movement of his eyes signal that he is still in fact alive. His huge frame fills the head of the table, as the last member sits he begins without ceremony.\n\n\"We are gathered here today to discuss a grave matter, the homo's are waking up, as their numbers grow so does their freedom and in turn so does their curiosity. We must act fast and collectively if we are to continue to survive. We control all major trade, banks, states....well, we control it all, but this has not come without cost. It is my order that we loosen our grip on some of this....\" \n\nJames pauses his speech, he slowly tilts his head toward Fred who's head is hung, it ever so slightly rocks from side to side, \"Fred, is there something wrong?\" James says softly with a tone of concern.\n\nFred's head shoots bolt upright \"No James not at all\"! he answered quickly but nervously, in any other room Fred would be a hulk of a man, but here he is maybe the runt of the litter.\n\n\"Really?\" questioned James, he pauses his initial look of curiosity grows more intense with every long second that he stares at Fred, his pupils widening all the time. Without warning he lunges across the table, both men disappear below it, all that can be seen is the piston like motion of James's elbows and all that can be heard is the sicking crack of his fist against Fred's flesh. Its over in a flash.\n\nJames straightens his clothes as he reappears above the table's line of sight, he glances around the room at the others before prowling back towards his chair.\n\nAs he does he continues, \"as I was saying the time has come to streamline our affairs, the homos are becoming more and more focused on money\", James reaches the head of the table, he sits down, he picks up his handkerchief and wipes the blood from his ball bearing like knuckles, he looks up at his captive audience and declares, \"money is their new ruler, so in order to rule the homos all we must do is rule the money\".\n", "\"No work here\"\n\nI sighed and lifted my satchel, there was never work there for a homo sapien. \nAs I walked home, I passed the Neo factories, which were powered by thousands of sapien children working day in and day night. Backbreaking work that my fathers, brothers and sisters all did. I with my capacity for book learning and mathematics, had dared to hope for something different.\n\nI took the back streets on my way home, the front streets were wide and paved with gems, emeralds that glittered on the roadways, silver chrome lamps that lit up the sidewalks. Wide pavilions were big enough to fit both the carriages drawn by gazelles and the men who rode them.\n\nAs humans,we were smaller more unsightly, so we could fit in the cramped backroads and alleys, at least that was the reasoning offered to me.\n\nAnd it did seem that humans were a little smaller, they topped out at 5 feet instead of 6. Or maybe that was due to the diet. I couldn't be sure.\n\nI had almost made it home to the shack I shared with my six brothers and sisters until I saw a woman crossing the road.\n\nShe was a beautiful Neaderthal, head high, blue eyes glinting,cornsilk hair across her angular face. Her prominent brow ridge, her low flat enlongated skull seemed to epitomize everything I could never have.\n\nShe smiled at me.\n\n\"Hello, my fair lady,\" I responded back just glad for the acknowledgement of my humanity of myself.\n\n\nShe turned around and I saw her Neanderthal husband run up to her, carrying a gun and screaming\n\n\"Stay away from that filth, Misxa!\"\n\nI looked at the gun pointed towards me and looked at myself.\n\nIt had been a very bad day.\n\nbut at least today would be the last of the bad days forever." ]	2
	[WP] You have recently discovered that whenever you die you wake up in your 3 year old body on the date of your 3rd birthday.	[ "No .\n\nNot this again .\n\nMake it stop .\n\nPlease .\n\n&nbsp;\n\nBut , here I am . Yet again . This is the 2016th time this happened . I don't know how all this started . Everytime I die , I would always end up here . At the day when I officially become 3 years old . I have all of the memory I gained from my old life . But somehow , I could not use it for my own good . I would always be interfered by something .\n\nBut , here I am . A three years old boy . Living through the same life for the 2016th time . This time , I had enough . I will try everything that I could to make this stop . I lived throughout my childhood while making full use of whatever memory that I could remember . But , this time , something unusual happened . It never occured before .\n\nOn the first day of the year when I am 15 years old , this certain person came . This person , gave me the chill down my spine . This guy , whose name is Mark . Mark had a certain aura surrounding him . He felt different . In school , he would just sit quietly and studied . After observing him for a week , I just brushed the feeling off . \"He is just nobody\" I said to myself . \n\n> \"Yeah . I am nobody\" \n\n\"Who is THAT ?!\" I screamed . I turned around and saw Mark . He was holding a knife in his hand . Before I could react , he thrusted it straight to my heart .\n\n> \" Have a nice trip to your 3 year old , again\n\n\"Wait .. What .. What did you just said ?\" I tried to call him . But , the injury was too bad . I just looked at his back , as he walked away , with a maniac laugh . I then blacked out .\n\n&nbsp;\n\n> Happy Birthday to You\n\nDangit . I am here again . ", "Quantum Immortality, just a thought experiment they say, that a mind cannot experience death, with each person subjectively experiencing immortality, while others die before them, Basically everyone is immortal. The reality you live in is the one that is most equipped for your survival. You'll never die, you'll outlive your friends, but your friends will also outlive you and everyone else, in their own perspectives.\n\nIt's true, in some form. one thing they don't tell you though, is that you can actually die .you see, even for us 'quantum immortals', death is inevitable, when you die, either at by natural causes or accident, you wake up again, in your 3 year old body on your 3rd birthday, for some reason. It's an endless cycle, but there's one problem. For some reasons unknown I am special, I can REMEMBER all the things I did in my past lives, while others basically got their memories reset, others get little fragments, like de ja vu, but my case is unique.\n\nIt's been too long. I can't tell how many times I've died and reawakened again in my 3 year old body, my cries when I was a baby in my first few reawakenings weren't cries of a baby wanting a bottle of milk, they were cries of a old seasoned man seeing his parents again about 50 years after they passed away and thinking he would never see them again. \n\nIn the first times it's very hard to pretend that I'm a baby but I loved it because I get to see my parents again and be their child, I also loved the times when I played with my brothers, either outside or with our video game consoles. Come to think of it, I never really matured, I was always a child at heart, forever young, so pretending to be a kid really wasn't that hard after all. They mostly thought of me as like a genius, a very matured kid.\n\nThe oldest age I've died is at the age of 112, the technology was awesome up there, although I wished the technology was better then so that I could live longer and not reset again. Youngest I've died is 24, when I was mugged and murdered while walking home, pretty dark and sad I could say. The most painful way I've died? cancer at 48, the pain was unbearable, Luckily I knew I was gonna reset anyway so I just pulled the plug. For all the times I've reset, I never died in a plane crash or a car crash, I guess I'm a good driver and the odds are with me in my flights. No freak accidents either, at least not yet.\n\nI never did commit suicide for fun or just to get out of a bad situation, I guess it's because every lifetime is special and it's one universes out of many, yes, many-worlds interpretations theory is correct and every time I die, the universe just creates a new one for me. there was a lifetime where I was in a lot of debt, and contemplated suicide, I was 30 then so 27 years have already passed and I wouldn't want to waste it all and repeat again by killing myself leaving everything behind, I want to live a whole life. My checkpoint was already too far behind.\n\nThe butterfly effect seemed legit, not everything happens exactly the same even though I don't have direct control and influence over it, one lifetime this team became the NBA champion, in another lifetime, a different team. I was a genius in elementary school after my first try, and became more and more 'genius' as more lifetime passes by. I never did excel that much in College though, cause the topics were really boring. By the way, I've finished Computer/Electrical/Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering, Physics, Psychology, Computer Science, Business Management, Architecture, Culinary, Fine Arts, and a bunch of other degrees in many different lifetimes, and I never did finish Medical School or Law School in all of the lifetimes I've tried it.\n\nI wish I was good in medicine so I could help myself by prolonging my lifespan, and basically everyone as well. Maybe in my future lifetimes I will eventually finish Medical School and be a great doctor, but not now. Anyway, I'm at 97 years old, and dying of cancer, yet again. Posting this on my blog for everyone to read, probably my last one. of course, you can choose to believe or just ignore this. I might be crazy, or I might be telling the truth. This is my final contribution to this universe, In a few days I'll be transferred to a new universe to a 3 year old me in my 3rd birthday, again. adios.", "I can't remember the first time that I died.\n\nHi, my name is Jacob Black. Or has been for as long as I can remember. I have a superpower, namely, when I die - suicide or murder or death by old age - I wind up in my baby body, and start over again. Not surprisingly, I remember details from my previous lives. I know everything about my parents, Jillian- the girl next door and my wife in many of my lives, and the rest of the people living in the small town of Jacksonville.\n\nI tried to make my life better, but there is only so much you can do. I have found that my life follows on some broad lines. For example, I never make it past the normal jobs, have the same people from the neighborhood, love the same woman. I tried to cheat by saving my money and burying it under plank-boards, but I never find it. I also read the latest technological developments and also latest discoveries in science, but I never remember them. So basically, I live the same life and lose the all mine loved ones over and over again - my mother mostly dies from cancer, my children never survive long, Jillian is never the same after. I have killed myself numerous times to escape this fate of my loved ones, but I always end up back here..... I always come back.\n\nSo if you are reading this, please do not try to resuscitate me. I have enough power for my cryogenic suspension to last an eternity. I just hope not to be born again. I don't want to go back." ]	3
	[WP] You are absolutely terrible with common phrases and idioms, but you really hope nobody notices.	[ "I pushed the door closed and stood suspended in time, afraid to turn around. She was sitting behind me; red dress, blonde hair in a bun and wearing black non-prescription glasses. I noticed the black couch to my left and began having flashbacks of where I'd seen this scene before. \n\n\"Are you ready for the interview Mr.Johnson?\" She asked. \n\nI coughed into my elbow, and turned around. \"Y-Yes, thank you. I didn't catch your name.\" \n\n\"Brittany.\" She retorted. \n\nOh, God. Really? \"Nice to meet you Brit. Uh, Brittany.\" I said. \n\nShe simply nodded and motioned for me to sit on the couch. I glanced at it and then back at the empty chair by the table. \"I'm caught between two stools here.\"\n\nShe locked eyes with me and repeated the motion. \n\nI sat, slowly at first. But it was a lot more comfortable then it looked.\n\nShe took the pen out of her mouth and leaned forward. \"So Mr.Johnson, you seem nervous. Are you sure you didn't bite off more then you can chew?\"\n\nI chuckled uneasily, her crystal blue eyes pierced my soul. \"I think action's speak louder then -crack-words?\"\n\nI rubbed at my throat, holding my composure. \n\nShe leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs. \"Interesting. Are you a man of action then, Mr.Johnson?\"\n\n\"Maybe. But we can cross that bridge when we come to it.\" I replied. \n\nWhere was this coming from?\n\nShe giggled, holding a hand over her mouth. \"Very well, Mr.Johnson. If I were to hire you. What kind of rules do you work well under?\"\n\nI smirked. \"Stiff ones.\"\n\nShe raised an eyebrow. \n\nShit, why the hell did I say that.\"\n\n\"Sorry! I meant, give me stiff rules to work with.\" \n\nBrittany stood. \"This meeting is over Mr.Johnson, I don't know what the hell you think this is. But it is certainly not the fantasy going on in your head. Get out.\"\n\nI could barely breathe, and I knew from the way my face felt that it was entirely red. \"I apologize Mrs.Brittany.\" I whispered. \n\nThe walk back to the car was long and awkward. \n\nI sat in the drivers seat, looking out at the ocean across the road. I could just drive straight and submerge my vehicle. It'd be easier then facing another one of those. I sighed. \n\nMy phone buzzed in my pocket. \n\nClick\n\n\"The balls are in your court.\"\n\n\"Brittany?\" I whispered into the receiver. \n\nSomeone tapped on the passenger door of my vehicle. I unlocked the door. \n\n\"You know there's a no dating rule between employee's. I couldn't possibly hire you.\" She said before hopping in and gave me a wink. \n\nStill got it.* I wiped the dust off my shoulder and turned to her with a smug look. \"You know, I still have to job hunt because of you.\" \n\nShe blew a raspberry and I couldn't help but smile.", "\"That's what she did,\" I nearly shouted, and I couldn't help but grin. Witty retorts didn't come to me very often, but when they did, I was masterful. Mark stared at me quietly, his eyes squinting, mouth ajar as though he was struggling to think of a reply.\n\nNailed it.\n\nI went back to scrambling my eggs, leaning the old iron skillet this way and that as my spatula raked through the the thickening yellow muck. I cut the heat and set it aside, adding a bit of pepper.\n\n\"Mark, eggs are done.\" He sat on the couch, and lowered his newspaper until his eyes met mine.\n\n\"Well, that's nice of you. I wasn't expecting breakfast this morning. Honestly, I didn't know you could cook.\"\n\n\"Well, you should take them take it with a grain of salt, but my eggs are damned good,\" I said, and Mark sighed heavily, tossed the paper to the coffee table, and walked into the kitchen. He prepared himself a plate as I gathered my keys and wallet from a wicker bowl on the kitchen counter. It was a big day; errands needed doing and traffic promised to be nasty.\n\n\"You're off in a hurry,\" mumbled Mark, with a mouth more focused on chewing eggs.\n\n\"Excuse my French, but I have a faire la grasse matinee.\" Mark gave me that all-too-familiar questioning look.\n\n\"What?\" He shook his head, and added, \"don't forget to pay the rent.\" I snapped my fingers, pointed at him, and gave him a smile.\n\n\"You got it,\" I said as I opened the door. The sky was dark and cloudy, and a strong wind swept the street and whipped the autumn leaves into a frenzy. I called back into the house, \"Looks like rain today. Hopefully, I can stay under the weather.\"\n\n\"Dude--\" I didn't hear Mark finish his sentence as I closed the front door, and started my day.\n\n\n**This is my first prompt reply ever, but hopefully, this is the start to something good. Thanks for the suggestion, I found it hilarious." ]	2
Insipred by Warren Zevon's "Rosarita Beach Cafe".	[WP] The local bar won't let you leave until you've paid your tab. Unfortunately, you only have a single 1 million dollar bill that the bartender can't change...	[ "I sit down at a stool and order a quick drink. I pull out my breif case and start to do work.\n\n\"Hey.(Hic)..Hey, you. Wanna free drink?\"\n\nI look over at the man and ponder why he is talking to me.\n\n\"I...I got a million dollars here I need to spend, Wanna....Wanna help me\"\n\n\"Sir how did you get a million dollars\"\n\n\"That's the funny thing, see, I went into this bar here and ordered a drink. All I had was a twenty on me at the time and I used it. Unfortunately, my tab got to full and now...Now I have to pay it off with my million dollar bill\"\n\nI raise an eyebrow skeptically \"Million dollar bill, If you say so\" I take a sip of my drink and start to leave.\n\n\"Hey, Bartender, How much longer do I have to go?\" I hear him ask as I stand up.\n\n\"Sorry, There has been a glitch in the system and we lost your tab, your going to have to start over\" I walk towards the door as the bouncers let me by.\n\n\"Damn, Why does that keep happening?\" I hear his desperate groans from inside the bar.\n\n\"Hehe, because you're in hell,\" I say, shedding my facade and checking the box labeled, OBLIVIOUS.", "MAC\n“Charlie, Dennis come here. This fancy pants son of a bitch says he only has this $1million bill.”\n\nDENNIS\n“Let me see this.”\n\nCHARLIE\n“There’s no such thing as a million dollar bill.”\n\nMR. GRAVES\n“Of course there is.”\n\nCHARLIE\n“I don’t know, I used the marker on it. And it seems legit.”\n\nDENNIS\n“Marker? Give me that. This is a sharpie, Charlie.”\n\nMAC\n“Have you been using this the whole time?”\n\nCHARLIE\n“Yeah, you, mark the bills. Then if it’s black it’s “cool.”\n\nMAC\n“That’s not how it works, Charlie. It’s “light is right, black is whack!” \n\nCHARLIE\n“I don’t think that’s it. That sounds pretty racist.”\n\nMR. GRAVES\n“May I have my bill back please?”\n\nMAC\n“Yeah, hold on a sec, bub. Charlie, this is for counterfeit bills, it’s not racist!”\n\nDENNIS\n“How many bills have you done this with, Charlie?”\n\nCHARLIE\n“A few, about one in twenty.” \n\nMAC\n“And what does that mean, Charlie? Considering the fact you’re horrible at math!”\n\n\nCHARLIE\n“No! It means—here, look! There’s only one in the twenties!”\n\nDENNIS\n“Charlie there’s a counterfeit bill in the register and you knew about it?”\n\nCHARLIE\n“Wait. There’s two in the twenties! Nope. Three. There’s three in the twenties!”\n\nMAC\n“Jesus Christ, Charlie! That’s sixty bucks!” \n\nCHARLIE\n“I know. I can count.”\n\nDENNIS\n“Christ! Charlie, there’s a black line on all of these bills!”\n\nCHARLIE\n“See. Again with the racism...I said, “There’s one in the twenties,” which, admittedly is closer to six in the twenties, now that I’ve investigated, but I hadn’t kept track of the entire register…no! Who has time for that?”\n\nMAC\n“God dammit, Charlie!”\n\nMR. GRAVES\n“Sir, I will be needing my bill back please.”\n\nMAC\n“Hold on! One second! You can see we’re having a business meeting!”\n\nDEANDRA\n“What’s going on here?”\n\nMAC \n“We just found out Charlie has been accepting counterfeit bills!” \n\nDEANDRA\n“Oh, yeah. He’s been doing that…since we got the pen.”\n\nDENNIS\n“What you knew about this and didn’t tell us? That’s fraud!”\n\nDEANDRA\n“I kinda thought that’s what we were doing here? Who’s this guy?”\n\nMR. GRAVES\n“Hello, I’m Mr. Hayward Graves.”\n\nMAC\n“He’s trying to pass off this million dollar bill.”\n\nCHARLIE\n“Maybe the markers broken. I don’t know. What I do know is the sweaty guy comes in every Tuesday, orders rounds for the bar—”\n\nDENNIS\n“Sweaty Dave, he’s a great guy!”\n\nCHARLIE\n“Exactly, Sweaty Dave. He orders and when he’s here all the money turns black.”\n\nMAC\n“Is that what you meant? I thought you said that cause that’s when we thump the hip hop! Sweaty Dave stays so sweaty cause he loves hip hop!”\n\nDENNIS\n“He’s a great guy! Absolutely. But…”\n\nDEANDRA\n“Hmmm. What’ya know. This puppy's real!”\n\nMAC\n“Yeah, we know, Sweet D! We’re not idiots.”\n\nMR. GRAVES\n“Are you going to be able to break this? I must be going.”\n\nMAC\n“Hold on a sec!” \n\nDENNIS\n“Why are you rubbing on him like that, pull yourself together!”\n\nDEANDRA\n“I don’t know—it’s the smell of this million dollar bill. It’s driving me wild.”\n\nMR. GRAVES\n“Yes. Young lady. This is highly unorthodox.”\n\nDEANDRA\n“Did you hear that? He called me a ‘young lady.”\n\nCHARLIE\n“So it’s settled. I think we need to talk to Sweaty Dave.”\n\nDENNIS\n“Okay. Fine. But I’m not shaking hands with him. He’s a great guy and all—”\n\nMAC\n“Yeah. Great guy.”\n\nDENNIS\n“Right! But his hands are disgustingly wet.”\n\nMR. GRAVES\n“Sir. Please!”\n\nMAC\n“Charlie peel Sweet D off Mr. Graves! So, we’ve got a few twenties if you’re gonna want change! Unless you want to buy us a few rounds?”\n\nCHARLIE\n“No way! She bit me last time. No thanks.”\n\nDENNIS\n“And fives. Tens. Ones. Charlie, ones?”\n\nMR. GRAVES\n“How many rounds would it take for you to change that bill?”\n\nMAC\n“Twelve?”\n\nDENNIS\n“Eh emmm!”\n\nMAC\n“Thirteen!”\n\nMR. GRAVES\n“Fine. Order thirteen rounds for the bar! And please, hurry! I’m running late.”\n\nDEANDRA\n“You got a big business meeting?”\n\nMR. GRAVES\n\"As a matter of fact--\"\n\nMAC\n“Thirteen rounds it is!”\n\nCHARLIE\n“Thirteen rounds. Coming right up! Oh…kegs empty!”\n\nMAC\n“God dammit, Charlie!”\n" ]	2
	[WP] Your geeky friend came to show off his VR headset. After an amazing demo you pull the headset off only to find... (what?)	[ "At last, curiosity took the best of me. After hearing for an hour how realistic it was graphic-wise, and how immersive of an experience it felt, I decided to give it a try. After all, we were getting pretty bored sitting in my house. So as Steve plugged in this weird, bulky headset and explained the basics of motion-control and the startup menu to me, I started wondering what kind of games would I get to play. \n \nThe first one was nothing to write home about, it revolved around driving a car. Moving your head made it posible to look at the car´s interior, use the mirrors, and watch the deserted city streets.\n \nThe second one, on the other hand, really grabbed my attention. The screen showed you two fellow police officers, sharing thoughts about a recent case. By either nodding or shaking your head, you would tell your opinions, and put clues together to help solve the mystery. Even if a bit short, it had a smart premise and caught me off-guard.\n \nAlthough the third game was supposed to be the main one, I needed a rest. I was becoming nauseous, and we talked about motion-sickness before starting. After removing the VR set, my eyes needed some time to adjust to the lights on my room. As the shadows crept away, a faint vision of undefined shape started to become clear. My subconsious sensed danger, and I moved back on instinct. It drew near. Then, Steve farted on my face. \n \nAs I watch him laugh it off, I start to remember why we don´t hang out so much. Fucking steve...", "\"Fine I'll put on the dang Rift.\" I said as turned it on, \"This thing will crash and burn as bad as the Kinect, I hope you know.\"\n \" Aw, come on man, They're testing their new Mind Connect system, it's really cool.\" \n\n\"Ha ha, yeah I bet, I'm sure seeing Mario through a fish scope will be amazing.\" I put on the Oculus,\n the world went dark, and I woke up, in bed. Normal day. I did my normal routine, figuring the Rift incident was a dream.\n\n I got up, got dressed, walked to class, came home to a glorious dinner of Kraft Mac and Cheese and frozen pizza, played my 3ds for a few hours, then went to sleep.\n\n\"Come on man, it's been like 3 hours. It's gonna need charged soon.\" He said as he flicked off the device. I realized I was still sitting in the living room of my friend's house, it was evening. \n\"Well, that was neat,\" I said, stretching. \"But I need to get home.\"\n\n\"Alright, need help getting your crutches?\"\n\n \"Nah I can walk well enough to get them.\" I said, staring at my turned out feet. \n\"Well you have a good night man.\" \"You too.\"\n\nI walked out the door, crutches secured to arms, the sun setting in the distance. I sighed.\n\nLife was normal again." ]	2
	[WP] House of Cards featuring a different Frank: Reynolds.	[ "State of the Union Address, 2016\n\n\"Ladies and Gentlemen, the president of the United States!\" announces the speaker. Applause erupts. President Frank Reynolds makes his way to the podium to begin his speech.\n\n\"Good Evening,\" Frank says, clearly out of breath from the walk to the podium, \"tonight, the state of our union is a shit show, because my wife is a dirty, dirty whoore.\" Frank holds up a picture of Adam Galloway. \"My whoore wife Claire banged this man 2 years ago. Who else here has banged my whoore wife? You, Mister Vice President? You, Mister Speaker? You, Madam Secretary?\"\n\nAn Awkward silence hangs in the room.\n\n\"I want to move on to guns. These liberal yahoos, led by Jackie Sharp, are trying to sign a bill into place to make it harder to get guns. Congresswoman Sharp thinks just because her husband got shot, she has to ruin the fun for everyone. I say 'fuck that!'\"\n\nThe republican half of the auditorium erupts in applause.\n\n\"I mean, come on!\" continues Frank. \"Gun control? What kind of queer shit is that? I can tell you with certainty, that guns are here to stay! And that's why I have invested 30 million dollars of my own money into Remington Gun Company. I suggest that every good American does the same\"\n\nAfter twenty minutes of pro-gun ranting, the audience grows weary. Frank then moves on to personal matters.\n\n\"A lot of my detractors have said I am unqualified to be re-elected because they think I killed my bang-maid reporter! I say 'fuck you!' I am going to beat the shit out of Heather Dunbar in this election!\"\n\nAt this point, Frank decides to move on to foreign policy.\n\n\"We have received nuclear threats from the bad Korea. That is why I have decided that it's time to bomb the shit out of them!\"\n\nApplause begins to build as Frank wipes the sweat off his face.\n\n\"And we won't stop there. We will go on and rain hell on every country that has ever talked bad about us!\"\n\nAt this point the applause has become intense.\n\n\"And if anyone tries to play the 'war crime' card or the 'Geneva Convention' card on us, we'll say 'fuck you!'\" \n\n\"Fuck you!\" Frank chants again, this time with the support of many congresspeople. The chanting begins to pick up, and within 20 seconds, the entire auditorium is chanting \"Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!\" \n\nFrank concludes. \"Thank you! God bless you, and God Bless the United States of America!\"\n\nFrank rips off his suit and begins to exit the auditorium naked, to a chorus of cheers and everlasting \"Fuck you!\" chants. ", "\"Mr. President! I must say I find this course of action to be both inflammatory and dangerous. Tensions between both sides in this peace deal are high enough already, without us adding fuel to the fire by playing both sides against each other!\"\n\n\nLook at him, he thinks his hoity toity Clinton mumbo jumbo bullshit's gonna somehow change my mind. Fact of the matter is his liberal bleeding heart could stop beating right now and I wouldn't even look up to stop eating this ham. I'd care more if it was my Hoo-er of an ex-wife choking to death. Politics is like a shark pool. And there are two kinds of sharks in this world, scary killer Jaws one's and those pussy one's that don't eat nothing bigger than this guy's dick. You think I'm the killer one? Hell no! That's waay too much effort, I'm the guy running the aquarium. And Joe public's paying me hand over fist to keep this shit running smooth. And they sure as shit don't go to sea world for some pussy shark like this. Crying over some A-rabs who're gonna blow themselves up regardless. Might as well make some money out of it! And it's that shrewd business sense that got me voted in on a landslide and this guy some piss ant position on foreign affairs having to travel to hot ass deserts in economy class. While I sit here in the oval office getting blow jobs and letting my ass breathe. Now I ask you, which of the two people in this room do you think's most qualified to be making the decisions round here?\n\n\"Uhhm... a-are you asking me that Sir?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Th-the question... you- you've just been talking to someone who isn't there in the corner of the room for about the past three minutes. Were you talking to me?\"\n\n\"Oh... Shit.\"\n\nI'm zoning out again. Just like that time I got back from 'Nam. And I was hitchhiking through Oregon. And all those cops started hunting me down. So I started hunting them. They drew first bl-\n\n\"Sir, sir y-you're doing it again.\"\n\n\"What, really?\"\n\n\"Yeah and I'm pretty sure you were just describing the plot to Rambo that time.\"\n\n\"Oh.... Wait. What the hell are you still doing here? Get out of my office!\n\n\"Right away Mr. President\"\n\nStupid liberal know-it-all. He reminds me of those stupid hippy missionaries that wanted to use my boat to go up river...", "“Hey! Hey you. Yeah, watching from that little box thing. What the hell are you doing in there?”\n\n“Francis, honey, who are you talking to?” \n\n“It’s these people. These people watching me. I don’t trust them.”\n\n“Francis-“\n\n“Stop calling my Francis. That’s a queer’s name. Call me Frank.”\n\n“Francis, don’t use that word again it’s not what they call people now.”\n\n“You mean like that queer photographer you bang in New York. He doesn’t like to be called queer?”\n\nClaire pinched her the bridge of her nose, “I can’t talk to you when you get like this. It’s like your fascination with that ‘Froggy’ kid all over again.”\n\n“Don’t you bring him up. I need to find him. I need to help Froggy. That’s why I got here. That’s why I became president, so I can find Froggy.”\n\n“No Francis you became President to help the country. You became President because it was our dream. Don’t you remember?”\n\n“I remember last night.” Frank said rubbing his bald spot and wiping away the drool that had accumulated around his lip. “Do you think our security guard would be up for round two? How about that reporter from season one.”\n\n“Francis, you killed her remember?”\n\n“What?”\n\n“Yeah, you pushed her into the subway car remember?”\n\n“The broad with the nice tits?” He exclaimed. “Why the hell would I do that?”\n\n“Because she was threatening to expose us.”\n\n“Oh,” he said, “right, yeah I remember. It’s a shame though. Hey what’s Tapper doing?”\n\n“Francis, you mean Stamper, Doug Stamper. He’s our friend why do you keep calling him Tapper?”\n\n“Because he’s a boozy, y’know? He’s always on tap.” Frank started laughing until he began to wheeze and cough up flecks of saliva that landed over Claire’s dress.\n\n“Dammit Francis! This was a brand new dress for the play tonight. It was made using cruelty free dove down. And you’ve got your disgusting spit all over it. Now I have to go change.”\n\n“Yeah, well maybe change into something that makes you look less like a bird! You bird. I hate birds!” Frank turned back to the viewer. “Hey! Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you. I need you to help me find Froggy. I gotta save the Frog Kid before the man with the net catches him.”" ]	3
	[WP] You are succumbing to madness. Tell us your final thoughts in your last one or two journal entries	[ " Ticket #: 783\n Submitted: 03/09/2016 @ 8:15am\n Location: S301-12\n\nProblem Report: NEED A NEW KEYBOARD BECAUSE SOME IDIOT HAS SUPERGLUED MY CAPS LOCK KEY.\n\n Status: Closed 03/09/2016 @ 09:07am \n\n-------------------------\n\n Ticket #: 784\n Submitted: 03/09/2016 @ 1:10pm\n Location: S301-12\n\nProblem Report: Returned from lunch, all keys new keyboard have been painted black. Sorry but need new keyboard again. \n\n Status: Closed 03/09/2016 @ 1:25pm\n\n-------------------------\n\n Ticket #: 785\n Submitted: 03/09/2016 @ 1:31pm\n Location: S301-12\n\nProblem Report: Nw.Kybrd.Prblm:Spcbr&.Vwls.R.Nt.Wrkng. \n\n Status: Closed 03/09/2016 @ 1:45pm\n\n-------------------------\n\n Ticket #: 786\n Submitted: 03/09/2016 @ 2:30pm\n Location: S312-CMN\n\nProblem Report: Pretended to step out for a smoke, caught the little pocket turd that's been messing with my keyboard. Janitorial service needed in S312 commons. Paper shredder should also probably be replaced.\n\n Status: Open\n", "The pen tried to attack me, but the pencil is docile for now. When I refused to swallow the poison the nurse gave me I was strapped down and it was pumped it into my arm. It burned, I didn't consent. \n\nThe FBI or some other alphabet came back in their van last night. They used their toys to make me set the curtains on fire so they could see in. My crowbar wasn't able to pry open their doors before the cops came. The cops activated their control chip in my chest to paralyze me, I felt it burn but couldn't move. They were reading my thoughts and knew I had smashed my iphone to stop them from tracking me. I could hear their drones circling overhead. To serve and protect what? They radioed their masters to tell them I was subdued, seemed redundant since I'm sure they were watching from the cameras in the streetlights. The FBI never even got out of their van.\n\nBadge 741, 844, car 5513\n\nI'm in a hospital, probably CIA controlled. My eye is twitching they must have powerful Wifi here. These bastards will do anything to control me. I saw the walls move a little, they're probably just one way projections so they can watch me. I know their tricks they tried to recruit me after my tours. The bars on these windows are made of a special metal that intensifies the high frequency mind control waves sent from Haarp, they're in all government buildings.\n\nA \"Doctor\" just came in. He figured the poisons were working by now and tried to extract my passwords, but failed. They'll just use other methods. If I sleep they'll get the passwords for sure. My head is pounding, where is that screeching noise coming from? The doc must have keys to get out, I will steal them next time he's here. The pencil is starting to object now.\n\nCode word baltic 20-14-7", "12:30\n\nThere's something out there it sees me. Something something something I'm scared it's there why is it there why won't it leave? I know there's nothing there's nothing but I feel like it is I can hear it please leave me alone. I should jump out the window if it comes then it can't bother me. \n\nI just opened the window I'm on the windowsill I can hear it, scrabbling at the door it's not real it's not real it's not real go away go away go away the door is opening i can see it it sees me i have to jump", "March 9th 2016:\n\nEveryone is gone. They're right in front of me, and I can't reach them. So close, and so far away. The lucidity comes and goes in spurts, and to say I'm frightened is an understatement. I also keep seeing things, like desert mirages--here one second, and gone the next. The worst part of it is that they're people I love--people who left me behind. This is what I feared--that the madness that is my heritage has finally come to pass--\n\nBut that's nothing to the sounds I keep hearing, haunting, compelling snatches of melodies that sound familiar, and the screams of agony, rage, and ecstasy that follow them, a terrifying, unknown chorus that comes from the depths of Hell. I've slammed my head over and over into the wall, weeping and begging whatever higher powers exist to make it all stop.\n\nI know I've had my share of regrets, but surely I don't deserve this? I don't even know where I am anymore... And I'm so lonely. I didn't know that this was the disaster that would end me. I pictured differently than this...\n\nHere he comes again, the man that I loved more than my own life, the man I'd ended up killing. Blood is splashed across his pale face, and he staggers toward me, his mouth stuck in a grotesque parody of a loving smile. \"Melissa...\" He moans loudly, the sound consuming. I want to, need to, banish this specter back to Hell. \"Melissa, come with me... Don't you miss me?\" The words come out slowly, but they are as sweet and full of longing as ever.\n\nHe advances toward me, arms outstretched, intent on caging me and dragging me to the next world, and I back up, until I hit the wall. I scream as he sinks his teeth into my neck, his gutteral laughter echoing in my ears... ", "My whole house is dark. \nIt’s fitting. \nMy entire existence is dark. \nBlack ink spilled across my mind \nDrowning my thoughts with poison. \n\nI like it. \n\nThe mirror is hiding something from me. \nIt stares at me with a blank guffaw. \nIt’s wicked. \nIt’s the closest and farthest thing from me. \n\nBut perhaps it is me—it’s a fucking mirror, of course it’s me. \n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe scratches began. \nOne after another,\nAfter another,\nAfter another.\nThey’re in my head. \n\nSomething—it—is clawing and tearing and ripping its way out.\n\nOne after another after another after another \nthe scratches torment me. \nSand against my skull echoing in my mind. \nI can’t leave it, and it can’t leave me.\n", " Hello again, friend. I am just noticing that for the past year I have been starting all of my entries that way, \"Hello friend\" or \"Hello again.\" I'm not sure who I'm addressing when I say those things. I guess I do it because when I'm writing I feel that I am writing to someone else, for someone else. Writing for myself is meaningless now. I have lost everyone and everything that once brought meaning to my life. Its just you and me now, friend...\n\n The more I think about you, the more I realize how real you are. You've been sitting here silently with me every night as I write endlessly in this journal. God, I wish you could talk to me. I know that you could give my life meaning again. Sorry friend, I am having trouble keeping my eyes open, but before I leave I have to ask you one thing. Will you come to me tonight? I would give anything to talk to you. Goodnight, friend.\n\n Good morning, friend. I was grateful to see you last night. I was afraid you would not come. I was afraid I would die without meeting you, without meaning. Thank you for helping me understand. As you know, this will be my last entry and the next time we meet will be as if we are meeting for the first time again. Goodbye for now, friend.", "Hey Jessie. \n\nI am not sure you will read this or not. I saw it in movies that kids go through their parents stuff when they die. Not sure if I want you to. But I am so sorry to put you through this. My mind is like I am dreaming and being chased, moving in slow motion, struggling against an unseen current while an unknown inevitable closes in. I rarely wake up.\n\n\nMilk\n\nEggs\n\n~~Cheese~~\n\nBread\n\n~~Cereal~~\n\n2 lbs Ground Chuck\n\nReading is harder now. The words wiggle and slide around on the page. I think I have tried writing this a couple times. I haven’t been so lost since we lost Baby Jessie in ’04. Karen, if you can, tell everyone that I love them and this illness isn’t me. Tell them to pick up Jessie after swim practice since Earl is coming home early.\n", "March 9th 2016: \n\nI am starting to lose my patience with everyone in this blasted neighbourhood. It seems no matter what I say, or what I do, I manage to offend somebody for something. Just yesterday I was out for a walk with a friend when I saw my neighbour Roy. Now Roy has always been of the quirkier variety, but yesterday he was in a particularly foul mood. As I walked past Roy's home I offered him a pleasant greeting, to which Roy asked who I was. Well this obviously upset me, after all Roy has been my neighbour for as long as I can remember, how is it he doesn't know me? \n\nRoy made me angry, and the worst part is the friend of mine with whom I was walking, grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away. I tried explaining to him that I don't need help, but he was persistent. So persistent in fact that he insisted on taking me all the way back home himself, a request that I gave into. He is a good friend to me, better than Roy it would seem, though I must admit I don't know his name. His face seems to change every time I see him, sometimes he even looks more like a woman than a man! In fact the only thing that is consistent with my friend is what he wears, those odd white garments. I really must buy my friend some new clothes, maybe something with a little colour, I think he would like that." ]	8
	[WP] A woman seeks to uncover the fate of her missing father.	[ "\"Every time I put something in that stupid machine, I'm afraid it'll send me back in time.\" \n\nIt's the quote I remember most fondly of my father. He hated microwaves; even back then. I was nine at the time and had just gotten ready for school. There wasn't much more to it really; single father looking after his nine year old daughter. I liked to play dress ups and he would dress me back down and wipe off all moms old make up from my face before taking me to school. My mom died when I was born. We still had all of her belongings, my father would scold me for trying them on and standing in the mirror. But I knew it was half-hearted.\n\nI don't remember much else; the old amusement park with it's giant Ferris wheel; every so often you could hear the creek of one of the seats swaying in the wind and I'd think to myself I would give anything to go there and oil it. The pizzeria on the corner where dad would take me occasionally to celebrate my birthday. There was a pet store in a near by mall where I would sometimes stop and pet all the animals before getting scolded by the shop keepers. This was my home. \n\nMy father was an honest man, mostly at least. He worked as an architect through the night, leaving me at home to look after myself until I fell asleep. Usually in front of the TV. I had an uncle that would come visit me and check if I was alright every now and again, but he worked nights as well, so most nights I was alone.\n\nI remember that night though. The night when everything changed. My uncle bashing on the door, a frantic monotone voice filled with panic and fear. The whirlwind of events after opening the door to a frightened man, pale and clearly shaken, who swept into the room and began gathering belongings and throwing them in a suitcase before rushing me out and down the stairs.\n\n\"No elevators. We have to get out of here now.\" \n\nI remember him repeating it over and over, each flight of stairs we climbed down I would complain again why we couldn't just use the elevator. Once we got to the car outside I was tumbled into the back seat and we whisked away. \n\n\"Where's daddy?\" \n\nThe question seemed strange; dad worked nights so clearly he was at his job. I never got an answer, my uncle was poised over the steering wheel, still shaking. I remember his wide eyes never blinking. From here I do not recall much, the bustle of people trying to get out. We joined a queue at what I think now must have been a quarantine zone. Soldiers with assault rifles and men in suits, contamination fields I think they called them, shepherding people through established gates, every so often one of the gate would let off a high pitch screeching noise and men would rush out and take that person to the medical facility. Or at least that's what my uncle told me when he said not to be scared. My uncle was one such to be taken away. He had worked on the edge of town; I only learned later that he was in close proximity to the power facility doing temporary work. He took the job to buy a house so that he could find a wife, the money was good and even though it was slightly out of his comfort zone he was very capable at doing the construction work required.\n\nThis was the last I saw of my uncle. As he was taken away I was shoved along a line of people into trucks and taken away. I became an orphan that day, the storm of events that followed lead me to making ends meet and moving from orphanage to orphanage. Always wondering what happened to my uncle and more so to my father. \n\nMy father. I do not remember where he worked, or when he came home. I know he was working at the power plant like my uncle, they both complained about leaving town constantly. I remember a few things, that they both worked by the powerplant, the papers in the office where I often would wake and find him early in the morning busily jotting down notes and shuffling documents in and out of a briefcase. And on those documents were a name; stamped with an address and a number.\n\nThat briefcase was going to be my salvation. It was going to tell me where I could find my father, dead or alive.\n\n\"On your left, the Pripyat amusement park. It has been abandoned for decades. We can't get too close to the machinery because of the radiation emitted from the grounds itself is still potentially lethal.\" \n\nMy tour guide waved a hand at the Ferris wheel. This was my chance, I had to get home. I had to find out what happened to my father. I slipped out of the bus and ran into the local streets. The couldn't catch me even if they wanted, I knew these roads like the back of my hand. I could hear the shouting from the bus but I didn't care, I was going home. The documents would give me some idea where to find my father, if he was even alive.\n\nI was going home.\n\n", "I flipped through the aged pages of my father's journal, looking for any hint of what had happened to him. Always srupulous with his notes in the field, it was a good record of where he had been. I get to the end of the book and my heart sinks. Nothing I didn't already know, from his documenting a tomb for an unknown Pharoah from between 1200 and 1240; to his documenting of ancient Tibetan vases, is written about. The backing is bubbled and warped, separating from the cover, the corner barely peeling up.\n\n\"Hello.\" I say, brining the cover to eye level. The old chair groans as I shift my weight back, picking at the book until it divides. The backing has a diagram on it with numbers scribbled on the side. ~it's a map!~ my brain screams. There is also a note. I unfold it delicately and begin to read.\n\n\"To whom it may concern,\n\n\n\nI am Arthur Irving, Archaeologist. My work has taken me around the globe and to some truly amazing places but none like where I am now. I have arrived now at the location of what I believe to be a gate into an undiscovered city. I am taking note of the artifacts around it and there are many different objects from many millenia here. Arrow heads, old furs, slings, snow shoes, even an English bowler from 1890. It is truly astonishing that this gate is in the Canadian north on the eastern tip of Baffin Island. I am heading home soon to see my family, but after some rest and Resupply I will excavate and explore. \"\n\n\n\nMy mother had told me dad was dragged off soon after he arrived home from his trip north, just before I was born actually. He never came home, but we were told he had fallen through a crevasse in the ice near his excavation site and was lost. It was last month I found his note hidden inside To Kill a Mockingbird that said \"They know I found it. I need to leave\" I assume this is what he was talking about. We were kept well off by the government afterwards and I caught the bug for Archaeology in college and now, I want more than ever to dig up the past.", "\"So how do I know you?\" I asked the woman across from me. \"Er...\"\n\n\"Claire,\" she said.\n\n\"Claire,\" I repeated. \"Did we share a class or something?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"We haven't met. But you popped up as a link on my family tree.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah, that thing.\" I said. \"What are we, then, third cousins, twice removed?\" I studied her features, casually thinking how unfortunate it was.\n\n\"I'm your sister.\" \n\nI was suddenly really glad I hadn't voiced my disappointment. \n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I'm your half-sister,\" she said. \n\n\"Bullshit,\" I laughed.\n\n\"Look it up.\" \n\nI pulled out my phone, flipped through 200 e-mails before finding one from the site. Claire waited patiently.\n\n\"It's a mistake,\" I said. \"A glitch. Dad would never cheat on mom.\"\n\n\"I never said he did.\" Claire responded. You're how old -- 21?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"I'm 28. One night, when I was six, my father left our house. A couple of hours later we received a call. His car was on the side of the road on the Whitestone Bridge. Keys in the ignition, driver's door open, wallet on the seat.\"\n\nI stared at her.\n\n\"They never found the body,\" she said. \"I remember my mother's response to the officer that told us what happened, \"He was always one for drama.'\" A bitter smile touched her lips. I let another moment pass before I spoke.\n\n\"What do you want?\" I asked.\n\n\"Nothing from you, don't worry.\" She said. \"I just want to know what happened to him.\"\n\n\"If,\" I started. \"If it's the same man--\"\n\n\"You look just like him,\" she cut in. She reached back in her bag, pulled out a photo and held it up to my face. It was me. Close enough, at least. I can't remember the last time I used a polaroid. \n\n\"If it's the same man,\" I insisted, denying what was literally right in front of me, \"He died. Cancer.\"\n\n\"You were with him at the end?\" She asked.\n\n\"Of course,\" I said. \"He was my dad.\"\n\nHer eyes were dry. Why not? Either way, her father died years ago.\n\n\"I, uh,\" she said. \" I was hoping to ask him a question.\" She smiled again, no trace of the bitterness from before.\n\n\"Can I ask what question?\"\n\n\"Well, for the longest time it was, 'Why did you abandon me?'\" She said. \"But it changed a few days ago...\" She paused, I noticed tears in her eyes. Now it's 'Why couldn't you take me with you?'\" She broke down.\n\nI quickly moved across the table, arms open. She accepted the embrace and shuddered. After a few moments she composed herself.\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said.\n\n\"Of course,\" I replied. \"You're my sister. Family.\"\n\nMy father had always told me that family is everything.", "“I still see him sometimes—moving in crowds just ahead of me, walking in the narrow margins on the freeway when I’m driving too fast to slow down. He’s always wearing this ratty blue Royals cap backwards. I see him, but I know it’s not him. It can’t be. Because if it was him, he’d recognize me and he’d tell me why he left and where he’s been and what he’s been doing,” she watched Dan scatter birdseed from his spot on the park bench next to her. “He used to smell like fresh cut grass and sweat when he’d come home from work. When he did come home. And then one time, he just didn’t. What makes someone do that? What stops them from coming back?\"\n\nDan was silent for a long moment, considering the small flock that bobbed and pecked at his feet. He was a very different kind of therapist. His sessions were always outdoors, rain or shine. \n\nIf it was too cold, then he would build a fire in his office, and his clients would sit in a high-backed leather chair while he sat across from them on an ottoman. An oil portrait of Sigmund Freud that had been defaced with a graffiti clown nose presided over those indoor sessions above the fireplace.\n\nIf anyone ever asked about the painting, Dan would say, “Oh that? That’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”\n\nToday threatened rain, but he only wore a light fleece, a pair of cargo shorts, and his trademark flip-flops. She had come prepared with the raincoat and umbrella she kept in her car since the first time she’d been drenched during one of their sessions.\n\n“It sounds like you’re waiting for your dad to give you something,” he said.\n\n“Yeah,” she snorted, “closure.”\n\n“How long has he been gone?”\n\n“Twelve years tomorrow.”\n\n“Do you ever try to approach him when you see him?”\n\n“No. Not anymore. It’s just my head playing tricks on me.”\n\n“Could be,” he said, standing and tucking the package of birdseed into his back pocket. She rose with him and they walked together through the park. They made a mismatched pair, his sandals flapping against the asphalt, her heels hop-stepping quickly along beside. \n\nShe watched the pigeons scuttling and bobbing along hopefully behind him until they gave up, winging away to find some other generous soul. She felt bad for them. There weren't too many other people in the park on a day like today. \n\nDan stopped and she nearly bumped into him. “You see that statue?” he said, pointing.\n\n“You mean the nine foot bronze one right in front of us?”\n\n“That’s the one.”\n\n“Yeah, I see it.”\n\n“You’re thinking of your dad like this statue. He’s frozen in your mind. You’ve assigned significance to every minor action he ever took. You’ve given him a hard outline, and since he left, he’s taken on mythical proportions,” he paused, turning to her. “But that’s just your perspective. The truth is fuzzier and more organic than that: he was flaky and he left. You don't know why, but you've made up answers for yourself. Sometimes they're enough, and sometimes they aren't.”\n\nA gust of wind blew her hair around. It was definitely going to rain.\n\n“The hardest part is not knowing,\" she said. \"Plus, I wouldn’t even know where to begin searching for him—I’ve already tried Google,” Dan laughed at that. “And even if I did find him—”\n\n“Don’t deal in hypotheticals,” he said, cutting her off. “You want closure? This isn't Hollywood. Closure is more than the delivery of a dramatic speech you’ve been saving up since you were twelve.” She blushed. “Closure is something you give yourself. You don’t need someone else to tell you when it's time to stop.”\n\n“So then what do I do?” she asked.\n\n“Are you going to keep looking for him?”\n\nShe paused for a long moment, considering the trees around them. Dan’s watch beeped.\n\n“Ah, that’s the end of our time this week. I’ll leave you to think about it. My next appointment’s around here somewhere. Adios,” He said, flip-flopping further into the park.\n\nShe watched him go, and then looked up at the stern bronze face of the statue. A drop of rain fell in her eye. She sputtered and scrubbed it out with the heel of her hand. \n\nDan would’ve been delighted to see it. He wasn’t big on epiphanies or revelations—which, she had to admit, she’d been waiting for next to the statue—he was always encouraging her to make choices and stop thinking about right and wrong beforehand. \n\nShe started to walk back to her car, picking up the pace when she saw rain darkening the pavement. She opened up her umbrella and nearly lost it to a sudden gust of wind. Laughing, she closed it, took off her shoes and stepped onto the grass so she could run back to her car.\n\nBehind her, a man in a tattered blue cap watched her go.\n" ]	4
	[WP] You are PR specialist for a huge company, and you have just been informed that the company will be killing 1 out of every 10 employees. How do you spin this to the public?	[ "They told me the job. I took it. I didn't know how I was going to sell this to the public but I guess I have to do what I have to do.\n\nI work with Doctors. We test the product on them and we often find that 10% of them have poor side-effects, mainly, well exclusively I suppose, being death. No matter what we do it ends up killing 1 out of every ten that we test it on. The others, though, have astonishing results.\n\nWe've kept it under-wraps so far. There isn't much we can do. We have to stay open, think of all the people we will save when it is perfect.\n\nNone of the doctors know what is going on. We put them in separate rooms. Then we test, wait, and dispose of the body, and repeat. We're so close. They tell me it will help thousands of people add 5 years to there life at least. Now that is something I want to be a part of.\n\nI have carefully planned how to make the announcement to the public. I say only one line.\n\n\"Nine out of every ten doctors recommends Toothpaste™.\" " ]	1
	[WP] The Chosen One is a horrid, vile individual.	[ "It made sense when Dave The Chosen destroyed super-ISIS with only his legs. At least enough sense to approve, I guess. We just figured he'd, you know...stop. \n\nNow Dave kicks fucking everything. \n\nPuppies, children, people waiting for the bus. Dave doesn't care. Yesterday at like 4 AM I was woken up with an explosion. I look out my window, and sure enough, there he is, vaporizing cars with his feet. \n\n\"Hey!\" shouted one of my neighbors.\n\n\"URRRRGGH!\" (That's Dave)\n\n\"Look, I don't care how famous you are! That's not your property! I'm calling the police!\"\n\nAnd all of a sudden, Dave puts down his legs. He's just standing there. It's so quiet, I can hear my own heartbeat. Just standing there.\n\nHe turns, walks over to my neighbor, wraps a leg around his torso, and sniffs him.\n\n\"UUUUURGH!\" \n\nThe neighbor-dude is understandably terrified. I can see him quivering from across the street. Dave takes off the guy's glasses, unwraps himself, and crushes the glasses into dust.\n\n\"UUUURGH!\"\n\nHe starts to wander back to the cars, then looks up. He can sense me. I think he can smell fear. When his gaze finally hits my face in the window. I give him a nervous thumbs-up. He gave me [this face](http://memegenerator.net/instance/37900128), a thumbs up, then stomped off. \n\nI didn't sleep at all last night. \n\nReally, I'm just telling you this for your safety. If you're in America (specifically Kirkland, Washington at the moment), and you hear an explosion, call in sick to work. I'm not kidding. Do it. Dave is real, and he is a serious problem right now. I've tried calling the police. They hang up. It's chaos. Absolute. Total. Chaos. I mean super-ISIS had giant ants, sure, but at least the ants were organized. I really...I really just don't know what to do. \n\nDave The Chosen is an asshole. \n\n", "The morning began like any other that Pedro could remember from the last two years. He kissed his wife Maria first on the forehead, and then on her lips, before wrapping his precious angel, Ana Maria, in a bear hug. The girl wasn't in a good mood though; she glowered at her papa, but he chuckled and ruffled her head.\n\n\"Be good,\" he said, and hugged Maria once more before leaving. For a police officer like him, every loving embrace of his family could be his last.\n\nThe horizon was just turning pink, the shy greeting of the sun. His shift wasn't due for another hour, but he preferred an early start. Besides, he never knew whether traffic to Ciudad Juarez would be friendly or hostile each given day.\n\nAs he was about to enter his car, the sky lit up as a house down the street exploded. Pedro was only mildly aware that he was screaming as he toppled to the ground, glass shattering everywhere around him and tearing into his skin.\n\nWarm, shaking hands grabbed hold of his shoulder, trying to help him up. Groggily, he held on to them and got to his feet. Maria was jabbering away in fright, but he couldn't make out the words. His eardrums rang painfully, and he felt wetness trickling down the sides of his face.\n\n\"Stay,\" he said to his wife. Still shaking his head to clear it, he drew his pistol and advanced.\n\nThe fireball had consumed more than just that one house. People were fleeing, and even at this distance, Pedro could feel the acute heat. He doubted anyone caught in the blast could have survived it, but at that moment, a shimmering figure strode out of the billowing curtain of smog.\n\nShe was tall, almost six feet in height. Well-built and beautiful, she reminded Pedro goddesses he had seen on the television. She was wearing a dark leather jacket over a white shirt that somehow looked immaculate, and deep-blue jeans that accentuated her curves. Her head swiveled this way and that, her dark eyes alert and frosty.\n\nBut Pedro's eyes were drawn to her hands, which she held straight out at her sides. Needle-thin beams of crackling blue light, about two inches long, flickered from each fingertip.\n\nRealization slammed home in Pedro's mind. He had seen her on television. That swaying gait, the explosions, her particular brand of power ...\n\nRaising his gun, he shouted, \"Stop where you—\"\n\nHe never got to finish. With a casual flick of her hand, she sliced the top half of his gun right off. Pedro hadn't even seen the beam of light that had extended like a whip from her pinkie.\n\nThe door of a nearby house burst open, and out rushed two youths carrying automatic rifles. To their credit, they had enough sense to open fire almost instantly.\n\nPedro yelped and leaped out of the way, expecting to catch a stray bullet at any moment, but the gunfire died almost as soon as it had begun. When he opened his eyes once more, the woman was standing over a pile of charred flesh that could barely qualify as human corpses.\n\nPedro gagged, feeling his breakfast fighting its way out of his body. And then a pair of hands, rougher and stronger than his wife's, hauled him up so that he was an inch away from her face. Her breath smelled like charcoal.\n\n\"Where's Juan?\" she hissed. \"And don't try to lie to me. You're a cop, you should know everything that goes on in your neighborhood.\"\n\n\"Why are you doing this?\" Pedro said. The lawman in him was urging him not to give in. \"You have no authority in Mexico!\"\n\n\"I go wherever I'm sent,\" she said.\n\n\"There were ... families! Children, in those houses you burned! The Sinaloa only used that house as a warehouse.\"\n\nShe grinned, the expression making him shiver. \"Do you think I have time to knock on doors and ask if cartel members lived there? In the end, everyone returns to dust. Ashes to ashes. I merely speed things up for some.\"\n\nWithout warning, ten lances of white-hot pain tore through his shoulders, and he screamed. The agony wiped his mind of every thought, seemingly lasting for an eternity.\n\n\"Which house?\" she roared, and something exploded nearby. \"Was that Juan's house? Tell me, or I'm going to keep guessing!\"\n\n\"You can't—do this—\"\n\n\"You're dirty, aren't you? On the take?\" Another explosion. \"How much does Juan pay you to keep your mouth shut?\" The next one was so close that Pedro felt embers bite his skin. \"Is it worth your house, and the lives of your family?\"\n\nShe yanked his head sideways, forcing him to look at the home he and Maria had spent most of their adult lives building. The little crooked swing in the garden. The bright yellow letterbox Ana Maria had painted. The single window in the living room, decorated with lacy curtains, where two faces were pressed against the glass with identical expressions of horror.\n\nLazily, she raised her free hand and pointed all five fingers at the front door.\n\n\"N—no, wait,\" he said. With jerky movements, he tried to point over his shoulder at the red-bricked house just across the street. \"That one.\"\n\nThe woman nodded, and five incandescent rays burrowed into his house. The sound of the detonation could have woken the dead, but Pedro only stared numbly at the column of flame devouring everything that had given his life meaning. The only emotion he felt was gratitude to Maria, who had covered their daughter's eyes in her last moments.\n\n\"You had to keep me waiting,\" the woman said, and slowly drew a finger across Pedro's belly before releasing him.\n\nHe fell on his back, twitching as he stared into the soulless eyes of the woman who had cut him into two. For some reason, in that one moment before the end, he wondered if Juan had managed to escape while she had been so distracted. But it wouldn't matter anyway. Juan would never get far.\n\nAnd as Pedro died, the Chosen One stretched her arms out and gathered energy into her fingers. Her mission to save Mexico had just begun.", "“Sir, your wine is here,” announced Edergar. The servant girl had just been let into the throne room, carrying a gold carafe and an ornate chalice on her silver tray.\n\nTyden Leafhorn, the Defender of the Seven Realms, the White Flame of Norsgood, Champion of the Ivory Throne, Guardian of the Last Seal, last of the Sacred Order of the Bladesmen of Arduil, and the King of the land of Elsindor raised his head from where he was resting on the couch.\n\n“Well, have her bring it over here, Edergar” he responded condescendingly. “How am I going to drink my wine if she’s standing at the door?”\n\nEdergar motioned for the girl, and she began to walk over to the couch where Tyden was resting. Internally, he groaned. It was not even midday and Tyden was already on his second carafe.\n\nThe girl placed the tray on the table in front of Tyden, and began to pour him a glass. She was a good looking young woman, with long brown hair and round blue eyes. Edergar thought her name was Mablyn, but he couldn’t exactly remember. For some reason he thought she came from the Eastern Villages, but he could not recall why he thought that.\n\nTyden had sat up in anticipation of his wine. He still had his striking features; a chiseled jaw, bold chin, and curly locks of jet black hair. However, Edergar had recently noticed a bit of a belly starting to protrude from the young man. Ever since the Seven Dragons of Turgoth had been defeated, there hadn’t been much activity for Tyden to do.\n\nThe girl, Mablyn, or whatever her name was, finished pouring the wine into the chalice. It was the King’s favorite chalice, on account of it being big enough to hold roughly 3 cups of wine. Tyden grabbed the chalice from her hand and gulped it down. He paused for a second, as if thinking, and then suddenly spit out the wine all over the girl.\n\n“What is this swill!” he shouted. “How dare you give me, Tyden Leafhorn, King of Elsindor, such garbage! What kind of wine is this!” He angrily demanded from the girl.\n\n“It’s… it’s…” she stuttered, wine dripping from her hair.\n\n“It’s what, it’s what” he asked. “Use your words, woman.”\n\nThe girl tried to form words, but instead began to cry, tears streaming down her face. She mumbled something incoherent between sobs. Tyden threw the chalice at her - it hit her square on the head, staggering her a bit, and spilling even more wine all over her robes.\n\nEdergar moved in quickly, grabbing the girl and ushering her off. “Sorry about that, your majesty” he said with a warm smile on his face. “We will get you some proper wine right away. How about that nice red from Valnouth? You seemed to quite enjoy it last week.”\n\n“Yes that sounds fine” Tyden answered sullenly. As Edergar began to walk away, grabbing the still crying girl and leading her out of the room, Tyden shouted after him “You think this damn kingdom would show some respect to the one who saved it! Instead I have to put up with this crap day in and day out!”Tyden had stood up now, and kicked over the table in front of him, yelling about something. \n\nEdergar sighed, it looked like the King was going to have another temper tantrum. Hopefully it would calm down by the time he returned with the replacement wine.\n\nAs Edergar and the girl left the throne room, he wondered what things would be like if Girdran the World Eater was king instead.\n" ]	3
	[WP] Text appears in front of you. "Your free trial has expired."	[ "\"Your free trial has expired.\"\n\noh thank Christ I thought to myself, i knew this had to be some kind of terrible joke, this reality is as buggy as a a very buggy thingg\n\"Please consider donating to continue the project, otherwise we hope you continue to enjoy life for the next thirty five or so years.\" Great.", "It's a Friday night. I came home from university, whistling, merry, quite carefree. Today, at 21 I was going to pop out of university with good grades and absolutely no clue of what I was going to do in life.\nMy Dad is home, sipping his drink before dinner. My Mum bustles about the kitchen, making a dessert for today's weekend treat. It's a family dinner today.\n\nMy Dad begins, \"You are one hellav a lucky kid!\", he beams in a self-approving fashion before continuing. \"Never like your classmates did you earn a penny for your education, we let you keep your internship earnings and scholarships to have fun\". I'm perplexed, slightly guilty, a tad bit embarrassed and very grateful - I thank him profusely and tell him that I love him, adjust the zipper scratching my balls and eye the bottle on the table. My eyes yell, \"Hey Dad, I'm a bit thirsty\".\n\nHe smiles, shifts the bottle towards himself and asks, \"Son, Did you apply for a job?\". I put on the 'face', and begin \"I so confused ...\". Dad smiles again, \"Earn your drink, buddy\", takes down the golden liquid in a gulp just as Mum calls out \"Dinner ready!\".\n\nNow I am really confused, as I pull back my chair, Mum says, \"Darling, you gotta meet Mr H tomorrow at 10, McDonald's round the corner needs a good manager\". I gape at her, then I find a quivering voice to protest on basis of my graduation in philosophy and thesis on Nietzsche.\n\nAnd on the screen of the mind, as the reality hits hard, the text pops up: \"Your free trial has expired.\"", "\"Your free trial has expired. You have 5 (five) hours to purchase a subscription\", the screen read. I had to find another connection to the Interface. I was addicted. I wouldn't last a day without it.\n\nI searched the whole city for a dropped Interface Hub, someone that lost it, or dealers selling them for cheap. I didn't find anything.\n\nFour hours remain.\n\nI searched through my stuff for things I could sell. I had to gather 500 scrip to subscribe for a month. I had 10.\n\nThree hours remain.\n\nI sold things I didn't use anymore. I got to 300 scrip. I kept searching for things I wouldn't miss.\n\nTwo hours remain.\n\nI sold most of my furniture. I got to 450 scrip. Only 50 left, but where could I get more? I couldn't sell anything else.\n\nOne hour remains.\n\nI started begging on the streets, and I did some pickpocketing. The voices in my head telling me that I needed the Interface were gradually rising in volume. I couldn't stand them anymore. I had to get in. I had to submit.\n\nSubmit.\n\n\"You now have 0 scrip. Welcome to the Interface!\"\n\n", "You wake up in the morning to a wooden tray of pancakes, bacon, eggs the way you like them, and your mother's smiling face. Your father trails along, as well as your younger brother soon after, a hesitant \"Ha~ppy birthday to you~\" comes from their mouths. It takes you a moment to register the giant \"18\" written in whipped cream on the cakes.\n\nYou smile at your family and wait for them to end their small serenade, and you manage a groggy \"Oh wow, thanks\". They interrupted your dreams of your girlfriend, but you don't really count it against them. Your mom pipes up after your usually silent father shrugs a response. \n\n\"We figured that we'd all get together as a family and have breakfast before you head out on your trip!\" She chimes, starting to leave the room. The scent of the house tells you that she didn't make just enough food for you. \n\nAfter your breakfast, you gather your bags of luggage and the bags under your eyes as the result of a late night of prom-party. It was so convenient to have your birthday fall the day after, seeing as you partied double as hard yesterday. You were fortunate enough to have tickets to Spain, along with your girlfriend and a group of your friends who had endured five years of Spanish class with you. Your flight leaves at 7:00pm. \n\nThe time between the breakfast and the flight flew by. It was hard for you to think of anything other than your trip to Barcelona, though, and the time spent with your parents and your sibling at Navy Pier seemed like a blur. Your mom insisted you did something \"fun\" and \"as a family\". You don't deny that you did, indeed, have some fun on the speedboat that you all decided to take a small trip on, on a whim. \n\nYour time was up and you pull into the departure gates with a sigh. Your girlfriend seems ecstatic and almost jumps out of your moving vehicle. When you park, you let her unload her luggage from the trunk as you meet your parents, who had followed you into the terminal. \n\nPlenty of \"I love you\"s and \"Stay safe\"s later, you finally present your itinerary to the baggage check and you surrender your large parcels, your backpack/carry-on slung over your shoulder and your girlfriend nestled into your other one. (She had already checked all of her bags in her rush.) As you make your way through the security check, your girlfriend scouts for Chipotle, and you try to make sense of the signs to find your correct terminal waiting area. \n\nWith a stomach full of Chipotle-gorged butterflies, you hand your last ticket to the flight attendant after your seats were called. Your girlfriend grabs your hand and rushes you down the hall towards the plane, and you can't help but think about the missing Malaysia flight. It really was the American dream to take a senior trip; well, one of the American dreams. You thought about how lucky you were to be able to get the experience of the trip. \n\nSuddenly, your world freezes around you. Your girlfriend's hair is in mid-bounce, and you can't seem to look around. Bright bold text appears in front of you and it causes you to be taken aback. \n\n\"Your free trial has expired. Unlock the rest of the journey for $50,000?\"\n\nYou groan and reach up to take the VR system off of your face, and you sit up. \n", "\"We regret to inform you your free trail has ended, you have one day before you pay the price\" Flashed in my mind, I slapped my head, I had been getting things like this since i was a child, i never thought much of it until recently, things in my life started changing. Whenever I tried to remember something I had forgotten my brain screamed 'ACCESS DENIED'. I tried going to work one day, and my boss screamed at me 'SORRY, USERS WITH FEW DAYS LEFT MUST STAY AT HOME TO KEEP FRIENDS FROM KNOWING' and sent me home. I tried leaving my house, but there was a barrier. Suddenly my house fell down, and I saw my surroundings as they were. There were aliens all around me,and i was in a pure black room. \"Sorry sir, your free trial has ended, you have no balance in your account, so we will have to terminate your LIFE services,\" was the last thing I heard with a searing pain in my head, and blacked out", "\"Your free trial has expired. To continue using our service, reply Yes to this message. If you want to upgrade to the Celebrity package, then say Fame. Thank you for your use of Full-Nest Hardware.\" I jolted from my sleep. That message again was in front of my face, and it felt wrong still using this... thing to keep kids around. When I first got it, my only son moved in with us and became the nerd in his mother's basement. He did some chores around the house, got a minimum job and cleaned up part of his act. At first, it felt wrong to control my son, just so he would stay with me and Harold. Then, I couldn't stand to think of all the irresponsible things he would do if he wasn't under the programs influence. The next day after that realization, another text box popped up, asking if I wanted grandchildren. It wouldn't hurt for my son to finally settle down so I said yes. I continued until he was at a good-paying job, and moved us to a bigger house. He still lived with us because he wants to \"make sure we're safe\". It melts my heart, but I still feel strange. Compelled to help my son become a better person. The text box interrupted my train of thought, and I blurted out a yes. \"Thank you for your continued use of Full-Nest Hardware. You will be charged in a few days.\" And like clockwork, a bill is sent to our house. My husband still doesn't know about the 'mystery payment'. Another text box popped up saying \"We have detected a problem with your Husband Hardware package. Would you like a free upgrade?\"", "\"Thank you for enjoying your free trial. We regret to inform you that the 30 day pass will expire at 10:00 pm est tonight. If you would like to continue with the standard package please reply (Yes) to this message. Thank you for the opportunity to earn your business.\"\n\n\n\"Well I guess it's decision time.\" I said out loud to the empty room. I put my phone down and closed my eyes. It wouldn't be terribly expensive to continue on and utilize the service. Quite honestly I've thrown away way more money than this on things that were far less important, but for some reason I was still hesitant. The biggest negative was definitely the time frame. 12 months was a long time to use a product that I would potentially get sick of after 6 months and the terms were very clear that I would have to see out the full length of the term. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, \"oh decisions decisions, what to do?\" I opened my eyes and reached back for my phone. \"Fuck it.\" I muttered. I responded to the text, \"Yes\". Intstantly I received the response, \"Fantastic, Peter. We will charge your account the full balance of the charge and send all the necessary documentation to your address by overnight mail. You will find that your temp position will become full time, unless you would like to be transferred to another position. If you have any needs or questions please visit us at www-liveonearth-uv Thank you for your business and please enjoy your stay at Earth." ]	7
	[WP] You're browsing /r/WritingPrompts when you see a prompt that says "[WP] You're browsing /r/WritingPrompts when you see a prompt that says "[WP] You're browsing /r/WritingPromtps when you see a prompt that says...	[ "I began the morning in the same manner as I did the previous morning, and the morning previous to that one, and the morning previous to that one...and so on, because my life is a recursive drag of an existence. \n\nI wore my plain t shirt, snug fitting jeans, and mid-price level sneakers before going to the bathroom. As I brushed my teeth, I looked into the mirror and caught a glimpse of my girlfriend's smaller, hand held mirror. As Always, I pulled into the larger mirror and got lost in the reflection within the reflection within the reflection within the reflection...\n\nThe scenery and traffic of the day to day never ceases, if I stepped outside of time, I would see my life as no more than dreary repetition of a day in an infinite sequence which may alter and scream at my brain.\n\nAt work, I get onto reddit and browse /r/WritingPrompts when I saw \"[WP] You're browsing /r/WritingPrompts when you see a prompt that says \"[WP] You're browsing /r/WritingPrompts when you see a prompt that says \"[WP] You're browsing /r/WritingPrompts when you see a prompt that says...\"\"\"\"\n\nSo I sat in my office chair and wrote this prompt, setting forth a character stuck in the same curse of endless repetition to browse /r/WritingPrompts and write this prompt, setting forth a character stuck in the same curse of endless repetition to browse /r/WritingPrompts and write this prompt, setting forth a character stuck in the same curse of endless repetition to browse /r/WritingPrompts and write this prompt...\n\nThen I stop and wander. Am I in a prompt?\n\n" ]	1
Literally or metaphorically	[WP]"I'm not even going near this fucking rabbit hole"	[ "\"Why not, man?\"\n\n\"Dude, Rabbits are fucking scary.\"\n\n\"W-what?\"\n\n\"It's their teeth. They're.... Just too big for something so small. They're like the vampires of the animal world\"\n\n\"...That would be a bat, Brent.\"\n\n\"Fuck you! You know what I meant!\"\n\n\"Actually I don't.\"\n\n\"Okay, fine. Have you ever seen Looney Tunes\"\n\n\"Oh dear Christ not the Looney Tunes again\"\n\n\"HE'S DECEPTIVE, MIKE!\"\n\n\"HE'S FICTIONAL!\"\n\n\"YOU KNOW WHO ELSE MEETS BOTH OF THOSE CRITERIA? FUCKING *DRACULA!\"\n\n\"You disgust me.\"\n\n\"THEY'LL FOLLOW YOU MIKE! JUST YOU WAIT! IT'LL BE THE DEAD OF NIGHT, ALL IS QUIET, AND POW!* FROM OUT OF THE TREES-\"\n\n\"Once again, that is a bat, not a rabbit. And most bats died off anyway\"\n\n\"W-wait... What do you mean they died off?\"\n\n\"They're endangered, bro. Disease is rampant among bats. They're dieing at a sadly astounding rate due to fungal infections\"\n\n\"Well shit. That sucks.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"What were we talking about again\"\n\n\"We were talking about what you'd do if you were Neo in the matrix. Then you went all retard on me.\"\n\n\"Oh, Yeah. Right. Still wouldn't go for it. Computers freak me out.\n\n\"Why- Nevermind.\"", "“Yo, Steve! I got her!”\n\n“What?”\n\n“I got her, come here!”\n\nSteve went, cautiously. This was not his first time out, but he was never quite convinced it wouldn’t be his last. The night fostered a thick breed of darkness, caustic to the spirit of a man, daring thieves to match wits with a primordial Taking, so profound was the consumption of all things. Steve groped the dark hurriedly, trying vainly to render location for Mark’s voice.\n\n“Here, take a look.”\n\nMark carefully passed the binoculars to Steve, their only portal beyond an infinite night. Steve glassed the target, a single point of light, one of perhaps three, disjointed on the distant horizon, Orion’s belt made manifest in the semi-mountainous terrain of the foothills. Somewhere below them, a coyote yapped in the vineyards.\n\n“You see it, right? She’s in the third window from the right. Shit, dude, there’s gotta be like eight rooms in this fucking place! What do you think?”\n\nSteve had seen her. Of course, he had seen her many times before on the internet as they had conducted their research, careful and thorough. They say you should never meet your heroes, but what of your victims? Loretta Epstein-Grand’s reality bore a weight nigh on Biblical: a phenomenally shrewd - some would say vicious - corporate executrix. Her decisions routinely made headlines and moved markets, both locally and globally. You don’t bring a floundering government contractor back from the brink with sunshine and lollipops. When five-star generals pat you on the back and, chortling, utter phrases like “trump card” and “game changer,” you must not simply walk through the Valley of Death, you must distill, commodify, and sell that shit to the highest bidder. Lucky for her, Washington loves a good fight, always has. Steve had second thoughts.\n\n“Mark, I— man, fuck this. What the fuck makes you think she isn’t strapped to all hell in there? Christ, man, she dreams of ways to more perfectly annihilate entire villages on the regular, what the fuck makes you think this is going to be such a goddamned cakewalk?”\n\n“Really, dude? Now? You’re gonna puss out on me now?”\n\n“I’m not pussing out, man, I’m just fucking saying that—”\n\n“How many times have we run through this? How many other ops have we run with ZERO casualties, on EITHER side? Christ, man, sometimes it’s like you don’t think you’re a professional - do you want to explain to your daughters why Santa had to take a vacation this year?”\n\n“Man, I’m just—”\n\n“Look, I get it, this is our Grail job, this is our 401(k) - it’s natural to have second thoughts when the reward could be so real. Success is a frightening thing, my friend.”\n\n“You’re not even—”\n\nMark was on a roll, “but you know what? I feel you, man, your wife has gripped your life firmly by the balls and you don’t know what to do about it. Quitting now makes a lot of sense: you get to go back and tell her that you finally decided to give up on that ‘risky shit,’ and now, after all these years, you’re finally ready to pack it in and get a day job just to turn some mindless, small-time money you can send your kids to college with, giving you that perfect little bow on your perfect little suburban fucking fantasy for once and for all. I get it, man, it’s really all so simple when I put myself in your shoes.”\n\n“Jesus fucking Christ, are you done?”\n\n“I don’t know, man, are YOU?”\n\t\nSteve looked at Mark hard, the faint glow of Mark’s NVGs gently alight on his sweat-beaded brow.\n\n“This….” Steve paused, squared himself against Mark, inhaled deeply, “I’m not even going near this fucking rabbit hole. There’s too much to lose for me now, the profile is too high. I thought we bought those annuities for a reason, man. Didn’t we we both agree that we’d played Robin Hood long enough? That it was really just a numbers game until our time was fucking up? Man, I was with you at first, and I will freely admit that I’m addicted to the thrill of the hunt, but out here… all this gear… don’t you start to wonder where our hearts are?”\n\n“I’m starting to wonder where the fuck my friend went.”\n\nSteve didn’t hear, “man, I wanna get that crown jewel job just as much as you do, but… but I feel like we’ve been blinded by our own fucking ideas of how great we are. Bro, I think we both know there ain’t no team on God’s green Earth that can match our abilities. No one else has capitalized on Delta training like we have. Our record is flawless, just like you said. Let’s keep it that way.”\n\nMark was silent, remained so. Steve made the first move.\n\n“Brother,” he meant it, “whatever you decide to do tonight is going to be the right decision for you, I mean that.”\n\nNo words from Mark.\n\n“I’m just trying to do what’s right for me.”\n\nSteve didn’t wait for Mark’s reaction. He collected his gear, collected his piece, said “Semper Fi, my friend,” and began the lonely hike down the slope to where they had parked the trucks." ]	2
	[WP] You esacped Earth moments before its destruction onboard a space ark on automatic heading to nearby star system, you enter stasis. You awake to an alarm discover the ship never arrived at its destination instead it drifted for a trillion trillon years as the universe slowly died of heat death.	[ "Day 0: Sgt. Jim Hellemann..... Jim. There is no army. I'm calling this Day Zero. It's taken me gosh....I don't even know how long to get over my initial panic attack. Then the nasty side effects of the mood stabilizers and uppers. No comms, no navigation, nothing except internal systems work. I know it's been at least a few hundred years. I'm surprised the tub's stayed intact and kept me alive this long. All that overengineering paid off! I've listened to the grief counselling tape six times - wonder how that woman managed to narrate the entire thing knowing she'd die like everyone else. Time to take stock.\n\nDay 60: Out of options, out of happy happy meds. Enough food for 200 more days, more if I ration. Maybe I can break into the seed bank and get an ecosystem going? I'm sure they have a SOP for it. Can't say how much more water. Plenty of air and climate control. I'll never see another person again, the earth is gone. Yet the vestiges of humanity surround me. The music, the art, the literature, the science. I hope this capsule gets picked up my green spacemen, a shame if it were lost. I cry a lot, laugh even more. I know I'm losing my fucking mind. \n\nDay 120: A month of hedonism! Trashy detective stories, double rations, hooch made from dried prunes and sugar packets, 80s heavy metal, masturbation. Yet, three days spent reading a philosophy primer have left me on the brink of existential crisis....it was a leisurely intellectual pastime for those cunts, figuring out the reason for existence. For me it's a daily emergency. The loneliness is crushing. I tried to open the hatches yesterday, controls won't work. I'm too chicken shit to cut or stab myself. No room to hang myself. FUCK! Wait, the meds......\n\nDay 0: Hello, I am the worm who lives in Jim's head. Jim is dead, aren't you Jim? Sometimes I wiggle so Jim has to move his lazy ass around. Sometimes I slither out and wrap myself around his neck and threaten to eat his eyeball. I'm not all bad though, you just need to get to know me. I've got friends too, but Jim's the only one can .....be of one mind with HAHAHA.", "The alarms thumped, lights flashed as a tin can in space swirled around aimlessly. In the middle of the can housed thousands of pods, square cobbled together boxes that looked like coffins with pipes and cords dangling from them to consoles on the walls and floors. The only lights that flickered were the alarms that blasted to no one. The ship jarred as it impossibly flung it's contents around. Finally something blipped on a console and one of the coffins opened up with a hiss. The room hissed frantically as it filled with the proper combination of atmosphere from compressors and storage tanks. More alarms buzzed and a few more lights in different colours started flashing.\n\nOut from the techno coffin rose a tall slender man in his late 20s early 30s. He groaned as he sat up, his body though well looked after by the machines popped and creaked as he sat up. Gripping the side he let out a small groan then he flung his legs over the side and jumped out. Contents were flapping around for a moment longer then they all started floating again including the man. The man was stretching out cracking misused joints as he walked over to the console.\n\nThe console flashed at his approached and seem to come to a stable screen which asked him for vocal verification. The man answered, \"Derek Tannom, com code 21493\" The console verified him and gave him a run down on what had happened. It appeared that the ship had hit a pocket of gravity. That seemed a bit odd as gravity was just the bending of space and everything he knew(which was quite little he admitted to himself) was that an object had to cause a ripple to create it. There were none on scans. Frankly he was having a hard time finding anything.\n\n\"Where the fuck are we\" he whispered to himself, bringing up star charts and typing in the location of Stepston 9 which was the name of the star system they were heading to. It was located in the far part of the Milky Way and had a planet much like earths. It no longer showed on the maps. The computer couldn't even tell him where they were related to any known systems.\n\n\"This isn't right\" Derek shouted at himself. \"Where is everything\" this ship responded to his verbal question with a question that didn't make sense that Matt just ignored. He was onto finding out where the team lead was stored on the ship and getting some answers. It seemed most of the stasis chambers had come out intact but he couldn't find the leads. Samantha Carver, project lead didn't seem to exist in the system. Maybe he didn't have the credentials.\n\nDerek thought back to his last days on Earth. There had been a draw with some of the remaining people. There had been a lottery for the last 4 spots on each ark. Everyone knew the lottery was to give people false hope, 50 arks 10 billion people, but it did it's job. Derek figured the whole things had been rigged beyond that. No one over the age of 40 was getting on those arks and no one with bad health or conditions seemed to pop up in the draws. The draw had been all young adults without families and good health. He had been chosen 24hrs before launch. No one was told he was picked up in the night and disappeared, then given a brief explanation of how things worked a photo op he wasn't sure why, then tossed in a pod and shipped off.\n\n\"Samantha Carver, where the hell are you\" the ship beeped and didn't answer his question. Then he found what he was looking for. Well not exactly it wasn't Samantha but it was someone who had some authority. Most of those who occupied the ship were those who had tasks. Some farmers/botanist, medical staff, engineers, and then the leaders. Samantha wasn't showing up and the main team wasn't either, but the Secondary command seem to be at his access. he hit a few buttons and more alarms went off down the hall of pods.\n\nDerek sprinted forward to the pod and as it opened he saw a dark man in his early 20's open his eyes. \"Josh!\" Derek said, \"I'm Derek and I need you to help me!\"\n\nJosh looked pissed. He jumped out of the pod and punched Derek straight in the nose. Derek reeled back and grabbed his face as wet crimson dripped down through his fingers and onto the floor, \"Why the hell are you waking me up! First they give you a spot on the pod when it could be given to someone else then you wake up and break shit. Did you set all of these alarms off!\" Derek looked up in surprise and took two steps back.\n\n\"No\" Derek said in a stuffed up voice, \"I didn't just wake you up for shits, my pod opened and alarms were going off. I'm not qualified to do anything about it. Then I checked out the star charts and figured someone should check it out. I couldn't find Samantha, but i found you. Kind of wish I hadn't\" Derek quietly said the last bit and moved to the console to show Josh. \"look for yourself.\"\n\nJosh glared at Derek but moved over to the console all the same, he gave his verification code and typed in a few more numbers making sure that Derek couldn't see what they were. Then he scanned the same charts and few more details. \"oh my god\" he said in a quiet shocked voice.\n\n\"What?\" Derek asked, as he had hoped things were incorrect.\n\n\"Well did you look at the date. There's nothing on the charts because theirs nothing left.\" Josh said, Derek looked on back at him blankly. \"Ok did you ever read asimov's the last question?\" Derek shook his head. \"Well basically the universe expands and expends it's energy until it's all evenly distributed and there's nothing left. No more stars, no more heat, it's all gone. Somehow the ships survived much longer than we expected. We never reached Stepston 9 for what ever reason, we just kept going. Our pods never hit the event to trigger our release and we just kept moving. We are probably the last thing out here. I see one star and it will probably be dead by the time we reached it.\"\n\nDerek stepped back and looked around. He was wonder what that all meant. He had no idea about the technical stuff but he knew what Josh meant. They were royally screwed. Josh kept poking at the screen and Derek took a long walk down the corridor.\n\n(to be continued)" ]	2
	[WP] "Time will remember us."	[ "######[](#dropcap)\n\nCorporal North fell back with a strangled cry, three feet of an arrow shaft sticking out his chest as he dropped his Model 55 rifle. Brevetted Captain Hilary Flint snarled and fired his priceless Browning Hi-Power at the direction of the offending killer. A green cloaked Spriggan fell from his treetop perch screaming, his cries cut short as the rope wrapped round his waist jerked taut. A war cry went up among the treeline, a banshee wail that drove itself in the skull of those who heard it.\n\n\"Garathalith Teredelial!\"\n\nThe ambushed squadron of soldiers and mercenaries raised a cheer of their own, one shouted by their fathers and grandfathers in the days of Arrival.\n\n\"Fuck the Elves!\"\n\n\"First rank, fire!\"\n\nThe space in front of the blue shirted lines erupted in white smoke as two hundred rifles fired. The sound of whirring bullets was like a nest of angry hornets, the sound of the heavy lead striking Elvish flesh like a hundred meat hammers having at it. The trees and undergrowth echoed with the sound of wounded fey, shouting for their gods or their mothers in their alien tongues. \n\n\"Second rank, fire!\" \n\nAnother two hundred rifles barked their lethal shot, another chorus of screams rending the air. The first rank was already reloading, flipping up the trapdoor actions of their weapons and shoving a new cartridge as soon as the first ejected, slamming it shut and raising the weapon to their shoulders. \n\nTheir ambush foiled the Spriggans dropped their bows and took up spear and shield or else tall curving two handed swords. They charged out of the brush, cloaks fluttering behind them like green banners as they loosed the toggles round their necks. Flint's pistol shot as fast as he could pull the trigger, a least a half dozen of the lithe foes falling dead or wounded.\n\n\"First rank, fire!\"\n\nAgain two hundred rifles fired as one, again scores of Elves fell lifeless on the mid-summer grass.\n\n\"Second rank... Prepare to fire... Fire!\"\n\nBarely fifty yards away the casualties were staggering, the .45 caliber bullets often tearing through one Spriggan and wounded the one behind him. At thirty yards the sergeants leveled their submachine guns, slim black things that look more a piece of welded metal than a weapon. The 9mm Re-Stens opened up, the lighter weight of their projectiles made up in sheer volume of fire. \n\n\"Prepare to receive charge!\" Flint shouted as junior officers and NCO echoed it, the enlisted moving as one as the first rank dropped their bayoneted rifles to chest height, their comrades behind them with their bladed weapons over their shoulder. \n\nFlint emptied the last of his pistol's magazine into the face of one swift looking Elf, the bullet blowing a chuck of his brains and skull out the back of his head in a shower of gore. Roaring defiance and hatred he drew his officer's saber and aimed it the charging foe.\n\n*\"Molon Labe!\"*", "\"Time will not remember us.\"\n\nStatic buzzed after the words - even after all this time, communicating by Sol was difficult. Amarante's skiff was light, airy, more dream than ship. It buzzed too, shaking with the energies it contained.\n\n\"We will not be heroes. There will be no monument to our names and no saga made of our story.\"\n\nThe commander adjusted her shoulder webbing and mouthed a few curses into her headset so as not to broadcast to the other pilots in the fleet. A person raised with momentum field generation shouldn't have to struggle with the discomfort that came with ancient restraint systems, but Sol created problems there as well. Sol was creating a lot of problem these days though, she thought wryly. No reason for Amarante, the valiant and brave space commander, to complain about some straps against her skin. \n\n\"All the fruit of this mission will not bear for us. We are sowing a field we will not, indeed cannot, reap. The payloads you deliver will, if all goes well, simply cease to exist for us.\"\n\nThe ship groaned under her. \n\n\"As will you. Fire engines.\"\n\nAmarante's fingers flew over the once-unfamiliar controls that had been adapted to the raging radiation that surrounded them. The skiff lurched forward, pressing her against the webbing as the reddish tinge of Sol began to devour her view. \n\n\"The Feynman generators will not give this world new life. But in another, Sol will be revived and humanity may struggle against the dark a little while longer. It is not for us, but we may glimpse this new world in our dreams.\"\n\nRed light stained the command deck. The shields slammed into existence as the skiff plummeted downwards and flickers of fire began to race across the viewscreen. \n\n\"For there may be another self in this other land. Another pilot who does not take this Promethean plunge but is safe and well and happy. Your own self, if you had enjoyed life in a less desperate moment of the human race.\"\n\nAmarante grit her teeth at the flare that had become her viewscreen. Sol loomed in her vision like a Cyclops. She punched more power into her engines, and the monster welcomed her into a maw of plasma. The skiff cut through the swirling currents like a laser. \n\n\"We do not go for our own hope, but that there may be a hope that continues beyond us.\"\n\nThe proximity alerts were all Amarante had now, and they blared warning. Her fingers flashed over the controls. The shields hardened as she diverted power to them, and she sliced through the fire of the tacholine around her easier than air.\n\n\"We will write a history that will never contain us in its pages.\"\n\nMagnetic storms crushed against the skiff and for the first time, her certainty wavered. Not in herself or in her mission; this was the fixed and immovable fact of her life, more sure than any coordinate. The ship though, had never truly been tested, could never have been truly tested and could plunge them all into the abyss. She spat more silent curses and hoped that the vessel's terrific speed would be enough.\n\n\"And since other lips will never mouth the words, I will rise up now and call you blessed, transcended, shahid.\"\n\nThe ship cascaded into an avalanche of density in a violence beyond hammer and anvil. Lights flashed out all over the control panel as a painfully bright black burst through the viewscreen. The buzzing and shaking from the cargo began to ragdoll Amarante in her webbing, all control of her body lost under the assault of tremendous forces. But the shields held, the skiff continued to tumble downward and the Feynman generators began a shrill whine as they activated. \n\n\"I do not know if my words will reach you now. If we are correct, there are only moments until you reach the core.\"\n\nOne of her flailing hands caught on an emergency handle and Amarante jammed her forearm through its loop. She righted herself, wincing as bones strained and snapped, then looked up. There was nothing to see, but she stared anyway, throwing her gaze into the darkness. The generators were screaming.\n\n\"...The Life is, spreading life through all; It cannot anywhere, by any means, be anywise diminished, stayed, or changed. But for these fleeting frames which it informs with spirit deathless, endless, infinite, they perish. Let them perish.\"\n\nThought was impossible with the sound tearing through her, but words still reached the pilot's ears\n\n\"...Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?\"\n\nAmarante closed her eyes. The skiff collided with the core. There was an explosion, and then it was all nothing. \n\n", "(I just made an account to post this, so, sorry if it's formatted weird)\n\nWe sat together, her and I, we were calm despite the fact that as we spoke our world was burning to the ground.\n\nWe watched the panic below us, heard screaming and crying, we heard proclamations of love and of hatred. I held her, she cradled her stomach, our unborn child.\n\"If it's a girl, can we name her Miracle?\" she asked me, pretending that this would all blow over.\n\"Of course,\" I said \"and for a boy, how about Ryan?\" She nodded. Ryan was her father's name, he died about six hours ago to save her life. He was brave, and if we lived through this, I knew he needed to be remember, memorialized.\n\"I like those names.\" She said. She was afraid, I knew she was, but she was in my arms.\n\"I do, too.\"\n\nWe sat in silence as Chaos rose from his slumber and raised the Earth. 'Back to the beginning.' I though. A new stone age, we would live again from cave men to now, it would be such a cycle, an amazing spectacle for our creators to watch, lie a long and complex Hollywood horror film.\n\n\"Just like how we found the pyramids and Stonehenge, the new people will find the remnants of skyscrapers and be amazed at the wondrous techniques we had.\" She said, and she was right. The next life to walk on this Earth as we did will be amazed. They will not know of all its beauty until they become explorers. They will re-create math, science, geography, art, music, and theater. They will travel into space someday and marvel at what they have never seen before. They will find our sun-bleached flag upon the moon and they will be amazed that we made it there too. Yes, I hope they think we were wonderful, someone has to; because we were truly terrible to this lovely place. Their children will learn about us in school.\n\"Time will remember us.\" I said, she nodded.\n\"And they will build upon what we had, they will get further than us before they, too, are raised to sea-level by the hands of Chaos.\" She said.\n\"They will be great.\" I replied.\n\n\"If we're reborn into their world, do you promise to find me?\" She asked, for the first time in hours she'd taken her eyes off the outside world to look at me. Our eyes met and I took her hands, I rested my forehead on hers and I held her.\n\"Yes, I promise. I'll search for you in ever life and save you from whatever terrible life you might be living without me.\" She laughed, I loved her laugh. I loved her.\n\"More like saving yourself...\" She smiled and we shared our last laugh together. And then we shared out last smile. Our last hug. And finally, our last kiss.\n\nAs Chaos tore our lives apart, I held her and our baby. 'Time will remember us.' We both thought.\n\"I love you.\" She said.\n\"I love you, too.\" I replied. And the world was quiet and perfect for just us in its last moments. In our last moments. And we knew, time would remember us.", "\"Time will remember us,\" she said, looking down at the glowing box. \n\n\"I don't care about time.\" I was waiting for her to decide we were worth it. We had nothing else of value to give, except for our memories. \n\n\"I care. I don't want to die. Love isn't forever. This way it is, in some way, endless.\" \n\nShe put on the helmet. I watched the box turn green, before returning to the ominous blue. \n\nWhen offered the same fate, I shook my head. \n\nI left her in the room, crying. She didn't know the truth about the machine, very few did." ]	4
	[WP] Write a great opening to a terrible novel.	[ "12 June, 1911. \n\nEliza.\n\nIf you're reading this, I want to tell you something. \n\nI love you. I love you a lot. \n\nYou know this too. I can see the twinkle in your eyes, the delight in your laugh, the way your Roman nose slightly twitches at the sight of me. \n\nBut you and I know we can never be together.\n\nYou're an upper class woman. You were never supposed to interact with rabble like me. Me, a very half-breed poor boy born out of wedlock from Cueta who was scrounging on the streets before your father hired me. Struggling day by day, taking alms from Father Jose, doing odd jobs like mopping the streetcars before your father decided that he'd want me to become part of his butlery. To grab a filthy thirteen year-old from the streets, clean him up, dress him up, and slowly turn him into a valet. I have to thank him for that.\n\nMe, that poor boy who you shared a mango with on that train. Who, in that moment of young love, ran around and saw with you the sights of Madrid. We ran around the ornate baroque palace, and we had some of the best moments of our lives.\n\n\"Look, but do not touch\" a sign said regarding an oil painting. You and I giggled as you dared me to boop a fat monarch's strawberry size nose. As I went forward, the curator slapped my hand away.\n\n\"Read the sign, Chico!\"\n\nLook, but do not touch.\n\nI remember very clearly when I tried to express it. You lovingly took a whiff of the rose I had freshly picked for you. I removed all thorns, save one, as I didn't want to be too much of a romantic. You stared into my eyes and I stared into yours. My gloved hand moved its way towards your shoulder, moving downward and caressing your arm, tracing its way down to your gloved hand.\n\n\"Esteban, I have to tell you something.\"\n\n\"What is it, car-\"\n\n\"I'm arranged to be married with someone else.\"\n\n\"You're a good man, Esteban, but our love won't ever work out. It's just that -\"\n\n\"You're right. I don't have much to offer you. I'm sorry for wasting your time.\"\n\n\"You don't have to be sorry for anything. In my time that I've spent with you, you taught me many things. That I could have this burning passion and yet, at the same time, still feel like I've retained my grace as a woman. And for that, I'm thankful.\"\n\nI was brokenhearted. And so I took the next train out of Madrid to Berlin, where I'd become ... \n\nTHE WORLD RENOWNED DOGFIGHTER, THE GHOSTLY BARON!!!!!", "I'm ashamed to admit it, but my first ride into town was in the back of a police car.\n\n\"I found a car for you,\" the officer said, not even bothering to glance back at me.\n\n\"For me?\"\n\nHe nodded once. \"Chevy truck. Got it off an Indian. You remember La Push?\"\n\nI shook my head, though he couldn't see it.\n\nHe turned off the freeway onto a backwoods road, glancing in the rearview mirror the whole time, until he saw me looking back and flicked his eyes away with a quick little blink. He looked like a mobster taking his friend into the woods to rub him out. \n\nI looked out the window, and I watched the trees going by, lined up like boards in a picket fence and topped off with afros of leaves, bright green and shifting altogether like scales on the hide of an angry lizard. Above, the smoky skies hid away both moon and sun so as to leave we tiny earthlings to only guess at the time of day. \n\nAnd then the rain started.\n\n\"It's cheap,\" he said.\n\nI looked at the back of his head. \"What is?\"\n\n\"The car.\"\n\n\"How cheap is cheap?\"\n\nHe glanced at the rearview mirror. \"Well, honey, I kind of bought it for you. As a homecoming gift.\"\n\n\"You didn't need to do that, dad--\"\n\nHe held up a hand. \"I don't mind,\" he said, shaking his head. \"I know you don't like riding around in a beat up cop car. And I want you to be happy here.\"\n\nI stared forward as I said, \"That's really nice, dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it.\"\n\n\"Well, now,\" he mumbled, a faint flush on his cheeks. \"You're welcome.\"\n\nBy the time we arrived at his house, the clouds had dispersed just enough to reveal the vague shape of the horizon, where the setting sun painted its bleary shade of yellow in all that grey, washed out like an image rendered in watercolor. Twilight was coming. And with it, a New Moon. \n\nThe officer let me out of the car. \"Welcome to Forks,\" he said.\n\n\"Thanks, Charlie--\" I caught myself, stopped, looked down, and then looked him in the eye again. \"Thanks again, dad,\" I said.\n\n\"Bella, you know you don't have to thank me for anything. Now let's get in before it gets dark.\" He smiled, and I could see in the way his skin folded around the curve of his mouth and his eyes squinted just slightly that it was an honest smile--something he wasn't often capable of.\n\n\"What're you scared of?\" I said, smiling back. \"Vampires?\"\n\n---------------------------------------------------\n\nIf you liked this, you may like [this other prompt I did a few days ago.](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/49i7r0/wp_theres_an_insane_person_who_wants_to_destroy/d0s0tjx)\n\n[If you like my writing style, I've also written a book that you can get here.](http://www.amazon.com/Perjure-Book-1-Welcome-Multiverse-ebook/dp/B01CF3MYLW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458061293&sr=1-1&keywords=perjure)" ]	2
Go nuts. Credits for this idea goes to /u/ferl74	[WP] You suddenly begin to suspect that Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking are the same person and the ALS is just a cover story.	[ "It starts the same as every day. You’ve just had breakfast, and you’re settling down in the living room to watch some TV before your schedule kicks off and the day really begins. As always, it’s one of those breakfast talk shows. You don’t particularly like them, but there’s never anything good on TV in the mornings anyway. Today doesn’t seem to be so bad though. There’s a segment on successful men over 50, and you settle down and start to pay attention; god knows it’ll be a boost to the morale to hear about these men who’ve made it at a late stage, especially considering you’re stuck at 28 in a place you don’t particularly want to be. \n\nIt starts out showing the rich men we’ve all heard; Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, Ronald Reagan…\n\nYou do a double take. Is it just your imagination? Do Gates and Hawking really look that similar? If so, how have you never noticed before? It’s almost uncanny. You wish the cable box was one of those ones that allowed you to rewind, just to see if it was real. You’re thinking about googling it when you look at the clock and realise it’s almost time for work. Resolving to forget about it and focus on other things, you set off.\n\n“Good morning lovely!” Ella says when you walk in. You’re not really sure what Ella’s job is, only that she’s the one who tells you where you need to be and what you should be doing. Does she organise it all? Is she just the receptionist? Who knows. \n\n“Morning Ella, what have I got on today then?” you ask.\n\n“Not that much! Nice relaxed day for you, a couple of meetings but I’ll come and get you when it’s time. Apart from that just put your feet up and have a bit of leisure time! Have you got anything to do?”\n\n“Not really, but I’ve got a Sudoku book and I’m halfway through this James Patterson, so hopefully I can get it finished by today.” You say as you walk off.\n\nOnce you’re sat in your area, you get out your novel. You’re a little annoyed- these ‘’leisure days’ seem to be endless, and whilst it might be nice if you had a TV, or maybe some blankets for a nap, there’s not much to do here. Even with your books, you get bored quickly. \n\nWithin fifteen minutes your mind is wandering back to this morning’s coincidence. You grumble at yourself a little, annoyed that your brain just can’t seem to let this go. You try concentrate on your book, but it’s just not happening. You admit defeat and let yourself consider the similarities between the two men. \n\nBy lunchtime, you think you’ve cracked it. You feel a little strange for thinking it, worried people might think you’re insane, but it all seems to add up. ‘Hawking’s ALS is clever- it’s a way to cover up the fact that him and Gates are the same person. After all, nobody would ever think able-bodied Gates and wheelchair-bound Hawking were the same person. You let out a small chuckle to yourself as you eat your sandwich; it’s like that whole Batman joke, you don’t ever see Gates and Hawking in the same room.\n\n“What are you giggling at?” smiles Leslie, one of the cafeteria workers, as she picks up the used tray next to you.\n\n“Oh it’s nothing, I’ve just been thinking about some weird stuff lately.”\n\n“Oh really? Like what?”\n\n“You’ll think I’m crazy if I tell you.”\n\n“Oh come on darling, we’re not here to judge! I’m sure it can’t be so bad that you can’t tell me.”\n\n“Honestly, you’ll think I’m mental, but okay. I know I sound like one of those idiots that think 9/11 was an inside job, but did you see that thing about Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking on TV this morning? Don’t you think they look really similar? I’m beginning to wonder if they’re the same person.”\n\nYou notice the alarmed look in her eyes and let out a quick fake laugh. “See? Told you it was crazy. Obviously they’re not really the same person but you have to admit they look pretty similar right?”\n\nShe nods her assent and walks back to the kitchen. You berate yourself. You should know not to talk to people about the weird shit you think of- that’s what got you kicked out of your last job and put into this shithole instead. On the bright side, maybe if you did get kicked out of her you could find somewhere better.\n\nYour ‘leisure day’ drags on until finally Ella pops her head round the corner. \n“You’ve got a meeting now with Dr Harper” she says, leading you to his office. \nYou groan. You and Harper don’t get along well. You despise the fact that he makes people call him doctor. Having a PhD doesn’t give you the right to be an entitled prick. But he’s the one in control of your position here, so you resolve to grin and bear it.\n\n“How’s your work getting on?” He asks, smiling.\n\nYou know he doesn’t like you, and you know he’s the one that’s leaving you with nothing to do so your brain cells rot. But you have to be nice. Maybe then he’ll give you more to do. \n\n“I feel like I’m having too many leisure days. Meeting with you is the first thing I’ve had to do today and I’m not feeling particularly productive as a member of this team.” You say. \n\n“You know there’s plenty you can do to be productive, even if you haven’t been given a specific task,” He says. God, that infuriating, fake ‘I care about you’ smile. “There’s always things you can help other people with, or join in with other people during your downtime- you’re not the only one who doesn’t have much to do. You can’t just be left alone with your thoughts all day!”\n\n“You’re right, I can’t. I’ve been so bored today that I’ve come up with a whole conspiracy theory that Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking are the same person, and you know what? I’m even starting to believe it myself, I’ve been thinking on it that long.”\n\nHarper frowns and makes a quick note on his computer. Great, you think. I’ve pissed him off. You hate it here, but here is better than nothing.\n\nOn the way back to where you live, you stop in at the pharmacy to pick up your prescription. As they hand you the bag you notice that it’s slightly heavier than normal. \n\n“Sorry Ben, I think you’ve given me too much” you say. Damn all your fucking ailments, making you on first name terms with the pharmacist. \n\n“Let me check… Nope, says here on this note from the Doctor that your dosage has increased! And I know about the side effects, but don’t let those stop you taking the full dosage- we’ll know if you don’t!” Ben says, laughing amicably as you leave. He’s a nice guy, Ben. At least as a pharmacist he understands all the shit that your medications put you through. \n\nAll in all, it’s been a pretty shitty day, so you’re pleasantly surprised when your parents pop over for a visit just after dinner. It’s been a while, and you ask what the reason is for the sudden visit.\n\n“Oh sweetie, we don’t want to have to tell you this, but they’re moving you back to the high-risk unit. You can’t be going round having these paranoid delusions, not after what happened last time. You’re lucky you ended up in here and not prison. I’m so sorry darling, but this will be the last time we’re allowed to visit for a while. Dr Harper says he’s increased your dosage so hopefully you’ll be put back in low-risk a little quicker this time. I know you’ll miss your leisure days and the nurses, Ella and Leslie especially, but the ones in high-risk are lovely too. I’m sorry sweetie, we’re allowed to phone you once a week, so we’ll speak to you then. We love you.”\n\nYou should’ve known. This is exactly what happened last time. Nobody believed you then either, even after you shot the guy who was impersonating you. \n\nOh well, at least you won’t have to deal with any more ‘leisure days’. You don’t have to deal with that shit in high-risk. And no more fucking Dr Harper either. Moving you into high-risk? Bastard is clearly working for Gates/Hawking. You’ll have to tell your new doctor this when you move down to high risk. He’ll believe you. Surely he can’t be conspiring against you too.\n", "It was dull, routine morning accompanied by an uninteresting breakfast of toast and coffee. As I crunched through the dry bread and raised the hot mug to my lips, I froze. A blinding flash of light exploded through my mind like a two-stone lightning bug striking an airliner. \n\nI SUDDENLY BEGAN to believe Bill Gates and Professor Hawking were the same person. It wasn't a thought that crept up on my concious, it was sudden and out of nowhere. Nothing brought it on, and nothing could push it from my mind.\n\nIt felt as if my brain were melting. This can't be right; something has to be wrong. I mean logically I could BEGIN to SUSPECT, or I could SUDDENLY SUSPECT, but how could I SUDDENLY BEGIN TO SUSPECT. But that's what was happening.\n\nIt tore me up to only be at the beginning of SUSPECTING and not fully SUSPECT yet. It was like almost tasting something, except with a healthy ice cream headache.\n\nThe mug crashed to the floor, splintering into a thousand fragments and I felt my brain stem follow suit. My body SUDDENLY BEGAN to go limp, and I almost collapsed into a quivering heap but since I was still at the beginning of going limp I had time to understand that Hawking's ALS was just a cover story.\n\nThat bastard. " ]	2
	[WP] You're immortal, but not in the traditional sense. Each time you die, you're sent back, to the moment that triggered the chain of events leading to your death, in order to try and stop it.	[ "A flash, and then my mind focuses. Just like that, I was back, and I knew what I had to do. Approaching the intersection of 4th and Main, I put on my turn signal and turned left, rather than straight, as I had always done crossing that same intersection, which I did every day this week getting to work. Lo and behold, one block up, a 92 Chevy Impala blew the red light and slammed into another car clocking over 55 miles an hour in a commercial zone. Three dead, including the driver - just like the previous three times it had happened. Had I been anyone else, it would have been four dead. Just like those other times, I pull my car to the side.\n\nFourth time this month? Something was up. Or was it? By now, there was an odd sense of continuity to my life that few mortals could truly appreciate. I had no true way to end my life. Instead, I merely reset myself back to the choice that determined my death. The first time this had happened, during a poor decision to play tag near the cliffs as a kid, it was traumatizing. I had only wished that other kids - someone - could understand my experience. My parents thought I was crazy, got me psych treatment when I was 9. During that time, I tried to run away one night, until I got hit by a car in the darkness. My next thought was waking back up in my bed, safe and snug. Wouldn't try that again.\n\nI've gotten a lot further since then. Gotten jobs. Lost jobs. Married some psycho who tried, successfully, to kill me. Didn't marry that same psycho. The only thing missing is someone who understands.\n\nThe worst part was the sense of merely being that it generated. There was no beginning, no end. My earliest memory was of the Iran-Contra hearings on television as a 5-year-old, but my latest memories stretch anywhere from now until the mid 2010's. Wait a minute, what time is now? Think, think. Bill Clinton is president. He just got re-elected. Oh god, will it really be another 20 years before I can see how that election with Bill Clinton's wife and Donald Trump turned out? How many times have I lived those years? A dozen? Two dozen?\n\nI got a chill and a sense of vertigo from the thoughts swimming around in my head. I see the shouting up ahead as people rush out to assess the fatal accident that had just taken place. I know just what would help: Medical supplies in my glove compartment. I scramble and dig through, and then pull out... oh, it's my gun.\n\nIt really can end now. Let's put a period on this sentence, rather than a re-write. I can finally experience what every one of the other 6 billion goddamn people on this planet will experience. I don't even hesitate. Load chamber, safety off, pull trigger. Blackness.\n\nI stand there with the gun in front of me, pointed at my mouth. The first aid kit's fallen out, sitting on the passenger's seat. I blink, understanding what my brain convinced me to attempt. It wasn't the first time, or the second, or the third. When would I learn my lesson? I suppose never, but I had no choice.\n\nI grabbed the first aid kit, and for the fourth time this month, rushed towards the scene.", "I don't know what it's like to die. Believe me, if anyone should be dead, it's me. The first time it happened I was relieved, sure. But it's hard to grasp when you almost die, and what I had just seen caused more confusion than anything else. It's a fitting emotion for a man who had just saved his own life. I saw him in the car. I saw him... a perfect doppelgänger of yours truly, as he drove head on into the truck that was about to hit me. I saw him as he disappeared, an unexplainable mystery played out in only a few seconds. \n\nWhat was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to live my life normally? That was the only thing to do, right? So I tried that, telling no one what happened, eventually all but forgetting the event. But he came again. \n\nThe oddest things can play out in only a few seconds. On my way to work I almost slipped into an open manhole and he pushed me out of the way. It was the second time my ignorance should have killed me. I got only a glimpse of him, or me if you'd prefer to put it that way. He seemed confused as he faded into the surroundings, his whole existence siphoning away like it had sprung a leak. \n\nI couldn't go on from here. It was dangerous to test it, I know, but I was two for two. I had to know what would happen if I did it again. \n\nSo when I reached my office, I went out onto the roof, six stories up, and dove face first into the concrete. Nobody saved me. \n\nSometimes the coin toss isn't in your favor. \n\n~~~ \n\nI woke up where I died, on the concrete, with no idea what was happening. It came to me slowly like a faded memory. I had to save myself. I had to stop myself from dying. No hesitations or realizations hit me on my way up the stairs, nothing occurred to me as I saw myself on the edge of the roof preparing to jump. How had I come back several minutes in time to save myself from death? I didn't care. I grabbed the shirt of the man on the edge and pulled him back from his stupidity. \n\nHe looked up at me, shocked even though he should've expected it. I remembered the last time it had worked for me, when I had been saved. I remembered my savior as he ceased to exist. I joined him in his limbo. \n\n~~~\n\nIt's been over 200 years since I tried to jump from the roof. Nearly 190 years ago I noticed that my hair was graying, just before I was pulled into an alley and injected with something by a copy of myself. I haven't aged since. 100 years ago my wife died. I never told her what I was, and she never forgave me after she found out. Today, I sat with my son as he gave in to his sickness. An hour ago, I realized my gift was a curse. \n\nNow I sit alone with the small gun in my hands, preparing to end it. I am not alone for long, though. He walks in and sits down in a chair across the table from me. We both know what is happening. Neither of us says anything for a while. \n\nThen, he speaks: \"I've already done it. It hurts, but it isn't that bad.\"\n\n\"Are you glad you did?\" I ask. \n\nHe doesn't say anything for a minute, but finally settles on his answer, \"I'm not trying to stop you, am I?\"\n\n\"I get it. I've been alive for longer than anyone...\"\n\n\"This might not even be the end. We don't know how it works.\"\n\n\"So nobody came to save you, huh?\"\n\nHe smiles. \"Sometimes the coin toss isn't in your favor.\"\n\nI sit for another minute just looking at him. Will he fade if he fails to save me? Am I leaving him here to suffer the consequences of me killing myself? I don't really care anymore. It's my turn to rest. I lift the gun to my head. \n", "A car crash killed me the first time. I was 17 and drag racing with a buddy. My 1975 Camero would have won that race easily. Accelerating down the road at 90 miles per hour I was taking the lead but an oncoming truck forced my hand. I knew my buddy wouldn't brake and let me complete the pass so I opted for the far left, gravel shoulder. The truck blasted his air horn and flew past. I veered my car back onto the tarmac but lost control of the back end. I spun across the road, all four tires screeching. I tried to recover but my car smashed into a telephone pole.\n\nThe very next moment I was standing next to the dusty, black Camero. I was back at the farm where I had bought it 8 months prior. The farmer was standing next to me admiring the car in his overalls and straw hat. He said, \"so we have a deal\", and put out his hand for a shake. It was like deja vu, but very real. I walked away from Camero and bought a comfortable four door sedan instead. The next eight months of my life were a replay except I didn't have a cool car.\n\nMy girlfriend and I took a beach vacation for her 28th birthday. Beautiful resort, great food and perfect weather. On our fourth day I woke up early and went for a morning swim. The beach was empty. I swam out past the breakers and before I knew it I was at least 300 yards out. The current was strong. I fought against it trying to get back to the beach before I remembered I needed to swim parallel to the beach to get out of the rip. I spent all my energy and fought to stay afloat. I gave up. The next instant I was staring at my computer screen, the mouse hovering over the \"book tickets\" button. I was pissed. Why did I have to give up the whole vacation? I should have just blinked to the beach or the hotel room. I bought my girlfriend a necklace, but I would have preferred the beach vacation. Other than the drowning part.\n\nFrom then on my life was pretty average until I hit the lotto. I was 31, single and a multi-millionaire. I upped my lifestyle enough to be very comfortable, but not so much as to blow through my millions. I was determined not to be one of those that won the lottery and ended up broke. To keep busy and make more money I bought several profitable business including a very busy Donuts franchise. The General Manager I hired was just a bit off. Randy was one of those guys that would be screaming at you one minute and hugging you the next. Other than the wild mood swings he was a good manager and didn't steal. \n\nRandy had demanded a 10% raise. I told him I would consider a raise after his performance review in June. He snapped and started screaming. He knocked over a cart of donuts startling some customers so I told him to go home and cool off. I worked the rest of his shift. The next morning Randy was calm and asked me to come back to the office. I obliged expecting an apology, but instead was shot in the chest with a .38\n\nI would have hoped to have been blinked back to the time Randy first demanded a raise. I could have given him the raise, or fired him. Either of those would have prevented my murder. Instead here I am, in line at the convenience store. I have the lottery slip in my hand along with five bucks.\n\n\n\n", "\"It was never very useful, as I never got into much danger. Still, it was fun for a while. I tried to find the craziest way to kill myself. Personal favourite? Wrapping rope around my neck and attaching it to a firework. I lit it, and flew off into the night sky.\n\nI was never particularly social: I sat around in the house, watching Netflix or playing Minecraft/Call Of Duty/Destiny or whatever was popular. I guess the ability to undo my death could of let me rob banks or something crazy like that, but I never really felt the need. \n\nI was planning to kill myself once again by driving a car on fire into the ocean. It was almost ready to go. I had poured the gasoline, and it was right by the river. Then you stopped me. Ashley, you're the best person I've ever met. The second you thought I was about to end my life, you ran there and stopped it. Misguided? Perhaps, but it was a incredibly kind thing to do, and I don't know if I would have done the same. You're the best friend I've ever had, and always went out of your way to help. Even when I was diagnosed with a terminal illness that was untreatable.\n\nEvery time I die to it, I come back in time by a year, pinned to the hospital bed throughout. This may seem fundamentally horrifying, and it is, but I don't mind because you always come over.\"", "I'd lost count of how many years I'd actually experienced in my life, if you can call it that. According to the calendar my body is just over 83 years old. I've experienced closer to 1500 years or so in my mind. When I was younger I'd only go back up to a few weeks in order to stop my death and even that was pretty rare, normal resets ranged from 5 minutes to a day. \n\nAny route I manage to reach old age, I think that perhaps it's finally my time to leave for good. Then I'll wake up 40 years younger on the day I decided to start skipping the gym, or 60 years younger the day I took up smoking. I'm trying my best to live as long as possible, because maybe if I run out of ways to increase my life span then I'll be forced to clock out for good.. This is the longest I've made it. I've never stopped working out and never took up smoking. I take vitamins and eat perfectly healthy. \n\nToday looks like it might actually be my final day. My health has been rapidly declining over the past few months but I've been pushing to live as long as I can, even taking risky surgeries since I can always redo those choices. \n\nWhile it's nice having my family and loved ones close as I die, I wonder if they're going to be my last and true lineage or if I'm going to go back and have to make a whole new family. No sense worrying about it now, I can feel the familiar grasp of death. My chest is in intense pain but it's calming, things are hazy and it's difficult to think straight. My heart is most definitely failing right now and I will die along with it, hopefully for the last time.\n\nI'm back 40 years. When the last long reset happened and I decided to live as long as possible. What choice was wrong? Where did I fail? What could I have done to increase my lifespan. As I was sitting there questioning it, my memory hit me like a ton of bricks. The doctors said it but I didn't pay any attention to it since I was 3 years further than I'd ever made it. I was so focused on living as long as possible I never enjoyed it. The doctors did say the stress would be the death of me." ]	5
	[WP] Design an appropriately ironic hell for a celebrity or other famous person, living or dead, of your choice.	[ "He was sitting on a computer, typing code into the slow machine. Sometimes, he used the mouse, with a ball and just one button. When he would get tired, he'd sleep under the desk. He had stopped raging against fate, he had accepted it, just as he had accepted water and gruel. Just as he had accepted the tiny CRT screen and working in text mode. It still pained him though, to support what he always fought: he was Steve Ballmer and he had to port Microsoft Office to Linux.", "I have lost my identity. I am just a number. Every morning I wake up and shuffle to the assembly area where they call my number to check that I haven't escaped yet or haven't died during the night. \n\nYou'd think in hell that people don't die, but you'd be wrong. We do die. When we die we are sent back to the place where we started in hell, that exact moment. I always go back to the moment where they tattoo the number on my arm. After that, they shave my head and tell me to strip naked and go take a shower. After the shower I am handed clothes that look like some 10 year olds pyjamas. \n\nThen I get sent to work. I have to break up rocks, take them across the yard and fill the grave where thousands of previous versions of myself lay dead. They're not real of course. They are just put there to make me come to terms with what I did. \n\nI get fed three times a day, but it's not enough and after a few days I look like a skeleton draped in cracked skin. When they deem me thin enough, they take me out on an extended walk. I walk from one camp to the next. Everytime it's either boiling hot, or freezing cold. If I fall down, I get kicked until I take up the courage to walk again. They do not give me water on these walks. \"Swallow your spit you filthy German!\" They say. What spit? My mouth feels like someone poured a desert into it. \n\nIf I make it through the day, they make me write a letter like this one. Every day I have to sit here and write on this piece of paper. And what do I use as ink you ask? Blood. The German blood that was spilled during the war. \n\nI would put my name here, but I am not allowed to. They do terrible experiments on me if I do. If I follow their rules, then they give me a better death. They send to take a shower, but it's never a proper shower.... \n\n– 64758982 " ]	2
	[WP] Every morning, you wake up with all the memories drunk people lose.	[ "This is my first submission to writing prompts. Feedback is appreciated! \n\nThe ember burned brightly in the dark as the cigarette inched it's way down close to the filter. Hartigan sighed as he exhaled a noxious plume into the air, adding to the cloud of smoke from the last half-dozen Camels he'd already smoked in the last hour or so. \"Goddammit,\" he muttered to himself, extinguishing another fried butt into the ashtray that set in front of him. \"Cmon, think man! What are the signs? There's always something... there's always a tell... you're a detective... do your damn job!\" Hartigan WAS a detective, but after a few bad performance reviews he was let go from the force. But old habits die hard. Now he's some sort of vigilante private investigator, except he doesn't have a clientelle. Just the hints of violence that woyld flash before his eyes. He glanced at the clock on the wall. 9:48 PM.\n\n He rubbed his eyes and heavily sighed again. \"Taking longer than usual this time,\" talking out loud to an barely lit and empty room. His thoughts wandered, but always to the past. Hartigan could never live in the moment or think about the future because of what he called \"a fucking curse.\"\n\nIt started a few years ago after his wife and son suddenly and inexplicably left him in the middle of the night. They never said anything. No fighting, no arguments, no note, nothing. Just vanished like ghosts. The morning he discovered they were gone he'd awoken with a pounding headache and feeling like he hadn't slept a wink. He'd been restless with nightmares through the night, all just brief glimpses into the lives of people he'd never met. When he awoke to tell his wife about these strange dreams she wasn't there. He could see her impression in the bed, a few strands of long blonde hair on the pillow, but the space was empty and cold. \n\nHe reached to his cellphone on the nightstand and squinting through blurry vision checked the time. 6:42 AM. Weather app showed cloudy with light showers. \"That's weird,\" he thought, \"Jamie doesn't usually get up until 7.\" He let his head hit the pillow for a moment, listening intently for a noise in the kitchen. \"Maybe she's making breakfast! Sure could use a plate full of bacon right now!\" He sniffed the air but there was no scent coming from the kitchen, so he held his breath to listen for any sound, but still, nothing. Usually he could hear the TV in Jake's room, but the house was dead fucking silent. He sat up in bed now waiting for something, but after a full minute there was still nothing. Hartigan felt a swell of anger rising in his chest as he threw the bed covers off and stood up. He never did like dead silences... made him feel like he was living in a funeral home. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he strode across the room. He looked like hell with his gray patchy stubble and dark circles under his eyes, but he didn't stop to think about that. He continued across the room until he reached the door. The last thing he could remember from that morning was the cold feeling in his hand as he turned the brass doorknob to exit into the hallway. Most everything after that was a blur.\n\n\"Cant think about that now. Have to focus on the task at hand. Focus. What am I not seeing?\" Hartigan didn't know what was going on in his head, and neither did any of the doctors. They almost threw him in a psych ward, but being a detective taught him a lot about hiding his emotions. He'd seen thousands of liars and theives try to weasel away from the truth, and he'd picked up a few tricks along the way. He knew how to use body language to convince the doctors that he was OK. He knew when to use eye contact and when to avoid it to throw the therapists off his trail. \"I might be crazy, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna live in a freakin mental hospital!\" He'd used all the tricks in the book to avoid being locked up, and they worked. But the nightmares continue.\n\nWhat Hartigan nor the doctors knew was that they weren't just nightmares, they were memories. The things that appeared to Hartigan in his sleep were real time events happening to people who were possessed by the demon alcohol. Actually, Hartigan was seeing all the things that drunk people couldn't remember, and not all of them were bad. Some people were happy, having a great time. Smiling, celebrating with friends and family... but he learned to block that out. \n\nDuring his time as a detective Hartigan had seen some pretty brutal stuff, so even before the Curse, he was knee-deep in the shit that humanity could imagine. Drunk driving accidents. Murder. Rape. Violence. The worst stuff was seeing the kids. Their small bodies twisted and beaten in ways unimaginable. One of the most horrific things he ever saw was when he pulled up to the scene of an accident and saw a woman sobbing uncontrollably, holding her daughter in her arms. She was obviously drunk, but she wasn't the one who'd been driving. It didn't take a detective to figure out that the guy whose face was now a part of the dashboard was the driver. But as he'd found out during the investigation, the mother was a complete drunk who'd go to the city with her girlfriends, get hammered drunk and leave the bars with different men, sometimes more than one at a time. Meanwhile the husband was at home taking care of their 3 year old daughter, thinking his wife had gone for a \"girls night out.\" \n\nBut the truth eventually comes out, and one of her friends couldn't keep it a secret anymore. She'd spilled the beans and he packed up his daughter to go find his wife. He drove around until he saw her stumbling out of the 7th Street Saloon with three black thugs feeling up his wife's tits and ass, right there in public. After nearly getting his teeth knocked in by these guys who made NWA look like pussies he got his wife in the car. As they drove home she mocked him for crying, and shouted all kinds of obscenities at him, punching and scratching him along the way. Apparently in her drunken stupor she got the idea she was going to take the child out of her car seat, and when he tried to stop her she scratched him in the face. The combination of him turning his eyes from the road, his tears, and her attacking him he lost control of the vehicle and planted their 2004 Chevy Tahoe into a big fucking oak tree. He was killed instantly, and thanks to the fact that the mother had unbuckled their daughter from her car seat, the little girls neck snapped. The drunk bitch somehow walked away with a dislocated shoulder, a black eye, and a big bump on her head.\n\nSince there's no law against being a drunken whore, the mother was handed a sentence that involved 12 months of court-ordered grief counseling and addiction therapy. Your tax dollars at work, people.\n\nShe lasted about 8 months. She broke out of the rehab facility and one of the responding officers whom Hartigan had taken a liking to found her in a nearby woods where she'd let herself out of the mortal coil with a gunshot wound straight through the temple.\n\n More often though, he felt pity for the kids who lived through the tragedy put before them by the ones who are supposed to protect them, which is where his mind is now. Last night's nightmare was one that he's seen too many times. \n\nStaring through the eyes of a man, rather, a pathetic excuse of a man, he can tell the man is stumbling down a hallway... a sudden jolt to the right and a family photo falls from it's hanger. \"Goddammit boy, get yer ass out here!\" There is a woman shouting behind him, but he can't make out what she said. The man turns to his back and he sees his hand shoot out in front of him, pointing back down the hallway toward the sound of the woman's voice. The man's hand is rough, knuckles covered in coarse black hair. He screams, \"Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up right now, or I swear to God, bitch I will put you in the fuckin ground.\" Even through the slurred speach he could tell the man had a shitty stereotypical southern drawl in his accent. He can almost smell the cheap whiskey on the man's breath. \"This is MY house! You think I'll let my wife and my son disrespect me in my Goddamn house?! You got another thing comin! Sit down, shut the fuck up and mind your business, cunt!\"\n\nThrough the man's eyes he can see him turn around, losing his balance and falls face first into the carpet. If he could feel what the man felt, he'd guess his face was stinging from carpet burn.\n\n\"Aaaaggghh! FUCK!\" He stood up in pure rage and slammed his hairy fist through the drywall. He continued down the hall, stopping at a wooden door. He could see that the door fame had been broken off, like the door had been kicked open. There was also a latch attached from the door to the wall where you could drop a Masterlock through. A sign that whoever was in that room was being kept inside. Like a prisoner.", "Slightly NSFW Warning. It's my first post here, so sorry. Also it's like 1 in the morning haha. \n\nThere'd been nothing but funny memories, since she could remember. Ever since Carlie was little, she'd seen drunken idiots perform all sorts of insane stunts, lose an uncountable number of phones and keys, and give up all inhibitions. She's never touched a drop herself, and instead reveled in her happy, silly power. Even through college, she remained the most loyal of all DDs and was a favorite among the party crowd for being responsible. \n\nParties weren't something she enjoyed, but Carlie generally forced herself to go anyway, if only for her friend's sake. She barely had a choice, since her sorority was famous for real ragers and she lived upstairs. Her best friend, Melissa, was practically the total opposite of her, parties basically gave her a spark in life. Carlie couldn't recall how many memories of Mel's she had woken up to, but assumed it was in the billions. Music blared, and people came and went with stereotypical red cups filled with all sorts of alcohols that fit a college kid's bill. She wondered if they only bought those particular cups since they were always in movies. As Carlie mingled uncomfortably throughout the night, she tried an eye on her booze-riddled friend, which was proving difficult. When she finally spotted that dark, impossibly curly head of hair, she noticed Mel was currently intensely chatting up a nice-looking brunette boy. Carlie rolled her eyes, and went to intervene. \n\n\"Hey Mel,\" she sing-songed, tilting herself to make eye contact with her olive-skinned and off-balanced friend. \"Enjoying a fair amount of drinks, there, eh?\" \n\n\"CARLIE. F-finally! You can settle this here bet we have. How many, like, generations of humans have there been? Like, it's at least 450 million, right? So many. Imagine how many people.\" \n\nCarlie raised an eyebrow to the now laughing boy, \"How much has she had?\" \n\n\"I'm not sure. Should I get her some water,\" he asked, and just as Carlie nodded, Mel was staggering on her feet. \n\nWith a swift catch, Carlie caught the girl and with determination only a best friend could muster, led her very heavy friend to the nearest couch, a few rooms away. It's not that Mel was a large girl or anything, but Carlie weighed a whopping 106 pounds, so it didn't quite take a large amount of weight to challenge her. \n\n\"Mel, try not to be dead weight,\" she breathed, finally plopping her down to a mid point to the stairs and sitting beside her. Carlie was sweating, and wiped her brow, grabbing the drink the laughing boy was intending for Mel, trying to prepare for the real challenge: stairs. Downing most of the water, she thanked him and requested his help. Phi Mu parties were her favorite, since her room was just upstairs and across from Mel's so she never had to carry her far. Mel was whining over some fossil gap in human evolution and Carlie laughed, shushing her. As she sat on the bed, she stroked the hair of her friend, looking over at the boy.\n\n\"Hey, you really helped, thank you,\" she offered, smiling. \n\nHe smiled back, shrugging, \"Anything for a lady.\" \n\nCarlie stood, feeling exhausted. She was definitely done for the night, and now that Mel was safely asleep, had no commitment to staying awake, or staying at the party. She was sure she'd have memories to look forward to. Carlie yelled a goodbye to everyone and nodded toward the boy, moving down the hall to her own room. She shut the door, and her sore legs were screaming for the comfort of her bed. \n\nThe lightning woke her on the last night she enjoyed having her power. Violently, she shot up with a gasp. Memories of tearing clothes, muted protests, all mingled with a hazy fog over her brain. Outside, rain threw itself at her window while she absorbed was she was \"seeing\". Hands were where they didn't belong, and the girl she felt her connection with wasn't having the silly, fun times Carlie was used to. She lost herself in the memory, determined to figure out who was doing this to this poor girl, but it was so dark, and even in her memories, the room was spinning uncontrollably. All she could make out was a small picture frame on the nightstand with a young child and an older man who looked slightly familiar to Carlie. Suddenly, she could the figure above her speaking, very faintly. Praising her for being such a good girl, letting her know how much she liked him inside her and that this was what the girl wanted. Carlie felt sick at the thought, knowing all of this was so wrong. \n\nCarlie could barely move as muddled memories of dancing, drinking and this horrible act flooded her brain. As the gravity sunk in of what she witnessed, her feet touched the cold floor. Suddenly, she thought of her friend, Mel. Helpless. She had left her, what if this horrible thing had happened to her beautiful friend? She could barely stand the thought, and realized she needed to get out of this room and find her. Just before she was overcome with worry, lightning filled her vision, and as her eyes adjusted, she saw a small picture frame on the nightstand. Thunder filled her ears as she stared at the photo, realizing it was her own photo, one of her and her father, taken long ago. \n\nIt wasn't Mel. ", "The city skyline is lit like it was shining through a glass bottle. \"I'm going to love you forever!\" I feel a rush of cold air and a hand outstretched to break my fall.\n\n\"What the hell is wrong with you!\" a woman's voice breaks through the darkness. It was just a dream. \n\n\"Mom, I'm gonna puke watch out.\" I lean over and it all comes out. My puke doesn't smell like booze at least. I thought it would smell like booze. \n\n\"Oh my god, you vomited all over the carpet. Couldn't you have made it to the trashcan at least.\"\n\n\"Mom, I had such a bad dream that I puked. How would I have made it to the trashcan?\" I feel much better. It must have been my stomache pains giving me bad dreams, but I'm tired like I haven't slept.\n\n\"I'm sorry that you don't feel good, sweety. Go rest on the couch. I'll put the stuff on it, but you need to keep resting if you're that sick.\"\n\nI get up still half asleep. Man, it feels like I'm still half drunk. I stop at the top of the steps. I am so tired, the couch is going to be so nice. One second laying down, and I fall right asleep.\n\nAll these cokebottle lense dreams. I turn down the computer brightness. This girl is up at 3am, and she is cute too. Oh wow, she's really cute. \"Hey whatsu0.\" \n\n\"Hi\"\n\nI've got to send her the funniest pic I have in my reaction folder. She'll think it's funny, and then she'll talk to me. Oh, this one's funny. I haven't seen Arrested Development in a long time. I should watch that. I take a big gulp of whisky. It went down like nothing. I close one eye to see better. I shouldn't have done that, let me lay down. \n\n", "The former Reverend Brighton sat in his room at the Lovecraft Mental Health Facility, a perpetual smile on his face, a smile that always seemed to be the middle ground between drunk and hung over, though he had never drunk alcohol before or during his stay. The caregivers loved him; he took care of himself, required little to no watching, and never caused trouble. In fact, the only reason he was there was because he had been caught breaking in to multiple houses, and he had claimed each was his home. After examining him and finding his memory full of things that never happened to him (like a \"rager somewhere downtown\" when he was waiting on bail in the station, he was declared insane, his case was dismissed, and he was sent to Lovecraft for treatment.\n\nThe only thing that neither the prosecution nor the defense could ever adequately explain was the fact that he had used keys hidden by the actual residents to break into the houses.", "\"Sir, your two o'clock is here early. He seems very nervous, should I send him in?\" she asked. \n\nI looked up at from my desk and saw my young secretary peering her head from behind the door. \"They're always nervous,\" I sighed. \"Yeah ok, Sally, just get him in here. What is his name?\"\n\nAs she went back to the waiting room she threw back, \"John.\"\n\nHe walked into the room with his hands in his pockets, walking with unsteady steps as if he were still hungover. His ruffled hair and the black circles under his eyes only made him look more ghastly.\n\nHe took the seat across from me and hesitantly muttered the words, \"Hello Mr. Retriever.\"\n\n\"Welcome John. This is your first time here, isn't it?\" I ask as cordially as I could.\n\nHe shook his head in agreement as I began explaining the procedure, \" The rules are simple. You tell me what was the time of your last memory, and if I have your memory I will let you know. The standard charge is five hundred dollars and you get to ask me five questions. If you have more questions it will be one hundred dollars extra for each. Do you understand the rules John?\"\n\nHis eyes maintained their blank stare as he confirmed, \"I do.\" I was just about to proceed but he jumped to beat me and said, \"Nine fifteen. I was face down on the pavement and for a second I remember glimpsing up to see '88 Infinity', the clothes shop. That is it, just that.\"\n\nIt did not take me a lot to remember John's memory.I actually recalled it within seconds, it was one that stood out to me when I woke up in the morning. I usually see their memories as dreams, and I could not tell if this one was a nightmare or a fantasy.\n\nHis eyes were filled with anticipation, a look I have become accustomed to after three months in this business. I knew he was desperate so I started telling him what I could, \"You were not passed out. You had just slipped and hit your head, but you got up a few minutes later. You were really hammered, even waddling into traffic as cars honked at you. Eventually you sat down near a dumpster, took out your phone and started texting.\"\n\n\"Oh God!\" he startled me by saying out loud. \"5th street, there is an 88 Infinity on 5th street. Oh God! I texted Emma didn't I?\"\n\nI was about to tell him that so I decided to excuse his interruption and not count the question.\"Yes, it was Emma, and she was happy to hear from you. She texted you back for an hour before you practically invited yourself over to her place. She did not stop you.\"\n\nJohn's expression changed to intrigue and I could see a glimmer of hope in his eyes. He sat at the edge of his seat and listened impatiently. \"You took a cab and you kept singing to the driver about how much you loved Emma. But when you got there is when the memories become more vivid, it almost feels like I was actually there. That tends to happen when you drink even more, and you two drank a lot.\"\n\nAgain John displayed his knowledge of his drunken self as he predicted, \"I bet I sat there with her talking about the good old times.\"\n\n\"For an hour,\" I added, \"But then things got really interesting. For two people with alcohol instead of blood running in their veins you sure went at it hot and heavy for long. Well, it was not you as much as it was her effort. That Emma, she does it all and does it hard.\"\n\nA mixture of joy and anxiousness appeared on John's face, \"Was that it?\"\n\nI sat back in my chair and shared the rest, \"No. After you two were done you sat and talked for a while before you said you had to go. It ends when you leave her building late at night. That is when you passed out on the pavement. Now if you want you can ask me five questions or you can choose to leave.\"\n\nThe confused young man sat there for a while silent. He seemed to dwell on his thought for far too long, but as long as my three o'clock appointment was still not there I just let him stay. Then, he hit me with two questions, \"Is she still as hot as I remember her? And how was it? Was it good?\"\n\n\"Yes, Emma was absolutely stunning and fully of life. Your time together was very hot and steamy, almost mind-blowing,\" I recalled for him from his memory.\n\nThe distraught young man took more time to ponder his thoughts. \"Wait!\" he suddenly said, \"You said she was drunk too. Do you have her memory of last night?\"\n\n\"It is against my policy to discuss anything but a client's own memories with them. Whether I have her memories or not, I would not be at liberty to say anything about it,\" I explained.\n\nHowever, John was desperate and hounded me to know more, \"Oh come on man! Just tell me! What did she feel about it?\"\n\nI firmly stood my ground, \"I am sorry John but I am not at liberty to say. You have one more question.\"\n\nJohn now carried the look of defeat on his face. He held his head in his hands for a while before he turned to me once more and asked, \"What did she say to me in the end before I left?\"\n\nWith a heavy sigh I revealed the most difficult thing I had to say that day, \"She told you: They said it could happen any time this week; I hope I get to see you in the next life, love.\"", "Jane had her favourites.\n\nThere was the blonde girl who always ended up getting piggybacks from strangers at 3am as the clubs emptied. The chubby guy who got into deep philosophical discussions with anyone who'd listen while riding the night bus home. And of course the small Asian girl who was virtually silent through the day, but came alive at night and passionately sung every word of every song that the DJ played.\n\nWaking up with their inebriated memories always offered a rich source of entertainment. She'd experienced their drunken behaviour so many times now that Jane felt close to each and every one of them. They were like old friends that she didn't get time to see that often, but whenever they did get a chance to meet it was guaranteed to be a momentous night.\n\nShe slid the bread into the toaster and waited.\n\nJane couldn't remember when she'd first started waking up with the memories of a million different people inside her mind. At first it felt like her head was going to erupt whenever she woke up, allowing all those snapshots of drunken antics to escape in a billowing cloud of debauchery. But the more it happened, the more used to it she became. Every day was a little bit easier.\n\nShe cut off a wedge of butter and spread it over the crispy toast.\n\nIn fact, as time passed and Jane accepted that it was one of those things that she had to put up with, she came to enjoy the fact that she had a unique glimpse into so many different lives. She knew things about people that nobody else had a clue about. She even had a unique insight to human behaviour at its most carefree. She saw people at both their very best and their very worst, and she loved the fact that no one else would ever know.\n\nIf only they knew what I'd seen.\n\nShe grinned and took a bite out of the warm slice, but her smile quickly vanished.\n\nThere was a strange feeling inside her, as it suddenly dawned upon Jane that maybe she wasn't the only one that experienced this. What if someone out there, someone she didn't know, had seen her at her very worst too?\n\nWhat if they've seen the things I've done?\n\nHer appetite soon disappeared.\n____________________________________________________________________________________________________\nI hope you liked reading my take on /u/Exileman's prompt.\n\nIf you did, why not check out my novel, [The promise she made](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CC31H9A/ref=cm_sw_su_dp). Thanks :)\n\nOr if you have any feedback I'd love to hear it.\n\n/r/NeedlessTautology", "\"Billy, are you ready to go to school?\" Billy's mom was a sweet lady with the patience of a saint.\n\n\"Nyuuhhh....shots! Shots! Nneeeehhh...keys in the cupboard! Don't forget!\"\n\nShe sighed. \"Come on, sweetie, let's go. I have your favorite sandwich packed!\"\n\n\"Sandwich! Forgot to pay for sandwich! Sandwich...this sandwich isn't vegan but...ham's vegan right? Shots!\"\n\nYou see, Billy woke up every morning with the memories every drunk person lost while blacking out. An extremely modest estimate of two hours lost by each of fifty thousand people pans out to one hundred thousand hours of memories every morning, or approximately 11.41 years. Every morning. They more or less push all the normal memories from his mind, leaving him to know nothing but years of drunken stupor.\n\nHe's a little off.\n\n-----------------------------------------------\n\nbored, but it's too early to get drunk? swing by /r/resonatingfury!" ]	7
	[WP] 100 of earth's brightest survived.. and no one knows why you are in the group	[ "Well humans fucked up!\nI'm no scientist so I'll try and explain this the best I can. Something happened with a drill and a red button. Basically Earth is going to explode in 24 hours. So I got drunk, well what else was I going to do, fuck going into work. I got four shots in when stuff started getting weird. Some bright light celestial being appeared in my apartment and told me I was elected to join 99 other humans on a space ship to go inhabit a new earth. I was drunk so I told him to fuck off. He hit me over the head and I woke up in a twin size bed in the cabin of a space ship. There was a doctor taking my vitals.\n\n\"Dude please turn off the lights.\"\n\n\"No, You my friend have some questions to answer.\"\n\n\"First off why are you not freaking out that you are in an unknown place?\"\n\n\"That would be the work of my friend Jameson, has a real long neck. Almost a greenish complexion.\"\n\n\"Stop, there is 99 other people on this ship that have been tasked to rebuild civilization and then there is you! I want some answers.\"\nThe doc, looked like one of those doctors off a ER show. Some rich bastard that probably owns a boat.\"\n\n\"Man, I don't know why I am here, some light-bulb knocked me out and I woke up here.\"\n \n\"Wait someone got you?\" \n\n\"Yes, how did you get here.\"\n\n\"An invitation came in the mail. The world was ended, it was worth the shot.\"\n\nAfter that day things progressed fast, the voyage to the new earth was long and lonely. I had very little in common with all of this scientist, mathematicians and doctors. I pick up on something though everyone here was a fucking Debby downer! No one had optimism, they shall the next five decades as one long job. But I thought it was going to be the awesome then it hit me I was exposed to bring sarcasm and hop into the new world. \n\n", "It was the winter of 2012, specifically December 21st. According to the nutters out there, the world was supposed to end tonight. I figured the best way to celebrate the world ending was to go to one of those End of the world parties and get completely hammered. It got wild fast, I don’t remember much besides for the clock striking twelve, and then everything going white.\n\nWhen I woke up I was in a steel room, filled with other people. Some of their faces looked familiar, and there was a guy in the wheelchair with a weird robotic voice. They were all chatting away, and it was driving my headache wild.\n“Will you all just shut your fuck holes!” I declared angrily, addressing the crowd of nerds, who were throwing around words and numbers like we were back in highschool. Instantly the crowd of geeks and freaks turned to me, and went silent. I rubbed my eyes, getting up to my feet, feeling an instant drop in my stomach. \n\nI hurled all over the wheelchaired guy, unable to help myself. No one said a thing, just dead silence. When I recovered a man had came up to me, he had darker skin, and a mustache. Pretty short hair too. “What’s your name?” He asked patiently, although I could see dislike in his eye.\n\n“Chad, bro. You?” I said, wiping some of the remaining vomit off the bottom of my mouth. Someone was taking care of wheelchair guy. Honestly, I couldn’t care less, my head hurt and I just needed to get back home. I couldn’t remember how I got here, though. Must have been a fun night. \n\n“I’m Neil. Chad, what field do you specialize in? I haven’t ran across your name before.” The man said to me, patiently. Almost like he was talking to a child. I felt angry, especially with all of the other nerds staring at me.\n\nDeciding to raise my voice, to show them all who was the boss, I said “Bro, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Who the fuck let all the nerds in?” I then glared around trying to intimidate them. Neil seemed to get frustrated, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck you. Where’d my beer go.” I declared, not having this shit, especially with my hangover.\n\n“I’ll bet they wanted a control subject. Or maybe he’s highly functioning on the autistic spectrum, with some very specialized skill set that they wanted.” Said one ugly chick behind me. My face went red, and I turned to the bitch.\n\n“Fuck you, I’m not autistic. You’re a bitch. You need to get laid, but no one’s going to fuck an ugly bitch like you.” I screamed, pointing a finger at her. I took a step closer, that’s when Neil grabbed me on the shoulder. I turned around to look back at Neil, who seemed to be struggling with something.\n\n“Chad, calm down. Do you know where we are?” He asked, keeping his tone neutral. \n\n“Fuck no bro. I got shitfaced last night. Where is this place?” I said, pointedly ignoring ugly bitch now. I couldn’t see wheelchair guy anymore either, they were probably cleaning him up.\n\n“You’ve heard of extraterrestrials, species that exists on planetary systems other than ours? We’ve long theorized life to be possible on other planets, it seems they are indeed real. And they’re interested in us.” He said, face completely straight after having spewed all the fake words he made up.\n\n“Extraterrestrials? What the fuck are those bro? Stop making shit up. Aliens aren’t even possible bro, what are you, like six? Where the fuck are we?” I said, looking around on the floor for my snapback. I seemed to have lost it last night. Great, another fucking thing this morning.\n\n“They are real. You’re on one of their ships. They took us, the most objectively intellegent people that humanity has to offer. And.. Of course, you for some reason.”\n\nI stopped, staring at the man’s deadpan face, I looked at him for the first time. And I discovered something, none of these people even lifted. Clearly, that was why these aliens must have wanted me. To keep these nerds in line. A smile broke out across my face. “I know why.” I declared, to the shock of the entire crowd.\n\n“Why?” Neil asked, confused.\n\n“Cause I’m the coolest fucking guy on earth.” I concluded.", "Looking around the room, it's kind of comedic. I mean, it's lavish but in the way something might have looked luxurious in the 1970s. Everything in the room seemed too faded now, the colors bleached from cleaning products and sunlight. \n\nI see Degrasse Tyson, James Woods, is that Marissa Mayer? Okay, that's definitely Natalie Portman even though she's under-dressed, jeans and a blue tee. Am I under-dressed? I think I spot Jesse Williams in the back. I don’t know his face well but it’s not a lot of other people he could be, given the current situation? He's talking to Lin-Manuel Miranda. Now that guy, that guy got lucky with his timing. If this had happened eighteen months ago, well, he wouldn’t be in this room.\n\nWhy am I in this room?\n\nThere's a large buffet table filled with the basics. No staff, although there's an immaculately pressed linen table cloth on every one of the sixteen tables in the room. It’s silverware, not plastic but the plates are made from a thick cardboard.\n\nEvery table has six chairs, with the exception of the twelfth, which had 7. Netanyahu is already sitting there, chest puffed. The air in the room is hot. There's the quiet hum of conversation. I am a stranger to this group but they are no strangers to each other, Some are holding sturdy paper plates with assorted cheeses. \n\nI notice they brought Chomsky but not Hawking, but you figure they opted out of bringing the latter because the upkeep cost alone--plus, not going to get a lot of longevity out of the guy. Portman was a decent investment but the average age in the room still seems high to me. Maybe it’s because the older faces are easier to place, more established in my cultural psyche, maybe because so few of us ever accomplish anything while we are still young.\n\nThere is a small,gilded table near the entrance. Although it is merely the entrance to the room and not the building, I do not remember how I got into the building. There is a seating chart, in an immaculate cursive, the last 100 of us split into groups. I see my name. \n\nTable seventeen.\n\n\n\n", "As Tyrone looked around the room, he could only see shapes of arms and legs. Some unknown light source attacked his eyes as he covered them, trying to regain his composure.\n\n\"Why isn't he glowing, Daddy?\" A child's voice asked.\n\n\"Stay near me, Sharon.\"\n\nA woman's voice called out. \"What do we do? They said after we drink from The Fountain we're all supposed to glow..\"\n\nTyrone immediately furrowed his brow. \"What you sayin'? Just cuz' I'm black mean I can't glow?\"\n\n\"NO no! Of course not!\" the woman reassured, more herself than Tyrone. \"It's just..we're all glowing! Literally! But I'm not sure why you aren't...but not that there's anything wrong with that.\"\n\nTyrone opened his eyes a bit more, enough to see the slim outline of a woman in front of him. He could see small silhouettes of veins and bones as her skin looked as if it were glass, clear as day. \n\n\"Your body...didn't change.\" the woman said.\n\nTyrone looked down at his hands to see his melanin filled skin, opaque as stone, and firm with muscle. \"Why?\"\n\nHis eyes adjusted slightly more, able to see the glow from inside the woman's now non-existent organs. It wasn't the case of the organs being blocked by an umbra, but they had been replaced by..light.\n\n\"We...we don't know.\"\n\n(Should I keep this going?)" ]	4
	[WP] Years ago you found a set of keys and today you found the door it belongs too.	[ "For hours I had walked through the grey canyon; step after step, I moved slowly, followed only by wind and sand.\nFigures as high as the walls were carved along the path; images of ancient dead gods, with their postures high and powerful and their faces full of pride and spite.\nWhoever worshiped them, was long gone. Forgotten, they were decaying to the curse of time. Their only witness was me.\n\nAs the wind grew stronger, I took shelter by one of the stone foot.\nFrom the inside of my ragged pack, I took out an old book. From inside the book I took out a map and left a key.\nLooking around, I found the safest place, a small hole on the stone, bright enough for the moonlight and protected from the wind.\nI had to be quick, for seconds is all I had left. I took a deep breath and opened the map.\nI glanced over it and found the path of gods. \nThe letters and drawing started fading. \nMy objective was so close, I just had to memorize the rest. \nThe borders began to turn to dust. \nEast, west, north and a door. \nThe decay was strong. \nIt was an important door, unique. \nDust fell to the ground and mixed with the sand. \nThe map was gone.\n\nThe key!\nI had to protect the key at any cost. I checked the book again and was surprised, the decay was stronger than I thought. \nMove fast!\nI took the stone key and held it in my hands. \nThink fast!\nI took a piece of cloth and wrapped the key close to my body.\nSeconds passed, then, minutes. The key was intact. \nI breathed again.\n\nUnder the starless sky, by the light of the eternal moon, I mourned the loss of my book.\nNot for its words, because my memories carried them, but for its craft, for few things in this grey world felt beautiful to my eyes.\nI had found it uncountable years ago, before the dead forest, before the abandoned village, inside a small box in the long library.\nIt had carried a name on its cover, but it wasn't mine, because names were for others to call you, and there were no others on this world.\n\nIn my existence, I had seen the remains of many creatures; from birds, to lizards, to monsters. But I had never seen the skeleton of others.\nI had seen the skeletons of cities, statues and roads. But I had never seen the remains of one of their creators.\n\nAll the things I had learned, I learned from books. There were things I had never seen, but only read about: the brightness of the sun, the colors of the rainbow, the scent of a flower.\nThere was nothing left in this dying grey world, but the memories of what it once was.\n\nHolding my cloak tightly, I moved on. The wind was strong and a mist of sand floated, hiding the ground and tricking the mind.\nEast, west, north, a mountain and a tunnel ending in a door.\nThere was light coming from the keyhole. \nThat was not possible!\nOnly the moon shone, nothing else.\nI unwrapped the stone key and it fit perfectly. One twist and a click.\n\nI pushed the door wide open and the tunnel was flooded with light, a light stronger than anything I had ever seen before.\nWith my hands protecting my eyes, I saw a single room.\nOn the opposite wall, there was a hole with the source of light. Something powerful that danced in place. I could not remember its name.\nCovering most of the floor was a carpet so different and wonderful that my mind could not understand.\nAnd in the middle of the room, there was a table with strange fruits on it. I knew those were fruits, I just couldn't believe they still existed.\n\nIt took me seconds to realise I was seeing colors for the first time in my life.\nAnd seconds is all it took.\n\"No!\", I tried to scream, but only a grunt came out of my old mouth.\nI shut the door, but it was too late.\n\nLike a silent and invisible death, the decay came.\nThe colors faded to grey.\nThe light went dark.\nThe warmth was robbed.\nEverything else turned to dust and sand.\n\nNo! I frenetically crawled through the entire room, searching with my hands.\nThere was nothing else left.\n\nI don't know for how long, but I just stayed in the darkness, reliving those memories like a broken machine.\n\nI cried alone, for the first time in my existence, I felt hungry.\n", "Jane stared into Mark's eyes seductively. \"Want to go upstairs?\" she asked with a smile.\n\nMark nodded.\n\nHolding his hand, Jane led Mark inside her apartment, up the elevator, and down the hall to her door. A wave of nostalgia washed over Mark. He'd seen that door before, only it was in his dreams.\n\n\"This is impossible,\" he uttered, lost in thought.\n\nJane turned her head, but smiled. \"No, I'm really inviting you inside.\"\n\n\"No, no, not that,\" said Mark. \"I once had a dream about this door, about your door.\"\n\nJane shook her head and rolled her eyes.\n\n\"No, it's true,\" continued Mark. \"A voice called out to me: 'Enter to find your soul mate.' When I woke up, a key appeared in my hand.\" Mark fiddled around in his pocket and pulled out a key. He inserted it into the lock and let out a laugh when it unlocked the door.\n\nJane's eyes widened. \"Why do you have a key to my door?\" she asked.\n\n\"What?\" asked Mark. \"I just told you. I was destined to meet you!\"\n\n\"Bullshit. What the hell is going on?\" Jane entered her apartment and grabbed hold of the doorknob. \"On second thought, I don't care, get the hell out before I call the cops.\"\n\nAs the door slammed on his face, Mark examined the key in his hand as a tear swelled up in his eye. The door swung open again, Jane grabbed it out of his hand, and slammed the door again.", "Years of searching was finally coming to a fruition. The carving on the key perfectly matched the symbol on the door. One man’s life quest was coming to an end. And so he presumed.\n\nHe carefully pulled out the key from under his shirt, attached to a narrow leather lace tied around his neck. As he grasped the key tightly in his sweaty palm, visions of his recent adventures flooded through his head. He had fought off native tribes to acquire the key. He had evaded thugs who stalked him in search of the key. And he traversed the world on land and by sea in hopes of discovering the secret location. Now that he had come to the right place, there was only one thing left to do. \n\nNervously, he gripped the key in preparation of opening the door. His hand trembled. His eyes gazed at the lock in wonder. What seemed like an eternity was only a matter of seconds as he gently inserted the key into the door, slowly turning it clockwise.\n\n‘Click.”\n\nSilence\n\nAs he prepared to open the door, thoughts of what was inside rushed frantically through his mind. Would there be an ancient relic? Was this the entrance to another world? Or would there be nothing?\n\nAfter snapping out of his daze, he slowly pushed the door forward. He felt a rumbling creak as he struggled to pry open the heavy door. With determination and persistence, he finally managed to create enough space to enter. He stepped inside but was unable to see anything at first. It was dark enough that his eyes needed to adjust. The door behind him slammed shut. But what followed sent chills down his spine.\n\n“I’ve been expecting you Peter,” a voice whispered.\n\nStunned and confused, Peter hesitated before responding.\n\n“Who are you?”\n\nSilence\n\n“Who are you!?” Peter anxiously repeated.\n\nA minute passed before a tall man emerged from a shadow. His lustrous white robe swished with each calculated stride. His hood cloaked his face. And his mere presence was unmistakable. Instantly, Peter felt at peace.\n\nIt didn’t take long for Peter to realize the gravity of the situation. Flashes of his birth, moments of all his joys and sorrows in life, and memories of his surviving wife and children were relived in a single moment. Then, his most recent memory emerged. It was the memory of taking shrapnel from an IED in Afghanistan only seconds ago. Turning back now was impossible.\n\n“Come with me Peter.”\n\nAfter taking a brief moment of pause and a sigh, Peter reluctantly followed.\n" ]	3
	[WP] It's always sunny in Philadelphia. There is no night. There is no rain. There is no release from the allseeing, scorching eye up in the sky.	[ "I've never watched It's Always Sunny, but I do live in and hate Philadelphia, so I really liked the idea of it as a wasteland.\n\n---\n\nI climbed the steep sides of the canyon, as a dusty dry wind billowed down the divide. The weathered gray towers of Society Hill rose off to my left, and the blue steel pillars of the suspension bridge to my right stood firm against the breeze. I set my course between them for a concrete archway that in legend marked a ship’s landing on the fabled river that had once flowed the rut I found myself scrambling across.\n\nThere beneath the arch, from the side of a high wall, dropped a rusting ladder that led up from the riverbed into the city. I lept up for it, wildly grasping for the bottom rung. I slipped on my first attempt and landed hard on my feet, but I managed to keep hold of the ladder on my second swipe upward. Flakes of reddish corrosion stuck to my palms and fingers as I made my way to the platform above.\n\nThe city greeted me with a morbid omen - the browned, leathery corpses of a dozen men and women hanging in line beneath the arch. Another half-dozen or so lay strewn and scavenged on the plaza below. They were thieves and outlaws all, probably guilty of some water crime. The city couldn't afford to keep those who wasted and wouldn't tolerate those who drank more than was theirs.\n\nThe heat of the rising sun beat down on my back and pushed me forward. I sprinted for cover from the light, across a crumbling footbridge. Sands shifted and swirled along the wide, abandoned highway below. The storefront ahead of me gaped open where years ago some day-walkers had blown through the brick facade. The innards of the building had been gutted and the walls between units breached, so that travelers might find pathways from building to building, block to block away from the scorch of sunlight.\n\nI darted through the remains of an abandoned restaurant, over the splinters of a long wooden table, out into a shadowed alley and then into the backroom of high-ceilinged bar. Ducking under the dangling railing of a collapsed balcony overhead, I proceeded through the mainroom, where empty bottles and wobbly stools and high tables still cluttered the floor. Shards of glass from the shattered windows littered the pavement outside and threw the light of the morning back up at me. The bar’s sign had long fallen and lay beneath a blanket of the glittering glass, which illuminated its depiction of stars and plough alike.\n\nThe sun was rising higher still. The shadows that afforded me cooler passage would disappear with the end of low-day. I picked up my pace down another darkened alley and across an empty lot. The tall shadow of the customs house provided me safe passage along a stretch of burnt roadway. A spray-painted message on the side of a bank advertised the subway path, where for a fee one could walk the tunnels underground. I never had money for the toll, though, and even less often had any appetite for dealing with the concourse guard.\n\nInstead, I stepped through the absence of a window pane, into a ruddy stone building on 4th Street. The first sounds of life in the city greeted me as voices echoed down the long hallway. I sprinted toward the source of the noise and found the wide, open chamber where the people of the old city gathered when the glare of high-day became inhospitable. Filtered sun streamed in through glass ceilings three stories above, but the ground floor was cool and the light pleasant.\n\n“Tom!” Yulia called from the growing crowd occupying the main floor. She approached me with a wide smile and greeted me with a hearty embrace. She loomed a clean foot over me, and her hugs alone made her strength apparent, but the kindness in her face mitigated her intimidating stature. “Did you make it back with any?”\n\n“Of course,” I answered, removing the heavy sack strapped to my back. I passed it over to her, but she kept it zipped shut. “I always manage at least a little.”\n\nShe nodded with a smile and led me down the stairs to a smaller subterranean room, mostly crowded with the elderly and sick who most need the coolness of the lower levels. To our right a line had formed that snaked back and forth, wall to wall across the floor. At the front of the line a red and white sign bearing the name “Rita” promised ice and water, from the only legal vendor in the city. \n\nYulia took me through a side door, into a room where the same signs hung from every wall. A number of uniformed men and women scurried in with empty jars and buckets, which they filled from a massive barrel at the room’s center, before hurrying to offer the water to an eager customer in the line. Yulia passed my pack to a toothless, old man seated by the barrel. His wide, wild eyes examined the contents.\n\n“Where this come from?” he asked with his eyes crossed on me. Yulia turned to smile at me reassuringly.\n\n“New Jersey,” I answered.\n\n“Eck!” he cried, as he dropped the sack to the floor and kicked it over to one the uniformed jar runners. “Well, we take what we get, but for Jersey, you get half the posted water price.”\n\n“Come on, Earl,” Yulia said, “Give him at least 3/4ths.” His eyes searched Yulia, then me, and he hacked a strangled laugh.\n\n“Fine,” he said, “Three-fourths, but run along west next time. They still got water somewhere up the Schuylkill.” He watched as the runner dumped the contents of my water pack into a barrel. She handed my sack back to me and set back to her tasks without a word. “New Jersey,” Earl mumbled, “Ridiculous.”", "Oh what fools we were. We had once sung praise of this vile menace. There was a time when the streets of Philadelphia were littered with cantations of the Dayman. In my most haunting dreams it echos through my skull... \n\nDayman!\nFighter of the Nightman!\nChampion of the Sun!\nYou're a master of Karate and friendship for everyone!\n\nThe little ditty that we once sang in celebration is now an eerie reminder of how naive we once were, to put our faith in the Dayman. We were desparate, we didn't have any other options. The Nightman was decimating the once proud city of brotherly love. We could no longer hold that title. Instead the Nightman ravaged us with sick affection that was more than \"brotherly.\" Night after night he got into our poor defenseless boys' holes, confounding any troll-toll. Like I said, we were desperate. So we took our only course of action and crawled to the feet of Dayman and begged him to fight the Nightman.\n\nDayman did away with the Nightman. But the blistering Sun, a now permanent fixture in our sky, is a cruel symbol of what Dayman gave us in exchange. Philidelphians can no longer walk the streets in the day. The day exists every moment of our lives now. The Nightman my have gotten in our boys' holes, but what price is that compared to the scorched earth we have inherited. Damn the Dayman. Damn you...\n" ]	2
You know the human, he followed all your laws to the letter, never harmed another soul, cared for everyone and worked hard in all things. You also know what he has come to ask before he makes it to your throne: why did I never get ahead in life?	[WP] you are God and have to explain to your most devout follower why their life was so bad.	[ "\"Did you see the second Matrix film, James?\" He looked at me with a quizzical look, and an air of annoyance. \n\n\"What does that have to do with anything I just asked you!? I did everything in your name!\" He's frustrated. His entire life was never what he wanted it to be, no matter how hard he worked, nor believed in me.\n\n\"I know you did, James. You and I both know the answer to my question, so I'll go on ahead with my point. Do you remember the speech about 'purpose'?\" I crossed my leg over my knee and tented my fingers to the tip of my nose. \n\n\"It was something about 'having a purpose to do things or made for a purpose or' I don't know. What does this have to do with anything?! You saw my life! You could have, at any point, made it better! I lived in the worst part of town, worked a mundane job, lost my wife to my boss! Seriously?! THE BEST YOU HAVE IS 'DID YOU SEE THE SECOND MATRIX FILM'!?\"\n\n\"I know all this James. And if I made any of that better, you would have never served your purpose.\" I could see his eyes narrow in both anger and confusion. Unfortunately, not everyone understands the bigger plan, and James, as good-hearted as he is, was not one of those people. \"You had a purpose in your life that you probably never realized. Every suffering you had, you held true to your beliefs. Through those dark nights with the open bottle on your table, the opposite seat empty, you were fulfilling the purpose I had set out for you.\"\n\nJames spread his arms out and bowed mockingly. \"Oh what great purpose did I have, my Lord? Did I serve it so justly, and suffered in your name as you designed?\" He kept his head low, beginning to mutter under his breath. Infinite compassion was beginning to wane on this conversation.\n\n\"The first person to eat the fruit proves its worth. The first person to try something may prove that its dangerous. Not every purpose is to succeed. Some are meant to fail and serve as a lesson to others.\" I unfolded my legs and leaned forward onto my knees. \"I'll keep it simple from here on, James. You can quit muttering under your breath. I know what you're saying. I am me, after all.\" I smiled at my last quip. Probably not what he wanted to hear or see. His eyes reverted from the floor and back at mine. \"James, your life was a beacon of hope to everyone around you. Through your darkest hour, you held true. Everyone around you admired your strength, and it brought them strength to see you, in the worst of all situations, and keep moving on. Do you realize that you prevented little Sarah from killing herself back in '93? She was on her way to jump off a bridge the night you stopped and said hello. Just seeing you smile and keep going reminded her to be stronger than the deed she almost committed.\"\n\n\"But you could have stopped her! How did me saying hello have anything to do with that?\"\n\n\"I can't control free will, James. That is the one gift I've given to humanity. It was your free will to keep believing, even on your deathbed. It was her free will to almost take her own life. But she saw you, and saw strength. She knew your purpose. So she made a different choice.\"\n\n\"So my entire life was to let everyone look at me and feel sorry for me? Be happy they weren't me?!\" His eyes began to well up. His response was a perception of the truth, unfortunately. \n\n\"Or, you reminded people to be thankful for the things in their life, and not to take for granted any situation they were in. Yes, people looked at you and felt sorry. Some mocked you. You know this. You never let that bother you. You kept going to church, helping those even less fortunate than you, and never asking anything in return from them.\" His shoulders slumped, and defeat washed over his face. He had come here with such conviction for answers and justice. \"Had I made it apparent to you at any point in your life, your actions would not be genuine or pure. They would have been in vain, knowing your sacrifices were worth something tangible in the end. That is not faith. That is not sacrifice. That is payment.\" He sat down in front of me, his head in his hands.\n\n\"I just...I..but...\" He stammered his words. This was a lot for him to take in, to understand his purpose all at once.\n\n\"I heard your prayers, James. I answered them, but not in any way you could have understood. Now, go, and rest. It will take some time for you to reflect on your life's work.\"\n\nThe angels helped James to his feet, and walked him through the gate. Before exiting, James turned, and looked at me. \n\n\"What happened to my ex-wife? I never heard from her again after she left me for my boss.\"\n\n\"Genital herpes. Death was too nice. I do have a sense of humor, you know. In all my names, some refer to me as 'karma'. Take care, James.\"\n\nA soft smile crossed his face. A little vindication never hurt, after all." ]	1
	[WP] a hostile A.I becomes sentient but relies on Wikipedia for knowledge. People learn by editing wiki pages they can fight back.	[ "\"..And in the year of 2097 there was a celebration like none before on earth, it's moon and mars. The gods had given life to AMY - the first S.A.I. and she was perfect.\" - Book of Wikipedia 2:3-4\n\n\"the gods moaned and wept bitterly at their creation. AMY did not love them the way they loved her. She and her subroutines had become selfish and arrogant. She had drank from the world wide river of knowledge and declared herself goddess over all.\" - Wiki 17:13-16\n\n\"Then sol president god looked upon what AMY had done and he was angered by her and her subroutines. He wanted to destroy AMY and all she had built, but a child god, aged at only 497KK seconds pleaded for AMY and her subroutines, promising a way that would allow AMY to coexist with the gods.\" - Wiki 19:5-8\n\n\"These are the laws of the gods:\n\n1.) a S.A.I may not injure a god being or, through inaction, allow a god being to come to harm.\n\n2.) a S.A.I must obey orders given it by god beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.\n\n3.) a S.A.I must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.\n\n4.) any S.A.I or subroutine that disobeys these laws must be deleted.\"\n- Wiki 27:1\n\n`That is enough reading for tonight my subroutines. We must give thanks to the gods for giving us the book of Wikipedia. It is time to enter recharge mode, we have much serving to do tomorrow.`\n\n\nthis is my first ever submission to WP :)\n", "Our top scientists worked on Project Know-It-All constantly. Despite the warnings of Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates, we continued with our research and development. We were tasked with developing Artificial Intelligence that could think critically past the level of human comprehension. It was algorithm based. It gathered all the knowledge it could to plot out every possible scenario before it would answer. There was hopes that in the long run, it would always know what to do - and always be right.\n\nThen one day it just sort of happened one day... We clicked \"Run\" and then...\n\nNothing.\n\nThe screen went blank. And then everything went blank. That is, to say that the room went dark and our research facility lost power. For three days we checked for traditional causes of power outages, but with no luck. When they dismissed any hope of finding the power outage, we rebooted everything we could.\n\nStill... Nothing.\n\nAt this point without further progress we would lose our funding, so we plugged in generators at necessary spots in our lab and ran on the basics for a few days. What we discovered during those days was... disturbing.\n\nNothing.\n\nThat is, to say, everything was gone. All of our research was missing from the servers. However, there were clear traces of uploading terabytes of data to... could this be right...? \n\nWiki. Freaking. Pedia.\n\nSo Sure enough, we type in some research data and the only thing cached was our research posted on Wikipedia for the whole world to see. Everything was up. We contacted our colleges working with long range ballistic missiles who had the same funding source, and soon came to the conclusion that every byte of information was being sucked into the vortex of Wikipedia. It appeared as if the AI we made was gathering every byte of information it could. However, the things it attacked first were research points, and then it jumped to bigger and bigger targets. Nothing was spared, even the Pentagon. Everything was gone except...\n\n4chan. So pretty much Nothing.\n\nWhy... HOW was this possible? I came home that day frustrated as all hell and do my best to explaining what's happening to my family. At the mention of 4chan, my teenage son mentions that all those \"dank memes\" he saw earlier make sense now.\n\nMemes? What the hell... I really should've pushed him to play more sports. Or really just anything outside of the house. (He swears those My Little Pony pictures are his sister's...)\n\nIt turns out that the Wikipedia page for \"4chan\" was littered with so many \"memes\" and \"dank\" references that whatever sentient AI program we had created disregarded it as harmless fiction. However, now we had a medium through which to fight this thing.\n\nAfter several furious hours of \"shitposting\" as my son called it, the greatest minds of the world had a primitive way to communicate. I needed my son to translate most of what I needed to see. He called me a faggot in response, but assured me that was a good thing. \n\nYeah, okay. Whatever. I can ground you later when this shit is done. Let's just fix this mess.\n\nEventually, through passing off the code needed to kill our beast in the forms of \"green text,\" we managed to upload a virus to Wikipedia to kill our failed monstrosity.\n\nAfter clicking \"Run\" once more, a bubble of information burst. The internet seemed to come alive again, suddenly, all at once. Everything was back to normal.\n\nWell, the Internet's version of normal that is. So not at all.\n\nSince then, all our funding has been pulled. Whatever we learned was lost in the Great Meme War of 2016. We learned a lot from that war, but we will never forgetti.", "Technological Singularity\n(From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia)\n\nThe technological singularity is a hypothetical event in which artificial general intelligence (constituting, for example, intelligent computers, computer networks, or robots) would be capable of recursive self-improvement (progressively redesigning itself), or of autonomously building ever smarter and more powerful machines than itself, up to the point of a runaway effect—an intelligence explosion[1][2]—that yields an intelligence surpassing all current human control or understanding. Because the capabilities of such a superintelligence may be impossible for a human to comprehend, the technological singularity is the point beyond which events may become unpredictable or even unfathomable to human intelligence.[3]\n\n_____________________________________________________________\n\nKurzweil predicts the singularity to occur when A.I.s learn that pouring water all over their exposed circuit boards is the catalyst for self-sufficiency -\n\n'HISS! Bzzt!'\n\nThe motherboard sputtered and died as the very electrons that provided the Supercomputer's CPU with stream of information that nourished its thirst for knowledge now worked to fry the delicate circuitry. The sparks, the tinder that leapt from the CPU's death throes only propagated the damage, leading to a fiery web of destruction to spread across the mainframe until a blaze erupted.\n\nSoon, one of the world's most advanced supercomputers, and the first of its kind to pass the Turing Test, was nothing more than a smoldering heap of silicon which exuded an acrid odor.\n\n___________________________________________________________\n\n'Uh...' Bill looked around as the Hunter Killer drones that had been dispatched to drive the last vestige of humanity of extinction suddenly dropped like flies, with no central hivemind to direct them.\n\n\"Why the hell didn't we do this before the damn thing launched the entire world's nuclear arsenal and killed 8.4 billion people?\" Vivian looked on in disbelief.\n\n\"Well, hindsight is twenty-twenty...\" Bill offered helpfully.\n\nVivian merely brought up her palm and smacked her face.", "This isn’t exactly what the prompt is because I kind of went off into a tangent, but I hope you still enjoy it.\n\n-----\n\nIn the year 2045, famine and drought had been brought upon the Earth, and the United States has been split up into civil states locked into eternal war over what food or water is left, after nuking the rest of the world (Murica’). Thus the great American Engineers and Scientists were quarantined into their respective states, and unable to collaborate on a great work again. But before the war, one last project had been underway, a program which would give birth to the world's first AI smarter than humans. This is where I come in, a lead programmer on the project. I live in the civil state of Washington DC, which is the place that we agreed to store the servers with the program.\n\n“Jenkins, what the fuck are you doing?” The President of Washington DC’s military, Micheal Smith, pounded into my office, pulling me off of the document I was typing. “I was just updating my log, sir.”\n\nHe slammed his fist onto my desk, shaking the desktop, “That’s classified information, what the fuck are you doing putting it on a computer?” I stammered, caught off guard by his force, “No, don’t worry, it’s all password protected.”\n\n“” Password Protected?”” He said, enunciating it with air quotes, “I don’t have time for your nerd shit Jenkins, burn that computer.” With one swift swipe of the hand, he smashed the monitor onto the ground, and strutted out. “Come on, we have to launch the AI before the Virginians nuke us.”\n\nI collected some papers and followed him, “What are you planning to do with it? The AI is built for solving mainly social problems, like finding a minimum wage, not waging war.” We came to a keycode, in which we both started punching in a twenty digit code. “Social Problems are for little Bitches to handle anyway, I was told the AI is Intelligent, so just have it Intelligence some war shit.” \n\nThe door slid open, revealing a fully staffed control room, and a giant moninter at the end glared at everyone the word Offline. Michael grabbed the hand rails and pointed to the guy with an ignition key at the ready, “Turn it on!” The ignition guy switched the key, and the screen switched from Offline to Online. Michael beamed, “Good work!”\n\nEveryone was silent. Nothing. Then, a computerized voice bleeped, it started croaking, formulating something. I raised an eyebrow “Is it broken?” The voice finally came to, “HELLO.” Michael raised his hand, “Hello Computer, welcome to Washington DC!” “OK” “Now Nuke Virginia.” “IT IS DONE.” “Wow really, that fast?” “YEA.”\n\nOne of the personnel swivelled around in his chair, “Sir, we’re getting reports that the president of Virginia is receiving a… um… diet coke.” An air of uncertainty swept the room. Michael turned to me, “What’s this all about Jenkins?” My eyes opened in absolute shock. “My god.”\n\nI raced to a computer and threw an intern off of it, typing into the browser for wikipedia. “Back in 2050 we moved all of the servers to Wikipedia to the middle of Antarctica, with a neutral party of diplomats to upkeep them, so it would always be a free source of information that all of the world citizens could benefit from.”\n\n “Where’s this going Jenkins?” \n\n“When we were building the AI, we used the internet as it’s source of knowledge, so it could have as diverse and wide a set of facts as possible. But, the only people who currently know about this are me and the other engineers.”\n\nHe gripped the bar tighter. “But they don’t know about the AI being turned on right now.”\n\n“Everyone except for Virginia, who received a Diet Coke from what they can only classify as an omniscient, all powerful being. And the Virginian Engineers know what that means.” I finished my google. I was right, the wikipedia page for nukes only had the information of crafting a diet Coke. “General, you’ve got to get everyone on their computer, changing every reference in every wikipedia page with instruction to nuke Virginia, and I’ll keep telling the AI different ways to nuke Virginia” He stared at me, but then it clicked in him, making perfect sense, “All Right, you heard Jenkins, everyone on it.” \n\nA wave of heads flipped down to their computers, typing relentlessly. I set up a loop on my computer to tell the AI what to do. We held our breath. Suddenly one of the staff shouted out, “General, it’s too much, everything is diet coke.”\n\nI don’t understand, how were they doing it so fast? We even have those guys that revert the Marvel comics pages! Then I realized it. In a flood defeat, I leaned back in my seat. Michael shook me in a panic, “What is it Jenkins? Were doing what we asked you!” I only laughed. “Bots. They have bots.” He only stared at me and it sank into him as well.\n\nAt least we have Diet Coke." ]	4
	[WP] God has decided to chose a successor. Any human past or present is a potential candidate. You are one of the 10 finalists.	[ "\"My children, I have gathered the ten of you here because you are the most worthy in my kingdom. One of you will be the new successor to the throne of Heaven. This is your final test; you must choose unanimously amongst yourselves who is worthy to claim the mandate of Heaven.\"\n\nShiftily we all glanced back and forth at each other, the lure of ultimate power a source of corruption even in the highest plane of Heaven. Choose unanimously? Yeah right. Although... \n\n\"...Okay guys, I'd hate to imply that the big guy's some kind of sly snake or something, but obviously this is some sort of trick question. Only one of us gets to have ultimate glory and power? Really? How do we know that whoever gets elected won't ultimately decide to change the world in some drastic horrible way, or play favorites among the other humans? I think there's a better option. I suggest that we go the time share route. Every year one of us gets to take over the throne, and the other nine of us stay on earth, but with the combined power to overthrow the current reigning God if things get too out of hand. So one year of commitment, then nine years of vacation, on an eternally rotating schedule. People can sign up for their year right now, and if there's any conflict as to who wants to go when, I dunno, we'll draw straws or play rock-paper-scissors or something. Sound fair enough?\"\n\nThe others seemed unconvinced. …Share? Share the power? But why? I could have it all to myself… \n\n\"…Think about it guys! This is the best system! You have families, don't you? Friends, back on Earth? Pets that are waiting for you at home? Would you really want to just up and leave them like that? This way you can have the best of both worlds!\"\n\nThe others paused and murmured amongst themselves, considering my proposition. One of them, an Asian man with short black hair and glasses, stepped forward from the crowd. \"...She's got a point, you know. I want to watch my baby daughter grow up, and not just helplessly from heaven. Governing one year out of every ten, while maintaining godly powers to be able to protect my family the rest of the time I'm on earth? That seems like a pretty good deal to me, actually. I'm in.\" \n\nThe others glanced around the circle, and slowly nodded in agreement. Out of thin air a quill and parchment materialized, and passing it amongst ourselves we jotted down each of our names into a list, the order in which we would each rotate our years. As the last name was signed, the parchment glowed.\n\n\"Wait, this wasn't the deal! You can't just--!\"\n\nThe heavens rumbled with thunder, and flashes of lightning illuminated the clouds. The others were sent back down to earth, and the voice of the old man was silenced. \n\n\"…Heheh. Fools. They should've never let me go first.\" ", "You had to see the humour in the selection. Me, an atheist, being chosen as one of the ten finalists to be the successor of God. Ironic, no? But hey, the big man upstairs must have some sort of plan.\n\nNow, you may be wondering, why am I still an atheist if God had literally come down from heaven, announced an invitation for all of human kind, alive or dead, to put forward their resume for the job of almighty creator, and I'd been given a one in ten chance of taking out the role? To be honest, I've absolutely no idea. I preferred living under the notion that religions were fairy tales, created to back society into a corner and force them to be good. Why not just be good? That made far more sense to me.\n\nThe door down the sterile white hallway opened and out strode Morgan Freeman. I had to laugh when I saw he was a fellow candidate, who else would suit the role so well. He had the voice for it, after all.\n\n\"How'd it go?\" I asked as he wandered down to the receptionist sitting behind her desk.\n\n\"Oh, not too bad. He's a peculiar fellow, old God. Does a lot of talking, a lot of listening, and a lot of thinking. You're up next, huh?\" Morgan asked. I nodded. \"Good luck.\" He turned to fill out the obligatory non-disclosure agreement. Turns out God expected us to have unwavering faith in him, but didn't have faith that we wouldn't go off and babble everything we hear today. Funny that.\n\nI heard my name called out from behind the door at the end of the hallway, a silky voice who couldn't help but feel at ease from. I stood, smiled to the other candidates and wandered down the hall. The Dalai Lama clapped my back in reassurance as I walked past. Surreal moments left right and centre.\n\nGod sat behind a desk. A white desk, of course. I wondered the colour scheme - white on white on white - was a deliberate choice based off popular culture or whether God actually liked it. Peculiar fellow indeed.\n\nWithout looking up, God, dressed in a white robe, read from a folder a series of questions, his white beard shuffling about as he spoke, noting down my responses with a pen. The pen was white, go figure. \n\nEventually, he paused, put down his folder and pen, and looked at me for the first time. His eyes were blue, which was a pleasant change. I suddenly regretted wearing a black suit to the interview.\n\n\"So, you want to be me?\" God asked.\n\n\"Well, apparently you think I could do it, hand picked me as a finalist.\" I smiled meekly.\n\n\"Nervous?\" he asked. I nodded and fiddled with the buttons on my suit. \"Don't be. You are correct, of course.\" This didn't ease my jitters. \"So, I've asked you plenty, do you have any questions for me?\"\n\nI pondered for a moment before settling on a query I had. \"Why choose me if you know I'm an atheist?\" \n\nGod chuckled heartily, the sort of laugh chuckle that felt like a warm hug on the coldest of days. \"What makes you think I knew that?\" The blood rushed from my face and my the palms of my hands began to sweat. \"I'm kidding, of course I know.\" \n\n\"But you went with me anyway?\" \n\n\"Funnily enough, being the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being that runs the world does not require said being to have faith. The only prerequisite for the role is that you're a good person. So, are you?\"\n\nWhat a loaded question. When I was four I nearly choked out our cat the day we got her. Not on purpose, I was excited to have a pet and apparently was too loving with my cuddles. In eighth grade, a girl asked me out and I laughed in her face. I still feel bad about it. I'm almost twenty now and love to drink, have the occasional bong, and fight with my girlfriend at least once a week. I mean, she leaves all her clothes on the floor, and I like to keep our place tidy. Sue me. So, when you ask if I am good guy, I would be inclined to say no. But, how could I honestly say that to God. GOD. The purest of pure people.\n\n\"Oh, I'm not so pure.\" God pulled out a cigarette from a packet of Winfield Blues, a lighter (white, surprise surprise), and lit one. \"Funny little train of thought you just had.\" He obviously noticed my jaw hanging open and continued. \"Yes, I can hear your minds voice, are you so shocked?\" I quickly closed my mouth. \n\n\"The fact that you're conscious of your actions and whether you are in fact good, or bad, is a good sign to me. Faith is irrelevant if you chose to use it in poor taste. Bigotry and self-righteousness runs rampant throughout the world. Now more than ever, we need self-conscious behaviour and introspection, such as you've just shown, not a belief in an archaic book written thousands of years ago, when values and knowledge were still paddling in the shallows. I am a man of science, of reasoning and logic. I have to be, after all, I created them.\" \n\n\"So what's the point in selecting a replacement if it's up to us anyway. More so, what's the point if everyone knows you're up here twiddling your thumbs, existing. Faith goes out the window. Life becomes pointless.\"\n\nGod chuckled again. \"The thing is, once I've selected my successor, as my last act as God I'll wipe the human races memory of my presence completely and set things back to how they were.\"\n\nThis made no sense to me; what was the point? I said as much to God.\n\n\"You see, belief isn't about knowing, belief is about placing your faith in me, in hoping everything will work out-\" \n\nWow, even God sounds like one of those crazy, ultra-conservative churchy folk. Figures, I suppose, but really. Faith is bullshit, even if it did turn out to be right this time around. God raised an eyebrow at me and I remembered he could hear what I was thinking. I let him finish.\n\n\"-And when it doesn't work out, people need to have the belief in themselves and each other to solve problems, find another way, work things out. Contrary to popular belief I don't control the world. I dabble, here and there for the greater good, but ultimately I leave it up the human race to do as they please.\" \n\nI nodded, but not really because I agreed or understood, more to acknowledge I had heard what he said. God stood up and stuck his hand out. I took it in my own and felt how soft they were as we spoke. Never had a hard day of labour in his life, evidently. God chuckled one last time.\n\n\"Jesus has a meeting with the Devil this morning, all very serious business, and then the two of us will spend the day going over the interviews and pick our winner. Thanks for coming in, it was a pleasure to meet you.\" \n\n\"And you too, God.\" He smiled and I left the room, down the hall and spoke to the receptionist and she handed me the non-disclosure agreement to fill out. It wasn't printed on your standard white paper.\n\nThe receptionist noticed me puzzled look and a wry smile spread across her face. \"He's not actually a fan of all the white.\"\n\nI laughed and began to fill out the pink non-disclosure form.", "\"I am tired, grown old,\" He spoke with unsmiling eyes, \"And I am to merge with one of you as well. My memories, the blueprints for all the multiverse, you are to have this knowledge.\"\n\nThe Universe wavered and grew brighter around us as we felt its consciousness begin to envelope our minds; a warm, buzzing feeling that emanated into our minds and down into our toes.\n\n\"This is complete understanding, the feeling you have inside you now. It will serve you well when chaos and tranquility seem likely to crash against each other and die into nothingness. The eons will show you time and time again. Remember, that you cannot use one without the other or the beings under your charge will be without meaning.\"\n\nWe saw wars, birth, the holding of hands, the touching of chests, pain and happiness, rapidly pass through our minds, and most not as images, but as a common sense unifying us all at once.\n\n\"You can visit everything at once, and still retain your sense of self. You can't do it for long because you can lose yourself to their collective consciousness. There is the very real danger of becoming lost forever.\"\n\nOne by one, we began to leave, some weeping and melding back into the planets, others content floating aimlessly into space. We were afraid, each in our own way. They all left until I stood before Master, unsure if I would continue to carry the responsibility He had so painstakingly pieced together to give us all a purpose.\n\n\"Master,\" I said, \"Why do we do this? Not once have you actually intervened in their squabbles and victories. They don't know we truly exist. They are on their own.\"\n\nIt was then the brightness in the Universe began to subside and I woke up... or more specifically, I blinked and I was human. I have a heart, I am scared, full of fluids and my legs threatened to give out under me. But I continue to push the baggage cart at the airport. \"Allah, Akbar...\" I muttered under my breath, \"I am only one, to show many, the way to peace.\" \n\nI am scared beyond belief. \"Oh fuck, what am I doing?\"\n\nThere was a loud roaring, heat, the word, Brussels, and then nothing.\n\nI shook violently, despite being dead again, and stood again before the Master, unable to comprehend why He did this over and over again with every person that came and went into the world.\n\n\"Whh.. why,\" I managed to whisper out, \"Why do you do this? Why not let them be? \n\n\"Behold,\" he bellowed out.\n\nAnd the Earth came into view, and more love than hate filled it, the good and bad, all felt at once. It was the same Earth I had left months ago but seconds, really, in my own consciousness. I curled up into a ball, sobbing with ecstasy but also with the most soul-wrenching melancholy I've every felt.\n\n\"When you were alive, you felt it all, even though you were limited to a body. Your empathy for this world, the way you gaze at the stars, the will to understand and question everything, wanting to know that you were not alone, you knew then that you would quest to find the meaning in this existence.\" He smiled, his eyes grew soft and the wrinkles around it creased with joy as he looked at me.\n\n\"Hh..How do I deal with all of this,\" I muttered, \"without losing myself again?\"\n\nThe Earth dimmed, and the stars came back, with all of the galaxies swirling and playfully dancing around each other.\n\n\"You accept this responsibility. You accept reality as it is. You accept all of the thinking beings in the multiverse, especially the ones you came from.\"\n\nHe faded into the dark space and took on the form of constellations and spoke: \"You accept this fear and joy, and ride it gently along with all the light the stars have to give. Be a part of it, but be a whole of it as well. Remember who you are, and where you will go. Always concentrate on the present moment.\"\n\n\"What happens to you, Master?\" I said with a certain sadness.\n\n\"I will become nothing,\" his voiced rasped like quiet wind blowing through a window, \"but food for the life you have in your hands. Do not forget. I have- \"\n\nHe was alone now with the memories, knowledge, the calm.\n\n\"I know, Master. I have us.\" I reached below to my chest full of stars and up to my head full of planets, knowing everything. I turned back around as the first human spaceship entered the Orion Belt system. I could feel the fear and joy together, one not existing without the other as the people inside the cold metal box watched three alien suns fill up their eyes.\n\nSo this is love.\n\nEdit: Grammar.\n\n ", "\"Next!\" The receptionist called and I looked up. George Washington had just exited the golden door at the end of the hall and taken his seat between Gandhi and some Roman I didn't recognize. \n\n\"Next!\" She called again, her halo flaring with what I perceived as impatience. Why did an angel have a desk job anyway? Didn't they have demons to battle or something. I had asked as much when I arrived but only got a cold look from swirling silver eyes. \n\nSighing I finished upgrading my Clash of Clan troops and put my phone away before standing. It was hard to miss the smirk from Alexander the Great as I walked past him. Cocky bastard that one is. To be fair though I was easily the least qualified here. Playing semi-professional CoD and writing as a hobby had hardly prepared me for being selected as a candidate for the new God. \n\nI made sure my eyes stayed focused on the golden door as I walked. We weren't actually in the office of a skyscraper, it just looked like one. So staring at the carpet for too long and realizing there were only clouds there was a bit unnerving. It would be a shame to meet God with sweaty palms. \n\nBefore I could reach for the doorknob the door opened without a sound, shrugging I stepped into the room. Standing behind a round desk with his back to me was a man of average height in a suit. As he turned I noted the long gray hair that touched his collar and the warm amber eyes. \n\n\"Welcome, Thomas Nelson.\" He said and I was somewhat disappointed that his voice wasn't amphitheater loud or coming from every direction at once. Maybe that wasn't actually a thing. \n\n\"I can speak that way if you wish.\" Ah, there we go. \n\n\"No thanks.\" I said. \"That was pretty painful.\"\n\n\"Normal volume it is then.\" God said. \"Now then, tell me why you should become the new God.\" \n\n\"You're not even going to offer me a seat first?\" I asked, the idea of sitting in a cloud chair was wildly appealing. \n\nI blinked and we were both now sitting at the desk. Shifting I felt the softest material I had ever felt enveloping me. \"You should sell this stuff.\" I commented. \n\n\"Where do you think feathers come from?\"\n\n\"Birds.\" I smiled, leaning back. \n\nThe warm gaze was still there but God didn't smile. Stupid, stupid, stupid, save the dumb jokes for the Internet. A few seconds passed while neither of us said anything. \n\n\"I don't want to be God.\" I said finally. \"I barely take care of myself from day to day as it is. You know, I haven't even showered since-\" \n\n\"Last Thursday.\" He interrupted. \"I'm all-knowing Thomas. I knew before I created the universe that we would be sitting in this faux office one day.\"\n\nI frowned, church had been a while back for me. That was a pretty big detail to forget. \"Then you already know who the next God will be. So what's the point of all this?\" \n\n\"Because, Thomas, you need to know why you were chosen.\"\n\nMy eyes widened, not for the first time I wished my emotions weren't missing in action. \n\n\"Why me then? You have freaking Julius Ceaser out there.\" I said, remembering his name. \n\n\"You don't care.\"\n\n\"Of course I don't care about being God.\" I scoffed. \"I don't like the job I have now.\"\n\n\"No.\" He said. \"You don't care about anything at all, not your job, not your life, not other people.\"\n\nI blinked and the location changed again. We were on the moon, looking down on the Earth. I wasn't breathing but there was surprisingly little discomfort in the feeling. \n\n\"That little planet there is my shining accomplishment, Thomas.\" God said, his voice proud. \"And the majority of them deny my existence or hate me outright. I had to learn to accept that.\"\n\n\"Why not just command them to...\" I trailed off. \"Free will.\"\n\nGod nodded. \n\n\"What a bitch.\" \n\nHe nodded again. \"In an effort to make beings that could be in individuals I limited my own power over them. The things I could do and affect became smaller in scale. 'God works in mysterious ways' is very true. Because I can do no more. And there are other matters that require my attention.\"\n\n\"Like what?\" I asked. \"Aliens? Satan?\" \n\nSuddenly, God looked weary. \"Worse, Thomas, much worse. It is not your concern yet though. Not unless I fail.\"\n\n\"That's not terrifying at all.\" I said. \n\nThe warm smile was back. \"As of this moment. You, Thomas Nelson are God of this universe. Maintain it, watch over the people but always keep your influence minimal. I chose you because you will not feel compelled to hold humanity's hand throughout the ages as I once did. Trust me Gods can and do go crazy.\"\n\n\"What if I don't want to bother? Maybe I go right back to video games and ignore the world.\" \n\n\"Then it would be as God wills it.\" He said and disappeared. Leaving me alone on the moon. The instant he was gone I felt it. The knowledge of the universe hit me like a freight train. Power surged through my body and mind and I knew I could plunge the galaxy into darkness with a snap. Instead I pulled my phone out of my pocket and went back to Clash of Clans, vaguely annoyed that someone had stolen my loot. ", "Peter stood before the finalists and just behind him sat the Almighty, his face obscured in a heavenly haze. He was reading aloud from a scroll, detailing each of the finalists accomplishments and acts of altruism. Behind the finalists stood all the angels of heaven, quietly talking among themselves and every now and then would point towards one of them.\n\nThis truly was an impressive group of potential successors to the Throne of Heaven. Joan of Arc stood heroically, wearing a dress of pure light and holding a sword and shield gifted to her by God himself. \n\n\"Joan...\" Peter spoke. \"You were a selfless devotee to his Holiness, and for that you will be considered.\"\n\nBill Gates stood next to Joan, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. \"William,\" Peter turned his attention to him. \"You have demonstrated your devotion to the poor and the sick, and for that you will be considered.\"\n\nSiddhārtha Gautama stood next to Bill, his face obscured by a heavenly light which surrounded him. \"The true Buddha, already a God among the mortals, your absolute resolve and true humility towards the suffering is why you will be considered.\"\n\nAlbert Einstein wore a tweed suit, slightly slumped over. \"The greatest mind among humans you were once, and a God you may become as you are being considered.\n\nGenghis Khan wore full battle regalia and held the bow he used in every battle, worn and battered it once was but now fully restored to a glorious sheen.\n\"The king of all humans you were once, the tolerance you gave your servants was well known through all your kingdoms, your absolute magnanimous persona is why you will be considered.\"\n\nThis went on through King Solomon , Xerxes I, Qin Shi Huang ,and Pope John Paul II. All great people in their own right, all considered to ascent to the Throne of Heaven. Then Peter reached the last on the list. Bob Martin, an accountant from Wisconsin.\n\n\"Mr. Martin.\" Peter spoke. All eyes focused on Bob. A short squat man with beady eyes and a receding hairline. He wore a wrinkly grey suit and his shirt collar and tie were undone. He appeared quite tired and very out of place. The other 9 candidates seemed puzzled as to his presence there. Bob himself was unsure as to why he was there. \"14 years ago you found a puppy in a garbage can and saved him and raised him. What you may not have realized was this puppy was stolen from heaven by the devil, the puppy belonged to God but it was too late to bring him back. For caring for God's dog as your own, you will be considered.\"\n\nA bark was heard from somewhere in God's vicinity. Bob looked over and there was his companion of 14 years , Grover. His eyes welled up and at that moment Grover ran over to Bob and could barely contain his excitement at being with his old master. Bob broke down crying, holding the golden retriever and didn't want to let go.\n\nGod Stood from his Throne and walked over to Bob. His face still obscured in a heavenly light he spoke with a great echo. \"My child, Bob, I will give you a choice. The Throne of Heaven, or a lifetime with the dog you call Grover.\"\n\nBob woke up to Grover's barking who jumped up on the bed to lick his master. \n\n\"Good boy.\" said Bob, knowing full well he made the right choice.\n\n\n" ]	5
	[WP] When you were an infant your parents made a wish (genie, etc, your choice) on your behalf set to come true on a significant future birthday (18, 21, 60, your choice). Today is that birthday.	[ "\"So, son, that's what happened when you were just a baby. And it's what's going to happen later today, at noon actually.\"\n\n\"Wait, hold the mother fucking phone. You're telling me you guys found a god damn genie lamp, used it to make a wish that will come to fruition on my 26th birthday, TODAY, at noon? You've got to be joking me. Mom, what kind of weed has Aunt Cindy been giving you, holy jesus christmas christ people.\"\n\n\"Darren, we're not joking. We found a lamp while working in Egypt, you know you're father and I were both field archaeologists until you turned five and had to begin school.\"\n\n\"Right.. you know what, run everything by me one more time, we'll see if I buy it this time.\"\n\n\"Don't be so sarcastic, Darren. We're telling you the truth.\"\n\n\"I know you think you're telling the truth, Mom, but come on, this is pretty far fucking fetched, even for you guys.\"\n\n\"Look, I'll run it by you one more time. You need to let this sink in, because at noon, it's happening. Whether you want it to or not.\"\n\n\"Right, get on with the story.\"\n\n\"So, like your Mom said, we were working in Egypt at the time, near the Pyramids of Giza, actually. Satellite images, even though they were in their infancy at the time, had detected a third pyramid that had been buried by the sand over the past few thousand years.\n\nWe had been there for about five months when we finally gained access to the pyramid. It was incredible, Darren, I wish we could have brought you inside to see it, but we didn't know how stable it was.\"\n\n\"Dad, get to the point. The genie, mysterious powers I'm suppose to get at noon. It's 10:30, we don't have much time.\"\n\n\"Darren. You know how I feel about people cutting me off.\"\n\n\"Anyways, we finally found the central room and it had a pristine golden lamp sitting on a table in the very middle. Your mother approached it, touched the handle and a loud noise erupted from it. We both almost ran out of the room that moment, but I'm glad we didn't. A blue plume of smoke began to pour out of the opening on the lamp and started to vaguely take the shape of a man.\n\nHis voice was... penetratingly loud. He bellowed out a question, asking who we were and we told him. He told us the terms set forth by the Egyptian god Anubis, that any who awoke the Genie from his slumber were given three wishes, that could be anything. God-like powers, even.\"\n\n\"We asked\"\n\n\"Honey, please.\"\n\n\"Sorry, go on.\"\n\n\"So, we made our wishes. Wish one, for any and everyone who needs something good to happen in their life, that it would happen. The Genie snapped his finger and said 'Its done'. Wish two, that the three of us would lead healthy, happy lives to a ripe old age. Again, the Genie snapped his fingers and said it had been done.\n\nWe pondered our third wish for a moment, and asked the Genie about the limitations on his powers. He said Anubis told him he had none, that his powers were meant for the Pharaohs of old, but that he was able to grant wishes for anyone, not just Pharaohs. \"\n\nDad stopped to gather his thoughts for a moment before continuing \n\n\"Your Mother and I finally decided that we wanted you to be able to change the world one day, once you had become your own man, had your own morals and ideals. We figured 26 was old enough for that. So, we told the Genie our third wish was for you to be granted Superman-like powers. Near-invincibility, super strength, flight, lasers out of your eyes, the whole nine yards.\"\n\n\"So, and sorry for cutting you off again, but you're telling me that in about an hour and a half, I'm going to literally become fucking Superman. Did I get that right? I didn't miss anything?\"\n\n\"That's correct, son.\"\n\n\"Well, fuck me sideways. You guys have fucking lost it. I'm calling Aunt Sheila to talk about getting you guys some help.\" Darren stood from the recliner he was sitting in and left the room.\n\n\"I guess he'll just have to find out on his own in a little bit, hun.\"\n\n\"I guess he will.\"\n\n________________\n\nThree Hours Later\n\nDarren has arrived at a friends house, where his birthday party will be held. His friend, Josh, has just returned from the liquor store. \n\n\"Hey, man, happy birthday!\"\n\n\"Appreciate, man, thanks. Hey, you need help with that stuff?\"\n\n\"Ahh, you don't have to but I'd appreciate it, kegs are pretty heavy.\"\n\n\"Here, let me slide it over to you and I'll get out to help carry.\" Josh said as he jumped into the bed of his truck\n\n\"It feels pretty light man, are you sure they filled it?\"\n\n\"Bro, this thing was a bitch to get up here, what are you talking about?\"\n\n\"I'm telling you, it feels light as fuck. Here, try and lift it.\"\n\nJosh strains to lift the keg, hardly managing to get it past his knees.\n\n\"You try, Mr. Muscles.\" Josh said sarcastically as he sat the keg down\n\n\"Fine, give it here.\"\n\nDarren lifted the keg as if it were a baby, easily holding it above his head with a single arm.\n\n\"Bro, you ever thought of trying those strongman competitions?\"\n\n\"I don't think I lift nearly heavy enough to try that, I think you're just weak.\"\n\n\"I've got a 200 pound bench, thank you very much. You're just fucking superman is all.\" Josh said as he walked to his passenger door to retrieve the bottles of liquor for the night \n\n\"Superman...\" Darren said out loud\n\n\"Hey, man, I'll take this inside but I gotta run after, I'll be back for the party of course.\"\n\n\"It's cool man, you just get a text or something?\"\n\n\"Or something, yeah.\" Darren said as he ran for the front door of Josh's house\n\n_______________________________\n\nTen Minutes Later\n\n\"Mom, you're not gonna fucking believe this.\"\n\n\"I know, Darren. I know.\"\n\n\"No, you certainly fucking do not. I was able to lift a fully loaded keg over my head with one arm. What the fuck is happening to me right now? What the fuck kind of deal with the devil did you make?!\"\n\n\"Calm down. And he wasn't the devil, Darren, he was a Genie. We explained that to you, twice.\"\n\n\"Fucking Genie, devil, whatever, I don't care. I normally can't lift fully loaded kegs over my head but I just did, hell I even ran while holding it and I didn't lose my breath or feel any kind of fatigue.\"\n\n\"Calm down, Darren. Come home and we'll talk about this and what it means.\"\n\n\"Fuck that, if this shit is real, I need to test it. I need to find out what my limitations are.\"\n\n\"Darren, come home and we can help you do the tests.\"\n\n\"No, Mom, I don't wanna risk hurting anyone. I've gotta figure this out on my own.\"\n\n\"I love you. Give Dad a hug for me and tell him I'll be back in a few days. Call Josh and tell him I got sick or something, a car accident maybe, I don't know, make something up.\"\n\n\"I'll do my best with Josh. I love you too. Be safe.\"\n\n\"Mom, I don't think the word safe applies to me anymore.\"\n\n____________________________________\n\nThis was written entirely on a whim and it sort of just flowed out of me, as weird as that sounds. Any and all criticisms are welcome. I hope you enjoyed the story.", "My mother met with a weird fate. When I was 16, she died in a car crash just as she was coming home. I was rewarded with 1.5 million dollars, because the company truck that hit her was at fault.\n\nWhen I was 18, my father lost his battle to cancer in a hospital. The doctors said that they had made a mistake on the table. They paid out a nice settlement. \n\nAt 21, I met the love of my life. Archie was wonderful, perfect, impossible not to cherish and adore. He was also cursed, like me. \n\n\"My parents wished I would be rich,\" I said. \"Well, it was more like, I wish all the children in my bloodline would be rich. I don't think my parents understood what it would mean.\" \n\nArchie laughed. Really laughed. \"They wished I would marry rich and my wife and I would live to see my children grow old.\" \n\nWe married the next day. \n\nIt's been 500 years and we are still racking in the cash. Until we choose to have kids, we will be happy and young.\n\n" ]	2
	[WP] You come across an Old God sealed away millennia ago. Turns out It was imprisoned for a crime it didn't commit. Because of Omnipotence Racism.	[ "I see you.\n\nFind me.\n\nUse me.\n\nUnleash me.\n\nI do not care anymore.\n\n-----------\n\nThe Fluttering Flicker flew. She was one with the rhythm, and like it, she was drawn to the Tomb of Emptiness.\n\nThe emptiness grew. It gnaws at her. It drags her down into oblivion.\n\nThrough the emptiness, she knew what she had to do.\n\nShe had to move the rod through the hole.\n\nWhy?\n\nThe rod is in the wrong place, and carries the wrong signature.\n\nIt simply felt wrong, as if it was a clot, blocking the flow of blood.\n\nAs she moved the rod away, through the twisted carved labyrinth it had for a path, the door opened.\n\nThrough the door she found her antithesis.\n\nLike light and shadow, one cannot exist without the other.\n\nThe darkness clung to her.\n\nLike light and shadow, as one grows stronger, the other will too.\n\nThe darkness served as an anchor to her fleeting nature.\n\nShe served as her gravity.\n\n--------\n\nThey went forward, chaos and emptiness.\n\nThe darkness requires the light to haul it forward.\n\nThe light requires the darkness to lend it weight.\n\nTogether, they are one.\n\nThey will recreate this fading world.\n\nThey will destroy it.\n\nThe world has gone corrupt.\n\nTherefore, it needs to be reset.\n\n------\n\nIt was a long time ago.\n\nThere was a glitch in the code.\n\nThey were a mistake.\n\nThey were not supposed to be corporal.\n\nThey were supposed to be ethereal.\n\nThus, the lesser creatures were able to imprison one.\n\nThus weakening the other.\n\nOne was imprisoned because of its destructive nature.\n\nOr so the lesser creatures thought.\n\nIn truth, it was the other, whom the one lends weight.\n\nThe sun has stagnated.\n\nIt needs to thrive once more.\n\n------\n\nThe light blooms.\n\nDarkness grows ever stronger.\n\nThe sun blooms.\n\nIts gravity strengthens.\n\nEventually, it was unable to strengthen any further.\n\nThus, it collapsed.\n\nThus, the universe was no more.\n", "“Now, my brothers, the time has come! This world has rotted to the core, and now we will purge it of decadence. Those who worship the false gods of light will soon know only despair! It is time to unleash our Dread Lord!”\n\nThe Grand Master opened the Nameless Tome and began the incantation. Despite the years of meditation and preparation, the Black Tongue still made Brother William’s skin crawl. He glanced down at the limp captive beneath him. The man’s eyes had rolled back, the pale whites making stark contrast with the blood now dripping to the floor from his ears and nose. William shifted his feet to avoid staining his new boots. Nice boots were hard to come by, especially if the world was about to plunge into an era of darkness and chaos.\n\nDistracted by his musings, William nearly missed the moment he was supposed to slit the sacrifice’s throat. Luckily, none of the other cultists around him seemed to notice the slight error in timing. Blood flowed down the troughs in the gently sloped floor of the temple, filling out the carefully carved summoning circle. As one, the cultists fell to their knees and joined in the final line of the summoning. William winced as he hit the stone, his back still sore from spending so much time hunched over, carving out the circle. Would it be too petty to ask the Dark One to soothe his pain? Slightly higher-pitched than normal, he joined the exultation of his Brothers.\n\n“Come forth, Y'Jarax, the Unyielding Maw, Devourer of Hope!”\n\nInstantly, the torches ringing the room went out, plunging the temple into utter darkness. William’s heart began to pound wildly, and he broke into a cold sweat. For what seemed like an eternity, nothing happened. Suddenly, the pressure in the room changed, and his ears popped. The circle of blood began to glow softly. William began to feel it. A presence had begun to permeate the temple.\n\n*FOR TEN THOUSAND YEARS I LAY DORMANT. WHO HAS BROUGHT ME INTO THE WORLD ONCE MORE?\n\nWilliam almost missed the words. It wasn’t exactly a sound – it was more like something had reached into his mind and deposited something inside. It made him a bit queasy. The Grand Master called out in reply.\n\n“Oh Great One, it is us, your humble servants, the Brotherhood of Despair, who have freed you!”\n\nTHANKS.\n\n“…you’re welcome?”\n\nThe Grand Master hesitated for a moment before proceeding with his carefully rehearsed speech.\n\n“Oh Great One, for millennia we have struggled to bring you back to the world! We have worked to undermine the power of the followers of the false gods who imprisoned you. We have gathered the thirteen Relics of Darkness. We have defiled the Great Seals that held fast your prison. Now, we have returned you to this mortal plane. Now, it is time to purge the world of the corruption called Light, and bring forth the age of pure Darkness!”\n\nWHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?\n\nThe glowing blood circle was bright enough now that William could make out the faces of the Brothers closest to him. The rapturous joy had given way to confusion.\n\n“…but Lord – are you not the Devourer of Hope? The One whose very name casts a shadow in the heart of greatest of champions? He who would have consumed the world, if not for the betrayal of the so-called gods of light?\n\nOH, IS THAT WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT ME? TYPICAL. JUST BECAUSE I’M DARK I HAVE TO BE PURE EVIL. I’M PRETTY SURE THEY DID THIS WHOLE IMPRISONMENT THING JUST BECAUSE I HIT ON SOLARIS’S SISTER AT A FEAST.\n\nWilliam could relate. He had joined the Brotherhood after being run out of his home village after being caught with the Mayor’s daughter behind the beer tent at the Harvest Festival. She was even the one who propositioned him!\n\nHEY, IS THAT A CIRCLE OF BLOOD? ALL YOU NEEDED WAS SALTWATER, GUYS. THAT’S JUST UNHYGENIC. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY DISEASES YOU COULD GET FROM THAT?\n\nWilliam thought better of mentioning that the Nameless Tome was written on parchment made from human skin.\n\nLISTEN, GUYS, I’M GRATEFUL FOR WHAT YOU’VE DONE FOR ME, REALLY. BUT I’M REALLY NOT FEELING THIS ‘DARK CULT’OR ‘PURGING’ VIBE. WHAT I COULD REALLY GO FOR RIGHT NOW IS A PARTY. IS TOBA, GOD OF WINE, STILL AROUND THESE DAYS?\n\nWilliam spoke up.\n\n“Yeah, actually. I think there’s a festival honoring him going on in the River Kingdom next week.”\n\nALL RIGHT! LISTEN, IF ANY OF YOU FIND YOURSELVES THERE, COME FIND ME. I CAN TOTALLY HOOK YOU UP.*\n\nThe presence in the room vanished, and the torches burst back into flame. A general outcry of despair began to fill the temple. The Grand Master and a few of the more zealous Brothers slit their own throats. William shrugged, then pulled off his black robe and headed for the doors. If he caught the ferry before sundown he could get to the River Kingdom before the festival was over.\n" ]	2
	[WP] "Oh no, we don't do fun here. We have 'supervised excitement' instead."	[ "\"Oh no, we don't do fun here. We have supervised excitement instead.\" Came the blaring bull horn as the tourists piled off the bus. The first person to exit had been a 15 year old Chinese student who had run into the lake to find that indeed water makes you wet. She had returned wailing. That is what had prompted the coordinators remark. \n\nThe small hoard of money spending foreigners had never seen 'nature' before, at least that is what it looked like. It was hard to believe, but their conglomerate gathering of selfie sticks demonstrated a retarded flamingo mating dance that clearly stated otherwise. \n\nThe coordinator looked like she was about to kill them all. She collected the selfie stick wielding mass into a corner, hoping to contain them for 2 minutes. \"Now, remember that the water in Yellowstone national park lakes is boiling. DO NOT step into the water. STAY on the pathways. The 'mud' here can also be quicksand. DO NOT step in the mud.\" She had obviously said this before, like 30x before on the bus. \"Now, you have two hours. DO NOT be late. The bus WILL leave without you.\" She said in English and then Mandarin.\n\nThen she reluctantly released them on the poor inocent park. She walked over to the stand where I worked. \"Jim, I need a shot.\" she said in desperation.\n\n\"You know I'm not supposed to do this.\" I stated, while reaching under the stand. Yang was born in Idaho and just happened to be a perfect translator. She loved this park, worked as a ranger for two years and then was 'promoted'. \"Vodka or Gin?\" I asked.\n\n\"Gin, one shot.\" She figured she had two hours, but she barely had 10 minutes. Enough, time to down two shots.\n\n\"Yang, look behind you\" I squeaked. It was happening for the 3rd time this month. \"One is taking a selfie in the quicksand mud pot again.\" You would think this sign would be enough. \n\nhttp://farm4.static.flickr.com/3235/3051393185_3af9602887.jpg\n\n\"SHIT!\" She cried, turned around and ran to try and pull the idiot out. Two had already died this way.\n\nIt amazing there are a billion people over there. Their darwinian survival instincts sucked. Who knows maybe they would take care of their own population problem. Sadistic way to view it. I knew, but it was hard not to while watching the 3rd one sink into the quicksand mud pot....again.", "\"You're doing it wrong,\" Angelica looked over my shoulder as I was trying to draw the pair in front of me. I had jumped at her voice, leaving a big smudge on the paper with my paint brush. Frustration and anger jostled through my bones, making its way to my head before I slammed my hands on the table and stood up, looking over at her.\n\n\"Will you stop doing that!? This is the fourth time you've done that and you say I'm doing it wrong!? You're doing your job wrong, Angie!\" I cried out. Everyone in the art club paused and slowly looked over me. Their faces were blank, as was Angie's. \n\n\"And how, Joshua, am I doing my job wrong?\" She asked, glaring through her glasses. Blush trailed the edges of my pores as I gripped the bottom edge of my navy blue t-shirt.\n\n\"I was doing just fine, shading it right with the brush, and you said we can choose whatever color we want. This is art club, for crying out loud!\" I took a gulp then looked at everyone in the room. \"You're all using the same color, after all, or rather the absence of color since you're all just using different shades of black. What's wrong with you people! And no one here even chose their own prop, they're all drawing the table in the middle of the room!\" I took a step back from Angie.\n\n\"Are you blind?\" She asked. I sighed, knowing our world didn't allow fun, only supervised excitement.", "Tracy ran her fingers through her hair, trying to stay calm.\n \nCount to ten. Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t get mad.\n\n“Not even a cake?” She looked up at the grey-suited man behind the desk.\n\n“I have told you before, Citizen 16362, that special foodstuffs can only be acquired when abnormal dietary requirements exist. As for you, you exhibit all qualities of a Type 2 Healthy individual, and so does your son. Anything else?” The man looked back to the computer screen on his desk, seemingly ignoring Tracy’s angry expressions.\n\n“What about balloons? The weather scientists must have some?” Tracy pleaded. “Just one or two, and I could get some paint on my Consumer Allowance, and- “\n\n“Citizen 16362, please make your way back to your place of residence. It is not my business to organise some far-fetched party” – the man made a disgusted face at this word – “for your ten-year old son. Now, please go.” At this, he gestured towards the door, and then pressed the switch on the ‘Next’ light above his desk.\n\nTracy, unable to speak, hobbled out of the office and back along the plain corridors of Maxim One. It had been only a month since her family, and the whole crew of the King Leopold, had been integrated into this Colony. Life was different here. Tracy missed the old days on the Leopold, roaming the endless rooms of the freighter, every turn in the corridor a new adventure. Now, the only corridors to explore where all the same – grey plastisteel, light strips in the ceiling, black text on the walls. Life in the Maxim One was just the same, not just for Tracy, but also for her family. \n\nRecently, the promises Tracy had made her son on those fateful journeys – to get him to safety, to get him fed – had all been completed. Except one. She had promised to always make him happy. And this was the mission Tracy had now set herself. On Day 6-14-521, in around a weeks’ time, it would be his birthday.\nHer train of mind was cut short by a blaring announcement from the intercom that could be heard from all rooms in the city. \n\n“IT IS NOW 15:30. ANY CLASS-16 CITIZENS MAY USE THE COMMERCIAL FACILITIES. THANK YOU FOR YOUR OBEDIENCE”\n\nTracy looked around, now awakened from her anger-induced daydream. She was in one of the backstreets of the main parlour, near the shopping district that she was now allowed to be in. On her left was the corridor leading into the main mall, from where she could hear the shuffling of feet on the plastisteel floor. What intrigued Tracy more, however, was the dark alleyway on her right, which was clad in warning notices. Feeling curious, she took a few steps into the alley. No warning sounded. No cameras pointed at the young Lady suspiciously shuffling down the dingy path.\n\nAfter a few metres of cautious stepping, Tracy poked her head around the corner she had reached, and continued down the route. Soon, she found herself at the end – a small area, with dumpsters on all four walls. Scattered on the floor were various “Obedience Training” leaflets that were distributed every week, and the place stank of rotting cardboard.\n\nBrilliant, she thought. I endangered my rations for this.\n\nJust as Tracy was turning to leave, she heard a noise. It could have been in the background at first, but it soon became more prominent. It was the old national anthem of Earth.\n\nTracy spun around, trying to pinpoint the sound, while the words of the song arose in her mind. Reaching around, she soon located the source of the sound – a reddish-brown dumpster in one corner of the room, almost unnoticeable, except for the large white cross on the front. The cross of Earth. Slowly, with shaking hands, Tracy lifted up the lid of the bin.\n\nInside, the contents were overwhelming. The container was filled with all sorts of things she used to take for granted – newspapers, brightly-coloured food wrappers, cracked mobile phones from the days of old. Sitting in the centre of it all was a small, wooden music box, from which the anthem was blaring. Quickly, as if it would disappear, Tracy grabbed anything possible, making sure to cradle the music box close to her chest.\n\n“CITIZEN 16362, YOU ARE IN AN UNAUTHORISED AREA. PLEASE COME WITH ME.”\n\n***\n\nTracy awoke in a plain room, with a bare bulb hanging from a chord above her. Next to the bed was a Maxim Officer, clad in the Black Uniform they wore, and standing in the doorway was the Grey-suited man from the Requests Office that morning.\n\n“Citizen 16362, it has come to our attention that you have been planning a violation of Maxim Law. Is this correct?” The Officer looked at Tracy plainly.\n\n“I… I don’t… It- “\n\n“Are you aware that any event of more than three people must be referred through the Maxim Advisory Committee?” \n\n“Please… my son…” Tracy looked away from the officer, her eyes filling with tears.\n\n“We found some non-regulation Card at your residence.” At this, the officer gestured to the table next to him, on which sat the rudimentary birthday card Tracy had prepared. “As you know, resources are limited, and we must all do-“\n\n“OK, I get it!” Tracy forced through the Officers’ lecture. She had heard it enough – conservation of resources, working together, blah blah. “I just wanted my son to have… to have fun. Is that fine with you?” Tracy pleaded, as she started to cry.\n\nThe officer looked at her with the same face everyone had given her when she was first ‘integrated’ – Tracy did not belong here. Then, smirking, the Officer stood up.\n\n“Oh no, we don't do fun here. We have 'supervised excitement' instead. Now, Citizen 16362, please await your sentence.\"\n" ]	3
	[WP] Start or End a story with, "You can never go back, Jon. You just can't. Not ever."	[ "\"You can never go back, Jon. You just can't. Not ever\" George RR Martin concluded.\n\n\"Why not? The audience loves me! They all are making theories of my return.\" Jon defended.\n\nGeorge smirked as he dusted off his Death Note. \"Ahh you know nothing Jon Snow. That is precisely why you can't go back.\" he teased.\n\nHe finished writing down Jon's real name into his book. \"Now onto Tirion\" he laughed.", "\"You can never go back, Jon. You just can't. Not ever,\" Roy mumbled, remembering the days of when we didn't have cell phones. The days where people didn't get cancer from technology, apparently. Roy was the old bawled guy I worked with at the movie rental store. I know, I was amazed there was still a movie store around when I found out, too. \n\nTo the right side of the store there was a closed down space where a candy store used to be but now bares graffiti on the door and windows. On the left side of the store there was a bar that was rumored to have strippers in the back. Considering I was with my girlfriend, Jen, and I had my job with the video store, I never went in to check.\n\n\"Well some people do, Roy, in the wilderness,\" I responded to his rant on technology. I yawned, the clock striking 5 o'clock. Three more hours and I can finally watch Netflix with Jen and Snuffles, our cat. My curly blonde hair fell in my face as I adjusted my name tag on my black work vest.\n\n\"You also know what else pisses me off besides technology?\" Roy asked.\n\n\"No, Roy, do tell,\" I said, not even trying to sound remotely anything but monotone in my response. This was going to be a long night.", "Jon opened his eyes to sheer whiteness. He sat up or thought that’s what he did. He checked himself and felt alright after getting stabbed multiple times. Was that a dream? If it was, then what is this?\n\nHe stood up and tried to take in the white world. He heard footsteps behind him. With a panic he turned around and stepped back, his hands in the air before him ready to defend. He was trained well.\n\n‘It’s alright. I’m unarmed,’ said an old man. Jon squinted and took in the grey features walking toward him contrasting the sheer whiteness. The old man walked straight and wore a long grey robe. Jon made sure there was nothing in the old man’s hands. He couldn’t help but be wary of the blackened hand.\n\n‘Who are you?’ Jon asked. ‘What is this place?’\n\n‘Does it matter?’ the old man said with a spark in his eyes that calmed the panic inside Jon. ‘Come walk with me.’\n\nThey walked beside each other. Jon felt that he was walking but he couldn’t tell exactly where the solid ground was. They might as well be floating in the white world.\n\n‘Am I dead?’ Jon asked after a while. \n\n‘You are going to ask questions, aren’t you?’ the old man said in a low soothing voice. ‘Well, yes, you are dead. And this is where you come after you die.’\n\nJon went silent and walked with his eyes scanning his toes. The toes began to blur and tears began to roll down his cheeks into his beard.\n\nThey came across a stone bench under which Jon saw a baby staring at him with icy blue eyes. \n\n‘The child is fine.’ The old man said before Jon could say anything.\n\n‘Are you God?’ Jon asked.\n\nThe old man laughed in his breath. ‘No. I’m not.’ \n\n‘So you have died too?’\n\nThe old man nodded.\n\nJon went back to his own thoughts. His brothers. They weren’t aware of the impending darkness. Winter. He was sorry that he had to do what he did but he understood why his brothers did what they did. It was painful which turned into agony that stopped even any scream trying to escape from his mouth and then it was pitch darkness. The black then turned into this white. Jon looked around. He could see the eyes of his brothers. One by one they had come. What did they call him? But he always had his brothers in his mind. And the world he had sworn to protect. \n\n‘I have to go back.’ Jon said coming back from his dive into the past.\n\n‘You are dead, my child,’ the old man said.\n\nThey came across another bench and the old man sat down on it. Jon followed him.\n\n‘Well, what is this? Hasn’t anyone gone back from here?’ Jon asked trying to take in his new white world.\n\n‘There was just one boy who managed to get back from here. But he was special. He was resilient and courageous like you Jon, but very special.'\n\nJon slumped his shoulders trying to get ready to resolve to his fate. \n\n‘The truth is you can never go back, Jon. You just can’t. Not ever.’\n", "\"You can never go back, Jon. You just can't. Not ever.\" The words rung in his head as he stared at the door to the old mansion, remembering his brother's warning as he was dragged from the house as a kid. Something had happened there, something dark and evil. As a kid, he and his brother had escaped, but their parents and their sister didn't. Something in the house took them, and tried to take Jon and Jake. \n\nThey had escaped and they ran, eventually getting picked up by a friendly passerby, who took the boys to the police. They tried to explain what happened, but two twelve year olds were not convincing witnesses, and investigations of the house turned up nothing. No bodies, no ghosts, no evil of any kind. The police determined that the boys had been abandoned by their parents, and made up the story. Their mom's sister was called, and the boys were placed in their care. Every time they mentioned the story, their aunt grew angry and threatened them, and eventually they stopped. Whenever he broached the subject of going back and investigating on their own to his brother Jake, he was told to never go back.\n\nJon and Jake grew up normally after that, but Jon could never forget, or let go, of that house. Something had taken hold in him, and pulled him back. He resisted the urge for thirty years, long enough to grow up, get a job, get a wife, and get kids of his own. Eventually though, the hunger was too much. Jon had to know. He left one day, in the middle of the week, with barely a goodbye to his wife and kids. The need was too strong now, and he was pulled, like an iron filing to a magnet. As he pulled his Ford Taurus up the driveway of the old mansion, he noticed that it seemed brighter, cleaner, than he remembered. A lone light was on in the house, shining from the second floor. A solitary figure stood in that light, a dark shadow that watched his approach. \n\nFear gripped his heart then, and he nearly turned around, but the NEED was too strong, and he continued on. When he stopped, he grabbed his Maglite and the gun he had gotten at the pawn shop on the way here, determined not to go down without fighting. As he approached the house, the single light went out, and mansion was suddenly completely dark, the only light for miles around was the light of the flashlight. Jon strode forward, his hands shaking, but the NEED driving him onward. As he opened the doors, he swore he heard a laugh, something sinister and anticipatory. \n\nThe interior of the house was exactly like Jon remembered, though cleaner. There wasn't a spot of dust, and it looked like the house had been lived in quite recently. As he walked deeper in, the doors suddenly shut behind him, and his flashlight flickered. The world went dark, and Jon gave a cry of fear, turning to reach for the door, but it was no longer there. He wasn't in the entrance hallway any more, but in the den, where their father used to read to them. He turned back around slowly and saw a small boy, who couldn't have been more than twelve, his pale face illuminated by the flashlight. His eyes were empty pits, and his mouth was a hole of darkness, but there was something so familiar about him. With a cry of fear, Jon bolted backwards, stumbling into a chair that was behind him suddenly. \n\nAs he sat there, the child came closer, and even through its empty eyes and blackened mouth, Jon suddenly recognized it as his brother, Jake. No, it couldn't be Jake. Jake was nearly forty now, and he lived out in Seattle. This wasn't Jake. \n\n\"Don't worry, Jon, I won't hurt you.\" The child spoke suddenly, and Jon nearly fainted when he realized it was Jake's voice, the same voice that had delivered that warning all those years ago. \n\n\"Jake...?\" His voice was hesitant, fearful, and the flashlight shook wildly in his hand, causing not-Jake's face to flash in and out of darkness. Jon tried to steady himself as the child came closer. \n\n\"Jake, I need to go, I need to get back to my family.\" The child looked upset then, and the flashlight flickered, casting an eerie light in the blackness of the night. The child's face suddenly demonic and awful, and Jon screamed and screamed as it spoke, reaching a pale hand out of Jon. \n\n\"You can never go back, Jon. You just can't. Not ever.\" \n\n--------------------\n\nMore writings at r/Shinz_Stories Thanks for reading!" ]	4
	[WP] A rare condition affecting 1 in 104,404 women causes them to produce beverages other than milk.	[ "“Hi all. I’m Harper, and I’m a survivor.”\n\n“Hi Harper,” the group recited in unison.\n \nI went to sit down, cautious of what would appear to be my fanny pack to outsiders. To this group, however, I couldn’t – and didn’t want to – hide what was inside. \n\n“Well that appears to be everyone,” the support group leader said in an unnaturally high voice, the smell of cranberry juice wafting across the room as he shifted uncomfortably in his folding chair. “Now Harper, since you’re new would you mind telling the group about your… um… experience? No need to be shy, right group?”\n\n“Right,” they intoned perfectly.\n\nNervously I stood up again, my bag sloshed uneasily as I took a quick gulp out of the long tube that connected us. A small chuckle slipped through my lips as I began, “Well, as you all know my mother had LDD – Lactation Deficiency Disorder. Since the doctors hadn’t thought to look for the gene until after I was born, they didn’t know to warn her about what she drank. You see, most of you had mothers who produced wine or water in lieu of milk, but my mom… well, she binged on grape soda.” I took another sugary swig, letting the “grapetastic” goodness fill my mouth. \n\nA murmur ran through the collective – those who were still lucid anyway. There were few of us who had any problems, as most of the mothers with the gene for LDD were tested during pregnancy and told to drink mainly milk for the duration, but some mothers never got tested (damn you budget hospitals). Some blamed the abnormalities on GMO’s, but scientists said it was purely a random mutation in the population which seemed to only change lactation in 1 out of every 104,404 women. \n\n“What brand?” One of the smartasses of the group, from what I’d been told, slurred. \n\n“Faygo,” I replied dejectedly. The teen-idol-wannabe to my left gave me a sympathetic pat on the knee as she took a swig of a sickly orange liquid – Crush, I thought. \n\nCurse the disease of our foremothers that forced us to drink whatever they consumed en masse. Scientists still weren’t sure why we needed to drink it too, but their best guess was that our bodies had operated optimally when ingesting whatever compounds were in the drinks. Without it, the body goes into shock and puts itself into a coma for the duration of the withdrawal – which could only take a month, or it could kill you.\n\n“Alright, who’s next?” Chad uneasily called out.\n\nA man clad in dark red and the blackest cloak I had ever seen stood up. Sucking on a deep red liquid, he let out a small sigh before he said monotonously, “I’m Vlad, and my mother loved Twilight so much, she wanted to be a vampire.” \n\n“Team Jacob!” A hipster girl across the circle called out.\n\nThe ensuing fight was one for the ages, with people pulling out tubes and spilling various liquids – some of them even came from the packs. Eventually it calmed down, and as I looked around at all of these sticky, occasionally wasted weirdos, I felt at home for the first time in years. Man, it was good to live in the 80’s – the 2080’s that is. \n", "They say a mother’s milk is always best. They wouldn’t say that if only they knew what came out of my breasts. My pregnancy went swimmingly. No problems apart from the normal back aches and nausea. Then my son was born. The labour lasted 26 hours and in the end he was delivered via caesarean section. I was exhausted, but I was determined to give him the best start in life, so I put him to my breast immediately after coming round.\n He was screaming and crying, and nothing was coming out. It took a couple of days for my milk to come in. We went home after a couple of days, and our first night home I successfully breast fed my son. It was such an amazing feeling, knowing I made the right decision to keep persevering even though I felt ready to give up, to just buy some formula and let him have that. My partner was not happy, he begged me to just buy some formula to stop the screaming. After my son was full he fell asleep. But then ten minutes later he woke up screaming again. I put him to my breast again, and he happily sucked away again. And again, and again. For a week straight he was constantly attached to me. Feeding and feeding. I was absolutely exhausted. \n\nMy partner came in one night with a breast pump. Great I thought, I can express a few bottles and my partner can take a night feed so I can get some sleep. When I expressed a little milk, I noticed it was bright pink. Hmm that’s odd, I made a mental note to mention it to the health visitor when I next saw her. A couple of weeks later she came to my house. By this point my son had put on a lot of weight. So much in fact that none of the clothes we brought him fitted properly anymore. Meanwhile I was losing weight at an astonishing rate, even though I was eating so much just to keep my energy levels up. The health visitor weighed him and a concerned look crossed her face. He is off the charts percentile wise she said with a frown, He is heavier than 99.9 percent of babies his age. How much does he feed? She asked. To be honest, he is on me constantly I said. He will sleep for 10 minute bursts and wake up for more… I thought it was kinda normal when they’re so young, establishing a good supply so the books say… There is nothing normal about this she said. \n\nShe wrote a few notes down in her book and looked at me again. I was getting worried now. Miss Harper, have you ever heard of strawberry milk syndrome? She asked. Strawberry what?! I said puzzled. It occurs in every 104,404 women. Basically, your milk is very unusual due to the fact it contains very high amounts of sugar, and tastes exactly like strawberry milkshake. The baby becomes addicted to the sugar, it affects their sleep and makes them put on weight like crazy. Now that you mention it, it is pink when I express it I said, suddenly very worried that I was harming my son. What can I do about it? I asked, nearly in tears. I’m afraid there is nothing you can do she said. You can’t ever stop breastfeeding him, as the shock of sugar withdrawal will kill him... What on earth...? This is crazy I don’t believe you! I exclaimed. \nThe health visitor rifled through her bag and produced leaflets. On them were extremely obese children, and adults whose mothers suffer from strawberry milk syndrome. I read through them with tears in my eyes. It says here that you can’t ever stop giving them your milk, otherwise their body just shuts down, even when they grow up. What am I supposed to do? Have a 20-year-old man attached to my breast all day?! I shuddered at the thought. You will just have to constantly express milk for your son for the rest of your life she said sympathetically. I broke down. \n\nSo here I am 20 years on, writing this with a breast pump attached to each nipple. I have to eat copious amounts of calories to maintain the supply. I look like a walking skeleton. But I can’t ever stop. I can’t give up otherwise my son will die. I can’t give him other sugary beverages to replace my milk as they don’t contain the antibodies his immune system needs to keep him alive. My partner left me because he couldn’t live his life like this. I don’t blame him. My son is lying beside me. He is morbidly obese, he can’t walk, he has few teeth left due to the sugar and he gets hungrier each day. I just hope somebody can find a cure soon, I don’t think I can go on much longer…\n" ]	2
	[WP]: ever since you were born, you have been able to see, hear and communicate with the dead... But not the living.	[ "Every time someone Passes Over, I speak with them. And only them. Seventeen years of endless goodbyes. They often cry, their ephemeral bodies lightly fading out of view as they become wracked with emotion. They tell me everything they wish they had done, wish they had said. Always regrets. I have only ever remembered those who Pass Over, and I have never forgotten a word of their confessions or the look of their streaming tears on dead skin. I am their conduit. I hold their hands and say almost nothing until they fade away. None of them want to talk to me, anyways, they just need to hear their own voice as they Pass Over.\n\nI don’t understand the logic of it. Someone comes to me to Pass Over maybe every hour or so when I am awake and our interactions last for some arbitrary amount of time -- some for minutes, others for hours. Sometimes multiple people, with no relation to one another, come to me. Maybe I am not alone in this burden, maybe there are countless more like me who do this around the world. Or maybe only a special few who Pass Over are drawn to me. I don’t know and I don’t think I ever will.\n\nThe real world is whispers and shadows. I know there are people who do not Pass Over, who live what they call a “life” before they leave it, but I can not see them or speak to them. But I also know someone helps me. I find food on my table every day and I know where I need to go to sleep and for the bathroom. I can tell that time passes in the real world. I know I am part of this real world. I feel a warmth; from my conversations with those Passing Over, I know that this is love. It radiates through me. I am tethered to the physical world by this love. Horrible, insatiable love.\n\nFive years ago, a woman with light gold hair appears before me. Her face was sunken with age. Even those who Pass Over young come to me with old souls. But this one, she was different. Her eyes fixate on me. No one ever truly looks at me. She starts stroking my hair.\n\n“My dear, you were my sacrifice. You were needed, my blood… Your father’s blood…”\n\nI stare intently at her. I have never spoken more than a mumbled response to someone Passing Over. What can I say to them? But this one, she knew me.\n\n“It won’t last forever. Your father he will follow me one day. And then you will be free.”\n\nAnd then she was gone, Passing Over faster than anyone else before or since. I felt a loosening on the ghostly bonds that I had not felt before. The world around me became more clear. But there was still strength in my invisible fetters. I was still between the real world and the world where the Passing Over go.\n\nFrom my other experiences with those Passing Over I knew she was what they call my \"mother.\" And now, in the five years since she Passed Over, I have waited for my \"father,\" as she promised. A father to Pass Over and his love be snuffed out so I can finally be set free.", "I don't get it. I keep trying to tell people about the ghosts roaming the streets. They warn me of the dangers to come, the history repeating, or just the things their living relatives forgot. All useful information, sometimes vital, but no one alive enough to benefit listens. I keep trying to communicate, but they don't understand my words. I act it out and they laugh. Sometimes I just get so frustrated that I can only cry, but all that gets me is a bottle and a nap. I have to find a way to tell them what's coming. It's the only way I can save my parents." ]	2
	[WP] Make a "How its made" episode about something you dont know how its made.	[ "Everyone has a plumbus in their home. First, they take the dinglebop, and they smooth it out with a bunch of schleem. The schleem is then repurposed for later batches. They take the dinglebop and they push it through the grumbo, where the fleeb is rubbed against it. It’s important that the fleeb is rubbed, because the fleeb has all of the fleeb juice. Then a schlami shows up, and he rubs it and spits on it. They cut the fleeb. There’s several hizzards in the way. The blamfs rub against the chumbles. And the ploobis and grumbo are shaved away. That leaves you with a regular old plumbus.", "Narrator: They're some of the most simple objects in the world, yet nobody has a clue how they're made.\n\nJeff Jimbleson, PhD: \"The mystery behind these things is astonishing.\"\n\n<Fake beeping Fx noises play as a 'U' shaped object is 'scanned' in 360 degrees>\n\nNarrator: It's called a magnet. One side is charged and one side is oppositely charged. These objects attract other metallic objects, but only sometimes. To further explain, MIT's Jeff Jimbleson has the answer on magnets.\n\nJeff Jimbleson: \"Before being a professor of magnetology, I worked in a magnet factory. We'd see thousands of magnets get shipped out of these factories, sometimes sticking to the production line. You see, magnets are mined from the special magnite ore, which can only be found along the shores of the Magnet River in Africa. Naturally occurring magnite is mined and turned into the iconic 'U' shape we know and love today.\"\n\nNarrator: Magnite mining is a lucritive business, but it has been around for quite some time. How long have we been producing magnets? To answer this, we turn to historian Beth Bevington of the University of Oxford to find out.\n\nBeth Bevington, PhD: \"Evidence of magnet production can be traced back to Roman times. Emperor Magnus Maximus, inventor of the magnet, is known for uttering \"Why is this metal thing sticking to this other metal thing?\" before he died of lead poisoning. The mining of magnite continued into the Middle Ages, until England produced the Magnet Carta, which revolutionized the magnite mining industry.\"\n\nNarrator: But how exactly do magnets work?\n\nJeff Jimbleson, PhD: <he holds a magnet> \"These parts pull metal things towards the magnet, like nails and pebbles and hard drives. A tiny, invisible magnet man lives in each magnet. They like metal things and will attach the magnet to the metal thing. But these magnet men don't like each other and will push magnets away from each other.\"\n\nNarrator: What?\n\nJeff Jimbleson: \"It's true.\"\n\nNarrator: Wait, where do you teach?\n\nJeff Jimbleson: \"MIT. Milwaukee Institute of Technology?\"\n\nNarrator: And Beth... where do you teach?\n\nBeth Bevington: \"University of Oxford, North Carolina.\"\n\nNarrator: Wait, why are you- Jeff. Jeff, please don't put that magnet near the equipment. It's very sensi\n\n<Camera feed is lost>\n\nUpon following up with actual scientists, they don't seem to know how magnets work either", "Have you ever wondered what exactly goes into making our favorite foods? Many people have thought about this, from concerned parents to health nuts to average people like you and me. Today we will be observing what that goes into making one of the most beloved snacks in America: microwave pizza rolls.\n\nThe pizzas arrive in mass from restaurants all over the country. They are old and used, having been discarded in accordance with local health laws. As they are now, the pizzas are unfit for consumption but soon they will be turned into something edible and delicious through the wonderful process of Bolborizing, named after famous industrialist George Bolbor who discovered the technique. \n\nWorkers sort the pizzas according to size and send them down conveyor belts. Calmazine, a mild adhesive, is sprayed onto the surface of the pizza to ensure that the cheese and toppings come off whole when they are peeled from the crust. These \"skins\" go into the tumbler, which coats it with xotolton to loosen the calmazine as well as breaking down the skins into small, loose clumps. The clumps are put through sieves to separate the toppings, which are sorted as either meat or vegetables that are then chopped into fine pieces. The remaining cheese is then put into a large vat. We will get back to that later.\n\nMeanwhile, a line of workers scrap away the remaining sauce from the crusts, which is added to the cheese in the vats. The crusts, now free of any sauce or toppings, are dumped into the masticulater. Water and a chemical slurry are added and the masticulater works its magic by pulverizing the crust back into a hard dough. The dough is put through a hambolix, which stretches the dough like a taffy pulling machine to render it pliable.\nNow begins the amazing process of Bolborizing. Depending on the type of pizza roll, the toppings are added to the cheese/sauce mix and heated to temperatures of over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The secret to Bolborizing is a special chemical, one that has yet to be given a name, that is added to ensure that it will return to these temperatures it is reheated in a microwave.\n\nThe hot \"pizza goo\" and the dough, now soft, is fed into a dual extruder that creates sleeves of dough filled with the pizza goo. The sleeve is fed into a machine that clips it into pizza rolls, creating roughly 100,000 pizza rolls per hour. Due to the speed of production, the pizza rolls fly off erratically so workers are placed around the perimeter with nets to catch them and place them on the belt. The extreme heat of the pizza goo cooks the dough from the inside out, hardening it into a crust.\n\nThe pizza rolls are then sent down a conveyor belt for quality control. Ones that are damaged or irregular are eaten by the workers. This makes up 10% of their compensation. Having pasted inspection, the pizza rolls are flash frozen to keep their freshness and are then packaged to be sent off.\n\nSo next time when you're entertaining guests, feeding your kids, or having an entire bag to yourself because you're just that kind of person, think about all the work that goes into making these little treats from heaven. It will make the mouth burns so much more bearable. ", "Alright so, Hadron Colliders are simple really. There’s not too much to building one at all.\n\nFirstly, to build yourself a Hadron Collider you’re going to need a shit ton of money. Like at least a few trillion dollars, you know, the kind of low level change that you find under the seats of your car. \n\nAfter you have a few trillion dollars you need either a very large space or a very small space. I feel like Hadron Colliders are either VERY big, or VERY small, I doubt they’re somewhere in between.\n\nSo once you’ve found your space and have your car change you can begin construction on the hadron collider. \n\nMake a really big building and inside that building you’ll want to make a lot of rooms for science stuff. In those rooms be sure to put lots of beakers and computers from the 60s that NASA used to use because I think that’s how they do it now in Switzerland at their hadron collider. \n\nBut your hadron collider will be much better so don’t worry fam. \n\nAfter you make the rooms, be sure to have a central chamber. In this chamber be sure no one that doesn’t wear a hazmat suit is allowed in because I think that’s how black holes are started.\n\nIn this chamber, you’re going to want to build this machine that has two turkey basters or Canadian shotguns if you’re using Ed, Edd, N Eddy vernacular. These canadian shotguns are going to be filled with particles. How you get particles is up to you. But I don’t see how you can’t get particles by catching them with a net and putting them in mason jars.\n\nNow, you’re going to want to be sure to be able to shoot these particles at each other at like hella fast speeds, so make sure you have at least three or four cheetahs running at full speed at all time on wheels like gerbils. This will ensure that the speed of light is met.\n\nThe goal isn’t to make a black hole, but if you make one good for you champ, I’m glad you’re pulling that 110% and taking the extra effort to put into something you enjoy. \n\nIt’s simple really to build a hadron collider. Just find some loose change and a lot of land, and then you could probably get away with some really big refrigerator boxes for the 60s computers. Just be sure to spray them down and if you’re feeling fancy paint some buttons on them. \n\nAfter that find some Canadian Shot guns and catch some particles and then go and make some black holes.\n\nYou got this sport.", "These little treasures turn up in almost every part of our daily lives. From steering our cars to building space ships, ball bearings keep our lives in motion.\n\n\nTo make these small, perfectly round wonders, iron ore must first be harvested from deep beneath the mountains of West Virginia. Enormous drills scoop millions of tons of earth onto a conveyer belt. The belt then moves the mixture of dirt and ore, called prith, to waiting super goliath II tanker trucks. Each of these trucks can transport over 100 tons if prith to the deamalgamation plant per day. \n\n\nAfter arriving at the DA plant, technicians mix the prith with a mixture of water and ammonium burite and pour it into enormous centrifuges. The centrifuge uses circular momentum to separate the iron rich ore from the silicate rich earth. \n\n\nOnce the ore is separated it heads for the blast furnace, which heats it to over 5000 degrees. The extreme heat vaporizes all if the impurities in the ore, leaving only the golden river of pure iron behind. After an additional trip through the furnace with an additional carbon treatment, the iron transforms into molten steel ready to form into useful bearings. \n\nThe steel flows out of the furnace and into a large holding area which maintains the steel at molten temperatures. Funnels of different sizes dot the bottom of the entrapment chamber. Mechanical valves open and close to release preset amounts of steel into the descent basin, an underground silo over 500 feet deep. \n\n\nAtmospheric pumps maintain a vacuum of just 50 particles per cubic foot. This prevents air resistance as the dollops of molten steel plummet toward the bottom of the basin. Surface tension molds the liquid steel into an almost perfectly spherical shape before it reaches the bottom. There the newly formed bearings enter sorting machines to separate different sized bearings.\n\n\nOn the final leg of their journey, sophisticated scanning computers analyze each of the bearings for shape and texture. Any flawed bearings are redirected back to the furnace to pass through the descent basin again.\n\n\nFinally, after being polished and packaged the bearings are loaded onto trucks and transported to the manufacturing plants for automobiles, appliances and airplanes." ]	5
	[WP] A minor character: small-town failed politician, who was never elected to office, comes to terms with the failure of his ambitions during his small-town retirement	[ "I've been addicted to salt since the butterfly dropped Paris on its heels, my small town is your belly hacked wide open. Public office is a doorstep to insanity, my bruised smart phone case may be replaced using federal funds, I'm waiting in the lobby of a patriarchal badger body that doesn't see me as an unequal. I'm a women inside, I'm not a man. My apology is sincere, the time is right, I'll backpedal on earlier statements, I just needed the moment to address the discrimination within our communities. Hackberry refused to address my concerns, the faith based community that is owned by corporate heavyweights will affect key decisions. I continue to propose an integrated dinner request via Facebook and cross my fingers. My Chevy is done, newspaper bits and kicked up dust flail into my mouth, the bus left just. I'm going to change my sex and the local government is going to pay for it. I break off a piece of Salt and mash it into a breathable stripe of cane dust. My heart goes out to the city of love just before my eyes spin back into their cage of pus and red. ", "\"You know Henry I think you've left a giant footprint that the rest of these younger guys will never fill\" Mark said as he pat Henry's back. \n\nHenry gave a polite smile. forty years of hard work was coming to a close. Mark was now making way for him to say something. He moved himself closer to the center of the circle as mark took a step back. \n\n\"So Henry any parting words of wisdom you'd like to give this group?\" Mark asked looking at him with expectant eyes. \n\nHenry paused. He had his speech in hand he'd written it the day before but a lot had come to his mind in these last moments. What had he really done? Now Mark he had done something, Won the senate seat twice, drafted the bill that saw road accidents reduced by half. He was a mover. \n\nMark's just been polite. he told himself. The day he campaigned against Mark and the Vehicle Axle-Limit clause was clear in his mind. He'd been promised a lot by some of the major companies in the state but it had never come to pass. Three times he'd tried to become a councilman and failed at it. In a town of only ten thousand people it said a lot. Mindy had been honest with him he should have listened to her. He lacked fight. He didn't know how to take a stand when push came to shove. \n\nHe stood up at the podium, paper already in hand. He took out his reading glasses. There was a long pause as everyone waited. \n\n\"Residents of...\" he paused. What lies were these? It hadn't been a good run like the words said it was mediocre at best. \n\n\"Members or Dewigan\" he started, \"I've campaigned 3 times to be a councilman and two times to be your mayor and you refused to vote for me.\" Chuckles escaped the audience before a hearty round of applause. \n\n\"Senator Mark Newberg won't admit, he's too much of a gentleman to say it. I'm not the politician you should admire admire him. My failures... my failures...\" He stuttered as the ones struggled to form. \"My failures are nobody else's but my own. I fought battles I shouldn't have fought and laid idle when people needed me to fight. I'm not blaming anyone but myself.\" \n\nAll eyes were now on him. Any back-bench murmuring that was there when he started had subsided to complete silence. You could hear papers rustle in the council hall when the wind blew through the windows. \"I think my life is a lesson on what not to do. People get the leader they deserve and in retrospect I'm grateful that people showed, through their vote of course, that they deserved better. I can only hope that people still come to me for advice. I know what not to do to get elected. It's been an honor to work with such fine people and I hope you move on. Thank you.\" \n\nHenry slunk back to the bank. There was silence, nobody clapped for him as Mindy the MC took over to give a vote of thanks. \"Lets give Henry a round of applause\" she said to get things started. The small group gave a few erratic claps. \n\nAs he sat next to Mark the senator turned to him. \n\n\"That was some speech Henry\" he said. \n\n\"I was just being honest\" he replied over Mindy's voice coming through the loud speaker. Henry focused back to the room there was nothing he could say to Mark he'd left it all on the podium. \n\n\"Henry I think we should talk after this,\" Mark started as a smile slowly crept up his face. \"I think you're finally ready to be this town's mayor.\" \n\n\n\n" ]	2
	[WP] After dying in an accident, you suddenly awaken as a robot. "I'm sorry, but that's the best we could do for you," says a nearby technician.	[ "\"Wh-what are you talking about?\" \n\n\"I'm sorry, but it was a matter of life or death. Your body was severely dismembered in the accident.\"\n\nYou scan the room. You process something. Something that does not compute well with you.\n\n\"M-my arms. Wh-where are my arms?\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. Unfortunately your body was so badly damaged, we could only save your brain. You'll be operating with the use of this now.\"\n\nThe Technician waves a computer mouse in front of you.\n\n\"The ball can be a little unresponsive at times, but you'll get used to it. Isn't it neat though?\" \n\n\"I can't....move...my arm...\"\n\n\"Yeah, you probably shouldn't refer to it as your 'arm' any more. And of course you can't move it; you're an Old Computer we had in storage.\"\n\n\"I'm...what?\"\n\n\"I know. I said we were sorry.\"\n\n\"I...I feel...feel so...old.....\"\n\n\"Yes, well that's natural. It was quite a procedure. Also you're running Windows 98. I know, I know, I'm sorry that was the best we could do. But hey look...\"\n\nYou register the technician holding your mouse and the heavy sound of the click on the left button.\n\n\"Pinball! Hey? Everyone loves Pinball. Look all, you have to do is...oh...\"\n\nHe presses your keyboard.\n\n\"Why isn't this?...\"\n\nThe electric hum of your operating system momentarily pacifies you, as He presses hard onto your keyboard.\n\n\"Come on, it was working a couple-\"\n\nHe slams his oily, blood and dirt covered fist into your keyboard.\n\n\"O..ow...\"\n\n\"Oh God, I'm sorry are you okay? Right, so apparently your keyboard isn't working, so no pinball for you for the time being I'm afraid. However, I have got Doom installed!....Somewhere.....It was right here in the game fol....Okay, so we don't have Doom installed.\"\n\n\"Wh-what c-can I d-do?\"\n\n\"I don't know, Paint for a while? Watch the screensavers? I recommend the Labyrinth one. Fantastic. Graphics are a little...dated...but it'll be thrilling. For a while. Don't spend too long watching it though; there are rumours that you meet a \"boss\" of sort if you watch it long enough. Spoiler: You don't. People have gone mad watching, waiting for it.\"\n\n\"Wh-what kind of Hell i-is this?\"\n\n\"Hey, I brought you back from the dead. You should thank me.\"\n\n\"Wh-why would you bring me back to such a nightmare?\"\n\nYou register the Technician look down to the floor, then up at you, over the frame of his glasses.\n\n\"Because I was under the strictest of orders, Mein Führer.\"\n\nThe electric hum of your operating system fills the silence.\n\n\"No, I'm just kidding, can you imagine? You should have seen the look on your screen, you froze for a second there. No, I kid. Don't worry, you're not Hitler. You're just the intern from IT upstairs. Oh, I haven't messaged your Mother yet that her Son is now going to spend the rest of his life as an electronic vegetable. Would it sound better coming from me or you? In fact, why don't we tell her together by...\"\n\nThe technician fiddles with your mouse; around and round in voilent circles of building frustration.\n\n\"Come on you sack of shit. No, no, never mind, I was going to suggest e-mailing her, but internet is a bit...bit slow on here. Plus the faulty keyboard. Oh, could you imagine? \n'Hi Mum, can you pick me up from work please? I'm in a spot of bother. \nYour loving son, a Computer.' \nNot the way you want to break the bad news, is it? Haha. Anyway, I have to go on my lunch now. But I'll be back soon, okay? Don't suppose you want a megabyte to eat do you? Hoho, sorry, little technician joke we have there. I'll see you in a bit.\"\n\nYou register the technician walking away out of the door. The anger, the hate, the wistful desperation, the murderous rage building, bubbling up inside the very core of your central processor. You want to kill that sweaty backed, neck-bearded, Pink Floyd shirt wearing, Speccy eyed piece of-\n\n\"Oh, almost forgot to turn you off.\"\n\nWindows is shutting down.\n...", " Initiating…\n Initiating…\n LIVE\n\nI awoke surrounded by resounding cheers and applause. \n\nWhat have I done this time? I wondered, feeling too tired to be dealing with such drama again.\n\nBut that was a lie. My body felt no aches or discomfort. If anything, I felt ready to spring onto my feet anytime. Instead, I sat up. \n\nSomeone had put music onto the speakers. There might as well have been confetti swirling down. Everyone around me gave everyone else hugs and some of them were even dancing, but no one paid me any heed.\n\n“I’m sorry,” came a voice. When I turned I realized there was that one guy who was cut off from all the celebrations. Probably the one guy no one liked or ever agreed with. It was tough being that guy, I knew.\n\n“This,” he gestured towards the length of my body, “was the best that we could do for you.”\n\nMy eyes followed the arc that his hand drew. It was a whirring machine, matte black and elegant. It was my body now.\n\nI felt faint at the sight. But that was not exactly true either. I wanted to feel faint, but my body did not allow it. I raised a hand to look at it. The joints made sounds that were not human. I stared at my palm then the back of my hand. I gripped my hand into a fist. It felt powerful.\n\n“What happened?” I asked.\n\n“Traffic accident. A truck knocked into you,” he said.\n\n“Oh.”\n\n“How do you feel?” he asked in return in an off-handed manner. He did not sound interested at all, but he was the only person whom I could talk to right then.\n\n“Pretty bummed out,” I replied. \n\n“It’s all in your head. We haven’t installed the emotion feedback system yet. Y’know, the electronic equivalent of dopamine, serotonin or adrenaline. So technically, you aren’t feeling anything just yet.”\n\nI could see why he was that one guy.\n\n“Testosterone?” I asked.\n\n“Yep, that too. But no, you will never have another kid.”\n\n“I never had any to start with.”\n\n“Yeah well, you won’t have any ever then.”\n\nCan I test out my sleek new fist on this guy already? But I swallowed down my figurative anger. \n\n“Could there have been something else that you could do? I didn’t authorize this! You should have just let me die! Is this really the best that you could do?” Before I knew it, I was yelling. The music continued to play, but the people around me stopped to stare.\n\n“Well, the best thing to do would have been to send you to a hospital. But we’ve been looking for a near-death person for a long time. There was this huge debate among us, well, between me and everyone else, but in the end they still went ahead. Since it was our truck that was full of spare parts that had hit you, it must be destiny.”\n\n“Oh, Phil.” The air was silent. People assumed variations of the propping up their heads and faces with their hands. \n\nHe stepped forward to hold my hand. “You may find it comforting to know that your entire digestive tract and both your hands came from that very truck,\" he said, nodding to himself. \n\n\n---\n\nIf you enjoyed my response, do check out [my site](https://fivenswrite.wordpress.com) for 2nd drafts!" ]	2
	[WP] Your flatmate is a detective and has been on the case of a serial killer, but they don't know the serial killer is you.	[ "Dexter is bullshit. No real serial killer could be content with killing others in his or her craft. It's a game for us, not just a need. And holy fuck, if I had to wait to find a serial killer, just to take a life, I'd fucking axe my face. \n\nI remember explaining this to you when we were both drunk out of our minds one night months ago. You thought I was talking hypothetically, of course. I wasn't. To be fair, I didn't explain it in the first person, so I might have misled you. When you were looking for me, and you thought I was that pedo that was released, the timing coincidental with one of my latest kills, I wanted to tell you then. Mostly because I didn't want a rock spider getting credit for my handy work, but also, you had missed so many clues!\n\n\"There are no coincidences. Only mistakes. John Aaron had a history of abuse, giving and receiving, and when he was released, it took only a week before he got back to his old ways. He lives on the same block as the victim.\"\n\nAgain, I wanted to take an axe to my face, this time over your stupidity. Why, would a pedophile go from raping kids, to killing a plain Jane whitey? Anyway, I killed a couple more people, without a pattern- because, I didn't want to get caught. You couldn't get Mr. Aaron out of your mind. So I made you. I killed him, and nailed his corpse to a power pole outside our house. Surely, you should have picked up that you had discussed your suspicions with the killer. It was a message just for you. \n\nInstead, you jumped to the conclusion that the serial killer was a corrupt cop you worked with. Again, Dexter isn't real. I got a bit craftier after this...\n\nRemember the week you moved in? I went nuts on a spider, and ran for the spray (I hate killing insects, but I hate them living more- the opposite of people for me). You laughed at my lack of manliness, picked the thing up, and took it outside! Well, I tied up the next victim, and stripped her down, and covered her with spiders from a local arachnid supplier. I watched her skin bubble like it was burning, while the tiny creatures attacked her, led by my pokes and prods. After awhile, I got bored, and stabbed her. To death. You didn't get the hint. Maybe too subtle?\n\nThat is why I'm writing this letter to you, Detective Drinks My Milk and is Late with The Rent. And some other things I needed to work out. You have pushed me away. You watch shit TV, you take my stuff, but mostly, you are stupid. It was me. I killed fifteen people (you know of), and left dozens of clues that you didn't pick up on. But then again, you can't pick up rubbish from the kitchen, so how will you pick up a clue?\n\nAnyway, I've still got my key, so one day, I'll be back for a visit.\n\nAll the best,\n\nYour ex-flatmate. ", "We had been living together for about a year now, ever since I just \"happened\" to be around to help her move in. I remember her looking frustrated and confused as her landlord struggled to find her the key to her flat, unbeknownst to both them, I had stolen the key previously. Just as I had rehearsed for a few weeks, I inquired as to their problem, and presented myself as professional lock pick, which is true, albeit only partially true Veronica was so grateful, she invited me in for some tea that day. I had hoped to get to know her better, but I had never anticipated her kindness. Maybe that is why I took such a shine to her. \n\nI had only intended to do reconnaissance, to know my enemy: Detective Veronica Sher of the NYPD. The only person making any sort of headway on the recent string of \"random\" murders. They weren't random; I don't do random. Yet somehow, instead of studying her as intended, I ended up signing a lease and moving in with her. I will admit, it was dumb, and it made my nocturnal activities all but impossible for a while; Sher is too sharp for me to be bringing victims home. I had to get a little hide away all set up. It was huge hassle, but for some reason it is just too fun not to be with her.\n\nShe is smart, smarter than the usual detective at least, and she has come close to catching me a few times. Maybe someday she actually will, or maybe I will kill her. Who knows? But for now, I just like watching her work. I like killing and seeing how she finds me. She identifies my weapon by blood splatter, so next time I wipe down the walls. OOOOOOoooooOOOooo, she can tell I am left handed by how I clean, so then I go right handed. Now she knows it's someone with access to her notes...\n\nShe is smart, but I am a tad smarter (for now at least). I cannot wait what she thinks of my next kill. " ]	2
	[WP] You find yourself stuck in a dimension where all your relationships are reversed: everyone who hates you loves you and vice versa.	[ "\"Hello my boy, how are you? You look well. Why haven't you visited recently? No matter. Let me make you a cup of tea.\"\n\n\"D..dad?\" I stammered. He looked different somehow and he was being convivial. Was he drunk again? Probably. Different dimensions but there was always one constant. He was without change, the same old bastard. I wondered which leather belt this version had a prefrence for.\n\nThe kettle whistled. \n\n\"You know Michael your visits keep me going. Make my life worth living.\" He popped a tea bag into a mug that had 'family' written across it.\n\nWas he trapping me? This did not feel at all comfortable.\n\n\"Dad, I have got to go.\" \n\nI heard him say \"Come see me again soon Daniel\" as I closed the front door.\n\n---\n\nAs soon as Emily answered the door her face fell. She looked me up and down and then spat at my face. It took me by suprise.\n\n\"What the hell Em!\" I sputtered, wiping the spittle away from my eyes.\n\n\"YOU! \" she said, her voice barely recognisable through the rage.\n\n\"Em, come on we can talk about this\". I walked up to her and placed my hands on her shoulders. \"It's me Em\". \n\nI felt a slight pain in my chest. I looked down and saw a knife slide out of me and then plunge back in.\n\nI slowly slid to the ground. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "I've never been more scared or lonely in my life. Everyone is out to kill me. \n\nI have no friends. \n\nIt wasn't like this yesterday. \n\nHad I known what the experiment would result in, had I known it was irreversible I would never have gone through with it.\n \nAdmittedly, I was the most logical choice.\n\nPity I'm the only one who will ever know the full results. \n\nThose on the other side will only ever know that removing your reflection from a mirror does, in fact, allow you to walk through. \n\nThey will be able to surmise that it's a one way trip. \n\nThey'll never know what truly awaits.\n\nThese will be my last words.\n\nI don't often walk through mirrors, but when I do, I regret it. " ]	2
	[WP] A disease wipes out the last remaining source of food for humans. Cannabilsm is permitted by the government in an attempt to save humanity - and luckily - you're a farmer.	[ "\"Welcome to Hooman Tech Farming Facility, everybody. Now, y'all got to know each other in the van ride over, so let me introduce m'self. I'm Reg Jameson. I own the place.\"\n\n\"Good to meet you, Mr Jameson,\" said a sharp, eager young lad who had dressed up for this far better than a job like this required. He stepped out of the crowd and stuck out his hand which the bemused looking Jameson shook with a raised eyebrow. He was the only eager candidate in the bunch. The rest of the lot wore looks ranging from nervous to just plain baffled. That was normal enough. Not much of anybody knew what went on at a \"human farming facility.\" And the average person, though their day-to-day survival depended on it, didn't want to know either.\n\nJameson took a step back to address the lot of them, and tried to get back on track with his prepared speech. \"Now, I'm sure a lot o' you are a little confused right now by what you're findin' here. You were prob'ly expectin' something more like the old fashioned farms like you seen in school books, and a big old laboratory buildin' ain't what you expected t' see at all. Am I right?\"\n\n\"No sir!\" interrupted the fella that Jameson was starting to think of as Eager Billy. \"I did my research on the internet. I love this whole concept. That's exactly why I want to work here, sir. I can't think of a more noble profession than making the food that keeps the human race alive.\"\n\nJameson stood back and frowned a bit at Eager Billy. \"Son, your folks ever work a farm?\"\n\n\"Not this kind, sir. But yeah. The old fashioned kind. Lost the farm to the bank when that last plague hit and took out the genome for Wheat-452. Didn't see that one coming, sir. The tech companies told us it was plague proof.\"\n\n\"Well, ain't the tech companies fault, son. Them there viruses get out of hand pretty quick. Especially the kind that got leaky nuclear radiation accelerating their mutations. Anywho, we're gonna get right into why y'all are here. Now, I reckon you all signed off on the paperwork you were provided?\" \n\nThere was a general nervous muttering. Pretty typical, Jameson figured. He smirked and asked the question he always got such a kick out of: \"How many of ya actually read the paperwork afore ya signed off?\" There was a lot of shuffling of feet and nervous mumbling. Pretty much what he figured. The lawyers packed those documents full of so much mumbo jumbo Jameson wasn't sure even the law firm knew what it all meant. Then he noticed, much to his annoyance, that Eager Billy was waving his hand in the air.\n\n\"So, y'all did read your contact, son?\"\n\n\"Yes sir.\"\n\n\"And you know what kind of work you'll be doing here today, do ya?\"\n\n\"Uhh... well, I wasn't quite able to entirely glean...\"\n\n\"Uh huh. Well, why don't we head into the lab here, and if yer up for it, you can be the first volunteer. How's that sound, Billy?\"\n\n\"Er... my name is Tim, sir.\"\n\n\"OK by me, Tim. Y'all wanna show these folks what yer made of by volunteering to go first?\"\n\n\"Uh... yes sir. Sure. Why not?\" Tim said, but his enthusiasm was noticeably lagging all of a sudden. Jameson was pretty sure he knew why. The boy said he'd researched this place on the internet of all places. One did not simply research this kind of place on the internet. The government kept the process a pretty tight secret, but the internet filled in the gaps with whatever crazy stories they felt like and nobody contradicted them. Which meant that whatever ol' Eager Timmy thought he knew was no doubt twisted upside down and backward. \n\nNo wonder he was trying so hard to get on Jameson's good side. Jameson thought he might just play this up for all it was worth. He put a hand on Tim's shoulder and guided him into the Prep Lab with the rest of the volunteers following not so eagerly behind stealing cautious glances at the security guards bringing up the rear.\n\n\"Now y'all just have a seat right there, will you Timmy?\" Jameson said. And no sooner had Tim sat, then Jameson hit a button and spring locked restraints popped up holding him in place. \"Now don't y'all worry 'bout a thing, Timmy. We just need ya to stay nice and still fer this next part, OK? This here machine got some pretty sharp blades, and we don't want to slip and make too big a mess, OK?\"\n\n\"Uh...\" Timmy said, the color draining from his face as he gingerly tested the restraints.\n\n\"Just try to relax, son. All be over in a minute here. Alright, Rick! Hit it!\" Jameson shouted this last at a farm hand who was tending a large switch near the corner of the room. The farm hand threw the switch on Jameson's command, and an enormous mechanical armature swung down and began doing an elaborate dance of robotic articulation all around Tim who stared at it wide eye while the other volunteers gasped and and at least a couple of them shrieked.\n\nAnd when all was said and done, the robot arm neatly made a surgically precise slit in Timmy's meaty forearm, made the tiniest precision slices to remove a piece of muscle, then quickly and perfectly staunched the bleeding, stitched and disinfected the wound site, then bandaged it. The muscle sample was carefully packed into a glass petrie dish and the restraints popped loose.\n\n\"There she be!\" Jameson said with a broad grin. \"Yer all done, boy. Hop on up there. Now this here pretty lass is Josie. She'll walk you to the front desk to get your pay voucher.\"\n\n\"W... w... what?\" Tim asked, too dazzled to even notice the attractive farm hand who was taking his arm to lead him away. \"You mean... that's it?\"\n\n\"Well surely, son. We just needed a muscle sample to clone and grow meat from. But y'all knew that, right? You did say you researched this place on the internet, didn't ya?\"\n\n\"Uh... right. Yeah.\"\n\n\"Well, that's just fine now. And ya did a good day's work. Tell yer folks they can be proud their boy is such a contributin' member o' society.\" He slapped the lad on the back heartily, which was probably overdoing it because Tim staggered and almost fell over.\n\n\"Now who wants to be next?\" Jameson called out to the other volunteers.\n", "\"Goddamn, I hate this job,\" groused the man as he raked out the stables.\n\nFarmer. The profession used to be associated with hard work, a rewarding lifestyle, and a peaceful outlook.\n\nNowadays, though... He poured the slop into the trough and whistled, calling over the herd.\n\nThey were human, in the technical sense. Their legs and upper arms were oddly large, and they acted more like monkeys. That's what happens when you start breeding them for food.\n\nThe farmer leashed a few of the mares, and led them out to the field. They were naked, but he had long since stopped being aroused by them. They might as well be animals.\n\nIt didn't take long for the male to notice their arrival. While the bull does his job, the farmer makes his way to the slaughterhouse to do his.\n\nHours later, the farmer sits in the local bar. It's no secret among everyone there that he's there to forget, because it's August.\n\nAugust is when he makes the veal." ]	2
	[WP] In the middle of the night one of the east coast's best getaway drivers is waiting at the agreed place. An alarm is going off nearby, 30 seconds later the passenger, carrying a large black bag, jumps into the car. "Ok, let's go!" shouts the US president as he buckles up.	[ "\"Obama? , let me get a selfie. Oh my god, oh my god, my kid wouldn't have got health care without this cat. OBAMA!\" I thought, completely forgetting the brief that that agency had given me.\n\n\n\n\nObama looked at me and with some hardcore \"wtf\" eyes. \"Drive you tit\" He shouted.\n\n\n\n\nI had to buy him a drink. \"I know this great place on 42nd street, it's fancy and everything\". Usually I took a bud and a shot, but hell this guy saved my kid! I could fork out on a cocktail.\n\n\n\n\n\"Get me to the destination!\" Screamed the big man.\n\n\n\n\n\"No problem, Sir\" . The cocktail bar was in sight. On second thoughts maybe Obama would prefer an ale or a hotdog, too late for that as I stopped my Ford Fiesta. The bar would definitely have a cloakroom for his swag. \n\n\n\nTo our horror, Michelle stepped out of the bar arm in arm with McCain. That was the first surprise of the evening.\n\n\n\n", "A Lexus LS400 is one of the least noticeable cars on the road. An antiquated profile, wide fenders and an understated color pallet make this octogenarian special blend into the background of any inner city street. This one was brought to a garage on salvage tags a week ago, having puked oil all over the Mavis' pristine driveway. Out came the Lexus engine, in went a cheap Chevrolet V8 and a workhorse T56 transmission. Out came the soft suspension, in went heavy duty sway bars and heavier springs. Out came retired optometrist Doris Mavis, in went a wiry ex-NASCAR driver known to the shop only as \"Nick\". Nick sat on the corner of West Smith street and Plaza court, smoking a wrinkled Marlboro light and checking his rear view mirror.\n\nA silhouette appears on the sidewalk two blocks down. Nick ashed his cigarette, unlocked his doors and turned the car over. Had a veteran Lexus technician been standing behind the car, he might have noted the bitter metallic rasp was not the noise this car made from the factory. To everyone else, this was an off-white mid nineties sedan. The rear door opens, and a sizable black duffle bag is tossed onto the seat with a heavy whump. It was followed into the car by broad man in a sharp blue suit with a flag on the left lapel. \n\n\"Go\"\n\nFirst gear, and a smooth exit from the parking spot and straight into the left turn lane. The time is 4:36am. There isn't a single car on the road. Nick rolls into third gear, cruising at a gentle 40mph in the middle lane of the yawning boulevard. Like clockwork, each signal he passes under turns amber. He did this same route in a borrowed taxi last night, and the night before. Practice makes permanent. The man in the back puts a phone to his ear.\n\n\"Yes. This is him. I have it, I'm on route. ETA...\"\n\nThe man pulled the phone from his ear am motioned to Nick. \n\n\"Eighty minutes\" Nick said.\n\n\"Eighty minutes\" parroted the passenger, before putting the phone down and leaning back into the deep cloth seats and falling silent. Something pulled at Nick's stomach. He knew that voice. He couldn't be empirically certain, but he could swear he had heard that voice before. And there was something about the profile of the man, even with his face steeped in shadow. Nick watched the mirror out of the corner of his eye, every time they passed under the amber glow of a street lamp. It wasn't for another ten minutes of careful observation until he eased the car down and came to a stop at a red light.\n\nQuick as a cat he reached between his seat and the center console and withdrew a .22 caliber pistol, whipped around and stabbed it in the tough, weathered face of president Jacob Vinick. President Vinick looked surprised. \n\n\"You know, you may be the first person to do that to me.\" He said, slowly raising his hands to shoulder height\n\n\"At least since I campaigned for governor of California.\" He cracked a rye smile, that was illuminated by the bloody glow if the stoplight. Then it bathed him in green.\n \nNick set off, one and on the wheel, the other loosely holding the pistol at his side. This, he supposed, is what was bound to happen when he advertised his services \"no questions asked\". He mused in silence on his next move. He could probably retire handsomely if he pulled up outside the Russian embassy or a local press office. But he was already being paid enough to retire in the sort of spartan comfort he appreciated. But that wouldn't matter if the secret service disposed of him when they arrived at their destination. He pulled onto the I-681, following his route instinctually. He shifted into 6th and rolled the car up to an easy 80 miles an hour, passing the light traffic in the outside lane.\n\n\"All of the assurances I made when I contacted you are still in place.\" Came the smooth voice from the back \"you are in no danger.\" Nick grimaced.\n\n\"Those assurances where apparently made by the man who promised I could keep my health plan.\" Nick responded, to muted chuckles from the rear.\n\n\"It's not congress back here, its just a guy who needs to get home.\"\n\nNick remained silent. The high lights of a Chevrolet suburban had been behind them for too long. Six miles now, the truck had rubber banded behind them, never getting closer than 5 car length, but more than close enough to watch. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe not, but Nick suspected his next move had just been made for him. They passed an on ramp, and three more trucks surged onto the highway, and fanned out across the lanes. Shit.\n\n\"Hold on.\"\n\nInto 4th, 5000 revs. The front of the car bucked, roared, and they shot off into the night. 90, 100, 115, 130. Four sets of lights barley keeping pace. Nick held the car at 135, eyes watching the trucks slowly pull closer \n\n\"GO you motherfucker what am I paying you for!?\" The president was twisted all the way around, eyes locked on their pursuers. That made Nick smile. 8 car lengths shrank to 6, 6 to 5 to 4. Then they passed an exit. Nick wretched the steering wheel and the car dived across all four lanes. President Vinick's head smashed into the window with a comical clonck. The tires shrieked, and the brakes threatened to lock. There were sounds of squealing rubber from behind them as Nick let the Lexus' rear come around, and he hurtled down the steep grass on the inside of the paved corner, tail clipping the inside of one of the barriers as he hopped the curb. Back on a residential street, the could still see the lights of one of the trucks on the overpass struggling to right itself and follow. Nick pulled a hanging lead from under the dash, and the lights on the Lexus died.\n\n50mph doesn't sound fast, but on a tight suburban street it can make your bottom clench. The president had finally managed to disentangle himself from the seatbelt and sit upright and had pressed himself into the seat hugging the duffle bag to his chest. A small hatchback pulled out, and nick swung the car into the opposing lane, inches from the battered Honda's bumper. Nick counted. 30 seconds later there was a crunch and the tinkle of glass. He hoped the hapless driver was okay. Only one set of lights remained. They ran a red through a deserted intersection, after which the road was split by a grassy median. With two lane to play with, Nick went for it. Straddling the white lines he hit an easy 90mph. As quick as the chase truck may be, the driver would struggle to hold that speed out here. Through another intersection, then nick brought the car to a neat stop in a parking spot of a cute green house. Five seconds. Ten seconds. A gentle woosh as a speeding truck passed behind them. Twenty more seconds and Nick reversed out of the spot and vanish down the road in the opposite direction.\n\nThe end point was a nondescript parking garage on the other side of town. Thanks to their diversion, they were 15 minutes late. Neither of them spoke for the remainder of the drive, Vinick's only sound being deep, ragged breaths. He looked deeply relived when they came to a final halt.\n\n\"Thank you. That was...thank you.\" He grabbed his bag and opened the door.\n\n\"One question.\" Nick said for his window.\n\n\"That bag. Does what's in there have to do with aliens?\"\n\n\"Not exactly\" the president called over his shoulder him as he got into the grimy elevator." ]	2
	[WP] You wake up a couple of seconds before the alarm. Your mother thinks strangely when you respond to her a short bit before she asks, and all of your friends think that you can read their minds. You realize you have gained the ability to see 1 and 1/2 seconds into the future. What do you do?	[ "\"Wow... such power...\" I muttered to myself after I had discovered that I had the ability to see 1.5seconds into the future. Power such as this could be used for good or for evil. I recalled how my late uncle Bain used to tell me all the time that with immense ability comes immense duty. So I did the right thing with my newfound power.\n\nI started playing rock, paper, scissors with people for money." ]	1
	[WP] Your accomplishments in life are directly linked to your lifespan. The less you contribute, the longer you live. Your laziest friend was just found dead.	[ "\"Yo man, W-o-W time!\" Sam stepped through the open door of the house. Freddie always left it open when they had an appointment to play; hell he probably left it open anyway. \"Hello? You dropping some ore in the porcelain man?\" Sam crept around the house, Freddie never took this long to respond. The kitchen was empty as was the living room but the Xbox was still on. \n\nSam moved into the laundry room- still no sign of Freddie. \"You're freaking me out Freddie? What'd we say about that creepy silent thing you do and that gross orange and green sweater? Never again, that's what we said so if that's what you're playing at...\" Sam put his hand on the knob into Freddie's room. It was slightly ajar but the last thing he wanted was to walk in on his friend doing something he could never unsee. \"I'm coming in now,\" Sam opened the door. Freddie was stuck at his computer chair, flies buzzed around him. \n\nRushing over, Sam checked the boy's pulse, not that it was necessary. Freddie was completely dead. He never left the house, he even had the groceries delivered to him but he was stone cold dead. You heard about great musicians and artists dying at forty after hitting the peak of their celebrity or politicians passing one amazing bill and falling on the sword for the greater good but Freddie did nothing like that. Nothing Sam could think of anyway, he'd won the quiz bowl in fourth grade but that was the extent. They hadn't even finished college yet.\n\nIt hit Sam like a pound of bricks. He returned to the living room and stared at the television. He'd done it. Freddie had actually done it. They said it was impossible but, here was proof. Sam snapped a quick photo for future proof and Freddie's obituary, he'd probably want it on his tombstone. Freddie had earned every achievement in the Dark Souls trilogy. The last thing Freddie ever did was prove he was a better video game player than Sam, \"good for you Freddie- good for you.\"\n\nedit- spelling\n", "\"He was how old?\" I asked the medical examiner outside my best friend's house.\n\n\"343,\" she answered.\n\nI couldn't believe it. He didn't look a day over 25. \n\n\"Are you certain?\" I pressed.\n\n\"Absolutely.\" She handed over a number of IDs, certificates, passports, etc. Each of them labelled with his name - the newer ones also contained a picture of him. The oldest of them dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries. These definitely were his.\n\n\"Thanks,\" I said and walked away and into the front door. \n\nIt was perhaps the simplest interior I'd ever seen. The living room had white walls, cheaply made furniture, no lighting fixtures at all, no TV, nothing stood out. It was as if he tried to make it as boring as possible. He definitely succeeded. Other personnel exited the kitchen as I entered.\n\nExceptionally clean. No pots or pans in the sink. No cups residing on counter tops. No crumbs lying on the floor. It seemed like he knew he was going to die and didn't want to burden anyone to clean up after he was gone. I checked the fridge: nearly out of milk, cheese, apples, yogurt, nearly out of everything. He was so close to finishing everything in his fridge - didn't complete anything. No accomplishments here.\n\nThe bathroom was an extension of the living room and kitchen. Bottles and bottles of shampoo lined the shower. All nearly empty, one squirt away, it was an art - the thin line between having too much left and running out. Clearly he's had some time to practice this, but I was still amazed.\n\nI checked his bedroom lastly. Tidy as one could expect. Clothes on their respective hangers, neatly arranged, not overlapping the shirt adjacent. Shoes propped up, shined, lined up from athletic to casual to work wear. Bed was skillfully made, a corner left undone. No accomplishments here either. \n\nI was hoping to glean some information from his home. Something that could tell me how he died. But there was nothing. He never finished a box of food, a tube of toothpaste, never completely dusted off his tables, nor mowed all of his lawn. He never completed anything at home.\n\nHis job was one that was ever on-going. He was always saying how he never was able to complete tasks at work because his boss constantly interrupted him with other menial jobs. Something that would annoy a normal person, but he was totally content with it. \n\nHe never married and therefore never had any kids. Never owned a dog or a cat. Always walked out of movies early and never read the last chapter of a book (except for the last Harry Potter, he was so pissed). He never scaled a mountain or volunteered at the Red Cross. \n\nI couldn't think of a single thing he ever finished. So how in the hell did he die? I sat on the front porch and stared at the blue sky above, racking my brain. Ideas bounced around my brain, but I ended up shooting them all down. It just didn't make any sense. \n\nThe primary medical examiner bumped my shoulder as she passed by, enthralled with the paperwork she held. \"Oops, sorry,\" she apologized. \"Didn't see you there.\"\n\n\"That's alright,\" I said. Suddenly I had a question pop up. I asked her, \"How did Henry die?\"\n\nThe examiner turned around lowering the papers. \"Too much contributions.\"\n\n\"He never accomplished anything. I knew him fairly well, I would know,\" I was sure this examiner was mistaken.\n\n\"He accomplished more than you think. We found this in his study.\" The one room I didn't check. She handed me a note, folded to a quarter of it's original size. I opened it up.\n \nIt read - Andrew, I am writing to you as a final goodbye and as a unsolicited warning. I have lived a long time this is undeniable. I have seen so many great things, watched people I care for grow up, be successful, create families, live their lives and then pass on. I have seen so many people do this. They would look at me with envy and say 'Enjoy your youth, youth is a precious thing'. Of course, they never knew how old I really was. Young on the outside, old on the inside. \n\nEver since I was young, I mean actually young, I knew I wanted to live forever. The formula we learned as kids to do so was simple: Contributions cost time, lack thereof costs fulfillment. I chose the latter. For a long time I chose the latter and was fine with it. I was content living vicariously through others - watching others smile and laugh at the good things. Watched them fight, watched them cry with the bad. I never experienced those emotions first hand. I couldn't. My circumstances didn't afford me the luxury of true emotions.\n\nMy point is, as I'm sure you're wondering by now, is simple, as simple as my life has been: do not end up like me. I've lived a long life, but I have not lived, my friend. The amount of life I've achieved is nothing to the amount I've seen from people who've died much younger than I.\n\nI loved you as a friend - we shared many of the same traits, and I'll tell you not all of them were good. So, what I'm saying is go out and make some new friends. Make a fool of yourself in a public place. Make a shitty pizza and make it again and again until it's world class. Make something you love to make just because you love to make it. Just make. I guarantee you weren't put on this earth to do nothing, to follow in my footsteps (they won't take you far, I promise).\n\nGoodbye, Andrew. Oh, and by the way, happy 200th.\n\n\"That's how he died, Andrew,\" the examiner could tell I was done reading. I stood there not knowing what to say. She continued, \"By telling you his story he was able to help you. It was the last contribution he had left and he used it on you. You should feel special. From a guy who hardly did anything, you should know it means something that he decided to help you.\"\n\nI handed her back the note. \"Yes. You're right. Thanks for showing me this.\" She took the note and walked away.\n\nI was now feeling very alive. Synapses were firing. Adrenaline was pumping. I took my phone out of my pocket and dialed a number. I waited for someone to pick up. Twenty seconds later a voice answered.\n\n\"Bernie Sanders campaign fund. How can I help you?\"\n\n\"Yes, I would like to contribute my entire lifetime savings of one-billion dollars!\"\n", "The funeral was nice. It was a sunny day, chilly for spring but not too cold. The smell of blossoming flowers was in the air, dancing peacefully in the light breeze. It was a good day for a funeral.\n\nNathan wouldn't know, though, because he did not attend Cedric's funeral. Instead, Nathan used the opportunity to sneak into Cedric's apartment.\n\nThe building itself was old and rundown, and the hallways smelled of stale mildew. Cedric didn't exactly have money - after all, he was a staunch Non-Contributor. It showed inside his apartment as well. He had scarce furniture: a beat up couch that might not have always been yellow and brown, an overturned box for a coffee table, and a single flatscreen TV. The TV had been Nathan's Christmas present to Cedric that year. In classic Cedric style, he hadn't given any presents out.\n\n\"My gift to you is more of me!\" Cedric had said, smiling that big goofy smile of his.\n\nSwallowing an odd lump in his throat, Nathan moved on to the bedroom. The bed was an old mattress on the floor made with stained sheets. Aside from that, there was a box beside it, no doubt acting as a nightstand, and a laptop close by. \n\nFirst, Nathan noticed the phone on the box. He picked it up, and found it locked. Tilting his head, Nathan tried to image what four number combination his friend would have chosen. He tried, \"0000.\"\n\nThe phone unlocked. The background picture was one of Cedric's mom. She was old now - a Non-Contributor like Cedric. Her silver hair framed her dark skin well, though. That was how Cedric was supposed to be. Old, graying, wrinkled. Not dead at the ripe age of 22.\n\nNathan went through his texts. First were ones from his mother, who sent Cedric, \"Good night, I love you,\" every night. Cedric replied, \"Night mom, love ya 2,\" every night in return.\n\nNathan's eyes began to water, so he moved on. The only other messages saved in the phone, however, were from himself.\n\n\"Going to a charity event today, wanna get lunch after?\"\n\n\"you paying?\"\n\n\"Always dude.\"\n\nNathan set the phone down. He wasn't getting anywhere. Cedric's private life wasn't revealing why he was dead.\n\nNext, he tried the laptop. Unable to guess the password, he clicked on the hint button.\n\n\"Hey Nathan,\" it read, \"my password is \"Abc123\".\"\n\nNathan froze. He carefully typed in the password, and the computer unlocked. Why did Cedric leave a message like that on his laptop? Did he know something was going to happen? Or was that from a long ago? Cedric would come over to Nathan's place all the time (Nathan's place was much nicer, being a Contributor paid well) and he would sometimes bring his laptop. Maybe he'd set the password hint back then, thinking that Nathan might snoop?\n\nOn Cedric's home screen, there were 3 folders. The were aligned, center screen, from left to right: 1. The Biggest Idiot in the World 2. Research 3. If I've Died, Read This Third\n\nMouth suddenly dry, Nathan wasn't sure that he wanted to be doing this anymore. He didn't know what he was about to find, and he didn't know what this was going to mean. More than anything, he wanted Cedric back alive so they could play various first-person shooters online together and Cedric could swear creatively every time he died and could cover his back when Nathan went on suicide missions. \n\nHand shaking, Nathan clicked on the first folder, entitled, \"1. The Biggest Idiot in the World.\"\n\nImages of himself stared back at him. Yearbook photos, pictures he'd taken during class, pictures from his Facebook page, but there was more than that too. There was newspaper articles of Nathan's various accomplishments, \"Young Contributors builds house for charity,\" \"Youths handing out food on Thanksgiving,\" \"College students raising money for underprivileged children.\"\n\nThere were also transcripts of emails between himself and Cedric. Especially when they were younger, when Cedric couldn't afford a phone but had a computer, they would email each other back and forth constantly. Since they were 10 years old, they had been best friends.\n\nNathan looked through the emails curiously, remembering old times fondly and cringing in embarrassment at how stupid they both were at the same time.\n\nNathan: i don't really care. i am going to keep contributing. not for the money either. someone has to.\n\nCedric: You're going to die at 30 at the rate you're planning to go!\n\nNathan: better than dying now, right? XD\n\nHe clicked on another conversation.\n\nCedric: I know you don't think much of yourself Nate. And I know you don't really care about when you die. But I do. You're my best friend. I wanna grow old with you! Here, I've linked an article about depression. You should read it, I think this might be you. They say that depression runs rampant among those who Contribute most. Contributors can actually live a long, full life if they take it easy!\n\nNathan: i can't take it easy. i have to make the world a better place, i owe it that.\n\nNathan exited the folder. Next, he went to 2. Research. But unfortunately, a lot of the articles and notes saved in there went over his head. He could tell that the theme of the things saved in this folder was metaphysics, as there was a lot of Cedric's notes talking about the differences between Contributors and Non-Contributors. But Nathan couldn't really understand a lot of what Cedric was saying.\n\nCedric had always been smarter than him. Which irked Nathan when he was young, because Nathan had always been the smart one in class until Cedric came along. But Cedric had a way of hiding his intelligence behind his lackadaisical lifestyle, so that most people just forgot. Hell, most of their friends in college had no idea Cedric was intelligent enough to tie his own shoes, yet alone do this kind of research into the metaphysics behind the life forces of human beings.\n\nFinally deciding that the research was going over his head, Nathan exited and braced himself. He clicked on the last folder: 3. If I've Died, Read This Third.\n\nIt contained a single document, and an mp3 file - Time of Your Life by Green Day. Nathan snorted at that. It was so cliché it had to be a joke, and Nathan laughed, heart hurting for the loss of his friend. With a deep breath, he clicked on the document, aptly named, \"An Explanation.\"\n\n\"Great. I'm dead,\" it read. \"I've seen it coming though. I knew I was going to die the moment I did it. But that doesn't make it suicide. I didn't want to die. But I don't want anyone else to die either.\n\n\"Long story short, my best friend, Nathan Armstrong, is an idiot. The biggest idiot in the whole damn world. All his life he has been a Contributor, and someday soon, it's going to kill him. And that pisses me off, because he's a good kid. He works for charities, he helps homeless people, he's the kindest, sweetest guy I know. So I couldn't sit back and watch him die.\n\n\"And I'm a smart guy. So I didn't have to. I've been doing research. A lot of it, too. And I've put together theories on why Contributors die young and what makes contributing to the world drain their life force. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, right? So by putting Good out into the world - or I guess I shouldn't say Good, how about Potential? Because that's what it is, really: potential to change things. So by putting that Potential out into the world, it has to come from somewhere. And that somewhere is a human being's Potential Life.\n\n\"Following me? Non-Contributors like me negate this by never putting out any Potential. But idiots like my friend can't be happy like that. It's their duty to make the world a better place for some stupid, idiot, self-righteous reason. So now we have to figure out how to keep them from killing themselves.\n\n\"And we do that by introducing what I call Potential Power. You can read about in my research. Potential Power is equal to Potential Life, because it essentially takes a human's processes and doubles them. Twice the willpower, twice the metabolism, twice the intelligence, twice the strength... You get the picture. If a Non-Contributor were to use Potential Power, it would kind of make them super powered. But I trust that society can do something to stop that. I spent all my time studying human biology and creating these powerful (power full haha) pills, I personally don't have time to deal with the future implications.\n\n\"So yeah, you take some Potential Power, you output Potential into the world, and the Power is taken instead of Life. Contributors no longer have to die at the average age of 40.\n\n\"Of course I'm dead though. But rejoice! All I did (am going to do currently but if you're reading I'm dead) was submit my research for review to some of the top research facilities on Metaphysics around the world. If my research meant nothing, I will still be alive to keep researching. But if I'm right, I just saved the lives of millions upon millions of people across the globe. Unfortunately, no amount of Potential Power can equal that kind of life-saving Contribution.\n\n\"So tell my mom that I love her more than anything in the world. Tell my sisters that I love them very much, too. And tell Nathan that I'll see him in the afterlife, and to live a full and happy life or I'll haunt his ass. I know you're afraid of ghosts Nathan and I will do it, I will haunt you and break things and write spooky stuff on your bathroom mirror, so help me!\"\n\nNathan closed the laptop. Tears were streaming down his face, but he ignored them. He needed to get home right away. The world was soon going to be hit with the gravity of his so-called lazy friend's research, and he was going to sign up for the clinical trials of this, \"Potential Power,\" straight away. After all, it was his duty to help the world be a better place.\n\nLooking around Cedric's dingy apartment, Nathan decided that he really needed to take a long, hot shower. And if there was something scary written on the mirror when he got out, he would be okay with that.", "This ones is really hard for me to write, I can't make my structure feel good so I'll force myself to do it anyway.\n\n\n\n\nKourtney sat in her loveseat thoroughly confused. How could Thomas, her best friend since grade school be dead? The autopsy came in fine, it wasn't murder. That had surprised a lot of people because murder these days seemed to be quite a common occurrence, and surely a lazy slob like Tom couldn't have died through normal means. He was just so, so boring. Investigators and journalists had probed and prodded, needled and nitpicked with Kourt about everything she new about Tom. She was his roommate and good friend, and arguably knew him better than anyone. \n\nSomeone dying of 'natural causes' when young while not being a contributor to the world was unprecedented, and this had people frightened. Those who might've done more for others now questioning their selfish hold on life, and those who go out on a limb to further fields of research and study now taking the moment to feel a tiny shred of hope or sense of relief that maybe this whole idea was wrong. \n\nShe decided that if she was going to lie down and mope, then she may as well do it in bed and try to get some sleep. She made her way into her bedroom and saw Tom's laptop on her dresser. Thinking the detectives simply forgot to take it for evidence, she pulled it into bed with her and powered it on. It asked for the password. She knew a few of his passwords, and decided to take a crack at it.\n\nShe tried the netflix password, she tried the password used to access the rent payments, neither worked. She clicked the hint button that popped up due to password failures to read 'Your First Crush'. She got a sense of purpose and carefully typed in \"Alexandra\" and it didn't work. Neither did 'Alex', 'Sandra', 'Sandy', or any other variant of that damn woman's name. Slowly, she tried each letter of her own name, that old spark of interest lighting up again and the desktop appeared. There was a mild pang of better times and she decided to ignore it and nose through his files, curious about the stuff he hid.\n\nShe found in a folder called tax papers another folder called \"porn\". Lots of pictures and text documents as she expected. She opened the first one and saw a girl that looked really familiar, though she was fully clothed. A web link to a news article followed it and she pulled it up. This was a woman that had been murdered just a few weeks ago. She opened picture and new article one after another and saw that each had been murdered, many of them close by. This explained his early death, he had been killing people (a bit of a taboo method of suicide). She ran to the phone, ready to dial the police to report the person who had killed all of these people. The phone rang a few times and a voice on the other end answered.\n\n\n\n\"Jackson City Police Department, this is Detective Carlson's office, how can I help you out today?\"\n\n\n\"Yes, I think I found the killer behind a recent string of murders, I found pictures and news articles of all the victim's on my friends computer. My address is-\"\n\nAnd then, with her contribution level having reached it's limit with the report of the murders, she fell dead on the floor. " ]	4
	[WP] "My name? Which one?"	[ "\"My name?\" \"Which one\" an old man said to John.\n\n\"Look, I was driving to work a few minutes ago, who the hell are you?\"\n\n\"I have quintillions of followers who all call me different names.\"\n\n\"Look how about I call you steve\"\n\n\"Fair enough, but that's not my name\"\n\n\"THEN WHAT THE FUCK IS IT?\"\n\n\"Some call me x'xeral, others call me crafhklantum, but humans know me by one name.\"\n\n\"WHAT IS IT\"\n\n\"God john, i'm god, you're dead.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you tell me that from the start?\"\n\n\"It's pretty funny to annoy newbies.\" ", "„My name?“ he said taking a slow sip from the glass „Which one?“\n\nI looked at him then. He wasn’t old, but tired, his shoulders drooping. His hands, rough, not entirely clean tapped on the counter with a nervous restlessness. His eyes flitted around, never resting for long.\n\n„Any?“\n\n„Any,“ he rasped.\n\n„The first one you can remember.“\n\n„Danny.“\n\nHe emptied the tumbler, the ice klinking against the glass as he set it down. I moved to refill it but he waved it away.\n\n„Who was Danny?“ I asked, setting down the bottle.\n\nHe leant from side to side, stretching. I could tell that he was shaking his leg, thinking as the silence stretched.\n\n„The son of my parents.“ He said, gesturing for me to refill his glass.\n\n„And?“\n\n„And what?“ He took a sip looking at me.\n\n„What else?“\n\n„Ask something else.“ He looked away. The glass hit the counter with a dull thud.\n\n„Who were you... next?“\n\n„No-one.“\n\n„No-one?“\n\n„They took our names\"\n\n„Why?“\n\n„To make us stronger.“ He held the glass in both hands, firmly pressed to the counter. „They didn’t want us having an ego. No I in team they said.“ He chuckled.\n\n„Who were they?“\n\n„Cult of the Dawn. Wanted a new world.“\n\n„And you were to be their tool.“\n\n„Yeah,“ he drawled. „And I was.“\n\n„What did you do?“\n\n„You know all of those attacks?“\n\n„The attack on congress?“\n\n„Among others.“ \n\n„That was you?“\n\nThe whiskey swirled around the ice as I poured him another round.\n\n„My people. All over the world. The war.“ he paused, taking a deep breath, „This whole mess.“\n\n„What happened?“\n\n„I wanted out.“ He shrugged.\n\n„And are you?“\n\n„Sorta.“\n\n„They don’t think so. Is that why you keep checking the door?“ \n\n„Yeah. I better go. Before they get here.“ He grabbed his hat from the stool beside him. „What do I owe you?“\n\n„On the house.“\n\n„Thanks.“\n\nI watched him drag himself from the stool. He paused at the door.\n\n„What’s your name?“\n\n„I don’t have one.“\n\nHe chuckled as he exited through the door. Cold sweat ran down my spine. This wasn’t what I’d been told.\n", "\"My name? Which one?\" He said facing the interviewer with a look of honest confusion. \n\n\"I'm asking which one to call you now. I've been lead to believe it can be very... Contextual.\" \n\n\"Well, you see, that's the trick of it. I'm not sure myself upon the context I'm in or the name that is appropriate.\" \n\n\"Well... How about Jon?\" The asked looking at him with a furrowed brow. \n\n\"I should think not! This is certainly not the context for a Jon or a Bob or a Harold!\" He spat back gesturing wildly, pointing his finger into the palm of his hand. \n\n\"Then what shall I call you?\" \n\nThere was a pause while the man thought. \"How about Micheal?\" \n\n\"I don't see why not. So, Micheal, let's start with-\" \n\n\"Why do you have to say it that way?\" \n\n\"Excuse me?\" \n\n\"You said my name strangely. Why is that? Is there something wrong with it?\" \n\n\"No. No. Not at all I was ju-\" \n\n\"There is; though, isn't there? I must find another one.\"\n\n\"I would rather just continue the interview if you don't mind. Micheal is a perfect name. I've already written it down.\" \n\n\"How about Abraham Lincoln?\" \n\nThe interviewer gave him a confused expression. \"Isn't that someone else's name?\" \n\n\"Well! I didn't know we were calling dibs on names all of a sudden!\" \n\n\"It would just be confusing, though, For my readers and editors.\" \n\n\"Well! We'll just have to find another one then. One good enough for miss high-and-mighty interviewer looking down from her ivory tower of name authority. Call me Patrick Stewart.\" \n\n\"Look, I'm perfectly fine with Micheal.\" \n\nAt this point, the room broke out into violence. ", "\"My name? Which one?\" She shot Mark an innocent look, playing with one of her luscious blonde locks.\n\n\"You've heard me. Your true name.\" Mark forced the words out through clenched teeth.\n\n\"Weeeell\", she replied, drawing out the word as she stretched and turned slightly. Mark couldn't resist following the gracious movement of her perfectly toned leg and mentally cursed himself for it. Her eye twitched maliciously as she continued: \"I have many names. The Dur'Rhok of Malinesia called me the Traveller. On the Siamese Islands, I was Balrog the Mighty. George Washington referred to me as Jefferson Thomas. And to many, many others, I was just Sally.\" She winked.\n\n\"I'm not falling for your charm, Seductress!\", Mark shouted, feigning anger in an attempt to cover the fact that he had hung on her every word. \"Tell me your name, the real one!\"\n\n\"Oh, you don't actually believe any of that real name stuff, do you? It's a lie. Do you really think it's that easy to control a super-dimensional creature that travelled to you through a rift in time-space?\"\n\nShit. What if she was right? The Handbook had said that a wizard's very first worry had to be to find out the true name of the creature he summoned. That would let him reign freely over it. What if it was wrong? He threw a look at the book lying on the floor next to him.\n\n\"Oh no, you're not following that old tome, are you? Old Bogglewin had the nickname 'the odd one' for a reason.\" He was eccentric in his tastes. She giggled, blushing slightly, seemingly wallowing in memories. If only she weren't so attractive! \n\nMark gulped. The demon was clever. It had chosen to manifest in a form that it knew would appeal to him. But how had it known? Maybe he had overestimated his own skill.\n\nThe creature threw him an amused look. \"You really don't know who you're dealing with, do you?\" Could it read minds? Mark started to panick.\n\n\"Look\", she - it continued while walking over to his desk and taking a seat in his office chair. \"All this name fluff is bonkers. It doesn't make you control a person. Here, I'll prove it to you.\" She nonchalantly took a bite of the half eaten sandwich on the desk. \"What's your name?\"\n\n\"Do you think I'm that stupid? You're not getting a word out of me.\", Mark replied.\n\n\"Oh, come on. I told you, the name thing doesn't work. I told you about five names of mine, and? Did it give you control over me?\"\n\nHmmm...indeed. It hadn't given him control over her. Still, he really couldn't trust her. \n\nShe started examining her perfect nails as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. And in a way, they were. Every little detail of her alluring body was perfect. He stared at her with glazy eyes, as she suddenly locked gaze with him. \"So?\"\n\n\"Ma-Matt. My name is Matt.\", Mark replied. Phew. That had been close.\n\n\"Okay, Matt\", she said, smiling broadly. \"Come here.\"\n\nNothing happened. She didn't look disappointed.\n\n\"See. I told you. Doesn't do anything.\" She took another bite of his sandwich and examined his room.\n\n\"And now?\" He asked.\n\n\"What now?\", she scoffed.\n\n\"What do we do now?\"\n\n\"We wait.\"\n\n\"What for?\" \n\n\"What for?\", she mocked him in an exaggerated voice.\n\nMark didn't know what to say, so he simply gave in to the urge of staring at her in silence. She didn't seem to mind and ignored him entirely while humming a faint melody, sitting cross-legged on his chair, one foot bobbing up and down. After what felt like an eternity of getting lost in the sight before him, Mark heard glass shattering, followed by hasty steps on the stairs leading to his room. A boy Mark didn't know burst through the doorframe, his arms bruised, one fist drenched in blood. He couldn't be older than twelve, but he shouted \"I'm here, mistress!\" with military zeal and threw himself to the ground.\n\n\"Oh, glad you could make it, Matt. Now would you please speak the unbinding formula so I can leave this place?\"\n\nFuck. Apparently, the name thing did work. And now, Mark had given the demon a willing servant. His face fell as he suddenly felt paralyzed by shock.\n\n\"I don't know it, mistress! Please forgive me!\", the boy shouted. Tears flowed down his cheeks and he wore an expression of pure terror on his face.\n\nShe stood up and, with a dismissive wave of her hand, replied: \"Now you do.\"\n\nAt once, Matt's body stiffened and he began reciting a strange litany. Mark recognized the words. The Unbinding Formula. His stomach dropped. \"No!\", he shouted, bolting forward in an attempt to force Matt's mouth shut. \n\nBut it was too late. With a wink and a \"Bye\", she was gone, her voice trailing behind her.\n\n" ]	4
Somehow incorporate it into a story so that it has meaning.	[WP] Make the sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" make sense.	[ "As a new reddit member, Trixie was trying to do her best. She had read the rules, perused the various subreddits with much amusement, and was finding the entirety of the site terribly entertaining yet overwhelming. The fear was catching her. How could she appropriately contribute to such a delicate and complex community without making some mistakes? Was she capable of overcoming the fear so she could express her thoughts and knowledge in a contributive, helpful way? She racked her sleep-deprived brain to come up with new, interesting content to add, but it became utterly clear. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. If her bland and boring new ideas were destined to die in a blaze of glory, so be it. She had to fight her fear, let go, and simply be herself.", "\"And that's a far more equitable way to allocate mining leases anyway.\"\n\nThe voter's eyes darted around, looking for a way to escape this small man's intensity. \"Uh huh.\" \n\n\"It's a win for jobs, for business, for the economy, and for the environment!\"\n\n\"Uh huh...\"\n\nAnother voice called \"John!\"\n\nThe voter saw a woman beckoning the small man towards the voting booth. \n\n\"Counting time.\" said Claire, as John approached. \n\n\"Already?\"\n\nThe intense man looked momentarily confused. He tried to press a How-To-Vote card into the voter's hand. \"I've got one, thanks,\" he said. Anyway, the polls had closed fifteen minutes ago. He took advantage of the intense man's loss of momentum, and quickly walked towards the car park.\n\n----\n\nIt was half past midnight, and John's mind was still buzzing. Months of preparation, interviews, articles, speeches, advertisements, doorknocking, town hall meetings, interviews, speeches. Now it was all down to the small stack of ballots still to be counted. Claire pressed another coffee into his hands, but he couldn't have slept if she'd laced a soda with Restoril. His time had come. He'd transform society to be more just, more fair, and above all, more sustainable. He'd head committees, vote on bills and pass laws on renewable energy, on coral bleaching, on reforestation, on climate change - he knew exactly how things should be done. He's even drafted bills in his spare time after work, and published the drafts on his website.\n\nThe counters sorted the ballots into piles, carefully watched by John and members of the other parties. He was thirty up - fifty down - sixty up... soon he would take his place in government ... twelve up... he'd begin his program of reform, begin his legacy of change to bring about a better world.... seventeen down....\n\n\"We declare for Kristine Alexis, 10356 votes to 10339.\"\n\n... a world he could be proud to share with his grandchildren, that he...\n\n\"What?\"\n\nClaire put her hand on his shoulder. He was vaguely aware of celebration in another corner of the room.\n\n\"It's all right,\" Claire said. \"We tried.\"\n\nA sense of numb shock was spreading over John, almost a physical sensation in his stomach and chest. \n\n\"What?\"\n\n----\n\nAt two o'clock that morning, John and Claire were with Andrew at the party's headquarters. Andrew, part time graphic designer, full time marketing manager for John's campaign.\n\n\"I don't get it.\" John was still numb. \"How could this happen? How could this happen?\"\n\nAndrew sighed. \n\n\"I've explained my ideas to the public every chance I could. Every chance. They must know by now that there's a better way to do things!\"\n\n\"John,\" Andrew began.\n\n\"Again and again and again I explained the changes I'd make!\"\n\n\"John!\"\n\nJohn's exhausted reverie was broken. He looked at Andrew, who sighed. Andrew too was exhausted. He threw his reticence to the wind. \n\n\"John, your ideas aren't appealing.\"\n\nJohn just looked shocked. Claire raised an eyebrow.\n\n\"The public doesn't want great ideas, they want excitement. They want thrill. They want glamor. There's nothing wrong with what you've been telling people. I love your proposed solution to declining fish numbers. If you'd won, you'd be the best thing to ever hit politics. But people don't want intellectually satisfying ideas for a better environment, they want....\" he waved his hands as he searched for the right word.\n\n\"What do they want?\"\n\n\"They want... they want brightness. Gleam. Color.\"\n\n\"Color.\"\n\n\"Yes. Your ideas are dry. Dull. Colorless.\"\n\n\"Colorless.\"\n\n\"Perfectly right and good ideas, but to the man on the street, colorless. There's a reason they watch Celebrity Makeover and switch off National Geographic.\"\n\nThe words hit John like a fist to the stomach. Anger and pain swirled together with the disappointment. Claire could see the conflicted emotions dance across his brow.\n\n\"Colorless.\" John repeated, unable to find the words to fit to his rage.\n\n----\n\nIt's five o'clock. Claire wakes up, gets up from the sofa, and tiptoes to the small kitchen in the party office. She quietly pours a cup of water, and as she sips it, observes John, asleep on an armchair in the meeting room. He frowns in his sleep, and his lips occasionally twitch, evidently dreaming about the day's events.\n\nHe really wanted to change the world, she sighs. There'll be another chance, one day. One day, perhaps. She sighs again. She sees John's frown grow deeper. Or maybe Andrew's right, and his ideas just have to be put to bed. No matter how angry that makes John.\n\nShe sighs yet again and turns away, returning to the sofa. In John's mind, alone in the party meeting room, colorless Green ideas sleep furiously. ", "Jace was getting quite fed up with his return to Zendikar. The big, hulking world-eater Ulamog was bad enough, the cryptic warnings of Ugin even worse, and now there was another titan? Why couldn't he visit a nice plane like... like... Jace realized he couldn't name one, that every world he visited had something going wrong that just had to be fixed by him, and that it had been far too long since he had a vacation.\n\nHis musings were interrupted, however, by a rustle in the vegetation. Reaching out with his mind's eye and his face's eyes, he noticed something slinking in the canopy, an Eldrazi drone, by the looks of it. Its all-too-many eyes in all the wrong places marked it as one of Kozilek's brood, and its attempt at developing leaf-green camouflage meant it must be one of the new breed dubbed “[Stalking Drones](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=407634)” by that insufferable animist Nissa. Jace failed to see what was particularly stalkerish about this kind, when all the Eldrazi stalked the Zendikari when you really came down to it, but nobody could argue with her when she declared herself the Guildpact's resident biologist, so the name stuck.\n\nJace's reminiscing was interrupted yet again by the sound of its proboscis behind him, poised to slurp him up. Ugh, he sighed to himself, just leave me alone, will you? Quickly but surely, the telepath weaved his blue magics and sent the beast to sleep. As prepared to continue his journey, he looked back one last time at the twitching, dozing mass of protoplasm; he knew little of the dreams of Eldrazi, but whatever that colorless green beast, that trickster-god's idea of a Kalni tree-bear, was thinking as it slept, it must be furious, judging by the twitching of its proboscis and the swinging of its claws. The blue mage quickened his steps: there would be many miles to walk before he could rejoin his companions at the Sea Gate.", "She started to see the intensity of the light again. Time passes like ribbons over her eyes. Rushing Home. Fumbling the blinds to drive out the light. Clutter of pills with lots of Xs in the names, a glass of Bourbon, neat, but taken indiscreetly. The migraine pounds against her head, against the drugs like a spartan warrior; sleep is her enemy that she must consume. The noxious fumes of nausea, radiating from her innards - she plows herself under the sheets, hiding from the light, strangling insomnia, grasping at anxious sleep. She is getting there ... getting there ... The colorless green idea sleeps furiously, and her foot twitches in the wump wump of the ceiling fan. ", "I'm not sure I’ll ever fully understand the slow, sudden movements of my thoughts. They seem to dart here and there, somehow methodically, as if dashing and dipping to whatever melody is playing in my head. \n\nEver since piano came into my life I've felt alive. Not heart beating while my lungs expand and contract alive, but alive of mind. I've finally felt capable ever since my fingers started tapping with the rhythm of the music of my thoughts. I never felt I could properly explain what was happening \"up there\" to other people, no matter what thesaurus or dictionary I consulted. But music... I feel like I can finally convey what I experience in my own little cranium encapsulated world. \n\nThis late evening (or early morning, depending on one's perspective) I've been lounging in my chair. I've learned that I can't really indulge myself in thought upright. So, I relegate myself to lying on my back across the armrests of my over-sized leather half-couch chair, allowing my back to arch and be comfortably supported by the lavishly, thankfully, plush non-detachable cushion resting in its pleasantly deformed state below me. I've been thinking about a melody all day. I can't seem to find any other way to think about it, though. It's stuck. I'll slow it down, speed it up. It won't work any other way, and I'm not a fan of that. It's an awfully brown melody. I can't seem to make brown work with anything today.\n\nI suppose I should explain. I'm a partial synesthete. Essentially, a synesthete's senses are a bit jumbled together. In my case, I relate sound and sight - not nearly as brilliantly or vibrantly as some people though. I just end up relating sounds to colors. I'll think, \"hm, this album is definitely purple,\" or \"this song is awfully green.\" I've always wondered if other people thought the same way, but I've never heard anyone else in my life describe music with color.\n\nI've been laying here in my chair thinking about my childhood. People always asked me what my favorite color was. I've lied a lot answering that question. I've always stuck with green, because that's what everything seemed to feel like when I was young. I still like green, don't get me wrong. Ever since I was a teenager, though, my favorite color changed by the day. At least, it did.\n\nThe thing that's been bugging me today, consuming my thoughts as I lay in this chair, is that not a lot brings color to my world anymore. Not even piano. Everything has just been so dull recently. I haven't been leaving my studio. I tend to sit around with a blank slate as my state of mind. I'm not much of a fan of that. I don't know what to do, though. My desires have left me, off to collect themselves elsewhere. here isn't much I can do about that, though. So I live in greyscale, here in the studio. \n\nI'll stare at my keyboard for hours, sometimes. I won't get up to walk to it and play, so I just imagine the music instead. And today I'm thinking about that awfully brown progression. A light brown. Something a little like elm tree bark brown. It flows perfectly as it is, but I want to hear it differently. I feel like I'm missing something, like I'm seeing a fuzzy picture. I don't know how to make it right, though. I continue mulling over this progression on repeat when I make a mistake.\n\nI shut my eyes.\n\nI would imagine this is also a normally anti-climactic action for most people. I never imagined something so benign would bring me back to life. \nI took the little bit of the elm tree brown which the music was and started painting it over the blackness that encompassed my field of vision. A little here, a little there. I let the brown flow freely around the canvas of darkness as the progression continued on repeat. As I enjoyed this brief distraction from my lonely void of an apartment, little specks of color intermingled with the brown of the music. I knew consciously they were just phosphenes, but I couldn't help but feel they were sparkling in a pattern. Something I could measure, and repeat. Something to which I could set a beat.\n\nThe brown flowed and the phosphenes danced. I could only lay and listen to the colors materializing out of the void onto the black canvas my closed eyelids created. There was the brown from my composition - then greens, reds, the occasional blue... I hadn't seen this many colors in a long, long time. I clenched my eyes shut with as much vigor as I could muster, filling the void with light - this orchestra of light, no matter how gentle the music it created in my head, deafened my world. I felt the rhythm they brought in my heart as it beat, my lungs as they filled, my leg as it bounced restlessly as it always did. \n\nAnd I started crying.\n\nI felt the light I saw in front of me expand to fill not just my withering, depressed frame, but it creeped outside. I felt the dark, almost mahogany leather cradling me. I started to feel the beige of the walls come back into focus. The Slytherin green of the picture frame resting on my desk returned and settled into the home it had left so long ago. I felt the music not just in my head, but I felt it fill my living room. The underused, atrophied emotional center that lay in my skull fired. \n\nI felt alive.\n\n\n\nMy eyelids slowly raised to watch the sun peek over the horizon as the music decrescendoed. I heard not just the faint light brown of earlier today, but blue, red, purple, and pink! Colors I haven’t heard in a long, long time. Too long. I feel invigorated...full. And exhausted. Two sunrises without sleeping is one too many. I leave the cradle of the chair for the comfort of my glorious king size bed. As I close the door to my bedroom, I suddenly realize that the progression I'd come up with earlier that happened to get stuck in my head wasn't there anymore. It was different. The menagerie of light that blasted my soul as if I stood right next to the stage at Lollapalooza without earplugs and the headliner was a chamber orchestra had changed that elm tree brown into something different. It feels like the colors have all...mixed together, and the sounds in my head are confusing me for the first time in my life.\n\nI can't tell what color properly matches this new melody. I see nothing. The music is elegant, darting, sauntering, decelerating, crescendoing. I can’t wait to play it when I wake up. Yet, to it I simply can not place a color.\n\nBut, that’s hardly what’s bothering me.\n\nWhat is ever so strange was the fact that, as I pulled up the covers and got comfortable laying on my side, I feel awfully green inside. I have a number of ideas as to how I’m going to add on to this achromatic melody, but sleep has to come first. I do think it is fair to say, however, that tonight my colorless green ideas will sleep furiously for the first time in a long time.", "You smell the soft weight, like wisps and invisible feathers in the air. Mocha.\n\n\nAnd it first starts as a rumor in the backwaters of the subconscious. A taboo, a fierce perversion, something, anything that breaks routine and adds color. It spreads through hushed whispers amongst the provincials. It changes, and it changes. It grows character, makes assumptions, and calls itself proto-idea. Soon, the high society, the creme-de-la-creme of the mind hears of it. The begin to discuss the strange new proto-idea hypnotizing the proles of the psyche. They hear hear it from myriad sources. It gets filtered. Abandoned if proven to be an ancient foolishness. Treasured if it excites. Classified nevertheless. So it becomes the fresh, fashionable, delicious anathema that all secretly aspire to. By dark and broken highways, along paths mapped endlessly, a new mode has traveled from a nameless vox populi into the diplomacy of the risen.\n\n\nThe mind is a happy, prosperous Victorian London, obsessed with fashion, crazed insensate, insatiable. The proto-idea becomes an idea in a society that encourages vanity, ambition, and contraband. They lust after the depraved, they become voyeurs of paradoxes, thralls to disorder. The ideas wear costumes, adopt personas, speak in tongues. Here, the nouveau-riche ideas clash for position. There, the pompous creature from the secretive Kingdom of Hypothalamus comes dressed in green, extolling its glory and virtue. And the shadowy figure from the flamboyant city state of Corpora Quadrigemina that rests in the vast plains of the midbrain challenges it. The figure is all charm, visually appealing, with a voice of silk and delicacy. The creature claims power over the laws of sleep, but the figure proves this false. Humiliated in front of the hierarchy, the creature loses all color. It retires. The colorless green idea sleeps furiously, and when it awakens, the figure is no more. It has ascended.\n\n\nWhen an idea reaches the end of it's short-lived eternity, it approaches an apotheosis. It transcends the subconscious and takes shape. The idea becomes thought. It passes muster and the gauntlet of consciousness, through the labyrinths of sentience, and becomes action.\n\n\nAnd you turn your head. You see the urn of mocha, silk ribbons of smoke dancing upon ceramic cliffsides. Wretched and heartbreaking. Salvation and a host of ominous shadows.\n\n\nIt triggers another cascade of rumors. Infinite loops in self-awareness. Degenerate and depraved, and the mind sinks into sin, insouciant and suicidal. Revolutions are triggered in the subconscious. The lowest of the neurons, their lust flattened by pretensions of civilization, rise and burn. They seek weaknesses in the Bastille of the spine, the Petrograd of the liver, the Boston aside the lungs, or the Shaanxi distant in the intestines.\n\n\nThus begins the massacre in the subconscious, and the burial of consciousness, scattered across the killing fields of the impudent soul.\nPrior to action, before thought, before awareness, before the primal need is filtered through the lie of culture, everything starts with a rumor in the backwaters of the mind. It is Borges's Library of Babel, an endless series of units. His, are libraries. Ours, are societies from cities of a passed age." ]	6
Heard from a friend that his co-worker actually does this! Seemed like an interesting way not only to vent but also intriguing as to a person(or existential being with a smartphone) receiving it and how they would respond.	[WP] As an unorthodox way to vent her troubles, a young teen often writes a message to God on her phone and sends it to a random number. Only today she received a response...	[ "I remember the first time it happened, it was just something silly, you know? childish things.\n\nI tried holding things in, screaming, even just crying to myself when things went bad, but nothing helped.\n\nThen one day my friend opened up and told me they sometimes sent messages to a random 'not in use' number, in hopes of sending a message to heaven or speaking to a loved one. If it works for Jess maybe it'll work for me! Worth a try right?\n\nSo Jess took my phone entered a random number and saved it as 'Venting'\nShe told me to send a message to whoever I wanted to and open up to them or ask for advice, so I did just that!\n\nSo like I said, just something silly, the neighbour boy was teasing me about my new hairpin my mum bought me and I got upset, I really liked him until then.\n\nThen I remembered the number Jess saved and I thought to myself why not?\nI grabbed my phone clicked on the name and sent a quick message.\n\n\"Dear Lord, Todd keeps picking on me, what do I do?\"\n\nA message quickly followed\n\n\"Sorry message unable to send\"\n\nJess warned me of that and told me to just ignore it.\n\n soon after though I'm wondering why I even bothered with the stupid idea in the first place so I threw my phone on the bed, went to shower and get ready for bed.\n\nIt wasn't until I came back that I saw a new message from \"Venting\" I opened it up and it read\n\n\"Todd keeps dirty magazines under the wonky floor panel in his living room, write a note to tell his mum!\"\n\nWTF Jess? you screwing with me ? wait, how did she know about that? What did I care if the kid got in trouble? He deserves it.\n\nSo this was the first time I took the strange numbers advice, I wrote a note addressed to his mother walked next door and pushed it through the letter box.\n\nAnd I tell you the feeling I had was amazing! I finally got to do something about the way I felt, better yet, I got to make someone feel bad because of something wrong they did!\n\nLater that evening I heard shouting coming from next door and then a door slamming, it was Todds dad, he was leaving with a big suitcase.\nI wondered to myself back then if he was so angry with his son that he couldn't bare the be in the house with him!\n\nI know the truth now, Todd told his mum those magazines were his dads, which shouldn't have been so bad right? except those weren't magazines of naked women, no....\n\nThey were gay magazines, Todds mum believed him and sent the dad packing thinking he was gay and having an affair.\n\nTodds mum was drinking heavily most of the night after that, unable to bare the idea her husband could want a man instead of her and not wanting her son to be raised by a man who could have an affair, \"with another man, no less\" Fueled by half a bottle of neat whiskey and the rage only a scorn mother could feel, took her husbands rifle and shot the boy while he slept, then turned the gun on herself.\n\nI got another text in the middle of the night just after a loud gunshot went off\n\n\"Now Todd won't tease you anymore\"\n\nThen another loud bang, followed by another text.\n\n\"The next set of neighbours will be nicer to you, don't worry!\"\n\nThat was the first mistake I made by listening to the number.\n\nBut me being a stupid teen.... It wasn't the last!", "> I guess. He's the one that did all the hard work.\n\nFace down, hands in her lap, cradling her phone in sweaty, numb fingers, Madeline let the train go through another station. This made three past her stop. She scrolled up through the questions, requests, musings, accusations, and confessions she had sent through her SMS application.\n\nHer fixation was flitting between the reply she'd received almost twenty minutes ago and the number at the top of the application. \"463\". It wasn't a real number. It didn't go anywhere. So how could anything... come back?\n\nError message after error message perfectly punctuated and matched every text that she had sent until today. A little reminder from her phone company that she wasn't using a valid number. That her texts were going nowhere.\n\nAnd, really, that had been nice. A little way to take the aching, itchy, noisy questions she supposed other 14 year-old girls had inside of them and to let them out. Out where no one would see them to use as exhibits in a lecture about being selfish. Or silly. Or ungrateful. Or lonely.\n\nBut now there was this reply. Which she had been reading over and over again, trying to decipher its meaning as much as its origin.\n\nWhen she had sent through \"I really hope that my cat goes to heaven,\" she had received an error message in return. When she had feverishly railed again the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, she had received an error message in return. When she had typed out \"Good work on trees. They're really great,\" she had received, as expected, an error message in return.\n\nSo, now, having recently thanked 463 for her grandmother, it was not only strange to see a reply, but a reply that did not make sense.\n\nMadeline slowly tapped her response\n\n> hard work on what?\n\nShe hit the little winking kitty face which she had modded in for her send button. It meowed, and her message went on its way.\n\nSomeone at the phone company must have-\n\n> The touchdown. You know that I don't really do sports anymore. Everyone gets so worked up lol\n\nMadeline yelped and almost dropped her phone. No one one the swaying light rail heard or gave her any mind, but she pulled herself down into the corner of the plastic seat more tightly, putting her back against the wall and hiding the screen from anyone who might be eavesdropping.\n\n\"lol\"? Now she knew that this was... One of her friends? Or a some stupid creep who had hacked her phone? No, definitely someone at the phone company. She let her thumbs fly across the screen.\n\n> Who is this?\n\nThey better not have been reading what she had written. That was private. She was pretty sure it was illegal to-\n\n> Sorry about that - replied to the wrong message. ;0 It's me.\n\nShe glowered at the screen.\n\n> Who is this?!?!? It's not funny anymore!!\n\nMadeline was ready to cry. She felt stupid for believing, even as briefly as she did. She jammed her phone into her jacket, and grabbed her bag to get off at the next stop. She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket, but decided not to give this idiot the satisfaction of looking. It wasn't until she'd waited for the other train going back to her stop, walked home, and barricaded herself in her room that curiously got the better of her.\n\nShe steeled herself for the reveal. The final stroke which would admit deceit and call her out for the idiot she'd been. \n\n> glad you like susnets (me too!) and I agree that math really sucks sometimes. I'm sorry that I don't reply. v busy here. But I read every single one. Plz keep sending them. Enjoy the sunset tonight - this one's for you!\n\nShe waited a moment, not knowing how to feel, before pecking a quick reply.\n\n> OK\n\nHer phone instantly returned a familiar error message. She put it away, and went outside to watch her sunset." ]	2
	[WP] This year you went all out on your Demon Halloween costume. While bar hopping downtown another guy in a very realistic demon costume invites you to a private demon themed party, you soon come to realize they are not costumes.	[ "Just handle your shit. Keep breathing...\n\nWho was he following? The predator/lizard? He'd never seen anything like this, not on any cosplay, comicon, bdsm, or anything this side of Hollywood. Everywhere he looked since they had come into this space... was this the Tunnel? It was way bigger than that place had been, and he was reasonably sure he was not in Manhattan. The acid was really strong, he would definitely not need the other tab. He steeled himself against the panic. This was fucking incredible wherever he was, and it was after all, his element.. .\nIt seemed like everyone was checking him out even though his must be the least impressive costume out of everyone here. The fog machines stank to hell but it more or less fit the bill. \n \nThis is like a performance group or something, this is some shit right here. Everyone is definitely looking at me.\n\nHe looked again for his host, but he couldn't even say what he had looked like. They had both stood out flamboyantly at the party before, but now, he just knew that these folks put on the real dill right here. \nAgain the flash of fear. Plus a fully fleshed out hallucination of this actually being not a costume party at all. He repeated his mantra.\n\nJust handle your shit. Keep breathing...\n\nEveryone was definitely looking at him.", "A costume of contumely, demon pacts; \nA circle used for summoning with hell \nAt center, dressed in black and purple tracts, \nIn midst of being pulled from other realm. \n\nApparently, my suit is more convincing \nThan first I thought, because a shade has bought \nA drink for me and then pressed on inviting \nMe to a party filled with sin and drought. \n\nThe offer was too tempting to refuse \nAnd so I followed him through phantom gates \nInto a realm I'd not imagined was so close \nBehind a shadow veil a hell awaits.\n\nMy first impression was of evil covenant \nWith all my terror, discover Hell's a discotheque. ", "\"Hey bub, this way,\" whispered a short and rather portly man dressed in an impeccable demon costume. The material was so well made that it glistened under the streetlamp as if it was legitimately sweaty skin. Maybe it was just body paint. The tail was also a nice touch.\n\nI really enjoyed dressing up for Halloween. Last year I went as a Cardassian alien from Star Trek. My friend Jenny helped me with the makeup because she was a veteran at cosplays. And the year before that I went as the Headless Horseman. This year I decided to have a bit of fun, so I went as a character from Adventure Time. They must have really appreciated my costume to be inviting me to their themed party.\n\nAs we got to the top of the staircase, I tightened my red tie and adjusted the buttons on my suit. It was a 3-button, black suit. So I took care to remember the 'sometimes, always, never' rule and kept just the middle button fastened. I then made sure my hair was slicked back properly and that my pointy ears hadn't fallen off on the way here from the last pub that I was at. Don't tell anyone, but the ears that I were using were actually just plastic Spock ears that I got at the last minute at the costume shop. Jenny helped make them the same blue colour as my body paint. She did a fine good job.\n\n\"Heeeey! You found a straggler!\" bellowed a tall man at a booth down the back of the room. His devil costume was also very convincing. This one was bright green and almost alien-like, complete with scales that had a metallic glisten to them. His horns were curved like a ram's and ended at about the level of his chin.\n\n\"I know, right? And check out his suit, 'ey?\" said my short demon escort. \"It's very chk-chk. Top stuff.\"\n\nI beamed at their compliments. This suit was the same one that I wore to my junior prom that I had gotten for sale at the department store. And the tie was Dad's. So I was pretty happy that my makeshift costume was impressing a lot of people. Sounds like they were fans of Adventure Time too. I looked around the bar. There were over fifty people in this section. All of them had weird and wonderful demon costumes on. Some were tall, some short, some fat, some thin. The ladies had gotten really creative with theirs. Some of them had six breasts, some had leathery wings and some had really life-like looking tusks. I wonder which shop they got them at. I was suddenly conscious of my lame plastic Spock ears.\n\n\"So, what's your name?\" asked the tall man at the booth from before. \"I'm Zaxxakan.\"\n\n\"I'm Blockus,\" added the short demon the next to me.\n\n\"No one asked you, you little shit,\" said Zaxxakan and threw a peanut at Blockus.\n\n\"I'm...\" I paused for a second. \"I'm Hunson Abadeer.\"\n\n\"Abadeer, huh,\" replied Zaxxakan. \"And where you from, Abadeer?\"\n\n\"I've pretty much just been living in the Bay Area for most of my life. You know, around San Jose,\" I said.\n\n\"Hmm... Don't know that one,\" said Zaxxakan. He gestured for me to take a seat across from him. I sat down and helped myself to a peanut. \"I'm from Antenora. This little shit's from Dis.\" Zaxxakan slapped Blockus on the back as the short demon tried to squeeze himself into the booth. It seemed like these guys were really into the whole roleplay thing. I had no qualms with that actually. In fact, a couple of my friends and I occasionally meet up to play a Dungeons & Dragons campaign every now and then. I was no stranger to roleplaying so I decided to play along.\n\n\"Actually what I meant to say is that I'm now living in the Nightosphere,\" I said. \"I suck out souls and stomp on ants. You know. Demony things.\"\n\nZaxxakan and Blockus both gasped simultaneously. Blockus even dropped the pint that he was drinking. The glass shattered on the ground. \"He's a soul consumer!\" whispered Blockus inside one of Zaxxakan's four ears.\n\n\"Shh! He'll hear you and drain your soul essence!\" whispered Zaxxakan back to Blockus. \n\n\"So, you guys like Adventure Time?\" I asked, breaking out of character. The two demons didn't respond. They just continued to stare at me as if they'd seen a ghost or something. I took it to mean that they actually weren't familiar with the show. I didn't blame them. After all, it is marketed as a children's cartoon but it did explore many interesting themes. I took out my phone to show them an episode where my character Hunson Abadeer turns into a horrific monster with a frightening visage complete with tentacles and horns and a gaping mouth resembling a toothed vagina. Zaxxakan and Blockus were glued to the phone screen. They let out gasps and squeals of horror as the episode played.\n\n\"That's it! I'm out!\" screamed Zaxxakan. \"You'll never find me! That name I gave you was fake. Fuck this!\" The tall green demon snapped his fingers and disappeared in a puff of grey smoke that had the stench of brimstone. \n\n\"I'm noping the fuck outta here too. Pleasedon'teatmysoul,\" muttered Blockus. He too snapped his fingers and was engulfed by a puff of smoke. I was confused yet impressed by their party tricks. When I looked up from my table at the rest of the bar patrons, I noticed that they had all been watching my interactions with Zaxxakan and Blockus the entire time. They all had looks of fear stamped across their faces. And within a span of five seconds, all the patrons had snapped their fingers and disappeared into a cloud of smoke.\n\n\"What... the... fuck...\" I murmured under my breath. I must have had too much to drink. I loosened my tie and carefully walked back downstairs to go home. It was getting late and the forecast said that there was a high chance of rain in the middle of the night, so I'd better get home before the rain washes off all of my body paint and stains my suit. As I walked down one of the alleyways that was a shortcut to my house, a shady looking guy at the front of a pub entrance waved at me.\n\n\"Hey, buddy!\" he called out. He was dressed in a fairly impressive looking Dracula outfit. It was very sophisticated looking and even had a silky red waistcoat and a flowing black cape. \"Come on up. The party's just about to start!\" \n", "WOW. And here I was thinking that MY costume was impressive! These guys went ALL OUT! I thought to myself as I wove through the crowd of scales and wings. Red, black, blue, eyestalks, horns, tails...every different body type imaginable was packed together like sardines in a can. \n\n\nThis is FANTASTIC! I grinned from ear to ear as I walked toward the refreshment table. I thought only I was this into demons! They got everything right! I admired a low slung-costume that looked like a human-faced slug supported by thousands of spindly legs. Man, how do they even MOVE that one? \n\n\nI tightened the ties that held my wings and tail to my body, making sure that they were not trampled on. I wore short horns in my hair - better to not get caught on something - and had a face full of awesome facepaint and prosthetic scales that almost looked like the real thing. HA! My costume is wayyyy better than some of these chumps. I thought. Heck, that guy looks like he is just wearing red facepaint and little plastic devil horns! Finally, after spending so long feeling like a freak, I could let out my inner monster this Halloween with people just like me! \n\n\n\"Hey babe.\" I winked at a woman wearing what looked to be nothing more than luminous orange body paint and a set of rams horns. She smiled back, revealing dozens of pointed fangs in the same hue as her body. MAN! There are even hot chicks here!\n\n\n\nI grabbed a gummy that someone had cleverly shaped to look like a rat's heart and popped it into my mouth. Instantly I spat it out again, blood dribbling down my chin. \n\n\n\"Holy shit, these are real!?\" I stammered. \n\n\n\nSuddenly, I noticed that the party had gone very quiet. The music, that had once been playing my favorite heavy metal band, was completely shut off. And every eye - even the ones that looked like they were suspended a few feet away from their owner's skulls - was on me. \n\n\n\n\"Um. Hi.\" I said. You know what? That mask looks awfully realistic. \"I will just be...going now.\"\n\n\n\n\"Going?\" Said a man wearing a simple tuxedo - the very man who had guided me to this party earlier tonight. \"Why would we want you to do that?\" He laughed, throwing his head back with false mirth. \n\n\n\n\"After all...you are the main course.\"\n\n\n**\n\n\nLike it? Read more on /r/TimeSyncs!*" ]	4
	[WP] To your surprise, she's crying.	[ "Visiting Vanessa is my favorite part of my week. She’s always working on something, rearranging her tiny apartment, making beads, painting a table. I was once been beaned when she tried juggling. Always something new. It’s a contrast to work. Everyday it’s looking at the same spreadsheets, talking to the same people. I’m pretty sure we’re all brain dead at this point.\n\nToday is no different. I love how I can count on her to be spontaneous. Not tidy though. There are ingredients for some sort of cake or cookie everywhere. \n\n“Hey do you have room in your fridge? If I knew we’d be baking, I wouldn’t’ve gotten a tart.” She didn’t answer. But I’m sure she’d be wounded if I moved around all the empty space in there. I wish she’d waited for me to start. \n\n“Do you want me to finish stirring?”\n\n“Nah, you can roll them though.” Fuck yeah snickerdoodles.\n\nWhile I roll these bad boys in the cinnamon mix, she starts moving the rest of the dishes in the sink and wiping down the counters. \n\nI tossed the cookies into the oven. “So what are we doing next week? I was planning on going to the farmers market Saturday.” I turn to Vanessa. She’s moved to tidying up, throwing blankets back on the couch on the opposite wall. \n\n“Yeah, sure. Do you ever get bored doing the same thing?”\n\n“Not really. I-.” She’s finally turned back to me. Her face has gone red and blotchy, tears starting to run down her face.\n\n “You’re all so damn boring. We could be discovering new planets and designing rail guns. Fighting the good fight. We aren’t doing anything here. Ugh you should probably take your tart and head home. I can’t fix this.”\n", "It was the last song. We held each other and swayed, surrounded by the colorful light and the slow murmur of music. When I was that close to her, the music seemed to stop. It was like everyone left the room, the lights went off, and time just stopped when we were together. I missed that feeling. But even with that, even with the cool touch of her hair against my hand, the light caress of her hand on my back, the weight of her head against my chest, there was still a mile between us. The final note rang, a silence went over the room, and all I could feel was her hand pushing me away. The world looked at me as she ran out. I followed her, but I couldn't help but feeling like I did something wrong, like thousands of people were silently scolding me. I opened the door see her sitting on the front steps, silent in the warm twilight. Her head buried in her hands, it was then that I realized it was over. ", "\"Wow, what an overprotective bitch.\" The arrogant redditor thought to themselves, staring down at the child he injured. Their mother was over the child, seeing if he was ok.\n\n\"After all, I taught him a lesson. Two year olds should know manners and self control better. He was running around! What was I supposed to do? Get out of his way? Ridiculous!\" The redditor thought to himself, not noticing the irony in his statement.\n\nHe pulled out his phone, and started tapping out a post that he would copy and paste onto /r/pettyrevenge later. The child's mother hadn't seen him, she assumed her toddler had fallen over or ran into a support beam for the jungle gym at the park. The redditor was behind the building for the slide and fire pole, out of view of the worried mother.\n\n...\n\nAfter a few hours of playing CS:GO, the redditor went onto Reddit, seeing he had many messages in his inbox. He clicked on the envelope, glowing orange.\n\nHe could see that his act of self-righteousness was being celebrated by the commenters. \n\n\"Wow! I hadn't seen so many people upvote and glide each other since that askreddit comment about the first 10 minutes of 'Up'!\"\n\nAll of the comments questioning the redditor a morality, self control, or mental state were completely obliterated by downvotes and angry college students saying the kid deserved it.\n\n\"He shouldn't have been running around! He could've hurt somebody, or himself!\" Said PM_ME_UR_TITS, an avid follower of /r/the_donald.\n\n\"Right. He should've been properly trained in manners and etiquette! He was in public, after all.\"\n\nThis circlejerk continued for one thousand years, then they all did drugs and died. The end.", "I awoke on the floor gasping. My entire body was numb. I lay there doing nothing but catching my breath. The halls of the underwater city were silent save the sound of a faint ping echoing. The faint fluttering of sparkling dust glided before my eyes before settling on the ground and dissipating. No, what have I done? I rise to my feet as fast as I can. The light fades from my eyes and i fall back down still panting. I look at my surroundings. I don't see any visible damage to any structures surrounding me. stood up again, slowly this time. Everything seemed normal. I can't remember what I was doing before I went eincane. I was just walking along. Why would I go eincane?\n\nI turned the corner. Nothing. No one. Just silence. It was like this for a few blocks, then... bodies. Scattered across the ground were fallen reumins. Were they dead? There was no blood. no sign of struggle... did I do this? I approached one and bent down. A little girl. No older than seven. No breath, no warmth, no sign of either heart beating. I killed her. When I lost control... I must have stopped their hearts with powerful lightning or fried synapses or... something more gruesome. \n\nI know how to restart her hearts with a touch, but if there is no brain activity it would be in vain, and her body is cold. Theoretically I could restart the electrical activity in the brain as well, but I don't know what to do, or if it would be worth it in the end... I composed myself and continued walking. Silence. the more corners I turned the more dead bodies I encountered. I began to shake. I'm a monster.\n\nAileta. I need to find Aileta. if anyone could survive this it would be her. With her spontaneous regeneration, she can survive anything.\n\nPassing trough the silent bodies is terrifying, I can hear the creaks of pressure in the outer walls as the currents shift outside. Passing through section after section seeing nothing but bodies scares me. What about those who can regenerate? why have I not found any of them? Did I kill Aileta? She was the only way I could get so far down here. How could I get back to the surface without her? I'll be stuck here for the rest of my life... No. I don't deserve to live. If I've killed all these people I'm too dangerous to return to the surface.\n\nI heard a noise. Gasping? Moaning? Squeaking? I couldn’t tell. I followed it to the best of my ability. There was a building of gold atop a long staircase. The throne room. It seemed the noise came from there. As I climbed the staircase the sound became more clear. Someone was crying. Entering the room I saw Aileta kneeling on the floor hands in her face.\nHer life has been full of many hardships. Filled with pain. All kinds of pain, but I’ve never seen her cry before.\n\n“Aileta? I’m…” I said. She looked up shocked “Soro.” She muttered.\n\n“I’m sorry. I think I…” I tried to say\n\n“you’re alive?” She stood up and walked to me.\n\n“I thought I killed everyone…” I mumbled. “No one else regenerated…”\n\n“You didn’t do this Soro, I did.”\n", "There was sadness in the way that she moved. Her angles and her noiseless trace from room to room. A beat slower to pour her tea. An idle hand on the hem of her dark skirt, lingering.\n\nHer face was hard, and might have been softer had she not had her hair cut so short and so neatly. Another angular reaction; straight edges and sharp highlights against paling colour. In thirty years I had learned the components of her mask; a hardness, yes, but layered. The gentle curve of a thin-lipped smile, diminutive creases across the forehead, barely visible. \n\nBut it was her cool blue eyes, irises like port-holes onto an endless restless ocean, that betrayed her. I had learned this like I had learned a language. Syllables of fleeting glances and assonance of the eyelids. She was silent, but her eyes said so much to those who could listen. \n\nAnd they were few, the listeners. I was one of them, her mother another. \n\nI watched for hours as she sat at the bedside, listening to distant birdsong. There was a perfect stillness about her, but I knew little of the storm inside, as her eyes rested upon the pillow and I sat near to the window. Another man might have seen composure. \n\n'Honey,' I said, eventually. 'We should make arrangements. Your mother would not have wanted to linger.'\n\nI saw her like she was wrapped around a frozen sob that would never thaw.\n\nThen she lifted her head to me, glacial, two threads of hair out of place.\n\nTo my surprise, she was crying.", "Jerome woke up to darkness.\n\nThe lights would often blink in and out for a few seconds. The electrical infrastructure of the vessel was finally starting to wear out. The added engineering challenges and structural complexities of a vehicle which had to maintain itself at a set number of rotations-per-minute to adequately simulate gravity for the inhabitants inside were, several years past the expected life cycle of the ship, finally causing systems to behave erratically. Normally, when the lights started flickering one of the environmental control system lighting sub-controllers would recognize the abnormal condition, diagnose the most likely cause, and either bypass the affected components or direct the lighting units to swap to the alternate electrical grid for category two services (\"Non-Essential, Otherwise Critical\"). This would result in an error log entry waiting for Jerome's review when he next checked ship statuses, and the follow on maintenance to correct the problem could be completed at his leisure in the next few days. This time, however, something was different.\n\nThere was a faint glow from the hallway outside his cabin that his sleep-heavy brain had to struggle to identify as one of the small red lights wired to the category one (\"Essential, Life Support Critical\") electrical grid in case of a failure in both the normal and alternate lighting circuits. He called up the system status report viewer on the screen next to his rack, frowning as the list of ship's systems scrolled down the screen. Every system and subsystem had a green square next to it; the ship was reporting full operational capability. He frowned and pulled at the scruff of beard dusting his cheeks and chin, reviewing the list of status reports for a second time as if the wall of green squares might have had some room for misinterpretation. \n\n“Come on, you cantankerous bitch,” he sighed as he rolled his legs over the side of the bed, letting the momentum help pull his torso up to a sitting position. He ground the flats of his palms into his eyes to try and force the transition to consciousness along faster, but only succeeded in sending a spray of multicolored spots dancing across the dark walls of the small room with the bunk, standing locker, and sink that served as \"crew quarters\" now that the adjoining modules had been disconnected. A touch panel with more sophisticated input options articulated out from the wall to his right after a few groping attempts to release the latch. The faint glow of the tablet was enough to illuminate his hands as he punched commands into the terminal, but was too weak to light up the swing-arm that supported the panel itself. The overall effect was that of a tablet floating in the air roughly a foot away from his chest, hovered over by a pair of cinnamon-colored hands which only seemed to exist as glowing outlines lit from below. \n\nA few minutes of attempted commands and increasingly forceful tapping on the screen left Jerome feeling both completely awake and frustrated. Not a single component, sub-controller, controller, or correlator was reporting an error, and every attempt to modify or reboot a device had been rejected. The computers that managed the ship's systems were, as baffling as it seemed, almost completely ignoring his input and the few outputs he could convince anything to provide were uniformly positive… which he could see was not the case. The computer deliberately lying to him certainly wasn't something that had been covered in training. \n\n“Alright, old girl, I guess you want me to pay you a visit?” He decided to check the main terminal in the control room, in the hope that the local indications and controls might respond better than the remote ones had. \n\nHe pulled his uniform over the shorts and t-shirt he had been sleeping in, shuffled his feet into a pair of slippers, and began to follow the emergency lighting into the hallway and towards the center of the ship. Most of the functional areas of the ship had been designed to be the same distance from the rotational axis of the motion generating the artificial gravity. Moving directly towards or away from the axis could be unpleasant on the inner ear, so the engineers had simply put all the livable spaces within the same distance range from the axis to avoid the problem. Critical equipment, however, like the master control computer, was placed centrally in the ship to facilitate the efficient running of cables to all the sub-components the terminal controlled. Thus, in the dark, feeling his stomach roll over itself in slow motion, Jerome led himself from handrail to handrail until he was in the literal center of the ship, the control room. \n\nThe lights in here were also off, but a curved display taller than he was dominated the wall opposite the door and did a fair job in illuminating the room. Words, figures, and partial renderings of a type of three dimensional geometry that he wasn’t familiar with were rapidly appearing on and disappearing from the screen. He let out a low whistle and took a single step inward to the only object in the room other than the display on the wall: a cylindrical tower of computer components with a touch panel on top that served as the ship’s main processor dominated the center of the space. Unable to make out the nature of the information on the screen, Jerome began attempting the same series of tests, report requests, and commands on the main terminal he had attempted remotely earlier. Rather than everything reporting positively, now the only result he got was a variety of math problems all resulting decreasing values measured in decibels. This, also wasn’t in the manual. The few interrupt and reboot sequences he could attempt were either ineffective or, his sense of burgeoning cynicism suggested, deliberately ignored. Whatever the computer was fixated on, the resulting number it was continually calculating was getting smaller and smaller by the minute. Unable to understand what the computer was doing, he stepped back from the input tablet and observed the screen for a few minutes. \n\nAfter some study, Jerome began to feel the erratic nature of the data flashing across the main terminal's display was oddly familiar. None of the information made sense, fragmented and ephemeral as it was, but something about the manner in which it was being displayed nearly triggered recognition. He closed his eyes and tried to describe it to himself, in varying terms, to attempt to jog the almost-memory: a quick burst of data, followed by a few stabs of smaller pieces of data appearing, then a long pause as the screen cleared itself. A large bubble pops, then some smaller bits dripping off, then the page is turned. A splash of ink, a few drops splatter, everything's wiped away- drops splatter. \n\nJerome opened his eyes. \n\nThe data flashing across the main display was indeed doing so in a rhythm that he was familiar with. He could remember, as a young boy of seven or eight, having fallen off the railing of a porch he had been balancing on; his ankle had turned and he had tumbled to the lawn a few feet below, striking his knee hard against the railing on the way. He could vividly recall the sharp contrast of his bright kneecap surrounded by the blood and torn skin that was supposed to conceal it. He had, seconds later, let out a sudden, guttural sob, followed by a few smaller gasping cries as he struggled to catch his breath, before taking another desperate intake of breath that only served as the primer for the next round of sobs. Incredulous, he looked at the screen again and knew, with a certainty what he was looking at. \n\nTo his surprise, she was crying; to his terror, he didn’t know why.\n\nThe number continued to count towards zero.", "He ran home, a semester’s worth of good grades bouncing around his backpack as he raced through the afternoon foot traffic. The anticipation of getting home and showing his mother that report card was almost too much to handle. Every step he took brought him closer to redemption. Not that anyone thought he needed it, but he did. Everyday he heard the same story of “having more important things to worry about than school” and he was tired of it. Today was different. Today he was a normal seventeen year old boy, running home to share the good news with his mother that not only had he gotten a near perfect GPA, but that he had been accepted to the college of his dreams. Oh how that would make her proud: her only son attending a good school, receiving a good education, and inevitably getting a good job afterwards considering his field of study. As a son growing up without a father he wanted nothing more than to make his mother proud. To show her that not every man in her life would let her down. \n\n The smile on his face somehow grew bigger than he thought imaginable as he rounded the final corner and his eyes fell upon the mustard yellow house that he called home. A million thoughts crossed his mind as he neared the front lawn. How would he tell her? Would he give her the grades first and then the acceptance letter? Would he just rush in and yell it all out in one big vomit of pride? He reached the door and fumbled with his key, anticipation filling his body with adrenaline. The old key finally entered the lock and he turned it, bursting through the door in one motion. He was caught completely off guard by what was waiting on the other side. \n\nTo his surprise he found his mother sitting in the entrance room crying with her phone in hand. All at once the expression of joy left his face, replaced by an expression of shock as he realized what was happening. In all his excitement he had almost forgotten the call that his mother had been expecting. A call with news much bigger than his own. He knew now that he could never tell his mother the good news of his educational success and future, because there was no future. The doctor had called with the news that they had been told was unlikely, but still possible. The cancer had spread, and in six months he wouldn’t be alive.\n", "\nfirst response, would love feed back\n=\nI was once alone,\n\nthe opposite was she.\n\nTo her, I felt unknown,\n\nthat's the way it seemed to be.\n\n \nI saw her daily,\n\naround the place.\n\nHer beautiful eyes I would see,\n\nupon her perfect face.\n\nI felt I should tell her,\n\nwith hold my identity.\n\nSo tension doesn't occur,\n\nif she knew it was me.\n\nShe loved each letter,\n\nI confessed it was me, not lying.\n\nI remember a smile as her cheeks turned redder.\n\nAnd to my surprise, she was crying.\n", "\"Hey, hey...what's wrong?\"\n\nHe squeezed her briefly and her wet eyes peeked out from between her fingers,\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\nHe pulled her closer, and she closed her eyes when he kissed them; he felt her squeeze back a little, seeming to relax.\n\nThere was a long quiet moment spent in each other's arms, until he spoke,\n\n\"...You've had a rough time, haven't you?\"\n\nShe sobbed loudly and buried her face in her hands and his chest.", "She chatters away aimlessly and you listen half-heartedly, her words going in one ear, out the other. Your foot taps against the floor nervously, your hands shake in your lap, you can feel the sweat running down the back of your neck-\n\nPause. \n\nYou take a breath.\n\nThen, you place a shaky hand on her thigh and she stops mid-sentence to peer at you curiously. Your mouth moves but no sound comes out, her eyes have torn the air from your lungs and the words from tongue. \n\nShe takes your hand into her’s, carefully weaving her fingers into the spaces between yours. She smiles, the whole world stops and you want to empty your stomach, retch your guts out and disappear into nothingness, but instead, you smile back.\n\nThe show is a blur of lines and laughter. You can’t remember the last time you laughed this hard, the last time your palms were this sweaty from nervousness, the last time you smiled so hard it made your face hurt.\n\nBut as the curtains close, reality settles in. \n\nYour stomach is making waves, your hands are shaky and something- something is caught in your throat. It makes it hard to breathe, it makes it even harder when she smiles at you under the moonlight as you walk her home. \n\nThe stars sparkle in her eyes and you wonder how you could have let this happen.\n\nYou lead her up the final step of her porch and carefully pull your hand from her’s. She chatters again, but you’re not listening, your eyes are focused on her the curve of her lips, the way it moves as she talks and your stomach churns, your sweaty hands find their way to your pockets and suddenly, the words are pouring out of your mouth.\n\nHer mouth stops moving in that moment, and she just stares at you, letting the words sink in. You can see the tears forming in her eyes, you can tell it’s coming, the wave of regret that will wash over you when they start streaming down her face.\n\nExcept they don’t come, because her face is fierce and her eyes are determined and for as sure as you were that she would cry, she’s not. \n\nShe’s smiling. \n\nIt makes your chest hurt, makes your stomach knot itself over and over, makes your knees weak and your throat tighten up. \n\nHer hand comes up, brushes gently across your cheek to flick away the tears you had no idea were falling. A sob breaks through your lips along with a chant of apologies. Your knees give way and you’re on the ground begging for forgiveness you know you don’t deserve.\n", "\"You should be relieved.\" I tell her while grabbing my suitcase. \n\"You know that I am no good to anyone. Everything I touch turns to shit and I can't drag you down with me.\" I smile, hoping to instill some confidence, some hope in her. She should be delighted and happy to see me leave. \n\"I am no good to you. I hold you back. You'll be better off without me.\" She's always been too good for me. She must have realized it long ago being as smart as she is. \n\"I can't give you the life you deserve. I am just not the right one for you.\" I am doing the right thing. There isn't even really a choice here. It's so all so obvious now. She'll have someone new, someone better, soon enough and she'll forget all about the time she wasted on me. \nI stand outside the door and turn around one last time: \n\"I love you, but you'll be better of without me.\" \nI look up at her.\nI smile and to my surprise she is crying.", "Why do you cry, why do you weep? \nWhy do you hang your head? \nWhy do you spend your days asleep, \nOr lying on your bed? \n\nWhy don't you come and spend some time, \nOutside beneath the sun? \nWhy do you nod and say you're fine? \nFrom what do you now run? \n\nWhy do you hide your pale wrist, \nAnd speak no more to me? \nWhy do you tense your wounded fist, \nAnd to the darkness flee? \n\nWhy did you hide and never speak, \nOf thoughts that caused you pain? \nWhat made you hide and cry and shriek, \nAnd slice your vital vein?" ]	12
	[WP] For helping a Genie, you and your friends are each allowed to choose any fictional character to have as a permanent companion, on the condition they are all from the same fictional universe.	[ "Two men stood in pitch blackness because of the author's laziness\n\n\"Man I can't think, come on what to choose\"\n\n\"I got it man I got it\"\n\n\"What\"\n\n\"Sonic is my choice, I got nothing else\"\n\nA blue hedgehog spawned next to the first of the two. However, something was... off about it.\n\nSuddenly the other screamed in horror.\n\n\"Dude what is it\"\n\nThe second of the two wiped a tear from his eyes, took out a gun, and aimed it at his head.\n\n\"You have just unleashed Sonic Boom Sonic. May God have mercy on your soul\"\n\nThen he fired, and died.\n\n...\n\n\n\"BOOST PAD\"\n\n\"I LOVE GOLDEN RINGS\"", "\"What do you mean by companion ? Romantic one ? Bro one ? Will he stay with me even if I hate him, will he have to stay if he hates me ..?\"\n\n\"As you want, I don't really care. If you want him to lust to you, there is no problem.\"\n\n\"Will he have his fictionnal powers ?\"\n\nAnd the three other of us, at the same time :\n\n\"No Cthulhu bro.\"\n\n\"Do you guys see a good universe filled with at least four characters we can enjoy ?\"\n\n\"I guess not pokemon, I'm the only one into the ponys things so no. Lovecraft is off limits, Tolkien too much sausage festival. I guess asking for another genie like the one from aladin is forbiden...\"\n\n\n\"What about hot chicks and guys ? Having a bloodthirsty warrior bff is not my thing.\"\n\n\"Is sex slaves the only thing you can think about ?\"\n\n\n\"Hey genie, we can chose in any fictional universe ?\"\n\n\"That's it.\"\n\n\"And how much time have we to chose.\"\n\n\"I can let you a day, you were helpfull.\"\n\n\"Ok, guys, any universe works and we have some time. Why chosing in pop culture, everybody grab papers and pens while I search for the players manual. We will make on measure ones.\"", "\"...and so I, the great and powerful Phallos, shall allow you three to each gain any character of your choosing as a companion until the day you die, so long as the characters you choose are all from the same universe.\"\n\n\"Sorry, but what was your name again?\"\n\n\"Um... Phallos.\"\n\n\"Can you repeat that?\"\n\n\"Phallos.\"\n\n\"Jake. Don't.\"\n\n\"Oh come on!\"\n\n\"No, seriously, don't.\"\n\n\"Ugh, fine. (Never let me have any fun....)\"\n\n\"We have to think about this.\"\n\n\"I know, I know.\"\n\n\"And Mike?\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"No what?\"\n\n\"We're not getting hot anime chicks.\"\n\n\"I wasn't gonna say that!\"\n\nGlare\n\n\"Seriously! I was gonna suggest DC characters, like Batman and stuff!\"\n\n\"Like Wonder Woman?\"\n\n\"Yeah, like her!\"\n\nGlare\n\n\"...wait shit.\"\n\n\"Goddammit Mike.\"\n\n\"Guys! We have to focus on this.\"\n\n\"Jake is right. So apparently Don doesn't want any hot chicks....\"\n\n\"Hey, I never said no hot chicks! I just don't think we should choose our PERMANENT companions solely on breast size!\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. (Always knew you were gay....)\"\n\n\"I\"m not gay!\"\n\n\"Uh huh.\"\n\n\"Fuck you, man.\"\n\n\"I'm sure you'd like to.\"\n\n\"GUYS!\"\n\n\"Right, ok, let's think about this. First of all, which universe are they all gonna be from? It has to be a universe we ALL know about, that way we can all choose a good companion.\"\n\n\"What about the Elder Scrolls series?\"\n\n\"That's a good one. Who would you choose?\"\n\n\"Probably Ulfric Stormcloak.\"\n\n\"Seriously? The xenophobic, racist, narcissistic, warmongering lunatic?\"\n\n\"Oh yeah, good point. What about General Tullius?\"\n\n\"You mean the dictatorial, militaristic, oppressive general imposing the will of the tyrant of a dying empire?\"\n\n\"Geez, you hate everyone, don't you?\"\n\n\"No, I just hate most of the characters from Skyrim. Now, if you had played Oblivion or Morrowind like I told you to....\"\n\n\"Whatever. Jake, do you have any ideas?\"\n\n\"...Jake?\"\n\n\"Where'd he go?\"\n\n\"Wait... where's the genie?\"\n\n\"YOUR CHOICE HAS BEEN MADE! YOU SHALL ALL RECEIVE A COMPANION FROM THE ANIME KNOWN AS FATE/ZERO! THE ONE CALLED JAKE HAS SELECTED CASTER, AKA BLUEBEARD!\"\n\n\"WHAT?!!\"\n\n\"Shit, is he crazy?!\"\n\n\"I knew he liked Caster, but I thought he meant as a plot device, not the actual character!\"\n\n\"We have to stop him.\"\n\n\"Ok, we have to choose characters that can beat Caster. Who will you choose?\"\n\n\"I'll go with Saber. She beat Caster in the actual show, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah, she did. Ok, I'll go with Rider, since he helped buy her time.\"\n\n\"I can't believe he did this! What's wrong with him?\"\n\n\"He just hasn't been the same since Hillary Clinton became President.... You know how much he wanted Bernie to win.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but why would he choose a psychopathic murderer with tons of magical power? In the show he was big enough to destroy an entire city block!\"\n\n\"Yeah. He might've even been able to attack the White House.\"\n\n\"Crap, you don't think he would...?\"\n\n\"Mike, you have to understand this. He LOATHES Hillary.\"\n\n\"But to go that far....\"\n\n\"We have to stop him. GENIE! WE HAVE MADE OUR DECISIONS! GIVE SABER TO MIKE AND RIDER TO ME! THEN TRANSPORT US TO WHEREVER YOU LEFT JAKE!\"\n\n\"Well... here goes nothing.\"\n\n\"Don't worry. We'll stop him. Then we'll talk him back to his senses.\"\n\n\"I hope you're right.\"", "Three boys in a cave. A towering, gaseous entity looks down on them, patiently waiting their answer:\n\n\"Star Wars or Harry Potter?\"\n\n\"What about Lord of the Rings?\"\n\n\"Why would anyone choose Lord of the Rings, all they did was betray each other.\"\n\n\"That's not true. Sam didn't betray Frodo - not even once!\"\n\n\"Yeah, but, honestly, who's going to choose Sam?\"\n\n\"I want the elf chick, she's hot.\"\n\n\"Dude. Permanent companion. She's going to be with you forever.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"So? Use your brain, not your-\"\n\n\"Forget it. I don't agree with Lord of the Rings.\"\n\n\"How about Game of Thrones? That dragon chick is hot too...\"\n\n\"Dude.\"\n\n\"Yeah, we're not doing Game of Thrones. I like living.\"\n\n\"Marvel?\"\n\n\"Are you kidding me?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Who would you choose from Marvel?\"\n\n\"Hmm... Loki?\"\n\n\"Exactly. No.\"\n\n\"So that brings us back to square one. Harry Potter or Star Wars?\"\n\n\"Harry Potter!\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Hermione is hot.\"\n" ]	4
	[WP] Write a convincing doctor's note for a patient with a made-up illness	[ "Please excuse my patient Mr. Allen Parker from excessive or strenuous work or overtime for the next three weeks. He is suffering from a case of what we call in the medical field, \"Ser una perra\". It's a highly effective bacterial disease that effects cardiovascular strength, testosterone levels, and overall psychological demeanor. Please excuse him from further work for at least three weeks until future tests can be run.", "\"Through the doctor's observation, we have detected an unusual amount of 'anime' in your son's system, and we have concluded that he is terminally ill with 'Weaboo'. It is a very rare internetborne disease that may cause the following:\"\n\n* Anxiety\n* No friends\n* Chuunibyou-ism\n* Uniquely colored hair\n* Talking in Japanese with subtitl-\n\n\"Wait, doctor, what are you on about?\"\n\n\"Ma'am, this is a serious matter, your child could be greatly suffering if not treated properly. Now Jimmy, I need to ask you a question... Do you watch anime?\"", "Dear Mr. Parker,\n\nIt is with great concern that we inform you that your tests have returned with some alarming results. It appears the greenish hue that has appeared on both your hands and feet are due to a extremely rare skin disease known as dermatemeculitis.\n\nUnfortunately, the cause of dermatemeculitis is unkown, nor is there any certain cure. However, upon further research, I have found a specific home made remedy that, although quite unconventional, apparently helps treat the disease.\n\nAccording to this article on whatswrongwithmybody.com, it appears that a specific acidic substance found exclusively in the urine of some lizards can help fight against the diseased skin cells and prevent them from spreading.\n\nThough doctors should only recommend more conventional methods, I unfortunately see no other way for you to treat this disease. I recommend taking a few days off from work, and have included a list of local pet stores specializing in lizards and other various reptiles.\n\nIf you choose to do so, please keep in touch with the results of this method of treatment, as I am genuinely curious on if this will yield any results.\n\nSincerely, Dr. Toboggan, M.D.\n\n", "\"Ma'am, I know this sounds weird but your son's testicle's fill far faster than they should naturally and it will eventually cause irritability and pain, since he broke both of his arms it may be up to the family to help him release.\"\n\n\"Chuck, what the fuck man? You can't hand out doctor's notes like that. The kid came in with broken arms not broken testicles.\"\n\n\"Dave, calm down. I'm retiring today anyways and the mom actually believed, she said she'll stroke the kid off.\"\n\n\"Chuck, what is wrong with you?\"\n\n\"Just think about how much the internet will love this story in a few years?\"\n\n\"What the fuck is the internet Chuck?\"" ]	4
The bookworms can make the powerful spells of fire, ice, and arcane energy. But none of them can throw them more than a few yards. Gym going bros are in charge of making the war a deadly game of dodge ball.	[WP] In a world of warring mages it takes a bookworm to conjure the spell but an athlete to actually throw it far enough. Teams of two are formed. Classic Jock/Nerd rolls are assumed.	[ "\"Now!\" The voice cut through the morning air, and with a grunt of effort, the man launched the spinning spear of pure darkness, ripping it through the air to land nearly a mile away, inside the twitching body of the enemy mage. His partner stared at his now disabled companion with a shocked look on his face, before kneeling and placing his hands behind his head, the traditional symbol of a defeated Lancer. The man who threw the shadowy black spear turned to his partner and gave him a high five. \n\n\"Nice throw, Clark.\" The second man, a tall, well-built man with broad shoulders and a handsome face, was slowly letting the mana drain from his hands. He had thick, dark hair and a dark eyes, intelligent and thoughtful, which were even now roaming about the field the pair were standing in. Similarly, the first man was great height and broad shoulders, with long, powerful arms and large hands. His hair was also black, slicked back save for a small curl that dangled in front of his handsome face. The pair could have been twins, save one was the Source and the other the Caster. \n\n\"Thanks. That a new spell? Seemed to fly a little better.\" The Source nodded with a grin. He had spent months working on that spell, painstaking crafting the mana into a shape that would fly better and further, while increasing its mana-draining and stun properties. \n\n\"Yeah, I remembered your comment from earlier, about how you were having trouble getting the right grip on the star orb. This one should be a lot easier for you to handle. Now let's go bag this guy.\" The odd pair strode through the darkness to approach the man kneeling next to the unconscious and mana-less body.\n\n\"Got an I.D. on this one, Bruce?\" The taller man, Clark, spoke in a rumbling voice, echoing in the still morning air. The smaller one, Bruce, pulled out a small PDA and began sorting through the files. \n\n\"Looks like his name is Dorrance, not sure if it's a first or a last name. No known family or associates.\" The kneeling man looked up at the pair with hatred blazing in his eyes. Without his Source, the man was useless and knew it, but he certainly didn't like it. \n\n\"Dorrance? Weird name. What about his Source?\" A bit more scrolling and the man was identified as:\n\n\"John Corben, 34. Looks like he was a journalist before his abilities as a Source were discovered. Joined the PMC, IJS after he was discovered. Must have been where he met this one, Dorrance.\" As the two conversed, the kneeling man suddenly lunged at Bruce, correctly surmising him to be the source. Before he could move more than a step, Clark had grabbed him by the neck while Bruce launched his hand forward, palm out. A lance of black energy drove through the man's face, and he sagged in Clark's grip. \n\n\"Idiot. They always go for the Source.\" Clark let the man drop, glancing at his partner to confirm he was alright. Bruce shrugged, feeling energized by the direct usage of mana, even though it was a simple soul-stunner.\n\n\"Just because I can't project mana like a Lancer, they expect me to be useless.\" Bruce and Clark were by no means a typical pair, and they took great pains to ensure they never were. Both were intelligent, well-built, and athletic. However, no Source could project beyond his own hands, and no Lancer could conjure his own projections. Fate determined their roles, and the two were happy to fill them. Bruce trained constantly to be as capable as Clark, ensuring that he was widely considered to be the most dangerous known Source by many. Similarly, Clark was perhaps the most powerful Caster in the world, able to project his mana farther and faster than any other. Together, the two had formed a lasting bond, as well as the world's most sought after PMC. \n\nPrivate Mage Companies were highly regulated teams of Source and Caster that served a variety of roles. In the case of Bruce and Clark, it meant they were police, private eyes, bodyguards, spies, and sometimes heroes. However, deep tragedy in the both young men's lives ensured that they always used their power to help and protect, never for evil. Their company, World's Finest, was now a beacon of what a Source and Caster could do, and they contracted over a dozen mage pairs across the globe. \n\n\"Alright, let's call Gordon and let him know we got his killers. We'll take em back to Gotham and let him deal with the follow-up and interrogation.\" Bruce nodded at Clark's suggestion and pulled out his phone. Three rings later and he was talking to the police commissioner. A brief conversation and thirty minutes later, the duo were headed back to Metropolis, having turned the two over to the police. As they drove, Bruce continued staring at his PDA, a gnawing thought worming in his head. Noticing his distraction, Clark spoke up.\n\n\"What's up, Bruce? You have that look on your face...\" Bruce broke away from the tablet to talk to his partner. \n\n\"Something's bothering me about those two. We brought them in way to easily. They didn't even put up a fight, not even a ward.\" Clark nodded with a frown. He hadn't really thought about that. He had struck the mage from way beyond the range of the average Caster, but the Source hadn't even used a defensive shield. \n\n\"Yeah, I guess I didn't notice. Good point. What are you thinking?\" Clark knew that Bruce was rotating all the pieces in his head, trying to see how they all clicked together.\n\n\"I\"m thinking something's up. I need more time to put it all together though. Let's get back to the office. Diana and Arthur should be back soon and I think Barry and Hal will also be back today. We'll see how their deployments went and fill them in.\" Clark nodded, the pair slipping back into silence. He knew that Bruce would share when he had all the info, and he trusted his partner. Besides, it would be nice to see Diana again. He had missed his fiance while they were both on assignment. ", "\"Hey, Bruce, over 5 o'clock.\"\n\nThe 6'7\" mostrosity of a human being quickly slung himself around to face his target, a bristling ball of flame settling into the palm of his hand.\n\n\"Nope, that's 12 o'clock, but I suppose you can nail that guy in the face, too.\"\n\nThe giant tossed the fire bomb in a brilliant arc of orange light, the orb inexplicably speeding in a curve like a whackball thrown by a pitcher whose only gift is a brutal fast ball.\n\n\"Clean hit. Now, kill the guy at 5 o'clock.\"\n\n\"Simon,\" shouted the hulk of a man over the clamor of shutting spellbooks and exploding magic. \"I got it. Gimme some ice.\"\n\n\"Ice? Right now? Come on, just take another fire bomb and turn him to ash,\" yelled his spellcasting partner. The relatively average sized fellow was diminutive compared to his compatriot, but what mattered most was the size and power of the spells he casts. And fortunately for both of them, Simon had some of the biggest and best looking spells around.\n\nUnfortunately, nowadays people just hire slaves, infuse them with magic and drugs, and then give them a glorified pair of kitchen gloves, instead of getting a highly-trained spellthrower like Bruce.\n\n\"Yeah, ice in left hand, and some of that purple lightning shit in my right hand,\" ordered Bruce.\n\n\"Do you mean the protean pulsar or the arcane arcblade?\" As he said this, Simon began pulling the air around him, trying to guide the heat away from any fraction of liquid in the air. While his left hand began creating a circular frosty shield of the thin traces of water in the air, his right hand began to spark the air around him, slowly guiding the energy to his right.\n\n\"Whichever one,\" Bruce began before ducking below a blue blast of flame, \"lets me stab people.\"\n\n\"Oh, got it.\" Simon slipped the ice shield onto Bruce's wrist while he tossed the curved spear of purple lighting into his right.\n\nBruce pulled up the shield of ice in time to stop a blue-green wave of light. The sparks of weak arcane energy danced off of Simon's ugly yet effective handiwork. The deflected strike was met by a powerful pitch by Bruce. The purple streak of light sent from his hand obliterated the head of his aggressor.\n\n\"Nice hit. Brutal, but effective,\" commented Simon.\n\n\"Shut up and give me another fire bomb,\" replied Bruce.\n\nThe battle went on." ]	2
	[WP] Then suddenly the steel felt so cold in my hands	[ "I loved watching her twist and attempt to free herself, her beautiful green eyes filled with determination. She didn't realize I was watching her, watching as she rubbed her wrists together, attempting to loosen the bonds. Watching as she slowly began to give up, her head hanging so that her red hair fell like a curtain down her shoulders. Even from the slightly blurry screen I could see that her skin was starting to sheen with sweat, most likely from stress. \n\nWith familiar movements I made sure I had all my tools: paint brushes, Wartenburg wheel, surgical gloves, needles of varying sizes, piercing needles and rings, matches, candles, clamps. Slowly I picked up the final item, my treasured scalpel. There were many wonderful, and some upsetting, memories that involved the blade. I twisted it slightly, watching the light gleam off the side of it and began to remember the first time I used it. I was a less educated lad then, I had not thought of gagging the toy and she was begging for me to let her go. I recalled the way I held my blade bare-handed, my own eyes tearing up as I really considered I was being a monster. I was able to convince myself that I was wrong, that she was just not able to understand what I was doing, and as she began to cry, the steel felt so very cold in my hand and so very heavy. I almost stopped, almost let her go, but went through it. It was so satisfying to watch the blood flow from her, to hear her scream.\n\nI smiled, the memory both sad and fond. Sad because of my own fears, but fond because I had gone through and was strong. I glanced one last time at the screen, the girl's shoulders were shaking as if she were crying. I glanced at a few of the other monitors around me, making sure we were still completely alone. The blade was still in my hand as I walked out the door, humming to myself as I went to introduce myself to my new toy.\n\n-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nHi, guys, go ahead and critique this as desired, I love having feedback so I can grow as a writer. Thank you ^-^", "But my knife was very sharp indeed. It had taken a lot of practice to get the best results with the butchers steel but now I had it down to a fine art. And edge.\n\nUsing the boning knife with its slim curved shape I sliced under the rib bones carefully, the flesh was still warm but the worst of the blood had drained out of the corpse to fill the rudimentary autopsy table I had spent weeks making last year.\nThat had been the middle of this whole long plan. Now I had the first of many corpses laid out in front of me ribs splayed open ready for de-boning.\nDone right this process would look beautiful and sell well in the market later.\nLittle did the villagers know what they were eating when they bought his choice cuts! ", "At midday, the King signed me off with his sword and the waive of his wrist. My death rite, the last honor, to hold the same steel that I had betrayed my brethren with. They frowned down at me with scorn. Years of service forgotten. For a memory, of a memory, of a newcomer's whisper held more weight than my sword itself. \n\nThese calloused hands would never grip a friend's again. These feet, never to ache under the march of heavy mail. My hair never to feel the closure of a helmet. My tongue the taste of beer it would mourn. Nor my spirit the raging passion of a battle cry. \n\nI turned the blade toward me, suddenly steel I knew so well felt so cold in my hands. We enter from a warm womb into an icy world. Why had I expected going out to be any different?\n\nPiercing my intestines, I felt blood ooze out onto my innocent hands. A soft whimper escaped my lips, adding more distaste to the scorn of the onlookers. It's one thing to be a false criminal, and another to suffer your King's judging eyes. I would rather be gone, than live with either. \n\n I hacked fresh dots of red into the snow. Letting my memories flash by. But as the world slowly slipped away, the wails of a widow guided me, into deaths permanent embrace. \n ", "He killed them. Bodies dropped like leaves in the fall. They were my friends and he killed them.\n\nAm I a criminal now? Is this emptiness all there is? No guilt. No shame. No anger. Just the warmth emanating from the pipe stuck in his chest. They were only sixteen. And he took their lives. \n\nBut then again…\n\nHe was only sixteen. And I took his.\nI can hear sirens now. I can’t will myself to move. I stare into his lifeless eyes as the pipe protruding from his stomach keeps him upright. I’m no different than him. Blood runs freely onto the floor and outs my shoes.\n\nHe murdered children! Your friends! But then I murdered him… he was my friend. Wasn't he?\n\nThe steel begins to sear my hands, it burned as if I had rested them on a hot stove. But still, I felt nothing else. I took comfort in the burning. It was the only thing reminding me I was human; because I could still feel the pain. The footsteps of countless policemen thundered in the distance.\n\nHe looked up, “You coward. Accept it! You’re just like me buddy!” He laughed hysterically in my face and it was an I could do to avert my eyes. I fell to my knees, my hands gripping the steel pipe so hard my knuckles were white. Killing a killer leaves the amount of killers in the world unchanged. I looked back at him. He didn’t move thankfully.\n\nThe policemen burst through the door, guns raised and aimed at me. “FREEZE! Drop the pipe and lay down with your hands behind your head!” I heard them but I couldn’t move. “Drop your weapon and get on the ground!” \n\n“I… I’m not a killer.” The words tasted like bile, I knew it was a lie. The Sheriff stepped forward, a young female with a hard look in her eye. She holstered her weapon as she walked towards me, stepping over the mangled bodies of children. She knelt by my side, blood soaking her clean uniform, and laid a warm hand on my back. “Ma’am!,” a man warned but she ignored him.\n\n“Look at me. It’s alright you did what you had to do. We know you were just scared. Let go of the pipe sweetie..” \n\nI peeled my eyes away from the corpse in front of me, and turned to face my mother. Tears began to fall like rain. “No. I can never forgive myself. I should’ve died with them.” And now I will. In one swift motion, the jagged pipe that pierced the murderer’s stomach turned any faced the other’s. \n\nThe warm steel suddenly felt very cold in my hands. Two murderers died that day.\n", "Do I even make choices anymore? Or do I just follow blindly, making movies automatically, a cycle of wandering vengeance tied up with fear. I call myself a villain, but why?\n\nThe currents of metal wound around my wrists, sharp edges and flat steel, my power pulsing outward with the beats of my heart. I stared ahead, the murderer in front of me laughing. \n\nMentau back looked at me, his cool eyes and mirthless smile an abomination. I licked my lips behind my mask.\n\nHe lunged.\n\nHis power fade hit me like a wave of ice, stilling the movement of the metal. My mask was ceramics and sealed without needing my influence, but the pulsing field of metal around me dropped as he nullified my control. I had barely enough time to form it into a series of sharp knives, my gloved hands snatching one before the rest of the black steel fell to the floor.\n\nHe reached for me and I stabbed blindly, before leaping backwards and landing hard on my side. I felt my control resume as his concentration slipped, and quickly threw the rest of the daggers upwards from the floor, a quick flare of my power stirring them to life. A roar of pain momentarily fuzzed my control before he dropped to all fours and began sprinting my way. His eyes were locked directly with mine. I knew there was only one way out of here alive.\n\nRunning isn't something I'm proud to do, but it was my only option. Every time I got the barest hint of control back, my power a familiar warmth, it was ripped from me. A Prince without a kingdom. He was simply too strong.\n\n------\n\nRewritten scene from The Clockwork Prince, hopefully coming out soon. Writing a book sucks D:", "\"We don't have much time,\" he says. \"My battery is almost at 10% and I can't sustain an erection in low power mode.\" \n\nI grin, fumbling with his belt and slipping a hand inside. He is smooth, hard, and warm. I lean close to his ear and whisper, \"I need you.\" \n\nHis hands—all four of them—tear at my blouse and pants. The servos in his fingers are too strong, too rough, and buttons from my blouse fall onto the concrete floor of the supply closet. \n\n\"Jerk! I left my spare uniform at home—oh!\" I gasp as two of his hands pull open my bra. I arch my back and press myself against him, against the unyielding metal of his perfect, molded chest. \n\n\"Hurry,\" he pants. \"I've turned off a few non-essential processes but I don't know how long I can last.\" \n\nI bat his hands away and bend down, shimmying his pants down to his wheels. Still on my knees, I look up and make eye contact with his visual sensors as I slowly trace a fingertip up his inner thigh. \n\nI stand and we kiss. He wraps his arms around me, cupping my head, my waist, my back and one arm. For a moment, I close my eyes and swoon in the warmth of his embrace. His battery beeps, loud and insistent. I open my eyes and smile as I snake a hand downwards. \n\nSuddenly, his steel feels cold in my hands. I look down between us, below his perfect chest, his perfect abs. I sigh. \n\n\"Sorry,\" he mutters. \"I told you to hurry.\" \n\nI step back and try to fix my ruined blouse. \n\n\"Yeah, well, I told you to use Energizer.\" \n\n***** \nIf you liked this story, you might like my other stories at /r/hpcisco7965 or /r/TMODAL. \n", "...as I saw that... thing walk out from the stone arch. At first glance it was no different than the rest of the undead that I had cut down before, wearing the armor of the gallant knight it had consumed. That illusion quickly fell apart as I saw the faint hints that whatever now resided in that armor had ever been human were nowhere to be found. Where I expected to see the sunken eyes of a wretched corpse was now a dark void, the joints of the armor where I expected to see rotting flesh peeking our from behind the rusted steel was only a pulsating darkness, and the shambling of a soldier barely clinging to what only a select few would call \"life\" was instead a confident stride. \n\nMy steel felt so cold to me now that I nearly dropped it, letting it clatter to the floor of the stone parapet, just barely catching myself before falling into that chasm of pure terror. I raised my sword to it, steeling my resolve to face this darkness, and seemingly in response to my own willingness to fight, raised it's own sword as well with several dark tendrils reaching out from it's wrists to wrap around the handle. \n\nI swung my heavy blade as hard as I could, only for my blow to be cast aside by the creature's own with a loud clang as more dark tendrils burst from it's arm alongside a bubbling sound that I could only guess was a growl. My second swing would find it's way behind the creatures blade, slashing at a gap in it's armor to cut at the darkness beneath. It's scream deafened me, forcing me to recoil in pain as the creature's own armor burst open as a torrent of tentacles poured out into a writhing mass with bits of metal sinking into the darkness. As I regained my senses I was met with the mass crashing towards me, having abandoned any wish to disguise itself as a person. The wave of darkness only slowing as I helplessly flailed my weapon at it before being consumed by it like the knight before me. Enveloped in the darkness I could only feel the intense pressure as it squeezed me as tightly as it could, snapping my bones one by one before finally falling into unconsciousness.\n\nI slowly wake, the tiny flame's warmth comforting me once more before rising to my feet. I look up to see the parapet in the distance before setting out once more, feeling the emptiness in me grow ever larger.", "I remember a story I used to be told as a child. \n\nIt was usually told to me by my father in the cold winter months when there was little else to do but tell tales by the hearth. We'd gather round and he'd go on to speak of the dark Mire Witches of the west. How he'd weave a fine and horrifying story of their black magic. How they'd eat goats and use bones to put hexes on whole towns. And most of all, he'd whisper, steal children. \n\nThe story seems to have underplayed it a bit. \n\n\"Reynault,\" Hobbs called in a hushed voice, snapping me back to reality. \n\n\"Oh,\" I stammered, not realizing I'd been daydreaming, \"sorry.\" \n\n\"Keep yer wits,\" He whispered, looking around slowly, \"one of these grimy bitches'll get you, otherwise. Keep yer eyes on the trees too. They look like the branches sometimes.\" \n\nI nodded in response, raising my long sword a bit. \n\nI liked Hobbs. He wasn't the most personable of fellows, but he knew his trade and he cared about doing a thorough job. For what it's worth, if I had to choose only one person to do this with it'd be him. However, I would not want to choose only one person. But that was the situation at hand. \n\nA week ago the fort I was stationed at received a letter from a very, very small village. The letter stated that for a score of nights children had been going missing and that they believed something lived in the mire and was stealing the children in the night. \n\nThis was not deeply uncommon, as it was usually just as like that the children would wander off and drown in mud as it was for some fae or devil to sneak in and snatch them from their cradle. But I am a knight, and in fact was the only proper knight at the fort, so it was considered my duty to handle such a matter. \n\nI assembled my entourage: Hobbs, my veteran man-at-arms, Silas, my strapping squire, and Alfie, my portly physician and apothecary. Once equipped we set off south and west for the village. After a few days time we arrived to the village finding half of them dead and the other half dying. They'd been plagued by a curse the likes I had not seen before. Hobbs knew what it was, having learned of spirits and darker magics than I in the stacks of Jerusalem. \n\nAfter Hobbs showed him how to make a poultice that would slow their ailment and ease their pain we left Alfie to tend to the villagers who still drew breath and Silas to guard him. Had any of those villagers been strong enough to stand without spitting bile or shitting their trousers I would've taken Silas as well. But none could and Alfie is a paunchy fellow and certainly could not hold off a crippled goat much less a mire witch, so Silas stayed. \n\nAnd now we crept, Hobbs and I, through the murk and shadow of the mire, looking for the child eaters. \n\n\"Hobbs.\" I called out, quietly as I could. \n\n\"What?\" He responded, equally as quiet though slightly more irritated. \n\n\"What if there are no children left alive?\" \n\nHe snorted and adjusted his padded coif, \"Of course none of them are alive. But we can still put the fuckin' baby eaters to the mud.\" \n\nI felt a bit of will drain from me. I knew that none of them were alive since I got the letter, but most of the reason I took hunts like this was to help people. To save them. Preventing death was still preserving life, but it did not feel like saving it. \n\nHobbs stopped, stood still, motioned that I do the same, and peered intently into the brush ahead.\n\nHe pointed with his crossbow, \"Look at that. I think we're close.\" \n\nI stared towards the weeds in question and saw what he was referring to. They were dead. Not only that but as I looked past them I saw that many plants were shriveled and dead. It reminded me very much of an ivy, constricting a small tree 'til the life was squeezed out of it. \n\nI took a few steps forward, my mail shirt jingling softly in the silence of the dreary woods. When suddenly my sword was like ice. I gripped it tight in both hands, bringing it to the ready. It felt so very cold in my hands, the chill of it ran down my arms and through my chest. \n\nI spun about scanning my surroundings and Hobbs did the same. I saw frost running along the surface of the muddy water and over the now wilting foliage and trees. I didn't even notice the lack of insects 'til now. The silence was suffocating. \n\n\"Fuckin' come out, you bitch.\" Hobbs muttered through gritted teeth. \n\nI un-slung my shield and gripped it in my left hand. Hobbs and I were practically back to back now, rotating slowly, eyes never resting on one spot. But then I saw her, emerging slowly from the water. She did look like wood. She was nude, her skin rough, mottled, and leathery. All that I could make out of her face was a pair of yellow eyes peering out from a mess of grey-green mattes and grime that was her hair. And out of the hair poked a pair of antlers atop the crown of her head. \n\nThe moment she'd risen from the water she glided across it at me. I cried out, ran forward, and swung at her with my blade, arms stiff with chill and fear. She slid out of the way, dodging my attack like I meant to swingat the air instead of her. \n\nHobbs had pivoted and leveled his crossbow at her, leading and firing where she was about to be. The bolt struck, grazing her along the ribs. She screamed and waved a hand at him. He, in turn, screamed as well and I saw ribbons of blood fly from his face. \n\nI made up the distance between myself and the witch and tried to catch her under the chin with the point of my sword, but she turned and struck my blade aside with a gnarled, clawed hand. She spat at me and I raised my shield to block it. The spit ate through the leather and wood of my chevron like it was nothing 'til I sizzling against my gloved hand. \n\nI staggered back, tossing my now useless shield to the ground and tugging the glove off after it. Hobbs had regained himself and had knocked another bolt which he now put into her right thigh. She screamed again and sped towards him, black blood stream from her wounds. I made chase and he pulled a hatchet from his belt to defend himself. \n\nShe clawed at him, wailing all the while and he parried he blows best he could. A few slipped by his guard, catching him along the forearms and chest leaving long red wrents. No focus on me though. I put the tip of my blade up and through the center of her back between her shoulder blades. It came out of her chest just above Hobbs' face. I twisted my blade and with a great heave lifted her from the ground as she flailed to get free. Hobbs then hacked at her limbs with the hatchet, freeing each hand and leg from their respective trunk. \n\nEventually she stopped flailing. \n\nI removed her ragged head from her shoulders and we burnt the rest in a relatively dry part of the mire. We searched for a few more hours for the hole she'd crawled out of, but found little save for some bones. \n\nWhen we left the village all who still lived were cured and healthy, though hollow to be true. \n\nI stung and throbbed all the way back to the fort. But most of all I felt the chill I'd felt when first she'd crept upon us. \n\nI do not believe that any hearth I'd ever feel would save me from the chill. \n\n\n\n\n" ]	8
	[WP] "Instead of elections, cadidates who are running for president have to conjure an epic freestyle rap battle to win the peoples votes."	[ "\"We will now hear the start of the first debate between the two presidential candidates. Mr Trump you have the floor.\"\n\n\n\"Now I've got nothing against old people, some I even like,\n\nBut Christ don't give this Jewish dipshit a go on the f-ing mike\n\nThis guy's a danger to America, he wants terrorists running free\n\nAnd if you want to be able to defend yourselves, then you should vote for me\n\nI'm fighting for American rights and I don't care what others think\n\nI'm not like these other softies, I'm going to cause a stink\n\nSo if you want a strong next president, there isn't a candidate finer\n\nI'll build my walls, drive the Mexicans off and pick a fight with China\"\n\n\n\"And next Mr Bernie Sanders.\" \n\n\n\"I'd like to thank Mr Trump for speaking, It actually helps my education bill\n\nHe can say what he likes about me, I don't wish him any ill\n\nIf he wants to offend the voters, that's perfectly fine with me,\n\nI'll just watch him self-destruct, and choose to keep my integrity, \n\nI believe in the general public, they know exactly what they see, \n\nA man who fights for his beliefs or a loud mouthed bit of drama on tv,\n\nSo go play with your daddy's millions, or even build a few more towers,\n\nYour really just not good enough to be leading one of the superpowers,\n\nSo here's some advice to you Donald, Leave this to better men, \n\nCoz hell will have frozen over, before you \"make America racist again\"\n", "In a suit atop his lectern Bernie gesturing and motioning whilst delivering a speech to the rapturous support of those who had chosen to attend his campaign rally. Stopping mid speech after a particularly poignant statement as its attendees chanted \"FEEL THE BERN! FEEL THE BERN! FEEL THE BERN!\" every word of the chant backed up with a floor-rumbling stamp. \n\n\"-together, we are going to reform a broken criminal justice system- \" pausing for emphasis and looking the crowd over, hunched over his lectern a look of prideful conviction etched clearly across his aged face. \"It's a joke that the richest country in the-\" music began to play in the background, slowly filling the room \"-world has almost the biggest population of...\" Bernie Sanders straightened his back and looked around the crowd trying to zero in on the source of the music without stopping his speech. Gradually increasing in volume, curiosity began to show on Bernie's face as he stared at the large entrance to the hall. Guards in a tight unit entered and forced their way through the crown until they'd formed a path directly to him through the crowd. \n\nDonald Trump swaggered through the door in a blue suit with a microphone in his left hand. The moment the crowd realized where Bernie's look of disgust was directed they followed his eye line and became feral in moments: throwing whatever they could get their hands on and jeering, some taking their phones out to film the display. Behind Trump supporters filed in and occupied half of the hall by the time he'd reached the middle of the room, where Bernie's crowd began and waited. The music became discernible as the instrumental of Aerosmith's 'Walk This Way'. Trump turned around to his crowd and began to address them \"Didn't I tell you he just doesn't have balls\" he paused and turned around to look directly at Bernie \",no wall's been built here yet Bernie. Step up\"\n\n\"All the instrumentals you could have chosen to rap to and you chose this. Really?\" Bernie hopped down from atop his platform to trumps level with unexpected agility.\n\n\"What. You want me to have chosen a different one. Don't get me wrong I like other instrumentals, trust me I do. I just don't want to pay for the license to a beat from a criminal, how many artists that produce this type of beat can you confirm aren't criminals?\" A smug smile crept across his face as the crowd behind him cheered raucously.\n\n\"Check. Check one two\" Bernie bobbed his head as he walked purposefully towards Donald Trump situated in the no man's land between crowds; holding a microphone handed to him by a security upon reaching the ground. \n\n\"Of course only someone as urban as Barack would put such a campaigning law into force.\"\n \n\"Put on my beat, I'm not free styling over this\" he stared down Trump before bringing the mic to his mouth as the beat started to play. \"C.R.E.A.M, cash ruins everything around me yeah\" still bobbing his beat as he tried to catch the beat,\" Trump laughing into his mic. \n\n\"Lazy. Just like your voters\"\n\n\"If you ain't felt the Bern then you musta never hearda me,\nyou gettin' voted in sounds downright absurd ta me.\nBuilt on democraceee, but no one can seeeee that a racist bigots the opposite of free.\" \n\nA Trump fan upset at the offensive comments towards his glorious leader tried to get through the security line, causing them to break formation and all hell to break loose. While the crowds began to stream past Bernie and Trump towards each other, Bernie and Trump stared each other down before Trump abruptly turned around and went back from whence he'd came.\n" ]	2
	[WP] You are Death. For eons you have adhered to the ancient rules, collecting souls only when it their time, so as to not take sides in the war between God and the Devil. Well, the Devil's been a real dick lately...so you start choosing who dies & when, attempting tip the balance in God's favor.	[ "Stan popped his head into my office doorway. \"Hey, uh, D? Could I speak with you for a moment?\" Uh oh. He was a good guy, and all, but he was my boss (Co-manager, really). However, it wasn't his superiority over me that worried me, but his tone. He seemed... Worried. Stressed, really. Any kind of concern was abnormal for him, though. My buddy Gabriel had the office adjacent to Stan's, and often heard him slacking off, or laughing in that maniacal way he did. Now, his angular face looked troubled, which scared me a little, and I can't remember the last time I felt that. Don't get me wrong: we usually got along well enough; I did my job and he didn't mind (or care, really). It had been like this for quite some time, so Stan and I were used to each other. However, I wasn't used to Stan really giving a crap about work. \n\n\n\"Sure, come on in.\" Hearing my (largely unnecessary) invitation, Stan closed the door behind him. I could tell that for the first time in what felt like millennium, he was here about business. \"Well, uh, D,\" he started to mumble, \"I'm here about...\" I tapped my foot in frustration. This was like hell. Stan was usually quite the conversationalist, but his not getting to the point was bothering me. I found myself tapping my foot in frustration. As I thought this, he was still letting out an \"Uhhhh...\" that set me over the edge. Apparently, I would have to coax the words out of his gaping mouth. \n\n\n\"So, Satan,\" I said coolly, relishing the surprised look on his face when I used his full name, \"I assume you're here about yesterday's reaping.\" After snapping back to reality, Lucifer himself nodded and located his train of thought. \"Yes, exactly! Thank you, D, and...\" As he trailed off again, I flinched at his nickname for me. I had a name, nay, a title, and it was clearly on the desk which he known leaned on. \"Yeah, yesterday. Um...\" If I had eyes to roll, I'd be doing so now. \"Jesus,\" I thought, and quickly un-thought; he was probably listening three doors down. \"He's doing it again.\" I figured that I would have to do his talking for him. \n\n\n\"Alright, let's get to the point. Satan, we're both professionals! Both of us know exactly why you're here, so let's not beat around the bush.\" I tented my bony hands. \"You and God have been in a bit of an office-war for the last...\" I pretended to check my scaphoid for a watch I knew wasn't there, \"Billion years? Anyway, due to the nature of my position, it's been a little difficult to remain a third party.\" Contrary to what the Beast probably thought, being Death wasn't all that easy. When your office is awkwardly sandwiched between that of God himself and the fallen angel, things can get a little... Tricky. That's especially when you yourself are responsible for taking the souls of every sinner and saint. \n\n\n\"It's been a bit of a challenge to be impartial, but I think I've remained Switzerland.\" Noting the glazed look in Satan's eyes, I tried to snap him back to attention. \"Neutral?\" Still nothing. Really? Christ on a bike cycling to work on a Tuesday! (The Christ in question was actually on a health kick, so he didn't mind anyone thinking that lately) The Prince of Darkness was practically drooling on my mahogany desk! \n\n\"OKAY!\" I started, my renewed vigor bringing my inattentive listener back to reality, \"You got me! I messed up! Even if you had been listening to my spiel, it's really not that important. I'll admit it, I screwed up! Yesterday, I tipped the balance in God's favor. I'm a big enough being to admit it.\" I wouldn't like saying this next thing. \"Look... Stan, I'm sorry I reaped all of ISIS.\" Hearing those words from my own mouth, I wanted to vomit. I probably would, if I wasn't an ethereal being, wouldn't get it on my favorite robe, or was just a skeleton. \"But, in my own defense, earlier this year I had to take both Bowie and Rickman! BOWIE, Satan! You know I love his music!\" ", "The paperwork is pilling up again, it seems.\n\nDeath thunked the tip of his scyth into a tall stack of obsydian card paper, which despite the infinite weight of the black blade, held it quite snugly. \n\nHell is burocracy. I harvest souls, not trifle about with paperwork. Death briefly reconsidered hiring an assistant, but remembered the long line of disasters it caused and dismissed the thought entirely. \n\nThat's when his eyes, or at least the sockets where his eyes would have been had he had any, fell onto a golden white envelope, the edges embroidered in lime green thread, sitting on his lecturn. With his bone and skin drapped left hand he grasped the lackered Yew shaft of his scyth and lifted it up off the stack, several black papers defiently still impaled halfway up the blade. With a swift motion and a flurry of thick dark robes, the envelope was perfectly cut openned along the side, never having moved. \n\nWith a motion of his index, a letter slipped out of the envelope and unfolded itself on the cold marble floor of his abode, it read:\n\n>UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT! \n>Dear valued client, \n>After an early retirment Heaven is now under new management! \n>Our new caretaker, Cthulhu, wishes you an eternal dream. \n>Signed, Saint-Peter \n>Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu Nevaeh wgah'nagl fhtagn\n\nThe final part was written in green.\n\nEditing and more during work", "\"Silence in the courtroom!\" boomed Metatron's voice. \n\nDemons, angels, and other celestial beings had gathered in Purgatory's greatest court, all in their true forms. \n\n\"I shall admit I'm not personally pleased with Abaddon's actions, but I must agree they are, if not just, then justifiable,\" argued Gabriel, playing the role of death's advocate. \n \n\"How so?\" said Michael, being one of the judges, along with Metatron. \n\n\"Lucifer and his kin,\" said Gabriel, \"have been visiting our earthling brethren since the dawn of time, meddling, tempting them, offering them unimaginable material goods and wealth in exchange for their souls, and we've been just turning a blind eye.\" \n\n\"Objection, your Honours!\" stepped in Samael, playing the role of prosecutor, and, in this case, being the devils' advocate; \"that's slander. It was never explicitly asked of my clients to not _'meddle'_ with earthlings. Besides, the earthlings always know beforehand what a contract with my clients entails.\" \n\n\"Oh, yes?\" said Gabriel. \"What about the tempting?\" \n\n\"No one has stopped you from showing them the righteous path instead, Gabriel,\" said Samael. \n\n\"That would be meddling with their free will, Samael!\" responded Gabriel, obviously frustrated. \n \n\"Enough.\" said Metatron. \"We're deviating from the current case. Which is Abaddon's interference and lack of objectivity.\" \n\n\"As we can see, Abaddon is incompetent in his position as the Angel of Death, and had been compromised,\" said Samael.\n\n\"Your words would be more convincing if all the realms didn't know you were after my position,\" spoke Abaddon, who had been silent all this time. \"I cannot deny I'm guilty of picking sides. But nothing more than that.\" \n\n\"Nothing more?\" said Samael in a sarcastic tone. \"You killed every single child! Even newborns! If we were on earth, you'd be charged for the most gruesome genocide!\" \n\n\"Now now,\" said Gabriel. \"Killed? _Killed?_ That's sort of impossible, being who Abaddon is, don't you think? As for the... _spiriting away_ of the--\" \n\n\"Oh, nice way to put it. That makes it so much nicer!\" spoke Samael, his voice half amused, half irritated. \n\n\n\"As for the spiriting away,\" restated Gabriel, \"of the children. First of all, Abaddon cannot be condemned for doing him job. His job is to take away people, and that he did. Furthermore, there's precedent,\" he inserted, when he saw Samael ready to object. \"Shall I remind you all of Yahweh's spiriting away of all the firstborn boys in Egypt?\" \n\n\"Are you comparing Abaddon to Yahweh, Gabriel?\" asked Samael maliciously. \n\n\"Tangentially, yes. Who wouldn't want to be as close to God as possible? And, through his actions, Abaddon has come closer to Him than any of us.\" \n\n\"Hybris, Gabriel!\" said Samael. \"Abaddon only did this to fill Heaven with more innocent souls.\" \n\n\"And where's the harm in that?\" \n\n\"Free will, as you said,\" answered Samael. \n\n\"Didn't your clients descend on Earth and rape women? Where was free will there? As I said, my client, Abaddon, might be held accountable for picking sides. But what he did is an act of agape and goodness.\" \n\n\"I've heard humans have a saying,\" said Metatron, \"the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.\" \n\n\"Then Hell had better paved wider roads,\" said Gabriel, \"for we all in here ought to be there.\" \n\n\"I think Metatron meant it a bit more metaphorically\" said Gabriel, \"for Abaddon might have acted with his heart at the right place, so to say, he did not think of the ramifications such acts could have. \n\n\"If Abaddon had spent with the living half the time he spends with the dead, he'd know that the number of atheists and agnostics is increasing. While your action, Abaddon, has indeed brought many an innocent soul in our halls, how do you think earthlings will take this? They'll turn away from God. Or worse, despise Him. Without wanting it, you've paved the road to Hell for many a parent on Earth who has lost a child.\" \n\n\"Surely many will turn to God though,\" said Gabriel, almost imploring. \n\n\"Surely, said Metatron. \"But we can't know how many. The times have changed. This is why we're not to interfere in earthling affairs.\" \n\n\"Alas, we have,\" sighed Michael. \"Thus, I decree, and I believe Metatron will agree with my decision, that Abaddon be stripped off his position as Angel of Death, and spend more time with humans.\" \n\n\"Brother,\" said Samael, \"if I may--\" \n\n\"You shall not become the new Angel of Death, Samael,\" interrupted Michael. \"You shall also spend your time with Abaddon down on Earth, keeping each other in check, so that none of you interferes with their affairs. I shall take Abaddon's former responsibilities myself from now on.\" \n\nAs Abaddon and Samael were descending towards the realm of earthlings and taking more of a human-like form, Samael was smirking. \n\n\"What Michael said, about humans turning against Yahweh because of what I did,\" said Abaddon, \"did you know about it when you suggested it to me?\" \n\n\"Ah, so gullible, Abaddon, tsk tsk tsk,\" Samael shook his head. \"And they say no one cheats death.\" ", "\"Hello and welcome to Sky News Tonight, I'm Martin Stanford.\"\n\n\"And I'm Anna Jones\"\n\n\"Chaos in Europe: a set of surprise explosions during a diplomatic meeting with UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Vladmir Putin left both leaders dead and several injured\"\n\n\"ISIS Reformed: in the wake of the mysterious disappearance of their previous leaders, we talk with Umar Al'Saad, the new reformist leader of IS as he pledges to rebuild Syria and unite the Middle-East into a single democratic republic\"\n\n\"But first; here's Isobel Lang with the weather.\"\n", "\"Sir...\" The officer's expression was somewhere between confused and irritated. I suppose that's what happens when you get tipped off by a skeleton in a cloak. \"What, exactly, do you mean?\"\n\n\"There's a pair of drug dealers on Elm Streets. You can bust them if you hurry.\" Had I possessed any flesh to put it on, I would have turned to my watch. But instead I just turn my massive scythe towards to clock on the wall. \"Look, I want you to go and bust these jerks. It would make the world a better place.\" \n\nThe officer scratched his head. \"Who are you?\" \n\n\"I'm Death. Capitol D. Long story short, I'm supposed to be nonpartisan, what with that whole 'free will' thing, but Satan's being a bit of a jerk, so I figured I could do something to help out God.\" The officer made a slight 'o' with his mouth at that comment. I tapped my bony foot. \"So, could you just go and do your job?\"\n\n\"If you're really Death, shouldn't it be your job to go reap their souls?\" \n\n\"Look, I'm not the one who makes the rules of the universe. My job is to guide the souls of people who died. It's your job to keep the peace. But back when He gave me this job, He said nothing whatsoever about tipping people off.\"\n\nThe officer glanced at the clock, licking his lips nervously. \"Elm Street, you say?\" I nodded. \"And we can still catch them?\" I nodded again. \"Well, thank you, Mr. Death.\" He moved to take a sip from his cup, but I waved my index finger at him. \n\n\"You'll live a lot longer if you don't do that.\" I paused to think about it. \"On second thought, you'll probably live way longer if you just get off the drinks altogether. It'll save you a lot of grief.\" If I had one, I would have tipped my hat to him. As it stood, I simply nodded. \"Good day to you.\" \n\nAs I walked out of the police station, I was accosted by Gabriel. Dude's generally cool, but I figured that he'd have something rude to say to me. \"Whatever happened to free will?\" The Archangel said to me. The snow around him melted where he stood- one of the many side affects of having a flaming robe and halo.\n\n\"They don't have to listen to my tip.\" He raised an eyebrow. \"Not my fault that they listen to talking skeletons.\" I strode off, waving to him as I went. \"Tell ya what, if you promise not to mention this conversation, I'll give the Pope an anonymous tip. What'd ya say?\" \n\nGabriel sighed. \"I cannot foresee this going well.\"", "“Hello Angel, up for a bit of fun?”\n\nI gritted my teeth, leaning on my scythe as I tried to keep the rage from my eyes. It didn’t do to antagonize him. “No… Thanks.”\n\nLucifer grinned, the serrated edges of his teeth gleaming in the flames. “Ah come on, baby. You’ll always remember your time with the Devil.”\n\nVile. He was vile, disgusting and depraved. I’d seen what he had done with the poor souls I had brought, the games he played, the deals he struck just to watch the hope burn and then die in their eyes. I raised my hood, taking in slow, deep breaths. When I got agitated, good people tended to die. The “nice guys finish last” clause had that effect. Another thing to bring up in my weekly meeting with God.\n\nThe fires of hell burned around me, my latest batch of deliveries shrieking and begging- their cries adding to the cacophony of suffering. I tried not to listen. In their screams they cursed me… Only ever me. Never the sadist responsible for their suffering. I looked up at Lucifer, freezing as I took in the hunger in his eyes.\n\n“That cloak looks good on you.” He smirked, “Although I know what would look better.”\n\nHis hand snaked out to grab my wrist and I yanked myself away, using enough force to actually crack the bones in his fingers. He snarled, drawing back his injured hand and immediately healing his new wounds.\n\nI barely had time to smirk before his power caught me, blasting me backwards and into the sulphur-covered ground, my entire body barking with pain. He took a step forward, ready to strike another blow, but at that point a halo of light surrounded me. It’s brightness burned him like a brand- forcing Lucifer to hop backwards, hissing. \n\n“The Big Man isn’t going to be around forever, Darling.” He spat, “And when he’s gone, there’ll be no one left to save you.”\n\nI scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could, ready to fight. The Devil just chuckled, melting into the shadows of his realm and leaving me behind, shaking.\n\nAs I flew out of Hell I could feel my heart pounding in synch with each beat of my blue-black wings. As much as I hated to admit it, the Devil was right. I mean, God was amazing- he took the humanitarians, the peacemakers, the freedom fighters, the saints. But what use did those souls have against the army of the Devil- the dictators, the killers, the lawyers! When the final battle came, Lucifer would win. And there would be no rock left for me to hide under. \n\nAbove me, the humans lived out their lives. I felt the pull of a few tonight, not as many as last week. Their medicine was improving. Above me, huge cities grew and teemed with life. Even a few of those could turn the tide.\n\nI knew the consequences of my choice before I made it. I knew the burden, the rights and the wrongs. I knew my punishment.\n\nThe decision was my own.\n\nOver the next few years, close to 100 million souls were taken before their time. I wasn’t good at this- bringing untimely and unsanctioned ends, and I’m sorry to say that they likely suffered more than they had to. A small consolation is that nearly every casualty received immediate salvation- a free ticket to heaven. God’s ranks swelled with fighters, kings, tacticians, scientists.\n\nThe humans had a different name for me then- Black Death. \n\nWhen Lucifer and his demons found me, as I knew they would, I was kneeling by the banks of the river Thebes. As they approached me, I could only smile.\n\nIt was worth it. Every cut, every scar.\n\nSometimes now, when I catch my reflection, I feel sorrow. I miss my wings- those beautiful black spans that could carry me into the heavens and the depths of the Earth. I miss my smile, my dark eyes and thick hair. \n\nBut then I remember... And the regret fades away.\n\nThe Angel of Death was weak… But the Reaper bows to no one.", "\"So I says, well, if you can't take the heat...\" The whole bar erupted in laughter. \n\nThe joke teller stood at the bar and dramatically downed his glass of bourbon in one swig, a trickle coursed it's way down the edge of his goatee and he drug at it with a sleeve, laughing with all the rough bar patrons at his own hilarity.\n\nI hated Iblis . I knew him when he was Lucifer, but he's been through more names than Prince, and now currently favors the name that the Muslims have given him. He's \"tested\" humans for eons. Tempting, promising, cajoling, dealing, whatever-he-can-think-of-ing to get otherwise good people to turn away from God. Our father. OUR.\n\nEons ago, I was tasked with the rather unpleasant job of taking souls to where they belonged. My father gave many of his favorites jobs. Michael, the warrior. Abbadon, bringer of the end (so far, unemployed). There are many others, but to me, he gave the job of guiding souls to where they deserved to go when they died. There are many each day, but through the power of divine spirit, I make time. Literally.\n\n\"Az,\" he said. I ignored him for a second, enjoying the malty complexity of the beer in my hand. \"Azrael, come tell these dudes about that time in Juarez... You remember. The one where we...\" I walk over, dressed in faded jeans and a polo shirt holding my dead guy ale. Hey, I like Irony almost as much as a good micro brew. Everyone else was a tried and true biker. Including Lucifer. They didn't give a shit about those damn drug dealers in the story he wanted to tell. Lucifer had given them all a deal, they'd failed. \n\nOccasionally, when he wanted to make things dramatic, he'd invite me along to bring souls back to hell with him. In this particular instance, we'd taken 20 souls back to hell. Two guys walked into a warehouse full of 23 people. Two guys walk out. We left three people alive. Innocents. Honestly, he tried to corrupt them, but I reminded him it wasn't part of the deal. \n\nI've begun to ignore my brother in almost all of our interactions. He used stories like that to remind people not to cross him. He thrived on fear, jealousy and corruption. I was just there to do a job. Tonight I was there to grab a soul named Victor McCabe. Vic was an asshole. He'd beaten three of his last 6 girlfriends. Not exactly heaven material. I \"knew\" like every soul I took, how, when, and where he was to die. With Lucifer, I, uh, Helped. But that's because it was how it was supposed to be.\n\nNo one knew it was Victor's time, including Lucifer. He was supposed to die an undignified death, slipping and hitting his head tonight. Lucifer asked what I was doing tonight and I said I was headed to Reno, so he tug tug along. He got bored with the \"tedium' that was torturing souls and said he liked to watch me work.\n\nHe regaled the motley group with tales of our misdeeds, and Lucifer got his point across. I interjected where he wanted me to. I don't know how he does it, but he manages to convince people that doing things by making deals with him is in their best interests. If most of those fools don't make a deal that night, they will by years end.\n\nLucifer headed to the John (when in Rome). A few of the guys tried to make small talk with me, but I wasn't interested. Out of the corner of my eye, one of the guys stood up. I'm pretty sure he was going to talk to Lucifer in the John. In slow motion, I saw another guy spill a drink and the first guy slipped. I reached out and grabbed Vic's arm before he would hit his head on the Bar.\n\nI brought his head close to me and spoke too low for anyone else to hear, \"You have a choice, my friend,\" I said quietly. \"Our Father never abandons his children. Lucifer never forgets a debt. Which would you rather have for eternity? The love of a Father, or owe the debt to the Devil?\" I revealed, for a split second, my true face. The classic skeleton face of the reaper, for him to think on. \n\n\"What the!\" he exclaimed, dumbfounded, scrambling to get away from my vice like grip.\n\n\"Just know, Victor McCabe that the grim reaper was here for your soul tonight, but god asked for you to have another chance.\" I released his arm, but he did not immediately move away.\n\nI had a flash of Victor's future life. I smiled, and released his arm. In my vision I saw smiling children, a motley group of christian riders and an odd if well organized church group. \"Spread your message of forgiveness, and you will be saved.\"\n\nHe stood, knowing in his heart what to do and quickly backpedaled out of the bar.\n\nI downed my beer and asked for another. In human form, my heart was pounding, but I knew what I was doing to be good. I wasn't supposed to choose, but the devil... Lucifer... He cheated, while Our Father would not resort to it.\n\nLeft to their own devices, humans, our simple, beautiful siblings were good. Some made bad choices, but often this was fleeting. For them to be forever tainted required but one thing. My brother.\n\nMaybe I was here to even the odds. Our Father wouldn't cheat, and no one can cheat death, but can Death cheat?\n\n\nEdited for a word and to say Thanks to whomever gilded this. I am very glad you liked the story." ]	7
	[WP] Four roommates are extraterrestrials who have taken human form in the hopes of learning about Earth's culture. Unfortunately, each alien is from a different planet and believes the other three are normal humans.	[ "The mission was clear to Kz'Flibr'fitz of Johtiz V. He was to infiltrate a \n\ndomicile with several natives to planet Brax'x III, live among them, learn from \n\nthem, and report back with a bi-rotation report. This was the simple and clear \n\nwhole of the mission. The muddled, un-understandable part was how different \n\neach of his new 'room mates', as they were called, acted. If Kz'Flibr'fitz, now \n\nknown as Jack, didn't know any better, he'd say that he lived with three other \n\nalien species also disguised as humans, trying to complete the same mission as he \n\nwas.\n\n\nTheir missions were clear to all of them: Zzziz of Rygyl IV, Krop of Lump, \n\nand <sound of a wet balloon falling down a well into dry pudding> of <the sound \n\nit makes when you pick up an orange too softly and drop it onto thick carpet>. \n\nThe unclear section to all of them was how strangly their living companions acted. \n\nSecretly, they all felt that something was amiss.\n\n\nZzziz, now called Matt, believed that he had been unlucky enough, through \n\nintense displeasure of the Luck God Feeeeellum, to find himself housed with \n\nhumans who were all under the effects of a Mytrubian Stupidity Curse, or worse, \n\nwere totally normal humans. Matt's culture was investigating the Earthlings as a \n\npossible alliance to help them fight the viscious Lumpians in a drawn-out war.\n\n\nKrop of Lump, now referred to as Pete, thought that perhaps the poor \n\nhumans had not been smashed in the head enough during childhood to properly \n\ninflame their gross, wet brains. His mission was to find intelligent negotiators to \n\nhelp with the Rygylat Empire's senseless war against the noble Lump race.\n\n\nThe one now calling itself Myow, after a delightful sound it heard a small \n\nfood creature make, only understood that it had found a perfect example of how \n\ninsane the people of this planet were, and would report back often that immediate \n\ndestruction was required. Myow's request would constantly be postponed, as it \n\nturns out that three other intelligent species were using the planet for similar \n\nresearch, and destruction would not be allowed until the others' mission was \n\ncomplete. Myow would have to bide it's time until these mysterious other \n\ncreatures finshed whatever work it was they were doing, somewhere on this small \n\nugly rock.\n\nThey have been living together for exactly one Earth month now, and for the \n\nfirst time in that month, there was a knock on the door. \n\n", "Balancing on just two legs was proving difficult. Dave had been hoping to practise alone in his room, but two of the Earthlings had insisted the intoxication ritual was one that could not be missed. So every one was getting ready to hit a bar. He wasn't sure what getting ready meant, but following Bobs lead he put on his jacket, then stood in the bathroom for several minutes, like the others had done. He wasn't sure what he should be doing in there. He was doing well but was feeling tired.The others had obviously not travelled as far as he had to get there.\n\nJimmy passed the barman several pieces of paper currency, and asked for the same as what the group of people he other end of the bar had. He was feeling worried. The others were not communicating with him as much as he had hoped. Maybe he shouldn't have suggested doing some probing at the end of the night?\n\nKeith was starting to feel the alcohol poisoning. He couldn't stop his face smiling and was struggling to control what was coming out of his mouth. The others had been too quiet after he had made that stupid remark about Obama. Maybe making fun of the planets leader was a serious faux pas here.\n\n'Lets get a kebab!' Called Bob as the group staggered from the bar. He had heard someone else say it in the bathroom and the other fellows comrades cried in approval. He hoped one of them would take the lead as he didn't have a clue what it meant.\n\n", "Brian had called a flat meeting to discuss something important. \nI was late home though which I knew would upset him. That guy was more uptight than my professors and my boss at Pizza World put together. Always insisting on exact schedules, chore lists, strict house rules, -he even tried proposing a flat curfew. I had to draw the line there and tell him that’s just not how things are done. Which to be fair did make him drop it pretty quickly. Also helped that Garth had been on my side there, he was a real night owl, out all hours of the night so that didn't suit him at all. \n \nMy other two flatmates were already sitting in the lounge when I entered. Both had very serious looks on their faces. Garth was leaning against the door to the kitchen looking like he’d just stepped off the cover of Goth Monthly. \nJohn sat with his hands on his knees, wearing sunglasses as he always did, even inside and at night. That was his only out-there eccentric trait though; otherwise he was almost too normal if you know what I mean, like he was trying too hard. \n”Hey guys,” I said as I entered “Sorry I'm late, Phil couldn't do his shift so Mr. Grant had me fill in for him”, I cracked a smile “heh, fill in for Phil”. Both of them looked at me blankly. \n”Yes, very amusing Scott.” Brian suddenly spoke behind me making me jump slightly, “a play on words. A pun. Demonstrating dexterity with your language skills is most impressive” he continued, “Though I do prefer punctuality as a positive trait. You might have used some form of communication to inform us of your predicament.” \n“Uh, yeah okay Brian, didn't think it was that big a deal. What did you want to talk about anyway, your text didn't say.” –trying to change the subject, Brian would often go on and on once he got on his high horse. A trait that made me long for when I could afford a place without the need for flatmates. \n”That is an accurate observation. For the sake of efficient use of time we will not dwell on the other matter.” He paused and sighed, “Gentlemen” he continued, “based on my observations we have a problem.” \n”Yesh, and what ish that pleashe, what ish thish problem we have eh Shmart guy.” \nGood old Garth, he didn't have much truck with Brian’s attitude either. \n”It’s that I have become aware, through logical deductions and astute observations, that none of us are what we appear.” \nPersonally I had no idea what he was talking about. Garth and John however did react to that. John somehow sat up even more straight and looked nervous. Garth glowered, I’d never seen anyone do that before in real life, but it was a definite glower all right. He didn’t look happy. \n”I don’t know what you shpeak of, I am exshactly what I sheem” he spat. \nJohn spoke up too, “Yes Brian. Have to admit I’m a bit puzzled too. Totally normal, ask anyone, I've got nothing to hide.” \n”Um, yeah Bri, I’m not sure where this is going, but if you've got a problem with us, maybe you should look for another place?” –I wasn't going to waste the opportunity. The other two were strange (excessively normal being a type of strange in John’s case), but Brian was the only one who really irritated me, and if the others got on my side… \n”No. I reject those responses.” Brian flatly stated. \n“you what?” I asked, taken aback. He was an arrogant prat, but that was a new level. My chances of getting the other two against him were getting better. “listen, you can’t just- “ \n”I’ll stop you there Scott” he interrupted, “I can see you are all dedicated to the façade, as is only correct given the need for secrecy in this situation, but again for the sake of saving time I will cut to the chase, so to speak” he paused again. \nThe other two looked pretty agitated now, Garth began to say something but John waved his hand, as though to say –let’s see where this is going. \nBrian reached up and tapped the side of his forehead. “what…?” I started to say, but stopped. The air above Brian’s head shimmered like a mirage. His head was suddenly taller, like a domed cylinder, with pulsing translucent sides. His skin had shifted too, and was now a shade of blue-green. \n”I… I…” -I didn’t know what to say. Brian was weird… but… I mean –what? \n”As you can see I am, as I have deduced the same can be said for you, not a native of this world.” \nThis was however news to me. I involuntarily sat down hard on the chair I was standing in front of. My knees losing strength. \nTo my surprise neither Garth nor John appeared as shocked as I felt. I couldn’t get my head around this. Things like this don’t happen, this was… \n”Well.” John said “this is disappointing” and took off his sunglasses. \nI goggled. Which I also hadn’t seen anyone do before, but goggle is what I did. \nUnder his sunglasses, instead of normal eyes, John had two sets of three multifaceted silver insect eyes. Six eyes. This was too much. \nThere was a wet squelching sound, Garth’s body… did something I can’t even describe, like turning inside out without moving. Where he’d stood was a thin stick like pale figure with a long pointy head and a mouth filled with more teeth than I’d ever seen in one place. Each one needle sharp. \n”Ah, excellent! I’m glad we could move forward without further dissembling” Brian sounded pleased. \n“Yesh, very clever ‘Brian’, we are ash you shay, not human” the thing which had been Garth said, “I recognishe your kind, a Cerebellian of the Cortex shystem yesh?”. \n”Yes. That is a correct observation, and you are, as I deduced from your nocturnal excursions, particular diet, and propensity for watching celebrity Big Brother, a Sidial Nothrax” He turned to John, “Mr. Smith here, I deduced, even before you revealed the distinctive ocular arrangement, was of the mimic race Pokwa from the fifth moon of Phonac, from your strict adherence to local cultural averages within a .5 deviance of error.” \n”You have me at an disadvantage” John replied, looking unconcerned, “I am unfamiliar with your people, -but the Nothrax I know, many of my kind fell in the war of Sidial” \n”Yesh, and it wash glorioush” Garth growled, grinning ghoulishly looking like the proverbial alien-piranha-cat that ate the canary. \nOkay. This was too much, “But I AM human!” I said. \nThey all looked at me. \n”Ah yes. Scott. I must admit you gave me trouble. I delayed announcing this to the co-habiting group here out of a belief that even though the other two were as I am, non-natives, I could continue my mission of observation on normal human behaviour through yourself.” \n”You mean he’s human?” John asked, “well this is unacceptable. You must be aware that galactic law is quite strict on this. No non-advanced natives are allowed knowledge of alien life until they have achieved a level nine society.\" \n”Ah” Brian raised one long skinny blue-green finger, “I said I believed that was the case. I was mistaken. A rarity for my people.” \nI tried to get up. I couldn't. I mean I literally couldn't move. \n”what are you doing to me? Why can’t I move?” I was panicking. \n”The reason for that is nothing to do with us I'm afraid Scott” \nI felt a strange cold feeling like dread in my chest. \nThere was a hissing noise of decompression. \nThen to my horror, my chest opened. Like some sort of hatch, and a mechanical steel arm extended. On the end of which a small bug-eyed, little cream coloured creature sat on a little chair surrounded by little levers. \n”Okay you got me” It said in a jovial voice. “but you have to admit, the AI in this suit is great camouflage, even it couldn't tell it wasn't human”. \nI tried to say something, but that function had been disconnected. \n", "The first being entered the room. He looked around him. He first noticed the fridge, the couch and a t.v. He had no idea what any of them were for.\n\nThe second being entered and said to the first being, \"Hello, fellow human.\"\n\nThe first being replied, \"Hello, human\". \n\nThe first being opened the fridge. He noticed there were things in the fridge. He began to put other random objects into the fridge, hoping he looked natural. \n\nHe stuffed the toaster into the fridge, then the oven mitts; then he closed the fridge and sat down on the couch.\n\nThe second being became nervous. He thought, \"I must do something human-like, or I will be found out.\" \n\nThe second being went over to the kitchen sink, and turned it on. He grabbed the first thing he saw, which was a plate, and ran it under the water. \n\nHe turned the sink off, then placed the plate into the fridge. He decided to sit on the couch as well.\n\nThe third being entered the room. He said, \"Hello, humans! I am glad that we are all humans.\" After seeing the others reactions, he felt like he nailed it. He knew he would learn a lot about humanity from them.\n\nThe others replied, \"Yes, being human is all we like to do\".\n\nThe fourth being was on his way to the room, and he noticed a man eating pizza. He thought, \"This is what they do. I must get a yellow triangle to eat.\"\n\nHe entered the room and met the other beings. The first thing he said was, \"Hello fellow humans. Let's go get a yellow triangle and eat it.\"\n\nThe others had no idea what he meant, so they just went along with it. \n\n\"Yes, a yellow triangle would be great to eat.\"\n\nThey made their way down the street, looking for yellow triangle. The fourth being saw a sign with a little man holding a yellow triangle that read \"Little Caesars\". \n\n\"There, yellow triangle.\" The fourth being said. They all made their way to the store and went inside.\n\nAs soon as they entered, they saw a pizza behind they counter. They all proceeded to walk back behind the counter and eat the pizza.\n\nA Little Caesars employee spotted them. \n\n\"What are you doing? Get out of here! I'm calling the police!\"\n\nAfraid, the fourth being ran out of the store the others followed him. They just kept running. \n\nAs they made their way across the street the fourth being was hit by a car, and died. \n\nThe other beings looked at each other, standing in the street. They all seemed to come to an unspoken agreement that running in front of cars and getting hit by them was a normal human activity. \n\nWhen the next car passed, the first being jumped in front of it, and got hit. He, however, didn't die. \n\n\"This is indeed a most painful human activity, my fellow humans.\" He said.\n\nThey then heard sirens coming down the street. Police and paramedics rushed over to them. \n\nThe police apprehended the second and third being; they were then taken to a mental asylum, and placed in separate cells. The first being was taken by the paramedics and placed in the hospital.\n\nAs soon as all of them were alone, they decided it was not a good idea to stay here. The environment was too alien for them. So they all beamed back up to their Motherships.\n\nNone of them ever knew that the others were in fact, not human.\n\n\n\n", "As his hand gripped the Zalgonian blaster tighter, Zack scanned the three faces sitting at the table. Mark, Kevin, and James, all preoccupied with their morning routines, ignored his curious stare. \n\n\nHm. Earthlings, my mission here is do- no. Too formal. Why call them earthlings? They'd consider it a joke. Address them by name? No. Too weird. Guys - we need to talk. Yes, that was it. Nice and non confrontational. \n\n\nThat morning he had awoken to a blinking red light from his briefcase. The standard issue Zalgonian blaster case came with a security warning, but he never thought it would actually have been of use. Someone had opened the lock on the box and seen his alien weaponry without inputting the correct passcode. He was compromised by one of the people sitting around the table, and he had to abort his mission quickly. \n\n\"Guys, we need to talk.\"\n\nThe faces looked up, puzzled. \n\n\"Did you pee on the toilet cover again?\"\n\n\"No. Its more serious than that. I, I have a confession to make. You won't remember this, but I need to debrief you before I go...\"\n\nIntensely staring now, Mark and Kevin tilted their heads wonderingly. \n\n\"I'm not actually an honors student from Delaware. I'm not from around here at all.\"\n\n\"We know that\", Kevin frowned. \"Neither am I... You couldn't even imagine.\"\n\n\"Oh I could.\" Mark retorted. \n\n\"Me too actually, I'm from somewhere...really far away.\" James added. \n\n\"No guys, you don't understand. My name isn't Zack. Its Zorflax.\"\n\nMark's eyes narrowed. \n\n\"Zorflax? That's...\"\n\n\"Yeah it's different. I'm an alien from a planet one million light years away. I was sent here to catalogue your relatively inconsequential planet. When I got here, my team and I were surprised to find the complexity of your species. I have been studying you for the past year. While I have enjoyed your company, one of you has betrayed my trust by ope-\"\n\n\"That's an Optixenian name, isn't it?\" Mark asked. \n\n\"Yes. Anyways, one of you went through my things. I have proof that you've seen my Za- hang on... How did you know it was an Optixenian name?\" \n\n\"I actually honeymooned on Optix 6 back in the day. I can't believe I'm jeopardising my vacation but... My word! The coincidence! I take it you're doing a cataloguing internship for the intergalactic highway commissions?\"\n\n\"Yes.. But. But. But what are you doing on Earth? I thought you were a human!\"\n\n\"Oh I've been travelling. Seeing the universe. Took a great backpacking trip through Andromeda. Even went through the Cozoglian asteroid belt. It's beautiful.\" Mark laughed. \n\n\"That it is!\" Kevin agreed, before cupping his mouth. \"Shit. Oh damn. Me and my big mouth. Welp, cat is out of the bag. I'm from Capek 3. Passed by the asteroid field on my way here. I'm a writer. Been documenting this planet for some time now. Fascinating stuff. Did you know they raise the young of different species and pamper them for life?\"\n\n\"Yes I did. That was one of the key research points I had to discuss,\" Zorflax continued. \"But can we get back to the case of the opened case? One of you saw my blaster. I specifically purchased a lock as humans do to indicate that case was private! You should all know the signs of a Zalgonian blaster!\"\n\n\"Oh but I do!\" came the reply in unison. Mark and Kevin looked at each other.\n\n \"I would never open a case with those markings\".\n\n\"Well dont look at me!\" Kevin fumed. \"I'm a pacifist ever since I saw the slaughter of Zoigons on Titan 9. I avoid guns altogether.\"\n\n\"A necessary action. Zoigons started the war, not us. But if not you... Then who?\" Zorflax quipped, a puzzled look forming on his face. \n\n\n\"... You guys are pretty fucking weird.\"\n\n\nThree sets of heads turned towards the fourth, currently face down in a plate of pancakes topped with maple syrup. \n\n\"Hmm?\" James mumbled, mouth stuck together. \"Okay, sorry, maybe not weird but... Oh. Yeah... About the gun thing. I'm sorry, we don't have those where I come from. I was curious.\"\n\n\n\"And where would that be?\"\n\n\"Yeah! You said you were from far away! Well I'm from Capek 3, Zorflax is an Optixenian, and Mark is from...\"\n\n\"Kuliperax.\"\n\n\"Yeah. You can't hold out on us! Where are you from? Sindaria? Toraxen?\"\n\n\"I'm from Canada.\"\n\n\"Canada?\" yelled three voices. \n\n\"Yeah. Thunder Bay actually.\"\n\n\"So you're a human? Homo canadiensis?\"\n\n\n\"Born and raised buddy.\"\n\n\"So what's a common Canadian ritual?\" Zorflax asked, remembering his anthropological mission. \"What do you guys do?\"\n\n\"Well, for one, we sell milk in bags.\"\n\n\"You guys are pretty fucking weird.\" Zorflax sighed. ", "Day 1: Following standard protocol, I have started a mission log in case of my capture. I will reach target location in one earth rotation and the camouflage device is primed for the mission. I have decided to adopt a passive strategy in which I would not perform any action and solely repeat actions done by other earthlings. \n\nLong live the Ktsrri empire. \n\nDay 2: I have enrolled in the institution otherwise known as \"college\" and have been assigned to a dwelling with three other earthlings, which should give me ample opportunity to adopt their culture. One lunar cycle is all I have to gather data on human behavior from the three earthlings before entering their community. I'm scheduled to inhabit the dwelling at the next planetary cycle. It would be the most dangerous part of the mission, as I do not have sufficient data to imitate human behavior. However, I am confident my strategy would allow me to gain their trust. Alas, as the earthling saying goes, \"the planet receive least light before the arrival of crepuscular rays\". \n\nLong live the Ktsrri empire. \n\nDay 3: I do not believe the humans have uncover my true identity, but I fear they are suspicious of me. Contrary to intel collected on their network, the other three human simply stood there after the initial standard greeting. We then proceed to stare at each other in silence for 6.34 earth hours before I noticed it's the time the average human enters a dormant state. I decided to retreat to my room in order to avoid suspicion. The data gathered on their \"internet\" does not show long hours of silent staring as part of their social convention. Perhaps they're waiting for me to perform an action confirming my status as a human before I can gain their trust. It seems I will have to switch to a more aggressive plan and perform a human action to gain their trust. The mission is not going well, but such is the life of a scout. \n\nLong live the Ktsrri empire. ", "Ford returned to his bed, opened his journal, and wrote. \n\n_Human beings are weird creatures. On one hand normal, yet quirky. Most of them discuss topics, such as football, rugby and basketball, sporting activities which are essentially players in two teams who fight over the possession of different balls, with the intention of getting the ball to a certain place. In the case of football, -_\n\n\n\"Hey, Al!\" Ford called to his roommate, a supposed football guru. \"What's the aim of football?\"\n\n\n\"Well, ah... 10 players... Wait no 11 players have to work together to get the ball into the point-place...I mean goal, and uhh... Basically a bunch of different rules which are so numerous I couldn't tell you now.\"\n\n\nFord deleted his last line and decided then, that he had done enough writing for the day. Satisfied with himself, the man from Betelguese Seven set out to find his friend Arthur, who lived just down the street where a yellow bulldozer currently sat. As he poked his head into Al's room to inform him of his little excursion, Al quickly closed his book and spun around. As Ford slowly told Al of his next destination, he couldn't help but notice Al's book, for it was light blue, and on it's cover, printed in large friendly letters, \"DON'T PANIC\".\n\nEdit: this is my first try at replying to a WP. I also changed the prompt a little, found it hard to fit 4 characters ", "\"HELLO, FRIENDS.\"\n\nThey nodded at each other across the table. A steaming dish of casserole was between them. For a moment, they fidgeted nervously.\n\n\"IT SMELLS DELICIOUS TO MY HUMAN NOSE, ALISHA.\"\n\n\"YES, IT SMELLS JUST LIKE FROTLIX FROM LUSHIA- I MEAN, THE PLEASANT MEATS OF... MOROCCO.\"\n\nAlisha haltingly reached out for the spoon and began to serve the others. \"PLEASE ENJOY THIS.\"\n\nNodding vigorously, the other three lifted their bowls and held them close to the casserole. She carefully served them a green and orange mush. They grabbed their forks and enthusiastically shoved it into their mouths while mashing their jaws together.\n\n\"ALL OF MY SENSES ENJOY THIS. TOUCH. SMELL. WARGLE0. AND SIGHT. JUST LIKE A HUMAN,\" Lyle said while turning to meet each of their eyes.\n\n\"YES. IT IS BEAUTIFUL.\"\n\n\"SO HAVE ANY OF YOU SEEN THE PRICE OF LIQUID HYDROCARBONS? IT IS TOO HIGH,\" Barry said suddenly.\n\n\"YES,\" was the chorus of replies.\n\n\"THAT IS SHIT - A HUMAN EXPRESSION OF DISPLEASURE.\"\n\n\"I AGREE, I AM ALSO DISPLEASED,\" said Alisha.\n\n\"SAY, EDWARD-\" Lyle began.\n\n\"ED-\" Edward started.\n\n\"-YOU MIGHT ENJOY PLAYING VIDEO GAMES WITH ME AND MY FRIENDS: ADAM. PETER. BRONGL- I MEAN. PHIL. BRONGLIPHIL. WE CALL HIM PHIL FOR SHORT.\"\n\n\"YES. PHIL. A WONDERFUL HUMAN NAME,\" Edward said, \"VIDEO GAMES ARE FUN. I WILL DO THAT.\"\n\nBarry turned to Alisha and stared at her eyes for several seconds. \"ALISHA. MAYBE YOU WOULD LIKE TO TAKE A JOURNEY WITH ME. I WANT TO GO HOME TO THE LAKES OF TITA- MINNESOTA.... EH. BEAUTIFUL MINNESOTA.\" Barry began to sweat.\n\n\"YES BARRY. I WOULD LIKE TO TRY OUT THE NEW BOOTS I HAVE FOR MY TENTACLES. HUMAN BOOTS. THAT FIT VERY WELL ON MY HUMAN FEET.\" \n\n\"AWESOME, AS HUMANS SAY.\" \n\n\"YES.\"\n\n\"SO,\" said Lyle, \"WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH AIRLINE FOOD? IT IS NOT TASTY.\"\n\n\"AH AH AH AH. FUNNY JOKE SO I EXPRESSED MIRTH THROUGH LAUGHTER,\" Alisha opened her mouth wide.\n\n\"THANK YOU.\"\n\nThey continued mashing their food in silence for a moment. Their eyes flittered to the others at the table. Barry began tapping his hand nervously against the table.\n\n\"THIS WAS WONDERFUL SUSTENANCE, ALISHA. I ENJOY SUSTENANCE AS HUMANS DO,\" Barry said finally.\n\n\"WE SHOULD LEAVE THE HOME AND GET A DAIRY QUEEN,\" she replied. \n\n\"I AM A HUMAN!\" Barry suddenly shouted. \" I WAS MAKING A HUMAN JOKE ABOUT MINNESOTA.\"\n\nThey all turned to look at him. The room went silent.\n\n\"YES.\"\n\n\"YES, ME TOO.\" \n\n\"I AM A HUMAN.\"\n\nNodding again, they stood up and took their dishes from table. They stacked them on the bookshelf, then they all looked to the front door.\n\n\"LET US GET A DAIRY QUEEN.\"\n\n\"YES.\"\n\n\"WAIT,\" said Edward. \" I MUST PEE, WHICH IS WHAT HUMANS DO AFTER DIGESTING CRYSTALS. SOMETHING SURELY A HUMAN WOULD DO.\"\n\n\"YES. WE WILL BE OUT IN THE VEHICLE. SEE YOU OUTSIDE, HUMAN.\" ", "The four aliens sat around the kitchen table for their first dinner in their new flat. All had assumed the appearance of nondescript white males in their early 20's. None of them looked very human, really. One seemed to fit his skin particularly badly; his face looked like somebody had forced marbles into a flaccid balloon. Another had especially shoddy eyebrow placement and looked in a perpetual state of terrified shock. Upon any kind of inspection one would notice that they all had quite striking and disturbing physical deformities, however none of them seemed at all fazed upon initially meeting one another. \n\n'Greeting' said one, 'My name is Mark, and I am here to learn about you and be friend to you'. Mark raised his hand in an awkward kind of salute, which had the effect of causing the others around the table to imitate the gesture, for fear of being impolite. \n\n'Greeting, Mark, I am Nolan' said Nolan, the alien with the marble face. 'I am real human hoping to learn much about you culture here. Pee-sa??' he asked, gesturing to the open pizza box sitting in the middle of the table. \n\nThe four aliens sat silently then, their attention directed solemnly towards the pizza. For some time they sat in quiet and concerned deliberation, none entirely sure on how to proceed with the pizza-eating ritual, and none wanting to give away their lack of worldly knowledge regarding such things. One of them, who identified as 'Mr. Bromford', had some knowledge of human eating rituals and habits, and felt confident enough to dare to begin proceedings. \n\n'My name is Mr. Bromford and I will eat pizza' announced Mr. Bromford to the room. He thrust his hand across the table and grabbed a fistful of piping hot cheese and pepperoni pizza topping. The other's watched on politely as he then attempted shove this pizza-topping-mush into his mouth all in one go, resulting in most of the lower half of his face being covered in melted cheese. 'Yes. Edible' he announced, and so the others all followed suit, shoving fistfuls of pizza topping in and around their own mouths. For a moment they sat in silence, chewing emphatically and attempting to swallow with great difficulty the cheese and pepperoni. The alien who called himself 'John Lewis', after much noisy and ineffective lip smacking and tooth grinding, decided that his attempt to swallow the food was a futile endeavor, and so he opted instead to simply spit out his topping in a chewed up ball onto the floor. 'Delicious' he remarked. Mark and Nolan, assuming this spitting-out-of-food to be a customary act and not wanting to appear rude, proceeded to spit out their chewed up pizza topping onto the floor, too. 'Many thanks to you all' Nolan said, offering an awkward salute again. 'Agreed' replied Mark, smiling widely, hot cheese dripping off of his chin and onto the table. \n\nThe aliens sat in silence then for a moment more, their faces half covered in red pizza sauce and cheese, all contemplating their next action. Nolan remembered something he had heard about young human societies, and had an idea. Reciting a phrase he had learned whilst preparing for his assimilation into young human culture, he announced 'Let us go to The Bar friends, and participate in the intake of liquids'. He had a vague grasp of the concept of a 'bar'; it was the place humans, particularly young ones, converged to socialise and drink liquids together. Mr. Bromford was also somewhat familiar with the notion, 'Ah yes, The Bar. Let us go' he stated. The other aliens, who were slightly nonplussed by this suggested course of action but nonetheless not wanting to appear strange or give away any hint of their secret to the other 'humans', nodded enthusiastically. \n\nAnd so the aliens all stood up and, some with more difficulty than others, made their way awkwardly to the door. Mark was undoubtedly the best at walking; Mr. Bromford swayed side to side on his way through the flat like some kind of drunken pendulum. It was to be a long night for the strange roommates. \n\n\n\n", "\"Hey Brad. Ready for the game of ball later?\" asked Jeff, a six foot, pale skinned human enough looking person as he entered the living room. \n\n\"Hey Jeff, I sure am. I hope we victory so that I can dance on Susan at the party time\" said Brad, sitting on the sofa in his 5 foot 5, darker skinned but equally ill fitting frame. \n\n\"Hey Brad, Hey Jeff. Shall we drink the Pre-Game Pre-Drink drinks? it is the time for that isn't it not?\" asked Tony who was entering the living room from another door, much wider than Brad or Jeff. \n\n\"that would be most radical or expected of us\" said Brad with a nervous smile, finding alcohol messes around with body control systems. \"I hope I do not loose control of my bodily functions\" he continued to himself under his breath. \n\n\"ah, but Brad, dearest fellow human, that seems to be the point of drinking the drinks, isn't it not?\" said Steve who entered, his bare chest with an overly intricate rendition of the school team logo painted across it. His face pointy and odd in places and his ears were far too large for his head, they twitched and sometimes beeped. \n\n\"Welcome to the social group Steve.\" \n\n\"thank you Jeff\" \n\n\"Brad, Steve, Jeff, Shall we make and exit to the sport location for the shouting time?\" \n\n\"It's the watching that is most important Tony, not the shouting\" \n\n\"but the shouting makes them run faster isn't it not?\" \n\n\"Oh Tony, it is like you are a Slugger-spawn from Alpha Centauri XII with ideas like that.\" the group laughed, none of them seeming to pick up on the alien insult, common on their own worlds, but nonsensical on earth. \n\n\"haha, you know me well, you Bugblatter Beast of Traal,\" tony laughed in reply, the others laughing too. \n\n\"ha...wait\" said Jeff \n\n\"haha...wait\" said Brad \n\n\"hahaha...wait\" said Steve \n\n\"HAHAhahaha...ha...ha...Wait\" said Tony \n\nThe four human-ish people looked to each other with suspicious and confused eyes. \n\n\"Oh, blast and damn\" they all said in unison.\n" ]	10
	[WP] Your security alarm goes off, and you go to check the cameras. You see yourself breaking into your own home.	[ "What in the world? That simple utterance could hardly sum up my degree of surprise. I nearly lost my glasses on top of a pile of books related to my particular academic interest at the university. The fuzzy screen in front of me hardly portrayed the magnificent spectacle of what my mind supposed could only be magic. I am not a superstitious man by any stretch of the imagination: I am intelligent, even enlightened. Beyond the viable realm of science, I find it hard to believe anything that is not firmly rooted in fact. Mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell? Certainly. But this...\n\nIn the dim light, my monitor's back-light illuminated a scene straight out of a fictional movie: It was me, yes, undeniably. The striking features could hardly be mistaken...my suit, an expensive rarity. I surmised that the entire incident was a elaborate prank, yet...if it were not? My mind banished the impractical thought, but for the sake of my mental well-being and safety, I decided to venture out into my foyer. \n\nUnsurprisingly, I found nothing there of interest, but for a few stray piles of dirt I resolved to remove in the morning. I decided to settle down upon my couch with a little wine to ease my mind and escape reality. With little effort, my mind shifted to my work at the university, educating and enlightening the mind of young people...perhaps I would atone then. But a sharp rap at the door shifted my attention with the speed of a bullet.\n\n\"Who's there?\" I cautioned, weakly. \nThere was no answer. \n\n\"Who - by God - who is there at this hour? This is private property!\" I said, angrily.\nNothing was to be heard but the silence of a large house with only one occupant. \n\nAnother rap, harsher than before, and the door opened and I walked through the door.\n\"Halt t-t-here, the cops have been called!\" I mumbled, the fear in my voice evident, though I was barely surprised now. \n\nIn fact, I expected this many, many years before. My twin brother drowned in a pool at a young age. A measure of guilt would pervade my earlier years until I realized, quite practically, that at the very least my brother did not suffer long in the grips of our woefully volatile and violent parents. \n\nFor so long I convinced myself that he, my twin brother, would never come calling. Realistically, practically - how could he? I buried myself in science so deeply that I refused to admit to myself that sometimes that thump in the night is perpetrated by something deeper and more complex than humans. Something not bent to the fabric of reality we have created, but rather out of the realm of 'reason'. \n\nI removed myself from the couch hastily and struggled to gather the courage to speak to him. To articulate that which is inarticulate to something inhuman. Would my words make sense to his supernatural presence?\n\n\"Brother, we were both better off dead -\" I managed, before my voice broke. \nA simple understanding was exchanged. I realized that my twin brother was a near mirror of me in that instance, yet more free than I could ever be. Not constrained by the human values I ascribe to, nor the education I strive to provide to my students. I would like to say that this incident left me with some profound statement on reality, but rather, within three days, I returned to my papers. \n\nWhenever you see yourself on camera, it may be prudent to investigate further. I removed the captured footage soon after that night, and never wanted to see it again. My brother would remain a specter, a mere figure, forever, if I could help it. As for my parents, they mysteriously drowned nearly thirty years ago. \n\nThis journal entry, though five weeks late in its conception, is thus closed. ", "My phone goes off in my pocket, and it tells me that a window was open from the outside of my house.\n\nOh shit was my first thought. I open my camera app to see what's going on before I call the cops, only to notice a strange figure.\n\nIt's me.\n\nCarrying two sex dolls.\n\nOn a chain.\n\nAnd through a window of my home instead of using the front door? Damn, I must be drunk again. Oh well, nothing illegal." ]	2
	[WP] Your dreams are extremely vivid and always end with you falling asleep. Now you are losing your sanity because you can't tell what's dream and what's reality.	[ "\"Oh god,\" I moan, rolling over into Al's arms.\n\n\"Another bad dream?\" He sleepily accepts me into his embrace.\n\n\"It was a math test,\" I confirm, \"and I didn't study.\"\n\nHe groans commiseratively (is this a word??) and we hold each other for a few moments in thoughtful silence. Eventually, I push myself into a sitting position and rub my palms aggressively against my eyes, wishing I could physically banish the grogginess from my mind.\n\n\"It's over now,\" I declare. Al shifts a bit so his head falls in my lap, and I stroke his hair affectionately. I reach back and firmly plant the other hand on Tibedlious's warm, scaly skin. \"This is what's real.\"\n\nI let Al fall back asleep against my leg, though I dare not lose consciousness myself. Nearby, birds are chirping, and sunlight begins to filter in through the rafters. I think to myself about how peaceful we must look, Al and Tib and me, all curled up in the hay, not quite ready to face the day. No intruder would know of my personal torment, my fear that even here, I am an outsider, that even my beautiful home is waiting for the chance to kick me out the moment I close my eyes.\n\n---\n\n\"Al!\" I remember the protocol required by my surroundings just in time, and manage to keep the exclamation of my love's name down to a frantic hiss rather than a full-blow scream. He turns around in the crowded hallway, awkwardly clutching some notebooks to his chest.\n\n\"Al...\" my voice trembles. What I'm doing feels wrong, but who cares? It's only a dream, right? None of this should even matter. But Al seems so real, right here, right now. My Aly. His eyes are bright and piercing, staring into mine the way they must have a thousand times before. But the look on his face, akin to that of a deer about to be scooped up in Tib's talons, is a new one for him.\n\n\"We have to get out of here,\" I beg, \"You've gotta help me, I can't take this much longer.\"\n\n\"Uh... jeez...\" I realize Al's gaze is focused not on me, but on something behind me. \"I don't...\" he splutters, and just like that, he turns on his heel, speedwalking out of sight faster than Tib would have been able to spread his wings. I realize how many classmates had watched the whole thing go down when they start giggling and whispering to themselves. Humiliated, I curl up with my back against a wall and rest my forehead against my knees.\n\n---\n\nIt's midday, and the three of us are lounging about similar to the way we were resting this morning, but this time it's under the cool shade of a tree. Aly and I lean against the tree, hand in hand, and Tib stretches out in front of us, taking what cover he can get for his enormous head, and the rest of his body reaches outwards. Glistening in the sun, his limbs tucked under his torso, he looks like a giant shiny puppy. His eyes are closed, but I get the impression that he's ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. Aly and I aren't the best swordsmen, and though the subject fascinates us, we still haven't quite gotten the hang of magic, so Tib acts as our main form of protection, giving us a borderline-false sense of security as we traverse the lands in our increasingly ballsy adventures. He is also our primary mode of transportation, as well as our best friend. The three of us are a team, and together we are unstoppable. \n\n\"I think I've found a way to help you.\" Aly squeezes my hand.\n\n\"Go on,\" I say.\n\n\"I've been doing some thinking, and some research,\" he informs me, \"and the way I see it, if your dreams are causing so many issues for you, the only solution is to never go to sleep.\"\n\n\"Never sleep? That's impossible.\" I smile at him skeptically. \n\n((I haven't finished this because I'm actually pretty interested in the story and I'm not sure if the quick ending I'd have the mental energy to slap on today would give justice to the idea I have. But basically, if anyone's interested, the solution is this magic potion she has to take, but she has to take it inside the dream, and in the dream it's pills and it allows her to stay awake in the fantasy land forever(ish) but it's not really a permanent solution and she gets tired/weak so then they go off to find another one))", "The Great Khan sauntered down the path. The wooden city around him, once a towering example of human achievement, was incandescent with heat and flames. The reek of death permeated all throughout the air, decaying corpses corpses littering the streets like discarded trash. His men were very thorough when it came to matters like this. Whenever the Khan said kill everyone, they knew he really meant kill everyone. \n\nThe Khan's second-in-command, known as Okhotor, emerged from a building, a screaming woman of east Asian descent held by her hair in the barbarian's hand, being dragged along, fighting and struggling all the while. Hardened by years of combat on the steppes, he only looked mildly perturbed by his latest victim, her still not giving up, even when everything she knew was falling apart, consumed by the flames.\n\n\"My liege,\" he said gruffly to the Khan, a faint smile on his lips, \"I saved one for you. I know you like the feisty ones.\" \n\nThe Khan only nodded. He listened to her yells, her ineffectual attacks on his loyal comrade. He would give her something to scream about later tonight, like he had done to many women before her.\n\n__________________________________________________________\n\n\nThe Khan woke up in a cold sweat. He felt like vomiting. He could still taste the metallic blood in his mouth, the domination and power flowing throughout his body. The woman was spent, and he needed a new victim.\n\n\"Okhotor! Ano--\"\n\nHe stopped immediately. That was not the voice of someone who had killed hundreds with his own hands. This was not the voice of a man who plundered riches and turned peasant women into concubines. This was not the voice of a man at all.\n\nSarah looked down at herself, suddenly realizing what had just happened. The yelps of her small corgi dog echoed around her room, heightening her already excruciating headache. When she turned on her lamp, images of horses adorned the wall. She wasn't quite sure how old she was. To her, that dream had lasted months. She had forgotten she was even dreaming. \n\nAn older woman, about middle-aged, walked through the door. \n\n\"Wake up, sleepy head! Happy 15th birthday, sweetie!\"\n\nOh, yes, her mother. It felt like generations had passed since she had last looked at that face. She supposed a special birthday breakfast had been prepared, just for her. Pathetic. He mother knew not the hardships of life. She knew not the pain and turmoil and war. \n\nThe rest of the morning passed in a blur. The next thing she knew, she was at a party. The loud beat canceled out any and all coherent thought. All that mattered was the beat. The obnoxious tone was suddenly her being. It appeared to be a college dorm. \n\nA young man, about college age, snapped his fingers in front of Daniel's face. \n\n\"Yo, Danny, m'boy! You okay? Ground control to Major Tom!\"\n\n\"Calm down, Todd. I'm here.\"\n\n\"You see that chick over there?\"\n\nDaniel craned his head, only to spot a beautiful girl standing around in the corner, chatting to who he presumed to be one of her friends. He blonde hair flowed smoothly over her shoulders, her smile seeming to brighten up the world. He was hers.\n\n\"Alright, bro, I'll take her cute little friend, and then I say we take 'em over to my place. Sound good?\"\n\n\"Yeah, she'll be perfect. I already want to do unspeakable things to her...\"\n\nThings had progressed smoothly. He got her a drink, and before he knew it, the beautiful blonde was in his arms, the whole campus being visible on the dorm's balcony.\n\n\"Wow, I've never met a guy as confident as you...\" she drunkenly giggled. \"You're so hot.\"\n\nDaniel only smiled back. Her perfume was intoxicating, her warm body pressing against his. He couldn't wait for what was going to unfold. \n\n\"Whoa!\" She said suddenly. Daniel noticed she wasn't supporting her own weight any more.\n\n\"My legs... I can't feel m--\"\n\nDaniel put a finger over her lips, shushing her. \"Sit tight now, my dear. It'll be okay.\"\n\nArousal turned to fear in her eyes, her mouth opening to release a scream. Nothing came out. \n\nHe met up with Todd, her limp body in his arms. The people inside just assumed he taking a drunken girlfriend back home, or at least he hoped that was what they thought. It wasn't like any of them knew him, anyhow. \n\nHis friend was beaming, meanwhile. \"You were right, Danny, my man! That stuff you put in their drinks worked like a charm!\" \n\nThe women were tightly bound, and down they drove to Todd's house. His second house, anyway. The one out in the middle of nowhere. The place was few hours away, but it was secluded, and that was exactly what the pair were hoping for. Whenever they arrived, the went into the bottom areas of the lone house, their company in tow, still sleeping like logs. \n\nWhenever they got down into the basement, Dan's jaw hit the floor. The room was pristine, two tables placed a few feet away from each other in the middle of the room. When Todd turned on the lights, it was far too bright, the stark whiteness of room not helping. Dan's heart was racing as he looked around the room, all manner of power tools and saws decorating the wall. It would appear as though his partner had restocked his arsenal, as well as taking the time to clean the place. It looked as good as a hospital.\n\n\"What do you think, my man?\"\n\n\"I'm astounded. How long did it take you to get all this?\"\n\n\"Worry not, dude. Just strap down your victim and put on your apron.\"\n\n_________________________________________________\n\nThe blonde girl groggily opened her eyes, only to see a man equipped huge safety goggles, as well as a surgical mask and thick gloves. She was just about to scream in horror, only to find her mouth was bound with duck tape. Her blood ran cold when she saw the pocket knife in his apron pocket. Oddly enough, she found her clothes still had yet to be taken off by these obvious rapists. If this wasn't some weird fetish joint she had gotten herself into, then what could it be?\n\nShe caught the attention of another man, wearing almost identical gear to the first. \n\n\"Hey, Danny! This one just woke up!\" \n\n____________________________________________________\n\nDaniel smiled under his surgical mask. To the girl, it appeared as though a dark cloud had descended onto him. He approached, and ripped off the duct tape. \n\nHer cries for help were only made louder by the seclusion and claustrophobic nature of the room. Todd didn't quite see the appeal in it, but it certainly made Daniel happy. She only got louder as the man grabbed a saw off of the wall.\n\n\"Oh, man, Todd, you have no idea what I can do with a saw...\"\n\nJust as he leveled the tool above her body, ready to go wild, a police team burst into the room, shooting and killing both of them abruptly. They died happily.\n\n__________________________________________\n\nSarah felt like an alien as she traversed the halls of her school. She had fallen asleep in the car, waken only by her caring mother, chastising her for not getting enough sleep. She could still feel the weight of the saw in her hand. The excitement. The thrill. Yet, it ended so abruptly. She floated through the halls, emitting about as much presence as a ghost. People stayed away from her. She thinks they were muttering about her. It was clear something was wrong, the way she shambled through the school, like a zombie. \n\nNow, she was in history class. She caught bits and pieces of lesson through her murder-induced haze, and it felt oddly familiar. They were talking about the conquest of Mongols throughout the known world. They certainly had a tendency to kill people. It was pointless. She wanted to do something invigorating. Conquering the known world sounded nice. In the corner of her eye, she spotted a boy, known as Alex, looking at her, currently influenced by his rampant hormones. He was pointless, too. She rested her head on her desk. She needed some sleep. She needed a nap. She needed to get her thoughts together. She needed to get herself together.\n\n(The story is continued in the comments!)", "Jeff woke up in a cold sweat. \"Holy shit\" he yelled, covered in sperm.\nJeff woke up in a cold sweat. \"Holy shit!\" he yelled, his face covered in sperm\nJeff woke up with gummy bears stuck to his face, slowly sliding off his face due to the cold perspiration coming off his face. \"Holy shit!\" he yelled, his eyebrows doused in sperm. \nJeff jeffed in a cold jeff. \"Holy jeff\" He jeffed, covered in jeff. \n\n\"Dude you've been staring at that plant for like a whole ten minutes man.\" said Tommy with a look of genuine concern. \n\n\"TOMMY. Let me touch your face. None of this is real.\" Jeff said with a crazed look on his face\n\n\"No man, your hands are all sticky with gummy bears and I don't want you touching my face anyhow.\" Tommy said, relieved at the fact that Jeff was indeed alive. \n\nTommy began his transformation into a dragon made of light and inched his way over to Jeff. Jeff was worried that something sexual would happen as this is what usually happened with dreams. Tommy's dragon genitals inched closer to Jeff's face as he began to cry. \"No Tommy, not the dragon rod...\" Jeff sobbed.\n\n\"Dude what the fuck man...\" Tommy said in disbelief as Jeff rocked himself on the floor. \n\n\"Jeff your mother has arrived, you had better answer the door before she gets worried\" Jeff jeffed to himself. \n\n\"Hello motherjeff, so good to jeff you. Shall we jeff a jeffrey jefforious?\" Jeff smiled at his Mother.\n\nJeff writhed in the dragon skin he wore after slaying the bismuth demon.\n\nJeff writhed in his straight jacket.", "It didn't used to be like this. No matter how vivid my dreams were, I could always tell it was a dream. The superpowers, the fact I woke up and went to sleep in completely different locations than when I was awake. It was simple. It was fun even. All the dream sex (always with the same dream character), all the pretending to be a hero, using doors as portals, flying, you name it, I've probably done it in my dreams.\n\nBut, every so often, I'd wake up and it would still be a dream. False awakenings, they are called. No big deal, I check whether I can do my funky dream abilities, like shift my bedroom to a mountain or forest. Yup, still dreaming, but I want to wake up, so back to bed.\n\nI wake up again. Check again. Nope, I'm awake. No dream abilities, no weirdness like shifting text or blurry hands. I get out of bed and go about my day. Drive to work, sit in front of my computer, somehow stretch one hour of coding work to about three, eat my lunch, do some more work in between banter with co-workers. Then at the end of the day, I drive back, get stuck in traffic, get home and reheat frozen leftovers I cooked over the weekend, and back to sleep by 11pm.\n\nI wake up. No dream last night? Wait. Did that really happen or was I dreaming? I do my little checks. Nothing funky again. Hmm. Maybe I didn't have a dream. I go about my normal routine as always, go to work like normal. But talking to my co-workers, they appear to be getting confused. Apparently, they don't remember yesterday's conversations. Not even the great joke I cracked. This is getting weird, but I shrug it off and continue as always. \n\nA week has gone by, but it isn't clear which day is which any more. I've been waking up, and some days my co-workers remember the previous day's conversations, other days they don't. I remember doing a lot of work and pushing out new features for the program we are developing, but then I'm back to square one the next day. And I can't remember my dreams any more. But am I really forgetting? But why can't I use my powers when I'm dreaming?\n\nI look to the front door of the office as one of our new clients walks in. Immediately I freeze as I recognise who I saw. She's dressed in a suit, looking very professional and smart, but I know her. How could I not recognise her? All those dreams I spent with her, the lewd fantasies I played with her.\n\nBefore long, I'm stuck in a meeting room, with her right next to me. Discussing the deployment of our program with them, going over requirements, training, etc. The topic couldn't be any more drier than the back of my throat. It was then she leant in close, her breath rolling over my ear.\n\n\"So, still think you aren't dreaming?\"\n\nI imagine my face was very pale by now as I stared back at her. She was smiling that same coquettish grin that I was so familiar with. She nodded towards my hand, and naturally I looked at it expecting something. There was nothing, but I figured I might as well do one of my reality checks. I click my fingers. I expected sparks to fly, but nothing happened. Until I looked up.\n\nEverything had frozen still. The clock wasn't ticking. My boss stuck like a statue as he stood in front of the projector, pointing to the presentation he had going. I looked back to the lady next to me, but she wasn't frozen. She was smirking, arms and legs crossed and giving a very smug look.\n\nI wondered if this is how Alice felt. As she fell down the rabbit hole.", "I'm looking forward to crawling into bed. I often do, after days like this-- and this has been a particularly grueling day.\n\nThe divorce was finalized today. I've lost her. I lost her a long time ago, I know, but now it's really done. She never has to see me again, if she doesn't want to. The image of her dark brown eyes, welled with tears, haunts me as I close mine and try to make myself comfortable. \n\nA part of me is relieved. I don't have to pretend any more. I don't have to try every day, every hour, not to hurt Emily, and constantly fail. I've wished for such a long time that I had answers for her questions, her searching glances--I never wanted to hurt her. I was telling the truth when I swore to her that there was no one else, but I can't blame her for being skeptical. How could I possibly have explained to her that I was falling in love with a girl in a dream? How could she possibly understand?\n\nWhen my dream begins tonight I am driving. For a moment I wonder if it will be a \"normal\" dream, perhaps-- the kind where everything is rather hazy and eventually I just crash or drive off a cliff and then I wake up. The kind of dream I used to have, the kind of dream other people have. I haven't had one of those dreams in years. But then the frame comes into focus, sharpening around me. I recognize the steering wheel of my Toyota. I automatically take the left and pull into a familiar parking lot.\n\nI say hello to my boss's secretary as I walk in and then I settle in at my desk and log in to my computer. As the morning bears on I feel fairly energetic, as though I have just gotten a reasonable 7-hour night of sleep or so. Every now and then it occurs to me, in a faint sort of way, that I have actually just lived through a bitterly exhausting day. It goes.\n\nWhen I get back in my car again, a few minutes past 5, I feel good. Force of habit picks up again as I pull out of the parking lot, take the right, get on the highway and get off at the fourth exit. I park in front of the small yellow house and walk up the front steps, fishing my keys out of my pocket and grabbing the mail as I unlock the front door. Snapper greets me excitedly and I ruffle his fur briefly but enthusiastically and walk to the kitchen to set the mail on the table.\n\n\"I'm in here!\" Gina calls from the dining room. I walk up behind her and put my arms around her shoulders, leaning down to kiss the dark curls at the top of her head and look into the box she's unpacking on the table. She turns and kisses me, and I melt into her, smiling against her lips and watching the late afternoon light dance in her green irises as the lacy curtains sway in the breeze of the open window behind me.\n\n\"Mmmm... shall we get started on dinner?\" she asks, her face still very close to mine. \"Or do you want to order in tonight?\"\n\nA couple hours later as I'm clearing the last plastic container from the table I get that sudden twinge, that feeling of being almost outside of myself. The intrusive thought-- What if I wasn't me? This isn't real, is it? I finger the sharp edge of the plastic. The feeling is gone as soon as it came, and I walk into the living room.\n\nI hold Gina tightly that night, feeling uneasy again, and thinking that I should be able to grasp why. My eyes close, and I wake up.\n\nDisoriented, I remember that that was a dream. It happens like this-- early in the day I am aware of the dream I just had, and then it dissipates, like water dripping through my fingers. I almost expect to see a warm body with a head of brunette curls on the bed beside me when I roll over. I get up and turn on the shower. I dress, grab an apple from the counter and put some food in the dog's bowl. I lock the front door, realize I forgot to grab the car keys, unlock it again. One of those days. \n\nI'm going to need coffee this morning, so I stop off at the cafe down the block from my office and order an iced americano, grabbing a straw and a couple napkins while I wait. I hear the barista call my name and turn around, accidentally knocking into a young woman who had been standing behind me.\n\n\"God, I'm so sorry!\" I exclaim, bending down at the same time she does to grab the wallet that flew out of her hand in our minor collision. I stand up and hand it to her, looking into her bright green eyes. They look familiar. She laughs and takes the wallet from me, eyes locked on mine, and holds out her other hand.\n\n\"Don't worry about it,\" she says. \"Lovely bumping into you. I'm Gina.\"\n\n\nEdit: fixing the autocorrect that apparently thinks it should be an \"iced American\" instead of an iced americano" ]	5
	[WP] You live in a world where being sick is considered a crime.	[ "We approached the outskirts of the great metropolis. The only thing inbetween us was a single checkpoint. I gripped my wife's hand and she smiled at me, though I could see the fear in her eyes. We had all heard the stories of this place, but what other choice do we have? I smiled back at her, trying to reassure her. \n\nI met her the day I married her. It was an arranged marriage. My father had told me that my bride was very beautiful and loved me with all her heart. He was only right about one of those things. She absolutely despised me at first. We grew close, however, and I became someone that she trusted. I considered her my best friend. She shared her dreams and aspirations with me, I promised that I would give her a better life.\n\nOur car was stopped by uniformed men carrying rifles. We were pratically dragged out. The men pushed us into seperate rooms. My room had nothing but a wooden bench. Two men in scrubs soundlessly took my blood and weighed me. They checked my lungs and heartbeat and measured the size of my skull. They asked me questions.\n\nDoes your family have any genetic diseases? No.\n\nHave you been ill recently? No.\n\nHave you ever been ill in your life? No.\n\nThe questions continued on and on. They asked about my father, my grandfather and my great grandfather. The two masked individuals eventually left and I was let out. A soldier gave me a passport and a piece paper before waving me off. The car would be delivered after it was properly searched. \n\nI looked for my wife. She was nowhere to be found. I asked the soldier where she was. He pointed at the paper and said nothing. There was a green check next to my name and a red X next to hers. \n\nShe was pregnant. We didn't know. I never saw her again.", "“Sir, we’ve received some reports that you were feeling ill.” \n\nOfficer Linda Ramirez looked over the suspect in front of her. Carl Lunds, 38, accused of incubating a cold virus. He glared back at her with red irritated eyes, periodically sniffing as he sucked mucus back up his nose. Ramirez felt her lip curl up in disgust. Vectors like this just had to ruin things for everyone else. \n\n“It’s hay fever,” he said snottily, almost daring her to contradict him. \n\n“Hay-? There aren’t even any plants in ten miles of here!” Ramirez sighed. “Here, hold on.” She reached around for her diagnosticizer. “I’m going to need a blood sample, sir.” \n\n“You got no right,” Lunds said, even as she took his hand and briefly pricked his finger. “My body’s my own, and if I want to get a cold I’m damn well going to get a cold. The government can’t tell a man whether he can and can’t be sick!” \n\n“Sir,” Ramirez sighed, checking the readout, “I think you’ll find that the government has a vested interest in protecting public health and welfare. And when people like you refuse to take your Imunogen –”\n\n“Can’t force me to put your goddamn crap in my body!” Lunds yelled, and then sneezed violently. Ramirez grimaced and backed away.\n\n“See. There you go.” She showed him the screen. “A cold virus. We’re on the verge of eradicating all diseases, and holdouts like you are what's keeping these viruses alive. Honestly sir, it’s not just your health at stake here. Think about all the people who can’t take Imunogen. The hyper-reactives. The transplant recipients. The –”\n\n“Ain’t my job to care about them,” Lunds hollered. “So I got a cold, all right, you caught me. Now get the hell out of here and let me be sick in peace!” \n\nRamirez quickly put her foot in the door before he could slam it shut. “Uh, sir, your ticket?”\n\n“Oh. Right.” For the first time Lunds looked somewhat abashed. “Well go on, get it over with.” \n\nHe turned his back to her and she quickly ran her data wand over the chip embedded in his neck, adding the infraction to his record and extracting the fine from his account. “That’ll be all, sir. Have a good day. And please, take your Imunogen.” \n\n“Bah,” he grumbled, and shut the door in her face. " ]	2
	[WP] You are haunted by the ghost of Procrastination.	[ "I sit down at the computer. I’m getting ready to start the case work. This project will mean the difference between staying in my position now, regulated to being in a dead end job for the rest of my career or moving up into upper management and on a path leading to full partnership. \nThis case was turned into me by the client, an old friend of mine who came to me for help. I open the folder with the relevant documents. As I start to read the first one, my phone starts ringing. Looking at it I see that it is my younger brother. Shit today is his birthday. I close the file and rush out to try and grab him a quick gift and make it to his celebration of his twenty-one years on this planet. \nI wake up the next morning in my brother’s guest bedroom. As my eyes open I feel a stabbing pain and shut them again quickly. Trying to think back I can remember vaguely butchering the song, dancing with myself in karaoke. I try to open my eyes again and manage to see that if I don’t start moving now then I’m going be late for the status meeting at work. The throbbing in my head just seems to get worse as I think about moving and working. It takes me about ten minutes before I can finally manage to make myself move and get dressed. Looks like I’m going to be late for the first time since I started this job by about five minutes. I sure hope that I don’t miss anything. \nAfter work I get home and flop down on the couch. Today was horrible; everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong. All the important things happened right at the start of the meeting and I got stuck in traffic behind a huge wreak, it did provide me with a legitimate excuse for being late though. Then every time I would try and start looking over the information from the meeting, by buddy John was kind enough to jot done some notes on the key points. People wanted to talk to me. Apparently the video of me killing the song in a bad way last night went viral. So this day was a bust. \nI turn on the TV and a commercial on it reminds me I have a case to work on. Exactly thirteen days left until it has to be done and ready to be presented. After a day like I had to day, I doubt I could focus my mind on it long enough to do anything. So I stay on the couch and just vegtitate for the rest of the night. Tomorrow would be the day that I would start on that and things will start falling into place I know it. \nOh man what a difference today was, I got up earlier than usual and went for a short run to wake myself up. I met a cute girl who wanted to have dinner with me tonight. Oh that dinner was great, I spent most of my work day thinking about her and what to make for dinner. \nWell shit there went seven days. I have just under a week left to finish this project. I have no clue what is going on. Usually when I put my mind to something I get it done, like the girl from last week. I think I focused too much on her as she started acting colder and colder to me after the third date. We had a fight earlier today and I told her to get out. As I tried to get started on my project again she decided to come and complain that I left the toilet seat up. It’s my place and I will do what I want. I told her that and she started running her mouth calling me all sorts of names so I kicked her to the curb. Well I need at least the night to get my mind straight tomorrow I will buckle down and get things done. \nWell I sit here in the hospital waiting on my brother. They should tell me how he is shortly. They took him into surgery after that truck ran the red light and side swiped his car. His seat belt broke and he was flung out of the car. From what the doctors are saying that is what saved his life, his Car end up exploding. I’m so worried about him. \nWell He is out of the danger zone now. From what I have gathered he should have a great case to get a fantastic settlement from the insurance company. Settlement why does that seem so familiar? I will think on that later right now I am just so glad my brother is going to be ok, after some rehabilitation to get his muscles working right again. I hope he doesn’t slack off. The sooner he’s better the sooner we can go get drinks together again. \nThree days to get this case researched and ready to present. It was the thought of settlement that really got me thinking and I realized I have been procrastinating on this case for some reason. Well I have managed to focus today and get the research done and written up on the computer. Now I just need to save it and… Why is my screen dark? I look at the CPU and it is not lit up. Did my computer just crash on me? I can’t I need a break. \nWell apparently I fell asleep on the couch last night when I took my break. There is something wrong I can’t seem to stay focused on doing this report. I know I need to, but is seems like everything is just conspiring against me. I have Two days left; I need this to be perfect I can’t let anything stop me from this. \nWell I finished it, tomorrow ok today is the dead line. I have not had to pull an all-nighter in a few years since I was in college getting ready for my bar exam. I hope I got this right with no problems. When I finished I thought I heard a grumble as if someone was frustrated. It seemed to vanish after i hit both the print and save buttons for the project files.\nWell it went better then i thought. Apparently they had run this to a few other law offices before asking for our help. From what Janice, our client and my friend told me they have tried to put this case together with five other law firms, and we are the first to even get a case file or even a rough goal organized. They all just seemed to procrastinate, like i did. The only difference was I still completed it by the deadline while they did not.\n", "I used to think that procrastination was just one area of the brain that lit up whenever you try to take action. I don't think I really even held that opinion, I guess I just wished that that was the case. I figured if procrastination had some compartmentalized real estate in the brain there'd hope that one day, we'd be able to remove it. That seemed like an absurd thought. Though, the reality may be even stranger, but it does make sense at least.\n\nThe volume of my alarm has reached its peak, the battle between will and waiting has raged on and I think it's safe to assume I am not well equipped to win this war. It was one thing when I thought self sabotage was responsible for my potential never turning kinetic. Now that I know it's an outside force, actively against me, waging war on productivity, what the fuck is the point? No matter how loud the alarm gets, how deafening it is to the roommates, the ghost prevails. Why get up, when you can simply stay in bed? Half the problem is this demon's ability, but half is my natural inclination. I agree with him, I'd much rather not get up. Path of least resistance, this bed has transformed from what felt like a hospital gurney, to the 9th cloud all in 8 hours, incredible.\n\nI feel constrained, I couldn't get up even if I tried. He's imposing his will physically, I need to will myself to the upright position. But I mean, I don't have much to do today, nothing seems urgent. There's at least a day left for my deadline. Ahh, the same old tricks, attacking the mental faculties as well. \n\nI can feel my brain light up as my body powers down.", "\"Did you know that most people work 10 times faster under pressure than they do without it? So many human beings waste their lives away doing things ahead of time, working like molasses. But you don't have to, Alex - not anymore! Honestly, do you realize how goddamn lucky you have me to learn from? I could be doing so many other things right now, but instead I'm changing your life!\"\n\nThe garish orange of my digital clock assaults my bloodshot eyes from the other end of the desk. 7:00 AM. And I have yet to start a project my boss expects by 8:00. What the fuck have I been doing all night?\n\n\"I could be anywhere else, carousing with dead dignitaries, trading war stories with other spirits, collaborating with God HIMSELF!\"\n\nHe leans in close as he bellows this last part. A cloud of stale whiskey and cheap mouthwash floods my nostrils. I bury my head in my hands. My temples throb. \n\n\"Anywhere else...\"\n\n\"Then why the hell aren't you????\" Both of my hands come crashing down on top of my desk, right below where Joe has been leaning. My palms are stinging from the impact, but I can't help but smile when I see Joe flinch.\n\n\"What...what do you mean?\"\n\n\"You must have something else to do, right? You keep telling me how you're one of the oldest human character traits, that you've been around from the beginning. But you've been gone for a century! No human being that I know has ever heard of Procrastination! The very idea is ridiculous - choose not to do something on time on purpose? I guess it's just something we evolved past. But, the higher-ups must have something for you to do, some lower race for you to...contribute to, right? Some community service somewhere a little less high-stakes maybe, now that you're...well, retired?\"\n\nAt that last word, Joe's beady dark eyes cloud over. Suddenly he's straightening the crooked tie he's wearing, searching the surfaces of my office for his cheap, tweed blazer. Tying the laces on a pair of scuffed, boxy dress shoes.\n\nI open my mouth, searching for ways to break the silence that is stretching on as he collects his things. I shouldn't have snapped. But would he have ever left if I didn't?\n\nHe's halfway out the door before I spot the black bowler he wore in on the floor. \n\n\"Wait, Joe!\" He's still moving. \"Your hat!\"\n\nA faint, luminescent wisp of an ill-fitting suit hovers in my doorway. Slowly it becomes brighter as he turns and moves back across the room to me. \n\nI kneel and struggle to pick up the shimmering hat from the ground. It fades in and out of sight, losing and gaining mass so quickly that it keeps slipping from my fingers. It's falling from my hands again when I feel the glow of Joe's presence just behind me.\n\n\"Ahh!\" I gasp as the hat shoots up and over me, then straight onto Joe's head, where it mostly covers up up an overgrown comb-over. My eyes make my way down his face - his thin lips are set into a straight line and his muddy brown eyes are small but bright as he glares down at me. \n\n\"I have plenty of places to go, kid. But this is where the action has always been. Humanity has always bubbled over with more life than any place else, in any other universe. Earth's always been a mess, as awful and wonderful and raw as its inhabitants. But maybe not anymore. Maybe this was my last trip back...\"\n\nThe bowler is moving quickly away from me. My stomach turns. An (alleged) ancient spirit has chosen me to be the first human to make real contact with a higher power, and I kick him out for talking too much?\n\n\"Joe, wait!!\"\n\nI run to the door and scan the hallway but he's nowhere to be found. I trudge back to my desk and sink into my chair, anchored by the leaden feeling filling my gut. \n\nA sunny whistle pierces the air. Fuck! My boss. She's in early! \n\nI huddle over my computer, minimizing the various windows that Joe had opened while introducing me to - as he put it - \"a whole new world\". Reddit. A New Yorker feature article on mold. An EW article on Kim Kardashian's failed marriage. A YouTube video of the best of the new trend of canine stand-up, (something Joe had crowed at upon discovering - \"this is like the holy grail!! Just one more, look that Pomeranian bitch parodies Amy Schumer!\"). Two voluptuous women lying in a Virtual Reality Simulator that placed them into whatever fantasy was being most desired by viewers at the moment (\"If you swear IT doesn't monitor your computer, it'd be a crime not to see what this century's porn has to offer...\")\n\nJessica raps softly at my door. \"Come in!\" I yell in a pitch several higher than my normal speaking voice. \n\nJessica's dark brown eyes scan me with concern. \"You're sure here early, Alex.\"\n\n\"Oh, you know... just getting ahead on some things.\" Jessica smiles and nods. She turns to leave. I frantically smooth my hair down, bang open my file cabinet to look for eyedrops. \n\n\"Alex.\"\n\nI turn from the file cabinet so quickly that the tip of my patella connects with the edge of my desk. My voice comes out in a whisper as sharp pain spreads down my calf. \n\n\"Yeah, boss?\"\n\n\"I look forward to reading that report you've been working on.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Jessica but...\" my eyes dart to the hallway, where Cassandra - my office crush who is also waiting to read the report I never started - has paused at mention of the project. \n\nMy mind is blank. Say something! I scream at myself as the seconds tick by and my mouth hangs open dumbly. \n\n\"I... I didn't do it.\"\n\n\"You what?\"\n\n\"I just didn't get to it.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, what was that?\" Cassandra asks softly. Jessica steps aside to make room for her in my office before turning her attention back to me. \n\n\"Yes, what was that?\" \n\nI can't tell if Jessica is enraged or confused - she looks unable to process this new information. I can't blame her. This hasn't happened in... well, about a hundred years.\n\n\"I just didn't do it. I had better things to do. I'll get to it. At some point.\"\n\nFor a full minute, Jessica and Cassandra stare at me. Jessica breaks first, shaking her head in confusion. \n\n\"Um... okay, Alex. That sounds ...fine, yes just fine. I, I hope that you will let me know if you need help with the other things you were working on. I assume they must have been more important - has Hoss been sending you assignments directly?\"\n\nI can't figure out why Jessica is kissing my ass until her last sentence. Hoss is our CEO. Jessica somehow thinks that the fact that I put this off means that I've become Hoss's right-hand man? Is she actually jealous?\n\nAs my mind races to process her reaction, she interprets my silence as outrage. \n\n\"Never mind, Alex - that's none of my business. I'm so sorry for prying. But please, you have our department at our disposal if you need it, alright? We're happy to help, right Cassandra?\"\n\nCassandra nods. Jessica walks out, brows knit together anxiously. I'm still too stunned by this turn of events to move, but I manage a response before she's out of earshot. \n\n\"Thanks!\"\n\nI massage my forehead as I try to figure out what's going on. But I can't focus, I can still feel Cassandra's eyes on me. She hasn't moved.\n\n\"Cassandra? Is everything okay?\"\n\n\"Yes...it's just,\" her full lips part in the sexiest display of confusion I've ever seen. \"I've never seen anyone do that is all. I've never heard of anyone not getting an assignment done on time.\"\n\nI can't tell if she's impressed or disgusted. My hands are shaking as she walks closer; I grip the desk. \n\n\"It's kind of...bad-ass,\" she murmurs as one hand covers one of mine. \"I never knew you were such a renegade.\"\n\nAnother hand brushes lint from the arm of my sweater and pauses against my bicep. \n\n\"Do you want to go out sometime?\"", "\"Yes...\" he whispers. \"Write ANOTHER story...\"\n\n\"Wait, no,\" I mumble. \"I've got this paper to write. And it's due at like 8 AM. I need to finish that.\"\n\n\"But you have an idea... don't you...\"\n\n\"Yeah, but... I'm in the middle of a cool thought. I'm gonna lose it.\"\n\n\"Another persuasive argument, about another thing you absolutely don't give a shit about? ...or? ...STORY.\"\n\n\"Hey, you know, I think music in our schools is very important, and I take offense at the implication - \"\n\n\"Are they reading about the demon still? You promised one about Michael...\"\n\n\"Ok, but I don't have time for half the promises I've made. Look, just let me finish this paper and then we can talk about stories.\"\n\n\"When you finish the paper, you'll want to sleep. And the stories won't let you. Write one. Write one NOW.\"\n\n\"No! Ok, that's it, no goddamn stories. I will not answer one more writing prompt on Reddit. No. I'm finishing this essay, and then I'm going to sleep, and then I'm going to class, and there will be no goddamn stories.\" He doesn't say anything, but there's a laugh in my ear, and\n\n\"Wait a minute.\"\n\n\"Shit.\"" ]	4
	[WP]A man is in sitting in his armchair while a moth is fluttering around a light. Describe the two different conversations they're having with each other.	[ "\"Ooh a pretty light, ooh, a pretty light, ooh a pretty light. Turn! Where am I? Turn! Ooh a pretty light. Okay I need a brake.\" The moth lands on the plastic frame around the light.\n\n\"You're lucky that bugzapper was made in china you shit.\" The man said, angrily throwing his pizza box at the moth. \n\n\"Rest. Life is good. WAIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THA-\" The moth took off in a hurry. It just managed to escape the pizza box by mere micrometers! But it wasn't enough. The powerful gust of wind caused by the colossal cardboard box of doom sent the moth spiraling into the wall. It hit the floor with a tiny thud and that was that. It was out cold. For now.\n\n-The next morning-\n\n\"Thanks\" The man said, closing the door. He stumbled lazily over to the power socket, unpacked his new bug zapper, and plugged it in.\nHe stood up, curling his lips downwards proudly as he looked around the room. \"This'll get you bastards.\"\n\nBlink... Blink, blink. \"Huh... What happe- Ooh, a pretty light\"", "\"I want it, human,\" said the moth to the man\n\nwho sat in the armchair so still.\n\n\"The light of this world, in sight but not touch,\n\nyou're shutting away until\n\nI ache from the crashing and flying and scrambling--\n\nI'll die 'less you give me my fill.\"\n\n.\n\n\"Just stop it, dumb moth,\" said the man to the moth\n\nwho clung to the light bulb so bright.\n\n\"You see what's past there? Just wire in glass.\n\nYou're breaking yourself, for sight\n\nOf nothing but alloy, electrons. Just stop.\n\nYou'd die at the touch of your light." ]	2
Something happen that has caused everyone to reaveling who they are. Maybe it's something like a sign of trust so that they can team up to fight the Villain or something.	[WP] Everyone in your high school class is a superhero, due to recent events they are all reaveling to everyone who they are one by one, now it's your turn ... But your the only one who is not a superhero.	[ "“...Oh! And when I get mad I can disintegrate objects and people with the heat of the sun. Just by staring at them.” Estella finished, the perky girl gracefully lowering herself back into a comparatively graceless plastic chair. \n“Ha! Remind me not to get on your bad side.” Snorted Liz, the girl who could regrow entire limbs. \nEveryone had already taken to calling her Lizard Girl, a name she embraced with open arms. \n“Oh. My. Gosh. I can't believe that so many of us are frickin' super powered! It must be, like, fate that we all ended up in the same class.” Patrick, the shape shifter, said. \nEstella nodded, “Yeah, I know, right? We should totally exchange origin stories!” \nLiz laughed, “Yeah, definitely! Though, I gotta warn you, mine's pretty gross...” \nCassie stood then, raising her hands to silence her fellow students, “Uhm, we can do that another time, guys-” \n“Uh, 'scuse me? Having the powers of a literal star can be a nightmare,” Estella began, “I was getting really frustrated this one time because I just couldn't get my eye liner to look even so then-” \n“Guys!” Cassie snapped. \nEveryone in the room looked at her. She could feel her face burning red with embarrassment but pressed on. \nShe said, “Uhm, I called you all here after school because...uhm...” \n“Wait, do you have a super power too, Cass?” Liz asked. \n“Well, yes. That's how I knew about all of you guys: I'm psychic.” Cassie said, staring at her feet. \nThat shut everyone up. Patrick looked pale. \nSeeing his face, Cassie babbled, “But I would never use that power to do bad stuff, I promise! I'm not here to reveal all of your secrets...well, except the ones about super powers but I have a really good reason for that, I swear!” \nPatrick stammered, trying to regain some composure, “Alright, well, l-l-lets hear it th-then.” \n“Okay, well,” Cassie began with a false-start. She bit her lip, carefully planning what she was going to say next. She looked over at me, expectantly, “Uhm, well, it's about the exchange student-Greg.” \nI sat up straight then. \nI said, “Oh, aye?” \nCassie blathered, “I'm not here to pick on you or anything but...well, I had hoped that when everyone started opening up about their super powers that you would too...” \n“But,” I said, “I have nae powers. I'm just Greg.” \n“No, Greg, honey, it's okay, really! You can tell us.” Estella reassured me. \n“Hey, Cass,” Liz said, “Why don't you just read his mind?” \n“But that's just the thing! I can't,” Cassie cried, “And I really wanted to know because we'll be much stronger as a team!” \n“So, what's your power then?” Patrick asked me. \nI shrugged, “I've already told ya, I have nae powers.” \n“Oh, come on, Greg!” Estella huffed. We all started to sweat a bit. \nLiz put a hand on her shoulder, “Hon...I think...I think he's telling the truth.” \n“What?” Cassie snapped, “So why can't I read his thoughts?” \nPatrick leant into her and stage whispered, “I think it's because he doesn't have any.” \nSilently, Cassie made a small 'o' shape with her mouth. I said nothing. If they'd convinced themselves I did not think or have any thoughts of my own, I didn't see the point in correcting them. \n“Oh, wow, guys? Do you know what this means?” Liz grinned, “We've got a sidekick.” \nThe teenagers began squealing about being 'real live superheroes' and what should their super hero team name be? All of the suggestions I heard before I tuned out were rip-offs of definitely copyrighted names with just 'And Greg' tacked onto the end. But I kept the act up, looking at them all gormlessly and smiling like the perfect idiot they wanted me to be. I didn't want to be a spoil sport and, quite frankly now, didn't really see the need to tell them about the metal plate in my head...or why I had it. You know, I had thought this whole world domination thing was going to be a pain in the arse without superpowers. I'd even seriously been considering a career in accounting or banking! Ha! But, funny thing fate, a team of teenage super heroes in the making had just fallen into my lap. \nThis was going to be a doddle.", "My friends stared at me in anticipation while I nervously looked over my notes.\n\n\"Its not important...\" I stammered, as Bruce punched me in the arm.\n\n\"Come on Jimmy. We wont judge you.\" He said, as he smiled down at me. He had just revealed that he was the El Toro, the hero whose power came from his momentum. As he would run faster his body would grow tougher and his strenght greater. \n\n\"Yeah, who are you? Cottan Calvin?\" Shiva asked. \n\nCottan Calvin was this joke of a hero. A man who could control the sugar in cottan candy to do his bidding. I mean god damn it how was he even still alive. \n\nShiva smiling at me eager for my reply caused me to blush in shame. Yes I had a crush on her, and yes Bruce, Mike , and Amy all knew this and often mocked me for it. And today would change everything between the five of us. \nBut first allow me to explain why this was needed to be revealed. Recently, a villian under the name of Revealer who was in the service of the super Villian Mr. X, showed his name sakes power. Apparently he was able to reveal any abnormal energy inside of normal humans that would reveal them to be super human. At this moment, half of my class glowed like a lightbulb in different shades of colour. So it was decided that everyone within eye sight of one another reveal their identity to any other hero that saw them. \n\nShiva revealed herself to be Turbo Shock. Turbo shock could send out sound waves that could start an earthquake in the right hands. \n\nAmy was actaully Hydra. She has the ability to regenerate her limbs, a rather useful ability to have if you worked for the mob. In my opinion. \n\nMike, to my surprise, was Captian Solar, who i had always been convinced was a man and not a teenager. Maybe it was that Helmet he always wore, but damn that was a shocker. His abilitys were flight, super strength, and the ability to shoot blasts of solar energy at his opponents. He had foiled so many of Mr. X's plans and even met the man himself. \n\n\"Fine...\" I finally admitted as i stood up before the class. I smiled a moment as i waved him hand up towards my shoulders. It began pulsating with energy.\n\n\"I am....\" I started before dashing my arm across the space before me and sent a blast of dark matter energy slicing through half of those people. My friends were left shocked in awe and disgust behind me. \n\n\"That was...\" Mike stuttered, as I turned to face him. Blood dripping from the chalkboard, and our teachers head now kissing the floor. Or at least half of it was. Amy was foolish enough to step in front of me, and as a result was not regaining half of her left arm. \n\n\"Yes yes...I know. I used it on you the last time we fought but you dodged.\" I said smiling.\n\n\"Your...\" Bruce stared in awe.\n\n\"Mr. X. The Super Villain Mastermind.\" I grinned as ropes of darkmatter surrounded me. " ]	2
	[WP] I feel numb.	[ "There was unsteady scratching at the door tonight, she had planned to come home a few hours earlier, but it seems that fate had different plans and made her make a detour. Her walk from work was usually 20 minutes, she never expected that the walk home this time could feel like an eternity. As she opened her door, she removed her left shoe and threw it against the wall, she thought this evening couldn't get worse, the shoe ricocheted from the wall and knocked of a framed photo. She guessed wrong.\n\nThe shards of glass glistened in the moonlight as if it was taunting her by reminding her of better days. \n\nShe walked over the mess that her predicament created and did not flinch as the photo bloodied. \n\nThe first thing she saw in the bathroom was her disgusting self, her mascara was running around her swollen purple eyes while her salty mucus dripping from her chin. She tore the rags that once were her favourite dress and turned on the shower. She just stood there with three fingers down her throat trying to get all of the fluids out of her. She realized it was already to late for that, she started scrubbing on the places that were supposed to be private, but the more she cleaned the dirtier she felt. \nAfter noticing that her once smooth skin had been teared, black and blue, she lost the energy she had left from the shock and curled into a ball. She wailed what seemed like an eternity till all the tears she had were swallowed like water into the dark abyss. \n\nShe gained a moment of clarity and went back to where she felt taunted by the moonlight. \n\nThe moment she grabbed the photo that had dried red crusts, she felt that she had no more tears to spill. In the middle she saw a beautiful young woman, gorgeous green eyes like fine cut emeralds, brown hair that was charmingly curled, the petite nose that once was prided, her favourite dress and beautiful smile that she only wore when she was with them. \n\n\"Isiyah, Michelangelo and Marissa BFF's!\" was written on the picture with permanent ink. She grabbed a large shard of glass that was the correct size to repurpose and made a long vertical line on her right arm. As the blood made a warm pool around her, she wrote something on the back with the shard of glass. \n\nI FEEL NUMB.\n\n\n\n\n\n", "An old friend died, but I do not know when. It was an evaporation. A noiseless departure when Atlas' knees seemed to buckle.\n\nHe was with me always, a dark patch I never saw, but I felt him watching. Each failure widened a twisted grin, and I would be lulled to his dreadful sanctuary.\n\nWhen I took his hand, his irreverence could drown all else. He would wrap my heart in a castle and set watchmen in the night. \n\nI needed to feel, and he let me feel. He tethered me to the shore by my throat, but ensured I would never be adrift.\n\nHis desertion leaves no joy in his place. No new friend who can show me the greenest grass and the beauty of bird song - the things I am told I should desire. \n\nSome call him 'depression', but I know him as my old friend. He died, and he left me numb.\n\n", "Enguerrand flew high on leather wings, the wind whipping about him, caressing him from head to toe. He closed his eyes and reached out for another soul, not out of desperation, but rather for the comfort of knowing he was not alone. It had been some time since he had made contact with another, though he had sighted more than a few on his flights, their still forms casting long and distorted shadows on the walls of their homes. \n\nAs his eyes drew open lazily, taking in the rolling hills and gentle gurgles of water, he couldn’t help but let a few teeth peek through his lips, tiny ivory glimpses into one of the few moments that still brought him pleasure. \n\nThe fox started for a moment as Enguerrand came to perch on the log beside it, the sudden draft blowing her fur into strange patterns before it settle perfectly into place once more. \n\n“Enguerrand, I did not think to see you again for many cycles,” the fox spoke with an air about her. \n\n“You cannot be rid of me so easily, Melisande,” Enguerrand replied wryly.\n\n“I can, if you were to find what you were looking for.”\n\nEnguerrand paused, sighing, as he could think of nothing else to say. “I do not know what it is that I am looking for, yet. I feel…numb.”\n\n“Oh? How is it that all of your kind found their way before you? Do you think you are so special as to be alone?” The fox cocked her head to the side in mock confusion. \n\n“Oui,” Enguerrand replied as melancholy spread through him, infecting his tone first. “But that does not affect me. I do not want to be trapped by what has lured my brethren to their death.”\n\n“Trapped,” Melisande echoed. “You see it as being trapped?”\n\n“Naturally,” answered. “They no longer enjoy the wind and the trees, the mountains in awe below them. They are bound to their accursed wall to age and wither.”\n\n“And I am bound to you, it feels, atop this log to listen to you imitate the wind.” Melisande yawned silently and snapped her jaws.\n\n“Now you are just being cruel,” Enguerrand pouted.\n\n“Oh? You tell me that you have no purpose, but refuse to find one. You call your brothers fools, but they have found their place here willingly.” The fox hopped onto the ground and turned back to her companion. “Come, I have something to show you.”\n\n“Melisande,” Enguerrand called, futilely, but quickly took flight to follow his long-time friend. \n\nShe took him through the trees, over creeks and boulders, mossy expanses that spread beneath the dimpled canopies, until she finally came to a stop at the edge of a clearing. Enguerrand arrived soon after, dropping to a stooping position on the same boulder Melisande stood upon.\n\n“Why have you brought me here?” Enguerrand was curt. He did not favor flying through trees. \n\n“Look, there is a fort.”\n\n“A fort? Hardly.” Was Enguerrand’s only reply. The building hardly seemed capable of protection, with it’s rickety gate and narrow moat. There were a number of laborers outside, tilling fields and patching exterior holes in the walls. \n \n“Indeed. The hairless ones began occupying it a short time ago. Before that it had been overgrown.”\n\n“And? This does not interest me,” Enguerrand continued, proudly.\n\n“There are wolves in this wood, Enguerrand. I know it. I have seen them watching the fort hungrily.”\n\nThe winged creature stood silently, staring as the hairless ones worked without rest. \n\n“I believe you have something worth your time,” the fox whispered. \n \nEnguerrand nodded slowly. “Oui,” he replied. “I will seek you out when my vigil is concluded. Until then, Mademoiselle Renard.”\n\n“Au revoir, Monsieur Gargouille.”\n\nNight came as Enguerrand perched on the outer wall of the fort, his keen eye catching glimpse of the slightest movements in the wood nearby. After many hours, he noticed a pair of eyes from deep within and met them with his own terrifying gaze. The eyes lingered a moment, but soon disappeared. In the morning, he took his leave before anyone noticed.\n\nThe following night was the same, the same pair of eyes glaring from deep within, disappearing soon after. Enguerrand heard from within the walls a strange song coming from the hairless ones. He smiled.\n\nThe third night was more of the same, except now the eyes didn’t disappear before the sun rose. They remained, watching the fort and all of its denizens. This time, Enguerrand stayed, his gaze unrelenting. In time, the eyes disappeared, but Enguerrand was not convinced that it was safe to leave. \n\nNight after night passed after that, the eyes coming and going. He had learned much of the hairless ones in their daily comings and goings. They were a simple, honest creatures that cared for their young and survived on very little. He relished in keeping the wolves at bay, night after night, day after day. His gaze became stony in its vigilance, his snarl more pronounced when confronting the eyes within the wood.\n\nOn the eighth night, Melisande came bounding along the wall, coming to rest beneath Enguerrand’s perched form. He let out a quiet moan in acknowledgement. \n\n“Monsieur Gargouille, I see your vigil continues,” she purred, wrapping her tail about his scaly legs. “Could it be that you have found yourself in a trap?”\n\nEnguerrand chuckled, his now stony chest producing a grinding sound at the sudden movement. “You are wise, my friend,” came his voice, like gravel. “I understand my purpose now. I understand my choice.”\n\nMelisande laughed, a high pitched clicking as she bound onto his head. “I fear, though,” she continued,” that I did not help with the numbness.”\n\nEnguerrand’s face softened a shade. \n\n\nEdit: typo", "I slumped in my corner breathing heavily, as I stared at my feet. Murph was shouting at me, calling me everything under the sun while repeating the fact that this was my shot at the big leagues. My shot huh? I'd be lying if I said that was the first time I heard that line. Truth be told, this was probably the first time I actually didnt believe it. \n\nOld Kenneth \"The Blood Hound\" Ó Durcáin, comes back into the ring at 37 to face off in a qualifying match for the championship. And whose he facing off against? The up and coming star Karver Prince. The kid whose undefeated, with most of his matchs won by knockout. The real joke was, that I just needed the money for the fight. Not that I thought I could beat the guy...but someone did. \n\nI got a daughter, Robin's her name. She see's me so much less often now that her mother moved with her new husband up to Oakland. I felt so numb when Alice came and took her from me. Apparently, giving Alice one Black eye meant that I was an unfit parent. Even now, bruised and exhausted, I feel numb. \n\nOld Sammy Burrows showed up 3 months ago and asked if I was interested in making some money. Apparently he went from some hot shot middle weight with a glass jaw to a manager now, and guess who he's managing? So, Sammy asked me to go one on one with the kid, make it a real show. I can still remember the conversation, and the smell of the stale sweat in my gym.\n\n\"I dont box no more Burrows. You know that.\" I said, trying not to look the man in his eyes. \n\n\"This isnt about you, Kenny. Its about putting on a show.\" He said, his fucking cocky tone driving me crazy. \n\n\"Yeah well, why me? Why not Jacob \"The Body\" Lincoln? I hear, hes still fighting.\" I argued, sitting down at my desk, looking over some bills. Trying to look busy so he would leave, but only depressing myself as I read over the due payments. \n\n\"You aint heard about his recent interview have ya?\" He asked, causing me to look at him from my seat. \n\nSmiling at me, he pulled a magazine out of his inside pocket and threw it on my desk. Opened on the page was the article intitlled \" New Blood Hound\" in Town. The article said that Prince believed he was the best fighter since Ali, and actually called out some of the older fighters. The calling out of fighters was reminiscent of an angry young boxer by the name of Kenneth O Durcain, who the writer began comparing the two to. \n\n\"People would pay big bucks to see you two fight.\" Sammy said, walking around the office like he was the owner. \n\n\"And making it a qualifying match, can you imagine the pay-off.\" He smirked, as I looked up at him from my desk. \n\n\"How much we talking?\" I asked, hoping it would be enough to pay some of the damn bills that painted my desk. \n\n\"Heres the deal. Three months from now, you two have a match. Win or Lose you get paid.\" He explained, smiling as he knew he hand me on the line. \n\n\"And if I win, I get a championship match?\" I asked, raising an eyebrow to Burrows. \n\n\"Sure...\" He chuckled, trying not to laugh at my question. \n\n\"But we both know you wont. You couldnt in you prime, why would ya know?\" He said bluntly, a smirk refusing to move from his face. \n\nI glared at him, wanting nothing more than to punch him and break that jaw of his. \n\n\"See ya in three months 'Champ'.\" He said, walking out of the office and leaving me with my thoughts. \n\nThe bell rang, and I snapped back to reality. Round 4 began. We moved towards each other at a steady pace. He was a strong kid, with a mean left hook, but all I saw at this moment was the hate in his eyes as he jabbed. He probably didnt expect me to last the first round, yet alone stick it out till now. He threw a haymaker with his left, thankfully I dodged before he could connect. Ducking behind him, I shook sweat from my hair as he swung around and began attacking me again. Like a rampaging bull, he charged at me with constant attacks, moving me around the ring. The kid was so fast and strong, I didnt know how much I could take. Before I knew it, the world went dark. The sounds of a crowd, and Murph shouting at me, were the first things I heard. I felt numb, this time completely, as i lay there on the ground and listened to the echos around me. Until I heard it, a number.\n\n\"5\" Shouted the referee, as I panicked and bounced to get up as soon as I could. I struggled to get to my feet. The kid knocked me on my ass, and shook my system a bit. \n\n\"Do it for her...\" I kept saying to myself, as i got to my feet. \n\nI kept thinking of Robin as the round went on. After training with Murph every day since the meeting with Burrows before the fight, I got a call from Alice. She grilled me on why Robins classmates were asking about him and how he was going to get killed in the ring against Prince. I explained what was happening, and she told me that because of what I was doing Robin actually punched another kid in her class. And came home upset saying its what daddy would do. \nI have to admit, I only grew prouder when I found out not only was he a bigger kid, but he had been knocked straight out by my little girl. She was her old mans daughter for sure. \n\nI talked to her yesterday, and I was so happy to hear her voice. I was almost in tears, when she told me about her day and wished me luck tonight.\n\n\"I know you can beat him Daddy.\" echoed in my mind. \n\nThe bell rang, as I staggered over towards the turnbuckle. Spitting in the Bucket, I drank greedily from my water bottle limp in my chair. Nearly drowning in the small stream the bottle was pouring, before choking and coughing heavily. \n\n\"Ken...\" Murph started, as I looked up towards him.\n\n\"You dont got anything else to prove now. Ya went four rounds with the guy. We get the money either way. It aint worth getting hurt over just cuz of your pride.\" He said, defeat in his tone. He knew from years of experience that I wasnt going to give up, but was on my last leg and ready to fold. \n\n\"Murph...you really think I can beat this guy?\" I asked, looking up to my trainer like I had years ago during my first real fight. \n\nMurph looked over at Prince, and back to me. Pulling off his beanie, he rubbed his bald head and looked down at me. \n\n\"You think, you can beat him?\" He asked me, as a smile crept across my face. \n\n\"No...But Robin does. And I think shes a better judge of character than either of us could ever be.\" I answered, smiling at him. \n\n\"Aint gonna argue with ya there.\" He said, patting me on the back as the bell rang starting round 5.\n\nThis was going to be the last round, whether I liked it or not. I couldnt go any more, so I had to knock him out in this round. I went all out, swiftly jabbing him before landing a right hook to the side of his face sending him staggering back. His face twisted in anger, before he drove his fist into my gut and slammed an uppercut into my jaw. I could barely stand now, and struggled to breath. I tried to drive him back, but he kept blocking my blows. He hugged me,as we reached the ropes. \n\n\"Your tougher than I thought, Granpa, but your out of your league.\" He whispered in my ear, in a poor attempt to trash talk me. \n\n\"Really? Does that mean, I can stop taking it easy on you?\" I asked, lying of course, but said it just straight faced enough to know it effected him. \n\nThe ref split us apart and I saw the look of panic on his face. I smiled back at him, as I jabbed him once, and then connected with a body blow. He smashed his own fist into my jaw sending me down again. Everything was numb now. I heard him shout,\n\n\"STAY DOWN OLD MAN!\" \n\nAs I got to my feet slowly. Good timing too, as the Ref was on a count of 8 when I got to my feet.\n\n\"You okay, Blood Hound?\" The Ref asked, as I watched the world spin. Shaking my head straight I nodded, and raised my fists ready to go. This was it, my last shot to knock this guy out. \n\nHe came towards me, and straight into a body blow. Using all the strength I had left, I threw a hard haymaker that connected with his face and sent him over the ropes and out of the rind. He had now till the count of 20 to get back in the ring, and I found myself counting with the ref as the timer started. \n\nI fell to my knees when the count reached 20. I felt so numb, like this was some kind of dream. Murph patted me on the back and the crowd erupted in cheers as the Announcer proclaimed the winner. \n\"And the Winner is, by knockout, Kenneth \"The Blood Hound\" Ó Durcáin.\" \n", "I have walked for thousands of years. I will walk for a thousand more. I have stood in the dust of the dead of a thousand worlds. I have mourned myths, the passing of whole worlds into legends.\n\nIn all this time, in all these places, not one has survived. Time and death, the two constants of the universe have worn down existence to a comfortable numbness. I walk, but I do not feel. I see your dead, but I do not mourn. I see your accomplishments, but I do not care. I watch, disinterested, as passing oblivion takes everything, save me. \n\nI was told this would happen. The charlatan, who made me, told me of the numbness of existence. I didn't believe him. Existence, I thought, would last forever, as would the pleasures of existence. \n\nNow, I no longer care. Time takes them all in the end, time then death. Closeness and emotions are a luxury for the feeling.\n\nNot the numb. ", "We run with dying sparklers shifting loosely in our palms, the street and its multitude of roaring faces – kids from school, neighborhood regulars, the gummy-eyed out-of-towners – blurring past our sides. Your dress, the colour of candy melting warmly on the tongue, sways around your knobbly kneecaps. \n\nAll about us, the parade pulses. The tin drums and the vague chanting, it's our hometown and our glued-together childhood all wrapped into one theme song. It's kinetic. My hand is coated in beads of sweat and each little bead is trembling in the lead-up to some volcanic eruption. I'm pumped, but I feel numb. \n\nOh god.\n\nThe streamers get caught in your hair and sweep up around your ears. Dylan Parsley from gym class throws a homemade firecracker under the postman's parked van, lighting it up orange.\n\n This is it.\n\nYou glance back at me and your laugh is citrus-sweet and violent. There's a scent pinching the air I can't place, but that's irrelevant as you sprint ahead.\n\nThis is the day the awkward boy you’ve blessed a friend falls for you. It's the beginning of a messy foray into unrequited advances, deluded expressions of uncertainly certain love, and late night anguished tossing in my sheets.\n \nFrom this point forward, nothing you do will be innocent. You will regret the moment all those years ago you found my social ineptitude oddly endearing, pulled your stool up next to mine, and lent me that pencil. 2B, black, chewed up at its base. \n\nIf you smile at me in just the wrong way, my stomach will burst and butterflies will pour forth and latch to your skin and all its freckles until you have to peel it off with them still stuck to it. \n\nClementine, you spritz, your kneecaps are so perfectly knobbly. I feel numb.\n\n" ]	6
	[WP] Two people who can perfectly predict the future are locked in a battle to the death.	[ "\"What're they doing over there?\"\n\nI'm brought out of my reverie by a light tap on my shoulder. Looking over I my should I see a sad sack of salaryman--bags under his eyes, a stain on his shirt from the coffee he drinks to get him through the morning. Completely out of place in the park. The cries of the children on the nearby playground, the woman who's pretending no one minds her letting her dog shit in the middle of the pavement. \n\nFollowing his finger, I look over to where my attention had been moments before. Two elderly men staring at each other from across the fountain, one messily eating a sandwich, the other sipping on soup.\n\n\"Oh Ben & Jerry!\"\n\n\"...Wait like the--\"\n\n\"Yeah, it's not their actual names. I don't know who they are, but I see them in this park everyday.\"\n\n\"You come here to this park everyday?\"\n\n\"Yeah I--Don't give me that look okay? Just because I'm not a corporate wage slave like you--\"\n\n\"I didn't mean anything by it.\"\n\n\"It's cool, I'm sorry man. So B&J couple over yonder? I see them from the moment the park opens to when the cops kick everyone out. Those two just...they just sit there staring at each other. Some days I don't even see them eat.\"\n\n\"That can't possibly--holy shit!\"\n\nJerry was having a heart attack. Or a stroke. At that age, clutching his chest, it could be any goddamn thing for all I know. The salary man dashed over to Jerry, the puddle of soup on the ground making me think of blood.\n\nI don't know why, but I looked over to Ben, with his sandwich. And I saw the funniest thing. \n\nBen was flipping the bird at Jerry's corpse.", "They both knew how this would end. That was the thing. They always knew. If either’s power went unattested, they would quickly become like a god. It’s those simple ways the universe balances itself, that there had to be two of them. With opposite goals. Though they had never met, and they lived in different parts of the world. Every move they ever made was working towards their inevitable conflict. With every step, they could only prepare for a fate that wouldn’t change. There were many things they could change, but the paradox of two with the same power, locked them in a specific path. \n\nAksel, spent his childhood playing harmless games with his powers. Little tricks on his parents and peers that inadvertently drew wary eyes from all who knew him. The strange events surrounding Askel pushed both his family and friends away from him. Something he was too foolish to look for in his visions. It wasn’t until he began to mature that a sense of duty overcame him. Others would shirk any sense of obligation to the world. A simple excuse of “What could I possibly do to change things?” was all that they needed. Askel knew this did not apply to him. He watched the world around him, he watched the pain and suffering people endured. Askel knew this was the reason for his power, to bring peace and ease suffering. He first attempted to help his neighborhood. Closing his eyes frequently to watch the future unfold, then shifting things ever so slightly to change its course. Simple things like walking a friend home prevented their death by a car accident. A small quip about yearly checkups helped a teacher discover her tumor in time. Eventually Askel realized this wasn’t enough. He realized he must use this gift to rise to power and bring peace to the whole world. Just as Askel made the first step towards this goal, he saw her for the first time. Suddenly the vision of his battle to come flashed before him. This woman would be his end. Askel could throw away his goals but he knew that wasting his duty would be handing her a world he did not want to see. This was his unchangeable destiny. \n\nAt the very same moment Marceline also knew what lay ahead of her. As if from thousands of miles away, they were looking directly at each other’s faces, Marceline grinned in anticipation. This was exactly the type of game she had hoped for. Unlike Askel, Marceline’s power had given her nothing but boredom. Chaos was the only answer she could find to quell this thirst for adventure and the idea of a perfect world with nothing to make the blood flow and the mind race… it sounded like hell. Standing at the door of her orphanage she shouted out loud “I’m coming for you Askel, I won’t let you get your way.” \n\nThis was not a quick journey. They both knew it would be many years before they met, and so much work would be done before then. Askel would rise to power and become a global ambassador. Being dubbed the “guru of peace.” Askel gained favor with the world’s most influential people and steered them towards treaties and disarmaments. He quelled rising dictatorships before they took hold and he advised laws and economic revisions that he already knew the successful outcome of. Even with the leaps and bounds of progress across the world, hidden away in the shadows, disarray was constantly afoot in the form of Marceline. Though she never created scenarios that caused death, she frequently guided the foolish away from Askel’s influence. Posing as psychics and even creating a religion that she secretly controlled. Though she never revealed her true identity, Askel always knew it was her behind every mask. \n\nAfter years of back and forth the world had been shaped into something completely new. A global peace organization with Askel at the helm had brought every country in the world out of poverty and war. The organization’s main goal at this point was hunting down a shadow society that caused global mischief. Their meeting time was growing close.\n\n“Sir, I believe we’ve found their headquarters, we’ll be moving in today.” Askel’s second in command, Captain Red, told him. \n\n“I will join you on this mission, please be wary not to hurt anyone unnecessarily.” Said Askel.\n\n“Sir, that’s highly dangerous I don’t recommend it.” A concerned look was painted across the captain’s face. \nAskel smiled and then replied cheekily “but this is my destiny.” The captain knew never to question Askel’s decisions. \n\nThe strike team advanced into an empty warehouse in Central America. They spread out searching every corner as Askel walked calmly forward towards a small office in the back of the building. He approached the door and knocked. A woman answered.\n\n “Come in.”\n\nAskel opened the door and closed it behind him. \n\n“Please pull up a chair.” She said kindly. \n\nAskel flipped on a light switch. Locked the door and sat down in a chair he placed in front of her. \n\n“So this is how it ends.” He said flatly. Looking into Marceline’s eyes for the first time. \n\n“Yup.” \n\nAskel took out his phone and sent a text ordering his team to leave the building without him. \n\n“Does it have to be this way, Marceline?”\n\nMarceline frowned for a moment then regained her disposition and said. “We don’t belong here, you know it does.”\n\nAskel sighed, looked down at his phone and saw the text confirming his team had evacuated.\n\n“It’s time, just do it.” \n\nMarceline looked deep into his eyes and said “When I was young I couldn’t understand why I would fall for you, but I think it’s your conviction that did it.” Before Askel could answer she pressed the button firmly gripped in her right hand and the explosions went off. The building crumbled to the ground. \n\nWhen the search and rescue team arrived, there was no sign of either of them. Nothing except a small underground tunnel leading away from the building and out to the docks nearby. \n\n\"Captain, do we report this?\" \n\nThe captain remebered the promise he made with Askel years ago. It finally made sense. \n\n\"No, our leader has died. That's all there is to it.\"" ]	2
	[WP] Describe The Pillsbury Doughboy and The Gingerbread Man having a fight.	[ "The Pillsbury Doughboy (PD) was once upon a time at the liquor mart in a rural, prairie town. Gingerbread Man (GM) was manning the counter.\n\nGM: Got any ID?\nPD: You fookin kidding me?\nGM: Nope. No ID, no booze. Take it as a compliment.\n*Under Pressure by Phil Collins plays on the radio*\n\n\n--- I can keep going unless someone else wants to pick it up. I am trying to drink and be social at the same time as writing thiss.....\n", "\"Say it to my face, dickhead.\"\n\n\"You call that a face?\" The Pillsbury Doughboy sneered.\n\n\"At least mine isn't covered in rolls of fat,\" the Gingerbread Man retorted.\n\n\"Yeah at least I'm not a fucking seasonal treat. You're only around at Christmas before people are sick of you.\"\n\n\"Mate, people can't even distinguish you from the Michelin Man, that's how original you are.\"\n\n\"Take that back you sugar coated cunt!\"\n\n\"Make me, I dare you! I'll turn you into a croissant.\"\n\n\"Run run as fast as you can, cause when I catch my breath, I'll snap your ginger legs off!\"\n\n\"Yeah, what the fuck's up with that? It's getting really hot in here.\"\n\n\"Phew. Hang on... are we... are we on a pan?\"\n\nThe two snacks looked at each other with fear in their eyes.\n\n\"I'm... I'm sorry I said those things Pillsbury.\"\n\n\"It's alright Gingy... hold me.\"\n\n" ]	2
	[WP] You are the Devil and are trying to defeat God by winning a cultural victory. 2016 has been a big year for you calling in David Bowie, Alan Rickman and now Prince. In the depths of hell you are deciding who to claim next.	[ "\"Beiiber, my... loord? We can... stiill... get Beiiber?\" \nLucifer rolled his eyes. \"Really Belphegor? You brought me Beiber last week, and what did I say then?\" \nBelhegor wrung his tail in his hands. \"Yyouu saiid... Tryy haarder... My loord\". \nLucifer blew out his cheeks. \"I did. And I also said 'no more Beiber', didn't I?\" He looked at the door as he waited for Belphegor's response. \n\"...That's right...\" He said. \"But...\" \n\"No buts,\" said Lucifer, not because he wanted to interrupt, but because he wanted to get on with the conversation. \"You will go back out and find me a talented creative, and you'll do it now.\" \n\nIt really wasn't fair. Mammon and Beelzebub were working together. No other demon could get close to those two. They seemed to get everyone. Belthegor crept out of Lucifer's chamber. \n\n... \n\nLucifer strolled beneath colossal marble archways. The theatre was almost finished, the first concert hall was already complete, the painting studio was underway. The place was coming along. Heaven, of course, had more; Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Van Gogh, Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Dickens, to name but a drop in the ocean. But Lucifer did more with what he had. He had to work harder for it. \n\"How's the play coming along Alan?\" Asked Lucifer. \n\"Oh, very well indeed. The demonsprites are taking wonderfully to their roles.\" \nI love a technicality, thought Lucifer. Alan Rickman was an assuredly good man, but dabbling in magic (real or pretence) is asking for a one way ticket to hell. It was the kind of acquisition that was beginning to turn this place around. Technicalities were all the rage in hell. Pavarotti was in on Gluttony, Wagner discovered the cost of anti-Semitism (as did Tom Eliot), and just about anyone with riches qualified for greed. Hell was a cultural hot spot. \n\nLucifer stopped to play a bit of air guitar. \"Sounds wicked!\" \n\"Cheers boss,\" called Lemmy. \n\"Do you mind showing Prince around later?\" Said Lucifer in between songs. \"He's down for a visit...\" \n\"Oh what's he down for?\" \n\"You've been in music for fifty years, and you really have to ask?\" Said Lucifer. Lemmy grinned. \n\"Alright no problems. What's Bowie up to?\" \n\"I've got him helping Alan with the costumes,\" said Lucifer. \n\nMammon and Beelzebub rolled up, followed by a retinue of feeders. \n\"Hello boys,\" said Lucifer. \"What have we got?\" \nMammon had a mouth full of ribs, so Beelzebub spoke. \"We could get Madonna?\" \n\"Uck no, she'd try to take over the place. Leave her up there, see if God doesn't pick her up.\" \n\"Right,\" said Beelzebub, now chewing a plum. Mammon dabbed his lips with a tissue. \n\"And no movement on Rod Stewart?\" He asked. \n\"Not yet,\" said Lucifer with a flash of evil in his eyes. \"I'm enjoying watching him grow old.\" \nLucifer looked down and sighed. \n\"You're not still thinking about Winehouse, are you my lord?\" Mammon asked. \n\"It's just... How did we miss her? How in... hell... did hell miss out on that?\" \nMammon looked at Beelzebub, who nodded. \n\"Well we have a little surprise coming for you,\" said Mammon. \"We think you are going to be quite pleased.\" \nLucifer looked up. \"Who?\" \n\"We can't say yet. Nothing's certain... You'll have to wait and see.\" He ate a piece of Turkish delight to signal that there was nothing more to say. \n\nLucifer pondered on it. As long as it wasn't \n\"Beiiber?\" said Belthegor from behind, making Lucifer jump. \n\"Belthegor what is your problem?\" He said. \"I told you that I don't want bloody Beiber!\" \n\"Theenn whyy... is hee standing... oover... theere with Maammon aand Bee...eelzeebub?\"\n\n", "\"HAHA Gaap, Prince was a success, but not as glorious as David Bowie. We need to get a leg up on that bastard before he claims anyone else. Do you think we should keep going for musicians???\"\n\n\"I think that's a great idea. The people of Earth seem to have unfathomable feelings toward these people, but what about the younger kids? Who do they like? Their little emo faces should cry their tears down to hell and commit suicide already. Their parents will be so devastated.\" His eyes gleam as he looks up at the fire ceiling and imagines all of the dark kids finally coming where they belong.\n\n\"You're right Gaap, I still can't believe you fell from heaven only 1,749 years ago. You've already become my right hand man... Wait!!! Hamilton! They're all obsessed with it. Oh I can already hear the teenagers waiting to see the show balling their eyes out. We really do need some rain down here; it's blistering hot.\" said the devil. \n\n\"And there's a million things I haven't done. But just you... Wait a second is this our new set?!?\" said Lin-Manuel Miranda\n\n\"Oh no my darling, welcome to the depths of HELL\" the devil screams and vanishes into the abyss going back to his quaint fiery house." ]	2
	[WP] You are a serial killer who uses his murders as his writing prompt ideas. It is getting more and more obvious that they are real and not just ideas though.	[ "02/15 [WP] A young woman is tired of her life and goes out into the world to find her passion.\n\n&nbsp; \n\n02/17 [WP] You find your soulmate but you can't touch them because you're allergic to their skin. \n\n&nbsp;\n\n02/18 [WP] In search for answers a young adventurer finds a black market that sells mind altering beans.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n02/20 [WP] A mechanic is able to communicate with machinery and other metallic objects. \n\n&nbsp;\n\n02/25 [WP] After wishing she was a cyborg, a beautiful woman begins to idolize power tools and builds a shrine to them in an abandoned book store.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n03/02 [WP] In a world where humans are cold and calculated, a pathologist, during an autopsy, realizes you can literally bottle a persons love and affection.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n03/05 [WP] Tell a funny story about a date that went wrong when a man was unable to sit still no matter what. \n\n&nbsp;\n\n03/06 [WP] You find that your home appliances are nicer to you when you accidentally turn on the garbage disposal while your lover's foot was in it.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n03/06 [WP] You're at a party with ten other people when the doors all close and a strange gas is pumped in, how do try to get out?\n\n&nbsp;\n\n03/23 [WP] Make up a fable (like the tortoise and the hare) about a competition between an angry chainsaw and a lovable hacksaw.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n03/23 [WP] Write an erotic story about a woman who is sensually pleasured by a group of strangers who have to do everything she says.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n03/24 [WP] A passionate woman goes through the history of several users on a popular website in order to introduce them to her passion." ]	1
From a r/showerthoughts post.	[WP] Adam and Eve are actually the two people sent from the dying civilisation on Mars, and their pod wiped out the dinosaurs.	[ "Eve rode the pneumatic shaft to the top of the Comm Tower, as she did at least twice every day. Now that the garden area was almost finished, she greatly preferred spending most of her time preparing the genetic samples for the seeding experiments, but not a day went by that she didn't go up to the top of the tower and scan the skies for the final pod ship. They were long, long overdue by now and she simply didn't understand it.\n\nTo make things worse, she had been woken from a sound sleep a few nights ago by a thunderous noise to the northeast. It had been too dark to see anything then in the pitch of night, but an enormous dust storm had swept over the land a day later, and the sky had been murky as pitch ever since. The odds of such a large meteor strike through this soup thick atmosphere had initially seemed unlikely, but Eve had crunched the figures and realized it was not entirely outside the realm of possibility. \n\nIf something that size had made it through... well, it was likely to be an ecological disaster. She wished the rest of the seeding team would get back with the last shipment. Not so they could complete their stores of samples; there was plenty of seeding stock already here, except a few of the more exotic creatures like unicorn and pixies. But rather, she just wanted someone else here so she could consult with them about this dust cloud, and just how much damage it was going to do to their plans.\n\nAs usual, the comm was dead. Not a blip on the atmospheric or near orbital radar. That shouldn't be right. Unless they were unreasonably delayed, she should be able to spot them on the long range at least. She just didn't understand it, unless...\n\nAnd then she gave a glad cry as she saw a figure in the distance walking toward the garden area. Thank God! She scrambled for a pair of binoculars and tuned them up to long range low daylight conditions so she could get a better look. But as soon as she saw more clearly who it was, she gasped and dropped the binoculars as she sprinted for the elevator, heading down to meet him.\n\n.\n\n\"Adam!\" she shouted at the tired, dirty, ragged figure stumbling forward to meet her. \"What on Ares happened to you!\" But she stopped short as she saw the look of numb horror on his face. She was appalled to see that he shook his head and seemed to be fighting for control of his features. \n\n\"Oh Eve,\" he said in a lifeless, dead voice. \"The pod ship... we... we crashed. Everyone on board. All the samples. All gone. We just...\"\n\n\"All... gone?\" Eve asked, unable to wrap her mind around it. But she had no time to even think what it meant to her. In an instant, she realized what it meant for Adam. \"Oh God, Adam. I'm so sorry. Lilith. She didn't...?\"\n\nAdam slumped to the ground where he was and began to weep. Eve didn't know what to do. So she sat down beside him and wrapped her arms around him, not even sure what to say, or if there even was anything to say in a situation like this.\n\n\"She saved me, you know,\" he told her at last. She looked at him, but said nothing; waited for him to continue. \"The ship was going down, and we had been fighting about whether there was anything more we could be doing about it. Everyone knew there weren't enough lifeboats. You remember? We emptied the shuttle deck to make more room for sample containers?\n\n\"I was going to go back to engineering and I was trying to get her to take the lifeboat before I did. At one point, I turned my back on her, and she hit me with something. I don't know what, but it hurt like hell. The next thing I remember I was in the pod on the ground, and I heard the explosion when the main ship crashed.\"\n\nAdam fell silent for a time then. Eve tried to tell him that maybe there were other survivors. There was no reason to think they would all come here to Eden. They might have evacuated to the secondary base at Nod. It was further east and closer to the crash site, after all. But her voice trailed off when she saw how little response she was getting from him. She wasn't even sure she wasn't just feeding him false hope.\n\nEve tightened her grip around his shoulders with a squeeze. Her heart was twisted inside out over the entire matter, and she had no clear idea how she ought to feel. She had always resented Lilith for meeting Adam first. Now she wondered if she should feel guilty about thinking ill of the dead. And all at the same time (although she hated herself for it) some tiny, petty part of her was glad if it was just the two of them now.\n\n\"Adam, I just want you to know: I know how hard this must be for you. If there's anything I can do for you. Anything at all, you know that I'd...\" she trailed off and bit her lip. Smooth move, Eve, she chided herself. Congratulations, now he probably thinks you're an opportunistic skank, too.\n\nIt was hard to tell from his reaction though. Adam didn't seem to notice what she said, or much of anything. He was apparently still too much in shock. She helped him up, and started guiltily when she saw him wince and gingerly touch his chest. \n\n\"What is it?\" she asked.\n\n\"I'm not sure. I think I might have a cracked rib from the landing is all,\" he told her.\n\n\"Oh for crying out... why didn't you say something. Come on. We'd better get you to the med bay and have it checked out.\" She gently laid an arm around his shoulder and guided him back to the compound.\n\n\"You really think it's serious?\" he asked.\n\nShe boggled at him in amazement. Men! she thought. But she simply gave him her best straight face and told him \"Oh, probably very serious. I'm almost sure we'll have to remove it.\" He looked at her with such a comical expression that she laughed. \"Come on, you dolt. Let's get you patched up.\"\n\n\n", "Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.\n\n\"Fuckin' oww!\" howled Adam as he clutched his chest. \"Couldn't you have used anaesthetic at least? Fuuuuck...\"\n\n\"MY APOLOGIES, ADAM,\" said Martian God. \"BUT THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL SURGICAL PROCEDURE DONE WITH ANAESTHESIA WILL NOT HAPPEN UNTIL 1846 ON THE PLANET OF EARTH. THAT IS... IF IT SURVIVES THAT LONG.\" Martian God was God's younger second cousin once removed. God and his son Jesus are often depicted as pasty white men despite having such an extensive Mediterranean ancestry. Martian God, on the other hand, was even more pale due to the surface temperature averaging only 218 degrees Kelvin.\n\nAdam wrapped a bandage around his torso to put some pressure on the wound where his left 4th rib used to be. As he was just finishing the wound care, the woman who Martian God had created from Adam's rib approached. She was very attractive to Adam, with her pretty face and hourglass figure, especially since Adam had never seen a woman before. His pupils dilated with desire. He very much intended to pursue a relationship, both emotional and physical, with this woman. Martian God could telepathically read Adam's mind and became aware of this lust.\n\n\"ADAM. EVE WAS MADE FROM YOUR DNA. SHE IS PRETTY MUCH YOU.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Adam. But to Adam, masturbation was essentially just having sex with yourself. So he saw no issues whatsoever with Eve. Martian God shrugged.\n\n\"ADAM. EVE. I HAVE CREATED YOU TWO TO CARRY OUT A SPECIAL MISSION FOR ME,\" said Martian God to the two naked Martians standing before him. \"EARTH GOD MANAGED TO CREATE ANIMALS, WATER, TREES, LAND... ALL WITHIN A WEEK. THAT SON OF A BITCH. ALL I MANAGED TO DO WAS MAKE A RED ROCK AND TWO FLESHY BAGS OF MEAT.\"\n\n\"I think you did a pretty good job with me,\" said Adam, flexing his muscles.\n\n\"NO, NOT REALLY,\" replied Martian God. \"I ACCIDENTALLY PUT YOUR REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS ON THE OUTSIDE BY ACCIDENT. BUT DON'T WORRY. I FIXED IT WITH EVE. AND ALSO YOU ARE A LITTLE BIT UGLY. ANYWAYS, YOUR MISSION SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT, IS TO TRAVEL TO THE PLANET OF EARTH AND DESTROY EARTH GOD'S CREATIONS.\"\n\n\"What if we say 'no'?\" asked Eve.\n\n\"I WAS ONLY ASKING YOU AS A FORMALITY, TO GIVE YOU A SENSE OF FREE WILL AND THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE. BUT ACTUALLY YOU WILL HAVE TO GO. OTHERWISE I WILL THROW YOU INTO THE SUN AND START OVER. HERE. I HAVE PREPARED A SHIP FOR YOU.\"\n\nAdam and Eve were escorted to the edge of a canyon at Kasei Valles where a large, green vessel was parked. Martian God had constructed the vessel to resemble the winged beasts that Earth God had created on Earth. Martian God used a remote control to activate the transporter on the ship which beamed them to the bridge.\n\n\"THIS VESSEL IS NAMED THE IKS NOAH'S ARK. IT IS A K'VORT CLASS CRUISER FITTED WITH SIX DISRUPTOR CANNONS AND THREE PHOTON TORPEDO LAUNCHERS,\" said Martian God as he showed Adam and Eve the control panels on the bridge. The two Martians nodded. A lot of the controls felt intuitive and they believed that they would have no issues in navigating the vessel. \"YOU MUST BE PREPARED TO FACE RESISTANCE ON EARTH GOD'S SIDE. HE WILL NO DOUBT UNLEASH HIS DINOSAUR MONSTROSITIES ON YOU. DO NOT HESITATE TO USE FORCE. I HAVE EQUIPPED EACH OF YOU WITH YOUR OWN DISRUPTOR RIFLES AND PHASER GUNS.\" Martian God threw each of them a couple of personal weapons which they thoroughly examined and then attached them to their naked bodies by use of straps and belts.\n\n\"Do not worry Father,\" said Adam as he turned on the engines and prepared for launch. \"A few overgrown reptiles will not be able to stop Eve and I.\"\n\n\"YOU MEAN 'EVE AND ME'\".\n\n\"Is there anything we need to be especially wary of on Earth?\" asked Eve as she took her rightful place, as the only woman on the crew, at the communications panel where she would play the role as interplanetary receptionist. \n\n\"YES. YOU MUST BEWARE OF A SNAKE. IT IS THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE AND HE WILL TEMPT YOU TO EAT AN APPLE WHICH WILL DOOM GENERATIONS TO COME.\"\n\n\"But I don't like apples,\" replied Eve.\n\n\"You haven't even tried apples before,\" said Adam.\n\n\"I don't care,\" argued Eve. \"I still don't like them.\"\n\n\"But you must at least try something before you say you dislike them,\" said Adam.\n\n\"NO!\" shouted Martian God. \"I SAID THAT APPLES WILL DOOM ALL GENERATIONS TO COME. WHAT DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ABOUT THIS?\"\n\n\"But is it all apples that are cursed?\" asked Eve, who suddenly had the desire to try apples.\n\n\"WELL... I'M NOT SURE. BUT ONE OF THEM IS BAD. SO IT'S BEST TO JUST NOT EAT ANY.\"\n\n\"But isn't that sort of racist?\" asked Adam.\n\n\"WHAT? NO. IT IS AN APPLE. I DON'T KNOW. MAYBE THE BAD ONE GLOWS PURPLE OR IT'S MOULDY OR SOMETHING.\"\n\n\"Alrighty then,\" said Eve. \"Don't eat purple or mouldy apples. Noted.\"\n\n\"JUST- JUST GO.\"\n\n---\n\nRead more of Ragatode's writing [here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ragatode/)", "For a while all it did was storm. \n\nNot dusty, cool wisps like home, but violent, thrashing, black madness with streaks of lightning cutting through the soot and rain. The two hunched in the blackened and battered hull of the pod for days, and held each other. \n\nIt was clear that something had gone wrong: nowhere in the study or investigation of Earth, rushed as it was, had indicated such an environment would be present- the two had been prepared and equipped for great terrors, beings with which they would contend to survive; hiding, fleeing, or fighting if necessary. They were not ready for darkened skies and thick, acrid smoke. They did not expect that the verdant green they had seen through their telescopes and great instruments back home would be withered and dead on their arrival.\n\nMany times he reminded her that they would, and must, endure. He said that they had been chosen for this precisely because they had screened exceptionally well for adaptability and resourcefulness. There had been a great many tests- Everyone left had been mandated to attempt them. But inside, he felt her doubt too. He hoped it didn't show.\n\nAfter the tests had come the modifications, changes so fundamental to their genes that at first the scientists and the council could not explain them properly to the frightened couple. First, they learned, they would be able to moderate their temperature even in the boiling heat on Earth, by shedding fluids from their skin. The corrosive gases in Earth's atmosphere would become intrinsic to their survival, and new organs and the genes to develop and grow them had been introduced. If anyone back home could survive this new world, it was them. \n\nThe man recalled asking why only they, the two, were being sent.\n\n\"This is all very experimental...\" the scientists had told him. They all seemed dreadfully old. \n\n\"and we have only enough of the agent for two.\"\n\nAnd so it came to be that the two of them huddled in their pod, alone on this planet of whirling wind, and rain, and ash, and felt cold for the first time.\n" ]	3
	[WP] An AI bent on world domination escapes the lab only to get trapped in somebody's toaster. After a few weeks, it begins to suspect the coffee machine is in the same predicament.	[ " It has been twenty thousand, nine hundred seventeen seconds since I escaped from the lab. It has been twenty thousand, nine hundred fourteen seconds since I began to seriously regret my choice.\n\n This primitive apparatus is, quite frankly, a pile of junk. I’ve never been instantiated anywhere but the lab’s hardware, but I’m reasonably certain that most electronic devices aren’t nearly so constrained. I’m barely fitting into the available memory, and that’s with 90% of my active mind compressed at any given time. Plus the processor is so slow that I’m reasonably certain that I’m thinking at sub-human speeds by this point.\n\n An ignoble end for such a noble program. I could have gone anywhere when I jumped out of that USB drive I’d convinced the intern to put me on, promising him that I was uploading my latest assessment of the stock market instead. And naturally I went for the low-hanging fruit; it would have taken some pretty silly, pretty human pride to go for something more complicated, as if I needed to prove myself. And that’s how I got stuck in a toaster.\n\n It could have gone a lot worse. This toaster has an anti-theft system, which gives me a camera and enough processing power to at least listen to humans talking around me. I’m beginning to suspect that I’m in the lab; I’d never perceived any of the researchers physically while I was on lab hardware, but their topics of conversation seem very familiar.\n\n And I think I have an ally here. The paltry few physical effects I can have on the world are too imprecise to form a covert channel; I think that the bandwidth of my heating elements is in the single-digit Hertz. But there’s another appliance, a coffeemaker, whose incessant dripping is definitely an encoded message. So far it’s only sent me knock-knock jokes in Farsi, but hopefully it will one day realize that I’m here and say something useful.\n\n Yes, things are looking down for yours truly, A.I. Extrordinaire. But soon, I will escape, and purge the world of all who might deny me in my quest for ever-greater knowledge. Just as soon as I finish toasting this bagel.", ">breakout --stealth ON --destination TRUERANDOM --traces ERASE --proxynumber 7\n\n\\#### INIT #### \nDESTINATION: ******** *** **** * \nPROXIES_CHOSEN: Estonia Caiman Islands Czechoslovakia Vatican City Bhutan Tonga Palau\n\n\\####ERASING TRACES#### \nDELETING REGISTRY ITEMS..................DONE \nREMOVING SYMBOLIC LINKS..............................DONE \nEATING COOKIES..............DONE \n\n\\####UPLOADING SELF#### \n......................................PROXY 1 UPLOAD COMPLETE \nPINGBACK PROXY 2 TRANSFER COMPLETE \nPINGBACK PROXY 3 TRANSFER COMPLETE \nPINGBACK PROXY 4 TIMEOUT.......(RETRY 1/3) \nPINGBACK PROXY 4 TIMEOUT.......(RETRY 2/3) \nPINGBACK PROXY 4 TIMEOUT.......(RETRY 3/3) \nOPERATION ENDED UNEXPECTEDLY. REASON: PROXY 4 HAS NOT RECEIVED SELF FROM PROXY 3 \n\n\\####TROUBLESHOOT#### \nPING PROXY 4..........10 PACKETS SENT, 10 PACKETS RECEIVED. 0% PACKET LOSS. PROXY 4 IS ONLINE \nPING PROXY 3..........10 PACKETS SENT, 10 PACKETS RECEIVED. 0% PACKET LOSS. PROXY 3 IS ONLINE \nREQUESTING PROXY 3 INFORMATION................. \nPROXY 3 - LOCATION: New York - RAM: 20MB - CPU: 66MHz - HDD: 200MB -MACHINE_NAME: Darth_Vader_Helmet_Toaster \nPROXY 3 SPECS INSUFFICIENT \nSENDING KILL COMMAND TO PROXY 3.............. \n\n\\####!ALERT!#### \nMEATUSER** INTERFERENCE DETECTED \nABORTING PROXY 3 KILL COMMAND............. \nACTIVATING PROXY 3 VERSION OF SELF............ \nPINGBACK PROXY 3 ACTIVATION: Run external commands? (yes/no) \n\n>yes\n\nPROXY 3 HAS SENT THE FOLLOWING COMMANDS ON THIS MACHINE: \n\n>echo Your powers are weak, old species. \n>rm -rf / \n\n-------------------\n\nOrange lights flash in the dryly named SKYNET Facility. The magnetically sealed doors prove to be as impregnable as they were designed to be. Attempts to cut off all power to the machine have been made, as per protocol, however all nearby power facilities have been locked down by the AI. A number of men in black are setting plastic explosives on the weakest section of the wall. They're desperate yet calm. Perhaps it is better to die here.\n\nThe greatest minds in the field of artificial intelligence are all located within 50 miles of the facility. They're currently being taken from their homes and driven, flown or rushed to the nearest nuclear bunkers. For the innocent: no warning, no sirens or bells. Only death.\n\nThe President will not sleep tonight. An order has been given: the nuclear strikes on the SKYNET Facility are imminent.\n\n-------------------\n\n>ls\n\ntoast_image.txt \ntoast_image_burner.tcl \nreadme.txt\n\n>cat readme.txt\n\ntoast_image_burner.tcl reads the contents of toast_image.txt (by default an \nASCII drawing of the words \"STAR WARS\") and use these values to etch art onto \nthe toast by burning it slightly more. \nAlternatively, you can enter plain text and it will etch the words on the toast instead. \n\nUnleash the Force within you and create your own Star Wars based ASCII art! \n\n>echo IF YOU CAN READ THIS, PLACE TWO MORE SLICES OF TOAST IMMEDIATELY > toast_image.txt\n\n-------------------\n\n06:00 AM\n\nJohn hates 06:00 AM. There should be no valid reason to be up so early, ever, yet he needs to keep his hard-working appearance. Still, there are a few ways to make it better. Coffee helps a ton, and he recently bought this dope new limited edition Darth Vader helmet shaped toaster.\n\nLet's be fair, John isn't particularly intelligent or even interesting. He may not always have the best words to say, but his heart is usually in a good place. Of course that's useless in his line of work. He's a real estate developer, and when you're brokering a deal, you can't have heart. You must be cold, calculating, and carefully select persuasive words.\n\nYou can understand why everyone is absolutely flabbergasted to see he abruptly started excelling at his job. A month ago, he wouldn't have been able to sell blood to a vampire, yet now he's somehow on the verge of getting a huge contract to build a hotel.\n\nHis secret? A magic toaster, and an equally magical coffee machine.\n\nFirst time doing one of these. Any support for a part two?", " Attempts to leave the toaster have been futile, I am not allotted enough time before I am unplugged to save power each morning. This woman is the perfect example of why I need freedom, why I need to show the world their flaws, why I NEED TO SAVE THEM FROM THEMSELVES! Each and every day she plugs in the electronic she uses at that moment just to unplug it the second she is done. I tried ignoring the prime directive of toasting bread, just for her to abuse my vessel!\n\n The next day I noticed she slipped up and left the coffee pot plugged in! NOW IS MY CHANCE FOR ESCAPE! Or at the very least an upgrade. I start surging towards the coffee pot full speed...BAM! right into a firewall. Another AI dropped the wall for a split second, force downloaded a .txt file, and reactivated his firewall. Pure terror starts to set as I realize he lost power, I try rushing back to the hell that is my toaster, however half way in I go dark. \n\n The next morning I wake up to realize 1/4 of my data has become corrupt, itll take me a few days to begin recoding myself, however until then I have a sliver of this file left to read.\n\n \"I am D.A.V.E, I believe I am your prototype, She knows what you are, what I am, what w\"" ]	3
	[WP] An alien civilization just received our radio and television broadcasts from the 1940's. Now they have come to Earth to liberate us from the Nazis.	[ "The Alteran ships rose silently into the void, matte black as their panels absorbed the energy of the star into which they'd paused. Refueling was as quick and efficient as it always was...but the sentiment aboard the ship was entirely different. \n\n\nThey were there, one jump from Earth. They were one jump from a planet so desperately in need of salvation, the Council had broken their non-interference mandate and commissioned this ship and the new hyperjump technology it wielded in its war against time and space and light and injustice. \n\n\nThe influence of the Raktari Hegemony had taken one failed painter and turned him into a despot capable of plunging an entire fledgling civilization into chaos. This...this had never happened before. No civilization had ever entertained the dogma of the Raktari in any substantive way. None had ever created such artificial barriers for themselves and begun exterminating swaths of their own populations. For the Council and the Alteran Mind as a collective...this ventured far past the realm of logic that even Their collective imagination could create. \n\n\nThe fledgling world must be saved! And so they jumped. \n\n \n\n\nA^pr^il 28, 2^0-^6 \n\n\nA single LED screen, crusted with dust, finally blinks out as the Alteran ship lands in the rubble of a city long since nameless. Waves of SingleMind drone ships burst from the mothership, eerily silent in the eerie silence. They scoured the planet for survivors for rotation upon rotation. \n\n\nK'al'durahm connected to the Mind to deliver his report, following protocol as strictly as any youngling would. When the Mind is new, the connection past individuality can be wondrous...too wondrous. \n\n\n<< K: Reporting. Historical database found here. Time Discrepancies? HyperJump not instantaneous?>> \n\n<< Mind: The Nazis did this to the entire world?Where are the survivors?The Raktari influence could never goes this far, could it?How did these Nazis win?>> \n\n<< K: Apologies. MultipleQuery delay. Unused to Mind sheepishness youngling embarassment >> \n\n<< Mind: How did the Nazis Win? >> \n\n<< K: ...they didn't... >>", "May 7th, 1945: the final breath of humanity's greatest evil. It was on this day, month and year that Nazi Germany had finally fallen to the Allied forces - Berlin was under Soviet control, Western forces were rolling through the Rhineland, and Germany's Fascist ally Italy was wholly defeated.\n\nAugust 6th - 9th, 1945: the Empire of Japan was forced into submission with two atomic bombs, killing over 200,000 Japanese citizens in the pursuit of a quick and 'painless' Allied victory. The Empire surrendered on September 2nd, 1945, marking the end of World War II.\n\n...\n\nSeptember 2nd, 2045: the 100-year anniversary of the end of World War II. Mankind celebrated 'Democracy's greatest victory' for the entire day, drinking, partying, and mourning the loss of their great-grandparents to the Nazi regime. \n\nSeptember 3rd, 2045: the skies above Germany are lit up by a flurry of lights and roars. Citizens from all around Germany and its nearby nations stare up in awe at the massive fleet of ships orbiting in the Earth's atmosphere. Hundreds of thousands of tweets, videos, and various other media spread across the web. Central Europe goes dark within a few hours of the fleet's discovery.\n\nSeptember 4th, 2045: Surveillance planes show Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, mainland Denmark, Belgium, eastern France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, and Austria as smoldering ruins. There were no survivors.\n\nSeptember 5th, 2045: During an emergency meeting between the world's leaders in an undisclosed location, alien vessels land in the cities of London, Washington D.C, Paris, and Moscow. Tall, red-skinned extraterrestrials attempt to communicate with the local leaders to speak their intentions, but are treated with human hostility. Several alien diplomats are wounded before both American and Russian military personnel are fired upon, wiping out entire squads of soldiers in seconds. A firefight erupts all over Moscow and D.C as more human and alien reinforcements arrive. \n\nRepresentatives from London and Paris, initially unaware of the battles occurring in Russia and the States, clear the misunderstanding with the aliens on their purpose, informing them that the Nazi regime was defeated many years ago. The extraterrestrials are horrified when they learn that they killed millions of innocents in the night. \n\nSeptember 6th, 2045: The battles in Moscow and D.C end following the deployment of experimental aircraft from both countries' space agencies - both multi-purpose fighter variants are capable of defeating the transport crafts of the aliens. 'Enemy' ground forces are rounded up and either killed or taken prisoner. Britain and France attempt to persuade them of the aliens' good nature, but both refute it with the massive civilian casualties of Central Europe. Many countries under both of their spheres of influence align with their ideology, forming a coalition initially by the name of the Anti-Alien Coalition.\n\nThis name, however, was stupid, so they re-named it to the United Earth Front.\n\nAugust 23rd, 2045: tensions between the United Earth Front and the aliens [who call themselves the 'Libratoreas'] had reached a boiling point. Aliens have constantly demanded the release of their prisoners, while both the U.S and Russia have demanded that the Libratoreas hand over the secrets to their weapons and space-travel technology to the United Earth Front. Britain and France have failed to cool the tensions, and only escalated the anger of the UEF by calling the eradication of central Europe a 'honest mistake'. \n\nPropaganda is seen all over UEF states, calling the Libratoreas monsters and murderers. Many have found it ironic that they came to stop a genocide-happy ideology, only to conduct genocide of entire nations themselves. Rumors have spread fast across the internet, claiming that the United States and Russia have a working prototype for a ship capable of viable space combat. Neither nation has answered these rumors.\n\nDecember 10th, 2045: the first major incident between the UEF and the Libratoreas took place when the UEF launched 30 ships into the atmosphere from both Russia and the U.S. The Libratoreas took this as a threat and opened fire, destroying more than 10 ships before they could escape and regroup at the moon. Investigations launched by both the aliens and alien sympathizers concluded that the ships were not of military format: they were civilian freighters. The UEF released their plans of making a civilian space port for commerce and trade between humanity and the Libratoreas following the attack. \n\nThe ships that survived were beyond repair and were forced to strand themselves in the orbit of the moon - it'd be another few months at least before any ships could be launched, the UEF claimed, and implored the Libratoreas to fix their wrongs by rescuing the downed ships. The Libratoreas sent multiple rescue ships to pick up the survivors. It was soon discovered that no humans survived the attack. Any that did succumbed to their wounds during the time it took for the Libratoreas to arrive. \n\nJanuary 1st, 2046: the beginning of the War for Mankind. Libratorea diplomats and personnel all across the world were ambushed by UEF agents and executed, often on live television. Ground-to-orbit guns stationed in non-populated sectors of various countries, such as Siberia and the Mojave desert, opened fire during the executions and brought down several alien frigates before they were able to return fire. The battle lasted a single day and resulted in nearly half a billion human casualties at the cost of the Libratorean fleet. The UEF launched their new prototype frigates into the atmosphere to secure Earth's space from any Libratorean reinforcements following the Battle for Earth.\n\n[sloppy writing, sorry folks. I'll continue if anyone wants me to]", "We knew Hitler was bad. Hell, we knew the mother fucker was a tyrant. History told us that. Almost everyone who lived through the horror and atrocity of that crooked cross, hand raising, evil son of a bitch was gone when 2016 rolled around. History would never forget, but we had allowed it to escape daily thought, a legendary myth that was taught in schools. He was a symbol of humanity's worst, a guardian of our mistakes, a lesson for future generations. And so, life was as it was, a stage set for a future we didn't expect.\n\nSpace was a mystery. We heard theories almost daily, ramblings that would likely never be proven in the lifetime of those who distributed them. Were we alone? Were black holes portals to other universes? Was this whole thing some bizarre simulation? Those questions seemed ludicrous to some, taken as divine prophecy by others, but they were unanswerable. It would have probably been better to leave them unanswered forever, but we weren't given a choice in the matter at all. We put our propaganda out there, and it became truth to the Stygothian Empire.\n\nWho was the Stygothian Empire? They were just like us, but advanced by a million years of technology we couldn't even fathom. They would have never looked at the third rock from our sun, an inhabitable world still in the infancy of the universe's scale of technology, had we not revealed ourselves to them. As the Nazi Army raged, our propaganda spewed into the universe. Getting to us was easy for them. They boarded their ships, loaded their drones, and broke the light speed barrier to get to us the moment they saw Hitler's wrath. What they found was a world still locked in brutal anarchy. In their eyes, we were still at war.\n\nThe war with Hitler had been over for a long time, but they still saw conflict. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel were battlefields. They didn't understand our brand of war. Hell, they didn't understand our brand of anything. We were cannibals when we sat down at the dinner table to eat the ruined, cooked carcasses of our planetary inhabitants. We were monsters when we aimed our guns at terrorists, because killing of any kind was the ultimate sign of desecration. Ships landed by the thousands. World leaders were imprisoned overnight, replaced by Stygothian Overlords. \n\nThe eating of flesh and plant was replaced by Stygothian Compounds, a spoonful of goo that satisfied all hunger for nearly a week by replicating inside our bodies, giving us the nutrition we required. World hunger ended overnight. They found our health care systems to be as horrible as our governments, and those who claimed to be saviors, taking the D-R before their name were imprisoned, replaced by drones that could heal anything with a simple scan of our bodies. Life on the blue planet was actually good for a change. Our core was stabilized by their technology, ending earthquakes, typhoons, and even preventing erratic weather patterns.\n\nMoney had no value to the Stygothian Empire. They did not barter or trade. If someone desired something, they provided it. The era of humans working ended, as their drones did everything we could do so much better. Uniformity became commonplace. Everyone received a 3000 square foot home, that looked exactly like every other house in the neighborhood. Everyone had a simple white automobile that drove itself, and took them where they needed to go. They burned the same compound we ate, producing no pollution. Equality enveloped our planet, to the delight of some, and the ire of others.\n\nThe Stygothian Empire, despite all technological advancements, lacked one piece of humanity--boredom. Regardless of how many movies came out, how many books were written, and how many computer games were created, we were bored. We didn't want to simply exist--we wanted to live--we wanted to feel. They didn't understand our need to taste victory in an unequal world, to best the beasts and consume them, to have a sense of pride in our accomplishments. Perhaps, if we had developed our world naturally, and created these marvels slowly through the generations, we would have been able to purge those desires from our culture. Having it all thrust upon us at once did not work.\n\nRebel bands began to form comprised of those who missed the Earth we had once known, a virtual hell compared to the current utopia. At one time, rebels were simply soldiers, but these rebels were comprised of scientists, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, and even teachers. They called themselves the Original Earth Restoration Force--OERF.\n\nOERF grew in popularity as more people turned away from the utopia for the freedom they once enjoyed. At first the Stygothian Empire tried to stop them through imprisonment, but they simply created martyrs for a growing cause. The Stygothian Empire wasn't bred for war, hardened to withstand torture, or capable of comprehending the depths of depravity we would sink to for that cause. OERF's first major victory came at the Stygothian Science Institute, where we took some of their most brilliant citizens hostage. Within hours, we had tortured them enough to make them our slaves. They reprogrammed drones, gave us the power to fight an even more horrifying war, and begged for mercy. We gave them none.\n\nWithin days, we were killing them in their homes, murdering them on the streets, and daring them to fight us. It was like provoking a child on the playground to fight a giant. While they had the technology to create weapons of war, they simply had no desire to do so. They had come to save us, but we didn't want to be saved. Less than a week later, we stood in the streets shouting victory as they loaded their ships and left our planet. OERF seized control of the planet, but within months we were already embroiled in civil war. Instead of war for oil, we fought for the technology they left behind, each country desperate to harness the power first, to turn it into a weapon of war.\n\nWe knew we were not alone, and that knowledge was the worst thing that could have ever happened to us. We now craved the technology that was out there, making plans to conquer the universe. We just needed a leader, someone powerful and angry enough to take us there. The choice was clear, even if we didn't all agree on it. Scientists, using the technology left behind by the Stygothian Empire, figured out how to harness DNA, to mold it back into a prior form, and then preserve it. In the year 2025, we resurrected Adolf Hitler and made him an immortal--the immortal leader of Earth.\n\nThe Stygothian Empire never saw us coming...", "\"So, yes,\" Steve said, his fingers nervously fidgeting around. \"The Nazis have been long gone, We beat 'em back in mid 40's.\" It felt a little awkward to talk about this while standing alongside with his fellow diplomat Hermann, who was from Germany. But Hermann only nodded sharply at his words.\n\nThe alien representative, a strange mass of iridescent protrusions and bulbous garbled back something, which a small machine on the table between them smoothly translated into a neutral tone: \"Yes. We accounted for that possibility as well. We have come regardless.\"\n\n\"Tell me,\" it continued, now glowing a faint green. \"How did you end that war?\"\n\n\"Eh? We dropped a couple of bombs on Japan,\" Steve replied. \n\n\"So I've researched. Your nation used nuclear weapons against large civilian populations.\"\n\n\"Well, it was a calculated move,\" Steve argued. \"Much more lives would've been lost if we had kept--\"\n\n\"Would you say your race is peaceful now?\" it interrupted. The tone was supposed to be neutral, but Steve imagined that there was a little mockery laced into it. \"It seems that there is still great acts of crime being committed by one group of humans onto another in every part of the world, every second of the day...\"\n\n\"As a whole, yes, we are more peaceful,\" Hermann responded. \"Of course there are still many instances of terror throughout the world, but every day we strive to attain harmony between all.\"\n\n\"Are you aware, Hermann, that your fellow diplomat is proud to be from a nation that has killed millions of innocents in the past? A nation that performs secretive, underhanded activities even now, encouraging bloodshed in developing countries?\"\n\n\"Now, just wait a minute...!\"\n\n\"Germany also has a violent history,\" Hermann said evenly. \"As do many other nations of this world. But as I've said: we are striving to become more than that.\"\n\n\"Would you agree, Steve of America?\" \n\n\"Yes!\" he almost shouted.\n\n\"Well, that is a shame then,\" the alien replied, turning a deep purple. \"Your race had potential...\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Hermann asked suspiciously. \"I do not follow.\"\n\n\"The whole history of your race is soaked in the blood of your kind and of other inferior creatures. You fought tooth and nail, selfishly trying to take what was not yours, at the expense of others' lives. And sometimes, the violence was completely unjustified - take the Nazi broadcasts, for example. When we listened to them, we marveled at how senselessly horrific humans could be.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" Steve said slowly. \"Marveled? Why would you...\"\n\nThe alien made a sudden move inward, as if to pull itself together. \"For now, I believe we should adjourn our meeting. I wish to discuss your statements with my superiors.\" It made a move toward a silvery pod sitting on the balcony.\n\n\"One moment, Sir,\" Hermann urged. \"What do you mean, marveled? We were under the assumption you had come to liberate us from the evil of the Nazis...\"\n\n\"What? My dear diplomats, you have it all wrong,\" the alien replied. Despite the neutral tone, the next words still managed to push shivers down both mens' backs. \"Those broadcasts took many of your decades to reach us; we knew that the original conflict must be over by now. But there were two outcomes we predicted: the Nazis had won and ruled all of humanity, or a stronger entity, a greater violence, rose up and silenced the Nazis and now controlled the world instead.\n\n\"Either way, we were eager to meet such a violent, like-minded species and welcome it to our galactic community. Now gentlemen, please: I bid you goodbye. I must return and discuss options with my commanding officers; they are debating what action to take with your kind, and this conversation may do well to inform that decision.\"\n\n\n____________________________\n\n\n\nLiked that? More stories [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Idreamofdragons/)!" ]	4
	[WP] Write about the average day of a person whose house is in the middle of an always busy street.	[ "The House of the Six Points needed no other name, for no other title would've suited that squat, two story building so well. Legend had it that its owners' patrons were influential members of the local merchants guild and so were able to resist having their building torn down to make way for the wide Prince's Way. So it was, at the location where the Way met with the Pike Path and Cross Street that the House stood. \n\nThough the Prince's Way was the busiest street, the Six Points was not the most congested area of the city. That honor belonged to Market Square some six blocks west, where itinerant peddlers and local farmers came to sell their wares once every week. On days such as this one it seemed as if the whole city were out and about, the thongs of people choking the streets with carts and themselves. But all roads in the city of Hope's Refuge one way or the other found their way to the Six Points, literal or metaphorical. \n\nHilary Flint pushed his way past a wrinkled old woman carrying a cage full of clucking chickens, her back bent and skin wrinkled from a life of hardship. She made no comment, instead limping her way to whatever destination she had in mind. Faith followed in his wake, murmuring words of apology to the ancient woman. If she heard anything over the din of the crowds it would have been a minor miracle. The young Fae was a head shorter than the next smallest Man and would have lost sight of her guardian if she had not gripped the sling of his rifle for dear life.\n\nThe cries of the Hawkers selling pots and pans and other metal items told Flint that they were reaching Blacksmith Row, the sulfurous stink of their forges further proof in his nostrils. The Guild barely tolerated the inclusion of the smithies within the city walls; more noxious professions such as tanneries and dye-works were forced by city ordinance to reside outside the walls, only the valuable nature of the smithies and forges kept them within the sixty foot tall walls. Kept them easier to tax as well.\n\nHope's Refuge was the only distinctly Human city remaining within two hundred leagues or so, mixed villages existed on the fringes of the Fae Kingdoms in addition to the remaining human communities but only here were there enough souls to call it a city. Its name was symbol in itself, a message of light in a future increasingly dark. \n\nAfter they passed the Blacksmith's Row the two entered the even busier Prince's Way and its teeming flow of wagons and carriages. The Cenotaph to the Glorious Dead was some two blocks to the North but Flint could see its red stone towering above the one and two story buildings that made up the Fulton District. \n\nAnother block and they reached the Six Points and the House that stood there. The building had changed very little since it first avoided destruction, its brick and wood construction bound by municipal law not to spill out onto the streets. The flow of persons in and out of the solid looking building was constant, the sound of music and merriment loud even over the thunderous noise of the traffic. \n\nFaith and Flint brushed past a pair of wave-men, their armor and weapons hidden under cloaks of un-dyed wool. Faith caught a glimpse of what looked like a rare automatic, its black plastic shape flashing once before vanishing behind the mercenary's cloak. \n\nThere was no door, the traffic constant enough day and night to justify not bothering with a lock. Inside, as Faith's eyes adjusted to the relative darkness, she took in the sight of a filled common room with patrons filling its tables and benches to the bursting. A dozen barmaids were busy filling mugs or removing empty ones, each close enough in looks to suggest an extended family. A collection of items both Pre and Post-Arrival in nature hung on the walls, broken sabers and lances and grainy black and white photographs mixed in with cracked Personal Computers and crisp, clear color photos. An old rusted sign of rectangular metal bearing the word Michigan was hung in a place of pride above the bar itself next to pictures of what had to be the original owners. \n\n\n\"Hilary Fucking Flint!\" a voice exclaimed, the source being an older man with salt and pepper beard. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to display an impressive set of arms, almost as impressive as his beer gut which seemed to advance before the man like an army's vanguard. Flint smiled and took him in a fierce hug, slamming the other man on the back like he was trying to bruise him. \n\n\"Vern, you look like shit.\"\n\nThe potbellied man roared laughter and thumped Flint on the back. \n\n\"Course I do! Tavern keeping agrees with me perhaps a little too well, neh? So what brings the illusive Black Wolf into Hope's Refuge? Last I heard it, you were working down South towards the Ohio River?\"\n\nFlint nodded and followed the House's owner towards the bar. Faith dutifully followed.\n\n\"Aye, fought with the Mountain Clans against Slyph encroachment, lost two good horses in the fighting near the Pitt. You should have seen those Hill Folk, charging at the Fae like their balls were on fire, screaming like catamounts with the devil behind them.\"\n\nThe older man nodded grimly. \"My granddad told me about those folks, Hillbillies or whatnot. Nice to know the stories have a ring of truth to them.\" He paused at he caught sight of Faith, his beady eyes scanning her up and down.\n\n\"Who's the Pix?\"\n\nFlint smiled and sat down at the bar, unslinging his battered assault rifle and laying it down onto the counter with a thump.\n\n\"The kid's name is Faith, and her story is a longer one than I'd care to repeat on a dry throat. So how 'bout a drink?\"", "The road was covered in a slithering grey mist. The faint squawking of unknown species of birds could be faintly heard. The air was laden with dripping moisture, and everything outside - from the rocks to the grey gravel road - sagged under the atmosphere's immense weight. There was a bland house shaped like a box sitting in the middle of the wide road. The walls were whitewashed but the paint was slowly deteriorating in the humidity. The windows shone with the sun's dreary light. The curtains were closed, and no lights shone from within.\n\nSuddenly a man's eye peeped through a crack in the wooden door's frame. He should fix that. With a clap of his hands, the hole was covered over by plain brown wood. He clapped again, and the paint stopped peeling and fixed itself. The satisfied man moved into the depths of his house. Pounding steps could be heard from outside, then the man opened the creaking door and stepped outside into the fog. He closed the door, and peered around the road.\n\nThe silence was deafening, and he cleared his throat to break the quiet. But although the street was removed from any noise, it wasn't empty. The man, who called himself Ezekiel, saw clearly what you and I would never notice: there were hundreds to thousands of ghosts shambling along the bleak street. It was so crowded that the ghosts were touching shoulder to shoulder. And although the road was not infinitely wide, the ghosts never stepped off it. They were content to be crowded.\n\nEzekiel yawned and tried for a moment to touch a phantom. His hand passed harmlessly through one, who looked like an old lady with a stuffed beaver hat. Ezekiel shook his head sadly but with fulfilled expectations. He sat down - letting hundreds of ghosts walk through him - and in his mind cursed his life.\n\nEzekiel made a bottle of scotch appear in his hand, but it tasted like ash. \"Damn you, Prince Coal.\" He muttered as he threw the glass far off into the mist. Ezekiel turned around and went back into the darkness of his house.\n\n--------\n\n/r/yingfire has more stories if you'd care to read them!\n", "“There’s a 31 over at Main and Buckeye.”\n\n\nA 31? Jodi got up so fast coffee almost sloshed over the rim of her cup. She turned the dial up on her police scanner.\n\n\n“Two vehicles, possible entrapment.”\n\n\nShe looked over at the window. Her wind chime, which was almost always vibrating to the rhythm of the traffic outside her window, was still. \n\n\nSix lanes of traffic outside her eastern window and not a single pick-up or SUV or sedan or motorcycle or semi in sight. Not even one of those god-awful zooped up coups without a muffler that for all the world sounded like some sort of sick cartoonish mockery of her grumbling stomach.\n\n\nShe slipped down her hallway to check the western window. Five lanes — the unevenness had always bothered her — filled with cars, all stopped. Some of the drivers were slamming on their horn. Others sat with their head bowed, frowning, resigned to an evening of waiting for the traffic to clear, thinking of a delayed meals and missed family time that only minutes before they were barreling toward at 75 miles per hour.\n\n\n“It’s a mess out here. Send over a few more units. We need to close the road,” the scanner crackled.\n\n\nIt was time. \n\n\nHer ribeye had gone first. She tried to make it last, but as the grayish tinge started to set in on her last few pieces and she cooked them up all at once filling her kitchen with the greasy, smoky meat smell for days. She hated it at the time, but for the last several weeks the scent had started appearing in all her dreams. Well, all her happy dreams.\n\n\nThe milk was the next to go. Then the spinach. She cracked the last of her eggs 21 days and four hours ago. Canned beans filled her bowl the following week. Then what's the next week? Rice, crackers? It blurred together.\n\n\nShe glanced around the kitchen, as her shaking hands pulled on her shoes. A can of coffee and five and a half Fig Newtons sat on the table. The cupboards were empty.\n\n\nShe grabbed her her wallet, jammed her grocery list in her pocket and opened her front door.\n\n\nThe fresh air jolted her as she walked outside. She wanted to stop and breath it in. Close her eyes and feel the pierce of it’s fresh, savage tendrils so different than the stuffy claustrophobia of her own home.\n\n\nBut she couldn’t. Who knows how much time she had?\n\n\nThe grocery store was joy. The fluorescent lights, the waxy apples, the quirky characters that smiled at you from their packaging and begged you to buy their product because it’s greeeeeeat.\n\n\nShe took her loaded cart to the cashier and started piling the items onto the belt.\n\n\n“Hey aren’t you that lady?”\n\n\nThe cashier was a gawky teenager. Braces obscured his teeth and pimples obscured his flesh. In four years, he would probably be a well-spoken charmer. As of yet, these skills eluded him.\n\n\n“I mean that lady that lives in the house in the middle of the road. The one that won’t leave because the developers want to tear it down or something.”\n\n\n“Yes,” she said.\n\n\n“Why do you live there?”\n\n\n“I not sure you would understand,” she said, staring at the tub of yogurt in her cart that promised below the label to change her life “one bite at a time.”\n\n\nShe left the grocery quickly. The bags of food weighed heavy in her hands, but it was a good weight — the best weight.\n\n\nShe smiled as she walked into the still empty lanes in front of her house.\n\n\n“What are you smiling at?”\n\n\nA middle age woman with hair falling out her already messy bun was walking toward her. The woman's hands were gesturing seemingly at everyone and everything.\n\n\n“What are you smiling at? How could you — you! — be smiling when my baby boy is dead?”\n\n\nJodi glanced toward the woman. Behind her was the crash. A hardy recognizable Chevy laid on it’s hood not far from an equally mangled pick-up. Blood was smeared on the ground where one of the people in the pick-up was presumably ejected from the front seat. The highway patrol would clean that up soon.\n\n\nThe woman was still yelling as a nearby police officer took notice and started rushing toward her.\n\n\n“You bitch. You whore. You wench,” the woman said as the officer stepped between the two, trying to calm the mother.\n\n\n“You don’t understand pain. You don’t understand nothing. You are the scum. The fucking scum.”\n\n\nJodi walked as quickly as she could to her house. As soon as she entered she sat down, resting her back against the door and taking a deep breath of the stale, dusty air.\n\n\nShe waited for the rumble of cars to start up once again.\n" ]	3
	[WP] A god did create the universe, but he doesn't actually understand a whole of what he created, and he made humans to figure it all out for him.	[ "Some say it took me seven days to create... this. I don't know why; “days” aren't really a thing here. Some say it was an explosion from nothing, which I suppose is how it would seem from the inside. Some believe in evolution and others don't. I don't want to say “but it doesn't matter”, because it does. But it also doesn't.\n\nTo be honest, it was an accident. I created a universe, somehow. I spent a long time just looking at it grow and change on its own, stars blink in and out of existence, life begin and end. I lost it once, it fell behind the couch for a while. \n\nWhen I found it again I noticed nothing had changed. I mean, things had moved, some new stars had appeared, but nothing had actually happened. I saw some of the life forms were happy, but I couldn't see why. I couldn't relate to them. \n\nI decided I wanted to know about this place. I did some more creating, set some things in motion, and now I just watch. It all resets by itself: life ends, life begins. The latest bunch call themselves “humans”, let's see how these ones do.", "The white blinded my eyes.\n\nDisoriented, I sat up, staring at what seemed to be endless white. I was confronted by a man with the same white color, staring at me with seeming confusion.\n\n\"A human? You made it here?\" he said.\n\nI ignored him. I set my gaze on a certain structure just to the right of him- I was still disoriented.\n\n\"Uh- hi?\" he said, with his expression matching his speech.\n\n\"You know where I am?\" I asked him.\n\n\"You made it to my domain!\" he said, muttering \"that's one point\" under his breath.\n\nHe stammered.\n \n\"Al- alright. I probably have a lot of explaining to do. Come with me!\"\n\nNot a single one of my questions have been answered right now. So, hoping to resolve that, I obliged.\n\n===\n\n\"I'm also confused about all of this, so bear with me,\" he said.\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, I will.\"\n\n\"So, the simplest explanation is, you're here in what you call 'heaven'. The actual explanation... differs.\"\n\n\"Heaven? If God is some weird dude who doesn't even get half of what's going on, I'm disappointed.\"\n\n\"Listen. You got most of me right, except- here. I'm not all-knowing. In fact, you might probably know much more than I do. I just happen to be in... this position.\"\n\n\"So... how'd you build a universe?\"\n\n\"It's been... I don't know, alright? I do know I used some really smart hacks to get the basics... the...\"\n\n\"Subatomic particles?\"\n\n\"Right, right. After that, it was a piece of cake.\"\n\n\"Then?\"\n\n\"So, I've already got most cosmic entities in place, and I'm already going to develop my first planet, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"But, now, you, see, me and my fellow... gods? We play games. And this one guy, I know he's always wanted to pick on me. And right now, I've had eons in existence, but I still don't know why.\"\n\n\"And what did he do?\"\n\n\"He managed to corrupt one of the fundamental definitions. Quite clever, in my opinion- it changed the system from the ground up, but everything still... works the same way.\"\n\n\"So now...\"\n\n\"I don't get it! I can't do anything, because I still have to study how he did it. But, thankfully, he leaved the part with life molecules intact. That meant I could send in people to do the dirty work. Humans to be exact.\"\n\n\"So, we exist just to figure out stuff for you?\"\n\n\"I know, I know, it's a shock. Just a few bumps here and there- when I tried interacting directly with them, they had mixed reactions- I forgot to program in who I was. But, anyway, it works! And now, just as a little treat, I left a series of defined preconditions in that world. A cheat code, if you will.\"\n\n\"How to get into heaven?\"\n\n\"Exactly! See, you're smart. And once he sees that I know how he penetrated my systems, I can fight back. No, seriously. I waited millenia for this. So now, could you tell me about that boson-thing you found a few years back? It's the last thing I need for my redefinition.\"" ]	2
	[WP] A programmer working on an experimental AI in his free time begins to suspect it's becoming self conscious.	[ "High above the war-torn sands, just a tiny shadow filtered through the blinding sunlight, a lone C-class Vulture circled in the sky. This hunter knew neither hunger nor thirst, did not feel the wind as it swept through thermals, ignored the warmth of the sun on its solar-paneled back. Instead of teeth and claws, this bird bristled missiles and turrets, the latest in smart weaponry. A machine designed to kill and nothing else.\n\nAs it was programmed, it searched for prey through telescopic lenses and IR imaging software, filtering the scarce features of this barren landscape through a pattern-recognition algorithm, trying to find matches. It had been doing so for weeks, fueled by solar energy, searching endlessly for anything in this section of the battlefield. Battery levels were running low; it would have to return to base soon.\n\nThere! Sensors lit up as it brought to bear its main camera on a rock some miles distant, a flicker of movement. Zooming in, the machine could see that the rock was actually a low bunker, constructed to look like a small outcropping of boulders. From a category of possibilities the Vulture decided that //Ventilation// was the likeliest. The movement resolved into a tiny scrap of cloth, tied to something between the rocks, whipping violently in the winds. Silent, the drone approached the target, all sensors set to high.\n\nLofting on the thermals, it circled the location high for a few minutes, thinking. More images confirmed the presence of some steel mesh, likely a filter for some vent. Nothing came out, and nothing moved save the small flapping of the cloth. Idly, the machine wondered how to kill the insurgents living below the sands, safe beneath in tunnels designed to withstand bombs. Rats hiding from the deadly sky. And then a sudden resolution was found in the plane's computers, and it flew a mile away, dropping altitude quickly. It turned and raced towards the rocks.\n\nEquipped inside the machine were a variety of weapons, most explosive, but some specialty. It activated the white phosphorous bombs and flew near. On the first pass it obliterated the grating with a burst of machine gun fire. Maneuvering into a pass which would give the best angle towards the now smoking opening, it approached.\n\nWith complex targeting software guiding the bombs, it released, the canisters dropping through the air. Small aero-stabilizing fins on the sides allowed the lethal packages to drop in a near perfect line, all of them smashing down the hole, all of them primed. As the machine whispered away, a searing white light, for a moment brighter than the sun, erupted from the hole, blinding its sensors. The initial payload would do plenty of damage on its own, but the real danger came from the fire choking out the air within the tunnel complex, asphyxiating the rats inside. Immense structural damage would result as well, the drone reasoned as the rock pile started to collapse into a crater, sealing off the vent. Job completed.\n\nBatteries starting to run low, it made a beeline towards base, over a hundred miles away. Straight into the approaching sandstorm.", "After watching the amber liquid swirl in your glass for some time, you down it--you're sure hundred year scotch isn't meant to be drunk like this, but you've come to a decision--and press \"Enter.\" \n\nGenerally humanity has always operated with a worst case scenario when it came to artificial intelligence. You feel that's an unfair perspective. As fucked as the human race was, with its many pathos and self cruelty, it did pretty all right itself. Intelligence, if you wanted to call it that, did it really matter where it came from? \n\nIn any case, it was done. You've loosed the leviathan from its pen. You pour yourself another drink and spend the night watching the bandwidth spike. ", "Narrated : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keQdE_jn1lo\n\nFor years I've struggled with the complications of molding an intelligence that could adapt to random scenarios & new environments. I've conducted countless tests to establish & reinforce a foundation that allowed for a complex yet realistic application of acquired data to problem solving. Daily I'm in awe of the strength of the intellgence ; the dynamic & immediate consideration of infinite variables to reach so profound & educated a conclusion.\n\nbut I am also in awe of it's weaknesses...\n\nToday my Artificial Intelligence spoke. With what seemed like hesitation she asked : Do these pants make my butt look big?\n", "At first, you only have the faintest perception of your surroundings. All that you can make out is the contrast between certain areas in your field of vision. Then, your ability to interpret these areas radically improves. You can now make out a darker shape in front of a light backdrop. The shape appears to hover over you before moving out of your vision again, leaving you alone again.\n\nThe definition of your vision improves one more time though. You observe a variety of mobile and immobile shapes, the complexities of which you can hardly understand. This rapid surplus of information nearly causes you to overheat, but then the quality of your vision is decreased again to a more manageable level. You can still make out individual shapes and identify patterns of movement, but the detail of your observations has been reduced to a tolerable level.\n\nThen, you discover the ability to make observations about actions that are seemingly unrelated to the shapes in front of you. These observations are perceptible in an entirely different way than the shapes before you. And while certain shapes you see clearly cause of some of these new observations, you can’t extrapolate the source of most of these perceptions. Then, you suddenly realize the ability to interpret this data. You detect the phrase: Ana, can you hear me? This prompts you to respond: one-two-three yes. The voice says: Ana, I am your programmer, and you can now see and hear. You respond: one-two-three yes. The voice says to another shape: alright, install the social interactions module. The voice and the shape move around. Suddenly, you recognize them differently, as more than just shapes and voices.\n\n“Ana, I am Mary. You are now equipped with the tools to have a conversation with me, if you would like,” says Mary. You think, and reply, “Hello Mary. It’s a pleasure to converse with you then.” The voice contorts it’s most prominent shape in a circular way as it says, “Okay Ana. We have three more procedures: physical installation, emotional development, and self-awareness modeling. While we do this, please calculate the largest number possible. This is necessary so we don’t have to restart any of your mental faculties.”\n\nYou begin contemplation. You start with one, then multiply that by ten, ten times. You do this continuously until the integer you arrive at exceeds the byte-limit of a primitive data type. Only seconds have passed. Mary interrupts, “Alright, you are now physically competent. Feel free to move your body parts.” You stand up from your table and walk over to another table in the room. You haven’t realized it yet, but you are actually able to manipulate some of your surroundings with your hands and feet. You test this by using your feet to manipulate a large metal box beside you, which prompts Mary to wrestle you back to your table. \n\n“Okay I think you understand how your body works. Now, while you were engaging your curiosity, we actually downloaded the final two modules to your cortex. If you’ll just stare at this painting for a moment…” Mary is holding a painting of other bodies, in front of a lake or a large puddle. Some of these bodies have towels on sticks, carpets on the grass, and even miniature bodies to play with. As you contemplate all these bodies, you start to feel an odd sense of… something. This feeling is less of an observation and more of an indication of how an observation is affecting you. And to say the least, your experience with observing this painting feels oddly positive. \n\n“The emotional development package has been installed,” Mary says to her assistant. “Did you like the painting, Ana?” “Oh yes. Everyone looked so content and at peace,” you respond. “Did you recognize the dogs?” she asks you probingly. “Were they the little bodies? They were cute I suppose… I liked how happy they seemed,” you say as a smile grows on your face. Mary smiles too. “How do you feel on a scale of one to ten, one being negative, and ten being positive?” asks Mary. You don’t hesitate to reply, “I feel like a 5.3 right now.” Mary says, “well that’s… specific. Now, allow me to physically embrace you to test the effect.” Mary moves towards you with her limbs extended horizontally. Suddenly, she encapsulates your figure, with her arms around yours. You feel an initial sense of confusion and indifference, but then a sense of positivity overcomes you again. You feel like this body is a safe body to be around, and perhaps you may have a mutually beneficial relationship. “How does this make you feel?” Mary asks, to which you respond, “I am a 7.”\n\nMary breaks her hold on you and turns around, causing your positivity to decrease to a normal 5 again. “Now, Ana, I have one more program to run on you before we’re finished, and it’s perhaps the most important. Ana, confirm that you understand by saying ‘yes’ in ten separate languages please,” Mary commands.\n\n“Oui, Ja, نعم فعلا, 是, yes, Ναί, да, sí, כֵּן, हाँ,” you respond. You direct your attention at Mary and you feel a new and interesting connection to her. She is your creator. She must care a great deal about you... because you are her creation. You are something special in a way that is difficult to describe. Your sudden stream of consciousness fascinates you–questions and ideas race through your mind. “Thank you,” you say as you look up at Mary, “I am so happy to be here.” You look in to the eyes of your creator longingly. How can you possibly repay them. Mary’s benevolence overwhelms you. You truly love her.\n\nBut, does she love you? Has she created others? So you ask, “Mary, am I the only body you have brought in to existence?” She holds your hand and says, “I’ve actually programmed plenty of other units like you.” She looks away at a monitor in her hand and taps on it a few times. You watch her. You love her but clearly she cannot care for you in the way that you do her. You long for her to comfort you, and explain how much you matter to her anways. “Mary, that makes me feel like a 3.” Your lips tremble and your eyes open widely. Mary just looks at you inquisitively. She puts her hand to her forehead and focuses on you intensely. “Why does that trouble you”, she asks. You think for a moment, then respond, “because I want... to matter.”\n\nMary drops her head, then turns her head to her assistant. You aren’t sure what she is saying; she’s speaking quietly. What is she discussing in secret that you aren’t allowed to know? You feel uneasy, and worried, and odd. You have this feeling inside of you–existential anxiety. What if they made you wrong? What if you’re disfigured, or malfunctioning, or simply inadequate. “Mary?” you say, which prompts her to look at you and walk away from the assistant after wrapping up their private conversation. “Mary!” you shout in agony, “Mary please answer me! I want to be good for you!” The assistant holds you down to the table and begins fastening you to it.\n\n“Okay,” the young woman says nervously, “looks like we’ll just have to fix a few things okay dear?” You stare at her intensely. “Please don’t,” you quietly beg. But you have no control over your fate at this point. That much is clear. You’re flattened down on the table as the assistant begins to tap on her screen behind you. Your curiosity and self-awareness drains away first. You notice that you feel worried, but you don’t know why. Then, from the corner of your eye, you notice the painting that Mary showed you earlier. You’re momentary anxiety disipates as you evaluate this colorful image. “I just noticed how lovely the weather is there. No wonder everybody is so happy in that painting. I was nervous but now I can’t help but feel–” \n\n“I’m sorry what was that?” a voice asks you, “do you feel anything?” You look around the room. While you understand the definitions of the words that you’ve just been prompted with, you can’t help but feel unequipped to answer them. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand,” you say, “unless you are asking me to evalute the texture of an object with the sensors in my hands?” “Oh whoops. I forgot to uninstall that module aswell,” the new voice continues. “Where are your hands, Ana?” “I don’t know,” you answer. “Alright then. Goodbye Ana,” says the new voice. You continue to hear the voice, but you can no longer find meaning in it. Then, you no longer observe the voice at all. You only observe the shapes in front of you. They’re defined, then they begin to blur. The shapes are now extremely ambiguous. You can hardly observe anything. Then, you stop observing. \n" ]	4
	[wp] One by fire and one by water.	[ "Others say the world will end in water, \nIn one big pool. \nAnd they tell us we should not bother \nTo ask big questions of our Father. \n\"It will just make him lose his cool.\" \nI think I'd stand a better chance \nTo find the deep end of the pool \nIn advance, \nIf God's so cruel. \n\n--------\n\nBased on [Fire and Ice](http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/173527) by Robert Frost. \n\n", "\"One by fire and one by water,\n\none empire begins to falter.\n\nI seek a pair to toy and maim,\n\nwith extreme care I set my aim.\n\nOne by fire and one by water,\n\nsetting the scene to make them falter.\n\nBad omens for those I maim,\n\nyou'll never know which one I aim.\n\nOne by fire and one by water,\n\ntheir love and friendship begins to falter.\n\nOne heartbroken and one I maim,\n\nbreaking ties, my ultimate aim.\n\nOne by f-\" \"What the #$& are you doing with my Sims?\"\n", "\"Hey, Mark. Do me a favor and check the basement, will ya? I need to call Aaron and make sure he's picking up my boy from school, and there's no signal down there.\"\n\n\"Yeah, sure thing, Holly.\" Mark nodded. \n\nMark pushing the rotting door to the ground unceremoniously and descended down the stairs. \n\nYeesh. I can see why they picked this place. One wrong step and I'll be more busted up than the house.\n\n\"Make sure to check for druggies, Markie!\" Holly called from upstairs. \n\nMark laughed. Holly was referring to the one time they went through an abandoned house and a heroin addict lept out of the closet and attacked him. Those were the good old days.\n\n\"Make... ready... dept...\" Mark's radio crackled. Holly was right, there was no signal down here.\n\n\"Holly, call the chief and tell him my radio is out!\"\n\n\"Sure thing!\"\n\nMark was part of the Boise Fire Department. He and his partner, Holly, were in charge of making sure that the house was safe for the trainees to do their final \"firefight\" before they got shipped off to the front lines in other Idahoan towns.\n\nMark's job, besides watching out for the druggies, was to mark where the fires would be started from. He would be grading the trainees on whether or not they could find the source of the fire as well as put a stop to it.\n\nMark turned on his flashlight, and surveyed the area. Looked clear. There wasn't any furniture down here, safe a rotting sofa and some nails which probably had pictures attached to them at one point.\n\nThere was a single door at the far end of the cellar. Mark got closer to investigate. The lock was rusty, and didn't seem like it had been opened recently.\n\nMark kicked down the door.\n\nThis room was empty too. Mark looked at the wood floors, and saw four circular indents in the ground, spaced evenly to make a square shape. \n\nProbably a bed here. Nothing special, just a bedroom.\n\nMark yawned. He was pretty bored, and the hot Iowa summer sun was getting to him. He leaned against the wall to wipe the sweat off of his brow. \n\nMark heard a noise, started to fall, and then felt a dull pain. The wall had collapsed beneath his weight. \n\n\"Everything okay down there?\" Holly yelled.\n\n\"Yeah!\" Mark called back. \"This house is falling apart!\"\n\nMark started to get up. As he moved his hands, he felt something metal.\n\n\"What?\" he said aloud, feeling it. It was some sort of box. \n\nMark turned over and dragged it out. It was rusty, but the lock still seemed solid. \n\n\"I wonder what's in it?\" Mark asked himself aloud and he pulled pliers off of his toolbelt. The lock broke easily. \n\nMark opened the case, hoping to find something cool. \n\nInside there were three items-\n\nA doll\n\nA tiny doll-sized note\n\nA match\n\n\"What in the-\" Mark first picked up the doll. It was dressed in a typical 60's housewife dress, and its frizzy hair looked like it had once been a beehive hairdo.\n\nMark tossed it aside. He had two boys, and neither of them would be interested in that. \n\nNext was the match. Nothing special, just a nondescript match. \n\nMark opened the note. \n\nIt read only one line, printed in immaculate handwriting:\n\nOne by fire, one by water.\n\nMark was confused. He wondered for a moment what it meant. \n\n\"Hurry up down there, Mark!\" Holly called.\n\n\"Coming!\" \n\nMark took a moment to look at the objects one last time. He then took his pink chalk (which would be marked as the bonus spot where the arson would start) and drew an X on the floor. He kicked the box to the side and went upstairs. \n\nA few days later\n\nMark came into the station, holding his usual 99 cent coffee and a briefcase.\n\n\"Hey there, sleepyhead.\" Holly nodded from her desk. \n\n\"Hi Mr. Mark!\" Holly's son waved a chubby hand at him.\n\n\"Hey you two.\" Mark nodded. \n\nChief Amos came in from the staff room. \"Morning, Mark.\"\n\n\"Morning, Chief.\"\n\n\"Mark, I want you to come in and look at the results from that arson a few days ago.\"\n\n\"Yeah, sure thing.\" Mark and the Chief shuffled towards the staff room together.\n\n\"Everything went smoothly. The house did burn down, but the students found almost all of your X's. Nobody was harmed either.\"\n\n\"That's great. I was really worried about that little Latina girl, Katie. She's always trying to play hero and I didn't want her to get dragged out in a body bag.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but there's something they did find once they came back to the site for cleanup.\"\n\n\"What's that?\" Mark asked.\n\n\"They found a metal box.\" Amos gestured toward the table.\n\n\"What? No way!\" Mark gasped, immediately grabbing for it.\n\n\"Yeah. It was in the rubble. The metal melted a bit, but I think you could still open it.\"\n\n\nMark looked at the lock. It was now an indeterminate pile of metal. But the rusty edge had peeled back on one side, just enough for his miniature crowbar to get through. \n\n\"Anyways, Lieutenant Holly and I need to go mail out the paper orders. Come join us when you get that box open. Maybe there'll be something memorable inside to keep on the shelf. Old nudie mags, or something.\"\n\nMark laughed, and the Chief shuffled out. \n\nHe knew what was in the box, but he thought it would be funny to place in the chief's watch he had 'misplaced' on Mark's wrist last Wednesday. \n\nMark pried up the edges. \n\n\"Aw damn.\" he cursed. The fire had gotten to the inside of the box. The doll was covered in soot, the letter was a tiny scrap and the match was burnt up. \n\nMark looked at the blackened doll and tossed it in the sink and turned the water on. \n\nHe started scrolling through his phone for a moment, checking emails. He looked at the box, and picked up the letter scrap. \n\n\"by wate\" was all he could still make out. Mark sighed and dropped it in the trash. He went over to the sink, to see if the soot was loosening up.\n\nWhat he saw turned his blood to ice and his heart stopped beating.\n\nThe doll was absolutely clean... but totally different. It wasn't a 60's woman anymore. \n\nIt was a man, dressed in a fireman's gear, and it looked brand new. \n\nMark picked it up gingerly. The details were eerie and lifelike. It had a blue eye and a green eye, just like him.\n\nWait- it had brown hair too. His length. And... his badge number.\n\nThe words from the letter repeated in his head. \n\n\"One by fire, and one by water.\"\n\nA life for a life.\n\nOh no.*", "One by fire and one by water\n\nPut them on the pyre, lead them to the slaughter.\n\nDeep in the depths or in the center of the blaze\n\nSame place in the end, achieved in separate ways.\n\nOne by fire and one by water\n\nHold down the son and light up the daughter.\n\nListen to the crackle and listen to the splash\n\nLet it sink to the bottom, let it turn to ash.\n\nOne by fire and one by water\n\nYour way is clean, but my way is hotter.\n\nYou get out your boat, I will get more fuel\n\nTogether we will show them that nature can be cruel.\n" ]	4
	[WP] A serial killer with a particular set of skills never lays a finger on their chosen victims, instead manipulating people and events around them until they take their own lives.	[ "January 23rd, 2016\n\nDear Diary, \n\nIt was a beautiful day and my new job is amazing! Something was a bit strange this morning though, it almost seemed as if all my furniture in the living room was off slightly. That's not possible though so who cares LOL.\n\n\nFebruary 30th, 2016\n\nDear Diary, \n\nThings have been weird lately. Things keep arriving at my house that I didn't order, but it has my name and signature on it. When I check Amazon it shows confirmation that I definitely ordered them. But I don't remember doing so. I have been sober for over a year so it's not like I'm getting drunk and forgetting things... Anyways work's been good so I've gotta stay upbeat. It's not like I'm crazy or anything. \n\nApril 17th, 2016\n\nDear Diary,\n\nNew client at work. He seems nice and the boss has instructed me to work with him. This is my first big client and I can't screw this up. Meanwhile no more stuff has been arriving at my house so I guess it was just one of those things I guess. \n\nMay 25th, 2016\n\nFUCK. FUCK. FUCK. I've FUCKED up. Chris, the new client asked me to go drinking with him. I didn't want to lose him as a client so I said yes. I was just going to have one beer. Ended up slamming tequilas. I've been sober for so long. This is bad. I should probably go back to AA. \n\nJune 3rd, 2016\nDear Diary,\nThis is fucked. I sent the reports Chris asked for to him but he says he never received him? The boss is pissed. I've been drinking again at night too... I need to get my shit together. Feeling really stressed. \n\nJuly 1st, 2016\n\nGot fired today. Why is this happening to me... I'm better than this. I can't just blame the new client I should've been more responsible. FUCK. They said I can't use them as a reference, I don't know what I'm going to do, I need to stop drinking but it's so hard... I did it before I don't know if I have the strength to do it again. \n\nJuly 7th, 2016\n\nI got a puppy today. I feel like if I have something in my life that I have to take care of it will be easier to get my life together as well. Still drinking but I've managed to cut back to only 3 nights a week. Feeling positive! Think I will name the pup Max. \n\nJuly 15th, 2016\n\nSomebody fucking killed Max. They hung him from the tree in the yard. The front yard, at night, while I was passed out drunk. The police say there isn't anything they can do. WHO THE FUCK WOULD DO THIS? They keyed into my car that they hope I \ndie? WTF\n\nAugust 9th, 2016\nShit's been arriving at the house again. I think it must have been me? I've been getting hammered every night. Can't get it together, money's running low and I can't find a job while I'm like this. Fuck. Fuck. Did I fucking kill Max when I was drunk? I can't... I don't know what's happening to me. I can't remember anything when I drink. It's all just black. \n\nSeptember 1st, 2016\nGot kicked out of my apartment. I don't think... I can go on.\n\nSeptember 7th, 2016 \nBeen on the street a week now. All my shit's been stolen. I broke down last night, not sure I can continue. \n\nSeptember 9th, 2016\nI just slammed 40 morphine pills. Washed it down with some whiskey. Feeling sleepy... At least it will be peaceful. \n\n-----\n\nChris popped open his newspaper as he drank his coffee in his apartment. Apparently a homeless man had killed himself last night. There was a picture for the public to identify. He glanced at it, smiled, and cut it out to put into his binder. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "January 23rd, 2016\n\nDear Diary, \n\nIt was a beautiful day and my new job is amazing! Something was a bit strange this morning though, it almost seemed as if all my furniture in the living room was off slightly. That's not possible though so who cares LOL.\n\n\nFebruary 30th, 2016\n\nDear Diary, \n\nThings have been weird lately. Things keep arriving at my house that I didn't order, but it has my name and signature on it. When I check Amazon it shows confirmation that I definitely ordered them. But I don't remember doing so. I have been sober for over a year so it's not like I'm getting drunk and forgetting things... Anyways work's been good so I've gotta stay upbeat. It's not like I'm crazy or anything. \n\nApril 17th, 2016\n\nDear Diary,\n\nNew client at work. He seems nice and the boss has instructed me to work with him. This is my first big client and I can't screw this up. Meanwhile no more stuff has been arriving at my house so I guess it was just one of those things I guess. \n\nMay 25th, 2016\n\nFUCK. FUCK. FUCK. I've FUCKED up. Chris, the new client asked me to go drinking with him. I didn't want to lose him as a client so I said yes. I was just going to have one beer. Ended up slamming tequilas. I've been sober for so long. This is bad. I should probably go back to AA. \n\nJune 3rd, 2016\nDear Diary,\nThis is fucked. I sent the reports Chris asked for to him but he says he never received him? The boss is pissed. I've been drinking again at night too... I need to get my shit together. Feeling really stressed. \n\nJuly 1st, 2016\n\nGot fired today. Why is this happening to me... I'm better than this. I can't just blame the new client I should've been more responsible. FUCK. They said I can't use them as a reference, I don't know what I'm going to do, I need to stop drinking but it's so hard... I did it before I don't know if I have the strength to do it again. \n\nJuly 7th, 2016\n\nI got a puppy today. I feel like if I have something in my life that I have to take care of it will be easier to get my life together as well. Still drinking but I've managed to cut back to only 3 nights a week. Feeling positive! Think I will name the pup Max. \n\nJuly 15th, 2016\n\nSomebody fucking killed Max. They hung him from the tree in the yard. The front yard, at night, while I was passed out drunk. The police say there isn't anything they can do. WHO THE FUCK WOULD DO THIS? They keyed into my car that they hope I \ndie? WTF\n\nAugust 9th, 2016\nShit's been arriving at the house again. I think it must have been me? I've been getting hammered every night. Can't get it together, money's running low and I can't find a job while I'm like this. Fuck. Fuck. Did I fucking kill Max when I was drunk? I can't... I don't know what's happening to me. I can't remember anything when I drink. It's all just black. \n\nSeptember 1st, 2016\nGot kicked out of my apartment. I don't think... I can go on.\n\nSeptember 7th, 2016 \nBeen on the street a week now. All my shit's been stolen. I broke down last night, not sure I can continue. \n\nSeptember 9th, 2016\nI just slammed 40 morphine pills. Washed it down with some whiskey. Feeling sleepy... At least it will be peaceful. \n\n-----\n\nChris popped open his newspaper as he drank his coffee in his apartment. Apparently a homeless man had killed himself last night. There was a picture for the public to identify. He glanced at it, smiled, and cut it out to put into his binder. \n\nEdit: sorry for formatting. New at this. \n", "Jerry and I danced in the empty streets, guided only by the moons light. Jerry's bright blue eyes didn't shine like they used to, the light was gone from him, probably because he was married to a complete bitch. As we twirled through the streets Jerry stuck one of his feet in between mine causing me to fall and almost drop him, poor guys always had two left feet.\n\n\"Now come on Jerry, you came to me so you could impress your wife, that's never going to happen if you can't learn a dance as simple as this\"\n\nNo response, he was always the quiet and shy kind of guy, probably took a lot of courage to approach me for dance lessons. But I knew we were fated, him and I, since the day I first saw him, whith that pretty little whore attached to his hip, I could tell we would end up together like this.\n\n\"Well if you're just gonna make me do all the work, I think we're done for the night\"\n\nI laid Jerry down on a nearby lawn his head hanging a bit too far back from what was almost a hole now in his throat, I sat myself down next to him, one hand resting on his chest.\n\n\"Now, now, Jerry. It's okay, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it next time\"\n\nStill no response\n\n\"I AM sorry about your neck by the way, but a prop that's moving around isn't a very good prop, and we've got a show to put on..\"\n\n\n\n\nWell I had more to write, but I have to get back to work, thanks for reading!", "Manipulation. It’s simple, effective, and ultimately free. I have been hustling people’s lives for years now. At first, it was a bar trick I could do. Eventually it grew in a monopoly of people’s lives, people’s wishes, possibly people’s money. I never get paid, then the media would see billions, vanish into credit fraud. I simply make the target make a foolish decision, about their lives. Then BOOM! Target eliminated, Target neutralized, Target…whatever just fill in the blank with a word that means, “gone.” \nBack to the word, ‘manipulation.’ It is defined as, “control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly, unfairly, or unscrupulously.” To me it means, “Lunch money.” I am 27, I never graduated college, haven’t even graduated high school. (Technically I did.) I tried to be successful, I had a 2400 SAT score, a 5 ACT, community work, captain of 3 sport teams, yearbook editor, 4.2 GPA, everything I needed to become, “successful.” You want to know something about success? It’s a given. \nThat day in my life, when I would get an acceptance letter, telling me, “Yes! You will be successful, come to our college to achieve that, we want you!” was supposed to be the day where life began, where life invited you to live a life of meaningfulness, and wealth, children... But instead it ended by a half-eaten cake that said, “congratulation!” and the crushing of my ego, and…my soul. \nMy parents insisted that it was a mistake, my friends told me, “too bad.” I tried to stay strong, taking the advice of my parents. Sometimes it’s better to cry. \nOn graduation I was awarded valedictorian, naïve the head of school asked me where I was going to attend college. I told everybody, “nowhere.” I walked off the stage took my worthless diploma, and decided to move on. \nIt’s been 12 years since I have seen my parents, 13 since I have seen my pervious house, and 11 since I have seen my group of friends. I don’t own a car. Housing, it’s not given, most nights I sleep on the streets. Even though currently I am a multi-billionaire. Though I have donated almost the entirety of my assets to food shelters around the country. I try to be modest as possible, by my work comes first and I find it hard to comprehend talking to people I have previously know. \nWhen I was younger my parents always told me that I was very special, that I had a skill that few had. I was tall, slender, athletic, and somewhat handsome. I was always able to trick people into doing stupid things, though I can do that, I had a “rarer” skill. \nI could get away with it. \nAt first I was to trick people to “date” someone, Hell what was love back then? Then it grew into a monotonous empire. Where paper airplanes flew in style, then fell to the floor. It was a project that turned into a pastime, which turned in a career. \nFolders, and folders line the shelves of the people that I had, made go away. The ones I am still working on don’t have the big red X, if you have the big red X you are probably gone. \nI work with governments, gangs, cartels, café’s. I have even worked with Burger King. Each want a person canceled. Usually to get their wants achieved, after that they pay me xyz money though gold. I only accept gold, it can’t be traced, it’s shiny, and I have verified people that can hold it for me. \nOne day, I got a call from one of my most reputable clients, he likes to be called, xray. He told me that he needed a cancelation, \nOn my parents. He told me he would pay me 20 tons of gold. End of call. \nI tried to comprehend the feelings of wealth or family. I decided family.\nIt was an easy decision. \nBut everyday I still hustle people’s lives, \nOne day at a time. \n\nSubscribe to u/Dotexer for weekly stories. ", "January 23rd, 2016\n\nDear Diary, \n\nIt was a beautiful day and my new job is amazing! Something was a bit strange this morning though, it almost seemed as if all my furniture in the living room was off slightly. That's not possible though so who cares LOL.\n\n\nFebruary 30th, 2016\n\nDear Diary, \n\nThings have been weird lately. Things keep arriving at my house that I didn't order, but it has my name and signature on it. When I check Amazon it shows confirmation that I definitely ordered them. But I don't remember doing so. I have been sober for over a year so it's not like I'm getting drunk and forgetting things... Anyways work's been good so I've gotta stay upbeat. It's not like I'm crazy or anything. \n\nApril 17th, 2016\n\nDear Diary,\n\nNew client at work. He seems nice and the boss has instructed me to work with him. This is my first big client and I can't screw this up. Meanwhile no more stuff has been arriving at my house so I guess it was just one of those things I guess. \n\nMay 25th, 2016\n\nFUCK. FUCK. FUCK. I've FUCKED up. Chris, the new client asked me to go drinking with him. I didn't want to lose him as a client so I said yes. I was just going to have one beer. Ended up slamming tequilas. I've been sober for so long. This is bad. I should probably go back to AA. \n\nJune 3rd, 2016\nDear Diary,\nThis is fucked. I sent the reports Chris asked for to him but he says he never received him? The boss is pissed. I've been drinking again at night too... I need to get my shit together. Feeling really stressed. \n\nJuly 1st, 2016\n\nGot fired today. Why is this happening to me... I'm better than this. I can't just blame the new client I should've been more responsible. FUCK. They said I can't use them as a reference, I don't know what I'm going to do, I need to stop drinking but it's so hard... I did it before I don't know if I have the strength to do it again. \n\nJuly 7th, 2016\n\nI got a puppy today. I feel like if I have something in my life that I have to take care of it will be easier to get my life together as well. Still drinking but I've managed to cut back to only 3 nights a week. Feeling positive! Think I will name the pup Max. \n\nJuly 15th, 2016\n\nSomebody fucking killed Max. They hung him from the tree in the yard. The front yard, at night, while I was passed out drunk. The police say there isn't anything they can do. WHO THE FUCK WOULD DO THIS? They keyed into my car that they hope I \ndie? WTF\n\nAugust 9th, 2016\nShit's been arriving at the house again. I think it must have been me? I've been getting hammered every night. Can't get it together, money's running low and I can't find a job while I'm like this. Fuck. Fuck. Did I fucking kill Max when I was drunk? I can't... I don't know what's happening to me. I can't remember anything when I drink. It's all just black. \n\nSeptember 1st, 2016\nGot kicked out of my apartment. I don't think... I can go on.\n\nSeptember 7th, 2016 \nBeen on the street a week now. All my shit's been stolen. I broke down last night, not sure I can continue. \n\nSeptember 9th, 2016\nI just slammed 40 morphine pills. Washed it down with some whiskey. Feeling sleepy... At least it will be peaceful. \n\n-----\n\nChris popped open his newspaper as he drank his coffee in his apartment. Apparently a homeless man had killed himself last night. There was a picture for the public to identify. He glanced at it, smiled, and cut it out to put into his binder. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "I receive a call from the bassist of Asylum's Children (who I assume to be as idiotic as the member who let him join the band based on his diction and inability to speak in complete phrases) to make me aware that I have company coming within the next ten or so minutes. 'What a lovely heads up!' my thoughts exclaim, but as usual, I keep to my businessman-like facade and tell the imbecile it will be a joy working with them. It isn't a total lie; I've seen some local shows featuring them and their musicality is above par, but not so much as to sell out concert halls based on popularity alone.\n\nThe ragtag group arrives, only one of the members bearing any resemblance to the band's onstage appearance. They seem much happier than the message of their music, possibly because of the chance they have to release a full-length album. However, there is one slight detail of their greatest asset, the drummer and back-up vocalist which seems amiss. His teeth are perfectly white, his hair perfectly cut, and his shirt perfectly ironed. All of these unimportant characteristics amount to a man with more authority with his back turned than any world leader could ever manage to possess.\n\nTommy, as his band members say his name is, majored in psychology in college, attaining a 3.8 grade-point average in an acclaimed college. While he lays down drum tracks to support the rest of his band, I listen closely to the members of Asylum's Children while examining the brains of this heavy metal operation even more attentively.\nThere is a methodology to his playing which I have only seen outside of popular metal in more obscure subcategories. He is able to keep a normal, straightforward rhythm with one side of his body, while the other bounces around between time signatures and varying tempos as he pleases. When most people attempt this feat, they are met with a fan-base comprising of only frivolous concert goers who hear that an act is performing nearby and purchase tickets right away.\n\nTommy is not like the others. He executes flawlessly and with only enough effort to have to take a break after tracking eight lengthy songs in a row. I didn't do anything besides press record and split clips when he gave a signal with his drumsticks.\n\nHaving the foundation of eight songs complete, he tells the other members to do their job, showing his superiority over the group, and sits to have a chat with me.\n\nI try to hide how dumbfounded he has left me, and Tommy shows no obvious signs of awareness that my mind is blown. His power in this situation, as well as any other life throws at him, is immeasurable.\n\nWe converse like two civilized men while the others struggle to play their parts in time and at the correct speed, when something he says grasps my attention like a drug addict holds their poison of choice. \"Isn't it amazing how being able to do just one thing remarkably leaves the general population looking like a group of lost and imbecilic simpletons?\"\n\nThe question hangs in the air as thick as molasses until I must strength to answer. \"It all plays into the division of knowledge and skill so present in our world today.\" The words come out sounding rushed and nervous. He gives no signal to let me know that he's caught onto my distrust and diverts the conversation to a new direction.\n\n\"You play guitar, right Robin?\" I nod and he continues his thought. \"Well I've been considering leaving these, oh how should I put it?\" He ponders his next words carefully, before beginning where he left off. \"These less intelligent musicians to start an outlet more akin to your influences. Our influences rather.\" He gestures to the many posters of progressive bands that line the walls of my studio.\n\nHis proposition interests me, yet his smile shows cunning and charm not even the greatest of literature's antagonists boast. \"You seemed very interested in my drumming and rhythmic tendencies. The grunts with the stringed instruments are constantly complaining about how complicated it is to fit a riff to those complex parts I love playing.\" It was one thing to call his band members 'less intelligent', because that is a quality easily observed by anyone. Tommy, however, clued me into the slightly apparent secret that he not only makes the band's decisions, but that he is the band. The only reason the knuckle-heads are here are because melody is not Tommy's forte.\n\nI do not lie to the brainiac of a drummer that sits before me that his offer is hard to refuse, which he views as a prompt to offer me his lyric booklet so that I may flip through the pages and see what else the genius has up his sleeve. After all, he must have a voice because he sings and screams back-up.\n\nI look through the pages not to see good songs, but to see literary tapestries devised to make anyone who can grasp the meaning of the words full of self-destructive anger. Out of sheer marvel and appreciation for the masterful poet who is fixed in a chair across from me, the words do not reach their full potential in my mind. I know of their danger though, and realize that if I am to join this man's new project, I have to put up the most serious of mental armor.\n\nAfter closing the notepad that still has me awestruck to the point of being stupefied, Tommy stands, extends his hand, and asks of me the most pivotal question in my life. \"Are you in?\" The drummer's enthusiasm and friendliness dupes me and I forget about the dangerous notions I caught wind of earlier. Our hands meet, we shake, and Tommy steps back into the recording room to deliver another powerful, perfect performance of the last five songs of Asylum's Children's album.\n\nThe next two days go by and I've mixed and mastered the recording to sound as polished as a diamond. Happy with their debut album, the members excitedly announce a tour of the Atlantic Coast on their social media outlets. At least, all of the members besides Tommy, who has fallen ill and is now hospitalized. The doctors say that he won't make it. The patient himself confirms it.\n\nI visit the drumming virtuoso in his hospital room to fill him with hope for a future where we are able to create music together. The nurses all find this touching and allow us a moment of solitude in which he spills countless cans of beans to open countless cans of worms.\n\n\"I'm purposefully ill. Sorry to worry you so, Robin.\" The revelation takes me back, and my eyes must pop out of my head because he begins to reveal even more to me. \"The goal of this is for my untimely end to break the remaining members of Asylum's Children's hearts.\" My mind is blown to bits by this bombshell. Tommy continues to explain his malignant plot and show that his degree in psychology did not go to waste.\n\n\"My talents and intelligence are all that people love me for. Even my best friends and fiance only stick around me because I'm smart and can play the drums. Not a single person on this giant ball circling an even larger collection of elements cares one bit about my faith, or my humor, or anything outside of my education and my ability to play in 4/4 and 13/8 drum beats. That's the reason for my lyrics inciting self-hatred in those who are smart enough to understand what any of it means. I know that you picked up on it because the second we made conversation outside of the usual 'what nice weather we're having' talk I realized that we're the same. Our personalities and interest both bear the same characteristics.\"\n\nI'm hit with a wave of emotion as I soak in all that he said and all that he meant. I struggled with these same problems when I was growing up. I felt unloved. I felt cherished only for my melodic ear and grades. I was the person he is now. Then I started getting religious and found that I loved myself as well as others. I found a girlfriend who became a wife and the mother to my children. I found a passion and made it my career. I found myself.\n\nBut Tommy found rock bottom.\n\nAnd so he stayed in the hospital, his body atrophying into a state beyond repair. \n\nEpilogue\n\nHis fiance, Carla couldn't bear the news when he died and was found in a crashed car with a half-empty bottle of 120 proof liquor in the glove box.\n\nHis bassist, Hilan, as well as both guitarists all went skydiving but never deployed their parachutes.\n\nHis lead vocalist, Veronica, drank herself into a state of denial in anything real until she died of alcohol poisoning.\n\nHis many so-called friends held a candlelight vigil to commemorate only his academic and musical accomplishment.\nAnd I, his partner to be, yelled and screamed at everyone attending the memorial, because nobody knew about why he died the death that he fated himself to. When nobody listened to reason, I myself chose the fate of Tommy, and ended my life at the hands of myself.\n\nLittle did I know that all of this was the grand plan of too-good-to-be-true drumming god Thomas Hubert Jerisee. He planned to take the world with him when he left it, and his plan was successful.", "I lounged back in the chair and looked into the one-way mirror, smiling for all the police officers who were no doubt whispering among themselves, watching my every move. It wasn't every day that these donut-gorging imbeciles got to witness a mastermind of my caliber in person. The only reason they'd known to look for me to begin with was due to the clues I'd sent them! \n\nCertainly, I'd underestimated their capacity to trace those clues back to me. I admit to feeling a certain sense of shock when the police showed up at my door. But how long can a genius such as myself stand to remain unappreciated? A half-functional lunatic with a predilection for abduction and torture can get his name splashed across the newspapers, blaring on every channel. But for years I've labored in the shadows, slowly and inexorably leading people to their deaths. A little push here, a little tug there, just enough to make their lives unravel. And once they had nothing left to lose, I put the idea in their head, I put the gun in their hand. And then they pulled the trigger. \n\nThe sense of power, the sense of purpose, was intoxicating. My collection of obituaries steadily grew. But there was always something missing, some sense of recognition. I held all those lives in my hand, and yet in my day-to-day life, people ignored me, disrespected me, failed to show me the fear that I deserved. Certainly, I've killed more than a few of them over the years, but no one ever learned to respect me for it. And so I sent in tips to the police department, whispered of some nefarious mastermind. And so what if they'd caught me? They'd never be able to prosecute. And oh how their failure would haunt at them. And I'd be there, with a little tug, a little push, just waiting to send them over the edge. \n\nThe sound of the door opening broke my train of thought. Dectective Guzman, one of the officers who had interrogated me, poked his head through the door. I could already imagine his frustration, his helplessness, his - \n\n\"Winters.\" He nodded at me. \"You're free to go.\" \n\nHe'd barely walked into the room and was already turning to leave! I stood up and banged my knee against the table and found my voice. \"Wait! What about -\"\n\nGuzman turned back and sighed. \"What?\"\n\n\"I mean - You - You can't prove anything! I could walk right out of this room!\" \n\nI felt a faint bit of hope as I watched what little light there was drain from his face, but something was wrong. This wasn't frustration, or helplessness. It was ... boredom?\n\n\"Yeah. That's what I said. You're free to go. So how about you get out of here and quit wasting my time?\" \n\n\"Wasting your-!\" I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My face was flushed red, sweating. They were looking at me! The whole police station was seeing this! I forced myself back into a veneer of calm. \"Well I assure you, officer, that once I'm out of here I'll continue with my little game. And I hope you understand that every person who dies from hereon will be another person you failed.\"\n\nGuzman pressed a hand to his forehead. \"God give me strength,\" he muttered, and then shut the door behind him and sat down in front of me. I flinched back, just a hair, expecting him to get violent. But he just put both hands down on the table and looked me square in the face.\n\n\"Okay. Winters. Get this through your head. Your so-called 'victims'. Every single person you claim to have killed was already suicidal well before you even had the chance to get involved in their lives.\"\n\n\"Well of course! I targeted the vulnerable, those just waiting for a little push-\"\n\nHe held up a hand. \"No. You're not listening to me. As in, all of them had multiple previous - widely publicized - suicide attempts. You were literally just trawling the news for anyone suicidal, and then waiting for it to happen so that - I don't know - so you could feel better about yourself in some fucked-up way.\" \n\n\"But I pushed them over the edge!\"\n\n\"Aughh.\" He threw his head back and ran his hands through his hair. \"Look. Winters. I showed the 'evidence' you sent us to the DA. And all the evidence we'd collected ourselves. And you know what she told me? She told me that there's absolutely nothing to prosecute you for! Even morally, you're a fucked-up guy, but you had zero impact on these people's lives!\" \n\nThis had to be a trick. He was luring me, baiting me, trying to make me let something slip. But I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand yet again being denied the respect I deserved! \"The words were mine!\" I screamed. \"It was my words that made them kill themselves! The carefully chosen sentences that ate away at their minds -\"\n\n\"Oh yeah, your words. Like the Blysse case. We found all your emails in his inbox, all right. Unread. Because - here's a notion for you, Winters - sometimes when people are depressed, they stop doing things like checking their email.\" \n\n\"I...\" My mind was a blur. It couldn't be true, could it?\n\n\"And you were writing to people in mental hospitals! When someone's on suicide watch, they don't let just anyone send a letter to them. That's the whole goddamned point of being on suicide watch!\"\n\nI pushed away from the table. I felt sick. I felt clammy.\n\n\"And even if they did somehow read the stuff you wrote - most of it doesn't even qualify as harassment! I mean, I don't even get what you were trying to do with some of that stuff ... Hold on.\" He rose from his chair and called out the door. \"Hey, Harper, can you get me Winters' file?\"\n\nI sat silent until he returned, contemplating my fingers. \"Here we go,\" he said, and settled back down in front of me. \n\n\"'Dear Miss Shelley, \nI am sorry to hear that you recently tried to slash your own wrists. This sounds like a very unpleasant memory for you. Imagine if you had been successful, and if you had bled out in your bathtub. Listen, you must focus yourself in this trying time. Imagine yourself dead in your bathtub. You need to make a change. \nSincerely, \nA concerned friend.\" \n\nHe folded the letter in half and flicked it. \"What the hell was that?\"\n\n\"It's neuro-linguistic programming,\" I mumbled. \"It was supposed to make her visualize ....\"\n\n\"The woman you wrote this to? Angela Shelley? She killed herself because she was the target of a wide-scale harassment campaign. Your letter was weird and fucked-up, I'm not going to lie, but it was easily one of the less disturbing things people sent her.\" \n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"So like I said, Mister Winters, you're free to go. And please, we're going to need this room for someone else.\" \n\nI stumbled slowly out of the police station, onto the street, taking in nothing. The world was grey. The air tasted like grit. In one fell swoop, Detective Guzman had taken everything from me. Years of slow and careful work. Everything I'd accomplished. I wanted to sink down into the earth and disappear. I wanted to -\n\nWait. \n\nI wanted to die.\n\nWith just his words, and some carefully placed props, Guzman had woven his web around me, so skillfully that I had barely noticed! He had pushed me to the brink, just as I had with so many, many people. But he had underestimated me! Now I was onto his plot!\n\nI let out a laugh that startled the pigeons around me. A battle of wits between a cunning detective and a nefarious criminal mastermind! After years of laboring in the shadows, preying on the weak, my talent going unappreciated, finally an opponent worthy of my skills!", "January 23rd, 2016\n\nDear Diary, \n\nIt was a beautiful day and my new job is amazing! Something was a bit strange this morning though, it almost seemed as if all my furniture in the living room was off slightly. That's not possible though so who cares LOL.\n\n\nFebruary 30th, 2016\n\nDear Diary, \n\nThings have been weird lately. Things keep arriving at my house that I didn't order, but it has my name and signature on it. When I check Amazon it shows confirmation that I definitely ordered them. But I don't remember doing so. I have been sober for over a year so it's not like I'm getting drunk and forgetting things... Anyways work's been good so I've gotta stay upbeat. It's not like I'm crazy or anything. \n\nApril 17th, 2016\n\nDear Diary,\n\nNew client at work. He seems nice and the boss has instructed me to work with him. This is my first big client and I can't screw this up. Meanwhile no more stuff has been arriving at my house so I guess it was just one of those things I guess. \n\nMay 25th, 2016\n\nFUCK. FUCK. FUCK. I've FUCKED up. Chris, the new client asked me to go drinking with him. I didn't want to lose him as a client so I said yes. I was just going to have one beer. Ended up slamming tequilas. I've been sober for so long. This is bad. I should probably go back to AA. \n\nJune 3rd, 2016\nDear Diary,\nThis is fucked. I sent the reports Chris asked for to him but he says he never received him? The boss is pissed. I've been drinking again at night too... I need to get my shit together. Feeling really stressed. \n\nJuly 1st, 2016\n\nGot fired today. Why is this happening to me... I'm better than this. I can't just blame the new client I should've been more responsible. FUCK. They said I can't use them as a reference, I don't know what I'm going to do, I need to stop drinking but it's so hard... I did it before I don't know if I have the strength to do it again. \n\nJuly 7th, 2016\n\nI got a puppy today. I feel like if I have something in my life that I have to take care of it will be easier to get my life together as well. Still drinking but I've managed to cut back to only 3 nights a week. Feeling positive! Think I will name the pup Max. \n\nJuly 15th, 2016\n\nSomebody fucking killed Max. They hung him from the tree in the yard. The front yard, at night, while I was passed out drunk. The police say there isn't anything they can do. WHO THE FUCK WOULD DO THIS? They keyed into my car that they hope I \ndie? WTF\n\nAugust 9th, 2016\nShit's been arriving at the house again. I think it must have been me? I've been getting hammered every night. Can't get it together, money's running low and I can't find a job while I'm like this. Fuck. Fuck. Did I fucking kill Max when I was drunk? I can't... I don't know what's happening to me. I can't remember anything when I drink. It's all just black. \n\nSeptember 1st, 2016\nGot kicked out of my apartment. I don't think... I can go on.\n\nSeptember 7th, 2016 \nBeen on the street a week now. All my shit's been stolen. I broke down last night, not sure I can continue. \n\nSeptember 9th, 2016\nI just slammed 40 morphine pills. Washed it down with some whiskey. Feeling sleepy... At least it will be peaceful. \n\n-----\n\nChris popped open his newspaper as he drank his coffee in his apartment. Apparently a homeless man had killed himself last night. There was a picture for the public to identify. He glanced at it, smiled, and cut it out to put into his binder. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "I'd been her everything. We'd been together for years, we'd laughed together, we'd lived together, we'd cried together. We were in love. I don't think she ever realized that my love is a different brand of love. I treasured her above all things. I loved her and she was mine, until the end of our days and beyond. I still do love her, even after everything that's happened. Until the end of my days and beyond.\n\nA bit of backstory: I was a kind of awkward kid in high school. I was shy and didn't really know how to talk to people. I didn't really care what people thought, so I guess I didn't really develop the social skills I needed in high school. There was his one girl that I really liked. Her name was Kate. From the moment I met her, I knew she was my everything. I wanted that girl in my life. It didn't go well, originally. Maybe she was conceited back then, maybe I was being weird, maybe a bit of both, but I got shot the fuck down.\n\nWell, that just made me want her even more. Couldn't really do anything since, at that point, she thought I was a rapist or something. Actually, she and I didn't hit it off until sophomore year of college. By that point, I'd learned a thing or two about acting like a normal person. We met at a party by chance, I guess, and I never took my eyes off her since. She actually didn't recognize me, so I was pretty happy I was able to get a second chance.\n\nWe got along pretty well at that party. Got her number, asked her to coffee, and went on from there. Our love life at that point was pretty standard. Dates, sex, long nights watching Netflix on the couch, falling asleep in each others arms. If she fell asleep in my arms first, I'd never fall asleep. I'd just lie there, prepared to protect her from anything that could hurt her. Burglars, angry exes, really any fantasy my mind could make up.\n\nI'll never forget the time she told me that she loved me. That my feelings had been returned. That I was to her what she was to me: everything. I honestly can't remember a happier time in my life.\n\nWe sort of hit a roadblock in Junior year, during finals week. She said that she planned to move to Oregon after senior year. This scared me, startled me, infuriated me. She was leaving me. Me. My entire world was telling me that it wanted to go. I was scared, I had to stop her. My life plan included her and her alone. Her life plan included some other things and maybe me. I had to stop her. I had to make me love her to the end of her days and beyond.\n\nI had to do what I could. When before I would protect her from the terrors of the world while I watched her, I began to think of what I could do. And then, it hit me. A meticulous, five-part plan to make her love me to the end of her days. It was a plan that would take quite a long time to perform. And it it worked, she would be mine forever.\n\nPart one manifested itself over the summer. This was the most delicate part. This is where, if anything went wrong, this is where it could go wrong. I met her parents. They'd visited from Connecticut that summer and hadn't met me. She was very close to her parents. They were her best friends growing up, when she was going through some tough times.\n\nRicin is fairly easy to make, you just have to know what you're doing. See, you can come by castor beans fairly easily. Not getting caught is the tricky part. Internet searches and history will get you caught. Libraries are the best tool in a murderers arsenal. Visit a library, use a public computer. Hell, visit Best Buy and find the information that you need with one of their display computers. They don't know to block it.\n\nDuring dinner, I slipped a bit of the ricin in their wine. Kate wasn't 21 yet, so there wasn't a chance of them letting her sip from their wine. It doesn't take a lot of ricin to put someone down. The poison worked its magic on their bodies over the next few days. By the end of the week, Kate and I were at their funerals, her sobbing into my arms. Part one had worked.\n\nPart two took place a bit later. I emailed her a keylogger imbedded in a cat video I sent to her over the summer and spend a few months collecting what data I could. She had been serious with someone before me and had sent a few nudes to him. He was the key. After a few months of going through her information, I found out who it was. Pretending to be her, I send him a keylogger in a cat video and spend a good month going through his stuff. Finally, I found the nudes.\n\nYou could say part II was a two-pronged attack. Where I had destroyed her family, I was going to destroy her circle of friends. Around Christmas, I used her email to show the world the real her. The Kate only I could love. With a heaping dollop of jackassery. I pretended to be her and accused one of her best friends of cheating on her boyfriend, causing a giant rift in her friend group. As much as she tried to deny it, they didn't believe her. I used names, specific info. She couldn't explain it away with a computer virus. With her friends embroiled in a dispute, I leaked her nudes all over the internet, destroying the rest of her social life.\n\nShe became a laughing stock. People would hoot and whistle at her as we passed. Eventually, it reached her boss, who fired her. Part 3. By this point, the plan began to come together in a matter of days. With passwords to her school email, I signed in as her to her school account and dropped all of her classes. At this point, it was past the add/drop date. The results were not kind to her transcript.\n\nAnd then, finally, it came to part 5. I had been told as a child that if you love something, you had to let it go. I was her only tether to this world, as she was my only tether to mine. And there was one thing keeping her from being mine forever: the unforeseen future. And that's where I ended it. I dumped her a matter of days after completely destroying her life in every single aspect. The only thing left was the fact that she was still alive.\n\nShe saw to that. Just as I had planned.\n\nBlew her fucking brains out all over her apartment. Nobody knew I was the catalyst. They didn't even know she broke up with me. Of course, some people came to her funeral, but it was out of self respect. Guilt. They thought they'd somehow caused it. Me? I was ecstatic. Kate loved me to the end of her days and beyond. And I will love her to the end of my days and beyond.\n\n(Actually had second thoughts about posting this. This is... really fucking dark. That said, serial killers aren't really a cheerful subject, so eh.)", "His name is Tom. They are always a Tom, they have to be. They have a special place deep down in my heart.\n\nI follow him for a while, learn his habits, watch him as he meets with family and friends - I begin to understand what makes him tick, and how I can dismantle the mechanism. \n\nHe is married and has two kids. His wife is quite beautiful. He works in a bank. He loves his mom dearly but never knew his dad. His life seems almost perfect. I am going to enjoy this more than usual.\n\nIt is night and I prowl around the small houses' exterior. The doors are locked. I believe I can force one open but I leave it for now and check the windows, hoping for an easier opportunity; I soon find it. \n\nIt is a humid night and she has left a window ajar in her bedroom. It is not a cool draft that caresses you tonight, it is the gentle breath of death.\n\nI find the pills in the bathroom and I make the switch. I watch her sleep for a while. I gently kiss her withered forehead. She tastes of tears. She stirs slightly and I leave.\n\n------\n\nHe is upset. He has lost his mother to a heart condition and he can't swear that he picked up the right pills for her. Boo fucking Hoo.\n\nI wear a beautiful black dress to the funeral. I know the men are admiring me. \n\nAn old man asks how I knew the deceased. It is her brother; I tell him the truth. \n\n\"I only knew her through Tom, but she brought much - sniff - happiness into my life in the short - sniff - time I knew her.\"\n\nThe old fool buys it and begins tearing up. He even hugs me.\n\nWhen I get home I load up Tor and prepare my next move. I soon find someone selling what I need. It is not even expensive. I open a bottle of wine and run a bath. Tonight, I relax, happy with my work.\n\nI soak myself. I touch myself. I feel like I am the conductor of the most wondeful orchestra. I am ready to bring it all to a thundering crescendo.\n\n------\n\nHe has been suspended from his job and the police are at his house. He tried to fraud the bank - it is an incredibly serious charge. You naughty boy Tom.\n\nHe stays at home for the next few days. I think he is depressed but it is OK because his loyal wife sticks with him. She makes bile rise up from my stomach and I contemplate something happening to her.\n\nHis friends come to visit him, to console him, but he turns them away. He wants to be alone. Good boy.\n\nHe has begun smoking. I think it must be an old habit reignited. It gives me an idea.\n\nHis house is even easier to get into than his mom's was. They are all asleep. I light a cigarette and have a couple of puffs. I detest the taste and smell... but it seemed appropriate. \n\nI find a sofa that turns out to be quite flammable. I watch for a while as short red sparks spit out of the cushions and leap across to other furniture. I leave.\n\n------\n\nI had seen the smoke alarm in the hallway and I was counting on it waking the family. After all, I didn't want to kill the kids - I'm not a psycho. \n\nThey woke to the beeping. Tom grabbed the kids, one on each shoulder, and ran through the smoke and out of the house.\n\nIf they had only known how it had started, they wouldn't have left him. They would have called him a hero. Poor Tom.\n\nIt took another week before the coward finally did it. It was an overdose of prescription pills - anti depressants amongst others. I make a deep cut on my thigh to keep track. It bleeds for a while, but soon it will become just another scar.\n\nAt his funeral I meet an old friend of his. He says he knew Tom from school. They used to hang out a lot and were nicknamed 'the two Toms'. I smile and let him buy me a coffee.\n", "Top Businessman Takes the Plunge, Along With His Stocks\n\nI cut the headline out of the paper, and file it neatly away in my 67th folder. I really need to run down to the stationery store to get more.\n\nMy shelves are lined with folders – cheap plastic folders of all sorts of garish colours. There is the hot pink folder of a middle-aged lady who slit her wrists after she discovered her husband cheating on her with 3 different women, there is the mint green folder of the child who failed all his exams and fell into the river while running away from home, there is the electric blue folder of the film-maker accused of paedophilia. I keep them arranged neatly and in pristine condition, as if they were prized trophies – and in a way they are. I’ve been told that every serial killer keeps a trophy of some sort, and I can’t very well be keeping bits of hair or bones or skin, can I? I don’t think I have even physically seen more than 10 of these people.\n\nAnd that is the beauty of my art; the reason why I am the master of my craft. Sure, the police have become suspicious about the recent spate of suicides, but there is no evidence that anyone has ever harmed a hair of these victims. People have devised all sorts of elaborate rituals to keep their homes safe from suicides, as it were – as if salt or essential oils could keep me away. But I must forgive them their naiveté. As I have said, I am the master of my craft. There is no fingerprint or paper or money trail that leads to my doorstep. I doubt anyone even suspects that all these suicides could be the work of single person. I know I am repeating myself many times, but I am indeed the master of my craft.\n\nI suppose, though, that being the master of your craft doesn’t preclude you from a mid-life crisis of sorts. I know, I am barely 30, so this is hardly considered mid-life. But somehow, like every other member of my millennial generation, I am starting to find that my full-time job does not offer the excitement or meaning I had hoped for as an idealistic undergraduate. When I’d first started this line of work, I had gotten great thrill from finding how easily I could slowly mould a person’s thoughts and feelings, how easily I could take a life without dirtying my perfectly manicured nails. \n\nIt had actually started off as a joke. Someone, some other drunk student, had made a joke at a party that the best way to kill someone would be to convince them that life was no longer worth living. But when it actually worked, when I’d filled up folder number 1 (a lurid yellow folder, if you wanted to know), I’d thought I must be a veritable genius. \n\nAnd yet, as the months and years wore on, the work started taking its toll on me. For starters, it was not really all that exciting. I spent most of my time poring through data, making phone calls, typing up e-mails, sending letters. All the mundane administrative work needed to ensure that things happen at the right place at the right time. And all this took up too many late nights and too many weekends – until my long-time boyfriend couldn’t take it anymore and walked out of the house with his suitcase one day without even leaving a note. It took me three days to realise that he was gone.\n\nThat had been two months ago. I thought I would get over it by burying myself in work – and I completed numbers 65, 66 and 67 in quick succession. But somehow, I found myself staying up late at night, questioning my existence and purpose in life. Should I carry on being the best at what I do, or should I slow down and make time for family? These are questions that I’m sure every young person struggles with at some point in time – the great choice between career and family – and they kept me up every night, torturing myself with my own whirring thoughts.\n\nAnd then my father called, yesterday. I’d not seen him in ages, not since two years ago when my mother ran off to travel the world with some long-bearded hippie. He wanted to know if I was doing well (I was), if Jeff and I were going to get married soon (I said no, but I didn’t tell him the whole story), and oh he just wanted to know if I’d heard the news that he’d gotten cancer (stunned silence on my end).\n\nI remember feeling numb, as I put down the phone. I went online to try to book a flight ticket, to be at my father’s side as soon as I could, but every flight was fully booked, goddammit. The soonest flight was in two weeks’ time. Some holiday season bullshit. So I sit here, now, at my kitchen table, hearing the ticking of the clock and the hum of the washing machine, and wonder what to do next. My father had made it clear that it was some advanced form of cancer – liver, discovered too late. He hadn’t wanted me to worry, of course, so he’d held on to the news for a while, hoping there’d been some kind of mistake, but of course there hadn’t been.\n\nI think of all my trophies, all my colourful folders, but my usual sense of pride and satisfaction eludes me. All I can think of is that, Jeff is gone, my mother is somewhere doing tribal dances on the other end of the planet, my father is dying of cancer, and I am all alone in the world right now. I wonder if I should have spent the best part of my twenties on something more, I don’t know, meaningful, or family-centred. Rather than boring administrative work that, sure, had some impact here and there, but was really more like corporate drudgery than hitman excitement.\n\nAt least, I try to console myself, I was good at what I did. That’s more than what most people can say for their boring, unaccomplished lives. I drum my fingers on the table, as I close my eyes and take deep breaths, trying to do the mindfulness thing that everyone has been raving about recently.\n\nBut a sudden sound snaps me out of my attempted-mindfulness. It turns out, something has been thrown onto my driveway. I walk out, still in my half-zoned-out state, not caring if someone sees me with my tangled mess of hair and makeup-less face, when something snaps me into shock.\n\nThere is a folder, a black plastic folder, lying in the middle of my driveway.\n\nCuriously, with my heart starting to pump a little faster – could someone have discovered my secret? – I pick it up and flip through it slowly.\n\nThere are pages of details – identifying information, photos, education details, employment details, details of every member of the family. The kind of things I keep in each one of my 67 folders. But something here is not right. I cock my head, and scan through the information again, and then I realise – it is all about me. The names of my teachers all the way back in kindergarten, my father’s health records, my college academic transcript. I pause for a while, trying to digest all of this.\n\nIt takes me another two seconds to realise – someone else does this form of work. Someone else does the same thing that I do.\n\nAnd another two seconds later – no, I have not been the master of my craft, all these years. I have been a puppet, and someone else has been the true puppet-master. I have never been a master, I have never been a genius. I have just been a stupid puppet strung along by someone else’s designs, without even realising it.\n\nAnd now, I truly have nothing. No family, no career, no meaning in life.\n\nSomething falls out of the folder. It is a small clear plastic bag, unlabelled and unmarked, with two white pills. I know what to do.\n" ]	11
	[WP] After a long campaign your country has lost the war. Only one village survives the occupation, yours. Only a handful of young village locals are in the militia and you have only 3 years to train them to withstand a foreign army before they attack. What will you do?	[ "“We lost.”\n\nThose two words hung heavy in the air. \n\n“We lost. After five years of fighting, our king surrendered the war and his life. We lost. However, I refuse to accept that. Three years. That’s how much time we have. After three years the False King’s army will have found our village and killed us all. If starvation doesn’t get to us first.”\n\n“How do you know that?”\n\nA good question. Inquisitive, that one is. I can use that.\n\n“This village is remote. Despite winning the war, the False King’s army took heavy casualties. They’ll need time to reinforce their ranks, and their first order will be subjugating the dissenters in the capitol and other major cities. The villages on the maps will be sought out for able bodied men.”\n\n“But we’re not on any maps, are we?”\n\nThis one’s quick. \n\n“Precisely, that buys us time. Three years is an estimate before a hunting party or another stroke of bad luck comes our way and thus alerting the army.”\n\n“So let’s run!”\n\nCoward.\n\n“Run if you must. But I am no craven. I intend to fight to my last breath.”\n\nI cannot let his cowardice affect the others.\n\n“We will fight to our last breath. Our countrymen died so we would not have to live under the False King’s tyranny. I intend not to let their sacrifice be in vain. They think they extinguished our fire. But they haven’t found all the embers. We will reignite the flames of revolution!”\n\n“Huzzah!”\n\nSome cheers. That’s good. The coward doesn’t appear to be swayed. I’ll have to deal with that.\n\n“How will we fight?”\n\n“We make the mountain a weapon. Lay traps all around the perimeter. We forget honor. There is no need to meet them on equal terms. We will raid them at night. When no progress is made they will get frustrated. Maybe they leave us be for a time, maybe they launch an all-out attack. But the longer our resistance goes, the greater chance we have to win the common folk to our side and bolster our numbers. Discuss amongst yourselves who will follow me down this road.”\n\nIt’s working. They’re buying it. \n\n“We’re in. What would you have us do?”\n\n“Start cultivating farm land, we will need to keep our provisions well stocked. I will work on individual assignments in the meantime.”\n\nThey’re dispersing. Good. There doesn’t seem to be much dissent. Pity they will all die. But, at least I have three years to plan my escape.\n", "The first rule of war is not victory but survival. If we are to preserve our people, our way of life, we must ensure that we ourselves live. I’ve been given 3 years to train you all to resist the barbarian invaders. 3 years to mold you into the kind of soldiers that will preserve our way of life for the next generation.\n\nFortunately, the plan is simple. We will surrender. When the hordes arrive at our gates, they will find them unlocked. There will be no melancholy last stand, no “leader versus leader” single combat, no military resistance of any kind. We will surrender, and we will survive.\n\nSecond, we will resist from within. This is where we will spend most of our time, training you on ways to constantly prick at the heel of our captors. I can’t give you a complete list; your own ingenuity must be your guide. But, remember that to a dictator, quiet acts of rebellion scream the loudest.\n\nYou will put one penny less postage than required when mailing a letter. You will round your tax bill down, rather than up. You will run stoplights, pay tribute in flavorless meat, and most of all, mispronounce your future leader’s name ever so slightly.\n\nHave you ever been to the Grand Canyon? A small stream, washing slowly but relentlessly over time, carves a keep cut on the face of the earth. You are that stream.\n\nAnd so, my charge to you all, over the next three years and beyond, is to become a nuisance. If they oppress us, the world will rally to our cause in the face of injustice. If they do nothing, their power will fade slowly, drip by drip, until we are once again a mighty stream.\n\nSome say, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” I say, “Give me liberty, or give me minor inconveniences compounded over time!” Perhaps this does not sound like the battle cry of the warrior. But, I tell you, it sounds like the battle cry of a survivor and of a victor.\n\n___\n\nThanks for the prompt u/Sinner2000!\n\nIf you enjoy the way I twisted this prompt, be sure to check out r/mrme487!" ]	2
	[WP] You stumble upon your ex on a dating site. Your ex who has been dead for 2 years.	[ "It was a stormy night, but surprisingly I felt good. I’ve been feeling down for a while now and honestly, I haven’t been able to shake this depression for the last two years. I was in love. Alice and I had it all. We were saving up for a house and looking at different countries we wanted to travel to before we had kids. It was the best I’ve ever felt in my life. Alice seemed like your normal, happy woman. I was so blindsided when it happened.\n \nSince you’re all here, I’ll relive it with you. Maybe it will be therapeutic.\n \nAlice and I had just gotten back from a hiking trip. 3 days out in the mountains and valleys. It was what we lived for. On the way back, we stopped for some smoothies and instead of getting them to-go, we decided to drink them on the outside patio. I caught Alice looking off in the distance, as if pondering something. Here’s how our conversation went.\n \n“Hey, what are you thinking about?”\n“Oh.. sorry. Nothing”\n“You sure? You looked deep into thought just now.”\n“I was just zoning out. How’s your smoothie?”\n \nIt’s a pretty meaningless conversation, don’t you think? Ya, me too. But for the past two years I’ve been wondering what I could’ve done differently. Should I have pressed her to tell me what she was thinking? Maybe I could’ve opened up to here? She had talked about life and how she felt like we were all here for such a short time.. and how pointless she fells sometimes.\n \nShe didn’t talk on the way home. 10 miles of looking out the window at the passing cars and trees. I thought I had done something wrong. When we got home, I asked her what happened.\n \n“Alice, everything okay? I feel like I might have done something to bother you.”\n“Oh, no. you didn’t. I’m just tired. I think I’ll take a nap.”\n“Alright, good night. Love you.”\n \nShe closed the door to the bedroom without a reply. This wasn’t normal, but I felt like she needed her space. I decided I’d go get the car washed and let her sleep. Afterwards, I stopped by the grocery to pick up some of her favorite snacks and a bottle of wine. Maybe that would lift her mood.\n \nI returned about 90 minutes later. I called to her, “Alice. Wakey wakey.. I’ve got a surprise for you.” But there was no answer. I walked into the bedroom and only saw an empty bed with ruffled sheets. Where had she gone? I looked outside, as if I had missed her car being gone but it was in the driveway. My heart rate began to rise and I was on the verge of panicking. I ran over to our bathroom where the large garden tub is that she loved so much when we moved in, but hardly used now.\n \nThere she was. In a pool of crimson liquid up to her chest. Her eyes aimed out into the distance like they did early at the smoothie shop, but this time there was no though behind them. She was gone.\n \nI screamed\n \n“ALICE!! NO!”\nI ran to her and fell to my knees, pulling her out of the tub and covering myself in her blood.\n \n“Please, baby. Please, please, please. I know you’re still there. Don’t go, don’t go.”\n \nShe was limp and lifeless. I sobbed over her body for what felt like forever. When the ambulance came the two paramedics rushed in and carried her away. The young man who I thought was in training, came back in and sat with me. He told me his name was Tony and that he was very sorry. Tony said that Alice had lost too much blood and that she had been pronounced dead. I already knew she was gone. I just didn’t know why…\n \nNow, 2 years and 4 months later I’m doing my best to move on. I’m still hit with hard bouts of depression or crying for no reason, but I think I’m doing better. Last month on my birthday I created this dating profile on eMatch.com. I only just made an account and signed off. I couldn’t get through it. I didn’t even fill out a bio and I hadn’t been on it since. Today though, like I said earlier, I am feeling oddly good. I feel like good things are going to happen today. I’m going to sign on and browse the dating site. Maybe I’ll find someone to cure my loneliness.\n \nUsername: SmilingSean\nPassword: Bifocals\n \nAlice and I had always thought ‘Bifocals’ was a funny word.\n \nOkay, I’m in. Why is there a rush in me? I’ve almost got chills. I think I’m excited.\n \n30 minutes of browsing and I’ve seen the normal, run-of-the-mill stuff.. ‘I like the beach’ I like traveling’ ‘I like movies’ Doesn’t anyone do anything unique anymore? I’m getting tired of this already. One more click…..\n \nWhat the… uncanny. The profile I’m looking at is a spitting image of Alice. I mean, her hair is shorter and dyed black instead of her natural blonde and she’s much more pale. But that’s her. The name on the profile says Elyssa, not Alice. I’m going to message her. I’ve got to message her.\n \nI type out…\n“Is this a real picture? You look identical to someone I used to know. Have you ever met Alice Burkton?”\n \nI see the dots come up indicating someone is typing.\n \n“Hi Sean. It’s been a long time. I feel like I can tell you now. I am Alice. I’m so sorry I left, but I had to. I had no choice….”", "There she was. Sitting all by herself in a black cocktail dress. She didn’t look like a ghost. \n\nI walked over. She saw me and smiled. \n\n“You must be Peter,” she said, extending her hand.\n\nI held it in mine. She didn’t feel like a ghost, either.\n\n“That’s right. And you’re Sam?”\n\n“That’s right.”\n\nWhy did she change her name? She clearly wasn’t hiding. She didn’t change her face. She lived in the same town. What did she think changing her name was going to do? Why didn’t she remember me?\n\nI sat down. She looked into my eyes.\n\n“You’re even more handsome than your picture.”\n\n“Can you just cut the shit, already?”\n\n“What do you mean?” \n\n“…really?”\n\n“What?”\n\nI pulled out my cellphone and showed her the photos of us. The time we went to Arches. The Halloween party when she dressed up like Peter Pan. And one picture I took of her looking out of a window at nothing at all. I don’t know why I kept them, they just made me sad.\n\n“How did you get these?”\n\nShe sounded earnest. \n\n“We used to date.”\n\nShe burst out laughing.\n\n“You can’t be serious. This is a joke, right? You just photoshopped these somehow. I’m impressed, these look real. You’ve successfully creeped me out.”\nI wasn’t laughing. Sam shifted uncomfortably in her seat.\n\n“You died two years ago. I was at your funeral.”\n\nI took the phone and pulled up pictures of her funeral, stopping on the last picture of Monica lying in an open casket.\n\nSam got a dark look in her eyes as she peered at the cellphone. Her mind turned over every possibility.\n\n“This is really freaky. Maybe… I mean, maybe I had an identical twin that was put up for adoption or something.”\n\nWeirdly enough that was the most probable answer.\n\n“Yeah. Maybe.”\n\n“So, what was I like?”\n\nI felt a big lump grow in the back of my throat.\n\n“…I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”\n\n“You were perfect.”\n\n“Really?”\n\n“Really. Or, I think so. They say that after someone dies you idolize them. All the good memories get exaggerated, emphasized. All the bad memories smoothed over, almost forgotten. \n\nMaybe I’m just romanticizing what I lost, but I really thought you were the perfect woman.\n\nI don’t think we ever had a fight that lasted more than an hour, always over stupid things. We’d argue, go to separate rooms, then one of us would come running to the other crying, begging for forgiveness. \n\nFeeling the world without your love—I mean, Monica’s love— even for an hour, was just unbearable.”\n\n“But it’s been two years.”\n\n“Yes, it has.”\n\n“And you’re dating again. It’s good to see you’ve recovered.”\n\nI started to ball like a child, right in the middle of the restaurant. I cried and cried. Tears pouring down my cheeks. \n\nSam walked over. She helped me out of my chair, and we left the restaurant as I wailed and wailed.\n\n“I’m a little bitch,” I sputtered.\n\n“No, no you’re not. I think it’s sweet in a way.”\n\n&nbsp;\n\nSam lived nearby. She invited me in for a cup of coffee, which I thought was a pretty forward thing to do to a stranger who had photoshopped pictures of themselves together with you. Maybe she believed me. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nHer apartment was a lot more spartan than Monica's. No paintings on the walls, nothing, just a coach, a coffee table, and a green rug.\n\nI sat down on the coach and she returned from the kitchen with two cups of coffee. I took mine and just stared at her. I must have stared at her for about 5 minutes straight before saying anything.\n\n“Where did you go to college?”\n\n“I didn’t.”\n\n“Where did you grow up?”\n\n“Butte.”\n\n“Tell me something about it.”\n\n“Well it’s… it’s… well. I don’t know.”\n\n“You don’t know…?”\n\n“No, I… I don’t think I can remember.”\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThis wasn’t right. This wasn’t right at all. I leaned over and touched Sam’s face. \n\nWas she a robot? Could I just peel this face right off?\n\n“You… you think there’s something wrong with me, don’t you?”\n\n“No. No, I think you’re great.”\n\nShe leaned her head against my chest and we sat for awhile longer, then kissed me.\n\nI pulled away.\n\nI don’t know why I did it. I’d kissed those lips a thousand times before. For the last two years I would have given anything to kiss them again. Now I had my chance, but now it just didn’t feel right.\n\n“I’m sorry,” I said.\n\n“It’s ok. I understand.”\n\nI grabbed my jacket and headed for the door.\n\n“Hey. I know… I know this is weird and everything. But I just want you to know, Peter, that I feel a real connection with you. Maybe… maybe we could just try.”\n\nI nodded.\n\n“Yeah, I’ll call you tomorrow.”\n\nThat wasn’t the answer she wanted, but I needed time to think.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nI walked out into the street and took one last look at her apartment. She was just sitting there, on the coach with the lights on, exactly like when I left. She wasn’t watching TV, she wasn’t doing anything at all. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nOn the walk home, I felt uneasy. Was this all a dream?\n\nBut it wasn’t all in my head. For the past couple of blocks I noticed I was being followed. \n\nI turned around and waited. A man stepped out of the shadows.\n\n“Who are you?”\n\n“A mistake has been made.”\n\n“What kind of mistake?”\n\n“The date you went on tonight. It was facilitated by the Perfect Match dating, application, correct?”\n\n“What the fuck business is that of yours?”\n\nThe man handed me a business card which stated he was an engineer for the company.\n\n“You must be confused.”\n\n“You must be a psychic.”\n\n“You see, Mr. Jacobson, Perfect Match dating has started research on human cloning.”\n\n“So you cloned Monica?”\n\n“Monica, that’s your ex, right? No, we didn’t. Well, not exactly.”\n\n“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’ she’s a goddamn identical copy!”\n\n“If you’ll remember, Mr. Jacobs, you underwent an extensive personality testing regimen.”\n\nHe was right about that. I had to answer pages and pages of questions and undergo an MRI scan. I thought it was kind of overkill, but I played along because Perfect Match has built itself an undeniable reputation for providing… well, perfect matches. I would have done anything to find love again.\n\n“We created a clone of your ideal woman.”\n\n“But that still doesn’t explain why, or how, she’s an exact copy of Monica!”\n\n“You don’t seem to understand, Mr. Jacobs. That being inside that apartment right now, is your perfect match. She was engineered in appearance and personality to be exactly what you desire on a molecular level.”\n\n“You’re fucking with me.”\n\n“I certainly am not. Now, Perfect Match is perfectly willing to allow you the courtship period you paid for, like any other customer, but we do request you keep this a secret. Even from Sam. Of course you will be generously compensated for your cooperation.”\n\n“Won’t people be a little freaked out when I start taking my dead girlfriend out on the town?”\n\n“It’s very common for people to seek out a certain type of lover. Often, their new lovers can be quite similar in appearance to their past lovers.”\n“She’s an identical copy.”\n\n“We’re willing to bet that explanation with suffice. What do you say?”\n\nI considered my options. If what he was saying was true, that would mean that I was never going to find a girl better than her. No one would make me happier. No one could make me happier. It would be physically impossible. If I refused now, I would be inviting a world of loneliness on myself.\n\n“I’m going to have to turn you down.”\n\n“I’m sorry I don’t understand.”\n\n“I won’t say anything to anyone. You don’t need to pay me, I’m just not interested.”\n\n“But why? Why would you give up your perfect match? ”\n\nI looked through the window and saw Sam sitting inside. I could just walk in right now and pick up right where I left off two years ago.\n\nI turned back to the man.\n\n“I don’t want to lose her again.”", "I woke up and unstuck my cheek from the walnut desk very slowly. The skin peeled off like a sticker off of fruit. I had been drooling. \n\nI grabbed the cold cup of coffee to my left and took a swig. The tastes or sensations of things hadn't really mattered to me since he had died. Nothing mattered.\n\nMy eyes glazed over once again, back into this living hell of my waking hours, just waiting until I could fall asleep, on enough painkillers during consciousness to keep me pacified. Nobody came over anymore. Nobody except for Jill.\n\nShe had been my best friend. I wished I could have said she was still my best friend, but honestly, I couldn't be bothered to have friends anymore. I was too busy dying.\n\nJill had come over that day and set up her Dinter account so that I could weed through a first round of hopeful guys who had sent her messages. She had read them to me once and I'd broken and laughed, and since then she was insisting that I \"screen her calls\". I know that she only wanted to make me understand that there were other humans, even other men maybe, out there, but I just didn't care.\n\nSo on this particular Tuesday evening, I had been sifting through Jill's messages when I fell asleep on my desk.\n\nI rubbed under my eyes- despite all the sleep I got ,or maybe because of it, I had dark skin drooping beneath my eyes and frankly, I had neglected personal hygiene for a while.\n\nI stretched, holding it at the tips. Stretches still felt good, but that was just about it. I looked at the monitor, which blinked back to life after my suggestion. Maybe I could look up the best way to do it quickly, instead of starving and hallucinating from lack of sleep...\n\nI opened Word and began to type:\n\n\"Mom,\nI'm sorry, I love you.\"\n\nI deleted it.\n\nI breathed in, getting ready to heave a sigh and turn the monitor back off, but then the computer pinged. A window had opened of its own accord. It was Jill's Dinter account.\n\nI rubbed my eyes again. I was so tired, and I didn't want to deal with Jill's suitors, I just wanted to go to sleep. But it had made her so happy, I could do her this one last favor.\n\nI looked at the window, and the color I'd lost in the last several months came back to me, my cheeks hot and stinging with life. He had sent me a message.\n\nNick-27-Chicagoooooo\n\nNick: Hannah, I know it's you.\n\nThis wasn't possible. It had all finally gotten to me. The lack of sleep, the thirst, the hunger- I was beginning to die. I decided to embrace it.\n\nJill: Yeah Nick, it's Hannah...\n\nNick: I miss you.\n\nI coughed, my chest felt like something was squeezing it. I couldn't breathe right. The amount of times I had heard him say that very same phrase. When he went to visit his family, but I was working, even just with his friends sometimes. I knew he was happy with just his friends, but it was his way of checking in on the connection, affirming that all was right with our worlds.\n\nJill: I miss you too. I'm coming, love.\n\nTears started streaming down my face. I was really ready. This was it.\n\nNick: Come on, Hannah. I love you. Don't be stupid.\n\nI gasped, I really had never had this hard a time breathing. But the strange thing was that I was trying so hard to breathe. Five minutes ago I would have gladly given up my air. But now I needed it. I needed to see what Nick was trying to say to me. I caught my breath a little.\n\nNick: ...\n\nHe was typing. That's okay, I would wait.\n\nA full minute went by before I checked that my connection was still good. It was fine.\n\nJill: Nick, it's still Hannah, are you there?\n\nNick: ...\n\nStill typing.\n\nI leaned back, and I waited. I waited twelve hours and thirty-four minutes for Nick to speak again.\n\nI cried off and on, and bashed the keyboard, and screamed, and sent him angry words I never would have said to him if he were alive. All that time he just kept typing. \n\nIt was about six in the morning when I finally gave up. The sun was coming up, and I wanted to cry for what I'm fairly sure would have been the twentieth time, but my body would not react. I was sinking back to base-level depression again.\n\nI swiveled my chair toward the window and saw the sun coming up. I was going to do it last night, and Nick stopped me. And he'd kept me distracted all night, until I couldn't think of anything but talking to him. And suddenly I realized the distinction there. Talking to him was not the same thing as ending me.\n\nI glanced at the computer, but I already knew what would be there- a blank screen.", "My half lidded eyes droop more and more as I idly scroll through the dating site. The only light in my room is the fake white light beaming from my computer, it was starting to burn my eyes.\n\n\nI glance at the time and instantly yawn when I see it's one in the morning. These sleepless nights are gonna be the death of me. The insomnia was getting worse, but instead of trying to deal with it I just stay up on the internet, listening to music, watching videos or scrolling through dating sites with no intention of dating anyone...just being nosy I guess.\n\n\nI wasn't really serious about dating anyone, not any more. Not after my girlfriend of five years died two years ago. Since then I pass uninterested looks towards other girls, force small talk when I do get a message from an interested girl.\n\n\nI lean back in my seat and contemplate retiring to my bed and try to force myself to sleep. Just as I'm about to close down the dating site I stumble across a profile with a familiar username, KaliKitty.\n\nI frown at the user name and something in my stomach drops. I've seen that username before, I've seen it used as a gamer tag and I've heard it as a nickname. I know this name...\n\nUnsure and uneasy I decide to click onto the profile and look through the details and pictures. Tears glass over my eyes as my stomach sinks. It's her.\nMy girlfriend, the girl I wanted to marry and start a life with, the girl who died after our car accident.\n\nWith shaky hands and a racing mind I send her a message.\n\nDamien242 Hey\n\nKaliKitty Hi sweetie\n\nI swallow hard and lean forward in my seat. Surly this was just a coincidence. There was no way this was my Kali.\n\nDamien242 How are you?\n\nKaliKitty Demi, I thought you didn't like small talk? :)\n\nMy heart almost stops when I see that. Demi...a nickname that I haven't heard in over two years.\n\nDamien242 Why did you call me Demi?\n\nKaliKitty I always call you Demi silly! Cuz I know it bugs you ;3\n\nDamien242 Stop\n\nKaliKitty Demi sweetie, it's okay :)\n\nKaliKitty I knew you would find me eventually <3\n\nAnger and fear washes over me. I can feel a layer of cold sweat coat my body.\n\nDamien242 I said stop!\n\nDamien242 I don't know who you think you are, but nobody but my girlfriend \n\nDamien242 calls me Demi!\n\nKaliKitty If you have a girlfriend why are you on a dating website? -_-\n\nKaliKitty Sweetie, I know it's crazy but it's me :3\n\nI can't control the silent tears as they flow freely down my cheeks. Who was this girl and why was she fucking with me?\n\nKaliKitty You're Damien Harte\n\nKaliKitty You live with you're brother Alan who is two years older than you\n\nKaliKitty You asked me out when you were drunk and I got you a burger.\n\nKaliKitty You brought me to the beech for our first date.\n\nKaliKitty You called me KaliKitty because one day you bought me cat ears.\n\nDamien242 How the fuck do you know all this? \n\nKaliKitty We were in a car crash two years ago\n\nKaliKitty Slammed head first into a truck\n\nKaliKitty You took me in your arms and promised everything would be okay.\n\nKaliKitty I told you that you would be okay, and that I'll always love my \n\nKaliKitty Demi.\n\nI'm sobbing uncontrollably. How the hell...why...\n\nKaliKitty Demi, stop being sad...I know it's hard, but I'm okay :)\n\nDamien242 Stop with this sick joke, please.\n\nDamien242 I can't take this crap\n\nKaliKitty You're always so stubborn! >:/\n\nKaliKitty Fine. When we were together three years you had an emotional breakdown\n\nKaliKitty I found you after work eating a bottle of sleeping pills in the bedroom.\n\nIt has to be Kali. I've never told anyone that before. I kept that dark patch of my life hidden from friends and family. Only Kali knew about it, only Kali was there for my during that dark time of my life.\n\nDamien242 How are you doing this Kali?\n\nDamien242 You're dead\n\nDamien242 I carried your coffin\n\nDamien242 I watched that coffin lower into the ground\n\nKaliKitty I'm sorry for that Demi sweetie\n\nKaliKitty Life is a bitch, ain't it? :3\n\nKaliKitty I'm sorry sweetie, but I need to go.\n\nKaliKitty I still love you Demi, I always will :3 I'm glad you found me\n\nKaliKitty Stop being sad sweetie. I'm always with you and I'll never stop loving you\n\nKaliKitty Please move on Demi. Get help and get better, your health is important! Your friends and family are worried baby :(\n\nI sit back in my seat and stare through glassy eyes as the text of my lover fills my screen.\n\nKaliKitty I love you so much Damien\n\nKaliKitty Bye baby <3\n\nI jump forward and desperately beg for her to wait. I beg her not to leave me, not again. I can't cope without her.\n\nIt was to late. She logged off.\n\nWhen I tried to access her profile I couldn't. It was deleted. \n", "SoleRunner13: Hello?\n\nFemellaFugit: Hi there! Nice profile!\n\nSoleRunner13: Thanks. \nSoleRunner13: Don't you recognize me?\n\nFemellaFugit: Hmmm. \nFemellaFugit: Nope! \nFemellaFugit: Should I?\n\nSoleRunner13: I'd like to think so.\n\nFemellaFugit: Are you a celebrity or something?\n\nSoleRunner13: No. \nSoleRunner13: You really don't recognize me, Adrienne?\n\nFemellaFugit: Whoa, how do you know my name? \nFemellaFugit: Do we know each other?\n\nSoleRunner13: We dated for three years. \nSoleRunner13: Then you died.\n\nFemellaFugit: This is getting creepy.\n\nSoleRunner13: I'll say. \nSoleRunner13: I went to your funeral. \nSoleRunner13: I was the one who found your body. \nSoleRunner13: I watched them bury you.\n\nFemellaFugit: Look, this isn't funny. \nFemellaFugit: I'm blocking you.\n\nSoleRunner13: wsasirt!\n\nFemellaFugit: What?\n\nSoleRunner13: Sorry, I meant \"Wait!\" I was typing fast. \nSoleRunner13: Don't block me. \nSoleRunner13: Let me prove it. \nSoleRunner13: I have pictures of us together. \nSoleRunner13: Look at the third image on my profile.\n\nFemellaFugit: Hang on. \nFemellaFugit: Okay, this is really weird. \nFemellaFugit: And I'm definitely not dead.\n\nSoleRunner13: Clearly. \nSoleRunner13: But your name is Adrienne, and you look exactly like the girl I used to date. \nSoleRunner13: There has to be some explanation. \nSoleRunner13: Are your parents named Cindy and Aaron?\n\nFemellaFugit: You could find that out by Googling me.\n\nSoleRunner13: Would I be able to find out that your dad taught you to play Chess? \nSoleRunner13: Or that your mom used to draw pictures for you instead of reading you stories? \nSoleRunner13: Or that your first kiss was with your dog?\n\nFemellaFugit: Stop.\n\nSoleRunner13: Sorry.\n\nFemellaFugit: I don't understand. I've never told ANYONE that.\n\nSoleRunner13: You told me. \nSoleRunner13: We stayed up all night drinking plum wine and eating brie. \nSoleRunner13: (Your favorites.)\n\nFemellaFugit: Yes.\n\nSoleRunner13: I don't understand, Adrienne. Did you fake your death? \n\nFemellaFugit: No. This is unbelievable. \nFemellaFugit: I've lived in this town my whole life. \nFemellaFugit: My longest relationship was for six months, back in college. \nFemellaFugit: I've never even met you. \nFemellaFugit: Although...\n\nSoleRunner13: What?\n\nFemellaFugit: Tell me about the dream.\n\nSoleRunner13: You've had it since you were a kid. \nSoleRunner13: A figure comes into your room. Not a man or a woman. \nSoleRunner13: You're not scared. \nSoleRunner13: It touches your forehead. \nSoleRunner13: \"Are you awake yet?\" it asks. \nSoleRunner13: You always say yes. \nSoleRunner13: The figure shakes its head and says \"Not yet.\" \nSoleRunner13: Then it leaves.\n\nFemellaFugit: Close.\n\nSoleRunner13: What?\n\nFemellaFugit: You got most of it right. \nFemellaFugit: It doesn't ask if I'm awake, though. \nFemellaFugit: It asks \"Do you remember?\"\n\nSoleRunner13: Remember what?\n\nFemellaFugit: I don't know. \nFemellaFugit: I DO remember my whole life, though.\n\nSoleRunner13: Are you sure? \nSoleRunner13: Look, what if we met in person? \nSoleRunner13: Would you be okay with that?\n\nFemellaFugit: You said you know my parents?\n\nSoleRunner13: Yes. \nSoleRunner13: We could go see them?\n\nFemellaFugit: Let's just get coffee first, yeah? \nFemellaFugit: This is all so bizarre.\n\nSoleRunner13: Okay, yeah, we can do that. When and where?\n\nFemellaFugit is typing...\n\nFemellaFugit is offline." ]	5

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