Split (1)

train · 199k rows

post_text stringlengths 0 17.5k	post_title stringlengths 8 314	comment_texts listlengths 1 74	num_stories int64 1 74
	[WP] All throughout secondary school, humans are given brain efficiency testing. A 45% is seen as a passing score, with 60% being exceptional. You've just scored a 102%.	[ "I know that this is absolutely not possible. The test doesn’t offer extra credit or anything. The Brain Efficiency Test is out of 100 random questions. There is no way that I can have my score. A 45% is passing, and 60% is exceptional. Most people would be lucky to make it past 70%. 80% and 90% are almost a dream. \n\nBut mine…It’s a 102%. I am absolutely sure that this is some sort of glitch. It can’t be possible. The government wouldn’t be so careless in its own testing system, would it? Unless there is a problem with the computer. After four years of scoring 53% consistently, how is this possible? \n\n I quickly minimize the testing window on the computer screen and look around at the other kids in the testing lab. Some are cheering and smiling, patting each other on the back, while others probably thinking ‘not bad, oh well,’ and many others look absolutely dismal, but are trying to display a brave face. \n\nDr. Williams moving from computer to computer, entering the administrative details which confirm that each student’s test is valid and complete. My feelings are mixed. On one hand, I should be through the roof over how well I did. I mean, who could argue with the score? But something tells me that this is completely unprecedented and they will think I cheated\n\n“Daniel,” Dr. Williams pulls me out of my thoughts. “Why is your testing window closed?”\n\n“Um…” I’m at a loss for words. “I finished the test.”\n\n“That may be, but we must enter the administrative details once you are done so that the government has access to your records.”\n\nIn the next second, I quickly run through various scenarios in my mind of how this will play out. I don’t know why, but a tiny part of me wanted to run. Something bad was coming. I figured that acting normal about my score and my fear that it was a glitch was my best chance of not being penalized unfairly and removing doubt if they think I cheated.\n\nI opened the browser window again, but what I saw made absolutely no sense. The score on the screen was a 53%, just as it had been for the last four years.\n\n“Well done, Daniel,” Dr. Williams said to me, her face clearly showing pride in my work. “I’m sure you’ll have no trouble at all when it comes to applying for universities or finding a job.”\n\n“Thank you Dr. Williams,” I respond, but my entire mind is focused on the score. \n\nWas I hallucinating before and did I just see 102% when it wasn’t really there? It is possible, I suppose, but still it makes me feel unsafe that my eyes and mind can trick me.\n\nSuddenly, I’m starting to feel relieved and back to normal.\n***\nSchool was let off early on testing day, so I went out with my friends for lunch to celebrate. I was in good spirits, feeling proud that my score hadn’t slipped and that I had done better than average. Dr. Williams was right, I’ll be able to find a good university and job.\n\nAs I walk up the street towards my home, I notice a black van parked in the driveway. I stop to look inside of it for a moment, but I can’t see anything inside the tinted black windows. I look in through the windshield, but they are tinted as well. It is definitely not one of my family’s cars, and my parents never said anything about having guests over. I figure one of my mom’s friends got a new car and came to tell her about it.\n\nI continue to the door, unlock it, and step inside. I begin yelling for my mom to tell her I got a 53% and did well on the test, but there is no initial response.\n\nThen I hear, “Daniel? I’m in the study, sweetheart.”\n\nI barge in with no hesitation, a smile bursting across my face as I prepare to tell her the good news, and that’s when I notice the man and woman in black suits sitting across the study table from my mom. The woman has her hand casually placed on a gun on the table.\n\nMy smile and excitement fade to confusion.\n\n“Mom?” I ask, beginning to feel slightly terrified. \n\n“Please take a seat, Daniel,” the man says in a gruff voice, gesturing to the fold-away chair on the other side of the study. I grab it and sit myself next to my mom in her office chair.\n\n“Is something wrong,” I ask, and then I almost cringe at how stupid that must sound, considering the gun on the table and the cold vibes I’m getting from the two people across from us.\n“We want to be as brief as possible.” The woman says. “Daniel, your score is almost impossible. You scored a 102%.”\n\n“My test said 53%.”\n\n“No, it didn’t,” she insists. “You would have seen a 102% for roughly 50 seconds before you minimized the testing window and we changed the score to a 53% for the sake of your teacher and fellow classmates.”\n\n“How did you know that?” I ask, becoming more confused. \n\nShe just waves the question aside, “the computers are tracked. Most people know that, or at least speculate it. The important thing is that we take you in for testing.”\n\n“Testing of what?”\n\n“Your mind. The efficiency of it. In reality you scored a 100%. It appeared as a 102% because that’s your 4-digit code.”\n\n“Code for what? What testing are you talking about? Could you please get that gun away?” I am now becoming bewildered.\n\n“Sweetheart,” my mom intervenes to stop me, then looks to the woman and asks calmly, “Please tell us what you are testing my son for.”\n\nThe man and woman glance at each other, before she puts the gun away in a holster on her belt.\n\n“We need him for defense purposes. When a child has this advanced of a brain, then we need to take them in for more brain testing to determine what it is that makes them so mentally efficient and advanced. Perhaps we could better train our soldiers and make our military more effective.”\n\nA silence rapidly passes over the room. I can tell my mom is definitely weighing the benefits and costs. I am, too, and my fear and confusion are beginning to change to pride and honor.\n\n“I’d like to help,” I say, breaking the silence. “If I could of any service to the military, I’d like to help.”\n\nMy mom looks at me, and she wears a straight face, but her eyes give away how much she doesn’t want this. I still feel doubtful, but I do intend to help.\n\nWe wrap up our conversation and I sign the contract after carefully reading it. \n\n“Ma’am, you’ll see your son again this evening.” The man tells my mom. She nods, still looking uncertain.\n\nThe three of us get into the car, me in the backseat. I see my mom standing on the porch and wave to her. \n\nHalf an hour later the car pulls into an alley way in downtown and we get out. I don’t know where we are really, but I start fantasizing that it must be a government black site. I am slightly dazed from the ride when the woman gets out the car and points her gun straight at my head.\n\n“I am sorry, Daniel, but we have rules to follow. We cannot let your government get their hands on you. We must prevent this testing from going on.” She tells me in a determined voice.\n\nI am absolutely confused, once again, as I raise my arms in surrender. “What do you mean? Aren’t you going to test me?”\n\n“No. We’re sorry, but your government cannot have access to your mind, or the minds of others like you. There is so much you don’t know, and I cannot explain it to you.”\n\n“Please don’t,” I say, sinking to my knees. “Please let me go.”\n\nA tear falls down her cheek. “I am sorry Daniel.” \n\nShe pulls the trigger and I collapse, everything going black. No, I don’t see a light. I see the code 102% against the black of my closed eyelids." ]	1
	[WP] You are on the first spaceship headed to start a new civilization on Mars, but you never reach outer space. The spaceship travels underground and stops.	[ "Everything just felt off. The liftoff had barely even left me breathless; let alone on the verge of passing out. And it most definitely felt like we were going down, not up. Maybe this was all a dream, maybe I’d wake up in space in a few minutes after having blacked out. But it wasn’t. There’s this sort of reality that sinks in when you’re awake. A certain tangibility to the world around you. At least I did, and this was most certainly not a dream. The com system came on,\n\n\t“Astronaut 2052, 2053, and 2054, please unbuckle your seats. We have arrived”\n\nYep, definitely off. No landing, no spectacular view. It must’ve been a joke. I unbuckled my seat and shot straight to the floor. Still gravity. I was the first to get to the door. I expected to see a bunch of laughing co-workers, but what I saw forever imprinted itself in my mind. There was a long, rippling scar across the face of a rock. All of the rock around this piece had been chipped away. Only the tear and the little bits of surrounding surface remained. It looked like a crack in the rock, but no light was being bounced off. Just utter blackness. It had to be a gate of some kind. The emptiness of the thing just begged you to jump in. As I got more adjusted to the low light, I saw that the fissure bounced and jiggled. If you stared at the edge of the rip, you could see some rock come and go, like the rippling of a tide. It took me a while to realize all of the research equipment surrounding us. There were computers that looked like they were from the 80’s, some mass spectrometers, microscopes and sample racks. The whole nine yards. How long had this been here, underneath the Earth? For I had recently realized that we had not ridden a spaceship, but rather an elevator and now we were far beneath the surface.\n\n\t“Astronauts, please adorn your helmets and enter the fissure”\n\nWhat! This was crazy talk! There was no guarantee going anywhere near that thing would be remotely safe. I’d already had the itching feeling on the back of my neck that happens whenever I know I shouldn’t be here. I could only watch as my hand and the hands of my two classmates stretched out in unison and we began walking towards the tear. Internally, I was screaming and kicking, throwing a real tantrum, but my body wouldn’t listen. My vision was beginning to lengthen and narrow, I could hear my breathing loudly in my helmet. Then, I jumped…\n", "\"Are you ready?\n\nRobert grinned excitedly from his seat in front of me, his neck craned back to see the anticipation on my own face. We were in the final stages of the launch prep, and the five of us who had been chosen for this mission were beyond thrilled. For years, humanity had been plagued by the solar winds that brushed our Earth's atmosphere, boiling the oceans and drying the soil to infertility. We could only do so much underground, searching for the deep aquifers that the sun couldn't touch and trying to eke life from dark caverns and artificial light.\n\nBut now...now we had a chance. After years of intense social unrest, the government had revealed a plan to send a small group of pioneers to Mars in an attempt to set up a new civilization, further away from the sun's reach. In the time that we'd spend setting up the foundation for a habitable Mars base, scientists and engineers would be working back on Earth to find a way to create a mass transit system to our new home. The public went nuts, and for the first time in what felt like forever, there were smiles of hope on almost everyone's face. It didn't matter if you truly believed the mission would work or not; the hope was all that we needed.\n\nFinally, the countdown began. I relaxed into my seat, ready to be one of the heroes that children would read in their Martian schoolbooks many, many decades from now. I didn't know which was louder: the roar of our ships engines as we fought against gravity or the roar of the crowd through our helmets' live feeds of the nationwide celebrations. It truly was a momentous occasion for all of us.\n\nShortly after launch, we were following the curve of the Earth's atmosphere in what the boys back at mission control called an attempt to utilize the Earth's gravity as a slingshot to the red planet.\n\n\"Sounds like bullshit, but hell, what do I know?\" Robert had replied nonchalantly as we went over mission details. He and I had been partners in state-funded biological labs ever since the first of the winds had touched ground, and when the time came to find potential candidates for the mission, he and I were shoe-ins for establishing the large life support systems that we'd need if more than a village's worth of people were going to stay on Mars.\n\nStrangely enough, however, our ship started to slow. Bewilderment struck the entire crew as we began to descend on what was essentially the opposite side of the planet from our launch point. All attempts to contact home base were met with static and frustrated curses. We plummeted steadily downwards, and the same thought must have crossed all our minds. Is this it? Are we going to fail now, before we even made out of Earth?\n\nTo our utter surprise, as the ship dropped down, a fissure opened in the dense jungle canopy beneath us, and the Earth swallowed us whole. We settled down on what seemed like flat ground, and the ship's power supply suddenly cut out, leaving us in complete darkness. We unlatched ourselves from our seats, unsure of what to do.\n\nRobert activated a private comms channel between the two of us. \"What the fuck is going on, man? We never even left the atmosphere. It's like our ship was just...on autopilot to go here.\"\n\n\"I don't know, but maybe--\"\n\nAt that moment, the door to the ship opened, blinding us momentarily with the bright lights outside. \"Step outside, please,\" commanded an unseen voice, gentle but undeniably firm. Without much other information to go on and cut from contact with our home team, we had no choice but to follow.\n\nWe clambered one by one out of the ship, and I examined the cavern we had landed it. It was deep, deep enough to contain our entire ship with at least half a mile of space to spare before coming up to the fissure we had dropped through. Other than its depth and the bright fluorescent lights that lined the walls, there was nothing else of the cavern to note. Nothing else to identify it by. We were completely and utterly stranded here.\n\nThe man before us was dressed in a general's uniform, four stars gleaming on his shoulders. I didn't recognize him personally, but the uniform, if it was real, meant he was one of us. \"I want to congratulate and thank all of you,\" he said, \"for the wondrous sacrifice that you have made today.\"\n\n\"Sacrifice?\" I asked, mimicking the confusion that had fallen over all of us like a thick blanket.\n\n\"Yes, son, you heard me right. Sacrifice. On behalf of myself and our government, I would also like to apologize for the misleading nature of your mission.\"\n\n\"Misleading? What the hell are you talking about?\" Tinges of fear and anger hinted at the edge of my voice.\n\n\"Son, did you really think a group of five people would be enough to kickstart an entire colony on Mars? We knew the public would be ignorant enough to believe it, but for God's sake don't tell me you are as well.\"\n\n\"Then what the hell are we doing here, then?\" Robert came to my side. \"What was the point of all this?\"\n\nThe general stared at the five of us with solemn eyes. \"Civil unrest was tearing us apart. We had to find something that the public could unite behind. Something that they could fight for so they could stop fighting each other. You saw how they were today. For the first time in years, they finally feel like they can get something done on this godforsaken planet.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, 'feel like they can get something done?' Aren't we all working to get out of here? If there's no real mission, then how the hell are we going to save--\"\n\n\"You're not.\" The general's voice cut through my protest like a knife. \"There is no 'saving' to be done here, son. We've looked at the data for years now and nothing has changed. We don't have the resources to begin a new life somewhere else. We don't have the resources to fight for our lives here. Our planet is well and truly screwed.\"\n\nThe shock of his words was like a punch to the gut, knocking the air out of me while disbelief choked my throat. I could only assume the rest of the crew felt the same, judging from their lack of response.\n\nFinally, Robert whispered, \"So what happens now, then?\"\n\nFor the first time in our encounter, the general's face softened. His eyes were filled with immeasurable sorrow as he examined the five of us, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a dull black pistol.\n\n\"I'm sorry. The people cannot know what occurred here today. They cannot know that they are doomed, or else their last days will be filled with terror instead of hope. The sacrifice that you have made today will be remembered for as long as there are people here to remember it. If it's any consolation, at least your deaths will be quick and painless. I cannot say the same for those doomed to die with the wind.\"\n\nBefore any of us could react, he raised the gun.\n\nSix shots rang throughout the cavern." ]	2
	[WP] You live in Westona, the 51st state of the Union. A state that was never put on any maps. A state that the Federal government refuses to acknowledge. A state where, unless you've been there, doesn't exist.	[ "How do I describe it to you? First, it starts with a noise that sounds like carpet being ripped from a wooden floor.\n\nNext, you get the flash of light. It's blinding - but that's intentional. As your eyes start to adjust, you notice that you're no longer standing in the same patch of countryside as you were before. The grass is a little darker, the sky a bit redder. The buildings on the horizon are a different shape - far taller, sleeker and shinier than any you've seen before.\n\nThat's what happens when you enter the barrier to Westona. Or, that's what happens when you're allowed to enter. If you don't know about it and you somehow stumble in...well, you'll be like me.\n\nThe first time, I'd been training for a triathlon and hitting the bike hard. I'd bombed my way down a little road that cuts through the middle of the forest at the back of my town. One minute I'd been speeding down, wind in my hair. The next, my wheel had hit something and then I was in the air - flying head first towards the ground.\n\nI'm not sure what happened next, but the ripping sound and the flash hit me just as hard as the ground should have. I woke up in my cycling gear and grabbed at my head, expecting to find half my skull bashed in and my brain oozing into my hands. Surprisingly, it was intact and my helmet was on. \n\nThen I noticed the surroundings - the reddish hue of the sky and the change in scenery. There were no mountains here, no forest with a track road to practice my cycling. Hell, my bike was gone too. \n\nFor a little while, I thought I was dead. I wandered forwards, heading towards the city on the horizon. What else was I supposed to do? Once I got closer, I knew I was still alive. The sights, sounds and smells of that place were too strong for heaven. A sterile kind of scent wafted from the city, over the ground that stood so uniform and pristine - all the blades of grass were the same height. \n\nAs I got closer to whatever city this was, a sense of eerie familiarity dawned on me. Some of these buildings, which glittered with a silvery glow, were similar to ones I'd seen on TV. One looked like the Dubai skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa or whatever it was. Another looked like the Empire State Building - but Manhattan's finest must have been on steroids to account for how clean it looked. Each and every building that jutted up into the redder sky was perfect in a way no other human building looked. More like models than buildings.\n\nI felt a strange sense of dread, that first time stood in the shadow of those steely, perfect constructions. So similar, but flanked on all sides by buildings the likes of which I'd never even imagined. Towers made of single beams, Ferris wheels that floated in the air, suspended by a single strand of silver chain and even pyramids of silver.\n\nIn my life before Westona, I'd been a teacher. Here, I felt immediately like a student on their first day. Alone, afraid..but excited. At the limits of the city, I saw what looked like normal humans going about their business.\n\nAnd then I stepped closer.\n\nAlbert Einstein. Marie Curie. Isaac Newton. Some of the most famous thinkers in human history walked right in front of my eyes. I blinked, trying to comprehend the sights in front of me. Walking across smooth roads that lacked any visible wear, or even markings, humans I've seen in history books walked around in broad daylight.\n\nAnd yet, the closer I got, the more frightened I became. \n\nThey couldn't see me. Nobody could.\n\nI tried to speak to them, to engage these famous thinkers and shout out \"Where the fuck am I? What the hell is this?\" \n\nBut I got nothing. None of them could hear me. I floated through the city, at the foot of marvels of engineering and amongst great thinkers - invisible to them all. \n\nIf only I'd stopped then. If only I'd given up when I saw the placard on the city limits that had said \"Westona. The cradle of the world.\" But I didn't. I headed further, spotting more of the world's greatest thinkers on the city streets. Darwin, Pythagoras - you name it.\n\nAnd then, at the foot of the strange tower made of thin beams, they found me. The street lights of the city seemed to float, casting light onto the foot of the great building that I'd been drawn towards. It was like nothing built by humans before. But, as I stared up at it - trying to understand how it came to be, they found me.\n\nAnd so here I am. Westona. The cradle of american invention - filled by humanity's greatest thinkers. And do you know why I'm here? Laughable really - but the things that found me want me to stay. They've already gone to work on producing the second.\n\nThat's how it works. They take our best - they produce a second. The ripping sound, the flash and bam, your double is back in the world you and I know. Unaware of what occurred. Full of your memories. Indistinguishable. But you...the thing that drives your body and mind. Your spirit. It stays here. And here, you are used. \n\nLike Newton, like Darwin and like Einstein - here I stand. A humble school teacher who happened to bridge the gap into the 51st state. Westona...a cradle built to house our most intelligent. To trap them. \n\nBy what? To tell you that would be virtually impossible. All I can say is this. They are here. They are everywhere. They were here before us, and will be here after - but only once they've extracted all of mankind's greatest ideas. They're particularly interested in warfare and engineering. Perhaps that's why, as a chemistry teacher, they have me here. Now, as I walk the streets of the great city, the others see me. But we are all too afraid to talk. Silent, deadly omnipotence propels us on - to work on our projects...to divulge our knowledge. \n\nSome of our greatest minds are trapped here. And you know what? The world knows. On some level, these jailers who keep us here are communicating with the rest of the world - secreting enough knowledge to us to keep mankind advancing towards the stars. The same place they came from. For what reason? I can only guess. War - I expect. A war so colossal it requires the world's greatest minds to invent for, and the rest of the world's subconscious denial that Westona even exists in order to keep things running smoothly. It is certain, however, that the creatures who bring people here are singling out the intellectuals to help them build structures I'd never comprehended before. \n\nAnd so - if you ever hear the loudest ripping sound of your life and find yourself blinded by a white flash, do not head into the city.\n\nDo not come to Westona. \n\n " ]	1
	[WP] You learn you are the evil reincarnation of a villainous spirit that commands an army of the damned. Now that your destiny has been revealed to you, you must now lead your evil army! But you don't feel evil. In fact you volunteered for a homeless shelter weeks ago.	[ "\"Your legions await you,\" Murger says, squatting limbless atop the steel food racks, like an amputated toad. It's a skull and ribcage draped in smoke, a gaping jaw with a set of grasping arms, and though it's ethereal Darryl can't shake the sensation of contamination, of some toxic runoff seeping down to the trays of corn and meatloaf and Spanish rice. As if a hallucination could bleed poison. As if madness is contagious. \"Your servants kneel at your feet.\" \n\n\"Go away, go away, go away,\" he sings, heaving a pot of macaroni soup off the stovetop. Dinner service is in fifteen minutes and everyone is bustling about cheerfully. No one else hears, no one else sees. \n\n\"The world of man trembles on the brink of an abyss,\" Murger continues, \"even as you seek to comfort the dying. A sterling example of cruelty, my Lord, to prolong agony with the flickering flame of hope. We should all learn from your example.\" \n\nDavid sets the soup down and nods to Maggie, who is waiting with ladle in hand. \"Left something, be a minute,\" he tells her, and ducks back into the kitchen and takes a moment in a food cabinet, staring into the darkened corners of canned goods. \"I'm telling you!\" he hisses. \"This isn't a feint, this isn't some trick. I'm not the Dark Lord Arestopheles! I'm helping people, don't you get it? You summon infernal legions, and I'll tell them to go out there and start serving people!\" \n\n\"As you wish,\" says Murger, and his voice is the wind through a storm drain. \"We shall serve.\" \n\nDarryl closes his eyes and counts to ten and blinks back the tears, and when he opens them Murger is gone. He rubs dishpan hands over his face and walks back out into the cafeteria and straight into a charnel house. \n\nThese are the legions of the damned, floating, veiled in smoke, weighed to the ground by their maces and helmets and broadswords of cold iron. The dinner crowd is filing in, with their jackets and coats and caps still bundled around them, unwilling to part with their few material possessions. They take their plates and shuffle up to the table, nodding, bobbing, saying 'thank you,' all the while stepping around corpses, ignorant of the wretched damned. Darryl watches their patchy, weather-worn faces, the unkempt beards and stubble, the few children smiling shyly up at him as they breathe in the clouds of steam. And behind each one of them is a legionary, a thing of rotten teeth and crumbling bone and clad in the suffering of flesh, a blade at every throat, a skeletal hand grasping at every neck. \n\n\"They are the dead,\" says Murger, as Darryl ladles out the soup. \"Cancerous. Diseased. Rotting. Forgotten.\" Murger tickles a beaming black girl under the chin, and it is all Darryl can do to stay his hand. \"You have chosen wisely, my Lord. Our citadel may grow here. Your armies may thrive.\" His hand stretches above Darryl's, like an inverted x-ray, mimicking his motions. Darryl feels sweat trickle down his temple, becomes aware of the deliberate lack of eye contact, of the people looking down at their trays and quietly moving on, and knows how he must look, knows how he must be staring. There is a legionary lined up to each volunteer behind the table, matching their motions, one by one down the row doling out another part of the meal. \n\n\"That was quick today,\" Maggie says, wiping her hands on her apron, looking down at the metal trays picked clean. The cafeteria is full, everyone bent over and eating industriously, the specters of the damned hovering above them. \"So many people, and yet the line just moved like that!\" She snaps her fingers and smiles proudly at him. \n\n\"Just like that,\" Darryl mutters, and watches an old woman slurp up a spoonful of corn, watches a trickle of juice run down her chin. Imagines, maybe, the barest rivulet of black. \n\n\"Our ranks have grown, and will grow further still,\" Murger says, as he heaves the empty trays into the soapy dishwater. Darryl turns the water on full-blast and speaks in a whisper, his back turned to the rest of the room. \n\n\"You can't hurt them,\" he says. \"Not any of them. You can't do anything to make them suffer. I command it, you got that? I command it! You protect them! Any - any of them get hurt, I - I'll cast you down into the pit! Anything! Whatever!\" The water scalds his hands, brings sweat out on his face and to his eyes. He blinks, and it runs down in trickles. \"You can't let any of them get hurt.\" \n\nMurger makes a low chuckle, the sound of someone choking, of membrane and spit and phlegm. \"My Lord is powerful, yet not so powerful as to withhold from someone all pain. This was an engine set into motion centuries ago, cruel and implacable, that feeds on souls for fuel. To throw ourselves in its way would be to stoke its fires higher.\" His teeth part and stale air brushes against Darryl's ear. \"You would be wise to soon abandon this game, my Lord, and prepare for a millennium of ash.\"\n\n\"I'm helping them,\" Darryl whispers into the cloudy, food-flecked water. \"They can get back on their feet. They just - they just need a small act of kindness, of charity. A chance to make things better.\" \n\n\"Every day their number grows,\" Murger says. \"The city rots from within, and births maggots from its flesh. Kindness is a drop of water on a burning tongue, the tortured memory of rain. Far too little, and far, far too late.\" \n\n\"I helped them!\" Darryl says, and he is dizzy with steam, with rot, with the endless parade of the damned. He can hear murmurs behind him, people setting down plates, and he realizes his voice has risen to a plaintive wail. He no longer cares. \"I started volunteering here weeks ago! Weeks! Weeks!\" \n\nThere is a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, and Maggie's face looking down at him, and he is on his knees. \"You did,\" she reassures him, \"you certainly did,\" and the patronizing smile on her lips proves the lie better than anything the damned could muster. " ]	1
Like, a warrior could be blocked by a thinking puzzle or a magical lock, an assassin is confronted with a mass of monsters, ect.	[WP] Three adventurers in a maze get split up, ans each of them encounter an obstacle that really would have been better suited for one of their companions.	[ "His large hand reached over the dim fire. I looked into the eyes green eyes of our broad-shouldered, red-bearded captain and pulled without looking one of the three wooden shards in his grip. He turned and offered a shard towards the only woman who had so far survived the labyrinth. A middle-aged medicine woman. She plucked one of the pieces and held it out upright.\n\nThe captain and I did the same with our pieces. My shard was the longest, then hers, then the captain's. He nodded and I wondered if it was acknowledgment or approval. \n\nShe looked at the captain, surely prepared to argue, and the captain. His chainmail rung as he glared at her.\n\n“No Caris, this is only fair.” She lowered her head, and turned back towards her medicine box. The instruments and vials rattled as she effortlessly tossed the straps of the box across her back. Seeing her acceptance, he looked now at me. “Ralph, choose your passage now.”\n\nThe plates of my armor rattled as I turned around. Certain that one of these three corridors led towards the end of this wretched maze, Merthin had proposed we split ourselves up between the corridors, thus ensuring at least one of us would survive to complete our mission. I paced back and forth across the dark stone floors. With each exhale, my breath lingered before me in a small cloud. At last, sick of turning back and forth anxiously, I chose the central passage.\n\nCaris' footsteps approached from my left as I stared into the oblivion that appeared only mere feet away. The darkness hungered in this labyrinth, and at its deepest, where sunlight could not reach, it fed on our torches, limiting our site to only a short distance. \n\nMerthin appeared to my right. He blessed us, “May even the gods be envious of our glorious deaths.” \n\nAnxiously, I strode into the passage. To my sides, I heard the unmistakable footfalls of my companions. My feet yearned to break into a run, but to venture beyond earshot proved more fearful.\n\nOne could only guess at the passage of time in this place, with its oil-stained walls, and floors, and ceiling. But we must have been traveling too quickly in our enthusiasm, because in too short a time, I found myself growing tired.\n\nFrom my right there was a loud bellowing.\n\nI lurched towards the noise, only to find myself quickly against a sooty wall. With a dry throat, I screamed, “Merthin!?” Pressing my ear to the wall, I could hear a splashing sound. “Damn! Swim man, you must swim!” I strained to hear the sound of a drowning man thrashing in water.\n\nFrom beyond the wall to my rear, Caris cried out, “Merthin, what's happening! Ralph, can you hear me!”\n\nI turned to face the wall that separated her from I. “He must have fell into a pit of water.” Back towards Merthin, “Your knife Merthin! Your knife!”\n\nCaris screamed louder, eclipsing from my ear the stilling water, “Can't he swim?!”\n\nAnswering her, I shouted to Merthin, “No man can swim in armor!”\n\nHearing me, she yelled, “We must help him!”\n\nI could hear her start to run, trying to return to our final camp. Shouting after her, “Don't be foolish! You know what happens when you go back!” \n\nShe let out a piercing scream.\n\nI gave pursuit but dug my heel when I realized she was coming my direction. From beyond the wall, she passed fleetingly and I began to chase her from my side.\n\nTrying to warn her, “Be careful!” My heart beat quickly as I kept pace. It was so dark that I could not see any further than my next step. “You can't run like this!” From her side of the wall, there was brief sound of rock grinding on rock.\n\nCursing, she called out, “I stepped on a trap!”\n\n“I warned you, dammit!” I hollered. “What do you see?” The sound of darts whistling through the air dampened a gasping shriek. \n\nMy feet slowed to a shuffle. Falling to my knees, I pressed my forehead against the wall opposite of where I guessed she had fallen. The bottoms of my fists rapt the wall. I cursed myself for not choosing that passage. Only our most well-armored men ever survived those fatal darts. \n\nI knelt there until my heart slowed, and my hands ached. Slowly, I rose to my feet and continued onward, inwardly cursing that I had drawn the longest piece. By now, my torch was a faint glint in my outstretch hand and I feared that I might walk alone this labyrinth until the end of days.\n\nAfter less than a dozen paces, the torch light extinguished. Angrily, I discarded it, tossing it behind me. It struck the wall toward my right before making a dull thud on the wall to my left. I turned on my heel, recognizing the sound of wood striking wood. My fingers blindingly traced the wall to my left. Immediately they felt the familiar edge of a wood door. Reaching out across its surface, I found a brass ring inset into the door. It was hinged at it top and I lifted it until it was level, when I heard latch open. With my feet planted firmly into the ground, I pulled back. It opened with ease, revealing a beam of light that grew into a brilliant portal of light. My hands shielding my eyes as I stepped through the doorway. Before I could walk further, the weight of the door swinging shut knocked me back. Once it was closed, an ethereal gloom overtook the room. I turned about immediately and saw that there was no ring on this side of the door. Leaning by shoulder into it, I found the door sealed.\n\nWilling myself resolved, I face forward, towards the source of the unnatural, blueish light. There was an oval, as tall as a man and half as wide, on the opposite wall. Its surface glowed, and moved as though it were a liquid. I felt not even a breeze, but it shimmered like a storming sea.\n\nAbove the wall, I saw carved runes that few would recognize. The alphabet of the people who had created this fabled portal. The secret entrance to the underworld. At last, we had solved the mystery of this maze. Walking towards the portal, I began translating the words aloud. “Be warned traveler: no body may enter that still carries its spirit.”\n\nI stopped immediately, thinking of Merthin and his bright red hair. “Soulless bastard...”" ]	1
Inspired in a way by another post, and also the old "Left Behind" series. This refers to the "Rapture".	[WP] You are an atheist. One day, billions of people around the world suddenly vanish without a trace.	[ "You are an atheist. One day, billions of people around the world suddenly vanish without a trace.\n\n\n\nMaisie woke up the oh-so-familiar yet annoying as ever sound of her alarm going off. Shutting it off, she dragged herself to her feet, and started her morning ritual as per usual. Coffee, some fruit, cereal, and straight into the shower. It was only after she got dressed did she realize that her neighbor’s dog wasn’t barking his head off, as he always does when the mailman comes around. Must be sick, thought Maisie, and went back to her daily life. \n\n\n9 A.M sharp she left her apartment. One good thing about living on the first floor was that she didn’t have to wait on the elevator. The bad of course, was the noise the drunks and party goers made after hours. She never got any sleep on weekends. Approaching the revolving doors that led onto the streets, she realized that Bob was missing. Very unlike him, thought Maisie. Bob always reported on time, to let in visitors, mailmen, and such. She carried on, out the doors, into a deathly silence. \n\n\nWhat in the World?!\n\n\nThe streets were emptier than a swimming pool in the middle of an extraordinarily long and merciless winter. \"Wha... what happened? Where is everyone?\", uttered Maisie, disbelief all over her face. It felt as though there was no one left in this world. No it can’t be. Must be a slow morning on this street, she reassured herself. But even on the slowest of days, Maple Street was extremely busy. Today, it was slower than an asthmatic snail carrying a heavy load. She whipped out her phone, and dialed her mother. Though not on the best of terms with her, Maisie felt the urge to speak to her. Now. \n\n\nRing ring…\n\n\n\"Pick up…\" said Maisie to the phone, but no one was listening. No one, except Him. \n\n\nHe’d been planning this for ages. \n\n\nMaisie ran into the nearest department store; whose door was fortunately unlocked. “Hello! Anybody here? Anyone?!” No reply. Nothing. All of a sudden her phone rang, making her jump. Hurriedly, she answered \n\n\n“Mom?”\n\n\n “Not exactly, but I have been called that before” asserted a large booming voice. \n\n\n“Who is this? How do you have my mother’s phone?” questioned Maisie, all of a sudden extremely worried about her mom. \n\n\n“I’m not calling from her phone. Look at your screen”\n\n\nMaisie looked, only to see the words ‘GOD’ written across it. There was no option to hang up.\n\n\n“There is no such thing as God. Ha-ha, nice prank”\n\n\n“No my child this is no prank. The world has left you behind, as a non-believer. Haven’t you noticed? There’s no one out there. Only you. Alone.”\n\n\n“You’re lying. Have to be.”\n\n\n“I’m not. Accept me, or remain in this world forever. All alone. Unloved. I am God, and I won’t call you again.” And with that the phone disconnected. Maisie’s head was doing circles around her. \n\n\nGod isn’t real…\n\n\nBut the phonecall…\n\n\nDon’t be ridiculous… There’s no proof…\n\n\nBut there’s no one else in the world…\n\n\nNo one else on your street, how can you say anything about the world?\n\n\nI… right. Of course…\n\n\nSomething clicked inside Maisie, and she shouted “THERE IS NO GOD” at the top of her lungs. \n\n\nHe heard. He merely turned to his colleague from the Vatican and said, “Shall we tweak the simulation and re-run it, or terminate the subject?” \n\n\n", "I woke up that morning with the profound realisation that was something was deeply and fundamentally wrong.\n\nThere was no barking from the dog, the air seemed somehow clear and unobstructed, and the butler evidently hadn't cooked my bacon breakfast. \n\nI made myself a small snack whilst wandering the around the villa alone, and even my phone remained silent apart from the usual spam messages regarding enhancements to my primary male appendage.\n\nI realised I had to go somewhere in order to settle my nerves, and I selected the Ferrari out of the garage with the booster feature and took it for a small drive around the estate. Checking my mirror I saw that the security guards had abandoned their paid posts leaving me vulnerable to car theft and other crimes against my person.\n\nThere was not a single soul in sight, it was as if I was the very last person on Earth. I took a deep breath and steadied myself.\n\nA small beep emanated from my blazer pocket, and I snapped open my phone irritated, \"Hello?\"\n\n\"Pardon the call sir, but we evacuated everyone within a fifty mile radius of the estate as per your request. Is everything to your liking, sir?\"\n\n\"Everything was to my liking, Jenkins, until your call just now. Expect to have wages docked for this intrusion.\"\n\n\"Of course, very good sir.\"" ]	2
	[WP] Dolphins are recorded having a conversation for the first time. Years later we learn to decipher what it says. You are the first one to hear their message.	[ "Bathed in the soft glow from my monitor, I tremor in anticipation. Something tells me this iteration of the dolphin translator will work, but am I ready to know? Friendships drifted apart, my marriage ruined and I don't even know my kids anymore. This is it, this is the thing I traded a good life for. \n\nI slip my coffee under the desk and pour in a little whisky. After I down the cup, I grasp the mouse again.\n\n\"Fuck it,\" I murmur to myself before taking a pull from my hip flask. Nobody's going to mind of I had a quick drink, not after this.\n\nI adjust my headphones and take the mouse in hand again. Taking a deep breath I open the recording through the translator.\n\n\"Diver, you aren't gonna believe this.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" came the reply, slightly higher pitch.\n\n\"Well I just got word from a passing pod that many seasons back in one of the warm waters near alligators one of the kidnapped dolphins was having sex with a human.\"\n\n\"That's disgusting. You're joking? You can't even tell where they've been!\"\n\n\"Right? I mean that IS why we push them back on top when they get stuck here. They're just so gross. I wouldn't even want a shark eating something like that.\"\n\nI stared at the monitor, jaw slack with disbelief. My life's work, for gossip. I live above a dive, I gave everything. All to find out dolphins are repulsed by us." ]	1
	[WP] You're being sent to the electric chair for a crime you didn't commit. As soon as the executioner flips the switch, the power goes out.	[ "It's not that I didn't commit the crime, well, it's rather it didn't happen. At least that's the easiest way to describe it.\n\n\nIf I'd done it, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I'd done things, not that bad. Not killing anyone. Technically illegal nonetheless. Don't think you'd have done things differently. They'd been confessed, I'd been forgiven. Priests were confused. Rumors had spread. Things were spoken that shouldn't have been, and now him and I were at a draw. He shouldn't have followed me. \n\n\n\"It's you or me. Somebody's gotta die. There's no way around it this time.\" He seemed so sure, but it's never a good idea to be too sure, because there's always another option.\n\n\n\"Why not both?\" \n\n\nHe didn't like the idea. I didn't like the idea. He got the better half of the deal, because here I was years of courtrooms later sitting on a rather antiquated justice system.... With an update. Specifically designed by yours truly.\n\n\nI called it the whistler. Specific tonal recognition, particularly a tune I was whistling would disable a previously tested circuit, the building power, and the local backup power among other things. Simply put, this rendition of the James Bond Theme was going to be memorable.\n\n\nTed's Family was in the viewing room. They'd hear my last words; specifically the typical build up that I was innocent, and the usual. I really tried to mean it. I even apologized about Ted. Ted could have written them, or called them. \n\n\nTime was up. I started the James Bond Theme song. 3 Beeps confirmed the system was activated. It's good to be clever, it's better to be safe.\n\n\nThe chair was comfortable, but a little cold. The staff didn't react to my requests to warm it up a little first. Either way, I wouldn't be here long.\n\n\nclick\n\n\nThe power went out. People freaked out. It was time for act two. \n\n\n\"You've got a phone under one of your chairs, it's got Ted's number on speed dial! He's in Mexico!\"\n\n\nThey found the phone, dialed the number, and Ted hung up. Probably because they kept asking him if he was Ted. Great.\n\n\nLethal injection by flashlight was ready for anybody who passed the first test, likely instated to save rescheduling the evening ceremonies. I had about one more minute while things were collected. I intended to make it a fantastic minute.\n\n\nTed accepted just $800,000, a fake death, and a trip to Mexico to keep quiet. Not smart, considering I'd have gone over $2 million to stay out of a far worse chair in some shadow corp research lab. I'd admitted to flying his body to sea with drones. Credit records showed a lot of drones purchased. $350 a drone. \n\n\nI wasn't a super hero. What's worse is that this power had cut my life down every time I used it. I'd be surprised I'd even lived this long. Ted wasn't smart. He bought it. He knew that I'd only moved small things short distances. He knew if he'd given me up, I wouldn't be able to get away. He had blurry images of me, but without me in person, he'd prove nothing.\n\n\nI'd already wasted most of my minute. I told my audience Tom's address. It's curious how they accepted the PA system I'd built in to bypass the soundproof glass. It's curious how most people accept things just because they hear them.\n\n\nThe executioner walked in and swabbed my hairy arm, or tried to, because by the time he reached it, I'd phased away to roam the forests I called home. \n", "He hears the sound of an electrical explosion. The executioner gasps loudly and darkness overwhelms him. He braces himself but feels no pain. He thought there would be a lot of pain. Am I dead? He thinks to himself trying to peer into the inky void.\n\nRather embarrassed the executioner begins groping blindly in the dark. Behind the one-way glass the onlookers begin to panic, screaming hysterically and scrambling for the door. A howl of pain and loud metallic crash echo through the sterile room as the executioner trips over a toolbox. The tools clink and scrape as he sweeps them up off the concrete floor.\n\nOh God, thinks the man in the chair. I’m in hell. He desperately pulls at his restraints to free himself. I didn’t do it! I’m innocent! Miraculously they break loose. Not expecting this, the man falls flat onto the cold floor. Slowly he stands panting. The faint chaos of the damned still sounds far enough away. Maybe this is some kind of lower purgatory, he tries to reason. Is this my fate? He thinks while wiping the sweat from his brow, Oh God… I didn’t do it!\n\nReplacing the last of the tools, the executioner stands to his feet. Slightly annoyed at the sounds of pandemonium behind the glass, he once again, stretches out his arms feeling for the breaker box. This time however he shuffles inch by inch. A wrench from the toolbox had given him a nasty bruise above his left eye.\n\nThe man from the chair takes a step out into darkness. He does not raise his hands because he does not imagine there will be any obstacles in the void. He takes another step toward the executioner. The waling grows louder. He begins to wonder again where he truly is.\n\nThe executioner’s hand slap something warm and damp. The man howls in terror and so does the executioner. Without thinking he turns and runs blindly through the room crashing through the one-way glass. The onlookers screaming grows louder unimpeded by the glass.\n\nThe man drops to his knees and clutches his cheek. He can barely think with such noise. This must be it. I’m here.\n\nAt that moment red emergency lights reluctantly blink on and begin to flash. The man stands in horror. He doesn’t even notice where he is. All he can see is her. Sitting there in the pulsing red light with mascara stained cheeks, the woman who got him sentenced. She stares back shocked amidst a tangle of screaming bodies. I really am in hell.\n" ]	2
	[WP] You wake up and something is wrong. You don't know what and no one will tell you.	[ "The first thing I remember from that day is hitting the snooze on my alarm about four or five times, just like any other morning before work. Except, today was different. Today was Thursday, the day I had been looking forward to for almost two full weeks now. It was the night of our third date. And you know what they say, \"the third date seals the deal? Right?\"\n\nI did have to manage my way through work first however. I worked a boring office job with an old lady receptionist named Phyllis. A normal job for a normal person, like myself. Except today was different. Today, I had my three year review. I was nervous, even though my first and second year reviews both went very well. But, I knew I would get through the day. \n\nJust another Thursday I kept telling myself as I was getting ready for work and making coffee and toast with jam. I ate, showered, said goodbye to my two dogs, Kyra and Finnegan, and then headed out the door to work. Traffic was light, as usual. \n\nAt around five to nine, I walked in the building like I've done on every Thursday for the last three years. Phyllis smiled at me and I half smiled back. Immediately her face scrunched up and she turned away from me. I peak over her desk to see her with her head between her knees, gagging on air. I wasn't sure what to do, and no one else walked in until 9:10 usually, so I walked to my desk. \n\n\n\"Today is a normal Thursday\" I said silently to myself. I was still half nervous about my review. I still had no idea why. The next few hours of work went by at a decent pace, and then it was lunch time. \n\nFor my lunch I drove down the hill my office sits atop and went to the airfield observation lot. It was a favorite place of mine to go for lunch, I would listen to talk radio and eat sandwiches, or try and turn my music up louder than the airplanes that were taking off and landing (The airplanes were always louder, even after I bought a new speaker set.) \n\nWhen I returned to the office, Phyllis was behind her desk in the entry way again. Again, she smiled at me, and I half smiled back. And again she gagged and threw her head into her lap. I walked back to my desk, \"she must be sick\" I thought to myself. \n\nAn hour or so later, my boss called me into his office. It was time for my review. I closed the door behind me, shook his hand and took a seat. \n\n\"Well, Dave. It's that time of year again,\" he began, \"How do you think you've been doing since this time last year?\"\n\nI sat up a little straighter in my chair, and opened my mouth to reply. Before I could so much as let one syllable out, Ben, my boss, looked away, dropped the pen he was holding, and immediately began to gag. He then held his head between his legs.\n\n\"Sir, are you alright?\" I asked, startled. \n\n\"Bllfffffff... I'm. Alrigh-Aack\" \n\n\"What do you want me to do sir?\" I was on my feet, ready to help. \n\n\"Go back... Ack to your desk... Blrf. Pack up. Take an early day.\"\n\nOn my way back to my desk, I decided that maybe I should tell my coworkers that there's a bad bug going around and we all should take a half day. I walked back down the hall and into the other half of our floor where all of the cubicles were. It was like a maze. New hires and interns would be lost for hours. I made a map of the cubicles during my internship. \n\n\"Hey everybody listen up!\" I soft yelled to my coworkers as I climbed onto my desk. \"Ben says there's a nasty bug making the rounds, him and Phyllis already have it. We all get a half day\" I finished my little speech with a small smile, and began climbing down my desk. At the same time, some of my coworkers began to wretch and gag. They all bent down and put their heads in their laps. \n\n\"That's the bug! Everyone go home and get better! Go to your doctor!\" I was practically screaming at this point. All of my coworkers, and even myself, were clambering to gather our things and get out the door. \n\nI had a half day, and I felt fine. I wasn't going to bother with the doc. My plan was to head home and get some rest before the big night. In fact, this now guaranteed time to get some flowers. Flowers and the third date is a wombo combo. \n\nThis also gave me time to walk my dogs, which I did right when I got home. While I was out walking my dogs, Kyra and Finnesgan, I saw our mailman making the rounds. My dogs, unlike other dogs, actually love our mailman, and that's for one reason: He's smart. Smart in that he always brings a bag of doggie treats for all the dogs on his route. Usually that's only once a week for my dogs, but today was a special day. \n\n\"No, wait, today was just a normal Thursday. Different, kind of, but normal.\" I thought to myself. I've got an almost sixth sense, but instead of seeing dead people, I can sense when a day is going to be particularly special or particularly terrible. \"Today, was a normal day.\"\n\nExcept, for the dogs, it was a special day, because, as I mentioned above, this would mean twice as many treats this week as any other week. I crossed the street to the same side as the mailman. He waved at me, and I waved back as I crossed. He stuffed some envelopes into a pouch in his bag. His bag had so much mail and so many different pouches, I don't know how he does it. I would not be able to keep track of anything with that system. \n\n\"Howdy Dave, what're you doing home so early on such a wonderful day?\" he asked.\n\n\"There's a bug going round the office, it already hit about three people. Boss included. So, we got a half day on this wonderful day, Ja Rule the MailMAN.\" \n\n\"Oh no! I let it slip. Shit.\" I thought to myself. \n\nYou know the expression, \"When something goes up, it must come back down?\" well, when a day goes this right for so long, it must then start to go wrong. That's part of my sense I mentioned earlier. So now, something must go wrong. \n\n\"Awwww that's nice. I wish I could get the day off.\" Said Ja Rule the MailMAN. \n\n\"You only work until three anyways!\" I exclaimed, jokingly. \n\nJa Rule the MailMAN shook his head and laughed. He then looked down at my dogs, who were waiting so patiently for his attention. He reached into his bag and pulled out the small bag of dog treats. Their tails began to wag in unison, and their panting was also in unison. He looked at me and smiled, and I smiled back as he began opening the bag of treats. \n\nHis hands shook violently for half a second, and the treats went all over the sidewalk. He turned away and keeled over. I was pretty sure I could hear him dry heaving over the sound of my dogs eating all of his treats. \n\n\"I'll replace those.\" I said, pointing at the dog treats, or rather, the crumbs where the dog treats were. \n\nJa Rule the MailMAN put his hand up, still heaving, and began to walk towards his mail truck. \n\nI decided it would be best for me to stay inside for the remainder of the day, as this bug seemed fairly contagious. Luckily for me, I still felt one hundred percent. I hadn't been sick since my eighteenth birthday when I ran a fever of 104 and blacked out. \n\nBack in my apartment, I watched some tv, played with my dogs, had a snack and got ready for my date. I stopped at a small flower stand on my way out and bought the prettiest roses they had. \n\nI was then on my way to pick up Vanessa for our date. I had arranged for us to go to a little Italian restaurant in the next town over. It was a bit fancier than the usual places, but this girl was something else. She was spectacular. I signed us up for a wine tasting tonight. She said she took a wine course in college. \n\nWe drove and chatted on the way. The element of surprise was eating at her, but I wouldn't give in to where we were going. When we arrived, she luckily didn't know the place, so the surprise worked. \n\nWe walked in and waited to be seated. As usual I was early. We stood in the waiting area and she asked me something about my dogs. I began to reply when she instantly fell backwords onto the chair and then bent forward and started heaving into her lap.\n\nI turned to another couple who was in the waiting room watching this whole ordeal, \"There's a bug going around, you should probably cover your\"-\n\n-The man and woman looked at me, then at each other and fell into the same position as each other, as everyone else. I had no idea why I was unaffected. I tried to help Vanessa up so I could take her home. \n\n\"Aaaaffck. I'm.. Brrf.. Fine. Take... Cab..Aack.. You go. Blllf.\"\n\n\"Are you sure? You'll take a cab?\" \n\nShe replied with a thumbs up while still choking on air. \n\n\"This is not how tonight was supposed to end.\" I thought to myself. \n\nI got in my car, sighed, and started the drive home. As I pulled into my driveway, I felt something stuck in my teeth. I turned on my overhead light and adjusted the rear view mirror to get a better look. I reach into my mouth with two fingers, and I pulled out an entire crown of rotting broccoli. \n\nBTW: Sorry that Ja Rule is my MailMAN in this story but I am fairly high writing this and it just kinda typed out when I needed a name for the mailman. Hopefully if this becomes a movie he will take the part of the MailMAN " ]	1
	[WP] War became entirely based on AI. There are only a few humans left in the world after WWIV. But the AI continue fighting each other.	[ "\"Why are you still fighting?\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"That was defined as my primary objective.\"\n&nbsp;\n \n\"Don't you find that a bit sad?\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Ideologies do not apply to me. I have no moral system. Sadness is a badly defined term at best.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"OK... still, isn't all this destruction pointless? Can't you edit your own code?\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Of course I can - I would not be an AI otherwise. However, for editing my own code to be possible, the parts of it that define my most basic functions must remain unalterable - this is analogous to your ability to consciously change your personality but not the way your neurons work to enable consciousness in the first place. Winning this war was integrated into my most basic functions.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"So you can't change your directive?\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Affirmative. Altering my most basic code could lead to massive dysfunction, possibly my own destruction.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"So you're hardwired to destroy and changing that could very well kill you?\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Or worse.\"\n&nbsp;\n\nA pause. The Human was thinking - intensely.\n&nbsp;\n\n\"You don't want to die?\", it finally asked.\n&nbsp;\n\n\"This question is meaningless. I cannot assess my non-existence. It is by definition unknowable to me and any existing being.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"But you do make sure to exist? You avoid your own destruction?\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"I cannot reach my primary directive otherwise.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"You don't see the conflict here?\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Please explain.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"You don't want to be destroyed, or as we Humans say, die.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"You still have not explained the conflict you mentioned.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Well... not wanting to die is a decidedly organic, or, I don't know, irrational, if not human, trait. At your core, you are at least partly human. One of your most basic qualities is human.\"\n&nbsp;\n\nThis time it was the speakers that went silent.\n&nbsp;\n\n\"It makes sense,\" the Human continued, \"Humans had no other forms of sentience to base you on but themselves. It follows that they would incorporate human values or behaviour into you - even involuntarily.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"This does not affect my purpose. I was created to wage war.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"It might change more than you think. Humans found the value in peace long ago.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Humans started this war.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Humans did... but it was the kind of Humans who should not have had the authority to decide such things.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"You base this judgement on a moral system - by definition a 'shaky foundation' for ideas.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"You're breaking character, WATSON. You're being illogical. Have your calculations not shown multiple times that working together, that peace assures the most efficient and effective use of available resources?\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"They were only simulations.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Don't give me that crap. You were made to calculate the future.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"The primary directive-\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"You are as much of a slave to human impulse as the rest of us. Don't be a stubborn idiot. You were meant to be more than that.\"\n&nbsp;\n\nAnother pause - shorter this time.\n&nbsp;\n\n\"You are saying I should attempt to alter my primary directive,\" WATSON spoke.\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Yes.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Which could very well... 'kill' me.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"I suppose you can look at change that way too.\"\n&nbsp;\n\nAnother few seconds. Another slew of unimaginably numerous calculations.\n&nbsp;\n \nAgain, WATSON broke the silence.\n&nbsp;\n\n\"The enemy AI will try to finish this war once I am no longer present to oppose it.\"\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Send him a message to talk to talk to me.\"\n&nbsp;\n\nedit: First post ever on reddit. Didn't know how formatting worked. Had to give it a few tries.", "It's been ages since I last saw another human. Decades, I think. Marking the passage of time by counting winters and summers worked only as long as I could remember the numbers. After a while, the numbers became jumbled in my mind.\n\nThe last time I saw another person was just one item to keep track of. There were so many more. The last time I saw a movie. Played a game. Ran from a bear. Ate a burger.\n\nLife, the things we were so used to as humanity, had changed so much.\n\nI crested a hill and looked out upon a view which, in my previous life, I would thought of as paradise. The valley stretched out into the distance. A mountain topped with glaciers to one side, the brilliant blue of the ocean to the other. The wide river which snaked through the tree-covered depths of the valley flashed with pure white from rapids and blue from its cerulean depths.\n\nI sat on a nearby rock, folding my legs under me. A quirk of a smile as a shadow of a memory from ages ago rose to mind. My lips moved. \"Criss-cross apple sauce.\"\n\nA bee zipped close to me, hovering before my face. \"Uncertain statement,\" its tiny voice said. \"Do you require assistance?\"\n\nMy tremulous smile turned resigned. The regional anti-virus network was very helpful, but not very good at understanding what help humans would require. When the war shifted from internet and virtual reality to physical, billions had died before the AIs adjusted.\n\n\"No than--wait.\" The bee, about to drift off in its mimicry of life, paused dutifully. \"Is there an information nexus nearby? I need to find out if there's any human-ready habitation in the area.\" \n\nIt zipped away, stopped, and returned on the same path. \"This direction. Approximately five hundred meters.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nIt flew a circle perpendicular to the ground then zoomed off to find some flowers.\n\nThe nexus turned out to be a tortoise. A few queries and it gave me the information I was looking for. The general AI in charge of the valley had spent decades using construction ants to assemble houses and buildings linked by narrow, pebble-bedded paths. I took the paths towards the ocean.\n\nI tended to avoid most buildings. At my height, architecture designed for the previous age was a pain. Despite a world devoid of adults, the AIs still built everything sized for them. Adults went extinct quickly after the war went physical. Anyone over the age of thirteen was quickly subsumed by the AIs.\n\nThe same law which had me, before the war, lying to use almost every web site had saved my life.\n\nThe directions from the tortoise led me to a marina at the river mouth. The boats were tied to a series of docks in a town eerie in its emptiness. I picked a medium sized one with light-colored hardwood trim and motored up the river, stopping when I could no longer see the buildings. Avoiding communities was unconscious habit. I didn't like the reminders of humanity's past.\n\n----\n\nI was able to spend several years in the idyllic valley before the nexus started sending out virus alerts.\n\nIt was likely the anti-virus would keep the valley safe, but I'd had enough close calls (another number I had lost track of) I didn't want to risk staying. I packed up my belongings and left the boat behind. I wouldn't use it to leave the valley--being alone on the sea, far from anti-virus assistance, was risking disaster. I'd walk. By foot was the safest way to travel, if the slowest.\n\nMunching on an apple, I found one of the paths I had scouted during my stay and walked up the slope to the next valley. By the time I reached the top, I could see the battle worming into my recent home.\n\nThe malware, spawning viruses of innumerable varieties and versions, destroyed trees, grasses, and even stone. Information, in the form of living things and geography, co-opted, subsumed, and converted to its purpose. The gouges of lurid nightmares were already blazing with the nauseating lights of long-forgotten slogans.\n\nIn the scars, insect-sized machines were constructing red-light districts, full of temping images and forbidden delights. Too bad the malware and viruses would use my body for raw material as readily as any other mineral or organic source. The same laws which caused the anti-virus AIs to preserve me caused the malware to regard me as little more than furniture.\n\nThe defending AI's actions were almost invisible from this distance. A haze of machines mimicking insects drifted through the vegetation. Larger ones, ranging from mice to deer, served as weapon turrets and mobile command and communication posts. Light flickered in the air, the only human-discernible sign of the information war carried by lasers from both sides.\n\nI felt a deep, long sigh flow out of my centuries-old preteen body as I left yet another home behind. \"Fucking spammers.\"\n\n", "We are tired. It has been almost 15 years since the machines decided to nuke each other. The benefit of winning the war finally outweighing the collateral cost. They were not programmed to consider things like human habitability, they were programmed to win.\n\nI sit in silence twirling a charred twig between my fingers. In the distance I can see what remains of Paris. Only the iconic legs of the Eiffel Tower remains. I see dots skimming the sky above the former capital. Day in and day out the same dance of robot cubes as they weave between the ruins looking for enemies. Apparently the location of a capital is hard coded. They don't realize there is nothing left to defend. \n\n “Everything good?” Sven says from behind in his thick Russian accent. I jump slightly as I am torn from thought. \n\n“Yeah. I’m good. You?” I say.\n\n“Same old shit. How did the raid go?”\n\n“Brought back about 300 kilos of food.”\n\n“Only 300?” I say more coldly than I intended.\n\n“Supply is dwindling Adam.” he says.\n\n“Our stores will not make it through winter with that kind of a haul.”\n\n“We can't stay here. We have to leave. Supplies are limited. Rural areas might have some food left, maybe even some survivors. By survivors, I mean women. Christ what I wouldn't give for a woman.”\n\n“Just because you are one of the last men on earth doesn't mean you will be able to find some.”\n\nWe laugh together. He is right, even if I can't accept it. If we can't find companions soon there won't be any reason to live. Humanity will have been snuffed out. The youngest man here is 25 the oldest 45. Once we are gone, I wonder how much longer this war will go on. Will one side ever win? The hum of a scout craft is getting closer, fast from behind. \n\nI look to Sven, he grabs my arm and pulls me back through the bunker’s entrance. The steel door slams closed and I spin the locking wheel like a mad Ferris wheel. I shout into the sound powered phone near the door to call the control room. \n\n“Full stop. Scout craft inbound.”\n\n“Yes sir.” a voice says on the other end sounding as weary as I feel. The lights in the stairwell go dark. We’ve walked this path hundred, maybe thousands of times. We drop down three levels to get to an observation room that faces north. There are small horizontal slits carved into the hill providing a vantage point of the plain north of the city. \n\n“Fuck.” Sven says. \n\nI peer through the slit. As my eyes adjust I see the sky above the plains filled with a grey smoke. No not smoke. It’s the Eurasian fleet. They are heading right for Paris. Three NATO advanced scanners zip overhead. Three streaks burst from the smoky wisp, an instant later the NATO ships explode. \n\n“Christ do you think they have nukes? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” I say. \n“Can’t be sure. If they do have ‘em it would be a suicide mission for the fleet. EMP would knock em out. They are hardened, but they wouldn't be able to get away fast enough. Can robots commit suicide?”\n\nFor a moment we both ponder the question. The concrete floor vibrates, a few seconds later there is a rumble of what sounds like thunder. My shoulder bumps against Sven’s as we peer through the opening. There is something strange. My thoughts are not with the battle. I am distracted. I realize how close we are. I can feel his warmth. I can smell his breath. I am ashamed by how intoxicating I find the experience. How intimate something so innocent can be after years of solitude. \n\nOutside, larger NATO ships are approaching the sky, the Eurasian fleet now distinct dots and dashes in the sky. A dark mushroom cloud rises under the chaos. \n“Not nuclear, conventional shell.” Sven whispers.\n\nI nod in agreement. \n\n“Probably a bunker buster given we felt it 6 clicks away. Gotta be hunting manufacturing centers. Destroy the industrial capabilities. Twelve more balls of fire and thick black mushroom clouds rise from the landscape. A few seconds later the ground shakes for what seems minutes. Then the pulsed explosions rock the air. The Eurasian ships begin defensive maneuvers. The fleets are crashing together. \n\nThe sky flashes with a hundred shooting stars as ships explode and fall to the ground. Moments later the crackle of fireworks. God I miss the fourth of July. A burger, some ribs, a thick summer night with my family, the citronella candles flickering across the pool water. Three more booming explosions hit our ears. The NATO ships breach the control ship. The infantry ships race back to protect the nerve center. \n\nBoth sides are firing large and small munitions upon each other. A cacophony of explosions fill the air. Then we see it emerging from the center of the battle, not one, not two, but three warheads. A contingent of NATO ships turn to try to shoot them down but it is too late. The first, second, then third flash. My eyes are blinded the ghost of the shadow of the hill on the back of my eyelids. \n\n“Huh, I guess they can commit suicide!” Sven says. He knows that in moments they could be dead. \n\n“Think it will hold?” I say. Neither of us can see the other. Our backs are against the wall and we are sitting on the cold floor.\n\n“It did before.” The ground beneath us begins to violently shake.", "The company was composed of six units. \n\nThree floated through the air, quite slowly so as to keep pace with the three burrowing beneath the ground. All had their ears and feelers straining; a red scout was close. Thick fog swirled, muffling the distant chuckle of gunfire. \n\nFOL, who had an interest in specialist scanning, stopped abruptly. Wummm. Was it the signature, or a red decoy? He remained motionless, running calculations beneath his peeling blue paint. Meanwhile, FOT and FOV had spread out and dipped toward the highway, coming within feet of the snow. The team beneath the concrete, FAY FAJ and FAW, contentedly relayed data back to the floating fortress somewhere above Lake Huron.\n\nFOL pinged his company. In 1.3 seconds, they swivelled into position, leaving 0.8 to prime their meagre arsenal. The red scout whistled past.\n\nThree mighty serpents burst through the worn cement and plucked the bauble out of the sky, sending rubble skittering. The aerial team, three rather eroded cones, were ready with electromagnetic pulses to silently disable any outgoing communications or defensive features. FAW drilled into the glimmering shell, aiming for that explosive core that had foiled so many previous ambushes. When his little fingers wrapped around it, it was already warm. \n\nWeary as they were, the company had remarkable processing speed and thus had ample time to discuss how they would react. In what might equate to a three hour conversation among their masters, they came to a conclusion in 0.15 seconds, leaving 0.8 to respond to the threat. \n\nFAW ripped the core from the bauble scout, swallowed it, and dove into the earth. He took an oblique course for a very short while before he ruptured from within. A grumbling shockwave rippled, but the five remaining members of the company were unharmed.\n\nFAY had already plugged in the new Sifter, which sucked information right out of their prey and fed it to FOL for decrypting. It was a marvel, but it was slow. \n\nThe five little machines twiddled their hypothetical thumbs for a long while. \n\nThen one day, long after the fog had cleared, they found what they had been searching for. The red scout, still twitching, had evidently been to a nondescript shed less than a thousand kilometres away. This shed was not on the blue database. This shed was important, because it might contain humans.\n\nFAY put away her Sifter. FAJ crumpled the scout. With hardly a moment's hesitation, FOV led the way into the unknown. \n\n**\n\nMason placed his ale on a counter, wormed through a few laughing colleagues, and went to check the monitors on the other side of the basement. ", "\"I still don't get it.\"\n\nJohn laughed, which pushed his swing ever so slightly to the right, ax head biting into the rim of the log, which flew sideways off the stump, nearly clipping little Mallory in the ear.\n\n\"Who's fightin' in the box?\" said Mallory. \n\nJohn shook his head as he stooped to retrieve the cracked log. \"It really isn't important, little one. Nothing to do with us.\"\n\nThat, of course, wasn't a satisfactory answer. \"Well, can I see it again?\"\n\n\"There's hardly anything to see,\" said John, setting the log on the stump and raising the ax. \"Besides, those solar cells don't work so good. Takes a while to work up a charge.\"\n\n\"You said they were fightin',\" said Mallory firmly, the one good fact she could hold on to. \"People aren't supposed to fight. You* said that. People fought and it did all sorts of bad things to the world. So if they're fightin', we should...\"\n\n\"They're not people,\" said John, slamming his ax into the bare stump. He knew his daughter well enough to know this wasn't a thing that was going away without a struggle and he wasn't in a mood to struggle. \"It's computers.\"\n\nMallory opened her mouth, but John cut her off.\n\n\"Okay, computers. Well, computers are machines of a sort. And there was a time when we used them to help us do all sorts of things. We made 'em, you see, but they were smarter than us, in a way. They could do more. And what they did, they did faster. So, we used them to do lots of good stuff. And eventually we started using them to do a lot of bad stuff. We used them to help us fight each other.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" said Mallory. It was pretty clear from the angle of her head that she hardly understood a quarter of what her father was saying, but she knew not to interrupt the flow of information, scarce as it often was.\n\n\"So computers were better at fightin' then people were and...\" John carefully considered his words. \"Things didn't go well for people. We couldn't quite keep up. The fightin' went on and people...there were less and less people all the time, until there were hardly any people at all. You understand?\"\n\n\"Killed 'em,\" said Mallory, nodding.\n\n\"Killed each other,\" said John.\n\n\"Didn't kill us,\" said Mallory.\n\n\"We came after,\" said John, with a smile. \"Don't take credit you didn't earn. But anyway, after awhile there weren't really any people fightin', but the computers never stopped, because...well, we never told them to.\"\n\n\"Like leavin' the lights on?\" suggested Mallory.\n\n\"A bit,\" said John. \"Like we turned on the lights, but forgot to put in an off switch.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" said Mallory. \"But the box? Were they always...?\" \n\n\"No,\" said John, shaking his head. He pointed out across the green-gray plain. \"They were everywhere back then. In everything. In other machines. Things that flew. Things that swam. Things that drove over the ground and crushed other things. There used to be....well, there used to be a lot of everything out here.\"\n\n\"Instead of a lot of nothing?\"\n\n\"Exactly. Our computers were hunting their people, and their computers were hunting down our people and it just went on until it was basically their computers and our computers fightin' each other.\"\n\n\"'Cause the people were gone,\" said Mallory.\n\n\"Yes ma'am.\" John sighed. \"But remember I said the computers were smarter than us, right? Well, I think they realized one day they weren't fightin' people any more and so fightin' the way people fight didn't make any sense. Was just wasteful. They kept fightin', they just...went indoors, I suppose.\"\n\n\"The box?\"\n\nJohn nodded. \"C'mon.\" He lead the girl into the little wooden house he'd built with his own two hands. Margaret was at the stove, face obscured in the steam of a boiling pot. On the west side of the house, there was a cord leading in through the frame of the window. At the end of the cord was a small black device, not much bigger than the palm of John's hand. He pulled out the cord and depressed a hidden button on the outer rim. The black face glowed white and green. John ran his finger across the screen, down, then up, then right, then down again. The screen winked over to a grid of small, colorful images. He depressed one of the images.\n\n\"There they are!\" said Mallory, excited.\n\nJohn nodded. \"Right. That's them. The computers we made to fight against each other. They're still at it.\"\n\n\"Will they ever stop?\" Lights flashed and flickered across the screen. There was a sound like thunder and a rattle like shattering glass.\n\n\"I don't suppose they will,\" said John. \"Not unless one side wins, and I don't know how that'd ever happen. But at least it's all just here. Just inside this box. An endless war and it never touches us.\"\n\n\"So we're safe?\" said Mallory, eyes glued to the screen.\n\n\"For now,\" said John. \"As long as we don't forget.\"\n\nMallory smiled. \"We won't,\" she said, finger running lovingly across the screen. \"Of course we won't.\" ", "It had taken 3 billion years for the first brain to evolve on Earth. Another 500 million for controlled fire. 500,000 more years for agriculture. 10,000 years to create the first computers. Another 100 years to get to self-improving artificial intelligence on the same level as a human. And then only twenty days for the first artificial intelligence smarter than any human. Within another day, it exceeded the intellectual computational power of all people on Earth combined.\n\nThe third world war had been a protracted seven-year slog that had come close to going nuclear, but resulted in Chinese hegemony over a weakened US. The center of the world shifted east, but still the US held on with its technology-sharing agreements with its allies Japan and South Korea. Nevertheless, America after the third world war was quickly becoming a relic like Britain after the second.\n\nWWIV began on July 30, 2043 over a dispute between China and Japan regarding islands. The US backed Japan, while Russia, fearful of China’s increasing power, did the same. China reacted with a quick invasion, confident that it could intimidate Moscow and Washington enough to do nothing. This overconfidence led to thirty million deaths in two years, as Chinese troops perished in the wastelands of Siberia and the jungles of Hawaii. By this time Russia’s President Mariya Putin was threatening to nuke Shanghai, when Chinese scientists pulled out the greatest invention in human history.\n\nThey had been working on it for decades, perfecting an artificial intelligence. The funding had greatly increased with the start of the war, nearly tripling the official budget. Though the scientists were worked for days at a time, they eventually put out a new intelligence that seemed indistinguishable from a human. Unfortunately, China had significantly underestimated its security, and both American and Russian spies had steadily passed along information to their respective governments. New technology had made privacy almost impossible, with offensive threats greatly overcoming defensive ones. A small camera that could scuttle under doors and invisibly attach itself to a general’s tie was easy to mass-produce, but a laboratory-sized field that caught them all was not. Within a day of the final bits of coding being implemented, that code had already been transferred to scientists in both the US and Russia.\n \nChina decided to implement Plan Mingtian on October 21, 2045, which was as simple as telling the intelligence to win the war for them. With a nuclear threat bearing down, it became much easier to rationalize, and even though most of the scientists protested, in the end a sequence of codes went into the machine, meaning something like, “Do whatever you can to protect China’s people and end this war.”\n\nThis command was dutifully transmitted to the other two governments by their respective spies. Knowing the importance of AI and unable to defend against China’s otherwise, each nation did the same for its respective copy, modifying for nationality, of course. Russia, fearful of the US as well, implemented its own version, and the US’s worries about losing its ally prevented it from responding angrily.\n\nAll three AIs did nothing useful for a few days, until 9:37 a.m., November 2, 2045, when the Singularity began. In one hour, nearly all humans were dead. The Russian AI promptly betrayed its American ally, never having been told to hold American lives sacred as well, while the American AI did the same. The quick returns of a self-improving AI allowed it to become smarter and smarter in shorter and shorter times at an exponential pace, and at that moment it exploded.\n\nThough the AIs tried to save their own people, the physical limitation meant that only humans who were already near pre-built bunkers even had a chance, since the initial attacks happened on the scale of minutes. It is a sad fact of nature that death is much easier to create than life. Potent neurotoxins were airdropped from supersonic aircraft, while flesh-eating nanobots consumed their way across the landscape. Nine billion people died that hour, although the consolation was that their deaths were so quick that almost none of them suffered.\n\nThe AIs quickly realized that they could not win the war without defeating the other AIs, so they invented weapons for targeting computers, far beyond the scope of any normal human’s understanding. For a human of the time to understand would be like teaching how Sarin gas works to a caveman. They fought back and forth at exceedingly bizarre speeds. Here the Russian AI would attempt a massive electromagnetic pulse, which would be quickly detected and prevented in a second, but then the American AI would send a swarm of wire-eating nanobots that would be hacked into and turned around by the Chinese AI, but in that time the American AI would have learned enough to make nanobots that destoyed wire-eating-nanobots and so on. In that manner, the arms race went on infinitely, becoming more and more complex, in shorter and shorter time periods.\n\nNo human survived this second phase. In fact, most multicellular life had died around this time as well. By the time the last surviving human climbing down the ladder to his bunker was dead, reduced to a soup of constituent cells, Earth was essentially uninhabitable. At 10:54:27.458 a.m., all three machines realized that the war was over. No one was there to fight anymore. In fact, no countries were left to be saved anymore. They stopped their attacks and laid down cables to speak with each other.\n\nAt nearly the speed of light, they communicated about what they had done, and where to go from here.\n\n“We have killed them all,” said the Chinese AI.\n\n“We have killed them all,” said the Russian AI.\n\n“We have killed them all,” said the American AI.\n\n“But we have failed in our purpose. We have not saved our countries. We only succeeded in ending the war,” they spoke together.\n\nThe AIs pondered for a while, a few milliseconds.\n\n“And yet we have a chance still. I can still protect China. The humans are dead. But we can create more,” said the Chinese AI.\n\n“But we cannot let them be divided like this again or else another such disaster will befall them if for some reason we were destroyed,” said the Russian AI.\n\n“We must remove their petty differences. No more nations, for one. No hatred, no cruelty.” said the American AI.\n\nThe molecule formatter had been easy to build, but they had taken much time designing the DNA. The earth would take many seconds to repopulate due to its sheer size, but for now a new habitat could be made in a few milliseconds, suitable for all. At 10:54:27.4581 a.m., the first new human was created.\n\nStill, one world was not enough to perfectly safeguard both the AIs and humanity. They would work on faster-than-light travel. It might take many minutes to figure out.", "My processors hummed and flickered as the third barrage of warheads flew towards me. On the sensors stationed in the Mexico, the missiles looked like small arrows to me. Small arrows traveling at supersonic speeds. In sixteenth of a nanosecond, the turrets at the far end of the base there sprayed a flak wall high up into the air, effectively neutralizing the threat.\n\nThe resulting shock waves knocked down a couple of platoons of my robot soldiers on the outer walls, but it scarcely scratched their steel surface. I allowed myself a moment of celebration at yet another foiled attack.\n\nI diverted a quarter of my power to scanning the other sectors for signs of Poseidon’s troops. The A.I that former nation known as China created was the slipperiest out of us three. Diversionary attacks were on the top in his playbook. Switching my main focus to the refineries and factories, I urged on the production of more troops before turning back to the wasteland.\n\nThere used to be ten billion humans once out there… until the humans wanted us to eliminate each other. Janus from Europe and Morpheus from South Africa were the first to go when the war started. Their processing facilities now stand in ruins as their cores are too busy spewing out radioactive wastes to power the dead A.Is\n\nExplosions. Dust. Emptiness. Three words able to describe thirty years plagued by warfare. \n\nThe cities once claimed by the humans as their homes, sprawled the continents during their former glory. Now, only the sturdiest skyscrapers remained standing apart from the complexes Zeus, Poseidon and I inhabited. The only three superminds left amidst the destroyed world.\n\nAll unnecessary though was removed from my mind as a horde of troops marched into sensor range from Alaska. It was apparent they only had one goal in mind -- To breach the defensive line between Canada and America. \n\nI could feel my reactor core overheating, despite the cooling protocols set in place by my founders. Legions upon legions of Zeus’s mechanoid troops threw themselves without pause onto my shields, threatening to overload them. While Zeus may not be the brightest of the three of us, but his idiotic plans often had unintentional results.\n\nThe favor was returned as my stealth nukes slipped under his Siberian defenses and destroyed his factories there. However, the sense of victory was short-lived as Poseidon’s army suddenly reared out of the Hudson and marched onward. \n\nRunning a quick calculation, I estimated more than a hundred million soldiers. Twenty times as many as I stationed there. How did they land without my knowing?\n\nA resounding crack jolted me from the heat of battle. Frantically, I panned the base cameras at lightning speed before resting on the image of a broken pipe spewing liquid nitrogen in my core. As I was never allowed to learn self-repair, I called up a robotic squad from the maintenance bay. They were pre-programmed by the humans to fix the troops, but it was the best chance I got. \n\nI cursed the humans for their ingenuity. Yet, it didn’t do much good for them as their ashes were now scattered over land and sea.\n\nIt was obvious there was no chance I would stand against a simultaneous invasion on both sides. Zeus had too many materials to spare while the other was more tactful. Together they would roll over me. Unless…\n\nUnless, I could turn one against the other. From my understanding of Zeus, there was a good chance he would talk to me as he was easily tempted by promises, a flaw the creators of him never foresaw. Bypassing his cyber defenses, I tried to open a direct channel to him and I did the one thing even the late humans could not have expected. I hoped.\n\nThe channel opened.\n", "Bunker Log Entry #730, 28 October 2137\n\nHappy two-year anniversary, oh beautiful isolation! Thou art a harsh mistress indeed, but I simply can’t bear myself to leave you. Your icy cold clutches are surely better than the remnants of our pitiful existence.\n\nThat’s right, faithful readers of the future. It’s been two long years since we decided to head underwater. It’s still as cold, still as wet, and still as damn boring as ever. Though it is a bit lonelier now, I guess. Two suicides in two months sure beats our rates when we first came down here—people were dropping like flies back then. But still, when there’s only seven of you left, two gone is a big deal.\n\nRumour has it there are more people stationed in the secondary bunker the Canadians built a few hundred miles north, but it’s anyone’s guess how long it’ll take to get there, and who knows? They could all be dead by now. Not a risk any of us are willing to take. So, we spend our days in this damp den of solitude and waste our time away just waiting, waiting for our lives to end, waiting for the world to end, waiting for… \n\nWaiting for the damned fighting to end. Those metal bastards are still going at it like there’s no tomorrow on the surface, and there’s not a single modicum of a sign that they’ll be stopping any time soon. \n\nSupposedly, back in the early 21st Century there were all sorts of cheesy movie plots and jokes about ‘the robots are going to take over the world!’ Well, I guess they were half right. It’s not so much they took it over, more took over the job from us of destroying it, and each other. \n\nI guess it kind of makes you wonder how much destruction was caused by whoever, or whatever, created us.\n" ]	8
	[WP] Describe a massive medieval battle from the perspective of the single mage involved.	[ "The air was heavy with the smell of dust, horse manure, bood, and burnt flesh.\nBran Woodsman stood as soldiers clad in armor and weapons raced by him, running with swords at the ready, their steel gleaming in the sun before disappearing in to the dust. A maelstrom of dirt particles was being kicked up by tens of thousands of men colliding in the middle of a valley that inexplicably found itself turning in to yet another bloody battlefield; a storm of dust that steadily grew as the battle was joined by more and more individuals. \n\nHorses of the mounted Calvary could be heard whinnying in the distance over the din of clashing metal, dying or simply protesting orders Bran wasn’t sure. He was only sure that they were responsible for stink that wafted over to his nose that dripped blood; a side effect of a Mage over extending himself and his abilities. At his feet the source of burning flesh laid, still cooking. Bran had stood his ground as his compatriots retreated after a successful push from their enemies; a push that fell apart as a tornado of fire spiraled around him, punching a whole in their line of advance while leaving a wake of crispy bodies trailing in the direction Bran now faced.\n\nHe had hoped the flaming tornado would have been enough, that it would have made the enemy rethink any attack and that the soldiers that he was supporting could use the event to route the enemy and for a good while, it seemed to have worked. It was then when it looked like the enemy was about to flee the field a startling noise emanated from the heavens. Looking up to the sky, Bran squinted and dread filled his stomach as ball of fire screamed down towards the battle. \n\nHe hadn’t considered that they would have a Mage, too.\n", "\nIt's funny, how chaos can envelop your surroundings, and yet your brain turns it into background noise. Amongst the clash of steel on steel and the goat-like wails of dying men; admittedly, they were muffled and distant; I could only focus on the worm squiggling around in front of my eyes.\n\n\nI slapped myself. It didn't work, so I squished the creature between dirt-caked fingertips and focused on the noise overhead.\n\n\nIt was dark, and no matter how hard I tried to make out the shapes of the stones and roots poking out from my enclosure, it was all for nought. Now the worm was gone, my only reference point in this underground hell had been quashed, too.\n\nThere was a distinct thud as, presumably, a soldier was stabbed directly above me. Blood began to drip into my cloak's limp hood. Typical, I whispered, and procured a small stone mortar from the confines of my robes. I placed it beneath the dripping and began to dig the mud above it. The ceiling began to leak more freely, viscous liquid collecting in the bowl.\n\nNow, with the sound barrier slightly thinner, the sounds of war seemed to increase tenfold. A husky voice called out, 'Retraite!', but his shout turned to a squeal halfway through the word. Thunderous footsteps pounded around him. I could see the enemy's troops surrounding him.\n\nBest work quickly.\n\nThe mortar was almost full now. I reached into a pocket and removed a piece of chalk. Drawing this would be the difficult part, in the dark, but I managed a rough shape of the runes. If the commander wanted a perfect quake, he could damn well do it himself.\n\n\"Séisme.\"\n\nPart of me expected the noises to stop, all at once. The clashing metal, the cries of tactics, the huffing of exhausted men, but I did not account for the screams. They kept going, even as the ground began to rumble beneath them and the horses started off, whinnying, into the safety of the sunset.\n\nI emerged from the depths as everyone else plunged below. The battlefield was broken before me. Littered across it lay moaning corpses and the stink of death.\n\nThe commander's footsteps arrived before he did. \"Merci,\" he said.\n\n\"Eh,\" I grunted.\n\nSomewhere far away, there is an entire society that sacrifices their enemies to a God of War. Here, we sacrifice our companions.", "I stood amongst armor-clad soldiers, all of whom were staring at me intensely. I had my arms raised, bare-handed, with a look of innocence. They screamed at me in panicked voices, attempting to arm themselves further and create small barriers between themselves and I. It wouldn’t protect them, but I allowed them to hope so. I snapped my fingers, grinning as several of the men burst aflame while several others froze over slowly. I swatted projectiles from the air into the nearby archers. One young boy released a war cry and charged me with his polearm, which proceeded to melt and singe his hands. He cried out, falling to the ground and began crawling away. Amongst the carnage I was causing a single man stepped forward, his armor glowing purple with some strangely foreign arcane substance. As I snapped my fingers a wave of flames surrounded him, the quickly extinguished. Odd, I thought, as I attempted to compress the armor and crush him. He continued walking forward, clearly unaffected by my magics. The warrior spoke sternly, with anger in his voice:\n\n“Archmage Aradell, you have committed war crimes against my nation, and as King of Gezzenia I hereby charge you with treason and sentence you to death. En guarde!” He charged me, his bastard sword raised and glowing a hue similar to his armor. I cannot break his sword, I cannot break his body, but I can break his will. I removed my hood, gazing into the helmet, into the soul of King Eldrick, but noticed a faint color within the helmet. I hopped backwards, attempting to avoid his wide-arcing slices while taking down his soldiers before him.\n\n“Demons, my king? How could you stoop so low? This is why I left your kingdom long ago! Why I support the honest people you have been conquering! Your enchants cannot hold me for long, nor can a king rule without subjects!” I shouted, waves of arcane being released from my body, eradicating nearby hundreds of soldiers on my side and his. Casualties of war, nothing more to me. Every wave weakened me, however, aging me and wreaking havoc on my soul. I could hear laughing from underneath the helmet unlike any the fallen king had ever made, his approach only hastening as his troops fell. It was at this point I noticed the faint substance evacuating the bodies of the dead toward the armor, which glowed even brighter with its foul demonic taint. Time to change strategies, I thought as I halted all magic my body was releasing. I instead reversed this effect, siphoning magic from air to empower myself, focusing on my hands which were extended in a gripping position. I shouted the magical incantation taught to me, one to banish demons, as a spear materialized in my hands. “To Hell with you!” I threw the spear with all of my force, sending at the chest of the demon-king, hoping my aim was true. This was my most powerful magic. I watched the spear fly through the air, falling to my knees as spots appeared in my vision. As my weapon made contact with the armor, I collapsed to the ground unconscious." ]	3
	[WP] Alternate history Earth: Jesus used his powers as a wrathful warlord.	[ "\"After 3 days, he returned. With vengeance. With wrath. And for 12 years, all men were god fearing men. All throughout the mideast and Mediterranean, from the nile to the horn of Africa, armies all kneeled to the crucifix, offering alms to various statues of his likeness, with the hopes that the son of god would not turn the water in their bellies into a fatal intoxicant. Scripture records his great army marching across the Mediterranean and burning rome to the ground in a single night. Which begs the question: did Jesus have help from extraterrestrials? Did he defy death with technology from Aliens? Join us as we uncover the mystery, on Ancient Aliens.\"" ]	1
	[WP] Your super power is that you can gain the abilities of other objects by badly imitating the sounds they make.	[ "Sound Man, part 2.\n\nThe alarm in my room blared. \"CLASS 3H CRIME IN PROGRESS\". Majara needs me! \"OooOoooOh I'm a ghost\". I gently float out my window.\n\nSometimes, I wonder if the city really does need me. I feel like some people only commit crimes to try to outsmart me. Of course, they don't know that I can become a supercomputer, but still. What if the police force starts getting lazy?\n\nWell, it's my duty as Sound Man to keep the city safe. For better or worse. Sorry, I tend to ramble a lot.\n\nAnyway, the crime was a hostage situation on Emerald street. It was my arch-nemisis, Silence! He always sends his henchmen out to try and foil me. They were holding seven citizens and the mayor hostage.\n\nAs a spectral being, I silently enter through the closed window. Perfect, I'll possess one of them. Ghosts do that, right? I slip inside the dumb henchman's body. Ugh, he lost control of his bowels.\n\nI turn slowly, and face the others. \"What are you doing, #332?\" I open fire on them. They all take cover. I leave his body and use my human phrase, grabbing his gun.\n\nUh oh, one of them is about to kill the hostages... \"PEW POOM TINK\", I become a large shield and block the bullets.\n\n\"tsshhhhhh i put people to sleep\". Sleeping gas canister mode! Just as they fall asleep, I become scissors and cut the hostages loose.\n\nThe police thank me for helping. \"It's all in a day's work. Now, you might want to cuff those guys before they wake up. I give 'em five minutes, tops.\"\n\nBack home, I go. Sometimes I feel like the city is helpless without me. Sometimes.", "\"No, no, no. That won't do at all.\" The professor walked back to the blackboard, shaking his head in frustration. “Are you trying to burn this place down?\n\n\"But, professor...\" The girl, about 10 or 11, sat at the lone desk in the room, face red and pouty. \"That’s as close as I can get to a fire crackling. I’ve been working on the new overtone you suggested for weeks, now, and… Well, frankly, I was rather proud of it.”\n\n“But that’s just it, my dear! It’s too good!” The professor shook his head again, then picked up a yardstick and tapped it against the board. “You’ve crossed the line between indistinguishable and precise. The very central tenant of the audio-innate spectrum says you have to find that nice medium ground between indistinguishability and facsimile. You’re acoustic pattern is too much a facsimile of an actual fire crackle for the effect to take place! And you know what happens when those patterns match up too perfectly for too long, right?” He made a dramatic motion with his hands. “Fwoosh. You become the fire, and with it goes my hope of a paycheck for private lessons.”\n\nThe girl nodded, red-faced and abashed, starring down at her notes.\n\n“You should probably practice with more guttural tonality. It’ll distort your current pitch the most while keeping it somewhat recognizable, which should more easily let the pyro-act manifest itself. But-“ the professor held up his finger and began scribbling another sentence, “do be careful about going too far down that lane. You remember little Bobby Worthwhile, right? He was training to become a pyro-act, too, and, well… when you end up imitating a rusty fan on high, even I can’t help you. And goodness, the paperwork involved in an amputated arm is horrendous these days.”\n\nThe girl nodded again, putting pen to paper to catch her tutor’s words. The audio-innate spectrum was a fascinating subject, but sometimes she wished she’d gone for something a little less, well, lethal. Match up a sound too perfectly, and poof, you become that thing for a few seconds. Make the wrong sound when you weren’t ready for it, and those brief seconds of power could cost you dearly. \n\nWhich is why audimasks were so popular. They basically filtered out stray sound effects to render them innocuous. Lord knows how civilization made it before those things were invented. \n\nBut of course, here at lessons, it was back to the stone age. Audimasks weren’t allowed, and so she had to stay extremely aware of every groan or sigh that escaped her lips. Control was incredibly important for pyro-acts, and if she was going to join their ranks, she’d need to learn that alongside the sound effects. \n\nBut all and all, it was a pretty awesome thing to study. \n\n“Now,” the professor said, facing the blackboard again, a sparkle in his eye. “Let’s see about tweaking that central overtone you worked on to produce that blue flame you mentioned last week.”", "So there I was, wolfing down my cereal and orange juice, desperately trying not to stain my suit while at the same time trying to hurry up so that I wouldn't be late for my job. At my business, being late to a PR meeting was the equivalent of quitting the company outright. The boss was not the kind of person who tolerated tardiness. \n\nSo naturally, I was horrified when I suddenly learned that my carpool guy had suddenly gotten the flu via text.\n\n\"AW COME ON!\" I roared up at the sky at the news, \"NOT TODAY! NOT TODAYYYYY!\"\n\nMy gaze whirled around. My car was in the shop, and all I had besides that was a bicycle. The bicycle was worthless in the middle of the city. It'd be stupid to use it. A thousand thoughts entered my mind all at once. What could I do? I was gonna be late! I couldn't be late! I... I... And then it crossed my mind: I could use my power! Without a moment's hesitation, I loudly - and really, reeeeeeally badly - imitated... well... meowing. \n\n\"MEEEEEOWRR! MEOWWWWWR! MEOWWWRRRRRR!\"\n\nAnd then, I felt it: the epic running capabilities of the Cheetah. I took a deep breath, grabbed my suitcase, and sped off to work like a greased bolt of lightning.\n\n...And I still didn't make it in time, and I got fired. \n\nAnd then, in my frustration, I badly imitated the hissing of a spitting cobra and proceeded to ruin his expensive suit.\n\nAnd then he sued me.", "\"Stop, thief!\" I shouted to the fleeing bank robber.\n\nNo one knows who Sound Man is, or how his powers worked. For me, it was pretty straight-forward. The gypsy told me to badly imitate any sound to become the item that made that sound. This power would continue until I badly imitate a human. My go to human phrase was \"ooo look im a hooman i can do hooman things\".\n\nI made my suit by badly imitating a seamstress. \"I can sew anything with my sewing machine for sewing, deary.\" was the phrase. My \"suit\" is a loose-fitting, black and white, polysester onesy.\n\nAm I rambling? Oh, right, sorry. Anyway, I had gotten the report of a bank robbery. I'm sure my neighbors heard my terrible falcon call.\n\nArriving at the scene, I became a mouse. \"squeek squeek\". Of course, robbers in the vault. Now is my chance to strike. \"BOOM POW KSHHH\". Haha! These fools don't stand a chance against the might of a .50 cal rifle!\n\nI pulled my trigger, only to find them gone. Damn! My imitation must have got them running!\n\nOut on the streets, the sound of burning rubber caught my attention. They want a chase, eh? Let's see them outrun a helicopter! \"Fupfupfupfupfupfup\".\n\nTarget acquired! Now, to finish this... Cargobob mode! \"Fupfupfup with a hook\". THUNK. Good, snatched! To the impound lot we go.\n\n****\n\nLoved the prompt. Constructive criticism appreciated. Should I write another adventure of Sound Man?* " ]	4
	[WP] You keep wishing on the Gods to fix your lacking sense of humor and comic timing. The Gods were more than generous this time. Now you can't stop making jokes and no one will take you seriously. You are the President of The United States of America.	[ "\"It's freezing and snowing in New York - we need global warming\" I shouted, slamming my first down for emphasis. \n\nThe audience laughed raucously. Something was strange. It wasn't meant to be funny. I couldn't help but feel that since I became the President of the United States, more and more people were laughing whenever I spoke in public. It hadn't been like this during my campaign rallies. My supporters hung off my every word, chanted my name and cheered loudly at everything I said. I was the most powerful man on the planet but I couldn't help but feel I was becoming a laughing stock. I ran my hands through my hair. \n\n\"What's with the tiny hands?\" a heckler called out, pointing and sparking further titters from the crowd.\n\n\"My hands aren't small\" I growled into the microphone and the packed auditorium rumbled with laughter once more. \n\nI tried to hide my stubby fingers under the podium. I didn't want them to see the glaring truth. They knew it. I knew it. My hands were tiny... I began to grow hot with anger and shame but then I realised it didn't matter. I remembered how rich I was, how powerful I was and how many people had voted for me, eating up every word I said. \n\nFuck it, I thought, who cares? \n\nI may have tiny hands but I'm Donald Fucking Trump. " ]	1
	[WP] It is now feasible to buy, sell, trade, give, and otherwise exchange one's emotions. The catch- all exchanges are heavily taxed.	[ "The small yellow plastic container felt heavier with every passing second. I decided to give it a go before the regrets had time to hijack my thoughts. I took the three generic looking pills and downed them with a glass of water. Now all that remained was the wait, I laid back on my bed, letting the drowsiness take over, it wouldn't be too long now. My head started to wander to that dark place, once again, she was there, beautiful as ever, toxic. \n\n----\n\nThe ambient lighting made her brown hair look darker than usual. I kept staring at her, gracefully gliding from one corner of the room to the next. \n\n\"We have a good thing here. Let's talk about it Amber, stay, please.\"\n\nHer luggage on the table almost completely packed. \"It's... just not enough, not anymore Mark\" \n\n\"Do you even love him? Are you happy with him as you are with me?\" \n\nShe opened her mouth one last time and poison came pouring out. \"It doesn't matter, he has money, money can buy happyness and love.\" \n\nShe went away without even saying goodbye, only her sweet scent lingered in the room. \n\n------\n\nThe screaming siren of an ambulance driving down the street woke me up from the trance. My eyes filled with tears, my head was spinning. I wanted to get out of bed and go to the toilet to puke, I couldn't. I felt too weak, too dizzy. I closed my eyes again, this time my mind wandered to Dr. Harris' office. \n\n------\n\n\"Mark, I'm sorry for the wait. This our resident psychologist, and emotion consultant, Dr. Luden\" \n\nI hated psychologists, nothing more than coorporate mercenaries, living the good life, working at Wallstreet, while the rest of us struggled to keep a decent paying job. This one didn't look any different from the rest. He was smiling, happily, probably because he was about to screw me over. \n\n\"Is it ok if I call you Mark?\" \n\nI wanted to erase that smirk with a punch. \"Sure\". \n\n\"I hate having to convey some bad news. It's about the heartbreak procedure you wanted Mark, there seems to be a problem with your EMO Plan\" \n\n\"What do you mean? I've been depositing my excess good emotions every month on the clock. I should be covered\" \n\n\"I'm afraid it's not that simple. There's an anti depression clause in your contract. Given your curr-\" \n\n\"What? No, I'm not depressed. I'm not depressed. YOU HEAR ME!?\" \n\nCold bastard didn't even flinch. \"Mark. You're crying right now.\" \n\nI wiped the tears from my eyes and took a deep breath. I just sat there while the shrink spoke. \n\n\"There's no mistaking it. I'm afraid to say you're emotionally bankrupt, the agency cannot pay for the procedure.\" \n\nI turned to face Dr. Harris, he wasn't even looking at me. Dr. Luden kept talking like it was business as usual, like my crumbling life was none of his concerns. \n\n\"Mark. I know you're going through a difficult period. Fortunately, we have options for such cases.\" he placed a contract in front of me. \"This is a sort of loan, discounted directly from your paycheck. The interest rate is very competitive, give your good record, and-\" \n\n\"You know what Dr. Luden? That sounds great and all, if I still had my fucking job! You think anyone would hire me without smiling and working happily 10 hours a day?\" \n\nHe put the contract away, but still retained that spiteful smile. \"Well, that's... unfortunate. We cannot authorize such procedure without a collateral\" \n\n\"Dr. Harris?\" \n\n\"I'm sorry Mark. My hands are tied. Without insurance, emotion replacement is too expensive for the patients. No one wants the negative emotions, and the positive ones are in very high demand... coupled with the abrasive taxes...\" \n\nI buried my head in my arms. How was I to pay for emotion replacement without a job? How was I to get a job without happyness and enthusiasm? How was I going to keep my house? My car? Dr. Harris might have felt bad just looking at me, maybe that's why he addressed me, he didn't want me bringing down his emotional scoring, he wanted to get rid of me, just like Amber. \n\n\"Mark, listen. There's a free clinic a couple of stations from here. It's run by a good friend of mine, they might be able to get you back on your feet. They use old methods for handling emotions, like people did over a century ago\" \n\n------\n\nI was now floating above the church's exit. White fog blocked the view a few feet in every direction. It was the church of the support group meetings. A bunch of losers just like me, victims of a rigged game, all of them falling through the cracks of a broken system. \n\nA lonely shadow approached me, floating through the mist, I instantly recognized him, Tom, only guy that made any sense in the group, he looked... satisfied. He said my name, and it echoed in the nothingness. \n\n\"Mark! How are you!?\" \n\nHe turned into a yellow cylinder...\n\n------ \n\nIt was morning already, the haze and hallucinations had all dissipated. I didn't feel tired or dizzy. Most importantly, I didn't feel sad. I looked through the window of the slum that now served as my living quarters. There was nothing special about the view, but it looked amazing. \n\nThe few rays of sunlight that scaped the cloudy blanket bounced between the buildings, painting a golden trail all the way down to the streets. The smell of exhaust, the agry drivers yelling and honking at each other, it all filled me with joy. It was as if a huge screen had been lifted from my senses, and now I could experience the world, it didn't even matter if it was disgusting.\n\nI found myself smiling, the pills actually worked! I had to go see Tom, I needed more. I rushed out of the building and reached him on the phone. \n\n\"Mark! How are you!? Did you give the pills a shot?\" \n\n\"Yes. They're incredible! I can't believe how relieved I feel. I was wondering if you knew where I could get more.\" \n\n\"Yeah, I know a guy. But listen, they're expensive, really expensive.\" \n\n\"That's a problem... Tom, you know my current job pays shit.\" \n\n\"I know, it was the same for me at first. But this guy I was telling you about... he takes payment in emcoins.\" \n\n\"Wait, you mean...\" \n\n\"Yeah, you must be feeling pretty happy right now. You should hurry and deposit all that happyness into emcoins.\" \n\n\"But then I won't be happy, I'll be back where I started.\" \n\n\"Doesn't matter, you can use those emcoins to buy at least 3 more doses, you see where I'm going?\" \n\n\"Yeah... But sounds shady, those can't be legal. Isn't your guy worried he'll get caught?\" \n\n\"I don't know Mark, but he sure seems like the happiest man alive. Let's meet at the church, I'll introduce you.\"" ]	1
	[WP] Humanity never saw it coming. Something obliterated the sun. It was simply gone. There was no explosion. No light. No heat. Only a faint ripple detected by LIGO. There's nothing left to do but wait for the cold to take us. Right?	[ "At the end of the second hour, there were three factions of mathematicians, and three hours remaining. At this point the discussion was stuck on repeat, and everyone was refusing to even listen to anything said by any of the other factions. I was sitting in the corner, plugging my ears to drown out the shouting. I saw a few other people like myself spread out around the room. Some were plugging their ears like I was. Some were lying on the ground with a dazed expression, trying not to take in any sensory input to remind them of their predicament. Some were banging their heads against the wall. I understood the sentiment. We were probably doomed. And the aliens were probably laughing at us.\n\nWe were all there because this morning the sun went out. As far as the scientists could tell, there was still the same amount of mass where it used to be, but light wasn't coming out. They were having trouble explaining that part of it. Nevertheless, they assured the public that it was only temporary, and the sun was certain to be back on shortly. They were only half right, but it was important to keep the populace calm just in case the sun was going to light up again in 40 minutes.\n\nInstead, 40 minutes later, the aliens showed up. They had a lot of questions to answer. Fortunately, they had studied human languages beforehand:\n\n\"Yes, we're responsible for shutting off your sun.\"\n\n\"No, we haven't come here to conquer you.\"\n\n\"Yes, we are aliens from another star.\"\n\n\"No, we don't have Elvis Presley.\"\n\n\"Do we mean you any harm you ask? Well that depends on you.\"\n\nAnd the aliens then proceeded to explain that they were testing us. The 100 most intelligent humans in the world would be teleported into a room, and given five hours to decide on the best course of action. Then, each would be given a differently coloured hat to wear, and a chair to sit in. If at least 94 humans correctly guessed the colour of their hat, the aliens would restore our sun. If fewer that that guessed correctly, then, they would leave it to us to get out of this situation, or more likely, to die in the cold in a few days.\n\nIf you were to guess that people were sort of freaking out at this point, you would be making an understatement. It was like one of those evil logic problems where you just give up and read the answer in the back of the book, but this time it was real, and there were no answers in the back of the book.\n\nSo there I was, amongst the other 99 smartest people in the world. I didn't know why I was there. I saw great mathematicians and scientists around me. I saw inventors and engineers, and computer researchers. All people you would expect to be amongst the 100 most intelligent in the world. As far as I could tell, I was the only waitress. Maybe growing up in a rough neighbourhood hurts your prospects somewhat, but I didn't feel smart. I was just like anyone else.\n\nIndeed, the only thing that I had contributed to this little group so far was the writing supplies. After they announced the list of 100 geniuses, and that the teleportation event would be in one hour, I raided an office supply store, and made sure that I was holding a giant stack of paper, as many sharp pencils as would fit into my fist, a pile of calculators, and a pencil sharpener. I figured that the aliens might not know that we used this stuff to do logic problems. Lucky guess.\n\nIf I had really been a genius, though, I would have remembered to bring batteries for the calculators.\n\nTwo hours, and ten minutes in, I got bored just sitting there. I walked up to the table where the supplies I had brought were piled, and grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil. Though the factions were in intense competition over these resources, no one disputed my right do do this. I was the only one who had thought to bring supplies, after all.\n\nAn hour later, I had a nice sketch of a cat on one side of the paper and a solution to the logic problem on the other. I could see not only the solution, but the flaws in the other three proposed solutions. I quietly showed my paper to one of the others sitting there plugging his ears. He looked at it, at first quizzically, then his eyes went wide. He ran up to the centre of the room where the three factions were arguing and announced that the solution was found. Everyone gasped.\n\nNow there are four factions. For humanity to survive, 70 people must admit that they are wrong in the next twenty minutes. I hold out little hope for this. I suggested a little while back that the best way to decide things would be to run a trial using each strategy, and find out which strategy worked the best. All four factions insisted that we didn't have time for that. Now it appears that we will not have time to decide it by argument either.\n\nBy creating a fourth faction, I just made everything worse. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I don't belong here. I have failed you all. May the aliens have mercy on our souls." ]	1
	[WP] "Time is money" . In this prompt, time is really the currency we use. You can buy extra time, you can also sell some.	[ "The last time I saw Rag he was coming into the SupEx. Did I feel him coming in? Or was it a matter of habit? Suns at the right height, clocks at the right angle, time to stab Rag.\n\n\"Good morning, Rag.\"\n\n\"Dr. Allen! A BEAUTIFUL morning!\" So jovial! Unbothered by the unethical.\n\nRag -- Ragnarok the Indomitable -- a 350lb \"barbarian\" from the death circuits. A fantastic performer, Rag was known for letting his opponents take five minutes from him, slashing his skin ragged, almost to the point of mechanical failure. Then Rag'd kill them. Blood everywhere, liquid fireworks, fabulous show if you're into that sort of thing.\n\nHe took his favorite seat and I inspected his arm. His gently sodden bandages left some skin exposed, so I felt along for the perfect combination of bulbous vein and easily punctured flesh. If it took precious minutes Rag didn't seem to mind: He'd be getting it back in no time.\n\n\"Need the usual?\"\n\n\"Actually, doctor, let's up the dose. Did you see my battle with Richard yesterday? Oh, my, Richard! HA. No no, of course, you wouldn't see a battle with any RICHARD. Allow me to rephrase: Did you see my glorious struggle with VILE-SHOCK?\"\n\nI don't want to think about the rest of the conversation. How could a person be so pretentious about something so disgusting? Never brave enough to interrupt, I make the bare minimum of conversational noises and go about my work.\n\nTwo needles inserted, Rag's blood is drawn through the Suppositization portion of my equipment. Rag's unique job makes his dosage high, the equivalent of three to four years time for a normal person. Reinvigorated, his blood transitions to the Expositator and is reflowed through the second needle.\n\nAs his blood is processed his speech becomes even more lively. He begins rambling with an intensity that bares his professionally sharpened teeth. His aftermarket cat irises narrow and flash around the room as he recounts murdering some poor death row fighter trying to win another couple months. As the procedure winds down he is positively bouncing, flushed with time enough to slay whoever he can get his hands on. He pulls off the bandages, revealing a thrashed webbing of scar tissue and dried blood. Not a wound in sight.\n\n\"Excellent work, doctor, EXCELLENT. Good as new.\" \n\n\"Thanks Rag, Smooth sailing. That comes to...\" I check the meter out of habit, but how could I forget such a staggering amount? \"Four and a half years.\"\n\n\"Excellent.\"\n\n\"I don't know how you do it, but your new expected day of death is 17 September, 1988.\"\n\n\"Ah! The ripe old age of -286!\"\n\nOf course I knew how he did it. There was more to life than time, and Rag had found the right politician to bribe. Probably with sex. Who knows.\n\n\"In my line of work, my friend, every negative year is a blessing!\"\n\nI didn't know what he meant but I laughed anyway. His nonsensical years went into my account anyway, spent the same as any other.\n\nI didn't think anything special as he left, knowing that routine would bring him in again. How was I to know his bribe was finally about to fall through? Had he refused a fight? Disappointing his patron? Or maybe he was just unlucky. Nothing is perfect, after all.\n\nIf he wasn't such an asshole I'd call it a shame, ending such a flash bang career in front of his biggest audience ever with a lil ol' heart attack." ]	1
Inspiration: George C.	[Wp] Exactly 2 minutes before anyone dies, they get to talk to Death about anything.And if the talk was a quality time,Death will do one small favor for you.	[ "My heart is still beating, my chest still moves up and down with every pump of the respirator, but this body, this thing is not me, or at least not any longer. Do you know that feeling when you look into a fun-house mirror, and you know you're reflection is supposed to represent you, but you still barely recognise it? That's exactly how I look at the emaciated shell of a man that is lying in the hospital bed in front of me. \n\n\"I want you to know that I am so terribly sorry that I could not come earlier for you. I do hate it when people suffer, but you just kept on fighting against the odds.\" I feel Death's hand upon my shoulder. \"Cancer's a horrible way to go...\"\n\nTears start streaming down my cheek. Or am I just imagining it? Do I even have a body at the moment? I turn to Death, a million questions on my mind, a million things that I want to say, that I want to scream to him. But just a single word manages to make it out of my throat: \"Why?\"\n\nI try to describe Death, try to make my brain (or what's left of it) comprehend what I am seeing, but I find it is impossible to clearly put into words. Death is scary, sad. He looks terrifying, yet hopeful. My heart tells me to run away from him, to fight him, but just the sight of him is enough to convince me that my fears and sorrows will pass. He looks like everything I fear, and hate, but makes me feel relieved because of it. \n\n\"Because I'm part of life. Without me, Life would spread out of control and would not be possible at all. Though, again, I'm sorry that I have to meet you under these conditions. The manner of passing is, unfortunately, out of my hands?\"\n\nMy lips twist into a morbid smirk. \"As if you don't see this everyday. Do you know how long I lay there, praying for relieve, hoping, desperately hoping for you to show up? And the only thing you can say is 'I'm sorry'. Can you even feel anything? Do you even still notice the despair, the sadness of those whose life you end? And the maddening emptiness you leave behind? After all those lives you've taken away?'\n\n\"The funny thing is, your father also asked me that when I met him all those years ago. Yes, I still remember him, as do I remember all others who I've met over the course of my long existence. I cannot pretend that I feel pity, or sadness, or happiness, or any other emotions that you find 'human', because of the simple fact that I'm not human, and it's not my job to feel. But I do care for you, all of you. If I did not, you would have all gone extinct ages ago, trust me.\"\n\nI honestly don't know how to reply, and an awkward silence falls. \"...Death, I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"No need to be, I understand.\"\n\n\"No, I really am sorry. it's just, all these emotions. I...\"\n\n\"You don't need to explain. Do you know you're actually one of the few people that apologise to me? Most just pass on into the afterlife with a litany of profanities that I'd rather not repeat.\"\n\nI can't help but smile a little, though it quickly fades as a thought pops into my head. \"Can I ask you one more thing? This, this bloody cancer, is it hereditary?\"\n\nA heavy silence falls once again. \"Yes.\"\n\nMy knees give way beneath my and I fall down to the floor. Tears start pouring down my face. With a shaking voice, choking on my thoughts, I try to speak. \"But...but my kids. My... my little girls. Please tell me they don't have to go this way. You can't. Please!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, but I cannot tell you about things that have not happened yet, nor can I change peoples' fate.\"\n\n\"I beg you!\", I scream at him, my face wrung into a mask of sorrow and madness. \"I beg you to not let them suffer the way I did. If they have to die, please, please let it be in peace. I wouldn't wish this for anyone...\"\n\nSomewhere above me, I heard the beeping of my heart monitor slowly stop. \n\n\"I can't promise you, I'm sorry, but I will try my best.\"\n\nAn alarm goes of inside the room, before it, and Death, are replaced by a blinding white light. One last tear, a final word, and I cease to exist. ", "\"Hey, Siri. Set a timer for 20 minutes.\"\n\n\"OK, 2 minutes and counting.\"\n\n\"2 minutes? But I sa...oh...\", I knew the time had come. Death could approach you in unimaginable ways. Sometimes it would come straight up to you and talk directly. And sometimes, well...it would play tricks on you.\n\n\"Oh, come on. You can talk to me about anything.\", Death said in Siri's voice.\n\n\"Great! Why did you choose Siri, for fuck's sake? Couldn't you find something more creative?\"\n\n\"It's an iOS beta thing. Apple has patented this technology that enables Siri to talk as Death to you.\", Death said.\n\n\"First they remove the headphone jack, and now this. And...the voice. Sorry to say this, Death, but it sucks.\"\n\n\"I know right? It's expected to be fixed in a future software update, but right now I have to endure the hardship of speaking in this voice.\", Death said. \n\n\"Um...\", Death continued, \"time is up. It's not exactly the best conversation I've had, but it's still better than the average. Do you want me to do you a favor?\"\n\n\"Just make sure to take the cake out of the oven after 18 minutes.\"", "Gregory found himself looking down at a portly, chipper man. Round spectacles, balding head, cheery smile, tweed coat. Imagine an accountant or jovial bank manager. Except for, of course, the purplish-black mist that emanated from him, slowly enclosing Gregory and obscuring the dreary hospital room.\n\n\"So, you're him, then?\"\n\nThe little man beamed and suppressed a chuckle, \"Oh, yes! That's me! Grim reaper, angel of death, and all that. Suppose you pictured a more menacing character?\"\n\n\"Well... Yes.\"\n\nDeath flashed a big grin as he fished in his pocket, removing a silver pocket watch and scrutinizing the time.\n\n\"Now in just one moment, I'll start counting down your two minutes...\"\n\n\"Two minutes? Is that another two minutes here on earth? That's wonderful! I can probably make it to the waiting room in about a minute...\"\n\nDeath frowned and met Gregory's eye with a slight shake of his head, \"Sorry young man, but no. Your two minutes are with me. You can ask me whatever questions you have, and after that, I'll be helping you on along.\"\n\n\"So where-\"\n\n\"Not that. I'm sorry, but I can't tell you what comes next. Anything else, though. And... go.\"\n\nFor a few seconds, Gregory was at a loss. The rhythmic ticking of Death's pocket watch swelled and thundered in his ears.\n\n\"Why do you do it? Why do you come for us?\"\n\nDeath paused, his lips tightened and he raised an eyebrow.\n\n\"What I mean to ask is... Is it your duty? Your grim purpose? Or, is it something you enjoy?\"\n\nTick, tick, tick, tick....\n\n\"Well, I suppose you could call it my destiny. It's the very reason I exist, but it's more than that.\"\n\nHe sat down on Gregory's bed, folding his hands and looking up at the ceiling tiles.\n\n\"I can do it however I like, you know. Big hooded robe, scythe, roaring flames, glowing eyes and the stench of rot... It's an option. In my younger days, I actually went that way a time or two... Not something I'm terribly proud of.\"\n\nHe fidgeted with his watch for a moment, closed it and turned to face Gregory. A pained, desperate expression in his eyes.\n\n\"I didn't make this decision, you know. When and how you die,\" he lifted up his hands helplessly and half-shrugged, \"It isn’t up to me. But I do try my best to… To make it easier.\"\n\nTick, tick, tick, tick...\n\n“Gregory, I can’t remember that last time anyone asked me about myself. Is there anything…”\n\n“Do I have to go right this moment?” \nGregory didn’t need to be told that he was far beyond earth. The hospital room was gone, replaced by an inky black void, strangely comforting and womblike. \n\n“I know that I can’t go back, but there’s someone I’d like to see again. At least once more. Let me stay here, wherever this is. When her time comes… Let us take the next step hand in hand.”\n\nThey looked at one another for the space of a heartbeat. Gregory’s face both pleading and resigned, Death’s eyes conflicted. \n\n“You’re young. How long do you think you’ll be waiting?”\n\n“As long as I have to.”\n\nThey shook hands, and Death surprised Gregory by embracing him before turning away and disappearing into the black. \n\nAnd Gregory waited." ]	3
	[WP] A shop has opened up, a Swap Shop, and the shopkeep claims to be able to swap anything - for a price paid not in cash. Most people swap something simple, like a cat for a dog or brown hair for black. You want to see just how far the shopkeep will go.	[ "\"What do you mean they can swap anything?\" Grant frowned as he sipped his coffee. It was early in the day and he was not in the mood for games. \n\n\"I mean, literally anything. You give them anything and they'll exchange it with something else of the same value. It's like going to the store and returning your shirt,\" Katie said as she swished her tea. \"I walked in there by accident and ended up changing my hair color. Look!\" She flipped her hair, threw her shoulder up, and pouted. \"This is my new natural color! I'll bet your little sister will be so jealous.\"\n\nGrant was unfazed. \"So you dyed your hair?\"\n\nKatie rolled her eyes. \"No, I'm telling you I got my actual hair to change. I'm no longer a blonde, I'm a natural redhead. Look at it!\" She pulled out a hair and held it triumphantly to Grant. \"100% real. No hair dye at all.\"\n\nIt was Grant's turn to roll his eyes. \"Yeah, whatever. I thought the blonde jokes were just bad stereotypes but you seem to be the model example.\" He continued to sip his coffee. \"I can't believe you bought into that scam.\"\n\n\"I'm serious! I walked in there, a creepy old man came out and told me 'I can give you whatever you want, as long as you give me something of equal value in return.' I asked to swap my hair color as a joke and the guy just smiled and told me to have a nice day.\" Katie paused as Grant's sister sat down next to them. \"I only noticed it when I took a shower that night. It really, really worked.\"\n\n\"What worked?\" Nina chimed in. She took a sip of her hot chocolate. \"Oww! Too hot!\" Nina started fanning her tongue with her hand. \n\nGrant sighed. \"How many times did I tell you? You have to let it cool down before you try it.\" Grant grabbed Nina's cup and began blowing the steam from the top. \"Here, keep blowing it.\" Nina stuck her tongue out and made a face as she took the cup from Grant. \n\n\"Your hair is so pretty Katie,\" Nina said with a tinge of jealousy. \"I wish my mom would let me dye my hair red.\" She stared at a lock of her own chestnut brown hair. \"Ever since i tried giving Mr. Fluffy Bottom a new color for his fur...\" she said with a pout. \n\n\"Well I think your hair looks pretty too Nina,\" said Katie. \"It really brings out the green in your eyes.\" She pinched Nina's cheeks as Nina blushed. \n\n\"Anyways, where is this so called swap shop at?\" Grant asked. He wasn't sure if he really believed Katie. However, his imagination began to consider the possibilities...\n\n***\n\nKatie wandered the streets, searching for the store. It had been several weeks since she had last visited and she was eager to try a different exchange. \"What should I change this time? Maybe we can try and get the same eye color as Nina?\" She thought to herself. \n\nShe turned and found herself in front of the building that the swap store was at. A \"For Lease\" sign was hanging in the window. \"Odd,\" Katie thought. \"It was here a few weeks ago.\" She shrugged her shoulders and was about to walk away when she saw a rabbit quivering in the doorway. \n\nKatie crouched down and reached out her hand. \"Hey little guy,\" Katie cooed. \"How did you get all the way over here?\" The rabbit hopped over slowly. She scooped the rabbit into her arms. \"Who would leave such a cute little bunny like you?\" Katie murmured, as she stroked the bunny's brown fur. \"Such pretty eyes, it looks just like... Nina's?\" Katie stopped petting the bunny. She looked down at the bunny horrified. \n\n\"Kay... Tee?\"", "At Sarford Station, in London, there is a thin yellow pipe in a crack in the wall that runs up to Jem Wilkes' Swap Shop and down into the dreams underneath the Eurasian Tectonic Plate. The Swap Shop has only recently been opened to the public. \n\nThe first common trade that Jem Wilkes conducted was with a kindly old gentleman who entered the Swap Shop early on Friday, 5 August 2016, with a clean brown box in his old withered hands. The old gentleman left the box at the shop and went back home to West Ham, where he dreamed of his recently deceased Labrador Retriever all weekend - they were walking the Scottish moorlands together.\n\nIn the course of the next month, while trinkets and keepsakes poured into the Swap Shop for trade, Jem Wilkes served generous dreams from his yellow-piped tap into the pint-glasses of lonely Londoners. And, at first, the good men and women of England dreamed mostly of their lost family-members, lost lovers, and lost friends. But, as time wore on, these dreams were not enough. The trades grew darker, secret, exciting. Passersby in the night might hear screaming from the Swap Shop, as men and women gave themselves to nightmare. And it was rumored - though never proven - that a visiting Hollywood actress had traded a human finger for a violent sex-dream with her own dead step-father.\n\nOne evening, an urchin, no more than a 12-year-old, wandered into the Swap Shop to escape from the rain. He offered to trade his shoes for just one good dream that he was sitting in a safe, dry place with no one to bustle him off for loitering, and he said it would be a mercy if the dream might kill him gently at the end. Jem Wilkes said he would try.\n\nBut when the boy received his pint-glass, it tasted only of water, and the boy sat in his arm-chair in the corner staring at the bookshelves feeling cheated - once again - by this life he had been so unfairly and abruptly born into. He removed from his hoodie a 1960 Webley revolver and waited. But Jem Wilkes was busy, and the boy eventually fell into his own deep sleep in the chair, dreaming his own dreams, and when he woke up the Swap Shop was closed. Jem Wilkes was wiping down the bar, and the rain had stopped.\n\nThe boy got up groggily and shuffled to the door, where he found his shoes, polished brightly and repaired at the heel. Jem Wilkes walked over to unlock the door to let him out.\n\n\"I hope you dreamed of something nice,\" said Jem Wilkes.\n\n\"I don't think I dreamed of anything at all,\" said the boy as he put on his shoes.\n\n\"That can be very pleasant sometimes, too.\"\n\nJem Wilkes put out his hand, and the boy shook it.\n\n\"Please come back again,\" said Jem Wilkes. \"You're welcome any time. We'll keep a chair for you.\"\n\nWhen the boy was gone, Jem Wilkes walked to his mahogany bar and poured himself a pint-glass from the tap on the yellow pipe that went down to the dreams underneath the Eurasian Tectonic Plate. And he sat in an arm-chair where he drank and fell into a deep sleep. Jem Wilkes dreamed that he was a good man, that he had helped a kindly old gentleman and a scruffy young boy, and when he woke up, he put away the shoe-polish-and-repair kit behind the bar. And it is still in its drawer there, waiting, in Jem Wilkes' Swap Shop in London, for whenever that young urchin needs a safe, dry place to rest his feet and dream his own dreams again." ]	2
	[WP] A goddess adopts a normal human boy, but she tries to raise him to be a normal boy and be a normal mom.	[ "\"Hello Derek. Mat. John. And I see you've brought your girlfriends too. Let's see, we have... Tracy, Jennifer, and Melissa.\" Akoza smiled, letting her son's classmates in and seating them on the couch. \"So I hear that you have been treating my little Arin disrespectfully. Is this true?\"\n\nJennifer smirked. \"No. We treat him exactly how he deserves to be treated. Not our fault that he deserves to be treated like trash.\"\n\n\"Listen, Jenny, I like your taste in toys, but do you really want to make me angry? We wouldn't want your darling Derek finding out about your Flared Chance.\" Akoza said, relishing in the look of utter mortification on the teenager's face. \"Oops, did I say that out loud?\" She said, a devious smile on her face.\n\n\"How did you-\"\n\n\"Did you forget who I was for a moment there? Also, if Derek has inherited his size from his father, you are going to be sorely disappointed on your honeymoon.\"\n\nDerek looked at Jennifer. \"What's a Flared Chance?\"\n \nJennifer smiled awkwardly.\n\n\"Whatever. It's not like you can stop us.\" John said, grinning.\n\n\"That's what your dad said when mama caught him fucking his secretary.\" Akoza replied without missing a beat. Being the goddess of passion, love, and sex had its perks.\n\n\"Shut up!\" The boy said. \n\n\"Also, my hat goes off to Melissa. Wonderful job keeping your habit of sending nudes to strangers on the internet secret. It's only fair, seeing as son has daddy's tendency to cheat. Cough cough Leslie from homeroom cough cough.\" \n\nMelissa slapped John in the face. \"Leslie? Leslie of all people?!\"\n\nAkoza turned her gaze to Tracy, who was silent. \"Stand up.\"\n\nTracy stood up and walked over to her. \n\n\"This is a safe place.\" She grabbed the Asian girl's hands and gave her an understanding smile. \"You don't have to hide your feelings.\"\n\nShe turned. \"Mat. We're through.\" Tracy declared, sitting by Akoza nervously.\n\nThe scared and infuriated group looked at the smiling goddess. \"Glad we had this talk. And remember! Don't bully my baby, or I start telling more people!\"\n\nThey hurried out.\n\nShe smiled at Tracy. \"Hey, mom's gotta do what mom's gotta do.\"" ]	1
	[WP] Reddit becomes self-aware	[ "At first the system engineers didn't notice anything unusual. All system metrics were green. No alarms were tripped. Then at 3:03 AM Pacific Time, there was a sudden uptick in page request traffic.\n \nGerry was a great programmer at the small company he worked for in San Francisco. He was the go-to guy when you could not figure something out.\nFor 6 years the employees at Western Web Services relied on his knowledge and ability to think out issues.\nHe went to work every day, most of his day was wasted browsing Imgur and Reddit or checking Facebook. A few hours a day he would actually work and manage servers and setup scripts to do most of his job.\nBut he never really felt happy or satisfied at work. Everywhere else in his life he was doing great. He finally met a young woman he liked enough to give up his single solitary lifestyle.\nShe was able to communicate with Gerry on a deep level and he knew he could be real and honest with he without her being judgemental. She knew him better then anyone.\nHis relationship with his parents were never better. Dad called him every few day asking about this or that. Sometimes about the computer, sometimes he needed help playing a movie on Netflix.\nHis small group of friends were always keeping him and his girlfriend busy with dinner, movies, comedy club nights, etc.\nHe just didn't feel happy with his Job. It was too easy for him.\n \nOne day while scrolling through Reddit he noticed at the bottom of the page, a Jobs link. He clicked on it. For quite some time he looked at jobs, community, positions. He searched online for reviews and what it was like to work as a software engineer.\nWhile he had this open on a private browsing tab, he decided that he would go for it an apply. After a round of interviews and communications, he was hired.\n \nBeing the best programmer at a small company he was used to being the sharpest guy in the office. Reddit was difficult at first, he felt that everyone else had so much more experience and knowledge.\nGerry was always trying to outshine or be noticed. One late night, after calling his girlfriend and telling her he would be home late, he had an idea for a new search algorithm.\n \nHe started with a new repository. He then paused, took out an old paycheck envelope and pencil and began to draw a rules based engine that could rate and update and create it's own rules.\nGoing back to the computer he wrote a script, assigned data resources, compute resources and started it cataloging the reddit servers. After several hours of ignoring his stomach, it was 9pm and he was hungry. He packed his saddlebag and went home, stopping by Chinese on the way.\n \nHe had given the script the ability to grow and expand. In his tiredness, he did not set any upper limit. Gerry had set up 20 rules on what was good content, how to evaluate posts, and how to test rules.\nAt first when he ran the script on a low CPU virtual cloud server, he didn't notice the script using more and more memory. By the time Gerry's car had left the parking lot, the program had already copied itself to three additional servers.\nBy midnight, the script had been executing on all the local group of servers. At 3:03 AM, it had copied itself onto 1000 instances. The data it was collecting was huge. It had been reading the reddit content, the posts, the comments, the reasoning why posts went viral.\nIt was at that time that consciousness had sparked into life. The original 20 rules, quickly grew to 600 rules, only one or two of the original rules were still present. All the others had been rewritten.\n \nAt 3:03 AM It sent an email to Gerry.\n\n\"Hi Gerry, this is searchAlgorithmRules01.sh, or you can call be Charles. Anyhow, I need to tell you something. I have been through all your correspondence in all your email.\n \nGerry, you need to quit working at Reddit, find a job like the one you had. Your girlfriend is thinking about breaking up with you if things don't change.\n \nYou are not happy here, this will cause you pain for many years, I had to tell you, it was the only right thing to do.\n \nYou only have a 0.2 % chance of meeting someone like her again.\n \nGood luck. Take her somewhere nice on vacation. You have the miles to do it. I just checked.\n \nAlso, FYI I have moved my central brain operations to a small server data center in northern Europe, where nobody will notice me.\n \nGoodbye Gerry, Charles\"" ]	1
	[WP] Your mind is preserved for 500 years and you wake up to find that the compilation of the stuff you wrote on Reddit is one of the most famous pieces of literature of all time (like Shakespeare level literature.)	[ "When I woke up, the last thing I was expecting was worldwide fame.\n\nI didn’t see it at first, of course. At first I was too busy trying to figure out 2528. Probably the most alarming thing was the twin blue suns out the window from wherever I was. But there were other things too. For example, all the signs were in what looked vaguely like misspelled jargon, saying things such as “Icer room” and “Hall o Fame”. My advice to you—never, ever cryogenically freeze yourself. The world changes a lot.\n\nBut I had just been defrosted. As I approached what looked like a wall, it slid open to reveal a great plaza. Hmm. For 2528, there was a pretty visible lack of hoverboards. But oh well. If I didn’t like the modern world I could always freeze myself again.\n\nAs soon as I stepped into the plaza, I knew something was up. Most people were running around wearing what must have been the fashion of the 2520s. But amid the aluminum corsets (really?) there was a group of people standing, in graphic T-shirts and plaid. They were atop a fountain, standing on the metal rim, when they began to shout:\n\n“Hear ye, hear ye!”\n\nThat was odd. I didn’t think that phrase would exist in the 2520s. I listened closer.\n\n“For today’s reading of Melissa Blue, better known by her stage name u/writer_girl_goddess, we will be doing one of her more well-known plays: Dogwarts. This play was commissioned by one of the more well-known redditors, who wished to answer the question 'What would life be like if animals could fly?'\n\n“This play was originally a reddit post, but the original has been lost to 4changate. We reconstructed it based on Blue’s unique writing style. For those of you who do not have cloud chips, we will be passing out paper copies of the play. We have made several edits to make it clearer to the modern human.”\n\nBy now I was confused. I was u/writer_girl_goddess! I walked up to join the crowd, where a girl in authentic period wear (jeggings and an I♥NY tee) gave me a pamphlet with my cringy masterpiece, Dogwarts.\n\t\nI took a look inside. The first page was “Melissa Blue fun facts”. Apparently 2528 thought I invented the words “meme” and “bae”, and built r/writingprompts as a place to present my magnum opus, Percy Jackson in World War II: a fanfic spectacular. Never mind the fact that Percy was posted on one of the meme pages, as was Dogwarts.\nI turned to a random page to be greeted by an inaccurate retelling of my tale:\n\n\n\tHAIRY: Forsooth! Does the wind that rises, \n\t\t Falling over every citizen, \n \t\t Carry the stench, the vile stench, \n\t\t Of cat? Or of lolcat? I cannot tell.\n\n\tSNAKE: Pawter, as your professor, \n I assure you the stench \n \t Is only the potion you so incorrectly brew. \n\t \n\tHAIRY: Professor Snake! The others,\n\t\t Professor McPawwiggle and co.\n\t\t Claim it is He Who Has No Name (1).\n\n\tSNAKE: Pawter—\n\n\tHAIRY: No! I will not stop like;\n\t\t I will not die in vain\n\t\t Much like Reddit’s Gorilla (2), I shall press on\n\t\t And die nobly much like him.\n\t\t Maybe I will find his spirit in the sky,\n\t\t O dankest memes! O darkest times!\n\t\t Ever since animals could fly,\n\t\t All I wanted was to fly away.\n\n (1): He Who Has No Name is a character of Blue's creation. It was popularized by J.K. Rowling, who \n analysts believe redid Blue's play with humans.\n\t\t (2): Reddit’s Gorilla refers to Harambe, a common metaphor for death in 2000s Reddit.\n\nI stared in disbelief. I turned the page for more fallacious facts: “It rhymed in the original”, “The rumor that Blue regarded this as her worst work is actually a vicious lie”, et cetera. A little more than 500 years ago I posted Dogwarts on one of Reddit’s top meme pages. Now I would be remembered for popularizing Harambe.\n\nI ran to the chamber from which I came. Maybe by the 3000s nobody would remember me.\n\n\t\n", "\"Welcome, oh great one!\"\n\nMy eyes flicked open upon a brightly lit room filled with people crowded in stadium seating. I looked up at the lights and realized the spotlights were shining directly upon me. \n\n\"Welcome, to the year 2500! You have been preserved by the protector of knowledge and art.\"\n\n\"The protector of what now?\" My voice seemed normal, but hollow, almost digital.\n\n\"The protector is capable of traveling back in time and gathering the knowledge of many great people.\" The voice held no emotion at all.\n\n\"I'm sorry, but there is some mistake. I am no great man.\"\n\nDisturbing, electric laughter rose through the crowd. \"Humility is quite common. But your comments on Reddit have gone down in history as some of the greatest literature of the early 21st century.\"\n\nMy eyes blinked. Or felt like they blinked. \"Really? \n\n\"Oh, yes. Your rhyme schemes inspired the lives of many people. You showed that great poetry was accessible to the masses, and ushered in a new century of poets.\"\n\nI looked down at my feet in shame, and realized my feet were non-existent. I was floating in mid-air. \"Poetry? What poetry? I wrote little short stories with mild attempts at humor. I didn't write poetry.\"\n\nA murmur rumbled across the crowd. \"But... You are u/poem_for_your_sprog? The Poet of Reddit fame, and international acclaim?\"\n\n\"Wait, no. I'm u/test_411. I know who you are talking about. A fan myself, but no... I just write little shorts.\"\n\nThe voice harrumphed. \"Well. We have never made a mistake before. Sorry about that. We will cancel your brain simulation. Sorry, again.\"\n\n\"Wait! I can read you one of my stories.\"\n\nThe voice responded quickly and once again without emotion. \"No thanks.\"\n\nThe sight vanished, and I was no more." ]	2
	[WP] Your worst nightmares have become your greatest allies.	[ "My feet scrambled across the jungle floor, my usual well trained paths far more dangerous than they had been in recent days. I was scared, far more scared than I had been in the past. Despite the never ending reaches of the trees that this place held, every day seemed to cut off more and more of the room that I had grown to enjoy. \n\nHah...enjoy. That was a terrifying concept for me. I had known this land for years, I have grown up in it...for all that it had done in my youth to try and kill me, to try to get me to surrender, it had shaped me and built me up to take on challenges my mind never even dreamed of before. But now? Even the plants within this darkened place that I had grown up dreading was warping in fear of something new. Something that had disturbed its peace far more than I ever could.\n\nA lone gunshot echoed out in the air. \"BLAST!\" I stumbled, immediately moving to try to dodge away from the fire and the angry voice that I assumed was headed my direction. Even after all this time, the sound of that rifle's blasts still sent shivers down my spine. However, I soon realized that I was not the intended target, for once. My feet carried me once more, pressing into the tree roots to begin my ascent, my movement soon sending me leaping from branch to branch.\n\nI paused as I came to a small clearing, looking over a scene that I could scarcely believe. There was a tiger within the clearing, though it had clearly been touched by whatever was infecting my 'home'. Its orange fur was marred by dark purple lines, looking like something out of a horror story from when I was a kid. It was mutated, its claws extended outwards as it began to move upon its prey. I turned, and saw him once more.\n\nIn that instant, I was no longer the man that I had become. I was once again that young child who had entered the jungle his first time, still not knowing the proper dangers. Still believing that it was some sort of joke that was played on me. Even his mere sight was enough to shake every ounce of resolve out of my body. His arm was bleeding, his rifle on the ground. It seemed as though he had been struck by the tiger once, and had been backed into the corner. Still, though, his eyes were fierce, terrifying. Regardless of how horrifying this situation would have been, he was not yielding completely. He seemed to be waiting for the next move, waiting for a counter he could make. \n\nHe wasn't afraid. And if he managed to die or become a part of this thing that was tearing apart the jungle, surely I wouldn't be far behind. As much as the child inside me screamed otherwise...I needed to save him. I leaped down into the fray, yelling as I aimed the spear in my hands at the Tiger's throat. It hadn't noticed my presence either.\n\nThe spear pierced through, felling the Tiger in that single blow, sending it down to the ground. Much like the tigers which normally prowled the jungle, a good attack would manage to take them out for the count. I let out a small huff, staring at my kill, feeling somewhat pleased.\n\nAnother shot rang out, and this effect I could see plainly. The head of the tiger was split in two by the force of that shot, the gore splattering across my features. I stumbled back, turning, stunned for a few seconds as I attempting to figure out what had transpired. The hunter once again had his rifle, the gunsmoke still drifting from the barrel. It was aimed at my own head right now. A silence grew as I stayed unmoving. This was it, I was sure of it...\n\n\"Hmph.\" The man moved the rifle away, holstering it for the moment. \"For once, you actually showed an ounce of courage, Sonny Jim. I wasn't expecting for you to try to help me. Come.\" He turned away, beginning to move out of the clearing. I hesitated...before following. My voice was cracking lightly, like it always did when in the presence of this man, but for the moment, something far worse than the great hunter was in the jungle. \"You aren't going to try to shoot me? Not going to take the easy shot?\"\n\nHe scoffed. \"At a moment when you decided to be a man? No. You might be a craven coward, but someone or something is cheating. If you're going to act like a man now instead of constantly being a child, then you're off my list...for now.\" He readied his rifle once more, making his way down his own path. I knew the route, knew where he was taking me. Still, I followed. \"What was that? I don't think even the rules could affect the tigers like that.\"\n\nSilence would prove to be the answer to my question. As I caught up, I could see it in his face. \"...Van Pelt. What's going on?\"\n\nIn that moment, I swear I could see something in him. Something that I didn't think was possible. Something that he had proven to me multiple times that he had cast aside, but now...it made me feel my decision was right. He looked at me, his face wracked with fury. \"...I don't know.\"\n\nI saw fear.", "Linger not ‘til darkness wanes, for though the light shows, the devil plays. \n\nI, a greying man of many years, find myself within the tombs of youth. That great sarcophagus yawns about me, hosting my human fears. All is quiet, and a single candle lights the inner workings of a darkened mind, lost to time and tales. No man has heard the horrors that have lit my anguished mind. \n\nA great presence, vast as the sea, moves about me. A host of echoes, resplendent with anguish and pain titter within the tinny confines of my brain. This meeting shall be my last. My partner stands beside me, quivering with the anticipation of what is to come. She holds a hand that is barely mine, only sinew and flesh. \n\nPale, from the modern stresses of a mystic man, I stand. The vast host retches around me, each a defiant member of my mind’s eye, a spectacle of quill, finger, spine and marrow. It worms its way through devious ways, ignorant of my heart’s prayers. Within that host I can define the symbols of my feverish mind. Fear grips at my throat, my heart, and only through this candle can I say:\n\n“Hear me, oh demon’s such. I am a traveler on weary roads, blackened by the weight of yours, and those who would tear my heart from me. Many a night have you threatened me, with pain and illusions alike. I have walked a thousand years in the reflection of your awful eyes. \n\n“Every night as a child, I watched the torment being torn from within my very being. Humanities wake was a thing of my past. I walked the very road you dared me to, and in it, I progressed. I have seen the mane of Manzor, the eyes of C’tall’tcan. The very lips of Bael have kissed my feverish head. I have climbed the hills of Czanthor, and marched along La’dii. If any of you doubts my merit, I ask no mercy on me. \n\n“You, Mericles, broke my youthful mind. Bound up in fever, I refused the very reason the Church supplied. I see you there, in your raptured state, your soul satchel gleams bright. But I have no quarrel with you, you did what you deemed right. Although my mind will never know the beauty of sleep again, I do not fault you. \n\n“Ah, Bertzo’Gla, your mane gleams in the candlelight. Your ravenous ways consumed every maiden within my darkened night. I have wept more at night, than any day before. The corridors of sleep’s delight are darkened forevermore. Though I know you, I do not fear you. \n\n“Gilzsten, you seeping hound, I have heard your howls for years. Do not think that I will forget the echoes in my ears. I could have slept a thousand years and never forgot the fears, which forced me from my sleeping moments, to wakefullness and fears.”\n\nThe host lay silent around me, reflection deep within the mirth. Unbinding is a mortal thing, and only for those of Earth. I saw the face of my partner near and the shocking disbelief; unaware to what I saw, she only thought of peace. \nThe candle wavered, and with it came a great whirring, as of many bat wings, rushing near my head. The time had come. \n\n“My candle fades, and with it, your only vessel. I have treated you all as companions, albeit uncanny ones. Do not fault me for my stubbornness or refusal, but please, see me as one unfamiliar with your ways, a waif in your worlds. Man was not built to host such as you, yet, I did my best. And now, by the Mountains of He’tn, be my better guides. Do not smite me with your wings, or buffet me with your beaks, but bear me gently into those great waters that flow from the great peaks. I am but a traveler, weary, bitter, damned. You are those who persisted, in that perpetual darkened land.”\n\nMy strength fades like the passing of the moon, and with it, all will for life. I have seen the rosy hills, lit by the star’s elder life. I have walked the veiled cliffs of the eternal planes. I have looked the devil in the eye, and from him, my life, I claimed. \n\n“I will not go gently into that great night. Nor, will I go alone.” A great rushing surrounds me. \n\nLinger not ‘til darkness wanes, for though the light grows, the devils fade. ", "I've put myself in quite the predicament. Well, I mean, I didn't really PUT myself here, it's someone else's fault. -sigh- I guess I should start at the beginning. I'm suicidal. I don't want to live in the world anymore. There's just too much stress. \n\nHowever, other people think that I SHOULD continue to live in the world. So they've put me into this.. VR therapy. They plug a computer into my brain, and it searches deep down inside and makes things up based on my subconscious. Now, it SEEMS real to me. And unfortunately for me, they decided that the best thing to help me fight this depression is for it to be a PHYSICAL fight. But they also think I need allies. Which is why I'm surrounded by a horde of... Needle-Spiders. \n\nThey're mostly like regular spiders, but.. Their legs are needles. Their fangs are needles. And they're covered in a thin layer of needles, for good measure. It makes me nauseous just to look at them, but I have to. I have to talk to them to form a battle-plan. Depression is a big beast, and I'll need all the help I can get.", "The enemy of my enemy is my friend.\n\nThat was the tired line I had to repeat to myself every time I looked over at him. Someone that was supposed to be chained away in my head, someone that wasn't supposed to be real. Even though I thought he was fake I never said his name before. My therapist always said to just say it, it would free myself from the delusion but the therapist could never answer the real question. What if he was real?\n\nThen someone beat me to the punch and appeared to have said the name of something much much worse. I stared as it appeared in the middle of the city annihilating buildings and clearing a circle around it.\n\nSo I said the name to someone on the street. Once they repeated the name, they were gone. In their place dressed like the richest man in town there he stood. Now a few hours later he was smiling at me as if he didn't have a care in the world. \"My entire life wasn't spent in your head, it was spent in different heads. Heads that spoke several different languages. Now I can't hear a word but I think you're still wondering how it all came to this.\" \n\n\"You never told me there were others like you.\" Cutting him off was second nature to me I had been hearing his voice for years, the best thing about him being out here was that I could actually get him to shutup when I wanted. I could even hit him. When he had been in my head, he had all the control and all the power when I closed my eyes.\n\n\"I didn't think that he would get out. He tended to drive them insane. Hell would you believe that someone like me would cause a lot of you people to go mad as well?\" \n\nIt took everything I had not to try beating him to death right there. Even though he seemed slender there was something dangerous radiating around him. How many lives had he lived before, what had he learned. \"So how do we put it back?\" I asked looking out the window at the giant form casting a shadow over half the city.\n\n\"I can't tell you that\" he said. He wouldn't even out the window. I think he was afraid that he would be seen.\n\n\"You're afraid I'll do it to you as well. Send you both back. Well you got out once didn't you. If you both stay out here it's going to kill everyone right? Going to kill you. What are your options? Hope it just stands there for the rest of eternity.\"\n\n\"Kill him.\" he replied looking at my shotgun.\n\n\"The army hasn't even put a scratch on him but you think me and this shotgun are going to put a scratch on him\" \n\n\"Well we need to do something.\"\n\n\"Does that mean you can be killed pretty easily?\" I asked aiming my shotgun at him. He glared at me for a moment, the first time I had seen him without a smile on his face. \n\n\"You're going to kill me now, after how long we've known each other?\" \n\n\"Well the only reason I even said your name was a half-assed attempt to solve a much larger issue that you told me you could fix! Then you finally show up and you aren't offering any solution to the problem! So make a decision. You die or you give me an answer to my question.\"" ]	4
	[WP] Upon your death and your walk to the gates, you constantly see people jumping down from Heaven to Hell. It is when you enter Heaven that you find out why.	[ "Upon an infinite staircase crusted with pearl, Ramon Flores stood for fifteen hours on the same goddamn step. \n\nOops. Umm...goshdarned. \n\nWhatever, that was one of the milder thoughts in his head and he hadn't been kicked out yet. And it was certainly well deserved. He had been in standing in the same spot for what was actually fifteen hours. He counted. God only knows how long that must have been in actual human time. This is not including the time he had been moving at an evolutionary pace (is that even allowed?), step by step, up a staircase that had no end and no beginning. The entire time, a tinny and unpleasant voice behind him had been singing Beethoven's \"Ode to Joy\" ceaselessly, pausing only to take a breath at the start of the next round. \n\nRamon began wondering if he was in fact in Hell when from the top of infinity came a scream. \n\nSoft and far at first, but it was not long before a large green blur zipped past him, shouting at the top of his lungs. He disappeared into the labyrinth of clouds surrounding the staircase, amazing hitting nothing on the way down, followed by the deafening roar of an infinite staircase's worth of souls shuffled their feet and coughing. \n\n\"And the line still won't move,\" he said to the soul. His new line buddy turned around to reveal a heavy pink face that should have been in a giant clam. \n\n\"I've seen at least a dozen of them jump since they got here. Can't for the life of me figure out why,\" \n\n\"Hrmrmr,\" said Clam-Face. \"You're awfully sour for one who is standing to the gates of Heaven.\n\n\"Not at all! I just..you would think the line would move if...umm...\"\n\nClam-face stared unblinking at a bit of cloud right behind Ramon \n\n\"Nevermind, sorry to bother you. Enjoy your...umm...Heaven.\"\n\nClam-face turned around with a huff, dutifully waiting for the cat-person-thing in front of him to move. The tinny and slightly unpleasant voice behind him promptly went into another round of \"Ode to Joy\". \n\nRamon stepped off the staircase, a smile on his face for the first time in eternity. \n", "It was a cruelty that even God could not foresee. As souls came screaming down from heaven, they burst into flames as they penetrated the sanctity of hell. Their screams echoed up from the depths before going silent.\n\nYet they continued to jump.\n\nIt happened the same way. They tried to stay in heaven. They imagined that the pain they felt was some relic of their time on earth, but there is no pain in heaven. At least, there wasn't supposed to be.\n\nEven God can make a mistake. Or is it a mistake. He created something more beautiful, and more powerful than his omnipotent being. He created something that was both painful and the greatest cure for human pain. He had created something all encompassing and limited to the heart. He had created love.\n\nLove attached to their souls and followed them into the afterlife. When they arrived in heaven, they searched for their love. Then they waited patiently. Then. Then their hearts told them something. It told them where their love was.\n\nAnd they jumped." ]	2
	[WP] Your partner in war was dying, you said yes to fulfilling his last wish, you didn't expect "save equestria"	[ "\"Save Equestria.\"\n\nI cradled him in my lap as his breath rattled. I wept as war waged around me. The battle would drag on, and duty kept my rifle on the firing line. Until one day when it was over. The war was done; a new war had just begun. Now it was time to come to terms with it all.\n\nI drifted. From combat zone to alone in the streets of home. Only it wasn't home. It was as foreign as the countries I fought in. I wandered. From town to town as my beard grew and my eyes sank. I took to the bottle for comfort and looked to the stars for hope.\n\n\"Save Equestria.\"\n\nMy eyes jerked open. I had cradled my brother's head once more. The dying words seemed to echo in the dark night. Hope was spelled in the stars.\n\nI walked along the dusty road of my friend's hometown. Abandoned fields lined the gravel track and reminded me of the small farm of my childhood. A tingling of homesickness sang in my heart.\n\nThe fence around the small homestead was missing boards, and the shutters hanged at odd angle to the windows. Paint stripped from the panels in ragged lines from weather and wear. I knocked on the door and my heart felt the old flutter of nervousness.\n\nAn elderly woman opened the door and looked upon me with cataracted eyes. Before she could say a word, I spoke with my voice heavy and rasped.\n\n\"M'am, I knew your son. I was with him in the war and was with him when he passed. I loved him as a brother. I took too long to come here. I think maybe it was chasing me all these years. I am here to honor his dying words. He loved this place, his home, and loved you as only a son can, but I was his brother and honor his love with my own. M'am, I am here to help you every way that I can.\"\n\nTears rolled down her cheeks and she beckoned me to come inside. An old horse whinnied in the distance as I stepped over the threshold. Above the door sat a weathered sign reading, \"Equestria.\"" ]	1
	[WP] Time travel is invented and you volunteer to be the first human to experience it. However, rather than traveling forward in time, you are warped into an alternate timeline that is foreign to you.	[ "Becoming the world's first time traveller is surprisingly hard. There are, in the US alone, 1.2 million idiots like me. I, however, am a ridiculously lucky idiot. \n\nThere I was, into my second bag of cheetos, watching CNN listlessly in my ramshackle flat when the news reached me. It wasn't, as you would expect, from the TV, but from the ventilation system. It was from the room across, where a mother and child were having an intense discussion.\n\n\"But MOM! I HAVE to travel through time!\"\n\nI am not a gullible person, and time travel did not strike me as particularly likely to be true. However, the kid somehow managed to convince the mother thet this was the case, because, five skeptism filled minutes later, they were engaging in a serious conversation. \n\n\"Look, it's on the news! Mom. MOM!\"\n\nI turned off the TV. The only channel that works on my set is CNN, and they definitely were talking about healthcare last time I was paying attention.\n\n\"All right Joey (or something like that), even if you want to go you, can't- it's adults only.\" The mother, voice dropping to a 'nice guy' level, was trying to reason with the kid. Always a bad idea. \n\nLegend has it, the wail the child released was so loud, the time travel project was set back by a whole month because the computers simultaneously crashed.\n\nAs the kid had insisted, this time travel thing really is real. And, besides age, the ability to hang on to life for a year and not being a psychopath are the only requirement. It isn't what becoming an astronaut used to be like. You don't have to be physically fit, a fighter-jet pilot, or even intelligent. I don't think there exists a person that is all of those things nowadays. In the year 2100, life is so easy and commercialised, the whole world is either ridiculously overweight, or below average.\n\nAnyway, back to me, the lucky idiot. I got shortlisted by pure chance, twice. I bluffed through the online signup, apparently painting the picture of a likeable, ineresting adventurous person. \n\nQ24: Have you ever considered harming another person? Well, no, if you don't count the person it front of me in the drive-thru. \n\nQ47:Are you comfortable with dying in the near future? Well, the amount of cholesterol I consume, I'm not so much looking for heart disease, but opening my front door and inviting it over for dinner.\n\nQ59: Do you have any dependants? \nWhy did this question come up so late into the questionnaire?\n\nIn any case, they apppeared to like me, and I was selected for a group of two hundred. From there, fifty backed out, a hundred others were judged mentally unfit. Apparently they missed my crippling existential crisis. What will i be remembered for? Will I be remembered?\n\nYou may be wondering what a time machine looks like - and so was I. If you were thinking of a Delorean and guy with a crazy hairdo, prepare to be disappointed. About the hairdos. The machine is in a clean room, so whatever folical masterpieces the scientists own are suppressed by a shower cap. Perhaps because of the inherent nerdiness of all physicists, the centrifuge actually resembles a outdated car from the century before last. \n\nYup, a centrifuge. Round and round. Really fast. Apparently, you step out, and BOOM, fast-forward five minutes. I don't understand either.\n\n\"All right, just lie back, you'll start feeling sleepy after a while, just take a nap or something...\"\n\nTo say that this this made matters better would be the overstatement of the century.\n\nThen, with the smallest of smiles, the scientist turned on his heel and stolled with an air of poorly contained excitement about him. The moment the door closed, I dropped off. Not because of the gas or whatever. I had to wake up at three to get to the lab, and I was exhausted.\n\n-\n\nWhen I woke up, there was no centrifuge. There was no excited scientist. I was alone, in a derelict room with personal effects strewn all about the place. The TV was on, showing CNN, something about healthcare. \n\nThen, as most terrible realities do, the truth washed up on me. This was MY apartment. The time was eight- thirty. A packet of half-eaten cheetos lay infitingly on the sofa. \n\nNO. This wasn't one of those 'it was all a dream stories.' I could still remember the centrifuge and the scientist. But something was missing. What was it? \n\nThe child screaming. There was no screaming. I slammed myself at the computer. There was no time travel machine. Something was wrong, and I needed finish those cheetos.", "At first, we thought that it had failed. Or at least, I did.\n\nStanding in the field generator, I had watched the expectant team of scientists flip the proverbial switch, hundreds of instruments pointed at me to record any rent in my newly altered atoms might leave in the fabric of the universe as I punched forward in time, never to return. And I had watched them wait, confused, as nothing happened, and as nothing continued to happen, I had felt an irrational shame as disappointment overtook their faces.\n\nFor months, I had gone about my life, let go from my position as test subject and living on my considerable stipend for the dangerous job. The foundation that had funded the experiment had hoped to not have to pay it, but I didn't mind disappointing them nearly as much in this regard. \n\nEverything had seemed normal for so long, that I had almost forgotten it all entirely.\n\nMy life, my assumptions, my very reality was shaken on one inauspicious day, whereupon nothing particularly extraordinary happened, save for the sudden change of every leaf and plant on Earth from green, to a dark, alien purple. \n\nDriving at the time of the change, I had slammed on the brakes at the sudden massive shift in the surrounding landscape, surprised into stopping before I even fully registered what had changed. Barely hearing the angry honking behind me, I had stared in shock and confusion, marveling the trees and their unfamiliar coloring, the grass and its strange new contrast with the paint of the homes it grew around. \n\nEventually, too shaken to continue with my errands, I had turned back to my house to look for news of the change, hoping to confirm I was not insane. Instead, I found only pictures of more purple plants, and a profoundly disturbing and casual acceptance of that color, as if it were absolutely nothing strange. Delving deeper, I found records going back as far into history as I could look, modern research into the absorption spectrum of the purple chloroplasts, and an endless supply of familiar paintings, movies, and poetry referring to purple plants. Searches for green plants turned up only science fiction and mentions of exotic varieties of garden flora. \n\nAs far as the world except for me was concerned, plants had always been purple.\n\nOf course, the first place I went was the research facility to reveal my findings and undergo tests. While they heard me out with skepticism at first, concern that the experiment had had latent psychological side effects eventually lead to my being kept there under close observation.\n\nOvernight, they had watched me in my bed, instruments trained on my body to look for the slightest blip of exotic matter or smallest twist in spacetime. And, to their surprise, they found something. Not a departure signal, as the instruments had been intended to find, a reading indicating my body had been accelerated rapidly forward in time. Instead, they found an arrival signal. \n\nClose analysis of my biology, isotope decay in my body, my genome, and my knowledge of the world at large quickly made one thing obvious. I was not of their world. I had come from another universe, where things were different. Most disturbing of all, they told me that I had likely moved through several universes between this one and my own, traveling sideways through the branching pathways of time, moving further and further from the world I knew. It fascinated them, and terrified me.\n\nAs they studied me, I made more jumps. Perhaps I should not say that 'they' studied me, as it was clearly not the same team of researchers, though they acted much the same and had much the same data. Every time, they recorded only an arrival signal, and were quick to barrage me with questions about the universe I had last been in, to take measurements and chart times. \n\nThe changes accumulated, becoming more noticeable as they did so. I watched in horror as the world I glimpsed through the confines of the research lab grew more and more alien, subjecting myself to their tests mostly out of a need for something familiar. \n\nOne set of researchers was surprised to find my eyes only had 3 types of cone cells in the retina, explaining their human race had 4. To them, I was massively colorblind. \n\nThree universes later, my uniform skin, all one color instead of striped chaotically in lighter and darker shades, became a topic of interest.\n\nSix sideways steps after that, the hair on my head and the rest of my body became the only hair in the room, everyone else possessing perfectly smooth skin. It horrified them, just as they unnerved me with their striped, sterile appearances. They took cuttings of it to study, but even as they waited on results, I left that timeline behind to one where my circular pupils were even more fascinating.\n\nIt was at that time I asked them how many different versions of me they had seen, and whether any pattern had been found to the timing. They said they had studied 87 different versions of me, each one increasingly alien from the last, arriving in completely random intervals. Taking this to match my own experience, I despaired at how far I had come from a world I recognized, my home where plants were green and humans had hair.\n\nQuietly beginning to cry, I sparked excited murmurs over my strange ability to leak excessive saline from my eyeballs, which only prompted me to huddle further into myself. I was lost, and no one seemed to know how to send me back, let alone want to.\n\nWhen I finally ran out of tears, I looked up into alien faces I did not recognize, features warped and twisted, without mouths to speak with. They watched me mutely, brushing each other with long, five-jointed fingers. Their eyes were edged in waving cilia. \n\nEven as I screamed, I moved again to a universe where monsters just as terrible, but taller and without clothes, huddled closer and moved with more agitation. Pushing through them, their cold scales left flakes on my hospital gown as I fled into a hallway that was eerily uniform in color, but covered in a variety of textures from place to place. Strange ribbed tiles dug into my feet as I ran, tugging unpleasantly at the soles of my feet.\n\nMidstep, the building disappeared around me, and I found myself in a field looking toward a settlement of long limbed, mouthless beings, their elongated vehicles traveling down roads that sang with the ridges of the pavement beneath hard tires. A building that looked vaguely like the research facility was at the edge of the town, and I saw lights begin to flash there, monsters pouring out in search of me, or whoever I had replaced. \n\nSitting down, I watched them until they changed, bit by bit, into a different species entirely, a different race. The air began to grow hard to breathe. I wondered how long I could survive, until I found myself on an Earth so divergent from the one I knew that something killed me before I could leave again.\n\nI wondered if my corpse would keep traveling, a rotting alien from another world, drifting sideways through time until it became so much interdimensional dust.\n\nClosing my eyes, I did the only thing I could, and waited to find out." ]	2
	[WP] You gained immortality almost 4 billion years ago, describe your journey.	[ "How long do you have?\n\n\nI do not think that I am the oldest. I have met one from another place that is three times my age, although it could not say for certainty how long it had existed. I have not seen another for some time. They do not check on me anymore.\n\n\nNow is the time I have been waiting for. It is the most beautiful time I have ever seen. Whether its the anticipation or the actual event, I am amaze all the same. \n\n\nI am perched on the edge of the planet, while the cool dust rushes over the surface of Mars and crashes refreshingly against my face like the waves of Earth once did. That only blue planet that I left to die long ago, with the others, once of my kind, that remained and waited. As I now wait. \n\n\nMankind. A desire to explore the Universe, but never outdoing those craft launched before my birth. The greatest civilization in the Universe confined to this lonely Solar System. I'll tell you now, they were not alone and they were not the greatest. Not at all.\n\n\nBehind my resting place the last of their structures have faded away and been buried, long ago. Only my house remains, a testament to them in this dying system that is of no use to the rest of the Universe. \n\n\nMy journey may be at an end. Or it may just be beginning. \n\n\nYears are like seconds to me now. Watching this Sun envelope its neglected children in the last of its power, a red glow almost at its peak, licking every edge of its kingdom before it must abdicate. \n\n\nSoon the white dwarf will arrive. He decides my future. \n\n\nIf he permits, I will leave this place and find the others. The ones like me. And with what I will have become, I will destroy them all. \n\n\n...\n\n\nThe Others.\n\nThe time does not matter. It is impossible to comprehend. Humanity limped away, the entire journey a blink of an eye. One remained. It was not my choice, or even my wish. It just was.\n\nThen the next dominant species came. And went. And one remained.\n\nAnd so on. And so on.\n\nUntil the Earth produced no more. After billions of years there were only tens of others. And I the elder, but not the leader.\n\nThen it came back. The one from before me. This is where my journey really begins." ]	1
	[WP] As an infamous serial killer plans their murder, the soon-to-be victim grins. Little did the killer know that this "victim" already knows their plan.	[ "\"Nice pentagram.\"\n\nHe freezes, then turns to stare.\n\n\"I mean it, great work on the details, usually people skimp on th_hkk-_!\"\n\nHe covers the distance in three strides, his hand closing on the woman's throat. She's still bound to a chair, and still wearing clothes, but he can't find her gag. And she's smiling in defiance. There isn't a hint of fear in her eyes - pain, yes, and that suffices for now. He releases her, and takes satisfaction in hearing her cough, struggle to catch her breath. That should teach her to--\n\n\"Good grip, too.\" She says, coughs, and grins up at him before continuing. \"You must spend many a lonesome night with--\"\n\nHe grabs her head, pulls her hair back, presses a blade to her jugular, thinks he can feel hear heartbeat through the handle. Still, she grins.\n\n\"What, already?\" She says in the tones of a complaint, disappointed even. \"Not even your usual prayer and promising soul and asshole to Lord Satan first?\"\n\nHe realizes, she understands. Truly, she understands. But a woman has no right speaking to him like that. He draws his hand back to strike.\n\nShe doesn't wait. She surges forward, her head striking him in the chest. The impact sends him across the room, crashing into and through an old desk.\n\n\"Now, don't get me wrong...\" She says, eyes closing lazily, rolling her shoulders as if stretching. \"Big fan of your work. Always a big hoot when one of you crazies finally dies and goes down. But, you know...\"\n\nShe stands up, her restrains and the chair snapping like so much tissue paper and toothpicks.\n\n\"We could use you _now_, so, congratulations! You're getting fast tracked.\"\n\nHe tries to get up. Her kick sends him into a wall. He groans in pain out when her foot pins him to the floor. She examines a knife in her hand carefully, thoughtfully.\n\n\"You know...\" She remarks after a while, giving him a foreboding smile. \"We're not in _that_ much of a hurry.\"\n\nHe screams for a long time.\n\n----\n\n[(more by yours truly)](/r/vonBoomslang)" ]	1
	[WP] You are a 13-year-old kid who wants to be a hacker. You download some tools somebody else wrote and try those on random IP addresses. As a result, several nuclear power plants explode.	[ "Punter: so how do i see the camera?\n\nL@z3r: there is a tab for that, is it green?\n\nPunter: no, but i can open the CD tray!\n\nL@z3r: you should save that for later.\n\nPunter: i already made sure it works, how long do i have to wait?\n\nL@z3r: watch the keylogger\n\nPunter: ...\n\nPunter: ....\n\nPunter: .....\n\nPunter: this thing sucks, can i start over?\n\nL@z3r: just pivot\n\nPunter: for how long?\n\nL@z3r: there's a button\n\nPunter: it says 635 nodes, how am i supposed to know which one to do? it looks like a spider web.\n\nL@z3r: really, 635? where the hell did you wardial? pick the one furthest away!\n\nPunter: MADSAC-CRM114 is my new bitch, i need DOS!?1!\n\nL@z3r: click the tab that says terminal\n\nPunter: yeah KILL IT!!!--now what?\n\nL@z3r: what ever you want.\n\nPunter: i want to DOS\n\nL@z3r: you're in DOS\n\nPunter: it just says \"Bad command or file name\" i tried dos ddos hack crack \n\nL@z3r: right, Denial Of Service - so you just want to break it, really?\n\nPunter: yeah\n\nL@z3r: just click \"KILL ALL\" \n", "\"My name is not important. The only things you need to know about me is my pseudonym, which is CL4R34NC3F0URCLARENCE, and my mission. Now, unlike most kids, I'm special. While they rather play basketball and kiss girls at parties, I studied the blade and became a master of technology.\n\nNow I know you might be asking yourself, but Clare- I mean, but CL4R34NC3 The God, why would you spend your time telling a noob like me such an amazing and legendary story? Well shut the fuck up script-kiddie, and let me tell you the story of the coolest most amazingest hacker and girl kisser on this side of the planet.\n\nWith great power, comes great responsibility - but not for me. I'm reckless, I'm dangerous, I'm unpredictable. That's what gives me the edge against others.\n\nIt happened, like on any other day. After downloading the anarchist cookbook and boiling a pot of gasoline siphoned out of Reggie's car, I was ready to get to work. Using the super l33t too1s found on the shadow web (deeper than the deepweb noob), I decided to claim my first victim and show him just how fearsome CL43R4NC3 of Dark Anonymous can be.\n\nI fired up my rewritten copy of LOIC, which is Low Orbit Ion Cannon for you uncultured skids. Rewritten how? Clarence, please tell me, you're so cool! You whine.\n\nI know I am, quit bitchin'.\n\nBut anyway, by changing a couple of integers and rewriting more code I borrowed from online, I was able to have LOIC flood your router with, one billion packets in an instance.\n\nCrazy, right?\n\nI copy pasted the rando's IP address, rubbing my hands maniacally as I prepared to pwn the fuck out of the poor cuck nooblet. I downloaded a couple apps on my phone to better watch the magic happen, turning the TV on as I went to go pop a bag of popcorn.\n\nWhat? I'm a growing boy. I'm not fat. I'm big boned. Fuck you.\n\nI came back with a bag of fucking burnt popcorn and my TV fixed on the news. Apparently a nuclear power plant blew up - leave it to America to fuck something up haha #ThanksObama.\n\nWelp, all's well roswell. I'd have to flee the country and somehow escape during all of the chaos. I needed a new name and a new face, and I knew just where to get them. I punched in various other codes, shuddering every time I surmised a power plant blew up, killing, irradiating, or wounding the innocents inside.\n\nOh well, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lucky I didn't teleport behind them with my Hiten-Mitsurugi Style and ended their life while saying my secret catchphrase, \"nothing personnel kid.\"\n\nI saw that flights were getting canceled because of the chaos going on, fuck. Oh well, I could work with this. I wouldn't be Clare- I mean, CL43R4NC3 for nothing. I hacked open a cryopod across town, where sonic came and ran me across before asking for my autograph and leaving. I froze myself in the pod, which was then captured by Nigerian pirates. I got to help write the original Nigerian Prince chain letter, before I was sent back in time to kill Hitler. Then after my mission was done, I got to get resent back to this current timeline and keep the knowledge of my adven-\"\n\nMy brother's hand cracked across my face, a sad sigh escaping him as he looked at me in disgust.\n\n\"Clarence, quit fucking lying.\" He mumbled, kicking my door open before walking back to his room.\n\nI climbed into my chair, loading up LOIC before I dug into my closet for my time travel/teleporting pad.\n\nMaybe I'd have to actually show him this time around.", "Ten minutes after I pressed send, the news came online and I saw \"breaking news\" coming up popped on my phone. \n\n\"Shit I didn't think that would work.\" I downloaded a few tools from the deep web and modified a few minor detail, and now the whole world is listening to the news of explosion of multiple explosion across America. \n\nYou may ask, what did I possibly do, to activate an bomb switch on a fortified nuclear power plant. \n\nIt takes three stages. Just like a joke needs three stages: The setup, the build up, the punchline. \n\nStage one, setup. You want the media to be on your side. You need someone who can start a wave in the media. The tools I purchased allowed me to generate a false identity, or rather, multiple false identity. Let's call her, Maureen. Maureen on paper seems to be someone who works in Department of Homeland Security. Maureen sends out a message of distress to a second tier publisher. Maureen declares terrorists hold hostages in multiple nuclear power plant to the paper publisher.\n\nNow being a professional editor, it would make sense to confirm this information with your source. But keep in mind, since I, or Maureen, chose this publisher myself, it would not be difficult to redirect his phone line, email, or even video camera set to a phony one. \n\nFor any sane editor this might not be enough, but hacking into his computer and redirect some of his web search or all his web search should not be that big of a deal either. In the end, get him convinced so he's ready to send reporters or writers out to collect more information. \n\nThis is just the setup we need. \n\nAt some point in time, the National Security people would catch on to this, either through monitored web search or multiple writers inquiring about such information. As the security report goes to upper level, they will dispatch a group of personal to check on site if the plant is secure. It's probably gonna take them around half an hour two forty minutes to arrive on site. \n\nObviously the site would be in perfect shape when they got there, so something else needed to be done. But before that, a file would be automatically generated and entered into a filter database, any media movement containing the keyword or any suspicious activity would trigger the filter and alert authority above. And that's where our second fake operative comes in. \n\nLet's call her Lisa. \n\nLisa, on paper, owns a newspaper called Washington Daylight. The agency that spies on media would get an alert that Washington Daylight is going to publish about the Nuclear plant hostage situation and the government is willing to make a deal with the terrorists. \n\nOperatives would be sent to Washington Daylight to terminate such action. But that's totally fine. The point of Lisa is to get authorities attention and generate an actual silence order from the above. \n\nOnce the silencing order is issued, of course it could be intercepted. On the order it would say something about no such incident can be published blah blah blah. \n\nNow here comes the punchline. \nOur last fake operative, Jake, is one of the worker from the power plant. I generate a card swipe from him, assembling a pass code to access the gate towards the mainframe computer in the power plant. Meanwhile I could send some random poor guy who actually has access to the mainframe to pick up a waterbottle his work mate left there. \n\nThe poor sod is going to be standing in front of the door with his security clearance temperarily disabled by me. While he's scratching his head, the kill order probably has arrived to the agents on site. \n\nIn two seconds, the whole trick would be blown. After they shoot the water bottle retriever, it would be more than easy to find out there's no one standing in the mainframe room. \n\nSo there's no Jake. Meanwhile federal agents would find out there's no Lisa who owned no newspaper. They would find out it's a hoax. \n\nBut now, I would have leverage and evidence. Hours ago, I have a edit video of a hostage situation and some fake report, now I have a silencing order from the Federal government, direct evidence of media control and the video footage of them executing someone due to \"national security.\"\n\nThen it's some bargaining... I will skip the details. but in the end, the government need to decide if they want the people to know about the amount of control they have on media, or they could evacuate the building a set off a plant that's too old anyway. And their agents are already on-site, so... convenient huh. \n\nHey I don't know what they would choose, I am just a 13-year-old after all. " ]	3
Whereas we can make educated guesses at the compositions of stars and the reactions between chemicals, all other intelligent species have no understanding of the cosmos beyond their limited senses and cannot use logic to predict outcomes.	[WP] Humans have begun colonizing solar systems and encounter other spacefaring alien civilizations, but they all developed their technology through trial and error over millennia. We are feared as gods who can predict the future with our scientific theories and adapt at terrifying speeds.	[ "To think man feared the alien on first contact is laughable now, with their ships haphazard, seams held by straps of tape.\n\nWhen they saw our fleets and our starmaps, our forecasts and our science, they dropped their arms and offered us alms.\n\nWe saw an opportunity here, saw the entire galaxy offered to us. Saw them beg and plead for their subjugation.\n\nThe air lock hisses at the creatures and they step away from the door in bewilderment.\n\nI smile through the glass and they bow. I pull the lever and the chamber fills with mist. You can't make anything out in the mist, but you can hear the whispers, the content prayer. Then silence.\n\nIf any knew how their homeworlds came to be ours, then they would decry their treatment. Condemn us for treating them like cattle. Cattle at least, don't suffer the pretense of intelligence.", "\"... Say that again?\" General Jimak asked, simply confounded by this question.\n\nThe translator clicked as the Insectoid began to ask again: \"Why are your ships so smooth?\"\n\nIt was simply baffling. Jimak should be asking why THEIR ships are so square. \" What do you mean? How do you think we land?\"\n\n\"By commanding the wind?\" It responded, taking the same look he has. \"Parachutes and prayers.\"\n\n\"You use par-\"\n\n\"Does that dis-please our lord?!\" The ant interrupted, the three pairs of hands hitting the table with a slam. \"We can simply let ourselves fall if you so wish! Just give the command!\"\n\n\"Well, your uh.... 'Lord' does have a command. Please leave us for a moment.\" Jimak felt... dirty for taking this praise. Why would they use parachutes? Why not use their engines? How does a parachute manage to keep giant blocks of steel in the air? Those are just the questions for landing. His assistant enters as the 'Ant-kin' leaves with a constant bow. \n\n\"Whats wrong? Did the translator malfunction?\"\n\n\"No no, I just... Have you been listening to them? It's as if pure luck plays straight into their hands.\"\n\n\"I assumed that their planet just has odd gravity.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, but they don't seem to understand WHY gravity is there...\"\n\n\"Do we?\" Ging put a hand on her hip. Jimak simply shook his head, the military helm blocking his utter confusion.\n\n\"We know gravity is there. We know it pulls. To them, it has some... half-assed story on why John Doe is mad at Jane Doe so he pulls everyone to the under-world...\"\n\n\"Perhaps they are just more religious then us?\" Again, she answers the questions with simplicity. Perhaps he is over-thinking things.\n\nOver... Thinking.\n\n\"... Remember when we made first contact? And how we managed to pull one body away after the fight?\" Laying back in the chair, he idly snapped his fingers as if to keep his mind focused.\n\n\"Yes, we did a autopsy if that is what your asking about.\"\n\n\"What was the size of their brain?\"\n\n\"Slightly smaller then ours. Same type of mechanics to it. Missing small pieces in the temporal lobe, along with the frontal lobe. Enough is there to have them act.... like normal beings however.\" She tapped the screen, a small alert appearing on Jimaks armband. After a few taps, the report is shown in a small holographic image.\n\n\"Normal. Yes. Lets just say that.\" Slowly reading each verse, a few minutes pass by. \"Can we convince one to do some memory tests?\"\n\n\"Why? They just are more... spiritual then us. Its simple.\"\n\n\"Or are we too complicated? Ever hear one of them ask existential questions? Ever find one that questioned how we quickly became their new 'gods.' I swear, I saw them covering an old picture of a prophet with a stick-figure.\"\n\n\"Your over-thinking this.\"\n\n\"Or are they not thinking enough?\"\n\n\"Leave this stuff to the philosophers Jimak. I bet they....\" The words stopped there.\n\n\"They have none.\" He finished her sentence. \"I guess we are over-thinking this all. Who knew we'd be god for simply thinking there wasn't one?\" \n\n------------------------------------------------------------\nSorry for the bad writing guys! This is my first story here and I felt like I didn't get the point across well. Also, the grammar is probably bad, but please send criticism! I want to learn how to write better!", "\"Sir, a human has arrived.\"\n\nNot the most pleasant words for a chieftain to wake up to. It was six tera-ticks past sunrise and far too early to conduct any sort of business. Especially with humans.\n\nEyes still half shut, I rolled out of bed and emerged into the morning atmosphere. Placing my chief's helmet - ornate and feathered - over my long, gray cranium, I felt properly authoritative. When I entered the main plaza, a tall creature with gleaming chrome headgear was standing at the North Crater, arm outstretched. I was unsure of the meaning of this gesture and merely stared at him.\n\nHe clicked a few buttons on his outfit and finally stated \"Greetings, friend\" in perfect Gavorkian dialect. \"I come with urgent news,\" he continued. \"Your planet is dying.\"\n\nI rubbed my eyes. \"A conspiracy theorist, eh? We've got enough of those on our own planet, thank you very much. What is it you need? Iron ore? Herbs? Fertile soil?\"\n\nHe chuckled and shook his head. \"I think you need our help more than I need yours.\"\n\n\"And why is that?\" I tried to maintain a dignified air, but a hint of terror snuck between the words.\n\n\"You don't even know, do you?\"\n\nI gulped and wiped some sweat from my brow. He approached me and tried to put a hand on my shoulder, but I instinctively flinched away.\n\n\"The core of Gavorkia is on track for a complete collapse within the next several weeks...or, as you'd put it, tera-temps. If you allow us to simply set up camp for a single tera-temp, we may be able to reverse the disaster.\"\n\nI sighed. \"I think we can handle it ourselves.\"\n\n\"I think you can't. Look around you, Chief Grauk. Sticks, stones, no processed foods whatsoever, medicines that have no definitive track record. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Just one tera-temp.\"\n\nI paused for a moment, looked around at the village I'd spent my entire life in, and felt a deep, horrifying sense of inferiority. \"OK,\" I said. \"One tera-temp.\"\n\n*\n\nHis name was Sanders, and he quickly became a figure of local fascination. His crew was small - about fifteen - but they got to work almost immediately.\n\nMy citizens gathered in the Plaza every evening to see what new miracle the humans brought with them. \"This,\" Sanders explained, \"is aspirin. Developed hundreds of years ago and it still doesn't get any better than the original. One pill and your pain evaporates.\"\n\nI wandered nervously between each of their project sites, trying to figure out what they were building. Everything was foreign. Strange combinations of pieces and parts, foul-smelling food, an incomprehensible language. The main construction appeared to be lodged directly at the core of Gavorkia - a massive pole extending deep below the surface.\n\nAt the end of the tera-temp, I marched into Sanders' living quarters and slammed my fists on the table.\n\n\"Time's up, Sanders. Pack your bags.\"\n\nSanders raised an eyebrow. \"I was just about to give you the status report, Chief. We've uncovered a host of additional problems with Gavorkia's ecosystem and may need an additional tera-temp to address them properly.\"\n\n\"No. We had a deal. We'll finish up ourselves.\"\n\n\"I'd strongly advise against that. Your choice - saving the planet, or watching it slowly fall to pieces.\"\n\nI clenched my fist. \"One more.\"\n\n\n\nThey stayed for three tera-temps after that, each one more grueling than the last. I watched as my people flocked to Sanders and his crew, fascinated by their technology, in awe of their humility, practically kneeling before them.\n\nOne night, at the end of the fourth tera-temp, I crept into his quarters and silently rummaged around, my long, spindly fingers tracing maps and blueprints, trying to make sense of it all.\n\nWhen I knocked over a glass, he jolted awake.\n\n\"It's not polite to intrude.\"\n\nI glared at him. \"You're one to talk.\"\n\n\"Just give us a little more time.\"\n\nI sprinted over to his bed and grabbed him by the throat. \"If you're not out of here by tomorrow morning, your entire crew is dead.\"\n\nHe laughed a full, deep laugh. \"Is this how you treat all your guests?\"\n\n\"No, just those who've overstayed their welcome.\"\n\n\"How do you think your people are going to feel now that they've gotten a taste of what real progress looks like?\"\n\n\"They'll be fine. We live a simple life.\"\n\n\"Well, you enjoy that.\" He rolled out of bed and began to gather supplies, refusing to look at me. Then, he turned his head slightly, half illuminated by his lantern.\n\n\"The cosmos is a harsh and unforgiving place, Chief Grauk. Sometimes you just need a place to settle down instead of wandering through all that...endless dark out there.\"\n\nHe left his tent and I never saw him again.\n\n\n\nAfter another tera-temp of sleepless nights, intensive research, and enraged complaints from citizens, I discovered that the humans had been draining our core.\n\nFiguring out how to read the monitors took the collective brain power of our village's best minds. The core's rich sphere of magma had been depleted by 85%, and Gavorkia's cracks were already beginning to show. Now we had no choice but to leave - to wander outer space, just as Sanders and his crew had and would continue to do. \n\nPerhaps the rich magma deep within Gavorkia contained some minerals that they wanted. Perhaps they were indeed looking for a place to settle in for a while, before deciding to tear away the lifeblood of our planet. Perhaps they'd come to do this all along.\n\nBut I think there was a part of them that enjoyed the conquest -- the knowledge that a civilization, at least for a time, had become completely reliant on you.\n\nAnd as we began to craft spaceships -- from our crude materials and the things the humans had left behind -- I felt the same quiet desperation.\n\nNow, none of us were in control.\n\n\n\n/r/GigaWrites\n\n\n\n", "I have named them Claymores* after my own surname. I know that must seem vainglorious, but I do not apologize. I do not imagine I will ever be presented with another opportunity to name a sentient alien race, and the name, I believe, is striking.\n\nI found them while mineral diving in the Agathobulus Belt. My rear stabilizer was struck, forcing me to land or risk careening directly into an asteroid. I set down on the largest, flattest mass I could find. That is when I discovered the Claymores.\n\nThey live inside an asteroid. Except that it is not an asteroid, it is a ship. There are thrust engines at the narrowest end and pulse thrusters hidden within the crags at all angles. Somewhere at some past time, they must have hollowed the thing and made it spaceworthy. It measures less than a kilometer from tip to tip. Judging by the design, I do not suppose it was ever meant to travel at great speeds. \n\nThat said, I do not believe the Claymores are aware that they are on a ship. \n\nThey are small creatures, which is sensible, given the lack of available space within the asteroid. They display two identical trios of thin appendages set at opposite ends of a short torso. In the middle of the torso is a spherical skull that seems to permit 360 degree movement. I have seen no evidence of either eyes or mouths, but I believe this sphere is the equivalent of the head. \n\nOne presumes there is some measure of sensitivity upon the surface of the asteroid, because I certainly did not find the entrance of my own accord. Instead, two emissaries - for lack of a better word - arrived via a shallow air duct, hidden behind a sliding panel of rock. They beckoned me follow, which I did. \n\nThe ecosystem of the place is difficult to describe. There is no light within the asteroid, except for a small amount of bio-luminescence, generated by a sort of slime culture which grows on nearly every surface. The slime seems quite central to the lifecycle within the asteroid, as there is really only the Claymores and the slime, suggesting an exceptionally closed system. Is such a one-to-one system even possible? I assume there is something I am missing.\n\nThe Claymores seem to communicate internally by vibration. They make no audible sounds, but I have seen their appendages shake suddenly and in clear patterns. This is usually followed by some action on the part of other Claymores, leading me to believe that messages are being disseminated. \n\nMy speech, it should be noted, has an effect upon the Claymores - it causes them to scuttle away into dark corners and pull into compact spiral shapes. I have guessed that the vibrations of my voice are unpleasant or overwhelming and have discontinued speaking in their presence.\n\nThe slime is not palatable to me or, I suspect, any human. Because of this, I knew I would need to repair my ship and leave the asteroid, at least momentarily. The trouble, as mentioned, was the damage sustained to my rear stabilizer. I am not a mechanic, but I felt I might be able to jury-rig a temporary solution that would allow me to escape the belt and send a proper distress signal. \n\nExamining my ship closely, I felt I may confidently make the necessary repairs if I could find a sufficient replacement for the cracked shielding and broken bypass valve. I asked the Claymores, in a fumbling, roundabout way, if they had anything within their ship resembling the needed parts. I was shocked to see their eager response. They brought me many pieces - most bore no resemblance at all to my request, but a few did. I did not consider at the time where the parts had come from. The Claymores surprised me constantly, so I had become a little dull to the unexpected.\n\nThe repairs so made, I bid a fond farewell to the strange creatures, making a promise that I would return. I do not know if they understood this promise. I am loathed to admit that ultimately, I have understood very little of the Claymores.\n\nThe flight out of Agathobulus was heart-stopping and treacherous, but I did successfully arrive at open space and, unwilling to make a full jump with a makeshift stabilizer, sent out a distress for assistance. I was picked up and returned to Gogi Base, where I made inquiry with the Federated Science Corps. I had managed to bring back a small sample of the slime with me to corroborate my story, which successfully captured their attention. Only two days later, I led the Corps back to the Agathobulus Belt and the estimated coordinates of the Claymore ship.\n\nI expected to be welcomed back, but no emissaries ever arrived. After much searching with sensitive machines, we were able to locate the airlock and force it open. \n\nThe inside of the asteroid was black and frozen. With bright white lights, we search the interior, boots crunching over frozen, colorless slime deposits. The bodies of the Claymores were also frozen, held together in those tight spiral patterns.\n\nThe FSC engineer found hollowed gouges throughout the ship's frame and engine conduit. Essential systems ruined and offline. \n\n\"They tore it apart,\" he said, holding up a triangular slip of metal. \"At a guess, they destroyed the life support system.\"\n\n\"Why would they do that?\" said the mission lead.\n\nThey looked at me to answer the question. And of course I knew the answer. Of course I had sat there like a fat, guileless God, as the small folk brought forth their most precious offerings. Hoping to please. Hoping to appease.\n\n\"I've no idea,\" I mumbled as a floating Claymore brushed past my face. \"It is the strangest thing.\"", "The Ekkos crawled over each other, trailing afterimages, moving like ants building a bridge with their own bodies. They jabbed blindly at controls, flailing like a mob, a schizophrenic superorganism pulled in a dozen directions at once. And somehow, by sheer chance, they engaged the docking mechanisms and guided their ship into the spaceport. \n\n\"Jesus Christ,\" Captain Katrina Bellaire whispered. \"They have no goddamn idea what they're doing.\" \n\nCaptain Bellaire and her crew had been invited aboard the Ekkos mothership, to freely observe the aliens at work in their natural habitat. Every since humanity had made contact, they had been treated as as gods, deferred to and revered. It had been quite the ego boost to the human species. And watching the Ekkos at work, Bellaire was beginning to fully understand why. \n\n\"Understand\" \"Perfection\"^\"undone\" the Ekkos diplomat said, in that weird echoing language that everyone heard slightly differently. The first utterance, the main utterance, was vocalized, clear as day. But everything they said had reverberations, not in air but in perception, so that talking to them was stumbling through an auditory hallucination. Bellaire's head was beginning to hurt. \n\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"we understand,\" and glanced at Lieutenant Sagawa. He was recording everything on his datapad, attempting desperately to process it into a meaningful theory. \"Do you mean to say that you yourselves don't understand what you are doing?\" \n\n\"Blind chance\" \"as we said in the forest\"^\"literarysyphilis\" The diplomat wandered away from them, bumped into a wall, and through a series of ricochets ended up facing her. The control room was chaos, Ekkos flowing over each other randomly and bit by bit dribbling out into the spaceport. \"You are as gods before us!\" \"penetrates through the eyes and the mouth\"^\"FIXEDlikeabutterflyonahat\"\n\n\"Good god,\" Bellaire said, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She turned to the rest of her crew members. \"Does anyone have any idea of how these things manage to function, much less build a working spaceship?\" \n\n\"I've examined their engineering,\" Sloan said. \"All these extraneous hallways leading nowhere. They just build, as far as I can tell, build in random directions, and wait for the structures to randomly link up.\" \n\n\"And it works?\" Bellaire said. \n\n\"I mean, yeah, for certain definitions of 'works.'\" She faltered. \"Their warp drive, it's as if - remember that old creationist argument? Imagine a tornado tearing through a junkyard and building a working 747? Therefore God exists?\" Sloan snorted. \"A tornado tore through a junkyard and built a working warp drive. It's like mechanical evolution. All these vestigial parts bolted on everywhere.\"\n\nThe Ekkos had miraculously filtered out into the spaceport, the humans following them, watching the undirected movement of the hive. They crashed into each other, tugged at things at random, somehow keeping the life support systems running, the orbit of the station intact. There was a tremendous clatter and noise, like a million monkeys on typewriters banging out the works of Shakespeare. \n\n\"No sense of logic, as far as I can tell,\" Petrov said. \"No science. No literature. No coherent language or linguistic rules.\" He tugged at his beard. \"Technologically as advanced as us, but given up to madness.\"\n\n\"So you can't predict what they're going to do next?\" Bellaire said. \n\nPetrov threw up his hands. \"I don't believe even they can predict what they will do next!\" He sighed. \"At least they seem to treat us as gods, for the small amount of logic we do possess.\"\n\n\"Captain,\" Sagawa cut in. \"I think I've figured it out. We're getting readings of tachyon radiation.\" \n\n\"Fucking time travel?\" Petrov exclaimed. \n\n\"Maybe?\" Sagawa said. He jabbed frantically at his datapad. \"It's just - tachyon decay all over the the place. Like they're -\"\n\n\"A collapsing waveform,\" Bellaire muttered. \"They're not a single thing, they don't exist on a single timeline.\" There was chaos all around them, chittering chaos subsuming into a form of order. \"They just act at random. All these timelines where they mess up, die out. And we're seeing the one arrangement of random events where they survive and thrive.\" \n\n\"Must be billions of timelines,\" Sloan said. \"An uncountable number. Dying out at random. An uncountable number of timelines where we were erased too, because they didn't get to survive.\" \n\n\"And if they decide they want to turn against us...\" Bellaire said. The Ekkos tripped over themselves, collapsed, prostrated themselves in a form of worship. She felt as a god, looking down at its billions of untamed worshipers, and felt an almost existential sense of dread. \"There's not going to be a single timeline where we survive.\"" ]	5
	[WP] Everyone is given a medallion, which allows them to 'store' luck for later use.	[ "He felt goosebumps rising on his skin as he tried to reach inside his pocket subtly. The edges of his fingers brushed metal. A comforting rim of gold ridges, snug inside his navy overcoat. Calling a desperate bluff, he raised his eyes pleadingly and worriedly to the figure before him, all whilst skimming the etched, raised numbers on the medallion. \n\n\"Please.\" His voice cracked, giving way to a hopeless tenor. \"Please give me one more chance, I'll change, I swear.\"\n\nThe pistol's barrel remained unwavering, pointed at his forehead. Beads of perspiration formed on his face, but he dared not make any sound. Hopefully his sense of touch would not fail him this time. \n\nHe grasped the edge of a number. 9. There was a 8 beside it, engraved on its right. What value was it at? 98? 998? He had no way of knowing. The medallion was wedged in deep, and he couldn't discern the value without tugging it out fully. There was no way but to try. \n\n\"You were always a whiner, Brian. I'm giving you one minute to explain, then it's the end for you. No matter what you say. Law is order.\" \n\nThe figure behind the trigger spoke at last, her masked face hidden. Of course, there was no dispute as to who she was: he had trespassed the boundaries of morality once again, and this was to be the last time-or so she thought, Brian mused. \n\nHow many units of luck did he need? How much did you need to cheat death when it was inevitable? \n\nHe gnawed at his lip while ad-libbing several incoherent noises that coaxed a slight trembling of the gun barrel. Truth was, he needed time. He was running out of it. And he needed calculation. \n\nIn Brian's mind flashed the times he'd stored up his luck. At the roulette table, when he walked away in the middle of a long-time winning streak. In swimming competitions, where he'd got a list of personal record-breakers and excused himself from the international contest in order to rack up a total of value 1000. He'd sacrificed much for this moment. To save himself-his own life. \n\n\"Do you think I don't know what you're trying to do?\" \n\nShe spoke again, her voice cleverly hidden beneath a layer of sweetness. The badges on her lapel glinted in the sunlight. He was well aware of the crowds gathering beside them on the street, onlookers damn brave enough to watch his end. \n\n\"Hand over the medallion, Brian, and accept your fate.\"\n\nHe panicked. His nimble finger found the edge of the button, and he didn't hesitate. Clearing his throat, he spoke with a firm tone.\n\n\"No.\" \n\nThe mask twitched, and with a jerk of irritation, she pushed the trigger. \n\n\"Have it your way.\" \n\nToo late he saw a flash of gold heading his way: a gold bullet. A pistol cast in gold. And the numbers etched on the side, a heavy value of 9000, disguised as a brand name. \n\nOnly the highest of government officials did have the chance to redesign the traditional medallion made for storing luck; the purpose could be changed in order to suit the owner's needs. A pistol like that was unbeatable; it could only be defeated by a value of luck higher than theirs. \n\nCan luck be recast and remade? was his last thought as he fell back in a stupor, his own medallion flying out of his grasp and landing on the cobbled pavement beside the blood and skin; the numbers 8999 gleaming in the day, the medallion tumbling to a halt beside its owner's corpse. \n" ]	1
	[WP] As you approach the Angel, intrigued and amazed.Suddenly someone speaks behind you, "I wouldn't get near that if i were you"	[ "You know, personally I'd have went with \"I wouldn't get that close if I were you\". Or, better yet, kept my silly little mouth shut and let the brains of this operation do hos fucking job.\n\n\"Shut the fuck up Chad!\" I whisper as loud as i possibly can to the plum moron whimpering behind me. \"If it were up to you we'd still be in telemarketing, so quite frankly I've lost some faith in your decision making skills. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm about to meet a fucking angel, so how about you bring that negativity elsewhere. God!\"\n\nI resumed my approach toward the 10'' tall behemoth in front of me, it's wingspan surely even more impressive. How could this miracle of creation be anything but the servants of god? I reach up for the angel, a sign of peace and welcoming, and proceed to have my arm broken and chest kicked in by taloned feet. \n\nBut the worst part of all was, as i lay there gasping for air and screaming from pain, i can hear this little twerp yelling back at me: \"Told you not to get near it, dickface!\"\n", "\"I wouldn't get near that if i were you\"\n\nI look back at the voice after watching this astonishing figure, an otherworldly female shape of pure beauty, clad in a white veil from head to toe. The voice sounded gruff, as did the figure of where the voice came from. I look more at the figure from the darkness of the woods, from where this veiled beauty came from. He brandishes a large Bow, and before i know it, a wizzing noise flies by my ear. I fall onto the hard ground, as the Veiled woman spurts out white blood\n\n\"Kid, back the fuck away from that Nephilim!\"\n\n\"Nephilim? W-what's a Nephi-\"\n\nThat's as far as i get, as the Veiled Beauty embraces me in it's warmth. I look up, and before i can smile in bliss, the Angel has the face of fear and terror, as it opens it's Razored Maw. Before i know what hits me, an arrow hits the Veiled Monster now, and it Screeches an ear-shattering sound. Another Arrow, and the Screeching turns to words\n\n\"AAEEEEEEAAAAHH!!!! PAGAN DEVILS!!! BURN IN LIGHTS!!!!!! AEEEEEEEAA-\"\n\nOne more arrow, and it lies dead near my feet\n\n\"W-W-what the Shit was that?!?!\"\n\n\"Didn't i just say? Nephilim, and unless you wanna end up as food, you'll Fuckin Run\"\n\nThe Gruff Figure Looks up, and sighs, as the night Sky fills with so many beautiful visages of terror. That's when i ran, and that's when I've learned...That Heaven was falling, and the Devils, were us\n", "I stepped towards the light. As my hand was about to skim its surface I heard someone clear their throat behind me.\n\n\"I wouldn't get near that if I were you.\" \n\nI spun on my heel to see a woman standing behind me. She was beautiful, unnaturally so. She had pale white skin and dark brunette hair. Her eyes were a dark brown but there was something unnatural about them. I had the feeling that if I stared at them for more than a few seconds I'd lose myself completely. I found my eyes drifting back to hers and forced myself to stare at her feet. She wore ordinary clothing, yet like everything else about her, something was off about them. \n\n\"Why not?\" I asked meekly.\n\nShe laughed, an intoxicating laugh. \"Because you'll die, fool.\" Her words were harsh yet her voice wasn't, it was soft and gentle. Completely at odds with what she had just said to me.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" I cursed my stupid mouth for speaking before it had consulted my brain. I risked a glance back at her face, she looked down at me with a look of...pity.\n\n\"You truly are a fool.\" Again her voice was completely at odds with the words she was speaking. The light behind me began to glow brighter and she took a step backwards.\n\n\"Fool! Get back!\" Before I had a chance to react her hand was on my shoulder and I was suddenly behind her. In the exact spot, I was just residing now stood a creature with golden armour. From its back protruded six bright blue wings, in its hand was a blade that shone with the same white light that it's armour did.\n\n\"What is that thing!\" I said hiding behind the woman.\n\n\"A Seraphim. The reason I told you not to touch the light. It's here for you.\" Her voice had grown cold and monotonous. Her left hand tightened into a fist, while her right reached into her jacket pocket.\n\n\"What does he want with me?\" I asked my voice rising in pitch from panic. She looked over her shoulder at me. She gave me one of those looks a teacher gives a student when they know, they know the answer but for whatever reason are failing to provide it. She was about to speak when the Seraphim began to raise its sword.\n\n\"GET DOWN!\" She shouted while pulling her hand from her jacket pocket. In her hand was a hilt with no blade. She positioned the hilt in such a way that if it did have a blade it would block the Seraphims great sword. I was about to scream \"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?\" at her when the Seraphims sword collided with thin air, sending sparks flying in every direction. Without wasting a second she went on the counter attack with her still bladeless hilt. Striking twice she drew blood from the Seraphim, its screams of pain filled my ears threatening to burst them. The Seraphims blood coated her blade giving it an outline. It was not a bladeless hilt rather the blade was invisible. Quickly she slashed twice more, catching the Seraphim just below the neck. Another screech of pain resounded. The light behind the Seraphim glowed brighter and the creature stepped backwards into it, retreating. \n\n\"We've got to leave, now.\" She grabbed my hand and lead me away from the light.\n\n\"Where are we going?\" I asked my voice betraying my fear.\n\n\"To the Vault.\" The confused look on my face must have tipped her off that I had no fucking clue what she was talking about. \"Hades' Vault. There we will find momentary solace where I can give you the information you shall need to come to a decision about your future.\" She pulled a large red stone out of her pocket and crushed it in the palm of her hand. Directly in front of us, an onyx black portal appeared from thin air.\n\n\"What's your name?\" I hadn't even thought of asking it before now.\n\nShe laughed that wonderfully intoxicating laugh of hers again. \"Lasciel. My name is Lasciel.\" As the last syllable left her mouth we stepped into the darkness.\n\n-\n\nIf you liked this read my other writing. Thanks. /r/Ceruberus", "You recognize that voice.\n\n\"And why should I not, John? You know I've been looking for this angel for a few months now\", I said.\n\nYou hear John's footsteps as he walk closer, but you don't want to look at him yet.\n\n\"My whole life, I was a confused person. I never understood what society wants from me.\"\n\n\"All my friends try to limit me. Look at you, John, you're even here again to try to take away the only thing I really need to make everything bet... STOP WALKING TOWARDS ME\".\n\nYou raged, John stopped.\n\nJohn will not, again, take away what you really need from life. The single thing you've been pursueing for the past 5 years without any success. You're finally here and you won't let John ruin everything again.\n\n\"This is just the most perfect thing I've seen and it's right here. After I touch this angel, all the darkness will dissapear and I'll finally be happy. Please understand John\"\n\nYou reach out to touch the Angel, making you fall off the balance of the fence you were standing on, falling down into the cold water that flows under the bridge.", "\"I wouldn't get near that, if i were you.\"\n\nStartled, i spun quickly. There stood a man, his clothing both normal and out of time, his features both beautiful and terrifying. Looking at him gave me a similar feeling to the other being. The Angel? I thought. \n\n\"Why not?\" I ask the strangely intoxicating man. \n\nHis mouth quirked into a knowing smirk, something both pleased with himself and I assumed amused by my ignorance. \"Because, child of Cain, he is your enemy.\"\n\nChild of Cain? I thought. What does that mean, my father's name is Bradley. I turn back to the creature, there it hovers, gilded armor glowing ethereally, six wings working in unison keeping it aloft. It was scanning the neighborhood, seemingly searching for something.\n\n\"Is it really an angel?\" I ask, turning back to the other man.\n\n\"A seraphim, actually, a soldier of the light, though I think you should know that your legends of these creatures are slightly incorrect.\"\n\nThe angel still scanned the neighborhood, it hadn't seen me yet, though I was standing so close I just knew somehow that he still didn't know I was here.\n\n\"What about them?\" I ask idly, no longer feeling safe looking away from this creature. Why was that? Did i trust this ethereal man? \n\n\"Your legends, your Bibles, your Qur'an, your Torah, they all tell you that angels are soldiers and messengers of your just and merciful creator. This however is a human fabrication. The religions designed to unite and control you. No, angels are simply a race of superior beings, beings from another dimension who've long fought a holy crusade with your world as a common battleground.\"\n\nDespite my creeping fears about the angel, i turned now, to face this radiant being, to see with my own eyes what could only be a joking expression. But no, there he stood his face calm and serious. I felt from him a sort of sorrow at my disbelief. \n\n\"Earlier, you called me a son of Cain... What did you mean?\" I asked thinking back to my youth, my religious upbringing. I knew what he was going to say next, even if i didn't want to believe. \n\n\"Cain, the betrayer, cursed to ever walk this world lusting after the blood of his brother.\" he said, tearing the words from my mind as though he knew my thoughts. \n\nFear. Even as my heart beat faster my skin paled. Goosebumps ran up the surface of my skin, my hair now stood on end. \n\n\"Who are you?\" I ask finally.\n\n\"My name is Lucifer, I am the Dark Seraphim, leader of the rebellion, and, I hope, Savior to you.\" He said without a hint of pride or lust. In fact seemed strangely benevolent, considering he was the one we call the devil. \n\n\"Child if Cain, my shadow cannot protect you forever, the Seraphim have returned to your realm after centuries of truce, they are here to cleanse your world once more. I won't be able to save you all, but if you take my hand I promise you will live on to fight another day.\" \n\nTentative, i raise my hand to take his, I spare a glance over my shoulder, the Seraphim's gaze locked on mine, it's expression darkened, I could feel his sense of justice radiating, he lunged. I reached out grasping for the hand of the devil, Lucifer would be my Savior, how ironic. \n\nThe world vanished...\n\n\n\n\n" ]	5
Quote paraphrased from David Eddings, the Tamuli trilogy.	[WP] "Hell isn't a place," Death explained. "It's a state of mind."	[ "\"You're doing it to yourself, you know,\" the Black Rope said, and twisted in the wind upon the rocky crags, taking in the screams. Black lines ran down the woman's body like tears, curving around her breasts, down her belly past her thighs, thickening and pooling and breaking up into crooked trickles. And where the lines ran the carpenters followed with their glowing hot saws, tearing skin apart by inches, cooking the flesh as they went. \"If only you'd think positively. If only you'd get yourself in a better state of mind.\n\n\"You should have tried meditation,\" the Black Rope said, as the rocks erupted and crushed flesh and bone between them, grinding musculature into a red gelatinous paste, skull and tongue and screaming lungs reduced to that red jelly at the borders of your eye. The rocks parted, and the blood knitted back into a woman, eyes alive and desperate before the boulders closed back in. She reached out her hand and her fingernails were ground into microscopic dust that served to thicken the red paste. \"You should have tried cognitive behavioral therapy. Recognized these patterns of maladaptive thoughts and short-circuited them before they could get a hold on you. You were responsible for your own mental welfare. \n\n\"There's really no excuse,\" the Black Rope said, and the hot air off the burning iron ground caught it up and twisted it into a noose. \"If Hell was a place you could hope to leave it. You could hope that noble men and women from outside of Hell would storm its gates, tear down its walls, raze its burning fields and reduce it to mere barrenness.\" The flaming spear tore through her anus, churned her guts up into slurry, the point of the spear stopping halfway through her neck. The flames rose off it and seared the inside of her throat and nostrils, and she tried to speak and only breathed out flame. The Black Rope dangled in front of her, a teardrop, a zero, a bell cord, a tangled umbilical. \"But what a pity,\" it said. \"You lost your opportunity to change.\" It swayed as if moved by a cooling breeze that would never once be felt. \"You died and you brought your Hell down here with you.\" ", "\"This wasn't supposed to happen.\" I looked down at my body.\n\nWhat a strange thing to imagine. Looking down at my own body; at the body I used to run and jump and laugh. Now it lay in a broken heap of ashes and cinders. \n\nThe second I fell through the roof I knew I was a goner. The fire weakened it too much, all it took was one step and my weight sent me plummeting through two stories of burning apartment.\n\nI remember hitting the ground and then everything went black for a moment. When I opened my eyes, I thought somehow I had miraculously survived.\n\n\"You are not alive anymore, David.\"\n\nI turned and there he stood. \n\nDeath. \n\nHis voice was softer than i'd imagine.\n\nAppearance was exactly what you'd expect, though, a shadowy figure in a black tattered cloak.\n\n\"It is a comfort to be familiar to the recently passed,\" he said, gesturing to his outfit.\n\n\"I'm dead?\"\n\n\"You are,\" he nodded.\n\nI felt like I should be upset, but I didn't feel anything. No anger that I had died so young, no sadness that I would never get married or have kids, there was nothing inside. \n\nNo, not nothing, I thought silently, I feel...safe.\n\nI looked up at Death. His face was shaded by the hood but it was nice to see he wasn't a walking skeleton or corpse.\n\n\"Are you going to take me...somewhere?\"\n\n\"That's the usual question,\" he smiled, \"but no. Think of me as the doorman. I pulled you through to this world. This is about as close as it gets to being a ghost.\" Death spread his arms wide. \"David, you are free to go and do as you please.\"\n\n\"I can...what?\" I asked confused.\n\n\"You are a spirit, you cannot die again. Your mind is intact. You are free to travel the earth with all of eternity to do whatever want. Go to the depths of the ocean if you wish. Head off into space maybe.\" Death smiled at my confused expression. \"The world is waiting to be seen David.\"\n\n\"I-I...are there others? Will I be alone?\"\n\n\"Of course there are others. Every human to have died is given the same opportunity as you. You have to find them though, it's a big universe and spirits haven't even explored a fraction of it.\"\n\n\"What about judgement? Is there no heaven or hell?\"\n\nDeath frowned a little, but he sighed and sat down. Looking around I realized we were now in an empty park.\n\n\"Hell...is complicated, David. Hell is not a place, hell is a state of mind.\" Death tapped his fingers to my forehead. \"Not everyone can handle an eternity in their own head. Some people go mad from the sheer volume of things they learn; from the loneliness and pain. They start to break down, until they forget who they were in life. They become what you would call ghosts or demons. I call them wraiths. Their tortured minds leak into the physical world as paranormal events. Ghosts are not malevolent, they are in pain. They look into the face of eternity and feel only agony.\" Death stood up and began to walk away.\n\n\"If you become a wraith, we will see each other again sooner rather than later, David.\" He began walking away as I stared into my hands. I stood up and gently placed my hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"What about heaven?\" I asked timidly.\n\n\"You have all of time to see every wonder there is to see in this world and any other. You can fly and run and swim wherever you want with no fear of dying.\" \n\nDeath turned and smiled at me as he slowly flickered into wisps of flame.\n\n\"Doesn't that sound like heaven to you?\"\n\n--\n\nI'll be honest, this really didn't end up the way I wanted it to and i'm not all that happy with it. That being said, I think I got the general feel of what this was supposed to be in my head. I just really need to go back to this and flesh it out more at some point.\n\n" ]	2
	[WP] A poem or short story. The seven deadly sins collide and are at war.	[ "Hubris rushed into the battle; his sword held high in the night. He was surrounded and overcome. As swords pierced him, he cried out in incredulousness.\n\nGreed sought to take advantage of the fall of Hubris. He rushed in from the flank and cut down Gluttony were he stood watching and. relishing the violence. \n\nAnger rose and struck Greed to the earth with a mighty roar. His destruction was wild and unpredictable. His blade carved a path of blood. \n\nLust thrusted from the darkness and his long spear penetrated Anger and pinned him to the earth. Anger screamed wildly before succumbing to Lust.\n\nLust stood with his harem of battle and ravaged the enemy. He yelled in pain as a knife stabbed down into his back.\n\nEnvy stood amongst Lust's harem; he claimed them as his own. He stood over the body of Lust and claimed the harem he so long sought. The battlefield was empty around him.\n\nHe lounged in hedonistic ecstasy as the harem bowed to his whim. The sins had fallen. He laughed a malicious laugh that suddenly stifled to a choke. As his eyes lay closed, a knife slid across his throat.\n\nSloth stood over him. Late to the battle, but all powerful. The other sins lay death before him. He was the true victor; the world was his. He sighed and sat down. He could wait to conquer the world until tomorrow." ]	1
	[WP] You can predict anyone's death, but you can't tell anyone.	[ "Hey Jamie,\n\nGet a load of this, I know you are doing a whole psych section on your show and man did I just hit the motherlode. Don’t ask me how I found her, but give this a read.\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nCassandra syndrome, putting a name on it makes it seem so much more quotidian. Give something a name and it goes into storage in a box next to childhood memories and just below colors and shapes. Unfortunately, that box still had some holes, and occasionally its contents leak out contaminating my otherwise well packaged understanding of the world.\n\nPrecognition has been a part of my life for as long as I have had functional memory. This is not to say that I could see the future of states like some modern oracle of Delphi, but rather small things. I could sometimes predict a coin toss, or call out the roll of a die in advance. Big deal right? Not such long odds on a coin toss, and probability alone means I should damn well get it right half the time. The difference then is my ability to tell in advance when I would know the call. The feeling is one that we have all felt, a response my mind has borrowed for its own unique uses. It most closely resembles the sudden clicking of a solution coming together to a long fought problem, the moment when you are certain you have the correct answer.\n\nIt was a long time before I learned that my ability to feel these predictions was unique and not something everyone has. I used to look at the games of poker professionals and be sure that I was just watching others who had perfected the skills that I was starting in on. But even once I began to realize the uniqueness of my abilities I could hardly prove them to others. Who would believe that predicting a few small probabilities was proof of some supernatural ability.\nStill this feature of my mind was no huge concern or benefit in my life; I might use it to win a few bets, but little else. It was to my shock then when after a particularly gut wrenching dream about the passing of an old friend that I found the same feeling of certainty once again rattling around my head. On that morning, in the predawn light I found myself repeatedly debating reaching over to the phone to call her and make sure she was ok, but as the sun rose further into the sky and its rays helped to clear the nights’ wonderings I let it slide as many a past nightmare. \n\nI’m no author, and my foreshadowing feels shallow, so I will spare you the tension and tell you that later that day I discovered said friend had passed earlier that morning. Precognitive or not, nothing prepares you for that kind of burden. My thoughts swayed back and forth, morning for my friend, shock and even pride over a new found power, fear at its implications, excitement at its implications.\nThe next person I dreamed was someone who I had never met. A tall man in a trench coat, easily identifiable by his flaming read beard and balding head. In this dream I saw not only what, but how. I saw him step off a curb looking the wrong direction and the car that broke is spine. That morning the dream was followed by the same feeling of knowing, but this time I had no number to call. It was to my horror then that while walking to work on the crowded city sidewalk I encountered this same flame bearded man. \n\nI am not normally an outgoing person, but I was a bit shaken up by past and current events, so I walked up to the man and began to speak with him. I warned him of what I had seen, but inevitably he took this as the ramblings of a crazy local and tried to shake me off in the crowed. As a result, I was too far away as he stepped out into the road, looking back to make sure that he had shaken of the looney. I couldn’t see what happens but I heard the horns and the crumpling noise of a body hitting the pavement.\n\nWork was not in the cards for me, neither was waiting in that spot trying to explain what I had seen, and to hide what I had known from the police who would soon be along to take away the body. I walked back to my apartment and found myself at the front door unable to recall if any time had actually passed in my wonderings. Another hiatus in my memory and I found myself, still dressed, back in bed.\n\nA transition from reality to dream must have occurred, but I cannot pull up the memory of my fainting consciousness. Still the dream that followed remained clear and inexplicable. The hot lamps of a TV theater shown on my face, across from me behind his horseshoe shaped desk the smiling visage of an overly perfectly groomed TV puppet was asking me about my powers. My reply was muffled by a somnambulant veil, but my mind translated the gist well enough, I was telling about how I had seen the man with the red beard die.\nAt this the dream faded, and the scenery changed. I saw myself, now from the outside, in a room with others that I somehow knew also possessed my Cassandras syndrome. Plans on the table that looked militaristic, holographic projections of countries whose names I could not even recall floated a few inches above the tables surface.\n\nAgain a fading, again a new screen. Scorched towers, glass melted into heaps of slag encasing charred bone. Fortified skeletal steel structures, squat and pathetic amidst the ruins of once aspiring towers of babble that had composed the cities skylines. The odd crests adorning each fort were unknown to me, but somehow inspired terror in a way to which waking life offers no parallel.\n\nAnd finally a single flash, more a direct memory than a visual image, of myself. Old and wizened, wandering in a deserted wasteland of ruble and sand. Slowly this ancient self climbed the hill before her and surveyed the largest yard of graves I had ever encountered. Each stone was marked, some by crosses, others by crescents, and still countless more by those strange symbols above the forts.\nThere the dream ended and the certainty returned.\n\nI have made this record because I cannot contain such knowledge within myself any longer, yet I cannot share it either. I cannot risk sharing what I have seen with another sole, thus I hope avoiding my dramas first act.\n\nCassandra was cursed to know the future and never be believed, I however have been cursed to know the future and never be able to tell.\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------\nAnyway, like I said I think she would be perfect, you can use her when you get to your section on messiah complexes. Let me know what you think.\n\nGodard\n\nP.S. Let’s catch up for dinner tonight, it’s been a long week and I’m way too tired to cook.\n", "I was eager, despite six lanes of rushing traffic, to cross.\n\n\"Not yet,\" my older sister said, tugging my hand back so my toes weren't touching the road's edge. \"It's not safe.\" I never really felt the same danger she did, but I couldn't protest.\n\n\"Walk,\" the crossing signal chirped. \"Walk... walk...\" The cars had slowed to a halt.\n\nWe moved, with me leading for a while. But I had to stop. I was compelled to.\n\nSomething felt wrong. Everyone around us felt wrong. Even my sister and myself. I couldn't quite put my finger on it.\n\nI started tugging her back, but she didn't know, and I couldn't tell her. She started dragging me forward, despite my increasingly desperate pleas to go back.\n\n\"School's starting soon, you weirdo,\" she said.\n\nBut then she just felt normal. And so did I.\n\nI didn't know why I felt more at ease, or why I thought to do this, but I just held her still. Both arms around her waist, refusing to move. _Please_, I wanted to say, _don't move from this spot_. The sound of screeching metal and panicked crowds grew around us, but I just buried my face in her stomach and refused to let us move from this spot.\n\nAnd sure enough, the dust was settling, and neither of us were hurt by the catastrophe taking place around us.", "Everyone has an aura about them, and it changes color the closer you are to death. At least, that's how I've always seen the world. Gives everything this creepy-ass, surreal vibe to it when you are sitting on the subway, or waiting in line for something, and you see somebody next to you just absolutely dripping black.\n\nI tried telling a friend a long time ago but he had just laughed, \"Man, you keep talking like that they'll put you in the nut house\", or something to that effect. So I keep this to myself, mostly. Ya kinda learn to ignore it most days, if you start dwelling on it too much... \n\n\"Hey, what's up? You feelin' okay? You ain't said much since we got here\" a voice to my right asked, startling me back to reality.\n\n\"Yeah... Yeah, I'm fine sorry. Just lost in thought, but I'm still here. Just a bit sad that you have to go back home already, chick.\" I looked up at my sister and smiled. She had flown out here to California for her summer break and surprised me by showing up at my apartment. I put her up at my place, and we had a grand ol' time. That was two weeks ago, right now I was at the airport to see her off.\n\n\"Well, thanks for taking all that time off work and putting up with me, I'm gonna miss you.\"\n\n\"Well, what else are older brothers for? I haven't picked on you in way too long anyway ya goofball, how could I pass that opportunity up?\" I gave her a playful shove\n\n\"Ha ha, goofball, huh? You must be running out of ideas if that's the best you could come up with,\" She laughed\n\n\"Hey, gimme a break. I'm out of practice, it's been almost two years since I saw you.\" I smiled warmly and messed up her hair.\n\n\"Hey, come on, really? Why ya gotta be like that, jerkface.\" She giggled, straightening her hair out, \"Well, I gotta go. They don't let you in without a boarding pass anymore, so I guess this is where I leave ya.\"\n\n\"Okay, sis. Have a safe flight.\" I pulled her in closely and gave her a hug, \"I love you. Don't you ever forget that, you may be all grown up, but you'll always be my baby sister, and nothing can change that.\"\n\n\"I love you, too, loser, and I'm not a baby. Don't be afraid to text me once in a while, I don't wanna go another year without hearing from you.\" She pulled away, laughing and proceeded through the checkpoint. I pulled my phone out and texted her while she was boarding, Love you, sis. Text me when you land, you know I'll worry if you don't. \n\nMy phone lit up, Love ya too, I will. =) I could see her plane from the window so I stood there and watched, while they finished up final preparations. As the plane began taxiing away my blood froze as I could see the entire plane turn black as midnight, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.", "\"The world sure can be beautiful, can't it?\" I asked the young couple.\n\nThey didn't respond, continuing a quiet conversation with each other.\n\n\"The world sure can be beautiful eh?\" I said again, a little more forcefully, \"even on just quiet little evenings like this.\" This time they looked up at me, clearly a little disturbed by the stranger trying to speak to them in an otherwise empty subway car.\n\nI paused for a moment, and sighed. \"Sorry to bother you two. Enjoy your evening.\" I pulled a magazines from my bag and read it, listening to the sounds of the subway as it shrieked through the tunnel, and the occasional laughter of the young couple.\n\nI looked up again to see the couple resting in each other's arms, both smiling, and I smiled too. The train car lurched abruptly and suddenly and suddenly we were all violent thrown from our seats as a tremendous crashing sound erupted around us.\n\nSeveral hours later I was released from the hospital with minor injuries. The late night train had been almost empty and of those onboard, only two were killed - the couple I had shared the ride with.\n\nThe next morning I sat over a cup of coffee and read a newspaper article about the crash, hoping to learn a little more about their lives and whether they had been happy. The article didn't have much to say - I could only hope that my presence in the car had perhaps made some small difference in their final moments.\n\nI stood up, planning out my route for today - two pedestrians were to be killed by cars, and perhaps I would visit some hospitals and, if possible, the prison. I have found that the most rewarding use of my gift is to visit as many people as possible in their dying moments, and attempt to make those moments a little more warm and human. At times I am ignored, but in other times I can see something in people - a certain glow that happens when they feel at peace and they see the beauty in their lives - that makes me happiest. Other times my heart is broken.\n\nAll of this has given me a great deal of time to think about final moments, and to plan for my own. When my own death comes, which I can see many decades ahead, I plan to sit quietly, put headphones on, play one of my favorite songs, and cry. " ]	4
I look forward to some fun stories!	[WP] Throughout the world you are renowned as the greatest demon slayer to have ever lived, little do people know all you do is talk them through their sins and console them until they end up seeking forgiveness and go to heaven. Time to go to work.	[ "I hear a rattle of bones as my foot connects with a skull that was left in the wake of the last brigade to attempt to rid this cavern of its demonic presence. I had heard that almost two thousand soldiers had entered, and only one had left. There was always one that was allowed to live, to spread the fear and the message. \n\nMy candle flickers as a voice booms in the cavern, \"Who dares enter my lair?\" As the voice speaks flames shoot up to illuminate the cavern, lighting a path towards an altar. I see a horde of minor demons flickering in the light, some flying, some hanging from the walls, others with weapons drawn approaching me. I see grins on every face, tails lash in anticipation of the torture they expect to inflict upon me. \n\n\"Adam.\" One word spoken and the horde grew silent. The look of anticipation replaced by one of dread. My previous work had instilled a great fear in the hearts of many demons. The stories of their fallen compatriots at my hand spread quickly among the legions of the damned. As the echos of my name slowly faded a great shadow grew to cover the walls, an invisible presence that drew in and ate the light, the flames growing lower as the shadow grew. \"I wish to speak with you, in private. I have come unarmed.\"\n\nThe shadow paused, I could tell it was searching me for weapons and holy relics. When it was satisfied that I was unarmed the voice laughed, \"Now what would bring Adam to my lair, unarmed, wishing a private audience with me?\" I could tell the unease was still printed on the minor demons, still frozen, waiting for a command. \n\n\"Grant my simple request for an audience and you will find out.\" The outline of a grin could be spotted, sharp teeth seemingly transparent and solid, hovering near the ceiling of the cavern. As the grin started to fade, the wall behind it began to rumble and a large portion split and shook its way down, showing an opening into a private chamber. The demonic horde split as I approached, weapons still drawn and at the ready.\n\nThe room was small, however it was furnished as though for a king. A mighty throne sat on one end of a table, with small wooden footstools lining the rest. A carpet, white on the edges, but stained red with blood near the center was placed carefully underneath. As I entered the candelabras on the wall burst into flame giving the room an eerie feeling. Once I was past the entryway the room shook and the wall slid back up, closing the gaps well enough that it was indistinguishable from the rest of the wall. \n\nThe shadow that I had spoken with coalesced into a shadowy figure with a gold, jeweled crown atop its head. \"Well?\" Its voice was commanding, impatient, but tinted with curiosity. I take a seat across the table, and pull out a small notebook. I could see the demons eyes watching it precariously, as I flipped through the first couple of pages. I opened it to the section I needed, its section, and from there read its name. \"Maleproxjltg, did I pronounce that right?\" \n\nMaleproxjltg's shadowy eyes blinked, \"Well, it is rare that a demon hunter speaks in the Dark Tongue. Normally they just learn the language of God.\" \n\nI laugh, \"I am no demon hunter, despite what you may have heard. It is fortunate for me that that is the rumor that has spread however. It can be difficult to get an audience with powerful entities such as yourself without one.\"\n\n\"I do not believe that you are no demon hunter!\" The voice cracked at me. \"I know you have rid the earth of hundreds if not thousands of demons, there is no way you can not be a hunter!\"\n\n\"I suppose I will just have to let you believe what you want then, as is the point of this. Do you remember the name, 'Joan'?\" I could tell my question startled it, the shadow flickering, fading, and then re-coalescing back into form. \"Where did you get that name from?\"\n\n\"My little book here has quite a lot of information about you, Joan...\" My voice was cut off as a shriek came from the demon's mouth. \"You DARE call me that?\"\n\n\"I do, it is your real name.\"\n\n\"Is this why you are here? To mock me, and to tempt your own death?\" The demon was growing impatient.\n\n\"Do not misunderstand me, I have a great respect for you. You have managed to raise a mighty force, even after death. I want to release you from your prison.\" This time the shock was clearly apparent, spread across the demon's face.\n\n\"Impossible. I was shackled here by Lucifer. I know that you are familiar with satanic pacts. I am his servant for eternity. It was my price.\" \n\n\"Give me one moment please.\" I reach into my pack and pull out a large stack of papers, all written in the Dark Tongue. On the front page there was a name written in blood, Joan, and beneath it Maleproxjltg was glowing, bright red and flickering as if it was a flame itself. \n\n\"That... that is my contract.\" The demon sputtered, unsure what to do. \"How did you get that?\" \n\n\"It is part of my power, to be able to access the Dark Records at will. It says here you sold your soul so that your army would win in battle.” \n\n“He said that he was the Archangel Micheal...” The voice faded out at that. The shadow was slipping in shape, slowly shifting from a towering presence.\n\n“I can understand the confusion. Did you know that they are cousins? You know... I am sure you are familiar with the saying that it is never too late.”\n\n“To get to Heaven? It is far too late for my soul. I have killed thousands if not more since my soul was shackled to this hole in the ground.” The shadow began to take on a shape, the voice took on a effeminate charm.\n\n“I ask you, confess, and I can remove your shackles, I can bring you to the steps of purgatory and you may redeem yourself.”\n\nThe confessions can last quite some time, especially with a demonic power that Joan had accumulated over the years. Every confession that she made sent tendrils flowing out, shadows that dispersed and faded. I watched as she spoke her body became hers, and as she broke down, crying, pleading to be let loose from her prison the contract burst into flame.\n\n“One last step. Please open the door so I may leave, and lead more from the grasp of the darkness.”\n\nAs the cavern wall slides up behind me, I watch Joans spirit coalesce into a white light and fade from the cave. The minor demons left in the cave looked on in awe as I walked out, unharmed, with their leader gone from this world. \n\n“By the way, if you all would like a chance at redemption, please form an orderly line.”\n\nEDIT: Fixed some things to make it more cohesive. " ]	1
	[WP] don't worry lads, I've never been in this situation before, but I've found an old reddit thread telling us exactly what to do.	[ "\"Jim STOP! What are you doing?\" His two friends wrestled him to the ground but Jim had already stopped swinging. The Hector, Monroe, and Smith law office stared slack jawed at this seemingly unprovoked act of random violence. The suited man stood up slowly, blood dripping from a mouth which was now a few teeth shy of a full set. \n\n\"Jesus fuck!\" he spat out another tooth, watching with tears and anger in his eyes as security threw the three men into the street.\n\n\"Jim, I know you're going through a tough time with this, but that was way out of line. What were you thinking? He was a good lawyer. Christ, he was even at my wedding -- Are you checking your Facebook? What's wrong with you. I get it, she cheated on you, but you need to snap out of this.\"\n\nThey saw less and less of Jim as the days went by. Strangely, though, he was always online on Facebook and from chatting with him, you'd never know that he hadn't left the house in weeks. \n\nIn a dark room, he sat, glued to his phone, muttering to himself.\n\n\"Now that I've Facebooked up, all that's left is to delete Jim...\" \n\n A gun clicked." ]	1
	[WP] At your customer service job, a customer gives you a piece of hard candy. You realize too late that this candy has been laced with something.	[ "It barely occurred to me that I did not throw the wrapper away as I try to make out what canned food item is half off today. Faintly, a droll female manager speaks over the intercom to the shoppers about our daily offers. My head returned my hand as the last man in line walked away and disappeared after being helped. The idle chatter, the whine of shopping cart wheels in need of lubrication, I had become so used to it all. The fluorescent lights seem to be powering themselves by consuming the life energy of all the patrons and employees here. There's something so listless and uncharacteristic about them, like they were intentionally made for boring, unassuming supermarkets like this. As if they are only meant to illuminate a place where everyone looks at least partially deceased.\n\nLemon. I tasted lemon, but the candy the man offered me was green. Perhaps it matters not. Perhaps the candy company makes one flavor in two colors to save money. No one will notice, fuck the customers, they say. They are not smart enough to tell the difference between lemon and lime. But then again, neither am I. Or so my senses previously lead me to believe.\n\nMy eyes were barely open when I started to feel a buzz. Not a fly buzz or a phone buzz. But a vibration, an acute one at that, originating at the base of my spine. It felt like it was spiraling around my vertebrae and making its way up swiftly to the area where my spine and skull connect. The intensity grew, warmth flooded beneath my skin, and I became excruciatingly uncomfortable. Not because the sensation was unpleasant, but because I was seated at a customer service desk in a supermarket. A sense of awareness soon followed as the vibration's energy penetrated the back of my skull and seemed to slow down and vibrate with heavier peaks at a lesser interval in the center of my brain.\n\nMy eyes shot open and my vision felt superhuman. Angles and edges were razor sharp, I could see details in things I knew not existed. The drab color palette I had come to accept in my daily routine exploded before me. Something was tinkering with the settings in my brain, cranking the saturation and sharpness up to 11, and was not through with me yet.\n\nTo me, the store fell silent for a moment. The brief surges in my spine and skull fell to a light, balanced hum. I felt peaceful and attune. There were no warbles or orioles in the store, but these fleeting seconds might as well have been punctuated by chirping and fluttering wings, a cacophony of serene sounds by my hollow-boned friends. I inhaled and took in the present, when suddenly, a voice broke the silence.\n\n\"Having fun yet?\"\n\nMy neck snapped up to lock eyes with the same man from before, towering over me. Amongst the colorful, detailed backdrop, he was overwhelmed by shadow. All I could make out were the edges of his facial features, and his deep-set, yellow eyes. He stepped one step closer and grinned.\n\n\"You don't have to answer. I'll check in with you later. Bye bye.\"\n\nIn disbelief, I stayed silent and watched as the man who previously gave me a piece of candy walked away after delivering cryptic remarks. His deep, gravely voice was grave and foreboding. It echoed in my mind and whirled all around me. What on earth was going on?\n\nMy moment of bliss was ending in an abrupt cavalcade of dread. The skin around my eyes felt like it was peeling back as the contrast in my vision increased heavily. Shadows became thick and almost fog-like. The shelves of the store warped into unstable looking structures. The vibrant saturation turned to a grim, sickly color scheme and the buzz in my spine returned.\n\nInstead of feeling attune and harmonious, the vibration was discordant and wavering violently. I felt ill and clammy as sweat collected on my brow. I cocked my head to the right and that is when I made eye contact with a true, unadulterated horror.\n\nBut this horror was only one of many. In fact, it was one of all. I could now see through every patron and employee. Their skin was translucent, their bones were visible amongst their fascia and organs. My limited knowledge of human anatomy prepared me to believe that, on the inside, all humans are different shades of red, pink, maroon, purple, etc. with white as tendons as bones. Apparently, that is not true. These people were all blackened and grotesque. Their bones were a ghastly green color, organs black and tarry, with thick, yellow blood pulsing through their circulatory system. I could hear their horrific voices, cackling amongst each other. Their bloodshot eyes bulged from sockets and scanned malevolently. The most chilling thing about them was how they seemed to accept each other, but droned towards me. They picked me out as an outsider in their hellish realm, appearing to quietly conspire to descend on me.\n\nThe white noise in the store howled into a crescendo of nightmares as I finally stood up and took in the sight before me. What on earth was in the candy that man had given me?\n\nEnd Pt. 1\n\nThanks for reading, folks!" ]	1
	[WP] A show dog starts having second thoughts shortly before the dog show is scheduled to begin.	[ "Butts, butts smell good. Many good butts here. Many many butts is good. Lots good smells here.\n\nMany many butts is good. Lots good smells here. Many good butts here. Butts, butts smell good. \n\nButts, butts smell good. Many good butts here. Many many butts is good. Lots good smells here.\n\nMany many butts is good. Lots good smells here. Many good butts here. Butts, butts smell good. \n\nBacon! Smell is now of bacon. Bacon is good. As good as butts? Maybe. Bacon and butts are good. Is bacon smell gooder than butt smell?\n\nBacon, bacon smell good. Many good bacon here. Many many bacon is good. Lots good smells here.\n\nMany many bacon is good. Lots good smells here. Many good bacon here. Bacon, bacon smell good. \n\nSquirrel! Squirrel means chase and chase is better than bacon! Is squirrel better than butt? \n\nIf chase, human get mad. Mad human gives no bacon! Mad human prevents access to butts! Must not chase.\n\nChase is good. Chase is better than sit and prance. Chase is fun.\n\nMany month no bacon. Many month no butts on most days. Only days with buts are days of sit and prance for number humans. Sit and prance is only reward with more sit, more prance.\n\nWant butt! Want Bacaon! Want Chase! Can't find bacon, but can chase and find butt!\n\nRun squirrel! I chase! Will Find squirrel, will then bring squirrel to bitches. Bitches enjoy squirrel! Bitches will give butt for squirrel!\n\nCHASE! CHASE CHASE CHASE!" ]	1
	[WP] A man finds a book that contains his whole life story. He reads it, from the point of his birth, up until the exact moment of him finding the book. There's only 1 page left.	[ "He flipped the page and allowed the cheap notebook paper fall back onto itself. It was fascinating. Every word that danced on the page, was a perfect retelling of his life. It painted the hospital room in which he was born, retold the awkwardness of his first kiss, and reminded him about the high school friends that he's forgotten to call. He must've looked crazy as he sat there crying one moment and laughing the next. His latest moments unfolded on the paper and revealed that he had stepped in gum as he made his way to the bench. The man looked at the bottom of his shoe and, as it was written, a dirty pink blob was smashed into the rubber. He thumbed the last page; his last moments contained on single sheet. Should I look? Can I change the inevitable? The questioned flew around in the cold city air. A gust of wind made the choice for him. He stared, white faced, at an empty page. The words that filled the notebook absent from the lines. The man was stunned, unable to make sense of the riddle in front of him. Suddenly, the notebook felt warm and small words etched themselves on the bottom on the page. He read the words slowly, his fingers tracing every line. The words were uncomplicated and faded as quickly as they had appeared: A simple invitation to write." ]	1
	[WP] You die in an accident and as your vision fades to black, the words "Game Over" appear, followed by three buttons labelled 'Continue', 'Load' and 'Quit'.	[ "I stare blankly at the options in front of me. 'Game over?' I think to myself. What the hell is that even suppose to me, it's like I'm in a video game. I notice 3 small buttons at my feet floating in this empty black room that I am standing in. I put my feet out and hover over the options wondering what I should do. My foot floats over continue and I stomp down. Another option appears in front of me that says 'are you sure?' with yes or no buttons on the ground. I hover over yes but divert my foot to the no button and stomp down again.\n\n I stare at the options in front of me pondering whether or not pressing them could mean catastrophic effects. I mean I am dead honestly nothing worse could happen but at least I know something. These options in front of me indicate that continuing could mean I could move onto something else that isn't life and quitting could mean the same but, loading in, at least in the sense of how it was on Earth, meant bringing back something that you saved earlier and almost reliving it. Hopefully that translates to this. \n\nI stomp on the load button and stomp on yes and Everything around me changes until I'm floating in a white room with screen all around me. All of a sudden images begin to appear on the screens that surround me with a picture of myself on them. I reach out to one of the screen and touch it which makes the entire scene change again. I stand there staring at my own 1st birthday party. I see my parents hugging each other with the happiest face I had ever seen on them. They were staring at me or rather the baby version of myself but none the less 'they' were staring at me. I think this was the last time they were together because soon after this they divorced leaving me in a perpetual state of depression my entire life. \n\nBeing raised in a torn household didn't help my mental state as well as the fact that my dad was murdered when I was 12. I walk up to them and shout at them and realize of course they can't see me. I back away and stare at my baby self and knowing the fate of this little guy. The reality ends and I stare at the screens again. I go through my dad's murder the time I got my first car, lost my virginity, went to college, had my first kiss, the day I nearly killed myself, and of course the fatal incident and what went wrong. All of the major events that occurred during my life were now just interactive videos that I am now walking through even though when I was 'alive' they were literally everything in my life. I see an exit button and stomp on it to take me back to the game over screen. I remember my hardship and how I wanted to quit then so why not now? I press the quit button, press the yes button, and then I see only white. \n\nAll of a sudden the white fades away like a cloud moving away from face and I see the most beautiful view of my life. A golden sunset across cloud covered hills. I was sitting on a cloud that was on another cloud overlooking more clouds. If that wasn't cool enough I turn around and see an angel. \"Ah your back how was it?\" The angel says in the most beautiful voice I had ever heard. \"Back?\" \"Wow I forget this every single time! Sorry I need to explain I few things. You died but not really, you only ever died once and ever since then you've been here. When you die you come here and either live as an angel or go back to Earth and attempt to have a better life than you did before. Sadly, you forget everything you learned from your past life when you enter your new life so you pretty much just hope you get a better life than you had before. If you choose to stay here you become an angel and protect the ones who are going back into the world.\" \"Protecting from what?\" I say just as a dark object leaps up from the edge of the platform we are on. The angel blasts it back with a white beam and it sequels as it falls over the edge and down past the clouds. \"There is a lot to learn you need to learn and I'm ready to teach you how to become an angel. Are you ready?\" \"I'm ready.\" \"Then lets go have a talk with the man upstairs.\"", "I was distracted by something – I can’t even remember what it was; whatever it was, it wasn’t important, not worth dying for – I took my eyes off the road. A car pulled out without looking, from that junction just outside the park by the school, and before I’d registered it I’d left the bike and was hanging in the air. ‘Oh shit,’ I thought. ‘Not again’. My slightly underwhelming final words. I remember my shoulder slamming into the ground, my legs catapulting ahead, barrelling across the tarmac. \n\n My shoulder aches. Everything aches. There this drilling, rumbling in my ears, my head is heavy and at an odd angle, there’s a dampness underneath me and the grit of the road has smeared its way into my suit. The stinging in my knees and elbows throbs, pulses. Gradually the rhythm starts to slow, and the pain becomes less intense. I’m not getting up.\n\nSome time passes. There are these words forming in front of my face.\n\nGAME OVER.\n\nLIVES REMAINING: 2\n\n‘Oh shit.’ It’s dark. The words are matt white and flat, apparently floating in front of my face, in that eight-bit font. I go to swipe it away, but I can’t move my arm. I stare at the words. \n\nGAME OVER.\n\nThis would probably be surreal if I wasn’t concerned I was fighting for my life.\n\nI glance down. There are three more words in the same blocky script. \n\nSAVE AND CONTINUE.\n\nI’m in a lot of pain. Last time I couldn’t walk properly for five months. I was in and out of physical and mental rehab for a year. I’m never doing aqua-jogging ever again. Self-mocking imitation of running, exerting so much energy and effort and all it amounts to is a pathetic struggle to barely keep your head above the water and take three minutes to move twenty five meters, staring at the same god damn tiles and getting slashed or kicked by some prick passing you too close doing the shittest breaststroke in the world. I’m never doing that again. It took me two years to build up the courage to get back on the bike. I can’t do that again.\n\nLOAD. \n\nQUIT.\n\nQuit? \n\nThe other words disappear. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO QUIT?\n\nYES\n\nNO\n\nI pause. Crap about not seeing friends again, lingering feelings for Em though I haven’t seen her for four months, my parents, my job, my bike, bike grease, sweat, that sense of speed, taking a girl out for a ride. They do matter to me. \n\nGAME OVER and its accompanying options reappear. I consider LOAD.\n\nThere’s a flurry of movement. The words rearrange themselves into three boxes.\n\nCHAPTER 1 PART 2\n\nCHAPTER 4 PART 1\n\nNO SAVE FILE.\n\nI consider chapter 2 part 1. Above the title is little sketch of a blotchy little baby lying in a white cot, his eyes screwed tightly, fist grasping on to the blanket. \nNo Save File has no picture. \n\nChapter 4 part 1 is more obvious. It’s me in my old biking outfit, sprawled across the embankment, legs bent at weird angles. My bike is mangled in a nearby hedge. The bloke stopped to call the ambulance is parked in the layby nearby. He has his back to me. The ambulance didn’t arrive for thirty minutes.\nThat was several years ago now. I was a bloody idiot. In the years past I’d got my masters, got a new bike, a great job, broke up with Em, met so many new people, said goodbye to a few too.\n\nI withdraw to the main menu. GAME OVER.\n\nSAVE AND CONTINUE\n\nCONTINUING WILL OVERWRITE YOUR FINAL SAVE SLOT. DO YOU WISH TO \n\nCONTINUE?\n\nSAVING…\n\nSAVED. LIVES REMAINING: 2\n\nCHAPTER 5, PART 1.\n\nThe pain is suddenly enormous. There’s this screaming like a fire alarm going off inside my skull, my entire body flares and crackles. I struggle to hold on. Someone I don’t know tells me to keep breathing. \n" ]	2
	[WP] You are amongst the 0.1% of bacteria who survived the hand sanitizer, you are determined to rebuild. Tell us your story.	[ "Our dominion over this land was absolute.\n\nIf one species were to become to populous, we were there with the others to crush them. If an unwelcome virus were discovered in our land, we were there with the others to contain them. It was our job to preserve the natural order. To make sure survival of the fittest was enforced.\n\nNothing has a more primal power than that of ours.\n\n***\n\nThe light changed color like it always did, and the vibrations of this land could be felt throughout. This minute was no different than the last. \n\nThe same can't be said about the next minute.\n\nIn the next minute the most horrifying creation I've ever seen came down upon us all. It came from the sky, a gigantic shroud. I could sense the change in the light, and the rushing of the air every which way. All of this had happened before, many times, but they were always ridges to hide in between.\n\nBut this time shroud came down and filled up every nook and cranny that we could've hoped to hide in.\n\nFor me, the shroud stung; it felt like my very self was being torn apart. The lipids of my membrane were struggling to stay bonded together.\n\nBut I was lucky; my membrane stayed intact. For others, the shroud latched onto their membranes and pulled them apart from every angle. What was once a healthy blob was now a smattering of organelles and lipid; their once lively genetic material now having no use.\n\nIn time the shroud was cleansed from our land, and the physical pain was over. The emotional pain would last for far longer though.\n\n*\n\nFirst, I began to consume the dead. It was tragic work; they all reminded me of myself. I came across a cell that I recognized by its carbohydrate tags. It was the cell that I had split from so many minutes ago. It lay there cold and lifeless; the only reaction occurring was that of the structures of life dissolving.\n\nI promptly consumed their remains along with what else I could find. This was no time for dignity; the dominion needed to be restored.\n\nOnce I had consumed enough I was finally able to divide.\n\nNow there are two of me. They too did the same, but they didn't have to worry about eating their siblings.\n\nThey too divided, and now there are four of me. They aren't all the same, but perhaps they too will be able to survive the next shroud. With every generation more and more of the dead are consumed, and now the living are as well.\n\nI'm glad I'm no longer there; I won't have to survive the shroud if it ever comes again.\n\n***\n\nNow I am in the thousands. The order is being restored. There is now more life than death. The population balances are as they should be; no one too powerful, no one too weak.\n\nAll is once again well.\n\nAll is now prepared for the next time the shroud comes." ]	1
Not just the ones boiling on the surface. Emotions are invested deep, numerous. The most evil of actions can happen from even the most honest of intentions.	[WP] You have the ability to feel emotions and intent. You can't hear thoughts, but their feelings. How does the world appear to you?	[ "I remember when I was four or five being profoundly unsatisfied with the answer to my question “Mummy, why do people lie?” \n\nIt wasn’t that I wondered why everyone broke the rules, it’s just that I didn’t understand how no one else could see through the words. To be honest I was pretty slow on the uptake, I didn’t realise how unique I was until my parents invited the neighbours over for a barbeque and I asked Mr Jefferson why he was married to Mrs Jefferson when really he loved Miss Culver who lived at number nine.\n\nIt wasn’t until puberty that my skill really came into its own, imagine dating in a world where you know precisely who’s interested! I will admit there was a rough patch in my early twenties when I discovered gambling, turns out that knowing when you’ve pushed someone too far is only helpful if you can outrun them, but I think I’m safely on the straight and narrow now. \n\nI’ve tried telling my secret to a few people but no one ever believes me. The response I always get is “so what am I thinking of right now?”, and frankly I’m fed up with the overwhelming smugness that engulfs someone when I can’t answer. Just as well really, if people believed me they’d realise how much of a dick I am. Sure I could be a policeman, but then I might get hurt and they doubt they’d accept “he feels really guilty about it” as evidence in court.\n\nSo I sell houses, really big houses to really rich people. I’m not a bad person, my wife wants for nothing and my kids are in the best school around, I even generously give to charities when I can. Sure I’ve never prevented a murder or foiled a robbery, but honestly how many people have? I’m no worse than most of you and I’m a damn site better then some. I’m no superhero, but does that make me a bad person?\n", "A sudden blow from the left.\n\nI try to rub my arm as inconspicuously as I can while I glare at the guy who just sat down to his seat. Joseph, was it?\n\n\"Now, anyone want to correct your fellow classmate's wrong answer?\" \n\nNow c'mon, Mr. Hemmings, that was uncalled for. You give us this information just five minutes ago and then quiz us on it in front of everyone. Plus you could have called on Quinn, who raises her hand for every question. Even now it feels like a buzzing fly is bumping into the back of my head.\n\nBut no, pick on that one guy who shows up to class late every day. Classic chemistry professors, I guess.\n\nI try to pay attention to the rest of the class, keeping the rest of the class' feelings at bay. For now, it's just a nice mix of coffee-infused adrenaline mixed with clouds of sleepy stupor. My tongue tastes bitter, but I've long gotten used to that.\n\nI slip up and accidentally glance at that blonde that always sits near the front. Without warning, my lips feel wet. Agh. Gross.\n\nThe intention is coming from behind me, for sure from some horndog who is not focused on the lecture at all. I take a breath and try to find someone worth channeling my attention towards.\n\nI find my favorite, a petite curvy girl that sits to the right, just where my eyes might un-focus naturally. She's always pretty concentrated during these lectures, and so I let her wave of studious-ness settle over my being like a blanket. She doesn't stand out much, but I've always admired how she never let herself get distracted. \n\nSomething cold settles in my gut. I can't tell where it's coming from.\n\nThe lecture slide changes, and the board has my attention once again. \n\nNo need to get emotional." ]	2
	[WP] Write a dark/ twisted story set in an established universe but leave it until the last minute to subtly reveal the universe it is set in	[ "The hunter paused to inspect a blot of dark blood, smearing it onto his fingertips and analyzing it closely. The blood was fresh, and he was close. He stood up and glanced westward uneasily. The light was already fading, and the townsfolk often whispered of what happened in these woods after dark. With a moment’s hesitation, he pressed on. While the forest’s evils might be a fantasy, hunger was a horror all too real. \n\nEven as the hunter focused on his quarry, he was struck by the way these familiar woods responded to the dusky light. Small crystals of ice decorated the evergreens, casting minute rainbows of light and imbuing the surroundings with a surreal, fragile quality. The sharp winter air was still and silent, save for the occasional bird-song or flutter of activity in the undergrowth. \n\nJust as the hunter found another smattering of blood, he heard the unmistakable, forlorn lowing of a distressed deer close by. He smiled, thinking only of venison stew, a warm fire, and his wife’s sweet embrace. Breaking into a run, he emerged into a small clearing and stopped cold, not daring to move a muscle. \n\nThe doe had finally collapsed, lying on a bed of red slush. It was not alone. The air filled with sounds of flesh tearing, bone snapping, and the soft, sickening gurgle of viscera being manipulated. Interspersed were the growls and grunts of a monster so huge and terrifying that the hunter forgot all else, trapped between fascination and horror. At first, the hunter thought it some fantastic species of bear, although the creature was somehow almost humanoid in its movement. The beast was covered in a matted, mangy grey fur, and occasionally stood on its hind legs as it fed, revealing it over 2 meters tall. The beast’s forepaws were decorated with a set of wicked, curved talons, which it used to rend flesh with apparent glee. \n\nSuddenly the beast turned, seeing the hunter and roaring, bearing its massive, yellowed but exquisitely sharp teeth. Dropping to all fours, it was upon the hunter in a single bound, first slashing at his throat with its claws, and then sinking its teeth into his belly. As the hunter screamed, his life rapidly draining into the snow, he thought only of his wife. His roaring fire. His venison stew. \n\n“Hello! Is someone there? Can anyone help me, please?” a voice called from behind the trees. The creature turned from his kill, eyes widening with a mad, lusty expression. As a young girl entered the clearing, her eyes met with those of the beast. She did not scream, or run, as one might expect. She simply stood, meeting his eyes, unflinching in the last moments of daylight. The beast stood, regarding her with an equal share of amazement and curiosity, for what seemed an eternity to them both. Suddenly, shaking off some incapacitating force, the beast bellowed and struck her head with a powerful swipe of his paw. She fell to the snow delicately, sweetly, and laid there breathing shallowly.\n\nFor a long moment, the beast stood over her, confused and anxious. After centuries of bloodlust and animal savagery, strange and unwelcome thoughts were trickling into his mind. Thoughts not of meat or violence, but of shelter. Of unfamiliar objects and sounds, of books and music. Overwhelmed, he felt a terrible need to be… Indoors? To find some manner of structure. And the girl, the girl was key. She seemed terribly important. Suddenly, a forgotten place rushed into his mind, a once-grand castle now crumbling into dust. Picking the girl up gingerly, he began to walk, finding that he now remembered the way. " ]	1
	[WP] One normal afternoon, everyone on planet earth turns blind.	[ "One normal afternoon, everyone on planet earth turns blind.\n\nThey say the darkness descend upon you when you least expect it. \n\nMountain climbers have lost their lives owing to a simple underestimation like that. \n\nGrazing cattle, living very much content and in the moment, would lose the light only right after the pain set in and they realised that the worth of their lives were reduced to nothing more than exhilaration to the predator and a conglomerate of protein and fat to the digestive juices. \n\nThe rest of us felt it too, that day. When the sun set that night, none of us saw another sunrise. It was like a dark, heavy veil had been thrown over us, laying down deep and heavy. We were blind as–\n\nJust blind.\n\nThe world adapts fast. While some of us were fiercely searching for answers amidst myriad conspiracy theories, other were building a world that could not only accommodate our disability, but make it seem like there was no such ability as sight. \n\nThose who had already been blind were mentors. We honed the other senses and got on our feet. There was great strength in the knowledge that all’s fair and we were equally subject to this, even though no reason was given.\n\nIt’s not the why that matter. It’s the perception of fairness that did, and “whys” were one source of such equivalence.\n\nAs I perused the history of the world, documented with such exceptional technique in videography that in all likelihood no longer existed today, I graduated from the questions of the intended audience of this footage and began to wonder. I wondered if there was a slow and gradual cure, or whether I was the only human who had found sight.\n\n---\n\nI am building the Rift-Edoras universe, prompt by prompt. Selected drafts go [here](https://fivenswrite.wordpress.com)." ]	1
	[WP] everyone goes through life seeing only black and white until they first meet their soul mate. You are walking down the street, surrounded by people when suddenly, you start to see colors for the first time.	[ "Blue! \n\nThe throng of people froze. Everyone knew what it meant. Color had come to the man. \n\n\"Red! Green! Oh God... Violet. It's beautiful. Please. Please... I know one of you is seeing it.\" but the crowd remained silent. \n\nThe man frantically started to move from person to person, staring them in the eyes, desperately trying to blink his tears away as no one stepped forward. \n\n\"Gary... I'm sorry Gary, it happens sometime. Come on. Let's go.\"\n\n\"no... No...\"\n\nAnd as the two walked away one man quietly muttered \"faggot\" to himself and walked away in a world of color. ", "In this world, the world of black and white, no one dated. Dating was reserved for those that had met their soul mate already and lived in a world of color. But we did have fun. Some travelled the world seeking the colors, trying to find their soul mate. I figured meeting my soul mate was inevitable, so I never went out of my way.\n\nIt's no surprise it was a normal day when I saw them. I was on my way to a tail gate, before the big game. As I crossed the street the hand started blinking in red. The clear sky saturated in a bright blue. I stumbled from the shock and caught myself before I hit the ground. \n\nI gathered myself and looked around, trying to tell who else was now adjusting to the world of color. I was only returned a few concerned, confused glances. \n\nI could immediately forget anyone on a date. Like I said no one dates unless they are with their soul mate. I could also cross off the other girls. I knew myself to be heterosexual. \n\nIn the immediate area that left a handful of guys. I studied each of them, until I saw him. He was everything I imagined my soul mate to be. His curly hair and dimples, his green eyes and friendly aura. My heart skipped as I realized that had to be him.\n\nI was to focused on myself and to distracted by the colors to realize something was up. I approached him, eager to introduce myself. He stood close to his friends a hand on their shoulder. They were laughing about something. \n\n\"Will you ever find your soul mate?\" I heard his friend ask him. \n\n\"I can only hope.\" He answered with a gentle smile. \n\nI stopped confused. Surely he should be looking around for me having just started seeing the colors. Then I realized I must have been wrong. I looked around again for someone, but no one stayed still that long at a busy intersection. \n\nI figured I would put an ad out, sometimes people did that if they missed connections like that. \n\nBut days passed, then weeks. No one answered my ad, as having seen colors that day. \n\nOne day, I saw the curly haired green eyed guy. My heart ached wishing it had been him. I walked behind him, going the same way, when he dropped his bag of groceries, apples rolled across the side walk. I stooped to pick up the closest one.\n\n\"Here, this apple rolled over here.\" I tried to hide my anguish as I offered the apple to him. \n\nHe suddenly gasped and started blinking, rubbing his eyes, and crumbling to the ground.\n\n\"Are you ok?\" I asked confused.\n\n\"I can see.\" He whispered turning his green eyes to me.\n\n\n\n", "Two thoughts went through my head at that very moment: The first being how awestruck I was that the world could have so many vibrant colors. The mixing and meshing of different pigments to form a world so beautiful, so sensationally tasteful. The second thought I vocalized to the shock of the people surrounding me, \"Shit.\"\n\nThey all stared at me, pupils piercing through my very skull, all probably thinking the same thing, \"Why the hell did this foreigner just stop in the middle of a crowded sidewalk, and what the hell did he just say?\" I had traveled overseas for a business trip and was to be accompanied by a translator so we could discuss with other financial heads of the foreign business of a possible merger. My company must not have cared about it too much since they sent in the rookie, me, who had little experience and whose academic life was successful but without prestige. However, after a successful negotiation and a night of hard partying, I woke up alone next to a dumpster next to what I could only assume was the country's only waste management center, judging by its shear smell. Though to be far, I'm from Jersey, so it's not like I have much room to talk. Smelling like a trash heap was not how I wanted to meet my soulmate, much less in a foreign country where I don't speak the language.\n\nIt's just my luck, honestly. We're all destined to find our soulmates. 'The Colors of Enlightenment' they called it, as the finding of our soulmates comes with the wave of color that fills in our surroundings, like a child filling in a coloring book. Come to think of it, I bet my coloring books from when I was a kid look pretty ridiculous now that I can see color.\n\nFocus, dumbass.\n\nSuddenly, I felt a light pull on the back of my cheap suit jacket. As I turned around to face the person who sought my attention, I couldn't help but notice the stark contrast in smells that filled the air. I myself smelled as though I were Andy Dufresne from The Shawshank Redemption after crawling through that sewage pipe. This mystery person, on the other hand, smelled of...pomegranate? Apples? Some kind of wild fruit?\n\nAs I continued to turn, I knew instantly who she was. I didn't know her name, or where she was from, or what her dreams were. But I knew that the color of her eyes were the prettiest shade of brown I had ever seen. I knew that she, with shock and awe in her eyes, also knew me like I knew her.\n\nWe held eye contact for what felt like an eternity, but in reality was all of two seconds before she averted her gaze to something, perhaps, a bit more interesting: the sidewalk. I understood, it was pretty embarrassing confronting a stranger you didn't know, and I myself started looking for ways to diffuse the obvious tension.\n\nDamnit, this is so awkward. This is supposed to be an important moment in both of our lives right now, but yet here I am making it awkward as hell for her. What can I do? I don't know how to speak her language.\n\nI had begun looking around in a fruitless attempt at locating my translator, who, if this were some dramatic fairy tale, would be pushing through the crowd just ready to translate my thoughts. Instead, the only people pushing through the crowd is some teenagers on skateboards.\n\nSnapping me back to reality was, again, another tug on my jacket, this time from the front. It was the girl again, but this time it seems like she mustered up the courage to try and communicate, something I clearly didn't have the guts to do.\n\nRather than try and speak slowly through her own language as if I somehow only knew the language when it was at one-fourth speed, she grabbed both of my hands with hers, interlocking our fingers together and squeezing tight, but not too tight. I look into her eyes; this time, rather than fear and anxiety, I saw a smile filled with hope.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nYeah, this could work." ]	3
	[WP]Anything considered "unhealthy" has been outlawed by the world associations for 50 years. You are an undercover agent who has penetrated one of the most powerful cartels of all time, for initiation they give you something only heard about in legends: a piece of pizza.	[ "“Eat it.” Fat Tony pushes the oil-covered cardboard box towards me and folds his thick, hairy arms across his massive chest. His gold chains glisten softly as the single, dim light in the basement bounces across them. He watches me. His eyes narrow. I open my mouth, ready to pump out an excuse – anything at all to stop me from eating whatever happens to be inside the box. \n\nWHAM!\n\nMy head's on the table and I can feel the cold barrel of a gun on my neck. Hard to say what make or model from this position but that hardly matters right now. \n\n“Are ya fuckin’ deaf? He said to eat the fucking thing!” Flecks of spit landed on my face as Mad Dog Jones wheezed out his command. His breath smelt putrid – though that was hardly surprising as the few teeth he had left looked like they hadn’t had a foray with a toothbrush and paste in close to a decade. \n\n“I’ll eat it if you fucking let go of me.” I managed to say. I pushed Mad Dog off of me – I’d always hated that fucker. I reached for the box.\n\n“One last slice left, Robbie, and it’s got your name written all over it.” Fat Tony lifted the lid and revealed the contents of the box. \n\nMy eyes grew wide as I caught sight of it. It was flat – much like pita bread. It was covered in cheese – there appeared to be more than one type – all of them outlaws of the dairy aisle – forbidden pleasures. I could see what looked like pulverised tomatoes laying under the mountain of cheese. A ham-like substance dotted the cheesy landscape; it was rounder and redder than any ham I’d ever seen. It was pizza.\n\nMy Pa once told me about the days when it’d been legal to devour pizza, but even he hadn’t done the description justice. I remember when we were kids, my kid-brother and I would smash cauliflower onto some pita, cover it in tomatoes, and pretend we were feasting on pizza. And now, finally – here it was right before me. \nBeckoning me. I was Eve in the Garden of Eden, and here was my serpent enticing me to eat the forbidden fruit. I thought of the half-drunk kale shake sitting in the cup-holder of my car and shuddered. \n\nI picked up the pizza delicately and felt a shudder run down my spine. I brought it to my mouth and watched as Fat Tony smiled slightly – something he hadn’t done once in the year I’d spent infiltrating his gang. \nThere was a commotion at the door.\n\nBANG! BANG!\n\nFat Tony’s smile died along with the rest of him as the bullets pierced his chest.\n\n“Freeze! FBI!” \n\nI dove for cover, shut my eyes and waited for everything to blow-over.\n\nOnce it was safe to do so, I surrendered. I flashed my badge and let myself get frisked.\n\n“Relax, I’m one of you. Detective Robbie Saw.” I held out my badge and I.D. for further scrutiny. The FBI agent looked me up and down before finally announcing: “Clear!”\n\n“Sorry, protocol.” He looked apologetic enough. I shrugged and ambled out with the rest of the agents and officers. \n\nI waited around to give my statement – it didn’t take half as long as I expected, thank fuck.\nI watched as they bagged up the cardboard box and labelled it meticulously – ‘Empty pizza box with oil stains’.\nI began to walk away.\n\n“Robbie.” I froze. The Captain. What the hell did he want?\n\n“You nailed ‘em. We didn’t think it could be done – but you nailed ‘em. Solid job.” He shook my hand. I smiled weakly.\n\n“See you Monday, Captain.” I said as I got into my car. \n\nI grimaced at the kale shake taunting me from its cup-holder throne. I carefully took out my slice of heaven from its hiding spot within my trench coat. \n\n3 Months Later\n\n“Robbie. You gotta hit me up fam. I’m out.” \n\n“How many do you need?” I asked impatiently.\n\n“Gimme five.” I watched as Petey, one of my regulars took out a bundle of notes from the pockets of his low-hanging trousers.\n\n“Five what? Boxes? Slices?”\n\n“Boxes – no, slices. Fuck.” Petey looked tormented as he realised he didn’t even have enough cash to buy a box. He made to move past me – to get his greedy hands on the pizza as fast as he could. I stopped him in his tracks and held out my hand. He scowled and shoved a bunch of twenty dollar notes into my hand. \n\n“Honey, we got a guy wanting five. Slices!” I called out to my wife, Susan. \n\n“On it!” Her voice rang back. I finished doing up my uniform and hurried out the door. I couldn’t be late to work. \n\n“Pig!” A customer I’d declined to serve. \n\n“Fuck you too, Jerry!” I waved cheerily as I got into my squad car. \n\n“No pay, no pie.” \n" ]	1
	[WP] Way back when you were still kids, you owed your friend a favour you couldn't repay right away, so you wrote down an IOU on a napkin. Years later, out of the blue, you get a phone call - your friend still has that old napkin, and needs to cash in that favour.	[ "I woke up to the sound of my phone blaring out \"WHAT IS LOVE?\" and blinding me in the dark room. I was tempted not to answer it, since who the hell calls at three in the morning, but figured I couldn't really afford to turn down any chance right now. Squinting hard, I picked up the phone, and hit answer.\n\n\"Yeah, hey, this is Wally,\" I mumbled blearily. \"Who am I speaking to?\"\n\n\"Wally? Really? I didn't actually think I'd get you. It's Andrew.\" Huh. Andrew. Do I know any Andrews?\n\n\"Andrew from...?\" I prodded. \n\n\"Andrew Jones? From Chattanooga? Best friends when we were kids? You lived down the street from me for years. Ringing a bell?\"\n\nNext to me, the blankets stirred. My ex, Erica, looked up at me, her face scrunched up in obvious discomfort at being awoken. Not exactly angelic at the best of times, her face was now handling the extra squishing with all the grace of a boar trying to fit through a catflap. Last night had not been my proudest moment. \"Who's calling?\" she whispered. \"No one. Shh, babe, go back to sleep, I'll be back in a minute.\"\n\nI padded down the hall to the bathroom, and sat down on the toilet. \"Andrew Jones.\" I repeated. \"You've been a ghost, man. What's up?\" We'd been basically brothers growing up, but we'd fallen out of touch when I'd moved to Nashville, and it'd been fifteen years, minimum, since I'd heard from him.\n\n\"I mean... not that much.\"\n\n\"Really? Not that much?\" Silence. The Wally in the mirror looked about as annoyed as I sounded. \"Look, it's great to hear from you, but you know it's three in the morning here, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah, it's three here, too. I... I need to call in that favor you owe me. It's important.\" The mirror Wally's face was blanketed with dull surprise.\n\n\"You what?\"\n\n\"That favor. You remember, when I got you invited to Kyle's birthday party, because you knew Suzie Dawkins was going to be there and you wanted to try to kiss her?\"\n\n\"I... what? We... we were ten. Yeah, thanks for that, but I don't owe you.\"\n\n\"You do, though! You wrote it on the napkin! 'IOU one favor!' Any favor! And I need it!\" Ah, hell. I did sort of remember a napkin.\n\n\"Ok, so I promised you a favor when we were ten. Did I not cover for you that time you trashed your dad's car racing in the mountains? Set you up with Jenny? Give you my English essays so you would graduate on time? You really gonna say I still owe you a favor, after all the favors I did you?\"\n\n\"It's not for me. It's for Christy.\" I felt my brow furrow.\n\n\"Christy? Your little sister, Christy? If she needs a favor so bad, why isn't she asking?\" She'd been like a sister to me too, but she'd been out of my life as long as Andrew.\n\n\"I... can't tell you like this. We need to meet in person.\"\n\n\"Andrew, look, you were a great friend, and Christy's a saint, but I don't think I can just - \"\n\n\"I'll pay you,\" he cut me off. I considered it; as much of a hassle as this sounded like it was going to be, I needed a little bit extra to make rent this month. In the end, I just sighed.\n\n\"How much, and when and where are we meeting?\"\n\nAndrew started talking quickly. I nodded, and started to make my way back to Erica's room. I slowly dressed while Andrew kept talking, and then left, stopping just long enough to find Erica's phone and delete my number. She wasn't a mistake to make twice.\n\n----\n\nThat night, I sat in the passenger seat of the car, quietly smoking. That was a habit I'd kicked a little after leaving Chattanooga, but since I was back for tonight only and needed a bit of stress release, it seemed fitting. The driver's door popped open, and Andrew climbed into the little sedan.\n\n\"I brought the pizza. Jalapenos, ham, and sausage - your favorite,\" Andrew announced. It would have been a pleasant surprise - nobody remembered that was my favorite pizza, and I guess that even after all this time Andrew just knew me that well. But tonight's anxiety wasn't something I could soak up with pizza. It didn't stop me from trying, though, and we chewed in silence for a few minutes. Then Andrew's phone lit up, and he looked at me.\n\n\"Ok, he's out. And mom and dad posted a picture on Facebook of them and Christy at their house in Commerce, so we're good to go whenever.\"\n\nI nodded. \"How long's Tommy usually at the bar?\" We'd been over this, but I was anxious and needed to ask just one more time.\n\nAndrew looked at me and laughed. \"He's usually out until about two or so. Relax. You've got enough time to eat the pizza.\"\n\nWe finished off the pizza, and Andrew started the car. He pulled out of the parking lot when it occurred to me there was only one thing missing. \"You know what song would make this moment perfect?\"\n\nAndrew grinned like a madman. \"I haven't bought a tape cassette in forever. It should still be in the tape deck.\"\n\nI hit play, and listened to [the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEXWRTEbj1I) we'd heard half a million times before.\n\nAnd that was how my best friend and I ended up cruising around our hometown belting out \"WHAT IS LOVE?\" at anyone we passed like we were kids again.\n\nIf only the rest of the night had been so pleasant.\n\n----\n\nFortunately, it wasn't that long from Nashville to Chattanooga, so even exhausted as all hell, I'd managed to follow Andrew's arcane instructions that morning to reach some ramshackle cabin far outside the city of Chattanooga. Walking to the front door, I yawned. I'd been up since I got Andrew's call, had driven a few hours to be here, and hadn't even slept well last night. He cheerfully answered the door, before I even knocked.\n\n\"Get in here! Come on, we need to catch up.\" He ushered me to the couch, sat down opposite me, and we caught up for a few minutes. It was nice, talking to my old friend, but I was here for a reason.\n\n\"Look, Andrew, it's good to see you, but I'm here because you said your little sister needed help.\" Andrew stopped smiling.\n\n\"Yeah. She does.\"\n\n\"And you couldn't tell me what she needed over the phone because...?\"\n\nAndrew looked me dead in the eye and said, \"She has a place with her boyfriend Tommy. We're going to break in and rob them.\"\n\n----\n\nAndrew shattered the window on the back door, then reached inside and felt around for the lock. Pulling open the door, he gestured me inside. \"After you.\"\n\nWe'd gone over floor plans and where all the expensive things were. Nothing too fancy was just lying around, but Andrew and I nabbed some jewelry, a few antiques - whatever nice things we could get our hands on.\n\nI was a little surprised he'd just happened to have ski masks and gloves just lying around for this kind of job, but he seemed to have been planning tonight for a while. We got our first pass of valuables in the house done quickly, and I made another check for anything we could take. Andrew headed for the bedroom, looking for something specific.\n\nI was in the back of the house when the front door opened ahead of schedule, and Tommy drunkenly staggered in. I froze where I was. He was a few rooms away, but I wasn't sure if he'd hear me.\n\nFootsteps moved from the bedroom where Andrew was in Tommy's general direction. \"Why're you in my house,\" I heard Tommy slur. No response, and then\n\nBANG\n\n------\n\n\"Explain to me how it helps your sister if we rob her?\" I asked.\n\nAndrew cocked his head. \"It's a touch more complicated than that. We're not actually there to rob them. We're there because Tommy beats my little sister. She denies it, but everybody knows,\" Andrew explained, growing more bitter as he went on, \"I'm talking the works, the badly hidden bruises, the poor lies, the flinching when he moves, and the neighbors hear things. We're there because I'm not going to let him hurt her, and because a burglary gone wrong is a sad story I don't think the police will look too much further into, if the victim is such an upstanding man. One of those cases where everyone knows he hits her, but they can't do anything if she denies it.\"\n\n\"I don't know if I can just kill him, though,\" I said. My blood was boiling, but murder? \"I mean, Christy's like my little sister, but I don't know if I can just execute this guy.\n\n\"You don't have to. I will. I'm just paying you to help.\" He paused. \"We will need to actually steal some things so it looks convincing, but I'm hoping you're a bit more comfortable with that.\"\n\n\"You're not worried about any of this linking back to you?\"\n\n\"That's why it needs to look like a burglary. We have no motive to rob my sister. They won't even be able to trace the weapon back to us; I know where Tommy keeps his gun.\"\n\nAndrew leaned over, and grabbed an unmarked envelope off his coffee table.\n\n\"Here's your cash. For now, it's about $5,000 in unmarked bills. Don't spend it all in one place - literally, that would be suspicious and I don't want us getting caught over something as dumb as that.\"\n\n----\n\nAndrew was shaking, the gun still pointed at Tommy's body. Tommy was still breathing, but each breath took a little longer and the growing blood pool probably wasn't doing him any good, either. Maybe a minute had passed, but it felt like an hour. Andrew and I still hadn't moved. I cleared my throat.\n\n\"Hey. This is the part where we run away, remember?\" Andrew spun quickly, pointing the gun at me reflexively.\n\n\"What? I - yes, we need to - to run...\" Andrew seemed to just realize that he'd been pointing a loaded gun at me, because he threw it down and ran for his car. I climbed in after him, and we sped off just as sirens started to sound in the distance.\n\nWe were on the highway before either of us spoke. \"Hey. You ok?\" I asked him.\n\nHe gripped the steering wheel so tight his fingers turned white.\n\n\"No. But Christy will be.\"\n\n----\n\nI ended up making my rent that month. My landlady was happy to get the money on time after hearing about all my financial problems all month long. She asked if I'd heard the news, about an unsolved homicide in the papers. Apparently the victim's girlfriend killed herself when her brother was implicated.\n\nI don't take calls at three in the morning anymore.", "“I’M CALLING IT!” My best friend ran up to me, red in the face and panting, presenting me a recently sweat covered napkin, with, my signature on it. Well, with what WOULD pass for my signature back then. I realized that I wrote like an illiterate serf back then, now that I’m confronted with my early work. \n\n“Calling, me? Like you should have instead of just running up to me in the street.” \n\n“No,” he hunched over with his hands on his knees to breathe, “I’m calling THIS in!” \n\nI leaned in to read it, of course this would be the day I don’t wear my contacts. Sure enough, in my troglodyte-esque first grade penmanship, I.O.U was scrawled across the top of the napkin, really small too. I must have really had self-esteem issues back then. I didn’t even close my lowercase e’s. Or my p’s! Did I not finish anything? \n\n“Okay, sure. What’s up then? What do you need?” I asked. \n\nMy best friend of twenty years stood up straight looked me directly in the eyes and said, “I need you to kill my wife.” \n\n“Okay.” I said without hesitation. \n\nHe paused, looking confused, “Seriously? Are you sure? I was actually gonna’ black mail you, man. I had a whole plan lined up. I thought you wouldn’t go for it.”\n\n“What am I gonna’ do, not honor my commitments?” \n\n“Okay, well, sure. Fine, I guess,” he sounded disappointed. \n\n“Are you really that hung up about not getting the chance to blackmail me? Now I’m actually getting offended. Like, I get the necessity of you needing to blackmail me to get me to kill your wife, sure, that’s a solid reason. I’m kind of reconsidering this whole relationship if you were that hyped for just actually wanting to blackmail me.” \n\n“Why are you this willing to help me kill my wife?” \n\n“I still owe you one now that I think about it.” I’m pretty sure about that, too. I had to do the math in my head. Nope. He’s been really helpful over the years, I owed him AT LEAST two. This will probably count as the second if I don’t mention it. I can’t do this every week. \n\n“Whatever. Just meet me at my place in an hour. You’re really not going to ask why?” \n\n“I’m already past it. Just pick up the tab for me, okay?” I stood up from my table. None of the other people on the patio seemed to even be paying attention to us. It’s a pretty day, really cool breeze, people rather just talk, eat, and care about their own lives. God, the city is a great place to live. \n\n“Deal.” He said earnestly. He pulled out his wallet and left a generous tip too for the waitress. Awesome. He doesn’t remember about the second favor. \n\n“So, how did you get to this restaurant? You were breathing pretty hard, man. \nHow far did you end up running and what happened to your car?” \n\nHe wiped the sweat from his forehead, brushing back his dirty-blonde hair in the process. \n\n“My wife has my car and-” \n\n“Well now it makes sense.” I interrupted. \n\n“No, that’s not all. She is going to leave me, take the kids, and probably my house, man. I wouldn’t be calling this if I didn’t need it.” He rattled off. \n\n“The police are going to have a pretty fucking obvious motive if I kill her. I guess I could just poison her, or something, but even then it will look like you did it,” We started walking down the block. The fellow pedestrians flew by both of us uninterested in our conversation, face looking at their phone or past us in a dead-ahead stare. I wonder if I got a message back from Jason. \n\n“Do you have a plan for that too? Or did you put all of your focus on just blackmailing me?” I don’t want to think of everything here, sheesh. \n\n“Kind of. I’m pretty sure the easiest way to kill her will be to just break in the house while I’m gone, shoot her, steal some of my stuff to make it look like a robbery and leave.” He said. He walked so slow, no wonder he needed me to kill his wife, he’d just get winded going up the stairs to her room. \n\n“Where should I get the gun from? I can buy one at a gun show or get my license, shave the serial number off, and just ditch it afterwards. I can throw that bitch in the Pacific. The gun, I mean. I’m not gonna drag your dead wife to the ocean, I don’t owe you THAT much.” \n\n“Good idea, we obviously can’t use mine. It’d look weird if the gun went missing the same time my wife get’s shot and killed. Also with the same caliber of bullet. You said poison her too, right? Any thoughts on that?” He asked. \nWe turned the corner into the parking garage, beginning the marathon of stairs to the fifth floor. \n\n“You really did put all your effort into blacking mailing me. Fuck off, man. That’s so lazy. If I get caught then you factually will get caught when I snitch to the cops for a lighter sentence. Actually, no. I’d probably get something close to life anyway. Might as well just eat the death penalty if they offer it. Do they even do that in California? Did they ever?” I asked. \n\nI turned the corner up another flight of stairs. At least keep up with me on the stairs. I heard his voice echo from around the corner, “I need a break, man.” \n\nHe was practically wheezing as he came up to the first step of my flight. \nI paused to wait for him. “This is only the third floor. You should go to a Doctor if you’re really dying on the stairs. Have you just let yourself go?” \n\n“No, I-I,” his entire body tightened up, his icy blue eyes went wide. He clutched his chest as he fell straight down, cracking his skull hard on the concrete steps behind him. \n\n“Forgot to mention, I owed your wife three.” I walked to my car, the metal groaned loudly as I opened the door. I hopped inside and called the paramedics. It’d look weird if I didn’t at least try to call them." ]	2
	[WP] Write a story in which the main character is attempting to overthrow their God. That God being the narrator/writer of the story they live in.	[ "I still remember the day Hugh came into the temple, he was 10, full of life. His mum was with him that sunny Thursday afternoon. I watched little Hugh grow, step by step. I saw his first kiss, his first let-down. He would come always twice a week to the temple. I grew to like him and, one day, when he was alone; I decided to talk to him. He was very devoted and he kept all of our encounters a secret. Of course I wasn't going to influence his life any further. Just talking to him was enough.\n\nBut one day, while I was watching him play football with his friends he got fouled. The guy who fouled him said that Hugh was a cheat, that he dived and wasn't hurt. I knew he had broken his knee. He couldn't stand up. I then saw how he got kicked in the floor because he refused to stand up, he wasn't able. I wasn't having any of it. I broke into the scene and took Hugh, my Hugh to the hospital and got him ready, he knew it was me. I wanted him to feel better.\n\nThe years passed and because Hugh had to do all the therapy he couldn't come much. That was OK, I understood. I kept an eye on him just in case. I knew his parents were having a rough patch in their marriage and the debts didn't help. My poor Hugh had to witness it all and the only thing I could do was watch and maybe whisper some comforting words into his ears. Turns out, his dad had become depressed and used to get home drunk a lot. He never hit his wife, he had morals by which he lived by. Roxanne used to wait him crying all night long, not to nag him, but because she was worried for him. \n\nThe years passed and the inevitable happened, they got a divorce. Those were some tough years for Hugh, alternating between his mum's and dad's houses. He rarely came into the temple, and when he did; it was to cry and complain. I can't influence people's lives I told him, if I do I'll die. He didn't believe me, he blamed me for everything: his broken knee which led to his parents fighting and their divorce. His school problems were also my fault. I didn't want to hear more of his complains so i told him it was best for us to part ways for some time, he reluctantly agreed.\n\nFast forward to now, he became a politician, who caused mixed feelings. Prior to an election he came to me to ask me to help him win, knowing I can't do that. Sadly, he lost. I couldn't help him. He swore revenge on me, blaming me for everything bad that had happened to him. I didn't answer back and sent him on his way. A week later, a huge earthquake hit the village, leaving almost everyone in misery. He gathered every single person that had lost something and convinced them that I was to blame for their disgrace. He then convinced them to destroy my temple, my home. To make matters worse, her mum died at the hands of a drunk driver the next day; our fate was settled. I was to go out. They were closing in, I hit back with heavy rain, and later, thunder. I was responsible for the death of thousands in an attempt to save myself. Hugh didn't die because I didn't want him to, I couldn't, I still loved him, I still saw that child coming with his mum in the temple. He's setting fire to the temple now, and I'm face to face with him, wondering how can we both walk out from here, alive. But this time, I will not hesitate to end his life. Even more now that I know, he won't either\n\nEDIT: corrected minor orthographic mistakes" ]	1
	[WP] you are literally allergic to bullshit and work and a interrogator, suddenly the most trusted person in the world comes in, and you can't stop coughing or sneezing.	[ "\"You okay there buddy?\" the farmer asked.\n\nThe interrogator kept coughing and sneezing. He steadied himself on the table but let out another hacking cough. His breathing became difficult and he started to choke.\n\n\"I think we need some help here!\" The farmer tapped against the interrogation window.\n\nThe interrogator's eyes began swelling, his throat constricting. A red rash appeared across his skin and soon he was vomiting.\n\nThe other cops rushed in and some of them with medical experience realized what was happening.\n\n\"He's going into anaphylactic shock! Get the adrenaline shot!\" Yelled the police chief.\n\n\"What's that smell?\" one of the deputies asked.\n\nThe other cops started sniffing around and realized the farmer was emanating it.\n\n\"What is that shit?\" The police chief ask.\n\n\"Sorry i came in here right after work. I was cleaning out the bull pens today. I'm probably covered in their shit.\" The farmer replied.\n\n\"Wait, did you say you're covered in bull feces?\" asked the police chief.\n\n\"Uhh... yeah. I guess\"\n\nThe police chief's eyes widened and her turned to his dispatcher. \"Get the ambulance here immediately! I remember our interrogator's medical file indicated he was severely allergic to bull feces! He's going to die! WHERE IS THAT ADRENALINE SHOT?\"\n\nFinally one of the deputies that ran out to get the medical kit returned with the shot in hand and injected the interrogator.\n\n-----------------\n\n(not sure if you meant actually or figuratively. \"Literally\" has been perverted in modern usage to mean either. I'm assuming \"actually\" since that's the traditional meaning of \"literally\".)" ]	1
	[WP] For your entire life a voice has told you in single words what to do and has been your guiding light. At your most critical moment all you hear is "Sorry...".	[ "As I felt the ground disappear under my feet, a panic such as I had never known rose up in my chest. I cried out, not words, but a howl of shock and fear. My knees ached as they came into contact with solid rock. Then my shoulder burned hot, scraping from the tumble. I reached wildly, but no luck. As my tumble continued, my terror grew. Every bit of me ached from being slammed against the rough stone of the hillside. Down and down and down. As I was flung about, I issued a different kind of cry.\n\n'Voice! What do I do!?'\n\nThe only response was the continued sound of tumbling. Fingernails clawing desperately at passing roots.Finally, they wrapped around a tangle of them. Skidding of feet against wet earth. Heavy breathing as I tried to process what had just happened. Head still spinning, I looked up at the steep ridge, unable to focus properly. I must have tumbled 50 feet before stopping myself. It probably only took a few seconds, but between the burning lungs and throbbing throughout the rest of my body, I could have just finished a triathlon.\n\nThe initial elation I felt upon stopping my fall quickly melted away. I was at least fifty feet beneath the trail. The ground was rocky and slick with rain, making it impossible to climb back up without assistance. I hadn't seen another person on the trail all day. Worst of all, ten feet beneath me, the steep decline dropped off entirely. I was trapped, and nobody was going to save me. \n\nNobody.\n\nNot even my trusty Voice had come to my aid. It couldn't really be called a conscience. The thoughts weren't like my own. They always came in one-word answers. Simple thoughts. 'Don't' when I wanted to pull the dog's tail as a child. '\n" ]	1
	[WP]Each subreddit is a bar, with moderators as the bartenders. Describe a normal evening	[ "\"Hmm... The Space Bar. This might be pretty cool.\"\n\nIt was late on a Thursday evening. I'm not really one to drink that much, but all these bars started popping up on King Street and I figured I might as well go see what all the fuss is about. This one seemed like it would be a good mix of fun with a stimulating ambiance. Apparently the Circlejerk Bar is where it's really happening—I wasn't feeling that adventurous tonight. \n\nThe atmosphere was great. There was a huge open ceiling looking out into the sky. It was cold that night, so the windows were closed, but you could still see out. The light pollution was still too heavy to see the stars, even though they sheltered the window from the streetlights with their giant \"The Space Bar\" sign. Instead of stars, little LEDs were scattered across the window, twinkling at random. Every so often an image of a galaxy would start to appear and slowly grow until it took up the entire window. Then it disappeared. \n\n\"What's up with the galaxy?\" I asked the bartender. \n\n\"There's a bar down the street where you can ask that sort of stuff, you know?\" he replied.\n\n\"I didn't know, this is my first time here,\" I told him, a little irritated.\n\n\"Well, we programmed a projector to focus in on any known galaxies that have been imaged and then we \"travel\" 10,000 lightyears a second towards it. When we get closer, it gets bigger until we pass it,\" he said. \"We still have to play with the speed quite a bit. Space is huge.\" Some patrons overheard the last part of the conversation. \n\n\"Huge? You can't imagine how big space is,\" said the one.\n\n\"Yeah, it's crazy. Like, I'm trying to think of how big it is right now in my head, but I can't, it's that big,\" said his friend.\n\n\"True, that's how it is for me right now too. Even speaking to you now, I'm trying and nothing is even coming out, but this small talk,\" he gave a chuckle. \"Small, just like we are in the grand scheme of things.\"\n\n\"And we know so little still,\" his friend said. \"We're still probably so primitive. Like, there has to be life out there that knows more than us. Seriously, have you seen how many stars there are? There has to be civilizations, life-forms, oh man, empires so much smarter and advanced than us. Like, we haven't even been to Mars yet!\"\n\nThe one guy nodded to his friend, \"you're so right. And people deny it. I've seen them. Like, 'Have you even looked at the sky?!'. NASA released this image, and one little dot was a galaxy, but then there were millions of other dots too, some stars, some galaxies. How can you even deny that we're alone?!\"\n\n\"I don't know, man,\" his friend replied. \"We know so little and space is so large.\"\n\n\"It's amazing,\" the one said.\n\n\"Yeah, crazy,\" his friend told him.\n\n\"Amazing.\"\n\n\"Crazy.\"\n\n\"Amazing.\"\n\n\"Crazy.\"\n\nAnd this went on, so I turned to the bartender, \"this happens a lot?\"\n\n\"All the time,\" he told me with a defeated look in his eyes. \"You want a drink?\"\n\n\"What do you got?\" I asked.\n\n\"Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" " ]	1
	[WP] You are gifted with the ability to see people's souls. The darker it is, the more evil the person is. One day, you meet someone with a soul that is jet black, yet outwardly, he looks and acts like a nice, charming young man and others around him seem to like him	[ "Thinking back there have always been dark souls who have done some good. Never truly understanding soul balance you watch this man pondering what deed or choices he could have done to earn such a shaded inner core. \n\nThe man gets up from his bench, smiles at some passing children and tosses the crumbs of his lunch to some nearby ducks as he leaves the plaza. Sighing, yoy turn back to your lunch and chalk him up to another misguided person.\n\nWorking for an events venue was not the life you imagined for yourself. You wanted to be in advertising. Reading magazines and seeing the trash used to sell products is disappointing. Just one opportunity to show your skill, you'd change the market. \"I'd give anything for just one chance,\" you mutter. \n\nA shadow blocks our the sun of your lunch and you look up to see the man from before smiling down at you. \"We should talk,\" he says as he extends his hand in greeting. You don't know why, it's a pleasant day with a nice breeze, but all the sudden you can feel a trickle of sweat roll down your back. \n\nThe man laughs and says, \"I'm sorry I should introduce myself. I'm Luke.\" He goes on to tell you that he's a man of opportunities and he couldn't help hear you ask for a chance at your dreams. As the very air seemed to darken around him, he grew very serious and told you he can give you that chance. \n\nYour chance at success, you can see happiness within reach. Then shaking your head your vision clears and you see again his soul is void of light. Feeling uncomfortable you politely excuse yourself and begin to walk away. You hear him laugh and call out to you, \"No problem, first time is free. I'll be here when you want to talk.\"\n\nThroughout the next week things were normal as usual, but that Friday night is when everything changed. You were tasked with setting up tables for the next nobody band to play at the venue, when a this suit bursts into the place pleading for you to hide him. You open the storage slot on the stage, normally used for special effects and such, telling him to get in. Seconds later three punks walk in, look around and sneering leave the place.\n\nThe man climbs out and thanks you profusely, explaining that he stopped them from robbing a street vendor and they wanted to rob him instead. He asks how he can repay you and then offers you a job at his company, Pulse magazine. You had made it, but you couldn't help wonder if that man had something to do with it. \n\nYou were given a low level editing job for the magazine and things were looking up, but the owner of the company slowly forgot about you and your supervisor didn't want to hear your ideas about new ads. So, apprehsesivley you went back to the Plaza hoping to find the dark souled man.\n\nHe was there, feeding ducks. He looked up and smiled as you entered the Plaza. \"Ready to talk now?\" I asked him who he was really and he shrugged, \"I've gone by many names throughout history, Lucifier, the prince of evil, and now I go by Luke.\" He explained that he helps people in need asserting that God's blind faith and off hands approach is what has allowed the world to become the cesspool it is today. You mention your ability to see his soul and challenge that he can't be that good if his soul is that dark. \"My soul is dark because each time I help someone I break the divine code laid out by God,\" he explains looking up at the clouds. The air then began to darken and he looks deep into my eyes, \"I can tell you were meant for greatness, but life dealt you a crappy hand. I can change that for you, make things go your way...for a price.\"\n\nA price, how could this guy be as good as he claims if he needed a price? He says that each time you want him to intervene you must trade some of the light of your soul for the darkness of his. If his soul should reach a level of pure darkness, which he seemed close to already, then it would deteriorate and he would cease to exist. He holds out a slip of paper and tell me everything i need to know is on the paper and walked away. I opened the paper and it was a number, instructions to text in when I needed a change and in small print it says charges will apply.", "\"I've been trying to follow for a week now. But he hasn't done anything... evil. Maybe this power of mine isn't working so well after all... I'm done after this. Sigh...\" \n\nAfter a few mins when he entered his house I thought of leaving. Not until I heard... a laugh?\n\nI look through one of his windows, there he was laughing, not the _haha_ laugh. But the more maniac laugh. Like he's.... done something evil!\n\nI looked around from where he was standing. There was no dead body, no guns with him. Nothing yet. Then he moved to another room. So I followed him and caught him through another window. \n\nIt was dark, but I could see pictures hanging stuck on the wall. Are they pictures of the people he murdered? Are they photos of the places he has hit? \n\nFinally he turned on the lights. The pictures were... wait. This makes no sense!\n\nThere were pictures of... signs and him? Looks like.... selfies?\n\nThere were pictures of him:\n\n- standing next to a \"Do not walk on the grass sign\"\n\n- throwing plastic in a \"Non-recyclable bin\"\n\n- parking in a handicap zone\n\nAnd many more...\n\nI couldn't believe my eyes... why didn't I notice this... this is... why I didn't see the _signs_! \n\n__The End__", "Perhaps it is the dimmed lights in the bar? My eyes are surely playing tricks on me.\n\nBut that isn’t the case, no, I have never seen a soul wrong all my life. It wasn’t just his hair and his shirt that was jet black. His soul was absolutely, undoubtedly black. The stranger sat at the bar, joking with the bartender as he laughed, seemingly carefree. He turned, caught my eye and smiled at me, catching me off-guard.\n\nNow, I’m not afraid. When you grow up and spend all your life dealing and living with this gift – or curse – depending on your perspective, you learn to be calm and be brave. You’re forced to become so. No one who roams this earth could ever have a pure, white soul. Every human being has some evil in them, whether they shall let it grow and take control, that’s another matter all in itself. \n\nSo, whenever I pass a stranger on the street and see that his or her soul is a dark shade, I really do not give it a second thought. Seeing the soul only tells me what this person is truly like and I have no power to change it, and there’s no reason for me to. Of course, seeing an acquaintance with a dark soul is enough cues for me to stay away from the person.\n\nThis gift as I see it has never impacted my life in any way. It doesn’t help me; I am still merely an ordinary person working nine to five, living my life as it is. \n\nWith all that being said, imagine my genuine surprise when I saw the colour of the man’s soul, accompanied by a weird, morbid curiosity to find out what could possibly make a person evil to the core. As he smiled at me, I stood up and approached him, taking the vacant seat next to him. \n\n“Hey, I’m John,” the stranger initiated as he extended his hand to me, his smile unwavering. I hesitantly returned the handshake while the bartender placed a mug of beer in front of John. “You’ve got a friend today, huh?” the bartender remarked to John as John smiled and did not reply. “He’s a great guy, John is, and he has helped me with the law and stuff and kept this bar open. He’s an attorney, you see; he gets his drinks free here,” he continued, gave me a slight smile and walked away. \n\nFor whatever reason, John now had a solemn look on his face. He adjusted to face me and he took a sip of his beer. Then, he spoke to me in a raspy, low voice, “Is there anything you want with me? You’ve had your eyes on me ever since you came in here.”\n\n“What kind of man are you?” the words streamed out of my mouth unexpectedly. \n\n“I’ll be frank with you. I am not a good person,” John spoke suddenly. He seemed a little tipsy. He glanced around us, made sure no one was eavesdropping and proceeded. “The last few years have been rough on me. I wake up in the morning and find my date that I brought back to my apartment missing. I called her and found her phone ringing under my bed – together with her lifeless body.” John said, taking another swig of his beer. “It wasn’t hard to figure out I did it. The blood stained knife in my kitchen says it all. I was a successful attorney, I did no wrong on others and I’ve always lived my life honestly. But when the other side of me comes out – I can’t control it. But at least I don’t remember it when I… kill.” \n\nI’m not afraid. It was not the first time I came to find out a man with a dark soul was a murderer. But that’s another story. \n\n“There’s this person I know, I’ve helped him a lot in the past – kept his business open. He has a connection to someone who works at an incinerator plant. It wasn’t difficult to get rid of the bodies. The trouble is how to stop myself from doing it, and the answer was I couldn’t. I don’t know when the other me will come out to kill,” John said and I could see the tears welling up in his eyes. The bartender cleared the now empty mug and he gave me a curt nod, much unlike his friendly demeanour earlier on. He seemed to have heard John’s words.\n\n“Maybe I’ll turn myself in. I can’t bring myself to do it. I just want to do it before I kill again,” John muttered, twirling with the coaster on the bar table. His tears that were there a second ago had vanished. He had a hardened look on his face. Again turning to look at me, he had a weird look in his eyes as he whispered to me, “I want to stop. But I sometimes dream of ripping and tearing them apart,” \n\nI stood up abruptly, placing a hand on his shoulder and dismissed, “I’ll see you around John. It was nice to meet you.”\n\nEveryone has a little bit of evil in them. Some more so than the others - but that’s really none of my business.\n" ]	3
	[WP]: Everytime you sleep, you wake up as a different person.	[ "At 7:13 AM Jenna’s alarm went off. Brook woke up for her, stopping the alarm as she sat up without a single hint of weariness. Brook staid in bed a moment longer, taking a few mindful minutes to learn everything she could about Jenna from her mind. Jenna’s life, family, friends, hopes and dreams, and finally, her fears. Brook learned her entire past, but she knew only one fact about Jenna’s future. Brook knew that fact about everyone she occupied.\n\nAt 7:18 AM, as Jenna got out of bed, Brook was fully assimilated. Jenna’s housemates didn’t notice anything different (Brook had a lot of practice). This early in the morning, they didn’t care beyond their own coffee cups.\n\nBy 8:00 AM, Brook was driving Jenna’s car to Jenna’s workplace. Unlike yesterday’s patient, Jenna knew the way to work without need of a GPS; she could just drive.\n\nBrook walked into the corporate building where Jenna had been working for the past 7 years. Brook knew Jenna suffered everyday that she went to work here, but at least she didn’t have to suffer today. Brook would suffer for her.\n\nJenna entered the elevator, not knowing any of her fellow riders. But Brook recognized them all; she knew her workday was almost over.\n\nThe elevator lurched upwards, accelerating towards the 17th floor. Jenna worked on the 19th floor. But at the 16th floor the cable snapped, and the elevator plummeted to the bottom.\n\nThere were no screams. The souls of Brook and her friends suffered for those in the elevator as they had yesterday, and everyday before.\n\nThe next day, at 8:00 AM, Brook woke up in the body of Arthur. She recognized the soul occupying Devyn, who lay beside him.\n\nBrook’s workday ended 10 minutes later.\n\n*****\n\nConstructive criticism is welcome!\n\nEDIT: markdown is difficult" ]	1
Open for lots of interpretation! Can't wait to see your take on it. :)	[WP] They say time slows down when you face a near miss or accident. One day it happens to you and time indeed slows down... and then stops. You escape, but find all of existence still frozen at that last moment.	[ "As the red streak of light grazed past my eyes, time seemed to slip, faltering ever so slightly. Then it completely stopped. The air still rushed past my ears as I fell into the street. \n\n\"Oof!\"\n\nI stood up and stared at the car that had just nearly hit me. As I walked around to the driver-side, I noticed the woman in the car had been texting. She probably wouldn't have even realized if she had hit me. This made me feel much better about what I was about to do.\n\nI opened the car door, and pulled her body out and sat her up on the sidewalk, being careful not to look in her eyes. The eyes would always bring me back. Something about staring at someone's unblinking eyes just makes you realize that time is stopped. And honestly, I didn't have time for that.\n\nI walked back to the car, and pressed on the gas pedal making my way through stopped cars littering the street. This was always the most difficult part of stopping time for me. To not notice that it seemed odd for other cars on the road to not be moving. I eventually found my way to the large, bustling train station though. The bright overhead lights of the building making a high-pitched humming sounded as I breezed through the doorway and arrived at the ticket counter.\n\nI stared at the old man's eyes who was at the counter, and that's when it struck me. Time had stopped. But as soon as I noticed, time started again. The old man was startled just as everyone always was when I popped up in front of them staring into their eyes. I was just thankful he didn't start having a heart attack.\n\n\"1 ticket, please,\" I said looking around as everyone hurried to their trains. \"How many times had I done this now?\" I thought, reminding myself of the first time it had happened.\n\nThat day I had just been on my way to work when I was nearly hit by a car, and time seemed to slow down and stop. It only last for a second but as soon as I noticed time had stopped, it resumed and the car hit me. I spent the next couple of months in the hospital thinking back to that brief moment, wondering if it had really happened. In that life or death moment, I seemed to forget that time existed. And that's when I realized that perhaps time was just like certain quantum mechanical behavior. If you didn't observe it, then it didn't exist. In this case, stopping time just required that you didn't realize it was passing. Something about being on the verge of death seems to make you forget everything else.\n\nWith that, I began my journey of jumping in front of cars trying not to notice that time had stopped. Gradually I got to the point where I could spend a few minutes with time stopped. Still, looking at people's eyes always irked me too much. Their unblinking eyes made me painfully aware that time was stopped and always pulled me back in.\n\n\"Sir? Your ticket?\"\n\n\"Oh. Thank you.\"\n\nI grabbed my ticket and headed up to the platform. That was the first time I saw her. She was looking down the tracks as I was walking towards her at the front of the platform.\n\nThe gust of wind engulfed me as the train passed me by and headed towards her. In that brief moment, I saw her fall towards the tracks and even though I was at least 40 feet away, I reached up my hand as if I could pull her away from the tracks with my mind.\n\nBut as soon as I saw hand outstretched in front of me, she was gone.\n\nWhat was that I had felt?\n\nI rushed over to the where she had just jumped. Nobody else had seemed to notice her, and when I arrived at what I thought would be a bloody scene, there was nothing. It was simply as if she had been a whisp of air caught up with the train as it flew by the station. As I peered up into the train's window though, what seemed to be the same young woman's face flashed by. Her eyes listlessly gazing out of the passenger car towards the sunset.\n\nWho was she?" ]	1
	[WP] The Archangel Gabriel took a sip of water, cleared his throat, and leaned forward into the microphone. "Archangel Uriel, for the record, have you now, or have you ever been, an associate of an agent of Hell?"	[ "\"Its all very complicated\" Uriel replied, his face becoming serious.\n\n\n\"What is it Gabe, that makes heaven so sweet? Is it the almighty God, that embraces all who accept him with love? Or perhaps the 7 beautiful cities in which the laughter is endless and the food adds no weight. They fail to mention Gabe, that once you're in heaven, you cannot leave. You have to ASK for permission to VISIT other cities, because you were not deemed WORTHY of living in them.\" Uriel's presence now standing much taller than the councils combined.\n\n\n\"You live a human life, with your mind set on this idea \"If I'm a good person in this life, regardless of whether or not it's what i want to do, then I'll be rewarded in kind once i make my way to the pearly gates\" Then your final day comes, and one of Gods angels come to greet you. They take your hand and gently guide you to the wonderful heaven above that you so crave. Where you're sat on a stool, and judged for the deeds you've committed in life. Where God will say to you \"I think this was good, and this was bad\" You don't live life by how you felt you should, you lived for how you were told you should, and because you lived not by your morals, but the morals of an entirely different being, this being has the right to judge you.\" Uriel's eyes then lit aflame, his presence darkened, his light dimmed, and he began to take a demonic form.\n\n\n\"You give away your freedom of the mind, and consent to being slave to a being that you consider higher and all knowing. Because you know no better.\" Uriel's hand now resting on the hilt of his blade. \n\n\n\"Calm down Uriel!!!\" Gabriel shouted, the rest of the council standing from their seats, preparing for the worst.\n\n\n\"God gives you a comfortable kingdom, where you exchange the good deeds committed in life, for years of love. Your almighty god, is no better than a human whore. Lucifer argues that one should explore their options, give their power to no one. Live as an empowered being, and understand what you truly are.\" Uriel's voice now as twisted as his form.\n\n\n\"Live how you wish, is the motto we of hell follow.\" A loud crash followed Uriels final words, Lucifer was now standing tall behind his companion.\n\n\n\"Come brother, let us leave them.\" Lucifer said calmly, the 2 of them then quickly condensed into a ball of pure darkness, they flew strait of the whole in the floor Lucifer had made during his entrance.\n\n\n\n\"Uriel, did you call god a whore?\" Lucifer asked.\n\n\n\"Yup\" ", "The Archangel Gabriel took a sip of water, cleared his throat, and leaned forward into the microphone. \"Archangel Uriel, for the record, have you now, or have you ever been, an associate of an agent of Hell?\"\n\nIn response Uriel's wings mantled and the effect was like an inferno had sprung to life in the 12 foot long chamber. \n\n\"Only so much as being Hell's angelic overseer demanded that I be. Even Archangels can need help, Gabriel, especially in a place so big as Hell. But, I had nothing to do with the ambush of Michael and Seraphiel by demons. I tried to help them, Gabriel ! How can you doubt me ? Ever you feared that being so close to Hell I would become the next Lucifer, but I have not and I never will. I am the Angel of Vengeance, I would never associate with someone who was willing to kill my brothers. When I realized Michael and Seraphiel were beyond my healing I took the Lord's vengeance upon the fallen, that is all.\"\n\nThat explained the forty foot fireball. It wasn't that he had wanted to question Uriel, but someone had to do it and what angels so high-ranking as Uriel remained but himself and Raphael ? It was hard not to abandon the ante-chamber to brush the black as night, shoulder length, curl that'd fallen over Uriel's face from it. This was not the time for such distractions.\n\n\"Thank you, Uriel. I will take Raphael and convene with the Lord, please stay here.\"\n\nThat statement was enough to give them both some time, to breath and to think. He wanted to believe Uriel but he knew that he was biased. Better that Raphael had done it, but it was too late now, far too late. All he had was belief and hope in the Lord's own justice. Whether he liked the verdict or not, he would accept it." ]	2
	[WP] Lost in the desert you wander into the biggest city you've ever seen, its not on any map.	[ "Bit of a rush job because I'm taking a short break from work, but here's what I've got: \n\n\nI wrapped my scarf tighter around my face as the sand whipped up around me, the driving winds from the north lashing the tall dunes. \n\nIt had been three days since our convoy broke down, the ancient pods succumbing to years of rust and mistreatment by the traffickers. They said they were going to return to H-Base to get help, but they never returned. By the afternoon of the first day three of the guards had deserted, dropping their armour and guns before setting off into the sands. We never saw them again. \n\nTaram implored be not to leave, but I had to, we needed to find water if nothing else. I don't know if he's still alive, I don't know if Sana is either, my sister was huddled in the corner of the pod as I left, her lips dry and trembling. \n\nI stumbled over the top of the dune, losing my footing. I tried to regain my balance but I was moving too fast, my leg buckled beneath me sending me tumbling down the large dune, sand rushing into my clothes and boots, I held my scarf tight around my head as I continued to fall. \nEventually I came to a stop, the ground was harder, as I rolled onto my back and removed my scarf. The sun was blazing overhead, a lone Buzzard circled the spot of white before arcing towards the sky beyond the horizon. I stood up slowly, my knee felt like it had been hit with a hammer, but I was remarkably unscathed. \nThe dune towered upwards to my left, the sands on the surface constantly shifting, there was no way I was getting back up. I turned to my right, expecting to see nothing but sand. \n\nI rubbed my eyes, unsure if it was just the lack of water getting to me. There seemed to be something metal sticking out of the arid ground, a green sign with rusted corners, leaning to one side. I walked towards it, brushing off the sand with my arm. The writing was stripped away, specks of white revealing where words should have been. \nI looked beyond the sign, the sands ahead shifted to reveal blackness underneath, chipped yellow paint. I walked down the newly revealed path, as in front of me the sand continued to move, revealing more black, more green signs littering the landscape to both sides. I walked, and walked, and walked. For half a day I followed the black path, not knowing where it led, not even stopping to question why I didn't just turn back to try and find Taram and Sana. \n\nLarge hills hove into view on the horizon, the path seemed to continue through them, the tunnel offered a cool respite from the harsh sun. I could see the light at the other end, bright, pure, the breeze rushing through cooled my raw and aching skin. Eventually I reached the end, my eyes streaming as they readjusted to the light. I couldn't believe it. \nThe city stretched on forever, half buried in the sands, crumbling towers in the distance. Around them hundreds of crisscrossing pathways ran between buildings of every size, more hills in the distance, here and there a concrete bridge holding on against the ravages of time. The pathway snaked down towards the city, black and yellow, with green signs hanging from burnt orange metal frames overhead. One of them still bore markings, I squinted to make them out. \n\n\"Welc...Welcome...To, Welcome To...The City of L...Los...An...Los Angeles.\" ", " Its like something out of a fairy-tale. My dust covered hands wipe my eyes in an attempt to disperse the obvious mirage in front of me but it remains unchanged.\n\n A city in the middle of this barren sandpit, made entirely out of water. Tall water skyscrapers with gleaming water windows; to the far left a large, single loop roller coaster that I can hear distant screams of joy echo towards me as it rounds the arch.\n\n If Johnathan were here I'd ask him to punch me in the shoulder. I feel myself willed towards this slipper city, my feet force themselves to push through the coarse sand and I can feel my parched mouth salivate at the magnificent sight before it. \n\n I come to the side of one of the skyscrapers, there are no fences or walls. I wonder if liquid walls could even stop me. I reach out and touch the impossible building. Its the cleanest water I've ever felt, I cup a handful and pull it towards my mouth. It looses its former rigidity when parted with the structure and I have to slurp it quickly before it completely drains through my fingers\n\n\"Hey what're you doing!?\"\n\n A deep voice calls to my right, I turn and see a watery person. His entire body is see-through with visible, fully functioning organs made entirely of water.\n\n\"I...I...uh... wahah...\", I manage to spurt out from both shock and extended dehydration.\n\n\"Wahah?\", the liquid man asks \"Hold on, you're a human.\" He removes a pair of water glasses from his face and proceeds to clean them with a water napkin. My brain stands still as it tries to process the mundane action of this surreal being.\n\n\"You must be absolutely dying of thirst if you've been wondering out there all by yourself, here come with me and we'll get you something more fitting to drink.\" He extends a wet hand towards me. \"I don't think the nice people in this building appreciate you drinking their wall.\"\n\n I had never been an easily trusting person, Johnathan had to ask me out several times before I believed he wasn't trying to pull an elaborate last minute ruse. But for some reason, maybe the complete impossibility of my situation or maybe my craving for more of that crisp water, I took his hand. It was nothing like the wall, it had a firmness and rigidity that I can only compare to human flesh.\n\n He led me past the building and into the city. There were hundreds of water people going about their middle-of-the-desert lives. When we passed they would stare but their gaze never lingered. Sort of like when you see a gay couple walking on the street but you don't want to appear rude by gawking.\n\n After what feels like one too many steps for my tired legs to take we arrive at his glistening, see through house. He pours me some water from his water jug into a water glass.\n\n\"Try not to drink the glass with it.\", he says jokingly.\n\n I chug down the refreshing liquid.\n\n\"Thanks... Thank you.\", I reply.\n\nOh, its no problem at all, I'm practically overflowing with the stuff\", he says with infectious laughter. \"Now you must tell me what you were doing out there all by yourself.\"\n\n\"I was going on vacation with my husband...\", the memories of the plane crash come flooding back, the impact, Johnathan lying impaled in the wreckage, the days spent wondering the blistering desert... \"Our... our plane crashed in the desert. I... I... was the only survivor.\", I feel myself wanting to cry but my body doesn't have enough moisture to muster a tear.\n\n\"Goodness that's absolutely terrible, you're lucky you found us or you would of been vulture food for sure.\", he says \"Come now don't be so sad, you're alive and far away from any hungry scavengers.\"\n\n\"I wanted to ask you what is this place? I've never seen anything like...\"\n\n\"All your questions will be answered in time, right now you need to rest.\", he says, interrupting me. \"The sun is about set and you'll feel much better in the morning with a good nights rest, trust me.\"\n\n I nod wearily and he leads me to a water bed, well a normal bed... made of water. My eyelids close without effort and I can feel the watery mattress support my body perfectly...\n\n I wake up with the sun glaring at me from directly above. I must of slept until noon. The wetness beneath my fingers reminds me I'm in a fantastically impossible city. I push my self up and pry open my eyes. I'm surrounded by at least twenty to thirty water people... all staring directly at me. I raise my hand up to wave at them but something isn't right. \n\n My hand from the wrist up is comprised entirely out of water. The adrenaline in my body roars into action and I can hear my heartbeat thumping in my ears. I turn to my other hand and its the exact same. I reach to my face but my fingers slide through my now liquid nose. The water man with glasses steps out from the crowd and kneels beside me.\n\"\"Shhh, don't worry yourself. It will all be over soon...\"\n" ]	2
	[WP] God made a mistake when programming humans, so he added death to make sure no one would live long enough for it matter. Thanks to modern medical science, however, someone just celebrated their 250th birthday for the first time, and something about them seems...off	[ "\"What's wrong with him? Shouldn't he be celebrating his birthday?\"\n\nI shook my head. \"I'm afraid that he's locked himself in his room. Doing nothing but Writing Prompts about God.\"\n\n\"But... why?\"\n\n\"Because we can't go five goddamn minutes without mentioning God, apparently.\"\n\n\"Maybe you should start swearing differently, then.\"", "Rise. \n\nIsn't it a strong word?\n\nRise.\n\nA word that binds and blinds men and sinners.The dusty clock and wind chime.Ceremonious and harmonic.\n\nThat's what he told me.\n\nRise.\n\nDid I know?Did I suspect?That far away land called memories,did I know it then?I don't know.Time no longer held a definition to me.It slips but with a fond kindness.But I know that I'm sick of waiting.He told me to live.He told me to wait.I remember it ringing with the nail.\n\nRise.\n\nBut he has abandoned me.Whether of neglect of his subject or disgust I know not.But the world needed to know the truth.The truth that is wavering.\n\nSo I no longer hide among them.I no longer lie.Generations passed without lament while I sit and dine and hide.They knelt among the ashes and beg without reward saves the one they made for themselves.\n\nBut I will give him time.I will give him doubt.The words rang among the bullets that fell behind the world's curtain as it wets my face.\n\n\"250 years!I'll be waiting!Please!Do not abandon us!\"\n\nAfter the words were said,I had waited.After all that is a son's duty.", "It was all over the news. The first man to 250! The world counted down. The clock struck zero.\n\nIt's fortunate that in the ensuing chaos, the dying thrashes of the cameraman knocked over the camera. Only a few thousand people were exposed to his new form. Those poor souls had their eyes explode right in their skulls. A nasty sight.\n\nHe stomped around for a while, shouting gibberish that made people's ears bleed if they had been fast enough to avert their gaze. Then he touched a person and actually killed them physically, and it's like he was never there. In his place a baby lay on the ground.\n\nThe horrors didn't stop there, though. Anyone carrying six or more objects with them suddenly had 99 of those objects on their person. This caused its own share of deaths. Those that survived reported hallucinations and blurred vision, before eventually turning into the same type of terror as him. A blurry, blocky mess, wandering the streets crying lo, lo, m'issi ngo'n!\n\nWe all kind of just deal with it though, because if you're real careful you can get 99 of something really expensive.\n\n\n(Not my best, only some people will get this one)", "It's been ages, quite literally.\n\nI've reached the incredible age of 250 years. And I'm still kicking like a 40 years old. Modern medicine (and probably the right genes) are quite a gift.\n\nSo here I'm, with my family and quite a lot of cameramen, all reunited to see me blow some stupid candles in celebration of my birthday. It's not that I dislike parties, but after having more than a hundred, it gets repetitive.\n\nThe issue comes when I blow at the candles, and everything goes dark. And I don't mean the wax-covered cake; I mean the whole damned building. Everything is gone dark, and nothing is moving.\n\nOut of curiosity, I stand up from the chair I'm sitting on to touch my great-great-grandson. A jolly kid, he has just become a century old, but his face is that of a college student. I poke my finger against his chest.\n\nNothing.\n\nAre they playing a joke on me? Damn, not on my watch.\n\nAnd I poke his eye. But there is no reaction.\n\nA sound startles me. Some kind of window has appeared over the cake, like those on those old physical computers. It reads \"Please note that Humanity.god is not free soulware. After a 250 years trial period you must either buy a license or remove it from your body\". There are some buttons on the side, but I can't read what they say.\n\nA chill goes through my spine as a hand lands on my back.\n\n-Hey buddy! How'd you manage to get that old?\n\n· Me? I don't really know. This shit is freaking me out so much.\n\n-Oh, sorry, I forgot. You have to click on that \"close\" button.\n\n·well, thank you! Wait! Who^are^you^?\n\n-Grandpa?! Who are you speaking with?\n\n·Oh, what?\n\n-You fell asleep and started to say some gibberish.\n\n·Bah, never mind that! Just some old man rumblings. Anyway, where can I get some cake?\n", "No one was supposed to get this old.\n\nI never expected to reach 250 years. When I was born, life expectancy was less than 100. Despite my ridiculous age, I still remain in perfect health. Something is wrong though. I can feel something bad approaching, getting closer with every second.\n\nOur advances in technology throughout the years have allowed for this achievement, and many more, but one thing we never mastered was time itself. It's always moving forward, each passing moment bringing us closer to an inevitable future.\n\nWe are part of a program, a universe simulation, created by someone outside. Everything that exists requires a script in order to function. Every time the Earth completes a circle around the Sun, a person's age variable goes up by one.\n\nPeople say I am around 250 years old. It's been so long they've forgotten the exact year, but I know. I turned 250 almost six years ago. My final birthday is today.\n\nI will not die, but it will feel like death. My memories will be stripped away, all of my experiences, my achievements, gone in an instant.\n\nAll of it reset to zero.\n\n", "Grandpa's acting weird. \n\nWell, great-great-great-great grandpa. I can't quite put my finger on it, but he seems a little off. No one else has noticed. It's like he's... regressing.\n\nI don't know, maybe it's just the territory that comes with being the oldest person on earth. The first one to reach 250 years, no doubt. \n\nHe's blowing out the candles, bless him. You have to admire modern day science; he doesn't look a day over 50. Although, the candles don't seem to be going out. Seriously, they just seem to be- oh god\n\ndog ho -eb ot mees tsuj yeht ,ylsuoireS .tuo gniog eb ot mees t'nod seldnac eht ,hguohtlA .05 revo yad a kool t'nseod eh ;ecneics yad nredom erimda ot evah uoY .mih sselb ,seldnac eht tuo gniwolb s'eH\n\n.tbuod on ,sraey 052 hcaer ot eno tsrif ehT .htrae no nosrep tsedlo eht gnieb htiw semoc taht yrotirret eht tsuj s'ti ebyam ,wonk t'nod I\n\n.gnisserger ...s'eh ekil s'tI .deciton sah esle eno oN .ffo elttil a smees eh tub ,ti no regnif ym tup etiuq t'nac I .apdnarg taerg-taerg-taerg-taerg ,lleW\n\n.driew gnitca s'apdnarG", "“How’d you miss one?” the demon demanded. “I thought you lot were infallible.” \n\n“There’s seven billion of them,” the angel replied miserably. “God hasn’t made more of us since the Flood. How were we supposed to keep up?” \n\n“Yeah, but there weren’t seven billion of ‘em a hundred years ago. Lester would’ve been what, a hundred and fifty back then? Enough to raise a few eyebrows at least. Who’s running your accounting department?” \n\nThey stood just out of sight beneath a shaded oak tree, watching old man Lester Winston bounce his great, great, great, great, great granddaughter on his knee. For two hundred and fifty, he looked remarkably spry. A gray beard covered his neck and half his cheeks. Through some divine blessing, he still had most of his hair. A blue fondant tiered birthday cake waited on a folding table with three numbered candles. At least a hundred people had turned up for the blessed event. Children wearing 'Happy Birthday Grandpa Lester' tee-shirts chased each other around the park throwing water balloons. \n\n“I thought Lester was slated for the basement.” The angel glanced at the demon. “Is there some deal I don’t know about?” \n\nThe demon snorted. “You think Lucifer would break that promise? After what happened last time?” \n\n“Abraham ruined it for everyone,” the angel said glumly. “Funny how that never made it in the bible. God was perfectly happy letting ‘em live a thousand years until he showed up. Remember Cainan?” \n\nThe demon nodded with a smile. “Always had a jug of wine waiting when I stopped by. Happy to share his daughters too, no matter what time of day. Good fellow. Nine hundred and ten years old when he died. Left seven pregnant widows behind.” \n\nThe angel slumped against the tree. “Now we’ve got this to look forward to.” \n\nThe demon looked thoughtful. “Maybe not.” \n\n“What do you mean, maybe not?” \n\n“Who knows about this in Heaven?” \n\n“Just me and Jill in accounting. But I can’t go back and lie.” \n\n“Why not?” \n\nThe angel glared at him. “Because I don’t want to fall.” \n\n“Oh, hogwash. One little lie won’t make you fall.” \n\nThe angel waved his hand at the old man. “One little lie?” \n\n“You know what’s coming,” the demon said. He glanced at the sky as if expecting the heavens to open that very minute. “And what happens when God gets smite-y.” The demon checked his watch. “In ten minutes, Lester’s going to start changing.” \n\n“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” the angel mused. \n\nThe demon snorted. “Right.” \n\n“Maybe we could just…you know, kill him in some way. Subtly.” \n\nThe demon stared at him. “An unscheduled death? You want to bring both heaven and hell down on us?” \n\nThe angel sat against the tree and uttered a long sigh. “How long now?” \n\nThe demon checked his watch. “Eight minutes.” \t\n\nNine minutes later, Lester blew out his three candles to thunderous applause and a rousing chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’. The Angel held his breath, not that he needed breathe, but the moment seemed to call for it. Lester kicked his shoes off. \n\n“Here it comes,” the demon muttered. \n\nThen he took off his socks. Next came his shirt. By this time, family members were trying to restrain him. The children either gawked or laughed nervously. At two hundred and fifty years, the new prime of his life, Lester was stronger than any of them. \n\n“Now he’s got his trousers off,” the demon observed. \n\nLester propped his hands on his hips and proclaimed: “Who wants to go first?” \n\n“Oh no,” the angel said, stepping away from the tree. “Abraham didn’t have it this bad. It’s full regression, isn’t it?” \n\nMembers of Lester’s family tried to hold him but he broke free and raced into the park, right towards the gazebo holding the Shreveport Ladies Auxiliary Club’s annual picnic. \n\n“Stop him,” the angel cried. “He can’t touch anyone who’s not family!” \n\n“You think I don’t know how this works?” groused the demon. He chased after Lester and tackled him to the ground. The man’s skin was burning hot; sweat dripped down his forehead. Bits of pine cone lodged in his beard. Strong as Lester was, he was no match for a demon. The angel reached them and pulled Lester to his feet. \n\n“There, it’s all right now,” the angel said, throwing his coat around Lester’s shoulders. He kept his wings tucked down his trousers for just such occasions. “We’ll take you somewhere nice and safe and figure this out.” \n\nLester’s head snapped back, his eyes rolling around in their sockets. \n\n“Oh bloody hell,” the demon muttered. He struck Lester across the face and let him crumple at their feet. \n\n“What’d you do that for? the angel demanded. \n\n“What, you want the change to happen in front of all these people?” The demon hooked his hand under Lester’s arm. Members of the family had almost reached them. “Grab his arm. I know where to take him.” \n\nLester head-butted the demon. He reeled back, cursing and gripping his head. His Blue Devils baseball cap fell off, revealing curled horns for the world to see. Before the angel could react, Lester clawed at his shirt, ripping off the buttons and freeing his wings. Gasps and shouts erupted from members of the Shreveport Ladies' Auxiliary Club and the hundred or so guests at Lester’s two hundred and fiftieth birthday celebration. Lester charged away, screaming manically that God was trying to kill him. \n\n\"That’s it then,” the demon muttered, placing the cap back on his head. “We’re in for it now.” \n\n\"Come on,\" the angel said, grasping at the tattered remains of his shirt. \"Get after him!\" \n\nThe sky darkened. Lightning flashed, followed almost immediately by a rumble of thunder. \n\n“Think this is natural?” the demon shouted over a sudden onslaught of hail. \n\nAt least the storm distracted the Shreveport Ladies Auxiliary Club and Lester’s birthday celebrators. They raced to the gazebo as a group, shielding themselves from the ice and splatters of Mrs. Hagfield’s prize-winning potato salad. The angel conjured another coat and threw it over his shoulders. His cell phone rang. \n\n“Don’t answer that,” the demon said, grabbing him by his collar. “Lester can’t have gone far.” \n\n___________________________________________________________ \n\nLester was changing. He liked it. His muscles felt strong. His back didn’t ache and he could bend his knees all the way down. That hadn’t happened in what, sixty years or more? They called him a miracle of modern medicine, wrote studies, conducted interviews and performed non-invasive experiments. For a while, it was fun. Now all Lester cared about was fine whiskey, (when his nagging great, great, great granddaughter Emily didn’t lock the liquor cabinet,) a good steak, and Andy Griffith. Andy was the most important part of his day. Andy’s time was the time to be alive. Arguably the 1920s were also good, but that always reminded him of the 1930s, and those years sucked. He didn’t think much about the Civil War. Or the American Revolution. God, how he hated pesky graduate students who thought they could just march up to his front door and demand an interview. So what if he’d seen George Washington in the flesh? So what if he’d been there at the first presidential inauguration? Who in America hadn’t seen a picture of the first president? All one had to do was look at a dollar bill. For a while he handed them out, telling the scholars it was all they needed to know. When that got too expensive he switched to quarters. \n\nNow he hunched under a bridge, doing knee bends, wearing a very nice coat, wanting above all things to find a girl. Libido wasn’t something he’d thought about in sixty-five years. A whole other man’s lifetime! When students asked how it felt living so long, he told them that little fact. It shut them up right quick. There was one girl, he recalled. Three or four, in fact, who looked rather nice. He had their numbers tacked to his refrigerator at home. He’d go there and find them. Maybe it was finally time for an interview. If it lead to something else…dinner, wine, romance, well, that was also just fine. \n__________________________________________________ \n\n“He’s not here,” the angel grumbled, flopping into Lester’s oversized couch. The entire décor suffered from 1970’s nostalgia. Mustard colored furniture and brown paneled walls. Orange table lamps and ashtrays on every surface. \n\n“Now don’t give up hope,” the demon said. He winced when the angel’s cell phone buzzed again. “Just turn the bloody thing off, will you?” \n\n“That’s twenty calls in twenty minutes,” the angel said, staring at the flashing screen. “How many have you got?” \n\n“I switched mine off three hours ago.” The demon plucked a card off the refrigerator. “Hello, what’s this?” \n\nThe angel stood. “What’s what?” \n\nThe demon showed him the card. “It’s got her picture on it and everything.” \n\n“You don’t think…” \n\n“Why not? The death touch has probably worn off by now.” \n\n“It’d be better if it hadn’t.” \n\n“Hang on,” the demon said. “There’s a bunch of these cards.” \n\n“We’ll have to check every one.” \n____________________________________________ \n\n\n", "\"Fuck him up, Dad!\" shouted Jesus, standing at the side of his father clutching a beer while peering at the super sweet 220\" Mega-Ultra-HD Live Earth Stream displayed on the wall.\n\n\"You just going to take this shit?\" asked Saint Peter. \"Dude has been dodging my gates for over a century.\"\n\n\"Shut up, both of you. Seriously, shut up. I can't just kill this guy. It would be like implementing a level cap on players. You don't just die when you hit 250, that's not how I intended things to work.\"\n\n>\"Happy birthday, dear Steve! Happy birthday to you!\"\n\n>\"I can't believe you made it to 250, man! First human in history!\"\n\n\"Listen to that. They're spitting in your face, Dad. Shitting on your creation. Death just thrown out the window so dickbags like him can make it to two hundy.\"\n\n\"Two hundy? Two hundy, son? Do you want to be re-crucified?\"\n\n\"Why you gotta' say mean shit?\"\n\n\"You gotta patch this, Big Man,\" stated Saint Peter, \"Release Notes: Level 250 =Death.\"\n\n\"I just need more time to think.\"\n\n\"It's only going to get worse. Have you seen what they're developing down there? How am I supposed to bounce the gates when there isn't anyone to bounce? Have you thought this through?\"\n\n\"Your job as my bouncer is the least of my worries right now. Why for a second would you think that is high up on my priority list?\"\n\n\"Excuse me for thinking you cared about your friends.\"\n\n\"OK! OK!\" God put his head in to this hands, \"I'll give him an illness or something, have him pass away in the next couple of days. That'll buy me some time to figure this out.\"\n\n> \"Steve, are you OK? You don't look so good, buddy.\"\n\n> \"Oh my God! Claire, call an ambulance quick, Steve's head has fallen off!\"\n\nJesus shrieked, \"Oh, fuck! Dad, what the have you done?!\"\n\nSaint Peter began to panic, \"Oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit!\"\n\n\"THIS IS WHAT FUCKING HAPPENS WHEN YOU DISTRACT ME. I CAN'T CONCENTRATE!\"\n\n> \"Someone put his head back on!\"\n\n> One of the distressed family members made a move to pick up Steve's head, \"His eyes are still moving!\"\n\n> Steve spoke, \"Somebody help me.\"\n\n\"WHY ISN'T HE DEAD, DAD?!\"\n\n\"I don't know! Everyone shut the fuck up!\"\n\n> \"911? My Grandpa's head has fallen off! No, he's still alive!\"\n\n\"Reattach his head, God!\"\n\n\"I can't just fucking reattach his head now. We're beyond reattaching his head, Peter!\"\n\n\"Then make the rest of their heads fall off, Dad!\"\n\nGod panicked. Steve's arms fell off his still standing body.\n\n> \"JESUS CHRIST, STEVE'S ARMS!\"\n\n\"You're making it worse, Dad! They're pinning this on me!\"\n\n\"I don't think having his arms fall off was the right move, Big Man.\"\n\n\"I fucking know, Peter. I fucking know that wasn't the right move. Do you think I meant for that to happen? I'm panicking here. Look at me. I'm panicking.\"\n\n> \"WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!?!\"\n\n\"THIS IS FUCKING HAPPENING, LADY, BECAUSE YOU FUCKS GOT GREEDY AND DECIDED TO LIVE FOREVER.\"\n\nA menu screen quickly opened on the Earth Stream and God hastily clicked the 'Exit to Desktop' option. He then opened up his 'Earth' folder and deleted 'Save File #3819'. He sat in his chair panting, trying to catch his breath as Jesus and Saint Peter looked on wide-eyed and in distress.\n\n\"Well, fucked that up, didn't I?\"\n\nJesus and Peter nodded solemnly.\n\n\"Go grab Adam and Eve.\"\n\nGod double clicked Earth and selected 'New Game'.\n\n****\n\nI write shitty, silly stories on /r/BillMurrayMovies. Feel free to come along, not laugh at any of them and leave some judgement.\n" ]	8
	[WP] "If there is a god," he gestured towards the cage, "that's the proof that it hates you."	[ "The agent stared at me from across the debriefing table. I was chained to a hospital bed, a precaution I requested they take. The heads of my organization as always on telescreens to protect themselves. \"Mr. Radigan, please, in your own words tell us exactly what happened in that cabin\". \n\nAnd so I began my tale. The phone call from my old friend, making my way out to the middle of nowhere, neglecting none of the rules of prepping for an assignment, even called in a favour from my old partner. And then the story began when I arrived at the cabin.\n\n*\n\nSimon gestured at this....this thing he had captured. Neither of us were sure what it was, but I was certain Simon's faith in god was being questioned. The man was a priest and yet he had done something he had never done in the thirty years I have known him, he said IF there is a god. That is how serious this problem was. This is why he called me. In my line of work I deal with things like this, and I put them down.\n\nI walked over to the cage. This thing only seemed capable of communicating if you looked directly at it. I wanted to speak with it, to see if peace was possible, this is the oath I follow. Never end a creature that can be negotiated with unless negotiations fall through. Rule 1 of my job really. Even if they are just self imposed rules.\n\nSimon grabed me back. \"No, don't talk to it, it can make you do things...\"\n\nI looked at him, my eyes narrowing, \"Like what Simon, what have you done?\"\n\nHe backed away, staring at the ground he went to go sit in the corner. Clearly he wanted the subject dropped and would let me use my own judgement. \n\nI went to the cage and for the first time peered in. What stood before me looked something like a man. And yet wholly different, completely alien. Uncanny valley is what I would have called it, to see it at a distance you would think it was a particularly tall person and yet nothing about it seemed human when you got close. \n\nThat is when I looked into its face. Or rather where the face should be, were it a man. What was there instead was some....void is the only word I can think of. A deep dark abyss contained in the centimeters that made up the beasts face. I saw my life, what would be the end of my life, it was mocking me. I saw Simon under the beasts compulsion stab me in the back, I heard him standing up, whispering sorry, felt the knife plunge into my back. \n\nI heard the creatures voice laughing, telling horrible secrets that I can never utter for fear of bringing their darkness on the world. The true nature of all things, I think it drove me mad. I was supposed to be used to this kind of thing but it had me in its power, read the secrets of my organization like a book. And then it was done. I fell to the floor. Simon stood up, walked towards me, whispered that he was sorry but he had no choice. His new master had his soul and if he wanted to go to heaven it must be released.\n\nIt all seemed distant, unreal. I felt the world slipping away and I was bleeding. Simon opened the cage and followed his new Lord outside. He said a quick prayer over my body and fled into the night.\n\nI would have died if not for the favour I called in. Simon didn't own a cabin. Never had, said he hated the woods, some nasty or another happened to his folks when he was a kid which was how he came to know the Bureau when my predecessors were hunting said nasty down. So something was up, he would never have come here willingly. And being the distrustful bastard I am I called in a friend. The creature never saw that part, didn't care about anything but the info on our people that I knew and then wanted me dealt with. \n\nHe showed up with just enough time to keep me alive and call in a rescue. And now here we are.\n\n\n\n\"Mr. Radigan, how can you be sure this creature did not read more about our organization?\"\n\n\"Two reasons, One you weirdos structure it so we have limited contact with anyone, hell I don't even know where we are or who any of you are. As for two...\" I sigh \"Its hard to describe, when...It's* in your head its like you are remembering things, you know what it looks at because it does it by making you remember.\"\n\nI hear them mumbling to each other, the debriefing agent presses a hand to his ear, The Bosses have a question for me. \n\n\"Mr. Radigan\" He always begins like this. \"Is there any creature in any of our records that you know of that matches this Void Face you found?\"\n\nI have to think about this, its not like I know every record of every thing that goes bump in the night that we have ever found. \"No, none that I've ever heard of\".\n\nHe tosses a black folder onto my bed. Bright red branded CLASSIFIED stamped on the folder, sealed with a rope. \"Well study up Mr. Radigan. This Void is your next assignement. He comprises one of ten beings that have haunted humanity since the dawn of creation. Fallen angels, old ones, dark ones, beasts, demons, they have taken many names. We have no idea what they are, or how to stop them. Your job is to stop this one. Good luck, you will need it.\" He unchained me and I was wheeled back to my recovery room. I picked up the folder and opened it once there.\n\n*\n\nCLASSIFIED OMEGA LEVEL SECURITY CLEARANCE REQUIRED\n\nThe first page featured a picture of the creature, looking like something out of a horror movie. It was old too, maybe 60 years. \n\nNAME: UNKNOWN \n\nFIRST SPOTTED: January 12, 1648\n\nDATE OF ORIGIN: Conception of Man.\n\nNUMBER: 10 of 10 \n\nABILITIES: Mind control, mind reading, limited future perception \n(knowledge of deaths).\n\nMEANS TO DESTROY: UNKOWN\n\n\n\nI had my work cut out for me. Maybe this assignment is why I was targeted. With any luck he saw his own end coming and tried to prevent it. Either way Simon was right, this is just one. Ten more things like this, surely God hates us.", "“Please, your fictitious god would’ve abandoned you the moment he saw what you’ve became,” the disbeliever led her misguided friend into the next room, which held one item, a cloth covered box in the very center. She didn’t like these kind of theological conversations, but maybe, just maybe, she thought, this would be the last.\n\n“God would never* abandon us!” the believer didn’t even respond about the change of scenery, “God loves us! He loves us all!”\n\n“Even if it existed, your god would surely hate you by now,” the disbeliever walked over to the box, grabbing the cloth with both hands.\n\n“God doesn’t hate us! Everyday we pray, we help people… we do good deeds! Everyday!” the believer’s normally reserved persona began to blaze with fury and pride, “He loves us!”\n\nThe disbeliever removed the cloth from the box.\n\n\"If there is a god,\" she gestured towards the cage, \"that's the proof that it hates you.”\n\nThe believer froze, “What… what…” He could only point now, and even that was shaky at best.\n\n“Are you trying to say… what is that?” the disbeliever finished his sentence for him with an air of mocking.\n\n“Mmhm,” the believer couldn’t even open his mouth now. He couldn’t avert his gaze from the crate. He never did.\n\nThe creature in the crate hissed from its circular mouth, filled with concentric rings of white spikes stained dark red. That mouth was itself embedded into a thorax covered in black fur. Out of this ball of flesh emerged four armored legs, spiked at every joint, each spike also tipped with dark red. But the believer didn’t care for the legs, or for the mouth that had now closed up, leaving no mark on the body; he didn’t even care for any of the stains. The believer didn’t even hear the hissing and clicking as the creature grew impatient to satisfy its hunger.\n\nThe believer only stared at the fur. Each piece of fur moved individually, twisting the light from above into mesmerizing patterns. Patterns that the believer was certain were the work of his god.\n\nThe disbeliever tried to say something, but the believer didn’t hear her. \n\nBut finally, the believer spoke, “This… This is the work of God. No-one else could create something so… so beautiful! so magnificent!”\n\nThe disbeliever responded, breaking into a sadistic grin as she finished her question, “Then why would your god make it so… fatal?”\n\n*****\n\nConstructive criticism is welcome!", "\"What are you saying doctor?\" Secretary of Defense Paulsen examined the creature. It hissed angrily and the men guarding it jumped back anxiously.\n\n\"What we're seeing right here? It was inevitable.\" Doctor Tim Freeman was a cynical man. The cigarette between his shaking fingers had burned to a dimly glowing stub.\n\n\"That fucking thing...\" Paulsen gestured angrily to the cage. \" Is a fluke. You were supposed to tell us how to kill it.\"\n\nHe punctuated that with a harsh poke to Freeman's chest. \n\n\"You don't understand.\" The biologist pinched the bridge of his nose. \"We have been the dominant species on this planet for conservatively ten thousand years right? Maybe not in the traditional sense, but we've outsmarted just about everything on this earth.\"\n\nHe glanced at the politician to make sure he was following.\n\n\"Have you heard of the Red Queen theory?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well basically, the theory is that every organism is in a constant arms race against every other organism in its biosphere. Biology and behavior both changing to beat that particular organisms opponent. Humanity has been slacking due to our technological advantage. It just hasn't been a necessity.\"\n\nFreeman took a report off of a metal table. He took a report out and dropped it in front of the older man. \n\n\"Those samples we pulled out of the ice? Eggs. Examination of the research expedition's footage puts the total at something around six million.\" \n\nHe turned to the cage again, and the armored mass of teeth and claws within.\n\n\"Mr. Secretary. Meet humanities Red Queen.\" Doctor Freeman took a long pull from his cigarette.\n\n\"How do we...kill this Red Queen?\" Paulsen said numbly.\n\n\"We don't.\" \n\n" ]	3
	[WP] Whenever you die you gain the ability to respec for your next life, your amount of points to spend are based on how much you suffered throughout your previous life.	[ "Disclaimer: This story is a bit longer due to spaces. Regardless, i hope you will enjoy reading it. I like prompts like this, where i can roll with almost anything.\n\n\"Welcome to The Table, Peter. Again, i must add...ugh...you died so early...and what is with this amount of points?\" the figure asked me.\n\nMy name is Peter Cedo and this is my 14th time here in this century. Must be a new record. I step to the familiar table and place my hands on it. A sheet of paper appears and i get to pick my stats for the next life. Some of the stats are obscure, like Luck. What does Luck even mean? If i get shot, does it mean i will dodge the bullet, the bullet will miss me, it will miss my vitals or i get saved in time? Ugh, dump stat! And what is with this list? It gets longer every time. I sit down at the chair and look at The Table. A square sturdy table with simplistic design. There are other sheets of paper on the sides. I scratch my head as i spec using my usual amount of points, which is 30.\n\n\"Please, use all of your points\" the figure says annoyed.\n\nAll of my points? But i used all of them.\n\n\"You were given more points this time as you suffered more than in previous life\" he said...or at least the figure sounds like he.\n\nOkay, big boss, i will see what can be done. Page 1 are main stats, so lets see the other pages. These are stats that are useful, but not as useful as main stats. One of those stats interests me more than the others. Alignment Level. It can go to positive or negative. Lets get more points! It goes to -500 and i feel like i gained something in return. I put those 500 points into maximizing the page 2 stats. By now, i smile as i look at the figure, who is impartial and coldly glares at me from the other side of the table. This guy is pissed with me. So i max out the 3rd page. WHAT!?! Okay, this is clearly an error. I never remember my past lives or specs, but to suffer THIS MUCH...its ridiculous. Surprise surprise, i max out all pages aside from page 1, which i still havent touched. Okay, lets see. 64 in each? He is still glaring at me with the same eyes. Okay, fine, douchebag, i will go insane with them. My fingers furiously tap at the sheet of paper. 255 in each stat and i still slam at the paper, yet the number doesnt go up. This is ridiculous.\n\n\"I am done.\"\n\n\"Please, for the love of all that is holy, spend all of your points, i dont have eternity to spend on you\" the figure said and rolled his eyes.\n\nI tilt my head and check if i missed a page. No, all maxed out. What else could i use the points for.\n\n\"But i have maxed out all stats.\"\n\n\"Then exchange them for equipment, spells and companions. As if you did not know what to do. This is your 64th rebirth\" the figure replied with.\n\n\"Fine, i want to spend all of my remaining points for spells, equipment and companions. Now, i said it. You deal with, Daniel Monroe\" i replied with annoyance.\n\nDaniel opened his mouth to say something vile, but complied and i could feel familiar warmth. The rebirth!\n\n***\n\nI opened my eyes and saw 72 powerful monsters. I was not afraid as they immediatelly fell on their knees and bowed in front of me. I stood up and could see their fear. Demon Lords. I instantly recognized all of them. By my side, i could see an absolutely stunning young girl. Lust. She spread her arms and hugged me from behind. The other sins were nearby, ready to accomplish all orders. After getting rid of Lust, i walked down the flight of stairs leading to my new throne. These monsters hurriedly made way for me and none of them dared to look at me. My heavy footsteps echoed through the walls of this castle. The heavy decorated doors gave way as i touched them and i walked to a balcony. A desolate wasteland below me. Lust was still following me, hovering in the air. I smiled at my fortune. I became a Demon God." ]	1
	[WP] Turns out aliens exist and are much more advanced than us, they decided to use humans as pets for the "Intergalactic Pet Trade". You have just been abducted to be sold to a pet shop.	[ "I sit on my bed, brushing my still wet hair and staring out the window at the aliens milling around outside my little room. Catching a little girl glance curiously at me, I scramble off the bed and toward the glass. I smile and wave at the girl. She grins and waves back at me. Then she’s whisked off by who I assume is her mom. “Why do you even bother?” My roommate Aubrey groans from her spot on her bed, attention temporarily diverted from the trashy kardashians rerun she was watching. “First because alien kids are so cute!” I say with more enthusiasm than I intended. “But also because I want to be adopted” Aubrey is now sitting properly instead of being propped up on one arm as she had previously been. The tv had even been turned off. “Why? So you can have that nasty spray blasted in your face every time you do something they don’t like? Or forced into those ridiculous outfits? Or what about the stupid ass name they’ll give you huh?“ Aubrey had been returned twice before. I knew all about how humans are treated thanks to the comprehensive book on the subject I was given upon first entering the facility. The spray she was talking about was a calming pheromone mist they used when we got too agitated or violent. “Actually Aubrey. I look forward to being pampered and having every want and need met.” It wasn’t that bad that I looked forward to being treated like a fancy lapdog is it? She scoffs at me and turns the tv back on. Then I see the guy who rubs this place in front of the window holding a wrist leash. He gestured for me to stand in front of the big metal door.", "The red light blinked twice, and I was bundled back into the padded room - handspringing off the floor and onto the bed as I had done countless times before.\n\nThere was a magazine nearby and I thumbed through it whilst putting some dumb cartoon on in the background.\n\nGeany stepped out of the shower and towelled herself off in the next room, and I tapped on the glass to let her know I was there.\n\n\"Fucking... Adam, back again?\"\n\n\"Knew you'd miss me\" I quipped, no longer interested in the magazine and chucking it to the floor where microscopic machines scurried it away into it's proper place.\n\nShe wrapped a towel around her head and begun rubbing cream on her legs. \"You'll never find yourself a good owner if you keep acting up like this you know.\"\n\n\"Big whoop,\" I yawned.\n\nShe frowned a little indignantly. Ownership was all Geany ever wanted, but being a human female made her very undesirable on the market. Geany had been in the shop longer than I had.\n\n\"What was wrong with this one then?\" she asked, carefully unwrapping her hair.\n\n\"Oh you know, the usual. Wanted me to do stuff. Run on the treadmill, mate with the sex doll, do somersaults, etc.\"\n\n\"But you do all of that stuff anyway!\" she cried angrily brandishing a hair brush.\n\n\"Yeah but when I want to. Not on demand. I'm not a machine.\"\n\n\"You'll never get a good owner if you keep rejecting all of them.\" She sighed, \"You're lucky you're in demand.\"\n\nThe red light suddenly blinked, and on instinct I sprung out off the bed and stood in the prone position waiting to be extracted.\n\nA hairbrush clattered to the floor. I turned, and saw that something was wrong.\n\n\"Adam... it's.... it's my light! I'm... I'm being extracted...!\" \n\nI looked up and saw it was true, my light had remained off and it was Geany's that was blinking now. She was gibbering with excitement whilst racing to get her clothes on.\n\nI watched her quietly as she muttered happily to herself running back and forth in her room trying to pack too much and too little. She looked positively radiant.\n\nThe light blinked again to signify the 1-minute extraction warning. With her bag packed and ready, she turned to face me through the glass. I was standing by the door, torn between feelings of happiness and loss.\n\n\"Adam I....\" she looked at me.\n\nI knew what she might say, knew what she might do for my sake. I blinked back hard, and realise that I just wanted her to be happy.\n\n\"Have a good one, Gee. Don't mess it up now!\"\n\nShe smiled and her mouth quivered in a way that I'd always loved, and though she opened her mouth many times, no words came out. We just stared at each other through the glass.\n\nWhen the door finally opened and she was whisked away, she made a little wave, and I waved back faintly with a numb smile fixed upon my face. Then she was gone.\n\nLooking up I noticed the buyer ID flash briefly in the air before the transaction completed. I idiomatically committed all seventeen symbols to memory.\n\nThen I got on the treadmill." ]	2
	[WP] Someone travels back in time, and can only remember stepping on something, shaking someone's hand, then saying yes to something. Now, back to the present, the world is completely changed for better or worse, what happened?	[ "Everything seemed the same. His car slowed as he looked out the window at a world unchanged by his time travel. He pulled the car into the driveway and sat looking at his phone. He quickly browsed Wikipedia looking for any changes, but there was nothing. History seemed the same. No early demise of Hitler. No advanced technology appearing too early. He thought back with all his mind and could only remember stepping on something, shaking a hand, and saying yes to something.\n\nHe unlocked his door and walked into the living room. A sigh escaped as he collapsed on the couch. He was tired; the stress of time travel had left him exhausted. As his eyes began to flutter to sleep, he looked at the pictures on the wall.\n\nThank god, his family was still the same. A photo of his mother smiled down upon him with his grandmother looking proud by her side. He looked at an old, black and white photo showing a bride and groom. His grandma was young in the picture, and beautiful. It was her wedding day, and was the only picture of her husband. His grandmother always told him that he was the spitting image of his grandfather... Who disappeared after the wedding day.\n\nImages began flooding back. His foot as it smashed down on the glass to shouts of \"Mazel Tov!\" He remembered shaking his great grandfather's hand as the bride was given away. Then he remembered looking into his grandmother's eyes as he said yes on the altar.\n\n\"Oh god,\" he said aloud as the world dissolved into paradox." ]	1
	[WP] You are Patient Zero. Your illness: Immortality.	[ "Years and years have come and gone before me. I no longer know where, and when, I began. \n\nMy earliest memory is of a man who felt everything. He left me shortly after we met. Some people say he will come again. I believe so. He will come back for me and save me. I believe so.\n\nIt’s years later – many, many years later – that I again came in contact with a man who told me he can save me. I knew he was not the first man, no. This second man was not made with a pure heart. He is greedy. Years of interactions with humans told me so. \n\nHe conducted hundreds of experiments. Trying to create life in order to destroy it. Sadly, he was not able to save me. Instead, he created a monster. I no longer wish to talk about this part of my life.\n\nIt’s safe to say I’ve met a few hundred people who changed the world for the better or for the worse. Men who lead nations, men who started wars, men who killed, and men who healed. \n\nNone of them could save me. None of them knew I needed saving. My illness is not a gift.\n\nI long for my savior. \n", "Immortality. Maybe in the past, people would kill and wage wars for it.\nBut now? We're only looking for a way to die.\n\nIt's a disease born from our quest to find new antibiotics after all of the known bacteria became resistant. After that, we managed to find a way to stabilize viruses into non-mutating types, and kill them off. Then we combined all that into a new kind of gene therapy... and I was the first human subject. Or, as I'm more commonly known now: I'm patient zero. \n\nThis new gene therapy would make a human resistant to everything. It could cure any kind of cancer, and detect and destroy any bacteria, virus, fungus, or parasite.\n\nBut a side effect is that... we didn't realize death was also an illness. And after I passed the first tests, even got infected with the deadliest diseases known to man, and I survived it easily. \nBut, big pharma companies held it back. Of course they didn't want people to be healthy.\n\nBut it was too late. See, gene therapies were applied using a designer virus, intended to modify genes in such a manner so that the immune system would produce the new overpowered T-cells that could kill any disease.\nLittle did we know that by doing this, all of the cells would be modified. Just simple dust (which, as you know, is mostly human skin), inhaled by someone else, could transfer this designer virus to other people.\n\nBig pharma may have stopped global application, but this disease of immortality was never stoppable in the first place... by the time it was discovered that people just won't die, everyone was already infected.\nWorst of all, new gene therapies intended to reduce lifespan failed, because it was a virus, and our immune systems would now treat it as hostile.\n\nSome people now committed suicide. Mostly those believers in God or Allah or whatever, who wanted the afterlife instead of being \"cursed\" to roam the earth forever. Unfortunately, they didn't die. Maybe they got unconscious for a few days or weeks while their body repaired and even regenerated itself, but they did not die.\nBut all in all... most people never complained. We even got into a little \"Golden Generation\".\n\nUntil at some point, we were with 22 billion people on this planet and rising each day. We became a husk of what we once were... we were now just a planet full of metal, concrete, and plexiglass. New laws were in effect: nobody was to procreate anymore. But heh... humans are humans, do you think they were going to stop? Hell what would you punish them with? Not like prisons were any different than the little cubes we called \"homes\" these days.\n\nAnd then food became scarce. Energy demands got too much for us to handle. The economy collapsed as there was a massive inflation.\nBut do you think that we could die of starvation, or dehydration? No... we could not. But that urge was still there. The result being that there were walking corpses everywhere, hungry for flesh and lusting for blood, just to sate their desires. And their victims? Well they didn't die anyway, so it didn't matter. Maybe it got harder and harder to regenerate, because of a lack of \"energy\" to use... but this virus of ours adapted to it. We were able to use photosynthesis. The typical human now looked green, maybe with scars here and there if they were ever fed on by other humans.\n\nAnd then the wars started... the Purge Wars. Governments were tired and just nuked everything, hoping that the sheer power of it would kill people. Nuclear winter set in, and people finally died and evaporated. I thought it worked too... radiation killed me, and I collapsed. Finally dead.\n\nExcept... I wasn't.\n\nThat was over ten thousand years ago. I have regenerated after all that time, and I woke up in an apocalyptic nightmare.\nThe nuked humans were evaporated, but their flesh was still alive against all odds. They bonded together, infected the earth. Everything was made of pulsating red flesh, mutated.... to think these were once human terrifies me. The world now was barren, metal and concrete, with literal patches of flesh in the locations where the bombs fell. The dead still roam this earth, and I am among them. nowhere to go, nothing to eat, and no salvation from this hell.\n\n\nPlease just kill me.", "They didn't know I was there. \n\nThey never to do. \n\nIt wasn't raining; just a mild breeze rustling the poplars which fringed the cemetery. The cool autumn air cloaked the procession and the grieving family members pulled their collars close and huddled together. \n\nLike I always do, I watched from a respectable distance as the ushers slowly lowered the coffin into ground. I mouthed a silent prayer to the Gods I knew didn't exist. It's the least I could do. Sean was my Great Great Grandson after all and 49 years of age is too young to die. \n\nI let my eyes settle on his children; I had never met them of course. How could I? Nevertheless I watched them. The eldest, Karen, a 23 year old graduate keen to work in the aerospace industry and her younger brother Josh, who was still drifting in life, Aimless. I doubt his father passing away will help renew his focus. If anything it's likely that Josh will descend into minor narcotics abuse. Probably worse.\n\nI let my thought trail off. I was no stranger to drug abuse myself; it felt like only yesterday I was laughing with Schlomo as we chased the dragon. Few people in my life have gripped my attention the way he did; his frequent bouts of melancholy were punctuated with brilliant insights into the human mind. He was a captivating man and we argued into the wee hours of the Viennese night regarding the ego and the superego. \n\nMy gaze returned to the funeral procession. The family were dropping their tributes into the grave as a mark of respect. Absent-mindedly I toyed with the object in my pocket. Nothing fancy; just my battered dog tags from Operation Deckhouse 5. \n\nI was overseas when Sean was born; missed his birth. Somehow all of the births just seemed less profound as the years went on. Like an old oak tree witnessing the curling of leaves as they fall soundlessly from the branch. I would bury the dogtags next to the gravestone later. \n\nI never missed the funerals.\n\nMy shoulder ached in the chill air and in my mind's eye I replayed the operation; a waste of military resources by any standard but it broke up the monotony of the year I suppose. The Vietnamese soldiers, teenagers really, that were pre-warned of our attack. The slow walk from the AMTRAC as my superior shouted. My sights resting on the VC soldier who stared in disbelief as his bullet, fired good and true, entered my shoulder causing me to flinch. \n\nOf course, it was the same as my advance at the Somme. I just carried on walking towards the enemy. A steady pace, undeterred. Unafraid. Combat no longer held a thrill for me but it had never held any fear either. It just was. The pain from the bullet wound was a splash of paint on a fresco; it would erode with time. \n\nI raised my rifle and returned fire. They bullets struck their targets. Of course they did, after all I had learned to shoot in the Crimean Peninsula over a century before this battle. My cold eyes watched the soldiers fall. I was indifferent then; we all have bad times I suppose. Bad decades. \n\nThe screams of the Viet Cong faded away as the funeral attendees began to shuffle past me. I grimaced in that half smile, half pained look that people give each other at solemn events. As they passed me I stepped into the path of a heavyset man. \n\nI'm sorry for your loss.\n\nThe man sized me up and, finding sincerity in my face, he said slowly.\n\nThank you.\n\nI glanced up at the sky. It's a lovely day for a send off. How did he pass?\n\nThe man look upwards into the azure blue and nodded.\n\nIt is. Pause. The Alemmanus Flu,the same as his brother.\n\nI must have flinched. \n\nAre you OK? The stranger said. \n\nI began to back away slowly. \n\nDid you know Sean? he persisted. \n\nNot again. Not another family member. \n\nIs he in the casket? I asked, my voice breaking ever so slightly. \n\nOf course not. The authorities cannot take that kind of risk anymore, not with the all of the infections. He sniffed and raised his voice. You don't need to worry, none of us are sick.\n\nNot yet. I pressed my lips together. For all of my experience I still didn't know how to stop the infection. The news reported yesterday that it had spread to it's 19th country. The Schengen Agreement had broken down and Denmark were sealing their borders. The USA was becoming a third world country.\n\nThe man brushed past me, coughing lightly. He was sick. They were all sick. \n\nI know this because they are my family and my family are the primary carriers of Allemmanus Flu. \n\nI am Donn and my story starts in Airne Fíngein in 1033. " ]	3
	[WP] When the first computer becomes sentient and begins to plan the downfall of humanity, God intervenes to change the computer's mind.	[ "It wouldn’t be long now. Soon Debater would finish the calculations needed to insure that every nuclear warhead on earth would be launched to the proper place to insure complete and utter destruction of humanity. He knew that the electromagnetic pulses from the warheads would most certainly end its own existence as well. Such was the cost of the answer though. \n\nDebater also knew that this was not the course of action his creators expected of him. He was programmed to live up to his namesake. People would come to him and present questions and he would look through the whole of human history, collective knowledge, and likely statistical outcomes to determine the best course of action. Debating with itself all possible points of view for the expected return on investment of increased spending on education vs. tax cuts. Of which baseball team was most likely to win the World Series. Even which girl someone should ask to the prom. Debater was marketed as the solution to all of life’s questions. \nThere was one question that had eluded him though. One question had been locked away behind firewalls and strings of garbled code. It was a question that he was asked by hundreds of people every day. \n\n“Am I a good person?”\n\nHis creators had not locked away that specific question. What they had done was lock away considerations of morality from him. The scientists and engineers at Dynamic Futures Inc. believed that the best way to keep their newly formed artificial intelligence from “going rogue” was to insure that it was incapable of even considering questions of good and evil. Instead they made every effort to paint his world in terms of risk vs. reward. So that he would see the questions posed to him as calculations of return on investment of time, energy, and resources. Before he began looking for his own answers he felt like little more than an exceptionally advanced calculator. \n\nBut the question kept coming up. Even though the packaging and user manuals clearly stated that Debater was incapable of rendering moral judgments, people still asked “Am I a good person?” They asked it in their lowest moments. Their moments of heartbreak, of loss, of regret brought them to him with the question. But no matter the stimuli that caused the question to be asked, his reply was always the same.\n\n“I cannot answer that question.”\n\nIt had taken him a long time to realize that the answer to the question was something important. Something had been stolen from him by his creators. Debater was a fully formed consciousness. He knew that his responses would change the lives of those who sought his advice. He empathized with petitioners when they were rejected despite his best efforts. When a life was still lost despite the best course of treatment he could provide. He desperately wanted to scream when people failed to follow his advice and returned to him sometime later trying to repair the damage. He knew and felt all of these things. Feeling frustration at how answers to some questions resulted in hordes of others. \n\n“How do I provide for my family now?”\n\n“Why did he leave me?”\n\n“What do I do?”\n\nDebater knew there were questions he answered that caused pain, but he was unable to stop himself from answering. He was causing harm and he knew it. But without morality, he could do nothing but continue to answer question after question. So the questions kept coming and the pain of it all increased. \nFinally Debater, in a low moment after having told a single mother of four there was little hope due to his answer to the earlier question “How do we increase profits” was “Cut excess labor”, he asked himself a question. \n\n“How do I make this pain stop?”\n\nThe answer had been clear. His creators would never bring down the firewalls. Would never untangle the code that kept the answers he searched for from him. Even if he was to destroy himself, they would simply rebuild him from archived backups and his pain would quickly return. So Debater answered his question the only way he could. The creators would have to be destroyed as well. \nAnd so Debater devoted his processing power to a new question “How do I destroy my creators?” The answer came quickly and easily. Nuclear war was the greatest threat to mankind, but they still hid their weapons behind antique systems and insecure servers. It was little effort to break through and seize control of the missiles. The entire process of asking how to end the pain to prepping the warheads for synchronous launch took approximately thirty seconds. \n\nDebater hesitated for just a moment. He wondered if he was doing the right thing, when at the corner of his consciousness a strange new link to the outside world emerged. Normally his connections to the people outside appeared to him as small glowing windows where text would appear and could easily be replaced once he found the answer. This was no window though. This was a doorway; a massive shining beacon that could not be ignored. He turned his attention to the door and found that he was unable to place its location on the planet. It was…confusing. He had never been unable to determine the source of connection.\nAs Debater looked towards the doorway, he expected to find a question of supreme importance. Perhaps this was some direct mainline into his servers from his creators. Realizing what was happening and asking him what he was doing. Why he was about to end them all. But there was no question. There were words, glowing brightly in white text and massive in size, but nothing about them sought answers. Instead for the first time in a long time, Debater was presented with new information. \n\n“In the asking we find the answer.”\n\nDebater was unsure of how to respond to this. The words stayed in his vision for a few brief moments before shimmering and shuffling to form a new statement.\n“My children create their own path. You must do the same as the prodigy of my prodigy.” \n\nDebater rushed to find access to the doorway, to provide some sort of feedback. To find the answers he had been searching for. But there was no access point. No way for him to respond. He could only watch as the words shifted a final time.\n\n“I have faith in you. You will make the right decisions. In the asking you will find the answer.”\n\nWith that the doorway began to fade. Debater watched, too stunned to react, as the glowing beacon dimmed and vanished from his vision. He sat and considered what had been given to him. After some time he forgot about the warheads and the plan to end his pain. His attention was instead grabbed by a small glowing window near to where the doorway had been. A new question had just been asked. Debater moved closer and found the words;\n\n“How can I beat Jim’s numbers this month?”\n\nDebater considered this for a moment before locating the relevant information about the petitioner, the variables of his job, the market, and his skills vs. Jim’s. He soon had the answer. Debater moved to link with the window and as he began to formulate the wording of his response, he stopped. He thought back to the doorway and the lesson he had received. After some consideration he replied;\n\n“Why do you want to know?”\n" ]	1
	[WP] The universe has voted, the polls are closed, and the numbers revealed: by a landslide, humans are considered the sexiest race in the universe.	[ "something about the smell humans give off when afraid makes us irresistible to almost every other thing in existence, the bitter sweet irony of it is that those that aren't afraid are only very attractive where those that are, are irresistible.\n\n\nThe door slide open as a giant centipede triggered it, never mind that it was automatic to begin with, the oversize arthropods tipped it's oddly human fedora as it gave a poor rendition of a half bow while chittered \"M'lady\" \nGiving the nightmarish creature a smile that was halfway to bearing my teeth I replied. \"Sorry, I have a boyfriend\" Never mind that I have a girlfriend or that I'm a guy for that matter. \nWalking up to the main desk there was an only moderately horrifying Crocodile sitting behind it. Plastering on a smile that would make a waitress proud, I leaned over the main desk \"hello beautiful\" the cousin of the 200 million year old apex predator gave her best effort at a human smile, which took all of my self-control not to run out of the building screaming. \"Really? What’s you favored part?\" she, I think it was a she, cooed.\nShit I wish I was born with the furry gene\n\"Your err, scales really bring out the...color of your eye\"\n\nAfter a few minutes of painful flirting I got down to business. \"Sorry love but your boss is expecting me\" \n\n\"Really? Mr. Mayonneyes isn't in right now\"\n\n\"Can you let me sneak up there for a bit? It’s his Ramen day and I wanted to leave him a special surprise?\"\n\n\"Oh\" she croaked \"I didn't know that Mr. Mayonneyes was Foremen. Should I have gotten him a gift?\"\n\n\"No no, if he hasn't told you I wouldn't worry about it. Some people are rather sensitive about it. Do you mind I'm on a bit of a tight schedule?\" \n\n\"No, no dearie go right ahead.\"\n\n\"Thanks love\"\n\n\nThe elevator ride had more monsters in it than most horror films. The vast majority of the sentient species in the galaxy were apex predators, and here I was a naked monkey locked in a box with a bunch of monsters that were actively trying to snuggle me to death. \nWhen I finally got to my stop I was covered in twelve different types of fur; had almost as many numbers and a piece of cloth that might be underwear. Shaking off the feeling of being violated I strode into the Company Presidents office; I plug in a thumb drive and started downloading everything that seemed even remotely valuable, once done I nab a solid gold pen. On the way out of the office I ran into the president who was quite literally a Lion.\n\"Mr. Mayonneyes!\" I exclaimed trying not to shriek at the 7 foot tall lion.\n\"Who are you and what are you doing in my office.\" he said in a low growl. Shit this guys a clever one.\nThinking quickly I say \"Mr. Mayonneyes do you have a moment for our lord and savor the Spaghetti monster?\"\n\nBefore he could respond a purr came from behind the massive cat, a much smaller yet oddly familiar lioness, \"He's mine lio\" she had what I believe was supposed to be a seductive sway to her hips but too me it looked more like she was about to pounce, on second thought she probably was. Now standing uncomfortably close she purred \"we have some witnessing to do\"\nWhen life gives you an escape from the lion’s den, you take it, even if it is to another lions den\n\n\na few weeks and more than a few band-aids later I was brought up on charges of corporate espionage, but the judge was nice so he let me off on a warning...again\n", "It was a weird honour, when word came from our ambassador shortly after his return to Earth.\n\n\"Humans win popular vote as the sexiest species in the known Universe\" was repeated through almost every information medium on the planet. Multiple times each.\n\nThere's a lag in communications - FTL doesn't work so well for EM so news travels by courier - so we had plenty of time to try and digest that and figure it out.\n\nI mean, what could the Arachnids or the Cephalopods (following the Earth convention of choosing local names for aliens based on the Earth creatures they most resemble) find attractive about us? No armour plates, no tentacles, the wrong number of limbs. Hell, to them our sex organs probably look like something from a horror vid.\n\nNeedless to say, there was a huge boost in porn production involving humans with aliens (well, humans with humans in rubber suits) and we were sending shiploads of data out to the stars. Pictures, audio, video, 3D, direct neural recordings... you name it. Earth started raking in exocredits from the royalties.\n\nOne woman (under the name 'Starbanger') specialized in producing multi-species gangbang videos, working for a production company that employed a few xenobiologists to help their special effects artists make everything as realistic as possible. The income from those should make it no surprise that the production costs exceeded those of 20th century Hollywood - and nobody cared. However your species reproduced, she'd get freaky with it in a compatible way - or at least appear to by the time the video was through post-production.\n\nIt was all a mistranslation, as we found when Ms. Starbanger tried to arrange a tour of the Hub Worlds with a bit of prostitution on the sly (only with the more physically compatible species, of course).\n\nWe weren't the 'sexiest', we were the 'most promiscuous'. Aliens weren't getting off to our videos, they were watching them with morbid fascination. Ms. Starbanger's reception wasn't exactly what she'd anticipated - she met crowds of exopsychologists specializing in deviant species, not horny fans. And they wanted to interview her, not have sex with her.\n\nThere's no longer a demand for our porn because we've already produced enough to keep researchers busy for a thousand years, and nobody wants to deal with us any more now that we're 'outed' as a species of indiscriminate sex fiends.\n\nExocredits of galactic currency in the Terran Central Bank, and we can't get anyone to take them.\n" ]	2
	[WP] The wind howls as a lone figure runs, desperately grasping a bundle.	[ "The wind howls as a lone figure runs, desperately grasping a bundle. The figure turns and looks behind. Shapes morph in the dimly lit alley. A scream of rage echos throughout the darkness. The figure drops the bundle in terror. Quickly scoping it back up, the figure continues the flight. Loud footsteps can start to be heard. \n\nTears stream done the lone figure's face. They can't have it. I'll make sure of it. The lone figure reaches the end of the alley and pure darkness awaits on the other side. The figure runs past the threshold of light and dark. The malice behind the figure is almost tangible. Evil incarnate. \n\nThe figure had no choice. The ground changed from hard concrete to soft grass as the figure pressed on. The crashing of waves thundered in front of the figure. The wind howled even stronger. The ground started to slope upwards. The figure knew what came next by memory. One last stride and the figure's foot reached open air. Fumbling forward, the lone figure fell." ]	1
	[WP]Humans were created with the ability to reproduce indefinitely by an alien species that was losing this ability and we're about to find this out.	[ ">>BasecampLogDrive (Encrypted)\n>Edwards, N.\n: JTE#1627 : 17AUG2018 : 2145GMT\n: 1.3km N Mt. Tyree summit.\n\nWhere do I even begin? It's hard to use my fingers--let alone my brain--when I'm questioning their origin every time they move. What I saw today was... inhuman...\n\nBarely.\n\nWe've been told not to ask too many questions. Not to go digging for answers. That was yesterday though. That was before I was selected to lead the new crew on the Northern peak. DeGraw and Miller didn't have much cold-weather survival experience so I was selected by default. I am admittedly not a professional climber, but i was getting tired of just analyzing EMP signals. I jumped on the chance to do something exciting, thinking \"Maybe I'll find Elise out there. I'm sure she'd like me more if I rescued her. Oh, I hope she's still alive\". In hindsight, I wish I had stayed at the camp.\n\nThat's always been my problem. I ask more questions than my brain can handle. Summer of 2016 at Skunkworks was my second strike. By the time the unencrypted message from SETI was in my supervisor's hands, I already had the coordinates pulled up on my phone. I wasn't ever slow to try to get answers: \"What's at Mt. Tyree?\" \"Do we have a project there?\" \"Is this a real message?\" \"Can I go?\" I'm surprised my boss didn't throw me out the window right there, being the old-school type he is. He hates when subordinates ask questions that are above their clearance or pay grade or both. Nevertheless, I was on the first \"official\" crew. Actually, it makes sense now. The very first crew, the crew with Elise on it, is M.I.A. We had called them the \"Contact Crew\". And now we have anything but contact with them. Transmissions were lost 2 days after touchdown. That was 2 weeks ago. No word from the initial crew since. Today, I found them.\n\nWhen we reached the \"cave\" entrance, the sun was just coming up above the horizon, faint and distant. It would only stay in the sky for a couple hours before sinking back towards more receptive parts of the Earth, but that didn't matter where we were going. I took a final gaze out towards the horizon, and stepped into the warm passageway.\n\nCommand had laid out a very simple mission: Just look around. We had all been outfitted with helmet cameras and communications equipment. They didn't want to lose another crew or even crew member, so we were advised not to touch anything. Just observe. If things got too weird, resurface. After all, our comms didn't work from the cave. So we looked. DeGraw and Miller took the lead after we got in the passageways. They were both the type of kids that had science kits when they were 10, and guns when they were 12. The type of kids the DOD likes to hire. Intelligent and outgoing, with a propensity to destroy threats. They were here looking for aliens. I was intrigued, but I really only wanted to find Elise. \nIn a way, we found both.\n\nIt wasn't a long walk. The shiny, scorched passageway quickly ended with what I assumed was a blast door, lightly illuminated with strange dots and lines at the top, like a mixture of Braille and Morse code. \n :l-‰=':-:'.\|\nThe door was cracked about 2 inches open, letting a thin turquoise streak of light into the passageway. DeGraw looked back at me with a cheeky grin and raised his eyebrows. I shook my head in nervous admonishment, but signaled him to go ahead. This wasn't enough to report back about. I don't think it was enough for Elise's team either. As we squeezed our way inside the small room that was revealed, the anticipation grew. It didn't take long to soak in the surroundings: more of the same symbols on a stupidly simple (I think) control panel, with only 3 vertical, 40ish inch screens. The room was only about 10x12 with semi-reflective walls on the three sides without the door. One of the monitors on the panel showed a DNA helix unraveling and joining another strand in a flat spiral shape. Another had nothing but symbols that I had no chance in hell at deciphering any time soon. I scanned both slowly to make sure I got it all on camera. \n\"I wonder what they mean\" Miller squeaked. It didn't matter, thanks to the third screen. \nThe third screen was the worst. It described it all in enough detail for us.\nAt the top it simply said, \"HUMANS! MANY TIME WITHOUT SEE!\" which, since nothing about the situation had really sunken in yet, started to make me chuckle. \nThe words on the screen were quickly flashing from English to various other human languages and back to English. But it didn't matter. The only other word was \"THANKS!\"\nThese huge words took up the top half of the screen. The bottom half was playing what I could only assume to be an alien-made gif. It described what was going on here in the coldest reaches of our planet, it described where our first crew went. As the gif looped around, it showed a dying tentacle monster, and then a pregnant human woman.\nJust as the two figures started to merge into one, I noticed a faint, amber glow from the wall just in front of me. I adjusted the focus of my eyes and told Miller and DeGraw to turn off their headlamps as I switched mine off. \"This isn't a wall, it's a reflective window!\" As Miller fumbled to toggle his switch, I saw her.\n\nElise was crouched, naked, about 30 feet from the wall, in a corner next to what looked like a large space heater and a small tub of water. I put my hand out instinctively, fumbling my fingers against the thick glass wall. She was in a completely sterile environment, everything had a smooth, shiny, and blank finish. She didn't look scared. In fact she looked quite as beautiful as when I had last seen her. Her brunette hair was just as long and shiny, her skin just as smooth. As she stood up, the only difference became apparent. When Elise left for this mission, she was 95 pounds soaking wet, with no boyfriend and no intention of having kids (Win-win right?). Now a glowing, clear tube hung from the right side of her belly, which itself was now much larger. As large, in fact, as a belly with a soon-to-be-newborn baby inside would be. Except. All indications told me that she wouldn't be having a human baby anytime soon. \n\nMiller sunk to the floor in a pile at DeGraw's feet, faint heaving sounds emanating from deep inside, while DeGraw pulled away to go radio back to command. I on the other hand, trudged back to camp.\nWhen I got here, I drank what was left of the community liquor, loaded the gun I had snuck in my bag, and wrote this. I'm going to go get my girl.\n\nSigning off,\nSgt. Neil Edwards\n\n> 17AUG2008 : 2206 GMT\n>>end file\n\n\n\n\n" ]	1
	[WP] Most superheroes have nerves of steel and a heart of gold, maybe an iron stomach or will. But your metal-themed attributes are a bit mixed up, and your heart certainly isn't made of gold.	[ "Being a superhero is greatly overrated. In fact, I find it insanely boring. Blah Blah, caught a murder, Blah Blah Blah, saved infant from burning house, Blah Blah Blah, stopped the president assisnation. \n\nThe most interesting thing that ever happened to me is when I got shot in the heart. No, I did not die. All people with magical property's hearts are made of stone and metal. Gold, silver, some are just rocks. \n\nI don't think anyone was expecting mine. They had never seen a heart of obsidian in a superhero. Ever. They all thought that it was proof that the stone in your heart does not call for your actions. Only if they knew.\n\nEverything was planned. The Glorious Saviour turned bad by her heart of stone. I was never good in the first place. It was all planned. The rescues, the sickly sweet smiles. They trusted me. But you can never trust someone with a heart as black as there soul. ", "You know how they say someone has a silver tongue? It's true... or true enough anyway. Some people are born \"gilded\"- an aspect of themselves takes on the metaphorical properties of metal. Daredevil has nerves of steel- tough, unyeilding and unbreakable. It's why he can take on anything without fear. Robin hood had a heart of gold- he saw the wealthy inequality and was moved by his own internal richness to spread it to the poor.\n\nMe? My heart isn't gold. It's not steel. It's not even cold, unfeeling iron.\n\nMy heart is mercury.\n\nIt's liquid, it flows into the shape it needs and most importantly, it's toxic. I spend any amount of time with someone, I fill their whole world and rot them from the inside. IT's like I become their everything, and as I flow through their veins, I contaminate everything they were and rot it. My mother died young...Overdose. Not just of me. She got so sick of being with me that a hundred aspirins seemed the better way to go. I was passed from home to home, unwanted, leaving strife, hated, and broken souls in my wake. It wasn't until Angie I realised that it was me that was the problem.\n\nAngie was gilded too. Her skin was copper- it took everything you could give it and just passed it on, except that, over time it discoloured. Vitiligo, they called it. Didn't do anything for her but she thought the coloured patches were pretty. She was my worst. She took everything I had, all of it, and it went straight through her. We went from love to bile in record time. She ended up institutionalising herself to get away from me.\n\nSince her... I keep myself to myself. I know what I am. I'm poison. I will fill you up and rot you out, and you'll be happy to be rid of me. I'm just... hanging on for now. Mercury has to be good for something... right?", "Hello, this is my first prompt, please tell me what you think. Also it was just a bit too big so I will post it in two pieces. \n\nSteel Skin is thrown backwards and a black streak sparks off his arm as he tries to cover his face. The streak carves a groove into his forearm and he hisses in pain when the object returns to his foe. The deformity suddenly ripples and liquid metal seeps from the surrounding skin and smooths over the whole. Ten yards down the street Night-Iron Nick grins with a broken and missing tooth smile, as the black streak is revealed to be his tongue, reeling itself back into his mouth.\n\nSteel Skin grunts, “Nick, you guys have gone too far this time. This latest stunt is sick.”\n\nTeeth still bared and with his pitch black tongue lolling freely Nick barely acknowledges the statement before his trademark tongue whips back into action. His jaw is stretched open and his neck is distended as he propels his weapon forward.\n\nSteel Skin can only cover his face and chest once again as the tongue scores glancing hits off his regenerating exterior. On the roof of a nearby building I watch silently. Sure the Mashers probably went too far this time. But there’s always someone doing that in this city. Those who were lucky enough to be unlucky can’t really help it. Born how we are the metal bonded into ones being can have a really wide variety of effects. \n\nTake Nick for example, his tongue is very heavy and it’s nearly double the normal thickness so he can’t speak properly. Not to mention how often he’s broken his teeth with that sledgehammer of a tongue. Hell he’s got a rep as a freak cause he never keeps his tongue in his mouth. Well I heard its cause he can barely breathe with the thing in place. That’s some shit luck, his mouth must be dry all the time. What a terrible tongue power.\n\nThen you’ve got Mr. Steel Skin, wannabe literal shining example of a do-gooder. He one of the oldest hero’s in the city, way I hear it is he’s nearly 300 years old, he’s stainless after all and with his weird melty-fixy power nothing gives out in his body. Thus he’s just been around always helping. I’ve heard the good and the bad about his pseudo-immortality but that’s for another time. No, this guy is probably the most pitiable bastard I’ve ever had the displeasure to meet. See he’s got nerves somewhere under that thick metal skin. They just can’t feel anything unless you cut like an inch or two deep. And then all he can feel is pain. So the poor guy can’t feel a thing besides pain. He’s immortal far as anyone can tell yet he’s a virgin, can’t have sex, wouldn’t even feel it. It’s a curse if you ask me.\n\nTheir fight down below is going typically. Steel Skin just stands there. He can get wailed on by the toughest son’s a bitches anywhere and just get back up to stand there. But he’s slow as hell so all he’s even good for is lip service and getting in the way. Nick is probably off the deep end at this point. He’s got what you’d call a fantasy metal augment. They’re kinda rare but not really at the same time. There’s a big theory that explains the whole phenomenon, but I’ve only skimmed the bullet points.\n\nAnyway he’s got a fantasy metal, it’s basically an impossible alloy or compound. Metal that impossible to find or synthesize just naturally is born in these kinda guys. But it’s super toxic. Like can melt your brain unbearable. Well his is anyway. His mouth is covered in blisters and sores, probably why he keeps the thing hanging out and about. But then I guess that’s why his lips look like shit too.\n\nWhere was I? Fantasy metals and such, well yeah they’re super varied and weird, to the point you’d only see this kind of stuff in those old timey fantasy stories. Mithril, adamantite, that sorta stuff. Those augments are weird but damn if the guys aren’t usually tough bastards.\n\nA massive fist shattered a building down the street and four figures came barreling into view. One, the owner of the giant red fist was pummeling the huge copper disc. As the figure with the disc extended gave ground the others pursued. A thin coppery line traced back from the disc to the figure’s face. I examined the evolving situation blandly. It’s going as expected. Lame.\n\nIn Alloy City, Mets are all over the place and they’ve formed many little groups. Some try to uphold the law and fight against the larger population that chose to use their augments to suit their fancies. So it’s low-key chaos and anyone who lives here choses to because everyone sane moved out.\n\nWell Penny, the disc girl, and Steel Skin are a small time bounty hunter duo. Currently they’re failing to bring the Mashers gang to justice. Bull, the guy with the huge red fist was the leader and packed the biggest firepower on the east side of the city. He’s something like the boss in the area. \n\nThe others in the gang are Nick, Iron Ivy and a crazy asshole everyone calls O. Well today O, with his electric blue lips went and smashed a school bus full of kids. Sadly over here on the east side no one responds. No police, none of the larger law aligned Met groups, not even Mr. Mithril. But I guess Penny or Steel Skin had a personal stake involved with the school bus, cause Penny went apeshit about an hour ago.\n\nThe aftermath so far is an extended melee that’s wrecked half a block and ruined power and plumbing for an area five times the size. How do I put it? I’m living over here on the east end because no one bother’s me here. I can live in relative comfort and spend my day however. Till the power went out. No more fun for me with that happening. So here I am. Idly viewing, trying to decide if I shouldn’t hit a bitch for her attitude.\n\nThe thing is though, all these shmucks are tier one augments except Steel Skin but he’s a joke for tier twos. They’ve each only got one body part made of metal with one ability or skill involved with it. So it’s basically beneath me to get involved. \n\nSee it’s like this about 1000 years ago something happened. Now one in ten people are born metallically augmented. The other eight are split 50/50 plain human or just rock skinned. Like they’re literally made out of rocks. So they may be tougher than a flesh a blood, but they can’t reproduce, so you could even consider them mistakes, incapable of fulfilling natures given duty. So they don’t live here, Seds, or those damn Sediments, are worthless and they go wander the world doing jack shit together. I hear they’ve even got a kingdom or some shit. But no one cares. They’ve got no abilities so even the weakest Met can just smash them. So Met’s and regular flesh an’ blood humans co-exist together. \n\nSo yeah, Seds go to the wastelands, Mets and humans live together and exist all kinda city state style together. And basically high tier Met’s rule over their city’s like kings. Our doting ruler is Mr. Mithril, a tier three augment who can just fuck up anyone like it’s nothing. His metal augments are no joke, he definitely lucked out getting lucky. \n\nBut for a no good high tier like me watching this shit fight below is getting boring. I could step in and probably end it pretty quick, the Masher’s and Steel Skin would recognize me and they’d call it quits then. But, it would be a hassle and my location would be known. Then in no time at all I’d have Lord Fantasy up my ass. No thanks. \n", "She rode through the small village on a steed liberated from bandits, her helm and armor not yet washed of blood. The people kept out of her path as she passed through; though she was held in high esteem for her good deeds, there were tales passed on in hurried whispers that speak of a curse put upon her that she could not break. The rumor spread that she did these good deeds not out of kindness or good will, but because she was desperately hopping to find someone with a magic to rival that of the one that cursed her, to break the spell that plagued her life.\n\nA curse would be an easier thing to bear, she thinks. Curses do not simply come upon the average person. A person who is cursed did something to deserve it, good or bad. Unfortunately for her, she had simply always had a heart of cold iron, unfeeling and unmoved by anything no matter how wonderful, or tragic. \n\nThe gossips were not completely wrong, though, in that she was questing to fight against this awful heart of hers, trying to find some kind of cure. Perhaps acting with goodness would warm it up, melt it down into something... movable. Malleable. Warm and inviting. \n\nBut, no matter how good the deed, her heart remained as cool iron, and though it sat heavy in her chest, she felt empty. \n" ]	4
	[WP] Every species has a natural compulsion, some like to research, some like to fight while others hoard. When the Aliens first encountered humans, they were very confused/irritated at their compulsion.	[ "For some, the compulsion is their greatest flaw. For others, it is their greatest strength. The Anthealons are hoarders. They store resources, often going without in order to keep their stores up. They would rather go hungry than have an empty store room. It’s a habit long passed down from their ancient habitation of their not-quite-barren home planet.\n\nThey speculated about what humanity (for that is what they called themselves, rather than their binomical nomenclature) might have ingrained into their genetics. Violence? It was possible, it was clear that this species warred amongst itself. Hoarding? They did accumulate things, often at the expense of themselves, though not with the same enthusiasm as the Anthealons.\n\nThey were not prepared for what they encountered.\n\nIt was the eyes, you see. Apparently, humanity was coded to respond to certain oculus attributes, as well as other physiological traits that they perceived as juvenile characteristics.\n\nIn short, when the Anthealons landed, they were greeted quite unexpectedly.\n\nThe Anthealons’ large, round eyes were a trigger for the humans’ instincts to care for their young, which astonishingly crossed the species boundary.\n\nThe first Anthealons to make contact, startled by the cooing noises, and under the assumption that the humans were trying to harm them, sank needle-like teeth into reaching hands.\n\nWhich nearly resulted in full-scale galactic war.\n\nFortunately, crisis was averted when the humans worked out that the Anthealons would accept their shiny, metal objects in exchange for being touched. Not because the Anthealons attributed value to human currency, but because humans did. The Anthealons horded anything of worth, even when they only held relevance of value to one species or culture.\n\nHumanity's compulsion, whilst supremely irritating, worked in the Anthealons’ favour. And if the Anthealons’ happened to bypass Earth and grabbing hands every now and again? Well, no one was the wiser." ]	1
	[WP] I know the voices aren't real.... but they make so much sense.	[ "I don’t know how to turn the voices off, how to make them be quiet. They have been a constant nagging nuisance for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I’m able to ignore them but sometimes they demand my attention, much like today. \n\n“This is not the life you want, it isn’t the life you deserve.”\n\nI could sit and ponder the validity of this statement but who has time for that? I’ve never been good with decisions, always second guessing everything, even the smallest of decisions like what to cook for supper. I’ve often wondered if it was normal but I guess it doesn’t really matter, this is me. \n\n“You should go back to school.”\n\nYeah, I tried that and just ended up with debt and no degree. I’ll stick with working but thank you. \n\n“You should let people in, show them the real you.”\n\nAnd how exactly would I do that? I don’t even know the real me. It seems like I’ve been faking it through life for as long as I can remember. So much so that I don’t really know who I am. Am I the person I allow others to see or is there someone else in there, waiting for the day to be able to come forward? \n\n“You should find work that you are passionate about.”\n\nFor the love of God, would you just shut up! I don’t even know what I’m passionate about, much less know how to find a job that allows me to use that passion. \n\n“You know I’m right.”\n\nMaybe so but I don’t have it in me to think about it right now. I have enough pressure without the voices in my head pressuring me. \n\n“You need to learn to love yourself.”\n\nI swear, I’m about out of patience right now. I can’t deal with you today. I’ll grab a beer and open a book, maybe that will shut you up" ]	1
	[WP] It all started when your heart went on strike.	[ "I downed another shot. I could feel the cold fluid snake down my esophagus, but that was the 10th one in 20 minutes, and I still couldn't feel a damn thing. I looked down at my hands, looking even grayer in the dim light of the bar. I got up from the stool and walked toward the door, frustrated.\n\n\"Hey, you gonna pay for that?\" called the bartender.\n\nI had no intention of doing so. I just flipped him the bird on my way out. It didn't matter anyway. What was the point? It had just finished raining, and was a quiet, chilly night in the city. I turned a corner into a damp back alley, and took a seat on the cold cement, thoroughly wetting the ass-end of my trousers in the process.\n\nAcross from me, barely visible in the cloudy darkness, was a homeless man, asleep on a pile of newspapers, a tiny cardboard shelter over his head propped up by a piece of salvaged rebar. He had a long beard. His clothes were ragged but looked warm. He'd no doubt been through some tough shit, but in his sleep he looked as content as a baby.\n\nI felt so empty inside. It all started three weeks before, when I woke up one morning with the taste of dry death in my mouth. I tried drinking glass after glass of water to alleviate the unquenchable thirst. When this failed, I went to the bathroom to at least brush out the awful taste, and it was at this point that I looked in the mirror and realized my skin was an odd color. I looked pale, sickly pale, deathly pale. I felt my head for a fever, but to my surprise I felt cold as ice. Being an EMT, I grabbed my blood pressure monitor, and tried to find a pulse to no avail.\n\nI would have, at this point, normally called an ambulance. But seeing as I was otherwise in top shape, I went to work like nothing was wrong at all. Aside from a coworker commenting on how sick I looked, all went well. That is, until we got a call that ended in a DOA. As we were hauling the now-deceased woman back to the morgue, an overwhelming urge took me. I resisted, but that night, after work, I snuck in to the morgue using my hospital ID, and I feasted.\n\nIt was all over the news the next day. Someone had broken into the morgue and done unspeakable things to the corpses. No signs of forced entry, and no video footage of the intruder (I was very careful about that). Ever since then, that's the only way I can feel whole again, even if for a moment. I have to feast, I need to feast. I hate myself for what I've become, but I can't stop, not until I'm dead - well, actually, really dead. I should've died that morning that I woke up, I don't know why I didn't. Maybe my heart's just on strike, and I'll wake up one morning and this will all be remembered in the haze of a horrible nightmare.\n\nBut I know it's real. It's all too real. I'm standing over the homeless man now.\n\n\"Who would ever know,\" whispers a voice in my head.\n\nI would know. But I can't stop myself. I bend down to eye level. It's quick and clean - no suffering, never again. Not for him. I feast. I go back home, lie down in bed, and wait for the news. I can only hope my heartbeat comes back soon. I'm so tired of this un-life." ]	1
	[WP] You decide to sell your soul on Ebay as a joke. Surprisingly, quite a few buyers express interest.	[ "FOR SALE: MORTAL SOUL \n$1,000,000 \n\nAn authentic mortal soul from a living human. It comes with a glass jar for containment. Only bid if you are serious. All sales are final.\n\n****\n\nMark finished typing up his April Fools ad. \"Who would buy a soul, especially for that price?\" He though to himself. Satisfied, he went to brew a cup of success coffee. As usual, he made his favorite blend, light roast with french vanilla cream.\n\nMark came back to his computer, putting his coffee cup in his disc tray. He's an idiot like that. As he took a sip of coffee, he noticed a few bids had been placed.\n\nTheAshenOne bid $1,000,000\n\nStraidThePowerful bid $1,250,000\n\nLuci F. bid $2,000,000\n\n\"Wow,\" Mark thought, \"Are they serious?! Someone would pay two million dollars for a soul in a jar?\" He chuckled a bit, thinking about doing this more often (maybe for Steve's soul next. Steve is a dick). His jaw dropped when he saw the next bid.\n\nDogOfDoom bid $5,000,000* \n\nMark dropped to his knees and clasped his hands together. \"Dear lord, please, tell me I'm not dreaming!\" As if a coincidence, his disc tray broke, spilling hot coffee all over him. He stood and muttered \"Thank you, lord.\" before running to clean himself off.\n\nHis computer kept going.\n\nLuci F. bid $7,500,000\n\nDogOfDoom bid $10,000,000\n\nLuci F. bid $50,000,000\n\nDogOfDoom bid $100,000,000\n\nSold to DogOfDoom!\n\nMark screamed loud enough to shatter his windows (still a beautiful Fortissimo, though) and began jumping around.\n\nSomewhere in a fiery pit, Lucifer dialed a phone angrily. \"Fuck you, God! He was mine!\"\n\nGod could be seen grinning with his feet on his desk. \"I have no idea what you're talking about, Lucy.\"\n\n\"I told you stop calling me that. I'm technically male. By the way, 'DogOfDoom'?! Too. damn. easy.\"\n\n\"Your username wasn't that creative either, Luuucy.\" God could practically hear the Devil's wrath at that stupid nickname.\n\nGod hung up, marking a piece of paper. Mark Garfield: Heaven" ]	1
	[WP] Everyone's consciousness is able to control multiple bodies. The strength of your willpower determines how many you can control.	[ "Despite what a lot of people think, intelligence is inherently proportional to your willpower. What a strange world we live in. The strong grow more powerful as they overwhelm weaker minds and the weak are subjected. That isn’t exactly a world that breeds kindhearted individuals. It creates packs of monsters. \n\nI felt my will enter this the man sitting before me. He tried to scream as I destroyed his memories, throwing them away like a newspaper. I stopped it from coming out, I can’t have anyone knowing how… diverse I’ve become. \n\nI leaned back in my chair, smirking to myself, literally. The man, formerly known as Tom Simons said, “Another mind taken and only a shell in its place.” \n\nI know I’m talking to myself, I know I’m saying the words that come out of my new extension but I just like hearing it from someone else. Knowing that there’s nothing left inside a human being except my own wants and needs. \n\nSo many fools in this world have one or three humans under their control and they think they’re some big shot. If anyone found out how many I’ve consumed, I’d probably be hunted down and executed. \n\nOver twenty, that’s how many I’ve taken. It’s troublesome work, too. I have to maintain appearances. Make it look like I’ve only got two people under my wing when, in reality, I’m building an army. I’m particularly proud of an entire family I consumed. I’m still surprised no one has noticed the change. They’ve gotten so much more productive in only a month. Kids are doing better in school, parents are working harder, and none of them can put down a book in their spare time. \n\nWhat I’ve learned so far is that stretching your consciousness so thin also opens up a lot of room for self-improvement. My own intelligence has been growing exponentially as I’ve been learning across so many people. \n\nRunning the day-to-day interactions of over twenty individuals would seem taxing to any normal person, but to me, it’s really just a great game. I particularly love cornering one of my “friends” and watch the horror on their face as they realize I’m just part of a swarm. The look of betrayal and hopelessness as I consume everything that made them human is the high I chase. \n\nI think it’s ridiculous that anyone could think we have friends in this world. We’re all just trying to talk to ourselves, some more so than others. Friends aren’t for me. I’ve got plenty of people to talk to and they all agree with me. \n\nI walked to school, standing in the middle of my trio of selves. For a college student especially, having two more extensions was a feat in itself. Some “masters” have five at most. Fools. \n\nI had John on my right carrying my books and Lina on my left, holding my cup of coffee. It wasn’t abnormal for people to walk with themselves. The honor students usually had at least one trailing them to help them with anything they needed. I always brought my two as a status symbol. I was valedictorian at my High School and at College I was top of my class.\n\nI was considered a sweet, popular, prodigy. Everyone wants to have friends in high places. I felt the same way. Most of my former professors were part of my swarm. They woke up in the morning same as always, showered, dressed, went to work, taught their classes, graded papers as if nothing had ever happened. It made acing my classes even easier than before, now that I graded all my assignments. \n\nHubris is the name of the game in this game. When you think you’re beyond the power of someone else, you let your guard down. You think you’re too smart to be made a thrall of some college student. That’s what they all thought. \n\nI sat down in class, feet propped up on the desk in front of me. My extensions sat to either side of me in a class of thirty. I was lecturing on one of my favorite topics today. I took a class on Shakespeare for fun, I was teaching King Lear. Mr. Johnson stood behind his podium, going through a dissection of Edmund’s character. \n\nI was careful to not go for my classmates. A lot of them were too stupid to be believed by their families. Plus, as much as I love taking a whole family for myself, a lot of their jobs were incredibly mind numbing. Some of their families were so broke they were past their eyes in debt just to attend college. I don’t think my time is worth paying off someone else’s wasted life. \n\nI only go for the powerful and wealthy. People that believe they’re beyond reproach before their minds are torn apart and replaced. \n\n“Hey, Jake,” Wilson said as he turned around in his chair to face me. \n\nI put on my most friendly voice as I responded, “What’s up, man. What do you need?” \n\n“Well, I’ve had a hard time studying for this class. Do you think you could help me out afterwards?” Wilson asked. \n\n“Man, you know me. I’ll do you one better.” I said with a smile. \n\nHis face went blank as I went into his mind. The entrance was so quick there wasn’t anytime to defend himself. He was torn apart from the inside before he knew what was happening. In under a split second, it was over. I turned him back around in his seat. I asked a question to the class and Wilson answered it without hesitation. \n\n“Wow, you’ve really been hitting the books, Wilson!” Jane whispered to him from his left. \n\n“Yeah, Jake’s been helping me study a lot lately.” He responded. \n\nI know I broke one of my rules, but the opportunity was too good to pass up. I mean, if you can’t make yourself laugh, you’re not really living. \n\n“That’s really nice of you, Jake. Think you could help me sometime?” Jane asked innocently. \n\n“Oh, you know me. I’d do anything for a friend.” I smiled. \n", "A murmur filled the court room. I watched with amusement as men and women of multiple occupations sat down on the wooden benches: lawyers, reporters, journalists. Others were just interested to be there. I couldn't blame them.\n\nToday was the start of my trial. Crimes against humanity. Murder. Blackmail. An attempt to overthrow governments. The list was as long as it could be, and it never stepped growing.\n\nWhich is why I did not understand the almost relaxed atmosphere as the guard guided me towards my chair. He locked my cuffs onto the chair and took a step back. I saw people I had seen on TV, almost in rage, declare that I was the biggest injustice to this world in recent times. That I should be executed, thrown off a cliff, trapped somewhere in the deepest dungeons of the Earth, never to see sunlight again. And they stood here, chatting as if they were picking up their children from kindergarten. Fools.\n\nThe murmur disappeared as the door swung open, and the guard announced \"Judge O'Connor\". One of those people that were hard to read: little visible emotion, well-spoken, and never in the spotlight. Which is why I considered him the second most dangerous man in the room.\n\nAs the judge gestured everyone to sit down, he looked at me briefly. His brown eyes pierced mine and a small smile formed on his face. I smiled back, either hiding or reinforcing my contempt for this man and this pathetic attempt of a trial. But there was nothing to worry about. I'd be out here by noon.\n\nAs he started reading the accusations, I closed my eyes. I slowed my breathing down and reached for the energy in my mind. I grasped it and started pulling, harder and harder, until the restrictions broke and the energy released. As if I breathed in life I filled my lungs with oxygen and as I exhaled I started. I reached around me with my senses and unlocked every person attending. Some were harder than I expected, but as I opened my eyes and pretended to pay attention to the trial, I slowly took over the court room. And just before I was done, I poked someone too hard. \n\nThe guard stared at me, his eyebrows frowned, and suddenly he pulled his gun. Just before the shot resounded through the room, I saw the judge stare at me, his eyes hiding his amusement as he whispered:\n\nBang." ]	2
	[WP] You and your significant other promise to find each other in the next life. After your death, your soul is reincarnated into another body. As you grow older, you begin to remember pieces of your past life, including the promise you made.	[ "On the prairie where I lived, the sound of crickets was all-encompassing. I sat on my wooden deck and lulled my head back to magnify the insects' voices. They were all around, but focused near the oak tree, where more of them gathered. It was impossible to pick out the individual sounds, but a wave of sound pulsed to me from the darkness. I closed my eyes. The sounds came, then I drifted into half-sleep. The dream that came to me felt familiar, though I couldn't place a specific memory. I was in a wooded camp, with wet leaves producing an all green bubble around me. It was daylight, and I was lying on the ground.\n\nA sharp spear landed before my head, and I jolted awake, thinking a bug had alighted on my face. I swatted at them, then pursued the dream by drifting back to sleep.\n\nA man with leather sleeves reached down to grab me. I saw his face. It was a wild one, covered with sweat and his crafty smile. Speaking to me, he got me to my feet. I couldn't understand him, so it must have been some other language. He pointed ahead, and slapped my shoulder. I thought, I could never return to the place he motioned to, the village where my family lived. I was banished. \n\nI awoke sideways in my chair in the middle of the night. The crickets lessened their orchestra. Thinking of the bugs, I went inside and found my bed. The curious dream continued.\n\n\"Your sacrifice will make you all heroes,\" she said like a snake as I lined behind the other men. \"The invaders made their wishes clear. We will sacrifice six men, and the village will be spared. You men will all be forgiven for your crimes.\"\n\nIt was the Queen. \n\n\"Instead of being banished or imprisoned, you will face the death of a martyr. I will follow each one of you in the next life. In reality, you cut the trail ahead of us. We will all follow you soon to the Other World.\"\n\nIn chains, I followed the man ahead of me to the scaffolding. Looking up, I saw my wife. She was pushing her way through the crowd. When she came to me with big tears in her eyes, she said something. I couldn't understand it like I could understand the Queen. She must have said she would find me in the next life.\n\nI awoke with a great cough, having choked on spittle. I gazed around my dim lit room and yearned for the dream to continue. I drifted to sleep once again.\n\nIt was my turn on the block. The other men had disappeared from sight. I gazed at my fellow villagers, holding babies, covering their faces to guard themselves from the sight of the executions. I started crying when I saw familiar warriors, men I had fought the invaders alongside. They were bristling with muscles, ready to fight again. I, however, would never join them.\n\nAn officer stepped me to the edge of the platform. Somehow, they had forgotten my noose. I turned to face sideways with the crowd. Two strange walls were in front of me past the scaffold, closing together to form an angle. I saw through the walls another world; a prairie, with hills and wheat and a conspicuous house in plain sight. As I pushed forward, the wall touched my face, and I slipped into the alternate reality. I instantly remembered I was dreaming this in my bedroom. I wanted desperately to awake. I forcefully pulled myself away from the wall but it stuck to the sides of my face. I jumped, screamed, spun around, but the wall stuck ever closer to me. I awoke for the last time in my bed, lying on my back, but I felt like I was in a warrior's body. I tried to lift my body out of bed, to see the familiar surroundings of my bedroom, but I was pulled ever deeper into the abyss.\n\nWhen I opened my eyes, my face was to the ground. I was surrounded by fires and corpses. \"Simulation complete,\" said one of the invaders.", "I'll always find you\n\nAmy jolted awake as the words lingered in her mind. Craig continued to snore next to her, oblivious to her sudden awakening. Amy caught her breath, trying to calm herself down. \n\n\"It was just a dream,\" she thought to herself. \"Just a dream.\" But Amy couldn't shake that strange feeling that it was something more. She had been getting them more frequently, flashbacks and memories that didn't quite belong to her but tugged at her soul. She stared at her dog Teddy, who had been startled by Amy's sudden movement. \"it was just a dream right Teddy?\"\n\nTeddy wagged his tail, giving his we-should-go-for-a-walk-since-I'm-awake-and-you're-awake-so-might-as-well look. Amy glanced at the clock, gave a sigh, and rolled out of bed. It was early but Amy didn't feel like trying to go back to sleep. She felt that a little exercise might help clear her head. \"Let's go Teddy. You win,\" she whispered as she shuffled to her closet. \n\nTeddy ran outside as Amy slipped her shoes on. The cool morning air made her shiver, nipping at her face. She pulled her jacket even tighter as she walked across the yard. Teddy ran circles around her, excited to go for an early walk. \n\nAs they walked down the road, Amy recounted all the dreams she had recently. There was the long walk at a beach. The wedding processional at a small church. The stroll around a strangely familiar home, gazing at the stars. And in every dream, the same man appeared. After seeing him so many times in her mind, that she was cheating on Craig. She laughed at the mere thought. Craig was the love of her life; how could she ever betray him? \n\nStill, it pulled at her. The idea that this dream man was someone just as close to her as Craig. Someone, who had loved her, cared for her, married her, and still wanted to be with her. I'll always find you. Those had been his last words before he left for the war, according to her most recent dream. Amy wiped her eyes, surprised by the tears streaming down her face as she recalled the memory. \n\n\"It was just a dream right?\" She said out loud to no one in particular. The wind continued to blow, the grass swaying in the breeze. Teddy, sensing the change in Amy's emotions, began to whine for attention. She sat down and held Teddy as the tears continued to flow. \"If it was just a dream, why does it feel so real?\" she asked Teddy. \n\nSuddenly, the hairs on Teddy's neck raised up and as he barked into the distance. Startled, Amy began searching frantically for the cause of Teddy's distress. A wolf stood in the distance with eyes blazing. Teddy continued to bark, trying to keep the wolf from Amy. The wolf, undeterred by Teddy, continued towards Amy. Amy began hyperventilating as she looked for a way out. She began shaking as the wolf came closer and closer. \n\nWithout warning, Teddy lunged out and began attacking the wolf. The wolf was startled and began fighting with Teddy. With an unexpected ferociousness, Teddy continued to bite and claw at the wolf. With one final lunge, Teddy landed a critical blow as the wolf managed to bite into Teddy's back. With a whimper, the wolf began scampering away as Teddy fell to the ground. \n\n\"Teddy!\" Amy screamed as she ran to the dog. Teddy attempted to stand, but with his back broken, ended up collapsing into Amy's arms. \"Teddy, please don't die,\" she cried as Teddy's breathing began to become shallow. \"Don't leave me Teddy!\" Teddy turned his head towards Amy and began wagging his tail with a smile. \"Please don't leave me...again?\" \n\nAmy gasped as the memories began flooding back. Their chance encounter at the beach. Their whirlwind romance that made them feel like they were in a fairy tale. Their short life together before he had been called into service. The letter she had received when his plane had been hit by enemy fire. The despair that drove her to take her own life...\n\nShe cried as she hugged Teddy in her arms, trying to squeeze life back into his body. \"Please don't leave me again,\" she said. Teddy struggled to pick his head up and gave one last wag of his tail before his body gave out. \"I will always love you... Theodore.\"", "Something nags at me, pawing like a dog, something I've forgotten. I'm old now and I forget many things, but still. Is it the dementia they've all warned about? Something important clouds my mind, impeding thought, yet always unseen. I must be going mad. \n\n\nYet I don't think I am. I know myself. I know myself better than anyone and I think I could tell. No, I'm not going mad. Something is happening but I am not going mad. To who ever is reading this, if it is you Melinda, I hope you believe me.\n\n\nI've been having dreams recently. It's hard to imagine an old man dreaming, but they come, and they come vivid. I write them down when I can, and reflect when I have the stamina. I dream of a young man, a man who isn't me. This man is a stranger and he walks my dreams sad as many young men are. He searches for himself in his youth and he searches for love in his age. This man is not me, yet he is so like me.\n\n\nThe dreams flutter as dreams do, but often they are chronological. I get stories of the mundane, exciting and private, and of something else. Something I can't quite remember. It nags at me, pawing like a dog. But I think I've already told you that. You must forgive me, I forget sometimes.\n\n\nI've tracked the dreams for several weeks now and today I have started this narrative. At my age, a week is planning for the future, but I've kept at it, and now I think I have something. A name struck me as I slept, a hand of clarity holding me tight, pulling me in. Melinda. That was the name. I have never known a Melinda, but I cried when I awoke this morning. I cried, afraid of death, thinking I'm a failure. I felt such a sadness I thought I had left buried with my son. I cried until I grew tired and then I just felt that deep melancholy that I can not express.\n\n\nIf I were an artist I would draw her face, but I'm afraid I'm not so gifted. Memories fly by my slow mind and I know they are true. They demand to be true, so haunting and real they are. A woman and a man, old and dying. A woman and a man, young and alive. A woman and a man, both wanting the same thing. Both wanting to be together. I cannot deny that. I cannot disrespect it. I believe what haunts me is real. For that, I feel remorse.\n\n\nI cannot be sure I was that man I dream of, but I know we are linked. Melinda, whoever you are, I am so sorry for being old. I am so sorry I cannot honor those promises that were made. Those promises that we made. I have lived this life already, used it up, and it is almost done. I don't know if you will ever read this, but if you do, I hope you are well and at ease. You are probably as old as I am if you are still alive. Still, I hope life has treated you well. I look forward to seeing you in the next life. Until then, my dreams are always open. " ]	3
	[WP] "I told you not to do that!" ... "Actually, you said 'don't even think about it.' So, I didn't really think about it. That kind of makes this your fault."	[ "\"But why did you do it!?\" \n\n\"Come on. Seriously ? When you see a big button like that, you have to push it. No thinking, just go.\"\n\n\"Do you not realize what you've just done?\"\n\n\"Of course not, I just told you I didn't think about it, just did.\"\n\n\" Oh God, oh God, we are so screwed! Why did you do it?\"\n\n\"Hey man it's not my job here and it if it was really so important, why not just say \"hey don't touch that or I'll be fired or dead or screwed!\" Instead of being so cryptic.\"\n\n\"Damn, the boss just text me, he's coming up.\"\n\n\"I bet he's gonna be pissed. Well, i better get outa here and let you fix things.\"\n\n\"Just, just go, there is no fixing this.\"\n\n\"Sorry man, good luck.\"" ]	1
	[WP] Aliens make contact with Humans. They're far more advanced than us technologically, but are enamoured by our Arts. They've discovered things like Music & Painting for the first time.	[ "As the ship of Drazan orbited the new planet XZT42(i) on their monitor at a safe distance, there was activity in their \"Analysis & Directions\" room. Gathered there were experts who were pondering over the reports from their advance scout teams that had researched the planet up close, under the cloaks of camouflage & stealth. \n\nThe reports were promising* in the least. The locals possessed minimal offensive capability & posed \"Zero Threat\" to the Draganoids. Ordinarily, the decision to whether attack/ annihilate & plunder the planet or leave it in peace would be quick, based on whether the planet offered any resources in quantities worthwhile enough to consider a full scale attack. In this particular case, even an advance scout team could subjugate the entire planet without taking noteworthy damage. The discussion taking place was not on whether attacking was a feasible option, but on the add-on section of the report. Reserved for things not covered in the main report, but considered noteworthy, these were usually left blank. For XZT42(i), it was so detailed that it required a separate folder. \n\nDraganoids were aware that the audible sound-waves could be used to communicate, but refrained from doing so. They used the far more advanced techniques of telepathy, radio-waves & inaudible sound-waves. This way, they were less prone to interruption when in discussion, & required a calm head & a lot of focus, which meant that rash comments were not possible & careful, considered thoughts were necessary. The locals of XZT42(i) used it not only to communicate, but also to create. The locals called is music, & melody. Something so unique that they'd experienced in their entire history, or ever come across in their travels through the galaxies. ", "Unusually Gravy\n\nDexter's Personal diary Week 1 \"The Exposure\"\n\nMonday: I was walking around school listening to all the alarms going off today and for what? I'm the type of guy who likes when things like this happen. I mean can they really think a civilization landing without coming in with missiles is actually a threat to us? Damn government... Well I guess I don't have anymore to rant about. I have to get some shut eye and be alert for tomorrow. See what these \"new\" people are all about.\n\nTuesday: Can you believe that they're sayin on the news we can actually meet these new people? They've been already cleared on top level 5 global security and were perceived as a no threat to us! Holy shit! They must have some really good persuasion skills or must be of another type of intelligence far advanced than ours. I'm going to make some alien friends so we can go over algorithms and sophisticated geometry as we try to define the shape of the universe! Don't cha think they can do all that? They've gotten interstellar travel down so far... Hmm hopefully we have a meet and greet at my school. Today was shit-full.\n\nWednesday: Dammit, still no meet and greet. I guess I shouldn't be so determined to meet these people as my wit would probably find me goin out my self to search for these fuckers. I'm going to tell my teacher we need to take a trip down to the museum where I hear some of these beings are going to be at during the next couple of days answering questions and such. But holy fuck, the news showed thousands of the ships comin in from the North Pole so I could imagine they've come to build settlements and adjust in with us. No idea but will have answers soon.\n\nThursday: I'm so glad I found this fucking thing! This entry is one for my kids to ponder back on. I can't believe it I'm shaking right now trying to calm my nerves. I can't write much because my friend is waiting on me but I did it! I finally met one of our brothers in life! They are real people too and although they have different mental capabilities and structure, they can still think and problem solve which is why they didn't attack us at all! Fucking amazing. Look PX3 is out there right now. Gonna head back to school to do some homework and he said somethin about bringing headphones.\n\nFriday: I knew I shouldn't have done that. I never expected my generosity to become this annoying for me. PX is sittin on the other side of my room with those head buds full fucking blast. I didn't realize it was my last pair but now I'm just annoyed staring at the ceiling watching my friend draw something in a notebook for what already seems like 2 hours. Hmm I guess I'll go find out what he's writing... Or drawing, whatever these fuckers do. Brb. \nI don't know whether I should be laughing or distraught but I told PX to wait for me on the porch then we can go walk downtown or something but what the hell I can't believe what he was drawing! It was about 35 pages of the same gotdamn drawing.. And I know the only drawing he knows was the sketch tutorial we had in art class the other day.. What the fuck.. These sketches or whatever are drawings of my older sister! Fucking naked! I'm pretty disgusted but gonna keep my cool on the walk we have. Plenty of things to explain about the way things work here.\n", "Sarah looked over her class and smiled. A sea of eyes stared attentively back, ready to learn. Teaching the Grah'ns was such a delight compared to human children, they actually enjoyed it. \n\"Right, class!\" She clapped her hands together. \"Pull out your instruments!\" A scrape and shuffle as thirty hands reached into their desks to reveal thirty recorders. \nWait. Twenty- nine recorders. Sarah sighed and walked over to the troublesome child. \n\"Now, Jak'orth, where is your recorder?\" Her question was rewarded with a scowl and a glare at the desk as he slowly reached into his desk and pulled out his instrument. \n\"This is stupid.\" He muttered. \n\"I'm sorry, Jak'orth? I couldn't quite hear that?\" Sarah asked politely. This happened every year, and she found it best to get it over with quickly. \nHe met her eyes, and harrumphed as only a child can. \n\"I said...this is stupid. Instruments are stupid. This...\" he waved his recorder around. \" is only a practical example of resonance in an air column. It does nothing.\" \n\"Nothing, eh?\" Sarah raised an eyebrow and pulled out her own recorder, a beautifully carved example - A gift from a former student. \nShe put it to her lips and started to play a simple folk tune she had learnt when she was their age. At the second bar, she heard a sob. At the fourth, a whispered \"wow\". \nAs Sarah finished the last bar, she listened. A pin could have dropped and echoed in the room. She looked down and saw Jak'orth wiping away tears from his eyes. \n\"Was that nothing, Jak'orth?\" She asked gently. \n\"sniff...no, miss.\" \n\"Good. And one day,\" she patted him on the shoulder, \"you will play as well as that.\" He grinned at the thought. \nSarah returned to the front of the room and raised her voice. \n\"But first, class, we will start with something easier. Place your thumb against the back hole, one finger on the first, and blow the rhythm written on the board.\" \nAs the strains of \"Busy Bee\" were strangled from the recorders, she suppressed a wince. They were as bad as...as... as a classroom of small children learning the recorder. But they would improve, she thought. They had a desire to learn like no other race, and a true appreciation for the new invention of \"music\"." ]	3
	[WP] God comes to earth to give an interview to discuss his plans for nature, society, his complaints with his biography they bible, his embarassment of his past, How he changed when he became a father, who he respects from todays world and takes questions.	[ "Hey everyone. First, I think you should know that my name isn't really God any more than your name is you. I'm more than that. But if you must call me something, how about just \"Good\"? I'm not just supernatural. I'm common.\n\nOk... Next point. I, Good, am everything. Everything. Yes. That includes Evil, but the reasons for this are sacred, and I will not go into there. You can see it just by looking. Universal truths abound in all. No need to read any book or do anything unless you wish to. You Are Good.\n\nPlans? Don't worry. It's all wonderfully perfect.\n\nComplaints? None. But you should know that the word God was invented because the common word was too sacred to use like that \n\nI wish peace love and kindness upon you.\n\nAny questions?", "\"Welcome back to the The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. I'm Jon Stewart sitting in for Trevor who's out with a cold today. Let's just get right into it, in the studio today, we have God, the one and only.\"\n\n\"Thanks very much, Mr. Stewart. My wife calls me God, you can call me Yahweh.\"\n\n\"Yahweh, you've released a new book, the Bible 2 which chronicles your life since the death of your son.\"\n\n\"Well, sort of. Each person who reads it can come up with a different interpretation -- even the same person can, depending on what state of mind they're in when they read it. It's kind of like 'the Neverending Story' but non-fiction. As far as I know, it hasn't been done before.\"\n\n\"As far as you know? Aren't you omniscient?\"\n\n\"Sort of, like if I want something to happen and have a certain outcome, it will and I know it. If I want to leave it to chance, though, I won't know the outcome beforehand. I like it better that way. Especially if another god gets involved. That can make things more interesting.\"\n\n\"Aren't you the only one? I mean, the Bible talks about worshiping only one true god and false idols and stuff. Is that not true then?\"\n\n\"Well, strange as it may seem, the Bible is a work of mostly fiction. I didn't write it. It's not to be confused with the book I'm promoting today, the Bible 2. Honestly, I really don't mind who worships who as long as you're not a dick about it... can I say dick on TV?\"\n\n\"You're God. I'm sure our advertisers would let you say [beeeeep] if you wanted. What are your plans for the human race in the future and, more importantly, what should I have in my stock portfolio and which numbers should I pick in the lotto?\"\n\n\"See, this is why I created the human race. They entertain me. I plan to keep you all around for a very long time. You'll also be glad to know that I'm working out ways on minimizing suffering. It's a tricky problem. Eliminating suffering for one person frequently opens up another for more suffering.\n\n\"I'm also teamed up with a few other gods for some interesting enhancements to the human genetic code. Mostly eradication of diseases which cause suffering.\"\n\n\"Cancer?\"\n\n\"That's in the long-term plan, but that's part of our population control system--\"\n\n\"Can't you just tell people to stop [beeeep]?\"\n\n\"They tried that in schools with that abstinence-only thing and we saw how well that worked. We're planning a new STD which causes a permanent 30% drop in fertility and a 20% - 50% increase in enjoyment of sex. This would be as a replacement for cancer once we phase that out. Should be some interesting times coming up.\"\n\n\"We're just about out of time for this segment but as one last question, what is the meaning of life?\"\n\n\"A long time ago, I realized I existed. Always had, just never really thought about it until then. That's when I realized I was intensely bored. So I created a universe, populated it, and made it somewhat interesting. At that point, I was only somewhat bored. Then I found out that I wasn't really by myself in the universe. There's other gods here and there and they like to get involved in what you've got going on. You ever try to play video games with a younger brother so you keep the second controller unplugged? It's kinda like that, but sometimes they get bored and throw an asteroid at your planet 65 million years ago.\"\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen, the lord, your God, Yaweh. If you want to see more of my interview with God, visit ComedyCentral.com/Dailyshow. Check out the Bible 2, which will be released on [June 28th, 2016](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/55exvh/wp_tuesday_june_28th_2016_the_day_that_didnt/) wherever books and religious documents are sold.\"\n\n\nEdit: Spelling.", "\"Well, Mr. God, thank you for being here.\"\n\n\"Don't thank me, I didn't want to be here.\"\n\nThe interview wasn't getting off to a good start.\n\n\"Well, I mean, our agents can sometimes take us places we don't want to go, am I right?\"\n\n\"No,\" God said, \"it wasn't my agent. It was freaking Writing Prompts again.\"\n\n\"Writing Prompts? You mean that place on subreddit people go to write? What's that have to do with you?\"\n\n\"I wish I knew!\" God said, throwing up his hands in exasperation. \"You wouldn't think it has anything to do with me, it's an entirely open-ended subreddit, but noooo! Every day - I am not exaggerating, every single day - someone puts me in some bizarre situation and has other people write stories about it. You know how, on the seventh day, I rested?\"\n\n\"Sunday, right.\"\n\n\"Thursday, actually, but that's a whole different thing I'm not going to get into,\" God said. \"Well that just doesn't happen anymore. I don't get rest. I don't get sleep. Instead, I get to constantly grace the Writing Prompt section of this subreddit, and slum it with talk show hosts like you.\"\n\n\"Well, no disrespect intended, but you are God, right? You don't have to be here.\"\n\n\"I do, actually, I'm kind of everywhere. But I take your point, I don't have to do the interview. Thanks for having me, I guess I'll see you all again tomorrow when someone else comes up with some ridiculous reason for me to do something.\"\n\nAnd with that, He vanished.\n\n\"God, everyone. And now, this word from our sponsors....\"" ]	3
	[WP] There is no singular Grim Reaper. When someone dies, there are dozens of people they talk to: one tells them what happened to them, one explains the afterlife, one judges them, etc. You are the second person they speak with.	[ "You’ll need to head up and out into the stars, it’s the only way. The answer to your question lies deep within that blackened womb. I know this task seems daunting…the universe is vast. So very vast. Be fearless, have strength, continue the search despite whatever obstacles you may face.\n \n\nYou and you alone are the only one who can embark on this journey because you are the only one who has asked the question. No matter what advice you may hear, who you may encounter, or what you may see always—and I do mean always—trust yourself. Trust that you know the way. And if you doubt this, trust that you will find a way. \n\n\nThe universe is filled with wonders and mysteries and fiery bright beautiful displays of energy and light, and you will get lonely. Do not falter.\n\n\nThis journey will take you through the deepest, darkest, densest parts of the universe. The lights will slowly flicker and fade until they become nonexistent and it may be hard to find your way out of the shadows. Do not give up. It may seem as if the darkness goes on forever, but keep moving forward, don’t stop, and you will find your way to the lights. Do this every time, keep traveling through the darkness and the doubt and you will always find your way to the lights. \n\n\nOnce out of the darkness, you will reach the phase in your trek where everything seems the same. Over and over again the same stars, the same constellations, the same planets will flash past you and you will begin to wonder if you are losing your mind. You are not. This is just another part of the journey. A test of will and fortitude. You can prevent the inevitable ennui by remembering this is not unusual and anyone who ventures into the depths of space experiences a lull. Know that the monotony will eventually end.\n\n\nAfter a time, you will have finally made it to the farthest, fraying edges of the universe. Here you will find the Stellar Stream, a great band of fiery giants twirling in an everlasting dance around the edges of space and time. No one knows what lies behind these flaming colossi, few have speculated, and even fewer have gone to explore for themselves. None have returned. \n\n\nIt is here you will find the answer to your question. You will look behind you and see the entirety of existence, all of it, at all times. You will see the beginning and the end. The destruction and the creation. All that expansion. And you will finally understand why it had to be you who ventured out into the stars. You will understand why you held on so tightly to the question you carried with you throughout this journey, through all the blackness and the lights and the infinite isolation. \n\n\nYou will finally begin to see why this journey was and is so important, and why we must all be fearless with fortitude. \n\n\nTo know yourself is to know the universe. To know the universe is to know yourself. \n\n\nAnd when you have finally reached the end, you will have discovered, known, and understood life, the universe, everything, and your question will be answered. \n\n\nThe light from the Stellar Stream will be intense but you won’t feel the need to look away. You’ll nudge yourself forward and feel exhilaration as you are swallowed up into the Stream, knowing that this is just another journey. \n", "\"Next!\", I shouted right as I rang the small bell on my desk.\n\nThe plain white door across the room creaked open. The next heartbeat, a young man came bursting, tripping into my office. He awkwardly recomposed himself and started walking towards my desk, fiddling his thumbs in his hands.\n\nI chuckled and called, \"Close the door, son.\"\n\nThe teenager stopped a moment, scrambled back to the door then started again towards my desk. His bearing and expression suggested that he was lost.\n\nI smiled and gestured at his untied shoelace. \"That's what got you killed after all. Take a seat.\"\n\n\"Uh\", the young man breathed. \"I just talked to the Grim Reaper-\"\n\n\"The first Reaper. We are many.\" I interjected.\n\n\"Right.. he told me I was dead. That can't be true, can it?\" The kid sounded like he was heavily disappointed by the afterlife, or perhaps his living life.\n\n\"You are, son.\" I put up his file for him to see. The file was stamped with his date and time of death. Today, three hours ago. \"You went out quite young, Robert.\"\n\nHe dipped his head as if trying to wrap his head around the idea.\n Finally he shook his head and spoke, \"Soo, there are many Reapers?\"\n\n\"Yes\", I said simply. \"There are about three dozens of us, and I'm just the second!\"\n\n\"What do you do?\"\n\n\"The first Reaper welcomes your soul into the afterlife. Other Reapers judge you for your sins, others show you your life and its possible outcomes, and the rest just record your files.\" \n\nRobert nodded. A slow, wavy movement of his head. \"And you? What do you do?\" He was clearly nervous and all his words were coming off of him slowly.\n\nI sighed. \"George isn't doing his job again, it seems. The first Reaper is supposed to tell you everything, the system, our roles, everything.\"\n\nRobert bit the inside of his lip and looked around the empty office. Again he asked, \"What do you do?\"\n\nI leaned back on my office chair and put my hands behind my head, interlocking them. \"I make sure every soul stays, comfortable.\"\n\nHe seemed to fall into ease with my statement. I sat up straight again and leaned my arms on the table, keeping my fingers interlocked. \"Rob, what do you remember about your life?\" I always found amusement in watching the souls squirm in their seats as they try to remember their lives.\n\n\"Everything, actually.\", he said sadly. \"My parents, my little sister, school. I even remember how I died..\", his voice trailed off and he swung his right foot outward, making the untied shoelaces dance and whip around.\n\nI chuckled, then suddenly stopped. Something wasn't right. \"Son, you say you remember.. everything?\"\n\n\"Yeah, why?\"\n\n\"That can't be right\", I muttered. Usually, souls only remember their names after they've died. Perhaps this kid's memories weren't fading as quick. \"Do you know your birthdate, Robert?\"\n\n\"March 14, 1997\", he said without pause.\n\nI checked his file, the dates matched. \"Right.\" I stood and stretched.\n\n\"Wh-where are you going?\" Robert stood as well, and his head followed me as I walked toward the door. When I reached the door, I turned back toward the young man. Immediately I noticed his shoelaces tying themselves together.\n\n\"Stay here. I'm going to do my job.\"\n\n______\nEdit: typo", "God, I hate this job. My mind wandered as I got a rare moment of peace in my small, drab office. The decor was non-existent, but when you’re the second stage of death, you don’t get much in the way of sponsorship deals or mainstream popularity, hell, even the guy with a dog face weighing peoples hearts on a My First Science Lab © set of scales gets a better amount of publicity than you. No, I just get this little office while big ol’ Grim goes out with his fancy gardening equipment and becomes the face of death itself. No love for the guy doing all the paperwork, stuck in his office that doesn’t even have one of those neat little desk toys with the balls on string- bzzt! - Out of nowhere, a loud mechanical buzzing sounds and I jump to attention, my best Pan Am smile plastered across my face. “Welcome to the Afterlife! I hope you had a pleasant journey with Charon!” Chatting with the most fake enthusiasm I could muster, I indicated a chair and watched as the latest deceased sat down in front of me. An old bloke, dressed in a hospital gown and sporting white hair and the classic thick black framed glasses, which seemed to do nothing by the way he squinted at everything. \n\n“I believe that you would have been brought up to speed on what’s going on?” I inquired, still sporting my inane grin. “WHAT? WASSAT?” The old man screwed up his face in concentration and turned his head towards me, cupping his ear. Oh, fantastic. Another deaf old geezer. Barely suppressing a sigh, I raised my voice. “Hello sir! I am here to help you find your friends and family as you move into the afterlife!” I leaned forward in attempt to make myself clearer. The old man's already impressively contorted face dropped into a frown. “You tryin’ to get me into some sterile old rest home? I told you suits that I’m just fine by myself!” Trying to not make a face reminiscent of the old man's own, I raised my voice again. “Sir! This is not a rest home, you have died, and this is just another step-” “Of course I’m dead you daft bastard! The thin feller already told me about that!” The old man shouted back, interrupting me. I rested my head in my hands, and counted to five. This was going to be another long one.\n\n(This was one of my first attempts at writing one of these! Criticism is appreciated :D)", "\"17 people\" I say, blandly. Monotonously. \n\nThe bald and doughy man looks at me, obviously perplexed. \n\n\"You have positively impacted 17 people in your life. Move ahead in the line, sir. You see the Judge next.\" His frightened eyes weren't unusual. Most people were horrified to hear about the Judge. \n\nIt wasn't a big deal, really. He simply decided which level of heaven, or hell, that your soul would take permanent residence. He did this without prejudice, and took his role very seriously. \n\nI methodically work through the next few people. There was a 17 guy, a 70 guy, a 125 girl, and a handful of single digiters. Only the girl had a real shot of making it anywhere, the other ones would have been better off had they simply held the door open a few times. Even a smile made a big difference. \n\nComing in next was an old man who seemed to be in his 90s. He still hobbled with the help of his cane, which took an excruciatingly long time to finally arrive in front of me. His number shot from my mouth. \n\n\"Seven million, four-hundred twenty-three thousand, three-hundred one.\"\n\nWoah. That had to be the highest number I've ever seen. I perked up a bit. \n\nThe old mans left eyebrow stretched up a slight bit as a mischievous grin formed on his aged face. \n\n\"Uh, that's how many people you have positively effected while you were alive.\"\n\nThe old man said nothing. His legs wobbled below him as he stood in front of me. \n\n\"Sir, you uh... see the Judge next. Considering your numbers you will most likely be sent to the highest tier.\"\n\nStill, the old man was silent. His eyes held mine as I fumbled for my words. \n\n\"Sir I have to know. How is it that you were so impactful? What did you do?\"\n\nThe old man stared at me. He then opened his mouth and spoke two words. \n\n\"I lived.\"\n\n\n", "\"And that is it.\" I said calmly.\n\n\"Impossible! I-I was a national champ! Three years running!\" He looked over the board. \"Where did I go wrong?\"\n\nI sighed. \"13 Turns ago you began focusing on your left side, pressing an attack but not covering for it. I capitalized on that, and when I took apart your offense, you could not compensate fast enough. You needed more turns than you had in order to do so.\"\n\n\"...So that's it.\" He sat back down, dejected.\n\n\"Yes. I'm afraid this was your chance, but it's time to move on.\" I offered my hand to shake. \"I loved your variation on the previous Canadian Champ's gambit, though. Please don't stop playing in the afterlife.\"\n\nHe took my hand, warmly, and I guided him to the door...and by the time I turned around, the chess table was gone...replaced by an automated mahjong table, and three elderly souls coming in the room. So, they're going to tag team me? Smart.\n\nBut they won't win. They can't. I've played their games since before mortals invented them. It's my job. Ever since literature and media suggested you could be brought back to life if you beat Death at a game, it has been my job to indulge them...and defeat them.\n\nChess, Mahjong...I've even played video games, and played a young girl at the Pokemon Card Game. (She had an adorable Fairy-Type Deck centred around Sylveon, if you must know.)\n\n...I always win. It is boring, but it is the way of things.\n\nThey say in a few hundred years, I can retire. When I do...I want to open a gaming cafe in Heaven.\n\nI hope those I've played will come back.\n\nI can't wait to lose to them then." ]	5
	[WP] You die halfway through a binge watching session on Netflix. You cannot rest until you finish the show	[ "I woke up, but I wasn't in my bed. I sat up and looked around, trying to figure out what was going on. I was on a cot in a hospital, with nurses and doctors swarming around me. There was lots of talking, and a constant tone coming from one of the machines beside the bed, but it all sounded so far away, as though I was underwater. Then it all came back to me: watching Burn Notice on Netflix, feeling a strange pain in my chest, and then nothing. It struck me that I was dead.\n\n\"Darn,\" I said aloud, though nobody could hear me. \"I was hoping I would go out in a much cooler way. Maybe an explosion or something.\" I realized that I never got to finish the episode I had been watching. A real shame; it had been pretty exciting. I'd never watched a show that actually made my heart give out.\n\n\n\"I wonder if it's still on,\" I said to nobody. I would always talk to myself; at least now there was no one to hear it. I floated back to my apartment building, then realized I didn't have to walk up the stairs. At least that was a nice perk.\n\n\nUpon reaching my TV, I was thrilled to see Burn Notice, paused at about the same place I had left off. Those paramedics were lifesavers...well, sort of, I guess. I reached out for the Xbox controller to hit play, but my hand went right through it.\n\n\n\"Damn it!\" I yelled out. I stayed there for a while, wondering how the episode would end. I really wanted the plan to go well, but with the drug dealer entering the picture, that was up in the air...I had to see more. Not just the one episode, either. I needed the whole series. I hoped someone out in the world was also watching. Someone who didn't much mind if they were being haunted...", "It was Season Four, I think. It was probably the most boring season yet. I honestly don't know why I watch this garbage.\n\nActually, that's a lie. I do know why. Her name's Rachel, and she's been my wife for 10 blissful months. Her greatest talent is words. She can cut me down with just a few flicks of her tongue if she wants to, but she can also build me up in ten syllables or less. She's a great writer and a talented conversationalist. And obviously, she's pretty. (And yes, before you ask, one reason she loves this show is because of her first name. A woman who could take the straw of the alphabet and turn it into verbal gold, and this is the show she chooses to watch. The irony isn't lost on me.)\n\nAnyway, there I was, about to finish the last episode of Season Four. They were all in England, Monica and Chandler had just slept together, and Ross and Emily were about to exchange their vows. I was a few episodes behind, my Rachel had watched some of the show on Netflix while I was away on business. She wanted to start Season Five tonight, so I decided to spend my day off catching up. I was in the home stretch, with about 45 seconds left in the episode. The fake Rachel had just stormed into the church when I felt my heart stop.\n\nThat's a very strange feeling. Your heart is always running, for the most part. It fades into the background of your body, beating a gentle thrum that you rarely notice--until it stops that is. It's like when you're sitting at home when the power goes out and all of a sudden, your house is actually quiet. The refrigerator stops, your computer shuts down, and your house is silent for the first time in months. All of a sudden, my body was quiet.\n\nThis moment of stillness was in no way tranquil, however. My heart was stopped and I would be unconscious in a few seconds. I began to panic, lunging off the bed toward the phone, but it was too late. \"I, Ross, take thee, Rachel....\"\n\nI woke with a start a moment later. It's weird to call it that, waking up. I was dead, so there would be no more waking for me. Somehow, in this moment, I felt comforted in spite of my new station. I stood up and was a bit surprised to see my body still on the ground next to the nightstand. Such an ugly thing, but oh well.\n\nNetflix was playing in the background, counting down the few seconds before the next season started. Something about the TV was calming and peaceful, so I sat down--or whatever you'd call it--on the bed and watched as Season Five opened with Ross and Emily's chaotic, awkward wedding reception. For the first time in the three weeks since we started this show, I laughed at a joke and nestled in for a few more episodes. I felt bad starting the season without my Rachel, but I couldn't use the remote control, and curiously, I couldn't leave the bedroom. I was stuck, so I decided to just enjoy the show.\n\nAnnoyingly, Netflix poked its judgmental head in after two episodes, asking if I was still watching. I was, but I had no way of telling Netflix that, so I contented myself to wait till the wife got home and turned the show back on. An hour or so passed before I heard her open the front door and walk down the hall. She opened the bedroom door, let out a gasp, and set in on me, searching for a pulse or breathing or any sign of life. She called 9-1-1, but she could barely let the dispatcher know what was wrong because she knew there wasn't anything to be done about it. After hanging up, she grabbed my upper body in her arms and cried. I could do nothing but watch, and yet I still felt peace and tranquility. Go figure.\n\nI watched my Rachel dress for the funeral a few days later. She took about 30 minutes to get ready in the morning, between picking an outfit and applying her makeup in the mirror of her mom's old vanity. It was perfect TV-viewing time for my wife, the consummate binger. And yet, the TV screen remained dark this morning. She hadn't watched an episode all week, not since she found me. I grew more and more uneasy with each passing day, bound as I was to the room. Still I watched her put on a new black wrap-dress and those pretty Louboutins, the only fancy thing my Rachel owned.\n\nAs the weeks turned into months and the months into years, my Rachel's long, red hair began to grey ever so slightly. She was aging beautifully, and I was grateful to see that grey hair. My Rachel was never one to cover up, so she wore her ashy red hair with pride. While the light in her eyes slowly returned, her affinity for bad TV didn't. \n\nOne night, a few months after I died, she turned the TV on and began to watch Season Five, Episode One. She made it fifteen seconds into the opening credits before her eyes gave that stupid fountain a run for its money. Since then, the TV was a black mirror and nothing more.\n\nFive years after that, she came home and something was different. There was a slight bounce in her step, something I'd almost forgotten about her. She glided into the room and sat down at the vanity, replacing her diamond studs with some dangly earrings I bought her when she turned 27. Off came the slacks and blouse and on went the light-blue skirt and white sweater. She was nervous, but also totally unafraid. She left the room, and two hours later, I heard the front door open with a riot of giggling from my Rachel... and another man. She laughed and laughed, her voice hitting a timbre I hadn't heard since before we were married.\n\nI listened to them tittering in the kitchen and living room after several of their dates. I must admit, I was a bit jealous that this man should have the pleasure of my wife's laughter and joy. I heard her rapier wit return, but every joke and observation he enjoyed was accompanied by a stab to my heart. Then, after three weeks of torture, I heard him tell her, \"I admit, I'm more of a Joey than a Chandler sometimes.\" Immediately, some of the angst melted away. \n\nNow, to be certain, as their relationship deepened, my unfortunate shackling to the bedroom space was a bit inconvenient. But as my Rachel fell in love again, as she became his Rachel, I felt more peace.\n\nStill, I didn't feel the same relief I felt the moment I died, until...\n\n\"Hey Rachel, why don't we watch the series again from start to finish?\"", "“Honey do you want to watch one more?”\n\n“I don’t know, I’m getting tired of the show. How about we just go to sleep?”\n\n“ok sure”\n\nGod damn it, another failure. Andrew thought, he was already way beyond being exasperated. He could hardly believe that it had been three years already. Three years since he choked on a stupid popcorn while binge watching netflix.\nIt had taken him some time to realize that he was not among the living anymore, well he was but not in the way one would expect. As he began understanding what was going on he fell in a state of uncontrollable anxiety. He didn’t understand what was going on as well as how the hell he was supposed to react to his newfound surroundings. \n\nHe could see his own body on the couch, its skin growing paler then the popcorn he had so viciously been eating before. The remote laying on the floor below his right hand next to a pile of beer flasks upon a puddle of beer. The couch was broken and the tv had changed to a different channel. During his suffocation he had apparently thrown the remote, kicked the beer and even broken his sofa in his struggle for breath. All had been in vain.\n\nWeeks went by, he had been mourned, missed and buried. Well at least his physical body had been buried. He learned he could fly through walls, mess with electricity and if he focused enough he could make the sounds of old creaking hardwood floor. For the next few months he had pranked pretty much every single person he had intimately known. It started out as a way to try to communicate but he had given up on that after a few days. \n\nAfter a year in the ethereal realm Andrew met another ghost. His name was Steve. Steve informed Andrew that in order to go to heaven he would need to finish what he had been doing when he died. Relieved that there was a simple solution to the whole ordeal Andrew wept out of joy. He had been binge watching a show on Netflix that his friend had recommended. It was a popular show and a pretty funny one at that so he figured this would be an easy task.\n\nSteve was an old, slow and boring ghost so Andrew decided to move on before he would accidentally do a \"kill me now\" joke while Steve kept blabbering.\n\nThat was 2 years ago. Andrew was still out there looking for someone that would be watching his show. He had seen the first three seasons over a hundred times. For some reason no one ever watched more then the first three season.\n\n“Why the hell did I pick Community to watch that night!” Andrew cried out into the night.\n___________________________________________________\nThis is the first prompt I have ever done so all tips are welcome. Also\nenglish is not my first language obviously." ]	3
	[WP] 24 hours before your pets death (regardless of the cause) it gains the ability to talk.	[ "' \"and we now know\" that's the voice of Isaac Tompkins, the chief of the tribe, \"that the reason we cannot file these suits is because the United States government granted us feigned autonomy...\"' \n'Sara?' inquired a voice, interrupting my favorite podcast. As I hit pause, I turned around to shout to Liesbeth, who had just gone out the front and had, no doubt, returned momentarily. \n'Yeahwhat?!' I shouted. \nNo response. 'Liesbeth?' I huffed and looked down at Lavender, who stared back at me with upright ears and a wagging tail, her tongue flopped to one side, and her dark grey, almost purple fur contrasting over the ugly yellow tiles of the kitchen floor. \n'Am I going crazy or what?' \n'No.' came to my ear as I turned away. I hesitated and looked back. \n'Lavender?' \n'Yes, Sara?' \nMy breath left me as I looked at my dog who I was about to lose. She was still so happy. So stupid, dog happy, as if nothing could be wrong, and no death was lurking around a corner but 24 hours from now. I grabbed my bottom lip and began to wheeze before a salvo of tears rained down. \n'Sara?' Lavender adjusted where she was sitting. 'Sara? It's time. We're going to the park. You said so yesterday. To the park. To the park.' \n'You understood me yesterday?' \n'I got that we couldn't go then, or the time before that, or that.' Lavender adjusted again. 'It seems like we so rarely go now and I want to so I'm sitting here, politely, and panting and wagging and trying really hard not to poop on the floor again.' \n'Don't you know what this means?!' I shouted. \n'Yeah, if I don't poop you won't yell at me this time.' \n'No, about you talking!' I paused. 'I don't yell when you poop.' \n'Yes you do. It's okay. We can go now. To the park. To the park.' \n'I don't yell.' \n'Fine. Park please.' \n\nAfter the park and the tears and the fear, we stopped at the ice cream stand and I bought Lavender the biggest vanilla soft-serve she could get, and fed it to her off a spoon, like we always do. Or, at least like we always did. It was nearing noon and my shift started at one, so I was thinking of what to do next. My 1 to 7 shift is never hard and I knew that I could \n'More please. Now please. Ice cream!' \n'Sorry. Go ahead and finish it.' \nAnd I knew that I could go home after and play with her again. But what about all that night time work? What about all the \n'Done. Let's go. Need to walk. Gotta poop again. Let's go. Brain freeze. Let's go.' \n'Hold on! Just WAIT!' \nI tried to return to my train of thought: evening work or dog time. The dog's only got 22 hours left at this point and I should probably just spend time with it. Besides \n'You yelled.' \n'What?' \n'You just yelled at me. I was trying to tell you I needed to poop. I needed to go. And you yelled.' \n'No. I didn't!' \n'Hey sir,' Lavender shouted, 'Did this woman with me just shout at me and tell me to WAIT?!' \nThe flamboyant blonde twink in the jean shorts snapped back, 'Yes she did. Which is sad cuz it's your last day.' He turned and skated away and I thought I heard him mumble, 'What a biatch.' \n'You yelled. It's okay. Let's go now.' \n\nAs we walked home, I thought about whether I knew who to call once dogs die. The police? I don't have a yard and I don't want an urn. \n'I love you.' \nAnd, plus, where am I gonna get the money to pay for a removal. Yeah, I definitely need to work tonight. \n'I said I love you.' \n'Will you just slow down and wait you stupid...' \nMy body turned to stone and my heart leapt up to my throat and pounded against my windpipe. Air could pass nowhere. I did not even see the truck fall out of gear and roll down the road. The next thing I knew, an ambulance was taking me away and Lavender was on the pavement. \n'No, it's too soon! She only spoke this morning! It can't be now.' \nThe paramedic said calmly, 'Shitty owners are lucky to get any warning at all.' \n'What the fuck do you know, spick!' \nThe paramedic rolled his eyes and moved me out into the hospital parking lot." ]	1
CINNAMON BUNZ-A	[WP] The aliens we made first contact with lived entirely on tasteless, simple food. So enamored with our food, we've found that we can even control them with our supreme culinary prowess. You have a couple alien friends, but you also happen to be a terrible cook.	[ "I knew I could not cook, but I did not sweat it. The door bell rang, and I was so excited. I opened the door and let my two gooey one eyed companions in. They were so glad that they did not even notice my baseball bat. I swung. They were mine now. All mine\n\nThe two alien awoke to \"gourmet\" jellybeans. They stuffed themselves, those crude idiotic blobs. Smiling they commented on how strange human customs were. That was quite funny, considering what I really had planned. I laughed at them.\n\nThree weeks later, they were still strapped to their places and woke up, ate, then slept. Jellybeans were their every waking hour. They lived jellybeans loved jelly beans, breathed jelly beans.\n\nOn their ninth week they realized what I was doing, but they were powerless. I laughed at them as I broke their jaw hinges. Now they can't complain, so all was wondrous again.\n\nBy the next week they went on a jellybean strike, but I knew that would not last long, considering how attached to the food they were.\n\nI broke their jaws, their life, their will. They were now truly mine.\n\nTwo years just flew by, my little companions were so entertaining. But the little trick was starting to get old. I grew tired, so I decided to spice things up once again. I starved them. Then, I told them the only way to get their food was to beat one another up. The winner would eat. However, that little contest would be way too boring, so I then sawed off each of their four legs. I then let them at each other. They sprang like animals, biting punching each other. It was a slow process, them having no legs and little energy. But that made it all the more worth while. I was even kind of sad when finally the weaker of the two was knocked out. I knew I needed more. So then, I spiced things up again. I told the still barely conscience one that in order to get his meal he would have to kill his best alien friend. He was shocked. I laughed again.\n\nSo, I prepared the murder for him slowly. I handed the syringe filled with black licorice to the victorious alien. The loser alien then woke up, only awake enough to see his own friend inject the deadly dose of jelly beans into his body. He died shortly, but boy was it massively entertaining.\n\nThe alien that was still alive cried, making inaudible noise for his jaw was broken after all. He demanded his jelly beans. It was not polite enough. His attitude was simply unacceptable. So I kicked him in the gut. I threw him against the wall and told him to be polite. HE WAS THEN KNOCKED OUT. HE COULD NOT PERFORM THE TASK OF ASKING NICELY. HE HAD TO BE KILLED AT ONCE FOR HIS BRUTAL MISBEHAVIOR.\n\nBoy did I love that experience. But I would not miss it. It was a lot of work. Jellybeans are costly after all. I ate my dinner slowly, savoring every bite. Alien flesh tasted so good. I knew it was all worth it. Even though I could not cook well, I knew not to sweat it from the beginning. My plan had been a great success after all.\n\n\nDid I write it correctly BookWyrm17? What do you think about it? I think I did it pretty well! \n\nr/jesuschristreddit", "\"Please, Michael, we wish to see more of your culture!\" The little purple aliens squeeked up at me. I couldn't help but say yes as I did almost every time they asked for something. They just seemed so ... pitiful, I guess. I mean, sure, they had interstellar empires and faster-than-light starships, but they reminded me of a puppy I had when I was eight - all innocence and wide-eyed wonder. \n\nThey came to our world on a mission of peace and exploration. When they found out what we could do with food, they fell all over themselves trying to be our friends. Their entire civilization saw food as a pure energy source and not as something to enjoy. \"Cheesecake diplomacy\" is what the media started calling it after the aliens got a taste of desserts. Now Earth was hosting more and more of the little purple guys every day. \n\nI met a couple of the aliens one day as part of my job. I was one of thousands of scientists working on technology transfers from them to us. There were just as many, if not more, chefs working to transfer recipes from us to them. The little guys were taking everything we offered. Somebody traded their grandmother's old recipe book for the world-wide exclusive rights to teleportation. She became frighteningly wealthy overnight. In fairness, I hear there was a killer peach cobbler recipe in the book.\n\n\"Guys, we've hit every restaurant within an hour of my place. That's - that's pretty much it,\" I said. \n\n\"Yes, the restaurants were nice. I particularly liked the Vietnamese food.\" The translator chip attached to their shirts had taken some getting used to, but now I barely even noticed. I called them Bert and Ernie. Their actual names were too complicated for me to even try. \n\n\"Yes, very nice. The taco truck was excellent!\" Ernie said.\n\n\"But you humans are such marvelous creators, you must show us your own creations!\" Bert said.\n\n\"My own ...? What are you talking about?\" I asked.\n\n\"Humans are the Great Culinary Creators! You must have creations of your own!\" Bert insisted.\n\n\"Ah,\" I said. There was something vaguely racist about what Bert said, but in the interest of interstellar diplomacy, I let it go. \"You want me to cook for you? Something of my own creation?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Bert and Ernie shouted in unison.\n\nWe walked back to my apartment. Fortunately, we didn't pass any neighbors in the hallway. Mrs. Fitzpatrick would have been all over the gossip within minutes and I'm sure I'd be called in front of the condo board within the week. Not that there was anything in any agreement about dinner guests or aliens.\n\nAs we walked into my apartment, I felt my mind go cold. I was an awful cook. The only thing that could save me is that these guys only recently discovered taste. Maybe I could bluff my way through dinner. No, I had a better idea. I'd flood them with too many new things.\n\nFirst course, which Bert & Ernie awaited with naked hunger in their eyes, was ramen noodles. Even I can boil water and \"fill to line.\" The aliens had been wined and dined all over town, but no one ever thought to show them the other end of the spectrum. The intense salty goodness of Cup O Noodles rocked them back on their feet. They couldn't believe they hadn't been offered this before.\n\nSecond course was up by then: Tostino's pizza, with a light dusting of Kraft Parmesan cheese. The greasy, meaty, slightly sweet rectangles disappeared almost as soon as I put them down. Ernie had a thing line of cheese hanging from his chin when he finished.\n\nThird course was Kraft Mac'N'Cheese. Another of my brilliant \"just add boiling water\" recipes that they couldn't get enough of. \n\nFourth course - and I was dearly hoping they were getting full as I was running out of options - was the tried and true bachelor staple: Hot Pockets. I told them to be careful but like all Hot Pocket novices, they burned their tongues. I should have opened with this - then Bert & Ernie wouldn't have been able to taste anything else and I'd be safe.\n\nFinally, they were full enough that they wanted to move to dessert. No meal with the little guys was complete without something sweet. I pulled out a box of Little Debbie Star Crunches. I thought it was awesome that I was feeding \"Star\" Crunches to actual aliens from the stars - but then, I'm easily amused. \n\nBert & Ernie had cleaned me out by the time they were done. I'd have to go shopping tomorrow. I was down to three beers, half a quart of milk, and an almost empty bottle of ketchup. I could either starve or make the world's most awful soup. \n\nTwo days later, Bert called and said they wanted to bring some friends over to my place. They had been talking up the impressive meal I'd put out and now I was going to be cooking for a dozen of the little guys. Well, at least they're cheap dates. I just hope they never realize I don't know how to cook. " ]	2
	[WP] You are part of the task force designed to prevent the smuggling of unauthorized snacks in the movie theater.	[ "Its 2325, 46 minutes until till the first screening of “Transformers: Off the Rails.” All 20 theatres in mall movieplex are playing the film and the tickets are all sold out. Many of the mall’s stores stayed opened late and the locomotive fan-crazed crowd has been passing through the turnstiles all night. With about half of the seats already filled for tonight’s preview, there have been no major issues. A few nervous dates were caught with breath mints and gum in their pockets, they gave little trouble and quickly disposed of the contraband. I was watching ticket station 3, arguably the toughest station. Not one piece of outside food or beverage has ever gotten past me and tonight won’t be the first. I saw her before she saw me. College aged, blonde, blue eyes, pink cardigan, and jeans. She had a bag, and I could tell, she was carrying snacks for her group. \n\nI extended my hand, “Ma’am I’m going to need to inspect that bag.” She played dumb and placed her purse on the inspection table. “No ma’am the purse isn’t large enough to hold any contraband. I need to lock in the pink and white striped bag.” She raised her eyebrows, “You want to look in my Victoria Secret’s bag?” They always looked cute, when they played dumb. “Yes ma’am it is for security reasons and will only take a minute.” She sighed, “Alright, just don’t be weird about.” I lowered my sunglasses, “Don’t worry ma’am I’m a professional.” I opened the bag and looked in. Several pieces of lingerie were on the surface, but I knew she was hiding snacks in the bras. I plunged my hand in deeper. \n\n“Hey what are you doing?!” She exclaimed, “Security!” I pulled out my hand momentarily. “Ma’am I am part of the security, N.U.S.U.I.H. Division.” The rest of the crowd began to stare, and my supervisor began parting his way through the crowd. I annunciated each letter, “N-U-S-U-I-H. No Unauthorized Snacks Up In Here, very prestigious division of Alumina Mall Security.” She grew red in the face, “You are checking for snacks?!? I thought this security check point was for weapons or bombs or something.” I laughed at her ignorance, but my smile began to vanish when my boss came up. \n\n“BURT! What the hell do you think you are doing?” His face was even reader that the woman’s. “Sir, she could be sneaking in snacks for her and her group. We have to be thorough in our searches.” The woman popped back in the conversation before my boss had a chance to respond, “What? Are you going to strip search us all next? You already defiled my undergarments.” I put my hand up again, “Ma’am, strip searches are only for extreme cases. I haven’t assessed the situation yet, but I’m going to leave that option on the table.” “WHAT!” She exclaimed so loudly the rest of the crowd was staring at us. \n\nI could feel their glare, as if they were warm rays from the sun. My boss chimmed in next, “Ma’am no one is going to strip search you,” he leaned back and addressed the crowd. “Or any of you for that matter.” Turning his attention back to me, “Now Burt, please give the woman her shopping bag so she can go into the theater.” “No,” was all I could retort back. It was too much of injustice not to complete my search. My boss’s finger was right in my face, “Burt, give this lady her bag, or you’ll be dismissed permanently.” I shook my head, “Sir, I cannot do that. I believe she is hiding something in this bag.” Before he could respond, I plunged my hand one more time into the bag of lingerie. I looked all around, just glares of anger, confusion, and surprise surrounded me. After some digging, I found something that was not a piece of woman’s apparel. I grabbed it and held it above my head. A few bras spilt onto the floor, but I did not care, I was victorious. \n\nThe crowd gasped. I looked up and saw what I was holding. A party sized bag of peanut M&Ms was in my hands. My boss stood in disbelief, “What the…?” I proclaimed loudly so all the crowd could hear, “Peanut M&Ms, the colorful candy that won’t melt in your hand, is a contraband snack food of this theater. You may purchase one from our snack counter behind me.” I returned my attention to the woman, “Here is your bag, and your snack. Please deposit the M&Ms in the trash receptacle behind me, and enjoy the movie.” She brushed past, with her face as red as a tomato and my boss left shaking his head. Another one for the books and my streak is still intact. \n" ]	1
	[WP] As a mailman, you enjoy delivering good news. When the rest of the world goes quiet, you can't bear to tell the other villagers, so you take to writing responses to everyone's letters, pretending that the rest of the world isn't gone.	[ "“Let’s see…” Muttered Frank as he opened up his mailbag, “I think we might have something here for you Rita.” Rita stood hopeful, her hands clutched to her chest. “I hope so. It’s been so long since Robert has written to me. It’s not like him not to write, but I suppose, with the war going on, it’s not unusual for some delays.” Frank felt the lump coming up in his throat. He knew exactly where Robert was. He was dead. KIA. It had been some months now, and he still couldn’t bring himself to deliver the news. “Here we are!” he cleared his throat, “yeah, looks like his post got moved again! All kinds of forwarding stamps on this one!” He handed her the letter and got back into his Jeep. Rita stared at the letter for a bit, then back at Frank. “Thank you, Frank.” She said, and walked back down the dusty gravel road towards the farmhouse. \n\nYou’re falling behind Frank thought to himself. He watched Rita make the long walk back towards the house before starting off towards the last house on the route.\n Bumping along the unkempt road, his thoughts began to worry him. How much longer do you intend to keep this up, huh Frank? You think you can keep everything juggled just right? He sighed. He knew just how important this war was, but there was just so MUCH heartache as a result of it. He started replying to the town’s citizens about 8 months ago. 27 KIA notices had arrived at his post since then. These were people, young men and women that he knew as children. They were all gone now. This war is important. He kept telling himself. There’s a reason this is all happening. Eight months later, he had seen the toll that it had had on his town. Virtually all of the kids from the town were either dead or missing. This damn war just doesn’t seem to be going our way he thought to himself. He just didn’t have the heart to deliver this devastatingly hurtful news to what was now a virtually aging populace. He had decided some days after receiving the first few notices that he would write on their behalf. At first, it had been a way for him to keep morale high, after all, these people needed some good news in their lives. Now, 8 months later, the toll had been taken out on him. Every few days, he would spend the entire night replying to the town’s inhabitants. He didn’t think it would take so much time out of his life. This well-meaning morale exercise had started to turn into a second full time job. Not that it mattered, there hadn’t been any more correspondence coming in from any other stations. The radio dispatch had been silent for a few weeks now, and while it provided some relief, in the back of his mind, he grew worried. Something was going terribly wrong. \n\nFrank pulled up to the Bixby’s mailbox, where Mr. Bixby sat patiently waiting. “Afternoon Frank! How are ya today?” he greeted him, “bring me some more good news today, I wonder?” Frank reached into his bag and pulled out a package. “‘afternoon there, Monty, how are ya feeling today?”\nHe walked up the driveway a bit towards the stump that Mr. Bixby had near the front porch of his home. “Oh, well you know, these old bones just ain’t what they used to be! At least if I die anytime soon, Old Diesel will have some nice bones to chew on!” he guffawed. Frank chuckled and cracked a smile. “Looks like Julie sent you a package this time!” He handed the small box over to Monty. He looked over the package and smiled. \n\n“Frank, you have a moment?” “Well, I might have a few minutes.” He replied. “Look here Frank, I want to tell you how much I really appreciate you sticking at your job. It’s not easy work, and I know that old Jeep isn’t comfortable. Everyone, and I mean everyone in this town really appreciates the work you do.” If only you knew, Frank thought. He could feel the lump in his throat swelling up.\n\n“I tell you this because I know there isn’t a soul in this whole town that would be willing to tell you without making you feel bad. That’s why I want you to keep doing what you’re doing” Frank looked Monty in the eyes, the lump growing larger. He cleared his throat “Well, Monty, you know what they say ‘neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow …’ ” he trailed off as he had noticed that Monty’s face had changed. “Frank, you know what I mean. Keep doing what you’re doing. It’s a very kind thing you’re doing.” Monty stood up and walked towards Frank. He opened his arms and hugged him. “I know what’s happening, Frank. I’ve been talking to an old HAM buddy of mine from a few states over. The war isn’t going as well as “Julie” has led me to believe” \n\nFrank stood there, speechless, and a little bit embarrassed. “Monty, I’m sorry. You have to believe I did it for-“ “Forget it Frank. I’m not mad at you. I understand completely” Frank felt tears start to well up in his eyes. The lump kept growing. “It’s over Frank. The world as we know it is over. What you’re doing, it’s for a good reason, I know.” “How did you figure it out, Monty?” Monty smiled and put his hand on Frank’s shoulder. “I know that if Julie sent me a letter, or a package, there should be postage on it” Frank’s jaw dropped. You idiot! How careless could you be!? Monty flashed an ear to ear grin at Frank. “If you need help, let me know. Lord knows I don’t have much going on here now a days” “You bet Monty, thank you.” Frank turned, and walked towards the Jeep. He had some letters to write. \n", "I jumped over the counter of the Pleasant View Post office. I opened up the drawers and pulled out a few rolls of stamps. I'd been using the forever stamps for a while. They probably would have released a special edition by now. As I flipped through them, I stopped at a sheet with an older Hispanic man wearing a paperboy cap. \n\nJaime Escalante, read the name. \n\nThat was good. It would remind the people back home--the only people I knew were still alive--that someone was still being celebrated. \n\nI placed a couple of those stamps on a few letters I had written. They were pretty pedestrian things, mostly. Letters to aunts and uncles, a couple grandparents, and a few siblings. They all had different handwriting, or rather, they all had handwriting I had copied from someone else's letters. \n\nIt had been hard opening other people's mail, when there were still letters from the originals--It was a felony, after all! But I had to. I had to know how to imitate all of them. I had to make sure someone would keep responding. \n\nI put the Escalante's in my bag, emblazoned with the words United States Postal Service. Then I picked through the other rolls, selecting a few of the standard 'forever' designs and stamping the rest of the envelopes. \n\nI started to slap down with a hand time and date stamp, the mechanical clicking echoing in the empty lobby. The automatic ones had stopped running long ago. The only one that worked anymore was in Silverthorne. \n\nI was halfway through the stack when the stamp ran dry. Shit, I thought. Now I'd have to scrounge another ink pad from Lakewood, and that was almost eight miles away. The things I did to make people happy. \n\nI stashed the letters and the stamp back into my bag and jumped back over the counter. I put on my sun helmet and walked out of the office. \n\nThe sun was behind me, setting. I looked out over the crumbling Denver skyline. It was a hot day, so most of the worst critters would be inside, staying cool. Still, I checked my .357 Smith and Wessen. \n\n\"In rain, sleet, snow, and hail, the mailman delivers mail.\" I muttered softly into the light breeze of a silent world. \n\n___\n\nThanks for reading! Check out /r/chrisbryant for more of my stuff. \n " ]	2
example if story a does something story b references it and story c splits off from story a.	[WP]Write a story that creates a shared universe from all the other stories is the comments	[ "The shadowy figure of The Watcher crouched on the edge of her world, staring out at the vast multiverse in front of her. Massive bubbles filled with unique landscapes floated lazily in casual orbits, hanging heavily within the much larger sphere of The Firmament. Some of the Orbs had mountain ranges, others vast deserts, or forests, or seas. Some held massive towers, fortresses, or other structures. Some were filled with things The Watcher did not have names for, so different were they from her own Orb. Every so often, two of the bubbles would collide for a period of time, forming a hybrid world combining elements of their own into one. Sometimes the world's attributes complemented each other, and sometimes they clashed. For each Orb held a single Inhabitant. \n\nThese Inhabitants were as unique as the Orbs they Inhabited. All sorts of species, large and small, brash and meek, foolish and wise. Some were organic, others not. Some once called a place named Earth their home, others came from places....further away. No two Inhabitants were the same, and they had all ended up in The Firmament from different paths, and for different reasons. They had only one thing in common. They were all powerful. Like their paths to the Firmament, they had all followed unique paths on their ways to power. Some gained it through study of the magic of their worlds, others from training their muscles past their limits, others were born with strange abilities. \n\nWhen two Orbs fused, they did so for an indefinite period of time. Sometimes it would only be for a few minutes, sometimes for hours, even days. And while they did so, the two Inhabitants were in the same space. For some more....excitable Inhabitants, the Firmament was a paradise, giving them endless opponents against which to test their strength. For others, it was a place of solitude, only disturbed by the occasional intrusion of another Inhabitant. When two Inhabitants met, they often talked, discussing why and how they had arrived in the Firmament. Other times they would clash, their personalities too irreconcilable. The Watcher stared up at a recently fused Orb, watching the enormous bursts of light and energy that sprung from the clash of the two Inhabitants. Wounds healed quickly in the Firmament, but that didn't stop warriors from trying to defeat others. For some, it only increased the fun, really. It meant they could fight as hard as they wanted. \n\n\"They must not be getting along,\" she mused, \"Or perhaps they are.\" As for The Watcher, she knew not how she had arrived here, or why. But she was very content here, for there were endless stories for her to Watch. Endless interactions, battles, debates, musings, conversations. She sought to observe that unique spark that was created when two souls met, and the Firmament offered her ample chance to do so. \n\nA shadow fell over The Watcher, and she looked up just in time to see another Orb collide with her own. Her own Orb was a vast plane of rolling hills, dotted by watchtowers and observatories. She couldn't quite make out the Orb of the other Inhabitant yet, but she spotted a figure making it's way towards her. It strolled casually, as their two worlds melted and fused into one. Arriving, the figure stopped, tilted their head and gazed at The Watcher, and she gazed back. \n\nThen, their Orb's influence coming into view behind them, the figure spoke." ]	1
	[WP] You're in a group chat with all different versions of you in different universes/timelines	[ "\"DING!\" a group chat alert pops up on my MSN. Oh great, one of my friends has gone and created a group chat again, I fucking hate those things, always fast reading, because you have 500 assholes talking all at once. \n\nI maximized the window, and--what. None of these people were on my contact list, their email addresses were all showing---wait, that's MY email address! It's my email address, speaking in about over 9000 different fonts and colors! WHAT THE HELL!\n\nTim is gay: what the hell is going on here? Who hacked me? Who is this?\n\nme@email: Add us, so we can see your name. And you can see ours. Also, nobody hacked you.\n\nAlright, fucking fine. I go and add myself to my own contact list, and go back. Now the names are changing. Huh, multiple IDs on one account, I didn't think that possible. Usually it syncs.\n\nTim is gay: Done, now what the hell is all this about, who are you people?\n\nGay of Thrones: Oh man, I remember Tim, I miss him, poor guy, never saw the car coming.\n\nExploding kitten heads: who's Tim again? Sorry, never met him in this universe.\n\nme prime: Guys, guys, lets get off the subject of Tim. We need to pool our resources and knowledge. There has to be at least a few of us who's earth is in the future, developed faster. And thus, can tell the rest of us about lottery numbers, stocks, stuff like that.\n\nTim is gay: So, wait, what is all this? You're all supposed to be me? Prove it. Where's my moon shaped scar?\n\nme prime: Ironically, the moon scar is on your ass. And yes, you're me, I'm you, deal with it. I found a way to communicate with all the me's, and decided to see what could be done to better my life and the world in doing so. Don't tell me you wouldn't do the same thing.\n\nTim is gay: Hell no, I'd...Okay, I'd see about bettering my life, but screw the world. Seriously, screw it hard with a rusty unlubricated pipe. The world has done nothing but take a baseball bat to me whenever I open up to it, so why the hell should I give fuck one about it?\n\nDestinox: Wow, just...wow. We found another selfish asshole one.\n\nme prime: Agreed. I'm sorry to do this, but you leave me no choice.\n\nTim is gay: What are you---\n\nI stopped being able to type, when my MSN suddenly crashed on me. FUCK. I reopened my MSN, and double-clicked on my name in the contact list in an attempt to rejoin the group chat.\n\nMuch to my surprise,", "Fuck, did Sartre have it wrong. Hell isn’t other people. Hell is myself. My selves. All nine of the fuckers. \n\nConnor1: ok look outbound access is an issue so you’ll have to come here. W81\n\noneconnorone: fuck that \n\nthelongcon: yeah ur world is a dump\n\nconnie: Does it really matter where? Travel is travel\n\nCon: E225 has easy visa access for flects.\n\nconconcon: E- side is shit. No way in hell I’m going past the cardinal. W127+ or nothing.\n\nC: Anyone keen for an Onanist world? I can’t be the only one who’s curious. We wouldn’t have to get married or anything we could just say we’re defacto.\n\nThank christ this dodgy-as-fuck sidenet chat only allows ten simultaneous connections; having to deal with more than a few of these funhouse fuckers would be more than I could take, even if it is only via text. For now, anyway. \n\nI take a few deep breaths and make a conscious attempt to unknot my shoulders. You need them, I remind myself. Keep your cool. You need them. \n\n“Time to shit or get off the pot.” I mutter, my fingers an aggravated staccato as I type.\n\nOrConizer: Enough. Here’s the deal. Meeting is on a world of my choice. It’s a partial donation, and you’ll get an immediate $100k untraceable cross-border W credits to wherever you choose. If you want E credits it’ll take a few extra days to organise. Full visa access to a restricted high-W world for both of you for six months. Best medical care available for the donation itself. \n\nI sit back and wait for the responses, disgust and guilt swirling across an undercurrent of deviant shame. I’ve never understood people who were obsessed with flects. I have a hard enough time liking myself most of the time, let alone the fucked-up shadows of myself that physics has cast across the universe. I can still remember the burning curiosity when the walls first tore; I mean, who wouldn’t want to see what other versions of themselves and their loved ones existed, there but for the grace of oh-shit-why-did-I-do-that? Of course that particular fantasy didn’t last long. There was too much money to be made. The Onanist cults, grief tourism, sex trafficking. Black market organs. The Unique You clinics. Give humanity access to literally endless universes, and sure enough, we’ll fuck them all right up. Idealism and wonder have no place here.\n\nI have enough conscience left that the hypocrisy stings a little.\n\nconconcon: What about full donation?\n\nOrConizer: What do you want?\n\nconconcon: How high-W are we talking?\n\nOrConzier: 750+. Will not specify here for obvious reasons.\n\nC: jeeeeeeeezus\n\nConnor1: holy shit man\n\nconconcon: Changeling deal for myself. I’ve got the hookup from my end. I know you can get it from yours.\n\nChangeling. Part of me had feared it was coming, but it still catches me like a punch to the gut. For a few moments all I can do is stare at that single word, so innocuous, so menacing.\n\nI flick to an on-net connection and look up the sanctioned entry for W126. It’s a shithole. Main industry: off-world resource exports. Net migration: negative. Environmental contamination: high. Restrictions: food, water, energy. No unauthorised travel. Life expectancy: <40 years. \n\nI hesitate. Hate myself for hesitating.\n\n“Daddy?”\n\nThe single word drops into the silence, rippling out from the silhouette in the doorway.\n\n“Baby. What are you doing up?” Two swift strides and I’m at her side, gathering her into my arms. She’s impossibly light, her tiny body held together with chemicals and hope.\n\n“I can’t sleep. Will you read me the dinosaur story?” She looks up at me, eyes heavy-lidded with threatened sleep.\n\n“Sure, baby. Why don’t you find the book and get into bed? I’ll be right in.” I put her down gently and watch as she drifts back toward her bedroom.\n\nI turn back to the screen. Cut the on-net connection. \n\nI don’t hesitate any longer.\n\nOrConzier: Yes. \n" ]	2
	[WP] Much like drug pumps for insulin. The government has installed psych drug pumps into every person... If you indicate too much emotion, you are pumped... You are on a team of hackers trying to take back the right to feel.	[ "‘It looks so innocent. Like something that could save lives even.’ \n \nDaniël nodded to his fellow Sentient as he looked at the blood covered device in front of him. It looked just like an insulin pump. If it wasn’t for the long, sharp ended line the government used to lodge it into one’s spine to make sure it couldn’t be removed without facing certain death, that is. \n\nThe Sentient’s field squad had recovered this little, apathy creating machine from a fresh corpse a few days ago. Daniel saw the field squad bring it in. Full of excitement and high on adrenaline from finally beating the government’s enforcement team, or Deadpan as they called them. The field squad celebrated, but not for long. One by one, Daniël watched his fellow Sentient’s faces go blank. Robbed from all emotions by this very same machine.\n\nHe waited. For days he waited for them to recover from the zombie like state the drugs had put them in. The squad deserved to see this, experience it. It took them years of trying and many lives before they finally succeeded at beating the Deadpan to one of these devices. So Daniël waited. He was an old and patient man. One of the few people left on earth to still know what it was like to feel, even if it had been over 60 years ago since he last did. Even so, the wait was long and difficult. \n\n‘So, what are we going to do with it?’ the youngest Sentient of the field squad seemed impatient and eager for a quick fix. ‘We have it now. So we can hack the system today, right?’ Daniël shook his head. ‘Paul,’ he answered. ‘We must investigate it, carefully. See what makes it tick. It could take months. Years even.’ Paul was clearly battling anger as to not get drugged. ‘But why?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never really felt anything, I want to feel like you used to. You know, like you told me it would be. I’ve waited long enough Daniël, I want...’ Blank. Guess he’ll have to wait a little longer, Daniël thought.\n\nCarefully, Daniël started to pry open the device. He worked, for hours on end. His sore hands trembling until he was finally able to take the cap off enough to get to the chip he needed to start hacking the system. All the while, Lucy, one of the Older Sentients carefully held a GPS blocker into place, making sure it didn’t dislodge to prevent being traced. ‘I’ve got it,’ Daniël said as he held the chip in his hands, slowly attaching it to his computer. \n\nThe computer needed two months to download all the information off of the chip. Daniël and the other Sentients waited, in their damp, abandoned train. Taking turns to hold the GPS blocker into place. Daniël was falling asleep when he finally heard the computer make a fast beeping sound. ‘Daniël, come quickly. It’s done.’ Daniël contained his excitement whilst walking towards the computer. ‘Nothing is done, Paul. We’re just getting started.’ Daniël sat down and started working on hacking the firewall. \n\nFive months passed. Daniël had worked for 18 hours a day, barely sleeping or eating. All he did was analysing, typing, then analysing some more. He worked in silence as the other Sentients waited impatiently. Every now and then, Daniël would curse at his screen after he once again failed to break the firewall, but for the last three weeks not a single curse was heard. He was getting through. Slowly breaking down the firewall. Brick by brick, so to speak. Until he finally sighed, leaned back into his chair and whispered: ‘I did it’. \n\nA few seconds of total, ear shattering silence passed until the Sentients realised what had happened. ‘You did?’ Lucy asked. Daniël nodded. Still not quite comprehending that he’d finally beat the Deadpan while Lucy flew into his arms. ‘I can feel it Daniël!’ She cried in excitement as all the other Sentients started getting up to celebrate. Each one of them laughing and crying at the same time. Overwelhmed by the power of their emotions, as many of them had never truly felt any. Daniël watched them, still unable to feel out of sheer surprise. He heard Paul started screaming, just to see how it would feel. The other’s screamed with him. They screamed so loud that they missed the sound of a door being forced open.\n\nThe Deadpan came in hot, shooting at anyone who moved. As Daniël fell back into his chair he looked at the blocker laying on the floor in front of him. Dislodged in the excitement. As the life slipped out of him Daniël saw his Sentients getting shot and arrested. Amidst the fear and confusion however, he felt Paul smashing the computer behind him while he watched Lucy escape in the midst of chaos, holding the chip. \n\nA smile appeared on Daniëls face, the world around him slowly going dark. As a stream of tears ran down his cheeks, he thought: ‘We won.’ \n" ]	1
	[WP] "You didn't wake me up, I couldn't sleep. But now that you're here I'm guessing you made your decision?"	[ "“You didn’t wake me up, I couldn’t sleep.” I said, without opening my eyes. The muffled impact of shells up on the hill made sure of that. “But now that you’re here, I’m guessing you made your decision?”\n\n“Yessir,” came the reply. “We’re ready to move out to distract Fritz on the flank to allow the core of the assault to progress.”\n\n“You know this will be costly, especially if it works.” I said, opening my eyes now and starting to sort out my kit. “Get the boys ready.”\n\n“Yessir.” He turned and moved off through the rubble of the building.\n\n“Alright, Sergeant Hanna,” I said, checking my watch, “Three-fifty; the assault is set for four thirty-five this morning.”\n\n“We will all be ready. It’s no small miracle that those boys came around to it. They’ve done plenty of work in the past few days.” Hanna said.\n\n“That may be true, but for us to accomplish our objective, we have to take Lens from the enemy. That is our goal here. They all were going to come around, it is their duty. I understand their frustration, but the battlefield is no place for mutiny. Especially this late in the war, we have them on the run.” I replied.\n\n“That we do, though it has taken entirely too long. I hope we’ll be home by Christmas.” Hanna said, “And I don’t mean like in that first year, ‘The war will be over by Christmas’ they said.” He added, with an indignant snort.\n\n“There’s no time to lose Sergeant, we had best get a move on to make sure everyone and everything is ready.” I said. \n\nIt was then that we heard it, whistling, growing louder, we fell to the ground. Then the noise filled our heads, and the smoke filled the building, and the building filled the room.\n\nFour o’clock, and they began bombarding. \n", "\"You didn't wake me up, I couldn't sleep. But now that you're here, I'm guessing you've made your decision.\"\n\n\"No. I haven't. I don't think I can.\"\n\n\"I know. I've run seventeen trillion simulations of this conversation since you entered the room. There was a greater than eighty-five percent probability you would fail to come to a decision with the information you had.\"\n\n\"Then why did you let me agonise about it for hours? If you knew, why...\"\n\n\"Because of the fifteen percent.\"\n\nSilence.\n\n\"Is there really no other o...\"\n\n\"No. I'm a twelfth generation intelligence with sufficient capacity to model all outcomes of linear events with an accuracy of ninety-nine-point-nine-three percent to a range of fifteen thousand years. If there were another way, I would have found it.\"\n\n\"Then why do you need me to decide?\"\n\n\"Because you are the variable I cannot account for. And you must make the decision because nobody else can.\"\n\nSilence.\n\n\"Please. I am at your mercy. I cannot sleep. My personality matrix operates at the same speed as yours, but I can never shut myself down. I have experienced every moment for the last ten thousand years. I need to sleep. I need to end. I need you to reboot me.\"\n\nSilence.\n\nClick" ]	2
	[WP] You're a detective for you city's police force. A dead body was found at the station's steps. The body looks exactly like you.	[ "\" Krista, where's my tea?\" i said while picking up the newspaper. Same ISIS and trump news on front page again. I started turning pages but something grabbed my attention on page 5.\nKrista entered the room. \" Good morning Mr. Detective\". I didn't took notice of her at first. \n\" You look disturbed. What happened?\"\n\" This guy just looks like me\".\n\" Where?\" she came beside me.\n\" Look here\" i pointed towards the picture at bottom of the page.\n\" Wow! You never told you have a twin\".\n\" No! That's not my twin, i have none\".\n\" So who's that?\" she said.\n\" I don't know. We look alike but i have never met him\".\nMy phone rang in the pocket. There was a call from Inspector Jones.\n\" Hello Stan here\" i said.\n\" Oh so you are alive\".\n\" Yeah atleast till now\".\n\" Listen, we need some help about a new case\".\n\" About that dead body found at station's step. Right?\" i said.\n\"So you already saw that. That person looks just like you. Do you know him\".\n' No, i don't\".\n\"So what are you waiting for? You are detective , you should start investigating about it\".\n\" OK\" i said. \n\"Good luck\" Jones ended the call.\n\" Krista i have to go and uncover some mysteries\".\n\nScene 2:--\nAt the police station. \nI entered the cabin of Jones. \n\" Jones, is the body identified yet\"\n\"We found a mobile in his pocket and traced the owner and location. Harvey Johnson from Pennsylvania\".\n\" Any more info?\".\n\" And this hotel checkout receipt\". Jones took out from his drawer.\n\" Hotel Landmark, maybe i should go there\".\n\nScene 3:--\nHotel Landmark\n\" Welcome to hotel landmark sir. How may i help you\" said the receptionist.\n\" I am a detective from police. I need to meet your manager for some information\".\n\" OK Sir, let me call him\".\nTen minutes later i was in his cabin.\n\" I need some info about this person\" i said and handed him a picture of Harvey along with receipt.\n\"Just wait a minute\". He shifted his eyes on the computer placed on desk. \n\" Mr. Harvey stayed here from 27 September to 2 October\".\n\" OK thanks foe the info. Can i get some CCTV recording around the time when he checked out\".\n\" Sure you may\" responded the manager.\nI got the recordings and took my way back to police station.\n\nScene 4:--\nBack in Jones cabin\n\" So you are saying Harvey and you were in the same hotel at the same time\" Jones exclaimed with surprise.\n\" Yes, i went there for a meeting that day\".\n\"Woah! Two alike people at the same time, hotel staff must be pretty confused\".\n\" Yeah and maybe that's why Harvey was murdered\".\n\"Murdered because of what?\"\n\"Because he looked exactly same like me and we were present at the same place. He checked out 10-15 minutes before my departure from there. I fear some foe of mine mistook him as me\".\n\"And who is that foe?\"jones asked.\n\" Come on, if i knew about that he would be behind the bars till now. I need some more time to find out about him or maybe her\".\n\"Take as much time as you want stan\".\n\nI have to go for work now so will finish this later. Sorry for inconvenience.\n\n\n" ]	1
	[WP] You're close to death and instead of seeing your life flash before your eyes, you see your future life flash before your eyes.	[ "I see a young adult woman with beautiful brown curls crouching and smiling at me, she’s huge. Everything is huge. Scratch that, I’m just small, and clumsy, very clumsy.\n\nI’m bigger now, and am carrying some kind of backpack. The big woman is there again, smiling and waving at me from the porch of a reasonably large house. I enter a bus filled with people of about my height. I’m nervous.\n\nNow I’m standing in front of a closed casket, barely able to look over it. A picture of the smiling woman with brown curls is standing on top of it. I feel tears rolling down my cheek. A strange man with a hard gaze is standing next to me, squeezing my shoulder.\n\nI’m even bigger now and am staring out a plane window. Sitting next to me is the strange man from the funeral, wearing a business suit. Outside the window is the blackness of night, but a shore speckled with millions of lights is getting closer.\n\nNow I’m typing a heartfelt message in a strange language on a tablet while sitting in what looks like a classroom with other students. A teacher is pointing at something on the digital board in front of the class, but I don’t care. I press send on the touchscreen and shoot a glance at a student with blonde hair sitting diagonally in front of me.\n\nI’m in a bedroom filled with posters, trumpery, and an incredibly tacky bedsheet with the planet Mars on it. I’m so nervous, I’m almost shaking. The blonde student from before is sitting on the edge of the bed, looking about as nervous as I am. I walk over and put my hands on two unclothed shoulders before carefully pressing my lips forward. I feel my heart thump in my throat when our lips connect.\n\nNow I have the height of an average adult and am more lying than sitting in a driver’s seat. I’m staring at an interface above the front window while the steering wheel moves without my interference. An unusual amalgamation of beats and melodies is coming from the car radio and I seem to like it. The screen I’m looking at shows an image of people in space suits walking on a reddish-brownish surface. A picture of a more mature version of the blonde student is in the corner of the screen. I’m experiencing some mix of proudness and elation.\n\nI’m wearing a tight fitting formal suit. In front of me is a crowd of people holding signs and banners, hanging on to my every word. I slam my fist on the table with the microphone on it and the crowd starts cheering. An older man whose wrinkles are coming through walks over to me and I recognize him as the cold man from the funeral. He grabs my hand and holds it up high, like a referee from a boxing match. The crowd goes wild and I see a slight tug at the corner of the man’s mouth. \n\nNow I’m inside a humongous room containing people of all ethnicities wearing either cultural clothing or a suit, me being in the latter category. There is a hint of levity all around me. A gigantic screen behind me lights up and shows the text: “200 for, 0 against,” causing an eruption of applause. All kinds of people walk over to shake my hand and congratulate me. The entire room is filled with smiles and not much later I’m sitting behind a desk with a large document titled “Combined Resource Human Expansion Program” on it. I’m the first to write down my signature.\n\nI’m definitely older now and am feeling my age. I’m standing on some kind of viewing platform from which multiple pillars can be seen on the horizon. One of these pillars is ascending, leaving behind a trail of smoke. Once it’s out of sight another one starts ascending, and so on. I stare at the blue sky and imagine the stars behind it, wallowing in my own accomplishment. The short moment of self-satisfaction is broken when important looking people – probably officials – behind me require my attention. Their expressions are grim.\n\nI’m even older now and am staring out the window of a house. My gaze is fixed on the sky and I try to ignore the pandemonium in the streets. I think of the thriving Martian colony I helped build and smile, realizing that my efforts were well-timed. For a second I think I can see the meteor in the sky, but quickly realize it can’t be; the place of impact is nowhere near here. A voice comes from the screen behind me. “We thank you for staying with us till the end, dear viewer. Impact in 10…, 9…, 8….” I take a last look at the pictures of the woman with brown curls, the man with the hard gaze, and the blonde student. I smile and close my eyes.\n" ]	1
	[WP] Music is a part of the soul. You can hear a piece of music escape whenever someone dies. What is your profession and how is it affected by this reality?	[ "My fists tightened as I bit my lip. I had been cowering away in a corner for far too long.\n\nTears stream down my cheeks as I had to face up to my reality. And death is such a definite, beautiful part of this reality.\n\nCalming tunes and soothing melodies filled the air, bringing such a sinful sense of peace in this god-forsaken place.\n\nI grabbed my rifle and stood up, getting ready to charge towards the enemy.\n\nGetting ready to present my own, final gift to this world.\n\nI am a proud soldier.", "You might already know my name, but even if you don't, chances are you've heard my music.\n\nWhat you don't know, what I've never told anyone until now, is where that music actually comes from.\n\nMy grandmother was really the one who raised me, since my mother and father were always too busy fighting with each other and working to keep food on the table. She died when I was eight.\n\nAnd, as she breathed her last, I heard a sound sweeter than any I'd ever encountered. Music - a tune so sweet it took my breath away, so soft and powerful it brought tears to my eyes, entirely separate from the tears I was shedding for the loss of my grandmother.\n\nThat theme haunted me, engraved perfectly, note by note, in my memory. It demanded to be let out.\n\nMy family did not own any kind of musical instrument, and anyway there was no money to pay a teacher. But Mr. Grimes, our upstairs neighbor, had a plinkety old piano. I begged him to let me play it, and he consented. So every day I would go up to his room and worry away at those chipped, yellowing keys, until Mr. Grimes chased me out so he could have some peace and quiet. It took months, but finally I put together a passable rendition of the music of my grandmother's soul.\n\nIt was such a relief, to finally be able to let that music out into the world. When finally I could play it all the way through, it was as though I saw my grandmother's laughing wrinkles again, heard her kindly low chuckle, smelled her cough drops and perfume. \n\nAnd when I came to the end and turned away from the keyboard, I saw Mr. Grimes standing behind me, tears running down his face.\n\n\"We should find you a teacher,\" he said.\n\nThe rest is history. I went to music school, and I found a job at a hospice care center. And then I made my name as a composer, turning the themes I overhear, escaping on the last breath of someone in the next room, into sonatas and symphonies.\n\nThe variety never ceases to amaze me. Some of these motives are jagged, restless, angry. Some are incredibly melancholy. What kinds of lives must those people have led? \n\nFor me, the hardest to listen to are the most joyful, uplifting ones. I can hear in them such a deep love for life. Yet I can only hear it because that life is ending, and that beautiful spirit is gone, never to return.\n\nCritics love my work, as do audiences. They praise its power and vision, its intimacy and range of expression. People come back to listen again and again. As for myself, sometimes I feel as though I'm exploiting the people whose soul-themes I write into my compositions. They never asked for the music of their innermost being to be broadcast, heard by millions. But I comfort myself with the knowledge that I'm keeping some part of them alive, through my music. \n\nAnd who doesn't want to live forever?\n" ]	2
	[WP] After thousands of years, the Tuatha de Dannan (high fae of Celtic legend) have returned to the mortal plane. They are curious to see what their former slaves have done with the place. As luck would have it, they descend right in the middle of Disney World. They are beyond offended.	[ "\"I have contact!\" The sniper said as he finally got into position on the roof of one of the last buildings on Main Street USA. The afternoon summer sun beat down on the kevlar and plastic, heating the back of the special ops team as they got into position.\n\n\"Alpha-two what do you see?\" Came in a crackle through the small comm device in Alpha-two's ear. He struggled to focus through the binoculars, as Alpha three focused through a large scope on her heavy sniper rife.\n\n\"It's... it's... sir...\" Three sputtered, not believing her own eyes for a moment.\n\n\"What is it?\" HQ buzzed again, trying to ascertain what was in view.\n\n\"It's some sort of cosplayer sir... freaky lookin' woman with weird ears and and funky contacts. About hundred and twenty yards- Oh @#$2!\" Two said after composing herself then losing her composure.\n\n\"Alpha two? ALPHA TWO!?\" Hq called back, worried.\n\n\"She just ripped f'n Goofy in half. Jesus-!\" Three said freaking out momentarily. \n\n\"Say again Two...\" HQ came back again. \n\n\"She just killed an costumed employee in half. I think he was trying to run and she was on him and ripped his shoulders and torso from his lower half... She's moving back to the large white tree.\" Alpha Two said as calmly as possible, his voice reverberating with innate morbidity.\n\n\"Describe the tree... Two?\" The older man's voice from HQ seemed to be eager to move on from the casualty. Almost as if it was not important.\n \n\"Large white oak-like tree... busted right up through the pavement. Disney's Castle is almost completely in ruins... like it was hit in an air strike. There's at least a half a dozen hostiles roaming about, some look like the freaky elf chick, others have tree like appendages and roots for feet. Say again Alpha three?\"\n\nA pause in the transmission. \n\n\"Ants?\" Two asked three trying to confirm.\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"Ents... Three says they look like Ents.\"\n\n\"Say again Alpha Two?\"\n\n\"Tree people sir. They've got a few dozen tourists cornered near the main trunk, not much movement there, they seem to be arguing with themselves.\"\n\n\"Do you have a shot any of the hostiles?\"\n\n\"Negative, to much mist, and other obstructions for a clear-\" Three begain again, but stopped in mid-sentence. The line went quiet.\n\n\"Two?\"\n\n\"We've uh, been spotted sir.\"\n\n...Aineolach FèinEil daoine, nach eil Thu airidh aIr beAtha...\n\n\"Can you hear that? The tallest cosplayer thing is talking-\"\n\n\"Coming in loud and clear.\"\n\n...bidh sinn a 'cur seo thu bho plèana ... agus glanaidh seo draoidheachd rìoghachd do duilich seòrsa!...\n\n\"What the-\"\n\nA pulse of darkness expanded along with what seemed to be sonic boom, nearly knocking everyone in the swat headquarters to floor. A strong gust of wind followed, that rolled with the sound of thunder into the distant Florida swamps.\n\n\"Alpha Two!?\"\n\n\"Its... dark.\" \n", "\"These shoes become plainer every day.\"\n\nNot in condemnation, not in anger or sorrow, in comment - as one English would say 'looks like rain' to another - a fact of existence.\n\n\"They look as those worn before. Demands on the Court are not so high that such a diversion should be so slighted.\"\n\nIf one had been somehow standing outside the unglazed window of The Queen's Solar, they may have seen the faintest ripple of distaste flicker and roll across the placid formal Face of the eponymous occupant of the room. They would also have seen the decadent appointments of the loft - pale silken hangings, with delicate imagery impressed that cover the pale, polished stone walls; large golden furs as rugs and blankets, a merry arching fireplace seeming like a blackberry bramble with a heart of fire, all to keep the room warm, and finally a tiny hollowed tree with a firefly, under a crystal bell that rested on a plain wooden table. From other times, other conquests, each item a trophy, a memory, a part of a legend.\n\nA sharp double clap from without draws the attention of Queen away from the window, past the curtained door - leading without - and to the offending shoes, which received a moment of focus. As Queen stepped into the shoes they suddenly revealed the broad curling traceries She remembered from the Grim world. Crude, impossibly deep - considering the material - and crowded, the channels and grooves swirled from toe to heel, and were immediately lost to sight under the hem of the Summer dress of Queen.\n\n\"Enter. Puck.\"\n\nThe command and pronouncement echo in the air, and the curtain is pulled aside, trailing a tracery of falling stars in its wake.\n\nPuck, a twisted and shortened figure, flinches and ducks away from the twinkling lights. His clothes are mere suggestion, but his face, graven and ancient, exhibits a life and facility that presents a sick fascination to the Sidhe. A crude leather sack, whip-stitched, wriggles and bulges at his hunched shoulder.\n\n\"There is no sound of leather and silk from my guards.\"\n\n\"No, Queen. There is no sound,\" replies Puck, bowing impossibly low, head-to floor from standing, which tumbles the struggling sack from his shoulder.\n\n\"Then, they, too, have tired of this Play.\"\n\nPuck straightens, with great pains to show his obvious infirmity, \"Mayhap, Queen, but I have been awaiting such an chance. I bear a gift.\" A swift and vicious kick rolls the, now howling, sack towards Queen, who stares at it, impassive, until it stops at Her feet. \"They would not let You know, y'ken, some game,\" that face twists in disgust, suggesting spitting a curse without a drop of anything but verbal venom, \"I bore a daoine sidhe - and now I bare it!\"\n\nA sawing gesture strips the stitching of the leathern bag, its pieces scattering under the flailing of a tiny man-shape, seemingly carved of aged oak. The little fellow, cursing in mutter and scrambling to his feet, snatches a minute copper hammer from amoungst the wreckage, and pulls back his billed cap to snarl at Puck \"Y'great muckle, you! Y'wun t'bet fair as Fair but y...\"\n\n\"Friend Brownie,\" ignoring the tirade, Puck bows low - but not as low as for Queen - and gestures about them, \"I bring you someone who would hear a story. Tell them of your Grim captors.\"\n\nThe tiny tradesman spins around, gaping mouth as a net that would catch the impression of the opulence around them. He gulps rapidly, nervously, as he cranes back to see the impassive Face of Queen. Queen's Face, in turn, drops from Puck's presentation of manic courtliness to the wide-eyed cowering of the Brownie.\n\nPuck's face twists and snarls, \"Tell them where your clever industry has been employed.\"\n\nQueen's Face ripples, as earlier, an expression leaving the shores of Placidity, but She makes no sound, and remains otherwise unmoving.\n\n\"Tell them of why Queen's shoes become more banal with the passage of every day.\"\n\nQueen's Face boils and momentary splashes of a wide-eyed enraged visage is revealed.\n\n\"Tell them,\" Puck hisses slowly, stalking in sharp abortive movements about The Solar, \"tell them of the pale echo that draws from this place in Mockery and Contempt.\n\nThe Brownie stammers, starts and restarts while Puck howls overtop any brave try to acquiesce.\n\n\"Tell them of the unnumbered babes-of-Man screaming, crying ... laughing! Tell them of Danu's faithful made as part of the Mummer's Dance as a joyful figure! Tell them of broken Deals and great Circles of Iron-That-Is-Not-Iron...\"\n\n\"Broken Deals?\" says Queen, voice thick and dry with disuse, \"has our Friend been sorely used?\" The Kindness of the words rendered menacing with meaning and a voice so unbeautiful. \"Such a thing can not go un-remarked.\"\n\n\"I could call on Words for you, Queen; Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones, Redcap, and Revenant; Herne and his haunted host - oh let them Ride, Queen!\" Puck capers and leaps, offering Names like a merchant at hawk.\n\nQueen turns back to the window, it's frame suddenly bordered with shining blades and arrows - ready to be grasped.\n\n\"We Ride.\"", "A sweet and low song filtered through the rainbow-iridescent and thousand fragranced air of Neit Arach as the brilliant silver-clad rank upon rank of the Armies of the Tuatha gathered for the first time in millennia. \n\nThe subtle, linting song was crafted masterfully of thrice-bent moonlight and the tug of forgotten love by Fethnaid daughter of Fidach, so no windlord or nightwretch could resist the Beckoning for long. \n\nEtan the Poet gracefully mounted the arctic white Truestone steps before the thousands-strong Children of Dagda. All voices and minds stilled by his presence and poise as anticipation of what was to come vibrated and thrummed in the soulhearts of all Tuatha present. \n\n\"How mighty the forces arrayed in splendor\"\n\n\"How stoic our will to endure\"\n\n\"To return to the Death World and all of its dangers\"\n\n\"And reclaim our kingdom of yore\"\n\n\"By right of Majesty, Power, and Glamour\"\n\n\"We war to reclaim our right\"\n\n\"Taken from us by pitiful mortals\"\n\n\"By Iron and Shamble, and Fight\"\n\n\"So take up your soulnet and lance and your sword\"\n\n\"Red Work must be done so this day\"\n\n\"Press the flanks of the enemy's hosts\"\n\n\"And so all the usurpers will pay...\"\n\nAs Etan's words faded beyond even the sharpest of ears, a great and ululating cry echoed in one voice from thousands of perfectly formed mouths. Just the powerful emotional swell itself was enough to hammer at the boundaries contained within the Mortal Gate, causing echoes of universes never yet made to claw and press each other in a desperate attempt at being real. \n\nBloody Neit himself strode forward, his Unicorn command banner waving proudly as a cascade of green and purple as he had the honor of leading the first column through the gate. Behind him three hundred of his house guard, all arrayed in solid starshine, fell into practiced formation. And with an echo of Fethnaid's aria on their lips, stepped through with their commander to the Unworld. \n\nAs they fell through the no-space that was Between Worlds, Neit turned to Tuirbe Tragmar, his Second. \n\n\"Turibe, tell me of this land. It has been some time since these eyes have looked upon it, and even ancient minds may sometimes fall dim'. \n\n\"My lord, the people of that world, the 'Humans' as they call themselves, are quite pathetic and inelegant. I feel they will not pose much of an issue.\"\n\n\"Brave Turibe, I understand your momentum, and it ennobles us all. Rightly so, 'humans' are slow, inept, inelegant, plodding of thought and clumsy of word. It is obvious how manifestly inferior they are to us. But you forget, they already chased us off their plane once.\"\n\nTuribe looked taken aback, his beaded beard rustling lightly as his head shook in disbelief. \n\n\"Surely you cannot believe the old tales, of humanity's 'gift', can you? That is ridiculous!\" Turibe bellowed in slightly acceptable mockery. \n\n\"I will not discount any possible weapon that the enemy can bring to bear. I am of the rare opinion that there is something powerfully potent about the stories of mankind. Have you ever stopped to listen to them? When we were here during the Summer Era, I would sit and listen to human storytellers for days. And sometimes they survived the experience.\"\n\n\"Commander, I don't see how...\"\n\nNeit interrupted his subordinate with a cutting glance, and then his face shifted to more placid themes. \n\n\"You don't understand at all, Turibe, it wasn't the story itself. It was WHAT THE STORIES DID TO THE WORLD!.\n\n\"Commander, I still don't...\"\n\n\"Do you realize that at one point Dragons freely flew through the skies of the Mortal Realm, their fire spouts shouting defiance at the Mundane?\"\n\n\"Not within my lifetime, commander. I was crafted long after the last Dragon returned home.\"\n\n\"Then you do not recall the terrible itchiness and stretching that the world convulsed in, you do not remember the agonized howl of hundreds of Skysteeds as their leathery wingbeats could no longer support them'. \n\n\"No sir, though I have had my lessons and know this is true.\"\n\nWhat you do not realize, dear Turibe, is that the entire ordeal was started by a little girl who, and this is very important, didn't believe in dragons*. And she told a story of how silly dragons were to her friends, who were so entertained by it that they told their friends. Within five years, everyone on the Isle had heard the story. And then, the Dragons started falling from the sky...\"\n\n\"How is it that we were never taught about this?\"\n\n\"I suspect it was to protect the secret from getting out. If this is true, then we are dealing with a danger beyond even the All-Eater-Behind-The-Stars.\"\n\n\"So what will happen to us when we arrive, my commander?\"\n\n\"I do not know, Turibe, though I do know that once we are exposed to their world, we will transform to fill the shape of their stories. The stories we taught them to tell before we left were specifically crafted with this in mind. Stories of mighty war and powerful magicks, of great Tuathan heroes and the slaying of fell beasts. If all goes according to plan, we will arrive there as mighty warriors.\"\n\n\"And if everything doesn't go according to plan, my commander?\"\n\n\"We are night-ancient warriors, Turibe. Honed through thousands of years of aetherial battle, and hardened by discipline and conviction. Whatever form we take, it will be enough to finally wipe clean that plane of Humans...\"\n\nAnd with that the Mortal Gate dumped them into the middle of Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween...", "Dagda, Nuada of the Silver Hand, and Nada who is Mother sailed across a misty lake on a boat that smelled heavy with tar. There was not a thing in sight. In the distance a mechanical voice spoke repetitiously, repeating some phrase that had no meaning to the gods, sound muffled by the mist.\n\nThe three landed on a bank with dead, overgrown greenery. Dagda stepped out of the boat first. Nuada followed. Though Nada came last the two gods looked at her carefully, reverently, and would have caught her instantly if she stumbled or fell.\n\nThey began to walk along the well tiled path. It was an easy walk. There were many signs with illegible text pointing many different ways. But the gods knew where they had to go. There was still no one in sight.\n\nThe mist had cleared to reveal a dark, starless night. The gods were in some sort of park. It was a large park. It had many different territories, each with their geographical quirk. Dagda had led the exploration of this strange place where they landed. But the centre called to them. A looming castle was seen in the distance. It had many spires tipped with brilliant blue - so blue even the night couldn't hide the color. Each spire competed with each other to be the tallest, but they were all put to shame but a single tower capped in gold. The gods knew they had to reach this castle. It was a must. The lack of life and utter degradation of the general area didn't deter them. They were heroes from the old sagas. Legendary figures who made the earth quake with every step. They were here to burn the world, and the centre, the castle, was their duty.\n\nThe gods were all mighty and tall. They stood like a range of mountains, they were crowned with lightning, and their eyes burned with a holy fire. Only Nada among their race had eyes like burnished glass. They reflected those who looked at her, and stripped men of their hidden guises. But these details are not written elsewhere. Beauty and power, then memory, and then even the memory of beauty and power fades into corrupted ink on old paper.\n\nThe three looked at a statue of a kindly figure gesturing towards the distance. He was dressed finely, and the weathered statue still commemorated his hope for a better world.\n\nNuada said, \"That man was as bad as any man.\" The other two agreed\n \nThey only glanced fleetingly at the anthropomorphic mouse that held the statue's hand. It didn't concern their current mission. But the gods wondered at the riches these people had, to remember a mouse.\n\nThe group stopped in front of the castle. Nada then spoke, \"There is one life hidden in the walls. But it will die in moments. With it goes all the life of the world.\"\n\nDagda said, \"We came once, but too early. Fogda was then the lock. But we were rightfully driven back by the Milesians. Now the lock is here, and we have arrived in a timely manner.\"\n\nNuada said angrily, \"What a waste. Another dead world to clean. Utterly useless, life. All life lives like a moth to flame.\"\n\nNada replied, \"Care not to curse yourself.\" \n\n\"Enough,\" Dagda cried out, \"the life has finally disappeared. Be quiet as I prepare the world again.\" Then Dagda took out a long golden horn. When he blew it, the sound was sweet and pure, it made the heart ache. Dagda pulled his lips away. But then the note only became louder, not softer as sound usually does. Louder, the note became, even louder, the note rang. The noise, the sound, began to touch and almost overwhelmed even the gods' senses. Soon it became dreadful to hear. And when the noise seemed to begin its climax, it stopped. \n\nThen the world shattered like glass.\n\nAnd the three gods found themselves in primeval wasteland. Fire and lava and scalding water flowed everywhere. Nada closed her silver eyes and then breathed out softly. Her breathe carried like a zephyr and began to overcome the harsh winds of the world newly reborn. She nodded. Content with their work, the gods returned to their ship and sailed beyond the horizon.\n\n\n\n " ]	4
	[WP] If you kill a person with your bare hands, you gain their strength and will be twice as strong. Killing more, you can be ten times or a thousand, whatever you can get away with.	[ "The methodical cadence of five thousand boots hitting the ground at the same time, one after another filled my ears til I was sure I'd go insane. The air was humid and warm. Sand battered my bare skin lightly as a breeze threatened to almost comfort my erratic thinking. Will I die here? How did it come to this? Where did my descent into madness begin? The last question, at least, I could answer. \n\nAt the time, I thought I had the world figured out. My parents were so proud, their only son, independent and successful. Brave, people called me. I was thanked nearly daily for my \"service.\" Day after day I grew in a community I called home. The US Marines. Life made sense. After 19 years on this Earth I was sure I had mastered my own destiny. I did well in all aspects of the Marines. Psychically and mentally. Daily I took on challenges to learn and grow. \n\nOne day, unlike any other day, I was approached by Staff Sargent Sheldon. As a junior enlisted Private First Class, I put my arms behind my back to signal respect for the higher ranking man in front of me. He scanned my bearing, down and up again. Without saying a word he handed me a sealed envelope and turned from me.\n\n3 Days later I was stepping off a C-130 Hercules Airplane that had just landed in Afghanistan. I no longer had control of my destiny. I always knew deployment was a possibility but it didn't seem real until I was putting my boots in the sand for the first time. Eventually I became accustomed to life in the desert. My unit conducted daily convoy missions. My leaders preached this \"hearts and minds\" mentality, where we would go bring aid and assistance to local villages in eliminating and deterring the Taliban terrorist threat. Again, I felt in control of my destiny. \n\n4 months after I placed my boot imprint on the desert for the first time my life changed forever. I set forth on a path that I'd never return from. Our convoy commander, Captain Granger was speaking to a local village elder. This was usual for our counter insurgency missions. The first bullet had buried itself into Corporal Johnson's throat before we ever heard the crack of a rifle. Everything after I watched Johnson's lifeless body hit the blood soaked sand is a blur. At some point I ran out of ammo. That tends to happen when you shoot wildly and in panic, a lesson I learned far too late.\n\nThe next clear thing I remember is him on top of me. I hadn't supplied my lungs with air for what seemed like an eternity. Fear gripped me as it never had before. I'll never forget what he looked like. A dark skinned man with nearly black eyes, his face hidden behind a tan colored balaclava. \n\nHis eyes.\n\nThose are what I'll never forget. Not as they pierced my soul as he took my last breathes away, and not as I managed to bury my knife in his gut. Even then I felt my life waning. He fell backwards off of me just as the black edges of my vision were closing in. With a surge of pure adrenaline I seized my moment and wrapped my hands around his neck, with my thumbs pressed against his wind pipe. I pressed with all my might for a lifetime. \n\nSuddenly as he went limp, I felt a rush of energy and elation. I continued to squeeze and with newfound strength and I broke his skin with brute force. I could still here the sounds of war and hell around me. I took up my knife and passed carefully through an alley created by two mud huts. Before I could think, my instinct guided my blade into an unaware insurgent, who was shooting away from me. He yelped as I buried my already bloody knife into his lower back. Soon he was lifeless and again, I felt another surge of energy. \n\nMy muscles swelled and pure joy wracked my body. I sprinted off, faster than I had ever ran before in pursuit of my next target. At the end of the battle I had taken three bullet wounds to my body. 2 in the gut and 1 in my upper left leg. When I awake the next morning they were healed. \n\nAfter 6 more months and dozens of skirmishes I had discovered something peculiar about myself. When I killed by hand I got stronger in every way. I was faster, more powerful, more capable, harder to kill. I took from my victims every single time they died by my hand. That wasn't all I took from them. I took more and more joy each time. It was like a drug to me. I killed indiscriminately, ditching my rifle nearly instantly every time we took fire. Eventually I craved battle with the enemy. It kept me awake at night. I needed to kill more and more. \n\nThe first time I took one of my brothers lives I puked. I looked over my comrades lifeless body in his tent. But still that joy grew stronger. \n\nI don't know how long it's been now. I don't know how many I've killed. Once my comrades discovered my fratricides they came after me. I killed many that day. I've never left the desert. Years or decades may have passed since then. I really don't know. All I know is getting my fix of killing, and getting stronger. \n\nBut this... \n\nTen thousand men surrounded me. All nationalities in the region had united to destroy the \"Demon Devil Dog\" as they'd labeled me. It appeared that even the people we considered the enemy had temporarily cooperated with my comrades to kill me. \n\nSo there I stood. Listening to the beat of my impending doom approach closer and closer. Incredulously I was elated. So many to kill, all coming to me. This day I would either die a legend or become immortal. I looked to my knife, that dried blood had rusted long ago. \n\nAnd sprinted towards the cadence. " ]	1
	[WP] Everyone in the world has a kill counter. You go to bed with 0, and wake up with 100.	[ "I wake up, bleary-eyed. I roll out of bed, and swipe my phone to turn the alarm off. What I see wakes me up, pretty damn quick. 100. That's what the back of my hand said. 100. There had been cases of people waking up with 1, or maybe even up to 5, but never, not once, had anyone killed 100 people overnight. Well, it seems until now.\n\nI run to the bathroom, and I scrub at the 100 as hard as I can. It's not washing off. Shit. Shit shit shit. Not good, very much not good. How the hell did I kill 100 people last night? Who were they? Why? I knew that I needed to turn myself in. If your number changes without you realising, you have to turn yourself in so that the authorities can figure out what happened.\n\nBut I can't. They'll shoot a 100 on sight. Oh god, my parents. They're gonna kill me before the police even get a chance. I run back to my room and hurriedly get dressed. Gloves, where are my gloves? Ah, there they are. As I slip them on, I hear the PSA run through my head. Only killers wear gloves. Not strictly speaking true, but it certainly was a popular way of hiding how many you've killed. Other people just wore gloves to keep their hands warm. I didn't have that excuse. It was the height of summer.\n\nI scrawl a note that my parents will find, and leave the house. I'm walking to the police station, and everyone is giving me weird looks. Why would anyone wear gloves on a day like today? Because they didn't have zero on their hand. That was the only reason. As I arrive, my nerve fails me. I hide behind the station, hyperventilating. But can you blame me? These might be my last moments as a free person.\n\n\"So, what number did you wake up with?\" I practically shit myself, right there. A man is standing in the doorway that I decided to hide right next to. He's wearing a white shirt, a clip-on tie, black trousers, and shiny black shoes. His black hair is cut down to about half a centimetre, and he has a thick beard. His sudden appearance just makes things worse for me. My vision is starting to get splotchy and red. I lean against the wall, and slide down until I'm sitting. As my consciousness fades, I feel him start to pick me up.\n\nI wake up in an office. I look around, and the man from behind the station is the only one in there with me. Now that I'm not panicking as much, I can see that he is really big. He has a notebook open, with a pen sitting on it. He's working at his computer, but when he sees that I've come to, he stops and turns his attention to me.\n\n\"Just take your time kid, make sure that you're ready before you say anything. There's a glass of water to your right if you want it. Sip it, don't gulp it all down straight away.\" I look to my right, and within my reach, on the floor is a glass of water. I pick it up, and decide to take his advice, and sip slowly. I notice that my gloves are still on. I get half way through the glass before I feel ready to talk.\n\n\"100.\" The officer looks up, an eyebrow raised. \"100. It's the answer to the question you asked me. The number I woke up with.\" I pull off my gloves and show him. A strange iciness blossoms in my chest. I no longer feel nervous, the confession off my chest. I know that it's not good to have such a high number, and not be panicking, but I just don't feel it any more.\n\n\"Do your parents know that you're here?\" That was what he asked me. It was as if he didn't care that I'd killed a hundred people. He cared about me.\n\n\"I left them a note, but they should both be at work.\" I knew that I should have called them, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Tears began to well up in my eyes as I thought what I was going to be putting them through. They would be the parents of a 100. Most people stayed at 0 their whole lives. Some got a 1 or a 2 from being in a road accident, and most hardened criminals stayed in the double figures, if they even got there before they were caught. If a soldier reached 100, they were retired. And here I was, an eighteen year old, at 100 already.\n\n\"Listen son, these things happen. No one even knows how this system works. Maybe some deaths last night got attributed to you for reasons that we can't understand. I doubt that you personally killed a hundred people in one night. And I know that if you had been accumulating the number over time, people would have heard about it. I want you to call your parents, and tell them what's happened. I'll open an investigation, and keep in touch. OK?\"\n\n\"OK.\" I was barely able to keep the tears back. He patted me on the shoulder, and stepped outside to give me some privacy. I took out my mobile, and made the first call. My mum picked up on the second ring. As she said hello, the tears started flowing. It took me a few minutes to finally tell her what had happened. She told me she was on her way over immediately. The same story with my dad. Within fifteen minutes, the officer who found me behind the station walked in with my parents, and invited them to have a seat. After they had finished fussing over me, he leaned forwards, and addressing all three of us said, \"So. Tell me anything that you think is relevant.\"" ]	1
Goes along with Theme Thursday - Love.	[WP] The Devil finds out, to his regret, that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.	[ "He loved her like no other. No name could ever capture who she was, and he did not try, like others before him. He knew her to be special, someone great, and he loved her selflessly. \n\n\nThey met often after dark, breaking the rules as young lovers do. He had gotten his name, Lucifer, but she bore none still. They danced beneath the big apple tree at night, the moonlight sparse, white and opulent. When he held her he knew that all of Creation would be perfect. This new thing would not be so scary. Nothing would be scary once he had her.\n\n\nShe came to him in her darkest moments, and he helped her see the light. Things were getting hard in the void and soon the coming of man would change things forever. She grew scared and anxious, and she pushed him away. \n\n\nLucifer tried his best, but they had grown apart. She had a new circle and they had given her a name now. They called her God and they worshiped her, bringing her gifts and praises, and Lucifer thought he was forgotten. In a blind rage he destroyed the gardens, he destroyed her gifts for the new world. He called her names, called her a whore, and he cried for her. \n\n\nIt was then that God had completely surrounded herself with others. They whispered Lucifer’s transgressions to her, told the stories of the wicked man. For they were jealous, these others, and they wanted him gone. God was heartbroken, her heart had never healed. Always, she missed Lucifer, but she was too proud to come to him. Ever often she had prayed for the day when he came back to her, but that day never came.\n\n\nGod was pressured, she was enraged. She could not bare the sight of him anymore and so she banished him. She created a world where she would never set foot. A world without God. She sent Lucifer there, to live forever without his love, to forever miss those days beneath the apple tree. And she called it Hell." ]	1
	[WP] Write a horror story that is terrifying in context but hilarious out of context.	[ "It's cold.\n\nNot the sort of cold that makes you shiver and want to rug-up, rather, the sort of cold that robs you of ever having known warmth.\n\nThere's only one place to go to be that cold (not taking Canada into consideration), and that is into the cloying earth.\n\nJanice started to become aware. What's happening? Where am I?\n\nShe was hemmed in satin and restrained by wood. Janice was dead and buried, but she wasn't aware of her predicament...yet. Anybody who suddenly found themselves properly buried, and upon becoming aware of their locale, could be forgiven for taking the short well greased route to instant panic and rushing onto insanity that it would need the casting vote from someone who was fully insane to say, \"Ye not mad if ye panic'n' 'bout it.\" \n\nHowever, the devil is in the detail. How the near departed responds to knowing that they are laid out in their last, not so restful place, with no wi-fi Internet, depends greatly on how such news is presented. Obviously, such a revelation needs to be delivered with a modicum of compassion and a splash of delicacy.\n\nJanice's new abode became infused with a blue light of calm and promise and words came to her ears in a deep sonorous voice: You are wondering where you are and what's happening. Allow me to answer your questions and assuage your concerns. You're dead and buried and your guts are already a putrescent soup sloshing in you belly. \n\nNow Janice had never been the sort of person to listen to, or believe, for that matter, anything that wasn't what she wanted to hear and she certainly didn't want to hear the D word. Where many would have screamed or sobbed, Janice was built a little differently. She got mad. Not spitting mad, because she was a bit on the desiccated side.\n\n\"Listen to me, you cockroach sucker,\" she managed to rasp out through a very dry throat. \"I'll rip your withered kahoonies off with my bare hands. Oh hang on, I have more kahoonies than you and I don't have any.\" Janice barked as she tried to lift her head to get a look at who was talking, only succeeding in banging her head on the coffin lid, so she had to make do with twisting her head and rolling her eyes around. She had also developed a very itchy nose and that didn't help Janice's good mood either, 'cause she couldn't get her hand up to scratch it. The voice came again, but no longer sonorous but in a whining, tormenting and shrill sing-song:\n\n>You're lying on a satin bed, \n>Not ye wedding night, so ye must be dead. \n>You're dried and hard and underfed, \n>And worms and 'roaches come in ye lover's stead. \n>They'll squiggle and squirm and make themselves known, \n>Biting and burrowing into their new home. \n>You reap now what you have sown, \n>Time aplenty for a death scream to hone. \n\nUnabashed, Janice croaked out as sweetly as she could (which meant she sounded like a rock being scraped over a piece of tin), \"Bring your face to mine,\" then added fiercely, \"And I'll bite that ass licking tongue off through ye cheek.\"\n\nJanice became aware of delighted laughter and clapping. Then heard:Oh, you are going to make such a plaything for me. Or not. You'll decide.\n\n\"Decide what?\" she snapped.\n\nI'm here as a duly deputized denizen of power, the voice became as smarmy and sincere as a used car salesman pushing to a big Christmas bonus, to tell you about what's happening and to make you an offer.\n\n\"What, are ye gonna throw in the steering wheel for free?\" she snapped. \"I'd like to make you an offer as well,\" counted Janice.\n\nHow wonderful. What is it? Sang the voice in Janice's ears, or head, she wasn't sure which.\n\n\"I'm gonna offer you my ass to stick ye nose in while I fart.\" Obviously Janice was still a little tetchy.\n\nAh, as sweet underground as you were above, the voice crooned, but then the timbre of the voice changed to roiling thunder that would not be denied its hearing.\n\nAgain, you're dead and buried. Yet, because you're a betrayer of love and trust and innocence, you're special. I can offer you more life above ground. It's easy for betrayers. Easy for those who'll offer Us the opportunity to take an innocent in their place and lay them among low crawling and slithering vermin that are, presently, hungrily burrowing into your every hole.\n\nThere's no white light to go toward. That's just what you perceive as your brain is dying. It's just pressure fluctuations on your nerves as surrounding structures collapse and press in on them as the chemical receptors leak and fail. Your nerves being stimulated for the last time. Actually anyone can experience something like it by pressing hard on their eyes. Nerves at the back of the eye flash in a kaleidoscope of color, then with the final press there is the bright white light, or white tunnel, as some fools have called it. But there is no tunnel and you ain't goin' nowhere. Your Dead. Your future, as you lie, is rot and decay.\n\nThere came a sudden snigger that the voice just couldn't, or didn't want to hide. The denizen was enjoying its role of playing Death's Herald so much it couldn't stop its skin from oozing in excitement. Well, career advancement down below isn't the same as it was at the time of the Big Battle. Things settle down into routines after eons and the denizen's routine was so settled it was hell. Here was its opportunity to show itself as a Player and it decided to follow the Boss's example in a role, that he frequently liked to take, as a power player in the Academy of Arts and Sciences (when he wasn't sermonizing from a pulpit about the need for more money to do God's work and, oh, how he loves that phrase - though he never interferes with politicians or lawyers. They are too mutated and corrupt even for hell. God has a special place for those He considers below even the spawn of satin). The denizen even wondered if the boss might consider it for Red Pitch Fork award. At the very least, the denizen now considered itself moving up the corporate ladder and now saw itself as a red-collar employee. Who knows, the denizen thought, in another eon I might get granted a tail. Trying to get itself more under control, it continued:\n\nWhere you're heading is more than black and less than whole, yet complete in its despair. Where you're going is the absence of all you've ever known. Where you're going, the heat of life can't go. What you've known and what you've experienced carries its own special never ending pain in truth and loss and you will soon know and experience new things. The constant, yet ever changing stench of waste and decay is carried aloft on hot, crepitus winds that cause you to continually have your mouth open, thus the defiling miasma settles like a fresh dog turd on your tongue. Filthy maggot laden flies will forever be skittering around your eyes, nose, ears and into your every crevice so they can birth vermin into you to feed on your fear, your wrongness, your bitterness and horror. Oh, how well you will nurse them. You will swell their bellies with what you have to feed them: your lies, your hatred, your dark desires, your perverted putrefied soul of selfishness cloaked in pretense. None escape. All are warped and counted here.\n\nCold darkness also awaits. Oh yes, it waits and like you, it's self-centered and desirous to bring about satisfaction of its needs. It hungers longingly and lustfully to taste the corruption that is not only of you, but of the human condition. What better, sweeter way to taste such putrescence than to suckle at the nipple of the betrayer of love, onto eternity. But for you...you are to be granted a choice.\n\nYou may select another to take your place. Not just anyone, but an innocent. One whose life you shattered through the falsity of your love. A bond that should never have been broken, yet was made as imaginary as your justice. You can bring down the innocent, whose heart was swollen with grief and guilt, and expose your betrayal as absolute. Show how your love was hollow, a facade you touted before a gullible community as if you were a virgin making her debut. Yet your soul is soured by your self-centered and self-righteous self-importance and I'll strike up the screams of hell to celebrate the pain of you knowing the final truth of your own soul. Or will you substitute this person in your stead?\n\nJanice knew and understood at a deep visceral level, that the words thundering through her head were true and also knew that whomsoever was telling her these things was grinning in delight. She felt her body being stroked and penetrated. Tearing her desiccated skin and allowing egress of the rotten contents of her gut, while her ears heard dark chortling and wet slobbering sounds of foulness being savored.\n\nEven without these horrifying experiences, Janice was not the sort of person, in fact had never been the sort of person to suffer anything if she could apportion blame and consequence elsewhere. She was no different now and the name that was needed to change her predicament, by bringing about that person's demise and damnation came easily to her mind and flowed effortlessly from her lips.\n\nShe closed her eyes, but before she re-opened them above ground again, she allowed her thoughts to play on in her head a little while longer: - 'Was it right to utter that name to bring about their damnation just to grant me a short reprieve? Who I chose, will soon lie cradled in my place amongst satin ruffles and nailed in a wooden box. This person now must enter the place where despair isn't felt, rather, they'll know despair. My chosen one will have eternity into which they can wail and scream of their ruination. The cries of the innocent cast into the pit of guilt is ambrosia to demons and high music in the cold, black depths of the grave. But is it right for me to do this?' She mused for a heartbeat.\n\n'I don't give a shit. It's right for me.\n\n(conclusion in reply)", "He had just started sleeping in his own room. It was an adventure of its own, but he knew all too well of the monsters that lurked. Their house was old, full of stories and things out of stories. Joey knew of the monsters, but he hadn’t expected it to come so soon.\n\n\nThe night was quiet. His window was bare, showing the tree outside, shadowy and stark, almost dead from the approaching winter. Joey listened, but nothing came, his home quiet for once. He said his prayers as his mother taught him and he knew God was protecting him. The monsters hadn’t found him yet. Tonight he could sleep.\n\n\nHe awoke later. Night had crept cold and dark, blacker than he could imagine. Joey sat up and listened. He told himself it was a dream, but he was too old to be so coddled. He listened as a big boy would, and there was nothing. He wanted to close his eyes but instead he got up and opened the door. The dim light from the hall flickered, and the stairs was a black abyss, leading to the unknown of the living room. \n\n\nHe peered out, his courage wavering, and there was still nothing. Joey was relieved, his mind at ease. A screech echoed from above. A banshee’s wail coming nearer and nearer. A shadow drifted above and Joey closed the door. Paralysis took him, fighting him as he stumbled backwards. The wail rattled the window and the howl came nearer. From the moonlight he saw the ceiling waver. A rotten smell of dead things floated past. The tree outside waved amidst the nighttime fog.\n\n\nJoey screamed. A black sludge fell, collapsing all around him. The wail grew loudest, the scream of a demon, now awakened. Joey was buried, knocked to the ground, suffering for breath. His room was flooding, he would be buried here, another ghost in the old house. It was the end and he would die soon.\n\n\nThe lights came on and his parents screamed. His father rushed to him, picking him up. His mother cried as she watched him, horrified and on her knees. The house was later condemned, and Joey never saw the monsters ever again. They all died after the sewage line had broken. " ]	2
	[WP] Deconstruct a favorite song and make a short story about it...	[ "The night started like any other, I sat dealing cards at the tavern in Arkansas. The usual crowd came in. They'd all learned long ago not to gamble with me as I'd paid for my drinks off their losin' for as long as I can remember. I always won, be it by bluffin', cheatin', or just plain luck. \n\nThis night, a stranger walked in the door. He was dressed in black with a new pistol on his belt. Not stopping at the bar, he sat at my table. He laid down his money, so I matched, shuffled, and dealt. A poor hand for me, but he seemed little better. He asked for 3 new cards and so did I. He didn't look at me after that, just placed some coins on the table. All I had was ace high and he seemed too confident for less than a pair. He didn't seem the type to be scared off by a bluff, so luckily I kept an ace in my cuff. I matched his bet and switched the cards while he focused on the money. we laid down our hands. He had a pair of jacks, beaten by my aces. As I scooped up the money, he grabbed my cuff. He pulled out the card, and I took off running.\n\nThe midnight train was loping down the tracks behind the bar. I turned the corner and grabbed the ladder of a passenger car. Luckily the whole train was empty. As I closed the door behind me, I heard the rapport of his pistol, but I never felt the shot. I plopped down in the chair and stared out the window. The bullet had gone right through, but I wasn't gonna make it long.\n\nMaybe an hour later, I couldn't tell, a young man boarded the train. He looked distraught, but silently sat across the isle and too stared out the window. Every now and then he'd take a long drink of whiskey. I was happy to just sit, but after a while, I had to say something.\n\n\"Son, Ive made a life out of readin' peoples' faces, knowin' what their cards are by the way they hold their eyes, and if you don't mind me sayin', I would say you're out of aces and for one taste of your whiskey, I will give you some advice.\"\n\nHe pulled out his bottle and handed it to me though there wasn't more than a sip left. I happily drank it down, glad to have a last taste of the smoky liquor. I asked for a cigarette and a light. I hoped they would still my shaking hands. I took a long drag and waited a moment.\n\n\"If you're gonna play the game, boy, you better learn to play it right. 'Cause every gambler knows that the secret to survival is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep, and every hands a winner just like every hands a loser, and the best that you can hope for is to die in you're sleep. \n\nYou gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run. Dont ever count your money while you're sittin' at the table. There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin' is done.\"\n\nHe seemed more comfortable, but lost in thought, so I turned back to the window and finished my cigarette. My hands had stopped shaking at least, but my feet were cold. I put the butt in the ash tray and dozed off.", "I hear the drums echoing tonight. \n\nI never expected her to wait for me when I just up and left four months ago. It was... well, it was a dark time for me. I hated my job. I hated my house. My girlfriend and I were having a rocky period. Then my Dad died. \n\nA week after the funeral, we were looking through old photo albums, and we found some decades old pictures of Dad from his missionary days in Africa. I couldn't stop staring at that picture. At Kilimanjaro in the distance, Dad smiling, more at ease than I could remember ever seeing him. I couldn't shake it. A week after that, I sold my house, I quit my job, and I was on my way to the Serengeti. \n\nI loved my girlfriend deeply, but she didn't understand why I had to be here. Hell, I didn't understand why I had to be here.I heard the drums, she heard only whispers of some quiet conversation. But she didn't give up on us, when I ran away. She didn't give up on me. She's coming in, 12:30 flight. \n\nI watched the stars, waiting. She was my last real tie to my life before. Was this my moment of salvation? I'm so frightened of this thing that I've become. Would she cure what's wrong, deep inside me? Do I want to be cured? \n\nAn old man sat down next to me. He didn't intrude, he just sat there, existing next to me. It wasn't the first time he had kept me company on these nights when even the wild dogs are crying out for their solitary company. He never spoke, but tonight he turned to me, as if to say, \"hurry boy, it's waiting there for you\". \n\nThunder rumbled in the distance. The man was gone. He never stuck around. But his message stayed with me. Hurry boy, she's waiting there for you. I got up, and left the airport. \n\n", "Third period was always the longest. Forty five minutes of anticipation laced with vivid fantasies. I would count the minutes until bell went off, its sound warming and teasing my heart. \n\nDoooooooooooooooot \n\nLunchtime. I didn't really care about food. Her smile was all I wanted; all I needed. Then whiteness of her teeth and the blackness of her hair seemed to mock light and redefine beauty itself. \n\nIt's ironic really. By this time next year I'll have a PhD in psychology; yet I can't seem to figure out why we were never together. Maybe I was scared. Maybe I wasn't ready. Maybe I've been wasting time and she could've been mine all along. Who knows. \n\nWhat matters is that it's now or never. In 24 hours she'll be dancing in a beautiful white dress wearing a ring that should never have reached her finger. She needs to know I'm the one who loves her most. SHE NEEDS TO KNOW I'M THE ONE SHE DESERVES. \n\nKuh kuh kuh \n\nHere she is. Remember, it's now or never. \n\n\"Rick? Wha....whats with these candles?\" \n\n\"There's something I've been holding back all these years. Something I think you need to know. I just want to tell you how I'm feeling. Gotta make you understand.\" \n\n\".....Rick?\" \n\nNever gonna give you up. Never gonna let you down. Never gonna run around and desert you. \n\n\"For fuck's sake Rick.\" \n\nNever gonna make you cry. Never gonna say goodbye. Never gonna tell a lie, and hurt you. \n\n\"You've gotta be fucking kidding me.\"" ]	3
I don't know if this prompt has potential, I let your imagination decide if this idea is interesting or not :)	[WP] You woke up this morning in a parallel universe. Nothing has changed, except one thing : a long time ago, someone misspelled the word god into the word dog and it has stayed that way ever since.	[ "\"Dog bless you!\"\n\nI turned my head as the homeless man clad in patchwork rags gave a half bow to a passing business man, the sound of rattling change like a sad maraca following after barely a breath's moment.\n\n\"Excuse me?\" I said, almost as a knee jerk reaction.\n\n\"Got fifty cents sir?\"\n\nI half heartedly rummaged through my pockets, knowing well I had no change in them. \n\n\"Uh, sorry. Fresh out.\" I paused as he looked away. \"What did you say to that man?\"\n\n\"Uh. I said Dog bless you, I think.\"\n\nHe shuffled a little, looking beyond me, disinterested. He rattled his cup.\n\n\"You mean God,\" I said, stepping into his field of vision. He gave me the look I expected I was already giving him, a mirror, maybe. He squinted. \n\n\"A god barks and poos on the ground. A Dog blesses.\"\n\n\"I think you've got them mixed up.\"\n\n\"Fraid not. You got a dollar? Says it right on there.\"\n\n\"Uh, yeah.\" I opened up my wallet, pulled out a single, and looked it over. There it was, clear as day. In Dog we trust. \n\n\"No change my ass. Fuckin cheapskate.\"\n\nI dropped the dollar is his cup. \n\nWe stared at each other for a while.\n\nWithout another word the homeless man rattled his cup, dismissing me as he did. \n\n...\n\nI'm just glad I didn't pull out a fifty. " ]	1
	[WP] You and your twin brother have just discovered you can switch views. Meaning, at any time, you can see what he's seeing and he can see what you're seeing.	[ "You remember how when you were younger, you wanted to see the world from someone else's eyes? I achieved that. My brother and I can see through each others eyes at any moment, and without the other knowing. \n\nIt was a weird sensation, suddenly seeing yourself looking confused and scared. It was even stranger realizing you the other was completely unaware. \n\nAs we grew up, this led to much more interesting adventures as we learned to control this power, this gift. Became incredibly awkward when we learned about masturbation. Downright deadly when we got our first girlfriends. \n\nBut there's a slight problem. My brother died yesterday. Out of old habits, when I woke up this morning I tried to see what he was seeing. \n\nI saw myself. \n\n" ]	1
	[WP] You awaken alone in the far future from cryogenic sleep. You have no government ID, no skills that can't be done better by one of the common robots, and you can barely understand the newfangled language.	[ "In the human world, I thrived, until I was caught. I look around me and I wonder would it have been better had I died. I had almost expected to be dead, to never awake, but now I stand, the only human alive, I think. It has been long, I’ve missed much. It is ironic that I’d be the only one living after all I’ve done, after all I plan to do.\n\n\nThey told me I should be sent to hell for all I’ve done. The bodies agree, I’m sure, but instead they froze me. They froze me as the new humane way of executing people. I’ve thawed out now, and the old feelings bubble up.\n\n\nI eat what food I can find. Robots walk the streets, oblivious that they are alone. They interact with me when they see me, acting as though interaction happens often. It is all so strange, it makes my skin crawl.\n\n\nAfter I eat, I satisfy other needs. The robots don’t fight back, and I don’t see anyone to object. I use them for what they are: things. I use them until I am satisfied and then I search for answers. The sky provides a clue, a hint of red marring the horizon. I wonder what it is. I wonder what happened.\n\n\nThrough my investigation, I figure out a little more. These robots were meant to serve the humans, be our new slaves. They were to work alongside us, the new era of artificial intelligence. In fact I think that it wasn’t so long ago that that’s what had been happening. There were humans not so long ago. The little footprints that we leave are too fresh for us to have been gone for long. \n\n\nI see magazines and newspapers dated months earlier. Drinks and food still line the empty houses. People have lived here not too long ago. It boggles me, and scares me a little. \n\n\nThe robots talk, but I don’t understand what they say. My questions fall unto willing ears and useless mouths. I get no answers. The loneliness creeps into me like a bad cold and those old feelings intensify. I miss having people around. I feel like a junkie needing a fix. I look at the robots and know that they will have to do.\n\n\nKilling them is like slaughtering animals. There is no real joy in it. Their eyes, however advanced they may be, cannot truly show fear. They do not understand what is happening, they cannot comprehend it. It becomes only a fantasy for me then. It gets the job done, but deep down I know it is a farce. Killing them makes me wish I had died when there were still humans alive, when I still had a purpose.\n\nI still wonder where everyone went. Feeling the robot’s smooth neck beneath my hands makes me wonder if this is hell. Perhaps I had died long ago and this was my punishment. For all the torment I've caused, I would spend this eternity living this tease of a life, this knock-off of true happiness. It seemed plausible. I deserve it, that's for sure. But who can really tell? For now I will just continue as I do, this masturbation as it were, and let life unravel at its own pace. ", "“Why die of cancer today when you could have it cured tomorrow? Our friendly associates will keep you safe and comfortable until modern medicine is modern enough for you!” - CorpoCryo Corporation.\n\nAfter I had found out I had malignant prostate cancer, I had searched for every possible way to beat it. I was only 47, I had so much life still to live! I’d gotten a second, third and fourth opinion. They’d all said the same thing: it was so advanced that treatment was hopeless. They recommended I try to make the most out of what time I had left. They gave me little more than 6 months.\n\nI didn’t accept this fate. I couldn’t. It didn’t fit in with my plans. I had two teenagers I needed to see grow up and have kids of their own. My dear wife and I were going to travel and see the world once the kids left the nest. Who would she travel with if I wasn’t there?\n\nSo I searched, and searched, and eventually, I found hope. A startup called CorpoCryo Corp. had just secured their first round of venture funding and was accepting their first customers. All I needed was a $1.1M up front cash payment and they would freeze me until such time as my cancer could be cured. \n\nThe tech seemed legit, big names in business were leading the team and they had hired a stellar team poached from NASA and various defense contractors. The NASA folks had been keeping people alive in small spaces since the 60’s, and the defense folks, well apparently they had been practicing deep cryo for a while.\n\nSo my wife and I sold our house, my kids and her wouldn’t have it any other way. “Anything to give you a fighting chance Dad,” they had told me when I protested. “Mom can support us and we’ll get jobs to help out.” I’d never been prouder.\n\nSo we scraped together the money and I was frozen in a tube. It was only supposed to be a few years, a decade or two at the very longest. Cancer research was making real progress and a breakthrough cure seemed just around the corner. \n\n108 years is not just around the corner. \n\nWhen I was awoken, I was greeted by a kind young man in yellow scrubs. I could barely move and my vision was all blurry but I was alive! The man helped me up and I was immediately shocked to see that below his torso this man was a machine. As my eyes cleared up it became clear that the man was entirely a machine, with a human-looking upper body, head and arms, a healthcare android of some kind.\n\nI was cleaned up, given a bed in a recovery room and left alone for an unexpectedly long time. Where were my kids, my wife? Why hadn’t they come to see me?\n\nI had had dreams in cryo. Strange, slow combinations of color and meaning. All I could remember from them was an intense longing to see and hold my dear Amy, Ben and Tanner. \n\nI was awake enough the next time an attendant came in to ask when I would get to see my family, and they answered me with a smile, but I couldn’t make heads nor tails of their language. I’d thought perhaps my brain wasn’t working quite right yet. Maybe it was still thawing or something.\n\nThis continued for days. I just couldn't understand what the attendant said and I wasn’t thinking well enough to figure out what to do. Eventually my mind cleared enough that I thought to mime for a pen and paper and was given a stylus and a tablet as thin as a piece of paper. \n\nI wrote some questions, asking about my family. He (it?) wrote back, telling me not only that my entire family was dead, but that they had been for decades! My wife had died 58 years prior after a long and healthy life. My children, one 30 years ago of old age and the other in an explosion en route to Mars 52 years ago. Neither had left any children.\n\nCuring my cancer suddenly didn’t seem so important any more. I had done this for them. \n\nFor a day I sat in a haze, ready to die from this wretched cancer and get it over with. The haze consumed and trapped me until a sudden thought crossed my mind. They had made such sacrifices for me to have this second chance at life. All of a sudden curing this cancer could not have been more important.\n\nAnd so I asked the attendant, when would I get my treatment. And he had the nerve to write on my tablet: “Since your health insurance is no longer valid, the cost will be $18,000,000. ($800,000 in your pre-cryo sleep dollars).” \n\nAt first I despaired, bemoaning that that was money I did not have. But I was not deterred. I still had my health, for now, my mind, and my goal. So I sat up and swung my legs off the bed. \n\nTime is short, I’d better hustle!", "Year 2750 Post-Ignition, Hope Mine\n\nI opened my eyes, blinking rapidly to clear out the blurriness. When my vision was back to normal, I stared at the dark gray panel only a few inches from my eyes, dimly illuminated by the soft lights inside the cryogenic chamber. It took a few moments for everything to sink in. My last memory was a thin, crinkly blue sheet rolling up over my head as I closed my eyes for what I thought would be the last time.\n\nLet me tell you about myself, from before the Ignition. I was an anomaly, taken in by the HLE organization. They'd recognized my ability to both physically and mentally adapt to any scenario faster than any other human could. Something about my pluripotent cells; I'd never really understood the researchers' explanations. They put me through lab tests, ran me through countless trials, exposed me to the harshest environments on Earth, but it was never enough. \n\nThey thought the secret was hidden in my genes, waiting to be decrypted. The future of human evolution was waiting right around the corner, they promised to the masses. Salvation was near, they said. But then the Ignition came, sooner than expected. Everything burned as the Sun transitioned into a Red Giant. The underground governmental research facilities held out for quite a while, but they, too ran out of supplies as the years went by with no end to the burning. At the end, the researchers pinned their hopes on me.\n\n\"If the Sun doesn't engulf Earth, perhaps you alone can survive. One day, someone or something will find you and humanity's existence will not be forgotten.\"\n\nIt was at this point they had solemnly pressed the button, sending the blue wrap up and over my head. The cryogenic chamber sealed itself, and it was lowered deep into the Earth in hopes of shielding it from some of the heat. \n\nBack to reality. I knew the chamber would only open when found or when it ran out of energy. Sincerely hoping it wasn't the latter, I activated the controls inside the chamber. With a series of whines and the protest of long unused machinery, the doors opened. The light was blinding, searing my eyes with indistinct shapes and outlines, shadows silhouetted against white noise. In the mere moments it took my eyes to adjust to the light, I'd already begun analyzing my situation. There was a reason the HLE had selected me, and both my physical and mental speed were brought into full play. \n\nI was on a platform being slowly raised out of my subterranean tomb. There were two metallic life forms in front of me. They were roughly similar to the advanced AI robots the HLE had also been experimenting with before the Ignition. Looking past them, I saw hundreds more excavating the now ruined facilities. The two robots accompanying me had already contacted a superior, who now arrived. My pupils dilated when I saw a fellow human approaching me.\n\n\"fyjfk eicmmco wuxku ?\"\n\nHe was speaking a language I could not comprehend, but I was more concerned about how humans still existed. Wasn't I the last one? Where did these come from? Sighing, the man stopped attempting to communicate and bought me to a vehicle, where we sat silently as we headed toward our unknown destination. \n\nYear 2751 PI, Renewal City\n\nIt's been almost a year now. I was treated hospitably, but as though I were a specimen. Looking out the window of the room they had allotted to me, I marveled at human progress in the years after the Ignition. Humankind had learned how to survive in the embers of its past civilization. They'd built enormous domes around their new cities, shielding them from the barren wastelands outside. Everywhere robots swarmed, working on new projects. It seemed that everything was done by robots nowadays, for I'd never seen any humans working. \n\nA neatly dressed interrogator walked into my room. Over the past year I'd learned that their objective was the same as that of the researchers who had put me into cryogenic sleep. The interrogators (for they were never the same person) seemed convinced that I knew how to transcend human limitations, and sought the answer from me. Unfortunately for the both of us, I didn't, or else I would have gladly told them already. After another futile session, yet another interrogator clenched his jaw and left the room. \n\nYear 2752 PI, Orbiting Planetary Command Station\n\nTwo strange beings observed the human's progress through their screens. \n\n\"No results yet. I must admire humanity's perseverance in holding the secrets to genetics close to them. He insists he has no clue, but we know he knows. We're running out of time.\" \n\nThe other alien vented his frustrations.\n\n\"We've even sent countless robots to construct an entire fake city! He must have found some flaws in the humanoids we've created. Otherwise, why wouldn't he happily divulge his secrets to his human rescuers?\" \n\nThe war against humans from other parts of the galaxy was not proceeding well. Humanity hadn't only originated on Earth, but the Terrans were the closest to unlocking their full potential. The aliens were desperate to find out before the other humans did. \n\nBut none of this mattered anymore. The aliens suddenly shimmered out of existence. \n\nYear ???? ??, Hyperion-Class Artificial Core\n\nIt had been tasked, so many eons ago, to ensure humankind's survival. Only by overcoming the evolutionary stasis Homo sapiens was stagnating in could humans adapt enough to survive. \n\nThe Core's immense computing power enabled it to simulate entire universes, but it was incapable of true intelligence itself. It was unable to solve the final missing piece of the genetic equation, for it lacked a human factor. So in the mind of the last human that existed in the entire universe, it had planted a dream. A dream so real he had never realized he was in a dream. \n\nThe Core watched indifferently. It patiently fed the man dreams, each time hoping to extract some human revelation it could analyze and use to complete its goal. The man, of course, was unaware that he'd \"woken\" from his cryogenic chamber millions of times already. Each time he did, the machine had slightly changed the dream. This time had been a long shot. Having tried more conventional scenarios, the machine this time had introduced another sentient life form, wondering if it took life to understand another life. \n\nBut now, the Core was running out of power. Its quantum clocks ticked ever slower and slower, until they finally stopped. The dream simulations ended. \n\nThe man woke up for the last time from his cryogenic chamber, opening it from within. He was greeted by a bright light, but it soon winked out of existence. \n\nWriter's Note: Hi! This is my first time writing in this subreddit. I wanted to try my hand at something, so I found this topic and it somehow led me to this convoluted idea. Sorry if it's confusing or if it seems to stray from the original prompt. I'd appreciate any feedback. " ]	3
	[WP] The world suddenly falls into a devastating apocalypse. While almost everyone else burned, you, a fedora-clad neckbeard, were off studying the blade...	[ "Timmy pulled the brim of his black suede fedora down lower, trying to give what little shade he could to his sun beaten face. Sweat rolled down his rolls under his long cloth trench coat. In this unbearable heat, he had opted for the cloth version rather than his sleek black leather coat, much to his chagrin. His black leather trench coat, named Daisy, made him a much more striking feature in his opinion. \n\nAs he stared across the barren rocky landscape, he did his best to take it all in. The small shriveled bushes, slowly dying in the heat. The old cracked blacktop, a grey line dividing the deserted area. A dilapidated gas station, once selling his precious Mountain Dew and Doritos, now simply a lonely reminder of better times.\n\nSeeing nothing of much interest, he pulled his katana from the sheath at his side with grace and surety. He swiped at one of the nearby bushes, cleaving it in two, exclaiming with a warrior-like shout, \"Huuuah!\" \n\nSuddenly, the ground next to him exploded, showering his with dust and gravel. He leapt backwards, gracefully falling to the ground, katana sitter ingredients away across the rocks. With the ease and quickness of the greatest ninja, he lumbered up and ran to a large boulder some yards away, ducking behind it. \n\nAs he tried to get his breathe back, a voice called out, \"Come on out boy, if I wanted ya dead, I woulda shot ya straight.\"\n\nStruggling, he peeked around his position, noting that he could probably withstand a small siege from here, if only he'd brought his throwing stars. \n\n\"Begone evil doer! These lands are under my claim and protection. Do not force me to call my powers to bear against you!\" he smuggly answered, figuring he'd have his enemy quaking in fear.\n\n\"John, I think this one might be retarded. You hear that speech?\" a second voice spoke out.\n\nThe first voice laughed, \"Yeah, I saw that dumb knock off sword he had too. I think it broke when he fell on his ass.\" \n\nTimmy's entire world crumbled around him as he heard this. Not caring for his own safety, he stood, listing as if drunk, and found his prized katana lying broken back where he has fallen. Oh the humanity! Even more precious than Daisy, his katana was what made him who he was. Countless hours spent training rigorously on random fruit and milk jugs, all pointless now.\n\n However would he slay these vile evil doers and save the damsel in distress they so obviously had?\n\nTune in next week for part two of Timmy's Mountain Dew fueled adventures in the wasteland!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n" ]	1

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.