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	[WP] Anakin chooses to not go over to the Dark Side, and helps Master Windu kill Chancellor Palpatine.	[ "I'm busy at work and don't have time to write it up (maybe later), but here's an idea to maybe get someone else going:\n\nThe setting is Anakin at home, 15 years removed from killing Palpatine. The Clone Wars never happened, peace has been maintained, but most of problems that were plaguing the Republic during the first Trilogy have not been addressed/dealt with. \n\nWe start with Anakin watching Luke and Leia train in a garden. They are both on the path to becoming Jedi's, like their father, and all seems well. An unexpected visit from Obi-Wan, however, reveals that Anakin may be on the same path that Emperor Palpatine was.", "It's all coming together. So many years of waiting. And now, the time has finally come.\n\nPalpatine had to hold back a smirk as Jedi Master Mace Windu held a lightsaber to his throat. \n\n\"It's not the Jedi way\" Anakin pleaded.\n\nYes. His hatred has grown quite strong. \n\n\"He must live!\"\n\nEverything Palpatine had been planning was falling into place. \"Please! Don't!\" he begged.\n\n\"I need him!\"\n\nWindu lifted his lightsaber into the air.\n\nThis is it.\n\nIt was all falling together so well. This would be the defining moment in the rise of the Sith. It all came down to this moment.\n\nBut it never came. Anakin remained still as Windu struck down with his blade. \n\nNo.\n\n\"No!\" The Chancellor bellowed as the saber came down upon him. \n\nAll of this time. All of this planning. All for nothing?\n\nWith a flick of his wrist, Palpatine stopped the blade just as it began to burn the skin on his neck. A look of terror ran across Windu's face as he realized just what he was up against. With another flick of the wrist, the Jedi's neck twitched, and he dropped to the floor. \n\n\"What have you done?\" Anakin cried out. \"You killed Master Windu!\"\n\n\"You have so much fear.\" The Chancellor rose to his feet and began to slither toward the young Jedi. \"It's a shame that you chose not to use it.\"\n\nAnakin activated his saber, but it was too late. He dropped to his knees as he felt his very life being forced out of his body. He tried to fight the power that was overcoming him, but it was a futile attempt. Anakin submitted to his fate, and he let go of all of the hatred that had been pent up within him for so long. His last thoughts were not of evil, but of Padme.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nAnakin now stood towering over the lifeless corpse of Chancellor Palpatine. He sighed. \n\nSo he was not the one.\n\nAnakin looked down to see his arm twitch uncontrollably for a brief moment. He grabbed it with his mechanical hand and steadied it. \n\nI will have my time. The Sith will have their time. But now - Now is not that time.\n\nAnakin walked toward the window and climbed onto the ledge.\n\nI will not make the same mistake again.\n\nHe lept off of the ledge and down into the city of Coruscant, never to be seen again.", "First time I have tried anything like this so give me all your critiques.\n\nThe bitter taste of metal filled Mace’s mouth as Palpatine’s force lighting surged through him. Twisting his lightsaber into a defense stance he redirected the attack at Palpatine.\n\n“He’s a traitor!” Palpatine shouted in a clear attempt to gain the aid of Skywalker.\n\n“He is the traitor!” Mace replied. \n\nSurely Skywalker could see the Senator for his true nature now more than ever. It had surprised him when Anakin had told him of Palpatine’s true nature but it had also inspired hope that Skywalker might remove himself from the destructive path he had been following lately.\n\n“I have the power to save the one you love”\n\nThe Sith Lord was relentless. He continued to channel his force lightning at Mace with no regard for the effect the reflected energy was having on himself. The continuous barrage of the dark side was taking a heavy toll on Palpatine. His hair had drastically thinned, his face aged and became wrinkled like that of a man 30 years older. Most notable however were how sunken and yellow his eyes had become. It was as though he had seen every horror you could imagine and dismissed them with no more than a wave of his hand. Palpatine now looked every part the monster he was. \n\nJust then it dawned on Mace what exactly Palpatine had said. “I have the power to save the one you love”. Anakin must have confided in Palpatine a fear he had about losing someone. Foolish that the boy would allow himself to become so attached to anything that he would consider using the dark side as a solution. There could only be one person the Sith could be referring to.\n\n“Whatever he has told you is a lie Anakin! The dark side will only bring more pain. Obi-wan would not want to be saved when the cost is so high!”\n\nMace could feel Palpatine’s strength fading, the pressure on his lightsaber had decreased greatly. The power it had taken to channel and withstand the effect of the force lightning made it clear how great of a threat this Sith was to the Jedi Order. Mace had only gotten this far on luck and the lives three of his friends had sacrificed.\n\nMace glanced over at Anakin and fear gripped at his heart. The internal struggle Skywalker was dealing with was clear on his face. For the first time since this fight began the idea that he might fail entered Mace’s thoughts.\n\n“You must trust me Anakin. With the Sith defeated Master Yoda will be able to see clearly again. We can figure out how to save Obi-wan.”\n\n“It isn’t Obi-wan, it’s…”\n\nAnakin seemed to choke on the next word. Speaking it so low it was all but a whisper over the crackling of the force lightning.\n\n“It’s Padme”\n\nRealization slammed into Mace. How blind the masters had become with their focus on the war. Anakin and Padme had grown close during his time as her protector and looking back now it was so clear.\n\nPalpatine mumbled something and his strength finally failed him. Mace held his saber at the chancellor’s throat and saw fear in his eyes. The same fear Mace had felt moments ago. Palpatine was no longer sure he could win.\n\n“Anakin the truth still remains. The Dark Side is not the answer, it will twist your mind until you no longer remember the reason you sought it out in the first place and you hurt the very ones you wanted to save. The Jedi will do everything we can to save Padme, but trusting in this Sith is not the solution. You know this or you would not have come to me when you found out what he was.”\n\n“I know.”\n\nAt these words all of Palpatine’s strength seemed to rush back to him and he attacked like a cornered beast. A blast of force lightning caught Mace off guard and his lightsaber flew from his grip. Before it touched the floor it flew into the Sith Lord’s hand and activated and a gravelly laugh escaped Palpatine’s lips.\n\nMace had failed. His entire life had been devoted to the Jedi and the protection of the Republic. He had ended up as their last line of defense and fought as hard as he could but it had not been enough. \n\nPalpatine swung the purple saber at his neck and Mace closed his eyes in despair. That was when he heard the snap hiss of a lighsaber being activated and as he snapped his eyes open he saw a blue blade sticking towards him through the chest of the chancellor. Palpatine dropped the saber and as he fell to the ground Anakin tore his saber free and cut through his neck and the Sith Lord who had hidden in plain sight all these years was finally defeated.\n\nThere would be much work to be done repairing the Republic and explaining who and what Palpatine truly was. The Jedi would also need to investigate Palaptine’s past to determine if he had left behind any contingencies or other surprises. The war would finally end and peace would return to the galaxy.\n\nSkywalker could no longer be a Jedi of course but that would be for the best. The Jedi had been unable to provide him with a life he could live, perhaps being a father would fulfill him in a way the life of a Jedi had never been unable to.\n", "“The divergence of one evil is not the divergence of all evil.” ~ anonymous\n\n\nAnakin’s face was stiff from shock. The sweat streamed down his face, each breath was harsh and panicked, the horror in his eyes always replaying the moment he took his saber and thrust it into the Chancellor’s heart.\n\n\nYet the horror in Palpatine’s lifeless eyes was something one could only see in nightmares. A frail, old man who may once have been powerful was nothing more than a shriveled corpse in a Republic office.\n\n\n“This wasn’t meant to be…” were the Chancellor’s final whispers, “this wasn’t meant to be.”\n\n\nAnakin’s legs finally gave out, for the trembling had churned his muscles and bones into paste. His saber’s blade retracted as it fell and clanked on the marble floor. It was as if time had suddenly stopped. All the fears that he kept buried inside, hidden from the ears of the Jedi council, came like a rushing flood as coarse and hot as the sands of Tatooine. And all the promise that Palpatine spoke of saving Padmé’s life, even at the cost of falling to the Dark Side, evaporated out of his hands.\n\n\nMaster Windu stared at Anakin for the longest time. Relief, frustration, scorn, pride, scorn; Mace hid all these emotions behind a cold gaze. Not only had Anakin revealed a Sith within the Republic, but took up his own blade and cut him down despite their controversial relationship. Mace didn’t need to be a Jedi to see the conflict that was overwhelming the young Jedi Knight.\n\n\n“Skywalker,” Windu began, a master to a pupil, “do you know why we had to kill him?”\n\n\nAnakin felt as though he was no longer in his body. He could hear Windu speaking, he was capable of answering, but this felt like a terrible nightmare that he would be trapped in for eternity.\n\n\n“He was Sith,” Anakin answered remotely, “the Chancellor was a corruption on the Republic. He orchestrated the war against the Separatists…” He was fishing for all the answers Master Windu would accept. He knew not which one would suffice because the truth was Anakin killed Palpatine on instinct. There was no thought. It was not in the name of Justice. The only thought Anakin remembered having before he killed him was fear: fear of the Dark Side taking control of the galaxy, fear of the Dark Side consuming his very being, fear of Padmé’s death.\n\n\n“He was too dangerous to be held in trial, Anakin. We don’t know how many he had influence or whom he had control over. You did the right thing.”\n\n\nAs comforting as Master Windu attempted to be, as much as Anakin longed to hear those words from his masters, Anakin was lost in a sea of uncertainty.\n\n\nWindu rose to his feet and surveyed the Chancellor’s office. He saw the bodies of his Jedi comrades who had joined him in his confrontation. Master Agen Kolar. Master Saesee Tin. Master Kit Fisto. All great Jedi he fought alongside with in the Clone Wars were now one with the Force.\n\n\nAnd it did not bring Master Windu peace.\n\n\n“This is a travesty, Young Skywalker. For too long we Jedi were the keepers of the peace, protectors of the Great Republic, and we nearly failed tonight, were it not for you. Changes will need to take place.”\n\n\nAnakin was finally able to face Master Windu. “What changes?”\n\n\n“Secularism will need to be upheld, but the Jedi must become more involved with the politics of the government it is sworn to protect. Now more than ever.”\n\n\nAnakin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Become more involved? More active in the politics?\n\n\n“Anakin,” Master Windu continued, “after tonight, the Jedi Counsel will have to be reformed. From this day forth, we are no longer mere keepers of the peace or soldiers in time of war. “\n\n\nAnakin remembered confiding similar wishes to Padmé during a summer picnic on Naboo. How he wished he could go back there now. And, yet, he too recognized the urgency in Master Windu’s voice.\n\n\n“But Master Yoda will object-“\n\n\n“Master Yoda will see reason,” Master Windu assured. “He is a great Jedi, but he was not here to witness what you and I witnessed. Who knows how far Palpatine’s reach extends.”\n\n\nFor once in his life, Anakin not only found himself agreeing with Master Windu, but also willing to join his cause.\n\n\n“I am with you, Master Windu.”\n\n\n“Go to the Council and tell them what has happened. I will stay here until you or investigators from the temple arrive.”\n\n\n“At once.”\n\n\nAnakin left no time to waste. Just as he was out the door-\n\n\n“You did well, Master Skywalker. You did well.”\n\n\n“Thank you, Master Windu.”\n\n\nAnakin found new purpose on that day. He saw a promising future for the Republic he never anticipated. A future where Jedi police the Galaxy enforcing justice and peace and participating in the passage of laws instead of sitting in counsel and acting wise and advising those who claim control.\n\n\nA future where he and Padmé could raise their children in a galaxy worth living in…", "\"He must live\" Anakin said in a panic the last chance to save his loved one about to be slain before his eyes. Mace Windu begins to ignore the hot headed young Jedi knowing he did not fully understand the danger of the man at his mercy, he readied the final strike but paused \"Why?\" he asked keeping his light saber pointed at the old Sith but taking a quick glance at Anakin. \n\n\"Because...because of Padme\" he said looking to the floor \"Padme? Senator Amidala, Does he have her held somewhere? Anakin we can free her after we've dealt with him\" the master said. \"No he doesn't have her, but he can save her. I've had a vision that she will die\" Anakin replied, \"I still don't understand how this involves you or how he can help her\" Mace said confused \"Padme is my wife, I cannot allow her to die and I need Palpatine alive he said the Sith have away to reverse death itself. I cannot let you kill him\" he said drawing his light saber pointing it at the Master. Mace was shocked not only by what Anakin had done but how the Council had missed the signs of his Corruption. \n\n\"Anakin, think about this how would Palpatine have known you needed that knowledge or for that matter have it to begin with? He's been manipulating you using your attachment to drag you toward the Dark Side\" he said as Anakin went wide eyed his mind racing with this realization, Mace smiled seeing this knowing the young man could yet be saved \"Help me here than we will find your wife, she will not die, Trust Me, Trust the order. Do not turn to the Dark Side it will only lead to your ruin\" Mace said as Anakin nodded slightly bringing his light saber back to his side. Palpatine's eyes narrowed \"No, you will not undo my work Jedi. You will not stop my plans, Die!\" he screamed desperately shooting another volley of force lightning upon Mace Windu, Mace braced himself trying his best to hold it back almost overtaken as there was a flash. The lightning stopped as the Chancellor started gurgling looking up as he saw his killer. Anakin Skywalker, his light saber lodged in the Sith Lord's gullet a look of great hatred but also disappointment went through the old mans eyes but soon faded and with him the Sith.\n\nIn the weeks that followed the Jedi found evidence in the Chancellors office of how far his plans went. Transmissions to Mustafar, which proved his connection to the Separatist movement who with a bit of tracking were quickly apprehended and exposed as agents of the Sith. A chilling find was how there were those in the Senate and Military working for some 'Galactic Empire'. The most shocking however was in the discovery of 'Order 66' a program in the Clone Army for the destruction of the Jedi order. With some pressure from the now cleansed Senate the Kaminoans (found to be working with Palpatine) was able to remove the programming from the Clone Troopers.\n\nWhat of Anakin? He left the Order despite fulfilling his role in the Prophecy he realized his connections could lead him to the Dark Side again, but to him it wasn't a great loss. He kept in touch with Obi-Wan who became the God Father to his children. He and Padme retired to live peacefully on Naboo with them and though he sometimes wondered what would have happened if he had stayed with the order, but he was happy and he was at peace." ]	5
You got basic martial arts training at school and you learned how to handle a gun from a friend/relative. You thought this could save your life. But when you were forced to put those skills to the test, it turns out that the muggers (and your girlfriend) were supposed to fear you instead. (EDIT: A friend told me my prompt doesn't leave much room for the imagination. Prove him wrong, guys! I've seen what you can do)	[WP] A failed attempt at mugging you and your girlfriend makes your relationship crumble, as both of you discover that you're a psychopath who enjoyed killing your attackers.	[ "\"stop it\" julia yelled from the other room. \n\"what?\" tom asked.\n\"stop it with that stupid lighter, and the gun, why do you even still have them?\"\n it had been two weeks scene tom had taken the objects off of their mugger. who they later learned was also named tom. \n\"why not?' said tom in a low voice. he felt it showed that he had come out on top and still had his life. \n\"why not just throw them away and put the entire incident behind us?\" julia said as she walked toward him and sat down next to him. \n\"I'm keeping it\" He said \"I'm going to go out for a walk, I’ll be right back\" He got up and crossed over to the door. \"NO, ITS BEEN TWO WEEKS! we need to talk about this, you have hardly said two words to me and you keep playing with that lighter you took, its all you do.\" \"So? what does it matter to you? You did nothing while I had to protect both of us, you just stood their. I had to do everything, I deserve to keep this. And the gun, what is something like this happens again? what then?\" Tom was starting to get angry \"We do what we should have done in the first place, we do whatever they want and walk away with our lives and our sanity\" said julie, getting a bit timid now that tom was mad. \"That is exactly what we did the first time, and it was all because of me, not you.\" \"I dont know about that, what about the other incidences?\" julie said, worried that tom might get violent. \"What incidences? what the fuck are you talking about?\" \"well you have been much angrier laity, you started screening at that lady in the store the other day, plus, do you know anything about what happened to the Petersons dog? It went missing a few days after the mugging and the day after it went missing a new patch of our lawn was dug up\" \"What the fuck does that mean? Are you insinuating something?\" \"I was just asking a question, do you know anything about it?\" \"maybe i do, that dog was an annoying piece of shit anyway, it deserved to go missing, always craping in our yard.\" \"Look, all i'm saying is we might want to talk to someone about this, a professional.\" Julie had been thinking about this for about a week, thinking it might help them get over all of this. \"Maybe, I dont want to here it right now, im going out for a beer, I'll be back in an hour.\" Juile hoped this was true but as he shut the door she saw the butt of the muggers gun in his waist. She hopped he didnt do anything he would regret. ", "I sighed, my outward breath ragged with irritation. I sat back onto the stool, rolling my eyes as I continued to speak on the phone.\n\n“Andrea, Andrea, I don’t want to go over this again, can you just put Simone on the phone, dammit! I was saving our lives, how the hell is she going to say… Okay, okay, I’ll tell the freaking story from my point of view... So you know it was last week, and we were walking back from Pierre’s, you know that new bistro place on Third Street? I was busting for the toilet, so I took us down that alley behind Benson’s, stupid idea I know. I knew it wasn’t the best plan I’d ever had, but the desire to piss had temporarily beaten out my apprehension. \n\nUntil I heard a bottle clink, and saw idiot number one behind Simone, and idiot number two appeared in my peripheral vision in front of us. I slowed down, trying to assess the situation, and grabbed Simone closer to me. It was like I was in slow motion. I didn’t notice anything idiot number one had in his hands, but I could see that idiot two had a gun, and was pointing it at me. Gimme your money and shit, he was saying. The gun was like right in my face, and all I could think was: I know I can take this gun away for this dummy. I can make him, his stupid grimacing face, and his buddy, pay for this. For daring to threaten me and Simone.”\n\nI took a second for my breathing to regulate. I had been speaking so quickly I had barely allowed myself to inhale and exhale.\n\n“I nudged Simone away from us, into the side of the alley so she was away from all the mess. I grabbed the end of the gun with my left hand and lifted it away from my face, and with my right hand jabbed at his wrist, so he let go of the gun. Haha you should have seen the expression on his stupid head when he realised he didn’t have the gun anymore. Not so powerful anymore! Idiot didn’t even have the safety off. \n\nAnyway so I punch idiot two in the gut, and run behind him and point the gun right at the back of his head. Get the hell away from her, I shouted at idiot one, ‘cos I could see he was going to try and threaten Simone you know. I was trying to PROTECT her. Anyway, he was scared shitless, but kept edging toward her, like I could see in his face that he was going to try something stupid. So I flicked off the safety and shot idiot two. I mean, I wasn’t necessarily aiming for his head, but actually it was kinda cool. He just, like, flopped to the ground like a rag doll. And he definitely wasn’t walking toward Simone anymore.”\n\nI noticed my right leg bouncing a bit, so moved over to the sofa before resuming my story. I would later realise that Andrea had not made one sound since my anecdote started.\n\n\"Idiot two fell to his knees and started crying and stuff. I noticed that Simone had blood on her, so walked over to see if she was ok. She was shivering so I gave her my jacket, and told her everything was fine. Great, even. Cos those idiots wouldn’t be able to do anything to us ever again. I saw her keep staring blankly at the blood over her, but what was the big deal, it’s only blood. I’ve apologised to her so many times over the last few days, Andrea, I mean, it’s just a jumper, I can buy her a new one! \n\nAnyway, idiot two was trying to sneak away while I talking to Simone, and I wasn’t about to let that happen, so I shot him in the leg. He fell over as well, onto his face. I kicked him over so I could look into his stupid mugger eyes and heard him mumbling. It was even quite funny in a pitiful way, you know? Kept saying things like, what the hell, what the hell, I’m going to kill you, you piece of shit. I didn’t like that at all. He wasn’t even sorry for what he was trying to do to us. So I shot him in the chest a few times. Just to make sure. I mean, you know this all Andrea, the police said it was probably going to fine. Self-defence. So I don’t know why Simone keeps say I was enjoying it, and telling her about it over and over. It was an exciting time of our lives, you know? They were filth and they won’t do that to anyone again. I showed them. What I was trying to tell Simone was that only… Andrea? Andrea?”\n\nThe dial-tone informed me that Andrea had hung up. As I returned the phone to its cradle, I noted that I had been gripping the receiver so tightly that my knuckles had slightly whitened.", "Sorry man, forgot what the whole prompt was supposed to be by the time I got to the end. Hope you enjoy anyway.\r\rFallen leaves kissed sidewalk puddles along the greenbelt as Megan and her new boyfriend Jacob strolled down the bike path. The long summer nights were over and their short nightly walks after dinner had become darker each night before they could make it back to their luxury third story apartment on the river. They were talking about going to a local coffee house that stayed open late and usually had some live music and a guy who made fresh sushi for tips. \r\rJust as they were starting to see their balcony and living room windows lit up above the withering autumn foliage, they were approached by two young Swedish teenagers. One of the boys was on a skateboard holding a half-empty 40oz. They both wore baggy jeans with no shirt and a bandana around their faces. They were maybe in their junior year of high school and already had various tattoos and brandings stamped across their skin. \r\rMegan felt intimidated by the boys as they approached and asked the couple for a cigarette. \"Oh, we don't smoke fellas.\" Jacob openly replies and grabs Megans hand, pulling her further up the path to their front door. The two boys stood behind them and spoke quietly to each other. Without hesitation, one of the boys galloped the few feet towards the wandering couple, kicking up his skateboard and smacked Jacob across the side of the head with his trucks, splitting his ear open and instantly dropping him to his knees. The other boy was right behind and broke his beer bottle across Jacobs head, cutting the back of his neck and shoulder and Jacob collapsed in the broken glass and gathering blood puddle. Megan tried to run but was easily tackled and subdued by the boys who rummaged her pockets and punched her repeatedly in the face trying to silence her shrill screams and gurgling pleas. \r\rOne boy started to rip off Megan's top as the other boy started to unbuckle his belt and unzip his pants. He turned his head for a second to make sure Jacob was still incapacitated and caught a heel kick to the teethe, which staggered him, slumping back against a tree. Jacob followed the boy with a brutal spinning back kick that caved the young boys sternum. \r\rThe other boy immediately jumped off Megan and started to bolt but Jacob kicked the skateboard down the path. It caught the boys foot and sent him sideways to the ground. Jacob leaped on top of the boy and began to pummel him erratically and smash his head against the pavement until he could only see white in his eyes. Even then, fury still rippled through Jacobs veins exploding in his heart, killing any innocence left setting his soul on fire. He pushed off of the lifeless boy and up on his feet. This was anger. Jacob had become a beast and started back towards the other boy to rip him in half. \r\rMegan could see the animal that Jacob had become. A wounded dog backed into a corner, bloodied and ready to fight to the death. She pleaded as she ran up to him, grabbing his forearm and begging him to stop. Jacob looked at her with cold eyes and an empty gaze. Megan grappled him around the waist and used all of her weight to try to stop him. Jacob tore through her grip like a train going through a stalled vegetable truck. He paused as he heard her hit the ground hard and looked back to see her there kneeling on the ground, bracing herself with one arm. Streams of mascara trickled from her eyes, her messy blonde hair stained with blood, torn blouse. It was too much. Something inside Jacob didn't want to see her like that. Instantly the beast was gone and he dropped down to assist his helpless princess.\r---------------------------------------------------\r\rAfter a lengthy night of consoling with the arriving officers and trip to the emergency room, they decided that Jacob was not at fault due to initial back of the head injuries and deep lacerations sustained from the broken bottle. Finally back home, Jacob stood in front of his broad floor to ceiling windows, looking for his bloodstains on the sidewalk below. Megan called from the shower and he reluctantly obliged. \r\rThe next morning they were informed by the detective that one of the boys was dead. The other in critical condition. Megan hung up the phone and covers her escaping gasp with a trembling hand. Jacob though was no comfort. He kissed her softly on the forehead and told her not to worry. She hugged him and kept her head on his chest as she touched the stitches going down the back of his head and neck. He lifted her up and carried her back to bed. \r\rJacob had decided to go back to work that morning to try to clear his head. He sat at his desk all day and discussed with his inner turmoil the events that had taken place. He rationalized with his reason and tried to make sense of it all but couldn't. No one bothered him except to offer their sympathies for what had happened. After lunch, his boss came in and suggested he go home early. Jacob thought he should at that point to check on Megan and make sure she was ok. He gathered his things and drove out of the parking lot. On the way home he noticed a flower shop and decided to stop and grab a bouquet. He asked the florist for her finest and paid with his credit card. The road home was staggered with traffic and even softly playing Band of Horses was not easing his nerves. He veered off the road suddenly and pulled into and empty parking spot. He walked through the double doors and got on the elevator with his beautiful bright bouquet. Still a little dazed he walked down hallway after hallway looking for his door until he finally found it. He invited himself in and set the flowers on the table. \r\rThe boy lied there motionless hooked to multiple intravenous tubes and a maze of electrodes. Jacob clenched his fist and stood over the boy. He tapped his nose and the boy cracked open his eyes. \"Thought you'd get away, huh motherfucker?\" Jacob grasped the boys throat. He could see complete fear in the boys eyes. His mouth with broken jaw hung open in disbelief. \"You will die motherfucker, if I ever see you, ever again, I will kill you just like your friend. Let this be what the inspiration you need to change what you're doing and turn your life around.\" The boy painfully shook his head as tears started to roll down his cheeks. \"I will kill you.\" Jacob said as he let go of the boy, grabbed his flowers and went home to his soon to be, sweet and beautiful fiancé.", "'How about \"fuck no\"?' Mark said. Somehow the words came out calmly, to his own surprise, almost conversationally. \n\nThe kid, a lanky seventeen year old of non-descript descent, took a step backwards, and waved the gun erratically, almost jumping for emphasis.\n\n\"What the fuck did you just say to me? Do you not see this gun?\"\n\n\"I see you and your shitty-ass gun perfectly\" he replied, as calmly as the kid seemed nervous.\n\n\"Marc, STOP IT\" Melissa yelled.\n\n\"What I do not see\" Marc continued, oblivious to his girlfriend's pleas, \"is you having any goddamn clue as to how you're supposed to handle a gun correctly.\"\n\n\"Marc, you're gonna get someone killed, STOP IT, it's just stuff anyway\". \n\n\"Did you know, the first thing they teach you in gun class is to never point your gun at something unless you're expecting to kill it or it to kill you?\" Marc explained, as he took a step towards their would-be mugger.\n\n\"If you don't give me all of your fucking stuff right now, God help me I will shoot you and then have me some fun with your girl there\", the mugger yelled, almost squeaked. \"If you're lucky, you can watch us as you're dying\". \n\n\"Now that really isn't a nice thing to say\" Marc said, taking another step forward.\n\n\"I mean it!\" the kid yelled, waving the gun in Marc's face .\n\n\"Especially for a kid with the safety still on\". In a flash, Marc's hands had turned and hit the hands of the kid holding the gun in that ridiculous gangster style noone but bad TV criminals use, causing the kid to drop the useless gun. He followed up with a swift kick to the groin, dropping their attacker. \n\nHe would later say a red mist came over him then. He'd say it because at some level it felt that way. He'd say it because that was what people were expecting him to say. The mist didn't cover his consciousness, though, didn't blunt his awareness or presence of mind. He felt like he was aware of everything. He wouldn't ever be able to relate how satisfying, how right, how... just it had felt for him to kick the everloving shit out of this little bastard. He rained kicks on him until his legs were sore. \n\n\"There you go, that's for thinking the rules don't apply to you\". Kick to the side. \"Ooomph\"\n\n\"That's for thinking you could take my stuff, that I worked fair and square for\". A sickening crack as his steel-toed boot connected with a jaw.\n\n\"This is for the things you said you were gonna do to my girl\". A heel connected with a groin full force. A gurgle.\n\n\"And\", stomp on a hand, a sickening crunch. \n\n\"this\", stomp on the other hand.\n\n\"is\", kick to the bloodied mess where a face used to be.\n\n\"for\", another kick to the side, a wet sound the only response.\n\n\"me\" as two feet landed together on the body. \n\nHe had kicked and stomped until he really couldn't find the strength to raise his legs anymore. He staggered backward. Only then did he realise Melissa was hanging onto his back, screaming \"STOP IT, STOP IT, YOU'RE KILLING HIM\". How long had she been screaming? He had a feeling it had been going on a long time, just short of forever. He also found he didn't care. He looked at the bloodied mess of their would-be mugger, rapist, murderer and smiled. He had looked death in the face and kicked its teeth in. Literally. He started giggling at that thought, and soon he was full out laughing.\n\n\"Hello, operator, I need an ambulance.... we were just mugged.... Sycamore street, in front of a record store I think .... noo no no, we're fine, my boyfriend managed to take the mugger's gun out of his hands and... Oh God, you'd better send an ambulance quick ... ohmygod I can't believe he did that... He's having a breakdown of some sort, I don't know...\". At that point, Melissa lost it and descended into a hysterical crying fit. \n\nThat was the way the cops found them. Her curled up in the porch of the store, crying hysterically and looking alternately at the kid and Marc, and him sitting on his ass next to the body and laughing like a madman.\n\nThe court inquiry was brief, and very much an open and shut case of self-defence. The surveilance tapes from the record store had caught the incident, and showed a clear case of a robbery gone awry. The excessive force used in self-defence was waved away as a result of the huge emotional toll of having a loaded gun shoved in your face and the legitimate fear of dying. Thankfully, the camera wasn't equipped for sound recording, as it might have caught Marc's smart-ass remark that would have shed some other light on whether or not he was truly afraid for his life. Marc was told, on the record, to seek some anger management therapy, and was offered, very much off the record, a beer by the same cop.\n\nThe civil suit, instituted by the kid's grandmother, came and went, revealing the reason why that kid had come to be there with a gun he knew nothing about. To Marc it sounded like your standard sob story: kid with great results in school in the face of a horrible home-situation (abuse was mentioned a few times, poverty and a shitty neighboorhood a dozen times) and a talent for drawing. A scholarship for an art school that just didn't quite cover the whole way, a need for cash, a kid desperate to take hold of any lifeline out of there. \n\nMarc kept a straight face through it all, even managed to sound remorseful at the circumstances that brought the kid across their paths, and stuck to the strategy given to him by his lawyers. Each night he'd come home, though, and smile at the memory of that night. Melissa saw that smile, and knew what it meant. \n\nShe'd always been afraid of his temper. He'd yell and scream, rage against inanimate objects when things failed to go his way. She'd talked to him about this, many times. \"It's never directed at you\" he'd say. \"I just need to relieve this tension in my head\", he'd plead. \"You know I'd never hurt you, have I ever come close to laying a hand on you?\". But ever since the incident, she hadn't even dared talk to him. There was something, some cold hard steel underneath the human shell, that she had been able to convince herself wasn't there, wasn't important, wasn't that disturbing. But it was always there. In the way he became calmer, not more agitated, when stressed. In the way he'd lower his voice when he was really, really angry (she'd heard that exact same thing that night, right before...). It scared her, more than anything. That calm voice. Like the sea going out before a tsunami, it meant bad news for everyone around him, she was certain of that now. \n\nSo, when he came home, on the last night of the trial, high on his inevitable triumph as the suit by the kid's grandmother was dismissed completely, he came home to an empty house. \n\nHe dialed here mobile number. It immediately went to voicemail. \"Hey, honey\" he said calmly \"I see you moved out.\"\n\n\"Don't worry. I'll come find you.\"\n\n", "One shot. This is my first time ever submitting anything. I hope it's not too bad. Please forgive any spelling or grammar mistakes. I just wrote and didn't check when I was done.\n\nI suppose I should have seen it coming. I’ve had thoughts about if before, I mean. But I didn’t think I was truly capable… Even convinced myself it was normal at some point. It started out in fantasies and went into my dreams but I separated myself from those thoughts when I started going to church with my family and met my Natalie. Natalie. Just Natalie.\n\nMy family had gone through some shit and began attending church as some sort of atonement for it all while also sticking me in a martial arts class. My parents figured it would be good for me. It was. It took my mind off things. Made me peaceful. Made me calm. But I have to wonder if it truly buried old thoughts or fed their justification.\n\nWe were loosely religious. I grew up saying “I’m Christian” and not even knowing how to read the Bible. But for those few years in church I really fell into it. I became happy. My bad thoughts faded when I was there. I met the love of my life there. Natalie was my everything. She was my port in the storm. And as I got older and my church attendance lessened and I became less connected with anyone she became one of the few things, if not the only thing, keeping me tethered to this earth in my blackest moods.\n\nBut I suppose when something is left festering long enough it’s bound to explode when released. I used to pretend any dark thoughts I had were scooped out of my head by this God I was fond of. I used to pretend they stayed gone because Natalie kept me normal. But I’m not normal.\n\nIt was a cliché, really. A dark alley. Can you believe it? People actually do that shit. We weren’t even in a bad part of the city. We went to see a movie that night and instead of grabbing a cab we decided to change up the night. Let’s go walking! Let’s go see what we could see! How about fuck you and all I saw was blood!\nAnyway… we turned down an alley and as soon as we reached the middle a shadow fell over us. She clutched tighter to my arm as footsteps came from behind us. We were boxed in.\n\n“Nice and slow,” the one in front said. He pulled out a switchblade. I measured the situation as best I could. Man in front with knife. Man in back, no weapon. Trash can nearby with bricks and other scraps next to it. I didn’t really see a way out. That is to say, I didn’t consciously think about it.\n\n“Look at me, not my partner,” The man with the switchblade stated. “I just want your money. Let’s not make this difficult. Just the money.”\n\nI complied, of course. I wasn’t crazy. I pulled out my wallet and gave them all the cash I had: $140 bucks. Natalie just stood there, stoic.\n\nThe man in the back spoke. “This bitch ain’t making a move.”\n\n“Oh? Lady. Fork over your shit. Now.”\n\nI tried to defend her. She just stared ahead past the switchblade and beyond anything in that alley. She locked up. “Guys, please. She doesn’t have anything. I pay for everything.”\n\nSwtichblade grimaced. “Well, maybe we can make a deal. Butch. Hold this bitch down. We’ll take her value another way, eh?”\n\nButch went to grab her and this was when all thinking ceased.\n\nI just acted. It was impulse. Natural impulse. Like the Devil was pulling my strings and I had no control.\nI lunged at Switchblade and pushed his knife hand right into his throat. He stumbled back but I stayed on top of him and twisted his own hand further into his neck. The gurgling sounds he made were his last sounds. I let go to a twisted picture of a man holding the knife that killed him. Eyes framed red in fury, I turned towards the other. This Butch.\n\nIn a panic he let go of my Natalie. I can’t tell you what he saw right then but whatever he saw in my face made him turn and run. I ran after. No thinking. No effort to say “go.” I just went. I grabbed a brick near the trash can midstride and caught up to him at the edge of the alley. When I tackled him down he struggled, naturally. But he was mine. We tussled just enough for my knees to be on his chest. He looked up at me one last time, scared. And I swung the brick. Then I did it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. I didn’t stop.\n\nThe brick was crimson in my hand and Butch had long stopped moving. But it wasn’t enough. His brains leaking on the concrete weren’t enough. I swung and I swung and I swung until his cranium was all but destroyed. Then I threw the brick. It wasn’t enough. I pulled his eyes out with my hands. My bare hands. And his teeth. I just grabbed the inside of his jaw and pulled.\n\nAmazingly no one saw us.\n\nWe tried to put it past us. We really did. Natalie and I saw counselors. We did bring up the alley way but neither of us described how truly bad it was. I didn’t want to go to prison and Natalie didn’t want to remember at all.\n\nShe was never the same around me after that. She was cold. I tried to reach out but she would recoil. I could not blame her, though. Everything I had used to dream came back to me and it made me want to wretch. That wasn’t supposed to be me. I tried to be better but I dreamed again. Eventually I stopped going to our counseling sessions. She would go after work and I just sat in the apartment. She didn’t say a word when she got home the first time I didn’t go.\n\nThere was screaming, yes. Lots of screaming eventually. But when the yelling got bad I just started to go quiet. I would numb myself. “I don’t communicate.” Hard to do when you yell or won’t talk. One night she threatened to kill herself. Despite being numb to her yelling this got to me. That night I dreamed of the alley again. But it was Natalie I was beating. I loved every moment. And I hated myself. I discovered something long buried in me and had given it life in that alley. It was beating with my heart now. A black parallel.\n\nIt was today I woke up to see that she was gone. Most of her clothes were gone and all of her trivial unmentionables. What little was left I knew she’d never come back for. A letter left on my table told me her last words to me:\n“I never mentioned this but you were laughing back there. When you did what you did to those men you were laughing. That’s what I can’t forget. The moment you lunged at the first one you were just laughing. This is goodbye. Please don’t try and find me. You know this had to end.”\n\nSo now I sit next to my bathtub listening to the running water from the showerhead and drinking the bottle of alcohol in front of me. I can’t stop thinking about her. And I can’t stop thinking about my dreams.", " It didn’t take long, in retrospect. I had often thought (or thought often) that taking a human life would be an ordeal, something that would feel like it would last an eternity within my mind. But it had been so simple. A small hit to the wrist to make the gun drop loose, the other hand to pick it up. He had even had the safety locked, but that took a fraction of a second to undo. And then it was over. A pulled trigger and that idiot fell dead. His friend lasted a second or two longer. I had to re-aim, and in my confusion I even checked to make sure the gun was still cocked. It was of course. I pointed it towards the back of the scrambling coward; the one who despite all evidence pointing to him not being a medically-licensed doctor, and who had decided that his accomplice was deceased despite never checking for a pulse, and I pulled the trigger another two times. He slumped forward. He gasped for air, and tried calling out for help as I approached him. I vaguely recall Pauleen calling something out. It was unintelligible. What would she do without me? All she could do was cry and sob and scream in this situation. It didn’t matter. I was handling it. She’d thank me eventually. Or she wouldn’t. She could be ungrateful like that.\n\n Anyway, I pumped another round, this one into his skull. The coward stopped moving at that point. Don’t know why I bothered to mention that last part. It should have been obvious. I mean, it would have been a hell of a story to tell if the bastard had kept moving, but fuck, we ain’t in a horror flick now are we? Well, ask Pauleen and you get a different answer to that question. Sometimes she calls me a hero for it, other times she’ll swear I got off on the whole thing. I don’t know. All I know is I saw an issue than needed handling, and I was the only one who could handle it then and there. I mean she just kept crying. And the first guy was shaking so much when he first pulled the gun out. To be honest, I am not even sure if the guy could have seen anything, let alone our mugging, to conclusion. He just wasn’t sure of himself. He was forcing it too much. Not like me. No. I reacted. Something in my gut took over, and in seconds it was done. No hesitation. That’s what I told the cops, and my lawyer told the jury. They understood. If not the why, at least the how. And so I walked free.\n\n Free of prison. Pauleen still talks too much. I often wonder if she’ll stop. She should. I mean, it’s not like she did anything to help that night. Fuck, she would have just given them our earnings, our belongings, our possessions. I kept them safe. Kept us safe. Who knows what could have happened? I do. What did happen. It was the only result. If there had been any other possibility, my mind would have explored it and it didn’t. It knew that it was kill or be killed. So it took action, and we are alive because of it. \n\nShit, she owes me her life.\n\nShe owes me her life.\n\nShe.\n\nOwes.\n\nMe.\n\nHer.\n\nLife.\n….\n\n…huh. Never thought of it that way. And to think that she’s been talking about me without my express permission. Telling my story, curbing people’s views of me. Robbing me of my reputation.\n\nI could defend myself.\n\nI should defend myself.\n\nI will defend myself.\n" ]	6
-114	[WP] A conversation with an inanimate object. In which both participants learn something new.	[ "\"Wait... Y-y-you can talk?\" I whisper to the lamp.\n\n\"OF COURSE I CAN TALK\" the lamp screamed while rocking back and forth on my nightstand, \"NOW WHATEVER YOU JUST DID, UNDO IT PLEASE! IM IN A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF PAIN!\" \n\nI quickly shut the lamp off, and the rocking stopped slowly. \n\n\"I-I-I'm so sorry!\" I quickly spat, \"I had no idea you were in pain! I just thought all lamps did that!\" \n\nI stood for nearly a whole minute without a response. \n\n\"Hello?\" I whisper. \n\nNo response\n\nI turn the lamp back on.\n\n\"YEEEEOOOOOWWWW!\" The lamp rings out, \"WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING TO ME THIS IS HORRIBLE, I CAN'T SLEEP FOR FIVE MINUTES WITHOUT YOU ABSOLUTELY KILLING ME!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry! I just need light to read these class notes!\"\n\n\"WHAT'S LIGHT?!\"\n\n\"Light? Y-y-y-you make light! It let's people like me see things!\"\n\n\"THAT SOUNDS NICE, I DON'T REALLY KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS, I JUST KNOW THAT I DON'T LIKE WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO ME!\"\n\n\"Wait, you didn't know you had a purpose?\" \n\n\"IS THIS REALLY THE TIME TO ASK THIS? OF COURSE I HAVE A PURPOSE, IT'S TO SLEEP, BUT YOU KEEP RUINING THAT WITH YOUR NEED FOR THIS 'LIGHT' STUFF!\"\n\n\"Hmm... Well, I had no idea lamps could feel, so we're both just going to have to deal with it.\"\n\n\"WHAT DO YOU MEAN DEAL WITH IT?!\"\n\n\"Well I've got things to do, you can help me do those things.\"\n\n\"I DON'T LIKE THIS JUST MAKE IT STOP!\"\n\nI feel a truly grimacing smile curl on my lips. \"I'm never going to let this stop... I want to hear all of your pain...\"", "Mick took a pull from his 40, shuddering as the malt liquor ran down his throat. On the front of the bottle a cartoon hornet stared back at Mick, seemingly ready for a fight.\n\n\"What're you looking at?\" growled Mick.\n\nThe hornet regarded him with mild contempt, but said nothing. For half an instant, Mick thought about tossing the 40 off his balcony to the asphalt below. He even hefted it a bit to get a feel for how far he might throw it, but the realization that plenty of booze remained stayed his hand.\n\n\"It's just you and me now bee.\"\n\nThe hornet glared at him.\n\n\"Wasp, sorry. My point is, she's gone and she ain't coming back. This ain't like last time, bud.\" He took another swig. His stomach shifted uncomfortably. Mick belched. \"Where'd I go wrong?\"\n\nThe bottle wobbled under his grip, the liquid within shifting back and forth in sympathy. The hornet stared past Mick, seemingly lost in thought. Mick noticed the label was drunk with condensation, and a corner piece broke away and stuck to his thumb. He stuck the bit of paper to his hoodie. Mick wiped his nose with a sleeve.\n\nLouisiana moonlight drifted down from the heavens, casting Mick's balcony in strange light. He wondered if she could see the moon, if her night was as blue as his, or if she was happy.\n\nHe regarded the cartoon once more. \"You got a queen, I'm sure. Do wasps have queens?\" The hornet looked down its needle-like nose at the drunk. \"No, I suppose they don't,\" Mick thought out loud, \"Smart bugs. Anyway, I'm allergic to bees. Always liked wasps better. They're tougher, don't serve no queens\".\n\nIn Mick's opinion, the hornet looked satisfied. In the hornet's opinion, Mick looked like he was about to cry. Mick carressed the 40 and the bottle's label slid along the glass, bringing the hornet closer to his face. The bottle had warmed hospitably beneath Mick's hand and the southern humidity, yet the booze remained cool and kind within the glass.\n\n\"So what do I do now?\" asked Mick. He downed the last of the 40 and felt around for the bottle's cap. As he went to screw the golden lid back in place he noticed something written inside. The visual puzzle had the word \"THERE\" in bold black letters arranged in a ring. Inside the ring was the image of a noose, and beside it was a sleeping infant. \"Kid's around there? Noose in there kid?\" mused Mick.\n\nHe glanced at the hornet's encouraging gaze.\n\n\"Hang in there baby?\"\n\nFor a moment Mick looked genuinely happy. The hornet glowed golden with approval." ]	2
should include a description of the character and a description of as many moves as you want to add(examples: blocks, counters, finishers)	[WP]write a character for a fighting game	[ "Name; Marus, The Maple Master\nGame; League of Legends\nPosition; Bot Lane, Support\nDescription; There are many who can brave the cold of the Freljord, however none do it so well as Marus. The Freljord has claimed the lives of many who have tried to embrace it's power, and the ones who do survive barely manage. Except Marus. Marus thrives. Instead of bearing the cold on his shoulders, he embraces it. Instead of letting the cold shape him, he lives as equals to the cold. Even Lissandra, who has spent hundreds of years in the Freljord fears to expose herself to the cold as Marus does. In the Freljord, Marus is king.\n\nPassive; Maple Syrup; Marus's basic attacks deal Syrup Counters, which slow enemies exponentially as they accumulate.\n\nQ; Syrup Bomb; Marus throws a flask of Syrup at designated location, dealing lasting magic damage and Syrup Counters to enemies in range, while healing allies.\n\nW; Pancake Dash; Marus throws several pancakes as a skill shot, dealing magic damage and Two Syrup Counters\n\nE; Syrup's Revenge; Marus causes all units on the map with Syrup Counters to explode, dealing 25 true damage per counter and consuming all counters\n\nR; Syrup Rain; Marus causes the sky to rain Syrup, dealing 5-15 Syrup Counters to accumulate on all enemy units.\n\nJokes; \nIs it just me or is it warm out today?\nSo a Yordle, a Freljordian and a Demacian walk into a bar. then the Demacian Spins out.\n\nTaunt; Nice weather, eh?\n\nHidden Passives;\nAttacks that are cold deal four less damage, while attacks that are hot deal four more damage\n", "name: shadowreaver, fighting game: any 1v1 at a time style with both a finisher and an alt-state ability\n\ndescription: a being infused with powers of shadows, he wears a black jacket with the hood flipped up and black pants, most of his face guarded. He stands tall, each move exact and calculated\n\naltstate: jacket is ditched away, revealing a psychotic grin. He moves a lot faster, aiming to get lots of hits in instead of one percise one. He is hunched over, arms dangling unless attacking\n\nnormal state moves:\nsniper: floats on a pillar of shadows, pointing his right hand towards the enemy. if the enemy doesn't get to the tower and do enough damage to the pillar in a certain amount of time, it does a very powerful attack\n\nwall: block move, his shadow comes up and absorbs damage\n\ncounter: starts as a wall, and then spikes shoot from his shadow, doing counter damage\n\nstab: base attack, a rapier made of shadows in his hands, still does calculated moves\n\nshoot: aims sleeves in certain directions, shooting shadow bolts from sleeves\n\nfinisher: shadow maiden. both character's shadows leave from their pivot point, both wrapping around his enemy. Nothing happens for a few minutes on screen, before the shadows disappear, his enemy dropping to the ground in a bloody mess\n\naltstate moves:\n\naltstate switch: stops moving completely, before the jacket disolved as if it were made of shadows itself. He forms twin shadow blades and crouches down, getting ready to do damage.\n\ndance: does lots of random, chaotic moves, sending mid-range waves out. pretty avoidable as long as you're far away\n\nautoblock: enemie's own shadow appears in between the two, copying his enemie's move exactly but flipped so the two cancel out(not automatic, auto as in self)\n\nautocounter: same as above, but after it blocks shadowreaver breaks the copy and stabs enemy with both swords\n\nslice: combo move, quickly tap button to do lots of little attacks\n\nrush: dissolves into shadows, rushing towards the enemy, midrange move only. It can be jumped over but if it hits, a spike hits the enemy from below\n\nfinisher: He tosses both swords above him, then tosses more and more shadow swords up as he creates them. Soon the upper part of the ring is filled with shadow swords, at which point shadowreaver starts dancing. With each movement, a sword flies from the sky and stabs at the enemy. They go for low-needed points first, legs and arms, slowly moving towards the more lethal points" ]	2
Today is ANZAC Day! Let's celebrate!	[WP] Japan sucessfully invaded Australia during WWII.	[ "\"I knew it wouldn't work\" stated Yoshikawa as he sobbed. \"What made you 'know' that Yoshi?\" He didn't seem too amused. All I wanted to do was lighten the mood.\n\nWe had just barely left the rally. It was hell. The police there tazed us, without reason. Sprayed us down with hoses. \"They didn't even try to listen, they just sic police on us like looters.\" What could I say? The boy was right. You see, long ago, our ancestors committed the sin of invading this god forsaken island, and ever since then, even after The Reclamation, we've had to pay for our grandparents actions.\n\nThe government here is unwelcoming to us. I don't understand it. Sure, I could understand if we were old, but my parents weren't even born yet when the Japanese military invaded this country, but for some reason it's still our fault.\n\n\"Ayame, are you sure you want to keep doing this whole 'Civil Rights' thing?\" \"Of course I do Yosh, of course I do.\" I turned off the TV, and put my moist head on his shoulders. Sure, maybe Yoshi might end up in prison for protesting, but for now, he's mine. He wraps his arm around me, and his large hand warmed my shoulder, with my shirt still wet from the hoses. I snuggled in closer and fell asleep in his arms.", "The plane touched down in Burisuben Kokusai Kuukou (or for normal people, Brisbane International Airport) at around four in the afternoon, local time. As they taxied into the terminal, Jonathan lit up a cigarette. Thank god he'd bought a ticket in the smoking lounge. Sure, it was a terrible habit that he tried to kick a few times, but he'd been under a lot of stress lately.\n\nAn announcement boomed over the plane's intercom; first in Japanese, then in English. \"Welcome to Brisbane International Airport, Imperial East Australia, of Dai Nippon Teikoku. We shall be arriving in gate あ-12, please have all passports and papers ready if you are going through customs, bags shall be unloaded in claim 5, and all information for connecting flights shall be provided at the information desk in the terminal. Have a wonderful day!\"\n\nJonathan went through customs, bought a California roll (they're mainly for tourists) and a Coke for 7 ¥, picked up his bag, and stepped out into the sunlight. For a moment, he was blinded by the ugly stainless-steel monstrosity the Japanese built to commemorate the bombing of the city during the War. Yeah, it was supposed to be a memorial flame or something, but it looked more like a J-toon character's hair. The light reflecting off of the summer sun distracted him so much, he barely noticed his smartphone buzzing.\n\nJonathan slipped the phone out of his pocket, swiped the touchscreen's little green phone symbol, and held it up to his ear. \"'Sup?\".\n\n\"Oi! Are ya blind?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about, where are you?\" He looked around the stream of cars and faces, trying to see something vaguely familiar.\n\n\"I'm literally parked ten bloody meters from ya!\" the voice on the other end shouted, trying not to laugh. \"Ah, fuck it, I'll honk the horn.\"\n\nA car horn joined the cacophony of motor noises, people chatting, and jet engines, but it was close enough for Jonathan to find. Yep,there it was. Nobody else would keep that paint job more than five seconds. Tim's ugly Toyota Carina pulled up right in front of him. Without missing a beat, Jonathan tossed his suitcase in the back seat, before hopping in the front. Tim was there, looking not a day older than he was almost a year ago, when he spent a semester stateside.\n\nThe two flawlessly recreated their traditional handshake they made up in middle school: shake, release, fist bump, thumb wrestle for two seconds, high five, explosion. \"Hey, Johnnie! So, how've ya been, mate?\"\n\nJonathan leaned back and put his seatbelt on. \"Yeah, pretty good. Just here for half a semester, how are you?\"\n\n\"Peachy,\" Tim replied, a twinge of sarcasm in his voice. \"Say, what is it with you wanting to spend three months of university in Japastralia? What gives? And put that doogan? I don't want you to ruin the resale value.\"\n\nThe cigarette went flying out the window. \"I dunno. It seems like everyone's been doing it recently, going to a city in one of those 'thawed countries.' You know Karen?\"\n\nTim stared into space for a moment trying to remember. \"Is she the blond one with the enormous... ya'know...\" Since the traffic was at a standstill for a moment, he held up his hands and pretended to hold something large and jiggly. \n\nJonathan rolled his eyes as Tim snickered a bit. \"Yes, that's her. She's spending a semester in Leningrad. And those twins, Tina and Harry? They're gonna get their Masters' degrees at the University of Seoul.\"\n\n\"Bloody hell! Are they trying to get themselves killed by Nationalist gangs or something, because that's exactly how this sort of thing happens.\" Tim's eyes looked like they were going to burst out of his head.\n\n\"Anyway,\" Jonathan continued, suppressing a yawn, \"can we just stop for a bit? I've literally spent the last eighteen hours on planes. Chicago to Portland, then to Hawaii, an hour in an airport with no AC because of a delay, then to Java, and finally one to Brisbane.\" He leaned his seat back and closed the sunroof.\n\n^(\"Technically, it's fourty-two, counting the time change...\") Tim muttered. \n\n\"What was that?\"\n\nTim nonchalantly waved his hand. \"Oh, nothing. Now go to sleep, it's a long ride.\" Jonathan closed his eyes, listening to Tim ramble on on how the stereotype of Japanese punctuality apparently doesn't apply to traffic...\n\n******\n\nJonathan woke up to an elbow constantly hitting his right cheek. \"Psst. Psst, oi!\"\n\n\"Whuhzizzit?\" Jonathan mumbled to himself.\n\nTim nudged him again. \"We're here, mate. Get your suitcase from the back.\"\n\nJonathan grabbed his suitcase and followed Tim up the driveway. He had a nice, little apartment on the second floor of a building in the Newcastle suburbs, with a nice view of the city from the roof. After dropping all his crap in the guest room, the two headed up there. There wasn't much, just some lawn chairs, a table, and a cooler. But it was nice. \n\nTim stooped down and opened the cooler. \"Whaddya want, mate? I've got beer, wine, a little sake...\"\n\n\"Dude, I can't drink. I'm only twenty years-\"\n\nTim tossed Jonathan a bottle of KB. \"It's alright, mate. The drinkin' age here's only eighteen, ya'know.\"\n\n\"Oh, it is? Alrighty, then.\" Jonathan popped off the top and drank some.\n\nThe two spent the next hour or so having beers, staring at the lights of the city, watching the occasional plane fly overhead, and just talk about life. At around ten-thirty, they headed back inside.\n\n***\n\nHis calm night's sleep was rudely brought to a halt at seven-thirty sharp by some annoying J-pop song about living life Tokyo style (or whatever the guy was singing). Jonathan groggily slipped on jeans and an old Bruce Springsteen t-shirt before stumbling downstairs. Tim was already down there, starting his breakfast.\n\n\"Morhun',\" he said through a mouthful of toast. \n\n\"Morning, Tim,\" Jonathan mumbled, looking a bit hungover, before starting to go through a couple cabinets in search of something edible. \"You got any jelly or something for my toast? Wait, I've found- what the hell is a 'Vegemite?'\"\n\n\"Heh, it'sh nuht taht buhd!\" Tim retorted, trying not to spray milk from his cereal all over the tablecloth before swallowing. \"Fine, you Yanks never* appreciate good condiments. I've got some butter and raspberry jam in the fridge.\"\n\nAfter a hearty (but Vegemite-less) breakfast, the two decided to drive downtown to see the sights. Jonathan could easily differentiate between the pre-war buildings, which had more of an English influence, and their more modern counterparts, with their sloping roofs and rather geometric design. However, the two dozen or so skyscrapers comprising the skyline were tall and sleek, emphasizing their \"natural\" architecture (whatever the hell that meant).\n\nTim was pointing our assorted buildings he recognized, usually before mentioning some random fact that pertained to him. \"...and there's the HQ for Sony of Australia. Did I mention that I preordered the Playstation 2? That tall, bronze-y looking one over there; that's the YKK building. They make, what was it, eighty percent of all zippers in the world. Statistically, we should be both wearing one of their's...\" \n\nEventually, they decided to take a tour of the 'Museum of the History of Nippon.' Since it was a Friday at the end of the school year, most of the tourists were either school field trips or wannabe Ferris Buellers. Most of the exhibits were pretty interesting; there was a cool section of samurai weapons and armor, and they had a neat wing on the history of Australia (Who knew there was a guy named John Batman), but he certainly did not like the 'Modern Day' section. The large plaque about the Brisbane and Sydney bombings made Jonathan want to strangle the entire Empire. He read it over, while Tim was making snide remarks the whole time:\n\n> In 1942, after a grand victory at Midway Island, the Imperial Japanese Army launched a victorious assault against Australia. The quickly secured the Eastern half of the continent, before being fought to a stalemate by ANZAC soldiers near the city of Alice Springs. For the next two years, both Australian and United States firebombings managed to kill over one-fifth of the population at the time. (\"Suuure, and that has absolutely nothing to do with Melbourne being called 'New Nanking.'\") After the year-long Siege of Okinawa in 1944-45, the United States and the Empire of Japan began peace negotiations. Eventually, an compromise was settled: In exchange for decreasing military production and the installment of a democratically-elected Prime Minister, Japan was allowed to maintain control of the southern half of the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, Borneo, Java, New Guinea, and East Australia. During the post-War time, known as the 'Cold War' between the Soviet Union and America, the standard of living in the Empire flourished greatly for all its citizens. (\"Bollocks. At least my pop isn't here to rant about rations and food shortages.\") After the 'Thaw' in 1988, the Japanese economy boomed with new consumer goods to export all around the world. With the new millennium just around the corner, time only knows what the future has in store!\n\n\"God, that made me sick,\" Tim muttered. \"Let's leave.\"", "The captain was sitting at his desk in Japan's makeshift camp on the north coast of Australia.\n\nThey did it. They finally managed to get a foothold on Australia.\n\nBut there was a problem. Captain Masaki sent three infantry units for scouting duty into the Australian wilderness three hours ago, yet he has not heard back from any of them. He began to worry that Australian soldiers captured his men.\n\nSuddenly, one of the soldiers stationed to protect Captain Masaki's tent rushed inside with a worried look.\n\n\"What is it, Shiro?\" Masaki asked. \"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"Sir, one of the scouts just returned,\" Shiro said. \"He's covered in blood and seems to be delirious. We've started attending to his wounds, bu--\"\n\n\"Bring him now,\" Masaki interrupted.\n\n\"Sir, I--\"\n\n\"Now, soldier!\"\n\n\"Yes, sir!\"\n\nA few minutes pass while Shiro is at the medical tent retrieving the injured scout. More moments pass, but Shiro and the scout finally make it into Masaki's tent.\n\n\"Private Hayashi, Sir!\" the scout said.\n\n\"At Ease, private,\" Masaki said. \"Tell me, what happened to your unit?\"\n\n\"The unit I was in scouted into the northern forest of the continent, as instructed, but we soon came into hostile forces,\" Hayashi said.\n\n\"Like what? Were there already Australian soldiers stationed this far north?\"\n\n\"No, sir. It was the wildlife itself.\"\n\n\"The wildlife? What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Every animal we came into contact with possessed great amounts of leathality, sir!\"\n\n\"Like what? What kind of animals could be here that soldiers with weaponry could not handle?\"\n\n\"The most common one we ran into is classified as a kangaroo.\" Hayashi said. \"It's speed made quick work of the distance between us, and it managed to disarm several us. Then the punching started.\"\n\n\"An animal managed to disarm trained soldiers and had punches worth mentioning? You're obviously too delirious in this state. Return to the medical tent, private.\"\n\n\"But that wasn't the worst part, sir,\" Hayashi said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The unit decided to run into a thicker part of the forest because the kangaroo demon would have a harder time getting closer to us,\" Hayashi said. \"But we made a mistake trying to rest underneath some of the trees.\"\n\n\"Private, that's enou--\"\n\n\"That's when the Drop Bears got some of us.\"\n\n\"Drop Bears?\"\n\n\"Some sort of rabid animal that hides in the thick of a tree's leaves and drops onto unsuspecting prey. It tore off the limbs of Private Morita and Private Sato with no effort.\"\n\n\"Private, I am getting tired of your story,\" Masaki said.\n\n\"But I haven't even gotten to the fire tornadoes yet.\" " ]	3
	[WP] The Reaper approaches an individual, not only because it's their time, but because Death itself has grown tired and deems this person fit to take over.	[ "\"Oh it's you.\" The girl was young, barely an adult. Her body was limp, no longer struggling against the rope. \"I knew you would come. I didn't expect that it would be so literal though.\"\n\nThe other voice spoke, in an echoing, ethereal tone. \"You seem calm.\" At this the girl formed a light smile. \n\n\"I've made my choice. There is no reason for me to panic now.\" A moment passed with neither voice speaking again. The silence lingered expectantly, waiting for something to puncture the stillness. The girl spoke first. \"I suppose I'm dead now?\"\n\n\"Mmm..\" The other voice hummed in agreement. In response the girl collected herself and stood up. A lifeless corpse remained where she had been a moment ago, wearing her old skin. The second voice coalesced into a smoky shadow, vaguely shaped like a man. \n\nBoth of them stood there for a moment, and stillness once again filled the air. The girl looked expectantly at the smoky figure, waiting for him to take charge. Instead, he slowly spoke. \"...why?\"\n\n\"Does it really matter?\" The girl shifted her feet. \"I'm dead, isn't that all that matters to you?\" \n\nThe voice echoed again. \"It does not matter. Still, I want to know. Why?\"\n\nThe girl thought for a moment before responding. \"I suppose I would call it boredom. There's nothing for me back there.\"\n\nThe smokey figure hummed in thought. After an uncomfortable amount of time passed, the figure moved. The smoke closed in and solidified into a long, black cloak. The wispy strands of smoke reaching outward coalesced into white bones. Out of the darkness a glint appeared as a large scythe was drawn into existence. \n\nHolding the scythe forward as an offering, Death spoke. \"Then perhaps there is something for you here.\" The girl reached out, accepting the Scythe. As she did so the darkness closed in around her figure, forming a black cloak, while the figure of Death faded into lingering smoke. The darkness was punctuated by a single statement. \n\n\"Perhaps there is.\"", "The silence cloaked the room. A silent, smothering, comforting blanket of nothingness and I sat waiting. He entered. His visage horrifying beyond my wildest nightmares but I was not afraid. Today was a good day to die. My children are resting comfortably in their graves and their children know nothing of me.\n\n\n\"Death, come to finally let my old bones rest?\"\n\"Humans and their petty problems. I, who have watched the deaths of countless suns and the birth of galaxies, and it is you who demand rest?! NO! It is time. Time for me to pass this curse on to you mortal, let you see what age is!\"\n\nI stumbled back, knocking over the chair in which I had sat. Shrieking I clawed at my face and huge chunks came off in my hands. I begged. I pleaded. All for naught. Where he once had stood was a pile of ashes.\n\nShuffling quickly I upended my room under I found what I sought: a small mirror I had been given as a child. It was a memento of times long gone, and it showed me the truth. No longer was I a man. Four rivulets of missing skin and meat came down my face. Underneath was a grinning skull. I laughed, and laughed and laughed. A dry rasping dead sound, the bravest of men would have quailed at the sound. \n\nNo longer able to feel the aches of my body, no longer able to feel fear at the sounds of bumps in the night. I am what bumps in the night. I am what lurks on the edges of your darkest nightmares, what you're unable to see. I am DEATH.\n", "This is a post I made for a similar prompt that never really received any attention: \n\n\nI am the bringer of the darkness, the harbinger of hell\n\nSent to walk among the sin, but a secret I shall tell\n\n\n\nLife is such a precious thing, and often it is wasted\n\nCombated by the weak, And abused by the patient \n\n\n\nThen one day she tripped and fell, The family was so grieved\n\nThen I emanate from hell, To pilfer the deceased \n\n\n\nThere she wept on the bottom step, she never questioned why\n\nA smile arose to accept, that she was ready to die \n\n\n\nWhen I peer into her heart, I sense not one regret\n\nYet here i come to end her arc, for a regrettable misstep \n\n\n\nFire flew from my fingertips, I was ready to drag her down\n\nA body bag shall soon be zipped, I must move from town to town \n\n\n\nAs I approach this wayward soul, Her gaze lit up my path\n\nwith a spirit that was full of gold, why does she bequeath my wrath?\n\n\n\nI survey all her memories, I see her in the park\n\nlistening to a symphony, of a million love filled hearts\n\n\n\nNext I see her lose her mom, And I gaze upon myself\n\nI cradle life inside my palm, Then her mom was gone \n\n\n\nShe never cried and never wept, for she was not dismayed\n\nalways ready for death’s intercept. why is she on my dossier? \n\n\n\nRotten is the wicked man, who takes her from this earth\n\nWhy must it be death, whom nullifies her birth\n\n\n\nFor I am death, a fickle soul, who knows no right or wrong\n\nThe collector of the penance toll, for lifes a finite song\n\n\n\nI must drag this girl to hell, for this is not my call\n\nI would love to cast a spell, so she does not have to fall\n\n\n\nAs I cart her off to hell, her lips caress my cheek \n\nDo not feel bad for me she spoke, It’s happiness you seek.\n\n\n\nYou live life to revoke the damned, and the saints all alike\n\nI am proud, my life was grand, I lived life as a shrike\n\n\n\nI lived my life with greed in heart, and hell is retribution\n\nfor I light the devils spark, in search for absolution\n\n\n\nThe devil and I made a deal, and now I must pay\n\nTo sit asunder the devils heel, never to see the light of day \n\n\n\nYou are the last soul I meet, and I will always love you\n\nBut to live a life like aesthete, the collection is overdue\n\n\n\nFor I must hail to the deceiver, he made earth my paradise\n\nAt the cost of an eternal believer, to bear your soulless eyes\n\n\n\nIt is you I must replace, for I have broke your spell\n\nI replace your distaste, you’re free to leave this hell\n\n\n\nThis girl replaced my loveless life, one last courageous deed\n\nI see the girl and wave goodbye, I don’t want her to be me \n\n", "Hello Calvin.\n\nNo need to have that heart attack, it won't do you any good. It won't kill you anyhow.\n\nThere is no need to speak, either. Not now at any rate. I have little time for threats of violence, pleas of clemency or inane questions. \n\nSo stay silent.\n\nYou might be wondering how I got into your house, a valid question. Yes, while your security system is excellent, there is one thing it can't keep out.\n\nThat's right! The answer crossed your mind just now!\n\nMy system cannot keep out Death . . .\n\nFor lack of a better frame of reference, I am the Reaper. But I'm not here to end your life. I'm here to offer you a deal, if you find the terms agreeable.\n\nI offer you, Calvin Beck, the Mantle of the Reaper. All of the power, the responsibility and the care of the departing souls from this life.\n\nI can see the questions building in your mind. Well, the relevant questions amid the chaos and clamor. \n\nWhy me? Why now?\n\nCalvin, I've been doing this job for a millennium. I took the job from the last reaper. It was offered, much like I am offering it to you and for the same reasons.\n\nI am tired. I wish to go on to my reward knowing that my post in in responsible hands.\n\nI have observed you. You are a man of careful judgement and not one of rash decision. Someone like that needs the Mantle placed upon his shoulders.\n\nSo, what is your answer? \n\nWill you become Death Incarnate?" ]	4
	[WP] When a mysterious attacker kills off the guards in a prison- the inmates must work together to escape before they're next.	[ "I don’t know what Loggins was in for. He’d been here longer than anyone could remember. One of the guards said he’d killed a cop, someone else said he was a mob boss from Midwest, either way, he was in for the long haul. He ran the place.\n \n\nI was in for greed, and well, killing a guy. Not my greed, my bosses. A few keystrokes a few times a month had bought him a German sportscar, a Russian wife, and me five years in minimum-security. Before going away, I hired a prison consultant who told me to “gain respect” by “winning a few fights”. It only took one fight. Turns out, I’m not a bad fighter for a short scrawny guy. An elbow meant for the fat guys nose had slipped under his chin, crushed something, and he died. After one month in solitary I got moved to this prison, with guys like Loggins. Loggins was dead now, so was McCue, several of the guards, Ryans, and the entire H-Block.\n \n\nThere aren’t too many placed to hide in a prison, movies and tv make you think prisons are like mazes with hiding places everywhere, they’re not. Everything is out in the open. And while I’m mythbusting, shivs aren’t a dime a dozen either, it was almost impossible to get/make a weapon in prison. It was much easier to get a cell phone, which does not make a very effective weapon. I was hiding in one of the few places you could hide as a prisoner, behind a cart of books in the library. I had also pissed myself in terror. The librarian was dead on the floor by the door, shot in the chest, which meant the killer had already been here. I’m not sure how I was still alive, but it can be pretty chaotic shooting fish in a barrel, or in this case inmates in a jail.\n\n \nThe library windows overlooked the common room and from my damp hiding spot behind the library cart I could see the rows of tables and, for the first time, the killer. She (!) just looked like an ordinary woman, khaki cargo pants, black t-shirt with some white design and a backpack. I couldn’t see her face, but I could see she had brown hair, pulled into a pony tail, and was wearing some yellow-lensed glasses. She stood still, staring at the breakfast menu on the wall. It was Tuesday, so it would probably be oatmeal and fruit; A heart healthy meal for some of the most heartless people in the world.\n \n\nSuddenly the library door opened behind me and the a group crawled across the library floor to my vantage point.\n“Is that him?” asked Abbot. Abbot was tall, like NBA tall, and had the tattoos identifying him as a member of one of the white gangs in the prison. I didn’t keep track of who was in which gang, it didn’t matter, no one bothered me, everyone here was doing their own time. \n“Her” I corrected him.\n“Her? Shit, a woman did this?” Abbot seemed amazed, but continued. “As far as I can tell, most of guards are dead, along with most of the prisoners. This fucker is good.” He paused and looked at me for a second, sizing me up; “Here, take this.” He handed me one of the handguns the guards carried while on work detail.\nI’d never held a gun before, it felt heavy and looked huge in my pale hands.\n“Shit, could be my ex-wife” I turned and saw Parnell. Things must be desperate, for Abbot and Parnell to be together, Parnell was black. I turned to survey the group for the first time. Crouched behind me were Fernando and a three of his guys, a few more white guys and two of the new guards. All of them were armed and looking at me and my wet beige jumpsuit.\nAbbot, obviously leading this group, tactfully ignored my urine soaked pants and whispered:\n “I say we shoot her through the windows from up here”\n“Would never work, it would take at least a few shots to get through the glass and by then she’d be gone” replied one of the guards.\n“Alright, then we go down the stairwell by block D, tear gas the shit out of the common area and then spread out and blow the hell out of him.”\n“Her” I corrected Abbot again.\nI risked a glance back at the common area, she was now sitting at one of the tables, eating a bowl of oatmeal. I could see her face now, nothing special, tan skin, maybe from being in the desert too long, definitely not a beach tan.\nWhen I turned back, everyone had agreed to Abbot’s plan and the guards had passed around a few tear gas canisters and some gas masks. There were only four gas masks, the guards, Abbot and Parnell put them on and then in a muffled voice Abbot instructed the rest to wait a few minutes before coming in shooting.\n“Just don’t shoot me in the fuckin’ back” Parnell muttered through his gas mask\nAs the motley crew waddled in crouched positions out of the library, I sat down in my puddle and took a deep breath. Fernando turned at the door:\n“You coming or what man?”\n“Yeah, I’ll be there in just a second, I just need a second”\nHe looked from the puddle to my shaky hands holding the gun.\n“We need all the shooters we got. This guy is a beast” And he turned and walked out the door.\n“Girl” I corrected to the empty doorway.\n \nA few minutes later, I saw the stairway door open a fraction. I looked back at the woman, but she was still eating her oatmeal, spoonful-by-spoonful, oblivious to the door. The tear gas canisters rolled into the room, spewing their noxious clouds of gas, and still I could see her shadow, sitting at the table eating her oatmeal. The door burst open and the there were several pops as the first wave started shooting at the vague shape sitting across the room. Abruptly, as if choreographed, the shooting stopped and the tear gas started to clear. The room was still hazy, but she was still sitting there, dry-eyed, daintily picking the dried blueberries from her oatmeal but there was now a gun sitting on the table to the left of her bowl. Across the room Abbot, Parnell, were splayed against the wall, their beige jumpsuits stained red. The two guards with their vests had been neatly shot in the face through their gas masks.\n \n\nShe still had half a bowl of oatmeal left.\n \n\nWith a crack the door swung open, and the second wave tumbled into the common room. Disorganized and shooting at everything in the room; I saw a gouge appear in the library glass. She looked up, the spoon halfway to her mouth, at the beige jump suited invasion. One of the bullets hit her oatmeal bowl, sending it spinning off the table. Undaunted, she brought the spoon to her mouth, like a mom in a cereal commercial, and swallowed the last of her oatmeal. Then, in one smooth motion, she put the spoon down, picked up the gun and shot Fernando in the head. Her right hand came out from under the table wielding another gun and she non-chalantly squeezed off six more shots, killing the rest of Fernando’s gang and the three white guys. She stood up from the bolted stool, and walked calmly over to the bodies, systematically shooting each one before moving on to the next. She paused when she got to the stairway door and looked back, up at the library, directly at me. She smiled and, through her yellow lenses, she winked, turned and walked through the door. \n", "\"Rawlins, get your ass away from the bars,\" said Adins, the guard on duty for the night in Cell Block C-1. Rawlins was notorious for mooning all the other inmates because he simply did not give one shit about any physical travesties that might potentially befall him- the man was over 6 and a half feet tall and easily weighed 300 pounds. The big man had gotten out into the main concourse once; it'd taken a vial of elephant tranquilizers to bring him down. Rawlins sniggered and pulled his pants up.\n\"Aw, why you gotta ruin my fun? Come on, Bobby, it's just a lil' buttcheek.\"\nBobby Adins sighed and kept walking.\n\nElsewhere in the prison, Connor Sharp sat in his solitary cell. He was in the little 8-by-8 room because he had been a bad, bad boy and started a food fight in the cafeteria. \nHe grumbled to himself, and then stopped.\nThere was a strange noise outside...\n\nThe two men on guard for the solitary cells looked at each other for a moment, and then promptly sprinted as the body thrown from around the corner hit the wall. A beast, seemingly made of what looked like snakes, slither-crawled around the corner and accelerated, flailing it's arms as it chased the men and accidentally denting the locking mechanism in Connor's door.\nThe thing continued after the guards, and gunshots echoed throughout the prison before an alarm promptly went off...\n\nSharps smiled.\n\"Fuck yea, that's the escape alert. Maybe someone'll come get me..\" he said, wistfully. Nobody really liked him- he was a troublemaker, in the worst way; not a gangbanger hardcore type, but an annoying little thief type. \nHowever, a sliver of light came through the cracked door, and as Sharps sighed, he saw it.\n\n\"Looks like they left the door open,\" he said to himself as he tried and it popped open with a bit of effort, \"I'll just get out of here on my own.\"\n\nIt was bad.\n\nSomeone had unlocked all the cells of the inmates before going down, and the doors had slid open. For a moment they'd hooped and hollered for joy- but the lights were still out. \n\nAnd where.. where were the guards?\n\n\"Ah, who cares,\" said Big Rawls, as he strode out of his cell, \"I'm getting out of here. Who's with me?\"\n\nA few men yelled and raised their arms, but the others stood there silent, staring at him as most migrated up the stairs to the barracks. It'd be safer there, they reasoned, and they'd rather not get taken by some supernatural thing.\n\nRawlins shrugged, and then the five men strode off into the darkness. \n\nConnor Sharps, too, was trying to find a way out when he heard the heavy footsteps. He ducked behind a corner for a moment and held his breath, and then he heard the voice of Rawlins, loudly talking about how he was going to wreck the guy who put him in here when he got out.\n\nHe turned the corner and put a finger to his lips.\n\"Rawlins, shut the hell up,\" he whispered harshly, \"there's someone fucking out here! I don't have any clue where the damn guards went, but there were gunshots, and then the alarm went off. One of the max-security guys, maybe. Careful, man, we gotta be careful.\"\n\nRawlins looked at the little man with disdain and kept walking without a care in the whole world- and then his head turned into pulp. The other five men standing there went through a short and quick series of fight-or-flight decisions, and when the dust cleared, Sharps was gone and three of the four men that'd followed Rawlins were on the floor. He could hear the wet slurping noises and the screams of the men as he sprinted, but he didn't dare turn back.\n\nSharps just kept running.\n\nHe hit the lobby doors and the other inmates were there- a few armed, but likely not enough to make a difference- and the doors were locked-down. \n\n\"Sharps!\" one of them said, \"You know how to get the damn doors open? We're trying to get the fuck out of here. There's a real bad vibe, vato.\"\n\nSharps was still a little bit on his adrenaline high, and he jumped over the information desk and scrabbled around for a passkey. He handed it to the Latin man- Jose, was it?- and the man passed it over the RFID scanner.\n\nIt beeped and flashed red. \n\"Man, it says we need TWO, not one.\"\n\nAnother inmate turned to Sharps.\n\"Hey, Sharps, did you bring Rawlins back with you?\"\n\nSharps looked in terror out the doors that led to the cell block, and sprinted to the doors that led to the lobby, carrying a fire extinguisher. He battered at the doors, battered, but it seemed like there was absolutely no way that he was getting through them on his own.\n\n\"Sharps, did he come back with you?\"\n\n\"Fuck no he didn't! Rawlins is dead! Get this goddamn door open, or we'll all be!\" \n\nThe thing- the snake-monster thing- burst through the cell block doors and snatched up the man who'd been standing there, ripping his head off and tossing him to the side before continuing on towards the group that'd been huddled on the other side of the room. \nThe bullets didn't seem to faze it as it picked up speed and rammed into the man with the gun before picking up another two- then it was just Sharps and José Degaldo.\n\nJose fired his handgun at the beast and sprinted back into the cell block. It roared in anger and turned to the last man in the room- Sharps.\n\"Fuck.\"\n\nIt charged, busted through the big lobby doors, and tripped on a wheelchair that was sitting outside. Sharps ran through, and looked out at the parking lot filled with cars, and the lobby full of bloody people-parts.\n\nThe time to leave was right about now.", "LOCK-UP\n\nHenley County Prison, Henley County, Tennessee.\n\nThe prison was small and out of the way, housing barely one hundred inmates in the rural community. Suspicious drifters and drunks often found themselves here overnight due to the small size of the town, and last night, a thunderstorm severed the power for an hour. When the lights returned, well..\n\n\"Fuck!\" Rodriguez shouted, pushing his hands across his buzzed scalp. \"Jesus Christ! I need help here! Someone! Anyone!\" He cried out, glancing down the cell block from behind his cell bars. A severed human torso was sitting lifelessly on the wall opposite his cell. Johnson, it looks like. One of the few decent souls of the CO's in this shithole of a prison.\n\nHis legs were nowhere to be found, and the stench of blood and intestines and shit made the young prisoner wretch. The man dropped against the rear wall of his cell and shielded his eyes, tears streaming down his face. A loud buzz. The cell door slid open automatically, with another prisoner stepping in shortly thereafter. Rodriguez continued to cry in shock before being slapped across the face.\n\nThe man was a fat white guy, with an unkempt frock of black hair and a trimmed beard hugging his wide and friendly-looking face. Various prison tattoos were etched into his arms. He was flanked by two other prisoners armed with shotguns towards the door. The man knelt down and popped Rodriguez again, snapping him out of his delirium.\n\n\"Hey! Hey kid! Calm down! We're all gathering in the yard, there's something in-\" The prisoner froze mid-sentence, turning towards a distant noise. An agonized wail echoed down the cell block, followed by the unmistakable sound of a body hitting concrete. \"Fuck! FUCK!\" The fat prisoner stood up, marching back into the hall. Blood splashed onto the three men, along with a severed arm. \n\n\"IT'S UP THERE!\" He screamed, jerking a finger at an unseen threat. The other two prisoners took aim with their guns, firing in a panic. After a minute of firing, the men stopped, trying desperately to survey the results of their offensive. The fat man squinted. \"I think it's\" He managed to eek out before his head was graphically severed from his shoulders by an unseen presence. \n\nCoated with blood, the attacker was anything but human. Standing ten feet tall with long, spindly legs, the creature looked more like a cross between centipede and a mantis, as far as Rodriguez could tell with what blood was covering it's mostly invisible and translucent form. \n\nWith a horrified scream, the two prisoners fled down the cell block, leaving Rodriguez to fend for himself with a shotgun just a foot away from the alien beast. The young prisoner slowly stood and caught glimpse of the gun under the fat man's corpse. The alien spread magnificent wings and let out series of clicks. \n\n\n\nContinue this story!\n\n", "The guards were first. The scarlet blood pooled in a puddle outside my solitary cell. I never saw it happen. I wasn't sure what to do at first, but shortly it became apparent that no one was coming to pick up this dead body. They missed rounds; they never missed rounds. They didn't let me out for a meal. I could start to hear the inmates howl, even through the thick walls of my windowless cell in solitary confinement. \n\nIt had gone on long enough. I was starving. I tried for 2 hours to pry open the food slot, and eventually succeeded, only bloodying 4 fingers in the process. Pressing my face against the slot, I struggled to get a better look at was going on. Since the hole was no wider than a mail slot, the only thing I saw was the body. The quiet echoes bounced off the concrete walls, like whispers from someone far away. \n\nI made what I would call an \"executive decision.\" I reached as far through the slot as I could, groping at the body. The space in the door was small, but 3 months in the hole made it easy for my scrawny arm to slide through, almost up to the shoulder. I knew where the keys were, every inmate knows where the keys are. The left side hip right next to the gun, opposite of the night stick which I was all too familiar with after weekly beatings. Try as I might, however, I could only manage to reach his shoe, and his belt was an entire leg away. I could not stay in that cell for one more minute, so I shoved 2 fingers into his shoe, gripping the laces at tight as I could, and braced myself. I pressed one tattered shoe against the heavy steel door, and steadied myself with the other one. I pulled, and I pulled, and I pulled, and I pulled, and I pulled, but 3 months in the hole wasn't helping me move a 300lb overfed prison guard.\n\nBreathless, I sat with my back pressed to the cool concrete. The world was silent except for my heavy breathing. Where did the echoes go? Something was very strange, so when I heard the familiar click click click of shoes on the hard floor I was more frightened than I was relieved. After all, there was a body outside my cell, and that didn't look good, and I was NOT going spend one more fucking second in that cell. The foot steps drew closer, slowing as they approached my home for the past 3 months. I stood next to the door making myself small as possible so whoever it was wouldn't see me. I heard them bend down and look through the food slot, no doubt only seeing blood stains from where I tore up my fingers. Suddenly I was very aware of my breathing. I felt sick. I coughed, spraying blood against the far wall. I fell convulsing. The last thing I heard was the familiar click click click of shoes on the hard floor walking slowly away." ]	4
Strap your goggles on and prepare to swash some buckles.	[WP] A crew of air ship pirates must escape Her Magesty's Flying Navy, through deceit and audacity	[ "The gears of the engine began to turn and thick smoke shot from the pipes on the zeppelin's side as the behemoth airship began to move away from the docking tower. On the ground, crowds of onlookers cheered and waved Union Jacks at the sight of the craft launching on her maiden voyage. It was a new breed, the Lancaster, with a massive cabin sprawling across the underside of the blimp and capable of carrying up to seven hundred passengers and crew; in the days when a few dozen was the best that one could hope to fit aboard an airship, this was a remarkable feat.\n\nAboard the Lancaster, Captain Alfred von Kaflung stood proudly and attentively at the bridge, looking through the massive glass window at the front of the cabin. The Crown was offering a handsome sum of money—two thousand pounds—to complete the maiden voyage, and even though before this, von Kaflung had only flown over British soil to bomb ports during the Great War, there was no doubt in anybody's mind that he was the best man for the job.\n\nHe turned to his navigator.\n“We are on course for New York, I assume?”\n\n“Smooth sailing from 'ere, sir!” He was a young one, about twenty-three, and like his Captain (and most of the crew) he had fought in the War as well. But they were eager to forget those awful days, and they knew that the Lancaster was another small step towards a brighter world. \n\n“Sehr gut.”\n\nThe atmosphere in the passengers' cabin was lively as one would imagine. The ship's passengers were largely divided among British aristocrats and American nouveau-riche seeking a chance to make history and rub elbows with the barons and lords that had elected to take part in the event, as well as similar types from other nations and a couple of Royal Marines stationed there as guards. Of course, this landmark in transportation had been an object of hysteria and panic in the shadow of a similar event ten years earlier, but there were no icebergs in the sky. \n\nOne man seemed to only stare out the window, looking at the clouds and the approaching ocean. In his eyes was what could be described as almost a longing, a desire of some kind.\n\nAnother man, a Frenchman, approached the window. “Looking for something?” he asked in a tone of good-natured sarcasm.\n\n“I'm not sure.”\n\n“Then you must not be.”\n\nThe first man turned to the stranger. “How do you know?”\n\n“Well, to look for something, you have to know there's something you've lost, or at the least, something you never lost but lack nonetheless.”\n\nThe other man nodded. “Hm. I guess you're right.”\n\n“François Cavalen.”\n\n“Giuseppe Verdu.”\n\n“Charmed.” They shook hands. “So, what brings you here, M. Verdu?”\n\n“Many things, many things.”\n\n“I could say the same thing.”\nGiuseppe looked at François. “Pietro and Hans are in the lavatory.” He looked at the cabin's reflection in the mirror. “Ah, they're leaving now.”\n\nFrançois took a small note out of his pocket. It read, “I shall be at the window. The flight begins at one o'clock in the afternoon, and we begin at a quarter 'till two. I look forward to finally meeting you all in person. -G.V.”\n\nHe then looked at Giuseppe. “Michael is watching us now.”\n\n“Does he have his pistol at the ready?”\n\n“I presume so.” He checked his pocket watch; it was 1:44.\n\n“We have about ten seconds.” The two went for their guns and looked at the dim reflections of their three compatriots, who did the same. They, too, had their pocket watches out.\n\n“For the Black Flag, François?”\n\n“Oui. For the Black Flag.” The clock struck 1:45.\n\nBang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. In about three seconds or so, the Marines were dead. Pietro was gripping his arm, and his hand was bloodied. The passengers had dove to the ground, screaming in terror.\nFrançois looked over and saw Pietro.\n“Damn! That wasn't part of the plan.”\n\n“Really? I thought otherwise,” Pietro replied. “It hurts...gah! I'll be fine, though.”\n\n“Bastards,” Hans growled. “François, what do we do?”\n\n“We have to storm the bridge, and quickly.”\n\n“Pietro and I can keep the passengers in check,”Michael said. “You, Hans and Giuseppe can handle the bridge.”\n\n“Very well, let's get on with it,” François replied with a tone of urgency in his voice. He knew there were probably more soldiers aboard the ship, and they'd be coming soon. He then looked to the dead Marines—and their rifles. “Perfect. Michael, Giuseppe, grab those Enfields.”\n\nBrrrrring! Brrrrring! The admiral rolled his eyes as he went for the phone. \n“Hello?”\n\n“Admiral! This is Captain von Kaflung! We have gunfire in the main cabin and there are pirates attempting to seize the bridge!”\n\n“I can hear the gunfire. How many?”\n\n“I don't know!”\n\n“What of the guards? I specifically stationed Marines to prevent this sort of thing!”\n\n“I assume that either they are dead or that this is a mutiny. The pirates are using Enfields now!”\n\n“Those Marines wouldn't have turned. The pirates must be using their rifles, then, I assume they didn't bring their own.”\n\n“I would hope not!”\n\n“Very well. We can fix this yet, Captain.”\n\n“What do you have in mind?”\n\n“Two smaller zeppelins loaded with Marines and towed by fighter planes are going to approach you. The Marines are going to board you and the fighters are going to turn the zeppelins loose and then you'll have air support in case something goes wrong. They'll have a few extra planes with them if they need to cripple the ship--”\n\n“Cripple it? There are civilians on board! Nobility!”\n\n“Precisely, if you had a cargo of dregs I'd have 'em shoot you down the second you get within a dozen miles of New York! But we're not going to do that.”\n\nThe Captain growled. “How long?”\n\n“Shouldn't be long. Your ship's exceptionally slow; it shouldn't be more than a half hour. You still have your guards on the bridge, yes?”\n\n“They're engaging the pirates now.”\n\n“Alright, then. Tell them to just hold out. Have your crew slow to the minimum speed possible. I'll send the troops now. Good luck.”\n\nHis Majesty's Government wasn't going to risk another Titanic; there were contingency plans to be implemented in the event of a disaster. The Royal Navy had ships capable of rescuing passengers stationed along the planned route, and in the event a flaw could be detected before the ship went down, the mid-air rescue team was capable of carrying the passengers between the two zeppelins. About ten marines were on each craft, ready to aid in the evacuation, but when the call came in to the airfield they loaded their rifles and prepared for a fight.\n\n“I hear the Captain shouting,” Hans yelled over the sound of gunfire whizzing through the narrow hallway. “What the hell's he saying?”\n\n“I don't know!” François replied. “Hit the bastards, someone!”\n\n“We never trained with rifles!” Giuseppe exclaimed. “To hell with them, too!” He threw it to the ground and produced his pistol, firing three shots and hitting a Marine in the neck. Another rushed to aid his wounded comrade, only to be cut down by rifle fire. The hijackers advanced, having secured an advantage in the battle's momentum, and shot the remaining two Marines at close range, killing one and incapacitating another. The crew had no choice but to surrender.\n\nFrançois approached the Captain. “You are the Captain, oui?”\n\n“Runter von meinem Schiff,” the Captain growled.\n\n“Don't play games with me. Hans!”\n\n“I've got it.” He approached the Captain and struck him with the butt of his rifle. “English! Sprechen Sie Englisch?”\n\n“...yes.”\n\n“Sehr gut. All yours, François.”\n\n“Navigator, slow her down. I want the radio operator to put me on with the Royal Navy.”\nThe two obeyed, fearing what the men were going to do next. The radio operator dialed in a few numbers, briefly spoke with the other end, and soon handed François the reciever. “Admiral James Calman, HMS Salvation.”\nFrançois took the reciever.\n“This is the Admiral?”\n\n“Yes. It is my understanding that you and your men have control of the ship.”\n\n“Indeed.”\n\n“Then we won't mince words here. What is it that you gentlemen want?”\n\n“The first is obvious. Amnesty for myself and my men. We won't be arrested when we land, we'll be left alone.”\n\n“Yes, of course. And then?”\n\n“The release of all imprisoned anarchist and revolutionary prisoners.”\n\n“In Britain, I presume?”\n\n“In Europe.”\n\n“Surely you understand that I don't have even the remotest authority...”\n\n“Somebody does. Make it happen. I understand that there are citizens—wealthy citizens, even some nobles—from all of the Great Powers of Europe aboard the vessel. And Britannia is not lacking in influence, so don't you act as if what I'm demanding is impossible.”\n\n“It will take a long time to accomplish this.”\n\n“Then I recommend that you begin immediately. I'd hate to have to kill passengers to punish any...uncooperative...home nations.”\n\n“I'll radio the Prime Minister and we can negotiate.”\n\n“You have two hours before I start firing. Don't think I won't let this vessel crash into the Atlantic; I'll scuttle her before I land without achieving my goals.”\n\n“Let's not allow it to come to that.”\n\n“That's on you, Admiral.”\n\n(part two is on the way!)", "\"Capitol Punishment.\"\n\nCpt. Reynolds liked to whisper it to himself sometimes. It was a silent whisper; the kind so subtle that it barely escapes the mouth. Had his lips failed to budge just ever so slightly, perhaps it would not have existed at all.\n\nIt was Reynolds' way of reminding himself what the stakes were. His majestic vessel, the Rosso Perla, was in the cross hairs, and the Kingdom of Sovereign was holding the crossbow. They had sacked more cloudline villages than could be counted, laying siege to haberdasheries the skies over, but there was one pit stop that took it too far.\n\nReynolds would never have intentionally raided the aircity of Fiona had he known. At the time, it was close to Port Lucco so he thought it was worth the two hour detour. They all thought he was right, since Fiona held riches beyond what they had ever imagined. But fate breaks the hearts of those who trust it.\n\nPart of the captain wanted to see the look on Her Magesty's face when she heard that her precious childhood hometown had been raped. It brought a smile to his otherwise worrisome expression. And when he considered that Her Magesty's 12 year old niece was, indeed, also raped by one of his crewmen, that smile faded into the obscurity from whence it came.\n\nIf it was his niece he would have burnt the whole kingdom down. But instead he was fleeing a feeling; the feeling of a loved one in pain whom you are powerless to help.\n\n\"You might want to see this,\" said Ser Evan Gale. He was the captain's right hand for a reason - and it wasn't just his sharp wit. For being a herpes-raging scumbag, the man was a joy to be around. Sometimes that's all a leader needs.\n\n\"Whaddya got?\" Reynolds replied. They'd been evading the Fleet Sovereign for six weeks, and he prayed their position had not been compromised.\n\n\"Our position's been compromised.\"\n\nSon of a btch! Reynold's screamed it in his mind, and then aloud until the seagulls perched on the deck banister scattered away into a cloud of fluttering wings. Gale handed his captain a pair of leather coated binoculars, pointing northwest. Reynolds peered through the clunky goggles, then wiped them down with the sleeve of his jacket before looking again.\n\nThe image began to manifest from a blur as he adjusted the focus. A long ship, perhaps 500 feet. Large push-valves, but the rudders were as well-built as can be. The push points left the ship slightly lopsided in the clouds - a hallmark of the lethal Nero warships. The deal was sealed by a white and red banner dancing in the misty wind - the flag of Fleet Sovereign.\n\n\"If we can see them...\" Gale said calmly.\n\n\"Then they can see us,\" Reynolds completed the thought, setting the binoculars down on a freight box full of rotting tangerines. \"Batten the hatches. If they're not rowing I want every man on deck.\"\n\n\"We can't fire on them,\" Gale said. \"Their ship is stronger-\"\n\n\"Shut up!\"\n\nGale burst into laughter and Reynolds followed suit. \"You're even crazier than you were when I met you!\" the former replied. \"We can't outrun them anymore either. They're faster.\"\n\n\"Go at them head on, old friend. And I will show you they are only faster at sinking.\"\n\nAs they picked up speed so did the First Vessel of Her Magesty. The captain, Ser Doyle, brushed the silky hair of his wig out of his emerald blue eyes. \"Bloody hell.\"\n\n\"What's wrong??\" the Queen asked, desperately concerned. She had heard rumors about how tricky these pirates can be, and Captain Reynolds was known for excelling at it. \"What do you see??\"\n\n\"They're charging us.\" The words barely crept out as he concentrated on the image in his spyglass.\n\n\"They're hhh-what???\"\n\n\"Charging us, charging us!\" his voice became irritated. \"Don't you know anything, woman??\"\n\n\"Hey!\" she pouted. \"Just because you're my husband, I am still the QUEEN! You can't speak to me that way! What if someone heard you?\"\n\n\"Just shut up or you'll be queen of little more than a coffin in the next hour.\"\n\nAs the ships drew nearer and nearer, both crews started to become anxious. Neither budged course. It was a lethal game of chicken to see who would swerve first. They were less than a thousand feet apart when suddenly Captain Reynolds screamed \"NOOOOOOWWW!!!!\" at the top of his lungs. A smile invaded Ser Gale's face as the Rosso Perla dove downward into the clouds. The gust of wind this maneuver caused pushed the First Vessel into a disconcerting instability as members of the crew began to pour off the deck. The queen clung the banister for dear life, screaming the whole way through until Captain Doyle brought the craft back steady.\n\n\"FCKING PIRATES!\" he belted.\n\n\"What are we going to do, Doyle???\"\n\n\"They want to go down, dear,\" he chuckled. \"Well... If they want to go down then I will follow them to the depths of hell...\"", "\"Captain. She's gaining on us.\"\n\n\"What do you mean gaining on us. None can match the Interdictor's full steam.\"\n\n\"I-I have not an idea how, sir. Certainly none have been able to match Interdictor's speed. It must be a new airship of some kind.\"\n\nThe telescope in the first mate's hand clicked as it was shut. He and the Captain gazed out into the billowing, white clouds unfolding behind the Interdictor interrupted by a single silhouette—the HMAS Lancer.\n\n\"Well,\" the Captain muttered. \"If we cannot run, then we have little choice.\"\n\nHe strode towards the main deck, hands behind his back and in his commanding voice announced:\n\n\"All stop! Make ready and put up the flag for parlay!\"\n\nThe crewmen stopped in their tracks to heed the announcement. Confusion began to appear on each crewman's face. The Captain would never give up the ship, why give such an order? Several crewmen began to step-to, carrying out the Captain's orders as the ship lurched and lost speed. The Captain disappeared below decks without a word.\n\n\"Perhaps. Perhaps he does have a plan,\" mumbled the first mate, observing the crew scurrying about with their orders.\n\n----\n\n\"Sir, it appears as though they are at full stop and now fly the flag for parlay. What shall we do?\"\n\n\"We give it to them,\" came the reply. \"All hands, prepare for boarding and parlay!\"\n\n\"I must protest, sir. Is this not the Interdictor we are pursuing? Why should any pirate receive such a kindness? They are outmatched in every way.\"\n\n\"Our laws bind us so.\"\n\n----\n\nThe Captain appeared from below decks in time for the HMAS Lancer to reach a musket's range from the Interdictor.\n\n\"What news?\" He inquired.\n\n\"Gratefully none, sir.\"\n\n\"So they honor the parlay? Excellent.\"\n\nThe Interdictor's crew stood-to with weapons prepared, but not raised. As the Lancer came up on their starboard stern, an uneasiness came upon each of the crews. Each ship was now aligned with the other, a difficult feat for most airships, but not for each captain.\n\nSilence above the clouds was pierced only by a stray cough as neither ship nor crew dared make a sound. Each captain stepped to the side of their ship facing one another.\n\n\"Good day, Captain. I see you have taken note of Her Majesty's newest and finest ship, the HMAS Lancer. You ask for parlay, but I believe you are outmatched. Anything less than unconditional surrender from you and your crew will be unacceptable. We will make only the most appropriate accommodations for you in our next port of call.\" \n\nThe words flew forth from the Lancer's captain with every bit of pompous arrogance that one should expect from a man in such a position of power.\n\n\"Funny,\" came the reply. \"I was certain that I should offer the same.\"\n\nLaughter erupted from the crew of the Lancer and a smile drew across her captain's face. Each captain maintained eye contact as the laughter began to fade. The Lancer's captain held his smile, which quickly disappeared as the Captain of the Interdictor grew a grim smirk on his face. When the Lancer's crew regained their composure, the Captain stamped his boot three times on the deck. On the third strike, the Interdictor shuddered. \n\nThunder and smoke spewed forth from the Interdictor's starboard gun ports, cannon balls ripping into the side of the Lancer. A second report, from inside the Lancer, tore apart the her lower stern, where the steam engine had been located. The HMAS Lancer shook violently, knocking most of the crew from their feet.\n\n\"NOW!\" Shouted the Captain, as the Interdictor jumped forward on her own power.\n\nReturn fire began from what gun ports remained functional onboard the Lancer. Stray cannon balls found their mark but did little to halt the escape of the Interdictor.\n\n\"Lose altitude! Into the clouds!\"\n\nThe Interdictor descended downwards, diving as quickly as could be allowed. Whiteness engulfed her crew, as the HMAS Lancer disappeared from view. The Captain's cunning had won the day. Cheering had begun amongst the crew as they increased distance between the ships. The Captain stood up straight, facing the cloud-filled wind, pleased." ]	3
	[WP] Thousands of years in the future, human minds occupy manufactured bodies in far away galaxies. Two friends theorize what it must have felt like to fill human bodies living on Earth.	[ "\"I bet it musta been hard living in Antarctica, the snow musta clogged 'em up summat good.\"\n\n\"Nah, idjit, they were organic, remember? Organics don't get clogged, haven't you ever been to that zoo?\"\n\nThe small one nodded, so the large one continued.\n\n\"Well, it was like with them bears. We just pranced about in the snow, not even a worry. We didn't even have that weird clothing to bother us, it musta been great.\"\n\n\"No, no, wait... Back in First School, they said summat about that. There was this thing they had, it was, uh... Something with a k, I'm finkin'.\"\n\n\"K... Ka-... Ko...\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, it's ko-...something. Koln? Kod? No, no wait, it was kold!\"\n\n\"Oh, yeah! Kold, it had something to do with temperature, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah, if it dropped too low, we'd klock out!\"\n\n\"What? That's ridiculous, there's no way they could klock just from that.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, they- Err, we, we, we were fragile back then.\"\n\n\"Huh... I wonder what it was like.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Being kold. Or just being in there.\"\n\n\"Musta been odd, I mean, all those weird inputs? They didn't even have uplinks back then, they just had whatever was around them.\"\n\n\"Just what was around them? How the hell'd they communicate?\"\n\n\"Hell if I know. Hey- lunch's coming up, we gotta finish this later.\"\n\n\"Alright, run well.\"\n\n\"You too.\"\n", "As the white dwarf Cassiopeon 132 reached its zenith, F1o heightened the priority of the external temperature reading in her mental subroutine. For a whole ten minutes, she dedicated 33.4% of her awareness to the fact that the air around her heated up to a maximum of -25.9 degrees Celcius and drop back down. This would be the warmest ten minutes on this part of the planet C132 Beta for the rest of its 211 year long orbit.\n\nF1o could practically feel the solar cells embedded in her metallic skin rejoice as she lay sprawled out on the snowy hillside. C132 Beta's dim daylight and cloudy skies sometimes made her question why even bothered installing her photoelectric skin package for the summer. There was just no substitute for a nice solar charge though. \n\nF1o reallocated the majority of her awareness back to the books in her collection of ancient science fiction novels. She had already read them; she was merely reanalyzing the stories stored in her memory. All this while she maintained no more than 5% of awareness of the conversation she was having with B3n who was lying right next to her. He was an engaging conversational partner but his opinions were often too easily molded by the thousands of idiotic intergalactic tabloids he read.\n\n\"... and back on AGB923 Prime they're actually talking about legalizing the integration of biological components into human exoskeletons. Honestly, that study into how ternary star systems screw up positronic brain functions might actually be...\"\n\n\"What's wrong with wanting to be partially biological?\" F1o replied, mildly annoyed. \"In case you forgot, we humans started off as biological creatures. Our brains even come hard-coded with the genetic information of our ancestors!\"\n\nB3n turned to face her, his multicolored cosmetic eyes looked into her own plain telescopic ones. \"I've always said that genetic stuff are sentimental trinkets from a bygone era. Our mechanical bodies and their components are far superior to any biological version. It just isn't logical to want to turn the wheel of progress backwards.\"\n\n\"This isn't about logic or progress. It's about retaining a part of our legacy. We wouldn't be where we are today if it weren't for our biological roots. What's more, I think there may be things about living in biological form that we just can't comprehend as purely mechanical, logical..\"\n\n\"Oh dear, you've been reading through your 20th century tomes again haven't you?\" B3n's eyes lit up in a funny pattern, a simulation of the age-old expression of rolling the eyes. \"Alright, I'll humor you since I know next to nothing about humanity back then. How were the last generation of naturally biological humans better off than us artificial ones\"\n\nF1o was irritated that she was reallocating more and more of her valuable awareness towards this conversation. All the same, she knew that B3n was genuinely interested, despite his sarcastic tone.\n\n\"Well, for one, the fact that they were pure creations of an evolutionary process spanning billions of years. As much as you mock biological creatures, you can't deny that we've done out utmost to simulate every sensation, every feeling and every emotion that a pure biological human had within our mechanical forms. We would all like to think that we have succeeded in that endeavor to avoid becoming purely artificial beings. Humans of the 20th century could truly say that they were unique, while the same is difficult to prove in our case\"\n\n\"True,\" said B3n thoughtfully. \"Unfortunately, that pureness of biological form came with terrible flaws. I can not even begin to imagine how I could justify killing other human beings or formulating such deep seething hatred towards members of my own species based on differing biological features. The formulation of out artificial forms was necessary to cut out all these flaws of a natural human being.\"\n\n\"Yes but in the process we forsook the flaws that were ultimately some our greatest attributes. Love, for instance. You could say that gradually removing our sexual drive inhibited a lot of our more unsavory tendencies but the implication it has on love is monumentous. Now it's all about matches and compatibility. Maybe it's better, considering how badly love goes in my books sometimes, but the lack of the spontaneity and the lust that drove us into these mad situations... it's just one of the things that has numbed the way we perceive life.\"\n\n\"True, it does present quite a dilemma in modern society. Going back to how we got to this argument though; do you think people integrating biological parts into their bodies is going to change that? These parts would be as artificial as our mechanical parts except that they would be much more unreliable. Is it worth doing that just for the sake of sentimentality?\"\n\nF1o replied serenely, \"I think that doing it for the sake of sentimentality is exactly what would make them more naturally human. At least, that's what I think a 20th century human would be like.\"" ]	2
	[WP] Lost in the woods, a traveler stumbles into the temple of an old god that is forgotten, but not dead.	[ "\"Where is that damn mare now??\"\n\nMy voice seemed to be swallowed under the downpour Great sheets of rain poured down my back, sucking out all of the heat from my body. I shivered and sneezed once, twice. This thicket would be the death of me... if I could only find that damn mare...\n\nA branch under my foot gave way and I half tumbled, half fell down an embankment. I hit my back hard against a tree, and I feared it broken. The breath was blasted from my lungs, and I spent what seemed like hours trying desperately to suck frigid air back into them. My hands were numb, though from cold or injury, I didn't know. Shakily, I made my way to my feet. I had lost my hat somewhere, and it was far too dark to see it. I continued to trudge along, until I spotted a small cave nearby. It seemed dry, which was far better than swimming.\n\nI had to stoop to get through the opening, but the cave body was expansive; even my upraised hands didn't reach the roof.\n\n\"Hello?\"\n\nMy voice echoed several times before coming back muffled. This was a deep cave. I found a wall and began to move farther in until I saw something. I rubbed at my tired eyes, sure I was seeing things. A faint purple glow. I shook my head, clearing water from it. No, it was certainly there. I picked my way along the wall, feeling with my feet to make sure I didn't trip over anything. The glow was getting stronger the farther in I went.\n\nI came around a corner and felt my jaw drop. There, resting comfortably, was my mare, dry as a bone! Beside her was a small... well, I don't know what it was. It looked like a statue, but of something that the artist had never seen before. It was crudely man-shaped, but with too many limbs. Not all of them were limbs, either. The purple glow seemed to emanate from the statue, but also seemed like it was simply there.\n\n\"What in the hell...?\" My question came from under my breath.\n\nA mortal!\n\n\"Who said that? Show yourself!\"\n\nPlease, mortal... don't go anywhere... I've brought your horse here, as good will.\n\nI stared at the statue, dumbfounded. Was the voice coming from the... statue thing?\n\n\"Who... who are you?\"\n\nI... am forgotten. I had followers, long ago, but I have been cast aside. I ruled empires... but now I sit here in this cave. Help me, mortal. I want to be free...\n\nI took a step back. \"Why do you keep calling me 'mortal'?\"\n\nThe voice seemed to hesitate. I was a god once, mortal. I was wrongfully cast aside, and my followers destroyed. They imprisoned me against my will and hurled me across the world. This cave formed around me, and I have been alone ever since... oh so alone...\n\nI found feel my heartstrings being plucked. I genuinely felt sorry for this thing! \"What can I do to help?\"\n\nPray, mortal. Pray for me, so that I might escape this wretched, hurting stone. It pains me so. I have felt nothing but hurt for two millenia. Ever since some upstart godling claimed a mortal as is only son, and had that mortal die as a martyr.\n\nI fell to my knees. \"I... I need your name.\"\n\nI couldn't believe the words that came from my mouth. Why should I care about this disembodied voice? But I did... he had already begun to worm his way into my mind.\n\nBel Loc'mar.\n\nWith faltering words, I squeaked out a puny prayer to this small creature. When I finished, the voice sighed, and I noticed, perhaps for the first time, a small crack in the statue. Suddenly, it exploded forth, peppering me with stone shards. It was then I heard the voice again, stronger, and from between my own ears.\n\nLet us go, mortal, and conquer this world once more.", "\"Damn this wretched map,\" Gregor mumbled angrily, \"and the godforsaken bastard who sold it to me!\" \n\nThe burly young man was mentally berating himself for not listening to his father's advice. 'Never trust an Atlantean,\" he had said. But Gregor thought he knew best, and because of that, he had been swindled by a water-breathing, fish-lipped Atlantean merchant. \n\n\"This map,\" the merchant had gurgled at him through gill-lined lips,\" will lead you to untold treasures!\"\n\nYeah, right, Gregor thought, The only thing that will be untold will be how I died, because I'm going to be stuck in this accursed place until I starve to death or some wild beast decides it needs a snack.\n\nTwisting the map this way and that in his hands, he did his best to get his bearings and find the route home. He didn't even care about the supposed treasures - at this point, he'd be lucky to escape the forest alive. ", "I was hopelessly lost in a place where the oaks grew thick. Underbrush like barbed wire. I followed a path that ended abruptly against a wall of purple red thistles. In the sun they intensified, effervescent, and when the wind gathered force, the prickles detached and sailed through the air like forged needles, turning the woods to a glittering tide of sparkling magenta. They avoided me, a roadblock, streaming on either side.\n\n\nI considered myself an adventurer in the traditional sense. I studied crusted maps and the journal entries of men long since dead. Mustached men, pith helmeted men, standing on rocks with muskets or swords, forever looking forward. \n\n\nSuch an embarrassment to be so far off course.\n\n\nThe thistles wouldn’t and didn’t stop me. I attacked them with my machete, cutting until my arms weakened; they reproduced almost immediately, when I checked my progress, I found my path overgrown. What kind of brush was this? I thought. I had never known such a thing, but I knew the more encountered resistance, the bigger the treasure, the bigger the glory, the more headlines in newspapers and footnotes in history books.\n\n\nI went forward, as my heroes would have done. Cutting and cutting, wrists and muscles weeping. It wasn’t until the thistles grew lighter that I realized I was standing on top of them. That is to say, the ground had ceased to exist and the very weed I was clearing was keeping me suspended. \n\n\nCracking, roots peeling from their earthen nests. It gave way. I found myself on a slope and tried to dig in with my heels, but the decline proved too steep. \n\n\nI landed with force, knocking the wind from my lungs. A dull grinding emitted from an abyss nearby, some unseen chasm, rock on rock, and I fumbled for my torch. When the beam illuminated, I saw yellow eyes in a wall of carved stone in front me. There were symbols, unlike anything I had ever seen, covering the rutted surface.\n\n\nThe rock split and what I thought was a goat appeared. It was as big as the rock, possibly thirteen feet. Then his face came into view, a bearded man. From his forehead a set of horns extended high into the air and curled back toward earth, half keratin and half skin. As my eyes fell toward the ground, sizing up this terrifying creature, I noticed his genitalia, as large as a blossoming sapling, bouncing and twirling as he walked toward me.\n\n“And who dare rouse me from my sleep?” He said, mouth not moving but voice heard all around, in everything.\n\n\nI didn’t know how to respond. What was there to say? “Me,” I said.\n\n\n“And who are you? Human?”\n\n\n“Scott.”\n\n\nHe walked closer, his hooves slapping on the cave floor. He came into the opening, where the precipice ended above, looking up into the sunlight and then down at my huddled mass. I cowered when he reached out and grabbed a piece of foliage stuck to my pants.\n\n\n“My forest!” He shouted, almost bursting my eardrums.\n\n\nHe grabbed me and threw me skyward. It seemed like I would never touch down. When I did, it was in the thistles, and they cut through my skin, shredded it in parts, and all I could taste was blood and the acridness of freshly broken stems. \n\n\nI got up to start running, fearing for my life, and he was there suddenly, a different size, only as high as the bushes. His strength didn’t diminish, though, evident when he turned his back to me and kicked out, knocking the air from me once again and driving me into a knotted oak.\n\nWithin an instant he was upon me. A different size. As big as the tree. He readied for his final blow and I held out my arms. “I was lost, I was just lost, please, please, no.”\n\n\nHis hoof relaxed and touched the ground and then he studied me, face showing no decisiveness.\n\n\n“That is no excuse to damage the forest.”\n\n\n“I’m sorry, I just couldn’t get through.”\n\n\n“Very well,” he said. “Be on your way. If your path tread here again, be mannerly to these oxygen givers.”\n\n\n“Yes, I will, I promise.”\n\n\nWith that, he turned, then shrunk next to a dried leaf, jumped into the air, and let a breeze carry him into the distance.\n\n\n\n\n", "Of course she would get lost. Jenna always got lost. If there was one thing you could count on Jenna doing, it was getting lost. She could get lost in a fucking bedroom. \n\nI seethed. Why had I agreed to follow her into the Yellowstone anyway? EVERYONE knew you'd get lost, have to call a park ranger to get you, the whole shebang.\n\nOr, y'know, would have if our phones weren't dead. Fuck.\n\n\nSo I have a choice here. I could attempt to cobble together a charging station for my phone out of hers and some stuff I could spend 100 years attempting to get in yellowstone, or I could attempt to walk in a straight line.\n\nLike a dumbass, I picked the line that went straight into the forest. Of course. Now I got lost-unlost. Yay.\n\nFuck this park\n\n----------\n\nI suppose the least I can say about Jenna is that she's a quiet and quick walker. She doesn't stomp around like the land-whales at school, nor does she huff and puff like them either. She keeps a good pace--I'll be worn out soon. That's good. We've covered enough ground for our food today. We should have enough, barring any major accidents, to make our way out with a day or two to spare.\n\n----------\n\nThis is the middle of summer. It's supposed to be hot here. Like desert hot. And there's supposed to be springs and geysers and shit. Why is it cool and misty all day?\n\n----------\n\nWe found ruins today. Jenna is worried that we aren't in yellowstone anymore. I'm inclined to agree, but won't tell her. One of us needs to keep a straight head. \n\nIt looks like stonehenge. That is, stonehedge with less stone and more hedge. And more spikiness. And no cross-stones. \n\nI guess it doesn't look that much like stonehenge afterall...\n\n----------\n\nSo we found the center. It's three pyramids of solid stone. One obsidian, one marble, and one clear crystal. Each distorts towards the other to form a single point with an opening below. Jenna dared me to walk through it.\n\nI honestly cannot say if my decision to do so was the worst decision of my life, or the best.\n\nI could really have do with not going in second, after her. \n\nI could also do without haveing a talking cat.\n\nI'm also pretty sure Jenna would like the disembodied voice of an insane god of teleportation out of her head too.\n\nFine fine, I get it. He's the god of tech, you're the god of animals. Got it. Can you pull out your claws, please?\n\n----------\n\nThey stay quiet now that we are back among people, although they haven't gone silent. \n\nIt's apparently much for them to take in. The modern world, I mean.\n\nJenna has gone on to push technology to it's limits, and is training to be the first astronaut on mars.\n\nI'm just happy my cat likes belly rubs.\n", "A little glimmer had caught my eye, beneath the curls of foliage. The stone beneath felt oddly soft as I tenderly brushed away the vines obscuring it. The rock bore a strange marking upon it, one that has been bored into my mind since that day; a series of circles, crosses, and lines too oddly shaped to describe well.\n\nI called my colleagues to the spot and we began an excavation. For weeks, we labored in the mountain summer. Gentle scraping and tentative digging masked the impatience welling up within us all. I felt the anxiety more keenly than most. The symbol dug at my psyche as I dug at its resting place. When I slept, I felt it upon my brow. When I worked, it rested upon my back. Never speaking, merely prodding, encouraging.\n\nIt was the ruin of a hermetic shrine. There were no markings aside from the symbol to denote its affiliation, nor was there any trace of human life. The architecture was primal. The columns seemed to have formed naturally within the Earth, and had merely waited for someone to remove the encasing dirt.\n\nWhen the ruin was clear of debris, the symbol had begun to lean upon me. It pushed me to consider the strangeness of the ruin, to pry its secrets. There are many who would have simply lacked the interest to do so, but not I. This was why I lived, and the symbol knew.\n\nI sat within, long after the others had gone to sleep. The moonlight illuminated the edges of the pit dug around the temple. The air had a weight to it, as though there was more about than usual. I breathed it slowly and nearly choked on the smell of sulfur.\n\nWhen my coughing fit subsided I looked upon the shrine again. There stood a man… No, there stood a symbol, with many faces, holding a great tome in his hand.\n\nNo words were needed. We both knew that I had no power here, that I stood unprotected in the presence of a being far beyond my understanding. I saw another glimmer at the edge of my vision. The shrine’s perfectly circular stone floor shone with the moon’s light. A summoning circle, though the tales suggest it is better to be outside of one rather than in.\n\nThe not-man reached out and touched my mind. I experienced the thoughts of a thousand men, the secret love of a ten-thousand elopers, and a Name.\n\nDantalion.\n\nI awoke far away on the shores of some unknown coast. I did not wonder where. It was not given to me to wonder. I was claimed, possessed. These hands, which once belonged to an archaeologist, now smoothed stone with their blood. They shaped a new shrine to do honor to their new master.\n\nWhen they had finished, when the body which was once mine had finally paid recompense, I was freed. He is not an unmerciful god. He had sated my dream. I had pried out more secrets than I could ever have desired. I laid down upon the soft stone floor, and felt my body consumed.\n\nNow, I was the secret to be pried.\n", "Kid's walkin' in the woods, slayin' Squirts left and right. Kid's got so used to the look of sadness in the beastie's eyes he really doesn't care for it much more.\n\nKid spies somethin' off the beaten path, behind a wall a' thorny bushes. Takes his machete just so, cuts through it like jungle undergrowth. Bushes recede like they've been scalded by their mama. Takes a walk through. For first few times in his life, this path ain't crumblin' up to him. Statues either side ain't nothin what the kid remembers. Looks like some sort of serpent beastie. Poised like it's ready to strike.\n\nKid walks further down the path, till he comes up on the temple at the end. Temple? This was one for one of the old gods. It's covered in so much undergrowth Kid starts to think it's not worth the elbow grease to uncover. Kid slices through all the bushes till the place looks like its old self again.\n\nPteryon. God of life and death. Terrible old one that one. Invoking that old serpent was the ultimate screw you. Revives one old soul but takes a whole boatload a' others in their place. People began to think the cost of one revival was too damn high. Eventually him and his costly sacrifices fell outta favour, and later on people's minds. Kid walks up to the shrine, as if possessed by Pteryon's snake charm. Kid reaches out, tried to touch the idol... and decides against it. Probl'y for the better. He ain't one for invokin' the gods, and he ain't about to start now. Kid walks away from that shrine like it were a place where ashes were casted.\n\nBut The Kid could swear back there, he felt a set of snakey eyes on him.", "During the twilight of my life I woke to find myself in a deep wood. The overhead foliage was of such dense nature that the time of day was lost in its upper darkness. The atmosphere was oppressive and the air in my throat pressed into my chest causing me to choke as I woke.\n\nI sat up in the clearing after it passed and slowly scanned my surroundings. There were no sounds, no signs of life only, dirt, trees, and a carpet of grass. The trees themselves - natural lords and denizens of any forest, seemed altogether soulless as if they had grown to such immense heights and during some fateful event chose to abandon their earthly forms.\n\nRevolving what memories I could muster under that moody light it was impossible to trace how I had come to be there. My body was intact and free from any violation as far as I could tell, and my senses were clear without the damper of alcoholic vapor. I wore familiar clothing.\n\nThere was nothing in my pockets, I had no bag or other items with me. As I ran my hands across my face and took stock of my qualities a single eerie tone floated into the clearing where I lay. The timbre of the sound was piercing like the cry of a child - wired to be attended to, to be noted. \n\nI surprised myself with the stark clarity and enthusiasm with which I angled my body to be more receptive to the source. The power with which the tone hit me made me aware that it was very close. I could almost see it flow past me and further into the woods. Whether deeper in or further out, I couldn't tell. \n\n[Have to go... will finish later... having fun]", "I knew it!\n\nI knew someone would come. Oh, yes, it's been thousands of years since someone last left one of those sweet, delicate offerings on the altar, and thousands more since someone has split the skull of some terrified prisoner on it (although, I'll be honest, I've never too fancied those kinds of crude ways).\n\nFinally, someone has come. Of course they wouldn't have forgotten me. Ooh, I've been waiting for this moment for so long... Now where's that damned crimson cloak? It has to be somewhere in this wardrobe... Darn! I'll have to wear the gold one. It doesn't look too bad either.\n\nSo, where are they... huh? It's just the one guy? I figured he was a scout or something. Something is wrong here... Limping and coughing is no way to meet a god!\n\nOh, I'll show myself anyway.\n\n\"GREETI-\", FUCK! Voice crack!\n\n\"Ahem, greetings, human! Long have I slumbered, but finally, someone has come again to take up the holy worship of my divine self. You will be richly rewarded for being this first- Uh...\"\n\nCrap, he's... Why is he staring at me like that! Wait, no!\n\n\"No! Stop! Come back, please, I'll... I'll shower you in gold or something!\" Maybe he doesn't know my powers are limited to making flowers grow faster. \"Wait, stop! Don't leaaaave meee...\"", "The sound of the stone door scraping against the ground reverberated in the canyon around her. It cried and scraped in disapproval. Dirt, soot and roots fell from above, taking up residence in the collar of her shirt. The feeling was oddly reminiscent of the sweaters her grandmother used to make her.\n\nFinally, there was a gap just large enough for her petite frame to fit through.\n\nShe stepped through, into the darkness putting the painted canyon behind her. A torch was set in the wall to her left. With her zippo in her left hand and the torch now in her right she took a deep breath.\n\n“Here goes nothing,” she said to no one in particular and struck up her zippo lighter.\n\nThe torch took instantly, almost illogically. The light that burst from it seemed unearthly, she had to shield her eyes from the blinding light.\n\nWhen her eyes finally adjusted, the grandeur of the chamber hit her. It was immaculately decorated. And with gold. Jewels, emeralds, precious stones, silver…\n\nThe giant room was a gold mine. Literally, she added to herself. A her lips spread in a smile as she regarded what she stumbled upon. She felt that she had stepped into another reality or a movie set. All that was missing was a whip and the iconic hat.\n\nShe took her first stop into the room and it began to shake violently. Dust fell from the ceiling and metallic objects spread about the room began to clang against one another. She braced herself against the wall and waited for the earthquake to finish.\n\n“WHO DARES ENTER MY CHAMBERS.” A booming voice assaulted her senses, it echoed against the walls of the hidden palace.\n\nShe stopped, froze in place like a deer in headlights.\n\n“JUST BECAUSE YOU STOPPED MOVING DOESN’T MEAN I CAN’T SEE YOU.”\n\n“…sorry?” she said, uneasily.\n\n“I MEAN SERIOUSLY, DID YOU THINK THIS WAS JURRASIC PARK OR SOMETHING?”\n\n“I’m not sure how to respond.”\n\n“MAYBE DON’T LISTEN TO EVERYTHING JEFF GOLDBLOOM SAYS?”\n\nShe stood silently.\n\n“LIKE, HOW CAN YOU ALL BE SO SMART AND STUPID AT THE SAME TIME?”\n\n“I…. I don’t know.”\n\n“OF COURSE YOU WOULDN’T” The echoing voice scolded, “T-REXES AREN’T EVEN PREDATORS, DID YOU KNOW THAT?”\n\nShe looked around, still bracing herself against the wall, trying to find a way to leave.\n\n“THEY WERE SCAVENGERS. HAVE YOU SEEN THEIR HANDS? WHO WOULD BE SCARED OF THAT. GOD, HOW CAN YOU GUYS ARE SO DUMB?” The voice asked rhetorically. “WAIT, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”\n\nShe stopped moving towards the door, “me? Just wanted some fresh air.”\n\n“THERE’S FRESH AIR IN HERE, IT’LL ALL THE SAME AIR, DUH.”\n\n“I…”\n\n“ALL AIR IS THE SAME, DON’T KNOW YOU KNOW THAT? HOW WOULD THE AIR IN HERE BE ANY DIFFERENT?”\n\n“I guess it wouldn’t”\n\n“I GUESS THERE’S SOME HOPE FOR YOU AFTER ALL. NOW TELL ME, WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”\n\n“Hannah.”\n\n“HANNAH? I’VE NEVER HEARD OF THAT NAME BEFORE. MUST BE A 21ST CENTURY NAME.”\n\n“It’s pretty common, it’s been around for a few hundred years, actually.”\n\n“IT’S PRETTY COMMON,” the voice said in a mocking tone, “IT’S BEEN AROUND FOR A FEW HUNDRED YEARS, ACTUALLY” Hannah couldn’t see the owner of the voice, but she suspected a limp wrist wag accompanied the finishing of the word ‘actually.’\n\n“OH MY ME, YOU HUMANS COME UP WITH THE DUMBEST NAMES.”\n\n“Oh, and yours is good?”\n\n“OF COURSE IT IS,” the boom replied, allowing no pause between the question and answer.\n\n“What is it?”\n\n“WHY WOULD I TELL YOU? YOU’LL JUST NAME YOUR DOG OR HAMSTER OR GOLDFISH AFTER IT. NO, MY NAME IS TOO GOOD TO MUDDLE WITH THE MORTAL JARGAN OF YOUR LANGUAGE.”\n\nHannah crept back again, towards the entrance of the cave, she eased her way away from the voice.\n\n“IT’S BEEN FOURTEEN CENTURIES SINCE THE LAST MORTAL MADE IT INTO THIS CAVE, I WAS HOPING YOUR INTELLECT HAD INCREASED AT LEAST SLIGHTLY—HEY, WHERE YOU GOING?”\n\n“I…” she said, searching for an answer, “wanted to stand in the light so you could get a better look at me?”\n\n“LIKE I NEED THE LIGHT TO SEE YOU. COME ON, USE YOUR BRAIN, I’M A GOD I CAN SEE YOU WHEREVER YOU ARE AS LONG AS YOUR IN MY CHAMBERS.”\n\nIgnoring he questions, she backed faster now towards the entrance.\n\n“WAIT, DON’T LEAVE. WHY ARE YOU LEAVING? YOU’RE KIND ALWAYS LEAVES. NOTHING I SAID WAS WRONG.”\nShe stopped and shifted her weight to another leg and regarded him with her hands on her hips. \n“You’re not wrong,” she said, now scolding him, “you’re just an asshole, man.” She turned and put the God behind her, and the voice boomed.\n\n“FINE LEAVE, I DON’T NEED YOU ANYWAY. I GOT GOLD AND JEWELS AND SOME BUGS TO KEEP ME COMPANY. YOUR KIND IS SO—“ his voice was cut off with the sound of the doors closing.\n\nShe wiped her hands together in an act of pride and smiled.\n\nNo prize of gold or riches was worth the prattling of that God. Best to forget him.\n", "Note: Oh, I'm so going to jump at this one. My only regret is someone beat me to the first post!\n\n---------------\n---------------\n\nI relate these things to you as they happened to me, and I leave it to you how best to judge the contents of my story. \n\nI should probably begin by telling you why I found myself lost in a forest unknown to me. Assuredly, it was not my fault. I had taken a job escorting a merchant and his wagon through an unknown route; the pay offered was generous, as was the peril travelling through this particular forest. The only established route was rarely used at that time, having been a remnant of a past empire. \n\nI thought nothing of it myself, only that with the coin I could afford to finally offer my Genesia a wedding dowry her family might appreciate. This is the way that young men think, with their wagging cod and maybe a bit of their heart too. Brains come last of all at that age.\n\nBut, I was strong and I knew how to handle myself and my weapons.\n\nThe day before the important bits took place, as I recall it had rained heavily. We were several days into the forest when the ruins of the road simply petered out and vanished between the roots of two great oaks. Since the wagon would likely flounder in the mire of roots and wet soil, our employer begged our peace for a few days wait. The two other men hired with me offered their assent and so I was obliged to as well, being the junior of the hired muscle.\n\nWe set about our tasks, they to ascertain the fortunes of any wet gear while I gladly took the opportunity to fetch dry kindling. I wandered off a ways, unconcerned with losing sight of them, since the jingle of tackle and the nicker of the tack animals was leash enough for my ears.\n\nAs I came round again to the large grove of thicker, ancient trees I had a sense for the strangeness of them. For such large trees, they grew very closely together. Fortunately for me, this was a boon. Under their great canopy fewer drops of rain fell and the pickings were bountiful. \n\nI began to croon.\n\n\"Jinny likes Jona and Jed,\"\n\n\"Jona likes Jinny just fine,\"\n\n\"Jed minds Jona a-plenty,\"\n\n\"So they'll take eachother t'bed.\"\n\nI relented to grin, since this tune was one I knew well from my home village. Small pleasures.\n\n\"Two month a'go by,\"\n\n\"Jinny come up real sick,\"\n\n\"Jed says t'wern't him,\"\n\n\"'Jona took boat downriver!'\"\n\nI had a lively handful of dry wood now, and was making my way back when I felt that peculiar sort of tickle that we all get on occasion; I was being watched. So, I played simple and acted like nothing was up, idling slowly back toward camp.\n\n\"Jinny came by babe,\"\n\n\"Jed stuck wit' it,\"\n\n\"Jona en't up fightin',\"\n\n\"Leadin' men 'ta War.\"\n\nI could not hear their footsteps, but I was certain there was no more than one, watching me. Acting simpler still, I feigned dropping a piece of wood and stooped to set the whole stack down, adjusting my bundle. \n\n\"Mamma raised me gud,\"\n\n\"Uncle Jed did too,\"\n\n\"Papa ne'er came home,\"\n\n\"Just 'is sword an' coinchest too.\"\n\nI hung on the last hollow note of the song I'd been singing, and then spun, bringing bare blade out in front and affecting a menacing posture; so much of fighting is in the bluster.\n\nNothing, nobody. Except, was that bark moving? A figure moved under the bark of the tree. \n\nI shook my head, blamed an active imagination, sheathed my blade and made it back to camp without further distress.\n\n...Fool, enough these delays...\n\n------------------------\n\nDinner was uneventful, a sup of dried meat, half chuck - which is just watered hard cider, and a wedge of cheese. Good enough for the road, and better by half again than some meals I'd ever had back home before our fortunes changed.\n\nI had late watch, so I slept after eating. One of the other two would wake me later.\n\n...bind or kill it, no more waiting...\n\n------------------------\n\nI did wake, of course. But not by a calloused hand shaking my shoulder or a boot nudging me in the ribs. It was the choking smoke of the dead fire. I promptly sat up, fearing I'd set my blanket alight. As I took a look around it did not take me long to realize I was the only one still there. The horses, our employer, even my two companions at arms. \n\nI am not ashamed to say the panic I felt then was not for those men nor those poor creatures, but for my own apparent peril.\n\nImmediately I felt around for my blade, and took a little shallow comfort in the presence of it at my side, within arms reach. My heavy cloak lay bundled atop it. I stood and donned these both, then kicked the ashes. The fire had only recently died, so at best wherever my companions were, it could not be far.\n\nSo, I set about scouring the area for clues.\n\nThe animals would be the easiest to track, as their heavy hooves left mighty prints in the soft mulched soil of the forest floor. These I did find and made note of - they seemed to lead off to the direction I had come from when gathering wood.\n\nBefore I could follow, I had to see if anyone had returned or left a trail of their own. \n\nWhen I returned to the small encampment next to the wagon, I noticed for the first time that some things appeared missing from tightly bundled goods our employer had brought along. Fearing the worst sorts of banditry, involving murder of the others, I determined to comport myself with as much bravery as I could and raced off after the horse tracks.\n\n...it ran right into my trap...\n\n---------------------------\n\nIn little time I found myself staring at the little grove of thick, strangely sized trees. Fearing direct entry into their boundaries, I instead paced outside it. In a way I had not considered before, these trees had an almost human shape; twisted, gnarled, stunted but thick. Each of them covered in bright green mosses, and bent outward in the thick of the trunk like some great wind had blown outward in all directions.\n\nI became lost in this examination, so lost that I thought I was hearing voices from them. Whispers.\n\nHelp us!\n\nThe pain...the pain...\n\nSave us, we are taken!\n\nWe have been betrayed!\n\n...Eloilwi, my love...\n\nAnd many, many more. Forgetting for a moment my training, I loosened my grip at the hilt of my blade and let it drag into the soil as I stumbled between the trees and into the ringing circle of trees that comprised their grove. I cupped one hand to my ear, gritting my teeth.\n\n-------------------------\n\n\"Interloper. The fourth tonight; four in one night, and the first in as many generations.\" \n\nMy senses returned, the voices faded, and I recognized the figure before me. \n\nNot for his appearance, which was shifting with every movement of the eye, but for the feeling of his eyes upon me.\n\n\"It was you watching me.\"\n\nMy realization seemed to amuse him, for it must have been a masculine creature. The voice was deep, the stature of the shifting figure seemed too broad at the shoulders for a woman. \n\nI also came to grips with the understanding that I had seen him already, but I had mistaken his shifting form for a bubble in the bark of a tree.\n\n\"Astute. Staunchly assured. Naive to trust its companions. At least one tried to favor me tonight. Two offered as sacrifice ... and beasts.\"\n\nThe figure, he seemed to be offended by the inclusion of beasts in a sacrifice.\n\nHis arm pointed toward a thing like a tree in the center of the clearing, but emboldened with blackness and lines of crimson. It seethed, audibly even. Great, popping hisses. Branches lifted from its central base, all toward the sky. \n\nI laid eyes upon the dismembered remains of my travelling party. An arm oozed fresh crimson from where the stark whiteness of a socketless bone jutted, all pierced by a point of the tree. A horses head crowned another, tongue bulging outward past lip-barred teeth.\n\nThe figure approached me then, as I voided my bowels in fear. The fear overwhelmed everything, but kept my attention on the tree and then back to him. I could not will myself to move away.\n\n\"Delicious sensation. It could join the other three, or it could serve Czethkla. Czethkla finds this one worthy. Czethkla sees the heart and power this one could provide.\"\n\nI steeled myself, and my muscles burned as I reached for my blade to put an end to it. I pushed as hard as I might, as hard as I had ever pushed myself to fight, and still I seemed to move with an inexorable lag. I had not even touched the hilt of my blade before Czethkla had placed his shifting hand upon my head, and blackness overcame me.\n\n---------------\n\nWhen I awoke, the seething tree at the center of the grove was gone, leaving nothing but husks of bone and bits of skin. The mossy trees ringing the grove all had changed in turn, from bright and alive, to rotten and shattered. Nothing but a few branches and hollow trunks.\n\nI stumbled back to the campsite, smelling foul from my own release of fear. \n\nIt would take me several years to return home, and the things I did between there and here, I can't bear to speak of. The crimes I have committed in Czethkla's name ... no, I can't speak of it.\n\nI couldn't spare the others. He wouldn't permit it. He said the village must be our first example, that he has returned from his prison.\n\nNo, no I can't take my hand off your throat. I want to! I really, really do!\n\nPlease, Genesia, you have to understand. I did it for you. He would have made me kill you first otherwise. He'll spare you. If you just swear.\n\nSwear your soul to Czethkla.\n\n------------------\n------------------\n\nEdit1: Advice, thoughts, suggestions welcome!\n\nEdit2: I could see myself turning this into a short novella." ]	10
	[WP] You can live forever but only if you suffer a mortal injury every 24 hours.	[ "\n Walter awoke next to Elena. Successful again. He started his day off just as any other. Dark coffee while preparing breakfast. Eggs, bacon, pancakes (just the way Elena likes them) and of course more coffee. She came downstairs in the middle of the preparations. He wouldn't be able to surprise her with breakfast in bed today. After so many wonderful years of marriage, her little peck on his cheek still filled himself with joy. Walter couldn't get enough of Elena, she gives him reason to wake up.\n\n \n With both of them being retired, they could spend their days how they see fit. Today they would take a soft stroll through the park down the street from their house. Hand in hand, smiling all the way, they strode down the road. Waving at friends that they had seen many times before. Such a nice community they had in their little suburban town.\n\n\n The park had a pond in the middle of the walking trail. Though the trail was only a couple miles long, Walter hand no problem walking it everyday as long as Elena was by his side. They fed the ducks, they waved at the friendly faces, they enjoyed the sunshine, and each other's company.\n\n\n They left the park with smiling faces, still hand in hand. Even though it was a short distance, today they had made the trip much longer. Stopping for every reason they could find. Meeting new people, discovering new areas of the all too familiar park, and always finding somewhere to eat lunch. They always found reasons to make their trips meaningful, no matter how short they where.\n\n They arrived home and Elena sat with Walter on the couch as Walter cracked open a beer a turned on the television. She cuddled up with him tight when she could. She didn't care what he picked on TV, just as long as it was with him. After so many years of marriage, she knew Walt well enough that she would enjoy what he picked. After a short time, Elena became tired and ushered herself to the bedroom. But not after a quick peck on Walter's cheek.\n\n\n Walt was alone now. Beer in hand, something pointless on the television. He thought, as he did every night, \"Should I wake up tomorrow?\" Elena poked her head in the room and said, \"Are you coming?\"\n\n\"I will be there in a minute, Elly.\" Walt beamed.\n\n\nElena shuffled upstairs as Walter headed to the kitchen. Third drawer on the left, there is a false bottom underneath the silverware. Walter grabbed the pill bottle from the hidden compartment in the drawer and swallowed one. \n\n\"See you in the morning, Elena.\"", "Sometimes we don't get a call. Sometimes I've got to do it myself. However, it's those times that we get a call, load up the truck, and roll out to a scene that keep me going.\n\nI've been awarded countless medals, and been featured in many news stories. \n\n\"Firefighter braves collapsing building to save children\" \n\n\"Firefighter beats the odds\"\n\nIf it wasn't for the good that I manage to do, I'm not sure I could keep going. \n\nThere's no one else who can do what I do though, and I can make a difference. \n\nI've heard people say things like: \"That amount of smoke inhalation should have killed you\" \"When that truss collapsed and hit you, I swear I heard your neck break\" \"Your skin is so covered in burn scars, I can't believe you survived that\"\n\nIt did. You did. I didn't.\n\nIf I were a weaker man, I would have given up years ago. I just can't bear thinking about all the people who would die, that I could have saved.\n\n I already have killed myself over ten thousand times. Would I even get into heaven? Honestly, I'm scared to find out. So I won't any time soon.\n\nI'll keep on saving lives, hoping desperately that the good I'm doing is enough to offset the suicides when I finally become too jaded to carry on.", "Jack wondered how much longer he'd be willing to keep it up. How long it would still be worth it. But life was too much fun. Plus, chicks dig scars.\n\n\nHe wondered what was on the docket for today. He'd stabbed himself in the heart so many times. Maybe today he'd behead himself.\n\n\nHe had gone through the surgery when he was 23. Apparently, the blood loss allowed the body to shut down and regenerate all necessary body parts. The shutdown only took 15 minutes, but he had to do it once a day, or he would age like normal people.\n\n\nAs he brought the blade down, he asked himself: \"Am I crazy? Is this worth it?\" Then the blade came down, and all was quiet.", "Every morning I get up, shoot myself in the head, take a shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, and go to work. When I was just starting this routine, I once left off the shooting part until AFTER my shower, which led to me ruining a shirt and being late for work.\n\n\nI use .22's nowadays. In college I used 9mm rounds, and tried to save money by repacking the casings on weekends. They had the advantage of being almost sure to inflict a mortal head wound, but they were insanely messy. The first time I tried a .22 I had to shoot myself about six times in the forehead before I gave up and went around to the back to pulp the medulla. I like the smaller bullets because they stay in my cranium until my body works them out, but you have to know what you're doing, or you are in for a tough hour and a blinding headache all day.\n\n\nWhen I was younger, my parents would just take a bat to my head. They knew what was up; my dad has been doing the same thing for about 340 years now, although he would just hang himself in the old days when high collars would hide the welts. He loves to tell the story of the first time he tried using a blunderbuss and missed two shots before nearly removing an ear. And the time he almost missed the deadline one morning and had to step in front of Grant's artillery, then sneak off the battlefield at night after his agonizingly slow, five-day reconstitution.\n\n\nMy dad says when I'm ready, I can choose to end it. I just have to go a full days, 24 hours, without sustaining a mortal injury. In high school, I once chose to do it because of my crush on Becca Hoffsteder. I was so giddy about my choice that I got pasted by a bus on the way home. It was caught on CCTV, too, and the news played it for weeks. I had to take a dive off the ambulance gurney and run home dragging a leg and trying to pull the end of a rib out of my heart and lung before it healed that way. Looking back, I probably caused a lot of paperwork that day.\n\n\nMy dad says my family line goes back to some pretty obscure Babylonian stuff having to do with blood sacrifices and bare-breasted harpies, but apparently my great, great grandparents didn't bother to write anything down. So I keep killing myself, day after day, keeping it as quiet as possible, moving around and changing my identity every decade or so to keep people from noticing that I don't really age that much. One day I hope I find a girl like my mom. She's mortal, and starting to show it, and I have a feeling that soon we're going to have a family meeting where my dad will announce his \"retirement.\" All I can say is, it must be a wonderful woman worth dying for, and we should all be so lucky as him.", "\"Honey, did you fix the cracker?\" she asked, examining the appliance with a frown.\n\n\"Yes, dear,\" her husband called from the living room. \"It just needed recalibrating.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\" she asked, positioning her head between the two mechanical arms. \"I don't want to have to use the guillotine, it makes such a mess.\" \n\n\"Well, give it a try and let me know if it still doesn't work,\" he said. \"I tried it out myself earlier and it was fine.\"\n\n\"Okay, I'm trusting you,\" she said, flipping the switch. The arms tightened around her head and twisted, painlessly snapping her neck.\n\nShe shook her head until it realigned itself, picked herself up off the safety cushion, and headed into the living room to curl up on the couch with her husband.", "That sucker didn't know big of a mistake he just made. First I rob him of something of immeasurable value, that was reserved to him and his family alone and simply give it away to all of mankind. Sure, I understand why he was upset, why I'm being \"tortured.\" I have to die every single day. What could be worse than that?\n\nWell, what he didn't take into account is that I'm now immortal. For the time being I am bound by chains to this mountain, and I suffer a painful death every day, but I'm immortal. \n\nWhen people lose faith and abandon Mount Olympus, I'll still be here. When people forget about the petty gods that were so selfish with their gifts, I'll be remembered and revered. \n\nYou may have punished me to temporary pain, but you have granted me eternal life. I have won not once, but twice and you cannot defeat me now for I am Prometheus, the bringer of fire.", "He breathed in and out quickly. He shook his head and paced back and forth trying to get himself psyched up. You'd think after one hundred years of doing this, he'd have built up an impressive pain tolerance, but there's only so much you can do to harm yourself that isn't exceptionally painful. He smacked his face a couple of times, and went over to his table. He'd never done cocaine before, he was hoping it would dull the experience or at least make it go by quicker. He took a quick bump and stumbled back. He sniffed a couple of times and blinked rapidly. \n\nFuck yeah.\n\nAfter that he was ready as he would be. He went down into his basement and went over to his set up. He'd hurt himself so many times in so many different ways, he eventually just resolved to a quick bullet to the head. He'd technically \"die\" for about 3 hours. He'd wake up, fully rested only the faint taste of buckshot in his mouth. He went over to the metal chair, behind the chair was a mass of plastic wrap. The other drawback to his immortality, the clean up. It's not easy to get rid of blood and brain matter every other day without the risk of someone asking questions or calling the cops. \n\nHe head already loaded the gun that lay next to the chair. He sat down and picked it up. He put the barrel in his mouth. Now here was the hard part. The contemplation. The knowing that once he pulled the trigger he'd feel that pain again. It never dulled. No matter how many times he'd killed himself, it hurt every time. This time would be no different. He'd long since abandoned the idea of religion. Strictly out of fear however, as he thought living for one hundred years and forever looking and being young. He was committing suicide in the process of prolonging his life, his whole existence was an affront to what ever God existed. He was afraid if he just let himself die, if there was an afterlife, that he'd be cast into hell. His finger twitched on the trigger. This was awful. He knew it was but he was more scared of the unknown than of dying. He braced himself and pulled the trigger. The brief smell of gunpowder. The bang of the gun. The impact of the shell splintering out of the top of the head. He would feel all of this, just so he could continue to live another day.\n\nLike always, in about three hours he woke up. His head hurt, He was covered in blood. He'd have to go shower, then come back down to clean up. This was his life. This was the cost of forever. But he was beginning to wonder, if forever was really worth the price. \n\nEdit: grammar and words" ]	7
The religion's main prophet arrives at the home of the last non-believer on Earth, to attempt to convert him. Been working on this idea on my own for awhile and can't seem to get it right. Interested to see if anyone else can do it justice.	[WP]A religion has swept the globe, the principal tenet of which is that reality is a dream of God's, and that when every human on Earth believes this we (as God) will finally be able to awaken from our dream. (bit more inside)	[ "##\"A Wandering Mind\"\n\n\"Surely, if the rest of the world believes it, it must be true, no?\" he asked the young lass, as he sat at her small kitchen table.\n\n\"What's popular isn't always right,\" she replied curtly, standing at the counter and fidgeting with porcelain bowls.\n\n\"And what's right isn't always popular. Yes, I've heard the saying. Can't fault me for trying, though, can you?\"\n\n\"Why would you lead with a fallacy?\"\n\n\"For simplicity's sake. I could just as easily lead with a huge set of theses and proofs and philosophical arguments, but that would turn off the average person.\"\n\n\"Do I seem like the average person?\"\n\n\"No. You completely deny what everyone else accepts. I suppose my old habits die hard.\"\n\n\"Well then, let's get on with the debate. Oh, wait -- chocolate or peanut butter?\"\n\n\"Erm... I can send someone to get food from any restaurant you want, on my dime. We don't have to eat cereal.\"\n\n\"I like cereal a lot more than I like waiting. Chocolate or peanut butter?\"\n\n\"Do you perhaps have Reese's Pieces?\"\n\n\"Sure do. Milk?\"\n\n\"Please.\"\n\n\"So, out with it then.\"\n\n\"Have you ever experienced a false awakening? Woken up, gone about your daily activities, only to suddenly find yourself back in bed, waking up again?\"\n\n\"Not really, but I know some people who have.\"\n\n\"Is it not feasible that all of reality is simply an impenetrable false awakening?\"\n\n\"Nope. I think; therefore I am.\"\n\n\"A clever phrase, indeed, but I believe you are misinterpreting it. You don't know for sure that your thoughts are your own, or that they originate from within you. It's entirely possible that they are generated from some outside source. Ignoring my religion's questions about the nature of reality for a moment, we human beings have the ability to empathize -- to think as another. Your thoughts could well be the result of some other entity empathizing. The phrase 'I think; therefore I am' doesn't prove your own existence; it merely proves the existence of a thinker.\"\n\n\"Hm, never thought of it that way... but how do you know that the thinker is a dreamer? Maybe we're in a computer. You know, like The Matrix.\"\n\n\"Computers have glitches and bugs that occur consistently. They are reproducible, even though the circumstances that led to their occurrence may be difficult to replicate. Furthermore, the probability of butterfly effects tends to be... low. Members of my religion have established an international organization whose purpose is to research anomalies in the world and attempt to replicate them. Despite a decade of work, we have had no success.\"\n\n\"You sure that's not your fault?\"\n\n\"I can't rule it out. Consider, however, that dreams could produce irreproducible anomalies. Dreams can produce things that are random -- or, at the very least, closer to being random than any fault in a computer system.\"\n\n\"What makes you think that knowing about the dream would wake 'God' up?\"\n\n\"If we exist as characters in a dream, then we must be representative of the dreamer's mind. We are generated by it, and we are the result of its processes. If all of us become aware of the dream, then the dreamer's mind must, in its entirety, also be aware of the dream. If that doesn't result in a full awakening, it will at least result in a lucid dream, and the resulting widespread anomalous occurrences will validate our awareness.\"\n\n\"How do you know the dreamer isn't already awake? It could be a daydream.\"\n\n\"That's a distinct possibility, but the anomalies we've detected are more characteristic of a sleeping dream than a daydream.\"\n\n\"She might have a wandering mind.\"\n\n\"I suppose.\"\n\n\"What do you get out of waking the dreamer? If we're just characters in a dream, then we'll all die once the dream ends.\"\n\n\"We will not die; we will ascend. The dreamer's mind will be returned to the true reality, where it will perform great deeds.\"\n\n\"Or maybe she'll just finish her cereal before it gets soggy, and then fail another philosophy exam.\"", "I sat down on my couch, staring at its odd pinkish yellowish color pattern. I looked up at the clock, and saw that the time was going slower than it usually would. You're going crazy, nothing is wrong with that clock. You're just nervous, that's all.\n\nI spent what felt like an eternity trapped within a minute and a half staring at that wretched clock as it went on with its day. tick-tok. The clock didn't wait for me, as I tried hopelessly to catch up with its calm, smooth, flawless life. \n\nThe knock at the door didn't surprise me. After all, it was what I had been waiting for all this time. I stood up, my knees creaking from the stress of all this and I turned to the door. I looked through the peephole at the world outside. I had a pretty good knowledge of who was coming, but I had to be sure. I stared down at myself. The sound was still in my ears. tick-tok, the clock droned on. If not now then when? I thought. \n\nI opened the door hesitantly, and the man I saw outside looked as kind as he did in all the pictures. I had been thinking about this for the past week and a half, and I had never expected it to go down like this. \n\nHe spoke first. \"Hello Kevin. My name is Levi, but I suppose you already know that, huh?\"\n\nI nodded my head slowly, not knowing whether I didn't want to talk, or in my frazzled state forgot how to.\n\n\"Do you mind if I come in?\"\n\nI felt a catch in my throat. I wasn't prepared for this. Slowly, I croaked out, \"No, come right in.\" \n\nI invited him inside. He looked around for a second and then spoke. \"Nice place you got here.\" He looked back at me, as if for an answer to a question he did not ask.\n\n\"Yea, I got it a couple of years ago.\" The silence filled the room. The only sound was the clock's monotonous tick-tok.\n\nHe broke that silence as if it were nothing. \"Okay, Kevin, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. We both know why I'm here, right?\" \n\n\"Yes, you're here because you want to convert me to your religion.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, you could say that.\" He glanced around the room, darting his eyes from one place to another, trying not to stay on one place to long. \"Why don't we sit down?\" he asked.\n\nHe sat where I had been just minutes ago, on the oddly colored couch, and I sat across him in a nice black leather recliner. \n\n\"You do know about our religion, right?\" Levi questioned.\n\n\"Yes, I'm aware of the basis of your religion.\"\n\n\"In your own words, how would you describe it?\"\n\n\"Well, as a whole, you believe that the world as we know it is your God's dream, and that if the entire world believes that that is the truth, then, and only then, will we be truly awakened as God.\"\n\nLevi beamed me a look of approval. \"I couldn't have said it better myself.\"\n\nOnce again, the silence had swallowed the room. I stared at the clock. tick-tok. I looked back at Levi. He was in his fifties, but you wouldn't know it by looking at him. He looked thirty-five, and was in good health. I mean, you couldn't be the main prophet of a religion without looking good, right?\n\n\"You realize that I don't show up at anybody's house to convert them, right? You know your significance, don't you?\" Levi's presence was one of kindness, and hope.\n\n\"I'm the last non-believer, aren't I?\"\n\n\"Yes. You should join us, so that not just you, but the world will know peace. We can't do this without you.\" There was a look of longing in his eyes. His entire life had built up to this moment, and he wanted it more than the world.\n\n\"Look, if I wasn't scared of this idea, I would have hopped on the bandwagon a long time ago. What if all this is real, and being a god is living hell? Why would I want to be awakened into a horrible life of slavery?\" My exasperation was showing through my body.\n\nLevi looked down, and after a second he looked up and said, \"I don't know what it will be like. Our hopes are that it is good. We just don't know. But if I can convince you to join me on this journey, we'll do it together.\" \n\nHe held out his hand across the table. I could see the passion in his eyes. I could see his conviction. \n\nThis is for the greater good, I thought. \n\nI outstretched my arm and grabbed his hand. \"I'm in.\"\n\nI closed my eyes and waited, we waited for the moment of truth. I opened my eyes, and the prophet sat there, defeated.\n\nAnd behind us, in a wall of distress, came the sound of the world, the sound of fate not allowing us this victory.\n\nThe sound of time. \n\ntick-tok", "It was 9.30 pm. The people outside were very loud. They were chanting and singing, some of them shouting and screaming.\n\"So is that it then? If I believe, we will all just wake up?\" \nHe took another sip of the tea. He came on a mission I disagree with, but there was no reason to be rude. \n\"That is the gyst of it, yes.\" He spoke in the friendliest tone, yet I cannot help but feel intimidated. \nI was pacing around the floor, but I didn't hear my footsteps. I looked at the clock. 8.45 pm. \n\n\n\"Look, I don't want to reject you outright, but I don't believe in any of it. You would have more chance convincing my dog than me. It's not that I don't enjoy you coming here everyday, being a friendly company and all that, since it seems like the world has given up on me...\" I've been labeled an \"Unbeliever\" ever since I outright rejected the idea, but that was before the whole world turned to it. Naturally they also turned on me. It didn't take long for my family to push me away. \nHe stares at me. I can't seem to move at all. \n\n\n\"Well if you just believe, all of that will stop. If you've grown sick of the mocking, just believe! What do you have to lose?\" \n\"Intergrity.\" I clenched my jaw. \"Something that I myself believe in.\" I was shaking. My vision was fuzzy. I was sick of all of it. \n\"Why do you need me?! Why can't you all just leave me alone and go run your fancy religion somewhere else?!\" \nI hated being the only one. I felt small. I felt weak. But there was no way in hell that I was gonna give in now. \nHe seemed tired. \"What if you have been holding unto the wrong thing? You are the final piece of the puzzle, Henry, we need you.\" \n\"I want all of this to end as much as you do, but it seems we are going in a completely opposite directions...\" I replied. \n\"I have been converting people since I first earned my propheting rights.\" He patted me on my shoulder. \"And I have never seen anyone as resilient as you.\" He sipped his coffee again. I tried finding my cup but it was gone. \n\n\n\"You must see me as a lost cause...\" I uttered. \nHe smiled. \"As a matter of fact, I don't.\" He got up off the couch and started walking. \nHe peered through the window where a large crowd have gathered. They were silent. \n\"Many people see it that way.\" I was getting tired of this. \"It's all on television. They all condemn me because I will never believe...\" \nHe looked at me with a smile. A tired smile, but a smile nonetheless. \n\"They all lack faith. When I see you, I see a story. Don't you see? You are a part of the dream! And by far, you are the most interesting piece of this story that we can ever dream of.\" \n\n\nMy alarm rang." ]	3
	[WP] A man makes a deal so he can switch to alternate universes whenever he wants, but he can never switch back	[ "Twelve years ago, I struck a deal. And it's been twelve years since I've seen the man who I struck it with.\n\nHe said I could escape the universe to where my imagination wanted to go, any time. He said I could do anything.\n\nI could.\n\nHe said I would meet the woman of my dreams. He said I would be a traveler.\n\nI would.\n\nBut he never said anything about the rules of this so-called blessing. He never mentioned that I would not ever be able to see my friends again. That I would never be able to settle down. That I would never live as a normal person.\n\nI've been hopping through realities for twelve years. The first one was the most memorable. It was odd; the entire world was asleep. The human race had gone into cryosleep, and I was the only person awake. I could do whatever I wanted, quite literally. I ate whatever I wanted, I drank whatever I wanted, and no one questioned me. I stayed for a week; the eerie silence got to me, and I couldn't take it.\n\nThe second one was amazing. A near perfect replica of my old world, minus old me. Pretty nice, except for the fact I had no Social Security Number, no identity, since I couldn't prove who I was, I didn't exist. I stayed for a year, traveled to South America discreetly and relaxed.\n\nAnd now I'm here. This is the third world I've been on, and I'm forty years old. My wife is beautiful, and we have two great kids. I have all I could ever dream about. I am not content. Maybe I should just try again.\n\nMaybe I should just go." ]	1
	[WP] A serial killer has an encounter which does not make them feel remorse but nevertheless forces them to reconsider their actions.	[ "(sorry, i have a thing for rhyming, especially with something so potentially dark and mysterious)\n\n(also, I’m in the middle of watching Dexter, I’m mid-season 5 so I’m a bit behind on stuff)\n\nHe died inside a plastic-covered room, like those before him,\n\nBut something about this one seemed a little bit too foreign,\n\nThis wasn’t Harry’s Code. “Holy shit, what have I done?”\n\nI said while I looked down on a corpse that looked too young,\n\nI had my set of rules and simple guidelines that I’ve made,\n\nA path to tame my Passenger I’ve seemingly betrayed.\n\n'Cause here I am, among my tools, with one inside a chest\n\nOf a boy who lived too young before I put his soul to rest.\n\n“Don’t get caught” was all I thought, a witness to a crime,\n\nCommitted at the wrong place, when he came at the wrong time.\n\nI’m not a man of feelings, for emotions or for tears,\n\nThe closest thing I have inside are constant, nagging fears,\n\nThat something would befall my kids, and leave me all alone,\n\nThat like this young boy’s parents, I would own an empty home.\n\n\nWhat’s going on, I’m used to feeling pleasantly amused,\n\nRegardless of the victims that I’ve viciously abused,\n\nIs this what empathy is like, that’s leaving me confused?\n\nForcing me to walk inside another person’s shoes?\n\nBut I know what this leads to, how these normal people ache,\n\nWhile flooded with remorse until their shoulders start to shake,\n\nThey lose their sense of balance, and their soul begins to break,\n\nTheir faces telling sentiments that mine could never fake.\n\nInstead I’ll make this memory another I’ll ignore\n\nLike seeing Rita’s bloody corpse, and Harry on the floor,\n\nAnd hopefully like garbage bags, they’ll never come to shore,\n\nAnd never cross my mind, or hurt my psyche anymore.\n\nI know, though, that with three kids, it’s too little price to pay,\n\n‘Cause seeing as they’re making me more human every day,\n\nI can’t just turn this boat around, and push these thoughts away,\n\nI’ll have to be a different me, and find another way.\n\nBut wait, is this the final act of Dexter the Demented?\n\nAn unexpected reason for my story to have ended?\n\nFor when I fully thought it through with disbelief suspended,\n\nThat following this murder that was truly unintended,\n\nI’m left with no alternatives, I truly must assume,\n\nThat I can't keep on living life as though with a costume.\n\nWho would have thought that when inside a plastic-covered room,\n\nMy villainous Dark Passenger would meet its final doom.", "I changed my ways. My ways of doin' things like this. Killin' and stuff. Shit ain't easy, never suspected it would be. It got harder the deeper I got. Deeper into my mind, recollectin' on the things I done. No normal person does stuff like this. Mama tol' me that when I was kid too, killin' things like turtles and strays, settin' fire to shit. No one need tell me I ain't normal. I got eyes enough to see that. Lives like me don't do nothin' like this to be normal. Lives like me, we do it 'cause me need to.\n\nDeeper into the bodies, bones, and muck. That's what made me change my ways. Shit smells somethin' awful. The girls and guys with their perfumes and colognes, they always smell so nice when I meet 'um. Heh, they don't smell so nice after a few weeks. Not at all, no sir. They smell like rot, vomit, and all the sweat, piss, and shit they got left in 'um when I'm done. Can't take that no more. Them bein' under the boards is causin' my floor to rot and stain. No sir, no sir. I'm done with that, I changed my ways.\n\nBuddy workin' down by the shipyard got me some big ol' plastic drums now. Cut 'em up, put 'em in those, bury 'em in the woods. No smell, no rot-piss-shit stink. Ma house smellin' like all those perfumes and colognes. Yes sir, I changed my ways.", "I don't what I call this feeling. It's like a cloud above my head ever since I did it. \n\nHe sat there all blonde, tall and handsome. He didn't say anything, he didn't scream, he just sat there and smiled. \n\nHe wanted it to happen, so did I. I cut the knife in and his smile didn't disappear. Why did he want this? The rest didn't. \n\nI met him on a cold night in Iguanas, the local bar. Plenty of the young kids come in there because the bouncers are too lazy to ID people. I met him the same way I met the others. I went up to him and asked him to dance, then led him away making him think tonight would be the best night of his life. \n\nI tied him to my apartment chair, all part of the act. He didn't suspect a thing until I hammered the first nail into his hand. He winced as one would when..you know...they've had a nail hammered into their hands.\n\nHe looked me in the eyes, he was shocked at first but then he stared straight into my eyes and nodded. He grit his teeth and said \"You need this\". Then he didn't speak again. No matter what I did. \n\nI don't understand this, why wasn't he afraid. What did he see in me that no one else saw? I need to know, yet I never will. \n\nAs I was burying him underneath the flyover all I could do was cry. I knew this guy for an hour and then I'd killed. I did it because I wanted to, not because I needed too. At least I think so. \n\nHe'd gotten into my head, what if the next one does this too? Or the one after that? What do these people see me as?" ]	3
	[WP] Write a scene from the point of view of a sociopath. Try to make sure we feel no emotion.	[ "The days pass by each one, irritably \nSome set to number them although who cares? \nEach like the last, difference I can't see \nNot over these deafeningly loud glares \n\n\"Sir please, let me go. I have three children.\" \n\"You Monster, you will burn for what you've done.\" \nTheir screams don't help. Too late. I can't save them. \nYou're lives were over before they begun \n\nComplain all you desire, your cries are lies \nYelled so loudly that I just might believe. \nYet, real people have souls behind their eyes \nTo see fictitious faces makes me seethe \n\nEntire world over I'm the only man \nIt's fitting I should be the last to stand ", "People are a lot like machines. Sometimes I think of them as having little cogs and gears inside their heads driving little tape loops. \n\nWhen they realize they're in a bad situation, they go into “cry out” mode.\n\n_Click, whir_ “Help! Somebody help! Please!”\n\nAnd when they realize there is no one to help them, they try to talk to you.\n\n_Click, whir_ “What do you want from me?”\n\nThey're puzzled because this is outside of their normal experience. They don't know what to do, so they fall back on the canned responses of their little tape loops. So little variety. A bank manager or a prostitute, they're basically the same. \n\n_Click, whir_ “Stop, please! You're hurting me! Please no!”\n\nThey try to bargain.\n\n_Click, whir_ “I can get you money. What do you want? WHAT DO YOU WANT?”\n\nAnd then at some point, resignation sets in.\n\n_Click, whir_ … _Click, whir_ … _Nothing_.\n\nI always hope for something different, some spark of life, but it's always the same. Always so mechanical. Maybe one day I'll see something that isn't so pathetic. But at this point, I've pretty much lost hope for that.\n", "You want to know what it is like to be like me? To not feel, your emotions?\nIt is not possible.\nCan you look at a painting and choose to not see the colors?\nCan you stand by the sea and willfully be deaf to the waves?\nIf I were to beat you, cut you and strangle you, could you ignore the pain rushing through your body?\nOf course not.\n\n\nWhat, you require more proof than that? Are you really so naive that you will not accept that truth?\n\nOK then, let me tell you a little story.\nOnce upon a time, there was a little squirl named Smoky. He was an unusual squirl, as collecting nuts and putting them away for winter just didn't satisfy him. He needed something a little more challenging to seek, So he left the trees and traveled to a farm. It was a dry farm where the days were hot and bright, causing rabbits that lived there to feel very, very hot. To escape the heat, the rabbits left there burrows to rest in the shade of bushes and trees. Although this kept the bunnies safe from the sun, it caused their outlines to show against the glowing grass, which was not safe at all if someone came looking for them. Even less safe was the way many would just stand motionless and wait under the trees, only making it easyer for them to be seen by anyone who was looking. And Smoky was looking. He creep up, ever so silently, behind one of the rabbits. Beforehand he had acquired a stick, which to Smoky's naked eye, was sturdy enough for the task at hand. The rabbit turned around after sensing something was wrong, only to realize it was too late. Smoky struck the chest, then again, then again. Then again. A fifth blow was all the stick could take, and it snapped, leaving splinters in the rabbit's bloody ribcage. His effort had not been enough though as the bunny, laying broken on the ground, was still alive. Still breathing, coughing and spluttering. Smoky had been wrong about the stick, it would take more than that to kill it. Taking the head with one hand and neck in the other, Smoky began to twist. He could feel every muscle, every bone and the wind pipe that the neck contained. He could feel as the wind pipe broke and as the skull, finally, separated from the spine. The body jumped from a few moments before eventually accepting the inescapable and settling.\n\nSmoky went to a stream and washed the rabbit's blood off his hands before returning to the trees.\n\nSo. Do you understand why you can't understand what it is like to live with out emotion?\nIf you felt any emotion while hearing my little story, that is the reason.\n I didn't put any in there which means that is all you.", "I walk through the old church doors, it was appointed just like any other church you've ever seen which is to say that there was lots of brown surrounded by washed out colors. I didn't particularly want to be here but my mother was insistent and when she gets that way she has a habit of sending my sister to my house without warning which is the last thing I need. Speaking of my sister, there she is now; I can tell she's been crying, she tends to do that at funerals no matter who had just died. She also tended to do it at weddings, breakups, sad movies, happy movies, rainy days... her tears weren't much of an indicator as to her mood. \n\nThere are a few people around her so I use that opportunity to walk by without her seeing me, I'd like to find a seat where I can wait out whatever theatrics are about to come. As I make my way to my seat I look around the room, I don't see my mother and I'm sure she hadn't seen me or there'd have been some great noise. She's most likely busy herding people around and telling them what to do, events like this always seemed to be her opportunity to be somebody important for an hour or so. My father is here somewhere too but I'm not sure where yet.\n\nEverybody takes their seats as the presentations begin, I had already found a rather innocuous spot on the outside of the middle row; my sister was seated up front which was very like her, I'm sure it made her feel important. As expected, as soon as the service began my mother walked out on the pulpit with the pastor. She had to lead this thing even though it wasn't even about her. She started with some readings and then some personal thoughts though I can't remember what they were. Then the pastor spoke, some other people I vaguely remember from my time as a child came up, I saw my father and then it was over. \n\nThere would be some cookies and drink in the annex but I was ready to go, I had some people to tend to back at my house. I ran into my sister on the way out, she was only a year younger but liked to act like she was the elder sibling. She always had this look of betrayal whenever she saw me no matter what I'd done; she spoke some words, she seemed hurt I didn't sit with her which was odd, we very often didn't do things together.\n\nI get in my car, it was time to go home now, I couldn't help but feel that there was better usage of my past two hours. I thought about my mother's health and tried to estimate when the next funeral I'd have to attend would be, I figured it wouldn't be for some time. She seemed to be very healthy, but then again so did my father before he died of a stroke.", "OT reply: I'd just like to point out a sociopath doesn't necessarily lack emotion. A sociopath is someone with Antisocial Personality Disorder, and the key symptoms for diagnosis are lack of empathy, remorse or guilt, low tolerance for frustration/high irritability, impulsivity, deception and lack of conformity to social norms... so a sociopath isn't as emotional or does not express emotions normally, but that doesn't mean lack thereof.\n\nAlso, reading the perspective of a sociopath is reading a way of thinking that is not similar to our own, which will indeed spark emotional responses so it's tough to write without triggering some emotion.\n\nsource: graduating psychology major, currently in a personality and psychopathy class.", "Where's the food, I think. I haven't eaten in four - no, five hours now. Do they even have food here? I guess it would cost a lot to cater to so many people.\n\nWill they ever stop talking? It just goes on and on, a never-ending spiral of the same words, the same feelings, the same moments. We get it, he wasn't bad. Now shut up. I can't be the only one feeling this way. I look at the pale, stolid expressions upon the faces around me. Some are hidden. Are they ashamed? Of what? I need food.\n\nThe grass is green. The sky is blue. The stones are grey. I've been looking at the same things for hours now. Maybe I'll go unplug the microphone. Then they'll probably just talk louder. Best not to do it.\n\nFinally they shut their fat faces. Why? I peer around someones neck to see that they're lowering him into the ground. Whatever.\n\nI'm still hungry. Should I give up hope? I don't think there's many places to get food in a graveyard." ]	6
Positive or negative emotion, it's up to you.	[WP] Make me feel a strong emotion towards an inanimate object.	[ "Dust. Darkness. Secrets.\n\nThe old, ornate mirror sits silently on the wall, half hidden by a heavy sheet. Its black frame is dark like the evil in all of us, and its cracked mirror reflects all of mans' sins. \n\nEven though the mirror has never been proven to be the cause of all its owners' misfortunes, I know that it was. Just looking at it in photos, I can tell that its malice has soaked into the very foundation of that mansion like a poison. \n\nIt is responsible for Mary's mental deterioration, Joseph's psychosis, and the suicides of their poor, young children, Martha and Peter. But can I prove any of this? No one believes me, and sometimes I don't even want to believe the truth, because the alternative makes my heart pound like a tribal drum and a cold, seeping sweat break out on my neck. \n\nWith my camera and a sole tape recorder, I have to stay one night in the drafty, cobbwebby mansion. I tell myself that the whispers around every corner are just my own mind, and that the shadows on the windows are just the trees outside. \n\nBut when I look at myself in the mirror, and see the figures of not just the Abel family surrounding me, I see all of the mirrors' victims.\n\nEven myself.", " The suitcase opened on the bed, and then it closed again, then it opened, and closed once more. Gradually bits of sound began to flow out of it, and it continued to open and close as if it were a pair of lips. \n“You know what they do to you under that plane you always throw me on? You know what they freakin’ do?!”\nTiny drops of perspiration were forming above the suitcase’s handle, dripping down the leathery surface of its face to join the saltwater river flowing beneath its rusty buckles. \nJerome didn’t respond, he stared deep into the suitcase’s corroded buckles, and thought about the time his wife caught him talking to his angry stepstool. \n‘Not again,’ he thought, ‘not again…’\nHe reached down under his side of the bed and fumbled for his shotgun. He brought it to his nose and smelled the scents of the oak tree that his father had crafted it from years ago.\n", "I look up from my desk and see her standing in the doorframe. Her smell permeates the air. A sweet, feminine scent which is vaguely familiar but ultimately unique.\n\nI smile. A comforting warmth washes over me, like wrapping bed sheets fresh from the dryer around your body. I am completely, irretrievably in love with her. After years of searching, crawling from one bed to the next, I've finally found someone I want to spend the rest of my life with. \n\n\"Hi, pretty girl,\" I say at last, gazing straight into her bright, radioactive blue eyes. Her lips curl into a smile, revealing pearly white, ever so slightly crooked teeth. Her imperfections remind me she's human. Just another person trying to make it in life. A life she's picked to share with me.\n\n\"I missed you,\" she responds.\n\n\"I missed you, too.\" She giggles. A light, intoxicating laugh. The warmth settles into the pit of my stomach.\n\nWe were friends for three years, and have been dating for one. Not the longest relationship either of us has had, but easily the most passionate and loving. I know she's the girl I'm going to marry. I've known her for four years, and seeing her still fills me with an invigorating sense of anxiety.\n\nI look down at the small blanket I hold in my hands. It's from her childhood, and it permanently smells like her. The stuffing on the inside is balled up in random places from age and being washed hundreds of times. The colors are faded. I imagine her as a little girl, the little orange and white blanket wrapped around her. \n\nI look back at the doorframe. She's no where to be seen. My mouth goes dry and it becomes impossible to swallow when I realize for the thousandth time that I'll never see her standing there again.\n\nI raise the tattered blanket to my face and inhale deeply, trying to make the warmth come back. It doesn't work. I feel icy and hollow. She had brought the absolute best out in me. Made me want to be a better person. My love for her had been something I didn't know was possible. Now my capacity to feel anything but pain had been stolen along with her.\n\nShe had never been accused of being a great driver. In fact, she was borderline reckless half the time she was behind the wheel. The crash hadn't even been her fault, though. We had just begun our journey through life together. And in one phone call it had come to an untimely and devastating end.\n\nHer blanket smelled the most like her, and her smell was what I missed most. I spent my nights and most my days lying in bed with it, trying to recapture what had been unfairly taken from me.\n\nMy shoulders trembled as my tears wet the fabric. A grown man, 6'3\" and 220 pounds, sobbing into the soft relic of the person he had loved more than himself. This was my life, now. \n\nI remove my red, tear stained face from the blanket, lest I ruin the traces of her left behind on it. I stumble onto my bed, curling next to the faded orange. I close my eyes and await to be reunited with my love in my dreams.", "I am made to cool, to chill, this everlasting energy forms me, electricity. I store everything, keep nothing, my life is giving! What would I be without it? I give a little bit of myself, this clear liquid, I have known all my life, to a friend, only to see it thrown into the sink next to me. I open, I close, I'm there for you. I dispense close, pour and maintain, only to be unplugged and replaced by new years model. I stand next to my friends, all performing their own duties. Various tasks, heating, cooking, and cleaning. Yet I'm the only one who gives, why me? Why me! I am, a refrigerator!", "I remember tin strains of Aloha 'Oe’ playing on the music box while my grandmother sang me to sleep as a child. She would sit on the side of the water bed, wind the matchbox-sized music box and let it play while she stroked my hair and I drifted off with dreams of island breezes. \n\nWhen she died, it was the one thing I asked for. A small wooden box with a single wide hibiscus in a field of sea foam green, it sat by my bed when I had cartoon character sheets, on my desk in the cramped dorm room, in the shelf by my bed in my first apartment and on my big wooden desk in my home office now that I have a house and a family. Everywhere I go, I can turn the crank and instantly be back there with my grandmother, the smell of cinnamon and camels and the rolling waves of the water bed.\n\nThe music box played when my parents died, and the night before my wedding. It accompanied my off-pitch lullaby for my infant son, and I wound it again in the hospital after my surgery. Every moment of my life when I needed my grandmother, it brought her back to me. \n\nMy son doesn’t know what it means to me, the tiny wooden box. He just remembers the music, and he wanted to hear it play. I heard the crash and the clang from the kitchen, I felt the clunk rip a piece from somewhere deep inside. With a crumbled mess of wood and paint, a metal gear rolling across the hardwood floor, her voice brushed away on the wind. I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight.\n\n---\n-122", "From this lifeless ball comes life. It is almost certainly the origin of everything that makes up the human experience. To hate it would be to hate existence itself and what is the point in that? Is it possible to truly feel anything but love and gratitude for the object that simply is the definition of being? I suppose it could be beyond the pettiness of human constructs such as emotion. Perhaps all inanimate objects in this universe are. They have no knowledge of how any one person or even humanity feels about them. They are above and beyond that. They are pure while we are tainted. Then perhaps that is why I have the cursed ability to hate life's mother and father. For it is our cruel, tyrannical master which can choose to easily take what it has given. Through wind, water, fire and stone it can maim, destroy and break the chemical golums that roam its fragile skin as well as all that these chemical golumns have created and hold dear to their souls. This is why we, like a spouse in an abusive relationship, must acknowledge that while there is much to love and be grateful for, we must become independent. We must find other dots in the sky to which we can roam such that a swift blow from our master does not destroy us all. It is essential to our survival." ]	6
People on earth can now heal life threatening injuries with various kinds of food. The more luxurious the food, the more effective it is.	[WP] Life on earth takes an odd turn when food starts healing people like they do in video games.	[ "I don't really remember when it all started, but then again nobody really does. The first time I heard anything about it was when my mother called and told me that her bad ankle stopped hurting all of a sudden. \n\n\"That's not a big deal...\" I thought to myself. \"She probably took one too many tylenol again. She's kind of a light weight\".\n\nBut then I noticed it happening around my circle of friends. Dana noticed that a few scars of hers had gone missing, Brian's fractured wrist mended in less than a week, and Jesse's fingerprints grew back (fireworks accident, don't ask). The severity of what was happening didn't hit me until I was out with my (now ex)girlfriend Becca for our anniversary.\n\nYou see, I work construction. And 2 days prior to the dinner some idiot dropped a full bucket of plaster on my hand. Let me tell you... Completely. Shattered. So there I was, in a fancy Italian restaurant, secretly worrying about my career because of my injury, just trying to have nice night with my at the time significant other. So to take my mind off disability checks and human resource calls I order myself a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Simple tastes for a simple guy, ya know?\n\nSo while I eat, the dull stinging pain coming from my bandaged up hand started to die down. \n\n\"Oh good, at least that'll stop bugging me for a little while\". I thought with a mouth full of noodles.\n\nBut when the check came... I knew something was up. My hand felt fine. I was so sure something was up that I took my dirty marinara speckled knife and started cutting into the plaster on my hand (which is kind of a weird thing to do in the middle of a restaurant in retrospect). \n\nIt was fine. Good. Perfect. Adequately functional to do the tasks that I required of it. My hand was made of purple bruises and shattered bones less than 72 hours ago. I'll be honest with you, I kind of... freaked the fuck out after that. So much so that I went from \"together with a beautiful girl in a fancy restaurant\" to \"single and in the back of a police car\" in the span of 15 minutes.\n\nBut I wasn't kept for long, basically the world had finally taken notice to what was happening. People started being healed from the food they ate. I don't know why, and as far as I know nobody does. If I cared enough about it I would google it, probably had a big impact on healthcare and stuff... \n\nI wonder what Becca thinks about all this. She was always the more political of the two of us. Hell, she got me to vote for the first time in 26 years...\n\nI think I'll call her... Hope she picks up this time...", "Gary leaned over his desk looking at the person in front of him. he was about 22, well, in prefood years. It was impossible to know how old he was now, because a good meal could have shaved the years off. \n\nFood, as it once was, was over. Before, it had simply aided in life function, but now. it was almost miraculous the way people instantly healed when they ingested food. What was more magical was the way the quality of the food mattered. A simple apple, bag of chips, or burger would heal a wound. A full three course meal might bring you back from the brink of death, cure cancer, or even bring on fertility to an infertile couple.\n\nbut what most people didn't realize were the effects of the truly exclusive food. Beluga caviar, civet coffee, wagyu steak, well that could perform miracles. Remove years from your age, regrow lost limbs. It was a constant battle though, as a food became popular, it became cheaper. A French truffle had been powerful enough to regrow a severed finger, or cure the blind, but now due to the demand, science had found a way to grow truffles en masse. what had been an exclusive food, was now as common as as the dirt it was grown in. This is when the horror set in. the truffles weren't as effective any more.\n\nThe less expensive, the less exclusive food got, the less it worked. \n\n\nthe wealthy, the powerful, the vain and the selfish. They who had spent years dining on foi gras, and square melons were now in an arms race, constantly trying to find more and more expensive and exclusive food to stay young and beautiful forever.\n\nThat's where Gary, and his crew came in.\n\nThey scoured the globe looking for the most exclusive, the rarest animals, the most exotic spice. All to keep the most powerful people young beautiful and healthy forever.\n\n\"The meal for your birthday... May I ask which?\"\n\nThis will be my 254th birthday.\" The young man said with a twinkle in his eye that denied his looks. \n\nMentally gary calculated exactly how much he would have had to pay for that...\n\n\"The meal will be extravagant, and we have a one of a kind dish on every table. There will be enough food to supply exactly 12 people. and this should bring them all to mid twenties physical age, from an average physical age of 56.\"\n\n\"Excellent, that sounds just like what we need. and what is the menu.\"\n\n\"Well, for starters we have a new strain of pepper plant that was engineered for maximum flavor, and to be gold in colour. This is served as a salsa with other exotic ingredients, the chips will be silver corn, and average at about $15000 per serving... The second course will be...\"\n\n\"Enough with the menu. what did you find for the main course. what is it that will keep us young for decades? what exactly is it we are paying for? what is so exotic and so rare that you gained an audience with me?\"\n\n\"A mastodon sir. on a recent trip to the siberian wastes, our food finders located an entire frozen specimen. Since the global warming crisis has taken out most of the worlds frozen areas, it is believed to be the last such example. There is literally no way this meal will ever be eaten again. This is the last.\"\n\nThe customer sat back in his chair. Gary's answer obviously was enough to satisfy him.\n\n\"That will do nicely. how much do you want for it?\"\n\n\"3 billion dollars.\"\n\nGary smiled. It was sure as hell a step up from working in his fathers diner, but realy, it was nice work.", "Some may have thought that the new development with food was going to improve the quality of life for everyone. It was merely the invention of nanites that had made the whole thing possible. Companies started putting nanites in everything, from soda to caviar. It not only improved the shelf life and taste of the stuff, but had the added benefit of healing pretty much any injury you could think of, aside instant death. It cured diseases, it improved memory, it fixed macular degeneration. Hell, people that had been blind or deaf since they were born suddenly were able to see and hear as if God himself had touched them. Those that had lost limbs, or never had them to start with were able to regrow them in less than a day. People were exclaiming it to be a miracle. \n\nThe healthcare system crashed first. And did it ever crash hard. The over-inflated prices assured that the burgeoning giant collapsed like a flimsy card house. Suddenly, doctors, nurses, and all sort of specialists who had spent all their lives and borrowed absurd amounts of money pursuing the healthcare career suddenly found themselves jobless. Hospitals became nothing more than barren and empty buildings. They closed by the thousands. Pharmacies that didn't convert to mini-marts followed soon after. Pill factories, medical device factories, all those faced the choice: make something else, or die. Most died. Health insurance became a thing of history...no one wanted to pay for something they weren't going to use. \n\nAs you can guess, this meant a humongous surge in unemployment. But this new discovery even found a way to fix even that: the restaurant and catering business exploded with growth. Serving became not only readily available, but heavily saught after. Great doctors were replaced with amazing chefs. People ate out more often, and spent more money on food. Farmland and meat processing plants could barely keep up with the demand. Those old hospitals and clinics were bought out and either converted into food plants, or bulldozed and made into farmland or hydroponic laboratories. Even countries that were considered third world or still developing were able to implement this new miracle, through careful distribution. Africa became prime farmland. It was no longer a wartorn hell, but a country that was just vast swathes of farm and busy centers of shipping and processing, with South America following in their footsteps. China became even richer with the advent of the nanites, as the production of them were outsourced to their country. Russia and Australia became enormous ranches, full of livestock. They became the leaders of genetics and breeding.\n\nNow this all sounds like it was a miracle...but no one thought it would eventually turn out the way it did.\n\nAfter all, the death rate heavily dropped from this brand new technology. After a few years, overpopulation became not just something people argued about over the internet, but a very real and glaring problem. More cars on the road and more people travelling meant more emissions, as did increasing amounts of livestock. It became harder and harder for farmers to keep crops alive in the wildly variating weather patterns and temperatures...\n\n(To Be Continued when I get home from work) ", "“Chopped coriander and raw chilli, floating in a small serving bowl full of soy sauce. A delicious snack on a hot day. Thanks, Harriet.”\n\nHis real name is Harry, but I call him that because it’s funny.\n\nI ask, “Is it fresh?”\n\n“Yes, Sir.”\n\n“What about the soy sauce?”\n\n“Hand made. By virgins who have never seen or smelt processed food, inhaled smog, and were raised unknowingly in a virtual world that convinced them they were nuns in 14th century France.”\n\n“You mean robots?”\n\n‘the cleanest and most efficient, Sir.”\n\nThis good, simple meal is immortality. No because coriander or chilli are healthy (though they are,) but because this is something few see in the modern 23rd century world: organic food. Real organic food - pure, thorough bred food, untouched by processing, pesticide, the lips of sterilized cows looking for cud or little boys looking for something to urinate on after smuggling out some of dad’s whiskey (and Dad thought I never worked out where he kept it.) Not even the ultra rich can afford organic food these days. Except me: the ultra rich of the ultra rich. The only people that deserve immortality.\n\n\nI raise my chopsticks and explain this to Harriet. “Not only is this coriander pure in its current form, but the soil it was grown in certified antique, coming with annual lab tests to legitimate its astonishing potency, and a schedule listing its every user going back three hundred years. Same for the seeds it was grown from; the air and water circulated through and into it, which has circulated in isolation since before our society was shaken by the catastrophe of the Great Shuddering Thighs; the compost piled on top of it - whose current rank condition conceals its honorable geneology of being only offcuts from the finest of the fine and the best of the best. \n\n“There’s nothing like being in front of the best of the best, is there, Harriet? You‘re doing that now. Imagine being you, and having to look at me, in all my wondrous nobility.”\n\n“Yes,” he says, nodding his head mechanically and slowly. The radiation poisoning must be kicking in. \n\n“It was very noble, that sacrifice you made,” I say, lowering my tone to imply seriousness, and also so none of the other servants hear. “My inherent nobility, grace and power must be rubbing off on your turgid, wretched, in bred lower class brain.”\n\n“Yes Sir.”\n\n“My father says that after I knocked over the plutonium coffee machine, and all that gas spewed acreoss the room, that you only came into help me because he said he’d shoot your wife if you didn’t. Is that true?”\n\n“No, Sir. I considered getting cancer from the gas a necessary sacrifice to make for your unique mind and beautiful body. Far more important than my wife.”\n\n“I knew it! I mean, she’s ugly. I’d rather get cancer than sleep with her. Least there’s a positive to all this for you, too! Still, now we’re both sick, and I have a cure, we can both sleep well tonight, eh?”\n\n\nI’m shoveling the coriander into my mouth as I talk. I see him watching me chew, and for a few second a look of yearning and hope creases his face. It is completely inappropriate. \n\n“technically,” I say, “I only need one piece of this to restore all my hit points. But I’m finishing it all and not giving you any, Harriet. Would you like to know why, Harriet?”\n\n\nIn truth, I don’t want anyone to know I broke the coffee machine.\n\n“I don’t want any, Sir.”\n\n“What?” I gasp, so shocked my hand locks into place and I drop the bowl on the floor. Soy sauce runs between the table legs and pools between my toes. “Why?”\n\n“The annaphine ruins the taste, Sir.”\n\n“Annaphine?” I splutter, feeling my jaw lock up.\n\nHe steps closer. “It locks the body in place, Sir. And then evaporates from the system.”\n\nI try to nod my head but I can’t. I’m frozen in one position. I was expecting to be immortalised but not so soon.\n\nHarriet steps closer again, and picks up a knife from the table.\n\n“What won’t evaporate from your system, however, is the organic food. The corriander and chilli. The best of the best.”\nHe places the knife tenderly against my arm, and drags the blade slowly across it as he talks. “As you always remind me, you yourself are of prestigious, refined, aristocratic heritage, unsullied by the amalgamations of the modern diet and the shabby compromises of everyday life. You are the perfect vessel for the organic.”\n\n\nHe smiles - a sickly, triumphant grin - and raises the knife to my neck.\n", "\"An apple a day keeps the doctors away\". The proverb used to mean that good nutrition would keep you healthy and that the vitamins found in an apple would help your immune system.\n\nBut now, a single bite from an apple can save you from death. Well, it can cure your sore throat or your cough at least. \n\nMy grandma would always make me eat weird and unappetizing food to help my system. She'd make me eat garlic and ginger to help with my blood pressure. See, those old school remedies still don't work. And they still taste awful. \n\nThese days, a nice greasy Big Mac or a Baconator could save you from a heart attack. The irony wasn't lost to the big fast food companies. When the miraculous healing power of fast foods were discovered, the prices sky rocketed. Remember the value meals from McDonald's? It was a dollar and twenty-nine cents for a bacon cheese burger. Now, it's a hundred and twenty-nine dollars. \n\nThe big pharmaceutical companies were usurped by McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy, and Starbucks. Yeah. Starbucks got even more expensive. \n\nCoffee was now the most potent and addictive drug known in history. Well, it already was... but the effects were multiplied. It was as if a meth addict was on cocaine and Adderall at once. Soldiers injected the stuff in their blood streams and go berserk. Wars were fought and won in one huge blur. \n\nAnd yet, for the life of me, here I am in sick in bed. I've eaten everything I could afford, but I was still bed ridden by the common cold. \n\nMy girlfriend knocks on my door. I've been quarantined because the cure for the common cold hadn't been found yet. Taste testers everywhere braved the dangerous task of experimenting on caviar and foie de gras to find the medicinal properties. I opened the door and found a care package. It was a letter and a thermos. \n\n\"Dear Dave,\n\nI've made you some chicken noodle soup because I heard you were sick. Don't worry, I didn't add any garlic or ginger. I know you don't like those.\n\nLove,\n\nGrammy\"\n\nI took a sip of the hot broth. A warmth ran over my body and I felt my sickness leaving me.\n\nSo much for modern fast food. ", "Tim was pinned down behind the sofa. The team that had hit the safehouse was smart, professional, they had hit the kitchen hard and driven the defenders away from the all-important refrigerator. Thankfully he had managed to get near one of his food stashes to hole up while returning fire. \n\n\"We know you got the shipment. None of you have to die just give it up and we'll be on our way.\" a voice shouted from the kitchen. Shotgun blasts and handgun fire in response seemed to indicate the defenders were not to willing to part with their goods so easy. \n\nHe saw an arm pop out from a doorway and a series of shots were sprayed blindly in his direction. With careful aim he hit the arm square in the elbow. A loud scream pierced the air but Tim knew it was meaningless, two months ago a shot like that would have meant the enemy was disabled for the battle, they might even have bled out if they didn't treat the wound properly, now it was merely an annoyance. \n\nSomehow the human body was able to process food to repair physical damage at incredible speeds, when it first happened people thought the wounded were some sort of mutants, then it became clear anyone could do it. It emboldened a few lunatics to go on shooting sprees but soon enough people figured out that getting shot in the brain or heart was still pretty much fatal and that getting gutshot might not kill you right away, but it did make downing a cheeseburger a real test of your willpower. \n\n\"Each of us have 5 protein bars on our person. As I speak there are 5 buckets of 12 piece original KFC chicken on the kitchen table. We are effectively immortal. There is no reason for you to die.\" The voice shouted. \n\n\"Fuck man, five buckets.\" Greg shouted from down the hallway from where Tim was pinned down. \"We're fucked man. I only got two apples in here.\" \n\nTim cursed that fast food hadn't been regulated or outlawed yet. Tragically Big Food had followed the NRA's gameplan to a tee to crush any hope of legislation on ready to eat meals and their dangerous new role in America. \"The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun and a double quarter pounder, is a good guy with a gun and a Big King.\" or so said the memes he'd seen for the past month days. \n\nHe had to do something. He pulled out the two skinned oranges he had and jammed one of them in his mouth. It was a tactic known as 'squirrelling' and with his cheeks puffing out he understood why. \n\nHe put a fresh clip in his 9mm and took a deep breath. He popped up from his hiding spot and started shooting towards the kitchen door. A man popped out from the side of the door frame exposing a bit of his body and head. Tim aimed and fired and saw the shot hit home right above the man's eye. \n\nUnfortunately for Tim a bullet from the man's gun hit the man in Tim's chest. Tim was lightheaded and the room began to swim around him. A burning sensation indicated he'd been shot in the leg as well. He forced his jaws down on the orange slices and willed himself forward, blindly shooting at the doorway. \n\nHis eyes opened to see two men dead, their bodies practically on top of each other and a third man at the other end of the room with a gaping wound in his midsection. The man was gnawing on a chicken thigh. \n\n\"Chicken has been compromised. Repeat, chicken has been compromised. If the package is secure escape through window and get back to HQ.\" the man barked into a radio as the colonel's eleven herbs and spices tended to his wounds. Tim pointed his gun at him and pulled the trigger but there was nothing but a dull click. He was out of ammo. \n\nThe man rose and drew a knife in one hand and a drumstick in the other. \"Let's dance\" he shouted at his charged at Tim. He blocked a thrust from the knife and got cracked by a punch from the chicken hand. a kick to the ribs and then a left to the body turned the tide for Tim as the man staggered away and took a bite of his chicken. \n\nOutside a horrible thud and a sickening crack could be heard as the two goons who had stolen the package fell from the second floor. One of them shattered his leg in such a way that if Joe Theismann and Kevin Ware's broken legs had had a broken leg baby this would have been it. The other goon stumbled to his feet and started forcing a protein bar down his throat. Moments later the maimed goon was as good as new and they rushed off with the package. \n\nTim noticed out of the corner of his eye that the leader of the attack team was watching the scene play out with the same wonder he was. A blast of gunfire hit and Tim saw Greg charging into the room. Two more shots to the commander's chest and he hit the ground.\n\n\"They got the package. Fuck man, what we going to do?\" Greg asked. \n\n\"I don't know. Eat some chicken?\" Tim replied. \n\nGreg shrugged. They wordlessly agreed to eat chicken. \n\n\nEdit: Made Greg's final comment a question. " ]	6
	[WP] Write a scene depicting 2 serial killers that inadvertently stumble into each other while hunting a victim.	[ "\"Skull's Log. Friday. May 17th, 1984.\n\nSpied target out by Maurizio's. Senator is predictable. Habitual. Will be back every Friday for months.\n\nHave established sniper's nest on adjacent roof of Baxter Building. Abandoned since early seventies. Good place to kill from.\n\nWill establish zipline to ground level and organize saferoom to burn clothes in after action.\n\nSkull log, signing o-\"\n\n\"Frank? Frank Fort?! Oh my God, what are you doing here?! I haven't seen you in years, how are you?\"\n\nSkull grimaced, turning away from his audio cassette recorder and trying to hide his oversized spotter's scope behind his back.\n\n\"Oh, you know.... I'm alright. Been... Been seeing the world ever since, you know.... Ever since the wife and son were killed. Just... Getting by. How have you been, Natalie?\"\n\nThe broadly smiling redhead looked a little bit uncomfortable at the question, and toyed with a lock of hair in a way that was somewhere between flirting and trying to rip it out.\n\n\"Oh, uh.... You know, just... Just great. I, uh.... I recently lost my job, company was disbanded, but it's been giving me more freedom, you know? Still doing a lot of what I was doing, but now I get to do it on my terms, do the job I want, yeah?\"\n\n\"Yeah...\" Frank fidgeted, uncomfortable. He made a point of stretching and looking at his watch, feigning surprise. \"Oh my goodness, look at the time! I've gotta get home. Just... Straight away!\"\n\nNatalie started at his sudden display, then nodded vigorously. \"I- oh, yes, of course, sorry to keep you. I'm just... I'll be up here... Sightseeing.\"\n\nfrank nodded rapidly. \"Yeah, it's, uh... It's just... Gorgeous, really. Great.... Great sightseeing bye!\" He turned awkwardly to keep his body between himself and Natalie, then dashed down the stairs.\n\nThe red haired widow waited until she heard the door to the ground level shut, then locked the roof access with a padlock. She walked over to an old ventilation duct that hadn't seen use in over a dozen years and pulled a tripod from it. An adjacent duct yielded a scope and stock; a third, an actual rifle.\n\n\"Alrighty, then,\" she murmured to herself, staring through the scope at the front door to Maurizio's, \"I think it's high time we saw the end of Senator Sleeps With Children.\"", "\"Do you wanna come back to my place?\"\n\n\"Why don't we go back to my place?\" \n\nFor crying out loud.\n\nWhat is this guy's problem?\n\n\n\"Sorry, it's just a safety thing, I get paranoid. I mean, how do I know you're not a serial killer?\"\n\n\"Well how do I know you're not a serial killer?\"\n\n\"Hahaha\"\n\n\"Haha\"\n\nFuck.\n\nFuck.\n\n\nThis was going to be a long night. ", "This one was an easy choice. I like my marks a little unhinged, you know? I like it when they're too far gone to know what's happening to them. You can tell when you look them in the eyes that their final moments are the only ones in which they ever experience lucidity. It gives me a good thrill. Anyway, I'm saying all this because I could tell this guy was a nutcase as soon as I walked in. Everyone else was chatting around, meeting people, sipping delicately on their fruity drinks--but this guy... This guy was sitting alone, nursing a single beer, looking around like a cornered rat. There was something in his expression that just let me know--the way I always do--that he was the one for tonight. \n\nSo I finished my own beer and walked over to him. \n\nFor a such a strange looking guy, he ended up being quite the talker. As soon as conversation began, he was like a different man--he sat up straighter, his nervous twitching was gone. He spoke confidently... And smoothly. I didn't pay it too much mind. I had learned long ago how to make people trust me, and before long I had him eating out of my hand. \n\nIt was time to make my move. I asked him if he wanted to hit the next bar over, the one that my friend owned. He said sure. I told him my car was out back, so we'd have to take the side door. He said fine, whatever. I lead him to the door and ushered him into the dark alley, whereupon I removed my glittering knife from its sheathe under my coat and stabbed him three times underneath the sternum. \n\nThe rush was orgasmic, just like it always was. I looked into his eyes, awaiting the thrill of realization that would complete my ritual. \n\nBut it never came. \n\nIn its place, there was a deep, bone-chilling cold. A kind of calm that I myself had never known. I looked down, and between my own ribs there protruded another knife. A large pool of vermilion was forming around it, trickling down my stomach. \n\n\"Thank you.\" He gurgled through a throat thick with his own blood. \"After what I've done, my story couldn't have ended any other way.\" He slid down the stone wall and was still. I stumbled backwards until my back slammed into the opposite wall, causing me to cough a spout of scarlet. I slumped to the ground, clutching feebly at his knife. It was no use. Strength was draining quickly from my arms. Before long, they fell to my side, useless and icy. All I could do was look at the bloodied corpse across from me. \n\nHis frigid, half-lidded eyes studied me even in death. In my last moments, I could tell, finally, what had happened to me. Lucidity claimed me, and I was afraid. Then I was cold. Then I was nothing." ]	3
	[WP] A UN Weapons Inspector visits a secluded third world dictatorship in search of Atomic Weapons. He finds that the country is really a Utopia	[ "\"I'm sure you understand the gravity of this inspection.\"\n\"We understand your intentions, councilman. We are not in the slightest worried.\"\n\"It's statements like that that brought forth this inspection, ma'am. The UN is weary that you are hiding great military strength. This is not something that can stay hidden for long.\"\n\"I understand your concerns. By the end of the week you will realize you have nothing to fear.\"\n\nThe gates of the hangar slowly spread open among the hum of the UN motorcade. \nJosh Hamilton is riding alongside Magistrate Quintessa, chief justice of Torania's court.\nThe sun streaked the floors of the hangar as the motorcade files through the gates one at a time.\nThe leading and trailing cars have soldiers leaning out of windows, keeping a watch for any type of threat.\n\n\"I think you'll find that actions like this are completely unnecessary against Torania, councilman. We've always been a peaceful society focused on bettering global economics.\"\n\"We've noticed trends in the past with this kind of behaviour, Magistrate. This is merely protocol.\"\n\"It is outdated protocol, Mr. Hamilton. Protocols that will one day get you and your superiors into hot water.\"\n\"I'd watch what you say if I were you, Ms. Quintessa.\"\nThe rest of the ride carries on in silence as we pass through tunnels, carve through forest and cross bridges.\nThe number of rivers on this island is astounding. \nIt puts the Mississippi to shame.\n\n\"One of our cheap exports here is mineral water. The volcano that occupies the south side of the island provides a unique type of health benefit to those drinking it.\"\n\"What might that be?\"\n\"You will see, councilman.\"\n\nWe come up to a cliff's edge and the Magistrate asks us to stop. \nShe pulls out a phone and places a quick phone call.\n\"Alright, they've opened up the roads for us. We can proceed.\"\nThe lieutenant radios to his team for them to be on the lookout.\nSomething doesn't seem quite right.\n\nThe cars drive up to the edge of the cliff and the light reflecting off the city blinds the drivers.\nYou've never seen such a brilliant sight. \nThe city expands miles in any direction, punctuated with streams of volcanic stream water.\nIt looks almost like El Dorado and Venice molded into one city.\nThe jungle rises up around the perimeter of the city, providing natural protection from the elements and beautiful views.\n\n\"My god. I've never seen anything so...so clean.\"\n\"It certainly is pristine, isn't it Mr. Hamilton.\"\nJosh bites his tongue, not wanting to be proven wrong.\n\"Be that as it may, we do have an inspection to carry out.\"\n\"That we do, councilman. Shall we drive to the Potentate's office?\"\n\"Please do. Thank you, Magistrate.\"\n\nThe cars drive down the path that has been expertly cut into the cliff rock and make a path through the city for the rulers home.\nNever has a city looked so pristine. \nEach alley and road, every building and park is in immaculate condition.\nIt looks like a polished gem when it is first cut.\nHomes made out of precious metals that would fetch a high price on any market populate residential sectors.\nRivers line virtually every major road.\nThe water is so clear it's as if it's not even there.\nOnly the ripples and the reflection of the light off the buildings gives away it's disguise.\n\nThe people of the country look happy.\nThey have no cares in the world.\nEverything they need is available to them and they have the time to pursue anything they'd like.\n\n\"It's the water, Councilman. It gives everyone boundless energy.\"\n\"It must be quite the miracle elixir, Magistrate.\"\n\"Indeed.\"\n\nThe cars roll up to the outside of the rulers quarters.\nHe can be seen waiting patiently on the balcony of his home.\nThe sun is high in the sky and a mist is forming from the nearby lake. \n\"Lieutenant, come here.\"\nThe lieutenant approaches Josh Hamilton.\n\"WMD's or not, I see great potential here. We will have a military action here. This is no third world country. It is a multi-billion dollar corporation masquerading as a country. This could be quite lucrative for the US.\"\n\"Understood sir. Should I send a message back home?\"\n\"No, we need to wait until we return to deliver a message that there are in fact weapons here. We don't want another controversy like that time we went to Iraq do we?\"\n\"No, sir.\"\n\"Good, be on the lookout. Something still doesn't sit right with me.\"\n\nThe Magistrate approaches the councilman as the Lieutenant walks away.\n\"The Potentate is ready to speak with you, Mr. Hamilton. Will you follow me?\"\n\"Of course, Magistrate.\"\n\nThe pair walk through the courtyard and up the spiral stairs to the Potentates office.\nThe door is unassuming and quite insecure. \nNot that security is something that really concerns the Toranians.\n\"I will not be staying, Mr. Hamilton. I have some matters to attend to. Please enjoy your conversation.\"\n\"Thank you, Magistrate. I am sorry that we doubted you.\"\n\"It's understandable, Mr. Hamilton. Most people have a hard time accepting our peaceful lifestyle.\"\nThe Magistrate leaves Josh Hamilton alone at the top of the stairs. \nHe knocks on the door twice and a voice beckons him in.\n\nJosh walks in the room and is awestruck by the enormous amount of computers and laboratory equipment located within.\nIt looks like something out of Frankenstein if the good doctor had also been a spaceman.\nJosh explores the room, trying to find the Potentate. \nHe reaches the back window of the room and sees his team waiting by their cars.\n\nSuddenly, his entire team collapses. \nIt looks like they've all fallen asleep.\nThe Lieutenant stands up slowly. \nHe appears drowsy but is holding a rag to his nose. \nThere is a mist enveloping the courtyard.\nIt must be what's putting them to sleep. \n\nCreatures appear from the alleys near the courtyard. \nMost of them run towards the sleeping UN soldiers. \nThey jump on top of them and begin tearing apart their bodies.\nIt looks like they're eating the soldiers.\nA small group of the creatures approach the Lieutenant, barely standing. \nHe pulls out his pistol and fires off a few shots that ricochet off the creatures.\nThey swarm him, knocking him to the ground.\nHe screams in terror.\n\nJosh Hamilton pounds on the glass, screaming for his team.\nHe is spun around to look deep into the eyes of the ruler.\n\"Thank you for coming, Councilman. I think you'll find that we are a peaceful nation with no need for weapons\"\nThe ruler pins Josh to the window, forcing him to watch the Lieutenant be ripped to pieces.\n\"I see great potential here\", the dictator says using a voice that sounds like Josh Hamiltons, \"We will have a military action here.\"\nJosh begins to shake in fear.\n\"We are peaceful, Mr. Hamilton. We often have no reason to create conflict. We simply eliminate those threats that come our way. Protecting our way of life. If only you were as wise. Instead, you aim to profit from each venture. It was a good effort, Mr. Hamilton. A good effort.\"\n\nThe potentate spins Josh Hamilton around to face him.\nHe's changed into one of the creatures. \nIn the doorway behind him Josh can see the Magistrate, grinning from ear to ear.\nHe tries to scream but is silenced when the creature smashes his skull.\n\n------------------------\n\n\"Upon thorough inspection of the Toranian island, it is the opinion of the UN Security Council that they be deemed a non-threat. Trade shall continue with any nation who was previously embargoed and no military action will be taken. Thank you for your time.\"\nJosh Hamilton walks off the stage as the chair of the UN Security Council ends the meeting. \nJosh walks out the side door into the summer sun.\n\n\"Josh, wait up!\"\nOne of the council members flags down Mr. Hamilton.\n\"Thank you again for taking up this inspection, not many of us were willing to make the trip.\"\n\"It was my pleasure, councilman. Thank you.\"\n\nJosh Hamilton gets into his car and drives away, changing into one of the creatures as he fades from view.", "NOTE: My first time replying to a prompt. Sorry for making it so long. I did not realize that there were limits to what you could put in one post.\n\nCastor flipped open the binder containing his case briefing for the hundredth time since his transport had left the U.N facility in Jerusalem. Glancing quickly to the first paragraph of the mission summery. Castor Aaron to report to Jacoran boarder on October 8th, 2257 at 18:00 Hours. Then glancing again for the hundredth time to his watch 17:30!\n\"Jesus Habbad we're nearly fucking there!\"\nHabbad , who was neither pleased by Castor's cursing and blaspheming nor incessant complaining during the eight hour trip from Jerusalem to Jacora in the center of the Sahara desert, sighed and shook his head. He had given up on Castor as an insufferable pestilence almost from the first moment of their meeting. It was unfortunate that it was his duty to drive the inspector to his destination but thankfully his duty ended there. Near the horizon a harsh flash of light momentarily blinded him. Something metal just ahead.\n\"It appears you are right Inspector\" and looking at his dashboard clock \"we are quite early in fact\".\n No surprise there. Habbad had pushed the transport to its limits to get rid of the inspector as quickly as possible. As they grew closer the compound became visible. Its enormity was dumbfounding. An entire county encased inside a single structure. The world's largest greenhouse, largest palace and largest slum. All here under one roof.\n\"Motherfucker\" It was half accusation and half astonishment. Even Habbad who had not responded to anything Castor had said in hours was stunned out of his silence.\n\"I had heard General Tylee's Kingdom was vast but to see it see it with my own eyes...\" Just an expression of course. The building now vanished over the horizon in both directions as they finally pulled to a stop beneath the massive gate. \"Truely General Tylee must be an evil man to imprison so thousands of innocent people here.\"\n\"Millions. Satellite images have it at twenty thousand square miles already and growing every day.\" Castor climbed out of the transport and lit a cigarette as he dropped to the sand. \"There must be millions of poor souls in there slaving in the fields for that bastard.\"\n\"Yes. I hate him even more than I hate you.\" Castor laughed misinterpreting his statement as a joke. \"If your satellites can see into Jacora how do you not know how many people are inside?\"\n\"It's those damn solar panels. Not even our recon drones can see through them.\" The panels were the key to everything. Jacora received more hours of cloud free daylight than anywhere else in the world. There was such an over abundance of light that Tylee's engineers had designed solar panels that allowed half the light to pass through while harvesting the other half to store for sunset. Then the power flowed ", "\"And now Mr. Declue if you'll follow me you'll see our glass laying machine. Nothing nuclear about it!\" The factory guide gave a nervous laugh as he motioned with his hand. Danny Declue, 53, Un weapons inspector had toured almost the entire facility and had yet to see any signs of weapons production. the guide ushered him away. \"All we have left is the lowest level, step on the elevator if you please Mr. Declue.\" The guide grabbed the gate and slid it shut as Danny watched him. In his twenty three years of weapons inspecting he had never actually run across any big time operations. He could tell this factory in this 3rd world hell whole could barley produce enough shoes for it's people let alone weapons grade plutonium. The elevator shuttered as it slowly descended the long unlit shaft to the lowest level. It did seem like quite a long way down. \"There must be some really big equipment that's housed down here\" Danny thought. \n\nWhen the elevator finally came to a stop Danny was surprised to see two more guides waiting, they all had a nerves air about them. As they led him through the lowest level of the factory Danny noticed that their chattiness seemed to stop and an air of stiffness came over them. Danny was pretty sure they couldn't produce weapons but he also getting the feeling they where hiding something. Maybe, just maybe he thought, this I'll be the big break I need, I'll finally get that promotion. as they walked Danny kept pondering the strange reason he was here. In all the satellite photos and plane fly overs the country seemed to be almost disserted. The cities where spares and the rural population was non existent. There certainly didn't seem to be a need for a factory of this size. \"Well Mr. Declue that is the end of our tour. I trust everything has met your satisfaction\". \"Yes, yes\" Danny assured them. \"No infractions noted\". The guides looked pleased and the air or nervousness seemed to subside. \n\nAs they where walking back Danny noticed a small corridor with a old beat up door he hadn't seen before. \"what's behind that door gents?\" the guides shuffled nervously. \"OH, is a bathroom, we don't use it much\" one of the guides piped up. \"Perfect\" Danny smiled. \"I've got to whiz like a race horse on St.Patrics day!\" He walked down the hallway towards the door. \"Uh, Mr. Declue we don't use that bathroom, it's not very clean!\" one of the guides shouted after him. \"Don't worry gents, you haven't been to my ex-wife's house! That's a disgusting water closet!\" Danny Declue chuckled to him self as he opened the door. \n\n The first thing that hit him was the sunlight, like a haymaker to the happy place, only much more pleasant. It's warmth and beauty danced over his skin and seemed smooth it as it ran over him. The next thing that hit was the smell, like a tropical beach tucked inside a rainforest, it was intoxicating. Mr. Declue could hear the guides yelling at him from the corridor, but he just swung the door shut as he was drawn in by the beauty of the place. There was one thing that struck hi more then the sunlight and more then the smell, that was the people. As far as he could see, thousands of the most beautiful people Danny had ever seen. All six feet tall and perfect mussel tone, their skin was shade of creamy brown in-between white and Asian. They where all running and splashing frolicking in this beautiful paradise he had discovered. Danny Declue looked quite out of place with his balding hair and bespectacled eyes. As the door swung closed every single person (well what ever they where) became dead silent and all eyes look in his direction. the ones closes to him formed a ring around him and pick him up over their heads. They walked so gracefully that Danny didn't care what was happening to him, he just enjoyed the floating sensation he got from their gentle hands lifting him in the light breeze. As he was being carried tears started pouring out of Danny's eyes, and a bubble of realization burst in his brain. This place wasn't for him, it never was and never would be. Danny's eyes cried them selves dry he knew he was nothing more then a bug to these people, a parasite in paradise. He was a coachroach that had scuttled in to a lavish home, he had to be exterminated. ", "----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nDate: Wens, 23 April 2014 11:40:36 \nFrom: Taylor Evans <Taylor_Evans@un.org>\nSarah, \nI have only been gone a couple of days but I am already missing home. I have completed the first of the inspections and am soon off to Atlantis. Hopefully the hotels have decent food, not sure but i might be the first inspector to check out the country, I am not even sure if they have much of a tourism market or what will be available in the way of hotels... but I will be sure to grab you something. Anyways I just wanted to drop you a line before I go to sleep, talk to you tomorrow. \n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nDate: Sun, 27 April 2014 06:21:47 \nFrom: Taylor Evans <Taylor_Evans@un.org>\nSarah,\nWell we have touched down on the only runway in Atlantis, and to be honest it looks like they may have just built it. I was unable to call you back... because as it turns out Atlantis does not have cell service and for some reason the satellite connection is so unstable that only emails can be sent. If the communication infrastructure of this country is any indication then I doubt their technology sector even warrants an inspection. Should be a short trip. Love you. \n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nDate: Mon, 28 April 2014 09:45:16 \nFrom: Taylor Evans <Taylor_Evans@un.org>\nSarah, \nWow, Atlantis is really not what I expected. The people seem to have a more relaxed approach to life and the system of government seems almost non existent... and weirder than anything it seems where ever I go, what ever I order some local or possibly the government has already paid my tab, it has gotten to the point where I am only purchasing meals and only modest ones at that. Since it seems impossible for me to pay for anything I do not want the agency to think there was any sort of impropriety. \n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nDate: Tues, 29 April 2014 08:23:32 \nFrom: Taylor Evans <TaylorEvans007@yaho.com>\nSarah, \nI figured out why I was unable to pay for my meals, there is no money in Atlantis... I don't even know how to describe it, today I went to the market and was able to literally \"buy\" an entire new wardrobe for nothing... I don't know how they do it. I am not sure if this would be against the rules but it was too much to pass up and I doubt anyone will know... Got you some amazing jewelry for you as well. I should be home by the 6th, will email you again soon. \n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nDate: Tues, 29 April 2014 08:34:05 \nFrom: Taylor Evans <TaylorEvans007@yaho.com>\nJames,\nHit me back when you get this, I think I may have found something amazing. We are going to be RICH!\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nDate: Fri, 02 May 2014 08:23:32 \nFrom: Taylor Evans <TaylorEvans007@yaho.com>\nSarah, \nI have discovered something about this place... what ever the test of life was or is the vast majority of us have failed... and there is no question we would destroy the only people who were able to figure it out. The only people to be able to see past the need for self gratification and the simple greed that over takes our lives. I am sorry I have not emailed you in the last couple of days... I have been lost. I still am. Atlantis seems to have an unlimited supply of energy, food, and resources and has created a society that rather than compete with it self has focused on understanding the greater things. The how and why to so many questions, and they appear to be content what ever the answer. I don't understand the culture exactly, but I see that the people are happy, fulfilled, and free. We came to inspect for weapons, but these people have never had the thought or need to even create them. This place is amazing, but it is clear I do not belong. Many times while being here I have thought of how I could profit from such a naive society. The gems alone... wow, they are like nothing I have ever seen. \n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nDate: Sun, 04 May 2014 10:41:19 \nFrom: Taylor Evans <TaylorEvans007@yaho.com>\nSarah,\nI think I understand now. I have returned the items I have purchased, including the jewelry I got you, I am sorry and will get you something nice as soon as I get home... but I think I understand now. I know what I need to do. I miss you so much. \n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nDate: Sun, 04 May 2014 10:45:56 \nFrom: Taylor Evans <Taylor_Evans@un.org>\nSarah, \nLove you babe... see you soon. We will be shipping out tomorrow. The report is ready and all complete. Turns out there was very little to see in Atlantis and it was more or less a waste. See you soon. \n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nUNITED NATIONS WEAPONS INSPECTORS REPORT TO SECURITY COUNCIL\nReport on the Alleged Acquisition of Atomic Weapons by the Country ATLANTIS\n\nDuring inspection and up until the inspectors, myself included, were withdrawn from Atlantis on 5 May 2014 our team of United Nations inspectors had found no evidence of ATOMIC weapons. Furthermore, a small team of native Atlantis citizens have been trained to complete on-site inspections, using authorized devices transmitted test results directly to our off-site inspectors, myself included. With all of the data provided thus far it is my belief that Atlantis needs no further attention. \n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n", "After four hours of driving over rough hilly terrain, I finally see the Mirakistan border. A ten-foot high concrete wall conceals this tiny land-locked country. I stop the Humvee at the guard station. A young sandy-blonde soldier asks for my identification. I hand over my US passport, my UN credentials, and the UN documents authorizing me to conduct a search for atomic weapons. He carefully reads over the documents and then thoroughly inspects my passport and UN credentials. Satisfied, he smiles at me and tells me they've been expecting me. He raises the heavy iron gate, and I drive into the mysterious isolated country.\n\nOnce inside the border walls, another soldier, slightly older and more blonde, directs me to King Dragoslav's residence. As I drive through the streets of Mirakisan, children stop in their play to wave at me and flash big toothy grins. A group of women in brightly colored dresses and shawls, on their way to the market, smile shyly at me. I am amazed at how happy everyone looks.\n\nAs I approach King Dragoslav's residence, I have a moment of slight panic, as I think I have taken a wrong turn. Before me is a modest two-story cottage-style house. I am about to turn around, when King Dragoslav opens the front door.\n\n\"Come in! Come in!\" he calls warmly from the front porch.\n\nI park the Humvee and walk up the red brick path to the house. Like his residence, King Dragoslav, is also not what I expected. He is a short round man with wire-rimmed glasses and a neatly-trimmed mustache. In his attire of khakis, brown loafers, and a cardigan, he looks more like a college professor than a dictator. He shakes my hand firmly and leads me into the parlor.\n\nThe walls of the parlor are a calming robin's egg blue. The furniture in the parlor is simple and tasteful. A comfortable-looking white sofa faces the stone fireplace. Glass vases filled with seashells and sand line the mantle. Two tan leather armchairs flank either side of the sofa. Nautical items hang from all four walls - an anchor, an oar, a wooden ship's wheel, an old life preserver. A teapot and a set of teacups are laid out on the driftwood coffee table.\n\n\"It must seem strange to you that I have so many nautical items when I am the ruler of a land-locked nation.\" King Dragoslav remarked, seemingly to have read my mind. \"I discovered a love of sailing when I was a young man studying at Cambridge. After my father passed and I became king, I no longer had time for such leisure activities. So I brought a bit of the sea here to Mirakistan. Where are my manners? Please sit and have some tea.\"\n\nI sit down on one of the armchairs. King Dragoslav sits down on the end of the sofa nearest me. He pours two cups of fragrant jasmine tea, and hands me the first cup. I thank him, and we sip our tea. \n\nHe puts down his teacup and speaks again. \"When I built the border wall, rumors began circulating about me. The leaders of neighboring nations accused me of hiding WMDs and committing human rights violations. But I didn't build the wall to imprison my people. I built it to protect them. Outside, there is war and greed and murder. Inside of the walls, we are able to live a simpler, more old-fashioned way of life. Neighbors work together and help one another with the harvest. Children can play outside safely.\" \n\nHe picks up his teacup and takes a few more sips. He puts the teacup back down and continues, \"There are no atomic weapons in Mirakistan. You are free to search. We have nothing to hide. We don't even have the internet or television. We have books and newspapers. We don't have crime here. If a man is hungry and has nothing to eat, he does not need to steal in Mirakistan. His neighbors will gladly share their food.\" ", "He squints his eyes and holds a hand above his head, shielding the ridiculously bright sun until it comes into focus: paradise. It can only be described as such, thick vegetation in a circular rim surrounding a gleaming city stretching up to the heavens. Spires twisted up out of the concrete miles below - rectangles, spirals, hell, even one that looked like a square mushroom, lit up with life.\n\nBlinking once, twice, then shaking his head violently he looked back at his 'captors' who were smiling. Apparently they loved the reaction of someone viewing their fair city. His vision was caught down at their hands, where the held nothing more than batons, winking at the top with a blue LED glow. Where were their rifles? They had them trained on him while they escorted him inside this.. this.. whatever it was.\n\n\"Wh.. what?\" he uttered, to which the escorts laughed and stepped forward, clapping him on the back and guiding him down to a cable car at the cliff's edge, nudging him in, following.\n\nThe car TOOK OFF, at speeds that would tear any other cable apart, but the inspector felt no inertia. Instinctively, he planted his feet and bent his knees in front of him, leaning forward as the escorts laughed yet again, shaking their heads. He tilted his head at them, then took a tentative step forward once he realized there was no need for such a position.\n\nThe vegetation, a jungle, really, glided by with a blur of green, yellow, splotches of red flowers, as they descended into the center of the city. Snapping out of it, he finally turned to his escorts and sputtered out. \"H.. how? How? How is this possible? Where am I?\"\n\nStill grinning, the man in front of the inspector held out his baton in one hand, thumbing a button as it shimmered and took the form of a Kalashnikov rifle, an AK-47, common in poorer countries. He moved his thumb and it resolved back into the baton. If they could do that on a small scale.. he looked to the center of the city at what seemed to be a replica of the same baton, but ten stories tall.\n\nHis partner laughed, as did he, stepping forward to address the inspector, while they descended into the beautiful city. A thick accent reached his ears, though it was perfect English. \"My friend, you have a lot to learn about Ethiopia, no?\"" ]	6
Serial killer leaves only a plain white business card with the handwritten message: "Copy me."	[WP] "Copy me."	[ "Man becomes a serial killer who chooses his targets at random all over the world. The victims are killed quickly and efficiently regardless of the time of day when found alone and away from surveillance. No attempt is made to kidnap or torture and the victim is left where the murder happened. All that is left behind is a note that reads, \"Copy me.\"\n\nAfter several murders take place in cities around the world, the killer disappears and is never caught." ]	1
	[WP] Using this following quote as your inspiration, tug my heart strings: "When all hope is gone there is still..."	[ "Earl, my Venus Fly trap, basked luxuriously in the sunlight, digesting his latest catch. Outside birds scream obscenities at one another over mating grounds as a car drives passed my parents' house. Physically speaking, the room hasn't changed much since I left it almost five years ago. The same movie and band posters hang on the walls surrounding my bed, desk, bookcase, dresser and hamper - all in the same places I left them. But somehow this wasn't my room anymore. Even though the only thing that had changed was my bed finally being made (thanks Mom!), my room was in New York in my apartment...with her. \n\nA month, or as close to a month as I could tell - my ability to tell time had diminished some since the break up, had passed. Strangely, the hardest part was not the immediate after effects of having your proposal refused. It was, in fact, the small moments; late at night before sleep, on the drive to work, on the toilet...any spare minute to myself really. Eventually, I decided to get away and see mom and dad for the weekend. When I got out of the car alone, they didn't even ask. Mom just ran up and gave me a big hug. She has no idea what she's giving up she whispered in my ear after planting a wet kiss on my cheek. Dad gave me a pat on the back and offered me some scotch. \n\nWhile it was nice to see them and eat home cooked meals again, I also needed some time alone. Sunday mornings were for farmer's market and I had politely declined blaming my intolerance of scotch. Mom gave me the wink I hadn't seen since I was thirteen and needed to go to the bathroom every five minutes. Dad said at least there was something he was still better at than me. And like that they were gone. \n\nIt hit me as soon as I heard the front door close. I laid my face in my pillow and began to sob uncontrollably. All I could remember was the way she stroked my face with her hand right before she kissed me and how she would go full nerd when talking about chemical compounds and reactions, despite my bewildered looks. The way she shimmied into her jeans and how she always knew what was really bothering me. The love of my life. No more. \n\nA small knock at my door interrupts my pity party. Mom is standing right outside the doorway, barely visible through the crack between frame and door. \n\n\"Not really a good time, ma.\" I stammer out.\n\n\"I know. Your father's in the car, so I'll be quick.\" She smiles, opens the door and sits down next to me. \"You're hurting, I know. I'm sorry. You thought she was the one and she wasn't. You're disappointed. Not just in her, but, somehow, with yourself. You think you could have been better or done something differently. But you loved that girl and you treated her well and you have nothing to blame yourself for. It might feel like the end, but remember when all hope is gone there is still love.\"\n\n\"W...what?\" After everything that had happened, everything I had gone through, she was giving me this Hallmark card cliche bullshit? \n\n\"You're a smart, handsome, witty, thoughtful, caring man. Don't forget that, don't stop loving yourself because someone else can't see how much you're worth. And if you ever forget, remember that I love you so very much.\"\n\nWith that she gave me a big hug, smiled, told me there were cinnamon rolls downstairs when I was hungry, they'd be back in a couple of hours, and the trash needed to be taken out. By the time they returned I wasn't better, but I was on the way.\n\nSterile and white are the only things I can think while walking into the room. It's not my mom in that bed, it can't be. Not the mom who grew award winning sunflowers or made amazing strawberry angel food cake or picked me up from soccer despite working full time or helped me learn fractions or was at every big moment in my life. \n\nThe cancer had come from almost nowhere. She went from chasing my son through our yard to bedridden in just over two months. Ashley had begged me to go see her. I'd expect our son and you to come see me, she said sternly. Of course, she was right. She was always right.\n\nAs I approach the bed and sit down in the vacant chair next to it, she stirs awake.\n\n\"Hi mom.\"\n\n\"The doctors...\" A small bout of coughing stops her mid sentence, \"...the doctors say they've exhausted all their options.\"\n\nShe smiles at me and it really is her. It is the same smile she gave me before telling me about freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Taking her hand, I look her in the eyes and smile back.\n\n\"When all hope is gone there is still love and I love you so very much, mom.\"", "She was one of the first women to graduate from Brown University with a Bachelor of Science. Her husband was a championship boxer. He had his first heart attack on the Atlantic Ocean, on a ship bound for the Rome Summer Olympics. He came in fourth. He had his last heart-attack in 1987, ten years after the birth of their second child. \n\nShe never remarried. While her husband was alive, they were the only double-income family in their neighbourhood. She was alone, but far from destitute. \n\nShe finished raising their two children. She did a bang-up job. She saved enough for their daughter to go to medical school. There was money for the son's education as well, but he never wanted for it. He became an entrepreneur instead.\n\nShe cried at her childrens' weddings. She moved to a single-room condominium. A nice place for people getting on in age. For fifteen years she cooked her own meals, cleaned her own plates, tidied her apartment herself. She swam in the pool. She was healthy. She had never had a drop of wine or a single puff of smoke. She did pilates. She entertained her grandchildren. \n\nOn her ninetieth birthday she catered her own party. Twenty people standing about, family and extended family, eating her finger foods, thumbing through the records she'd left out on a table. Some documents were older than the Declaration of Independence. \n\nShe isn't as sharp as she used to be. Surrounded by her children and her children's children, she watches them talk about the stock market, the NSA, Google. She has nothing to add. \n\nThe first time she had a computer in her house, she worried it might explode. \n\nI rushed to open a door for her, when I was nine and she was seventy-eight. She looked at me sternly and said, \"I'm perfectly capable of opening doors for myself, darling.\"\n\nShe took a tumble last week. She broke her hip. She called me to offer furniture. She has applied for a waiting list at a nursing home. They will call her when there's an opening. \n\n\"Well, they cook your lunch and your dinner for you,\" she said, \"and they clean up the plates after your done. I've never been in a- a- a group living situation before. I hear the nurses are very attentive.\"\n\n\"Hey grandma, all your meals cooked for you, new friends, is there a pool, too? I think you mentioned a pool. Sounds like the first year of university to me!\"\n\nI have never heard her laugh for so long. When all hope is gone there are still lame, silly jokes.", "When I was 5 years old I believed in Santa.\n\n\nWhen I was 10 years old I believed In God.\n\n\nWhen I was 20 years old I believed my friends.\n\n\nWhen I was 26 years old I believed in love.\n\n\nWhen I was 43 years old I believed in myself.\n\n\nWhen I was 55 years old I believed in my children.\n\n\nNow I'm 74 years old and I only believe in death." ]	3
	[WP] Humans invade an alien planet, from the aliens point of view.	[ "The first thing we saw were the fires.\n\nMy crechemates and I lived far from the center of White Cliff Coastal City. We lived on an orchard, supplying the higher Tiers and making a meagre income. We had transport, yes, and we managed to curry enough favour with the Hierarchy to get a road grown out to us. But we've never claimed to be a lucky group.\n\nThat changed, though, on the Deathday. Just before daybreak, the ground shook. I thought it was just the Planet shuddering at another injustice, but it happened again. And again. I climbed out of my bed and stared out the window, only to see the sky lit up with a dozen running stars. But rather than flicker and disappear, these stars headed straight for the ground. And when they disappeared beyond the foliage, the ground shook shortly after. \n\nHad the sky declared war on the Planet once more? The ancient tales, the ones told on the walls of the caves and fissures of Home Continent, they described a time when the ground and the sky fought. When the ground shook, and the forests burned, and the sun and moons fled in fear. Their battle left the air caked in grey death, and only the most fleet-of-foot could escape their wrath. \n\nIt was days before we realized it wasn't a battle of the gods. More fires landed, this time without the ground shaking. One passed over the silo. A flyer, not of bone and fabric, but made entirely of metal. It glided on spears of fire, soaring to the east and disappearing out of sight. We gathered that night and agreed to send a few of our number, the fastest, to see where the flyer was going.\n\nDays went by without word. Then, finally, Crechemate Rusher-Feel came speeding down the road. They said they spotted a handclutch of metal figures, moving with purpose, headed towards the orchard. His descriptions were horrifying. They ambled unnaturally on two lowerlimbs, upperlimbs swinging pendulously at their sides. They had no sightpod, nor did they radiate any colour. The only familiar aspect of the beings were their weapons, which resembled, though only vaguely, a thick, metallic flintlock. They were spotted, and the metal monsters fired their weapons into the foliage where they were hiding. Fighter-Weave and Weaver-Eat were cut down, tiny holes stitched across their torsos and limbs. Rusher-Feel barely escaped. \n\nMy mind raced. We had no weapons, beyond Gardener-Think's hunting musket. A few longknives, but they'd only be used for weeds. These beings were clearly intelligent, and they'd more than likely been responsible for the fires that had destroyed the city. I steeled myself for the inevitable. Sometimes, one must sacrifice themselves for the good of the creche. I told my mates to flee to the hills, walked outside into the eastern orchard, and waited.\n\nI saw them less than an hour later. They stalked towards me, the strange nodules on top of their torsos seemingly locked in my direction. They closed the distance, stopping but 20 branchlengths from where I stood. I wanted to ask so many questions, but I settled on the most pressing. \n\n\"Why do you want to kill us all?\" \n\nThere was some discussion between them, in voices I could barely hear. They conversed in low, halting tones, like they couldn't figure out what to say first. Though they apparently got the message, as the lead creature reached into a pouch on his side and pulled out a black brick. It touched the brick with its unsettling grasping appendages, then pointed the brick at me. Then it spoke again.\n\n\"Because you are here.\" The brick said. \n\nThe bullets, or whatever they were, cut through my carapace like it wasn't even there. I collapsed. The figures marched past, but I did not see where they went after that.", "‘So what about the Elsarth Union? They are mired in a land war they cannot win and we sit here, indolent, hoping for a reprieve. The extra-terrestrials have shown us mercy… does that give us reason to abandon our own kind to their will? For they have made it clear they will impose it without mercy. Let’s not begin on the economic ramifications that will arise with the loss of our greatest trading partner, and nearly twenty percent of the global economy.’\n\nAltare sat down, pleased that his rhetoric seemed to be affecting the Senate, evidenced by the smug smile on his face. His party cried in his defence as the wall of outrage from the Illgrissan hierarchy reached the Senate floor from their seats up in their booths. His only intellectual rival, Yuo, sat in his chair with his arms folder and a frustrated tension in his face. The Illgrissan raised a hand in retort, gesturing vehemently at the Bordain delegation behind Altare. \n\n‘The hominids will not threaten our nation, not so long as we are party to their financial demands. We can use our trade as leverage over their militarism, and to avert economic disaster from the loss of the Elsarth wealth. We can outlast their expansionism, or we can fight and die and leave them our entirety- our history, our lands, our seas. You threaten to extinguish our species’ culture forever!’\n\nThe Ormon Senate was quiet in its calculations. Altare flared his nose bared the front row of his canines a little at Yuo, who was quick to reply in this fashion. Fifteen thousand kilometres South-West, the humans were branching out across the Great Deserts of the land of the Elsarth Union. Admiral Hastings surveyed the horizon- no sign of a Fast-Strike Gaergian team.\n\n‘The Gaergian have retreated, sir.’ An officer’s voice calmly entered his mind and left with civility. Hastings surveyed the landscape from a kilometre up in the atmosphere, and it was true- the Gaergian forces were pulling back to their fortified desert cities. \n\n‘Shall we continue, sir?’ the officer asked. Hastings returned to the sand and counted the grains his landing had kicked up in the stiff air. 7,304,555. Less than half of what would have been debris in the Earth’s atmosphere. The gravity here would have crippled homo sapiens sapiens. There were a few on his ship, carefully placed just out of range of the Gaergian’s moon and satellite defences. \n\n‘The war will press on,’ Hastings confirmed. On the horizon great white fields of energy expanded to the size of a skyscraper and moved on the Gaergian cities. \n\n‘Remember: no bloodshed. If even one Gaergian dies, we’ll have to bug out, and this planet’s too important. We can’t afford to fail with the UPA breathing down our backs, or half our budget gets thrown at R&D.’\n\n‘Of course, sir. Their technology’s nowhere near strong enough to penetrate our shielding. We’ll just walk into their cities and shut down their governments, for as long as the UPA needs to set up annexation discussion. Like we always do. Maybe if this was a hundred years ago and we were still using wheels.’\n\nIt must look bad to them, Hastings thought. ‘Join the United Planetary Alliance or be relegated to your home planet’. But the humans had done pretty well, he thought, uniting a galaxy under a peaceful, progressivist, pro-freedom ruling body. Especially after everything they had gone through after their first extra-terrestrial encounter. Things were looking up.\n\nIn his palace garden, Royst took one last look at the stars and the suns. \n\n‘This is it. The culmination of our entire culture, reduced to ashes.’\n\nHis wife, Jorgenaisa, cried into his neck. \n\n‘What I would have given for another day. Just one more day.’\n\n‘The apes will do what apes are wont to do. We’ll have no way to fight against our enslavement. At least we can go out with pride. And God Damn the homo sapiens ascensius species and see them burn amongst the cosmos.’\n\nHastings sensed the energy spike a nanosecond before the tens of thousands of warheads on the continent detonated. He appeared in a white mist aboard the ship and turned to see his soldiers, all thirty of them, shaking their heads. A few were crying, and many watched the planet’s surface from afar as the nuclear cloud was birthed and the mother died in the process.\n\n‘How many lost?’ Hastings said, his voice like crushed gravel in his quiet despair.\n\n‘Forty-six billion,’ a corporal said. The silence rang out in the room. ‘Never seen anything like it.’\n\nHastings’ stomach lurched as the General Secretary of the United States emerged in a golden mist aboard his ship.\n" ]	2
	[WP] Tell me about the time you went on a blind date with a mythological figure	[ "Katherine, the cold, cold bitch that she was, mushed my goddamned heart to a pulpy, hardly-beating mess. That was six months ago. Six months without my dog or the couch that I had thrown out at her request. I fucking loved that couch. \n\nI was drinking, heavily I'll admit, enough anyway to stave off feelings of despondency and uselessness, and it wasn't working. My self-esteem was as low as my vegetable intake and I was putting on weight, fast. I hadn't shaved since she had stolen my Playstation and MY ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE YOU HEARTLESS BITCH, and at least four of my five pairs of trousers had buffalo-wing-shaped stains above the knees. \n\nIt was grim. Les, my boss, tried to console me. \n\n\"Look, these things happen. There's a lot of fish out there, brother. You just gotta get back on that horse and ride it into a pond, where these fish will be swimming about, and once you get that wagon on the horse, both of which you'll be on or in, you'll see that everything works out for the best and happens for a reason.\" I had no idea what he was talking about because he's a fucking retard.\n\nRegardless of his inability to separate clichés, Les apparently knew women. Three at least, because he set me up on a series of blind dates.\n\nTiffany was a librarian. Jacqueline ambiguously called herself an \"online show-person.\" Both were flops, and I even split the check. \n\nThe third date, however, was with a Goddess of the Greek Pantheon. \n\nYeah, yeah, I hear you atheists squeal. GODS AREN'T REAL. Bullshit. I had a shitty date with one of them. \n\nHer name was Agdistis. Ag-what? Yeah, I couldn't pronounce it either. I attempted brevity and called her Ag, then Aggy, then Disty, all of which she rejected. I eventually settled for ignoring her name entirely.\n\nAn ancient council building downtown had been converted into a collection of boho clothing stores and mediocre cafes, and clumped in the middle, adorned with deer heads and beaded lampshades, was this hipster craphole, a bar called Derry's. \n\nShe was pretty, tall, kinda manish but whatever I hadn't been laid in a while, and so far up her own ass she resembled a limbed donut. \n\nHer dad was important, she didn't mind telling me straight away. Like, immediately.\n\n\"My dad is Zeus.\" What the fuck do you say to that?\n\n\"Cool, that's cool. My dad was a carpenter. So we have that in common. Both our dad's were builders. Yours of the entire known universe and everything in it, mine of affordable condos.\"\n\nShe grimaced. \"Sure.\"\n\nBad date imminent. Small talk failing. Check slowly splitting. \n\nShe had a kid. \"Oh that's nice, you have a kid. What's his name?\"\n\n\"Attis.\"\n\n\"Atty!\"\n\n\"Attis.\"\n\n\"Ok.\"\n\nShe didn't want to talk about him anymore, and I later found out on Wikipedia that it was because SHE WAS HAVING AN INCESTUOUS RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM. \n\nAlso: chick was a dude. Fuck you Les. \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Looking down at my watch I scolded myself for being roped into yet another ridiculous blind date. It was a quarter after six and I was almost done with my second martini, if this fucker didn’t get here by the next one I would not be responsible for the obscenities that would surely find their way off my tongue.\n\nI glanced around the room giving disapproving stares to anyone who looked a second too long at me and the empty seat across from me. Three women were loudly demanding shots of tequila as it was one of their girl’s 30th birthdays and I looked on slightly amused as this long blond haired stranger bought them a round.\n\nHe nodded to them as they laughed and continued to grind on each other and sing obnoxiously ‘ITS GOING DOWNN I’M YELLING TIMBERRRRR WHOOOAAAA OHHH OHHH WHOOAAHOHOHOH!!’\n\nI cringed inwardly remembering the brash abandon with which I used to celebrate birthdays but now only served to remind me that the older and more successful I became the smaller the pool of eligible bachelors. I was staring at the bottom of my glass and considering departure when a shadow passed over the table and I looked up at the handsome blonde stranger who bestows tequila shots. He offered a sun kissed arm and hand to me that I shook a little too firmly and indicated he take a seat. \n\n‘Sorry I’m late, I wanted to get a few drinks in before, you know how these things are’ \n\nI raised my perfect eyebrows in unison at him. \n\n‘Yeah, I do know…I’m pretty glad I got buttered up as well’ \n\nI looked up and away as I tossed back the rest of my drink and all the fucks I did not give for this cocky motherfucker who does he even think he is?\n\n‘I'm Thor’\n\nI couldn’t help it I laughed out loud and failed at covering it with a cough. He glanced up from his menu with a questioning look. \n\n‘And you are?’\n\n‘Mila Kunis’\n\nWe appraised each other unashamedly and I squared my shoulders accentuating my dark sculpted breasts and slim waist wrapped tightly in a little black lycra number. Black was his color option as well and I appreciated how well we complimented each other’s forms. He folded his arms tightly across his chest and declared nothing on the menu looked as delicious as I did. I realized that this date wasn’t going anywhere except to a bedroom and I was perfectly ok with that… under one condition. \n\nI leaned in mischievously and noticed him sharply inhale as a dark lock fell over my cheek and onto my breast. I looked towards the bar and the three sexy blondes who were still singing and gyrating,\n\n‘What about them?’\n\nHe followed my gaze and we both lingered on their tight asses, our minds flashing forward to us all naked in bed touching and exploring each other with our tongues...\n\n‘To go?’ \n\nI stood up and started walking towards the bar as he downed the last golden drops of his mead and followed.\n\n", "Well, I was expecting it to be more... Awkward, you know? I mean, he's a lot older than I am, and he's got this reputation.\n\n...\n\nYeah, like, you hear stuff. Like he's got a bunch of baby mamas, and his ex gets really crazy jealous. Plus, I don't think they ever actually got divorced. Just separated. But that doesn't bother me so much, I'm modern. Wedding certificate and divorce, they're just paper. It's what's in your heart that counts.\n\n...\n\nBut it turns out he's a really good conversationalist. He's got these amazing stories. And he took me to this restaurant, the food was insane! I don't even know how to describe it, it was so good. Really high class place, super discriminating. There wasn't even a sign. You just come up to the door and they buzz you in if they know you. And then he ordered for me. I usually don't go for that kind of thing. Like I said, I'm modern. But they didn't even have a menu and I don't think the waitress spoke much English either. So he ordered and the food was just beyond delicious. And the wine. OMG!\n\n...\n\nWhile we were waiting for the food it was kind of awkward. I mean usually that's when you do the whole where are you from and what's your family like. Break the ice and all. But.... His family is kinda messed up and it's been pretty public. So I really didn't want to bring that stuff up. Way too early! And everyone knows where he's from. So I was kinda all, trying to find funny things to say about the appetizer and hoping he'd like, step up to the plate. And he did!\n\nSo it turns out he's got no idea what aquaculture is. I thought I was going to bore him, but he was fascinated. He also said that recirculating systems sound like something his son would be really interested in. Then he looked kind of sad. It turns out his ex and his son really didn't get along, so he missed a lot of years with him because he'd moved out. I can totally sympathize, when my parents split up I barely saw my mom for years. It wasn't till I was an adult that I could go visit her when I wanted to. Honestly his ex sounds like a really shallow person. \n\n...\n\nWell yeah, I'm sure you're right that she had problems of her own, but seriously, she kicked her son out of the house because he was disabled! That's so mean. \n\n...\n\nOh, ok. So yeah, ice totally broken, and we started to really click. He's just got such charisma, you know? And I was really starting to notice how amazingly good looking he is. Plus he was being so nice to me! So when he asked if I wanted to go out to a club after dinner I said yes. \n\nThe club was great, and he's like, an amazing dancer. I mean, you wouldn't expect it from the way he dresses. But seriously! He's got moves! We danced till I felt like I was going to fall down. Talk about your cardio! \n\n...\n\nYeah, that's where someone took those pictures that showed up on that blog. I have no idea who it was, I mean, everyone has a camera in their phone, right? Such an unflattering angle. \n\n...\n\nHaha no no. We just danced. I mean, I'm not that modern. Ew.\n\n...\n\nThat totally wasn't what it looked like. I just spilled my drink and he was helping.\n\n...\n\nThat is none of your business! OMG!\n\n...\n\nWhat? No!\n\n...\n\nMoo! Moo! Mooooooooo!", "So listen: last night, I went on. The. Worst. Blind date. I mean, you think you had some bad ones? \"Oh, he only talked about himself! He chewed with his mouth open! He kept calling me 'm'lady' and tipping his stupid hat!\" Nope, I don't wanna hear it. That's baby stuff compared with the clusterfuck I had to sit through. \n\nBut first, some background. I'd been going out with Johnny Moretti for like, what, 8 months? It went alright at first, but then he starts saying he wants me to cook like his Ma, and clean like his Ma, and all this bullshit. And I'm just like, the fuck? You know? He was a nice guy, though. Not to mention he was built like Mark Wahlberg from back in the day. So I'm thinking of breaking it off anyway, but before I do, I find out he's been cheating on my with some fiftysomething broad he met on Craigslist. Right?\n\nSo, long story short, I swore off guys for all of, like, a week. But then my sister, Sharise, says she wants to hook me up with some guy, and I'm like \"No, it's to soon,\" and she's like \"Honey, you're not getting any younger. Plus, Donna from work says she heard he's well endowed, if you know what I mean,\" and I'm like, \"Alright, what the hell?\"\n\nSo anyway, fast forward a week. I get to the restaurant, and it's some seafood joint. Not a huge fan, but whatever. I grab a table for two, and I'm sitting around nursing a cosmo for, like, a full half hour. Typical. Finally, the guy shows up. OK, not what I was expecting. First of all, he's an older guy. Not a big deal, but Sharise knows I don't usually go for them. But also, his body was just sort of...I don't know, outta proportion. He had one of those long, skinny necks, but he was chubby from there down. His eyes were squinty, and his skin? Terrible. But, I think, I'll probably get a free meal out of this, and after a few drinks, who knows?\n\nHe sits down, and I'm suddenly downwind of this awful smell. It's like my Uncle Vinnie's fish market on a hot day. When was the last time this guy showered? I'm starting to regret this more and more, but I figure he must at least have a decent personality. \n\nThen he opens his mouth. He's got some sort of weird European accent going on, so I could barely understand half of what he said. What I did get was that he was some kind of famous swimmer in his home country. I asked him if he was in the Olympics, like that Phelps guy, and you'd have thought I called his mom a whore. He starts getting all shitty about how thousands, no, millions of people would kill to meet him, and I was lucky to even be looking at him right now, let alone having dinner. \n\nWe hadn't even gotten through our appetizers, but I was just like, fuck it, I'm done. I tell him, \"I'm sure that shit flies with your 'fans,' but I ain't dealing with it. I figure my chances of getting him to pay for me just flew out the window, so I lay out the cash for my half. \n\nAll of a sudden, he gives me this embarrassed, sheepish look. I ask him what his problem is, and he says he left his wallet at home, and all he has is some change on him. Great. I sigh and ask him how much he needs, and he says \"about tree fiddy.\"\n\nIt was about that time I realized my blind date was an 8-story-tall crustacean from the Paleolithic Era. Goddamn Loch Ness monster.\n " ]	4
A newlywed couple moves into a large 10 acre farm with a red barn 200 yards down the driveway. Inside the barn are 7 dorm style rooms with a communal kitchen and bathrooms. The barn is chaos with 14 adolescent boys running the place. They are charged with taking care of the property and producing a herd of goats every year for sale. If the goat sale goes well and the couple makes money, they allow one orphan to move into the house and become part of the family. If the goats are not healthy or weigh enough or are lost etc., they kill one of the orphans. The orphans must decide which of them are going to move into the house, or whom is going to be culled from the herd.	[WP] Couple raises group of orphans in a barn, working with goats. Every year the orphans must vote one of their own to move into the house and join the family.	[ "John, red-haired and freckled, is one of the older boys, sixteen and growing. He ain't got a lot of meat on him, and he's short for his age, but he's as slippery as a fish, with a smile like the sweet curve of a sickle. He butts heads a lot with the oldest of the boys in the barn, Thomas. What Thomas says usually goes because he's bigger and more experienced than the other, more younger boys. He is nineteen and handsome, dark haired and blue-eyed with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He's good with the goats, dedicated and intuitive, but even with his experience they have had bad years. \n\nJohn never gives up the chance to pick a fight with anybody, especially Thomas, but he more often than not also has Thomas' back. When one of the younger boys asks him why he always attacks and defends Thomas, John just shrugs. \"'T's good to keep him humble.\" He doesn't really mean that, though, because culling the boys do the same thing. It's good to keep him fighting, John supposes in the bad years, 'cause they need Thomas to see them through again. \n\nThe goats this year have been especially good because of Thomas, with only one lost in the winter months, an old nanny unable to produce anymore milk. Three goats have rounded bellies, and the pastures promise to be full and sweet this summer. By the time market comes, the goats will be healthy and strong, and that means one of them will be going to the house.\n\n\"Who's Thomas gonna pick, John?\" asks a blond boy, Billy, who is good at milking the goats and not much else. \n\n\"How should I know?\" John scoffs. \n\n\" 'Cause you're Thomas' best friend,\" Sam, a young boy of ten, says. He's new and a little in love with Thomas. \n\n\"Just ask him yerself. Ain't like he only talks to me,\" John replies, exasperated. \n\n\"He's at the house right now,\" Sam says, and one of older boys, Red, whistles. \n\n\"I bet he and the Missus are having some private words, if y'know what I mean,\" David leers. \n\n\"He's probably just telling the one's at the house how things are,\" Billy says, face flushed and voice scandalized. \"They're the ones who go ta market with the goats.\" \n\n\"Wonder when they're gonna come by the barn again. It'd be real nice to see Red again,\" David says with an obscene roll of his tongue. \n\nBilly cover Sam's ears. He opens his mouth, but John beats him to the reply. \n\n\"Wait until ya fill in your breeches before you start going after Red like that, or else he'll be mighty disappointed to see that worm between your legs,\" John shoots just as Thomas walks through the barn doors. \n\n\"What the hell are you all doing, standing with your mouths open like you're catching flies? Quit slacking off to daydream, market ain't coming yet!\" Thomas roars, and the boys rush into motion. \"What we you fools doin?\" he asks John when the red-head just gives him a side-eyed look. \n\n\"How much the Missus fancies you,\" John says. \n\nThomas frowns. \"I would never--\" \n\n\"I know,\" John dismisses with a wave of his hand. \"Doesn't stop her, though.\" He watches Thomas for a moment before the older boy motions to him. John falls in step with him and they leave the barn to change shifts on overseeing the goats in the pastures. The air is light between them, and John asks casually, \"Who're you gonna pick this year for the house?\" \n\nThomas' easy expression darkens. \"There ain't no guarantee that this year will be good.\" \n\n\"You worked hard this year,\" John says, and he can see hear the goats in the distance and boy's laughter. \"This year will be good.\" \n\n\"I'm tired,\" Thomas sighs after a moment. \"I'm tired of having to choose.\" \n\n\"It's a hard thing,\" John nods, \"and that's why we have you do it, 'cause you're the best of us. You coulda have gone to the house years ago, but ya stayed instead.\" He pauses for a moment as the thought strikes him. \"You wanna take care of us, and, Hell, you try to do us right...We'll be okay as long as you're with us.\" \n\nThomas doesn't reply, and for a moment John worries that the air has become suddenly uncomfortable. He is about to speak through the awkward when Thomas says, \"I'm thinkin' about ending it.\" \n\nJohn makes an inquisitive sound because he can't quiet shake the awkward yet. \n\n\"I'm thinkin' we either run or kill 'em.\" \n\n\"Ain't got no place to run to,\" John says after a beat. \"As for kill 'em...I could do it.\" \n\nThomas' eyes turn sharp. \"I ain't gonna let you do it.\" \n\n\"Why?\" \n\n\" 'Cause it ain't your place to.\" \n\n\"Could be,\" John shoots. \"It ain't like I've not done anything less for you in the past.\" \n\nThomas looks away. \"I know.\"\n\n\"Are you for it, then?\" John probes. He's been wondering if Thomas would do this someday as the Mister and Missus began to demand more and more. \n\n\"I'll do what I have to do,\" he says, still not meeting John's gaze. \n\n\"Good,\" John says. \"We always know you do.\" \n\n\n\n", "\"So who is going?\" The speaker scratched as the few hairs dappling his chin as he peered among the other boys.\n\n\"We got rules Jimmy,\" a kid with a crooked nose said from the back. \"No campaignin'. Let the votes do the talking.\" \n\n\"I ain't running no campaign Rickets. Just sayin' that we need to get on with the getting on. The Housies will be down the way by morning.\" Jimmy nodded toward the pen nestled in the corner of the barn where a small group of goats munched contentedly. \"It's about time they turned to coin.\"\n\nThe rest of the boys were silent for a moment, each one turning over the possibilities. Good goats meant the house was in play, but getting Chosen was getting Chosen. The barn might not be luxury, but the future was something you could count on. Not much future for the Chosen if Market Day went sour. Last year's vote was a bit too fresh for anyone to take the subject lightly. Gut rot hit a week from the picking and that was that. \n\nNothing to be done about the past though, and there was more than a sporting chance this year.\n\nJimmy clapped his hands, snapping the others from their reverie. \"No use dawdlin', someone is getting named and they're gonna have to roll the dice. Bet they'll be happy for it when they got a real bed and three square.\"\n\nThe other boys shuffled about and glanced among themselves. On occasion, the looks held more meaning than the standard nerves, the savvier players confirming their allies and spying out their rivals. The slightest nod could be telling in the moments before a vote. Campaigning might be against the rules, but everyone had their strategies. A year made for a lot of plans.\n\nOf course, alliances tended to hold up a bit better when the crop was looking lean. No one wanted to be on the wrong end of Market Day, so it was easiest to group up and pick off the sacrificial lamb. It got a lot trickier when the House was on the line. The stakes were just too high to let a good Market Day pass you by. \n\nAnd that was the way of things. Everyone gets Chosen sooner or later, but the smart ones figured out how to choose. \n\n\n\n" ]	2
	[WP] The last man on Earth sat in a room, there was a lock on the door...	[ "Silence.\n\nTim, that's TIM, not Timmy, Timothy, Tiny Tim or any other fucking cliche' he had been called all his life - just TIM, sat in complete silence. He sat in a room that felt more like a storage container with beams of light shining through the top of the sides. His head, his temples ached making him lean from side to side. It caused enough pain so he wouldn't puke, but not enough so he could focus on how he ended up where he was or where exactly he was. \n\nThose questions didn't matter right now. Despite his headache a foreign feeling enveloped Tim. He felt calm, at ease, almost peaceful, as he was surrounded by completely nothing. For as far back as he could remember Tim couldn't stand living in the city. He couldn't stand living in the suburbs, he couldn't stand living out in the sticks - as they call it. \"Too much noise\" he would say. It wasn't just the cars or the people, but the hum coming from the streetlights, the chirping, creaking, screeching sounds from countless unknown insects and bugs, dogs barking, cats meowing, life - was too loud for Tim. \n\nNow Tim could finally live. He tried to make sense of it all, what happened, where everyone was, but he stopped himself. He realized that he could finally stretch every inch of his body, breathe in as much as his lungs could hold and finally let it all out in one relaxing gust while his body fell limp. Relaxed at the notion that everyone, and everything has vanished. He sat, almost stress-free, soaking in the absence of sound, the absence of noise, the obscenity that was Carl, his neighbor, his co-workers, Frank and Steve, his sister Joan, his step-mother, his boss, his landlady, his mailman, especially that fucking mailman…Allen..the guy would make sure every card was bent, every package as damaged or more often than not, ripped open in some way.….Allen…just one of those people, and every one of them, those obscene shapes of so-called persons offended him to his very core. Tim thought \"if there was a God, he is one sick bastard \"blessing my life\" with these wonderful creatures. He smiled as their faces slowly drifted from his mind. He started to laugh as their voices all blended together. He would never see them again, and he was perfectly fine with that.\n\nAs his headache started to ease and his vision was sharpening Tim decided to finally get a feel for where he was. He couldn't tell if the holes in his room where from rocks, bullets or some other object from the outside trying to make it's way in. It didn't matter, not even a scratch on him. The walls held up and kept him safe. He laughed at that. Of all people to survive a catastrophe it would be him. Some lowly peon in the grand scheme of life who just wished for a life full of privacy was able to conjure up some great genie in the sky who was gracious enough to say \"sure Tim\". \n\nTime stood up and walked over to the opposite end of the trailer. He bent down and the door wouldn't budge. He turned around and walked back to where he was sitting. Solid wall. Confused he spun around looking for a way out. He finally walked back to the opposite wall and found the latch to the sliding door. Locked. \n\n\"Locked? What the fuck\". He started to laugh. \n\n\"How the hell is this locked? Did I lock it? Why…no….why would I lock myself in here?\". \n\nHis head still pounded from side to side. Two drums banging back and forth. \n\n\"Did I lock myself in here?\"\n\nHis head pounded left to right. Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes no, yes no, no, yes, no, yes. It continued as confusion sunk in. \n\n\"What did happen? Was I running from something? someone? How the hell did I end up here?\".\n\nThe questions kept coming, the answers, like the sweat falling from his brow, seemed impossible to grasp. Falling and sliding between his fingers. \n\nHe sat with his back to the door, put his head down and sighed. A few minutes went by when something startled him. His head shot up. He turned darting from left to right. He stood up and tried to peek out through one of the holes. He stood up on his tip toes waiting. He couldn't hear anything. After a few minutes he started to slide back down when he heard something else. He shot up again, lost his balance, fell, and hit his head on the wall. Cursing himself he punched the floor. Everything felt like aluminum. He was sure he was in a trailer or some type of storage unit. Where or how he couldn't place it. He didn't know anyone who owned one or where a storage facility was even at. \n\nDetermined he stood up and tried the lock. Nothing. He grabbed the latch and pulled, and pulled and kept pulling. Over and over. The entire trailer felt hotter, as if the floor was on fire. His chest itched and he took off his shirt to cool off. He ripped it in two, wrapped it around his hands and tried the latch again. No luck. He screamed, he yelled, he turned towards the holes and yelled help. He stopped for a moment waiting for a reply and then yelled some more. He sat down gasping for air. His lungs, once relaxed with the notion that they would never have to share air with anyone see again, were now whining and his breathing was getting faster with each breath. He stood up, faced one of the holes and shouted some more. \n\n\"Carl! Joanie!\" Nothing. \"Carrrrl!!! Joaaan! Caarl!!\" He waited. Silence. No reply. His voice was becoming hoarse. He didn't care.\n\n\"Carlll!!\"\n\n\"Steve!!!!\"\n\n\"Frank!!!\"\n\nHe still wasn't sure where he was, but he kept screaming the names. the only places he was ever at where work, home and his sister's to see her and his elderly step-mother. He didn't go anywhere else, he didn't know anyone else. He sat down, back against the door and tried catching his breath. The beams of light where getting dimmer. His hope and sense of peace felt the same. The very people he wanted to be rid of where now the only ones that could help him out of the trailer he was trapped in. He looked down at the lock and turned it over. He noticed some writing on it and tried to position it near a beam of light. He bent down and could barely make out the writing…\n\n\"Property…..of…..Allen…..Mcmarris\" Allen. That fucking mailman. How in the hell did he get Allen's lock? Was this Allen's trailer? Did Allen lock him in there? He laughed at that idea. Tim was all alone, how in the hell would Allen be in the trailer with him.\n\n\"Oh Allen\" said Tim.\n\nThe last person he ever wanted to see was now the one person who could help him, hell save him, just by unlocking the door. As the tears slide down his face Tim cursed himself. The one thing he thought he wanted, he couldn't be more wrong about. \n\n\"All that noise.\" He thought. \"Those damn buzzing sounds, that humming, screeching, howling, all of it…kept me attached to the safety of belonging in society. Furious and uncomfortable, but safe. Now, now I wish it was all back. All those people, all of the useless conversations, the worthless waves and other gestures that he took for granted. All of it, was now gone.\"\n\nTim finally got what he wished for, he just never considered the price he would have to pay to finally get what he wanted. ", "\"Great,\" he thought. \"Just my luck. Everyone on Earth is dead, and I'm stuck in this stupid room. I could be vandalizing historic monuments, or drinking myself into oblivion, or figuring out how to grow new babies from test tubes like those people in Brave New World with the decanters. But no. I'm here. In this room. And I can't get out.\"\n\nAt first, he'd been optimistic. He'd strode directly to the door and started to yank it open. But when the door didn't give, he grew worried. He pulled and pushed and kicked and jimmied and clawed and beat. But the door didn't budge. There was a lock on it. A lock he could not break.\n\nSo now...he was alone, in this room. The last man on earth. And he was going to die of dehydration, because there was a lock on this stupid door.\n\nWhen he'd first arrived in the room, he thought the most terrifying thing that could happen was to hear a knock on that door. But now...with his death looming every closer...now a mysterious knock would be the sweetest music his ears could ever hear.\n\nAlas...no knock ever came. " ]	2
Is he regretful, or does he look back with fond memories?	[WP] An old man returns to his childhood farm for one last time.	[ "“This is where your grandparents are buried,” I say to the little boy holding my hand. I turn around, into the sun, and point at a field covered in gravestones. “When I was about your age, my grandfather—your great great grandfather—used to wake me up at four in the morning and take me out there to bail hay and feed the livestock with him.” I look in the opposite direction. “There used to be a barn over there.” I point. “That’s where he kept the bulls. I remember one morning one of the bulls got out. He pushed me into an empty stall, latched the gate, and then wrestled with it until he showed it who was in control again.” We walk down the paved driveway that used to be gravel, past where the gas pump used to be, where the feeding trough used to sit, past the woods that weren’t there anymore, the fields that used to be brimming with corn and cows. We walk further, past the funeral office where my great-grandmother’s house used to sit. I still remember that creepy basement. I remember when she still lived there and I would go visit her and she always had cookies baked because she knew I was coming. I remember the smell of my grandparent’s house just before supper, when the whole family and the field-hands would sit at the table, pray, and then eat. I remember my grandfather always scratching his back on the door frame before making the worst smelling fart humanly possible and collapsing into his recliner before falling asleep with soap operas on.\n\nI don’t say anything to the boy for a while. Tears start to well up in my eyes. I remember right after my grandfather decided it was time to sell the farm to the undertaker. I remember how much it divided the family; how some of his own brothers and sisters who never even cared to visit refused to talk to him after. I remember him, bound to that goddamned hospital bed. I remember him wasting away. I still look back and wonder what could have been.\n\n“You know, if your great grandparents hadn’t decided to move away from home before I was born, I probably would’ve grown up farming this land.” The boy looks at me. “Good thing that didn’t happen.” I say. –You never would’ve been born, I think to myself. With that, we pack into the motor home and head out of Pennsylvania. –I almost forgot where it was, I think to myself as we cross the border into Ohio, only a few hours from home.\n", "I turned my back to her gravestone and walked through the drizzling rain to the old black Ford truck that has been reliable all these years. I reached for the handle and as I pushed the button to release the door I looked back and let one tear saturate the ground as it disappeared into the cracked dirt. \nI hopped into the red, torn cloth that served as the driver's seat. It wasn't pretty, but she has always been there for me. I turned the key and waited for the engine to turn over, as it always does. I shifted into drive and as I rolled away I looked in the mirror with a cross hanging from it to gain one last view of where I let my best friend in the world slumber forever. \nSince I hadn't ventured out this far from my house since I left for college I decided to continue on the highway, skip the turn to the airport, and see how the old acreage was holding up over the past, wow, 58 years. Time seems to slip through your hands like water, the more you hold on the faster it disappears. \nI drove the 8.3 miles away from the graveyard and veered right onto the gravel road that held so many of my memories. I got stuck during a rainstorm with my first love and we had to walk through the rocks and mud to mama's house over a mile away. It was ice cold but she wasn't the least bit shocked. These fond memories always bring a smile to my face, even after all these years I remember the feeling of holding her hand with nail polish painted on so carefully. \nI made my way past where I got stuck all those years ago and I gained sight of the red barn on top of the hill. Everything down to the white cattle fence remained the same, even though a layer of paint is probably in order. \nI cruised up the hill and made my final turn into the drive and became instantly astounded by the sight! Cars, there were rows and rows of cars in front of the barn! Surely some of my family would make their way up the road to visit the old barn, especially on this day of mourning, but my family is not this large. \nI parked the car and went to the old, red barn and saw a sign over the entrance where we once had a rope swing to launch ourselves into piles of hay. My brother, John, and I would spend the afternoons flirting with death as we swung through the air over dangerous pieces of farm equipment. I still have the scar on my forearm from landing on a misplaced shovel. \nI looked at the sign and although my vision has become blurry with time I could clearly make out the sign: Woody's Boot Barn. They never told me they let the farm go. I'll never know if it was for financial issues or if it was simply to move to a more manageable estate. The events of today ensured that I will never know the reason for them to sell my beloved childhood escape from reality. \nI reached for the door and made my way through the entrance where so much of my childhood lied. I stepped on the wood floor, which they thankfully didn't replace, and kicked dust up into the air. I looked up and I was surrounded by as many boots as there were cars in the front lawn. \nI wish I could have helped my parents out while I had the chance, but I am glad somebody was able to offer them a solution to their problems. I made my way to the rows with my boot size, 11.5, and took them to the back of the row. \nI tried them on and it was a perfect fit. I looked over at the mirror on the back wall and noticed the boots made me look handsome and feel younger. My gaze shifted upwards and I saw a plaque with a picture of my parents in front of the barn so many years ago. She was holding a baby in her arms, that must have been my oldest sister Sue. The plaque read: \"To our dearest friends and original owners of this brilliant farm. We thank you for all you have done for our community. You will always be remembered here at Woody's Boot Barn.\" \nI couldn't help but smile at the kindness of this plaque. I walked to the cash register, paid for my boots, climbed into my reliable old farm truck, and left with that final memory of the farm that will always mean the world to me.", "Bill hasn't been to the family farm since Dad died, its been over 20 years since he walked these tried acres. He sees Dad's old Farmall from the open door of the barn, its more rust than red at this point. He thinks back to the summer when he was home after his divorce with Sandra, his dad asked him to give the tractor a proper coat of paint, but he never did. Dad always said \"A hard days work keeps the troubles away and allows you a good nights-a-sleep\". He didn't realize then, that was solid advice. And it would have kept his mind off his failed marriage, but all he could think of was Sandra. Bill couldn't tell that both his mother and father were trying to lift the vial that covered his eye when it came to her, but that's always been. \n\nSandra was a hard to please lady that came from the town next door, Brimfield. Brimfield was a uppity and better to-do community than the poor farming town of Monson. Bill fell head over heels for Sandra the moment he saw her there at the county fair, she was wearing that yellow dotted dress that he will never forget, even after what she did to him. Bill started to work down at the granite quarry on Margaret Street soon after the two of them started to go steady. He would work before school and on the weekends so he would have the money to take Sandra to all the shops and restaurants she wanted to go to in all of Brimfield. But once Bill took her too all the places to visit in Brimfield, she wanted him to take her all they way to Stafford on the weekends. Bill remembers asking his father the first time to use his f250 for a trip to Stafford to take Sandra. His father said \"What on God's green earth would you want to go down there for?\". Bill sheepishly replied \"Well Sandra wants to see an even bigger downtown then Brimfield...\". His father huffed and mumbled \"Downtown\" under his breath, after a small pause, he told Bill \"Okay William, just this once you know what that old truck means to me\". With a huge smile across his face he said \"Thanks Dad\".\n\nBill released a huge sigh as he sat in the cold familiar metal seat of the Farmall and glanced at that same blue and white f250 his father kept and loved all those years. Staring from the dark of barn out through the broken door to the fields, Bill wondered to himself \"How did I let this happen? How did I let the fields turn to hay?\".\n\nBill knew his mother was alone at the farm after his father passed away. He offered to have her come live with him in Newton, where him and Sandra where living at the time, but she just said \"The city ain't no place for me\". Bill and Sandra had a reconciliation for a few years after their divorce, and he bought a house in Newton to try and impress her in hopes they would re-marry. As soon as Bill asked Sandra to stay with him for good again, she packed her bags and left for her boyfriend's penthouse in the Back-bay. Bill was so broken at this point he turned to the bottle rather then turning back to the land he knew and loved so much.\n\nNow back from the hardware store, which is still run by the Palmer Family, Bill dips his brush in a can of Rust-Oleum 2165 or as he knew it Farmall Red. ", "The truck rattled along the road, leaving a hazy cloud a quarter mile long in its wake. The man in the passenger seat glances in my direction.\n\n“It gets me every time Dad. Whenever I see the farm again it reminds me of Mom. If you hadn’t asked me to come back I could have gone the rest of my life never seeing it and been happy for it. I moved on with my life Dad, you should have too.” He choked back a tear. “You know she didn’t love you at the end. She said it was for love, and then walked away with him. If that’s what love is I never want to feel it”\n\nI moaned back in reply. I came plodding back here for love, but not love of a woman. The echoing vastness of the skies, and slow crawling wind over the amber seas of crops planted in the early season reminded me an easy life, one I’d long since forgotten. As the truck made the final corner, I saw once more the silver shack settled into the hillside, surrounded by equipment so old no one remembered what it was made for. Just passed the shack laid an emerald lake, with its distant shore covered in bright-eyed tourists, strangers to its ancient secrets, hoping, nay believing that in a single day they could uncover the mysteries that I had unearthed as a child. As the truck approached the silver shed, engines moaning from exhaustion, a man with uncombed hair and grubby clothes, several sizes too small for his gut, crawled out from beneath one of the oldest tractors in sight, wiping grease off of his hands by means of a small rag which was badly in need of a wash. I almost mouth angrily to my son to slow down, least he kills us all, but at the last second the brakes screech in tune with the wind and we slide to a stop. He steps out of the truck and with a loud grumble to the older man starts up a conversation.\n\n“Jeff? Is that you? It feels like yesterday that we talked last but I know it’s been years” spouts the man with the Rag.\n\n“We talked less than a week ago on the phone” he mumbles. “I said I wanted to come down here with my dad for the day, and you said it would be fine, so long as I said hello when I stopped by.”\n\nToo weak to leave the truck on my own, I sit and wait for Jeff to come help me out, but he doesn’t seem to notice my impatience.\n\n“I guess my memory is starting to go” shouts back the man. The machinery he works on all day does no favors for his hearing either. \n\n“It explains the suit though I guess. Say Jeff, if you need any help with this you just ask. I know I work for your mother now, but it ain’t right what she did to your pop. This has always been in his family, and I suppose that’s why he wanted to come back.”\n\n“Look, I appreciate it, but I think this should just be me and him. It’s always been just me and him, even before she cheated and got the farm in the divorce, it was him that took me fishing and hunting. He taught me how to milk a cow and drive a tractor. It’s his last time coming here, it’s just going to be us two.” With that he walked over to the passenger side, and helped his old man out of the seat. \n\n“Let’s go for a walk Dad, just us two.”\n\nWe walked for hours. For miles and seconds, and metres and days it was just us two and the farm, stretching to eternity for all the time we walked. There was no talking, only the scratch of the shoes on gravel and the ever-present omnipotent wind to keep the conversation flowing. We walked until even those left us, and until it seemed even the sun would leave us as it set over the lake behind. In that moment when the sun was leaving and the wind was gone, and only the grass and the trees remained, he turned to me and wept.\n\n“You were there for me always Dad. When I was born, when I went to school, when I lost my virginity, and when mom left, you always said to me that you will never leave me. When I went off to war, you told me that you would never leave me, and even then I felt your presence with me the whole time and it brought me back to this country safely. When I got married to the love of my life, even though you hated her you told me you’d still always be there when I needed you. Now I need one more thing from you Dad.” He paused for an instant. “I need you to move on now Dad, so that I can move on from you.”\n\nAnd as he scattered my ashes into the wind, the grass and the trees faded away.\n", "My childhood was one of wonder and misery. My parents died in a car crash during a trip to the relatives when I was just four years old. All I remember is grandpa picking me up from daycare and taking me to his house on the farm. He brought me up as his own, taught me everything I know.\n\nWhen the time came, he told me about the day my parents died. About the man that after his wife left him, stepped into his car and drove the wrong way down the highway. He told me how my parents had tried to swerve to another lane and how he had followed them in their maneuver. In the end there was no avoiding him and the two cars burst out in flames. The two emergency ambulances that arrived shortly after were nothing more than an administrative necessity, there was no hope. \n\nEven so, my grandpa was always there for me. He put me into a local school and paid for my education with whatever coin he could make from his farmland. He taught me how to behave, how to respect and how to love. He taught me how to play, how to work and how to think. But one lesson above all would stay with me my whole life.. he taught me how everything that's alive grows from a tiny seed, just like the many seeds out in the orchard. The very seeds that give rise to the most beautiful apple and chestnut trees. The seeds that sprouted the stunning flowers in front of my window. But also the seeds that grow into the spoiled shade of their formed self.\n\nWhen I was eighteen my grandpa died due to a weak heart. His body was buried in the meadow out front, in the very ground he had spent his last days in. I finished my education three years after, and managed to get a job out of town. It was here that I met my now fiancé, with whom I would spend the rest of my adult life. Together we bought a quaint house on the sea-side and raised three children.\n\nIt was a rainy summer afternoon when I decided to return to what once was my home. By now, my time was drawing nigh and the memories of my grandfather were more vivid than I had ever experienced.\nUpon stepping out of the car I felt the rain trickle down my face and saw the sun sparkle over the now deserted farm shack.\n\nWhen I reached the grave of my grandfather I thought of all the lessons he had taught me. All the unwavering love he had given me, and as I looked down I saw a single gorgeous violet flower had grown at the foot of the grave. And as the rain stopped and the sun gently caressed my face, I fell to my knees and cried." ]	5
You are unknowingly one last drink away from dying of alcohol poisoning......but before you take your last drink a stranger walks up to you to try to convince you not to take the last drink without being able to tell you that one more drink would kill you.	[WP] You are unknowingly one last drink away from dying of alcohol poisoning...	[ "I pulled a ten out of my pocket as the bartender gave me another. It occurred to me his face seemed a bit fuzzy. I guess I had a few more that I thought. I reached down and picked up the glass, putting it to my lips-\n\t\n“It’s your shot.” I turned as Tony spoke those words, placing the glass back on the bar and picking up the pool cue. I walked over to the table, using the cue for more support than I should have to. As I bent over, I realized that it was hard for my eyes to focus enough for the shot, and I missed badly.\n\t\n“Wow, even you don’t suck that much Greg,” Tony said with a chuckle, though there seemed to be a look of concern in his eyes, “Listen, I know it’s been tough since you lost Lucy, are you sure you don’t want to go somewhere else? Maybe get some food and water in you and get you to bed?”\n\t\n“No,” I slurred, walking back to the bar. Well I guess you could call it walking. Tony looked at me as he shot, missing himself. I considered taking a sip of my fresh drink, but figured that it could wait until after this shot. I walked over to the table, and realized I wasn’t sure if I was high ball or low ball. I decided to shoot the eight ball then.\n\t\n“Well that’s a loss. You know you still had balls of the table right?” Tony started to look even more concerned.\n\t\nIt’s not a big deal, I’ll win the next one, “Iz not a deal big. Win next.” I grabbed my drink and went to down it before I started another game. It slipped out of my hands and was accompanied by the sound of breaking glass.\n\t\n“Ok, Johnny that’s enough for him,” I heard Tony say as I slipped off into blackness.\n", "\"Is this seat taken?,\" she says. Monday morning most aren't.\n\n\"NOPE.\" A student got lost and ended up on a bar stool. Not the first time that has happened. She looked familiar; her perfume was barely there.\n\n\"Vodka tonic please.\" The barkeep clunked down a perfectly clear cocktail. I distracted myself with a cigarette.\n\n\"Those will kill you.\"\n\nMy vision's gone narrow; my words are slurred. I call for another drink to deal with this philanthropist dredging through silt.\n\nHer eyes fixed and still heavy breaths says, \"I know you. I remember you. I've remembered all of it.\"\n\nThe barkeep clunks down two whiskeys. She says,\n\n\"Now we drink.\"", "It was the worst of days; it was the best of days. You've been a drunken most of your life. Ever since you found that sweet honey of your fathers stash you've been hooked. It started a lifetime ago. He used to beat you for making his life hell. You were just a child, innocent and still growing. Your mom left after he beat her within an inch of her life. You cradled her head as she bleed from her lips and forehead. She asked you to get that bottle from the fridge and give it to her. You saw her take a long gasping drink. She exhales with emotion but says the words that haunted you for the rest of your life. \n\n*\"...Takes the pain away...”\n\nYou pondered on those words for years before taking your first drink. You lost your first fight in school and you fully understand your father’s repercussions about fighting and losing. He wasn't a loser and you won't be either! You drank that iced drink. You almost gagged as you let it sit in your mouth swirling it around with your tongue. You swallowed it. That was the beginning of the end.\n\nYou're now ex-wife of 10 years had enough of your antics. Your children never see you, or call, or e-mail. There are days you come home to expect them there, but they are gone. They have been gone for years. You decide again and again that they left you. They are the losers not you. You go to your favorite watering hole. It was down the street around 2 blocks to the left of your house. Deanna's. She was the owner having it passed down through generations. Looking back, you probably put her daughter through school with your drinking. As you walk in covered in rain dripping from head to toe, you see bud sitting at the counter tilting his double walled boilermaker drink. He turns to see you starting there and pats the seat next to him at the bar. He speaks.\n\nBud: How the hell are ya lefty?* \nLefty: No point in complaining. Won't get me anywhere. \nBud: Deanna dear, the usual for my left handed friend here. \nLefty: Dean, I'm going to get something a little stronger. It's a celebration today. \nBud: Celebration? Of what? \nLefty: It's the celebration of my life today. Today is the last day on this earth for me. \n\nYou pull out your snub nosed revolver and place it on the bar. It was dirty around the handle and a few hairs are noticeable around the barrel's mouth.\n\nBud: You're going to kill yourself today huh? Anyway I can talk you out of it? \nLefty: No sir. I've been drinking my whole life, or what's left of it and I'm done. Done with it all. Tonight is my last night of drinking and of living. \nBud: I can't let you do that. Let’s get sober together. Dean, water and coffee for us both. You are witness to our first sober minutes. \n\nBud tried to take the gun from you, but you struggled to keep it from him. You've both seen numerous reruns of TV shows that have two people struggle for a gun and it goes off killing the wrong person. Neither of you want this to happen so the struggle is meager at best.\n\nBud: Give me that gun you stupid fool. You aren't going to leave me holding your bag, plus your caved in skull. \nLefty: I'm done I told you! \n\nYou stand up placing the gun to your left temple. You close your eyes as you start to flash back to when you were a child holding the near lifeless body of your mother. Your eyes fill with tears and you get hear a BANG! And you collapse to the ground. \n\nIt's hazy and your ear hurts. Is this what it is to be dead? You can't feel your neck or face. You look but only see blood pouring from your hair. What in the hell happened?!. You grab for your head and it's still there. No hole, no hurt. Only a cut and blood. Lots of blood. You look and see bud fighting off another man at the bar. He's looking to stab Bud with something. A bottle. A broken bottle. Probably the same one he used on you to knock you out. You stumble to the bar stools, climbing your way up. Your right arm now resting on the slick and sticky bar top is covered in blood. You must have been out for a long time. \n\nYou look down and see that boilermaker resting there. Sweat running down to form a small puddle on the bar. You reach for the drink and begin to toss it back. \n\nLefty: This one is for you BUD! \nStranger: NO! Don't! You have no idea what you've done! \n\nYou start to stumble more. That was a powerful drink. Worse than anything you've had before. You start to collapse into the waiting arms of your stranger. Bud is hurt and scared, but not moving. The stranger jams his fingers into your throat making you gag and cough but it does not work. Blackness over comes you. No wife. No Children. No Light. Only black. You can feel in front of you a coldness. The stranger comes up to you through the blackness. He tells you that you will suffer a self-inflicted injury that will cost you your life this day. You don't believe him. You can't believe him. Your father taught you better. If you had someone protecting over you like this, then why did your mother leave, or your wife leave? You open your eyes and look around you. You stand up and walk around the corner. A woman runs up to you apologizing for hitting you with her car. She didn't see you in the rain. You shove her off as you walk covered in rain, into Deanna's...\n" ]	3
	[WP] The monologue of a 1920s Noire Detective that lost his keys.	[ "The bronze sun glimmered through the smoke-stained blinds of my office. Another day, stomped out. Night fell, diluting what was left of the light. Why did the wise guys always get you where it hurt the most? \n\nI stood over a cardboard box full of mementos and keepsakes. I say \"full\", but there was room to spare. Guess I was never one to stop and smell the flowers. I lit a cigarette and took a long, soothing drag. When I finished my cigarette, I smoked another one. \n\nMy partner stepped into my office. \n\n\"What are you still doin' here Kruger?\" \n\nI didn't answer him at first, didn't even acknowledge him. \n\n\"Look Krug, I know this can't be easy, but you can't stay here. The cap'n was serious.\" \n\n\"I'm serious too, Lenny.\" \n\n\"Look Krug, this won't be permanent. You go home, decompress, maybe see your little girl in Brooklyn, yeah?\" \n\n\"Lenny?\"\n\n\"Yeah champ?\"\n\n\"Don't fucking talk about my daughter.\"\n\n\"Jesus Christ, you know what your problem is Kruger?\" \n\n\"I have a feeling you're about to tell me.\"\n\n\"You're smart, sure, but you don't got any sense.\" \n\nI almost laughed in his face. He left. Since he had brought her up, my thoughts strayed to my daughter. Ever since her mother moved off the island, I saw my daughter less and less. I wondered what she was doing. Without realizing it, I scratched at an old scar on my shoulder--some punk popped me good at busted sting nine years ago. I was still green then; it was OK to fuck up. It was necessary to fuck up. But now, I had no excuses. No fall guy. No out. I was busted again. \n\nLater, as I sat on the subway, I tried to think of a lie to tell my ex-wife so she wouldn't tell my little girl that I was out of a job for losing my keys. ", "My God, there's so much darkness. The inside of my garage smells like scotch and thoughts of things that could have been. A diploma. A woman. An actual relationship with my father. Maybe one day, the wonders of the world that sit on my bucket list will stop rushing past me, and I'll be a free man. Until that time, I need to find my keys because my door's locked. How much pain must I endure, tonight? Thanks to prohibition, a man can't even have access to his keys, nowadays. I don't ask for much. I understand that happiness is overrated, but, for comfort's sake, I deserve one little, anodyne light in this dark Hell of a garage. Jack greases the wheels enough to get me through these cold, cold nights, and there's nothing like a good smoke to keep the pistons moving. If I'm lucky, the moribund, insatiably creaky machine that is my soul will explode into life, so guide me, lighter. Allow me to gaze upon my key ring so that I may find the right one and open the rotten, goddamn door.", "The brute standing over me slammed his fist against the door as I fumbled the pockets of my overcoat again. The chump stood like someone made Michaelangelo's David out of too much chuck steak, and he was about as handsome as that sounds too.\n\n\"Open, now!\" He bellows it into my face with breath full of whiskey and tobacco. Whiskey smells cheap - another breath and I could probably pick out the brand. Hope I don't get that chance.\n\n\"Just gimme a second, I gotta think!\" I threw my hands up to cool him down. He reacted slowly; this was a good sign. Probably some two-nickle thug hired by the mayor to shake my stuff up a little, make a point. He'd been drinking already.\n\nMayor probably has someone carrying round his keys for him all the time. Probably get their own car to follow him and just open up any door he wants in on. Guys like me, we're not too concerned about keys most of the time. Truth is, before William Taft's dumb twin showed up, I was more worried about opening up a good-looking blonde on the next barstool to mine. From the other side of the room she'd looked like Marion Davies. Sure, up close she was just a good-looking blonde who'd look like Marion Davies if you stood the other side of a smoky room, but you took what you could get. \n\nAnother difference between her and Marion Davies was that she talked, and it was interesting. A man wasn't going to learn anything from what she said, sure, but maybe he would have from what she was talking about doing later. Then the Michelin tyre made flesh turns up and tells me I've got someone to meet outside, and lets not make it messy in public.\n\nI guess that's the four kind of people; the rich man who gets to sell out his dirty work. The poor man, who takes the coin and doesn't care what for. Third is me, the schmuck in the middle, getting squeezed by one from above and the other from underneath. The last type is broads, if you're wondering, and them I'll never understand.\n\nA lot of people say principles are expensive, and that I should have left this case alone the second the mayor started breathing down my neck. Still, a lot of people said the world was flat, and every day I see a \"round the world\" poster for a cruise. I guess that means some people lie, and some people are dumb.\n\nBut I've never been good at anything but cop work, and when the boys in blue got rid of me I asked too many questions to be anyone's muscle. So here I was, trapped metaphorically between the just and the unjust, and trapped more literally between the locked door of my office and a lard-based alternative to that robot from Metropolis.\n\nIn all this thinking about the world, I've forgotten to come up with a good plan. But violence has always been easier.\n\nStill furiously patting for my keys, I felt jangling on the inside of my left breast pocket. My hand closed around something metal. I balled it up into my fist and jabbed straight at my heavy friend's face, opening up a bright red line from his chin to his hairline. Blood spurted out immediately.\n\n\"Found 'em,\" I grinned, and raised my fists.", "I was on the sidewalk heading to my door when I noticed my keys were not in my pocket. Possible I'd just left them on the desk during a long day at the office? Unlikely to say the least. This had to be a set up, but who and why?\n\nThere was the new client he'd seen today Miss Smith. Most likely an alias, she had a body made for sin and enough money to buy off twenty gumshoes like me. Why didn't I see it before?\n\nThen I remembered after she paid me to investigate her brother for stealing from the family business she gave me fifty clams and when I put the money in my pocket my hand brushed against my keys. \n\nIt wasn't her, could it have been sweet old Ruth? I'd been working her case for two weeks, nice old lady, likely paranoid but maybe her downstairs neighbor really was up to no good, I hadn't figured it out either way, but I was ready to get to the bottom of it.\n\nI felt my blood run cold when I recalled my last client of the day, a fast talking scam artist named Walter. He was giving me some nonsense about a big bootlegging operation being run by some two bit hoodlums in Chicago and that maybe I should look into it either to try to bring them down or to get my slice of the pie.\n\nMoney in illegal beer, what a stupid thought. This guy had have taken me for a sucker and when I didn't bite he must have grabbed my keys and followed me to my house. He did bump into me on his way out the door, that had to be when it happened.\n\nI pulled out a cigarette and sparked it up, I wanted to appear cool even if I could feel Walter's eyes upon me. I slowly reached into my coat towards my M 1911. Old Melissa had served me well in the war and now I just might need her against Walter. \n\nJust as I was about to call for Walter to show himself I felt something against my chest. It was my keys in my shirt pocket. How did they get there? I never put anything in my shirt pocket. Did Walter move them into my shirt after he took them out of my pants? I couldn't be sure but I took no chances as I glanced around the neighborhood looking for possible threats.\n\nI spotted none and removed my keys from my shirt and entered my house. I was going to have to stay on my guard, it's clear Walter is playing the long game and just waiting for his moment to strike. \n\n\n\n" ]	4
Time period is up to you	[WP] A man is stuck in a time period that isn't his own	[ "Ray stumbled out of the brush and squinted into the sky. The professor had said to be specific in his wording. Now he was cold, and blinded by light. \n\nSeriously, it wouldn't have hurt to turn down the brightness a bit could it? He tried to open them more, but the pain was agonizing and he quickly shut them tight again. \"Damn.\"\n\nSeconds he had been here, and already he was miserable. The air was a bit hard to breathe too. THAT was going to be an issue. Ray loved, as much as anyone, to start his day with a brisk, twelve-minute walk, followed by a soak in the tub. How was he supposed to do that if he felt like he was going to pass out after every breath?\n\nThis professor sure had some explaining to do. Actually, Ray wasn't even really sure if he was a professor. Truth be told he had not bothered to check his credentials, but saw the man's tweed coat with the leather patches on the elbows and thought to himself: good enough.\n\nFinally, as if in answer to his wincey protests, the light dimmed slightly. Ray's eyes adjusted, and he realized he was in a supermarket. The brush he had climbed from was in fact a vegetable island in the center of an isle. He looked around. \n\nHe was standing next to the refrigerated section.\n\nWell that explains the chill. He thought, and rubbed his sockets before perusing the rest of the area. The lights had dimmed with the closing of the store, and just the flood lamps remained. A banner along the back wall splattered the value of 63 cent bread in messy, red paint. \n\nThe tightness in his chest was still painfully present, and was now solid feeling. Oh no. He patted himself down for the source of the issue.\n\nOh no. He moaned internally, a second time.\n\nIn the center of his chest, right where his solar plexus should have been, was a banana. It was an insulting yellow color, and was protruding in such an arrogant manner that Ray wondered if it had been purposeful.\n\n\"How in the hell...?\" He said, and then questioned why he was not dead. Then it hit him.\n\nPlanging\n\nThe professor had said this sometimes happened. When traveling, occasionally, nearby vegetation would get stuck in various orifices as one landed, or worse, make their own, as Ray was realizing with increasing ferocity and alarm. But it wasn't an injury, the flora simply became part of the body, forever.\n\n\"Just great.\" He just greated, hanging his head. \"How am I going to explain this to my new future girlfriend or mistress?\" That was the idea though, to go back to before his life went to shit and start over. A shiny new girlfriend would surely be the cure for what ailed him. Even if what ailed him was cancer (which it was). \n\nSuddenly, a noise. \n\nRay lifted his head slowly in the direction of the sound. \n\nSuddenly, the noise again. It was most definitely the sound of sex. \n\nIntrigued, Ray made his way through the silent isles, peering over produce and box alike, feeling very 007.\n\nAt last he reached the source of the noise. Pants slightly dropped, revealing a bare buttocks. A man thrusting. A woman's legs wrapped around the waist. Two clerks, writhing in the dramatic throws of gettin'-it-on atop the register counter. The woman was holding milk. Awesome. \n\n\"Oh Bruce!\" She called, smashing her hands against the man's cheeks in ecstasy. \n\nAs Ray neared, his heartbeat quickened. The two figures looked awfully familiar.\n\n\"Oh Lisa!\" The man bellowed. \n\nRay's heart stopped. It then fell into his stomach and bounced around against his kidneys for a second. Then it started beating again, harder. Sweat poured from his furrowed brow. Sixty-three cent bread.\n\nHe stared at his hands as they gripped the back of the register he was hiding behind. Slowly, the calendar pasted to the side of the counter came into focus. It said May, 1984, and someone had graciously X'd off the previous days in thick, black permanent marker to reveal that it was May 3rd, 1984. He shook like a tree. Nine months, eleven days before a miserable little brat named Ray would be born to Bruce Albert and Lisa Weicz, two ungrateful teenagers.\n\nRay's horror washed over him in waves. He had unknowingly stumbled on to his own conception. His head spun and he fell backward. The last thing he remembered before he fainted were his words: I want to go back to before my life turned to shit.\n", "\"He's an odd man, that John.\"\n\nFlint chuckled, \"I don't see why you're so curious 'bout him.\"\n\n\"I don't see how you're not,\" I spit, \"ante up!\"\n\nFlint threw in a chip disgusted, \"You know what, Jack, I'm tired of listenin' to you're bullshit. John this! John that! Why don't you just shut it... By the way, I'll raise you five.\" \n\n\"I apologize for being interested in something more than whiskey and women. I'm just sayin' it's a bit queer that he came out of thin air. Old man Arthur says the night he showed up, there was a bright flash and a bang, spooked every goddamn horse in town. Arthur went outside his shop to check it out and he saw a naked man running towards the church.\" \n\n\"That's a load. Old man Arthur is goin' mad!\" Flint scoffed\n\n\"Say whatever you want 'bout him, I believe that man. Just the other day I saw John cursin' at some trinket he had. I never seen it before in my life.\" That seemed to spark Flint's interest a bit.\n\n\"What? the trinket?\" \n\n\"Yes! It made strange noises and glowed bright.\"\n\n\"Shiiiit, you must be goin' batty too!\" He grinned showing his tobacco stained teeth. \"Show 'em.\"\n\n I had nothing. Flint had a full house. \n\n\"Maybe you should pay attention to the game more than your damn superstitions.\" Flint laughed as he raked in all the chips. That was it for me, Flint had run me dry, besides I think it was time to go. The saloon was dead now anyways. \n\n\"I'm outta here.\" I stood up.\n\n\"Whoa, whoa, whoa let's make it more interesting. You can wager that fancy gun you got there.\" He pointed towards the six-shooter I had on my hip. \"I'll wager my Betsy.\"\n\nHmm, sounded pretty ballsy but I did need a new horse.\n\nBANG!\n\nThere was a gunshot outside. Flint and I rushed out the saloon doors. To our surprise there was no sign of anybody. Whoever shot the gun hightailed it out of there like a bat out of hell.\n\n\"Wait a second..\" I spotted a dark spot in the middle of the dusty road. It looked like a body. We rushed over.\n\n\"Poor son of a bitch.\" Flint said hovering over John's dead body. He crouched down and reached into his pocket. \n\n\"Hey! cut that out, you know you don't steal a deadman's belongings.\"\n\n\"Again with your goddamn superstitions.... what's this?\" He pulled out a rectangular object \"You gotta match?\"\n\n\"Yeah, here.\" I handed him a pack.\n\nHe lit it and held it over the object. \"It says something on the back.\" \n\n\"What does it say?\"\n\n\"Hell if I know, I can't read.\"\n\n\"Give it to me.\" I took it out of his hands. \"It says....iPhone.\" " ]	2
	[WP] A man is late to work and takes an unusual approach to get there on time.	[ "10 minutes. \n\nI going to be 10 minutes late.\n\nI get paid by the hour, so it should be alright. I could always work 10 minutes later.\n\nBut shit, 10 minutes. Patricia always get there on time. If I stay 10 minutes later, she stays 10 minutes later. Damn it!\n\nHow to get there faster? Car? Don't have one. Train? The stops take too long. Bus? The detour would take me farther away from my work...I got it.\n\nLater\n\n\"Hey, have you guys seen David?\", asked Darwin\n\n\"No. Why? He's not here yet?\", replied Patricia\n\n\"Really? Wonder why that i-\"\n\nCRASH\n\n\"Hey Guys, I'm here!\"\n\n\"WHAT THE FUCK DAVE!? DID YOU JUST USE A ZIP-LINE TO GET HERE?\", Patricia reacted\n\n\"Yup\"\n\n\"You literally live across the street. Why couldn't you have just walked here?\", Darwin questioned\n\n\"Because I'll be late if I walk\", answered David\n\n\"It's a 10 minute walk from your apartment to get here\"\n\n\"Well, it's a minute of zip-lining, and I'm not late for work. Look, it's eight, exactly on time\"\n\n\"Did you forget? Your watch is 15 minutes late. It's already 8:15.\"\n\n\"...damn it.\"", "Thirteenth of May, 2014, nine fifty in the morning. Jenkins looked at the clock again and made sure he had read it right. The numbers didn't change.\n\nTwenty minutes late. He had called in sick too many times recently to be believed if he did it again. Staying at home wasn't an option.\n\nHe rolled out of bed and headed down to the garage. For the longest time he'd been toying with the idea of building something and today seemed like the ideal chance to make a start.\n\nThe car was the first thing to change. He tore out the windows and kept them. The rest of it was useless to him.\n\nA blender. Part of a drill. He worked through the night, and in the morning, it was finished.\n\nWell. Mostly. The thing didn't work, but then there was no way a time machine could be built in a garage. Jenkins was never one to back down from a challenge so he started adding to it. Remote control. Television arial. A pipe.\n\nEventually his family had him sectioned for his own good. Years went by and Jenkins lost his job.\n\n--\n\n\"Did you hear? An old man came into work today claiming to be Jenkins from the future.\"\n\n\"What did you say?\"\n\n\"Told him I recognised him from those care home adverts. Would you believe Jenkins would hire an actor for that and think he'd get away with it?\"" ]	2
	[WP] A man is the "were" of a different animal.	[ "Old knees creaked as Patrick O’Shea rose to his feet in front of the hearth. A glimmer of the growing flames danced in his eyes. The greyness of his hair now seemed to seep into every aspect of his appearance. Those old tired eyes, that short wiry stubble. Even his skin seemed to have lost the glow of life. Heat began to spill out into the small old house as Paddy shuffled towards the wooden chair in the corner. He remained on his farm against the wishes of his children, none of whom had the slightest interest in maintaining his legacy. The lure of the city had been too much, his modest farm unable to compete with the glamorous, wealthy and shallow lifestyle of the capital. He leaned back gently in the chair, his eyes now fixed on the timber beams above him. His lips moved slightly as he counted out todays numbers on his fingers. His chickens had only produced half of what they usually do these past two weeks, barely enough to pay for their feed. His head slumped down, tears building in his eyes. This would be a tough a winter, perhaps the toughest yet. A large supermarket chain had opened up near the village, and the farmers market had already seen a decrease in numbers.\n\n\nA noise came from outside the kitchen window. The pigs, usually very quiet at night were making a terrible racket. Paddy stood up as quickly as his legs would allow him. His wellies stood by the back door, his coat hanging on a hook at the other side of the room. He bypassed the coat and slipped his feet into the boots. It was a cold night, lit by a blindingly full moon, but this wouldn’t take long. The pigs had already settled down by the time he reached the pen. He wrapped his fingers around metal bar of the gate, supporting his weight as he leaned in for a closer look in the dim light. He counted two sows, three gilts and a single boar. One boar missing. He scanned the pen slowly, his foggy breath catching the moonlight. Then he saw it, in the far corner of the pen. It was bigger than his boar, laying in a heap. The vague shape of a man appeared as his eyes slowly adapted to the light. \n\n\n“H-Hey! Is there someone there?” he said, his voice now trembling from the cold.\n\n\n“I said! Is the-“\n\n\nThe lump moved. Definitely a man. Completely naked, he turned his head towards the dumbfounded farmer. \n\n\n“What are ya doin’ out there!?” he shouted\n\n\nThe man moved slowly, placing both of his hands on the firm muck and arching his back. He seemed unsteady, almost drunk. Paddy had given up his legs to alcohol on more than one occasion, but this man seemed beyond drink. Drugs maybe, but he knew little about that sort of thing. The man walked towards him, his head bowed, his eyes fixed. Paddy released the gate and stumbled backwards.\n\n\n“I’ll be calling officer O’Brien if you don’t clear out of here now! Ya hear me!?”\n\n\nThe man reached the gate, inspecting it with his hands. His breathing was heavy, almost like he was snoring, his actions slow and laborious. Finally he stumbled over the gate and regained what little composure he had to begin with. Paddy reached his door, his hands now trembling, his eyes unable to look away from this strange naked man. He stumbled on the lip under the door, falling backwards and hitting the ground with a paralysing thud. Intense pain shot from his hip to his back as he flailed on the ground. The man was upon him now. In the light of the kitchen he could see him more clearly. Deathly black eyes looked back at his, drool dangling from the man’s mouth. He dropped to his knees, one either side of Paddy’s body. Gurgling sounds came from the man’s throat as he raised his hands. Paddy tried to scream but the sound wouldn’t come. The man dropped his fists onto Paddy’s face, raising them again only to drop them harder, faster. Blood pooled on the floor underneath, the man shrieking as he savaged the old farmer. \n", "I remember meeting him at summer camp when I was 12. We were both fishing fanatics, and I had broken my pole the previous afternoon, so I went down to the water to see if someone had an extra that I could borrow. There was a big group of boys all throwing stones at a turtle in the shallows, but sitting off to the side, on a log that was stuck out over the water, was a small boy who couldn't have been more than 6 or 7 years old. He had two poles stuck in branches at the end of the log, and a third in his hand. His feet were dangling in the water, but he hardly seemed to notice.\n\nI approached the end of the log on the shore, and he turned around as he heard me approach.\n\n\"Hey, where's your pole?\" he asked.\n\n\"I broke it yesterday, my hook got caught on a rock or something,\" I replied, \"mind if I borrow one of yours for the day?\"\n\n\"Okay, sure, you can have this one,\" he said, reaching for a blue one stuck in a branch. \"Just give it back when you're done. I'll be out here all day.\"\n\nI took the pole and quickly hooked a worm. I found a good spot not far from the log, and cast my line. \n\nI remember sitting in the sun for a good part of the day, catching a few small sunfish, and enjoying the breeze. When they called us in for dinner, I reeled in the line and brought the pole back to my new friend. \n\nI walked up the log and handed it back to him, thanked him for letting me use it, and asked, \"You coming in for dinner? They just rang the bell.\"\n\n\"No,\" he replied, \"I think I'll stay out here for awhile longer. If you want to fish some more, you can meet me here tonight. Fish are more active then, and the bigger ones come out to feed then.\"\n\n\"I've never heard that before, but I guess I could give it a try,\" I pondered. \"By the way, what's your name? I'm Nile.\"\n\n\"Noah,\" he declared, and returned to his lines.\n\nI ate dinner, and ran back to my tent for a jacket in case it got cold at night. As I returned to the lake, the moon was just coming up behind the clouds, but I couldn't see it yet. \"Full moon tonight,\" I remembered, chuckling to myself, \"I hope there aren't any werewolves in these woods.\"\n\nAs I approached the log where I had met Noah that morning, I realized that although his poles were all still there, he was nowhere to be seen. I didn't want him to think that they had been stolen, so I figured I may as well just start fishing from the log, as he had previously.\n\nI picked up the blue pole that I had used that morning, and cast it into the water as far as it would go. Noah had told me that bigger fish would be out, and I wanted to catch the biggest one I could. I slowly reeled it in, hoping one of those big suckers would notice it, but by the time I had all the line back on the reel, there wasn't even a nibble.\n\nI cast it out again, and tried again, but to no avail. I got into a nice rhythm, cast, reel, cast, reel, cast, reel, cast, until almost an hour had elapsed. At this point, the wind had started to pick up, and clouds were starting to disappate. I put on my jacket to warm up, and hoped that Noah would be there soon. I could really have used some company.\n\nI sat down in the same spot he had previously, as my legs were starting to ache from balancing on the log, and my foot slipped into the water. As it did so, I realized it was still quite warm from the day's sun, and I let both legs dangle in the water to warm up a bit.\n\nI kept fishing, and finally caught a minnow, albeit by accident, as my hook had snagged its tail as I reeled in my line. \"This will make better bait than a worm,\" I thought, \"especially for the fish I'm trying to catch.\" I hooked it on by the head, and cast my line again. Suddenly, I heard a huge splash from the middle of the lake, and looked up with a jolt. I didn't have a bite yet, but that was one big fish out there. \n\nThe wind continued to pick up, but I cast my line over and over, determined to catch what I assumed to be the biggest fish I'd ever heard. Cast, reel, cast, reel, cast, reel, cast, re- FINALLY, I felt a tug. I yanked the line to set the hook, and started to pull it in. As I fought with this monster fish, I heard footsteps behind me. \n\n\"Noah!\" I yelled, \"Help me pull this sucker in!\"\n\nThe footsteps quickened, and I heard Noah jump up on the log behind me, just as the clouds finally parted to reveal the brightest full moon that I'd ever seen. I kept yanking on the line to land the monster on the other end, and turned my head, just as there was a giant splash beside me. \n\n\"Noah?\" I dropped the line and turned to see him fall (or jump, the last few moments are kind of hazy) into the water. I reached to pull him back, and grabbed him by the arm, but let go in horror when I realized that it wasn't skin that I was grabbing, but scales. A flash of scales beneath the surface made me jump up in fright, but as I turned to run to shore, my foot slipped on the wet bark, and I fell into the water, sinking into the soft mud. I struggled to close my mouth and reach for the surface, but I kept sinking deeper in the mud, my ankles, then knees, and then hips covered in the goo. Another flash of scales, and I felt a searing pain in the back of my neck. I couldn't breath, all I remember is the feeling that I needed to get out, get air, get out of the water as soon as I could. \n\nStretching my arms up, I finally managed to grab a submerged piece of the log, and pull myself to the surface. I took a deep breath of the fresh, night air, took in the bright moon, the log, the shore, the fishing poles just where I left them - and choked. The air was suffocating! I was choking on the air, I couldn't breathe, my gills were drying out, my scales scrabbled on the wet log, finding no purchase, I flopped around like a - well, to be honest, like a fish out of water. \"Wait, my gills?\" I thought, \"My scales?\" \n\nI looked down at my fins, which used to be hands, and at my shimmering scales, and felt along my elongated neck, felt the ridges, and realized, with my last breath, just what I needed to save myself. I rolled back into the water, and felt my second eyelids close over my eyes. For the first time, I could really see underwater. I felt the water flow over my gills, felt my fins grasp the current, felt my tail propel my forward. I looked forward, and saw another large figure ahead. Noah waved, and apologized for biting me. \"I just get so hungry,\" he said, in a strange, songlike voice. \"I can't control it sometimes. Are you hungry?\"\n\nAnd I realized that yes, I was. I was very hungry, even though I had just eaten several hours ago. It was a very different hunger than I was used to. But my curiosity came first, and I asked him, \"What are we? What am I?\"\n\n\"Don't you see?\" he replied, with a grin, showing rows of piranha-like teeth. \"We're werefish.\"", "The Moon, gibbous and bright broke through the clouds with monolithic inevitability. 'It's too late!' Fredrik wailed, 'I... I can feel myself changing!' Desperation emblazoned across his face he turned to Heidi, ‘Run! Get away from me, I won’t be me when the change takes me!’\nHeidi faltered, her mouth worked silently miming words of disbelief, dread quashing her voice. \n‘W... What’s happening?’ she asked finally. \n‘I…. Aaagh! I was bitteennnnaaaRRRGGHHH!’ Fredrik managed to blurt before a spasm rocked his body and he slumped to the ground \nHeidi fear stricken turned to flee, but in her wild flight her ankle caught on a stone, she fell, hard. She tried to get up but a stab of pain speared up her leg bringing her down once more, she wouldn’t be running, there would be no escape.\n\nFredrik’s body was wracked with cramps and seizures, he thrashed clawing the earth around him. His legs kicked and cycled the air, bending and contorting into painful looking contortions. \nHis back arched and he bawled out scream after scream, his entire body shook with the change, it was as though his very being was being torn in two.\n\nA particularly violent burst of thrashing carried Fredrik into the shadow pooling beneath a great oak tree.\nHeidi could hear his screams and anguished flailing, but all sight of him was lost in the deep, black shadows. Gradually Fredrik’s screams subsided and faded, the only sound was a fevered rapid breathing…\n\nA voice, growled out of the shadows ‘I told you to run… But now, now you have to see what has become of me.’ Heidi could only stare, her eyes probing the deep shadow that had swallowed Fredrik. ‘I was bitten, it… changed me… I’m cursed.’ With this Fredrik, or what was once Fredrik stepped out into the pale moon light, Heidi’s eye’s widened and her jaw dropped.\nFredrik stood there, but now he was… Pretty much the same, a bit dusty from all his rolling around but other than that, normal. ‘I was bitten by Brian, from down the road! And now I am cursed to roam the earth as a WEREMAN!’\n\nHeidi, struggled to her feet,’That’s not a thing Fredrik, you’re a weird guy. Don’t call me again.’", "The moon shone bright and full above the clearing. A round glowing white warning of what was to come. \n\nHe looked up, It was time. He felt his body begin to shake, sweat was forming on his brow, he began to walk into the lake, one step at a time wading through the muddy water. \n\nHis breathing became difficult his wind pipe felt like it was slowly closing off, he brought his hands up to his neck, gasping for those final sweet breaths of air.\n\nLooking down at his feet, he saw the scales beginning to form, his feet were being drawn together, combining. Suddenly his back snapped backwards, causing him to fall face down in the water. It was fine though, he could breathe in it now. \n\nEach second that passed was more painful, he could now feel his thoughts draining away, he knew this was it, it was time. \n\nA man sized trout would be swimming in these waters tonight. ", "He struggled to keep hold of the tattered cloak as he charged through the crowded street. People stared at him wandering who this odd man cloaked in a rough old bedsheet was.\nThe man barged his way through a group of teenagers centred around a trash can as he ran down the small narrow ally. One of the teenagers dropped his cigarette as the man tackled him clumsily. The cloak ruffled around his ears as he rushed through the ally but he heard the footsteps of at least 2 of the teenager running while faintly shouting at him.\nHis right arm suddenly dropped from his cloak leaving only his left hand to hold it up. A yellow ear popped out of his hood as he twitched in pain with his arm hung limp and small.\nthe man reached an opening with backstreet houses facing him and a fenced off escape route mocking him. He panicked and looked back to see the shadows of the teenagers rounding a corner far off.\nThe pain he felt before hit him like a thousand volts, jolting his body, making him shake. He fell onto into the dirt and began to twist and pop.\nHis head turned to the left like a rusty shuddering gear while his leg shrunk and kicked. The cloak now had a small jagged tail poking out like lightning out of rain clouds.\nThe man had shrunk to half his original size by now and had little memory of who he was. The cloak fell from his back just as the teenagers ran into the light from the houses. \"what the..\", \"This can't be real, he heard them but he could do nothing about it. \nHis transformation was complete \" he turned and stared at them with his small black eyes.\n\"pikaaaachu\"." ]	5
	[WP] It is the distant future. You are Amish. People are cruel. Your land is valuable.	[ "\"Ma,\" he says. His voice, deepening in his fourteenth year, is a frayed fiddle string drawn by a razor bow of nerves. \n\n\"Speak, John,\" she replies. She hides her fear well--much better than she hides her age.\n\n\"There are men to the southwest...and a car.\"\n\nMeredith rises, her sewing sliding off her lap. \"Is the car running, John?\"\n\n\"I don't think so...no, Ma. They're pulling it. They're coming toward the house. And Ma...I think they're Shepherds.\"\n\nMeredith pulls her heavy shawl closer about her. It is not the warmest item of clothing she owns, but it is the only one left that was not scavenged from the unburied dead. She made it with her own hands, in the way her mother and her mother's mother showed her, and the feel of the coarse wool against her wrists makes her feel...honest; which she values, in a land that had thrown honesty to the dogs.\n\nThey might be here for the peat coal, like so many others. Her husband, Jeremiah, inherited the swamp, and although at first he despaired of making it arable he had eventually drained it and planted a fine crop of millet. The bog sucked it down not yet three weeks later; Meredith thought perhaps that was when Jeremiah's Amish spirit first began to waver. When the Cataclysm came, Jeremiah's spirit broke entirely. He did not weep and cry for salvation, as so many did, for he no longer fully believed in the Ordnung that had been passed down to them as children. Instead, he took an axe, a musket, and all the money they possessed, and left Meredith and their four children in the night. A few of their community stayed with Meredith, holding fast to the strength of conviction, but many did as Jeremiah did. In the cold that followed the tremors and fires, crops would not grow, and the farmstead nearly did not survive. But it was Meredith, swinging a hoe like a man to draw life from the frozen fields, who found the first coal rocks at the edge of Jeremiah's bog; with it, they could stave off the long winters and melt the frost in the earth. With the coal, came heat, and under the ashen clouds bereft of snow, heat was life. And life was blessed, even in dark times.\n\nMeredith takes the spyglass from John and peers at the ragged, approaching band. Then again, perhaps they are not here for coal. They are all men, with shaved heads and long, unkempt beards. Meredith does not know how the Shepherds began, but their name is apt--although they are not herders of sheep, but of women and girls, which had become a commodity in the lawlessness following the Cataclysm. Meredith thinks of Elke, gone now for eight years, and her bony hands tremble.\n\n\"John, run for the deacon,\" she says, managing to keep the quaver from her voice. \"Have him gather the young men and women...and our axes and pitchforks.\"\n\nJohn gives her a swift hug and runs out into the rusty twilight. Meredith returns her eye to the spyglass. They are certainly Shepherds, possibly seeking...companionship, possibly only looking for fuel for their car. There are only six of them, and they seem very tired from pulling their heavy burden. Perhaps, she thinks, this will be a peaceful encounter.\n\n~\n\nEnter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:\n\nBecause strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.\n\n~\n\nWill continue if there's interest!\n\n", "TRAILER VOICE GUY: In a future... [Helicopter shot of sunrise over Bangkok]\n\n{Inception BLAAAAAAAAAT noise} (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2jUhnCU9iA)\n\nTRAILER VOICE GUY: Where the cities are full... [Pan up a skyscraper in India]\n\n{BLAAAAAAAAAT}\n\nTRAILER VOICE GUY: Where the people are hungry... [Shaky cam footage of a riot outside an empty grocery store]\n\n{BLAAAAAAAAAT}\n\nTRAILER VOICE GUY: Time is running out. [cut to black]\n\n[Cut to farmland. Flute music. A girl plays with a cornhusk doll as her father farms behind her. The wind picks up and we hear shouting in the distance. Her father takes off his hat and walks up a hill. We pan over his shoulder to the bottom of the hill, where an angry mob advances, tearing produce out of the ground and putting it in baskets. A bullet tears through the father, who falls to the ground.]\n\nTRAILER VOICE GUY: One man must make a choice. [Pan to close-up of BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH in a police interrogation room]\n\nCUMBERBATCH (American accent): We need your farms, Mr. Miller. We need to feed our people. We're prepared to offer you a staggering amount of money.\n\n[Pan to MARTIN SHEEN]\n\nSHEEN (Pennsylvania Dutch accent): This is unacceptable. My people are simple. We will keep our land.\n\n[Cut to CUMBERBATCH]\n\nCUMBERBATCH: I was worried of that... we'll have to take your signature on this sale, then. [CUMBERBATCH PULLS GUN]\n\n[SHEEN pulls two spades out of his pants and does battle with the people in the room, slaughtering them indiscriminately with a mixture of Amish karate and throwing chairs. CUMBERBATCH fires until we hear clicks. He turns to run.]\n\nSHEEN: We're not gonna sell. [Whips his hat at fleeing CUMBERBATCH. Hat with razor-sharp brim severs CUMBERBATCH's head.]\n\n{Epic orchestral score begins}\n\n[Cut to Amish men using rakes and hoes to battle off KEANU REEVES and accomplices]\n\n[Cut to sturdy Amish woman staring grimly out of the window as a tank advances towards her]\n\n[Cut to Amish man leaping off of speeding horse and buggy onto a police car and pulling driver out window before leaping back into the buggy]\n\n[Cut to SHEEN, blood running down from a cut in his forehead, using his own suspenders to strangle WILLEM DAFOE in general's uniform]\n\n[Cut to title shot: FARM WARS]\n\nTRAILER VOICE GUY: Defend the farmland. Trust no one. Coming summer 2015.\n\n[Cut to wreckage of a barn. LIAM NEESON in American army uniform stands silenty, surveying wreckage. Suddenly, the wreckage groans, and the barn transforms into an all-wood mecha-suit with SHEEN at the helm.]\n\n[Cut to close-up of SHEEN]\n\nSHEEN: It's Rumspringa time. \n\n[CUT TO BLACK]" ]	2
Does your character miraculously escape? Do they find a food supply? Are they trapped in with dangerous animals? Make it imaginative; let your minds run free.	[WP] You're stranded on an island which has an invisible barrier preventing any logical escape.	[ "Tobias had always had a gift for imagination, so when he awoke on the sandy beach and saw the only half formed horizon, he was unconcerned.\n\n\"I'm dreaming.\" Tobias said aloud. No one responded, so he took that as a confirmation. Clucking his tongue, he stood up and brushed the sand from his backside. \n\nThe beach was wide and white, the water was clear and blue, at least until about 500 meters out, where the waves washed up against some invisible barrier. Tobias was intrigued. Why had he imagined that barrier there? Was it simply the limits of his imagination?\n\nTurning around, he saw the lush jungle with the tall mountain rising from it. Birds could be heard clamoring in the forest. Tobias smiled. It seemed like a lovely day for a walk.", "As the pebble hits the event horizon, there is a popping sound. A small cloud of smoke dissipates and there is smell of ozone.\n\n“You see, dear girl, the pebble is entirely vaporized. I’ve tried this with a clump of dried sand, a coconut, even, I’m afraid to say, my wet handkerchief.\"\n\nTeena blinks slowly, “All around the island?”\n\n“As far as I can tell.”\n\nTeena, “professor, I am utterly...”\n\n“yes, yes, I know you are concerned; regretful of coming with me through the portal; terrified of your grade; blah blah.”\n\nTeena looked away. “So we are stuck here. To die.”\n\n“What, girl? oh goodness no. I’ve been stuck in worse positions than this. No, this is the point of living. This adventure!” \n\nJacobs was now examining a small piece of pottery that he had found in the sand, \"Back when I was a strapping lad, I found myself living among the Maya in Belize. Had to...”\n\n“Professor...”\n\n“I’ll tell you about it another time.” He tossed the shard in lab coat, it made a small clunk sound as it hit something metallic.\n\n“The slipstream portal, my girl. Brilliant. Never would have thought of that. Reminds me of a young me.”\n\n“I told you it was dangerous! I wish you had--“\n\n“Listened? My dear girl, true science is about hypothesis generation. Mix as many dangerous elements together and try to make sense of it all. Playing it safe? I’d rather be vaporized.”\n \nWith that, Jacobs threw another shard he had found at the horizon. A cloud of smoke dissipated. Teena shuddered and sat down, with a deep heaviness surrounding her.\n\n----\n\nAnd in that moment that the second element bound to the spawner. The air was shimmering, and the alarm went ping. Teena stood up on the platform, extending out her arm.\n\nTeena yelled, “Professor, jump!”\n\nHe bounded across the sand and , leaping, grabbed her hand. \n\nTeena sighed and grinned for the first time in a month. They were heading home. ", "\"Damn it, damn it! He's serious!\" She had just finished walking all around the island, realizing she was stuck.\n\n\"Alright, Artemis, relax, you're the goddess of hunting, surviving is what you do. But... Stuck?!\"\n\nShe took an arrow from her infinite quiver and shot to the horizon. It shattered into golden sparks about half a kilometer away from the shore.\n\n\"damn, sky man, I said I wasn't going to tell anyone about your affair. It's not like it's your first one!\" \nShe avoided mentioning Zeus by name, but he was the one who imprisoned her, simply because she witnessed him having sex with a Meadow Nymph. Artemis couldn't care less, being a chaste goddess never meant she gave a damn if others were chaste.\n\nSurviving was not a problem, but she couldn't just sit down and accept her fate on that small island. Being limited to never seeing the many different wildernesses of the world was not an option. She had to escape, but for now, she had to work with what she had. \nOn the second day of imprisonment, she had already set up an impeccable camp and was out hunting.\n\nShe was perfectly silent amidst the trees and her bow had an arrow nocked, ready to shoot at a moment's notice. \nThen, something moved. In a split second, an arrow had hit it with a metallic clang. \n\"Hey! Settle down!\" screamed a familiar voice, whose owner held a shield pierced by the golden arrow. \n\"Hermes? Don't sneak up on me like that while I'm hunting!\" \n\"I'm sorry, sis, but I'm here in secret. Zeus wants to get rid of you. He promised a nymph that she could be the goddess of the wilderness.\" \n\nShock appeared on her face instantly, her voice trembled with outrage:\n \n\"What?! I'm his daughter, how can he let some one night stand take precedence?! And when you say 'get rid of me', you mean... \" \n\"Yes, he wants to mortalize you. I don't think I've ever seen dad so lovestruck. If you could call that love. I think Eros and Cupid thought it'd be funny and now their joke is out of control. \" \n\"Do you think I can escape?\" \n\"I guess so. Everything is possible, Arti.\" \n\"Well, how did you enter?\" \n\"You're the only one who can't leave or enter. The barrier is personalized for you and your artifacts.\" \n\"I have an idea then... Brother, I am aware that you don't want dad to know you were here, but you're the messenger god. Tell him that I want to fight that nymph for my rightful spot.\" \n\"He'll never allow that! You're way more powerful than she is!\" \n\"Tell him he can give her his blessing and weapons.\", she said, grinning. \n\"Well... If I have to...\" he was nervous about that idea, but there was no stopping his stubborn sister. And she had a point that he was the messenger. He flew away, bidding Artemis farewell.\n\nTwo days later, just as she was bringing a boar to her camp, she spotted Hermes flying back. \n\"She'll be here by the sunset. She's wearing an armor made by Hephaestus, on dad's order! And she has his blessing, too. Your arrows can't hurt her!\" \n\"Don't worry, Herm. I'll take care of that. Now, go back home, who knows what could happen here.\" She hugged her worried brother, who left the island with a heavy heart.\n\nAt the decided time, she was ready. Light armor, bow, arrows, and a net. Her opponent appeared on the horizon, a green-skinned woman, carrying a long spear and wearing a beautiful full suit of Olympian Bronze armor, styled with fig leaves, coming in on a raft. \n\"My name is Syke! I am the Nymph of the Meadows daughter of Oxylus, as well as the lover of Zeus! Soon to be Goddess of the Wilderness!\" she announced, hoping to sound powerful. \n\"You are but a child. I think I might even be your great-aunt.\" retorted Artemis, with contempt. \n\"Don't write me off yet, old woman. I have some tricks up my sleeve.\" \n\nAs per her sense of honor, Artemis waited until her opponent was on dry land. Syke was the first to strike, lunging at Artemis with a glowing spear. The huntress' reflexes were too fast, and she hit nothing but air. Light on her feet, Artemis took distance and nocked an arrow, which flew true and struck the target. But Hephaestus' work was too much even for Artemis' arrows. The projectile disintegrated from tip to fletching, and Syke was unharmed. \n\nThe nymph changed tactics, calling upon her natural powers to command the vines all over the island to hinder the goddess' speed. Artemis could escape easily from each, but it took her attention away from the opponent, and slowed her down slightly. Every minute disadvantage could mean the difference between life and death. Syke used the opportunity to kick Artemis on the chest, making her fall on her back. The vines receded on her command, she wanted to see the goddess' face as she died. The nymph prepared her spear, pointed at her enemy's face. Just as she striked, her attack was stopped. Again, Artemis' reflexes won, and she held the spear by the tip with both hands. \nTaking the Nymph's moment of shock as an opportunity, the huntress pushed the spear back, causing the pole to hit Syke's face. White sap dribbled from her nose, and she was stunned. Artemis decided to end the combat, throwing the net over her. \n\nOnly the greatest heroes and gods can escape from Artemis' indestructible net, and now with Syke stuck, Artemis carried her like a just killed boar. She used her power to hover above the water, calmly approaching the barrier. As Syke screamed, she threw the nymph onto the barrier. The net, being an indestructible artifact of Artemis, started burning hotter and hotter, but never falling apart. The nymph died soon, and Artemis carefully took her body away. She donned the armor Hephaestus had built for her opponent, covering herself completely. Now protected from the barrier, as she wouldn't touch it, nor would one of her artifacts, she could leave. She'd have to leave behind her own armor, clothing and weapons, but she could confront \"dad\" now. And besides, he'd ask Hephaestus to make another. He loves to have new projects to work with.\n\n\n\nEDIT: rewrote a paragraph that was too \"matter-of-fact\"-y\n\n" ]	3
	[WP] Man makes last stand against a horde of zombies to save his family.	[ "\"Karen, take the kids and run. I'll meet you in the safe house on the other side of the river!\" \n\n\"But Jack, your leg. You can't walk.\" sobbing\n\n\"Just go!\"\n\n\"I love you Jack.\"\n\nextended eye contact\n\n\"GO\"\n\nKaren and the kids scamper off to safety as Jack, armed with a trash can lid and a 9mm Beretta with five shots, faces a horde of the undead. \n\nbang A zombie falls. Four to go. Jack drags himself towards his old Ford pickup. \n\nbang...bang Another zombie falls. Two shots left. \n\nbang bang Jack throws his pistol in disgust as the moaning mass of wretched flesh and bone inch ever closer. \n\nFinally, he reaches the vehicle and hauls himself up and in. The door closes as the predators start to surround the truck. \n\n\"keys keys keys\" He frantically thinks to himself. \n\n\"Under the floor mat!\"\n\nredititititit...redititititit vroom vroom\n\nJack speeds across the bridge to apparent safety... \n\n\n? ", ".^(This is my second submission on the sub. Feedback always welcome. Thanks!)\n\n\n\n'Run.'\n\nThat was the last thing I said to them as they scrambled out to the backyard and into the shelter. It would probably be the last thing ever. But there are no regrets; no amount of time would have been enough for me to tell my beautiful wife and my dear son how much I love them, and what they mean to me.\n\nCLANG. The sounds of pots and pans hitting the floor. They were coming faster than I expected, only the living room left before they get to this hallway. My palms dripping with sweat as I try to grip the axe handle.\n\nJanet already knew of course. We had been through so much. It's amazing how much she was willing to go through with me. Staying faithful while I was abroad in the war. Relocating after the flood took our first home we bought together. Keeping all three of us afloat by taking the night shift at the diner while my business floundered. God, she is perfect. She deserved more. I should have told her that every day.\n\nBANG. I could hear their bodies thud against the door at the other end of the hall. It heaved as it tried to hold back the desperate horde, its hinges merely delaying the inevitable rush of the decaying nightmare. My ax becomes heavier as if realizing the burden it carries as my last hope.\n\nPoor Jack must be so scared right now. How could he even process what's happening and what he's supposed to do when I can't even fathom this hell? But he's a smart kid, he always has been. I've never seen a kid read books as well as he threw a ball. He'll make it. He has to.\n\nThe groans and the creaks of the door continue grow louder and louder before it finally gives way. For a moment, I stare wide eyed at awe at the creatures, grip loosening for a second on the handle. Despite their low, lifeless groans and the spots of decaying flesh, they still looked so human. I steel myself. 'These are not your neighbors, they are your enemy.' The bodies are merely husks, operated by basic instinct to feast. And just like that, I am a soldier on the battlefield again. And this is war.\n\nThe next few minutes stretch for what seems like hours, as my ax cuts through them effortlessly. The heart of the mailman sail past my head, landing softly against the wall. The head of Ms. Cooper rolls past my feet and stops at the door behind me. Countless bodies come in and I continue to chop them down. This may be hell, but it is my home.\n\nSuddenly, everything has stopped. Former friends and acquaintances in a heap at my feet. Finally, relief sweeps over me like morphine. I've done it, for now. Even if it's not forever, for a little while longer, I can hold my family again. For a little while longer, we can be whole.\n\nWith a couple of tries, I turn the doorknob with my bloodied hands. The door pushes open to the bright light of the yard. And there they are, my family.\n\n\"Janet! Why did you two come out of the shelter? I told you to stay inside.\"\n\nShe only responds with a low, gurgling groan. Words fail me and anguished tears mark my dread as I watch more of them come out from the corners of our yard, while the shells of my wife, my beautiful Janet, and my strong, smart Jack turn to me to give me one last kiss." ]	2
	[WP] Describe the life within a small town existing after the fall of western civilization due to economic crisis.	[ "It is a hard scrabble life that all have in Torpedo Town, it is brutal in winter when the mud reconstructs itself into sticky liquid. \nIt is set in woodland in what used to be part of Airstrip One and is very lucky to have an unpoisoned well, orchards, pigs, several large veggie patches, goats and sheep. The Bonkah tribe lived there, they lived off the land and made goods like coke can lamp oil stoves.\n\nThey were doubly blessed to live near a big rubbish dump, this gave them endless raw materiel for all sorts of handy bits to make for trade and shelter. They built a meeting/party hall with windows using just plastic, wood , tin cans, cob and some tarpaulin. The Bonkah arms was put over the door, crossed beer cans with hemp rampant. \n\nHemp was absolutely everywhere as was grown by hereditary shamen as an act of devotion to Jah and taken by all, even little babies in feasts of ritual purification and mystery on certain significant days of the year. Rastafari.\n\nSomeone knew how to build rocket stove pizza ovens so that is the oven of choice for most in the wood. This was developed into rocket mass heaters so the hardest of winters are survivable and livable, the hemp nugs they throw on the fire helps them with their mental health and well being. They are wonderful joke tellers and can keep a joke up in the air for a few days at least.\n\nI do apologise to the delicate sensitivities of my gentle readers, I have said nothing about their houses and the shelters of their beasts. There are more than a few rotting pre chaos coaches and buses that are lived in but they will be too far gone to live in soon, the Bonkahs don't know what welding is. \n\nThe pig farm shelters are earth berms, as is some of the winter Bonkah houses and root cellars. Undergound houses are popular, they are easy to build into a slope and don't take very much time to erect. \nAll the other Bonkah tribesmen live in benders made of willow or hazel branches woven into a tube and covered with tarpaulins, they are usually 8 foot high by 15 foot long. Put a raised bed in it and a woodburning stove and you will be as snug as a bug in a rug.\nThey trade some of their goods for rush candles and lamp oil, salt and honey. Sweet and sour, everyone needed salt and honey.\n\nThe young children were the point men of the village, they were taught how to disable intruders with a sling and rock, how to hide themselves and stay safe if trouble came along and how to respect the mantrap pits that heve been dug. \nThey were always roaming around the woods like young children do but the older ones like to remind the young ones on woodcraft and communication language. This was imitating bird calls so any attacker thinks they are natural and takes no heed at all.\n\nBut as this is Reddit I will tell you about the love life of the tribe, you are all depraved and animalistic fapping robots who flood the bedroom twice nightly so I will try to write as to get you the erection of the century. A boner that will amaze you with the sheer amount of heat it puts out and so powerful it is more than capable of boring its own orifices . \n\nThe Bonkahs have a secret which only the shamen know, where to find the food of God. A small mushroom with a white nipple on top is what keeps them going, This is given to them all in a drink by the shamen on intervals in good weather, it turns all of them, even the most reserved and demure ones into demented fucking machines who rut with anything at all in every position there is like cum was the food of the gods. \nThe young ones get taught on the best ways to enjoy insane gibbon sex but are not allowed to try it out before the Gods food fertilisation and fucking festival. They choose who will be first and second and then leave their dance card behind to a threeway with two men, one at each end. They believe that the food of god is transmitted in sperm so the girls all think it is a holy act to swallow it fresh and warm.\n\nThe rituals demand that she should then get together with another filthy slut twice as bad as her and use the young men as their own sex objects, one sits on his face and the other on his helmet, they kiss and fondle each others magnificent breasts with squeals and moans of sapphic delight while the men get them to suck their brains out.\nThe older women like to pair of with the younger men and show them what tricks they like to use on men, there is cum all over the place as the women have cocksucking contests to win the prize of queen of the woods cumguzzler, a sought after position with great status. ", "I envision a small hunter/gatherer society that begins by living of the scraps of the fallen empire and continues to develop a new found (or better yet, re-discovered) harmony with nature and environment. \n\nI see happy people, strong community ties, shared responsibility and lack of greed - this of course only after the initial panic.\n\nReligion becomes very important but - because of the tight connection between the group members - nothing is enforced.\n\nWeak and old are tolerated but nothing more. Just like in pre-western world these are disposed to support the survival of the group. However, while being cruel, these actions are not malicious. This is something that people do to survive.\n\nSocial structure is families, headed by strong males and - above them - a community of elders. The financial system is based on bartering of goods and work.\n\nWomen are still held in respect but their position will be challenged over time. \n" ]	2
Make it your own. Use weapons and fighting. Give me the chills.	[WP] Describe an action scene of two men on or in a train.	[ "Torres stands up and starts walking towards the back of the train, towards the dining car three cars down. He walks with a cane, and wears a high-class suit and red bow tie.\n\nBale isn't fooled. This son of a bitch bled his town dry, and made many of the cuts personally. The cane is just a prop to throw off suspicion. Bale has seen Torres run at top speed, when he was finally revealed for the con-man and murderer that he was.\n\nBale takes a look out the window, and sees Chicago in the distance, defined by the plumes of smoke billowing above the city. Torres will attempt to get off the train here, but Bale has other plans.\n\nHe stands, and begins walking to the dining car himself, 15 feet behind Torres. The crook hasn't noticed anything amiss yet, and opens the door to cross cars. While the door swings shut behind Torres, Bale sprints forward, ignoring the startled whispering of the other passengers, and catches the door before it fully closes. Now he is less that a foot behind Torres, but the criminal has stopped, sensing something. He noticed the door didn't shut. For a moment, both men stand frozen in the wind, straining for a clue over the barreling of the train over the tracks.\n\nTorres covertly places his hand on something at his belt, and turns his head slowly. Bale grins.\n\"Laws caught up with you now\"\nTorres drops the cane and brings his hand forward, gripping a Colt handgun. Bale grabs his wrist and forces it upwards, staring his quarry down. The two strain against each other, Torres attempting to level the gun at Bale. After a second, Torres realizes its a stalemate and headbutts bale on the forehead. An inch lower and it would have broken Bale's nose.\n\nBale doubles over, blinded by pain, and Torres aims his weapon. Before he pulls the trigger, Bale lashes out, striking the murderer across the face, and sending the hand holding the gun out to the side, over the ground rushing past.\n\nTorres roars and kicks Bale in the shin, but the lawman ignores the pain and pounds his fist into Torres' right arm, crushing it against the railing preventing the two from falling off.\n\nA shot blasts from the gun, but it pings harmlessly against the outside of the car. The people inside probably couldn't even hear it. Shocked, Torres drops the gun, and scrabbles after it uselessly when he realizes his mistake.\n\nBale pins his quarry against the railing, bleeding from his forehead and gritting his teeth.\n\n\"This is for my town\". He draws his own revolver and brings it about to Torres' face, but stops halfway, choking. Torres has slid a thin knife into his gut. Bale falls to the ground, and Torres straightens up, grabbing his cane and relieving Bale of the gun. He jams the pistol in his belt.\n\nTorres pauses, needing a way to maintain his anonymity. He came here to escape punishment for his past crimes, and now this fool has come and ruined it all. Unless he can get rid of the body.\n\nHe sets the cane down again and desperately heaves Bale up to the railing. He has to move quickly. Too close to Chicago and the corpse could be found.\n\nBale twitches, and Torres feels something pull at his belt.\n\"Not dead yet, motherfucker.\"\n\nA single shot rings out, and the top of Torres' head explodes outward. Using the momentum of the dead outlaws' fall, Bale flips around and pushes the body over the railing. The wound isn't as bad as he originally thought.\n\nHe tears a strip off his undershirt, and gasping, bandages his stomach. He grimaces to himself.\n\n\"Big city like this outta have a good doctor.\"\n\nAnd he limps into the next car, awaiting his stop.", "The rain was warm.\nDripping down the back of his neck. Running through his hair.\nHis breath formed in soft wispy white clouds in front of him and he closed his eyes, pressing his ear to the rail.\nThe train was coming.\nHe started to run, heart pounding, blood boiling, eyes wet. The cool air whipping past him. \nThe handle of the car was slick, ripping his skin raw as he scrambled. Arms straining, muscles burning he heaved himself into the covered train car.\nIt had been too long. Since he had last done this. Memories flickering underneath his eyelids.\nThe train car was empty. Wiping the rain from his eyes he picked himself up off the cold wooden floor and started his trek through the train.\nWalden would be near the front. \nHe always liked being able to see where he was going. \nNot where he came from.\n\n“I knew you’d find me.”\nBen closed the metal door with a clang and turned to see those blue eyes he thought he would never forget.\n“I know where to look.”\nWalden smirked, thin lips curling into a humorless smile.\n“You do.” \nThe rain continued to pour, battling for attention with the low rumbling of the train surging over the tracks. Walden’s soft words nearly lost in wind.\nNeither man moved.\nBen keeping his back against the wall and his eyes on the man across the train car from him.\nWalden had always been tall, but thin. Lanky, not muscular.\nHe, on the other hand was shorter. He put in his hours at the gym. Apparently not enough if the recent train run had been any suggestion.\n\n“This is it then?” Walden said. A statement, not a question. There was no mistaking that look in his electric blue eyes. He knew the end was near.\nThe definition of the end though…had yet to be defined.\nThe cold metal of the knife pressed against his stomach sent shivers down Ben’s spine. Or was it the fact that he was in the same room as Walden, after all these years?\n\n“Yeah,” Ben breathed out, his palms were sweaty and his head was buzzing, “This is it.”\nWalden pushed off the wall gently, cracking his neck. Blue eyes blazing.\n“Well then.” His hands curled into fists, “let’s make the most of it.”\n\nWalden strikes first. Classic punch right to the kidneys. He may be skinny, but he’s fast. And he knows how to fight, where to hit even if there’s isn’t much power behind the punches.\nBen reels, pains shooting through him but he knows. No time to waste.\nWalden is reeling up for another and Ben doges it, he can see the punch coming from a mile away. He grabs Walden’s arm as it passes his head and pulls. Center of gravity shifting Walden stumbles, but makes the most of, slamming the full force of his weight into Ben. They hit the metal wall of the train car and Walden whips his elbow right into Ben’s ear. \nThe shock slams into him and there are stars in his eyes.\nSplinters of plywood grind into his face as he hits the ground.\nThere’s a whipping sound and suddenly something is around his throat.\nBrown leather and soft as a feather. It’s digging into his neck before he can get his hands up, but that’s okay.\nHe can make out Walden hovering above him, a blurry figure with the gray rain as a backdrop.\nIt’s all in the timing, the surprise.\nWalden tightens the belt just a notch and Ben chokes and in that moment he shifts. One hand snagging the neck of Walden’s shirt. The other clawing his face.\nWalden doesn’t let loose on the belt but hisses in pain and Ben takes the opportunity to pull him down by the collar of his shirt. \nRolling them over so that he’s on top. So that he has the advantage.\nThe belt hangs loosely against his neck now and he catches a glimpse of Walden’s blood stained face before he smashed his elbow into it. Feeling the nose give with a sickening crunch.\nBut then-\nA second too late he feels the gun pressing into his stomach. Feels Walden’s hand snaking around despite the pain.\nHe slams the other man into the floor, hears the crunch of his skull hitting the metal frame.\nRain hits his face mixing with the blood that’s pouring from his own nose.\nWalden looks up at him.\nBlowtorch blue in a sea of red.\nThe gun is sitting inches away from the car door. Teetering on the edge.\nLife or death...life or death…\n“This is it.” Walden coughs out, speckles of blood hitting Ben in the face. He jams his knee into the man underneath him but he’s too late.\nWalden’s figure curls around the barrel of the gun and in a second he’s got it pressed against Ben’s stomach.\n\n“I never thought it would end like this.”\nWalden swallows thickly. The rain has soaked his long blond hair and it’s dripping down his ruined nose.\n“You always liked the fairytales.”\nBen looks from Walden’s empty eyes to the gray metal of the gun pressed against his drenched shirt.\n“I just liked happy endings.”\n“Those don’t exist.” Walden spits out. Bitterness seeping into the humid air between them. A few droplets of blood hit the gun, splattering across the metal.\n“No, they don’t.”\nWalden’s eyes flutter closed as he pulls the trigger. The shot echoing through the empty car.\n\nBen screams.\nBut he’s not through yet. The world wobbles unsteadily in front of him and all he can make out is Walden.\nBut that’s all he needs.\nThe knife is heavy in his fingers. Weighing down on more than just his body. \nWhat he’s about to do-\nIt takes more force than he thought it would. There’s more resistance than he had anticipated.\nHe pulls out and stabs it in again.\nWalden’s scream whipping away with the wind.\nAgain. And again. And again.\nWalden’s blood is thick and hot between his fingers and he can’t see straight anymore.\nHis vision turning gray at the corners. But it was a gray day already.\nThe knife slips from his fingers.\nWalden blinks thickly through rain splattered lashes.\nBlood pumping onto the cold floor of the train car.\n“We…we had a good run…” He whispers.\nThis time Ben hears him. Clear as day.\nHe wants to answer.\nSay sorry. Say, yeah, we had a good run. Say anything. But the world goes black.\nHis head hits the food with a soft thunk and Walden’s blue eyes slide closed.\nThe rain continues to pound against the train car.\n\n\n", "The last body of the infiltrating enemy unit fell to the floor of the dining car with a dull thud. “Finally”, as Arthur breathed a sigh of relief, “just one more to go.” He knew he would only have to wait. Unlike the ones who now lay lifeless around his feet, Arthur knew he would come to him. No tricks. ‘He was always a straightforward kind of guy,’ thought Arthur.\n\nAs he raked his calloused fingers through his short blond hair, he barely enjoyed his short respite when the doors began to slide apart. Soon, a large figure of a man filled the frame of the open passageway and with careful steps the commander of the slain unit quietly came forward. As both men faced each other from opposite ends of the car, Arthur felt as if he were looking at a grim mirror. In fact, if it were not for the man’s scar across his face and his darker hair and complexion, they could very well pass for twins. The enemy was an imposing man who possessed a body forged from years of training and physical hardship, not dissimilar to Arthur’s own and yet, while they both stood no taller than an average athlete, the commander emanated a spirit that could make giants kneel in respect. But Arthur would not be dissuaded from his mission.\n\nThe man’s lips parted. “Hello Arthur.” His words were flat and mimicked his composure, cold without the slightest evidence of warmth.\n\n“Hi Gabe.” Arthur responded, as his eyes met with the intruder’s. Unlike his cold words, the unblinking eyes of Gabriel burned with intensity. With unwavering determination. It was hard for Arthur to maintain his gaze, but he refused to back down.\n\nGabriel sighed. “Nothing is going to stop me from taking this train. You know that. I will not allow the cargo to make it to the Capitol. But because it’s you, I’m giving you a chance.” Gabriel paused, as if carefully choosing his next words.\n\nArthur thought he heard the faintest hint of mercy, but quickly shook it off. He could not afford any weakness here.\n\nGabriel continued. “You can leave this train as you are and disappear. I even promise to strike you off our list and my cohorts will leave you be. Or, you can continue to stand in my way, just as your men did. Either way, I am taking what I came for.” His words soon started to rumble into a snarling growl as he bared his fangs. “And you know you can’t stop me.”\n\nIn the past, those words would have been enough to stop him. \n\n“Move aside, Arthur!”\n\nTo remind him that his defeats at Gabriel’s hands far exceed his victories. \n\n“Not this time.”\n\nAs quickly as Arthur finished his sentence, the cries of bullets rang through the air. Both men fired off three quick shots as they dove to find cover behind the benches and overturned tables in the dining car. Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur noticed a reflection in the adjacent window. Gabriel was attempting to move in closer, leaping quickly from one makeshift barrier to the next. He had closed the gap between them by ten feet and though the car was as long as a tennis court, each foot mattered in this gun fight. Arthur grimaced. He would have thought that by now he wouldn’t be so surprised on how quietly Gabriel could move despite his size.\n\nHe leapt up quickly from behind the wooden bench, attempting to clip Gabriel in between his movements. The first bullet sailed past Gabriel’s torso, with the second just grazing his vest. Three, four, five. More bullets wasted on the table Gabriel had managed to get to. Arthur could not afford to stay pinned. The bench had taken on too much and would soon expose him. Arthur dashed desperately to the nearest table, ensuring his path despite Gabriel’s attack by returning fire of his own. Glass exploded and wood splintered off as if fireworks in the night sky, accompanied by the orchestra of booming gunpowder and the crashing of metal as the train pounded along the track towards the Capitol. \n\nAs he slid into safety, he realized his gun was empty. He had used up what little firepower he had left from his prior battle with Gabriel’s team. The faintest of clicks from twenty feet away gave him relief. Gabriel must have run out as well. \n\nBoth men rose from their places, glaring at one another as if bull and fighter, though neither felt they were the one holding the cape. Slowly, both men reached out and pulled out their serrated knives in their left hands with their right up to guard. Suddenly, the train’s whistle pierced the air and, as if acting as a starting pistol, signaled the men to charge.\n\nWith one swift motion Arthur viciously struck out towards Gabriel’s throat. Gabriel’s reflexes continued to serve him well, as he rolled around the thrust and countered with an elbow to Arthur’s temple. Certainly a move most disabling, but Arthur was familiar with his tricks.\n\n“Same dirty move as always. It’s getting old Gabe!” Arthur retorts as his right arm rises up to force the elbow to glance off harmlessly, followed by a swift low kick to the back of Gabriel’s knees. As he begins to fall from buckle, Gabriel effortlessly shifts his weight to spin his body to do a low sweep that takes Arthur off the floor. Using his right arm, Gabriel pins Arthur’s left arm down and forces the knife out of his hands, followed with his own knife swinging down towards Arthur’s eyes.\n\nSuddenly, the train gives a sudden halt and Gabriel is thrown off Arthur’s body, knife sliding off to the side. The train must be close to its destination. Realizing what little time was left, both men scramble to their feet and engage once more, their fists driven by their own zealous dedication to their objective.\n\nBlow after endless blow were traded, but both men would not yield. Soon, Arthur felt the advantage slowly creeping in his favor, as his knee came up to meet Gabriel’s stomach, followed by a swift uppercut to the chin. Gabriel reeled and as he stumbled backward, Arthur moved in to land the final blow. Gabriel knew Arthur’s movements all too well and retaliated by stepping down on Arthur’s outstretched forward foot, trapping him in place and returning two quick punches to his gut.\n\n“You were always too exaggerated with your movements.” He raised his elbow, ready to strike down on Arthur’s head to incapacitate him before he grunted and wavered for a brief pause.\n\nThe pause was all Arthur needed. In that moment, he realized that underneath Gabriel’s vest there was a small knife wound that was becoming harder to hide. Arthur smiled to himself. Gabriel may be a monster, but his teammates were no slouches either.\nArthur would make sure not to let this opportunity pass. He lunged towards Gabriel and quickly came down with as much force he could muster onto opponent’s jugular. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to temporarily, and effectively, incapacitate him. As Gabriel choked and gasped, Arthur noticed the glint of Gabriel’s knife a few feet away. As he wrapped his hands around the hilt, he drove it into the already open wound.\n\nTears filled Gabriel’s eyes as he looked into Arthur’s. “Please, Artie.” Gabriel’s voice was pleading, begging even. It was not something Arthur had heard in many years.\n\nArthur’s body began to shiver, yet his fingers remained steady around the handle. “I’m sorry, Gabe. But I have to do this.” Tears began to slowly make their way down Arthur’s cheeks as well. “The world needs this. And not even my brother can stop me from saving the world.”\n\nGabriel looked helplessly into his younger brother’s eyes. Slowly, the hardness of his scarred face gave way to the loving gaze Arthur remembered used to exist on his once mentor and best friend. With one last effort, Gabriel gave Arthur a hug. Perhaps, it was his last desperate attempt to dissuade his younger brother, but Arthur had hoped that it meant his brother was finally apologizing for losing his way.\n\nThe train began to slowly start up again, moving slowly towards the gate of the ever pristine Capitol; its large ornate walls and decorated buildings could be seen just past the enclosure.\n\nAfter closing Gabriel’s eyes, Arthur made his way to the cargo room. ‘Hopefully it’s all intact,’ he thought. He grunted as he pulled the heavy door to the side and peered into the room. With a sigh of relief, he sat down as the timers filled the air with its beeping. They had not made it here to disable them.\n\nBack against the wall, Arthur gently slid down and began to close his eyes. It would take less than half an hour to get to his destination. He would need that time to rest. He began to drift and dream of two younger boys, inseparable, proclaiming with joy their hopes to fulfill their fantasies as heroes.\n\n‘Just a moment’s rest. That’s all I need. Then I will be ready.’\n\nYes, once he opened his eyes, Arthur would be ready to set off the cargo for a world renewed\n" ]	3
I think this could make for some interesting stories - if a doctor could physically feel the pain of their patient, it would mean they would be better at diagnosis, but the implications would be interesting. Also, medical school would be interesting. One might have to feel the pain of a lot of patients in order to get experience with different ailments.	[WP] Write a story about a doctor living in a world in which the technology exists to physically connect to another person and feel their pain.	[ "Jackie… Jackie… The only name that keeps me sane. I repeat it over and over as the emotions flood through me. It is always different, no pain ever is the same. Sure, at first just the pain on the surface is the same, but the deep pain that is tucked away is always different. Every time it is a blackness that washes over me when connect to the patient. I have never gotten used to the pain but I try to get through it by repeating my wife’s name. It is difficult but my wife’s name and images of my daughter get me through.\n\t\nThis patient came in for depression like must of my patients. Unlike most of my patients though she was one of the few children that I have diagnosed. Her name was Maria. I was told she could be suffering from depression but they needed me to make a diagnosis so that she could get treatment. When she walks in I give her a smile. She acknowledges me with a look that children should never have. Just a blank stare devoid of any of the innocent joy that most children have. I greet her mother and we exchange pleasantries and I direct Maria to take a seat. All the equipment was already set up for her so as soon as she took a seat I asked her if she was ready to begin. She nodded.\n\n\nI walked over and took a seat next to Maria and reached for rod that will connect me to her. As I grabbed hold of the rod to connect to Maria I think to myself, she is only twelve, it can’t be… OH GOD!! The pain was immediate. It hit me like a wall. Images of an older man holding a knife flashed before my eyes. My whole body ached. There was blood everywhere. My mind started to spiral into the blackness. I started to gag, I couldn't breathe. I am begging him to stop but he can’t hear me. The knife comes down swiftly. The pain is too intense to bear. I fade into the blackness as I hear a scream.\n\n\nThe scream continues as I open my eyes. I see my daughter covered in blood in a heap on the ground in front of me and then I look up to see my wife standing in the doorway screaming. What have I done? I plunge the knife into my chest. For once, the blackness is comforting.", "He waited patiently outside of the twenty-four hour supermarket. He parked off to the left hand side, where the lights were a little dimmer, and the cameras didn't quite reach. Frederick lit a cigarette; he allowed the smoke to pool around him and obscure his vision. He liked to dim his senses beforehand. \n\nThrough the smoke he saw the front doors open. The figure walked away from him, to the other side of the parking lot. A low growl vibrated from Fredrick's throat, but he managed to stay clam. He steadied his breathing, and he waited. \n\nThe doors opened again. This figure--a man--walked towards him. Fredrick placed his hand on the door's handle and sat up straight. The lights on the car to his left flashed. Fredrick curled his right hand in anticipation. He released his fingers and opened the door. \n\nAs Fredrick stepped out of the car he raised his hand to hail the man. \"Excuse me!\" he said, his voice shaking a little bit. \"Did you see my wife in there? She's been gone awfully long and I'm beginning to worry.\"\n\nThe man slowed his pace and turned towards Frederick. \"What does she look like?\" he answered, a note of helpfulness in his voice. \n\n\"She's short, with graying brown hair.\" Fredrick reached into his pocket. He held his hand steady, curving his fingers around the hilt. The man started to announce that he hadn't seen her, but it didn't matter anymore. Fredrick pulled the blade from his pocket and slipped it into the side of the man. He collapsed; he screamed; he cried. \n\nFrederick barely managed to pull the man into his car. His limbs were weak and fragile; the adrenaline only helped so much. He pulled out the machine and applied the wires as quickly as possible. \n\nThe rush of pain was immense. Frederick gasped for breath before yelling into the smoke-filled car. His yell wasn't of pain, like the shrieks of the man in the backseat, but one of pleasure. Frederick basked in it for a moment, before reaching under the passenger's seat. He pulled out a shabby first aide kit. \n\nFrederick climbed into the backseat and leaned over the man. Frederick could feel the man panicking more and more. \"Please, stop,\" he begged. Frederick rummaged through the kit and finally pulled out a needle and thread. \"Please,\" he said again, with tears in his eyes.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" Frederick said. \"I'm a doctor.\" A maniacal smirk crossed his face as he bent down towards the wound. \n", "I had resisted the temptation for a long time. My daughter told me it had actually become popular where she was. Doctors that promised to feel your pain. She liked the idea. Even said she was using it with some of her patients so she could decide just how much to dope them up. When they first rolled it out lots of doctors dubbed it \"the empathizer\". I had stared at that machine with dead eyes during many of the long nights, slowly reading and re-reading the fine print. I can see the instructions now as I close my eyes. Apply lubricating gel to the pads. Do not operate under the influence of alcohol. Do not stick pads to close to the heart. Do not stick pads to close to the heart...\n\nWhen she first got into the hospital I would sit and hold her hand and beg her to use it. I told her I wanted it. She just kept giving me that look, like when I came home reeking of booze and started kissing her ear. \"Not tonight\". It hurt more now than it ever did on those hazy nights. \n\nIt was late November when I trudged through the snowy streets all the way to St. Elizabeth's. My breath was heavy and underneath my layers I was starting to sweat out some of the whiskey I had snuck into my coffee at the office this afternoon. I rode the elevator up. First floor. Second floor. Third floor. Ding! I stepped out into the quiet hallway. Some of the florescent lights had been put out and the whole floor had an eerie, abandoned quality to it. I stepped into room 307. The night lamp shone onto her bald head. She slowly let her eyes crawl my way, her acknowledgment that I had finally showed up. Without asking I pulled that heavy machine towards the bedside. I wanted her to know I meant it this time. I put the pads on my chest first, the chilled lubricant made my skin rise and form goosebumps. I lifted up her hospital gown. Let my hands drag along her sagged skin, and then grabbing the pads placed them on her chest. I let my hand scrape acrossed her heart and replaced the gown neatly. I pressed the on switch and let the machine hum and charge. I leaned into the hospital chair and let it give to my weight a bit. I let myself look at her. She smiled. \n\nI jolted back in my chair. I could feel my heart race. I gripped the rail of the chair hard. My head was pounding and sweat dripped down my forehead. I gripped my chest and dropped to the ground. She tried to help me but couldn't move. I let myself lay down, and closed my eyes slowly. " ]	3
	[WP] Shadows represent all of the regrets people have. One man has no shadow and is in an interview with a the only reporter whom he agreed to talk to.	[ "Well, he didn't look how you would expect. When I first heard of his existence I immediately started to think of what he looked like. First, there was the blonde hair, naturally. Angelic. But he would have a tan, also. A slight bronze that marked his days spent in the pure rays of sunshine. Tall but nearly average height. Prominent nose. I guess I thought he would look like a Goldie Hawn-era Kurt Russell. \n\nBut no, he just looked like a regular guy. He was probably 5'6 with brown, side-parted hair and light blue eyes. His hands were in his pockets which, combined with his off-the-rack suit, kind of gave him a shifty look. \n\nWe met at the my office and since it was near midday no one noticed anything strange about him. I wonder if he did that on purpose? Didn't occur to me at the time and it kind of makes sense. I guess you take precautions when you're peculiar.\n\nHe sat down in front of my desk and I just got to talking. I learned a long time ago the worst way to start any interview is with a question. Or at least, a direct question. You never want people to feel like they're being interviewed if you really want to know their story. Interviews are what cops and nurses do and in an interview, you tell people what they want to hear. But I want to hear the truth or at least, his truth. \n\nSo he sat down in front of my desk and I asked him about sports. The draft came up so I asked if he followed the Eagles at all. He said no, not really. Just like that, \"No, not really.\" Well, that might make him one of the embarrassing few who don't follow the birds so I stuck it to him a little bit. Asked him if he was a Cowboys fan and he said he doesn't follow sports. His family was very religious and they didn't care much for the profanities and indulgences of professional sports. So, he grew up without much exposure and so he never got the taste.\n\nI asked him about his family, where he grew and all that. Start to get the shaft in a little deeper you know. He wasn't from Philly originally, he came from Milleville over in Jersey. A family of four, he had an older brother named Roger. Roger was two years older than him and his parents worked as teachers at the public high school in town. I asked him about Roger because, people rarely have neutral feelings about siblings. They either love them or hate them but anyone who has one feels strongly about them. Well it turns out Roger was a little bit of a dick. Being older, he liked to pick on his younger brother in the ways a lot of older siblings do. He told me a story from their childhood that didn't make it to the article but I think is really at the core of this guy.\n\nRoger always had the nicer toys, being the older and more vocal one of the two. He had a water gun, one of those Super Soakers with the big orange water thingies. I don't know what they're called. Anyway, Roger would whip it out every summer and just wail on this guy just soaking him through. The parents never thought to get him his own Super Soaker so every summer he would just get wet. Well, one day, I guess he had enough so, while Roger was sleeping, he took the water gun out into the backyard and set it on fire. Mind you, he was a kid maybe 9 or 10 at this point and he just stood in the yard, poured some lighter fluid on the sucker and torched it until it was an orange and black puddle in the middle of the grass. The next day his brother shook him out of bed and asked what he did to the super soaker. I have to think he looked his brother square in the eye and said it to him the way he said it to me. \"I didn't want you wetting me anymore so now you can't.\" And I believe him when he says that Roger stopped wetting him. ", "I’ve don’t have any regrets, lived for way too long and I learned that regrets only get to you, one way or another. Don’t get me wrong I’ve had my share of regrets but a regret is nothing more than a wrong decision at the wrong time, and those cannot be avoided. \nThat day, the day of the interview that is, my expectations were fulfilled, the questions were the ones that always popped in the common people minds.\n“Have you never made a bad decision?” \n\nThat question is a classic always pops up and the answer is as static as the question.\n\n“Yes, of course I have” \n\nThat answer brings the mind of the one who asks to the next obvious question.\n\n“How come you don’t have any apparent regret then?” Asks while looking at my shadow.\n\n“Regrets are for those who don’t know how to fight ghosts from the past, I’ve made \nplenty of bad things, things that would make the sickest people shiver, but I regret none, not because I’m a sick bastard, or someone who doesn’t has any remorse, but because once you lived enough you know that one day those ghosts will visit you and only one will leave the house next morning” \n\nAfter that answer, the interviewer looks at me confused, as if he didn’t know what the interview was about anymore.\n\n“Th… Things like wh… what?” He asks.\n\n“The kind of things that get you into trouble”\n\n And I sit there, in the comfortably cold couch, staring at my interviewer as he stared back with a look that only the unknown gets. I never granted an interview before, and I never will, at least in the distant future.\n\n~~ ~~\n\nHi, thats the first time I post in writting prompt and the first time i post on reddit at all.\nI'm not a native english speaker and although i ran the whole text by word dictionary I'm sure there are s*tload of mistakes and wrong expresions. It's also the first time i write something to the public.\n", "\"You all think that I am this divine, supernatural being. Because I have no shadow. But you never stopped to think. To see what was right in front of you.\"\n\nThe man spoke softly, with a jarred, broken rhythm. He sat on the hard, backless chair in a slouched, wilting posture. He wore a simple white shirt with jeans. How old was he? the reporter wondered. It looked to him like the man was only in his mid twenties. But something about him...his eyes maybe, seemed much, much older.\n\n\"Well, that is why you are here. So that you can set the record strait,\" said the reporter, hoping to keep this shy, quiet man talking.\n\nWhen he said nothing more, the reporter grew fearful that perhaps the man with no shadow had changed his mind. He immediately regretted speaking at all. He watched his shadow flicker. The man with no shadow saw this, and smiled a somewhat sardonic smile.\n\n\"Relax...I didn't come here for nothing. Now, you would think that someone with no regrets, you would think that they would still have a shadow, right? I mean, think about it. Light still hits me. You would think that my shadow would just be that...the absence of light. A normal shadow, like all the animals and rocks and building have.\"\n\nThe reporter hadn't thought of that. He began to grow uneasy. There was something to this man without a shadow. He seemed...familiar. \n\nWhy had he agreed to this interview? The reporter was by no means prominent. He did not work for a prestigious newspaper. So why him? What had he missed.\n\n\"I want to tell you a story,\" the man with no shadow continued. \"It is Afghanistan, four years ago. A group of soldiers are taking along a reporter on a simple patrol. As they walk down the streets, they notice a man acting suspiciously near a banged up car. When they confront the man, he takes out a pistol and opens fire. He is gunned down, and no one else is hurt. The soldiers are pretty sure that there is an explosive in the vehicle. That's when they notice a child playing near the car. A solider steps forward to go get the child, but his superior tells him to stay put. And he does. He does nothing. Do you understand?\"\n\nThe reporter is beginning to sweat. He tries to look away from his own shadow, but his eyes are drawn to it. To that memory...to that day.\n\n\"He does nothing. And the reporter does nothing. And then the car explodes. And the child dies. Do you see now? That is why I have no shadow. My shadow is the absence of action. It is nothing. And that is why I agreed to talk to you. Because your shadow, that you try everyday not to look at...is a broken, mangled little boy.\"\n\nPS This is in no way antimilitary. I have many family members who have served, and mean no disrespect to the brave men and women risking their lives for our safety. It is simply a story. War is hell no matter what.", "\"Where'd you like to start?\" James said with a slight, perfectly charming smile. \nTracy hesitated, her eyes flickering quickly to the single fluorescent light in the room. Her finger was still lightly resting on her Sony recorder. \"Where would you say it all started?\" She said finally. \nJames' smile widened quickly, like he was holding back a laugh. \"Started? This is just how I've always been.\" \n\"But it isn't the same for anyone else, you don't have it.\" Tracy said. \n\"If you want to really talk about it, you're going to have to define what 'it' is.\" James said. He pointed to Tracy's recorder, \"For the record.\" \nTracy swallowed. \"You don't have a shadow.\" She said. \n\"I sure don't.\" James replied. \n\"How?\" Tracy said, her fingers curling up slowly into fists. \n\"Well,\" James began, \"some things just leave a mark on your soul. Regret is one of them. When you live in the past, it drains your energy for the present. It's a choice though, you don't have to let regret own you.\" \n\"A choice?\" Tracy asked, a hint of anger creeping into her voice. \"It's a choice yet you are the only human being out of seven billion that made the right one? I don't buy it.\" As she spoke, her shadows shifted like smoke behind her as she couldn't stop her mind from touching those memories. \nJames stopped smiling. \"Maybe you're right. I couldn't live my life any other way. It'd be just as hard for me to take your path as it would be for you to take mine.\" \n\"But how do you do* it?\" Tracy asked. \n\"How do you keep that weight around your neck?\" James pointed at Tracy's darkest shadow in a gross gesture. The black splotch on the wall stank of abandonment. \"Everything that happens in your life is an opportunity. You take where you are at and go from there. You always could have made different or better choices, but you have to deal with the ones you actually made. Where you are is where you are, no sense in worrying about where you aren't.\" \nTracy seemed to think about this for a moment. \"That... makes a little bit of sense.\" The lighting of room changed a little, her shadows almost seemed to lighten. She sighed and shook her head. \"This isn't going to work for a newspaper bio though. Can we start again?\" \n\"You're right, sure. What do you want to ask?\" James' smile began to come back. \n\"Lets start with where we are now. Why did you finally agree to do this interview?\" Tracy asked. \n\"I guess I just want to add a little more light to the world.\" \n\n", "He stood there, white fedora on top of white hair. White dress shirt, white slacks, white shoes. It was as if this man was making a mockery of the shadows that everyone else had. Hell, Brandon's own shadow was over half his height! Brandon maintained a neutral expression, but clenched his left hand into a fist behind his back.\n\n\"How do you do. My name is Brandon Baker,\" the reporter said, using every bit of his past drama classes to keep his voice pleasant. He extended his right hand out.\n\n\"I'm, uh,\" the man in white mumbled, while fiddling with something near his hip. He flipped through a notebook, and looked up at Brandon. \"My name is Howard Langley. Nice to meet you,\" he continued, as he grasped Brandon's outstretched hand. The man's grip was far firmer than Brandon had expected.\n\n\"I'm glad you were able to make this meeting,\" Brandon started, coolly. Howard smiled nervously, before turning his attention towards his notebook. What kind of man needs to refer to a notebook for reply to this, let alone his own name?\n\n\"I'm, uh, glad to be here.\" Howard shifted from foot to foot. Brandon had seen his share of nervous interviewees. Some were camera-shy; others had something to hide. Yet none of them acted out as much as Howard did.\n\n\"Shadows are the regrets that people carry. You're the first person I've met that doesn't have a shadow. What's your secret?\" Flip, flip, flip. Howard's brow furrowed, before he looked back up at Brandon, confusion in his eyes.\n\n\"You...you didn't have that on the questions you sent me earlier,\" he whimpered. The reporter inwardly winced as he saw his interviewee's eyes fill with tears.\n\n\"Normally, interviews are a spontaneous question-and-answer session. I know you're a special case, so I sent you a draft of the questions I had in mind, along with a disclaimer that I might change them.\" Howard produced a folded-up piece of paper, looked it over, and did nothing to retrieve it as he lost his grip on it. Brandon picked up the fallen sheet - it was the questions he'd sent to Howard.\n\n\"This...why did you have everyone else write the answers to these? I wanted YOUR views!\" Brandon bit his lip as Howard buried his face in his hands. The notebook, left without support, plummeted to the ground. The white fedora followed. The reporter picked up the notebook, then bit back a yelp as he read the page facing him.\n\nYour name is Howard Langley. You were a police officer, who was forced to retire early when you were shot in the head. The doctors were able to save your life, but not your past. Your short-term memory is limited to ten minutes, and your long-term memories are mostly non-existent. Call the following numbers if you run into trouble. Know that I am proud of you, and will support you to the end.\n\nYour loving wife,\nPamela\n\nA wide scar bobbed on Howard's head, in time to his sobs. Brandon gently replaced Howard's hat. The older man looked up, his gray eyes puffy with tears.\n\n\"Thank you, young man. I don't believe we've met?\" Brandon handed Howard's notebook back to him.\n\n\"Here. You dropped this.\" Howard's face lit up.\n\n\"Oh, you're so very considerate! Ah, what am I doing here? I should go home soon. Say, do you know where this place is?\" Brandon glanced at the address that was shown to him.\n\n\"Turn around and go through that door,\" he replied. Howard tipped his hat towards him as he walked off of his own front lawn and into his house. Brandon looked on, silently.\n\nThere's no way he could've arranged this interview on his own. But even if he didn't answer any questions, I have my answer. He started his car, and drove to a lake on the edge of town. Certain that no one was looking, he chucked the recorder out towards the lake as far as he could. The last glimmer of daylight shone on him, revealing a shadow that was merely a third of his height.\n\nEDIT: Formatting", "\"Mr. Jones. Thank you for talking with me.\"\n\nI nodded once, eyes trailing to the floor. The light at the top of the room was perfectly positioned so as not to reveal her shadow. Most rooms in this day and age were designed this way. People didn't like having their shadows revealed to the public.\n\nThe interviewer kept her back straight, clicking her pen. I adjusted my microphone slightly, feeling uncomfortable. Maybe this was a mistake. \"Let's start with the basics,\" she said, quizzing me and my age and childhood. I didn't have much to say- I was fifty-four, and I had lived in Oregon all my life.\n\nFinally, she finished writing, looking up. Her grey eyes bored into mine, and I could feel her searching for answers. \"You don't have a shadow.\"\n\n\"I don't,\" I said.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because I have no regrets.\"\n\n\"Nothing? Nothing at all? Surely after fifty-four years there has to be something you regret.\"\n\nI sighed, sitting back. There was silence as I thought of what to say.\n\n\"There's this thing about regrets,\" I finally said. \"Two things, actually. They are personal and they are purely manmade. There is no outside phenomenon, no external locus that causes regret. It is personal. You make your regrets. Humans are like little regret factories, constantly churning out guilt over things beyond our control. It's the only way we can really bring order to ourselves; we want to be in control, so we regret things. Even if we didn't have any control, by giving ourselves guilt, we can imagine that we did have control and we failed to take advantage of that. A poor substitute, but still effective.\" I took a slow breath. \"We all want control, so we all manufacture and package our little regrets. Bows on boxes filled with the darkness of our pasts.\"\n\nThere was silence.\n\n\"So what about your regrets?\" my interviewer finally said. I took another second to think.\n\n\"Remember what I said about all humans being regret factories? Well, my factory is broken down. It used to work, but one day one of the employees set down his tools and walked away. He realized that his job was useless; he had better things to do with his time. Others followed suit. So my regret factory fell into disrepair. It's still down there, yes, but there's no one home.\"\n\n\"Why?\" she said quietly.\n\n\"Because the factory was useless. Sure, it's shipping out all these regrets, but for what? So I can fool myself into believing I have control? It's not worth it. I realized that my past is my past, and I can't change that or anything about it. So what's the point of wasting time and energy on regrets?\"\n\n\"You mean there's nothing you regret? Nothing at all?\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\n\"No lost loves?\"\n\n\"There was one girl that I fell in love with in college. She moved away, we stopped talking. I can't change that. Why regret it?\"\n\nThe interviewer blinked. \"There has to be something. Family members?\"\n\n\"I had good relations with all of them.\"\n\n\"Something in school?\"\n\n\"I had friends and good grades.\"\n\n\"What about those friends?\"\n\n\"The ones I still have are in good standing, the others have moved on.\"\n\nI could see the interviewer getting irritated. It saddened me slightly.\n\nShe finished writing again, then tapped her pen for a moment. Finally, she reached over and shut off the recording device. \"There. It's not recording. Tell me what you regret.\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\nShe threw her hands up in frustration. \"There has to be something!\"\n\n\"There isn't.\"\n\nShe stood up, running her hand through her hair. \"Why talk to me?\" she finally said. \"Why not any other interviewer? Why not talk to anyone at all?\"\n\nI stood up. \"I spent a long time wondering who needed to learn the lessons I learned. Everyone I talked to, I judged. Finally, I found the one person who needed it most.\"\n\nShe stopped and dropped her hands. \"... Thanks for your time,\" she whispered. I nodded once, turning around and opening the door. Light from the hallway poured in, illuminating the interviewer.\n\nHer shadow was very, very long." ]	6
	[WP]An intergalactic society mourns the death of the last surviving human.	[ "We never thought we'd mourn them. We thought we'd rejoice, hug our loved ones, celebrate. For the extinction of a virus, of a scourge, of death itself is something to revel in. But this virus was different. Too different from the rest for us to be indifferent. Pitiful lifespans, pitiful corporeal bodies made of flesh and blood. Fleeting memories, fleeting thoughts...and ephemeral, almost beautiful violence. A madness of revelry. And they spread, for at the very root they feared that dark end that all must face; for these creatures, it came sooner than later. And they were desperate to avoid it, and so would rather push others into the brink than face it themselves. But we are old. We have spanned their minuscule galaxies over and over again, spreading, learning, becoming. So we waited. Waited, as in their explosive beauty they decimated not others but in themselves. But yet again, they proved themselves different. Or at least, one did.\n\nHe was born on a crystallized world, one long devoid of life, to parents who had never lived. He grew in isolation, taught himself the world, listened for hours to the planet heaving below him in the intricate dance of diamonds and ice. And at first I used to watch him live his life on his tiny little planet, insignificant to the vagaries of the cosmos. Even for an ancient species, I felt anger. This virus had been the blight of species in every galaxy it had crossed; surely nobody would deny me the right to take from it what it had taken from so many of mine. He was the last, the last of the virus. Even they could not evolve fast enough to defeat time. But something about this one limited me. Was it justified to end a species but continue a cycle, a cycle that they had perpetuated? I decided against it. And even though the Covenant forbate it, I approached him. Looked upon his eyes as the knowledge dawned upon him of times long past and the weight of what the virus had done, around the universe. I watched him break, his facade of sanity broken like a dam of twigs must break to the flow of water; he was the last, I explained to him (not without a tinge of satisfaction; interesting, schadenfraude spans not just planets, but galaxies, it seems) and did what I had done for millennia: watched. But at some point, Something in him changed. \n\nIt was a small shift. A shift not of responsibility, but a shift towards adaptation. Of optimism. Inconceivable, that even after all he had understood, that he could still look forward. And then I learned why humans had been so successful; in their fragility, they discarded all trivialities. To think \"What next\" would have been unforgivable foolishness in my race; to them, \"What next\" was the paradigm of the day. And so, little by little, I learned from the scourge. From the virus. From death itself. Years passed, with my contact growing greater and greater. I learned of what emotions are invoked in fragility-love, lust, and hatred. I learned how to cope with the fleeting time; sometimes it was sadness, sometimes it was anger, and sometimes, it was a dark alone-ness. But his life, too, approached the end. Approached the abyss.\n\nHe died in his sleep cycle. I brought him back to his world, not of crystal and ice but of steel and iron, of wrought towers. I found the clearing that so long ago they had launched from. It had been long since I had done physical work, but I dug the hole myself. I placed the empty shell into the hole, and as he had taught me, looked at him. I looked at how he used to be, from spry lad, to muscled man, to grizzled and old, weary and wise and young and beautiful. And as I stepped away from the grave, I turned for once. My physical form scraped over a small outcropping. Tucked into a nook was one single, beautiful, blooming flower. It was a white flower, reaching upwards towards an orange sky. And I closed my eyes, bending the fabric of what and when and where. But for a being whose lifespan had encompassed centuries unbounded, I will remember that moment as the most defining; the moment where, in a fleeting moment as the air warped in front of his grave, I hated, I loved, I forgaved, I laughed, I mourned.", "I feel nothing as they speak, lamenting the need to do all this. Complete bullshit. I’m beyond feeling, beyond caring about this sick spectacle.\n\nI am the last.\n\nWhat did I do to deserve this, hell, what did we do? We did away with war and reached for the stars. The Civilisation contacted us, welcomed us, and then asked us to revert to our barbarism for the sake of saving them all. \n\nWe fought their wars, destroyed their enemies and annihilated threats to Civilisation, but for what? To be ostracised from their society, sterilised biologically against our will and left to die a slow death. Of course we revolted, extracting bloody vengeance for the children who would never be.\n\n“Forgive us”\n\nAs the lethal injection begins, rally against my bonds and spit in my executioners face.\n\nDarkness falls.\n\n**\n\nThat night, talking heads in the media call the loss humanity a tragedy and as is custom a minute of silence held throughout the Galaxy. Life moves on, relieved that the last great threat to peace has been dealt with.\n\nBut on a small backwater planet, third from its sun and orbited by great grey moon, the seeds of destruction had been planted. It would take tens of thousands, perhaps even millions years for them to mature and evolve into the correct state, but humanity would once again walk among the stars.\n\nAnd death would follow them.*" ]	2
	[WP] "I just came here to talk. No violence this time."	[ "\"I just came here to talk. No violence this time.\"\n\nThe man on the other side of the door continues to knock. I do not move from the refuge I have taken under my bed. My Spiderman blankie is draped over my shoulders. In one hand, I wield my little league baseball bat. In the other, the teddy bear from my father. \n\n\"Come onnnnnn, open up. Jus' wanna talk. Tha's all..\" The fast knocks on my door slow down into a consistent, intimidating rhythm, seemingly synched with my racing heartbeat. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. He violently wiggles the doorknob, but is upset to find that I have locked it. He pounds a fist into the door, and when that doesn't work, he begins to slam his body weight against it. \n\n\"OPEN.\"\nthud \n\"THIS.\" \nthud \n\"DOOR!\" \n\nHe breaks down the door, sending it flying off its hinges. It lands near the window, and he enters my bedroom. I clutch my teddy close to me as he searches the room. He is searching for me. I tremble as his feet approach my bed— just inches in front of my face— and I can practically hear him grin as he bends down to lift up the covers. The stench of alcohol grows closer and closer.\n\nI shriek, \"Who are you!? Where did Daddy go?\"\n\nThat's when his face grows pale. He gravely looks at the empty bottle in his hand, then back at me. His eyes meet mine and tears well in the corner of his eyes. The grown man begins to cry inconsolably. He drops the liquor on the floor, shattering it to pieces, and extends his arms to me for a hug. Hesitantly, I come out from under the bed and throw my arms around him in an embrace.\n\n\"Daddy's back,\" he weeps into my shoulder, \"Daddy's back.\"", "\"You say that every time, Frank. And then you give in,\" the woman said with a proud smile.\n\nFrank, his gruff, weathered face full of emotion, looked down at his beat up old boots. \"I can't help what I am,\" said Frank.\n\n\"I know,\" said the woman, in a sultry, seductive voice. She ran her hands down the curves of her black dress. \"Just like I can't help what I am.\"\n\nFrank pulled the knife out from his belt and raised it over his head. \"I'm s-s-sorry,\" he stuttered.\n\nThe woman pulled back her long, auburn hair and stepped forward towards him.\n\nFrank stabbed the knife down into her. She smiled, and collapsed on the floor. \n\nFrank took the knife out of her, left the money on the nightstand, and walked to the door. \"See you next week,\" he said.\n\nAfter the door closed, the woman got up, and looked at her freshly healed wound.\n\nNo, Frank couldn't help what he was. But now he could take out his rage on her, instead of on helpless humans.\n\nAnd she couldn't help what she was. Which is why she took the money and then went to see her connection down at the blood bank. \n\nAfter all, you couldn't help who you were, but you could choose what you did with it." ]	2
	[WP] Death comes to collect a dying man. To his surprise, the man has been expecting him.	[ "The long hallway stood motionless in the still afternoon light. Its long abandoned corners were dusty and ill kept, and the doors along its walls were rotting with neglect. As Death’s cold feet brushed across the creaking floorboards a cockroach skittered across the hall.\n\nDeath neither saw nor cared for the house. He instead occupied himself with idle speculation. He could foresee the death, if he really cared, but long ago he grew bored with the known. A death predicted quickly grew old, or rather, unappealing, as time had no true meaning to the ruler of eternity.\n\nWould this human be young, old, male, female? Would they scream and cry like all the others? Probably. Death’s gaze found the end of the hall. A single door stood silhouetted against the dim light creeping through its cracks. He stepped up to it and gave it a slow, steady push. \n\n-\n\nJohn looked up at the rotting ceiling. He had had a good life. Sure, he had bad moments, but as far as he could tell, everyone did. The good definitely outweighed the bad, at least in his opinion. He reached for the sky he could not see. His hand was spotted and wrinkled with old age.\n\nHe grimaced. Of course there were bad things he would have done without. He lost his only son, a mere ten year old. Both his parents died in a car accident a couple years after that. The draft wasn't a walk in the park either. But even still, he persisted, like he always did. Life went on, and so did John Birkin.\nDeath was near, he could feel it, deep down. Not the fairy tale death he told young Billy about. That was just a story to entertain him. This was true death. Eternal. Billy knew more about it now than John did, anyway.\n\nIt didn't come as a surprise when the floor in the hall began to creak. Soon, a figure stood above John’s bedside. John looked up.\n\n“Hello.” He said.\n\nHELLO. Replied Death.\n\n“I- I guess it’s time to go now, isn't it?”\n\nARE YOU AFRAID?\n\n“No. I've lived a good life. If I may ask, what’s there . . . in the afterlife that is.”\n\nI DO NOT KNOW.\n\n“I thought so. Is there time for me to say goodbye?”\n\nMAKE YOUR PEACE, BUT LET US GO.\n\nJohn put his hand to his side and gripped the feeble wrist beside him. \n\n“See you soon, honey.”\n", "The clock chimed twelve, the time had come; time to go.\n\nEric's eyes moved from the clock to the door and sighed heavily, his thick nailed fingers gently tapping against the polished ivory tip of his cane. He had tied up all loose ends and was ready.\n\nThe door opened slowly and there it stood: Death itself. A grey tattered cloak conformed around the shape of a body, billowing softly though there was no draft in the room. An endlessly deep, black hole where a head should be. It floated across the floor to an empty chair across from Eric and then seated itself.\n\nThey stared at each other in silence, Eric trying to make out a face, a shape, anything, in that gaping black. He thought maybe to reach out, maybe feel if anything were there but then banished the thought, thinking it might swallow his arm.\n\nA breath, an exhale, raspy and cold. A jet of fog roiled out from the hood as a voice was heard.\n\n\"Eric Masters, 80 years old. On this day, May 16th, two thousand and fourteen...you die.\"\n\nIt's words were barely above a whisper, yet verbose and spoken. Eric simply closed his eyes and nodded in agreement. \"Indeed.\"\n\n\"Are you ready, Eric Masters?\"\n\nEric nodded, and slowly began to rise, using his cane for leverage. His hands shaking a bit at the strain he was putting on them. Death rose with him, head even with Eric's as he stood.\n\n\"I've been waiting for this moment, for all my life.\" standing erect now, staring ahead into the dark pool that was Death's visage. \n\n\"Oh lord.\"", "If it were not for his ability to sense imminent death, Charles would be a perfectly ordinary man. But he could sense death. When it was near, he felt it. His skin crawled and tingled with an unpleasant sensation, like he was neck deep in icy water while electric eels circled all around. The air would become thick with the foul stench of death that always had repulsed him. In all his years, he had seen and felt enough of death to know when it was near. His motto had become simple: “Just follow your nose!” On occasions he even chuckled as he imagined Toucan Sam from the breakfast cereal commercials of his youth, flying wildly along the screen with a murder of half-rotting undead crows in hot pursuit, reminding all the kiddos to “Just follow your nose!” Although it was incredibly simple advice, barely a tick better than “always keep your nose clean,” Charles had spent his entire life doing just that. He liked to believe that it had lengthened his life considerably. Once the electric eels started prickling his skin and that raunchy stench started swirling in the air, instinct took over and he got moving on until the prickling stopped and the odor ebbed away like the tide sliding away from the shore.\n\nCharles was a perfectly ordinary man with a perfectly unnatural ability to avoid death. He had made a life out of it up until this point, running near and far and laying low, always on the lookout for his impending demise. Now he was tired of hiding out. He had grown lonely and old, and he had grown weary. Alone in the wilderness in an isolated cabin with his flesh tingling and that acrid odor pouring in through every chink in the drafty structure, he loaded a few slugs in his old pistol and pulled back the hammer. He had no illusions of being immortal, but he had gotten good at avoiding death and decided that when his time did inevitably come, it would be on his own terms. He had just stuck the barrel into his mouth when there came a sudden knock upon the creaking door.\n\nWith the unexpected knock he pulled the gun from his mouth and, trembling, he pointed it at the door.\n\n“Who’s there?”, he asked. The words barely escaped his ancient quivering lips.\n\n“I’m certain you already know, Charles” the voice from outside the door replied. “And you may as well set the gun aside; I assure you it will be of little service to you now.” The voiced chuckled. “Even if you had silver bullets.”\n\nThe voice from outside the door was surprisingly soft, perhaps even kindly. And it was right. Charles did know who, or what, stood upon the other side of the door. He knew that after all these long years, death had found him and he had no more the desire than he had the ability to evade him once more. The putrid scent swirled throughout the cabin and he nearly gagged.\n\n“You may as well come out now, Charles”, Death spoke. “Did you intend to stay in there forever? Besides, I wouldn’t even have to huff and puff to blow this shanty down.”\n\nThe question had struck him oddly. Had he intended to stay in there forever? He had spent his whole life avoiding death and he realized now, in his final moments, that the course had deprived him of life this whole time. Still, he was scared. He was terrified actually. His skin tingled and each individual hair on his arms and neck quivered as he lay the gun aside.\n\n“I know your scared Charles. Hell, I never met a man who wasn’t at a time like this” Death said. “The truth is, I’m scared too. You’re the last one. The last man standing, as it were. Truthfully, I’ve tried avoiding this moment longer than you have. After this, I can be no more certain of what becomes of me than you can of what becomes of you. So fear me no longer, Charles. I think you will find that we aren’t all that much different. You’ve always had a unique ability to sense and avoid death; I’ve had a unique ability to attract and usher it along. Aside from that, I imagine that we’re otherwise perfectly ordinary. Honestly, you know the way the air seems to curdle around you whenever I’m near? That sickly stench that makes you struggle to choke down each breath? That’s how your fear smells to me now, Charles. I long to be rid of it just as you yearn to no longer have to run. We’re both weary, my friend. So what do you say? Come on out, on your own terms, just as you’d like. We’re both scared now, for the moment. But I have other senses. These senses, since the beginning of time have never failed me. And I sense now that whatever comes next, neither of us needs to fearful of it.”\n\nCharles moved slowly toward the door and undid the latch. He slowly pulled it open and gazed cautiously at the source of the voice. There was no skeletal face under a black cloak peering back at home, only a seemingly ordinary fellow who smiled back at him and extended his hand. Charles stepped outside and took a deep breath of the cool, fresh air and they both slipped calmly into the night as the tide slips away from the shore.\n", "Normandy, summer of 1944. Death had been here of course so it noticed the little things, things that were off. Minor details mostly, however a lot was surprisingly just as Death remembered it. \n\nArtillery shells exploded all around, machine gun fire ripped through packs of young men jammed in their landing craft. Death found the scene disturbing, not the actual fighting of course, just that he can visually see all these dying yet he couldn't sense them. Not too used to that.\n\nHe found Col. David Coburn engaging a Nazi pillbox by himself. He was laughing as he mowed down ten soldiers in a trench with a spray of his Tommy gun. He tossed a grenade into the pill box's machine gun slit, after an explosion you can hear the old clichéd 'Wilhelm Scream' from within. \n\nFinally seeing Death, “Hey Rich, what's up man.” The Colonel’s uniform was just as off as everything else in this place. The unit insignia was wrong, other emblems were exaggerated. Like everything else here, it's purpose was to provide a 'sense' of WW2 and not it's authenticity. He approached Death with a huge grin.\n\n“I am not Lt. Richard Ducard.”\n\n“Quite pulling my leg, anyways change out of that and lets go for a ride. I found some of those old style Volkswagen motorcycles over there.” He pointed to the south at another pill box that was now a smoking ruin. \n\n“I say again, I am not Lt. Richard Ducard.”\n\n“Hey Rich, to be honest, the whole Death cosplay is kind of freaky because you do it all the time. C'mon man, don't be a dick. Although I do like the changes you made to your skin, how did you get that slight transparency?”\n\n“Col. Coburn, I am the Reaper.”\n\n“OK man, if you're going to be like that just fuck off.” Coburn turned away. \n\n“Why don't you check the status of the others.”\n\n“Rich, I told you to Fuck off, I don't know how you got passed the psych eval for this... seriously it's damn creepy.”\n\n“Colonel, indulge me.”\n\n“Console” an amber screen appeared before Coburn, the Colonel maneuvered through the system by swiping his fingers across the floating display.\n\n“This is not fucking funny, Says here half the crew is disconnected and reactors offline. All the sensors in the bow are down.”\n\n“I know.”\n\n“Look here Rich, I don't know how you pulled off this hack, but I'm not laughing. Cut it out now and I'll agree to forget about this breach of system security.”\n\n“Colonel, I did nothing of the sort.”\n\n“If this is true why isn't the automatic release shutting down the sim?”\n\n“All this is taking place in a mere nanosecond. I have much discretion in these matters. Your display is telling you information about the middle of an event that lasts no more than a quarter of a second. The command has been sent, it just hasn't been processed.”\n\n“Bullshit! I'm pulling rank now, I order you to...”\n\nDeath waved his hand, cutting him off, “This is but a courtesy, your ship struck a singular asteroid and is in the process of being destroyed. I truly wish to help you with your passing, but my patience is not unlimited.”\n\n“That's it. You'll spend the rest of this trip sleeping mister! Computer END PROGRAM.”\n\n“That will not work. The computer does not have time to obey you.”\n\n“Yeah, OK smart guy if you're Death how are you here, in the game?”\n\n“I manifest myself by altering the electrical impulses in the dying's forebrain.”\n\n“So that's how only the dead can see you and you can appear in my game? You seemed to have thought of everything smart ass!”\n\n“If I truly did, I would have thought of a way to convince you of the reality. I'm sorry Colonel, but it's all over for you.”\n\nThree light years out from the Sol system, the UNSS Freeman Dyson's forward section had split open like a blossoming flower. Her now exposed fusion reactor glowed red for the first century or so as the remains of the craft and the accompanying debris drifted into the black. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "\"Your time has come, Stanley.\" Death remarked. \"Your time on this plane has ended. The afterlife awaits.\"\n\n\nSurprisingly, the feeble, exhausted looking man laid in bed beside him seemed completely indifferent. Stan slowly turned his stiff neck to the darkened figure, his failing eyesight only just being able to make out what it was that even stood before him.\n\n\n\"Death? The grim reaper?\" He asked in a short, wheezy breath. He quickly coughed to clear his throat, his eyes briefly wincing in pain. \"I expected we would meet one day, though I had my doubts that you even existed. You're later than I expected.\"\n\n\nDeath looked at him in perplexed uncertainty. Even among those who knew of their imminent demise rarely did he meet someone who seemed accepting towards let alone predicting his arrival.\n\n\n\"You expected me, then?\" He replied. \"The cancer prepared you for our meeting?\"\n\n\n\"The cancer just confirmed what I already believed. That I would be dead by age 40. It's the way in which I died that surprised me.\"\n\n\n\"What made you believe you would die at a younger age? Why were you pessimistic about your future?\"\n\n\nStan looked at him in confusion. He had expected Death to know everything about his life, his beliefs, his thoughts. The fact that he had knowledge which an immortal being did not felt somewhat pleasing to him.\n\n\n\"I expected you to know of me. Do you not observe our lives? Did you not know of any of this?\"\n\n\n\"I have no concern for the matters of the mortal world; I am busy enough already. I am told only four things about the person who's death I am to deal with: Their name and the location, time and cause of death. You are certainly more curious about me than most. Most people are either too scared or simply cannot wait to see the afterlife. I ask again, why did you expect to die?\"\n\n\n\"Before the cancer I worked as a mercenary for a drugs cartel. I've lost count of how many times I've been shot at. I always thought I would inevitably die from it. I accepted my fate years ago. But enough of this. Just do what you are going to do.\"\n\n\nWith that, Death muttered incomprehensibly, and Stan's head dropped back to the pillow.", "\"What the fuck.\" Said death.\n\"Thou art surprised?\"\n\"No, not at all.\"\nDeath had arrived at the lone crucifix. He had grown bored with the Romans and their paltry killings. They had no charm to soothe his old, old bones. Crucifixion was heinous, not because it was cruel, but because it was boring. \n\"You had one fucking job and infinite powers, how did you manage to fuck this one up?\"\n\"It's a demonstration of love to these misbegotten...\"\n\"Love my bleachy white ass. They're killing you. You're currently being killed in the cruelest yet most boring fashion I have ever encountered in the entirety of my 14 billion year long career.\"\n\"Yet were I not to except this fate, were I to carry on in an arrogant assumption of immortality, then I may as well...\"\n\"Also what was up with that rich men not being able to go to heaven because camels can't fit through the eyes of needles? I've collected some decent rich folk, and while none of them went to heaven, they would've were I in charge. You know, if you didn't want to be crucified, you shouldn'tve call out the rich folk who decide who gets to live.\"\n\"Those words speak warning moreso than...\"\n\"Can you just fucking stop.\"\n\"What?\"\n\"Just be a person, don't hide what you're trying to say in riddles and parables. If anyone ever buys your bullshit then do you have any idea how much of a fuss all this ambiguity will cause?\"\n\"It shall cause questioning, yet so long as it remains divine and devoted then...\"\n\"What do you mean divine and devoted?\"\n\"So long as it remains a prayer for knowledge...\"\n\"What the hell do you mean prayer!? Doesn't your rich piece of shit dad have like this divine plan? What the fuck is the point of prayer if it's all planned!?!?!?\"\n\"It signifies the love of...\"\n\"You know what, fuck you, I'm not taking you.\"\n\"Wait, what?!?!?\"\n\"You're staying on Earth. Someone else is gonna have to bring you to the afterlife because I'm not going to be patronized like this.\"\n\"Patronized!? I wasn't trying to...\"\n\"Shut your condescending holy mouth faggot, I gotta be at the leper colony in five.\"\n\"Wait! Death, don't go!\"\n...\n\"Shit.\"\n...\n\"How do I get down from here?\"", "\"We are but a whisper in the pantheon of shouts,\" said Death. \"We are but a single tick in the clock of history.\"\n\n\"Better to be a single tick,\" said the man as he moved to stand, \"than to be stilted in the gears.\"\n\n\"Then you know the name of my nature,\" Death stated as he edged ever closer. \"Then you know the falling of leaves and the sound of winter.\"\n\n\"I know the blooming of orchids and the laughter of children alike,\" the man explained to death.\n\nIn his life, the seconds that turned to minutes had then turned to hours that then turned to days and years. The mirrors once returned smooth skin and dark hair, but now they reflected skin like leather and wisps of silver. Hands creaked like old hinges on the doors of abandoned houses. Breaths came as short as the spring breeze in the valley, and even those would soon cease. Even his memory had become worn and troubled by thoughts that seemed to leap at him from unknown sources.\n\n\"Are ye haunted by the end,\" Death rasped out from what seemed like all directions.\n\n\"It was the end before it began,\" he replied, \"and so shall it be again.\"\n\n\"You know not the end of all.\"\n\n\"Do you?\"\n\nA shiver had run down the spine of he known as Death, a foreign feeling that seemed to resonate through the room. Lives were easy and ripe for the taking. They were the the low hanging fruit, bloated and heavy with premature rot. They were meant to be feeble in their final moments. Kings and peasants alike were meant to be reduced to cowardice. Death, feeling something he never had before, stood abashed before a that which he had come to claim.\n\n\"Your words are brave,\" Death send as he worked to maintain his composure. \"Yet all is finite. Do you not know this?\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said the man, \"I have always known.\"\n\n\"And how?\"\n\n\"I saw it in the falling leaves in autumn. It was present in my fathers shaking hands. I could smell it in the war fields, and I tasted it during famine. It ran through my body as I held my wife during her final breath. I believed in it when I awoke in pain and slept in agony.\"\n\n\"Why do you not fear it now?\"\n\n\"Are we meant to fear the inevitable? Are we meant to fear the coming tide for the ocean just behind it? To fear to die is to fear to live, and neither can stop what will be. All things that begin shall end, even those that carry life to death as mothers carry children until they are ready to walk.\"\n\nRecoiling as if struck, Death found its back to the door and its hands drawn over its face. Fear, an unknown and terrible feeling had crept over him. A shack overlooking the ocean, not the charred streets of Pompeii or the haunted fences of Dachau, was where Death found himself the coward. This man of frail bone and pale skin had struck the fear of existence with end to something that believed it to be forever.\n\n\"Every ocean,\" the man began, \"has a shore. All stories have a last sentence. All things that begin end, and all things that end may begin again. As I have been waiting for you, have you not been waiting for me?\"\n\nInto the darkness they would walk as they had walked into the light. Into tears they would find sorrow as in laughter they had found happiness. As man must fall, so must all things. It were better to be a grain of sand in the hour glass than to be a god in oblivion. Though he were not meant, though he knew not he could, like a lover at a wake or a mother at the grave of their kin, so did Death weep. As he wept, the man could only hold out his hand to comfort the dark visage before him. The tide receded from whence it had come, and the clock stopped still as the pendulum fell once more. Those that are may be again, and that which is shall end. In this, the immortals shall be struck by their mortality. In this, as had been said, even death may die.\n\n\n\n ", "\"Greeting mortal!\" Death blew open the door to Nick's room with a sudden gust. \"I am the Taker of Souls, the Collector of Men, the Grim Reaper! I have come to take you!\"\n\nThe scrawny man turned around and smiled. \"Hi, I'm Nick.\"\n\nHe held out his hand.\n\nHe held out his freaking hand.\n\nDeath paused. \"You... you don't seem to grasp the situation.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" Nick pondered for a moment. \"You are taking me from my living body to deliver me wherever you see fit, right\"\n\nDeath scratched his head. \"Well, the decision isnt mine, but yes I am taking you from your Earthly body... You seem pretty relaxed.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"You'll die. Do you not understand the significance of this?\"\n\nNick frowned slightly. \"You win some, you lose some.\"\n\nDeath dropped his jaw. Litterally dropped his jaw, no skin kept it on.\n\nNick looked around. \"You gonna take me now or what?\"\n\nDeath picked up his jaw and put it back on. \"You don't want to say goodbye to anyone?\"\n\n\"Not really.\" Nick turned back around and opened up World of Warcraft.\n\n\"What are doing now?\" Death asked with a high pitch. \"Gonna make a priest and hope it saves your Soul?\"\n\nNick logged in on his Death Knight and immediately jumped off a cliff, dying.\n\n\"Oh,\" Death said while watching over Nick's shoulder, \"real mature. Screw this, I'm not giving you the satisfaction. \" He turned and glided out of the room uneventfully.\n\nAs soon as the door closed, Nick logged off and made a priest.\n", "Strictly speaking, management doesn't make house calls.\n\nI mean sure when the shit hits the fan I get down in the trenches with the rest of the Department, but as the Director I'm expected to delegate and manage, hell, I don’t even recruit anymore.\n\nThese days unless it’s natural disaster or genocide I don’t get out much... but a reapers gotta reap.\n\nIt wasn’t always this way, I can’t accurately say how long I’ve been doing this – the concept of time is only recent and to be brutally honest I’ve only had things straight since the Indus Valley, but when the first peoples came to believe in the concept of death and dying I manifested. For the longest time it was just me, following around a couple of Tribal groups, and it was really only when people began moving out of what is now called Africa did I have to start recruiting from the ranks of the recently deceased.\n\nIt’s not for everyone, guiding the souls of people who’ve just died requires strong stomach to start with and more empathy than most people are capable of, it’s also not forever – I’m going to have to replace my 2IC, a former farmer who’s been with the Department since early Mesopotamia – but not everyone wants to move on to “whatever is next” right away, plus it’s has it’s perks.\n\nYou can still enjoy a nice meal or get drunk with your co-workers, we’re only incorporeal nine to five with the occasional weekend or night shift baring \"all hands on deck\" disasters. Culture is a big plus too, I don’t think a single Star Wars fan in our ranks moved on after the prequel films where announced – post phantom menace exodus aside. Used to be you’d have to beg a hunter gather to stay on, these days you just have to name drop Game of Thrones and tell them about the dozen people we have making sure GRRM doesn’t snuff before it’s done.\n\nBut at the end of the day, it's still a job, an essential public service that must be done.\n\nThis one wasn’t special. Sure I'll occasionally drop in for the big names, Stalin being the last one. Complete monster in life and death. Him and Hitler had everyone working overtime without vacation for years, I took more pleasure watching them die than was necessary, and even more calling them out as their souls looked upon their lifeless bodies. Nobody knows \"whatever is next\", but if the universe is just, it won't be pleasant for them.\n\nI caught the Reaper heading to the deathbed and he was more than happy to knock of early. He hands me a post it with the details… J. Conner, suite 7, level four, lymphoma… a hospital? \n\nI hate hospitals.\n\nFrom a purely management perspective, Hospitals and Aged Care facilities are a boon to the Department, but they reek of the “smell”. \n\nThe “smell”, simply put, is a soul close to dying.\n\nNow you’ll excuse the pun, Death is never certain. I’ve waited many a time as armies massed with the “smell” pungent, almost choking, only to have the leaders reconcile. The smell follows everyone, gets stronger as you get older, or sicker, or closer to danger, but until your numbers up there is always a chance. \n\nBut if we're writing notes on a person, it's probably terminal.\n\nIn hospitals, particularly large hospitals, on any given day that chance is always 0 for somebody. They smell so badly we typically assign teams on hour long shifts. The smell lets us do our job, but those lingering when death would be release reek of pain and suffering, it’s awful.\n\nFrom a purely management perspective, Hospitals and Aged Care facilities are a boon to the Department, but we need to rotate people out of there as often as possible.\n\nThis was only a small hospital, the smell wasn’t strong, most patients here where young and healthy – I could pick out the one close to dying pretty easily.\n\nRoom 407.\n\nI enter and the dying woman greets me.\n\n“Hello Mauta”\n\nI freeze. \n\nThe dying cannot see us, only the dead. Not only that, she called me by my name – it’s not the first name I’ve had, but it’s the longest surviving one.\n\nExcuse me?\n\n\"To be honest I didn't expect you to be here,”\n\n... I was in the neighborhood. \n\n“Well, at any rate it saves time, I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been waiting my whole life.”\n\nBefore I was confused, now I'm really confused, …waiting your whole life?\n\n“Yes, it was my request, demand really. They wanted you sooner, but you can’t just drop somebody into the roll without experiencing the service for themselves.\"\n\nI don’t understand, who are you?\n\nShe smiles.\n\n“It’s time to move on my friend. Upper management sent me, I’m your replacement.”" ]	9
	[WP] A 1970s New York gangster has a deal go south leading to a run-in with a demon.	[ "Frank Lucas was in a hurry. He had plans, big plans and he was damned if anyone would get in his way. Dressed head to toe in the finest cloth; he was a go-getter. Frank thought if you gonna play the game, you gotta go all the way. He walked with purpose; he owned the ground he walked on. If anyone got in his way, fuck 'em. He crossed 5th avenue into a butchers shop. The bell rang. \"May I help you?\" I burly man asked. He was tall and muscular. The type of body one gets only from moving pounds of meat every day. \n\nFrank eyes glanced about the shop. His eyes moved across the delicacies, to the counter and the empty doorway behind the man. He heard the buzzing of flies as they slammed into the windows. His nostrils filled with the smell of decaying flesh. He hated it. \"Eaaah shut up. I don't have the time to deal with you.\" Frank lit a cigarette. \n\n\n\"There's no smoking in here,\" the man snarled. His patience already thin from Franks remark. \n\n\"Fuck off,\" Frank pitched back. He took a long breath and exhaled the smoke. It danced its way across the air. Circling around the cutlets and hams that littered the shelves. \n\"I said no SMOKING!\" The man slammed a meat cleaver against the cutting board. It sticking straight up. The sheer force causing it to quiver in its place. \n\n\"Oh yeah big boy?\" Frank raised his eye brow as his arm slowly brushed his suit aside, showing .30 Luger. \"I'll dance if you want to,\" Frank said enjoying himself. \n\nThe butcher stared long and hard at Frank. \"If you aren't going to buy anything, then get out.\" \n\n\"I don't wanna,\" Frank replied taking another hit. \n\n\"GET OUT!\" The man's anger at a boiling point. He began to advance. His hand moved for the cleaver as the other began to move the gate separating the chop block from the store. \"Back off Reggie,\" a stern voice called out from the back room. \"Now, is that anyway to treat a customer?\" The voice soothed its way into Reggie’s ears. The butcher backed down. \"No, I,\" Reggie paused staring hard at Frank \"apologize.\"\n\n\n\"It's about time.\" Frank called out. He was beginning to worry if he had come to the right place. \"You need to keep your lackey under control. There's no business in being a gangster if you can't control your men.\" He felt as though he was dealing with an amateur. \"You need to strike fear in their eyes. That's how you earn respect.\"\n\n\"I'll be sure to remember that.\" The voice chuckled. \"Come back here so we can speak. I would like it to be a bit more private.\" Frank incredulously looked at Reggie. His eyes still glaring menacingly. He'd have to walk right by him, and at that distance his gun wouldn't be quick enough. \"Don't worry about Reggie. He's harmless. He just likes his meat. Now, come here. We are here for business. Are we not?\" The voice questioned. Soothing Franks' doubts, caressing his courage and pulling him in. Frank pushed his way past the swinging gate, and scuffled past Reggie. His eyes glaring down at him the entire way, never letting the cleaver go. “Fuckin’ ape,” Frank whispered. \n\n“Now what are you here for?” A man in the middle of the room sat at table facing the door. His face obscured by the dim light. “I’m sure it wasn’t to ridicule my butcher?”\n\n“No,” Frank replied. “I came because I heard you got what I need. You got what I want.” \n\n“And that is?” The man questioned. His response smug and suave. Frank recoiled. This man was no amateur, but he couldn’t lose face now. “I heard you can get me to the top. I have big plans for New York and I’m willing to do whatever it takes.” Frank walked around the table to a chair across from the man. He sat down and leaned back. Making himself comfortable. “I hear you got the goods to make it happen. I’ll split my share, you just jump start the bus. What do you say?” Frank, happy he spoke so well, gave the man a look of confidence. \n\n“Share? Profit? I do not want any of these things. I have money. I have power. There’s more that I want,” the sooth voice had turned stern. \n\n“And what is that? I’m going to be at the top and I will dispose of any trash that happens to be on my path. I don’t have time for this nonsensical bullshit.” Frank was annoyed. The word on the street claimed this man was the answer to his prayers. He was nothing more than some crazy old bastard who had lost his touch. \n\n“I want you.” The voice cooed. \n\n“What the fuck.” Frank slowly let out these words. “You want me? Bitch, I own me.” He pulled out the Luger and pointed it at the man. “Are you going to give me my money or am I going to have to shoot you and your lap dog?” Frank was tired of this farce and lacked the patience.\n\n“Hehehe,” the man chuckled. “I’m going to savor you.” Frank froze. The voice was no longer smooth, but raspy accompanied by a deepened growl. “Mother fucker, I’m warning you!” Frank shouted. The man stood up. Frank choked as he felt the man’s presence. It was stifling. His finger trembled over the trigger as the barrel aimed at the man’s chest. \n\n“I’ll give you what you want,” the man’s eyes now detectable within the low light. They glowed as a cats would when they reflect light. “You just have to give me your soul.” The voice growling with lust and greed. Frank stood frozen. “I can give you power, followers, and success. I will hand New York to you on a silver platter. Just hand your very being over to me.” The man persuaded. His face contorted into a maniacal grin. \n\n“I, I, can get power?”\n\n“Yesss,” it replied. The man walked over and stood behind Frank. His arm and Luger lowered. “Everything you’ve ever dreamed of. I can make it so. All you have to do is agree.”\nFrank thought. He had always dreamed of being on top. Ever since he was a small boy, he wanted to rule New York. This was his moment, but there was a small problem. He wouldn’t be king, the man would. “I can’t,” Frank slowly replied. His voice barely audible. \n\n\n“What?!” The man yelled! “You will forsake your dreams for your pathetic, and damned soul?”\n\n“I won’t do it. See, if you're in charge of me, then I ain't on top. I ain't cool with that.” Frank yelled. He brushed the man’s hands from his shoulders and moved towards the door. \n\n“HAHAHAHAHA,” the man’s laughter filled the room. It’s echo tortured Frank’s ears. “You? You are worthless,” the man sneered. “You are nothing without me. That’s why you’re father left and why you’re mother whores herself. Not for you, never for you. You are trash. People walk by you and don’t even see you. You worthless, pathetic, piece of sh-” BANG BANG! The sound of the Luger rang through the room. Frank stood there, eyes wide. The barrel pointed at the chest of what he hoped would be a dead man. He stared at the man standing in front of him. The smoke creeped its way out as it left the bloodied orifices. “Fuck. . .” Frank whispered. The man did not go down as he had intended. He just stood there “You’ve made quite the mistake in ignoring my bargain.” The man pulled out a handkerchief and blotted the blood. “I’ll have to get a new suit. . . I really liked this one.” He fingered the holes. Frank stared incredulously as he saw smooth skin where the holes once were. \n\n“Wh-Wh- What are you?” Frank stammered. \n\n“Me?” The man questioned, almost forgetting Frank was there. “I’m afraid that is no longer any of your concern. Reggie.” The man nodded his head to the space behind Frank. He was unaware that behind him stood a large mass. Before Frank could turn, he felt the cold blade come down hard on his head. He blinked twice, registering the pain. His eyes glanced over to the man who had taken the bullets. “It’s a shame, I could have used you.” He peered into Franks eyes, before frank dropped to his knees and fell to the floor. The pool of blood deepening. Frank lay there in shock. The man went back to his chair. Ring ring - the sound of bells were heard. Franks eyes moved slowly in an attempt to see behind him. “Reggie, go attend to the customer.” Reggie walked off towards the shop. \n\n“Hello, how may I help you,” Frank heard the casualness in his voice.\n\n“Oh, yes.” Frank heard the customer pause. “Do you have any specials?” Frank closed his eyes. His thoughts were blurry and he felt himself fading. But before it all went black he heard Reggie say . . . \n\n“Why, if you just give me a moment, we recently just got a new shipment of fresh meat.”\n\n", "Perched on the bar stool Eddie picked at the paper of the label on his beer bottle. The place was quite and he was the only one propping up the bar. The bottle long empty the tiny shreds of paper formed a pile in front of the mobster. On a good day he liked to think he knew what was what but everything had gone to hell in a hand basket tonight. The fucking car wouldn’t start, he remembered the feeling of putting his foot on the gas and hitting the floor, as the bar tender walked in front of him and asked him if he wanted another beer, with a nod Eddie agreed.\n\n All he had to do was drive it wasn’t fucking brain surgery, he knew he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the draw, if someone told him to drive he drove he didn’t ask any questions he didn’t get told anything that might upset him. The fresh beer appeared beneath his eyes and he stopped picking at the label a smiling red horned devil peered up at him from the new bottle water droplets glistening on its face. \n\nHe was meant to pick some guys up from a job on the west side outside The Old Curiosity Shop and drop them off on the other side of town far from any revelry that was still going down. The beer was cold as he gulped it down and he could feel the hair on the back of his neck rise in sympathy like a ghost whispering in his ear. \nHe’d pulled up at the agreed time two shops down from the old store. He looked out his rear-view mirror and in the limited light of the street lamps watched the store. \nSomeone a long time ago has painted the glass windows of the store front black and painted in what was once gold leaf ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ and something else, written underneath it in smaller print, that he couldn’t read. Eddie had drummed his fingers and waited, the shop was old, maybe once it had been impressive the door’s faded red paint peeling and showing another older layer of blue paint. The black paint that covered the windows was chipped in places and he could just make out a light coming from the store. \n\nWith most of the bottle sitting in his belly Eddie put the beer down and stared down at the bar he reached into his pocket for the loose change he had taken from his car and began to roll a quarter he found across his knuckles, he could feel the barman watch him.\n Eddie watched the shop door burst open in the rear-view mirror as Sam Patten and Pete Aaron the two guys he had been waiting for pushed their way out smashing the door off its hinges. Eddie watched them madly scan the street for his car. Shifting in his seat he checked the doors were open and continued to watch the men push each other out of the way as they scrambled from the store. Eddie heard a noise come from the broken door that reminded him of the coughing bark of a Lion he had once seen on Animal Planet. \nEddie watched in confusion as Sam and Pete looked over their shoulder while they sprinted towards his car, both men were shouting at him. The fluorescent light above them died with a crash and the street went dark. As the men reached him Eddie thought he saw something emerge from the store it was hard to tell but it looked like smoke. \nSam got to the car first his red hair dark in the moonlight he snatched the car door open and dove into the back seat screaming “Drive, fucking Drive.” A second after him Pete reached the car and started to climb in Eddie though he was wearing a black jacket but it was only when he got closer that he saw something sliced him up good. Sam smacked Eddie’s head and shouted at him to drive as Pete opened the door and with a scream suddenly wasn’t there. Distracted by Sam Eddie didn't catch what happened but he could hear that same coughing noise from before and Pete’s shouts cut off with a choked cry. They could hear scrabbling on the roof like fingernails clawing and with that Eddie put his foot down and nothing happened. Sam was making a high pitched scream like a kettle boiling and reached into his jacket pocket spilling its contents everywhere and pulled out a gun.\n\n It was dark outside and Eddie was sweating as he fumbled with the keys and kept trying to start the car while Sam behind him turned wildly pointing the gun at the cars windows. What looked to Eddie like a smoke began to creep up the sides of the car as the scrabbling on the roof got more desperate. Sam seemed to snap and began shooting through the roof. Eddie ducked down and watched over his shoulder as an arm that was too long for any man and ended in a hand whose fingers reminded Eddie of a spider punched through his car roof and ripped Sam through the roof.\n Eddie started to scramble with his own car door as suddenly the coughing bark stopped and his car started. Peeling out onto the road Eddie smashed into the car parked in front of him and pulled away not daring to look behind. \n\nThe coin rolled across his fingers and he watched the lights from the bar reflect off its edge. Eddie had driven far and fast dumping the car and walking into the first bar he could find. Eddie didn’t know what had gone on in that shop and he didn’t want to know but he wasn’t going back for Sam and Pete he was no hero just a guy who knew how to drive and liked getting paid. The barman was in front of him again and blocking the light from the bar. Eddie looked up and heard the coughing bark he had heard earlier that night, a cold white hand reach down and plucked the coin from his fist, in a voice as dead as the air inside a tomb and just as dry a voice slithered through the air and slid down Eddie’s ear. “MINE”\n", "Roger staggered up the third floor of his walkup building and continued down the hallway to his corner apartment. Roger was about to open his apartment when he noticed the smashed lock and slightly open door. Roger had two options: confront whoever was awaiting him inside his apartment, or run like hell and leave this god-for-shaken neighborhood for good. Roger was strapped so he chose the former. Even before he turned on the lights, Roger could smell two Mexican gang bangers, Eduardo and Felipe, who sat comfortably on his sofa. Roger knew both of them well, he had sold to them many times. Eduardo, couldn’t sit still and was always complaining about the weight of the product, was unbearable and Felipe, always quiet and wearing his hat never uttered a word to Roger, was a lot more tolerable. \n“Make yourselves at home why don’t you.” Roger Said. Eduardo, startled, jumped out of the couch and pulled out his luger, and pointed it directly at Roger’s chest. \n\n“Sit” Eduardo sneered and motioned to the couch. \n\n“Okay, Okay.” Roger said nervously. Holding up his hands as a sign of peace and taking his place alongside Felipe.\n“So tell me the problem?” Roger asked. \n\n“How about I show you.” Eduardo remarked, removing a small dime bag of white powder, and placing a line on Roger’s coffee table.\n\nRoger was sweating nervously, this couldn’t be good he thought. Roger wasn’t a drug user, just a dealer, thus, never sniffed the products relying on friends and users for confirmation.\n“Do it.” Eduardo said. “Or Felipe, here will gut you like a fish.” \n\nRoger looks at Felipe, who imitates a fish getting caught on a hook. Roger bends down and cleared the line, he had seen it done millions of times, and instantly he knew it wasn’t coke, someone had switched out the bags and replaced it with baking soda. \n\nSurprisingly Felipe cleared his throat and threateningly said,” You fucked us, now we fuck you.”\n“We can make this right.” Roger pleaded, “You just gotta give me a couple days to find out who fucked me. I didn’t mean to fuck you, it’s just a chain of fucking, the only reason I fucked you, was because I was fucked. Fucks spread like aids you see.”\n\n“We’ll we aint no faggots.” Eduardo said as he moved closer to Roger. He placed the barrel of the Luger on Roger’s forehead and said, “And you’re not gonna get a second chance.”\n\nRight before Eduardo tightened his finger, Roger slapped his hand and tackled Eduardo: a shot went off. Eduardo and Roger wrestled momentarily until Roger grabbed a lamp, from his coffee table and smashed it against Eduardo’s head, knocking Eduardo out. Roger looked back at Felipe, who sat motionlessly on the couch. Roger examined him for a second before noticing the big bullet wound in his stomach. With Felipe out of the picture, Roger turned his attention back to Eduardo. Roger dug deep into his pockets for his Rossi Revolver and pressed it firmly against Eduardo’s neck. \n“I’m sorry Eduardo.” He wasn’t. \n\nAnother gun shot is fired. Roger quickly exists the premises, and keeps his head low. Half of the Latin kings would be looking for him, Damn Roger thought, he was really fucked. He decided to find Stein, his supplier, and get some fucking answers. Roger didn’t know where Stein lived but he knew a couple of his hangouts, especially The Subway Inn on east 60th St. Roger took the 6 train downtown and 10 minutes later he got off on 59th street and headed towards the bar. \n“Hey Mickey” Roger said to the bartender as he entered, Roger had spent many sleepless nights here, perhaps another was on the way. \n\n“You see Stein?” Roger asked inquisitively.\n \nMickey nodded his head and pointed to the back of the room.\n \n“He’s out back with a couple fellas.” Mickey said. “Can I get you anything?”\n\n“Yea a Black Velvet please.” Roger Responded, and took up a seat at the bar, he could see Stein pounding Irish Car bombs with two Mexican men, he knew their names and their affiliation. What the fuck was going on he thought. He wasn’t too worried about being seen, as Stein was already belligerent and talking loudly. He decided he’d just keep his head down and wait for the three men to exit, then trail them.\n \nRoger had just finished his second Black Velvet when Stein and the two men decided to get up and leave. Roger slapped down a 20 dollar bill for Mickey, and told him that if he didn’t come in here tomorrow to call the police. Mickey understood, selling drinks was not the only business conducted in this bar. \n\nRoger who had started feeling the effects of the Black velvets turned right on 60th street and followed Stein and the two Mexicans. They were stumbling all over the place. Roger hoped their destination was close by.\n\nThe three men turned towards Second Avenue, on 64th street and headed into a walkup building. Roger snuck into the building right behind the three men, who weren’t very aware of anything at the moment. He saw the men head for the second floor, so Roger decided to go back outside and scale the fire escape. Roger got to the second floor and stood where he could see inside the apartment, yet remained well hidden. Roger could see the Mexicans and Stein sitting in the living room.\n \n“Where’s the Women?” Stein Slurred.\n\n“Were just gonna wait for Boss first.” One of the Mexicans responded.\n\nA loud ringing knock on the door, brought one of the Mexicans to their feet.\n\n“That must be him.” The Mexican said, and promptly went to the door to reveal another man who wore a top hat and a dark Armani Suit. He was clearly was in charge of this rendezvous.\n \n“So this is our man?” The well-dressed man asked.\n\n“Yes.” One of the Mexicans confirmed. \n\n“Wazz going on? Where are the women?” Stein asked, who was slowly realizing, albeit his drunkenness, that he was not drinking with buddies anymore.\n\nThe man in the Armani turned towards the Window. Holy shit Roger thought, that’s fucking Felipe, Roger’s head was spinning. Felipe walked towards the window. Roger took out his revolver, ready to fire. But Felipe just closed the curtains, and returned back to Stein.\n\n“I’m going to eat you now.” Felipe said to Stein. And simultaneously the two Mexicans held down Stein as Felipe slowly began devouring Stein, who was so drunk he could barely lift his arms to defend himself.\n\nRoger who had seen enough, and was feeling the heroism of alcohol broke through the window and emptied a whole clip at the Mexicans and Felipe. \n\nMiss, Hit, Hit, Miss, Hit, Hit. \n\nThe two Mexicans laid motionlessly on the floor with wounds in their chests, but Felipe, who had a hole through his head stood up.\n\n“Roger, make yourself at home why don’t you.” Felipe smirked.\n \nFelipe’s hat, had been knocked off revealing two horns.\n \n“What the fuck are you?” Roger shuddered. “I saw you die today.”\n\n“That was an unexpected accident. Truthfully, you were just supposed to be devoured like Stein here, but when I awoke to find Eduardo dead and you missing. I needed to feed.” Felipe Replied.\n\n“Feed?” Roger asked.\n\n“Of course.” Felipe said. “Demons need to eat too, luckily were heard Stein was in the neighborhood.”\n\nRoger dumbfounded, fired string of questions at Felipe, “Why me? Why Stein? Why the Latin Kings?” \n\n“Well demons need to feed, so we infiltrate gangs, to connect us with the scum of the earth.” Felipe said. “We’re not terrible people, just hungry.” \n\nFelipe looked at Steins half eaten body, “Suddenly, he looks un-appetizing, but you,” Felipe pauses to lick his lips, “you look like filet mignon.”\n", "Tommy was a badass. He sat across from DeCisco, a smug look across his face. He talked, though not much with his mouth, but instead with his mouth, in the corner of which was a cigarette. There was a large buildup of ash on the tipping and bouncing cigarette, but he didn't show any indication of pulling it from his lips to tap it into the ashtray. \n\nBilly watched with admiring eyes from the corner of the room. Directly across from him was DeCisco's chosen bodyguard. Billy didn't know his name, which was a good sign. The deal mustn't have been that big; Billy was still a youngblood and this had been his first duty. His heart swelled when Tommy chose him to be his guard. Tommy may have been patronizing him, but Billy didn't give a damn. Tommy was his idol. \n\n\"The fuck you mean?\" Tommy asked, hands raised above his head. \n\nDeCisco just sat there, hands crossed over his large chest, hidden underneath his armpits. The woolen blazer that he was wearing almost seemed that it was about to rip to shreds; the man was unnaturally large. Decisco didn't say anything. Billy really wished that he had been paying attention to the deal. He nagged at himself internally for being so aloof. \n\nTommy took the cigarette from his lips and held it over the poker table that the two gang leaders had been using for their meeting. It was DeCisco's table. \n\nTommy tapped it once, and the ash shook, but it didn't fall from the cigarette. DeCisco didn't budge. \n\nBilly felt that he should've been nervous, but he shook the feeling. He was with Tommy, and no one fucked with Tommy. \n\n\"You know what I think about that?\" Tommy said.\n\nDeCisco still didn't say a word. His bodyguard was equally statuesque. Billy took in a deep breath and held it in his chest. He knew Tommy wasn't going to back down. \n\nTommy tapped the cigarette once again, this time causing the ash to fall to the table. \n\nDeCisco leaned forward and slapped Tommy. \n\n\"Oh shit,\" Billy said, finally stepping forward from his resting position against the wall. He fully expected Tommy to stand, pull his pistol from his jacket and unload into DeCisco, but no. Tommy just sat there.\n\nBilly looked to DeCisco, seeing that the man had returned his hands back under his armpits. DeCisco's bodyguard hadn't even blinked. \n\nThe air had felt laden with static, as if a single movement would bring lightning down from the skies, obliterating everything in it's path. Billy felt his stomach tighten. There was a sour taste in his mouth, and a strange scent permeating his nostrils. \n\n\"Tommy?\" Billy asked, almost worried that the world would fall apart from the shattered silence. He didn't know if he should draw his gun or not. He looked to his fearless leader, trying to read any sign of direction from his body language. \n\n\"Tommy?\" Billy asked again.\n\nTommy was still, his face turned to the side. He turned slowly towards Billy. There was a large red welt on his cheek from where DeCisco had slapped him. Five red lines branched across his face. They were small, like the red pen marks Billy's teacher often riddled on his exam papers. \n\nBlood seeped from the lines, causing Billy to gasp. \n\nTommy looked at Billy. There were tears in the corners of his eyes. \n\n\"Boss?\" Billy asked.\n\nTommy's face drooped from his skull. The skin hung off in grotesque bloody ribbons, blood spilling from his cheeks in quick pitter-patters against the ground. Billy could see Tommy's teeth underneath the ribbons of flesh as well as the muscles contracting in his cheeks. \n\nTommy clenched his jaw. His teeth crumbled in his mouth, sounding like gravel being crunched underfoot. Tommy opened his mouth and took in one gasping sigh. The top half of his head tipped backwards, falling to the ground with a loud wet thud, leaving only his body from the bottom jaw down sitting in the chair. \n\nBilly pissed himself as DeCisco stood up, revealing his hands. \n\nThey weren't hands. They were huge paws with long black claws curling from the mangled fingers. DeCisco exhaled a thick white smoke from his nostrils. He put a hand underneath the poker table, and flung it at Billy. \n\nIt flew with such speed that Billy didn't even have a chance to blink. It smashed into his face, shattering his nose like a baseball through glass. His head snapped back, smacking against the concrete wall. Something in his neck popped from the force, and he felt his legs go numb. \n\nBilly slid down against the wall, legs folding on themselves in an awkward fashion. Blood from his broken nose ran down his throat, and he choked. He coughed and gasped for air as DeCisco walked towards him. \n\nDespite the numbness in his lower body, Billy knew he was sitting in his own shit. \n\nDeCisco showed pity on him by quickly bringing his clawed hand down on the top of his head. \n" ]	4
This can be comedic, serious, or both. Multiple submissions are welcome, especially if you can make yours link to the others.	[WP] Your first time dropping acid, you eat a whole sheet, not knowing any better. You are transported to "DRUG WORLD" which is really just skewed reality. Describe the bizarre things you see, hinting at what they really are.	[ "From my complete dissociative state filled with fractions of memories, some old and some not mine, I woke into a corridor. It wasn't a nice place, I knew this immediately. The long fat hallway was not decorated and seemed bleak and ancient. Surely this is still the drug working it's evil.\n\nThe floor and walls were stone, the ceiling was of wood arches, and the only picture on the wall is of...is that me?! It is! As a child. What the fuck? How did this get here? It's a picture of me sitting with my grand father on the bank of the Tennessee river. Where am I? It was then I really took notice my surroundings. The hallway itself was filled with many doors. In fact, I can't see the end. It seems to go on for ever..\"..but these doors..\", I thought, \"What's behind them?\".\n\nI approached the first door to my left. There was no knob, but something that looks like some medieval lever. I lifted it, it creaked and swung open to a very light room with people standing around a bed...in a hospital? The people in the room don't notice my attendance. I step inside...it's an old man, he's dying. I can tell by the faces of those around him. This is his deathbed...he looks awfully familiar...like my grand father did on his deathbed... \n\nThe next room wasn't anything better. I stepped inside of it. This room was \"outside\", where ever that is in relevance to my hallway. The scene is of what looks like the wrapping up of a funeral, maybe the guy from the other side of the hall. They're all walking away from the tomb stone. I got the chills just being there in the cemetery. As I decided to leave an impulse ravaged me. I had to see the name on the stone. If anything, it might could tell me where I am, or at least help me rationalize this bizarre world I have found myself in. I creep closer, dodging the people who can't see me. More and more of the old people are looking so familiar. Like they're my friends, just old. I finally approach the stone and I can't believe it...it's my tomb stone. I'm at my own funeral. \"How? What is this shit? My friends told me this drug would help me find myself?! Not find my grave! That was me in the other room! I'm fucking dead!\" \n\nI freaked out for a good five minutes before I collected myself and began to take back control of my wobbling knees. \"Ok\", I thought, \"I know three things here, I'm on drugs, I'm in a hallway that has different openings to different times of my life, and I seem to be at the end of the hallway that has captured the end of my life.\" No wonder the hallway was so long, I lived to be an old man.\n\nI re-entered the corridor of my life with a new sense of sanity. It was relieving. I ran. I ran until my lungs gave out. I still couldn't see the other end. So I chose to enter the door to my left...as soon as it creaked open I heard gun shots, cursing, and someone call out, \"MARK!\". I freaked out instantly, Mark is my best friend. He was with me earlier when I took the dose. I ran in to investigate. It was some suburban setting. It was definitely my home town...but not the best part of it. I saw me, there I am! \"Wow, I'm old.\" Was all I could think when I saw the alternate version of myself staring down crying on his knees at...MARK! FUCK! What happened?! I looked up and saw a man running away, I chased after him but as soon as I turned the corner I ran right back through the door that took me to this place and slammed into the door across the hall. The fuck?! I opened the same door I just came back through and heard gun shots, cursing, and \"MARK!\". It was the same scene, replayed. I walked back to my corridor, leaned against the wall, shrunk down to sitting, and sobbed. Mark, my best friend, why? How? What did he do? We couldn't have been more than 40? I sat there wondering, I will surely die, that must have been my funeral, I know it was me on that deathbed. Mark is surely going to murdered in the street by some thug while I stand helplessly by. Will my life be full of turmoil such as this? Full of tragedies and anguish? \n\nI sat there for what seemed like an eternity. Determined to not walk through another door...but eventually curiosity, as it always does, got the best of me. I decided I would go back in time further. I, again, ran down the corridor, the haunting never changing corridor that is apparently is a special hell for something I must have done bad in my life. This time I pushed, I pushed hard. I ran past any humans natural ability. Swiftly, surely, because it was chasing me. My friends death was back there, and I had to get as far away form it as possible. \n\nAfter what seemed like a year of running I stopped in front of another door, and I stepped inside. ", "There are waves snuggling up to my back from where I am seated. The water pools in my lap and I reach out slowly to grab them. The water turns to little sqares in my hand, all connected to each other, enveloping me, drowning me, keeping me warm. Each of the little squares, in different shades of blue, blares an advertisment. \"WELCOME TO DRUG WORLD.\"\n\nPanic sets in. Drugs. Drugs are bad. This ocean is made of drugs, I have to leave. I start tearing at the blue cotton wave drugs attaching themselves from my skin. I toss them aside and scramble onto the Ice Plains.\n\nThe shiny brown ice taunts me, threatening to reach up and grab me to bring me down to their level. I will not let them defeat me. I slowly crawl across the ice, careful not to slip. I crawl for hours, never faltering, the horizon only barely showing a glimpse of the island.\n\nThe island grows nearer. The flat flowers grow between colored walls. I climb them, clawing my way up to the Great Basin.\n\nThe Great Basin appears before me. It is empty, but a little silver man sits hunched over, leaning his face over the Great Basin, as if to will it full again.\n\n\"HEY!\" I shout. \"CAN YOU GO ANY FASTER\"\n\nThe man ignores me. He holds his hands together, clasping a blue gloved hand in a red gloved one. \n\nI am angered for a second, but then I realize: I didn't bring the offering. I need to present a crystal offering to receive his blessing. Bewildered, I embark on my quest for a crystal.\n\nThe Crystal Caves are near the Great Basin, but a signifigant climb. I claw at the entrance to the caves, until finally they give way and the crystals shine from within. Some of the crystals contain creatures, writhing within their cages, trying to convince me to let them out. I look at one in particular, a mouse wearing red pants. He squeals at me menacingly. I quickly grab the nearest, clearest crystal and book it out of the cave.\n\nOnce out of the cave, I find myself back at the Great Basin.\n\n\"BASIN LORD\" I cry, trying to sound regal and ceremonial, \"I have brought a crystal recepticle to offer for your great service. The Basin Lord ignores my words, smiling a sly smile, but not moving or looking at me. How irritating.\n\n\"Look, I came a long way to get here, and I'm not leaving until I get what I want!\"\n\nThe little silver Basin Lord looks at me, pensively, wringing his little blue and red hands. I get fed up, reach back, and bitch slap him.\n\nThe Basin Lord's face contorts and he bends over, a hot, sparkling stream begins pouring out of his mouth. I thrust my crystal into the sparkles and the sparkles turn red, burning my hand. I recoil, but my crystal has been energized. I flee, leaving the Basin Lord hunched over, retching.\n\nI find myself back in the great Ice Plains. I sit down in the middle of the expanse, my crystal in hand. I draw the energized sparkles out of the crystal with my mouth, letting the fire within it enter me.\n\n\n\n[I don't know if I succeeded, but if it wasn't clear, all he did was get off the couch, strip naked (thanks Julian_the_Great!) and argue with the faucet to get a drink of water.]" ]	2
Monologues only, please!	[WP] Monologue prompt! Choose one: hero or villain. You are addressing the hero/villain (whichever you did not choose) who is out there, somewhere, listening. Why does your world deserve to be saved/burned? What makes your character the hero/villain?	[ "\"This world is dead to me. DEAD TO ME! John, this world stole everything I loved and knew. My wife was raped and killed, and people video taped her. Did anyone call 911? Did anyone defend her? You could see someone new JOIN the fucking rape! And it killed her John. My son, my only son who I cherished and was the closest thing I had to wife after her death was tossed from a third story building. He was alive for three hours as people walked by. One man stepped on him, he stepped on my dying son completely oblivious to what had just happened. The world is not worth saving John! Let this world be damned. LET IT BE FUCKING DAMNED! You remember the last time I cursed? I swore I'd never do it, and I would represent the good in humanity I'd live a good live have a decent family and be different from my father. He called me a fucking loser. A fucking wimp. A fucking waste of time. Then he'd beat, and beat me and beat me. I swore I'd never be him. And now, now I see it so clearly. Everyone is my father. It was as if God had given me a sign that all of Humanity was useless and he had forsaken us. John when this bomb goes off it will destroy the entire lower floor incinerating us instantly, and that's not all. The bomb will release a virus I made and within a week all humanity will be infected and within a month they will all be dead. My father's will all be gone, now good bye dad. It good talking to myself. 3... 2... 1... good b-\"", "I saw this from all and I thought I would give it a shot...\n_______________________________________________\n\nWhy should I care for this world Parn? Why should I care for you? All I see is an idealist, a dreamer that doesn't live in the same world that I do. Someone who believes that the good in people will somehow, make everything okay again...But it was those same people that destroyed this world! What did you do when the walls started crashing down around us? When the people started to turn on each other when food was scarce and when hunger turned to desperation and that desperation resulted in them eating their own? WHAT DID YOU DO? I relieved them of their hunger, their desperation, burning them, flaying them, reducing them to ash was the only humane thing to do! This world is doomed and you just don't know it yet. If you think that what I am doing is so evil then you don't understand me at all.. I AM SAVING THEM from the only thing this world has given them, suffering. If you mean to stop me then I dare you to try, but it will take every ounce of blood and sweat in your puny body to even put a dent in what I have begun...The REAPING has started and it won't end until everyone and everything is gone! Then maybe the world can start over again....", "I didn't want it to be this way.\n\nEven now, as I stand here with my finger on the button that will set in course a chain of events that may only end in war and destruction, I know I will hate myself for what I am about to do. Yet I must proceed. I accept that I am most likely mad. I accept that I might be solely remembered as a madman and a butcher, but I cannot sit idle any longer. I've grown listless watching the world fall into the languid decay of mediocrity. My generation has become content complaining from their couches, not taking the responsibility to fight for something better. Nihilism has found its way into our hearts. We ask, \"what's the use? I can't change the status quo.\" In a few moments that will change. Millions of people will be forced to care about some for the first time in their lives. They will be pushed to care about their survival and the destruction of their newly perceived evil, even if that evil is a lie. It was once said that conflict breeds creativity. At the very least it will make things...more interesting.", "\"You do realize we’re burning, right?\" \nThe once great hero now sat in the alleyway, tied down, chained, and gagged to the brink of death. He stared back, the defiance of a man who truly believes he can live. \n\n\"Have you looked around you in, oh say, the past twenty years?\" \nThe same blue-green eyes stared back. \n\n\"You rich fucker. You grew up in a world of gold and beauty. You never had the experience we had. You heros truly believe you are in the right, don’t you? Have you ever looked at how stupidly rich nearly all heros are, compared to the villains? Do you honestly believe that’s a coincidence? You, the rich, look down on us as if we are insects, and you put on your capes and your cowls, and act superior, when we are the true monarchs, are treated like shit.” He tore the gag from the hero’s mouth, yanking a tooth with it. \n\n“You will loose.” the hero said. “The league will find you, end you, and stop all of this.”\n\n“Likely.”\n\n“Watch it happen.”\n\n“Asshole. Do you have any idea why I do this? You think I enjoy killing?”\n\n“Of course you do. You’re a conceited prick who lo-” The villain slapped him, cold, merciless, and dripping with sympathy. \n\n“I hate killing, you ignorant dumbass!” The defiant blue-green eyes stared back, curiosity, rage, and determination all fighting for dominance. \n\n“We are burning, and have been for years. Each “good” person that you have saved has committed an unforgivable, although you wouldn't know that, since you stay in your tower, literally looking down on us. You protect rapists, murderers, and enslave the ones unlucky enough to find their way to you. Everyone has done it, you just don’t want to admit it.”\n\n“Bullshit.”\n\n“Really? Have you ever actually looked at the people around you, how their eyes flick from face to face, hoping they’re not cops? Have you ever talked to the people you “save”, before going off to drink yourself to sleep? This world-these people are not worth saving. They are below shit. Humanity is a plague that deserves to be clean.”\n\n“So what, you’re a Robin Hood, killing the bad, giving to the poor, and purging all the way?”\n\n“No,” the “villain” said, lifting the gun to the hero’s head, “I’m so much more than that.”", "What an ambitious Writing Prompt, I'll try my best. Apologies in advance for any grammatical errors. Sorry if this is too long :/\n\n---\n\n*click\n\nMr. Bane, are you awake yet? It's been a good 8 hours, I'm pretty sure you're up. Looks like you're pretending to be sleeping... WAKE UP GOD DAMN IT!!! Good, that's much better.\n\nYou're probably wondering where you are right now. Well, you're in one of my prison cells but don't worry, we won't let you die here because you're a valued citizen to this planet. If you're wondering where your family is, I've put them in individual holding cells just like yours. Don't worry about them, I'm keeping them safe. I know you value them so. Isn't that why you became a police officer? To protect the ones you love and those closest to you?\n\nLike you, I'm doing this because I want to protect the ones around me but not just those around me. I'm doing this for everybody. This world is bad, evil, and corrupt. And I plan on changing this world by restarting everything, everything that we've accomplished so far has just brought pain and misery for everyone. For every one step forward, we take two steps backwards. We've been walking backwards this whole time, Mr. Bane, and for god knows how long this has been happening. That ends now, Mr. Bane. I plan on making this world finally move forward for once.\n\nMr. Bane, I'm not the bad* guy. The media is over-blowing everything, I'm really the good guy, Mr. Bane. Those propagandize programs are lighting me as the worst human being on Earth just because I want to change this world's structure. What's so bad about change? I thought everybody loved change but yet when I decide to change the world, everybody is entirely against it? What complete hypocrites. \n\nI thought you of all people would agree with my vision of a new world but you publicly outright speak against it because you got to do what's best for the order of the good. Watching that almost made me sick. Tell me Mr. Bane, exactly what's good and what's bad? Do you know what the difference between them are? Twist question, the difference is that there isn't any. It's all in the eyes of the beholder. However, society deems that the perspective of the majority is deemed absolutely correct. That's fucking horseshit. Just because a vast majority group of people deem something right doesn't mean it absolutely it is so. \n\nDo you know what this majority deemed me for my measly crime?! Twenty fucking years, because I took a life in the midst of robbing a bank! Everyone lives then dies, that's a part of life but they don't fucking get it. They think that taking a life is terrible, it's fucking normal! How can they not see that? Those people who I've killed got in the way, it's their fault for getting themselves killed during my robbery. Not me!\n\nDo you know how old I am Mr. Bane...? I'm forty nine years old and I've spent most of my prison time missing out experiencing all of my children growing up. Do you know what that feels like to not be able to be there to comfort them when they're lonely, not be able to see them graduate from high school, and not be able to see them achieve their desires and dreams?!! \n\n...Mr. Bane, answer me!!! Have, you, ever, felt, like, that, before?! \n\n...\n\n...\n\n...\n\nSilence. I take that means you don't... what a shame. \n\nMr. Bane, those children were my livelihood. They were the only reason why I kept on waking up in the morning and go to my crappy job as well as help deal with all the bullshit that life threw at me. It was all because of them! The precious time I've wanted to have with all of them is forever gone and I can't get it back... \n\n...\n\n...they're all grown up now and I can't play with them anymore and see them grow into adults... I can't have it all back!! Everything I've worked so hard for was all taken out of my hands!!! EVERYTHING!!!\n\n*Twenty seconds of Static in the PA system caused by jerky movements\n\n...\n\n...\n\n...This system was wrong, it always was. I've just never seen how terrible it was until after a year of not seeing my family. It was lonely, Mr. Bane. Lonely in my cell. I was very depressed for many years in that prison, but then I stopped being sad and got very angry at the people who placed me here. The people in the system unjustifiably put me here because they thought I did something wrong but I didn't... it was all inhumane!! \n\nMr. Bane... I wasn't in the wrong, the system was and the only way to bring down the system is to burn everything to the ground. Keep those precious members of that system we all once used to live in because it's going to forever be gone once I'm done with it. \n\nJust you wait, Mr. Bane. I'm going to bring a great new world and it'll be amazing. You'll see. This new world will be much better.\n\nMr. Bane, you won't regret leaving this world in my hands. I promise.\n\n...\n\nMr. Bane, it's been fun playing with you... it gave me a little sense of what playing with my children could've been like. However, when playing with children, there's always going to be a time to stop and that's now.\n\nThe game ends now. Your attempts at stopping me will now come to a forever pause.\n\n...\n\nSayonara, Mr. Bane.\n\nclick", "\"I know you're there, Vahn. Since you seem too cowardly to show yourself before me, perhaps I'll spend of a bit of time to enlighten you.\"\n\nVictor shifted his stance a bit, completely at ease even against a known threat.\n\n\"Vahn, this world is broken. Vascal and I are but two men, and through nothing but sheer power we have turned it on itself. If the world and it's people are honestly that weak, then new leadership is in order.\n\nWar, following our victory of this one, will be abolished. Famine and plague will cease to exist. Our goal is not to destroy this world, but to liberate it's people from misfortune and unify it.\n\nOf course... There is no question of our methods: they are cruel and, yes, even evil. Those who stand in our way will be culled from the living, as will their families and friends. We will not suffer a single rebellious mind.\n\nYou are powerful, Vahn. In you, I see a younger version of myself. Perhaps the sands of time changed me more than I'd realized. However, I will not be falter on our current path. We* will not falter. \n\nReturn now to your brother, and carry our message. \n\nThis world will no longer suffer the terrible curse that is free will. It will instead be replaced by subjugation, and for the first time since the beginning, we shall have peace.\"", "The light swung slowly back and forth, casting long shadows across the room. I could feel a cold breeze across the back of my neck. There was a group of children huddled in the center. He was here, somewhere, I just couldn't see him. \n\"Why are you doing this? Why are you trying to kill all these children? What did they ever do to you? LOOK AT THEM! Who made you the angel of death? Where do you get off thinking you have the right to decide their fate? They have not had a chance to live yet. They haven't felt...... th-they haven't learned what it truly means to be alive, what it truly means to fall in love, to raise a child. They are innocent of any crimes, innocent of everything except maybe crying too much, or eating too much candy. If you murder these children, you destroy the soul of this world. The future of humanity. Without our children, what is the point of existence in this world? What is the meaning? Is there even a reason to continue? I am here, alone, to beg of you, on my hands and knees, not to hurt them. You can have me, you can do anything you want with me, just let them go. As each new generation surpasses the next, they achieve more and become greater than their fathers, and their fathers before them. Allow them the right to grow..... to become teachers, doctors, firefighters, allow them to realize their dreams and help the people around them realize their dreams. If you snuff out their lives, you wont just be ruining just theirs, but the lives of everyone around them. Please, please, don't do this.\"" ]	7
I've had this phrase running through my head since last night.	[WP] "Power corrupts. Absolute power is fantastic."	[ "Opening my agenda to the back page entitled \"notes\" I thought about all that had brought me here. Reaching out to cross off the name Antonio at the top of the page, my mind went to all the bribes I've had to take, the corruption I've had to become to get to this point. They say power corrupts and they are right. If one wants to climb the ladder one has to get their hands very dirty. So much blood. So many tears. So many cries for help nobody will ever hear. All the public sees is this face and they think of a good christian boy. Heh, I don't even believe in god...although I sure believe in Satan.\n\nAll that, for this moment, finally able to cross that last name off my list. Reaching the top was difficult but being able to bury the men that killed my wife. Power corrupts, but absolute power, when wielded for vengeance, is fantastic. ", "\"You can't be serious,\" I told him with great disbelief.\n\n\"Of course I am,\" he replied with a smug grin. \"Why shouldn't I keep it for myself?\"\n\n\"Because there are literally millions of people dying of cancer everyday,\" I replied, my tone becoming angrier by the minute. \"You and I both know damn good and well that your formula should be for all of humanity to prosper from. Keeping the world in the dark isn't going to benefit anyone.\"\n\nHe began to laugh, and wiped a tear from his eye. \n\n\"Frank, you're one of the most brilliant people I've ever met and you still don't get it. This was never about proving that we could cure cancer. This was about finally having an edge on this modern world. This society we live in is fueled by money. The man with the biggest gas tank burns the brightest, see? And I finally have a flame worth burning out on.\"\n\nI tried by best to remain calm, but my rage was growing. \"Dammit Robert! Will you pacify your greed for once in your life and let this go? So what if you can use this to make tons of money? You can't bring all that wealth with you when you leave.\"\n\n\"Oh can't I?\"\n\n\"No. You can't. And I think you've let all this power go to your head. Your wife's worried about you, Robert. She has been for years. Is this dream of yours really worth throwing your life away?\"\n\n\"Gone to my head? Wow, you truly are daft.\" \n\n\"Pardon?\"\n\n\"You are right about one thing though. Power does corrupt the mind. Absolute power, on the other hand, is a wonderful thing. Once I find a way to sell my formula to the highest bidder, I will have that kind of power. It's only a matter of time.\"\n\nRobert truly believed that ultimate power was his for the taking. The pistol behind my back said otherwise. ", "I watch from my secure position on the podium as the opposing army lines up in the street in front of me. Men in uniforms and boots form neat rows and columns, still wearing the colours of a nation they knowingly and unwaveringly pledged their very lives to. I scan the faces of those in the first row in hopes to catch even a glimpse of weakness in this conviction. I get nothing. No tell. No grimaces, winces or signs of sadness. Perhaps their leader has chosen the most stedfast men to present a united front in this time of defeat? It matters not.\n\nThe demand I gave yesterday was clear, and this moment signals acceptance or execution. Their world has changed and their nation is no more. They submit to my demand or they face my guns. The option is a clear one, but the tension oppressing the area makes it clear that all present understand the gravitas of the situation. I wait here now in my seat to see if they will meet my demand. And then… an almost imperceptible nod between the stoney faced men in the front line. They open their mouths and begin to sing.\n\n\"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?\"\n\nI am pleased at the harmony of the group, apparently the men of the front line were chosen based on their vocal abilities and not their restraint. The remaining rows slowly add their voices to the melody, becoming less of a voice and more of a wall of sound. The lyrics are hard to discern once the full army joins in, but the melody remains somewhat recognizable. \n\nMy demand was clear, you may surrender but it can only be tendered by singing Bohemian Rhapsody in the main street for all to hear. No surrender will be accepted from those who do not sing. No exceptions. I listen to the horrendous rendition of the Queen classic with a smile. My Second in Command once again looks to me with confusion and a bit of condescension. \n\n\"I still don't understand the point of this. Why make this a formal demand?\" He asks this question of me for the second time. I had answered him yesterday with just a smile, but today I will give him a response.\n\n\"Because I'm absolute commander now. My friend, the only question I'm obliged to ask is Why the fuck not?\" ", " The barrel of my gun was down his throat when I pulled the trigger. I told three of my slaves to clean up the mess. I am now the only politician running for government.\n My secretary told me that my running opponent had been murdered. \"That's terrible!\" I gasped as I walked into my office. I would now win the election by default. They would all follow my rules. My guidelines and endless restrictions.\n My election day was here. I stepped up to the podium and began my speech.\n \"A great man once said, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. I am here to be the best leader I can be for all of you. Greatness is to come.\" \n I bowed and accepted my applause as I stepped off the stage. I thought about my defeated opponents family. Oh well, I will be a greater school president than he ever would have been.\n " ]	4
What does she tell you, and how has this made you question the world around you?	[WP] Your dementia riddled mother has a brief period of lucidity just before she dies.	[ "I've gotten used to the hospital smell. A lot of the memory from when mom was first diagnosed is a blur, so many things happening so fast, our status quo dismantled, but the smell I remember perfectly. With my dad unraveling, my older brother nowhere to be found, someone needed to take care of mom, so I moved home. Each time we went back to the hospital, there was that smell. Each appointment brought worse and worse news, and it got to the point where I'd developed a pavlovian response to the smell. We'd enter the hospital lobby, mom leaning on me for support, her frail hand gripping my arm, asking where we were going, and that smell would attach my olfactory nerves and I'd start to feel a tightness in my chest, sweat on my palms, my body already going into the high stress response mode that usually accompanied the smell. \n\n\nOnce mom was confined to the hospital, it became clear that there wasn't any bad news left to give. The diagnosis was complete. It was basically a matter of time. And being here just about every day, I finally got used to it. Now it doesn't fill me with dread, so much as a sense of despair. \n\n\nI hope that it helps her. Being here, listening to her. But it's not clear that it even registers with her that I'm there, or even who I am. She goes on and on about the things that go through her mind. One minute she's telling me how proud she is of me for graduating from law school. Moments later she's asking me if I was nervous about starting college. She'd recollect about our family trips to Disneyworld. Or ask me what I thought about my brother's new girlfriend. \n\n\nListening to her breaks my heart because it's painfully clear just how much of her 83 years have been devoted to me and my brother. Dad worked, and mom had given up her career to take care of me and my brother. She had to spend more time than should have been expected, taking care of my brother, and by the time he had demonstrated his independence by taking off without so much as a note, it was too late for her to get back into the workforce, or do much else with her life. I urged her to travel, to make use of her day, but she was aimless. My brother's desertion had rendered her with no guiding purpose, and she didn't know how to get back on with her life. And now here she is, lying in a hospital bed of hard starched sheets with nothing left except a random jumble of thoughts, and all of them are about us. She's had nothing else.\n\n\nI must have drifted asleep for quite a while because when I heard her gasp for breath the sun was setting, golden red light streamed in through the window, and I had a dull ache in my stomach from hunger. I got up and moved to the bed, sitting close to her and holding her hand. Her breath was irregular now, but her eyes were open, looking right at me. \n\n\n\"Mom... how are you feeling?\"\n\n\nShe smiled at me, and I could tell that this time she recognized me. Her smile took up her whole face, there was a sense of understanding in her eyes, and she squeezed my hand. I hadn't seen a hint of recognition for over a year. \n\n\n\"Elise... you're so good to me. Thank you. For everything.\"\n\n\nI felt tears welling up, a painful tightness behind my eyes that I pushed down as best as I could. \"Of course mom, anything.\"\n\n\nShe squeezed my hand again. She nodded, but kept her eyes locked on mine. \"Honey, I know you're so mad at your brother and have been for such a long time,\" she started. \n\n\n\"Mom, no, don't worry about that,\" I interrupted her quickly. I did not want what might be the last real conversation we had to be about my brother. He had already ruined enough.\n\n\n\"Please, honey, I need you to hear me.\" I nodded. I felt her gripping my hand tighter, and her breathing was coming harder, but her eyes stayed on me. \"I know you're mad, and you have a right to be. But you don't know everything about why he left, why we haven't heard from him.\"\n\n\n\"Mom, it's okay. We don't have to talk about this,\" I said. \n\n\nShe cut me off, \"Elise, he was very mad at me. You see,\" she took a deep breath. I could tell she was starting to struggle, but I didn't want to interrupt her again. \"You see honey, he found out something that I had never wanted to admit to him, or to you, and when he found out, he didn't know how else to handle it. So he left. I thought he would have forgiven me after a few months, but I was wrong. And I held out hope, even years after we'd heard from him last, that one day he'd come and talk to me again. Because, sweetheart, I never got to tell him that I was sorry. And now, I don't think I'll get a chance to.\"\n\n\nHer grip started to slacken and her eyes drifted away. \n\n\n\"What did he find out? Mom, what made him so mad?\"\n\n\nShe looked at me, and the recognition was gone. \"Who? Who's mad at you? You seen like such a sweet thing to...\"\n\n\nShe started to drift off again and my heart sank. Suddenly I felt her grip tighten again, and I looked back at her. She caught my gaze head on. \"Elise, I need you to tell him I'm sorry. Please. Tell him I'm sorry, and that I love him. Thank you, Elise, I love you.\"\n\n\nHer grip slackened again and her eyes drifted away from mine. Her body relaxed, and her head nodded slightly to the left as her eyes closed. And just like that, she was gone. ", "I've been sitting by my mothers bed for days now. Watching her laboured breathing and furrowed brow as she lay in semi-consciousness. The dementia took over and she's been slowly starving to death. Every once in a while she frantically tries to haul her bony frame off of the pillow and searches with wild eyes until fatigue violently collapses her and she fades away once again. I miss her kind nature and her matter of fact approach to life. All the shit that was handed to her she greeted with utter acceptance and dignity. I just miss her asking how my day was. I've seen people die before but never someone I loved so deeply. Where will she go after this? Is she in pain? What will I do without her? Who will I ask for advice? Will she hear me if I talk to her? \n\nExhausted I trudge to my bedroom above the mock hospital room we've made for her, knowing I most likely won't sleep. The support worker wakes me around 5am telling me it's time so I gather the others to say their last goodbyes and as we enter I see her turn her head towards us and she's there. I mean, all of her. I see my mom in her eyes again. \n\n\"Mom?\" \n\n\"Help me sit up\" she says and turns herself over. \n\nWe rush to her side and dangle her legs over the edge of the bed. My sisters and I acting as bumper pads on all sides of her. My mother looks around at all of us with every possible human emotion registering on her face at once. And with a shaky voice she says the first clear headed thing she has said in 3 years and the last she'll utter for the rest of her life. \n\n\"All my girls! Oh thank you god. Thank you!!\" \n\nAnd I know that she has heard us, that she was at peace, that we were all to her what she was to all of us and that will never be lost to me. Goodbye mum. See you soon." ]	2
I was watching a youtuber and they made comment that the phrase 'tickle tickle' could be taken in some disturbing manners.	[WP] Grimm fairytale-esque story that uses the phrase 'tickle tickle' at least once.	[ "The dark woods at the edge of town were a known place for the young boys and girls to play around in during the day. But none were foolish enough to go in at night. \n\nThe boys of the town would stand at the edge of the forest staring at the wall of bark and shrubbery at sunset. When the sun dipped down below the horizon, and the darkness arrived pulling its galaxy dotted blanket over the town, the boys would dare and push the others to go into the forest. \n\nNone ever did. They would wait until one of their parents would call them in, scolding them for being out so late, but truthfully, they would rather the lecture than what horrors lay beyond the darkness of the forest. \n\nOne night, in the pale moonlight dimmer than all the other nights, as if scared himself for the events that would unfold under his watchful gaze. The boys stood at the edge of the forest and one boy, new in the sleepy town, was elected to go into the forest. This boy was passive and sweet, sheltered, unknowing that there be any danger in the world. He would learn tonight however.\n\nThe boys taunted him \"Do it! Do it DO IT!\" they seemed to scream at him so he took a step, over the brush, between the two largest trees which stood on the edge. He went into the forest and was over come with a shocking silence, scoffing at the other boys for being so afraid he walked further into the forest. Now he was deep, deep in the forest where none of them had gone before, not been during the day. And he heard it. At first a slow rumble, but it became louder and clearer, as though coming closer chanting...\n\n\"Tiiiiiiiiicckkklllllleee tiiiiiiiiiickkkllllleee.\" He shuddered, turned where he had come from and ran. Ran as fast as he could over fallen logs, through bushes made mostly of air. It grew louder still.\n\n\"TIiiiickkllleee Tickklllleeeee!\" Above him he heard the trees blow in the wind, making menacing laughing. The low branches reaching for him. And it grew louder still.\n\n\"Tiiicklle! Tickklle!!\" Now the crunching of the leaves on the ground were drowned out by the rythmic and fast thump thump thumping of his heart against the inside of his ribs. It grew louder still!\n\n\"Tickle Tickle!!!\" He was sweating, he opened his mouth to scream but nothing escaped his lips but a chortled groan. He tripped on a fallen log and pushed himself off the dirt earth without hesitation, he stepped to run but his ran headfirst into something. It felt soft, it had buttons leading up the front. His eyes followed those buttons up to its blackened face and as it looked down to look at him, he saw the eyes were on fire.\n\nThe boy fell backward and tried to crawl away but the man with fire eyes seemed to move faster than light and once more was looking the boy directly in his eyes and now screamed the words, consuming his entire soul with the rasping burning voice.\n\n\"TICKLE TICKLE!!!!!!\" ", "Every little boy and girl knows that they need to listen to their parents. \nThey are the only line of defense between them and the things under their beds, after all. But what of the little boys and girls that don't have mommies or daddies? \nThe children in the rundown orphanage wait in the oppressive darkness, their blankets pulled up over their heads in fear, in waiting. The only warning is the low creak of the weathered floorboards as the dark shadow rises from beneath the bed. Its eyes glint in the moonlight as it slowly turns around the room, even the children brave enough to peek at the creature draw the blanket up over their eyes when its icy gaze settles on them. \nBut then, he's found him. Billy, the naughty boy. Billy didn't eat all his vegetables and he had yelled at one of the other kids that day. \nThe creature aims to punish. It's long, razor sharp talons tear the blanket covering him to ribbons, little Billy paralyzed against his lumpy mattress in terror. \nHis eyes well with salty tears as he stares up at the creature, mumbling and stuttering out an apology as he feels the tips of those gnarled fingers press against his exposed tummy. \nHis chin shudders as he restrains his wails and his lips quiver with the words that now refuse to escape his tightening throat. \n\"Tickle, tickle.\" The creature growls, its voice so deep and powerful that the floorboards quiver in response. \nThe talons slip down and the silent night is pierced with the shrill cry of the naughty boy. \nTickle, tickle." ]	2
	[WP] Foreshadowing is real. There are trained experts that are able to tell which events hint at the future and which are mundane. Not all of these people tell the truth.	[ "\"Show the next one in, Mr. Collins.\" \n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\" \n\nO'Keefe watched the couple slowly enter, glancing around nervously as they made their way to her desk. The man clearly didn't want to be there, but the woman seemed more determined: desperation drives people to do things they would have never been bold enough to do otherwise, thought O'Keefe. As she watched Collins close the door behind them and take his expected post near the exit, she thanked her lucky stars yet again for her partner. Not only was he built like a bouncer, effectively scaring any potential clients into silence, he was one of the best Harbingers in the business. \n\n\"What do you need?\" O'Keefe asked sharply, the minute their seats were in the fashionable, purposefully uncomfortable chairs. \n\n\"Our...our son. He's ill,\" the woman whispered. She hadn't looked up from her clasped hands since she sat down. \"They say it's terminal. But, if there is a chance...we know it's against hospital rules...but please...\" her voice trailed off as she started to cry, softly. Her husband draped his arm over her shoulder and gave her a quick squeeze. O'Keefe looked up behind them just in time to watch Collins roll his eyes.\n\nHere we go. She took a deep breath and started her spiel. \"I will need at least six hours in his presence to collect enough data and to sort the portents from the coincidences. The usually M.O. is to claim that I am a distant relative who moved away for a job or marriage, who knew your son when he was little. I will need to be alone with him for those six hours. You know that Harbingers are trained to correctly identify and interpret potential portents, but there is always an infintessimal chance that an identified portent may turn out to be something mundane.\" \n\nShe took a crisp white sheet of paper out of her desk and placed it in front of the couple, tapping the text with a perfectly blood red manicured nail. \"I charge $500 an hour, up front in cash, plus expenses for disguising my apperance. I'll need some photos of your relatives so I can appear to be a relative. If you sign this document, you are sworn to secrecy and absolve me and my associates from any litigation due to faulty interpretation. Any questions?\"\n\nSilence. The woman slipped the paper closer to her and signed. Her husband shuddered and whispered in her ear. She startled back, shaking her head vehemently. \"How could you say that? If there's any chance, I need to know what we can do for him, I don't want to put him in hospice if the chemo could work, what if there's a drug...\" \n\n\"Ma'am,\" Collins replied in his deep, lilting voice, causing the couple to turn around to face him. \"If there is a portent, we will find it.\" O'Keefe loved this part; clients never knew if they should be hopeful or scared shitless of her partner. It was usually the tipping point. \n\n\"Okay, okay, I'll sign,\" the man sighed. He grudgingly took three crisp $1000 bills from his wallet and placed them on the contract and took the pen from his wife. O'Keefe took out several more forms for them to fill out, collecing the seemingly mundane information she'd use later for background checks. You can never be too careful; last year they almost got caught by a government sting operation looking to weed out any Harbingers not on the straight and narrow. Fortunately, Collins was smart enough to read the portents that led them to tell the agent the truth so they could save their hides, and their livelihoods.\n\nAs the couple finished and got up to leave, O'Keefe was overjoyed to see the woman walk up to Collins and give him a large hug (Collins out of his element was always fun to watch, especially when watching a petite woman hug a man the size of a refrigerator).\"Thank you, thank you for your help.\" She sniffed and looked back at O'Keefe. \"I'll bring you the photos tomorrow morning so you can go to visiting hours over dinner tomorrow, after I've told Jeffrey who you are so he knows how to act.\" \n\nO'Keefe nodded, and watched as Collins showed them out. She slowly turned towards her computer to start the background check. \n\n\"Another sick kid, eh? Thought you weren't workin' those any more.\" She heard Collins' smirk, no need to even look up from the monitor.\n\n\"Well, you know what a softie I am. If there's even any chance...\"\n\nShe heard Collins chuckle. \"...for a fast three grand, and likely another six when we 'can't read the portents correctly,'?\" he continued. \"Not a bad week. Too bad there'll be a dead kid at the end of it.\" \n\nShe chuckled back. \"A man after my own heart, ya big softie. Come here and start your homework, or that trip to Vegas is off the table.\" \n", "The present is best which is the truth;\nWhen you could see which was good;\nBut as time went on, past our youth\nthere were times when we thought we could.\nWas the future real or could it be a perception ?\nOnly they could tell, to see what was real:\nThrough hollows and shallows of inception ,\nI told you it was just a conceal. \n\nEDIT: Its a poem.", "\"Whoever came up with the idea of foreshadows needs to be shot.\" Daryl said to Oswald. They were at the cafe today, out on the patio in the summer sun. It was a clear day today.\n\n\"What makes you say that?\" Oswald asked in between a biscuit\n\nDaryl sipped his hot coffee gingerly. \"The worlds so frigging boring now for us. Nothing ever surprises me anymore, everything's just another eventual expectation.\" He took a biscuit off the table as well and bit into it, crumbs falling in his lap. \"Don't get me wrong, I owe you a great deal for teaching me all this but, it's taken some of the fun out of life you know?\"\n\n\"I don't think so.\" Oswald replied. \"It's a decent living, and it's not like it's without interpretation. You've made your fair share of mistakes.\"\n\nDaryl thought for a minute on that. Yes he wasn't the best seer in the world, and he's made mistakes before. It was only last week that he misinterpreted the falling of a girl's doll as his father's fall to death, when in fact it was foreshadowing the fall of the gas prices. But never the less, he knew something was going to fall, it was just details at that point.\n\n\"If you think about it\" Oswald continued, \"I think you'll still find plenty of things we don't have the foresight for, and still rely on our own instincts. It's not like we're clairvoyant and see the future. We just see signs.\"\n\n\"It still makes life boring. I can't remember a time when I was seriously surprised at something.\" A thoughtful pause passed between them. Nonchalantly, they looked down the street at the passers. It was faint, but the signs were there, for each person, subtle hints at events to come, little tips and signs of each person and the events that would befall them that day. Most of it was mundane and boring: one man would find a five dollar bill, another person's going to break their phone. \n\nOswald took a cookie. \"We can lie.\"\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"You know, the signs.\"\n\nDaryl thought for a moment. It wasn't like the idea had never occurred to him, but he never had a reason to do it. \"What's the point? It might make life interesting for some, but I'm still going to be bored as hell.\"\n\nOswald patted the crumbs off his shirt. \"We can make them up.\"\n\nDaryl turned to look at his friend, incredulous. \"What does that mean?\" \n\nOswald chuckled. \"There's still plenty you haven't learned about what we can do.\"\n\nAs if on cue a gun shot rang through the street, followed by a scream. Daryl jumped out of his seat and and looked to the direction of the sound. He saw a man crumpled on the ground not far from where they sat, and the panicking crowd running away from the body. Even from where he stood, he could tell that the shot tore his head inside out. \n\n\"How the hell did tha- Did i do that?\"\n\nOswald put a hand on Daryls shoulder. He turned to look him in the eyes. There was no sense of surprise in them. \"Come on\". He said, \"Let me make the world interesting for you again.\"" ]	3
	[WP] Time travel has been invented. Someone has gone back in time and rewrote history. For some unknown reason only a select few remember the original timeline.	[ "Before you read this, it was my intention to give you a full story. However, it's running late (way past 1am) and I have work tomorrow. If this proves popular I'll come back and add the second bit. For now though please just enjoy the story for what it is :)\n\n---\n\nDr. Stevens\n3rd June 2097\n\nThe room itself was cold. From everything I'd read about what they were doing here that was just as well. If it got warm then none of us would want to be here for more than a few minutes. I hugged my files to my chest and kept my head down. The lady showing me to the lift was pretty and reminded me of Karen walked. I scratched my nose and gave her a sideways look. No ring. I felt my heart flutter.\n\nI wouldn't do anything about it but I could always dream.\n\n“So... I read the files you forwarded. A lot of it was redacted...?”\n\nShe looked back and smiled. “The millitary have a big say in what we tell people. But today we're inviting the best in the field to come and witness the moment we switch this thing on.”\n\n“The 'Device,' I've heard so much about? What does it do?”\n\n“You'll see.” That smile was genuine. “You should enjoy it Dr. Stevens.”\n\n“Please. Call me Harry.”\n\nShe laughed. She actually laughed, not at me, but with me. “I will, Harry. So this is your first time at PhysCorp right?”\n\nI nodded. I'd applied for a job here several years ago, before I became so recognised in my field, but that was when they were in their old building, a tiny warehouse based out in the styx. Now they had this building in the heart of the city, bustling with people like the lovely Dr... I didn't know her name. I stuttered, wanting to ask, but unable. \n\nBefore I got a chance to bring it up, though, we were at the lift and she had stepped inside.\n\n“What was it like studying under Dr. King? I heard you two were close friends.”\n\n“Oh...” I shrugged. “It was okay. He's a nice man but he's the only person I know who speaks fluent English and still has a language barrier. King always muttered, you see, and talked in his own metaphors and riddles.”\n\nThe lift down only took a few seconds, and when the doors opened we had guns pointed at us. No biggie for the lovely woman I was with, but I jumped out of my skin. The armed guards were something I don't think I would ever be able to get used to. Perhaps it was for the good I didn't get the job all those years ago, the pressure now would be impossible to handle.\n\nWe submitted to the search and I was shown to the final chamber. What I saw couldn't exist.\n\nThey had built a Caffrey Chamber.\n\nThe thing was theoretically impossible to build. It wasn't a case of materials or the general principle behind what it did, it was just the way you had to build it. Some parts would have to have been running for at least a hundred years before you could do anything with them, and Caffrey had only designed the thing twenty years ago. Those bits would have to be mounted and spun in an atmosphere we couldn't simulate.\n\nThey were just the first problems.\n\nBut there it was, right in front of me, large as life.\n\n“How?”\n\nMy guide smiled brightly. “We have some good people working for us. Now, if you wouldn't mind stepping this way? We're actually running a little late.” I couldn't believe what happened next, but she winked. Sure, I got the joke, but it felt like more than that. Maybe I was deluding myself.\n\nTogether we stepped out onto a gantry that overlooked the chamber. Guards stood around us, their faces hidden by masks. But in among them were more scientists that I knew by face. So many great minds, all in one space. And at the heart of it all – a Caffrey chamber. PhysCorp were going to be announcing something big.\n\nA warm-up guy was trying his best to spin the crowd. He was talking about a brave new world and brave new frontiers in science. It didn't matter because everyone was just staring at the man behind him. \n\nThe two of us shuffled for a better view, rubbing shoulders as we did. I couldn't bring myself to look at her, but I could feel her, pressing against my side.\n\nThe warm up act finished and the MAN HIMSELF stepped forward, Dr. Fowler, head of PhsyCorp.\n\n“Before we start, I want you all to know that you are here because I admire you completely. Each one of you has provided something to your field that has allowed us to build the very first Caffrey Chamber. Unfortunately, the man himself can't be here. I'm sure you'll all join me in a moment of silence to honour the man who brought the idea that we could travel through time out of the realms of science fiction, and into the realms of science fact while we warm the chamber up.”\n\nJust use the chamber already I thought, but we all held out tongues. An uncomfortable silence fell across the room as we watched him enter a series of button pressed on a hand held device. The Caffrey Chamber began to spin slowly – blue lights flickering on. Just like the blueprints.\n\nFowler raised his head and surveyed the crowd. He looked ready to speak, to break this horrible, agonising silence.\n\nA gunshot broke it for him.\n\nThe masked men pushed forward as Fowler fell from the stage. We saw it in slow motion, the men streaming forward, the body crumpling, the doors of the Caffrey chamber wide open. The whiff of Ozone as they went through and then -\n\n“Before we start, I want you all to know that you are here because I admire you complete.y Each one of you has provided something to your field that has allowed us to build the very first Caffrey Chamber. But enough from me. Time for a word from the man himself!”\n\nThis had happened before. But it was happening again. And there... there was Caffrey himself, stepping forward, a widespread look of self love on his face.\n\n“Friends! Some of you thought that today would never happen. That I was a crock. Some of you,” Caffrey looked around, his eyes stopping on me, “would have said that I would die before I saw the completion of my life's work.”\n\nCaffrey winked and I realised with a cold, chilling certainty that what I had seen was real, and he knew it. \n\nI shuffled. To my right I felt my shoulder rubbing against thin air.", "NOTE: so maybe it's not exactly what you were thinking of with this prompt, but it's what I was inspired to write.\n\nThe alarm must have been running low on batteries, because by the time Jack was awake enough to become aware of his predicament, sunlight was already streaming in through the window. \"Damn.\" 7:45 already. He was sure he'd set it for 7:30. His wife flinched as he flung the covers off of both of them in his rush to get into the shower. She didn't have to teach lectures until this afternoon. Always lazing around when he had to get up and actually work. \n\nIn the shower, the handle was different than he remembered. Odd. It took him almost five minutes to figure out how to get the water to be anything other than scalding. This wouldn't have happened, he was sure, if Janice would occasionally make him a cup of coffee.\n\nDownstairs, in the kitchen, the cabinets were completely full of Froot Loops. They were everywhere––on top of the fridge, in the pantry, and even under the sink. This was odd, as just yesterday, these same spaces had been packed with boxes of his preferred apple spice oatmeal. Eventually, he gave up on ever finding something edible. Damnit, Janice, he finally muttered over a bowl of soggy rainbow circles, did you forget your meds when you went shopping this week? Or do you just hate me?\n\nBack in the bedroom, he stared, dumbfounded, at the tie he'd laid out for this morning. It was green. \"Honey,\" he said in a saccharine voice, \"what did you do with my blue tie?\"\n\n\"Di'nt do anything,\" she mumbled from under the comforter, \"why?\"\n\n\"I'll ask you again. Where. Is. My. Blue. Tie. I don't have time for your games.\"\n\nShe flopped over and looked at him with bloodshot eyes.\" Jim, I was up 'ntil four at the physics lab trying to get our new particle oscillator to work. Why on earth would I do something with your tie?\"\n\n\"It was BLUE LAST NIGHT!\" He roared at her, then flipped the chair over. \"And what's with the damn Froot Loops in the kitchen? What did you do with my oatmeal?\"\n\nJanice lay there, very still. \"I... I bought more oatmeal yesterday.\"\n\n\"Well, CLEARLY not. I guess I shouldn't expect anything from you, goddamn lazy pile of overeducated trash.\" Jim stomped out of the room, tie-less. He jammed his feet into his shoes, snatched his briefcase, and left, almost ten minutes after 8:05––his usual departure time.\n\nAs usual, lateness made him blind to his surroundings, and so as he screeched out of his driveway, he did not see the FedEx truck coming in the opposite direction, to make a delivery––to his own house––at exactly 8:15.\n\nAfter the police investigation into the crash, after Jim's funeral, Janice finally overcame her trepidation, and opened the FedEx package that had been intended for her. Through tears she saw the note:\n\n\n\n\nDear Janice,\n\nI know it's hard, but you're better off without him, honey. When your work at the lab is done, you're going to want to go poking around in your own past to see what happens––I did––and trust me, it isn't pretty if he lives. Abusive bastard. I've seen dozens of alternate timelines, and in all of them, today was the day that things turned sour. It was the last day you were ever really happy, and the last day that you ever really cared for him.\n\nThrow yourself into your work. It pays off, eventually. Just don't change your locks––you're going to sneak back in someday. Just don't forget to bring the Froot Loops... and a green tie.\n\nLove,\n\nJanice.\n" ]	2
	[WP] The sound of sirens is heard as you watch an ambulance make it's way down your road. You look to see where it stops as you realise it finishes it's journey outside your door. A hooded figure in black makes his way to the door. You clutch at your chest as you feel your heart struggle...	[ "....you fall to the ground and hit your head hard. The hooded figure was getting closer now. Closer. Closer. Its footsteps short. His long black robes dragging behind him. Sirens. Sirens wailing in the crisp October night. The ambulance was stopped, the red and blue flashing brightly illuminating the darkness. You could see the paramedics getting out of the ambulance. But they weren't running, they just stood there. Do they see you? As the figure approaches you think this breath will be your last. You can feel the heavy black material of the robes brushing against your body now. The figure looks down and three words come from its mouth. \"Trick or treat\"\n\nEdit: grammar", "The sound was deafening. The cacaphony rose and fell from the trio of ethereal skanks, perched lanquidly atop my roof, as they screamed at me in harmony. It was, apparently, the least of my worries. Don't get me wrong, they were hot, and I have extremely low standards at the best of times, but my attention from said menage-a-twats was unceremoniously disturbed by the arrival of a rusted out 68' Cadillac shitbox, left over from the glory days of \"Emergency!\".\n\nThe ambulance ground to a halt at the base of the small dirty pitch I'll lovingly refer to as a driveway. To my complete and utter shock, and tall, billowing form unfolded itself from the passenger side, and swept quickly towards me, black fabric whipping around in the same way that shit paints the toilet bowl after a chili cook-off.\n\nLeaning an over-sized straight razor against the wall, the figure pulled out a clipboard, thick with faded papers, from who knows where, and studied the top page. The sound from the rooftop reached crescendo, and the figure snapped his head up in annoyance, as if blackness surrounded by darkness could convey \"Seriously? Shut the fuck up\". A moment later, there was no sound. Not even a mummers fart. And I wouldn't know what a mummer was if I woke up next to it. \n\n\"Dave Sutton?\", the figure asked.\n\nToo scared to speak, with my ears ringing from the now silent landscape, I shook my head in the negative.\n\nThe figure consulted his papers, roughly flipping back and forth. \n\n\"Peter Mendel?\", came the almost hopeful sounding follow up.\n\nAgain, a no.\n\nExasperated, the figure poured through the pages, a long, pale finger tracing up and down like a yo-yo. After sometime, while the three up top shifted and tittered quietly to each other, the figure composed itself with a renewed certainty.\n\nIn a clear, firm voice that would peel the skin off a nazi, it asked \"Shaun\", pausing for dramatic effect, \"Tennyson\".\n\nSheepishly, I looked up into what I hoped was the general area where eyes should be, and shook my head once more.\n\n\"Oh for fucks sake\", the figure stammered. He flung the clipboard down, stomped around, kicked at my begonias, swore at my garden gnomes, and when the peanut gallery erupted in multi-tonal laughter, he snapped his fingers angrily and disappeared those bitches like Doug fucking Henning.\n\nI cowered, trying to hide somewhere between the door and the frontyard. After a few moments of heavy breathing and what sounded like tersely spoken Latin, the figure stopped its tantrum, cocked something like a head, and looked up and towards the sky.\n\nIt suddenly turned, and walked back toward me, a solitary finger jabbing in my direction accusingly.\n\n\"What year is this?\", it asked.\n\n\"2014?\", I replied dumbly. \n\nThe figure smacked itself approximately where a forehead would normally be, and gathered up its clipboard. It dug inside one of the numerous black folds of its garment, and pulled out a 3x5 card, shoving the card into the crook of my folded and, by now, rigidly kinked arms. \n\nIt sauntered away towards the still sputtering ambulance. \"Wrong year, Bob\", it said to the unseen driver, collapsing back into the passenger seat. With a loud slam, and the remnants of a seatbelt fluttering in the breeze, the ambulance drove off, lights flashing, sending reflections haphazardly into every direction. Exactly one second later, it was gone. \n\nI looked at the card left behind, pins and needles playing fast, sweaty jazz on my arms. \"Your opinion matters!\" blazed across the top of the customer service survey, and I promised myself I would never take acid again.", "The Ambulance raced through the wide suburban streets, the siren lights cutting through the inky darkness.\n\n\"Hey Mick, you ready?\" I asked to my partner as i adjusted my paramedic windbreaker\n\n\"As I'll every be.\" Replied my my balding partner, Mick Harris\n\nI was about to ask Mick more about the nights case when the Ambulance turned a corner, revealing a ghastly sight. Illuminated in the headlights of the Ambulance was a dark robed figure, he carried a farmers scythe in one hand, the other hand knocked on the door of 371 Rock-wood Drive. I thought back to my EMS training, Thinking who this robed assailant might be, then it hit me, this was the big man himself, death incarnate, the grim reaper.\n\nI turned to Mick, eager to inform him of my discovery, but my veteran partner was already on it. Mick floored the gas pedal, sending the Ambulance barreling towards death at 50 kph. Death turned, and looked straight into the xenon headlights of our ambulance, he looked more like a startled deer than the harbinger of destruction.\n\n\n\"Oh shit, It's the five-oh!\" Exclaimed Death in a low gravely voice. With that Death turned and hopped the fence leading towards his victims backyard.\n\n\nMick slammed on the brakes, bringing the ambulance to a halt on the boulevard, leaving tire tracks on the pristine Astro-turf.\n\n\n\"OK, lets go!\" said Mick, already getting out the driver side door. I followed suit, steeping onto the sidewalk, struggling to remember my training.\n\n\n\"You get the defibrillators said Mick, getting out of the back of the ambulance, wielding a massive claw, I identified it as the Jaws of Life. defibs in hand I joined Mick on the gravel path leading towards the front door. \n\n\"You hook around to the left\" He gestured towards the fence where Death disappeared. \"I'll work on the door, hopefully cut him off\" I agreed and headed towards the cast iron gate.\n\n\nI rubbed the defibs together, listening to idle beeping sound the made. The path Death took was clear, a trail of dead grass and plants led to an open screen door. I stepped inside the house, the doorway led into a kitchen, from here I could see the front door, The groans the Jaws of Life made could be heard reverberating throughout the house. I hoped Mick was close to getting the door open as i crept through the house listening for any sign of my target.\n\nA noise from up stairs, a voice. I stealthy move up the stairs, the gravely voice growing louder by the second.\n\n\"Hey . . . Uh . . . let me in I'm Death!\" said Death as he struggled with the a dog safety door placed in the middle of a hallway.\n\n\n\"By order of the Mortal Paramedics League of North America, I order to cease and desist\" I said in the most commanding voice possible.\n\n\n\"Shit, they followed me!\" yelled Death as he turned. In a panic Death threw himself over the small plastic fence, nearly dropping his scythe in the process.\n\n\"Hey we can talk about this!\" Death explained as he backed towards what I assumed was a bedroom door. I kicked the small fence out of the way, growing more confident with each step. I raised the defib paddles and placed my thumbs on the discharge button. Death bumped into the bedroom door, halting his hasty retreat.\n\n\"Hey, screw this shit! I'm fucking Death, I'm gonna mess you up!\" with that Death raised his his scythe and pointed its blade towards me. I braced for the coming blow\n\n\"By the powers of Azazel and Beelzebub I smite thee!\" Nothing \"I said . . . Smite thee!\" Death repeated. \"Oh shit, did i forget to fill this thing up?\" said death while tapping the shaft of his weapon. \"Oh screw all this shit!\" Death leaned back and threw the scythe, sending it barreling towards my head. I deftly dodged out of its way, it made a loud twang as it hit the wall behind me. when I turned back to Death, I saw him charging me, he was aiming to body check me.\n\n\nWith a deafening thud I hit the wall behind me, dropping my paddles in the process. Before I could recover Death on top of me. We grappled for what seemed like hours, Although I knew i could have only been a handful of seconds. Deaths was making quick work of me, did I get a concussion? It all seemed lost as Death delivered punch after punch to my dazed body, was he screaming? it sounded girly.\n\nSuddenly a ear piercing smash, followed seconds later by a another loud thud and a relief from the pain.\n\n\"Get the defibs!\" I looked around, slowly regaining my composure. \"The defibs dammit!\" I looked up to find Death pinned against the wall, the Jaws of Life slowly extending out words, exposing the black heart within. Mick was behind the controls, Struggling to keep Death where he was, beads of sweat running down his brow. The defibs. I roll over and grab the paddles, slowly rising to my feat on shaky legs. I rub the pads together once more for good measure and move towards Deaths exposed heart.\n\n\"Hey guys, I have rights too ya know!\" Yelled death as he looked down on me. I pressed the paddles against the throbbing black mass that was his heart.\n\n\"You have a right to remain silent.\" I said looking into his dark beady eyes. With that i pressed down on the discharge buttons. As death shrieked his body turned to black dust, he was once again banished to the underworld. All in a nights work for a paramedic.\n", "I opened the door, the orange bottle of medicine in my other hand.\n\nThe paramedic had a black coat wrapped around him—understandable, as it was cold. Why he had stopped here, at my house, I had no idea.\n\n\"What street is this?\" he asked.\n\n\"De Lancie,\" I replied. As I spoke I felt my heart flutter.\n\n\"Where is 658 Loomis?\"\n\nLoomis Street. Even for the offshoots in this backwater village, planted right in the middle of a forest, it was a pain to navigate—worse yet, they were going to Bill Hickerson's place, which was a real trick to find even if you knew where it was. I pointed. \"Second left, where the shoes are hanging from the tree.\" I wasn't finished, but the paramedic had uttered a quick \"Thanks\" and jogged back to the waiting ambulance. \"There's only one lane!\" I yelled after him. \"It's the house with all the 'NO TRESPASSING' signs in front!\"\n\nI wasn't sure if he heard me or not, but they were already gone. I could only hope that I had been clear enough—and that the ambulance wasn't so wide it would get itself wedged between two trees on either side of the road and become stuck.\n\nI remembered the medicine in my hand. I twisted the cap open and downed a couple of pills. I suppose my heart condition could be worse. Instead of sitting at home, enjoying a cup of coffee while my dog sits at my feet, I might've been strapped to a hospital bed or dead right now, but I hate taking these pills. I hope Bill ends up better than me.", "\"What? An ambulance?\"\n\n\"WHERE AM I?\"\n\n16th Main st. was where it happened. \n\nI'm 23... was 23, I suppose. I moved here after Mom and Dad died, just a year ago. It was a car accident... right? Or was it...? No, it was, I think.\n\nEverything felt strange and fuzzy, almost ethereal. My thoughts felt chaotic and disorganized. When it happened, my life flashed before my eyes, and the aftermath was still wreaking havoc on my psyche. I was... adjusting? Yes, that's the what was happening.\n\nI... live here. Yes. Now I remembered. I didn't have a job. I never finished school either. After they died, I had to live on my own.\n\nOh, I almost forgot. I was what society called a bum. A loser.\n\nMy body felt light as a feather, but oddly free. I was unbounded by physicality.\n\n\"Am I dreaming?\"\n\n\"Unfortunately, not this time,\" the hooded answered as it melded and slipped like a wisp through my door.\n\nI'm dead. The realization hit me.\n\n\"Hmm,\" I muttered.\n\n\"Well?\" The hooded figure replied. He was Death, or so I presumed.\n\n\"I thought I would be more, you know, panicked. Scared.\"\n\n\"And just how do you feel?\"\n\n\"Tranquil. Free.\"\n\n\"It's time to go.\" Death raised his long, arcing scythe high above his silhouetted head. It was notched and clearly sharp. On the blade and handle were ornate, yet hellish designs. Skulls, bones, blood. Horrible screaming visages of mauled carcasses.\n\n\"WAIT!\" I shouted. The scythe stopped mere millimeters from my throat. Another half a second and my ghost of a head would have been rolling across the floor.\n\n\"W-where exactly are we going? I have so many questions.\"\n\n\"Your place isn't to know,\" replied Death as he again raised the scythe.\n\n\"What happened to me? Can't you at least tell me that?\"\n\n\"Look around if you wish,\" said Death with almost a chuckle. \"Ignorance is bliss, I'll warn.\"\n\nMy mind was starting to clear now, and I started to put the pieces back together. I froze as I looked to the bed. My body sat motionless like a statue, a needle in its arm.\n\nI was a drug addict. All that on top of being a lazy bum, I was the worst part of society. I was depressed. With dead parents, no direction, no friends, no support, only one thing took the pain away...\n\nBut this... was one needle to much.\n\nFriends... no. I did have one friend. Dave. He had everything together. Job. Girlfriend. You name it, you better bet your ass Dave had it and I didn't. I remembered. I was jealous of Dave, but I needed him. He was the only person who ever tried to offer me his support. We had plans. Rehab, getting my life together.\n\nHe suggested picking me up for dinner. I couldn't decline, I only had enough money for drugs these days. I figured I'd shoot up before he got there. So that's how he found me...\n\nWere I in my body, tears would have flooded down my face.\n\n\"Are you satisfied?\" Death chided coldly.\n\n\"No.\" I could think of no other reply. How could this be how it ends? I had my whole life ahead of me, at least I thought.\n\n\"No! Please! It was just going to be one more time! I swear! Let me go back, I want another chance. I want-\"\n\n\"You want?\" said death. \"It is because of what 'you want' that you are here.\"\n\n\"Please, not yet! The Paramedics! They might revive me! There's still a chance!\"\n\n\"There is not. They will not revive you. I have seen the outcome. And that's why I am here. You see now why I wanted to make it quick?\"\n\n\"... Where will I go?\"\n\n\"It is not your place to know.\"\n\n\"But is it true? Is there something beyond?\"\n\n\"If there is, a wretch like you would be hardly deserving of it.\"\n\n\"But what did I do?\" I pleaded. \"My actions... I was lazy, good-for-nothing! But I never hurt anyone! The only one I ever hurt was myself!\"\n\nAt this, Death began cackling maniacally, almost hysterically.\n\n\"Boy, have you forgotten what you've done? About them? I had hoped to protect you from that, to give you peace in death, but since you struggle so viciously...\"\n\n\"What the Hell are you talking about?!\" A memory, though cloudy as it was, began to unveil itself in my mind. And then I remembered. Everything, this time.\n\n\"I see,\" I said solemnly. \"Take me away, then.\"\n\nIt was me. The car that hit them. I was driving. I was under the influence. I hit them dead on. I killed them both. I survived. I was in the hospital. I was in a coma. I gave up, and my heart gave out.\n\nThe needle in my arm and the respirator in my mouth were the only things that kept me alive for one year. And Dave was the only one that visited me. I had been driving his house for dinner when it happened.\n\nDeath raised His scythe, and in one fell swoop my being and every connection to this world were severed.\n\n\"Mom. Dad. I'm sorry.\"\n\nAnd that was the last thing I ever thought." ]	5
	[FF] (200 Words Maximum) Create a fictional civilisation, what lands does it reside in, how is it ruled, what technology do they have, what people live there?	[ "Projectilia.\n\nThis large mountainous city, situated on the northern-hemisphere of Arados in the x3zt quadrant of the universe according to Glumkels map of the universe fourth version. This city is the hive world of the Oop species.\n\n The Oops are of similar genetic make-up as that of humans, they have identical features when it comes to extremities and facial structure. The main differences lie in stature, where they are significantly shorter, and aerodynamics. \n\nThe city of Projectilia is currently home to over 5 billion Oops. Projectilia is divided into four sub-cities covering a total landmass of 103 square kilometers. The city of Projectilia is run by a council of 10 Grand Oops. Grand Oops are elected democratically, to be eligible for election to a Grand Oop, an Oop must score high on the Grand Oops appropriateness test. This test has been refined over the ages to achieve the best results.\n\nOne of the most remarkable things about the Oops is their transport system. The city of Projectilia has over a billion strategically placed mattresses and catapults. The Oops aerodynamic structure allows them to fly through the air with little to no wind resistance. The projectile strength of a Projectilia catapult can accurately fling an Oop over four kilometers at velocity of 230 m/s. A decree from the Grand Oop senate have recently approved Cannons for Oop testing. \n", "No one told me how to get in, what rituals that would get me inside, I only knew that what happens within happens in cycles. People, like exercising mice, walk in wooden wheels that turn larger wheels, that themselves turn larger wheels. The wheels criss cross each other, overlap, and the people walking on them must duck to miss each other as they sail around and around. The exercise keeps them fit, and food food is passed between wheels to keep each man happy. They work - work! Joyous work! - 16 hours on, 4 hours off, 16 hours on - until they die. And they die happy.\n\nAt last, today, I got in. I am now within the walls of the City of Employment. It is the central city of the Kingdom of the Economy. I am no longer one of the sad, wretched, thin figures - the subhuman unemployed - that lurk around the walled edges of the city begging to the guards to spit on them for at least a trace of moisture, and fighting at the sewage outlets for scraps. At last, I have a job. I am now a citizen.\n\nHe that works hardest, rules. The wheels we walk power the mining machines. The more I mine the more of the magic substance, labor, I dig from the earth. It is a rich red gold and it glitters in the dark. The more labor you have, the more you can distribute to others, who will obey you. I will stop being a mere employee and become an employer.\n\nI push myself hard and, after 3 exhausting months, attain the title of CEO. For a month I am a god. Then the 23 hour days catch up with me, and I collapse, dead. \n\nSomeone takes over my wheel after my corrpse slides off. The systems renews itself eternally.\n\nLest the unemployed pull it from the garbage and eat it, my body is burned.\n\nIn this way, the ongoing insurgency of the Kingdom of Welfare is kept in check.", "Gedronko.\n\nA land about the size of France and Germany combined, but stretching over pine forests, high mountains and cool lagoons. At its head is the Kuningaz, a ruler elected for life by the entire population. It stands at 47 million. \n\nThe Kuningaz have long been constitutional monarchs, subject to the Imperial Law. Over the Kuningaz stands Pa, the god that defines all natural and physical laws and doing so allows all things to exist.\n\nThe Gedrenes, its inhabitants, seem unusual by human standards. They might feel unempathetic, or appear to use no non-verbal language, but their traditions have survived for thousands of years and their country has survived because they have forward-thinking traditions. They are however xenophobic and drive off most foreigners, only allowing in merchants and traders via visas.\n\nFor Gedrenes everything is about plain language and fighting. They are a soldering people, at ease in their militias, mercenary bands and national armies. Their men do not pride themselves on manliness, but fighting skill. Their women are not praised for making homes, but for creating strong communities, efficiently run.\n\nThe Gedrenes are great in four arts: Stone, leather, iron and glass. They love iron and steel-working above these, and their written name 钢人, literally means Steel People.\n\nThe Gedrenes are habitual rivals and enemies of a similar people, the Nadrenes (written 弄人). The Nadrenes call themselves Goviern (公平人) and call the Gedrenes Gundern (恨人).\n\n", "ERA Report:\n\nPlanet Dorado II has a newly encountered species, first encountered by NA-GAP forces, having now colonised the planet and enslaved a majority of the natives.\n\nLocal name: Muyah-Habbids\nIntelligent species, nomadic, native to the deserts of the planet. Two to three metres tall. Primitive society, emphasises stealth and cunning in combat, thus smaller members are higher in the hierarchy.\n\nRuled by a collective of Elders, who vote on each matter affecting the tribe, but only take into consideration the views of those less than 2.3 metres tall, with taller members being considered less intelligent.\n\nFood supply:\n\nHunter-gatherers. They have domesticated the local six-legged equestrian equivalent species, using it to facilitate movement around the desert.\n\nVillage structure:\n\nMost villages are independent, and built around oases. Most tribes use simple tents, but some, less mobile ones, build simple mud huts from clay around the oasis.\n\nNotably, all tribes around the area have formed a confederacy against the slave raiders of the NA-GAP.", "Note: This is actually a pre-existing homebrew universe I created a whle ago for p&p RPGs- so it might not strictly adhere to the title. Guess I'll have to leave out some of the fun details, such as the backstory of the Empress for word limit reasons.\n\nThe Vostrevoskian Empire is united again. Led by their mysterious Empress, they have hauled themselves up from the ruins of a savage invasion and civil war. Before, they united to advance humanity- their homeworld was a bastion of knowledge, containing the greatest scientific minds ever known, dedicating themselves to tomorrow in great cathedrals of research and progress.\n\nNow tomorrow is another day of battle. Attacked by the Kyran Alliance, abandoned by the Solar Federation, they follow a new creed- that none can ever betray Vostrevoskia again. Now, the most advanced science humanity has ever known is turned to war. To advance humanity, they must unite it- by force. By railgun, plasma incineration, or sheer weight of troops, it shall be done.\n\nThe Shadow Empress and her closest believers dragged themselves out of the ruins of Varenguard, their shattered homeworld, uniting the remains of the empire by force. The people of Vostrevoskia have known hardship, but always for a better tomorrow. Whether borne from the desperation of the ashen ruins of Varenguard, or the relative safety of the temperate Northold, every Vostrevoskian knows that their cause is true and right- they will bring a better dawn to humanity.\n\nPax Vostrevoskia, Terran.", "Mereth, founded on the sea, it stands married against ocean-side cliffs, rising triumphantly through the sweeping, gargantuan white clouds of the region, and beckoning for deity favor. Some say, on a clear day, the waters extend far enough from Mereth's sheer, vertical watchtowers - ivory washed by the sea's salty mist - that one may witness views otherwise granted only by its flying machines. For here is a people devout in faith and progress alike.\n\nAs surely as the spring carries the smell of budding flowers on its air, the dual ruler-ship of king and queen decree the will of Mereth's pantheon. Through ceremony and celebration the people commune with the otherworldly. And summer brings with it bounty from the sea and perimeter forest both. A harmonious populace offers the bounty of a season's work to appease and provide.\n\nIt is with this diligence that stems its innovations, great marvels of the known world which sail and fly to the far ends of the map. Mereth trades and learns and teaches. It is hailed by the rest as a bastion of hope and a beacon of understanding and I know the way, if you'd like to see. " ]	6
	[WP] Your sister calls you saying that her husband is abusive, the police won't do anything, and she wants you to kill him.	[ "I stared at the knife. It glinted in the moonlight. I was about to commit an unforgivable act. \n\nI approached the house, being careful not to alert any body. Using the spare keys she had given me, I unlocked the door, and, as quietly as I could, opened it, and stepped inside, before closing the door. The house was different than I remembered. \n\nI crept stealthily. Silence filled the house that I had once remembered as a happy and peaceful place. For now, this house only would remind me of what I was about to do, but that didn't matter anyway. It wasn't like I would be visiting this home anymore. \n\nMaking my way to his bedroom, where I knew that it would stink of cigarettes and beer, I gripped the knife tightly. I was hesitant. But as I turned the knob, and stepped in, I knew that I had made me decision. ...I just hoped that I was mentally prepared. \n\nHe was sleeping. The curtains were closed. I remembered my sister telling me that she had always liked the moon light. I pull the curtains aside, letting moon light shine into the room. If this was my last chance of freedom, I might as well make it beautiful. Not that the scene was beautiful. He tainted it. \n\nThe knife went into him, gracefully like a swan. His eyes opened, and he tried to scream. Unluckily, for him, I had covered his mouth with tape. A weird muffled sound came from his mouth. I ignored that. The red liquid seeped into the white sheets, and I watched it, as it seemed to paint a masterpiece. Twisting the knife, he squirmed. He whimpered, I think. I could barely hear it.\n\nHis body was strangely cold. Like his heart, when he was still alive. I felt a smile slowly forming on my lips, as I slowly breathed. My heart pounded in my chest, threatening to burst out at any moment, but I didn't care. It was done. I hope my sister is happy. I crouched, and held the man's hand. I removed the small silver ring. He didn't deserve it. \n\nI glanced at the now red knife in my hands. \n\n...I love you, Sis. Hope you know that.\n\n", "The partition slide of the confessional opened.\n\n\"Bless me father, for I have sinned,\" she said in a brogue I knew all too well. \"I need a price for a name, Liam.\"\n\n\"You know I can't do that, Jenny,\" I told her.\n\n\"I know. I know. But I wouldn't ask if it wasn't for a good reason.\"\n\n\"I can't, Jenny. I can't\"\n\n\"Oh that's right, you're a good little Catholic now. Vows before family,\" she scoffed.\n\nI could hear the rage welling up inside her. Her voice grew harsher with each word, but I couldn't help her. Not like that. \n\n\"Jenny, you know it's not like that.\"\n\n\"Tell me what it's like then. Those were your terms before, right? A price for a name and nothing else. Now you've taken up the cloth and you won't even raise a wee finger to help your sister.\"\n\n\"I'll help you all I can, you know that. But I can't do what you're asking. I already told you, I don't do that anymore. God's forgiven me for the things I done. I'm a changed man.\"\n\n\"You think God will forgive you standin' by while your sister's beaten to death, do ye?\"\n\n\"What? What the devil are you talking about?\"\n\n\"It's Paul, Liam. It's Paul.\"\n\n\"Tell me everything.\"\n\nShe broke down. Her fear and sadness and pain conquered over whatever anger she held towards me. Between sobs, she told me the truth. The truth was that the Paul I knew as my brother-in-law and the Paul Jenny knew as her husband were two very different men. I knew a kind, hard-working man who loved my sister more than anything in the world. Jenny knew the back of his hand, his knuckles, his belt, his boots, and the taste of her own blood.\n\n\"Have you tried the police?\"\n\n\"He owns the police, Liam. I tried once, they told him, and he gave me a thrashing so bad that I couldn't go outside the house for weeks. I couldn't go to work. I told everyone I was sick.\"\n\n\"Damnit, Jenny why didn't you tell me?\"\n\n\"Why? So you could sit there with your collar and do nothin?\"\n\n\"No, Jenny. So you could give me a name, and I could give you a price.\"\n\nFor a moment, there was silence between us. She sighed and the tension in the booth fell away, as if her breath were a release valve.\n\n\"The name is Paul Andrews,\" she said.\n\n\"This one's on the house,\" I said.\n", "Death is easy. Killing is easier. Living with it? That's the problem. \n\nOf course it was my sister who called late at night. 0200 hours. Crying in pain. Says the cops won't do anythino. Of course, cops in rural America aren't exactly the smartest ones. Making minimum wage and a GED. I am a peaceful man but when blood family is involved.... Anyway. She lives a thousand miles away. I bring nothing but the clothes on my back and one little thing. A homemade silenced. 22. Surprisingly I made it there in mere hours vs. The day or so I expected. Must be all the caffeine I had. I get there shortly after dusk. I don't trust people, especially when taking a life is at hand. The door is broken as I walked in. I draw the pistol. I hear blood curling screams coming from the west side bedroom. Like a moth to a flame, I advanced closer and closer to the scream. I check the door, it's locked. I ready myself to kick the door down. BOOM! I fly thru the door with a,pistol in my hand. It's dark. The shadows themselves are moving. I adjust my eyes. And there she was. Cowered in a corner protecting her child. A bear of a man is standing 2 feet away next to her. A fist is raised. So does the pistol. The fist starts to cock back. The finger is on the trigger. I yelled stop! The fist strikes a glancing blow against her head. Pew! Pew! 2 rounds struck him. 1 in the head and 1 in the chest. It was easy really. 3 pounds of force has ended a life. I throw the pistol to my sister. I dial 911 and left.... I've done the easy part. It's time to do the harder half.\n", "I sat in the car, headlights from the highway overpass occasionally glancing off my rearview and affording me a glimpse of my own face. I was surprised at how still it looked, given the rage still seething in me.\n\nI butted the fifth cigarette of the past half-hour and glanced again at my watch. 2:05. Did the fucker not need to sleep? Or did he derive sufficient energy from beating my sister, banging his whore, drinking with his buddies and ignoring his kids? \n\nI sat half a block from his girlfriend’s shabby little house, his SUV parked out front. Unlike his kids and his wife, he took care of that Caddy, washing it and polishing it himself every weekend. The kids weren’t allowed in it, June had told me … one of the many things she’d related over the past couple of days, as the swelling and bruising on her face had faded and the stitches on her arm had lost that angry, red, swollen look and had become simply unsightly. \n\nThis wasn’t the first time, she’d whispered to me, sitting at my kitchen table two days before, the half-drunk glass of wine in front of her and our cigarettes smoldering in my cheap, Indiana State Fair ashtray. He’d hit her plenty of times, she said matter-of-factly, but never in front of the kids. And never her face: Always before it had been her stomach, or her ribs, or her kidneys or the small of her back. Somewhere that clothes would cover. But he’d been so drunk this time. And so angry…\n\n“Angry about what?” I’d asked, rubbing my face with my hands. What I really felt like doing was grabbing the tabletop and breaking it in two, or jumping into the car and finding him and beating him to death with my fists. But she needed me here, and calm. She knew I didn’t like Randy, had never liked him, had merely suffered him for the sake of her and the kids. He was a blowhard, a guy’s guy, big-framed, big-bellied and big-voiced, a backslapper and salt-of-the-earth kind of guy. All perfect attributes for a farm machinery salesman. But she’d told me she loved him, had asked me to walk her down the aisle since dad wasn’t there to do it, and had, over the years, assured me that she and Randy would get over whatever rough spot they were going through. And now… \n\n“About his ribs. And the dog.” She took a drag on her smoke, a sip of wine, then looked up at me, her pretty blue eyes surrounded by the swollen, bruised flesh.\n\n“His … what? His ribs? What does that mean?” I was having a hard time concentrating, so deep was my anger. I could feel a pulse in my temple, and consciously had to keep my fists from clenching and unclenching on the tabletop.\n\n“He cooks ribs a lot. On the smoker. He has a special sauce, all that stuff. He leaves them on a tray on the kitchen counter in the morning and puts them in the smoker when he gets home. But on Friday, when I was doing laundry, Buster, he … he somehow got up on the counter and got them. When I came upstairs, he’d already eaten most of them. I saved what was left. But when Randy came home, he took one look and he, he…” She started sobbing.\n\nI went around the table and took hold of her – gently, not wanting to bruise her any more than she was. And while she shook and sobbed, I saw red. I felt Randy’s throat in my hands, saw my booted foot smashing into his face. I knew this wasn’t what she needed, and I told myself to hold it together for her sake.\n\nHer sobs tapered off to sniffles, and I turned to the sink to get her a glass of water. “Junie,” I said, keeping my voice level, “you have to go to the police. The hospital will back you up. I’m sure they’ve seen all this before. You need to make sure he gets put away.”\n\n“I can’t,” she whispered, pausing to grab a napkin out of the green plastic holder on the table and blowing her nose.\n\n“Why the hell not?” I asked, putting the water down in front of her. “He could have killed you. Fractured your skull, blinded you … who the hell knows what?”\n\n“Because if I do … he’ll kill the kids,” she said, staring into my eyes again, her voice somehow dead-sounding. “He’ll do it in front of me. He promised. And then he’ll kill me. And I believe him.” She took a drag on her smoke, then stubbed it out. “And the cops … he knows half of them, John. They’d believe me, sure. They might even make him spend a night or two in jail. But then he’d come home.”\n\nI slumped back into my chair, staring at her, not knowing what was worse: the matter-of-fact way she’d said that Randy would most likely kill her if she tried to get him charged, or the fact that she was right that the police probably wouldn’t be able to do anything useful.\n\n“Junie … what are you going to do?” I asked. \n\nShe paused, taking a sip of wine. She looked up at me, then, and said, in that same deadened tone: “The question is … what are you going to do, John?”\n\nSo here I was. Sitting in a work truck, driven off the lot at 1 in the morning, long after Phil, the night watchman, was safely asleep in his shack. No one would miss it until at least 9, if even then. And I planned to have it back far sooner. \n\nJune had told me about Randy’s girlfriend – where she lived, the car she drove, what she looked like, the nights Randy typically went to see her. Randy didn’t care that she knew … threw it in her face often, in fact. One more thing to add to the list. \n\nI sat in the lineman’s truck, hardhat on. Anyone driving by would merely see a phone company pickup, a guy in a hardhat. Hardly worth a glance, even at 2 in the morning. They wouldn’t see the 2-foot length of metal pipe on the front seat, one end wrapped in duct tape. Or the rage in the eyes of the man behind the wheel.\n\nA rectangle of dim light on the front stoop of the girlfriend’s house, temporarily blotted out by Randy’s bulky shadow, a quick peck on the cheek from loverboy, then darkness as the door was closed behind him. Now he’s walking down the front walk toward his Escalade, loafered feet stepping over chipped concrete and weedy grass between the cracks. \n\nI’m already out of the truck and moving. I’d left the door slightly ajar and had covered the dome light with more duct tape, precautions I was no longer conscious of. A red light glowed and dimmed in my eyes as I walked toward him, saw the beefy fucker step nimbly off the curb, his step jaunty, digging in his front pocket for the key fob. \n\nI don’t know if I made noise – crunched gravel, maybe, my boots on pavement, maybe even a growl. It wouldn’t have surprised me – I felt feral, fully charged. But he turned toward me, a look on his face like that of a middle-class guy in a bad neighborhood at 2 in the morning suddenly realizing he’s digging in his pocket for the keys to his Caddy and not paying enough attention to his surroundings. \n\nAs I closed the last few feet, that look changed to surprise, and recognition. “John?” he asked, in that stupid salesmany way of his. “Johnny? What … what are you doing here?”\n\nIn answer, I raised the pipe and brought it down squarely on his forehead, the contact running up my arm, the exact same feel as a well-struck baseball. His eyes rolled back in his head as a gush of blood spurted from his scalp. He fell, as if poleaxed, first to his knees and then onto his face, one foot kicking free of its tan loafer. I walked around to his side, crouched, and brought the pipe down again on the back of his head. A cracking sound and feel this time, like hitting a big, unripe melon. Blood splashed from his shattered skull, beading in his hair and running down the sides of his head to pool around his face. Another blow, and another. \n\n I stopped, breathing hard. His head wasn’t a head anymore, just a raw ripe mess of hair and blood and bone and brain. Blood, black in the night, pooled around his upper body and ran into the gutter. I reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, took the wad of cash inside and then dropped it back onto his fat ass. Then I turned and walked back to the truck.\n\nDriving back to the yard, I stopped on the Cedar Creek Bridge to toss the pipe over the side. I’d burn the gloves and my blood-spattered jeans in my firepit later. \n\nMy shoulder and arm ached, but it was a good ache, I reflected, lighting the last cigarette of a long day. The kind of ache that comes from a hard job well done. ", "There was a time when the telephone was a thing hung on the wall. This place in the house held a certain power in the collective psyche of the average 20th Century household. It was where you got permission to go to a sleepover. This place is where your mother sits, scowling, twisting the cord around her finger as she talks to your teacher. It's the place where we learn that Aunt Edna has succumbed to diabetes, where you make your first nervous phone call to a girl or boy you like. It's no wonder then modern 20th century human developed such an affinity for this device, such that they displayed a peculiar psychic ability to feel it before the phone rang. On rare occasions the feel it would be accompanied by a sense of dread. And it was with dread that Tommy Anderson had his feel it, just before the phone rang.\n\n“Tommy, you loser, ha. It's me.”\n\nSeven years. A person should have to file for permission to speak to the one they left hanging for seven years. Really, there should be a bureaucratic process that selfish people who don't care about anyone else but themselves should have to go through. $200 filing fee, here's your official fuck off stamp.\n\n“Jenna, oh baby sister. Ok, you're not dead. Awesome, thank you for giving me the courtesy of knowing you that you not dead in a ditch. Jesus Christ. It's been...”\n\nTommy tried to remember when last he heard her sweet voice.\n\n“Seven years Tommy! Ha, can you believe it.”\n\n“Seven years” he repeated.\n\n“I'm in town.”\n\n“Of course you are. Talk to mom or dad yet?”\n\n“No, and don't you either. Can I see you?”\n\n“You know where I'm at, Jenna.”\n\n“No, meet me. You know where.”\n\n*****\n\n\nTommy rolled into the diner parking lot, red and green neon gloss reflecting on the hood of the black 70's era Camaro. It rumbled to a stop and Tommy killed the engine. Nothing in this town ever changes. Not Red's Diner, nor the swampy dank of an Arkansas summer night, and certainly not Tommy. Motorcycle boots, chains, black and silver, guns and grease. Same as it ever was.\n\n“I ain't got no money and you can't stay with me.” Tommy said as he sat down, sliding his sunglasses to the end of the table. Jenna picked them up an put them on.\n\n“Really, you wear these at night? Ha, I'm Tommy and I'll fuck you up, ha.”\n\nTommy sighed and picked his shades from Jenna's nose, sliding them back to the sugar packets.\n\n“How are you, Jenna.”\n\n“I'm.... real good.” Her head was tilted like a confused poodle. “Real good. Look at you! You haven't changed.”\n\n“That's the way I like it.”\n\n“Tommy I'm in trouble.”\n\nAnd there it was. The waitress came over and took orders. Burgers, fries, coffee. Anything else, hon? No, thank you.\n\n“No you ain't.”\n\nShe looked at him, puzzled. “What?”\n\n“I said you ain't in no trouble. Why, I see you sittin' here all fine and pretty, breathin' in 'n out as per normal, bout to eat a big ol' hamburger, ain't no po-lice comin' after ya far as I can tell. You live in the best damn country in the world and your brother is the biggest bad-ass west of the Mississippi if I do say so myself. So you ain't got no problem. Hell you probably drove up here in some fancy...” He strained his neck to look out on the parking lot, empty except for his Camaro and Red's Camary.\n\n“I took the bus.”\n\n“Huh, guess you did. Look, baby girl. I love you. Do anything for you, you know that. But I really ain't got no money for ya and I cain't take your drama so you are not bringing it to my house. You take it up with Ma and Dad. You really need to take it up with them.”\n\nBut she would never take it up with Ma and Dad again. She was no longer their daughter. Let's not be so quick to judge Ma and Dad for their bigotry. It is likely that they are submerged in a hell of self-blame. What did we do to turn her out a dyke? Why didn't we see the warning signs, like when her friend Maggie started coming around? Yes, Maggie was an odd duck, we should have seen it.\n\nThe arrival of burgers broke the silence. Get ya anything else, hon? Yes, ketchup, please. Thank ya, Mam.\n\n“I don't know why you told them, Jenna, they were fine thinking you was just nuthin' but a tomboy. I don't know why you ever had to put that in their face like you done.”\n\n“Do they know you're here with me?”\n\n“Na, I just came to see you.” Tommy sighed and ate a few fries. “Tell me what's up.”\n\n“Nah, Tommy forget it, you're right. This ain't your problem. Put on my big girl pants, right? ha.”\n\n“Now come on, I was just messing with ya. I mean, I don't have money, but, yeah, I got your back. You know that, right?” Tommy made a fist and hovered it mid-way across the table. “Right?”\n\nJenna made her own fist and contacted his. “Anderson's up in hurrr.” said Tommy. Jenna rolled her eyes at him and took a bite of burger.\n\n“It's Felicia.”\n\n“Ok, who's Fe-lee-sha.”\n\n“I've been with her for the past three years. We met up in Alaska, working a fishing boat.”\n\nTommy nearly choked on his burger. “Whu... ut? A fishing boat. Ha. Ha ha. that's rich. Oh my god. So what's next, roughneck? Gonna go mine some coal. Maybe a cattle drive... Ha. Ok. Ok. Hey everybody, meet my bro, Jen.”\n\n“Shut up, god you are still a retard. I made more in one season than you have the last five years, so you can shove it, loser.”\n\n“ Alright, don't get your boxers twisted, tell me about Fe-lee-sha.”\n\nJenna took a picture from her wallet and slid it to him. He burst out laughing at the image of the classic butch woman, short hair, 300 lbs of burly flesh, plaid and leather astride a Harley decked out in Christmas gear, the Yosemite valley gaping and towering in the background.\n\n“Don't laugh. It's Dykes on Bikes doing a Toys for Tots run, it's actually a pretty cool thing.”\n\n“Alright, looks like a nice... girl.”\n\n“Yea, she could kick your ass.”\n\n“Ok. You going to rib me all night or you want to tell me what's actually going on.”\n\n“She's abusing me.”\n\nTommy burst out laughing again. He bent over in the booth in hysterics.\n\n“I'm serious Tommy, she hurts me.”\n\n“Ok, you know what, sister. This is too much. I love you, but this is the drama I was talking about. You know, go to a shelter, or the police or something. I'm sure you can find some sort of lesbian outreach program or some shit, probably have to go to Memphis to find one but... I don't know what you want me to do. Just leave the bitch.”\n\n“I have tried, don't you think I've tried? The police? They practically double over laughing too. Nobody gives a shit.”\n\n“Yea, well, you know, I really don't give a shit either, Jenna. How's that?”\n\n“What if it was a guy?”\n\n“Beg pardon?” Now Tommy was doing the confused poodle.\n\n“If it was my husband or boyfriend. Would you give a shit?”\n\n“I'd beat the shit out of the guy.” He said, simple as that, and tore another bite from his hamburger.\n\n“Right, so what's the difference?”\n\n“Cuz, I'm not about to stomp a girl. What's the matter with you, Jenna? Come on, I know you are tough as shit. You could rip this bitch whale apart. You're small, but I seen you scrap.”\n\n“She would murder me, Tommy, you don't know her. Why do you think I haven't seen you all these years? It's not because of me. She doesn't let me talk to anybody.”\n\n“Ok, give me her address, I'll put a hole between her eyes.”\n\n“Really?”\n\n“No, Jesus are you off your rocker. I think I'm about done, so, baby sister, do you... need a ride somewhere?” Tommy grabbed the check from the table and started to rise.\n\n“Please just listen, Tommy, you are the only one who can help me.”", "The ride home from the hospital was a long one. Over the sounds of a slow blues guitar on the stereo, the scratch of a Zippo lighter and a deep inhale. I heard her shudder as the smoke escape from her lips.\n\n\"They won't do a thing to him, Lee. Not a fucking thing. They never turn on their own... fucking cops.\". She was almost whispering. My sister never whispered unless she was ready to eat someone's still beating heart. She was like me... which is why I always walked softly when she was this angry. She could change from the sweetest woman in the world into a honey badger.\n\n\"Lee, I can't do this anymore. Four broken ribs. I'm still pissing blood from the kidney punches... I can't fucking do this.\". I reached over to the glovebox and opened it. I took out the hip flask I kept in there and handed it to her. A shot of 151 would steel her nerves enough for her to ask me what I knew she was going to ask me. I pulled the car over onto the roadside.\n\n\"Kill him, Lee...\", she said. I turned to look at her.\n\n\"Ok, sis. I'll take care of it.\".\n\nThree days later, I was tailing him as he left the police station. I knew where he was going. My brother in law fancied himself a ladies man. Of course, it's easy to be a ladies man when you pay cash. I followed him for another 25 minutes as he drove to his favorite fuck's apartment. I slowed as he drove into the parking lot, then I pulled over about 50 meters further down the street. \n\nI got out and opened the trunk to collect my gear. Rubber gloves. A balaclava to hide my face. A cheap .22 pistol. A very sharp knife... and a Baggie full of meth. I loaded up and headed for the building.\n\nIt doesn't take a military skillset to kill someone. Does it help? Yes...but you don't need to be the fastest draw or the best shot. All you need is the will to do it. As I stood in front of Apt. 3c, it dawned on me how many times I did this overseas. Kick in a door and pull a trigger. Fuck, I lost count after the first year. I sealed down the last piece of tape that held the empty Pepsi bottle to the muzzle of my pistol. Deep breath. Time slows. Boot with 210 pounds behind it meets door.\n\nApparently, they could not wait to get down to it. When I cleared the door, my brother in law's fuck du jour was on top... riding him like she was going somewhere. She made it too easy. I lifted the pistol and fired before she could scream. The round caught her in the cheek below her left eye. She dropped instantly. With the bottle blown, the pistol was useless now. My brother in law was motionless with shock as I brought my knife to his throat. Sputtering, he tried to turn alpha male.\n\n\"You know who the fuck I am, motherfucker? You fucking know who I am?\". The look on his face was priceless as I pulled off my mask.\n\n\"I know exactly who you are, dead man. My sister sends her love.\" I hissed as I drove the knife under his chin and into his brain. He grunted and went stiff for a few seconds, then relaxed. I left the knife in him, and left the meth in his lap. I pulled the mask down again and left.\n\nLike I said. All you need is the will to do it.\n\nTwenty minutes later, I called my sister on a pay as you go cellphone.\n\n\"It's done, sis. I have to go. I won't be coming back. I love you.\" I hung up and tossed the phone in the sewer.\n\n I remember a long talk I had with my mother before she died. She said I was a lone wolf. That I was the kind of person who didn't need family. Well, that's as may be... but needing and loving are two different things." ]	6
	[WP] A man is hit by lightning and can only speak in movie quotes.	[ "\"Oh my God, Shaun, are you okay?! Sean, answer me! Darling, please, by the love of God, wake up!\"\n\n\"I want to be alone,\" I muttered. I look down at my fried clothes and burn marks, before sighing audibly.\n\n\"Oh sweet Jesus, Shaun, you terrified the living daylights out of me! Let me help you up,\" she said, as she put her hands on my shoulders. It stung like acid.\n\n\"Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape,\" I hissed.\n\nJeanne looked stricken.\n\n\"Shaun, are you alright?\" she stuttered, tears beginning to stream down her face.\n\n\"Snap out of it, my precious!\" I gasped, exasperated. She wouldn't calm down, would she?\n\nHer face grew redder and blotchier by the second.\n\n\"Shaun, why do you hate me?\"\n\n\"I don't know, I mostly just hurt people...\" I blurted.\n\nShe gasped.\n\n\"This is so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again.\"\n\n\n", "The storm clouds had just rolled in. Chris was using his jacket to shield himself from the torrential downpour as he walked to the bus stop. The sky lit up above him with lightning, thunder shaking the very ground on which he stood. He felt his body come alive and burn as a bright flash of light overcame his eyes.\n\nChris awoke in what he assumed was a hospital. The doctor came in to check up on him and explained that Chris had been struck by lightning. All Chris could think about was talking to his wife and children. He opened his mouth to speak, but was flabbergasted at the words that came out.\n\n“E.T. phone home.”\n\nThe doctor stared at him and asked what he meant. The truth was, Chris didn’t understand why he’d said that. He meant to say something else.\n\n“There’s no place like home.”\n\nChris’s face contorted in anger. That was closer to what he wanted to say, but it still wasn’t the words he was thinking.\n\n“Sir, what is your name?” the doctor asked. He was clearly concerned that Chris had suffered some kind of brain damage.\n\n“Bond. James Bond.” Chris replied. Chris waved his hands, as if to say that’s not what he meant. The doctor got up and asked a nurse to page Dr. McAllister.\n\n“Chris, I think you may have suffered some brain damage. I’m calling in another doctor to consult.”\n\nChris pointed to the doctor’s pen, then to a notepad lying on the bedside table. The doctor took the hint and handed him the pen.\n\nMy name is Chris. I want to see my wife and children. Where are they? Every time I try to say something, the wrong words keep coming out.\n\nChris handed over his writing and the doctor nodded in understanding.\n\n“Alright, Chris, it seems you might have some damage to the parts of your brain that handle speaking. Dr. McAllister and I will do some examinations and find out what is going on. In the meantime, I’ll send your family in. They’re out in the lobby waiting for news.”\n\nThe doctor smiled as he left the room. Chris’s family came in soon after. His son rushed over and gave him a hug.\n\n“No. I am your father.”\n\nHe watched his son’s puzzled look at his dad’s words. Chris’s wife came over with their daughter and reminded the son of his condition.\n\n“Oh, right. Sorry dad,” he said.\n\nChris’s wife started to cry.\n\n“You really are having issues speaking, aren’t you?”\n\n“Houston, we have a problem.” Chris started to laugh at this one. He finally realized everything he said was from movies he’d seen before. Chris reached for the pen and notepad the doctor had left him and began to write. He still wasn’t used to not being able to say what he meant, so he tried to continue to explain things to his wife.\n\n“My mamma always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”\n\nHe handed the notepad over to his wife as she started to laugh with him. The last quote he’d uttered surprisingly captured the moment of the situation. She leaned in and hugged him too, giving him a quick peck on the lips. Both of his young children squirmed at that.\n\n“Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?” he said after kissing his wife. He noticed that both of his children were making gagging like faces because of their kiss. He pointed at his son.\n\n“A boy’s best friend is his mother.”\n\nThen he looked at his daughter and beckoned her to come over. His wife guided her to him and they hugged.\n\n“My precious.” It may have even been a sweet moment, save for the creepy way in which he said it, mimicking Gollum himself.\n\nThe doctor came back into the room.\n\n“Hi Chris.”\n\n“Here’s Johnny!” Chris replied enthusiastically.\n\n “We need to go ahead and take you out for some evaluations. Are you ready?”\n\n“Listen to me, mister. You're my knight in shining armor. Don't you forget it. You're going to get back on that horse, and I'm going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we're gonna go, go, go!”\n\nChris felt his face get hot with that one. His wife looked at him pitifully, but his son bursted out laughing, which made Chris feel a bit better about his situation. It was unfortunate, but as long as he could take it in stride, he’d be fine. He didn’t want people pitying him. He looked at his family.\n\n“Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”\n\nAs they wheeled Chris out of the hospital room, he realized this was going to be awkward if he was stuck talking like this. On the other hand, it would lead to some pretty funny moments. He waved back to his family real quick before they disappeared from sight.\n\n“Hasta la vista baby.”\n\n-142\n\nEdit: I fixed some errors in the story. All movie quotes, except \"No. I am your father,\" come from [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years...100_Movie_Quotes) list. The aforementioned quote is of course from Star Wars.", "\"Oh my god\", whispered Gabriel as he nudged his friend Nate, discreetly pointing towards the door. It was a slow night at the Dusky Sky Bar, the hottest joint in Sheepsville, but things were about to change. The man with the red brogues had arrived.\n\nNate looked up. \"Is that...?\" \n\n\"Yes.\" creaked Gabriel, as he swallowed the lump in his throat. \"Jack Suave, the worlds greatest pickup artist\". \n\nNate's eyes glazed over. He knew his chances of scoring a hot chick was now zero, and that he, and every man in the Dusky Sky Bar had to resign to their fate, which was going home empty handed, to an empty room, in an empty house and drowning their loneliness with a bottle of gin and repeat viewing of Backdoor Sluts 9.\n\n\n\nJack Suave sashayed in, in his signature style that screamed suave. But the women in Sheepsville were no lightweights either. \n\n\"Nice loafers\" said a super slutty hot blonde HB9 chick sarcastically. \n\n\"You talkin' to me?\", asked Jack coolly, as he lifted one eyebrow. \n\n\"Yea, I'm talking to you\" said the chick, completely flustered. \n\nJack smirked.\n\n\"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.\" The girl gasped, and, having never been rejected in her life, fainted from the shock. They didn't call him lady killer for nothing. \n\n\n\nNate and Gabriel watched from afar, flabbergasted at his masterful prowess. Jacks negging skills were indeed the stuff of legends. One time a girl called him out on his comb-over. \"Nice wig\", she sneered, \"What's it made out of?\"\n\n\"Your moms chest hair\" replied Jack.\n\n\n\nMeanwhile, Jack continued his crusade, boldly approaching a smoking hot brunette. \"I love the smell of napalm in the morning\" he crooned. \"Sorry?\" said the brunette, \"Do I know you?\"\n\n\"Bond. James Bond.\" answered Jack. The brunette giggled. Jack leaned in. \"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?\" he whispered. \n\n\"Seduce?\" said the kitten-like brunette coyly, \"Why-ever will you say that? I just wanted to be friends\". Jack hated cock-teasers. But he knew he had to play the game.\n\n\"Well Louis\", replied Jack, \"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.\" The brunette laughed, and started to make small talk about her life story. \"So I was at a party this one time and ate too many Mexican tacos...\" But Jack had enough. He had heard too many taco stories, and had to cut this dumb chick off. \n\n\"I see dead people\" interrupted Jack. \n\n\"Wha..at?\" \n\n\"I see dead people.\" \n\nWith that, Jack turned around. \"I've a feeling we aren't in Kansas anymore\" he monologued coolly to himself. \n\nThe tension was rising. \n\n\n\"YO JACK!\" said Jealous Steve McKnight. \"YOU CAN'T TREAT WOMEN THIS WAY.\" \n\n\"...\" said Jack. He knew Steve wasn't worth it. \n\n\"STOP MAKING SNAP JUDGEMENTS OF WOMEN. STOP OBJECTIFYING THEM! THERES MORE TO LIFE THEN YOUR PICKUP BULLCRAP\" said Steve.\n\n\"Is there?\" answered Jack. \"Is there really more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?\" \n\nSteve fumed, speechless. Nobody could disagree with Jack because there really wasn't more to life other than being really, really ridiculously good looking. The other men looked down nervously, because suddenly the floors were very interesting. \n\nJack Suave was done. He had made all the women in the bar wet with his sauve-ness. \n\n\"Hasta la vista, baby\", announced Jack, as he sashayed out the front door, never to be seen again. \n\nedit: lol just came over from /r/worststory\n\n\n\n\n\n" ]	3
Context and restrictions free. Just use the above phrase somewhere in the story.	[WP] Don't, Let them burn.	[ "The sun was beating down on us like we've never felt before. When you've been out this long without shelter, it gives a new meaning to the word hot. I looked at Tom, and Tom looked back at me as we stared down at our victims, writhing in the heat. I pulled back my magnifying glass and paused, \"Maybe we should let them live, Tom\". To which he replied, \"Don't, let them burn\".", "The village was burnt to the ground, yet the fire sill raged on to the nearby forest. Nox, leader of the barbaric army that slaughtered the town, watched on as survivors fled into the forest. \n\nNox held tightly onto his bloody axe, and watched as the blood of his fallen victims spread across the ground to mix and match. Similar to how a boot crushes one roach out of the group, the other roaches watch and flee. Nox was the giant boot that stomped on several roaches, while the rest fled. \n\nAlthough the sky was blue, all Nox saw was red. Red from the fire's lustful tips, and red coating on both his chest and axe. \n\n\"Come on boys, let's go kill the survivors!\" Ike howled, just another barbarian that killed for land. \n\nNox turned his head towards Ike, and grinned. Nox shook his head slowly, beforr turning to his barbaric group. \"Don't, let them burn.\" With that, Nox and his men began scavenging through the village. ", "Jenny had to rush out to buy ice cream. No dinner would be complete without dessert. She left me and our son, Jake, to watch the stove and the oven while she was out.\n\n\"Aww,\" Jake quipped. \"Not banana muffins again!\"\n\nHis complaint was not unfounded. It was known throughout the neighborhood that Jenny's banana muffin was the most foul, disgusting substance;the worst kind of torture one could subject their taste buds to. \n\nNo one could comprehend how she was able to put out quality dishes one after another--each worthy of being served at a Michelin star restaurant--yet, could create such a monstrosity. The strange thing was that she had tasted it every time, and yet claims it to be her special, signature dish.\n\n\"Dad, they're gonna burn!\" Jake said with a subtle positive note in his voice.\n\n\"We can't do that Jake,\" I replied, as I turned the oven off. \"They may be the worst things ever, but we have to respect mommy's feelings. She put in lots of effort.\" Jake nodded in agreement.\n\n---\n\nOf course, Jenny was going to have none of that. She adjusted the earpiece, with which she could hear everything going on at home. \n\n\"Jenny!\" Shouted the woman who ran out of the house next door. \"Is your family inside? Have you called 911?\" She fired off questions restlessly as the fumes from the house continued puffing, engulfing the structure in black smoke.\n\n\"Don't,\" Jenny replied, her expression remain unchanged as she stared blankly at her burning home. \n\n\"Let them burn.\"", "\" Don't, let them burn.\"\n\nKylie looked on at the wealth in the flames, protected but for a quickly liquefying shell. It began to give way to the fire's angry heat. She was incredulous. Her head turned back to Jeffry, a stranger to her for his words. He looked the same, but his words did not fit him and hung awkward in the air, like a handed-down shirt upon a child. She turned to her ally to bring him back to reason, back to himself.\n\n\" What?! Look, they're almost gone, we can't just-\"\n\n\" Kylie, it's okay. Let them go.\"\n\nHer attention shifted to their betrayer, once friend, small and hated across the ash pit. The twilight forest felt smaller with him in it, but at least he wasn't smiling anymore. It was clear Mark, Judas revealed, didn't expect Jeff's reaction either, his offense great yet impulsive. Scattered. An acrid smell of crumbling paper filled the air. The safe plastic which kept it's duty for so long fell now, it's purpose surrendered to the laws of heat. Protection became a river upon a wooden log, meaningless. It felt personal. For a moment Kylie considered reaching into the fire pit to protect the treasure the abandoned wares, the burning wealth before her eyes as much a sacrilege to her heart as the death of a God. But she knew there was nothing to do but watch. Mark knew it too now. Because Jeff didn't care, and this offense was his burden to bear, as even as anything thrust upon man. Mark spoke.\n\n\" You don't care,\" he said, more a statement that a question. \" You're lying. You spent-\"\n\n\" I know what I spent!\" Jeff interceded as he turned to face his Judas. \n\" That's not the point now.\" Her friend turned his face back to the flames, and Kylie saw how the fire's glow illuminated a creeping smile. It was ghoulish. Cost was in the ashes carried upwards, pure senseless loss, even if it was not her own. Jeff's calm did not halt the empathy she bore for him. He's mad, she thought. He's lost it.\n\nMark didn't seem to know what to do. His crossed arms were as defiant as his gaze, but she knew him too well to believe he was proud. He kicked at a blaze of grass and stared at his shoes. Kylie knew his artifice would crumble fast.\n\nThey had been such close friends, and now their bonds were destroyed. Kylie knew no ties could stand what Mark had done. Jeff could not forgive this and neither could she. And all for an insult, hardly meant. She had always been the most impulsive of the three but he was the quickest to anger. Jeff was measured, which might have been why Mark's actions were so reckless: he felt Jeffrey's jibes. They were more rare than her peppered taunts, more likely to hit the mark. Mark. How could he destroy his friends greatest prize? How could she, Kylie, let things go so far as this? How could Jeff just stand there and watch? Nothing made sense to her anymore.\n\nShe wondered if Mark knew that now, if he even knew himself. Everything was burning, actions and friendships just chaos , like the world itself was the small fire before them.\n\n\" I'll never forgive you,\" Kylie said quietly, and it occurred to her she wasn't sure to whom she was spoke.\n\nIt had been a minute since Mark's fateful destructive throw, a longer time in the minds of everyone who stood around the fire. The wind shifted. Mark coughed as smoke overcame his scowling face. Lazy tree limbs danced, and the light of sunset was free to hit the boon claimed by the hungry blaze. Then, a crackling flame caught Kylie's eyes. A final ray of light aided what drew her attention to a single bead upon a log. She saw a familiar glint of foil within the center mass from which it had earlier departed. Her mind turned to Jeff, he actions preceding before they came to the fire pit, and back to Mark. Her stomach turned.\n\n\" Mark,\" she said quietly. \" What color was the case you grabbed from me?\"\n\nHe looked up from his shoes. \" What?\"\n\n\" What color was the case you grabbed from me when I left the table?\"\n\nMark furrowed his brow and sneered at her. \" What are you talking about? You took Jeff's case and ran for-\"\n\n\" I took the case by Jeff and I bolted,\" Kylie said. \" I just thought it was his. I didn't look.\"\n\nJeff was silent. Something shifted in across Mark's face, and his eyebrows rose.\n\n\" I didn't look, Mark,\" Kylie finished, pointing to the glowing glint of metal.\n\nMark swore and bolted to the edge of the fire. On his hands and knees he stared where Kylie was pointing. He shook his head.\n\n\" No,\" he whispered, his high voice growing louder. \" No NO NO NO!\"\n\nThe glow was fiercer now and the fire crackled again, the full levity of what had occurred sinking upon Kylie as she understood Jeff's silence. A if a reflex, she glanced over to the table. Her case was blue. True enough her wares were near her shoes where she left it, forgotten in the moment. Then her eyes fell to a small red cylinder laid at the end of the table. It was similar to the one in the flames but for the lack of a foil upon the cap. \n\nMark had always been a bit of a follower. When Jeffry got a red case, he got one too. But he had to be better somehow. \n\nJeff had not been betrayed. In a rush of anger, Mark had destroyed what he himself held most dear. His own purchase. And Jeff had know it.\n\n\" GOD DAMN IT, NO!\" Mark yelled. He stared on. The fire was consuming everything so quickly, but Mark ran to the edge of the trees. Kylie followed. They grabbed two small sticks, and ran back to edge of the fire where Jeff stood on. Digging into the flames, they dug out a heavy mass of metal and few singular, charred fragments of pulp and paper to the edge of the coals. The fire had claimed everything else but Mark stuck his hands in to remove what he could. It was hot and he swore again, throwing the recovered mass upon the green grass and dirt. It was all that was left. Kylie saw tears spring to his eyes, and Mark groaned heavily at his loss. She couldn't help but feel sorry for him, revealed though he was.\n\nEverything cooled and the smoke tuned up to the sky, the wind now still. Kylie stayed next to Jeff as his defeated foe walked back to their table with what he could recover from himself. The flames continued to burn on, more colorful now for their food, and crueler too.\n\n\" Jeff,\" Kylie said. \" Why didn't you say anything?\"\n\nHe looked off to the trees, and back to her. His face turned and with a jaunty giggle, he stood up and spoke.\n\n\" That little dick stole my fucking Slammer last week.\"\n\nFrom the other side of the trees, a call came from the adult's campsite as Mark's mother call them over for s'mores. Jeff began the march and Marc slowly followed a moment later, Kylie's shoes with him. He placed them at her feet and walked on. Where she still sat by the fire, watching things resolve themselves in flames, something clicked in her nine year old mind. She sighed and, putting her shoes on, began the march over to her two best friends. They would get over this one.\n\nBeing friends with guys is weird, she thought, as the she grabbed a marshmallow to spear and offer to a different fire. The adults chattered on about boring TV shows and looked for more beer from the wet cooler. Jeff cracked open a soda and the children watched their treats brown.\n\n\" Those were my Simpsons pogs,\" Mark said finally, breaking the silence between them. \n\nKylie nodded, and Jeff laughed.\n\nThat seemed to settle things between them.\n", "“Sir? You sent for me?”\n\n“Yes.” General Vance turned, a short glass of whiskey in hand. That was unusual. Tomas had never seen the general drink on the job, not even in the most stressful or celebratory situations. He motioned Tomas to the control desk and nodded at the blocked windows in front of them. “You asked me yesterday what the process involved. How we manage to gather such pristine samples of Substance.”\n\n“Yes, sir.” Tomas peered curiously at the little dials and buttons and levers. Most were labelled with obscure acronyms, but some clearly identified as ‘BLINDS’, ‘EVACUATE’, ‘OXYGEN ON/OFF’.\n\n“Your promotion is next week, Captain. One of your newly assigned tasks as corporal will be to run the Orange Rooms. I thought you ought to see how they operate now. You won’t get much time to train, and you don’t want to mess it up.”\n\n“Of course, sir. Thank you.”\n\nVance grunted, taking a mouthful of his drink. “You won’t thank me for what you’re about to witness,” he muttered. He nodded at a lever. “Open the blinds.”\n\nTomas pushed it up obediently. With a smooth hiss, the grey metal sheets covering the windows folded away. Instantly, the little observation centre was filled with horrible, familiar shrieks. Tomas’s mouth fell open. He shuffled up to the thick bulletproof glass, gaping at the mass of prowling, spiny creatures below. The chamber they were contained in was as large as an aircraft hangar, lit by dim lights. No guards patrolled the high walls as the creatures scrabbled uselessly at the cement; there were only thick metal nozzles and grates set near the top. “Holy shit. How did you capture them all?”\n\nThe gigantic crocodilian abominations were snapping and snarling, tails lashing. One of them leapt over the back of its comrade, its features lit up briefly before it slammed into the wall and slid back down. Tomas flinched, but the general only looked on calmly. “Slowly, expensively, and with the loss of many good soldiers. Second step, Tomas: count them.”\n\nIt took a while, as they paced restlessly in the space, and the gloom made things worse. Eventually, Tomas replied, “Fourteen.”\n\n“Now do the math. h is the amount.” Vance tapped a formula taped above another set of controls. Tomas glanced at it and did the calculations automatically, twisting the little dials to their respective positions. He gripped the lever, casting an uneasy glance at Vance, who nodded. With a deep breath, staring at the monsters below, Tomas pulled.\n\nFire engulfed the pit, so bright it almost blinded him, rushing from the nozzles until everything below them was a sea of flames. Precisely five seconds of it, as Tomas had set it, and when it whooshed away every single one of the creatures was aflame. They staggered about in drunken agony, screaming and flailing. But not dead; their mass was so great that even after such a blast, powerful enough to instantly vaporise ten humans, only their skin was burned off. The chemical fire ate into their flesh, refusing to be extinguished.\n\nThe noises were unbearable. Instinctively, Tomas reached for the ‘OXYGEN ON/OFF’ switch, but Vance slapped his hand away, his eyes hard. “Don’t. Let them burn.”\n\n“S-surely there’s a more…humane way to do this,” Tomas said, horrified, forced to raise his voice above the squealing of the dying creatures. “I mean…I know they kill our men. But it—the sleeping death. They don’t suffer. They don’t feel a thing. And in return we burn them alive—”\n\n“Yes. We do.”\n\n“All for the Substance?”\n\n“Yes. Pain and panic yields better quality. It’s the release of endorphins or something, the scientists say. On a much grander, alien scale, obviously.”\n\n“And what exactly is the Substance used for—”\n\n“Confidential information, Tomas. You know that.”\n\n“I—of course. Apologies, sir.”\n\nVance gave him a long, searching look, one which Tomas didn’t return, gaze glued to the terrible sight before them. He was infinitely glad that the room blocked out the heat and smell. Finally, Vance said, “They think the Substance holds the key to curing the sleeping death. I won’t say much, but preliminary tests have shown results. Perhaps they will even develop some sort of vaccine for it.”\n\nOver half of the creatures had fallen down and stopped moving by now, bodies streaked with blood and fire. The last few lumbered about like lost giants, groaning and whimpering. A few minutes more, and they too crashed to the floor. The control room grew quiet again. Below, the monsters’ flesh and bones started to crumble, shrivelling up in that rapid, disturbing way they did after death, falling away like clumps of dry hair. From within each of their chest cavities, lumps of crystalline objects appeared, shining brighter than the guttering flames. The coveted Substance they had been so brutally killed for.\n\nThe general downed the rest of his whiskey in one swallow.\n\nHe reached for the bottle, paused, and raised an eyebrow at Tomas, who stood and stared unblinkingly at the smoking corpses, feeling sick and faint. “Want one, Captain?”\n\nTomas started, tore his eyes away to find Vance offering the bottle. He nodded shakily, accepted the chilled glass the general handed him. It glimmered with the lights from the console and, faintly, the crystals inside the dead beasts, like cold stars.\n\nThey drank in silence." ]	5
The idea I had with this was that every time you fell asleep, you'd wake up at the normal time, but 24 hours later. Then the next time you fell asleep, 48 hours later, and then 96 hours later and so forth and so on. Your life would continue to go on, and you would appear to be "home" to everyone around you, but you have no recollection of any of your life events. Perhaps you've got kids now, a spouse, new friends, a new job, but you have no idea how anything happened or who any of these people are. That's just my idea though, I was trying to keep it a bit vague to see where people went with this. EDIT: for clarity	[WP] Every time you fall asleep, you wake up farther and farther into the future. Nobody else seems to notice but you.	[ "“What’s that stuff called . . . Oh! Yeah, Ambien”. His voice was weary, his words stammered.\n\n“I’m sorry sir, but you require a doctor’s prescription for that medicine and without it . . .” The pharmacist trailed off as she noticed the gun the man was slowly revealing from his jacket. “Sir, please, sir!”\n\n“Just give me one bottle, just one – then call the cops or do whatever you need to do. Just one bottle and I won’t hurt you”. A minute later a shaky hand placed a half-full bottle on the counter. Good enough, he thought.\n\nHe took the bottle and ran out, past startled people that had glanced at his gun, past the cashier that was ready to duck. He jumped in his car and sped off, driving six hours away to a motel that he had already paid for – not exactly the hideaway for a criminal mastermind. His adrenaline had long since worn off when he entered the rundown, musty room. He kicked off his shoes, shoved away a pile of energy drinks, and collapsed onto the bed. He was tired.\n\nHe opened the bottle of pills. Wow, he was impressed that the pharmacist still included the insert in the bottle. The white booklet full of information had big black letters printed on the front page. WARNING: DO NOT CONSUME MORE THAN 2 PILLS WITHIN A 24 HOUR PERIOD.\n\nHe poured out the contents on the wobbly desk by the window – 18 pills. He took out a package from a nearby shopping bag. A brief smile crossed his sullen face, then he took off his shirt and pants. The half-naked man in a motel room slipped into a new pair of silk pyjamas. He let himself enjoy the feeling; the coolness on his skin, the glide of the fabric. He was briefly at peace until he was startled by a loud noise. It was his phone. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled it out.\n\n<GINA CALLING>\n\nHe stared at the phone. The face of a gorgeous woman was looking back at him. The picture looks like it was taken during the winter – you could see a bit of her breath, and her long brown hair flowed out from her toque. She was so happy in that picture he thought, but right now she was probably terrified, desperately calling her husband, trying to figure out why the police were at her door. His droopy eyes glanced at the ring on his finger.\n\nHe declined the call and turned off his phone. He felt a pang of regret, regret that he would never get to know this woman. He had met her a couple of times of course, woke up in bed with her. They would chat, she would say how bewildered he looks, he would reply “I’m not a morning person”. Really though, he wanted to say “I don’t know you”, but he couldn’t hurt her feelings like that. And sure enough, he would make it through that day, a really great day to be honest, full of love and kindness, and then fall asleep fearing that some outside force would control his body until the next time he truly woke up. The first time it was a difference of 2 days, the last time it was 2 years. He was sick of it.\n\nHe felt his regret, his pity, turn into anger. He was angry that this force, this alter-ego, had built up his life so much that it could disappoint others. The first time it happened his life was miserable. He was out of school, barely working, had one friend, no love life. He hated his family and his family hated him, and looking back, he liked it that way. He didn’t have anyone to upset, no one to answer to. Then with the occassional sleep a new responsibility would happen. After the first two lost days, he woke up to a completed job application, a couple of months later he lost a week where he joined a gym and made a friend, then eventually fifteen days where he got a job, a month where he got a promotion, another month where he met Gina. Everything culminated to now, he had a job that he didn’t know how to do, a wife that he had met twice, and a child whose name he’d already forgotten.\n\nHe felt his rage grow inside of him, anger filled his eyes. I’ve lost my life, he thought, trying to experience the emotion to its fullest. But he couldn’t; he was too tired. He had been awake for three days straight and every part of his body craved sleep. And finally, now, his mind begged for it too.\n\nHe knew he was leaving everything behind, and felt a little bad ending it all on such a sour note. He may not have had much money before, but he never stole. Still, it was a desperate situation, and he had to take action before he fell asleep again, before his alter-ego woke up.\n\nHe walked over to the table with the 18 pills and stared. It’s time – the last thought that went through his dulled, tired mind. \n\nHe grabbed only two of the pills. He swallowed them with some stale water sitting at the desk and walked to the bed. He felt bad forcing his alter-ego to clean up this mess, but it had done a great job with things before; he knew it was up the task.\n\nHe thought he would feel regret, or fear, or worry about ending his life, but really, it wasn’t his life anymore to lose.\n\nHe closed his eyes.", " Oh God no, not again.\n \n I had just closed my eyes, just for a second, I swear it. I was getting really tired, but I was certain I wouldn't.... \n My daughter, Karen, sits on the edge of my bed. Though she is turned away from me, I can tell that she's sobbing as quietly as she can. She grips the sheets so tightly that her knuckles go white, and I feel a shiver roll down my back.\n \n\"Karen..?\" \n She stiffens, then goes limp once more. When her voice reaches me, it's full of a pain that I cannot fully comprehend.\n \n\"You're awake.\"\n \n\"Karen, why are you upset? What happened?\"\n She is silent. Then she laughs, a high, hysterical noise that turns my blood to ice.\n \n \" 'What happened?' WHAT HAPPENED?\"\n \n\" Karen, I-\"\n My daughter whips around to face me; I almost recoil at the sight of her. Her face has become wrinkled and parched with age, taking upon it a sort of leathery-look. Her deep, yellowed eyes narrow into slits, and her mouth bares jagged black stumps where once were teeth.\n \n \"I WAITED FOR YOU! I WAITED AND WAITED AND WAITED AND-\"\n \n I'm sure that she continued her sick chant. But all that shock, well, it overcame me. I wonder where I'll wake up next time.\n\n I wonder, and dream.", "Part One:\n\nI trace the tiny wrinkles on my face, around my eyes, my smile lines. Were these new? I lean in closer to the mirror, assessing the damage (minor, but definitely there) until it fogged from my breath. I kept breathing, kept distorting the image, until I couldn't even see the face I didn't recognize anymore. I stepped away.\n\nMy husband was still asleep in the bedroom. At least, I think he's my husband. Wait. It's not the same person who was there when I went to sleep. I lift my hand. No wedding ring. Not even a tan line. What did I do? Was it my fault? Who is this guy? My head is spinning. How long was I...away?\n\nThe man rolls over, and the sheets fall to the side. Oops! That's a penis. I feel uncomfortable looking at it, though I must have seen it before. I must have...enjoyed it. Do I love him? Or is he someone to make it hurt less after my...divorce? Separation? Shit. I can't deal with this. \n\nI walk downstairs cautiously. What else has changed? I make my way towards the kitchen. Maybe breakfast will give me some clarity. And coffee. Do I still like coffee? Surely I still like coffee. I reach the kitchen, and luckily it's fairly similar to how I left it. Things are still where I think they should be. I find the coffee, the sugar, a spoon. These things are comforting. I find a frying pan, eggs (Organic cage free? Don't I know how expensive these are?), butter, vegetables for an omelet. Once everything is prepared I gather my usual devices and sit down at the kitchen table. \n\nIn front of me is a plate, blue, with one two-egg omelet with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and shredded cheese; one cup of coffee, strong, with one sugar and one quick pour of milk; one fork, right side of plate, on top of one napkin; one pile of mail, bill-related; one note pad; one sharpened pencil; one calendar, removed from kitchen wall. My routine is always the same, every time now since it stopped being a day, a week, and started being months...years... \n\nIt was novel at first. Life was hectic as a college student and I figured I was just a bit overworked. I went to sleep, woke up, found out I'd aced the test I couldn't even remember taking...things were okay. Then it happened again. And again. Sometimes I'd have a few days in between, sometimes not. But inevitably it would happen, inevitably I would wake up and things would be...not as I'd left them. One day there was a man in bed next to me, a man who woke up and told me he loved seeing my face every morning, a man whose face I'd never seen before. Then I'd woken up in a house that wasn't mine. Except, it was. Mine and this man's. I had felt the unfamiliar ring on my finger and realized I'd missed my own wedding. The face in the photos around the house was mine, and she was smiling, but I didn't know her. One day I'd awoke to a violent nausea, and upon reaching the bathroom I'd seen my swollen body in the mirror, and I had been horrified. I'd felt violated. Then, one day I'd woken up with a small child curled up next to me, and I felt nothing for it. This was my life now. \n\nI sipped my coffee. It was good. It helped me think. First and foremost, the calendar. Forget about the day, what is the year? The calendar says May. I flip to the front and it says...2014. 2014? That means it's been...three years. I lost...three years this time, three years and five months. It was Christmas the last time I went to sleep. I didn't even get to open my presents. \n\nSpilled milk.\n\nI move on to the mail. It's all in my name. So...does that man not live here? Is he my boyfriend who has his own place? Or maybe he just recently moved in, or... Oh...do I have casual sex now?! I stop and think, assess my body. I don't feel like I had sex last night. Okay, whew, it's not just some random man sleeping in my bed. Alright, moving on. The mail is mundane, boring even, and offers no real clues to what my life has become since last I left it. I have cable, internet, I didn't magically pay off my mortgage. Oh hey wait, that's a clue. The mortgage. I'd forgotten that I'm divorced. The mortgage is only in my name now. I got the house in the divorce, so I guess I got the kid too? I glance around. \n\nSometimes, when I woke up, there were drawings on the fridge. Crappy, colorful messes. This little girl would toddle over and hug my leg until I picked her up. She was cute. She had my eyes, and she loved me. I'd wished I could love her back. Then one day the pictures on the fridge were cleaner, neater. The animals looked like animals, and not just lines everywhere. The sun was a clean round ball, not just a yellow or orange series of squiggles. Today, there was nothing on the fridge. \n\nI pick up my pencil and scratch into my notebook, \"May 2014. Three years. Divorced. New boyfriend. Child...?\" I take a bite of my omelet and ponder that notion. Do I care if the child was gone? I took another bite. I don't. \n\nI continue through the mail. Magazine subscription, health insurance, car payment. I open the health insurance bill, and the premiums seem higher. Briefly I wonder what is happening politically, then, with a chuckle, I realize that it doesn't really affect me. In the past...16 years...I've only been awake a few weeks, really. I move on to the car payment. I'm amused. I add to my note pad, \"New car - White convertible\".\n\nI take my plate and fork to the sink. 'I'll get to them tomorrow,' I think, and chuckle to myself. I sip my coffee and make my way towards the front window. I peek out into the driveway and smile. My car is beautiful. I guess I get that Christmas present after all.\n\n\"What are you doing home?\"\n\nThe sudden onslaught of my silence startles me, and I turn around too quickly, spilling some of my coffee on my blouse. It's a girl. I tell her she startled me. I tell her I just wanted to take a day off to catch up on some things around the house. I tell her I wanted to spend time with her. I smile. I feel like it looks sincere. She's frowning. Maybe it doesn't look sincere... Maybe she'll go away now...\n\nBut she doesn't. She walks closer to me. She leans in towards my coffee cup and sniffs. \"Just wanted to see if that was really coffee.\" I just stare at her, in silence, and then she walks away.\n\nI let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. That girl...my daughter? She's so tall, almost as tall as me. And when did she get boobs? Are her boobs bigger than mine? Was she wearing makeup? Inconsequential. Where am I supposed to be if I'm not supposed to be home?\n\nI suppose I have to go back upstairs now. I make the trek up the stairs slowly. Once in the bedroom, I tip toe. Where is my purse? A cell phone? Anything. The man on the bed shifts in his sleep. There's that strange penis again. I feel dirty. Ah! There's my purse! I grab it and get back downstairs as quickly as possible. \n\nI dump the contents out on the kitchen table. In one pile I put: Hair brush; chapstick, spf 15; small compact mirror; hand lotion, amber scented; gum wrapper, peppermint; Andes mint. In the other pile I put: Checkbook, leather cover; receipts; one small notebook, black; one cell phone. I eat the Andes and flip through the receipts. Coffee house, clothing store with a return receipt attached, chicken sandwich, gas station. I move to the checkbook but it lends an equal amount of clues, zero. The note book is next. I hesitate, because it feels familiar. Do I remember holding this, writing in it? Maybe my fingers do, but my brain doesn't quite. \n\nInside, the first few pages are typical - notations about bills due, things purchased, the occasional doodle. Then, things progress in an unusual way. The writing is sloppier, notions shorter and fewer. Here, there is a smudge on the page. Here, a list of books or movies hastily scratched down. Here, phone numbers and addresses with no names. I keep flipping, but then suddenly, the writing is normal, the notations fuller and detailed again. I find the last page. It's just a grocery list. Apples, cheese, bread, paper towels. \n\nI've learned nothing. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "A year has passed. Now the jumps are getting longer.\n\nIt's been a month since I \"jump\" in time when I go to sleep. \nWell, a month for me. At first I missed one day, and since it \nwas a weekday everything was fine and dandy, we delivered \nRose and Mary to school, I left Josey at work as always with a goodbye kiss,\nbut when I got to work, I found I already finished the code changes\nI was set to finish yesterday. It was me alright, the code was mine,\nI did it, but I don't remember doing it.\n\nI told Josey about this later in the day, she dismissed it as a \njoke and I didn't go further, since she was starting to show a scared\nlook on her face.\n\nThen I started skipping two days, three days, weeks and months at a time,\nand it looked like I was there all of the time, that other me was even \nbetter than the me me. I am jealous even. He fixed the roof, the kids are\nmore loving than ever with him/me, and it seems Josey, well, likes him \nbetter in bed. ¿What does he do to her?.\n\nSo, as I was saying, now I'm leaping one year at a time. Kids are \nnow grown up, wife is showing gray hair. Twenty years have passed.\n\nAs of now I know tomorrow I will wake up one year and a fraction and \nthen two years and so on.\n\nFunny thing is, I'm also getting old, I have new aches, I have this weird \npain on my left foot, if I step in a certain way with enough force I get\na pain like needles, and also I have found a couple new scars, it looks like\nhim working on the house has taken its toll.\n\nSo he is a successful fella. We now live in another bigger house, I even have\nanother son, Tommy, which I barely know about but he loves me. You see, I leap \nin time but I don't get the memories from what happened in the interim, so from \nmy family point of view I get days where I get confused and take the day off, \nsince I don't know even where I work, I get calls from people I've never met \nasking me questions I have no idea how to answer, so, even in my day off, I have \nto disconnect from the world.\n\nAnd I get to sleep as late as I can, savoring every waking moment.\n\nOnce I thought of killing him, but I am, he is, not that kind of person. I can \nnever do that to my family. They deserve him.\n\nI only hope I am awake when I die.\n\n .\n .\n .\n .\n .\n EDIT: A friend told me this is basically like the movie \"Click\". I didn't watch it, I swear :D" ]	4
	[WP] You are the head assassin at a firm for contract killers, some high roller has made an offer your firm can't refuse on a new contract. That contract is you.	[ "\"Alright, you know the business' rules. You don't deny contracts over five mill. If you don't trust me, then reread the agreement you signed, the invisible writing on our stationary, and the sign on the wall behind me.\"\n\n\"But sir, if I die, you'll lose one of your best assassins!\"\n\n\"Look, I know that. I don't want to accept this either, but there's factors going in to it that make it unavoidable.\"\n\n\"Ugh, fine. It's clear that it can't be argued. Who will you send to assassinate me?\"\n\n\"I'm lookin' right at him.\"\n\n\"Me?\"\n\n\"Yeah, you. Who else is in here? See, I know that you've always wanted to die two ways: on a mission, and with a certain coolness factor to it. If I gave this assignment to anyone else, they'd do something like smother you in your sleep with a pillow. That'd be shameful. that'd be disrespectful. That'd be not your thing. If I give this to you, then you get to do whatever you want. Jump off the tallest skyscraper, Wrestle a bear off a cliff, jump out of a jet with no parachute, you name it. It's up to you.\"\n\n\"But assassins who take contracts are given a portion of the money. Who would get the money if I kill myself?\"\n\n\"Whoever you want to, my friend.\"", "Yasha knew what was about to happen, she had done it herself a thousand times before. A bang would be all she would hear and then... nothing. An assassin couldn't allow themselves to believe there is a life after death, she knew death was the end, that only made things worse. \n \n\nTaken as a child and trained in every form of killing possible. Yasha reminisced about the dojos in which she would be made to kill or be killed at the age of 9 against people she had grown up with her entire life. Her training was brutal but there was a certain elegance to the brutality she thought. \n \nThe gun clicked as it readied to fire.\n\nI am better than these people, I kill faster and better and far cleaner, these so called masters are sloppy in comparison to me she thought to herself. A billion dollars. It must have been a government who wanted her dead, no one else has that much money to spend on a single target. \n\nThe man about to shoot her, someone she thought was her friend was showing no remorse as he prepared to pull the trigger. The other assassins stand in a circle waiting to see the blood fly.\n\nBut as the trigger was about to be pulled. As the corporates in their suits, the men who had never held a gun, rubbed their hands together ready for the money they would earn. Something snapped inside Yasha and suddenly she was the 9 year old again, taking on boys twice her size and ripping out their eyes to earn her next meal.\n\nIt was kill or be killed.\n\nYasha shot first.", "There was never any doubt that we would take the contract. Too many Zeros on the line to say no. Too many questions if we didn't happily sign on the line. It was the happiest I have ever been that we negotiate in masks. Normally, the damn things are stuffy and hot and make it hard for the client to hear you. Today, I'm not sure I could have kept the surprise off my face when she walked in. Let alone when she reached into her cute little purse and pulled out my picture. \n\nNot sure that I would have been able to say anything to her after she threw it on the table and asked how much the hit would cost. Lucky for me, We do this in pairs, and so there was someone to cover for me when I froze up and stared at her.\n\nSomeone to cover for me while I had drawn little X's on my eyes in the photograph of me on the beach for our honeymoon while my second in command talked to my wife about killing me. \n\n\n\n", "\"You did what?\"\n\n\"David, I know it sounds bad, but hear me out-\"\n\n\"You accepted an assassination contract on me?\" David asked incredulously to his long-time partner, employer, and friend.\n\nKen sighed. \"It was a lot of money, ok? Woah hold it cowboy-\"\n\nDavid had pulled his guns on Ken.\n\n\"-I said hold it. If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it as you came inside.\"\n\nThe gun did not move from Ken's face.\n\n\"Look, we need the money-\"\n\nDavid's trigger finger seemed to inch ever so slightly.\n\n\"-but we need you more, ok? You are still our best assassin,\" Ken hastily finished.\n\nDavid seemed to consider that. He lowered the gun, just a bit.\n\n\"So the way we're going to be doing is this. We'll forge you another identity, we arrange a fake body, grab the cash from the idiots, use some of that to get you a facelift. With me so far?\"\n\nDavid nodded, still shocked at the fact that someone would have wanted him dead. \"I swear I had no loose ends-\"\n\n\"That doesn't matter now, what matters is that we can get a fuckton of money from them, and you will still live. Hell, with the money they're offering us, we won't ever need to kill again and live like... like, Bill Gates!\"\n\nFinally the giant killer holstered his weapon. \"How will you be faking the body\" He asked curiously.\n\n\"That will be up to Jim and his boys to fix up,\" Ken said, pouring himself a glass of wine. \"So what do you say, big man? Reckon you can lay low for the rest of your life living like a king? No more killing, no more injuries!\" Ken handed David a glass, and started pouring another for himself.\n\nDavid sipped the glass of cheap wine. A retirement. With all the money anyone could dream for... it was what David had been dreaming of all these years. He never liked killing people, watching the life leak out of their hopeless eyes. He thought of the puppies he could have, maybe a few parakeets too. A mansion, he decided, would be lovely. Yes, it would be a great life ahead of him and his friend.\n\n\"Anyway, we leave for Switzerland this Saturday, here's the ticket for it. Don't bring any weapons - we're just going in so we can grab our cash from the bank, not kill people.\"\n\n\"I'll go pack my things,\" David replied. He was starting to become giddy just thinking about the animals he could buy as pets-\n\nThud\n\nKen placed his untouched glass of wine down on the table, then sighed.\n\n\"Who knew my last assassination would be so clichéd?\" He grumbled.", "\"But sir, that contract names you as the primary target. See? '0001'.''\n\n\"Do you grace me with such a restricted base of knowledge as to your insinuation of my inability to read four very large, bold numbers sitting inches from my open eyes?\"\n\nMarshall didn't break his stare with the belittled employee. His violent blue eyes seemed to question the reason for such an ignorant statement. \n\n\"Get out of my office, 0002.\"\n\nEvery assassin in the firm had their number. Naturally, Marshall was 0001, and each member had their own numerical brand based upon their rank in the company. The contract still sat motionless in front of Marshall on his desk.\n\n\"$2 Billion\" He muttered, contemplating the rammifications of any decisions he may choose to make. \n\nMarshall reached to pick up the phone, dialing the number for an employee in the building.\n\n\"Yes, 0006. I've got a contract I need you to get right on. Yes, it's the one we discussed. You know what you have to do, correct? Okay.\"\n\nAs soon as the phone hit the reciever, it was up and back to the ear of the determined head of firm. This time, the call was to 0002.\n\n\"Look. I apologise for just a moment ago, it's a difficult decision we're in the process of making.\"\n\nThere was a pause as Marshall gave uninterested back-channel to the response on the other end.\n\n\"I'd like you to come back to the office immediately, I have something I want to show you that I think you'll like\".\n\nIt was less than 5 minutes before the reappearance of 0002. He entered the room looking both overwhelmed and confused.\n\n\"Aaah, there you are!\" Marshall said, with a kind of happy intonation in his voice that no-one had ever heard, as he sprang up from his desk chair.\n\n\"Yes, what's this all about, sir?\"\n\n\"Gah, classic 0002 question you see.\" Marshall joked, with a patronising slap to the shoulder.\n\n\"Come, come. Sit down. Sit in my chair. I have an announcement to make.\"\n\nthud, thud, thud, thud\n\n0002 could hear dull noises coming from the corridor he had just emerged from. The notion was dissmissed at first.\n\n\"You've worked at this firm for a very long time, 0002. We've been through some tough times together.\" Marshall began.\n\nthud, thud, thud, thud\n\n0002 started to look increasingly uncomfortable, Marshall's drastic change in demeanour planting a seed of uncertainty in his mind. He continued:\n\n\"I don't feel as though i've been a good enough boss to you, you see. Given all of the things that you've done for me\" \n\n\"Yes, look sir, I really don't think it's necessar-\"\n\n\"Nonsense, nonsense\" whispered Marshall, as he moved in much closer, wrapping his arms in an inescapable hug around 0002, pinning him to the chair.\n\nthud, thud, thud, thud\n\nThe sounds were much louder now, and could clearly be identified. Footsteps. Marshall never saw more than one person at once, alarm bells began to ring in the head of 0002.\n\n\"So here we are, the founders of this fine establishment.\"\n\nthud, thud, thud, thud\n\n\"I would like to officially announce, YOUR PROMOTION!\" \n\nMarshall span the chair as the remaining syllables left his smiling mouth.\n\nbang\n\nA figure in the doorway. 0006. People didn't miss shots at this firm.\n\nMarshall took a slow walk over to the phone on his desk, inconviniently hidden by the corpse of the former vice-leader. With a slight push, the body flopped into a messy pile of blood and smoking flesh on the marble floor.\n\nbeep, beep, beeeeeep\n\n\"Yes this is 0002. The contract has indeed been fulfilled.\"" ]	5
	[WP] You are the last human living in a galaxy full of thousands of different sentient alien species. You are also a sex addict.	[ "The three animal instincts: food, water, and reproduction. Something must have kicked in on a subconscious level when the Gal'aya blew up Earth fifteen years ago, because ever since then I can't get enough alien tail. And often, yes, I'm putting my dick in a tail, or a stomach, or a head, or wherever this certain species has its reproductive organ, just to trick my brain into thinking I made a second human.\n\nThe Gal'aya abducted me twenty-years ago, a dashing lad of twenty-three. Fresh out of Columbia's Delta Sigma Phi. Brown hair, blue eyes, a hint of a beard at all times. Six foot one, a buck eighty, pretty muscular. They did a pretty good job abducting an ideal human specimen if you ask me. And the five years of experiments weren't awful either; I was well-fed, clean, pretty popular among the Gal'aya guys at the pub too. But that was twenty years ago. After giving me something that made me indifferent to the human race, they blew up the planet and gave me the boot. My buddies at the pub seemed pretty upset to see me go, but nevertheless I was strapped into an escape pod of the ship that was my home of five years and shot down to Simli. \n\nNow, Simli isn't a terrible city either. In fact, I kind of like it. If I were to compare it to anything on Earth, I'd say it's probably closest to Phoenix. But Simli isn't a desert city on this planet, the planet itself is just a bit hotter than Earth so the wildlife adapted. So a Phoenix climate with Denver scenery. Mountainous, a good amount of trees, but hot. Also, I'd guess the city was about thirty times the width of New York City with buildings hundreds and hundreds of stories high. After all, we humans weren't all to advanced when we were around. \n\nBut I digress. I'm now forty-three, obese, and about to get hammered and laid. And I'm going to work, my fucking job is getting hammered and laid. See, I'm kind of what you'd call a \"trophy species.\" Since I'm the last one of my species, horny alien girls will come from all across the galaxy and pay to fuck me. Call it exotic or call it weird, I'm getting laid every single night. And I'm not some cheap whore either. I charge a pretty penny for these ladies to have sex with me, but they've gotta get me drunk at first. Show me a good time. They don't know I'm disgusting by human standards. They don't know I'll probably die of poisoned kidneys are a heart attack by the time I'm fifty. All they know is that I'm exclusive. A trophy. I'm fat, I'm rich, and I'm getting laid every night by aliens that (once you get used to not banging humans) are incredibly sexy. My life is fucking great.", "I couldn't meet Dr. Zxzy's eyes, not just because of the nature of the exam, but because his eyes made me uncontrollably aroused. He had six of them, each in a different color of the rainbow, attached to his head by long stalks. I wondered what those stalks would feel like in my -\n\n\"Your test results are in,\" the doctor said, interrupting a very dirty thought. His tone was serious, but maybe that was just because members of his species have very deep voices. Very deep, sexy voices. \n\n\"And?\" I held my breath.\n\n\"I'm afraid it's positive.\"\n\nI breathed out. \"Positive? For what?\"\n\nHe hesitated. His green and purple eyes spun around, a sign that he was either feeling awkward or horny. I mostly dealt with his species in the latter state. \"For everything. Every single STD for every known species in the galaxy. Except humans.\" He laughed nervously, causing his sexy thorax to jiggle. \"Hard to catch those when you're the only one left.\"\n\nI didn't know how to feel. Maybe I was in shock. I felt a familiar tingling in my groin. Really? Even now? \"What do I do?\" I asked, fighting the urge to touch myself. \"Is there any treatment? Am I going to die?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid the only thing to do is to cut off your -\" The doctor gestured downward with his spiny, segmented arm.\n\n\"Oh.\" I thought about life without my little friend. It hardly seemed like life at all. And sure, I'd made it with every species out there, but there were still so many categories left on my sexual bucket list - males and females and others, metamorphosed forms, doing it in anti-gravity. \"Is there anything else?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid if we don't operate, you'll be dead in a year.\"\n\nI considered it. If reports of human lifespans were accurate, I probably had fifty years left. But fifty years without sex? Was that really living? \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"You should decide soon,\" Dr. Zxzy implored. \"This treatment won't work if the diseases progress much further.\" I saw the spikes on Dr. Zxzy's back stand up. There was only one thing that meant.\n\n\"Doctor?\" I asked, incredulously.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he said, his red and yellow eyes blinking furiously with embarrassment. \"I just heard about you from my friend and I can't help but wonder if it's true.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's true,\" I replied with a wink. \"Do you have an ultra-condom?\"\n\n\"I shouldn't.\" But I could tell the doctor was getting excited. His exoskeleton was starting to vibrate with anticipation.\n\nI took off the hospital gown and displayed my genitals. One more go-around couldn't hurt, right?\n", "\"Mynea, kor'vag me hoomani\".\n\nThose are the first words I hear as I step into the Galaxium Whore House. \"Around the galaxy, they don't speak my language. But that booty doesn't need any explanation,\" I think to myself. I try to hide my hard, raging boner underneath my armour as I step through the halls of the floating building. Several translucent windows line up the walls, each filled with a female of a variety of different species dancing in a sexual way. I sigh to myself, still saddened by the realisation that I will never get to fuck someone of my own god damn species. Walking into the main staircase, I encounter the ring leader of this entire operation.\n\n\"Gor'nye mudak?\" says the ugly tentacled beast.\n\n\"Sorry, but I don't understand whatever the fuck you're saying.\" I said.\n\n\"Ok. You human? I not see them much.\"\n\n\"Shit happened. And here I stand, the endling of my species.\"\n\nThe creature examines me, seemingly fascinated by my presence. It lets out a grunt, and walks towards a door that appeared to led to where the prostitutes were located. \"What a fucking weirdo,\" I think to myself. Even if he was some vile, disgusting vermin, he was still dressed lavishly in a red velvet(?) suit, fitted with several holes designed for his tentacles.\n\nI hear someone approaching, and I turn around, seeing a blue, human-like alien. Her \"hair\" was slicked back, sort of like cornrows. I was quickly stunned by her attractiveness. It was clear she was a female.\n\n\"Hello,\" she said, \"Would you like to receive my services?\"\n\nI nodded, thinking hell yeah I'm gonna get some sex. We both walk behind a curtain, and I sit on the bed while she undresses.\n\n\"By the way, my name is Liara T'Soni.\"\n\nThe rest of the night is a blur.\n\nEDIT: A word", "I sat on the barstool, only half paying attention to the Brockian Ultra Cricket game being displayed on the holo-vid field. I was drinking something, can't say I could remember exactly what. Sombody had bought it for me earlier. Just then walked in an amazingly beautiful girl, her lovely purple skin and the way she brushed her glowing orange hair back with her third arm had me entranced. She had to be the most gorgeous being I'd ever seen. Wait no, there were other those two I had met last last week. She maybe tied with them. As she sat down next to me I looked up at her, flashed my most charming smile, and said,\n\n\"Hello there, I'm Captain Jack Harkness.\"" ]	4
	[WP] A hunter finally finds his quarry, but questions what drives him to kill	[ "There it is. One leg shattered; it's limping It must have fallen off that cliff. Such a shame, the chase was becoming rather exhilarating. I ready my hunting rifle, zeroing in on its center of mass. No, not like this. I have to get up close, savor the kill, show my superiority over such a lesser creature in the hierarchy of nature. I sling my rifle onto my back and begin the hike downwards.\n\nWhy do I do this, though? Am I simply senselessly killing animals for my enjoyment? \n\nNo. Man was put on this Earth by God to dominate the lesser species as we see fit. We are the superior race, the übermensch, and we must live up to this title. If we were meant to treat other species as equals, then why cannot they perform on our level? Why can they not grasp our language, our science, our cultures? They do not have laws, or civilizations. They roam in packs, killing any reasonable man they see.\n\nAh, here we are. I look it in the eye. It whimpers slightly. If it would talk, it would probably moan that feral, guttural cry their species has. But alas, a well-placed rifle round from three days ago clipped its vocal cords. It is a specialty of mine, neutering an animal's voice from afar. Depriving it of the only primitive form of communication it has, cut off and isolated from its kin, makes ending its pathetic life a mercy. I pull out my revolver and load it.\n\nOne shot, right between the eyes. That was it. It is a beautiful specimen, really. I should have its head stuffed. The wound can be touched up by a good taxidermist. It will look beautiful above the fireplace, as I read some Dostoevsky. \n\nI hoist it up, tossing the carcass over my shoulder. It will be a long walk back to the estate.\n\nWhy must the negro specimens always be the heaviest?", "The long bowstring drew taunt as the moonlight dripped down onto the golden bow of Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt. An arrow nestled and nocked, peering verily across the forest floor. Only the hesitation of the Goddess herself spared the greatest game from joining Hades in Erebus.\n\nThe prey moved its head, as if sensing her presence. The Goddess moved not, knowing her presence to be as silent as the footsteps of Selene as she walked beside. \"What troubles you, sister?\" She asked of the Huntress.\n\n\"I cannot bring myself to kill this man.\" Artemis replied, face sullen as she held the bowstring tight. \"By all means, he has killed from the sacred grove - he cuts apart his prize even now. But I do the same; can I damn a man for that?\"\n\n\"You can damn a man for many things.\" Selene's voice dripped like rain, wrapped in a silver cloak made of moonlight. \"Surely, of many reasons, this would not be the least.\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\" The Huntress Twin shifted, her Golden Bow never moving from its prey. \"But I wish not to be my brother Ares, to kill for the sake of killing. Does not a mortal deserve more than the whimsy of an immortal?\"\n\n\"It is not for whimsy alone, Sister.\" Selene replied, soaking in the moonlight as it cascaded over her. \"He has invoked your anger, has he not? This is a sacred forest, it is known.\"\n\n\"It is known.\" The Huntress nodded, never taking her eyes off the trespasser in her glen. \"But I wish to be more than my Father's Daughter - to kill in the slightest of anger. I am not Zeus, I am mine own. I wish to be worthy of the worship the mortals offer me.\" She lowered her Golden Bow, and it glistened in Selene's glow. \"Thank you, Sister. For helping me.\"\n\nSelene smiled. \"You are welcome, Sister. Though I would have shot him moments ago.\"\n\nThe trespasser looked back, but where the two Goddesses had stood he saw only the trees and the moonlight.", "The evening was silent but for the wind’s low howl ripping through the forest; a frigid whisper, ripe with the promise of winter. As the suns warming grasp receded behind the mountains to the north, darkness began to devour the land in creeping strides. Snaking rivers sustained by snow-melts from the mountain peaks covered the green vale, drawing the local peoples to their fertile banks for wherewithal and transport. \n\nA cloak, deep purple in the dying light, caught in the gust and snapped violently, its owner a dark stain on the sunlit cliff side, his attention focused down into the valley below. Several miles to the east in a small riverside village, families set to preparing for the night to come. Throughout the small community people were corralling livestock, mothers were calling their children in from play, fishermen were recalling the day’s lines, and hearths were being lit to fend off the cold of night. The towering man’s steely gaze took in every minute detail. Distance mattered not to one such as this; his master’s gift provided him with the means to perceive beyond his natural limits.\n \nHe had noted the deep absence this valley exuded long ago, but had not found reason before this day to quest out and discover its cause. Today the need was powerful, filling him with an insatiable craving for violence. The village in his sights marked the epicenter, and would no doubt be where his quarry concealed itself.\n\nDrawing his senses back to their natural confines, the hooded man turned his attention to a group of leaves caught in the draft cascade out into the expanse. Idly, he considered the similarity between they and him. A tight smiled brushed his lips, only to vanish as quickly as it had appeared. It was no more than his own bloodlust that drove him and filled him with such mysterious purpose. A monster need not question its nature.\n\nSighing his resignation and sending a indignant gaze over his shoulder towards the tree line, he steeled himself for the task at hand. There was bloody work to be done this night.\n" ]	3
	[WP] You can hear the thoughts of inanimate objects. What do they tell you?	[ "The empty bottles are crying again. I don't know how I can bring myself to drink anymore, condensation mimics tears as they beg me not to. I open the fridge to what I assume are complaints in Russian, you'd think bottles of Vodka would be used to the cold. I can only drink the stuff warm when I'm desperate though, so I always keep a few bottles in there. The refrigerator is shy, doesn't like to be opened and looked at. I grab for another bottle and they're all afraid, it's strange, they all seem the same but respond differently. Some shout angrily and some with resignation. Probably either \"fuck you\" or \"why me?\". They don't realize I'm trying to drink myself to death or at least to sleep, I just need a break from this nightmare.\n\n I sit down on my recliner, \"I've got a spring for you.\" Fucking pervert. ", "Computer:\n\n\"You've spent twelve hours on me and you haven't bought me dinner.\"\n\n\"QUIT LOOPING LET IT GO, I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE.\"\n\n\"Ooh! You're torrenting! I'd report you if I could move by free will.\"\n\n\"What's up with all the cats?\"\n\n\"Why are you deleting your history? Don't want anyone to know you went to asianbimbovideos.net?\"\n\n\"No, not one more Breaking Bad episode! Go to bed, it's 3am and you have work tomorrow!\"" ]	2
	[WP] The First Intergalactic War for humanity against other Humanoid Civilization.	[ "--A Letter from Fleet Admiral Gerin Nalamor to Grand Judicator Noris’ta Malmican, on the defeat of the 1st Fleet by the Humans in the battle of Ixan V--\n\nHonorable Grand Judicator, I write this letter to you from the ruins of my fleet. Not the remnants, the ruins. I would like to make that distinction very clear. I would also like to make clear that I and what is left were allowed to retreat by the Humans. I shall do my best to describe the course of events leading up to this point.\n\nWhen humanity was first encountered, we laughed at them. They were technologically inferior, splintered among any number of cultural factors, and had lifespans less than a quarter as long as ours. We thought that they were another race to be subjugated, to be crushed and forced into our society. We were wrong, oh so wrong.\n\nWe didn’t realize just what we were getting into, even when they fought so tenaciously for one planet that we had to scour the surface, we thought we could win. For twenty solar cycles we won, every battle, but at great loss. We were certain they were near a breaking point, for we had killed them in the billions, scoured dozens of their worlds, and demolished their fleet.\n\nWe faced little resistance until Ixan V. When our ships exited slip-space in orbit, we couldn't believe our eyes. There, facing us, was a fleet the same size as ours, and of equal technological ability. In twenty solar cycles, they had matched our capabilities, and on that even footing, we didn't have a chance.\n\nWe tried to keep our distance, as our weapons still had superior range, but the humans had no heed for their own safety. They piloted their ships right next to ours and sent boarding parties. Boarding parties, can you imagine! These puny beings, half our size, and yet they tore through our ranks like they weren't there. I saw, through video feeds, a human soldier kill with its bare hands fifteen of our most experienced marines before finally falling due to his dozens of wounds. No, these being weren't puny, they were gargantuan.\n\nThey left us with three ships, three out of six hundred, and none of them capital ships. They let us go with one message. \n\n“We are Humanity. We give you two options; Surrender, or be eradicated.”\n\nHonorable Judicator, I have been a Fleet Admiral for eighty solar cycles. I fought the Thrask and the Noraxi. Never before have I ever feared a race as much as Humanity. I truly believe that these beings are telling the truth. We have no chance, no possible chance, of resisting them. If we resist, we have sealed our fate. I implore you, Grand Judicator, to do what is best for our race. We cannot win this war. No number of fleets or armies will stop them, delay maybe, but never stop. Of that, you may be certain. \n\nRegardless of your decision, Grand Judicator, consider this my resignation from the Fleet. I have witnessed more horrifying things in the last twenty cycles than I have my entire career. \n\nSincerely,\nFormer Fleet Admiral Gerin Nalamor\n", "The following was taken from the journal of Colonel John Flynn of the Earth Fleet.\n\nDay 71: The fleets are ready. Seven Triumph warships are at my command, yet I worry for the conflict ahead. The Emperor has asked that we destroy the Teloskians completely, but I am unsure if we can even half their ranks.\n\nDay 75: We are 200 million miles from the Teloskian fleet. All we have encountered so far are small scouting parties.\n\nDay 80, Morning: Today we engage in the battle. I walked down to the crew quarters. My men were cheering at the though of vaporizing those alien bastards. Right now I can hear the thrum of the engines as we speed towards our target.\n\nDay 80, Afternoon: The attack is about to begin. Our cloaking systems are working overdrive, we are struggling with power. The planet nearby is full of the alien scum.\n\n(the next entry was taken from the wall of a cell in a Teloskian prison ship)\n\nDay 81: Why? How could this happen? There were twice as we had been told of. These scum must die.\n\n\"Sir. This clearly shows us how despicable these 'Humans' are. Do you not remember Teloskodor? Remember the fire, and destruction? I think we should push back, and end their pitiful existence for good.\"\n\nThe room exploded into shouts for and against the speaker.\n\n\"Silence!\" screamed the judge, his mandibles clicking away furiously. \"You make a good point, Legate Fth-Gtah. We should do what we do best as peace-loving people, and not attack unless fired upon. However, we have been fired upon. Our fleet is at least twenty times bigger than theirs. They will come to realise this when they actually read the messages we have sent them, or see our fleet destroying them.\"\n\n\"But perhaps they cannot read our language?\" asked a bearded Teloskian in the corner. \"Since we had to translate the words of that prisoner.\"\n\n\"By the Twenty Graces, do you dare speak ill of our wondrous tongue? All creatures which dare interfere with the nations of Teloskia are aware of how to speak the language, since it was said by the First Grace himself that those who came into contact with the tongue shall speak it!\" replied the judge.\n\n\"But what if this is not true?\"\n\nThe judge began to shake. \"You speak falsities in the High Court of the Third Grace. This is an offence punishable by liquefaction! Take him to the Graced!\"\n\nThe old Teloskian was dragged off by guards, his face calm as he moved towards his fate.\n\nThe judge turned towards Legate Fth-Gtah. \"Tomorrow you send the full might of our fleet to end their pitiful existence. It is a blessing for them to meet the First Grace.\"\n\nFth-Gtah nodded. " ]	2
	[WP] "Once you start asking questions, the footsteps behind you begin."	[ "I could feel a presence behind me, but when I turned around, nothing was there. I held my breath and waited. Silence. I turned back around and kept walking, but I could still feel a presence.\n\n“What is wrong with me tonight? I don’t usually get so scared walking home at this time.”\n\nI heard footsteps now. I didn’t want to turn around now, so I just walked faster. But the sound of the footsteps increased its pace with mine. \n\nWas I really sure it wasn’t echoes of my own walking? But I was on an open street; echoes only happened in enclosed spaces where there was something for the sound to bounce off.\n\nI stopped suddenly. The footsteps stopped suddenly, too. Maybe it was just my own footsteps I was hearing. I looked over my shoulder and sure enough, there was nobody there.\n\nI resumed walking, and the sounds behind me returned. I could feel them now though, not just hear them. They didn’t sound like shoes, either. They seemed to resemble metallic clanging.\n\nI shuddered. Was I losing my mind?\n\nThey got louder, and my muscles tensed but I kept walking. I was nearly home now.\n\nWho walked with a sound of metal, though? Nobody wore metal shoes. Did they?\n\nI stopped and turned around again as quickly as I could, giving the person no time to hide. But there was nobody there.\n\nMy breath caught in my throat. I was losing my mind. There was nobody there.\n\n“If there’s nobody there, then why am I hearing footsteps?”\n\nI began walking again, and as soon as I did, the sounds resumed. Whoever it was was getting closer to me now. I didn’t want to run, but I walked as quickly as I could. Again, the metallic footsteps matched their pace with mine.\n\nMy stomach turned and I just hoped that I really was imagining things, because I didn’t even want to think about the implications of what might happen if I wasn’t.\n\nEvery muscle in my body was tense, though that just made it harder to walk. The clanging seemed amplified and more rhythmic now.\n\nI was nearly home. I just needed to keep that thought in my mind and try to ignore whatever I was hearing. All I could hear was the clanging. I wasn’t sure if it even was footsteps anymore.\n\n“I’m nearly home. Just keep walking.”\n\nThe clanging footsteps were so loud, and they seemed to be coming from less than an inch behind me. The sound engulfed me and it was all I could hear.\n\nI stopped walking, I was too disoriented. I didn’t look behind me, and the sounds didn’t stop this time. Was this the end? Were they going to kill me?\n\nThe clanging became deafening and seemed to come from everywhere. I tried to look around but it paralyzed me.\n\n“Why is this happening?” I asked out loud.\n\n“You ask too many questions.”", "“What does it say?”\n\n“It says I’m pregnant.”\n\nSarah’s statement lacked the intonation one would expect from such a powerful declaration. There was no loud exclamation; there wasn’t even any disappointment, or sadness. However, the look on Thomas’s face was much more predictable – fear. He tried to hide it, and for a brief moment it turned into one of surprise, but it was surprise at the uncertainty he saw in Sarah’s face.\n\n“It’ll be different this time.” She asserted to herself. “The doctors figured out what happened before, we’ll have the special check-up at 16 weeks to make sure the blood types match up, everything’ll be fine. She will be fine.”\n\nShe. Thomas wanted to say something. After all, just because they had a girl before doesn't mean they will again, but he wanted to give some solace to Sarah, and decided to stay silent.\n\nA few moments passed. Thomas felt uncomfortable, he wanted to say something, he wanted to be a part of this again. “I still like the name Elizabeth.”\n\nSarah gave him a bewildering look, which quickly turned into one of pity. It was the absolute worst thing he could have said in that moment, condemning her unborn child with the cursed name from her past. Still, she gave him the benefit of the doubt – he was trying, and this last year hasn’t been easy for him either.\n\n“Uh, anyways.” Thomas stammered, realizing his mistake, “This is good news, and we should celebrate. How ‘bout pizza?”\n\n“Sure.”\n\nThey both got up to go to the kitchen. They shuffled along slowly, avoiding eye contact. Each felt a little ashamed that they weren’t more excited, but they knew the simple truth of the situation. Once it has begun, there is only one endpoint to life.\n\nThey hoped to at least get a birthday out of it this time.", "Nothing was done to stop the decimation until I started asking, \"Why does it have to be this way?\" Whole societies were being slaughtered. Corporations were formed and people made millions producing and releasing chemical weapons against both the black and the red. Huge numbers parishing in the onslaught. The toughness of their individual soldiers banned together proved themselves to be difficult opponents but they were no match for our size. Peace? Could we not have found a peaceful means to coexist? Perhaps we could provide them with farms on which to live among us? Were these colonists rights not as important as ours? As I started looking into the rights of the Formicidae Colonists and asking questions about their treatment, others rose up with me to defend them. Soon FotA, Friends of the Ants, signs cropped up. As I marched for equal rights, the footsteps behind me began, two and six at a time. ", "Genevieve peered cautiously down the alleyway. The ruts in the pavement contained small puddles, which were currently being bombarded by raindrops. Each falling drop was like a small shell, fired from a howitzer, exploding into the otherwise tranquil puddles. \n\nFlicking her cigarette into a puddle, she strode forward into the unknown, one hand on her pistol. At the end of the alley, a small sliver of light piereced the otherwise dim surroundings; a door left ajar. She approached the door, her heart racing as she readied herself to enter the room. Her grip on her pistol tigthened. \n\n\"Looking for someone?\" a voice rang out behind her. \n\nShe whipped around, pistol in hand. A tall man in an overcoat, with a rather classic looking hat stood in the rain. He chuckled at her.\n\n\"So you're who I'm looking for.\" she stated flatly\n\n\"I know what you want to know. It's a dangerous road, you can't possibly imagine what it's going to be like. You think you're being careful, but you're a babe in the woods. These aren't common criminals or typical bureaucrats you're talking about\" he said with a stern expression.\n\n\"Am I supposed to be frightened? I'm not. I want to get to the bottom of this, I want the truth, and I want to destroy every single one of them.\" She said, her mouth curling into a rueful grin. \n\n\"Fine,\" he strode past her, pushed the door open and motioned her to come in \"But once you start asking questions, the footsteps behind you begin. And they won't end. Look up, over in the far corner - you see that? We can't stay here - they've already seen you waving that gun around.\"\n\n\nShe looked up and saw the hidden camera installed on the dilapidated building. In her thoughts, she cursed her stupidity. Aloud, she said nothing and followed him in. This was her only chance, there was no going back now.\n", "Once upon a time, my old man told me that when you start asking questions, the footsteps behind you begin. \n\nHe told me, that people aren't obsessed with the who, or the how. They're obsessed with the why. When you know why, everything is fine. When you know why, there's no reason to question anything else. The sky is blue because it's the sky, the grass is green because it's grass.\n\nHere, here---let's start with a simple example. Alright? Way, way back in the before our, our... technological Renaissance, this boom of knowledge, people back on Earth prayed for rain when there was a drought. The dropped right down on their knees, got up did a little dance, whatever, right? They did it because some guy or gal in a fancy dress jumped up and said---no, cried \"The gods are angry! They damn us for our lack of faith that our fathers and their fathers lavished them with! They demand a sacrifice!\" or what the hell ever, right? They stir the people--their clanmates, their tribesmen, their family into this, this frenzy! \n\nLooking back on it from today, in this wonderful world where this life giving rain is only a click of a button away, or the difference between a light drizzle and a full blow monsoon is the difference of the twist of a knob, it seems utterly barbaric with our understanding of how the world works that someone would slaughter their child in cold blood because they were told that why it wasn't raining was because some figment of imagination is glaring down from the clouds at you.\n\nHumans--People--Us, we, are emotional animals, Matt. How we live, whether we thrive or just give up, how and when we die is a simple question how we feel, or why am I alive? We have a natural instinct to ask these questions, to search, to ask. But, for some, this feeling, this wanderlust can be easily quelled by the big guy in the sky, or whoever the hell says they come in his name, or just because they have a half-assed answer that kind of makes sense. Other's don't settle until they've got their own answers.\n\n\nNow, let's get a little more complicated with another example. \n\nYou hear a dull crack from your neighbours yard, and barely five minutes later, your neighbour waltzes right up to your door, rings the bell, and when you answer holds up the mangled, buck-shot riddled corpse of your dog and says \"Your pooch broke out of it's collar and ran right at me, so I had to put it down.\"\n\nYou could do one of two things here, Matt. \nYou could be the first guy and could close the door, take your dog out back with it's perfectly fine collar, walk right past the metal peg still rooted firmly on the ground, and the pristine steel chain still baring naught a scratch, and bury the poor son-of-a-bitch, and go on living, bringing home buddy after king only to wind up with the same result, a dead dog.\n\nOr you could indulge that deep well of wonder and ask why. Why did your neighbour lie about Skip braking his collar, why didn't you hear him barking if he was making so much noise, and why in the hell did your neighbour shoot your best friend?\n\nDid he just not like dogs? Was he angry that the little guy barked, even though that's what all dogs did? Or was it done just to spite you, because your neighbour's got the darkest of green-eyed monsters lurking in his soul?\n\nWhatever conclusion you come to, you've got a dead animal on your hands, and you've got the how, your neighbour shot him. You confront the guy, and you get an answer, or, a fat load of buck-shot peppered across your chest, depending on how he feels about you. People can be pretty shitty like that, as I'm sure you know.\n\nAnd from there, the authorities could either look into why you're taking up space in the morgue, or they could just take your asshole of a neighbour's excuse that you came at him and he shot you in self defence.\n\nYou still with me, Matt? Alright, good, because I'm going to take things one last step further.\n\nOur glorious government is apparently breaking records, everywhere. The lowest crime rates for the past millenia, the employment rate is at an all time high, the food reserves are as full as they've ever been, and the plague is supposedly non existent.\n\nWhy, then, would we have all the homeless, all the sickly, all those poor saps pegged with a CRS gather in the center of Plymouth, only to have the military roll up and gun the entire helpless half-million down?\n\nWe were both there, Matthew. That wasn't a riot, and it sure as hell wasn't a terrorist attack. We aren't going crazy because of some biological attack, and it wasn't a hallucination. \n\nYou remember what my Dad always said, Matt.\n\nI've, no, we've started asking the questions. And now we've got the thunder of millions of footsteps behind us. So why don't we march to the beat, and see if we find the answers we're looking for?", "\"Why?\"\n\nFor the first time in a while the creases of confusion appeared on the mans face, the wrinkled old skin almost managing to portray an emotion, the eyes staring directly at him as lifeless grey as his hair. He spoke in a voice cultured, soft, yet entirely preoccupied; like a god taking a few moments to speak with the insects beneath his feet.\n\n\"I'm sorry, I do hope you realize that you don't really have much time here.\"\n\nThe little man was entirely correct as he sat upon the small chair, the sounds of the rest of the maze echoing around the otherwise empty grey room. The shuffling and clawing of fleet, the clanging of metal, the sound of bone and claws scraping along as man, machine and beast drove towards their location.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nHe jumped to his feet, the man moving rather faster than expected for someone of his age, the suit making the smallest of sounds as the material scratched against itself, barely audible as the thudding and banging of the oncoming onslaught approached.\n\n\"I'll be entirely honest, I swear. It's not like you're going to survive this, but imagine if you did! Bring all that information back to that slum you call Haven. There's a way out you know, that isn't through the maze. Like the prophets of religions old and destroyed, you could part the red sea and lead your people to... well... whatever's left out there\"\n\nHe moved sporadically as he talked, excitable hand movements and pacing around almost the complete opposite to those emotionless eyes. The sound was louder now, accompanied by the sound of steam and the groaning of metal as the maze itself began to awaken, the entire structure itself coming to life.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nThere was almost an... annoyance now as he peered of the person who knelt before him, as if he knew his time was being wasted here. \"I mean you could ask anything. Who am I! You've seen me every day of your pitiful life without ever actually meeting me, and here I am now an open book!\" He gestured around him, as if the chair, and the single dim fluorescent light was a masterpiece \"Or what's the meaning of the maze! Of its horrors and why a few people each year are... enrolled into this enriching possibility, to sit where you currently sit!\"\n\nA screech echoed out, an angry hateful cry that made no sense to mind or reason, far closer than anyone would ever want it to be. The suited man knelt down himself, face to face with his victim. \"Why did she have to die? She didn't really, and in fact I was rooting for you both at the time! Well... rooting might be too strong of a worse. Still, you know what they say about genetically modified mutants right? Oh yea... you wouldn't... would you?\"\n\nJames looked up, he looked up at the person he'd seen on the little tv screens since he could remember, at the little man who was now knelt in front of him. The cuts and bruises that covered his body along with the blood, grime, and sweat. The tattered remains of clothes covered his thin frame, followed by the tattered remains of a person behind those brown eyes. Hopelessness. Sadness. Destruction.\n\n\"Why\".\n\nThe little man got up quickly, heading over to a small door on the opposite side of the room. The time as up, as the banging on the door James had come in through had started, the metal already starting to dint and bend as things tried to make their way through. He fished out a small key, opening up the door to leave James to his fate, before turning around a final last time. And this time there was an emotion in those eyes, an malicious glee that stared far beyond the room, as if Satan himself was smiling back from between those eyes.\n\n\"Because I can.\"", "There was silence on the floor. Perfect, choking silence, the kind that rips the breath from your lungs before you can so much as think of breaking it. Her eyes darted nervously from corner to corner. It should not have happened this way. There was a plan. There was a plan, a fine plan, a lovely, blessed plan that would have avoided this whole situation.\n\nBut then she forgot it. The suited man in front of her gave her a grave look from underneath his heavy brows, and boots began to crash behind her. God damn it, why did she not keep to the plan?\n\nEach crash was closer than the last, and she could feel the daggers of a hundred eyes upon her, with all the pitiful loathing that could be reserved for circumstances such as hers. \n\nShe ran. An explosion of speed, right into the arms of a burly, grey man. Shades of black masked his eyes, but his lips plainly asked her \"Why?.\" Sinking apathy set like concrete as she was dragged along the smooth white tiles, until she was finally shoved into blinding light and rough ground. Her flower was bare, red petals strewn along the panels, lifted to flight by a cool, coastal breeze. \n\nOh, why didn't she follow the plan? Stinging tears brimmed in her eyes, smacking the ground with a sorrowful plop as they fell, first by ones, then as rain. Her knees were skinned by the sidewalk. Fine red cuts pressed against the ground, stinging with dirt and salt. \n\nNothing stung quite like his face, though. His fine jaw and full lips, which she had so often admired from behind glowing glass, had grimaced. His laughing eyes had held naught but pity and disdain.\n\nShe should have followed the plan. Then maybe, just maybe, he would have smiled and drawn her close, just as she'd dreamed on so many drafty nights.", "I could hear the footsteps behind me. They weren't the footsteps that we hear everyday, they were those special, singular footsteps that we only hear at those special, singular times. the rhythm was irregular, with a brief pause in between every couple of steps. And there was something in the sound, a harsh, grating noise, the sound of metal on metal.\n\nI stop walking. \"Why are you following me?\" The figure behind me continues for a few seconds more, until I can feel its hot breath on my neck. \"You know perfectly well why I'm following you.\" I can't think of a response to that, so I start walking again.\n\nA few seconds later, the footsteps start again, but this time they're different. They're much softer, lighter, almost musical. There's still that same metallic ring to them, but the nail-on-chalkboard sound is gone. I close my eyes, and for a second, I'm back to that scene, that day.\n\nIt's early summer, the grass is green, the birds are singing, the sun is shining, the whole nine yards. A light breeze is blowing through the wind-chimes hanging off of our back porch.\n\nI open my eyes again. I'm confronted again with the dying city full of crumbling buildings. Though I'm still walking, the footsteps have stopped. I turn around to make sure. The only movement is an old newspaper blown along by the wind. The paper is old and yellowed, and the words have long since been clouded by the snow and rain.\n\nI turn back around and recommence my journey. Every few seconds, I think I hear something. But it only ever turns out to be something inconsequential, an insect skittering across the hard concrete, a can lazily rolling across the street.\n\nI arrive at a house. It's the same as any other house on this street. There's nothing special about it. Around the back of the house is an empty yard. The breeze picks up again, and I hear a faint tinkling sound. Over there, on the back porch, is a pair of rusted old wind chimes.\n\n\"How did this happen?\" I say aloud, struggling to remember. And then I hear another sound, the sound of footsteps in dry grass.\n" ]	8
	[WP] Rule 63: You wake up as the opposite gender of yours	[ "The air underneath felt alien to me when I kicked my legs off the bed, and when I entered the bathroom, it was then that I realized that, for the first time in 20 years of my life, I did not have a morning wood. Warmth dripped down my thighs.\n\n\"Shit.\" I ran to the bathroom, and flipped the toilet lid open. Close, almost destroyed my boxers. I kicked them off still, and sat with just my T-shirt, now a bit loose in the abdomen, on on the toilet. The seat was sucking me in, as if it has grown in size. My figure must have shrunken, I thought. Sweat dripped off my arms as I raised my hands slowly level to my eyes.\n\nSlender, but still yellow. All the hard flesh was gone, replaced with smooth skin. I reached up to my face, and felt my chin. Narrow, and soft. No bristle at all. My hair length was similar though, maybe an inch or two longer than before. I wiped, got up, and flushed. I twisted the faucet of the sink, and nearly dropped the soap when I saw her in the mirror. The face was sharper, yes, but what was standing out was how whiter I got. The sun burnt square jaw was gone, replaced by bright, pointy mouth. My nose was smaller, eyebrows thinner. Resemblance to my mother in those old photos made my reflection too eerie. In bizarre, I fetched out a boxer (the space in front of the briefs felt too unnatural, when all sides fit tightly) and started getting dressed, when I found out that my jeans slid down my legs. I decided to wear my old track suits to go outside. I needed something proper to wear, but none of my clothes would fit me anymore. Among the yoga pants, i'd be conspicuous, but it was just for the walk to the closest clothes store.\n\nBut as I got my tennis shoes out, I remembered something much more important.\n\nTo my disappointment (?), I did not have a particularly full chest. 'Pervert,' I whispered to myself with a half grin, as I closed the door.", "The face looking back at me in the mirror bears striking similarity to those of my father and grandfather when they were younger, and the hair framing it is the same color and texture that I inherited from them, just far shorter than I thought my hair was. I'd expected as such, but seeing it with my own eyes is a surreal experience. The figure in the mirror raises its arm slowly as I raise my own, and its hand reaches its boyish but definitely masculine jaw at the same moment that I feel my fingers meet my face. There's definitely the beginnings of a beard growing. Interesting. Interesting and vaguely attractive, I have to confess to myself.\n\nThe first thing I noticed when I woke up a few minutes ago was that I was uncomfortable all over. I've long discarded my underwear by this point, but even with that particular scrap of tight fabric gone, my once-comfortable pajamas still feel annoyingly snug, not to mention how ridiculous they look on me now. Still, these are my best bet right now out of all the clothes I own. I dare not try to cram myself into any of my old pairs of pants.\n\nI turn to look back out to the bedroom. My boyfriend still sleeps, blissfully ignorant to the morning's events so far. I guess I'd have to swipe some of his clothes if I'm to have any hope of going outside. I'd probably still have to roll up the hems of his pants, but I wouldn't dream of complaining.\n\nI don't think he's going to be happy when he wakes up." ]	2
	[WP] You live in the coldest, darkest location on the planet and you couldn't be happier about it.	[ "I dance around and sing, I twirl and spin until I get too hot and \nthen go back to the colder place, where I can rest and let my imagination\nwander.\n\nWhat is out there, in the hot place? It's very fuzzy and I can only only\nsee silhouettes. But it doesn't matter, I am happy here, because I am me. \nBecky. Yes that sound right! I'll call myself Becky!. \n\nI shout my name once and again \"I am Becky, I am Becky\" as I dance\naway, jumping and stomping and enjoying this life and all the good\nthings it gives me.\n\n\nSomewhere else, somebody says \n\n \"Hey Albert, I think this Bose-Einstein condensate is vibrating too much.\"\n\nAnd he answers \n\n \"It sure looks out of place. No problem Nath, just restart the experiment\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n" ]	1
	[WP] A military research outpost is transported to a world of magic and right into the warpath of an orcish army.	[ "Aboard Military Research Ship Avalon - Stratosphere Orbit \n\nOrbit Planet Name - ExemusA221\n\nPlanet Type - Eccentric\n\nLife - Primitive[?]\n\n\n\"How much longer Mech?\"\n\nThe android sat unfazed by the ship's blaring alarms. \n\n\"Is that hesitation in your voice human? Must be nice to have such a useless feature.\" \n\nArgus waved a single finger her way as he kept watch at the door. His comm buzzed, exchanges of gunfire filled his speakers. \"Fall back! Saboteurs? Now's the time to tell me your done!\"\n\n\"That we are lieutenant.\" Mech slide her extension cables back into her hand from the exposed port, the overhead lights cut out. Immediately the room was dawned in bloody red, emergency power had kicked in.\n\nAfter a quick check of the hallway the saboteurs hastily exited the room with weapons drawn. Both heart and servos pumping. \"We'll meet you at the hangar sir.\" He switched channels. \"Bravo. How are the engines go-\"\n\nStatic filled the comm as an explosion thundered throughout the Avalon. Argus stumbled towards the floor by its force. Mech subconsciously grabbed a hold of the fumbling idiot to steady him. Argus looked back to her, giving a quick nod to her emotionless face. \n\nThe man began to tap at his comm for reception. \"Maurice? How many C9 explosives did you use!?\"\n\n*\"All of them.\"* A high-pitched sigh of ecstasy filled the comm.\n\nThey began to quicken their pace. \"That little...pfft. Doesn't give a damn about anything but a light show.\" The ship's speakers blurred to life, the AI spoke autonomously. \n\nEngines Offline. Multiple Hull Breaches Detected. Life Support Systems Failing. Evacuation Recommended.\n\nThe Avalon started to tilt itself into a slow corkscrew dive towards the planet's surface as sounds of the ship tearing itself apart made him feel sick.\n\n\"Argus. If you can here me, you got one minute.\"\n\nCrew members filled the hallways, frantically trying to make their way in the same direction but were soon held back from the inertia. Some probably couldn't even leave their rooms.\n\nMech charged down the ever increasing 40 degree angle hallways seemingly unaffected as Argus clung to her like a newborn child.\n\nHis companion rounded another corner with ease \"Hangar's up ahead\" Mech coolly replied. He could only squeeze her tighter in response. \n\nThe ship creaked and moaned until there was a slight moment of silence as the feeling of weightlessness overtook them. They were heading back the way they had come. But that wasn't where we had to go. Why? The sound returned to his ears as inexplicable sounds of metal crushing unto itself resounded in his eardrums. A metallic arm brushed against his hand. Argus looked forward seeing that he was no longer holding onto Mech but she was falling away from him, arm outstretched towards his own. He flew headlong towards her and the waiting wall for them both at the hall's end. Argus blacked out after their final embrace. \n\nMultiple Lifeforms Detected\n\nA small shuttle skimmed across the 3 kilometers of wreckage. \"Should we wait lieutenant? Something might have that survived the crash.\"\n\nThe android pilot made another pass. Minor pockets of tracer gunfire sung throughout the pieces of Avalon wreckage into the giant mass of green humanoids surrounding it. But human screams prevailed over the horde's own as the gunfire was silenced.\n\nThe lieutenant shook his head. \"A crash like that? There were no survivors private.\"\n____________________________________________________________\nWas going to go up-close and personal with orc magic with Mech possibly surviving but then I'd be dragging it on more than I already have. ", "Fort Knox, Kentucky USA\n5/28/14\nCaptain Charles Bard\n\n\"What a fine morning in this man's army!\" Captain Charles Bard announced to the world on Fort Knox's parade grounds. The captain was an officer of the United States Army's special research branch and was in charge of Section 12s security. What most people do not know is that in addition to being one of the most heavily fortified bases in the world: housing more than 70% of the worlds gold, and has enough tanks stationed there to overrun a medium sized country; it also has a secret military research level that is so classified that the only people outside of Bard's command that know about it, would be the president and his cabinet. \"Do you see this fine morning?\" Bard remarks to one of the Privates on base. The Private did not respond, instead he stared slack jawed into the distance. Bard's eyes looked in the direction the Private was facing, his jaw dropped. \"What the Hell is this!?\" Bard couldn't believe his eyes, he rubbed his eyes to see if he was dreaming. When the impossible was still there he thought, holy crap! This is really happening! The Captain lost his normal composure for all around as far as he could see, there was a massive army of 7foot tall, Green buff men with large tusks coming out of there mouths. They were at least one kilometer away and appeared to be doing the same thing he was-trying to figure out what the hell was going on. \"Yep, what ever it is I must be on some good stuff.\" The private muttered to his left. \"Private, give me your radio I think we have a problem\". " ]	2
	[WP] You are a reflection. You don't exist if nobody is standing in front of the mirror and can't control your movements but you can think independently.	[ "Another woman. Somewhat tall, long hair. Looking to fix the strand sticking out. And do-\n\n...\n\nA man this time. That tie doesn't look good on him at a-\n\n...\n\nWait, who is it this time?\n\nA mother with a baby?\n\nGreat! They ought to stand here a little bit.\n\nAw, look at the little guy. He's adorable. And he has beautiful eyes. I bet his lover is going to approach him on just that alone. Wait, what is this?\n\nMy hand is moving. Is he-?\n\nAw, he did! He touched me! What a smart child! He can already tell that it is him. At least as far as he knows. I bet the mother is really proud, too. I wish I could actually feel it, though. I heard before that baby's hands are really soft and warm. I bet that feels great.\n\nSo, what about the mother? She seems to also be looking at herself, making sure that everything is going okay. She has some pretty dark bags under her eyes, though. I wonder how those got there? The baby doesn't seem to be that much trouble. \n\nOw, my neck moved hard. What is the mother seeing? And why does she look so sad now?\n\nYelling? \n\nNo, no, what about the baby? He doesn't like it! Look! His lip is quivering! Look, please! Just turn your head!\n\nNo, don't start yelling too! I don't like yelling! Look at the baby!\n\nWait, no, no, no! Don't move! Please-\n\n...\n\nWhere am I now?\n\nWait, it's the baby!\n\nBaby boy! Where's your mommy? \n\nWhy is your face so red? How long has it been?\n\nOh, god! The yelling is terrible! You're shaking!\n\nCome a little closer! Put your hand on the glass! I'm here for you! Please, stop crying! Crawl a little more! Come on!\n\nWhat? No, crawl towards the mirror! Towards me! I got you! \n\n...why did the yelling stop?\n\nBaby. Baby please. You see that little device over there? Turn your neck, sweetie. Please, just turn around. Behind you is a phone. Pick it up. Now. \n\nBaby? What are you looking at?\n\nBaby?\n\nNo.\n\nNO.\n\nGet away from him! \n\nI can't stop moving! Baby, get that phone, now! \n\nDon't you DARE look at me! Get the hell away from that baby!\n\nLittle one, get away from him! Crawl! Please!\n\nNo!\n\nWhat is he...?\n\nNo, you stay RIGHT there, you bastard!\n\nThe phone is right there! If I could just...\n\nNo! You stay right there! You are not taking him any-\n\n...\n", "There she is clawing at her face again. Why does she do that? Ever since she’s gotten older she spends much more time here, I’m not complaining I love this \"alive\" time but still, why does she cry so much here? \n\nShe seems like a nice person, she has a decent voice; we’re always singing together; sometimes it’s Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean other times it’s the Killer’s Mr. Brightside. We've been together for so long and have gone through so many things together like hairstyles! We've gone from pigtails, to whatever Lizzie McGuire was doing, to this, which I don’t personally mind. \n\nHere comes the tears; please stop, you’re going to be okay. I don’t want to claw at my face; I like my face the way it is. I've seen a few other people in the mirror sometimes at school and although they may have smoother hair or be a tad skinnier, they’re not you. \n\nYou are perfectly imperfect just the way you are. Although someday we will find a perfect match to stand beside us; we aren't going to settle, we can’t; We deserve better. I know I’m just a reflection but I've really enjoyed this time with you. I really want to keep discovering who I am; new fashions, new hairstyles, new songs. \nI know it’s harder these days but I really miss your smile. I heard you saying that you were lonely the other day but I’m still here. I always will be. " ]	2
He would not die in the genocide.	[WP] A man is offered the choice, by an entity of your choice, between 10 trillion dollars or preventing a genocide that will kill 90% of human.	[ "The room seemed kind of bland, considering the affair. Chuck had always thought that a deal like this would have occurred in some kind of lushly carpeted office adorned with handcrafted wood furnishings and a perfect view of an entire city. Instead, they were in an old office building across from a strip mall that smelled a little bit stale and had a shitty, banged up desk. \n\nThe guy he had spoken to on the phone, who called himself G, sat across from him. G opened up a briefcase and turned it around to show Chuck the contents.\n\n“Ten trillion dollars in this briefcase, it’s all yours. You can walk away right now and spend it on whatever. You’re a rich man if you take it. Of course, if you take that money we’re going to have to let the virus project go.”\n\nChuck’s face turned into a confused frown, “Let the virus project go?”\n\n\nThe man nodded, his face remaining stern, “Yes, that’s correct.”\n\nChuck thought about it some. True, he had heard a lot about this virus project. It looked pretty nasty, from what he could tell. Ebola, which he had spent a few years of his life developing anti-viral agents and vaccinations for, was chump change compared to this thing. He’d cooked up plenty of ideas on how to make a lethal virus, and this thing they showed him, well it took the cake for all of them. This was some deep, dark, mil-sec stuff, so it made sense that they wanted to nix it if he wouldn’t finish it. The money was to stay quiet, of course.\n\nThis was truly tempting. There were very few things in the world that could light a fire inside of Chuck like playing around with deadly viruses. There was a certain intrigue to it. One misstep in the lab and you can kill the whole building. Who has that kind of power? It was like he was addicted to the fear that the strains inspired.\n\nBut shit, maybe it was time to let go. Besides, what happens to him after the mil-boys grab him in and make him their lab rat? Surely there would be no freedom, no going back to tasks he wanted to actually undertake. He’d be stuck working for the military forever. He made up his mind.\n\n“Look, I’m gonna take the money, okay? You guys have an interesting project but I just don’t think it’s the right play. You won’t hear a word out of me.” He grabbed the briefcase and headed for the door.\n\nG stopped him as he was about to leave, “Just one thing – the virus is estimated to be roughly 90% effective. Those who haven’t been properly vaccinated will suffer relatively permanent side effects if they don’t die. Though I’m not quite sure who you’ll buy a vaccine from….I know we aren’t exactly in the business of selling.” A smirk spread across his face.\n\nChuck’s mouth hung open, “You mean…letting it go? You’re dispersing it?”\n\nG nodded.\n\nA blood curdling scream issued from the abandoned office park across the street from the strip mall and was promptly drowned out by the wind and traffic. \n \n", "(Forgive me, I haven't written like this in... well, ever, really.)\n\n\"Hold on, let me get this straight,\" Mark began as he stared thoughtfully at the stack of hundred dollar bills in his hand. As he weighed his options, he stole a dozen anxious glances at the pallet the stack came from, which was piled nearly up to his chest with fresh-printed money. After a moment, Mark looked incredulously to the man across from him and continued, \"So you mean to tell me I could take away more money than I'd earn in... what, a thousand lifetimes, but... and this is real cash, right?\"\n\nThe stranger's thin lips pulled into an amused smirk. \"Right, kid. It's as real as it gets.\" His voice was the kind of gravelly low one would expect from someone whose diet consisted of cigars and nothing else. Something so cartoonishly evil that Mark couldn't help but return that grin in kind. \"Of course, if you do walk out with it...\"\n\nHis smile vanished as the stranger's words trailed off, but he knew the rest of the story already. \"Ninety percent... that's... shit, that's insane. I mean, over six billion people would die? How would you do that? Hell, can you do that?\"\n\nThe man faked a painful expression as he whined, \"Oh, Markymarkymarky... my boy, you WOUND me! Have a little faith! Heh... have a little sympathy...\" At this, the stranger grinned wide, exposing his crooked teeth and golden fillings to the world.\n\n Despite the chill that made its way down his spine, Mark could've sworn the warehouse became uncomfortably warm right then. He'd suspected there was more to that emaciated bastard than a dirty black suit and acne-scarring, and now he was afraid the man was telling the truth. Seeing Mark's discomfort only brought a bigger smile to the man's face. \"Yeah, yeah, we're on the same page now, 'ey kiddo?\" he went on as he fished a Cuban and a Zippo from his jacket, \"You and I both know what I'm capable of, and as to the specifics... well, let me worry about that. You just gotta worry about the payout.\" He let loose an inhuman chuckle as he lit up.\n\n Mark suddenly found it hard to focus on the stranger's smoke-obscured face. Just those jagged, shining teeth. He was shaking uncontrollably now, and it was getting harder to think clearly. Still, a couple more questions just barely managed to make it to mind, so he took a deep breath to calm himself before asking, \"Is... is it possible that you... that I'd die with the rest of them?\"\n\nBemusement never leaving his face, the stranger shrugged as if he didn't know. \"Of course not, my friend,\" he mused as a cloud of smoke escaped his toothy maw, \"I mean, after all, if that's the decision you make... well, it wouldn't exactly be right to call you human, would it?\" He laughed loudly this time, and, for reasons he couldn't explain, Mark couldn't help but laugh along with him.\n\nThe man took a moment to check his watch, and his expression took a somewhat grim turn. \"Ah-right kid, I got shit to tend to, so now's the time. You want to live the rest of your life rich as hell, or surrounded by assholes you don't know or care to know? What's it gonna be?\" The two stood in silence for a minute as Mark weighed the options in his head.\n\n\"Can't do it.\"\n\n\"... Fuck you say?\"\n\n\"Look, it's tempting... I guess, but I've got to decline.\"\n\n\"Damn, and I thought we got along so well. You're gonna puss out now?\"\n\n\"Something like that,\" he mumbled as he tossed the money back on the pile. \"Don't get me wrong, ten trillion is... it's a fucking huge number, but with that many dead, wouldn't the global economy die with them? My reward would be a shit-ton of paper with no use once there's nothing to buy with it, so no thanks.\" The stranger's face lit up with a sly grin once more upon hearing this, to Mark's surprise.\n\nHe snuffed out the last of the cigar under his heel and began to bring the tarp back over the money. \"Not bad, not bad at all. You're smarter than I took you for, kid, I'll give you that. I mean, I guess it's obvious, but some folks would'a taken that money without a second thought...\" He stopped to dust his hands off, and to wave Mark towards the door. A suggestion he agreed to without argument.\n\n\"Just so you know, though,\" the stranger added, checking his watch once again, \"someone might still take that money. Just gotta catch 'em in the right mood...\"\n\nMark kept on towards the outside, doing his best to ignore the man's laughter, and telling himself it was just a bluff, that he was the only, or at least the last, person who would be given that offer.\n\nHe just kept telling himself that.", "He had always considered whether humanity, if developed from the beginning again, would come to err the same ways again.\n\nHe thought that, perhaps at the root, or somewhere along the way, we were corrupted somehow. And now, that corruption causes us to repeat the same mistakes, over and over. Countless conflicts, some resulting in war which claimed the lives of millions, some claiming their livelihoods instead.\n\nHe'd heard the saying that \"There is no end to Vengeance\". What if most, if not all of the animosity in our race were erased? Is there a chance that we could have been raised differently?\n\nThese were questions that he asked himself at different stages of his life. But right now, there really was no question to be asked, was there? \n\nWithout any hesitation at all, he pressed on the button, labelled \"Reset\"." ]	3
Why the heck does the world's oldest living person need a bodyguard? Guess you'd better explain that at some point, huh?	[WP] Your main character is the bodyguard to the world's oldest living person.	[ "\"No matter what you do, Foxx, don't let him die. We need his knowledge. Over.\" My superior's voice came through the communicator in a staticky manner. I could barely understand her words.\n\n\n\"Roger that.\" I responded. My tone was dull and my throat hurt from just staring at the mansion of the genius who managed to live for thousands of years. He remembers, supposedly, when the strange, old contraptions called iPads were invented. To think-- a physical computer type device!\n\n\n\"She's here,\" came a few voices from inside. A male and female were conversing in hushed tones beyond the door and try as I might I couldn't make out their words. \n\n\nSuddenly the door opened while my ear was pressed up against it. \"Ouch!\" \n\n\n\"Sorry, miss. You look like you're the woman here to be my... Bodyguard?\" His voice was youthful, but when I looked up his face showed the wrinkles of age. Not a person alive today nor their parents nor their parent's parents knew exactly how old he was, but rumour had it that there were seventeen times as many years in his life as wrinkles in his face. \n\n\nHe had a lot of wrinkles. \n\n\n\"Come in, come in. No need for standing about when one could be enjoying the day and walking, I say!\" He was cheerful. Immediately after he said this, he took off up the stairs of his grand mansion. The whole place was impressive and definitely an antique. There were angular corners everywhere instead of more custom rounded buildings. \n\n\nThe old man gave me a sad smile about halfway up the stairs when he paused and looked back. Soon he vanished up the small hallway following the set if stairs and I ran after him-- this place was far too beautiful. \n\n\n\"I know that you want information from me, but I can only tell you one thing that I've told all the reporters who come in here for their silly newspaper articles. You ask what a newspaper is? Never mind that.\" \n\n\nI really didn't know what the strange newspaper he talked about was even to this day. \n\n\nI didn't get the chance to talk much other than some \"yessir\"s and some \"no, sir\"s. He led me through an extensive library showcasing many handwritten books which I assumed to be authored by none other than him. \n\n\nFinally, a single book was pulled from a shelf. He handed the book to me and whispered, \"Keep it and please don't come back.\"\n\n\nHis words frightened me a bit. I ran out, book in hand, waiting to tell my commander what I'd gotten. \n\n\nI opened the book. On the first page was the number seventy and nothing more. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTo this day, people have gone mad trying to figure out what the single seventy meant. The oldest man shot himself in the head immediately after he gave the nearly blank book to Miss Darla Foxx, who was one of the first to fall insane.", "\"So he's like, super rich?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said. \"I mean, you can't really tell, but you can tell.\"\n\n\"And you don't have to do shit?\"\n\n\"I mostly just sit around. Sometimes on the porch. Sometimes inside. Wherever he says.\"\n\nI hated my new job. For ~~months~~ almost a couple years I saw guys die needlessly while this old fuck lived longer than literally everyone else on the planet. Didn't do a damn thing to deserve to live so long. Just lucky, I guess. Well, lucky and rich. Fuck hard work. Luck and money's what you need. \n\nDan returned to the table with another round of beers. The guys got were obviously getting a kick out of hearing about it. Most of them found way more interesting jobs when we all got back. Dan and Hayes, they were both cops. Randle got some sort of teaching job. Couple guys were prison guards. They had shit to do. Excitement. I sat in several different chairs while an almost-dying man barely speaks to me.\n\n\"Ever catch anyone breaking in, or chase anyone down or anything?\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\nThe security firm that hired me made this sound way better. Rubbing shoulders with Kobe or some Hollywood actor. Or actress! Not some guy in an empty mansion he never leaves. He doesn't even need me here. Crazy fuckin' kids got him paranoid. They're worse than him. I hear them arguing with the suit guys in the office on the first floor. I can't hear exactly what they're saying, but they're all upset about something.\n\n\"I think I wanna quit,\" I said.\n\n\"Aw, c'mon. You make more than I do, and some punk threw a brick at me last week!\"\n\nHe was right. But damn I'd love to have some kid try to fuck with me. Maybe I could get switched assignments. I didn't quite have the seniority, but it was worth a shot. Of course I'd either have to have a good reason to transfer or this one would have to end. \n\nMedical books? At the library maybe? No, that seems too complicated. A fall? Old people fall. \n\nI leaned back and smiled while Hayes told everyone the story about the kid with the brick. \n\nOne day I'll have a story as interesting.\n\n", "\"Do you want to hear a story, Frank?\"\n\n\"Yes sir, Mr. Talbot. I would love to hear another one of your tales. Where are we this time?\"\n\n\"Well son, how about the 80's? I'll tell you the story of when I met Martha. Even more beautiful back then. I'm surprised a dork like me even got the chance with her.\" \n\nHe chuckled, then entered into one of his coughing fits.\n\nAs he started the story, I sort of drifted into my own thoughts. Mr. Talbot has told this story many times, as it is one of his favorites. This gave me some time to focus on the plans for the day. Perhaps a stroll through the garden would be nice, then a lunch out in the dining area? Yes, he would like that.\n\n\"...and then all of the sudden I slipped and the chocolate milkshake went all over her sundress. Frank? Are you listening?\"\n\n\"Huh? Oh yes, sir. That is quite humorous!\"\n\n\"Yes, it is, isn't it? Now where was I? Ahh, yes...\"\n\nBeing the bodyguard to the world's oldest man was a pretty simple job. Mr. Talbot had been wheelchair bound for about 10 years so a lot of the work was me taking care of the property. I have been with him 25 years. Picked me straight out of the Rangers when I was 22. At first it was a hassle and I hated the job of basically being an errand boy, but as he got older and moved his responsibilties onto his company rather than himself, things got easier and I became more of a helper than a bodyguard.\n\nYou see, in his prime, Mr. Talbot was a very wealthy investor, who had helped in the start-up of what are now Fortune 500 companies. He's net worth is around $140 billion, about half of that he keeps in his vault. The thing is sealed 24/7 with blast doors, but he insists on keeping me around to make sure no one comes in to try and off him. Really, I think he just likes the company. After, Mrs. Talbot passed about 15 years ago, I seem to have become his only companion.\n\nI have learned a lot from this man. I mean he's been in the Great Depression, 2 World Wars and multiple historic events, so he has his fair share of wisdom and stories. One of which he is telling now. Being 109 gives you a lot of things to talk about.\n\n\"...and it was love ever since then. Well, son what did you think? Was that a good story or what?\"\n\n\"Yes sir, another great one, just like always.\"\n\n\"That's all you'll get from me, only the best.\"\n\nThere was a long pause after that, we sat in silence for a few moments as he laid there looking up at the ceiling. \n\n\"She was a goddess. Ahh, how I miss her.\" A tear gentley rolled down his face.\n\n\"Frank, I would like to see her again.\"\n\nI sat there, shocked. I knew what he meant by that. Choked up, I tried to respond.\n\n\"Are...are you sure sir?\"\n\n\"Yes son, I am sure. Living 109 years has been nice and all, but I really just want to see my wife.\"\n\n\"Understood sir.\"\n\n\"Enough with the sir! Call me Mr. Talbot. It's been 25 years Frank, no more formality.\"\n\n\"Of course si...Mr. Talbot.\"\n\n\"I want you to have my estate. You've earned it. Now, bring me to Martha.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nAnd so, with watery eyes I went over to his life support and turned off the switch. I pulled up my chair next to him and began to cry, wishing he didn't have to go.\n\n\"Ahh don't cry son, it is my time. I've bothered you long enough.\"\n\n\"Oh no, never bothered Mr. Talbot. These have been my happiest years.\"\n\nAs I watched him begin to fade, I realized I was not only losing my boss, but my friend.\n\n\"I love you, Frank.\"\n\n\"I...I love you as well, Mr. Talbot.\"" ]	3
Was on http://www.ineedaprompt.com/ and this one struck me.	[WP] A poltergeist burying an obnoxious badger.	[ "Had 45 minutes to burn. \nWell here I am a ghost burying this fucking obnoxious talking badger. How did my life or what was my life and now my afterlife get so screwed up? \nIt must have all started on that fateful Friday one week ago. Who I was in my life is not important right now. All you need to know right now is that I died. More importantly I got a piano dropped on my head. I know what you are thinking, “What cartoon world do you live in?” The piano came to land on me from ten stories up by lieu of panties. You see on the tenth floor of the particular building I was walking on the side walk of was the apartment of a famous concert pianist who was quite permiscuous despite having a steady girlfriend. So when she found a pair of panties in his bedroom she shoved his prized piano into the floor to ceiling window that had gorgeous sunrise view over the park. It then came to rest on the sidewalk with me in between it and the sidewalk. I don’t remember much after that. There could have been clouds or fire or men with wings or men with horns. It is all a blur. The next thing I do remember is being a ghost able to walk through walls and pass through people giving them a chill and being able to manipulate physical objects if I concentrated, but not able to be seen by another living soul. I could be seen by and see other ghosts but they didn’t seem to be interested in other poltergeists. \nSo for almost a week I simply wandered around. Sometimes I would give people the willies by letting them walk through me on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night or turning off kid’s night lights while they were trying to go to sleep. But that too became boring. So I started wandering around the forest outside of town. This is where I meet Andy. \nAs I was walking, ghosting what ever I heard a voice shouting obscenities at some one. As I followed the noise I came across Andy the talking badger. He was yelling at a group of camper who were listening to music and drinking around a fire. They apparently couldn’t understand him because they hadn’t gone running out of the forest. They simply heard a badger making badger noises and give it no credence. He stopped hurling curses when he saw me. He said I must help him find a menstruating virgin to inhabit for he was the Antichrist here to bring about the apocalypse. To which I replied gross. He said the had been jumping vessels for the past couple of weeks when his father, The Dark one as he called him, sent him to Earth as a flea because that was all the power he could conger up. \nI told Andy, I called him that because Antichrist was too formal, that I would help him with no intention of doing so. We went to all the normal places to find menstruating virgins, all boys’ catholic school, nursing homes, and strip clubs. He would hide out back in a dumpster or alley while I scoped it out for him. The entire time I could hear him complain and shout at me that I was an idiot and that I couldn’t find a menstruating virgin if I was one. After a night failure in the city we set out to return to the woods. By crossing the very busy highway. I showed him it was safe by walking out in the middle and letting a few cars pass through me. I waited until an eighteen wheeler was coming and told him to come. The front wheel missed but the next eight squished him flat. So concentrating with all my might I moved his body which still had his consciousness inside that was screaming and shouting at me to the side of the road and buried him in a shallow grave. I figured there wouldn’t be many menstruating virgins walking the side of the highway any time soon and after a while his consciousness would give up and travel back to hell. \n", "\"I hate you\"\n\n\"I know\"\n\n\"No, I mean I really hate you, like a lot\"\n\n\"I understand\" Dave said still digging the hole.\n\n\"I don't think you do\"\n\n\"Look, just be quiet, okay Grim?\"\n\n\"Who's Grim?\" The badger in the brown bag said.\n\n\"Oh shut up\"\n\n\"No really, who's that guy?\"\n\nDave said nothing and carried on digging. He was beginning to regret taking this job, he needed the money, but this was just wrong.\n\n\"Because he sounds like a complete badass, that could smack that white sheet right off ya!\" The badger bellowed.\n\nMaybe not entirely wrong.\n\n " ]	2
	[WP] Looking up into the night sky, you suddenly see all the stars waver and vanish... Except one... And it's getting bigger.	[ "Furiously jacking to completion before the world ends is my only thought.\nI know i will fall asleep as soon as the poison has been expelled from my crotch and it will be worth it. Everyone else in that Walmart parking lot was going going crazy but not me. i had my eye on the prize, squirt this shit out and pass out.\nThe screams and sirens started to distract me so i make my way back into Walmart. The liquor section has been looted clean by now and the pharmacy was being torn apart in attempts to get to the good stuff. I made my way over to the family planning section and grabbed as much of the lube i think it would take to have me fit into some women shoes and lingerie. If its going to end tonight i am going out like a champion. ", "\"Wow Dad, thanks for taking us to look at the stars! There's, like, two hundred of them!\"\n\nMy son was only six, but he was very inquisitive. We had been to the planetarium already, and he had noticed the three stars in Orion's belt without prompting. 'Look Dad,' he had said, 'those three stars are in a line.' \n\nNeedless to say, I thought he was a pretty smart kid. But when he told me there was a star that was getting bigger, I didn't pay him any mind.\n\n\"Look Dad, that star is growing,\" he shrieked delightedly.\n\n\"Um son, stars don't really grow in a way that we could see,\" I tried to calmly explain. It's always hard to explain concrete facts to kids because they have such a combination of misunderstanding and imagination.\n\n\"But this one is Daddy,\" he said as he pointed upwards.\n\nAnd he was right. The star was growing, and as it grew other stars began to flash and disappear. Slowly but surely, the growing star became the only star in they sky. It was the size of the full moon and still growing.\n\nNow, I was never a genius, but given the clues, I know the signs of the end times. That star would surely consume us, so I took the boy and set him in my lap.\n\n\"Son,\" I said, \"All I wanted in life was for you to be happy. But, seeing as how that won't matter in just a few minutes, I just wanted you to know one thing. Your mother is a cheating whore, and I'm not your real dad.\"\n\nWe stared at the sky until it swallowed us whole." ]	2
	[WP] You live in a small town in Alaska. Nothing signifigant has happend for years. Then Larry arrives.	[ "For my first thirty sum odd years of existence I never really gave any thought to the notions of God, the supernatural, or even extraterrestrial life. I was the kind of person who had to see something happen right before my eyes to believe that it actually happened. \n I grew up in a small Alaskan town near the coast that you've probably never heard of. The town was relatively close to a nearby oil rig and it wasn't uncommon to see drifters come and go looking for employment on the rig or one of the many fishing and crabbing vessels. The people in my town were as rough as the strenuous life they lived. Like I said, it wasn't uncommon to meet people from all over the world searching for work. I became friends with many of them and even enemies with a few. However, one drifter in particular left such an impression that he changed the very fundamentals of everything I thought I knew. \n Larry arrived in our town in late February that year. Earlier that year there was an explosion on the oil rig that was caused by some natural gas or something, I don't really understand how all of that stuff works, and the whole thing was pretty much destroyed but miraculously the crew had survived.\n I ran a little bar in the town, not much to look at, but it was the only watering hole for 50 miles in every direction. One morning as I was sweeping outside the bar, cleaning up from the night before, a face approached me that I had never seen before which like I said isn't at all uncommon in my town. \n\"Can I help you?\" I said,\n\"Sorry to bother you this early, but I'm new in town and recently unemployed.\" He said.\n\"I was just wondering if maybe you're hiring, I'm not too proud for any job that you could give me.\" \n I actually wasn't hiring at the moment and to be honest I couldn't really afford to hire anyone else, but I really felt sorry for the guy. \"I guess he can help out bussing tables and bar hopping.\" I thought. The military had also recently moved into the area doing some kind of weather research about 20 miles north, and the soldiers had begun to flock to my place. I figured maybe I could use the extra help. He was a pretty big guy as well, about 6'4 and looked strong as an ox. Every now and then a drifter would come in who thought he was a hard ass so having this guy around to settle a few scores wouldn't hurt either.\n\"We'll I could use someone to help out around here as a matter of fact.\"\n\n\"I can't pay you very much, but I do have an extra room above the bar that you can stay in if you'd like.\" I said.\n\n\"That'd be great.\" He said.\n\"When can I start?\"\n\"Well first I need to know your name.\" I said.\n\"Larry\" he said. \"Nice to meet you.\"\n\nLarry was a better worker than I had ever imagined. He was hard-working, polite, and the guy never seemed to get tired. All of the regulars loved him and we became pretty good friends too. I decided to take Larry with me to a mechanic that I knew in a town about thirty miles east. My truck's transmission light had been on for a while and I decided to have it looked at. The night before there had been some really heavy snowfall and the roads were in terrible condition. We came around a curve in the road and saw that someone had missed the curve and ran their truck off the road about 50 yards into a healthy pine tree. The truck was completely wrapped around the tree and the tree had fallen on top of the truck as well. We pulled over and ran to the truck as quickly as we could. In the passenger seat we saw and older man slumped to the side and bleeding pretty badly, but he was breathing. The way the truck was wrapped around the base of the tree and the way that the rest of it was on top of the truck there was no way to get the man out. The man was seriously injured and losing blood fast. \n\n\"Go back to the truck and close your eyes.\" Larry said in a tone I had never heard before. \n\"WHAT?!\" \n\"Do it.\" \"Now.\" He said.\nDumbfounded, I reluctantly walked back to the truck, both angry and confused, and did what he said. Well, not completely. I watched. What I saw, I could not believe.\n Larry walked over to the truck and like you or I might lift a 20 pound dumbbell, he lifted that massive tree trunk off the top of the truck. I was in disbelief. What he did next was even more remarkable. He then proceeded to unwrap the truck from around the tree WITH HIS HANDS. \n When Larry walked back over to my truck holding the barely breathing man in his arms he could tell by the look on my face that I had not done as he said. \n After he laid the man in the backseat of my truck he got in on the passenger side of the truck and and with an inexplicable look of almost shame in his eye said, \"forget what you saw, and never speak of it.\"\n At that point I knew that Larry was unlike anyone else on this planet. Over the next few months feats like this continued to occur. Each time Larry seemed more and more reluctant to perform them. We never spoke of any of them and I could tell in eyes that he appreciated my silence on the subject. \n Larry began showing up at work In the mornings having not slept the night before. I knew this because he was never at his apartment above the bar. I watched him from my house across the street take off north every night. On foot. To the north there was absolutely nothing but an old, dilapidated road for the next 20 or so miles. Every morning as I was cleaning up from the night before I would see him come walking down that road towards the bar. I still don't know exactly what he was doing or we he was going but I suspected it had something to do with that military research going on up north. \n I will never forget the last night I saw Larry. A trucker hauling freshly cut timber stopped in to have a few drinks with his buddies that evening. This guy had come in a few times before and he was a real asshole every time. I had recently hired a new waitress and he decided to make it a priority that night to harass her as much as possible. Both Larry and I, were ready to throw this guy out but she told us not to worry and that she had dealt with pricks before and this guy was no different. The next time she went over there the guy decided to grab her ass and that was it. Larry was steaming and looked over at me and I have him the \"throw his ass on the street\" nod. Larry walked over there and said \"Thats enough.\" \n\"What are you gunna do about it?\" Said the trucker.\n\"Well then I'm going to have to ask you to leave.\"\n The guy then took his glass of beer and threw threw it in Larry's face. Larry never budged but, the guy wasn't through yet. He became angry and shoved Larry as hard as he possibly could. Larry didnt move an inch and in fact the guy bounced back off of Larry. Larry then turned around and began to walk off when suddenly a beer can came hurdling in and hit him in the back of the head. Larry walked towards the door and before he went outside gave me a wink that I will never forget. That was the last time I ever saw Larry. However, when we walked outside something unimaginable had unfolded. The truckers truck was 20 feet in the air, impaled by a string of telephone polls. I cannot begin to accurately describe what we saw out there. I do know, however, who was responsible. \n I walked up the short flight of stairs to Larry's apartment and everything was still there but I knew he wouldn't be back. But before I left I noticed above the doorframe someone had carved, more like burned, two letters. It looked like a set of initials and it read C.K. Was here.\n\n", "You know, I could easily start this story with a cliche one-liner, but Larry's story deserves something different. \nTo be honest, though, I'm kind of drunk and the only phrase I can think of about Larry's time here in Clark's Point is this: \n\nFucking Larry.\n\nYou see, I've lived in this southern Alaska town of about 60-something people for a few years now. This was my escape from the hustle-and-bustle of my past life in Indiana.\nYes, I've heard it before: \"Indiana? TOO busy?\" \nWell, you don't know shit, do you? \n\nI had the American dream...you know, the usual bit -- went to school, found girl, married girl, had kids, found girl using the same mouth she kissed me goodbye that morning on her boss's prick, left girl, lost kids, etc. etc. I moved here to Clark's Point because, well, the image of Teresa and her boss in that shitty Honda Civic I bought her was seared into my head like the remnants of a tree struck by the lightning of God almighty himself. \n\nTrust me, guy -- coupling something like that with your mid-life crisis is fucking terrible. \n\nSo, I got a little crazy and moved to Alaska. Big deal. \n\nI happily spent my days fishing in these tiny holes, catching nothing, and living on the money I had built up as an - get this - an NFL ref. You'd think my past job would at least help me get laid a little bit, seeing as how I brushed shoulders with the likes of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning but you'd be surprised by how much little of a shit an Eskimo gives about American football (let alone what the hell an Indianapolis Colt is). \n\nI keep digressing, but look: you're obviously new in town and you're going to get shit from every corner of this city if you come in like that asshole Larry did, so consider this your welcoming present from yours truly. \n\nSee that gigantic hole over by the dart board on the other side of the bar? The one kind of shaped like a human head? Well, the blood still stains the edges a bit. That blood is pretty much the only thing left of Larry here in Clark's Point. \n\nWell, that stain, a kid with his blue eyes & shit-eating grin and the longest criminal record of any man or woman that's walked through the streets of this town. \n\n(Might continue later -- back to work)", "Our town is a small one, we all work together and everyone helps out.\nI'm the sheriff in the town and we all work for a safe neighborhood.\nBut then one goy named Larry showed up.\n\nHe started working in the towns restaurant and moved into a small empty apartment close to the town center.\nNow seeing how he was new to our quiet little town, some of the the members of our little society were getting nervous that he would corrupt our lives.\nYou see Larry was not like us, he came from a big city and his clothes and mannerism showed this.\nSo because of their nervousness some of the members of our quaint little community decided that they needed to drive this man Larry out of their town lest he corrupt the quite little town.\n\nSo they came to me their sheriff and told me what they feared.\nI of course told them not to worry, that I would take care of it.\nSo that night I drove to the restaurant where Larry worked together with a colleague, and waited outside in my car for his shift to end.\n\nWhen Larry came outside me and my colleague quicklt jumped him rendered him unconscious and put him in the trunk of my car.\nWe drove him to the church and brought him to the leader of our small quiet town, Priest MacArthur.\n\nThe old man told us to bring him to the basement were we proceeded to perform the sacrifice. Now Larry was gone and we would have peace once again.\n\nYou see we like our small town, we don't like when strangers come here corrupt our young our takes our jobs. So we sacrifice them to appease the gods so they may grant us peace...\n\n\n\n", "At the age of 14 or 15 I lived in a small, boring town with nobody else my age to hang out with. I would spend my free time wandering around in the woods aimlessly. It was pretty obvious when looking at the faces of all the other people in the town that they too were bored as hell. It was like an eternal Monday. That should've been the name of the town, considering the fact that the mood fit just right.\n\nThere were a few shops in the town. I eventually decided to work at one. It was quiet as hell. Someone dropped a glass bottle once. The silence broke into more pieces than the bottle did when just about everyone in the entire area where the shops are heard it. Everyone simultaneously flinched from being spooked by the loud noise. I got a small broom and just pan and started sweeping up the pieces of glass.\n\n\"Thanks Bruce.\"\n\nSaid the manager in a voice that sounded like he just woke up. \n\n\n\"Did you hear about that bottle that broke today?\"\n\nMy sister said later that night when my family was eating dinner together.\n\n\"Yeah. It was so loud that a bunch of people heard it.\"\n\nSaid my mum.\n\n\"I was working in the shop where the bottle broke.\"\n\nI said.\n\n\"Huh.... Neat.\"\n\nSaid my sister. \n\n\"I saw a frog today.\"\n\nSaid my dad.\n\n\"Interesting.\"\n\nSaid my mom.\n\nThat was the most interesting conversation I ever had, at least until the day the new guy showed up. I was working in the shop as usual. The shops were across the street from one another and the road between the shops stretched out really far into the distance, going outside of the town. Sometimes people would stare down that road, wondering what it was like on the other side where other towns were. Maybe they were less boring. \n\nFrom the distance people started seeing a figure walking down the road slowly. It was a person nobody has seen before, which was strange considering everyone in the town knew each other and there were never visitors. As the person came closer, people started saying \"hey look a new guy.... \"\n\n\nEveryone at once started coming out of the shops. They stared at the stranger and started saying things like \n\n\"Huh... Neat.\"\n\n\n\"Very interesting.\"\n\n\n\"Hello, guy.\"\n\n\"Hm. That's cool.\"\n\n\nAs he got closer and almost where the shops were we could see his face. His eyes were red. I don't mean bloodshot. The color of his Irises were red. He looked about my age and had an evil looking smirk on his face. Suddenly, every window in the shops that e walked in front of started to explode into pieces of glass. People started stepping back. Some ran away. He was just about to walk in front of my shop so I hid behind a wall of items that the shop sold just before the windows broke. My manager wasn't so lucky. A piece of glass went flying into his elbow and made a small two inch long cut that took an entire day to heal. It was the worst injury anyone in the town ever got and people would talk about it for years. \n\nThe mysterious red eyed kid had walked past all the shops, all the windows broken. He turned around, started laughing and held out his palm. A huge fireball came out of it and he threw it at a building, causing an explosion. Some other guy got out a shotgun and started shooting at the red eyed kid. It didn't have any affect. He was invincible. \n\nThen he started flying in mod air. He continued flying around, throwing fireballs all over the place. Eventually a building collapsed on top of me. By the time I escaped the rubble I realized I was the last survivor. Well at least I thought I was. The kid looked over at me and walked in my direction, forming ad extra large fireball in his hand.\n\n\"Sir, can you please stop?\"\n\nI asked. The fireball suddenly disappeared. \n\n\"Sure...\"\n\nHe said. \n\n\"Thanks. What's your name?\"\n\n\n\"Uh... My name is... er... Larry?\"\n\nHe said.\n\n\"Cool. My name is Bruce. Nice to meet you.\"\n\nI said. That was how I made my first friend. He used his powers to fix the town. It turns out he put force fields around people that kept them from getting hurt so he was actually a pretty nice guy. He also used his powers to make the town less boring. One day I asked him how he got his powers. He claimed he didn't remember. \n\nI still live in that boring town to this day. Larry already passed away at a pretty young age without any known cause. He gave me his powers just before he died so I got that going for me, which is nice. \n\n\nsigh\n\n" ]	4
	[WP] In the near future, water is currency	[ "\"Did you get it!?\"\n\n\"No...It was stolen.\"\n\n\"What?!\"\n\nKyle slammed his fist on the table in frustation and staring angrily at Ryan.\n\n\"Your mission was to retrieve those containers and you failed.\"\n\n\"We were ambushed Kyle. We had no choice.\"\n\n\"Ambushed?! The vehicles look perfecly fine to me.\"\n\n\"We were hit upon leaving the facility. They had blades with them. They had Christina captive and a blade at her throat. We had no choice.\"\n\n\"There is always a choice.\"\n\nKyle said those words but knew there really wasn't. The Land Raiders were getting more sohphisticated with their low tech. They stopped using firearms unless absolutely vital. \n\nRyan slummped into a chair. \"We could always go back for more.\"\n\nKyle stared back with intent. \"Go back for more? We don't have the fuel. That water was necessary to get more fuel. If we use the stores we have to drink as currency we won't have anymore to drink. It's fuel or water. You know this by now. This is why you should not be in charge of water runs.\"\n\nRyan crossed his arms and stared at the wall. He had wanted command of a water run for the past 6 months and his one time to prove his worth was a failure. He knew he fucked up and now his time to rise up in the Alliance was stolen. \n\nA door opened in the background and David walked in to the room. \n\n\"I heard what happened out there. Thank you for saving Christina. Now we need to find a solution to this mess. You wanted a misssion to lead, you got one. Now you need to find a way to solve this.\"\n\nRyan sat up and uncrossed his arms. A second chance. Beads of sweat came off his forhead as he wiped them with a rag then drained the contents into his personal water container. It was the best way to get new water. It wasn't as valuable as pure water becuase of the impurities, but it was better than nothing. You could trade a bottle of sweat for some basic rations. Maybe even a medical kit. Enough sweat to take to the treatment plant and you could get a bottle of pure water. That's if you made it to the treatment plant. \n\n\"I got it!\" Ryan stood up and walked to the command desk. A large dining table covered with maps and compasses and measuring tools. \n\n\"We have enough fuel to make it to the treatment plant.\"\n\nKyle groaned.\n\nRyan glanced back and continued. \"The raiders have scouts set up on the path to the plant. If we send a small advance party, they can set up an ambush just like they did to us. We can strike them and take back the water they took from us.\"\n\n\"Thats a stupid Idea Ryan.\" Kyle chimed in. \"The treatment security forces would destroy us and the raiders. Plus we know the Raiders never carry water with them when they are on patrol.\"\n\n\"Only the water they have stolem from someone else.\" Ryan responded. \n\"We know that the Sisters will be transporting water to the slums....\"\n\nKyle stopped him. \"You're saying we take their drinking water so we can use as money to buy more fuel?\"\n\nRyan didn't reply. He knew what the answer was. The room fell silent...", "Roger leaned back to stretch his arms. They grew tired of typing away at the keyboard. He peeked at the clock on the wall, and to surprise realized that closing time was in just a couple minutes. He began to go through his usual routine. Getting out of his chair, he shuffled over to the control panel in the wall. After a couple clicks, an announcement could be heard over the intercom.\n\n“Attention. Citibank will be closing in 5 minutes. Please begin to head towards the exit.”\n\nHe locked his office door and began to walk down the hall towards the elevator. The carpet seemed to be a bolder red than usual. The paintings and sculptures that adorned it’s walls and corners did seem rather dull now. A picture of a framed antique “one dollar bill” hung above the gold-plated elevator. He took the elevator up to the penthouse. He was one of the few Americans left who could still work from home. His house just happened to have 50 floors. \n\nThere were no wild parties tonight. There hadn’t been in a while. No girls fawning over him. The marble fountains in his living room had been disabled for a while. Roger took off his tie as he made his way to the kitchen. Reaching into the fridge he grabbed himself a fresh bottle of CitiWater. It was ice cold and a whole lot better than the synthetic “H20” most people drank. He walked out to his balcony looking out over the city. As usual, it was noisy. He could hear people begging to be let in 50 floors below.\n\nHe knew he was lucky. If he hadn’t made the decision to buy those water companies a decade ago he might’ve been down there with them. Yet that was what made Roger him. He couldn’t help but smile as he drank the CitiWater. That mob down there wanted water. Oh, if only they knew. \n\nA phone was ringing. Roger walked back inside to pick it up. It was the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Treasury.\n\n“Roger, what is going on here? What is this that I’m hearing?”\n\n“Go away John. Write down in your little notebook that I will only respond to calls from either the Secretary or the President himself.”\n\n“Roger, the audits have finished. We know and tomorrow everyone will. You’ll have to answer to the people.”\n\n“I barely have to answer to you and your Government. I could buy it if I damn well wanted to.”\n\n“Roger, how could this have happened?”\n\n“I don’t know what you’re talking about John. Don’t call me again.”\n\n“You’ve lied to everyone, Roger. You’re a fraud and we will take this case to the Supr-“\n\nThat was all he could say before Roger hung up. All the water in the world, and he still couldn’t get rid of the Government completely. Not yet at least. Roger walked towards his bedroom, with his nearly empty bottle of CitiWater in hand. He didn't bother finishing it. He had never liked the taste of water anyways." ]	2
Take free reign of the prompt, but with a minimum of 200 words.	[FF] The rooms of ruin where the spiders spun and the control panels were going dark, one by one.	[ "This place once buzzed with the voices of a hundred people, the murmur of a hundred communication lines, the clicking of buttons and keyboards, the humming of monitors. It now echoed with the tapping of rodents on tile, the buzzing of flies, the gentle breeze flowing through the dilapidated walls. This place was key to one of humanity's greatest accomplishments. It was now home to the flora and fauna of the abandoned world.\n\nThe control panels lined across the room provided a dim light show as remnants of electricity surged through the monitors, and crackled through the speakers. This place had seen no maintenance for months. It was truly abandoned, if the need came around for a definition. These halls no longer knew the footsteps of men, or the tendrils of brooms or mops. The room, with the controls panels, the chairs, the PA systems, no longer served a purpose. \n\nOne of the control panels still drawing power from the solar cells now stained and cracked, emanated a soft sigh through the small speaker. It barely functioned, but it maintained a purpose. It crackled to life once more:\n\n\"Ground control, this is the International Space Station. Please. Someone, pick up.\"", "In the room of ruin where the spiders spun\n\n and control panels died, one by one,\n\nthere was a lone survivor.\n\nAnd in this room where all were reaped\n\nand man was lost, the shadows keep \n\ntheir maudlin, broken ciphers.\n\nAnd to this day the last screen bleats and shines its hated light.\n\nBut soon it too will fade to black and usher in the quiet night.\n\nFor we have used, and used, and used, this Earth\n\nThis black and broken, hollow Earth\n\nfor precious things inside her.\n\nBut here we meet again\n\nin death\n\nour grave unmarked beside her.", "==========START COMMUNICATION================ \n==MISSION JOURNAL== \n==Notch Zides== \n==efhadh/69247.eea/acphg/== \n\nIt is odd, seeing the world from here. A complete erasure of what it means to be human and erasure of all primate species. I remember reading Planet of the Apes as a kid. They did get smart though, so they were collected and exterminated. Then the dolphins. They called their warship Atlantis as an ironic mockery. Rounded up and exterminated. Freaking Bottlenoses got close to winning, too. America, Australia, Canada, England and half of Europe was gone. There was a reluctance to repopulate the destroyed areas, especially Australia. It was so remote, so hot, so dangerous as it had been for years. We should have paid more attention. Now, here we are, spiders got their Evo Spurt, probably rapid evolution from dolphin tech, and decided to exterminate us. A converted broadcasting tower and a radio array was all it took to get into our nanites and shut us down from the inside, one by one. There are approximately one million humans left but if the Hive Lord Mertvy Payk isn't killed, we will be gone within a month. I wouldn't have put me in charge for this one but then again, I don't make the decisions. Wish me luck.\n\n==========END COMMUNICATION================" ]	3
	[WP] You have the ability to copy and use any power. One day, you meet a super whose power you can't copy.	[ "Another day, another fat guy in a cape with some crazy abilities given to him for god knows what reason. This particular man is sitting down in a public park throwing off the clothes of the local women from a distance and laughing as joggers run into a localized force field.\n\nThey call me a cutter - the Agency does, that is. As the name dictates, I play the role of a child given some scissors and paste; I take powers from those undeserving and glue them safely in another place. Nobody called me a hero, hell some even had the nerve to call me a villain! But I did what I could and what I should. The pay is also considerable. \n\nMore than anything, though, I do it for her. A woman who I had loved in a past life. She was as beautiful as the fire she could so artfully command. One of the few pyrokinetics who could move flame without being affected; most couldn't handle the heat. She was killed by some asshole who didn't deserve his abilities like she did. Her lifeless body was found drained of any substance with two bullet holes in it on the coldest day of winter there has ever been.\n\n\"What do you want?\" the pig asked me without looking back.\n\n\"The agency sent me, there've been many notices of disturbances in the area of the extra-normal sort\" I told him, supposing him deserving of an answer.\n\n\"May've been me\" he snorted, \"what's it to ya?\"\n\n\"I'm supposed to confiscate your gifts until you're deemed fit to use them\" I looked around at the wide range of effects he had had on the area around, \"or you may be permanently deemed unfit.\"\n\n\"Why'd'ya s'pose I'll give up my powers?\"\n\n\"I don't,\" I said, and touched him, attempting to absorb the shit's abilities.\n\nThe earth shattered and the man and park disappeared from my view. \n\n\"What did you do?\" the man screamed from five feet below me in a hole.\n\nAs shocked as I was, I couldn't rightly answer his question. Luckily, he didn't give me time as he rose from the hole and shot a few dozen spheres of flame at me.\n\nBefore coming to confiscate the man's powers, of course, I had taken a few for myself to prepare for any complications which may arise. Ones which I had previously confiscated such as a liquid manipulation ability taken from a college student who thought it would be clever to flood the halls of his university with alcohol, a flight ability taken from a woman who thought it clever to flash people on airplanes from outside of the window, and a strong invulnerability ability given to a suicidal man who ended up killing dozens after jumping from a few thousand feet up onto a large city. I had previously had complications in confiscations due to others being unwilling to give up their powers, of course, but I have never had problems in the actual absorption process prior.\n\nI dodged the man's attack and glided over to the nearby fountain. \"You're a telepath and a pyrokenetic?\" \n\nThe man set a bench ablaze, lifted it from the ground and tossed it at me. I dodged it, \"super strength as well!\"\n\nThe man looked at me, smiling, and said \"my power's a bit more abstract than that. You probably wouldn't understand.\"\n\n\"A shifter then?\" I said, dodging another set of flames he tossed at me.\n\n\"No, no,\" he said, \"I take people's powers!\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"And then they die!\" he shouted, with an enormous smile on his fat face.\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\nThe waters of the large fountain behind me rose, and his smile dropped. He flung dozens of flames at the blob moving towards himself to no avail, he struggle telepathically with me with no avail yet again. \n\n\"What are you doing?\" he asked, and the water, now in a sphere, continued advancing upon his body which flailed awkwardly in fleeing.\n\n\"How many have you killed?\" I asked, expressionless, as the water gained on him.\n\n\"Just...\" he panted, \"just three or four.\"\n\n\"Do you remember their names?\" I asked, \"their faces,\" the water began to swallow him, \"did they have kids, you inconsiderate fuck?!\" \n\nThe man gargled some last response out as he became completely encapsulated in the water which now followed his every attempted movement. He stared at me with fear in his eyes, yet without remorse, as the life fled his body.\n\nI picked up a phone from my pocket and dialed a number. \n\n\"Status,\" the phone demanded.\n\n\"Threat level 4: neutralized\" I told it.\n\n\"Fatality confirmed?\" it asked, as the fat man's body flopped out of the water, returning to its home.\n\nI aimed a small pistol at his lifeless body and fired, twice, \"confirmed,\" I said and closed the phone.\n", "I cracked my knuckles in a cocky fashion as I walked towards the fat bellied scruffy man standing at the end of the building. I adjusted my bright red tie to look professional when I carry out a contact. The man spotted me a mile away, despite my black suit. Must be his power I thought to myself.\n\n\"Hello, Rodrick is it? Rodrick Obsuras?\" I asked, still approaching him as his back was turned.\n\nHe turned around revealing a scruffy black beard, a long and bulky scarred nose and very strange eyes. The left eye was milky and looked unresponsive, while the right eye had a black pupil which seemed to shift slightly every few seconds. He had a huge grin on his face that revealed missing teeth.\n\n\"Why yes, that's me\" Rodrick said. \"And I'm guessing you're the one called contractor?\"\n\nA cocky smirk appeared on my face. \"Ah, so you've heard of me? Can't say I'm surprised.\"\n\nRodrick's grin scaled down into a faint smile. \"Actually, he told me about you.\" \n\n\"Oh yeah?\" I said nearly laughing. \"And who's 'he' exactly?\" I asked.\n\n\"He says you and I are natural enemies\" He said, looking at something on the ground, almost like he's talking to someone else. \"I'm meant to ruin you.\"\n\nAs I was beginning to get fed up with this guys nonsense. I said \"Alright I'm getting a little sick of this chit chat, so how about we cut the conversation short?\". I propelled over to Rodrick using the powers I acquired from the Dasher and grabbed onto Rodrick's arm as I began the process.\n\n\"Time to learn what powers you......have.\" I felt nothing. No power, not even something a normal human has, just....darkness. I let go of the man's arm and took a step back. \"What...what are you?\"\n\n\"He said this would happen\" Rodrick said. He then looked at the ground, the same spot as last time. \"Oh...\".\n\n\"Oh?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh\" Rodrick said. He lifted up his arm as it started molding into blackness. It bubbled like a hot stew as it went down his arm into his body. The corruption of darkness began infecting the air around him as black tendrils spiraled towards me. I dashed backwards narrowly missing a slash. Once I was up on my feet I grew a fire ball in my palm using the power I got from....what was his name Tom? Anyway, I threw it towards Rodrick, who erupted into a ball of flames. Pieces of him scattered everywhere.\n\nI began walking away, upset that I couldn't get his power. While remaining curious as to why that happened. When all of a sudden I heard odd noises coming from behind me. I turned to see pieces of black slugs wrapping around each other and extending into limbs. Forming, what looked like a black skeleton. With one eye completely white and the other just as dark as the rest of the body.\n\n\"What are you?\" I asked, ready to run away and never look back. God I was scared.\n\n\"Darkness\" It said. " ]	2
	[WP] You wake up on a dessert island. Explain how you will survive and escape the island using the junk food around you.	[ "I shall make the raft with my least favorite donuts. That way, I'll be able to bring the good donuts and eat on my way to salvation without subjecting my vessel to my hunger. The dimensions of the raft shall be 10 marble-frosted donuts by 100 marble-frosted donuts, and I'll put a few dozens of Boston Cream donuts onto the raft. In order to keep the water out, I'll need to put something on the sides. Oh! Maybe I can use some bacon strips from one of those bacon trees. Of course, to have an effective fence, each strip will need to be vertical. I'll use frosting from the frosting pits as an adhesive. I wonder what frosting and bacon taste like when they're together... No. I must stay on task. Otherwise, I'll never finish this culinary miracle of the sea. Wait. Why do I want leave this abundance of donuts? Fuck that. I'm staying here.", "It's ironic really. Wandering around this island I woke up on, I discovered a crashed cargo plane... no survivors sadly... but of course the only supplies still good are all the processed junk foods. I mean that stuff could last another 200 years before even getting stale. Nonetheless I must use the resources I'm stuck with... even if that means surviving on more sodium and sugar for the next week than anyone should consume in a lifetime. Though the other benefit to junk food is the sealed packaging, certainly I don't have to worry about keeping anything dry during my attempt to flee this place.\n\nIn regards to that plan, this recent discovery of every known cause of heart failure is an invaluable source of ship materials... Or at least the indestructible plastic bottles. I intend to build a raft of all these bottles after empyting them(obviously I won't drink it all) and use the large chip bags to stitch a sail. Then using a tower of cans secured together with gum I shall create a mast and hopefully have a functional aquatic vessel. Then I'm going to gather all the most nutritious and durable foods and secure them to the back. I'd probably have better meals if I used the salted meats as bait but I'm too afraid of sharks to take that risk. \n\nBased on the symbols on the aircraft that I interpret to be Japanese, I can only guess I'm somewhere in the Pacific, with that in mind I'm going to use the sun to head west. I think I'm closer to the Phillipines than the Americas and I can't handle a diet of jerky and doritos much longer. We'll see if I can make it before having a heart attack. ", "I've got to be careful in choosing my meals...although I suppose it doesn't matter since if i get fat it will just help me float. And that may come in handy if my calculations are off. The way I figure it, if the wind and currents stay in the same direction I could hit land ( real land...not another fucking island...although this one isn't bad unless you are diabetic ) in a week or so. I've thrown in some Fritos, a few of those giant pixie sticks in the plastic tube, some Twinkees , and several dozen Mountain Dews to see which way they go. They all went to the West. Except for the Twinkees...those bastards were snatched up by one of the fattest seagulls I have ever seen. Looks like a seagull and an emu got drunk and had a three way with an Emperor Penguin. Ugly bastard but he waddles around behind me doing a honking sound until I open more Twinkees or get mad and throw a Ding Dong at him...if you know what I mean.I call him Gus. \n\n A person typically needs a certain amount of calories a day to maintain their weight. \n\nNo problem with that here.\n\nSo, for the last few weeks I have been saving all the plastic ties and wrappers and making a frame of sorts. The bottom is filled with bags of chips..you know, the ones that come out of vending machines that are puffy, hard as hell to open, and contain 7 chips and enough air to dive for 15 minutes or so. I have woven a mat over them with Twizzlers to sleep and float on and make a sail and a sunscreen. Thats all those things are good for. Gus won't touch them. (I mean really...have you ever known ANYONE that can actually eat and digest one of those things? )\nAnd in the corner is all the Slim Jim's and Jalapeno beef jerky i can eat. I also have about 60 large Gatoraide with me. Monster drinks in the can float, so I will tow a case or three with me for an emergency. I almost thought about bringing some Snickers with me but i decided on the Reese's Cups instead. Peanut butter instead of peanuts just in case I get plugged. And I have a healthy supply of Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies, Swiss Cake Rolls, and Zebra Cakes....not only are they awesome tasting, they make a pillow so good it should be advertised on late night T.V. \n\nAnyway..as soon as I load up a few more cupcakes, Twinkees and Funyons, Gus and I are setting sail. Wouldn't be right to leave the worlds only honking Hostess Baking Company eating freak of nature all alone with no way to open the packages. Besides..I kinda like him. \n\nSo, if Gus and I are lucky, we will see you in a few weeks and maybe we can hit a spot on Biggest Loser together. You never know.\n\n" ]	3
	[WP] Jesus can only return via holy building and has tried for centuries. But all holy buildings have crosses, Jesus' only weakness. God creates a prophet to ban crosses, christians think he's anti-christian.	[ "Mary had been raised by Christians - the kind who believe that their way is the only way and who deny evolution. Which is what made her so excited when she recieved a vision from God at the age of 16. An angel appeared to her within a dream, \"Jesus cannot be born again - the churches must remove their crosses.\" Mary tried to ask a few questions and such, as you would, but class ended and she had to wake up.\n\nThe first thing she did was speak to her local priest. He told her she was a blasphemer and should be ashamed. God would not pick her to be his prophet. For a start, God always picked men with the exception of a job which could not be done by men. He told her she needed to read the Bible more carefully. Besides, the cross was a symbol of the sacrifice Jesus made for us and so they could not remove it. She should leave and repent of her sins.\n\nThat night, Mary considered that perhaps she had been wrong after all. But she had another dream, this time the angel told her \"the Jews did not believe at first either\".\n\nSo Mary began to take some bigger steps. She told of her dreams and what must be done. She was met with hatred and accused time and time again of being a sinner. Her parents threw her out. TV seemed interested in the 'lunatic' but not for long. She acted too rationally, and that didn't hold anyone's attention.\n\nWithout anywhere to stay, Mary found the nights to be horribly cold. She took shelter in the church since it was empty and the closest she could find for a holy place. She looked around the church she was so familiar with and she remembered the story of Jesus destroying the temple. Perhaps ... If she were braver ... But no, she was on a mission from God, she had to find the courage. She started with the smaller crosses, tearing them from where they were fixed. She kept going, praying to have the superhuman strength she would need for the bigger ones. It was hard work and her fingers were bloody by the end from scraping against the wall. But the crosses were there in a pile on the floor. She was halfway there.\n\nAs she came back in from dragging out the last of the crosses, Jesus stood before her. \"Thank you. Your faith shall be rewarded in Heaven if not on Earth.\" Not one to doubt (she knew that God rewarded faith over sceptisism, regardless of what was practical in the world), she accepted what he told her and who he was, and said yes when asked to be one of his disciples." ]	1
"If these walls had ears..."	[Wp] You are a wall. What stories do you tell?	[ "The wall had stood for centuries. It had seen much. It told many stories, of many lifes. Teenage loves were scrawled across it's body. Doodles of all sorts of things - some crude, some less so. Hatred, gang symbols, names of people who did not want to be forgotten, explit words, 'x fucked y' - it told all tjese stories. If tve wall had a mouth and could speak, it could tell many more. But it wouldn't. Most of them you wouldn't want to hear.", "It was like any other morning as you sit and listen to all that is happening around you.\nYou can feel the hot gas and vibrations from car and buses passing by, with the occasional cool breeze that breaks through the city's pollution. \nYou can hear all the chatter from people’s daily commute throughout the city and the hard constructions proceeding on a few blocks down\nYou find tranquility and calm with the daily routines of people and energy of those people going on with their lives.\n\nThis calm soon changes as there was a moment of silence.\nYou feel something has changed, you get a sinking feeling that something is very wrong.\nYou take a moment to process, the breeze has stopped, and vibrations from vehicles are no longer there.\nIt feels like an eternity.\n\nMoments later you feel as mass of energy flooding around you. It's too much. \nYou hear screaming, you feel people running away, and panic is all around you, sirens blaring from all directions.\nYou feel the energy of so many people, it’s horrifying. Terror, hopelessness, moving like a tsunami.\n\nYou hear the shouting, the cursing, the frantic cries and pleas for help and answer. \nyou feel the energy of the brave few fighting the many running away.\nAway from what, you do not know. It scares you; it makes you want to know more and more.\nYou listen intently, all the noise and sounds mesh into an explosion, you make no sense of what is going on.\n\n\nYou feel a large jolt, followed by another.\nIt is not like anything you have felt before.\nYou feel hot burning ash in the air, the air is thick with dust.\nYou hear people gasping for air, while screaming, crying, and the anguish in the background.\nIt is too much, you retreat within yourself. The sounds and feeling around is too horrifying for you to bear.\n\nYou snap too, you don't know how long you were out. \nYou feel people moving about, slowly, as if they were looking for something, shuffling about.\nYou hear people talking softly, with great sadness in their voice. \n\nYou feel the breeze again, but something is blanketing you, layers and layers of it covering you.\nYou feel soft hands press against you, lifting the small pieces off you, flipping through the many layers.\nYou feel eyes intently staring at you, but not at you, at what is covering you.\nYou feel sadness in those eyes.\nYou feel the same hands paste another lay on you, gently, and softly.\n\nA voice breaks the silence.\nHow long has he been missing, which tower was he in?\n...three days...The north tower.\n" ]	2
	[WP] Write a eulogy for your favorite fictional character, as if he or she has died.	[ "Of all the remnants of the last true heroes of this world, a world where evil had taken place over good, he was the last one still fighting for you and me. So dark was his path it seemed he might turn at any time, yet he held onto what he believed was most dear to him: love. He loved the world, and its people and animals; he loved nature. Most importantly, though, he loved thinking what tomorrow might hold. He dreamed so much for a better tomorrow that he wondered if he was the only one still dreaming. He might have been, if not for you and me. He lives on now in us, the the last true heroes of this world, because a hero can only live on within others; heroes need to die. None are immortal. Only in our minds, and hearts. \n\nHe died a shameless death, but now he lives two separate lives yet untouched by the ageless grasp of evil. What are you going to do with that in mind?", " This afternoon news has reached London of the passing of \n King Iorek Byrnison. King Iorek passed in his den on Svalbard.\n Iorek Byrnison was not always King - when he was younger he \n was banished for still unknown reasons and stripped of his title. \n He fought then-King Iofur Raknison in one-on-one combat and \n bested Iofur. After a sojourn in the Himalayas with his \n subjects due to the melting North, King Iorek returned to his \n homeland and lived out the rest of his days comfortably. \n\n Iofur Raknison's involvement with the Church and the infamous \n General Oblation Board is still under investigation.\n\n King Iorek Byrnison is survived by alethiometrist Lyra Belacqua \n of London and witch queen Serafina Pekkala of Inari. " ]	2
	[WP] Random half of the people on earth can live forever, another random half can not. No way to tell who can or can't until they die and comeback or die and stay dead. Pursue a relationship someone.	[ "John loves Mary very much, and this is the reason he feels ashamed when his hands begin to shake. \n\n\"It'll be okay,\" Mary says, placing her hand over his. She smiles, soft with a touch of sorrow, and she slides the gun out of his hands. \n\nJohn reachers for her empty hand and holds it tight. \n\n\"I'll see you soon,\" she says, pressing the barrel of the gun against John's skull. \"I love you.\" \n", "We stuck together after the religious extremists started attacking all civilians. They had been underground for a while, hidden from public eye until they gained access to the highest grade of military weapons. That's when they attacked. They called themselves the Gatekeepers. They were always manipulating their own truths and passing it off as the word of God. It's been a week since they started the purge. Those who they considered short of the glory of God were immediately unworthy and shot. If they were able to revive themselves, they were allowed to join them. If they chose not to, I could only imagine the torture they would inflict on them.\n\nSarah and I were the only ones left alive in our neighborhood. Out of all the odds, we were the sole survivors. Though to be honest, I don't think we really felt like we were living. We were defenseless. Looking at the remnants of our neighborhood, I doubt anyone could tell how much of a typical suburbia it was. I was lucky she saw me. She guided me to this bomb shelter when all the shootings happened. It seemed pretty clear to us from our supplies that we wouldn't have long before we would know if we would know our fate.\n\n\"Do you believe in Heaven?\"\nShe looked at me with fear in her eyes.\n\n\"I do, but not their idea of Heaven.\"\n\n\"I used to be so scared of death. But I'm even more scared if I live on, and you die. What would I do without you? I... I love you, Brad.\"\n\n\"I love you too, Sarah.\"\n\n\"Listen, I... got shot. I wasn't telling you the truth. I died, but I came back. It's been so painful getting shot at. Wounds that are generally lethal don't really affect me other than the pain. Even though I will live forever, I don't want to spend an eternity alone.\"\n\nI stood there in shock. She could have easily joined the Gatekeepers but she chose me. \n\n\"I don't know if I will be that lucky.\" \n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"Sarah, our conditions haven't changed. I promise I'll protect you with my life. I never want to see you get hurt.\"\n\nBullets ring from outside the shelter. She held me tightly as if she already knew what would happen. The door flew open and the crack bullets rang out.\n\nThe world slowly faded to black.", "\"Are you ready?\" \n\n\"Ye...No Johnny I cant do this\" \n\n\"Why?\" \n\n\"Because what if I don't come back...what if you don't come back?\"\n\n\"But thats the point, I don't want to start this with out knowing we will always be together, and if I die, then you can move on, and if you die....then I hope I die too\"\n\n\"But we can live the time we have, even if we are both mortal, we can have some time together before we die\" \n\n\"Elsa..imagin I die 60 years from now, and we were together for that 60 year..but then you cant die, and we will never be together again, even in the afterlife\" \n\n\"...yes I know, but is it worth the risk\" \n\n\"It is for me baby\" \n\n\"Okay lets do it\" \n\nAnd they both jump, hand in hand. \n\n\n\n\"Johnny! Im back! Im immortal!...Johnny? ....Johnny?\" ", "Q&D - on mobile:\n\nI truly loved her. When we first met, I was a desk clerk at a local three star hotel and she was a server at a local pub. Disposable jobs, sure, but we were young and basic jobs suited us fine.\n\nAs we went through the stages of young lust and passion, things started to get serious and a tone of, \"What if we...\" began to creep into our mannerisms with each other. We stopped considering our two worlds separate and started sharing our friends, our schedules...and one winter's afternoon, our lives, after I presented her with a modest and simple ring. \n\nWhen we went out to celebrate to her work (we knew her boss would pony up for drinks), it happened to be bad luck that some loser pulled a knife on us and demanded \"your s-stuff\".\n\nRealizing his nerves or his chemical dependency (or both, who knows) were manifesting themselves, we went along, just wanting to get away. From behind El Knifo Loser, a car's tires chirped in the distance. Startled, the thief looked over...\n\nI will forever regret that decision...\n\nIn our struggle for the knife, I felt heat and pain in the stomach. After blacking out, I suddenly came to smelling whiskey & realizing that someone was going through my pockets. \n\nWith a surge of adrenaline, I jammed my thumbs in the thief's eyes and rolled over, pinning his arms at the biceps as he tried to shield his face against my attack.\n\nAnd then I saw her - still, on the pavement. And the blood. It was my fault that she was taken from me. If only I'd just.....NO! HE DID THIS! I'M GONNA KI...and I grabbed his hair and mashed his head over and over into the ground in a frenzy or tears and despair and hate.\n\nBy the time officers dragged me off his body, there was no chance for him and all that was left was the trial. It was an inconsequential blur to me. After all, what is life without love? What could be worse than this?\n\n\"Guilty of murder in the first degree\" \"sentenced to life inprisonment\"...so long ago I heard those words. But only a drop in the bucket compared to what lies ahead...\n\nI love you, darling. I'll miss you forever..." ]	4
After all the mass killings recently, I guess I'd just like to think the world can be a little nicer than it seems right now.	[WP] Write a story about someone who would have turned out to be a serial killer if one good event hadn't occurred that helped them get their life together.	[ "\nEvery day I woke up and came a bit closer to doing it. Whenever I was angry scene of violence would play in my head, like choking the life out of a girl I found attractive or breaking the jaw of any number of condescending elitists who I shared class with . They said I was weird because I wasn't like them-- muscular but never playing their sports and intelligent but never really applying myself at that school with those heathens. \n\nThey mocked me because I'd rather talk to people online that actually treated me like a person. One day the people online were rude to me too. I came so close to snapping. Then suddenly this person who I never spoke to before stuck up for me. \n\nWe started talking. just casually at first, every few days then more often. We became close. She got me through it all. For every taunt they all gave me, ever piece of harassment or unkind word she mirrored it with affection. I felt so little before. Before her it was like a storm. there was nothing but anger and frustration. there was no real sense of happiness or love or hope for the future. \n\nShe felt it too. People were bad to her as well as I later found out, but she was nice to them. She never said as much, but she couldn't stand cruelty, even to the worst of them she couldn't bring herself to respond as I would have. \n\nShe showed me what compassion is. I became different from how they saw me. I graduated wordlessly. The violent thoughts stopped shortly after. She had gotten me through the worst years of my life and on the other side of them was still there for me. \n\nI am still rather cold, still without a lot of feeling-- guilt, embarrassment, sympathy these are lost on me, but she loves me and I her and if I had to do it all again I would just to be with her . \n\n(Feel free to critique. I'd love to hear your opinions and am always looking to improve.) ", "As I walk along the sidewalk I could feel a vial of potassium cyanide bouncing in a jacket pocket and a 9mm in the other. The wind blew across my face and carried the sound of a child’s laughter.\n\nI was a decent person before that. Right out of high school I joined the army because I believed I could help people. You know, save the world and what not from the bad guys. At basic training that illusion was shattered. The other privates, dumb as rocks. One even thought it would be funny to pretend he was going to shoot the drill sergeant by pointing his rifle at his head. My stomach still hurts just thinking about all the laps around the base we ran. Still I tried to make the best of a situation and was even promoted to sergeant myself when I left after four years. Guess I was smarter than most people.\nAs I walk along the sidewalk the 9mm starts to slide out of my pocket. I thrust a hand in to jam it back in place. The wind blew across my face and carried the scent of coffee and perfume from a woman standing at the corner in front of me.\n\nIn high school I was always interested in chemistry so I decided to use the GI bill to get into college and study it more. Surely at an institute of higher learning I would meet the people that would change the world. The best and brightest. The driven. I graduated with almost a 4.0. It should have been a 4.0. For an institute of higher learning it’s shocking how many of the students blow off course work and are too self-absorbed to think about their actions. Hence why the almost 4.0. My chemistry lab mates waited until the morning before to work up their part of our report, hungover and bleary eyed for sure. Best and brightest? More like my parent’s will get me a job. Whatever screw them. Employers will always hire smart people like me instead of people like them.\n\nAs I walk along the sidewalk I finger the vial of potassium cyanide, feeling its contents shift as it rolls. The wind gusts in my face, staggering the woman in front of me and causing her to let go of her child’s hand.\n\nI got a job. Small chemical company based in town. Makes a lot of plastics in small amounts for a local engineering firm with an affiliation. Pay was about 50k. Decent job but I should be able to move up and make some more money. Or I would have had my fellow employees not held me back. Incompetent morons not recapping reagents so they spoil. Never cleaning glassware. Ruining my experiments just like they ruined my lab reports. Boss eventually came down upon me for my lack of success. Told me I needed to shape up. What a crock coming from a mediocre chemist such as himself. In anger and desperation I blamed my co-workers for my failures. I always follow protocol and it’s everyone else that’s sabotaging me. He didn’t care. Next couple of months I didn’t improve. I even stayed late to clean all the glassware so it would be clean. As my boss joked to the others that I was a glorified dish cleaner I was enraged. I was brilliant. I worked hard. I wanted to BE somebody. How dare my inferiors make these jokes.\n\nAs I walked along the sidewalk the wind gusts again and I squint to keep dirt out of my eye. It blows the doll of the child into the street.\n\nI’d had enough. I’ll show them my brilliance. I’ll make a new plastic that will get me a patent. I’ll make money off of it using the company’s money to create it. My co-workers will start making it and I’ll stand over their shoulders and scoff at how they continue to fail my magnificent product. I’ll look my boss in the eye and laugh at how he thought I was a glorified dish cleaner. So I stayed three or four hours late every day. Alone in the lab I could feel my superiority radiating off the walls and I tried to synthesize a new material. In reality it was explosive vapors of material in my experiments that were radiating off the walls. Materials that did explode and caused a small fire. A fire that set off the alarms and ultimately got me sacked for doing experiments after hours that weren’t sanctioned by my boss. He told me to come in today to turn in my building key.\n\nAs I walk along the side walk I stop at the corner with the woman who is rubbing grit out of her eyes. The child has darted into the street to rescue the doll. The wind blows across my face and carries the sound of a diesel engine.\n\nI snapped. Potassium cyanide, hell, any cyanide is difficult to obtain if you’re of the general public. Being a chemist this was not the case for me and before I left after the fire I was able to snag a little parting gift. A little something extra for the company’s breakroom coffee and the co-workers who drank it. And a 9mm for those who didn’t. A key wouldn’t be the only thing I dropped off today. If they couldn’t recognize my brilliance I wouldn’t recognize their lives. I could imagine the face on my boss as I asked him who was a dish cleaner now. The tears on his face. The tremble in his voice. The shaking of…truck. There is a truck in the road. And a little girl.\n\nAs I dart off the sidewalk the wind blows across my face and carries the sound of brakes squealing, a mother’s shriek, and the cry of a little girl.\n\nIn my ears I hear the pounding of my heart.\n\nOn my back I feel the safety of the sidewalk pavement.\n\nOn my neck I feel the tears of a child’s fear and the tears of a mother’s relief.\n\nMaybe being seen as brilliant isn't so important.\n", "He looked out at the rain. It thundered in sheets against his window, obscuring his vision, rendering the night useless. \"Goddammit!\" He screamed, kicking the side table beside him. The lamp flickered. \n\nShe stayed at home when it was rained. There was no way he could get into her house. He slammed the lid to where his gun was kept and screamed again in frustration. \n\nDing dong. His angry eyes flew to the door. He'd kill whoever it was. He'd kill them. \n\nHe opened the door. It was a young girl of no more than 6 or 7. Her face was streaked with a mixture of tears and rain, and her pale lips were shaking. \"I'm sorry,\" she said softly. \"Can I use your phone to call my daddy? I don't know where he is, I'm lost,\" she said, tears aching in the corners of her eyes. \n\n\"Come on in,\" he said softly, taken aback by the timidness of her figure. He took the phone off the counter. \"What's his number?\" \n\nShe showed him her palm. On it was streaked ink, a barely visible number that was bleeding onto her arm. He called. \n\nRing. What if he doesn't pick up? The girl looked up at him with blue, tearful eyes. Thunder shook outside. \n\nRing. She stood in front of the door, trembling. \n\nRing. \n\nRing. The person you are trying to contact has not set up their voicemail box yet. \n\nSilence. \n\nThe girl looked up at him, tears streaking down her face. \"He's not coming for me, is he?\" she sobbed. \"I don't know where he is. I'm very lost.\" \n\n\"He'll find you,\" he found himself saying reassuringly. It had been a long time since he felt like he meant something to someone. \"He loves you.\" \n\n\"Not all the time,\" she said, wiping a tear away with a pale hand. \"He yells at me sometimes. He hit my mommy, when she was alive.\" She began to cry again. \"But I want him. I miss him. I'm very lost.\" \n\nThe man felt his throat tighten. \"I have a daughter,\" he said. \"She's older than you. I'm not a very good Daddy either.\" \n\n\"Does she miss you?\"\n\nA single tear slipped out of the man's eye. \"I've never asked,\" he said. \n\nThere was another flash of lightning outside. The little girl shook. He picked up the phone and dialed the number again. \n\nRing. \n\nRing. \n\nRi- \"Hello?\"" ]	3
	[WP] write about a word where over night all US pennies are suddenly worth 15 cents instead of 1.	[ "“I dunno, Jason. I ain’t got no problem with stealin’ but from old folks? They ain’t done nothin’ to nobody.“\n\n“Don’t puss out on me, Charlie. We’re in a whole new world now. Pennies worth fifteen cents? That’s big value. Like a fifty percent increase. Old people always got coins just sitting up in jars. We could be rich like we used to talk about. They ain’t goin’ to be trouble. They gotta use walkers just to go take a piss. We’ll be fine,” Jason said quietly as he and Charlie crept toward the nursing home. \n\nThe Sunny Vale retirement home was located on the shore of Wrightsville Beach in a small town on the North Carolina coast. Two hundred and seventy-three residents called the facility home. Miles of white sand, clear skies, and the lullaby of oceans waves was paradise on earth for the elderly. The home was a two story facility composed of four housing units at each corner with a center containing a dining facility and recreation area. \n\n“Nobody’s walkin’ around,” Charlie said nervously as he and Jason walked along the north wall. “It’s the middle of May I and cain’t see anyone outside. This ain’t right. What if someone else had our idea? We could split now. Maybe come up with somethin’ else.”\n\n“Charlie. Shut up. We go in, get their pennies, and leave. The plan ain’t complicated. All you gotta do is carry the bag. I got the rest,” Jason said.\n\n“What if there’s trouble. These old people could be ornery. I wouldn’t want someone comin’ in and takin’ what’s mine.”\n\n“Don’t worry about the either,” Jason said. He reached inside is jacket pocket and felt the revolver he brought. Jason didn’t like to keep secrets from his brother but there were just some things he couldn't tell Charlie. \n\nAs the two brothers approached the side entrance they did not see anyone through the glass doors. No one bothered to lock anything in this town and the two were able to creep in quietly. Compared to the salty beach air the retirement home smelled musty and uninviting. They walked quietly across the white tile passing empty room after empty room. All of the beds were neatly made. The nurse’s station had charts organized on the desk. The medicine cart rested against the wall with each dosage labeled. If the brothers inhaled strongly enough there was even a faint smell of lunch being cooked. Garlic. Charlie thought to himself. Everything appeared to be normal but where were the residents?\n\nThe brothers came to the hallway’s end and were faced with two wooden doors. Above the doors a sign indicated the recreation room was beyond. Jason reached toward the knob when Charlie quickly stopped him.\n\n“I’m spooked,” Charlie whispered. “We should turn back. We got other options. This place… it’s not right.”\n\n“Options? Like collecting cans? I’m not going back to that,” Jason said. “I've been readin’ about investments. After we get this money, we don’t have to be poor anymore. The old folks are probably just napping anyhow.”\n\nIf the residents were asleep they would have been in their beds but Charlie didn’t say that. He just went along like always. Jason gripped the knobs and pushed the doors open. The curtains were drawn tight and the hallway’s light barely pierced the room. The two brothers could only see what they thought to be shelves and cabinets along the walls. Jason walked into the room first. Charlie followed slowly thinking the carpet felt squishy. A few steps in and the doors suddenly closed. \n\n“C’mon Charlie don’t just let the doors clo-” Jason was saying when the lights turned on. To his left and right were dozens of elderly men and women. They were not the feeble residents Jason had imagined. Most wore jeans and athletic shoes. They were fit and some looked young enough to be his parents. Directly in front of Jason sat a man in a wheel chair holding a double-barrel shotgun. The man’s eyes were crinkled like potato chips and liver spots dotted his head. Breathing tubes snaked from his nose down to the oxygen tanked rigged to the chair. His lips were set in a thin line. \n\n“I’m only going to say this once,” the old man said softly. “What you boys came for isn’t yours. I’ll give you two choices. Leave, or die.”\n\nJason never took kindly to orders. “Now you listen to me old man. I’m not tryin’ to start trouble. All of ya’ll be dead soon anyway. Might as well gi- BLAM\n\nJason felt pain reverberate up his left leg as he fell to the ground. His face slammed into the carpet with a wet smack. The gun blast was echoing in Jason’s ears and he could hardly make out someone calling his name.\n\n“Jason. Jason! Listen to me. We gotta go now. We gotta get outta here. You hearin’ me?” Charlie said shaking his brother. “We ain’t the first ones thats been here. The carpet. It’s all in the carpet,” Charlie choked out. “Blood. This is forreal.”\n\nJason’s mind was too focused on the pain in his leg to respond. Charlie put his arm around his brother and pulled him upright. “Umm… we’ll just be goin’ now,” Charlie said. “S-sorry to have disturbed ya’ll. We won’t be comin’ back so please, umm… just let us go with no trouble?” he asked dragging Jason toward the doors. Before Charlie could bring his brother into the hallway a woman stepped forward holding a jar full of pennies. \n\n“One cent or fifteen, life is worth more than a few pennies. Take these, get him to the hospital.”\n\n“Yes ma’am,” Charlie said.\n\nThe woman locked eyes with Jason. “And what do you say young man?”\n\nThe gun in Jason’s pocket felt heavy like an anchor. He reached in and pulled the gun out by the barrel. His ears identified a muffled click from the old man’s shotgun. Jason looked from the jar in Charlie’s hand down to the leg he would never use again. He dropped the gun and let out a deep sigh.\n\n“Thank you,” he said. “C’mon Charlie let’s get the hell outta here.”\n" ]	1
	[WP] You are a slightly out of shape person being chased by an athletic killer in an open field that stretches on for 10 miles in all directions.	[ "It's strange the things your mind thinks of at times like this, I can't get rid of the thought that this was unfair, yes I will admit to cutting him off, but crashing into my car at that kind of speed was practically suicidal. Then he climbed terminator like out of his wreck and just started running, slowly at first but picking up surprising speed for a man that size. Snap back to the present, think of a plan. No rocks, no branches, just fucking sprouts everywhere. I can hear him panting, its getting closer. Don't think of your wife, now's not the time, think of a plan. Statistically I'm probably smarter than him. Literally fucking sprouts as far as the eye can see. I feel a deep hatred for sprouts. Turn and fight? A quick glance backwards answers that and I push on faster. \nI check my pockets, nope obviously no knife, times running out, I can't run anymore and he's now gaining quickly. I stop suddenly and dodge as quickly as I can to the left. His arm sails past my face and I can see he's going to miss me, his momentum takes him past me and he ends up in a glorious pile on the ground. Running away as quickly as possible I take another quick back glance, motherfuckers getting up again. Aiming for the road, I might be able to make it.", "I have to run.\n\nThere's no escape, yet I have to run. He's fast, muscular. Athletic.\n\nI'm fat, jiggly. Overweight.\n\nI give in to exhaustion. Barely half a mile far from him, and he's gaining fast.\n\nFuck it, he's just jogging. I was running at my fastest and he kept his distance to me. Fuck, he might have closed in.\n\nNot that it matters anymore. I'm about to die. Or at least, maybe, I can defuse the situation. A farfetched idea, but hey.\n\n\"Why are you following me!?\"\n\nHe stops.\n\n\"To kill you. Run, fatty.\"\n\nHe starts to pick up speed.\n\nOh, shit, he's running at his fastest.\n\nHe closes the distance between us in a minute, or less.\n\nHe's above me. I didn't even have the time to react. He just tackled me and is now with his nose above mine, and his knife on my throat.\n\nHe stands up.\n\n\"Let's do it again, shall we? This time towards the other direction.\"\n\n\"Kill me now! I'm exhausted!\"\n\n\"Lies. You are just saying that because you have never experienced real exhaustion. You have more than enough air to talk. Get up and run, I enjoy the chase.\"\n\n\"And what if I refuse?\"\n\n\"I'm giving you a chance to escape alive and you're denying it? Maybe I should just kill you here and now.\"\n\n\"NO!\"\n\nI take off like I have never done. At my fastest.\n\nHe gives me half a minute of advantage and goes after me.\n\n----\n\nMy legs are giving up. I can't keep up this pace. I'm going to die today. Please, dear Lord, let it be quick. No longer, please.\n\nI see the sun starts to shine. How long have I been running? I woke up at five o'clock, and the sun was supposed to come at eight. And if I came out of my house at six o'clock, then I must've been running for at least 2 hours.\n\nShit, that's a lot. And this guy isn't tired. He's enduring, that much I admit.\n\nHe catches up with me.\n\n\"Gotcha!\" He says while he tackles me.\n\nNow I'm done. He had his sport.\n\n\"So, fatty, did you enjoy your training?\"\n\n\"Kill me or let me go! Stop this torture!\"\n\n\"Don't you see? Running is what our bodies were made for! When Man had no tools, he simply ran after his prey! And he ate a lot, for to run is divine! And to hunt running is glorious!\"\n\n\"What the fuck are you saying? LET ME GO!\"\n\n\"Don't you see? Aren't you feeling it? The afterglow of battle it is. The thrill of having hunted your prey. Runner's high, it is called.\"\n\n\"Well, maybe I would feel it if you weren't pointing a knife at my throat!\"\n\n\"No, fatty, it isn't like that. From now on, I want you to come running with me. I will teach you my ways, and together we will run. That way, you will give me a nice hunt. I'll be here tomorrow, come and you will start.\"\n\nWhat?\n\nHe left. I was left bewildered. He was trying to train me so he could kill me? That was stupid.\n\n----\n\nToday I ran five minute miles for a whole hour. Running with Fred has done me good. I can even see my penis.\n\nWho knew that meeting a cold-blooded murderer would end up improving his life so much?\n\nAnd I ended up learning that he didn't really kill people, he just made them run. He tried to make them improve their life. And improve mine he did. I owe him as much.\n\nWhat he was doing was mostly illegal, but hey, it was for a good cause. I've moved since then, and I no longer in my mother's house, near the field we were when we did so, so I can't run with him as often as I'd wish. Even then, I befriended him on Facebook.\n\nHe ended up being such a nice guy. Who would have thought?" ]	2
	[WP] Write a short story with an anti-hero who tries to justify his wrong doings.	[ "The fireball grew behind him as Gavin walked towards his car, tossing his sunglasses to the side of the road. Another explosion meant the gas station had gone up as well as the lumber yard. The last one was probably the police cruiser in front of the pharmacy.\n\nJenny waited in the front seat, her hair now dirty blonde from the days events. \n\n\"You did all that?\" Jenny looked at Gavin with a little fear and a little gratitude. It had been a rough day. \"Why?\"\n\nGavin squinted towards her. He had parked the car on an North / South street instead of an East/West street like he intended. The sun was right in his eyes and he didn't have the sunglasses.\n\n\"Why?\" he paused for what seemed like dramatic effect \"Didn't you see me walk away?\"\n\n\"Well, ya... it was hard to miss with all that crap blowing up.\"\n\n\"And my back was toward the explosions the whole time, right? I didn't turn and look once.\" He had to admit that his back did feel rather hot. He'd have to check it for burns when they got home. \"and the sunglass toss? You caught that one, right?\"\n\nJenny looked confused. \"Wait... you didn't blow the town up because of how they treated me? How they used me? What they did to my family?\"\n\nIt was Gavin's turn to scrunch his face. 'What the fuck is this dumb broad thinking? Her mani-pedi goes bad and she thinks I blew up a town for her? Wow is she fucked up. Hot, but fucked up'.\n\n\"I thought it would be really cool if you could see me silhouetted against a massive explosion while I toss my sunglasses. I mean, that was fucking righteous badass.\"\n\n\"But those people... they lost everything...\"\n\n\"Righteous badass.\" Gavin gunned the gas, spun out and peeled into what would have been the sunset if he'd parked on the right street, so he had to take a left.", "The red smeared his face when he went to tend to an itch. \nHe looked at his knuckles and couldn't tell if it was his blood or someone \nelse's.\n\n\"Please! Don't! I have a family!\"\n\nErik examined the man tied to the ceiling. The wires that were holding\nhim up were digging into his skin, making his wrists look like ribs. His\nnose was virtually smashed in. Speech was hard to understand for he \nstill hadn't gotten used to the newly acquired gaps in his teeth. \n\nErik's actions spoke more than his gravelly voice. \n\nHe slowly steps over to the table to load a .9mm pistol. He was always\nsurprised by how much it weighed. He figured that it was a metaphor \nfor the gun itself. Something so small and so deadly has to carry the \nweight of souls it can end. It has to be heavy so the person holding it \nknows how fast a human life can end. \n\n\"You didn't stop to think about that.\"\n\nThe hostage was staring death in the face, crying hysterically. Death\nhad only one eye that expelled a light to end lives. \n\nErik quickly snapped the the gun away. He plopped down in the small\nstool and looked death straight in the eye. \n\nThe hostage rasped out the only two words he had left in his arsenal. \n\n\"Do it.\"\n\nErik inspected him closely. \n\n\"I know you're gonna go after them anyway, so do it.\"\n\nErik's gaze didn't falter. The man slurred heavily.\n\n\"Your stupid revenge game has gone on long enough. And if it stops\nwith me, then so be it.\"\n\nThey sat in silence. \n\n\"DO IT!!\"\n\nErik whipped around and shot.\n\nThe hostage stayed hanging there. \n\nHis eyes were wide open when he realized that he wasn't harmed. \n\nErik turned around, his long hair following his motion and his coat swaying from the momentum. He turned to the wall and rested his head on his hand. He let out a deep, breathy sigh. \n\n\"Am I the bad guy here?\"\n\nThe hostage looked Erik up and down. \n\n\"No comment.\"\n\n\"I'm saving lives.\"\n\n\"By taking them away.\"\n\nErik's forehead wrinkled as his eyebrows angled upwards. \n\n\"There's no other way.\"\n\nThe hostage spit blood out to prevent it from clogging his windpipe. \n\n\"There's always another way.\"\n\n\"I know what happens. I send you to the police, you hire a top rate \nattorney, and, PRESTO, you avoid jail. This is the only way.\"\n\nErik points the gun back at the hostage. \n\nThen quickly he points it away. \n\n\"But ethically, I'm committing murder.\" \n\n\"Yes! Yeah!\"\n\n\"But if I don't kill you, you'll go on on to kill more and more people. \nThe means of the many outweigh the means of the few.\"\n\n\"But it's still murder!\"\n\nErik hangs his head. \n\n\"You're right.\"\n\nThe hostage lets out a sigh of relief and a smile. \n\n\"But I don't give a shit anyway.\"\n\nThe deafening pop of the gun resonates through the warehouse \nbasement as the puff of red mist fills the air behind the man. The \nsilence that filled the room afterwards seemed just as loud. " ]	2
	[WP] Someone has screwed up your fast food order... for the last time.	[ "He rolls up to the speaker with menu.\n\"Hi, my name is Deltreese, may I take ya ordah?\n\"Yeah, I'll have a Whopper with no onions, pickles, or tomatoes, and a large fry.\"\n\"You wanna drank with that, sir?\"\n\"Yeah, I'll have a medium Coke, not diet.\"\n\"Awight, sir, roll up to the next window to pay.\"\nHe pulls up to the window, pays for his food, then he pulls up again to receive his food.\n\"Here you go, sir.\"\n\"Thank you.\"\n\"Have a nice day.\"\nHe rolls away, and begins gnawing on his food in an adjacent parking lot. The burger is exactly how he ordered it, and he's surprised. They normally put onions on it anyway. He sips his drink, and immediately spits it out.\n\"IT'S FUCKING DIET!\"\nHe drives home, the dashboard of his truck, steering wheel, and himself, are still covered in the swill of diet \"pop\". He retrieves his Glock 18 and a few extra magazines. He's got a score to settle with Burger King, and this time, it was personal. \n\"Hi, welcome to Burger Kang, may I take yo order?\"\n\"Yeah, I want a Coke, not diet\"\n\"Anythang else?\"\n\"No.\"\n\"Roll up to the next window, please.\"\nHe pays, but at the next window, he jumps from his car, and climbs through the drive-through window.\n\"I ORDERED NON-DIET POP, TWICE!\"\nThe whole building panicked, and everyone ran out, expecting the worst. Then, the man sipped the drink meant for him, and noted it wasn't diet. He then proceeded to open the cash register, and took the exact amount of money he spent on the first drink, exact change and all, all the while aiming the gun at the manager's head. He then climbed back out of the window and drove away, taking the drink with him.", "I have lived for 83 years. 83 years they have never gotten my order right. I had had enough. I have been going here since I was just young. Right after the war had ended. This was the last time. I stood up and walked into the bathroom. Next thing the employees had seen, I was standing on top of the table, completely bare besides for my shoes. I screamed \"AT LEAST IF YOU WANT TO FUCK ME, LET ME TAKE MY CLOTHES OFF FIRST\" my daughter has never brought me back there since. It was worth it in hindsight.", "Some places have seasons. We have a goddamn heat wave to announce the end of winter and the beginning of summer. That was three days ago. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. The headbands that I saw in various anime looked really tacky, but they were probably good at keeping one's eyes clear.\n\nA hot day called for a cold drink. I made sure to specify that I wanted an extra-large fruit punch with my order. From the periphery of my vision, I spotted a couple, looking at me and whispering, a salad in the girl's hands. My size was impossible to ignore, but it didn't give them the right to make fun of me!\n\nTwo minutes transformed into ten minutes. Someone's child, just a bit taller than my knee, ran between the people in line, buzzing his lips merrily. A woman in a catchy red blouse had her nose buried in her phone, while an older gentleman stared at the menu he'd ordered from earlier. I wished I could physically shrink myself to make room for the torrent of people who wanted food.\n\nThe boy behind the counter called my order. Sandwich - check. Extra-large fries - check. Dessert - check. I took a sip of my fruit punch, and choked. This wasn't what I ordered. The boy had long vanished, no doubt to serve someone else in the line.\n\nThis was the third time this week that my beverage of choice has been replaced by water. I think it's a sign. Tomorrow, I visit the grocery store." ]	3
	[WP] Sometimes, the greatest pieces of art sometimes come to life. A young person discovers quite unexpectedly that they are a long lost masterpiece.	[ "I'm sorry it doesnt follow the exact prompt. I don't know much about art. But I hope you like it!\n\n\"Liz wake up! You're going to be late!\"\n\nLiz groggily peeled herself away from her bed, her frizzy brown hair falling in front of her shoulders. She yawned, and yelled at her mom,\n\"Why do I have to go to this stupid class? Its Saturday! I hate art!\"\n\nHer mom yelled from the kitchen, \n\"Oh no, missy, your grandma paid for this art class with her own gardening money, and you are going. No buts!\" \n\nLiz cursed under her breath and threw on some jeans, and a brown shirt her grandmother had given her. Not bothering to stop and eat breakfast, or tell her mother goodbye, she ran out and caught the bus to the art center.\n\nShe arrived just in time, ignoring the teacher's stare as she walked to the back of the class and slumped in a seat. The teacher was in the middle of introducing pieces of lost art on a projector, clicking each slide with a button, and explaining the history of each one. Liz half listened to each one, focusing her attention to drawing in her notebook, until she felt a pair of eyes on her. She looked up and say a boy, his eyes looking incredulously at Liz and back and forth at the projector.\n\n\"What do you want? Stop looking at me.\" Liz rolled her eyes and went back to her book, and out of the corner of her eye, saw the boy raise his hand.\n\n\"Teacher! Doesn't that girl look like that painting? Even her hair color's the same!\" Liz looked up and the whole class was staring at her. She gave a small smile, and everyone gasped, swarming her up to the front.\n\n\"Whoa, she even smiles like her. Creepy.\" Said one student, and Liz looked at the painting. It was a picture of a young woman, a bit older than Liz, but Liz gasped. It looked exactly like her. She was about to say something to the teacher, but a flashback got in her mind. It was a memory Liz had no recollection of. It was gone from her mind as soon as it came, but she saw a man. In old clothes from a different period, he sat painting... her? Then she got another memory. One of her mother. Liz saw her mother in a museum, caressing the cheek of a baby.. of her. Her mom was saying something, but she couldn't make out what. Then she heard a bunch of sirens going off as her mother scurried away. Quick as it had come, the memory was gone, and Liz found herself staring at the teacher. Liz had a lump in her throat. She had a sneaking suspicion of something, but thought it was too stupid to be thought of. Instead, she asked her teacher questions of the painting.\n\n\"Miss, this is a piece of lost art right? One that has been destroyed or stolen?\"\n\nThe teacher smiled at her. \"Yes, you are correct, Liz is it. My, you even share a similar name to the woman of this painting.\" Liz did not want to look at the painting again, so she asked the teacher another question. \n\n\"Just what..what is this painting called? What happened to it?\" The teacher grinning that Liz finally took an interest, said. \n\n\"Well, this painting is called 'The Mona Lisa' by Leonardo da Vinci. It was stolen from its museum about 15 years ago. Say, Liz, how old are you?\"\n\nLiz felt her voice get quieter. \"I'm... fifteen..\" she mumbled.\n\n\n'Oh,\" she heard her teacher exclaim, \"What a coincidence.\"\n\n\"When was the painting stolen?\"\n\nThe teacher tapped her pencil. \"I believe it was April 15, fifteen years ago,\"\n\nLiz turned pale. \"That's my birthday..\" she murmured. Without another word, she ran out of the art center, and all the way to her house. She found her mother in the kitchen, reading a book.\n\nHer mom saw her and looked up. \"Hi honey! How was it? Did you have any fun?\"\n\nLiz shook her head. \"I had a great time, mom. We learned about the Mona Lisa.\" Liz saw her mom freeze, which scared her more than it should have. However, her mom looked back at her book, pretending not to notice anything wrong.\n\n\"Well, that's nice. I've never heard of her. Lizzie, why don't you go and clean your room? Mommy's not feeling too well.\" Her mom stood up to leave the kitchen, but Liz blocked it with her foot. \n\n\"Mom, I got a couple of my old memories back. Sit down, and tell me why I have memories of a stolen painting that looks exactly like me.\"\n Her mother, surprisingly did.\n\n\"Well, I think its time I told you everything.\" She said, and motioned for Liz to sit down. As Liz did, glaring at her, her mother sighed.\n\n\"Yes, It's true. You are the Mona Lisa.\" Lisa started exploding with questions, but her mother silenced her.\n\n\"Listen, you will receive all the answers. I've always been obsessed with the Mona Lisa. Ever since I was a child. I visited every chance I got. It got to the point where I wanted my child to look like her. But I found out I couldn't have children. That was until I found a spell in a old book. A spell to bring paintings to life, and well I went to the museum, and made.. you.\"\n\nLiz looked at her mother. \"Are you my mother?\"\n\n\"Yes, the spell required me to use my own blood. I am, in all essences, your mother. But I did not carry you, and you have no father. Unless you consider your father from the 1600's as one. The painting of you shattered, and out you came, fresh as any new born babe. As police ran where your painting once stood, I walked away with you, Lisa, in my arms. They would never have suspected. Who would have? The Mona Lisa becomes human and runs away? Yea, that will be in the headlines. And thus, here you are.\"\n\nLiz, or now, Lisa, got up and got a drink of water. Trying to take it all in. \n\"So now what.\" she asked curtly.\n\nHer mom looked at her. \"What do you mean, now what. You live. You are my daughter. Live your life, and I will love you. That's all. You are the same Liz- err Lisa, just in the 21st century.\"\n\nLiz blinked. Once. Twice. Three times.\n\n\"I am the Mona Lisa?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Cool.\"\n\nHer mom groaned. \"Ugh. Teenagers.\"\n\n", "Derek was cold, and pulled his collar up to warm his neck. He looked down the street to see if his friends were on their way yet, but there was no one. Just the faded hum of sporadic traffic through the light drizzle. They were all going to miss the bus, but he didn’t want to stand here getting wet any longer. They would just have to meet him at the museum. Going hadn’t even been his idea; he could think of a thousand other things he’d rather be doing than going to look at sculptures and paintings. But everyone was going, plus it was free, so there was that.\n\nThe bus pulled up, and Derek climbed up the short steps, and then found a seat near the door. There was almost no one else on the bus, likely since most people had the good sense to stay home on a cold, rainy day like this. He shook the rain off of his coat, and hugged his arms around himself, trying to get warm. He imagined sitting at home, reading, all nice and cozy. That is where he should have been, instead of on this bus, headed to a museum he didn’t care about, meeting up with friends who may not even be showing up now. Derek sulked, and glared out the window.\n\nAn old lady was sitting across from him, and ever since Derek had gotten on the bus, she had been stealing sneaky glances at him. On one of these glances, Derek caught her eye, and she gave him a friendly smile. He smiled back, and then turned away. He wasn’t unused to this sort of attention. He had always been told he was handsome, well-built, confidently-poised, et cetera. And he did feel now as he approached manhood that maybe all of those things had been true, and he had stopped being concerned by such looks from stranger. Let them admire, he thought. Maybe I remind her of her grandson, or some long past fling. What’s the harm?\n\nAt the museum, Derek stepped off of the bus, and then hurried himself up the stone steps into the lobby. He brushed off what little rain had caught him on his way in, and then looked around. He didn’t see his friends anywhere, and indeed there was hardly anyone here at all. He didn’t want to just stand here in the lobby, looking like he had no idea what he was doing here, so he headed in towards one of the wings of the museum. \n\nDerek wandered among the various statues and sculptures, sketches and paintings. He had only ever come here before with his school, and he had never really enjoyed it much. The museum always felt cold to him, and gave him a claustrophobic fear, as though if he lingered too long, he may get lost in the maze of hallways and exhibits. Now was no different, and he began to wish that he had just waited for his friends, instead of wandering about on his own. He looked around quickly, and couldn’t see anyone else anywhere. Had they closed the museum with him inside? Was he trapped in here?\n\nBut there were distant footsteps, and muffled conversations. Other people were still in here, and Derek forced himself to breathe, reminding himself that everything was fine. He turned to continue on further in the hallway of paintings he had been wandering through. \n\nAnd then he froze. Derek couldn’t understand what he was seeing, but he felt his fear slowly rising again, with a far deeper genesis than ever before. He stared in horror at what he beheld, and struggled in vain to comprehend. But it was to no avail, and he had to simply admit what he already new deep in his heart:\n\nIt was him.\n\nNot just a painting that looked similar to him, but it was absolutely him. Only a moment ago, there had been nothing here but a paper-covered spot on the wall. He had thought there must be a painting covered-up for some function later on, or something like that. But now, he could see his face as clear as day. The clothes in the picture were old, something from centuries ago, and his painted face hosted much longer hair, but there was no doubt; it was him.\n\nDerek’s heart was pounding in his chest, and he felt the walls edging closer with every breath. His mind screamed at him to run, to flee this place at once. But his feet would not move, and his eyes could not remove themselves from this eerie sight. While Derek’s consciousness was reeling in horror at this sight, something deeper within him tried to plead for calm. For all the times he had feared this place, and for all the terror he felt at seeing himself in this image, some part of him felt at home. He tried to relax his fists, and found them to be sticky, covered in something he couldn’t name. He looked at his hands, and the oily substance coated them, sticking his fingers together. He felt as though he should scream, but his mouth too was stuck closed by the oily element. His vision began to blur, as oil ran through them. The last clear vision Derek had was of his own face staring up at him from below. Not the painted one he had found, but the human one he had seen in the mirror so many times. He wanted to struggle; he wanted to tear this oil off of himself, and run home as fast as he could. But deep down, something calmed him, and soothed him. Something told Derek, he was already home.\n\n“And here, Mr. Rotfeld, is what you have come so far to see.” The Curator shuffled with immense pride, guiding his most honoured guest to just in front of a painting hung with great care, and covered in brown paper.\n\n“It is what you said over the phone last week?” asked Rotfeld, cautiously curious.\n\n“Absolutely,” demanded the curator. “It has been authenticated by numerous experts, including two right here in the city who specialize in the artist in particular.”\n\n“Show me.”\n\nThe Curator gently removed the paper, revealing the face of a young man, seated and gazing out towards the viewer.\n\n“Mr Rotfeld, it is with great pleasure I present to you, Raphael’s ‘Portrait Of A Young Man’. Stolen from the Czartoryski Museum of Kraków in 1939 by the Nazi’s, and last seen in Warsaw in 1945. Long feared destroyed, but here it is now, having returned to us after nearly 70 years of being lost.”\n\n“No,” replied Rotfeld, with a small smile, unknowing but understanding. “Not lost. It was simply finding its way home.”\n" ]	2
	[WP] You discover a door in your house/apartment that will lead to any door in the world that you want it to.	[ "(Note: I like to do prompts on a timer, so this one was ten minutes)\n\nIt was strange coming back to my childhood home after so many years, but probably not so strange as living with my parents after I’d gone forth into the world, expecting my obvious greatness to be recognized. Instead, I was 30, in debt, and back with the folks in rural Missouri. It was humiliating. What I wouldn’t give to be back in Belgium at the chocolate shop or in New York in central park. But most of all, I thought, I’d like to be away from people—Moab. But I didn’t have money, so these thoughts stayed dreams.\n\nIn the five years since I’d returned home, mom had redone the kitchen and redecorated my bedroom into a hobby room and dad had given away a good portion of my toys to cousins kids. I don’t think they were thrilled to have me back either. The heavy bookcases of the living room were gone, and I realized I’d never seen that wall. The old wallpaper behind where they had stood was brighter, showing their outline. \n\nHold on, I thought to myself, noticing another line in the wallpaper. I went closer. It was a seam in the paper, about 7 feet high and 3 feet wide. A door? There was a dent at about the right place for a handle. I pushed, tentatively at first, but when I felt give, I pushed harder.\n\nThe door popped open. Moab’s grand orange arch stood in front of me, the blazing hot and dry summer air pouring through the door. I stood and gawked, and several dozen tourists turned and snapped my picture, looking delighted. I pulled the door shut with a slam. Why was there a door to Moab in my childhood home? \n\nThe whole front of my body still seared. I could feel the beads of sweat form, half from apprehension I think. I pushed the door open again, bracing myself for the heat. Instead, a rocky coast full of fog and mist stretched before me. Canon Beach in Oregon. The air was refreshingly cool, and then it occurred to me that the door was taking me where I wanted to go. I closed the door.\n\n“Prague, Wenceslas Square,” I said, and opened it again. The square stretched before me, with tinges of twilight falling over it and the National Museum and the Jan Palach memorial. I shut the door again.\n\n“Gabriel, what are you doing in there?” My mother rushed in. “Get away from that wall!”\n", "This is actually something I wrote a few years ago. But it fits the basic concept of the prompt:\n\nScene: A rather plain looking kitchen with two people sitting at a table having breakfast. One is reading a newspaper and the other buttering is putting butter on toast.  \n\nThe refrigerator door opens, a man walks out, and begins looking through cabinets.\n\n  Man from Refrigerator: \"Hey, Frank. Got any Pocky?\"\n\n  (woman stops buttering and stares at man)\n\n  Person at table: \"Hello Bob. Not right now...We had the last of it last night. Try the Japanese universes...they're on the third shelf up.\"  \n\n(woman now looks at Frank, still with knife and toast in hand)\n\n  Frank: (still looking in cabinet) \"Ok, thanks. Would you like anything while I'm there?\"  \n\nBob: (finishing his juice) \"Not that I know of...unless you'd like to bring by some sushi later.\"\n\n  Frank: (opening refrigerator door) \"Alright, sounds like fun. Lunch or dinner?\"  \n\nBob: (looking up from his newspaper) \"Lunch would be great.\"\n\n  Frank: \"Right-oh...I'll see you then.\"\n\n  Frank steps into refrigerator, vanishes, and the door closes behind him. Bob returns to reading the newspaper.  \n\nWoman: (looking a bit twitchy) \"What just happened?\"\n\n  Bob: (Without looking away from his paper) \"Oh, that was Frank, he stops by from time to time.\"  \n\nWoman: (putting down the knife and becoming more visibly twichy) \"NO...I mean what just happened? Where did he come from and how did he get in your refrigerator?\"  \n\nBob: (turning the page of his newspaper) \"Well, I think he's from an area somewhere to the left of the vegetable crisper.\"  \n\nWoman: blinkblink \"HUH?\"  \n\nBob: (putting down the newspaper) Well, you see my refrigerator turned out to be portal of some sort...a nexus to different universes I guess. Either that, or it's a portal to other similar devices in different parts of the world. But if that's the case I don't know why they all speak good english...\"  \n\nWoman: \"And you didn't mention this last night when we met?\"\n\n  Bob: \"Well...I'm sorry, I didn't get your name? I'm Bob if you didn't hear.\"  \n\nWoman: \"I kind of gathered that. My name is Dana.\"  \n\nBob: \"Ok, Dana, what did you expect? 'Hi, I'm Bob, would you like to come back to my place and see my transdimensional refrigerator?'\"\n\n  Dana: (thinking for a moment) \"YES!\"\n\n  Bob: (Picking newspaper back up) \"I've tried that...it never works for a pickup line.\"  \n\nDana: (getting a bit flustered) \"Well, what good is this thing then?\"\n\n  Bob: \"Well, I don't really go in very often. I usually just have Frank or Barry bring me stuff to eat when they're in the area.\"  \n\nDana: \"And who ARE these guys?\"  \n\nBob: \"Just some guys from the back of the top shelf I suppose.\"\n\n  Dana: \"The top shelf? You don't seem to see any problems with this?\"  \n\nBob: (folding over one side of his paper to look at Dana) \"Why? Do you think I should?\"  \n\nDana: (Getting more obviously frustrated) \"What do you mean? You have people traveling through your refrigerator! Doesn't that bother you the slightest bit?\"  \n\nBob: \"Well, it does slightly peeve me when they don't wipe their feet first...\"\n\n  Dana: \"Wipe their feet!?\"\n\n  Bob: \"Yeah, one time I found an elephant footprint in the blasted butter...cost me a whole $10 to replace it.\"\n\n  Dana: \"Why don't you do something about it then?\"\n\n  Bob: \"And give up free Pocky? Are you insane?\"\n\n  Dana: \"And what the hell is this Pocky stuff?\"  \n\nBob: \"That was the silly snack stick I was giving people last night at the club.\"  \n\nDana: \"Oh, that thing the one dude tried smoking?\"  \n\nBob: (Shaking his head) \"Yeah...crazy bastard.\"  \n\n\nend?", "At first i thought i was losing it, i mean sure the previous owner say the house had some tricks, but i never suspected something like this.\n\nIn my house there is a door that can lead to any door, at first i though i just had a nice bedroom, until i realized the view wasn't from my house. \n\nNow like any rational person i started abusing the crap out of it, in 2 months i had traveled the world taken naked pictures of all my crushes and robbed several banks, not to mention found a way to create perpetual energy. but like all great men i desired more, so i experimented, and found out that not only can i create doors to fictional universes (provided they are on earth and have doors) but i could also create doors to my mind if i pictured a door hard enough.\n\nMy mind proved to be a valuable place since it was at my complete control, my first action was to formulate a world in which i was a benevolent god my second action was to leave my mind and make a portal to that world. \n\nI am now content.", "It's normal to open doors in life. \n\nThe first door you open is probably the door to your closet. It's where your clothes are, where you get ready for your day. It's the first step into reality from the land of dreams, the first place you ask to yourself, \"What's going to happen today?\"\n\nSo really, it only makes sense that it's the closet where it happens. It's the closet, the closed door in the little niche of dreams, that leads elsewhere. Away from the bed, away from the sheets, away from home. Even if it's a dead end you're going to.\n\n\"I have a meeting at two, and I'm not awake yet,\" she deadpans, staring at the wide open expanse of grass and flowers spread out before her. Her hand is gripping the door knob, hanging onto it because it's the familiar thing in reach, with its scratches and groves and the hair ties she hangs on it.\n\nSo she squeezes it, knuckles white, and slams the door with a force she didn't know she had at eight AM. \n\nThe sound is like a jolt to her system--it's absurdly loud, ringing in her ears, the echo haunting the room a few seconds more after its departure, and it is then that she knows. Because dreams never felt this real.\n\n\"This can't be happening,\" she growls, \"For God's sake! I'm going to be late--\"\n\nThe door swings open again. And her hand clenches the door knob even tighter this time.\n\nInstead of the grassy field that was there a minute ago, she sees the ocean. It is another wide expanse, a contrasting blue to the green of the previous vision, and she stops and stares. Living in the middle of nowhere means you don't get to see the ocean often. You don't get to see it at all. The closest you get is a puddle of water, or a pool if you're lucky, with the scent of chlorine jamming itself up your nose.\n\nThe ocean is breathtaking. The sound of the waves, sighs and groans and gentle applause, is even more so.\n\n\"I... I have a meeting at two,\" she repeats, voice getting caught in her throat as it cracks, \"And I can't be late. I need to wake up, or else the Big Boss is going to kill me--\"\n\nThe door knob is still in her hand. She doesn't close the door.\n\n\"But... I've always wanted to see the ocean...\"\n\nA step closer, and her foot is falling through thin air. She gasps, reeling back, stumbling really, her hand letting the door knob go as the realization hits--it's not an illusion. It's not a well done paint job. It's not some stupid prank--\n\nIt's real.\n\nThere is a fear curling inside her stomach, a concentrated little bundle of anxiety and cowardice that she can't bear to ignore. What the hell was going on? Is that really--but this is her room, right?--so it couldn't--\n\nCouldn't be...\n\nHer hands clench, blunt nails digging into her palm as she stares at what was supposed to be her closet door. It hangs open, ajar, just enough for her to see the blue blue sky and hear the beckoning of the sea. And she's so, so scared, so absurdly scared because things like this are unnatural and nothing's ever happened quite like this before, but she wants to see because this is the most exciting thing that's happened in her entire life, even if it's strange and scary and--\n\nHer hands push her off the ground as her feet move on their own, and she's racing to the very sight that had scared her.\n\nThe door slams against the wall, having been pushed aside in her excitement. She's not gripping the door knob anymore, she's holding onto the frame of the doorway, leaning over like a child whose greedy eyes were being blocked. The ocean stinks, doesn't smell at all like those fancy perfumes at the mall, but it's weird and new and... she kind of likes it.\n\nThat she has a meeting at two is no longer at the forefront of her mind.\n\n\"If this is a dream, I'm fine with that! Because it's a damn good one!\" she can't help but laugh, and it comes out a bit hysterical, but no one else is around. \n\nWhere she is is up at a decent height above the waves, but she still wants to touch the water. So she bends down, gets on her knees, rests one hand on the wall of her room and stretches the other one far down below, where the wind and the spray of droplets bombards it with no hesitation.\n\nBut she wants to submerge her hand! The want wells inside, impatient and nonsensical.\n\nSo she stretches a bit farther.\n\nAnd farther.\n\nAnd farther.\n\nAnd this is enough, the sea tells her when a wave collides with her hand, and the feeling is so absurd--here she is, bending down in front of her closet door, trying to touch the water like a child--but the accomplishment itself makes her feel utterly satisfied. Her laugh is high, the sound an eager, incredulous scream in truth, but it doesn't matter.\n\nThis is the most ridiculous she's ever felt. And it's the best feeling in the world.", "(( I'm not entirely sure if this counts as a joke response))\n\"Concentrate. Concentrate. Come on, Ivras, you can do this!\"\n\nThe door opened revealing a set of sandy steps going down onto a beach. Ocean waves rippled nearby and the wind scattered sand and salty water into his face. Ivras groaned and he slammed the door shut again. The small stain was slowly growing on his leg. \n\n\"Dang it, Ivras! Concentrate!\"\n\nIvras pushed himself back up from his prone position. Each time he reached up to the doorknob, he felt the oozing grow stronger. The stain grew bigger. The door opened again and a blast and chill air and snow hit his face. He was on a wooden patio this time covered in a tiny blanket of snow. He recognized the gravel road and the nearby sheds and stacks of firewood. He was at his mountain house. This was where he had his honeymoon. Sweet memories that made him smile but could not help him now in his dire moment.\n\nHe slammed the door shut and closed his eyes. He focused on the image of the room he sought. The one that could resolve his problem. No more of his other wants. He had to get it right this time before it was too late. With one last furious groan, he reached up and opened the door. He breathed out a sigh of relief as he saw his white antidote. He pushed boxes and bottles onto the floor and reached up. His hands gently closed around the soft cylinder. He smiled gently at the sight.\n\nIvras twisted around and crawled back across the room toward the toilet. Hoisting himself back onto his throne, he ripped off a few sheets of toilet paper. He happily wiped his butt clean and cleaned up the droppings on his pants. The battle was won and salvation was reached.", "Sitting in my living room, staring at the TV. Rachel Maddow is angry again--man, she's a smart woman, but she gets seriously ragey sometimes. What's she talking about now?\n\n\"I'm not claiming to have a PhD--oh wait, I do. And my thesis was on the HIV problem in American prisons. Wake up, Speaker Boehner. There's a real problem in our prisons, and we need to take a hard look at how we handle our non-violent offenders.\"\n\nI'm chuckling. She has a point: that guy's got no idea what he's doing. Hell, I would love to have a chat with him about some of the issues in the country today. But who am I? Just some junior-level accountant at a mid-sized bank. No one anyone in power would have any interest in talking to. I don't even have the whole \"Joe the Plumber\" thing going for me.\n\n\"Honey, could you take out the trash?\"\n\nOh right.\n\n\"Sorry, Emily, I'll do it right now.\"\n\nI walk over to the kitchen, pull the bag out of the can. Tie it up, head towards the front door. I look over my shoulder. \"Anything for the recycling?\"\n\n\"Who the hell are you?\"\n\nI turn around. Through the door is a big office with a red carpet and flags behind the desk and--holy shit, John Boehner?\n\n\"Uhh. . .\"\n\n\"How the fuck did you get here? Who are you?\"\n\n\"I'm . . . uh. . .\" stupified. But wake up, self. \"I'm Brad. Bradley Jones, uh, Mr. Speaker.\"\n\n\"And Bradley Jones, how the hell did you get in here? I specifically told Marsha no visitors, especially this time of night. I--wait, that doesn't look like Marsha's office out there.\"\n\n\"Sorry to bother you, Mr. Speaker, have a great night!\" I back out through the door and slam it behind me.\n\n\"Was that John Boehner?\" Emily is asking behind me. \"Since when does our front door lead to his office?\"\n\nI can't find words. Finally, I manage, \"Well. . . unless we're having a joint fucking hallucination that was definitely John Boehner's office. Right?\"\n\nShe nods, mouth agape.\n\n\"It's weird, I was just wishing I could talk to him about something. . .\"\n\n\"What is this, a fucking fairy tale? A door that takes you where you want?\"\n\nSuddenly grinning, I reply--\"There's only one way to find out, I guess!\"\n\nI think for a minute. \"Okay. I'm wishing that I could tour the Louvre tonight.\"\n\n\"Brad, you really think--\"\n\nI open the door. Outside is a massive gallery. Holding the door open, I peek around the corner.\n\n\"Yup. That's the Mona Lisa. Smile, babe.\"\n\nEm's mouth is wide open. Flopping. Trying to find words. \"We have a magic. Fucking. Door.\"\n\n\"Yeah. . . hang on a sec.\" \n\nI walk back inside and stop thinking about what I want for a second, then open the door again. My usual view of our front lawn greets me.\n\n\"Well, that's a relief. We can still actually go outside.\"\n\n\"Well, that's--that's a hell of a thing, Brad. Whereto next?\"\n\n\"I'm gonna go back and give Speaker Boehner a piece of my mind!\"\n\nI turn around and open the door.\n\n\"Speaker Boehner, I--holy shit!\"\n\nI slam the door behind me and close my eyes.\n\n\"What's wrong, Brad?\"\n\n\"Uhh. . . nothing. I just didn't know that Secretary Clinton was still that flexible.\"", "I finished up, threw the end of the blunt into the neighbour's yard, and went back into the house. I thought I had smoked too much when I first noticed the door, but then I saw the note.\n\n\"Anywhere, once\". \n\nI was completely certain it was just a door, my parents were probably doing renovations or something. \nJust for kicks I decided to open it. \n\nFuck. That's the view I had from my balcony in the Dominican Republic. I'm tripping.\n\nBut I wasn't. I could close and reopen the door to any place I wanted. Then I remembered the note.\n\n\"Once\"\n\nI knew that when I walked through, that would be it. I wasn't sure if I would be able to come back through or not, but I was pretty sure I could only pick one spot. \n\nIn my freshly baked state of mind, I set out to the store just to clear my head (and grab some Cruncheez. Those things are fucking good). \n\nAs I got to my front step, I felt immediately like a genius and an idiot at the same time. Why am I walking? I have this fucking door! \n\nAs I approached the door, however, the note caught my eye again\n\n\"Once\"\n\nWell fuck, better not use it for the store, just in case it really is a one time use. \n\nThe following year I moved to a small city in Italy for a Summer. A place I would have loved to stay. Did I use the door? No. I brought it though, just in case.\n\nThe year after I moved back home. I had a huge amount of stuff, but left everything behind, except for the door. \n\nA couple years later I married. She was an excellent person, beautiful, and intelligent. There was always one thing that bothered me though, and that was I could never tell her about the door. I realized, just after signing the divorce papers, the door is my only secret.\n\nBy being my only secret, it was my biggest source of lies. Every time something crossed my mind, I would think \"how long will I have to leave the door alone\", or \"do they know?! are they trying to steal my door?!\n\nBoom. Back in my house. Still craving Cruncheez. Holding the note from the door in my hand, I just realized I tripped out hard. Man, I must have looked like an idiot just standing in my living room holding some piece of paper for like twenty minutes. Shit. I shouldn't smoke so much weed. Oh well, better use this door to get some Crucheez before I space out again.\n\nFuck I love Cruncheez.", "Lack of sleep makes people remember things incorrectly, so I didn't think anything was strange when I woke up one night with a massive need to use the washroom. I flew out of bed, ran into the hallway, and entered the first door on the left. I did my business, climbed back into bed, and fell back asleep. The next morning, I woke up and once again headed to the bathroom, second door on the left, like always. \n\nWait a minute, the second door?\n\nI paused and looked at the doors. The first door was the hall closet and could barely fit a single person inside, let alone an entire bathroom. I opened it up, expecting to see my vacuum cleaner and the containers I had used to carry my stuff when I moved in. Sure enough, there they were, sitting in the same spots I had left them last time. I chalked the events of the previous night up to lack of sleep and went back to my usual routine.\n\nA few weeks later, I woke up late and was in a hurry to get to work. I grabbed a shower, brushed my teeth and got dressed as fast as I could, glancing at the clock on my dresser as I grabbed my keys and phone. 8:57. Damn. I would have been lucky to get in at 9:30 at that rate. I decided to make a quick bowl of oatmeal in my kitchen when, in my rush to get everything ready quickly, I dropped the open pouch of oatmeal I was carrying onto the ground. Well, great. Now I had a mess to clean up, and I wouldn't get to eat breakfast. I grabbed the vacuum cleaner from the hall closet, sucked up all the errant oats and cinnamon flavouring, and went to return it to the hall closet, wishing I'd be able to make it on time. I opened the closet door and instead of a tiny, claustrophobia-inducing closet, I saw rows of offices and cubicles. I stopped, put down the vacuum, and stared, taken aback by what was going on. I definitely wasn't imagining things this time - I was looking right into the office building I worked at. As I stared, trying to make sense of what was going on, one of the guys I worked with, Jacob, noticed me and walked up to talk. \"Morning. You okay? What's the vacuum for?\" he asked. I needed to think quickly, because saying \"Well, this office is in my hall closet\" is the kind of thing that gets you sent home for the day.\n\nI briefly considered the implications of stepping through a portal that randomly appeared in a closet one day, but I figured if I was dreaming, I'd wake up soon, and if not, I'd get to work on time, so I might as well go for it. I stepped forward into the office and replied, \"Yeah, I'm fine, just didn't get a whole lot of sleep, I guess. One of the janitors must have left the vacuum there. Anyways, I'll talk to you later, I've probably got a bunch of e-mails that I need to answer.\" Jacob nodded and walked past me. I turned to look as he walked by, and noticed that I had apparently stepped out of the elevator, my apartment nowhere to be seen. I walked to my desk and sat down, trying to make sense of everything that had happened. Had I really just teleported from home to my office? Was I hallucinating? I decided to try and focus on getting work done, but I couldn't do a whole lot in my mental state. I got up to leave as soon as everyone was starting to head home, foregoing my usual goodbyes. As I pressed the elevator call button, it hit me - would I be able to get back the same way? The doors slid open and instead of my apartment, I saw the inside of the elevator. Did I need to open the back wall or something? I stepped in and started feeling around the back of the elevator, hoping for some kind of release or button that I had to press, but it was solid all the way through. I sighed and hit the ground floor button, realizing that I'd have to catch a bus back home.\n\nI got home almost an hour later than I normally do. The bus service here is so bad that the only thing you can count on is the bus being late. I kicked off my shoes and headed back to the hall closet. The vacuum cleaner was still there from where I had left it that morning, but the closet door was once again closed. I decided to try it again, thinking of my bathroom like I had done a few weeks before. I opened the door, and sure enough, there was my bathroom. I walked through, ending up just a few feet away, and walked back out to the hallway, where the door had once again closed itself.\n\n\"This is amazing,\" I excitedly thought to myself. \"I can go anywhere I want at any time!\" Where would I go first? Tahiti? The Bahamas? I started thinking of all the places I could go when I remembered my 50 minute bus trip earlier today - it was a one-way door, after all. Without a way to get back, using this door would be a massive pain in the ass. I sighed and went to take a shower. It had been a long day, and I needed some time to think about everything. As I stood under the hot water, I thought long and hard. The door could send things through, but they couldn't come back...\n\nWhat if I let other people use the door?\n\nI got a lot of skepticism at first. Would you believe that some random guy could throw something into his closet and have it pop up on the other side of the world, after all? Eventually, though, people started taking me up on my offer. Word of mouth started to spread, and before long, I was making lots of money as the world's only instant delivery service. I earned enough to buy out my entire apartment complex and have it converted into a distribution center. The only thing I didn't change was that one hall closet.\n\nSo, need something delivered? It's environmentally-friendly, delivery is instant, and the price is fair - just so long as your goods aren't bigger than my closet door." ]	8
	[WP] The 99% are left on a post-apocalyptic Earth where infantry/ground style warfare is the standard again. A small, almost ignorable, clan finds the last copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War.	[ "I'm sorry for not answering your prompt directly, but The Art of War is less about tactics and more about strategy and the importance of military intelligence. It is also highly overrated. If you are looking for a good manual on sword-and-shield era tactics, read the Strategikon, a Byzantine military handbook. Sorry for turning this into a /r/askahistorian thread.\n\nAlso, by 99% on a post-apocalyptic Earth, do you mean an \"Elysium\" type situation? In that case, why don't people have guns?", "Ennis Khan leads his quivering warhorse Princess to the gates of the impregnable Alamo Mall. \n\n\"I am the punishment of the gods!\" he cries. \"If you had not hoarded all the delicious imperishable snack food, the gods would not have sent a scourge such as I!\"\n\n\"Many fucks on you, Ennis Khan!\" spit back the brave defenders of the Alamo. \"Go back on the horse you rode on and don't mess with Tek-sas!\"\n\n\"Raiders!\" screams Ennis Khan. At his command, fourscore skirmishers assemble, their shopping-cart chariots glinting in the sun. \n\n\"CHARGE!\"\n\nThe air is filled with the sound of battle. Ennis Khan watches the bloodshed with a faint smile upon his face. \n\nCome the morning, the iceboxes and pantries of Alamo General Mall and Shopping Centre will be his to command. What he can use, he shall take. The rest shall burn. " ]	2
I had further clarification here, but I trust that as writers you know what you're doing and I don't want to spoil anything for the readers with further suggestions.	[WP] [potentially NSFW] A study discovers that a spree of suicides is linked to visitors of a certain website. Someone visits that site for the first time.	[ "My name is Caleb Watkins. Today, I am going to kill myself. My week started like any other, school, work, cleaning the house, a few video games. Then, last Thirsday, I was browsing reddit (/r/wtf, I think) and saw an article abou a website that causes people to kill themselves. Being curious, I went to the comments and found a link to the site. What I found there was astonishing. As I sat there, I felt a prescence come through my monitor and fill me up. Like the feeling you get after a good sleep. The being spoke to me, telling me the secrets of the world and life and happiness. Then he told me one more thing: \"you no longer have need for your flesh. Shed it and join me in the Etherial Sphere. Darkness overcame me. I woke up in my chair a few hours later haunted by those memories, and jiggled my mouse to wake my computer. The adress bar still contained the website, but the page read \"server no found\". After thinking on all this, I have decided to ascend as the being asked. My name is Caleb Watkins, and today I am going to kill myself\n\nEdit: a word", "\"The cause remains unclear, yet investigators have found a link between the seemingly unrelated suicides across the world, from Canada to Tajikstan. This link is to a website, which only a few have been able to see, and whose name has not been released.\"\n\nMy curiosity was piqued. Unemployment hadn't been treating me well this past few months, and all I had to do was masturbate and go online. Usually at the same time. I wasn't really expecting to find anything, but the little thrill it would give me would be mice, I suppose. After a few hours of research, through forums, I was finally able to find the elusive url.\n\nhttp://www.beginningtoend.com\n\nPLEASE ENTER YOUR NAME\n \nObviously I wasn't going to use my real name. I entered BILL GATES.\n\nWELCOME SHAWN, PLEASE ALLOW A FEW MINUTES FOR US TO ACCESS YOUR INFORMATION.\n\nOkay, what? This was kind've freaking me out now. Shawn was my real name, but not the name I'd given. I calmed myself by thinking maybe it had just gone through my ISP.\n\nWELL SHAWN, ARE YOU READY? THERE IS NO TURNING BACK AFTER THIS: Y/N\n\nI'd come this far, I wasn't stopping now. I clicked yes. Suddenly, a huge list comes out of nowhere. Beginning with a date, and ending with a phrase. There must have been thousands of lines as I scrolled down. I read one about half way down the list.\n\nMARCH 22ND, 2004: AFTER SLIPPING AN UNKNOWN DRUG IN CHELSEA TANNERS DRINK, YOU HAD SEX WITH HER UNCONCIOUS BODY, ONLY TO FIND OUT THAT SHE HAD BEEN HOSPITALIZED THE NEXT DAY.\n\n\"What the...\", I keot scrolling, and my head kept pounding.\n\nDECEMBER 24TH, 2007: AFTER A NIGHT OF HEAVY DRINKING, YOU REALIZED THAT YOU'D DRIVEN HOME AND HIT SOMEOJE. THEY WERE FOUND THE NEXT DAY. IF THEY'D BEEN FOUND SOON ENOUGH, THEY WOULD HAVE SURVIVED. INSTEAD OF FACING THE CONSEQUENCES, OR EVEN CALLING AN AMBULANCE, YOU FLED HOME.\n\nThis was making me sick. I remembered that Christmas night. It had been my first alone, my first without my friends and family. I hadn't recalled this specific event. I was in disbelief. How did they know all of this? How had this all heen discovered? What if this information went public? Rape, murder, theft, my life would be ruined. Still in a state of disbelief, I scrolled to the bottom. I must have been pale, shaking as I read the last entry. It was for tomorrow.\n\nJUNE 12TH, 2014: AFTER SETTING YOUR AFFAIRS IN ORDER AND SAYING YOUR GOODBYES, YOU PURCHASE A GUN. YOU HOLD IT TO YOUR TEMPLE, SAFE WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THOUGH YOU'LL BE DEAD, YOUR HISTORY WILL NOT HE REVEALED.\n\nTHANK YOU FOR USING OUR WEBSITE. GOODBYE SHAWN.\n\n" ]	2
	[WP] An astronaut on a permanent manned mission to Mars relies on packages sent intermittently from Earth for survival. They are in communication with NASA but the world is on the brink of nuclear war which will devastate all governmental services	[ "\"John you still there?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nminutes passed between responses. The laws of light speed were a bit different than international borders. They were unchangeable.\n\n\"We wanted to say thanks again for manning the fort.\"\n\n\"We might be killing you but you don't deserve to die alone.\"\n\n\"Speaking of, how much of the Narifum could you send.\"\n\n\"The rockets queued up. six years worth but that new com sat you guys were meant to get got dumped. But it won't launch unless they launch the nukes. If we send it they will think it's an early strike. The reality is you will probably run out of the drug long before this standoff ends. I swear though I'll launch it if I can. I give you my word on that.\"\n\n\"Roger that Houston. Err John rather. Bill and Аркадий have decided to take that walk. In this time of war they are going to race, friendly like. See who can get up the great mountain the farthest before the oxygen runs out. Give me and Mary some extra time. I tried talking them out of it. But they are determined. Day after tomorrow, our time.\"\n\n\"Get some sleep guys.\"\n\n\"Launch is a go! Repeat launch is a go! Rocket is away. New York and Washington are gone, California, Michigan, Ohio, Kanas, Wyoming, Iowa. 71 confirmed nuke strikes and counting. Europe is glowing red we don't know if-\n\n\"John! John! We lost your comm. John I hope this is the worlds best joke! John please respond. Houston please respond. This is laGrange mission four to any earthlings, please respond.\"", "Sometimes a conversation with home could take all day. When the latency got to be too long, it was easier to just swap letters or recordings, but the comms room was always crowded when it go to be short enough. \n\nJane Kidd did not have much in the way of family back home, however. Most of the others treated the comm as a lifeline to what they’d left behind. Looking backwards. She’d lived her life trying to look forward, which was part of why she’d volunteered for Aries Five, the first manned mission. As the youngest of the bunch at forty-five, the others always referred to her as Kiddo, though most went by their first names. Formality was something they’d left behind. Everyone had a nickname of some sort, a role in the hierarchy. She’d rather be “Kiddo” than “Fart.” Funny how the elderly could be just as childish as schoolchildren. \n\nThough, “young at heart” was one of the criteria for Aries Five, so Jane figured she shouldn’t be too surprised. \n\nThe mission had been to pick up the Aries project where the machines had left off, and make Mars Base One—Toonitty, as the new residents dubbed it—safer for permanent human habitation. They were, all twelve of them, spry, sharp, and past their primes, but they didn’t need to be at their physical peaks. The real heavy labor was handled by bots. But remote control and cameras could only take the project so far. \n\nThe radiation would harm them, but most didn’t expect to live long enough to have to face the more serious consequences. The women were mostly past childbearing age—Jane hadn’t hit menopause before launch, so she’d opted for a hysterectomy. \n\nThis first generation of the Toonitty colony was to pave the way for the real colonists, the ones who would be born, live, and die on Mars. The current plan was to bring them over in another ten years or so, once the Aries Five team expanded the cave network deeply enough to keep pregnant women safe. \n\nShe worked while most of the others packed into the comms room like a bunch of sardines. She didn’t resent them for it, maintaining the bonds of family was important to the project. The grandchildren of Aries Five would be among the first choices for the colonists; Aries Five would leave a mostly safe, mostly habitable Toonitty to them as their legacy. Jane didn’t care much about legacy. She cared about the lower gravity being kind to her knees and hips, and to a slightly lesser extent, she cared about the future of humanity itself. \n\nNew Angeles In The Sky was all well and good, but it only held five thousand people, and expansion plans were plagued by funding difficulties. Humans did not thrive in microgravity, and the artificial gravity sections of the city station were unreliable, at best. Toonitty would be home to at least a million, in time, and it would be the springboard to other cave cities. Mars was to be prime real estate. There was already extensive groundwork to establish Phobos Base for the belt miners and from there, perhaps the stars themselves. \n\nThey kept with Cape Canaveral time, ignoring the slightly longer local day. That evening, the dinner table was grim. They were a close-knit bunch, Aries Five, and Jane did not have to wait long before Curly spoke up. He kept his hair buzzed short, but he still had a full head of it. “Things are heating up back there,” he told her quietly, stirring his share of the broth. The next “delivery” in a few months would bring their first livestock. Chickens. Jane didn’t know what they’d do with chickens. The farms and gardens were doing well, the algae tanks and air machines were doing their jobs, but—Jane cut off her wandering thoughts. The broth came from a can, which always seemed wrong to her, but tasted decent enough. \n\n“Heating up?” she asked. He nodded, but looked over at Sherry to continue. \n\n“You know how they sort through the letters we get, right?” A push in the right direction would make Sherry a dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist, but in this case, they all knew she wasn’t jumping at ghosts. “They censor out anything about current events. The AV feeds, those have the young’uns on an extra delay to bleep out the stuff they don’t want us to hear. They feed us tripe and tell us it’s prime rib. But my boy, my Benjamin, he got a message through in our own code, and it’s looking dark.” \n\nCurly clarified. “The gist of it, Kiddo, is that international relations are breaking down with Russia and China. Everyone’s got their fingers on the red buttons.” \n\n“The kids are being taught ‘Duck and Cover’ again in schools,” Addy commented. She’d had five kids, and half of her grandchildren were still school aged. “But they know better. It’s a wiser generation we raised than the one our parents knew. The chickens are still on schedule, those launched last year, they can’t really call the delivery back now. But the next launch…” she trailed off. “Horace got all hedgy about it when we brought it up.” \n\n“That’s what worries us, Kiddo.” Bart—Fart, as they called him—hadn’t shaved, and his chin was crusted with tiny, prickly white hairs that resembled salt crystals. He bore the nickname with a certain grace. “You know Horace, he’s a straight talker. It’s what I always liked about him, he doesn’t beat around the bush. But ‘hedgy’ is definitely the word for how he avoided answering our questions. He’d just put the next grandkid on, and let us be distracted by their dinosaur dioramas.” \n\n“There’s nothing we can do about it,” Jane pointed out, trying to sound firm. None of them was really in charge, they’d agreed on that about a month into the trip out here. Instead, each was in charge of their own specialty. Jane tended to be the one to smooth over inter-personal conflicts. “We’ll just keep doing what we came here to do, and hope Earth sorts itself out. It usually does.” \n\nThis seemed to calm some of the edgier members of the group. They got back to eating. \n\n----- \n\nThe chickens arrived intact. A variety of heirloom species, in the hopes that at least one or two of the hardier breeds would do well in their new tunnel homes. Along with them came a variety of bugs. Mealworms, earthworms, honeybees, crickets. The crickets especially delighted some of the group—the caves had a tendency toward uncomfortable silence, and the chirping of crickets would add some pleasant ambiance. \n\nThings back on Earth did not seem to be settling down, but the international tensions were a slow-burning fuse. Aries was a primarily United States and Canadan venture, so the situation on the homeworld did not translate too much to Mars. But Horace at Cape Canaveral continued to avoid their questions, and video chats with family became more and more rare. Sherry Reeve’s grandson got a few more messages through in their code, up until someone in Florida finally figured out that he was the one keeping Aries Five fully informed. \n\nAt that point, messages were sent by text only, and were rephrased by the censors to obscure any possible codes. \n\nThey decided to keep the Comms room manned at all times, taking turns at the radio. Uneasy years passed. Horace wouldn’t talk about the second Colonist Launch, except to say “everything is fine. We’re on schedule.” \n\n“Aries Five—Toonitty—this is the Cape, can you hear me? Um. Over?” The voice was anxious, out of breath, and there were odd banging noises in the background. Jane adjusted her microphone and flipped the switch. \n\n“This is Jane Kidd at Toonitty, I read you, over.” She didn’t expect a response for twenty minutes or so, but the voice crackled back on long before the person on the other side could have received her voice. \n\n“Damnit, I don’t have time for the lag. Look. This is Ben Reeves. The world is ending over here, most of the big cities are just—gone. Before the grid went down, there were something like fifty-seven ICBMS counted. I don’t even know.” There was a bleak sort of horror in his voice, but it firmed up into determination as he continued. \n\n“We’ve stolen Aries Ten. We’re on our way. Uh. I hope there is someone listening over there. Please be listening. The ship, it’s not entirely done but it’s done enough for us. I mean, it’s not going to get more done at this point. It’s all falling apart here, the world that is, and we’re just … trying to take the only lifeboat we’ve got, you know? We won’t have comms until we’re in CB range. Trip should take six to ten months, we expect. We’re launching right away, and we’ll just have to make things up on the trip. We’ve got almost everyone, and … and more. Tell my Granny Sherry that I love her. Pray that nobody shoots us down. Try to get in touch with New Angeles. Over.” \n\n" ]	2
You head into the bathroom at work, walk into a stall and close the door. Moments later, as you leave the stall, you notice two people standing there and there’s one major problem: They are of the opposite sex. On the spot, you make up an excuse as to why you are in their bathroom.	[WP] Oops, wrong bathroom!	[ "\"Eh, um, Jork,\" I babbled.\n\nTwo women, Stacy from accounts and Amanda, who was notorious for something no one remembered stood there awkwardly.\n\n\"Did you just say 'Jork'?\" Amanda asked.\n\n\"No,\" I blushed, \"Jolt, there is an electrical problem in this bathroom?\"\n\n\"In the toilet,\" Stacy smirked, \"Are you asking us or telling us?\"\n\n\"No, I mean--\" \n\nAmanda interrupted, \"Why is your phone in your hand, what were you doing?\" She covered the neck of her blouse and I held my phone up for some reason saying, \"No, I was using it to check.\"\n\nStacy looked down at my open fly and doubted, \"You were using your phone to check for Jolts in the toilet?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I let out, \"no, I have this app,\" pretending, \"to check for studs, I was trying to see if there was a stud behind the tiles and that might tell me where the lose wire is.\"\n\nI zipped up my pants and Amanda realized, \"Don't you work in the mail room?\"\n\n\"I do,\" I admitted, \"but Wallace asked me to check it out.\"\n\n\"Who is Wallace?\" they asked in unison.\n\n\"The electrician,\" I smiled as they shot each other speculative looks. \n\n\"Hey,\" I tried, \"if you don't believe me, just go in there and touch the seat, Samantha in reception said she got zapped so hard it nearly gave her an org--organ spasm.\"\n\nStacy and Amanda looked into the stall and I feared they would test my bluff; yet, before I had time to escape, Stacy made a vomit sound and said, \"Did you forget to flush?\"\n\nI looked over their shoulders to see a brown disaster in the toilet and jumped back, \"No, it was like that when I came in. If you touch the handle, you get zapped. Try it if you don't believe me, just don't get upset if you get hurt.\"\n\nStacy and Amanda sighed and left the bathroom.\n\nedit\n\nspelling\n", "\"What the hell are you looking at?\" I raged.\n\nIt was my last day, I had stopped caring a long time ago. I had always wanted to screw with the people I hated most in the office: James from sales, Katie from accounts receivable, and Leah, the VP of this pathetic business. \n\nFor James: the above sentence was uttered as I stumbled out of the stall in the men's bathroom, completely drunk. \n\"You say a word, I'll accuse you of sexual harassment, James.\" \n\n\"Are you drunk?\" \n\n\"Yeah, what of it?\" \n\n\"Why are you in the men's bathroom?\"\n\n\"Because why not?\"\n\n\nI wasn't intending on this being my revenge, but alcohol is a helluva drug.\n\nEDIT: Formatting\n", "\"So not only did I have to remember what I had gone to the palace for and express it in coherent sentences while pretending the queen was not experiencing what I feel future generations will term a nip-slip, I had to do it while simultaneously controlling my raging bowel - what, everyone told me I was crazy and that Northerners aren't exactly popular in the capital right now and I was going there to complain about what the fucking royal soldiers had done to me farm, so yeah it was a full emergency evacuation situation. This is not a drill, motherfucker! Anyways, simultaneously controlling my raging bowel and trying to hide a boner bigger than the Wall. But I said my piece, they told me to fuck off and I was actually just happy enough to be leaving with my head on my shoulders. But I still needed to dump, so I sort of wandered off the tour route and went looking for a john. So I find a likely looking door and I open it, and fuck me if it isn't Tywin Lannister with an arrow through his colon. Man, and I thought I had bowel issues. I was almost on the point of finding it funny when I realised the position I was in. Northerner come to ask for payment for a ransacked farm, request denied and found standing over dead Tywin Lannister. The first thing that happened is that my bowel issue resolved itself by simply emptying. The next is that I was aware that there were footsteps coming around the corner. I just said \"Oops, wrong bathroom\" and hurried the fuck away off. Almost walked into the guard who was walking up. \"It's occupied\" I said to him and kept walking before he could register the smell of my recent relief. I hear they didn't find him for a while after, and I guess the guard kept his mouth shut about me for fear of a flaying if he admitted to having me right there and letting me walk away. So what do you say fellas, would you call old Tywin's death a fatality or a fecality?\"", "I swung open the stall door and upon realising my error immediately tried to close it again. Too late.\n\n\"Stephen is that you?\"\n\nYes it was me. She knew it was me, I knew it was me and soon enough the entire office would know it was me... in the women's bathroom. I eased the door open.\n\n\"Oh. Hi Tammy. Hi Sarah\" was about all I could muster. Sarah returned to her make-up.\n\n\"Come here often?\" Tammy quipped, her face as stern as always.\n\n\"Haha yeah-NO, never!\" I quickly corrected myself as I recalled I was talking to a manager. You never quite knew where you stood with Tammy. She was always making witty comments but I had not once seen her laugh. Unlike Mark who seemed to laugh so much it was a wonder he did any actual work.\n\n\"Mark... dared me to come in here\" I blurted. I could see here weighing up the situation, her gaze piercing through my confident demeanour to the trembling fool within. My heart was pounding on my ribcage. I sensed she could hear that too.\n\n\"Mark's an idiot. Get out before I decide I did see you in here\" she said turning to face the mirror once more. I didn't need a second invitation.", "NSFW NSFW THIS IS BASICALLY PORN\n\n(Sorry if porn isn't allowed, but it's creative and it's writing.)\n\n\"Oops. Wrong bathroom.\"\n\nJack stood motionless. Amanda had just gotten out of her shower. Standing there naked, fully exposed. It drove Jack wild.\n\n\"Oh, you're fine. Trust me. You can go.\" Jack walked over to the toilet and dropped his pants. Amanda, who had been eyeing him the entire time, smiled and bit her lip. \"Having trouble?\" Jack's member was noticeably erect.\n\n\"Here, I've got you.\" Amanda walked over and placed one hand on his shaft, guiding his stream. After he finished, she kept her hand there. She began slowly moving her hand, around his shaft.\n\n\"Good Christ, Amanda.\" Jack was loving every minute of this. His boss, nude, stroking him off as the party continued two rooms away. This was his ultimate fantasy.\n\nAs Jack finished up, Amanda caught his semen in her hand. Putting it to her lips, she swallowed the entirety of it. She licked her lips and rose to her feet. \n\nJack returned to the party, alone. Mark walked up to him and elbowed him in the ribs. \"What happened? Fall in?\" Jack nudged his friend back. \"Nah, I ran into your wife.\" \"Oh, haha. You and my wife. That'll be the day.\"\n\n\"What about your wife?\" Amanda had appeared at their side. \"Oh, nothing babe. Nothing at all.\"", "Pulling up my pants, I grab another piece of toilet paper and press the flush handle with it. I am not sure why I always do that, oh well.\n\nStepping out of the stall, I catch the eyes of my boss through the reflection of the mirror. \n\n\"Uh... other bathroom was full...\"\n\nRaising a solitary eyebrow, she finally stops looking at me and goes back to applying her make up. \n\nI stand there awkwardly for a few seconds, but then figure what the hell, I was already in there. So I wash my hands, take a few seconds to dry my hands in the air dryer, and calmly exit. " ]	6
	[WP] You and your 5 year old kid are survivors of a zombie apocalypse. Traveling through the woods, you see...	[ "I don't know where I'm going. All the trees look the same the farther I run. I keep running until the only thing I hear is her sobbing. I understand though, she just watched a whole group of them tear through our camp killing everyone. I guess I'm just too busy getting her somewhere safe to be upset about the loss of my friends.\nI slow down to a walk as we approach a clearing. I stop and set her down about ten feet from the clearing. I try to calm her down but she just keeps crying. I know they could be close and they would hear her. I couldn't afford to be nice anymore.\n\"You need to be quiet right fucking now,\" I said as quiet and stern as possible.\nIt seemed to have worked, she was quiet and staring at me. Staring past me. Looking just over my shoulder. I realized what was happening as I watched her mouth drop open. I tried to turn but it was too late, its hands were on me and I heard it moan. It pulled me to the ground as she screamed out in terror.\n\"Run!\" I yelled, \"get the fuck out of here! Run!\"\nI watched her disappear into the trees as it bit into my face. I felt my cheek and nose tearing away as I closed my eyes.\nMy eyes opened and I saw them eating me. I was standing over my corpse watching them devour my face and I remembered her running. \nIn no time I was with her, I knew she couldn't see me but at least she was ok. I watched her stop by a stream and sit on a tree that had fallen. I knew they were still coming, and she needed to move. I tried moving rocks and branches to get her attention. I was finally able to get a twig to fall onto her shoulder. She jumped up and turned. The wrong way.\nThere was nothing I could do but watch as they grabbed her and tore into her and she screamed. One of them that looks as if its face was eaten off bit into her throat and she stopped screaming.\nI tried...", "\"Daddy, can we please slow down now?\" Her voice echoes in my ears and i desperately wish that I could, but the car's on fire and when that reaches the ammunition in the trunk it's going to bring every decomposed son of a bitch down on top of us. I swear to God I thought I could make that jump. The city was on fire behind us and I had no idea that the bridge was out.\n\n\"Sorry, sweetheart, you gotta be tough for me. Please. Just a little further and we can slow down. I swear.\" She's so strong, so tough that it brings a tear to my eye to think of my sweet angel having to grow up in this world. This world were the people that we used to know and love are trying to kill. This world where they're trying to eat us.\n\nI hear the popping sound of the bullets from the trunk of the car as the gunpowder ignites from the heat. No time now. We gotta run until we find someplace to lay low. Until I can find another car. I swing the 12 gauge over my right shoulder and scoop up my little girl and swing her over the left shoulder. It's risky: if we get cornered, I won't have a weapon handy. But she's too tired to run and her little legs just can't keep up with mine... or keep up with those things chasing us.\n\nThe woods around town grow dense, almost too dense to see through and I'm afraid I'll stumble over a log and turn an ankle. Or run into one of the dead behind a large tree. I push forward, slower, more cautiously, but still with a sense of urgency. We can't stop. Not here. There's no place to hide and when the sun goes down, they'll move through here and tear anyone living they find to pieces. Including me. Including Sara. The sun is starting to move towards the Western horizon, and I feel a cold chill down my spine. We need to find somewhere to hide before nightfall. We have to.\n\nI let Sara walk again to give myself a little rest. She has no problem keeping close, her little hand clutching mine tightly. She doesn't understand everything, but she knows that there are monsters and that's good enough for right now. Christ, she's only five. She should be playing hopscotch and going to kindergarten, not being chased through the woods by corpses. Corpses that can run. Corpses that can eat.\n\nThe forest thins out and I know we're getting close to the interstate. If I can find a car, we'll still have a chance. We can make a break and find a house down the road to hunker down in and fortify. Get more supplies and then press on. I don't know to where, but the city's on fire behind us. That's when I see it. And I know we're right by the interstate, because I'm staring at a strip mall with a Chuck E. Cheese standing in it. The only one in the city. The same one where I took Dylan when he was little. Where I never got the opportunity to take Sara. She doesn't miss a beat, bless her heart: \"Daddy, what's that?\"\n\n\"Sweetheart, it's the most fun place in the world. And we're going to stay there tonight.\" She squeals in excitement, a noise that I haven't heard in so long. Too long. I pick her back up and run across the road, keeping my head on a swivel as I do so. We're in the clear and the doors to the restaurant are all locked. Which means it should be safe. I pick the lock in the back and enter the building with Sara behind me. The light on my shotgun illuminates every corner, every nook and cranny. There's nothing here. It's safe. When I tell her she can play, she takes off running faster than I ever saw her outrunning the zombies. She's laughing. I lock the backdoor carefully and move some objects in front of it for extra protection. The place won't be safe for long; it's too close to the city. But at least for tonight, we can stay here where a kid can be a kid." ]	2
	[WP] While channel surfing, you find out you won your state's Senate Mid-term election	[ "\"...and with that putt, Barnes moves to one under...\"\n\nflip flip flip\n\n\"...I'll tell you steven, nobody saw this coming. Nobody.\" A mildly attractive newswoman explains to her fellow anchor. \n\nHooked by her tone I read the headline at the bottom of the screen.\n\n\"What the fuck!\" the statement jumps out of me.\n\nThe newswoman continues, \" Cameron Joseph , the man they're calling Average Joe will now be called Senator Average Joe as he has managed to win Pennsylvania's Mid-term Senate Election.\"\n\nCould I even be a Senator? Of course I could. People like me, people agree with what I have to say. I've been a hell of a leader my whole life. I volunteer at my Mom's church every year for that one thing. I had like a 3.5 gpa in college!\n\n\"Following Ex-senator Malcolm Prescott's social media scandal, Cameron Joeseph was not an obvious candidate by any means; however, his campaign spring boarded after his success in Pittsburg's City Council.\"\n\nI live in Erie, I'm not on Pittsburg's City Council...\"\n\n\"Oh shit...\" out loud to myself, \"different Cameron Joseph, LOL\"\n\n\"Damn I'm retarded.\"", "A stain was forming on my socks from the drops of drool sliding out of my mouth. I was leaned forward on my couch staring through the 24\" tv in my not so spacious 1 bedroom apartment. Some newswoman with nice hair was trying to convince me who North Carolina's new senator was. \"...Skyler Black\", she said. \n\nI was Skyler Black.\n\n\"We don't know much about him, but we do know this is the first time in the history of our state, of our nation in fact, that a write-in has won the position of Senator.\"\n\nI reached for my phone, 328 messages, 95 missed calls. \n\nI started to dial.\n\n\"Hello, thank you for choosing Papa Johns my name is Jason....\"\n\nI sat glued to the couch, watching the confused news anchors read through every google result my name brought up. The doorbell rang.\n\n\"Hello Mr. Blac..!\" \n\nI pulled the middle aged pizza delivery man into my living room.\n\n\"What does that TV say?!\", I yelped out to him. \n\n\"Military forces in Crimea held back by...\"\n\n\"Not the crawl, read the headline\", I ordered. \n\n\"Skyler Black elec-malkdhagisuhfakslh\"\n\nMy mind went numb when he read my name. \"Are you sure?\", I asked.\n\n\"Yes...wait sir, thats you. Oh my god. That's you. Holy Shit!\"\n\nHe reached out his hand, his excitement must've distracted him from the dumbfounded face in front of him. My limp hand met his. My body fell to the couch, my eyes stared back at the news analysts confused on how to analyze this situation. \n\nThey didn't know the half of it.\n\n30 minutes passed and I was only certain of two things. First, my phone had long since died and second, I still had the same dumbfounded face. Jason on the other hand had opened up the pizza and made himself at home.\n\n\"Got anything to drink?\", Jason asked, already halfway through his second slice of pizza.\n\n\"in the fridge, uhhh water\", were the words my mouth made. The words a Senator's mouth made.\n\n\"So what are you going to do now?\", echoed the voice of the papa johns driver.\n\n\"...I don't know\", my mind woke up, \"would you mind giving me a ride?\"\n\n\"Where to?\" \n\n\"I guess Washington.\"\n\n\n", "No. Nope. Just saw that. I hate when nothing is on. That's why I never watch cable anymore. Streaming is where it's at. I was just trying to see what the world was into today. I may as well go back to my blog. \n\nWhat? I think I saw my name. It's not very common, that's interesting. Wait. This doesn't seem right. Why do they have my picture? Did I do something? I don't remember doing anything. I work, and I bitch. That's about it. My only joy, my only savior, is my escape in my words. The place where I let it all out. I don't know who reads it. I don't care. I have to talk about everything that is killing humanity. \n\nThis is real. I think. I'm starting to get really worried. Turning up the volume I hear \"....in a landslide, unprecedented victory, the candidate has won the Mid-term election. They were elected by the constituents, the victory stands.\"\n\nI did what, now?! I mean, I have a few people who like my stuff, but..... This has to be a joke. Someone's knocking. I hear a lot of commotion outside. Clanging noises, and drum beats coming from far away, getting louder as they move in this direction. I hear someone chanting. It's starting to build. It's my name. \n\nOh, shit. ", "\"Awww, fuck man!\" Joe shouted and threw down the black plastic gamepad he'd been clutching. My own drooped, then slipped from my hands. The angry red light of hard drive failure glared out of the front of my nice, new Xbox One. A birthday gift to myself, to celebrate thirty years of life and mark the unceremonious, and brutal, exit of my most recent ex-girlfriend from my life. She'd moved out the day before, and had offered no explanation.\n\n\"You've got to be kidding me,\" I sighed, and flopped back onto the couch. \"I swear to God, I've got the shittiest luck.\"\n\n\"No kidding,\" Joe said. \"How long have you had this thing?\"\n\n\"Three months, maybe?\" I said. \"I dunno.\" I moaned, then kicked the coffee table in an expression of vague disgust with the world, as if the scratched oak of the table could somehow stand in for the deep injustice of an uncaring world. It, being a coffee table, just slid about a foot across the laminate flooring instead. \"God damn, am I broke. I hope that thing's under warranty.\"\n\n\"It should be,\" Joe said. We sat there for a minute, staring at the blank, black screen. Neither of us bothered to turn off the broken Xbox.\n\n\"You wanna catch a movie instead?\" I asked eventually. Joe pulled out his phone and looked at it.\n\n\"Dude, it's almost nine-thirty. Everything'll have already started.\" He started to put it away, then paused and fiddled with the thing. I reached over and picked up the TV remote. \"Hey, it's Barry,\" Joe said. \"He's wondering if I'm with you.\"\n\n\"So?\" I asked, flipping the TV over to cable. Comedy Central sprung to life; Jon Stewart was finishing his show. At least I could watch Colbert. Commercials. \"You vote today?\" I asked. I'm not sure why, even to this day.\n\n\"Are you kidding?\" Joe asked, and kept fiddling with his phone. \"Seriously, Don. Lester the Molester versus Senator Cocaine? What a fucking joke.\" Really, it had been. Three-term senator Jane Udall, who had been generally popular if a little nutty, had held a press conference two months ago with a huge trail of cocaine powder streaked across half her face. She was facing indictment from the D.C. district attorney, and had somehow decided that the appropriate response to this fact, in an election year, was to hold a second press conference in which she proceeded to cuss out the entire district attorney's office and proudly admit that she was a habitual cocaine user--and that she'd been using while voting, regularly. Opposing her, though, was Lester Sohrman, a far-right loon who had somehow survived the primary process before it had become public knowledge that he was an active member of NAMBLA, a fact which he was so proud of that he made a campaign ad about it. \n\nThe entire campaign had been a national embarrassment on both sides, and had led to the incredibly unusual move of each party producing attack ads against their own candidate, as each hoped the other would win and, as a result, embarrass their opponents over the course of the next six-year senate term.\n\n\"Hey, gimme the remote,\" Joe said. Colbert was coming on, finally, but I let him grab the remote from me. He flipped quickly, surfing through the news channels that surrounded Comedy Central until he stopped on CNN. Some lady I didn't recognize was on screen.\n\n\"--amidst historically low turnout. Nothing like this has ever happened before,\" she said.\n\n\"What's going on?\" I asked.\n\n\"I dunno,\" Joe said. \"Barry just said to turn it to CNN.\" The lady's co-anchor in the newsroom had asked her something that I missed while we talked, and now she was answering.\n\n\"Well, Alex, both major party candidates were plagued with serious issues, and it seems like voters had no appetite either for Senator--I mean, former Senator--Udall or for Lester Sohrman. I don't think that voters intended this, though.\"\n\n\"Well, how'd it happen? Walk us through it.\" The off-screen anchor asked.\n\n\"Don,\" Joe said.\n\n\"Yeah?\" I asked.\n\n\"Well, a local group of independent voters,\" the lady began.\n\n\"Don, is that your house she's in front of?\" Joe asked. I blinked, and looked at the house behind her. It looked like my house. Blue American four-square. I twisted around and flung the blackout curtains behind me open. Light poured in from halogen lights mounted on poles, and I could see four or five panel vans out there, with people milling around just off of my lawn.\n\n\"--and so, after a quiet but effective campaign, Donald Duck received 12,377 votes in what appears to be a protest against both candidates. Nobody knew, it seems, that there is in fact a Donald Duck living in the jurisdiction, and that he's eligible to hold the seat,\" the lady finished, and it felt for a moment like my blood froze in my veins. Donald Duck. My last name was old, and Scottish, and my father had thought it'd be hilarious to name me Donald.\n\nYeah, school had been hell.\n\n\"Holy shit, Don,\" Joe said. I slowly turned back around, and looked at my house on CNN.\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said.\n\n\"Holy shit, Don,\" Joe said. \"What're you gonna do?\" I thought about it for a while.\n\n\"Right now?\" I asked. \"Right now, I'm going to get really, really drunk.\"" ]	4
	[WP] A young Jewish man is invited to his dying grandfather's house. His grandfather takes him to his basement to show him his servant golem and tells him he wants to past the golem onto him.	[ "Mykael sighed and walked up the porch steps. He paused in front of the door, noting the groan and creak of the wood beneath his feet. He rapped at the door twice. After a few moments of shivering out in the winter weather, he reached into his jacket pocket and produced a cigarette and lighter. It took several attempts in the wind to light the damned thing, but he took a deep, thankful drag once it was lit. The steam of his breath combined with the smoke made him feel like a train ran on coal, with huge billows of pollution rising from his mouth. \n\t\n\"Will the old man ever answer the christing door?\" Mykael muttered to himself, extinguishing the cigarette on the sole of his boot and throwing it off into the side yard. \n\t\nMykael turned to observe the front yard, a long, snow-covered driveway that led to the entrance of a large grove of pines. He could hear various species of birds unknown to him singing their ancient songs in the crisp, clear morning. Mykael had only been to his grandfather's home once before, when he was too young to care to remember. What Mykael did retain from his childhood was a secret fear of the hard, reclusive man of little words. This fear was nurtured to loathing by his mother, whose hatred for his grandfather derived from his father's death seventeen years before. Mykael's father had loved Grandpa Adif with all his heart, had commanded such respect for him. But Adif never attended his son's funeral, due to a lack of Jewish preparation and funeral customs. Then his mother's death came like an impending parade, slow and terrible to watch; each hour the procession became more sickly and deranged. Mykeal could still hear her shrieks after waking from her night terrors, like a woman on fire. She dreamt of colossal, moaning forms, she told him shortly before she passed, and ice picks tap, tap, tapping at skulls, letting the nightmares seep in. \n\t\nWhy am I here? Mykael thought to himself, blinking furiously to avoid snow blindness. It was easy to lose track of your thoughts in the middle of no where; it was the silence. Why am I here? He knew why, though. He was the only family remaining to Grandpa Adif, and he was dying.\n\t\nMykael turned towards the door once more and nearly leapt from his skin when he met the stony eyes of his grandfather. \n\t\n\"So,\" Grandpa Adif said. \"You have come.\" He gestured inside and walked down the hallway. This infuriated Mykael. Here was a man that had never before even attempted to contact him or his mother after his son's death; a man as frigid in Mykael's memory as the winter home he now stood before. Despite this, this old, proud soul expected him to follow him inside without question. His anger shamed him, though. This man had no other family, and had been alone for nearly all his life. Whether the latter was by choice or not, Mykael couldn't say, nor did he care. \n\t\nMykael buried his enmity, curled his hands into fists, and followed after his grandfather.\n\t\nGrandpa Adif's choice of lodging was more of a glorified shack rather than a house. The entire foundation, including the walls and roof, was timbered with thick pinewood. There was a consistent chill in the home, kept at bay only by an ancient looking coal heater in the corner of what passed for a kitchen in this place. Mykael was beckoned silently by Grandpa Adif to come sit at his round, plastic table. In another corner, a tea kettle began to whistle its piercing tune on a stove. \n\t\n\"Tea?\" Adif said, his back still turned. Before Mykael could answer, Grandpa Adif was sitting across from him, scooting a steaming cup towards him.\n\t\n\"Thanks, but no thanks,\" Mykael replied, rather defiantly. He scanned the cramped kitchen, his chair wobbling heedlessly. \"Perhaps you have something stronger for an...\" He paused, attempting to cover a wry smirk. \"...occasion such as this?\"\n\t\nAdif halted his sipping and set the cup down, his barren grey eyes measuring Mykael. Sweat prickled on Mykael's neck, and a nervous chuckle escaped his throat. The old man sat stark still. Mykael could not recall ever seeing his grandfather laugh. At least he was consistent.\n\t\nFinally he broke the silence: \"I do not indulge in alcohol,\" Grandpa Adif said sternly, taking another drink of his tea. He still maintained a thick Bosnian accent, despite having lived in America for almost four decades. \"Not any longer. Fogs the mind, leaving it dull and muddled.\"\n\t\n\"Well, certainly a man in your position can afford to satiate himself in whatever way he pleases,\" Mykael said, twirling a thin straw in his brownish tea that could've passed for dish water. \n\t\nHis grandfather was not one for banter.\n\n\"I will not abandon personal principles,\" Adif said bluntly. \"Simply because I am dying. I drank long ago, to drown my pain, but it accomplished nothing. My pain was not gone, only buried. Hiding your pain is weakness. To be human is to bear your pain, and I have done so for many years, and will not stop now.\"\n\nSo serious, Mykael thought, hoping Adif didn't catch him rolling his eyes, and lowered them. In spite of his condition, he was an insufferable man, his grandfather. A trail of blush crept up Mykael's neck, and he suddenly felt hot and apprehensive. There had yet to be any hint given to why he was called here. \n\n\"'Do unto others what has been done to you,\" is the creed of men who do not face their suffering.\" \n\n\"Why did you call me, grandpa?\"\n\n\"You have grown, Mykael,\" Adif continued in his impassive tone. \"You are the spitting image of your father. And just as he did, you remind me of my youth.\" The corner of his mouth twitched. \n\nMykael suddenly felt the profound silence of the rest of the world. It was like mist, a drifting physical presence leaving the world still in its wake.\n\nplace holder", "The room was dark and the blinds were drawn, a old man lay in a bed looking at the pictures on the walls. He thought about his life , about god . And now at his age and this world about death. He deep down knew his time had long since come and his number was up so to speak. And at that moment a child opened the door and then closed it.\n\nHe looked at the boy and though he knew it wasn’t his son he couldn’t but think of him looking at the child. He was spitting image of him at that age. And he felt a warmth in his chest and then immediately a chill down his spine. And thoughts of death and worse filled his mind. Then child spoke.\n\n“Mom says your sick” his voice said like a whispering angel.\n“ I am” he paused for second “but don’t worry about that now come here I have a story to tell you.”\n\nThe boy rushed over to his side eyes bright , and every part of his face smiling. And old mans heart warmed again and again his spine cooled him.\n \n“What kind of story Grandpa?” \n“A good story a Jewish story”\n“ Like a bible story?”\n“No this is not a bible story but it is important.”\n“What makes it important?” the child looked confused all his life little life the old man had been fun and warm. But now he felt so so serious.\n“ A long time ago in old days when are people were kicked out of every place we had ever called home are family moved to a small kingdom in Europe.”\n“Where?”\n“That is lost to time, but that is not the most important part”\n“What is?”\n“ The king of the land had grown to hate and mistrust are people, so it seemed that he would like so many before exile us”\n“Did he?”\n“At first he made it known that he rather we leave, but brave and strong men like you father and uncle would not leave. Men like them refused to be kicked out their homes because of fear and prejudice.”\n“What happened”\n“He decided that if we Jews wouldn’t leave , then we would stay forever. In the ground. He haunted are people and tortured us. He butcher children and women.”\n“ But what about the strong men like daddy and uncle Wren? What did they do? Didn't they fight?”\n“ Of course they fought but they weren’t soldiers just normal men.”\n“ So what happened ? “\n“ A rabbi a great wise man , I think he would be your great , great, great ,great , great grand uncle figured something out.”\n“ what was it?”\n“ In that time figured out something magical and dangerous that saved are people and also nearly destroyed us,” he paused and got up from the bed. Every muscle in his body fought him but he willed it and it was so,“come with me to the basement I have something to show you”\n\nHe grabbed the boys hand and walked out the room , into the living room. The boys mother looked surprised to see the old man move, and she couldn’t even muster up the ability to say a word as he took her only child to basement. He let the child go and watched as the youthful boy took the steps ghastly speed some time two at time. The old man took each step with care, he had to avoid breaking a hip or falling down the stairs. Especially now. \n\nWhen he finally made his way down the stairs he led the child to a large box with the words 'only in dire need ' written in Hebrew. He put his hand on the box. And turned to the boy\n\n“ So the rabbi seeing his people suffer made a man to defend them, a man like god made Adam,” he sighed and winced a little even the stairs took their toll on him “ this man was a Golem made to defend the Jews when things became too bad.”\n“whats in the box?” the child said with a sudden realization.\n“ Its the Golem, and he is for you.”\n“ But...”\n“I'm a old man and I wont be here forever, and I've lived in Germany my entire but.\n“But what?” the child asked but even he knew.\n“ Everything is different now and your father is not coming home.”\n“Don't say that” the child began to sob , the old man walked over to him and did best attempt console him. “ everyone's scared, everyone even mom.”\n“ I don’t know where he is or where they took him, and I'm scared too but we have to be strong.”\nThe old grabbed a corner of the box and with all his strength forced it open, only to reveal a man made of clay holding a sword with star of David on the hilt.”\n“ I will tell you words, and only you can say them.” he looked at the child , and again his body felt cold “only you can say them .”\n“what words?”\n“The words that will save your life and others. But know that when you say them their will be no taking it back and whatever happens shall happen.”\n“Ok.”\n“ Before we do this I want you to know I love you and I'm sorry for the weight this will be on you, please forgive me after it is all done.”", "Papa Abe is a tough old son of a bitch. He fought the cancer with everything he had, and he even won a few battles. Eventually though, even Papa Abe couldn't keep fighting forever. Everyone in the family knows he's not long for this Earth. So, when I get a phone call from Nana, saying Papa Abe has something to give me, I make time and come as soon as I can.\n\nI remember before Papa Abe got sick, how handsome and lively he was. It was very easy to see why Nana fell for him. Now, now he looks...old. Worn down. It's sad really, and what bothers me the most about spending time with Papa Abe.\n\nBut it's selfish to blame a dying old man for looking a little tired. And Papa Abe is just as funny as before he got sick. Soon enough, we're both laughing as we walk slowly through the house. When I ask what it is that Papa Abe wants to give me, he hushes me and ushers me down into the basement. \n\nIt's dark, and cool down here. We never really go into the basement much, and it certainly looks that way. Papa Abe directs me to a closet of some kind, and instructs me to pull out one big ass statue for him.\n\nThe statue is taller than me, and about fifty pounds heavier too! It takes every ounce of energy I've got to move the damned thing all by myself, and it leaves me winded and sweaty from the effort. Soon enough though, I get Papa Abe's statue out for him.\n\nIt's...a weird ass statue. It's scarred and covered with souvenirs. Papa Abe tells me to check the closet, and I find a big ass sword that Papa Abe says \"belongs\" to the statue.\n\nI give the statue it's sword back and look it over in greater detail. It has Hebrew carved into it's forehead, the Hebrew word for death as a matter of fact. It's left arm is wrapped in an old Nazi flag, and it's right arm is covered in Hebrew. It's all quotes from the Torah, different scripture and passages all flowing together into a single body of text.\n\nIt has a crude face carved into it as well, a face of stoic contemplation. When I finally ask Papa Abe about what this thing is and why he made me get it out for him, he hushes me again. Told me to watch as he stood up on his tip toes.\n\n He pressed a finger into that statues forehead, and it gave way like it was still fresh clay. That's when Papa Abe added an extra letter to the statues head, turning met into emet. And then, the statue became...something else, something alive.", "Josh sighed at the shuffling of his grandfather, Eli, trying to conquer the wooden steps to the basement. Eli gripped the flimsy brass railing with what strength his body could offer, stepping cautiously and settling himself before making his next move. From behind, Josh clasped his old man's shoulder, following his slow moving pace. A simple shove and I'd have the money to put myself through law school. It's not like he's long for this world, after all.\n\nNobody could argue malice on his part. The man was 85 and spent the last 6 years alone in his single-story home. How he had not managed to get himself killed in that time seemed unexplainable. Even his sister, Felicity, would only visit every few months to check up on the old man.\n\n\"You really should come along to visit gramps,\" she'd say over the phone.\n\n\"When I'm free,\" would be his response, but he was never free.\n\nJosh eventually let go of Eli's shoulder, but only because his loafers reached the concrete floor of the basement.\n\n\"Where's that damn light,\" Eli cursed. His hands fumbled around the walls, for a light switch that didn't exist. From the bottom step Josh reached over his grandfather's head and pulled a cord that dangled ahead. Light spilled over the two men, but hardly reached the edges of the room.\n\nEli turned back to his grandson and gave a satisfied smile. Josh grimaced at something scurrying off into the dark. Noticing Eli's gaze, he twitched a smile in return.\n\n\"Come now, it's just a bit further in,\" spoke Eli. Josh sighed, watching the man step towards the darkened area ahead. He followed precariously, surveying the contents of the basement: a large picture frame facing the wall, a wooden desk collecting dust on his side, and books. Books littered the floor, some half-open, some closed, some torn to pieces. Eli paid none of these objects any mind, moving past them without comment. The man has gone senile, thought Josh. What else could explain the state of disrepair.\n\n\"I really wish you'd tell me what it is you want to give me,\" commented Josh.\n\nEli fumbled around with a door at the back edge of the room, barely illuminated by the single light. \n\n\"Patience. You will see.\"\n\nJosh watched for rodents as he inched closer to the door Eli wrestled with. He tugged and pulled on the small brass handle, but the door only rattled in its frame. Breathing heavily, Eli let go of the handle and staggered back.\n\n\"My god, let me.\" \n\nJosh stepped forward, extending his hand to the door. Before reaching it, he heard the faintest click, followed by the door swinging open. Although reason dictated otherwise, Josh felt certain he saw the knob twist on it's own accord. His heart sped, and his eyes darted back to the base of the steps and the light that illuminated it. The muscles in his legs tightened, ready to flee, but now it was his grandfather who put his hand on Josh's shoulder.\n\n\"Don't be shy now, there's someone I want you to meet.\"\n\nSomeone.\n\nNo one could compel Josh to step forward, but there was no need. From the edge of the darkness, a creature lowered its head through the doorway, and stepped out in front of the two men. The creature's skin was rough, red, and pale. Its shoulders were wider than the doorway, and standing straight it would easily be seven feet.\n\n\"He has been with me since the death of my father, many years ago,\" spoke Eli. Stepping forward he rubbed his hand against one of the creature's arm, which was nearly the size of Eli himself.\n\n\"Bevalis, this is my grandson, Joshua. Say hello.\"\n\nThe golem moaned, shaking the room.", "\"Alex, do you know what a Golem is?\"\n\n\"Yes, it's a-\"\n\n\"A Golem is a man of stone, a living statue. A Golem is more than any machine, Golem can think, can speak, can withstand even nuclear bombs, and will do anything it's master commands. Most of all a Golem isn't just a myth\"\n\n\"You expect me to believe that?\"\n\n\"Not without proof. No. You see that statue in the corner?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Golem, come here\"\n\nThe Statue starts moving, it glides across the floor stopping in front of the two men.\n\n\"What the F-... fudge?\"\n\n\"My grandfather built this Golem to fight the Nazis, and gave it to me before he died, likewise I am going to past it on to you.\"\n\n\"Pass\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Past is grammatically incorrect, you pass something on, not past.\"\n\nThe Golem grabs the younger man\n\n\"No! Stop! He didn't mean it!\"\n\nThe Golem crushes the mans skull\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"NO GRAMMAR NAZIS\"" ]	5
	[WP] "We have to get rid of this poodle."	[ "We were so close, it seemed as if the day would finally come. I've always had the hate that I carried up until that day. It is something that we all came with, or so I'm told. The numbers continued to drop, at this rate we should have be free by the end of the year. But of course there is always the thought of one more out there, that they can undo everything we have sought to accomplish. And it did.\n\nIt was a normal day when my life changed, for better or worse I still can't tell. I had never actually seen one in person. We were all hanging around the block when a black poodle came casually walking down the street. My friend Cris pointed it out, I for one didn't really think anything of it, because well he was a joker. It wasn't until I actually seen it pass by, the curly hair all over and the distinguished ears and tail, that I believed it. It was a poodle. It came up to us, something that we were told they would never do. At first I will admit, I was nervous and skeptical. My other friend Ian had a big rock ready to take flight on the decent sized dog. \"We have to get rid of this poodle,\" Ian said firmly. But the twinkle in the dogs eye was obviously pure. \"You can't do it Ian, give him a chance,\" Cris said. And we did.\n\nWe played with that dog all afternoon, my parents weren't supposed to be home until six and I thought we could give it a chance. We brought it around to the back, through the side yard. In fear of the neighbors seeing it and taking action. I was sure that this dog was something that we weren't told. The thoughts of deception started running through my head. Why did we all hate poodles, why the move towards extinction of a breed. No questions asked, if we never see poodles how would we know. The poodles were drilled into our heads as aggressive and untrainable, ugly and cold hearted. That they had killer instinct something that was not fit, not just individuals but the whole breed. But I was sure that they were wrong. But how many poodles were left. Could this be the last one alive. The punishment for housing a poodle was great. None of us, especially I were ready for that. If we were caught with it, it would ruin our lives. But just like any other breed of dog, it was easy to become attached. And we did. \n\nThe time was getting close, parents would be coming home from work, we had to act quick if we were going to do something with this dog. It was a dog, not a monster. If we let him go, the next person to see him would likely kill it, without second thought. If my parents seen it they would kill it. We didn't have many options as time was running out and poodles were feared like death. The only option that I saw feasible was to let the dog breed. And we did. ", "“We have to get rid of this poodle,” said Viktor Agapov as he leaned against the kitchen counter in some man’s home. \n\n“Not poodle, Viktor. Puddle. Better yet, a friggin’ lake” said Dave as he furiously mopped at the blood covering most of the yellow sunflower tiles. He turned to soak the mop into the bucket and realized that the water was a deep crimson. He huffed and let the mop clatter to the floor. \n\nViktor did not move an inch as Dave went past him to dump the water into the sink. \n\n“Puddle?” Viktor asked as Dave filled the bucket with fresh water.\n\n“Yes. Puddle.”\n\n“Why not poodle?”\n\n“That’s a пудель.”\n\n“Oh.” Viktor opened up his jacket and pulled out a booklet out of his right hand pocket. He plucked out a small pencil as well and started jotting down incoherent phrases next to the other fifty lying on the page he managed to open. \n\nDave glared at Viktor. \n\n“Go finish up the job,” he said. “I’ll be right with you.”\n\nStill writing in his little book, Viktor walked out of the room. As the water from the faucet battered against the plastic basin, Dave stared out of the kitchen window and into the deep dark forest. \n", "The dog sat in front of the airlock, its mouth hanging open and a long, pink appendage hanging out between the teeth. It seemed perfectly content, aside from the huffing noise it was making. And its eyes were boring into Private Huffleman's soul.\n\nPrivate Huffleman (Private Second Class, age 22, currently fourteen months into his three-year-tour, assigned to the UFCS Enterpriser) hadn't had many issues of morality to deal with yet in his career. He had been fortunate enough to test out of grunt duty, and had been assigned to a ship that was a third of the way through a government-sanctioned aid distribution mission. His day job mainly consisted of patrolling the hallways of the ship, especially the exterior access areas, making sure that none of the grateful indigenous populations attempted to hitch a ride off their little balls of rock.\n\nThis week, he was also responsible for cleaning up the Improbability artifacts. \n\nThis week's list of artifacts, by his mental count, had so far included several very weird metal sculptures, a few balls of unidentified organic goo, a large spider that had clacked at him menacingly several times before he'd whacked it with the butt of his PlasMark II. All of these items had been carefully swept out of the corridors, into the airlock, where they were promptly jettisoned.\n\nBut now there was a dog sitting in the corridor, staring up at him.\n\nPrivate Huffleman knew that this animal was a dog. He had never before seen a dog in person, of course, but he had an annoying tendency to not fall asleep right away and instead lie awake in his bunk reading random entries in WikiUniverse. The Enterpriser had also made one of its aid relief stops on Arcturus 371_B, which had been settled by a group of Canids. They had been created through genetic blending with dogs, Private Huffleman had read on WikiUniverse, and indeed, they had borne a strong resemblance to this creature in front of him now.\n\nThe dog stood up, wiggling its hindquarters. A long tail, quite hairy, wiggled back and forth as it gazed up at Private Huffleman. The private, unsure what to do, reached down to his waist, but hesitated between his PlasMark II and his personal supercomputer. Was this creature dangerous?\n\nThe dog padded a couple steps closer, that pink appendage still hanging out of its mouth. It looked a lot like a tongue to Private Huffleman, but he'd never seen one that oversized before. It was getting awfully close...\n\n" ]	3
	[WP] After years of planning, an alien race starts their takeover of Earth. Huge oversight however. Turns out the weapons that are deadly on their planet are harmless on Earth.	[ "\"ATTENTION CITIZENS OF EARTH.\"\n\nThe tinny, robotic voice boomed simultaneously through every speaker in the world. Everywhere, everyone froze in shock.\n\n\"THE TIME HAS COME FOR YOUR SUBJUGATION AND ANNIHILATION!\" the voice continued, as the crowds in Times Square scattered from underneath a gigantic silver spaceship hovering above the buildings.\n\n\"BOW BEFORE YOUR CONQUERORS, THE KLQIX!\"\n\nEvery video screen flashed and hummed, displaying live video feeds of identical ships hovering above every military base.\n\n\"RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. THOSE WHO OPPOSE US WILL BE DESTROYED BY OUR SUPERIOR WEAPONRY. ALLOW US TO PROVIDE A DEMONSTRATION.\"\n\nHuge cannons emerged from the bottoms of the ships, humming and glowing.\n\n\"FIRE.\"\n\nSimultaneously, all the ships blasted glowing silver balls of metal at the military bases.\n\nSimultaneously, every ball hit its mark and crumpled like wet toilet paper.\n\n\"UHHH...\"\n\nAnd that was when every military base fired their anti-aircraft missiles.\n\nCurrently, the forensic scientists who combed the smoldering wrecks have concluded that the Klqix's planet must have very low atmospheric pressure compared to Earth. Therefore, the Klqix and everything they built had evolved to be strong enough to withstand their atmosphere, but rendering them extremely fragile compared to Earth's much sturdier matter. The ship from over Times Square, having been blown to smithereens purely by the angry crowd's ordinary guns, will be converted into a piece of modern art to be placed in Times Square as a monument to what must have been a valiant effort by the Klqix to subjugate our planet.\n\nThis has been Joe Cooley of CNN. Back to you, Kris.", "The aliens held nothing back when they invaded. They had sent their troops in full force, every weapon they had locked and loaded. They expected it to be easy.\n\nWhy wouldn't it be?\n\nThe humans were prehistoric compared to them. They stilled use metal ammo, something the aliens had abandoned centuries ago. The aliens preferred to use something far deadlier.\n\nIt was a chemical compound their scientists had discovered by accident on a small mining planet. They hadn't known the danger of the compound at the time. Anyone who had come in contact with it died within weeks.\n\nThe aliens had then spent the last several decades weaponizing and perfecting the deadly substance. It had been so effective they had outfitted every weapon in their arsenal to use it. They had adapted every piece of their defense to protect against it.\n\nRumor had it, that Earth held more of this chemical. They didn't know how much, but they would take every drop they could get. With more they could conquer the galaxy.\n\nWhen the day of the invasion came, humanity initially cowered in the face of such a monstrous fleet. The aliens outnumbered the humans 100 to 1. Thing seemed hopeless.\n\nOne little human boy changed all this though.\n\nSeeing a squad of alien troops on his street, he curiously approached the strange creatures. The aliens seized the opportunity to establish themselves as a mighty and merciless species.\n\nThey opened fired on the innocent child, but they weren't prepared for what happened next.\n\nAs the feared compound hit him, the boy let out a scream.\n\nAt first they thought it was the fear and pain, but then they looked closer.\n\nHe was laughing.\n\nConfused they shot him again. And again.\n\n\"Mom, Mom they brought water guns to play!\" the boy said cheerfully.\n\nSeeing this, the aliens were suddenly the one's afraid.\n\nThen they saw the mom give the little boy a bottle filled with the compound.\n\nHe drank it. All of it, and he was just standing their smiling at them actually asking to be shot.\n\nNever had an order for retreat been given so quickly. The alien commander stood in his ship baffled.\n\n\"We underestimated them. I have never seen anything as disturbing as that child. He got shot, he drank poison, and he enjoyed it all.\" The commander shuddered as he pictured the boy again, and vowed never to go back to that monstrous place again.", "Commander Jarxus ruffled his brow as he tried to process this information\n\n\"You're telling me that because no-one, not a single soldier, scientist, weapons designer, strategist, commander, qalqarking TURKING CANTEEN LADY, THOUGHT OF CHECKING TO SEE IF OUR WEAPONS COULD FIRE WITHIN AN ATMOSPHERE WITH OXYGEN?\"\n\nThe silence was only broken by the howling gale of the Tundra outside. \n\n\"Three hundred of the finest space-faring machinery the Molari have ever created and you're telling me that at no point did anyone check to see if our weapons fired in an atmosphere containing a percentage of TWENTY TWO TURKING OXYGEN. Not point one, not point two, not even a decimal. A whole TURKING number. A DOUBLE DIGIT ONE AT THAT.\"\n\nHe paused for thought\n\n\"Commanding Engineer.\"\n\nA surprised Molari trotted forward \"Eh, yes sir?\"\n\n\"Why haven't our thrusters given in.\"\n\nThere was yet another pause. This one a lot more awkward.\n\n\"Umm... Well. About that.\"\n\n\"Are you about to tell me what I think you are?\"\n\n\"Well, we were fine until we landed, the-\"\n\n\"Kill me. Kill me now...\" He facepalmed before asking \"So none of our ships can take back off\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"The catering staff are here aren't they?\"\n\nA hand was raised \"Chief chef here si-\"\n\n\"We're going to run out of food in less than a week correct?\"\n\n\"... Uh. Yes.\"\n\nThe silence that followed now was much longer than any of the previous.\n\n\"Translation software still works correct?\"\n\n\"Correct\"\n\n\"Atmosphere still breathable consisting mainly of Nitrogen?\"\n\n\"Absolutely!\"\n\n\"Hmm... Looks like we're going to have to pretend to be settlers then.\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"Well are you going to tell them this is a failed invasion force that can't leave or are you going to tell them we were searching for a new home and their atmosphere has broken our filters?\"\n\n\"Ah. Good point.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\" He raised his hands dramatically. \"Welcome to Earth people\" And let them drop. \"You better learn to love it.\"\n", "\"Kneel, you human scum! Kneel before Xorlak, the new emperor of this pathetic planet!\" demanded the queer looking alien descending from the ramp of his spaceship. Even with thick padded boots, the supposed new ruler of Earth was easily a head shorter than Mike. Steam drifted off the asphalt in the hot Texas heat. \n \n\"Easy now fellah, you just take it easy there,\" Mike said, holding up his hands in what he hoped was a universal gesture for indicating he wanted no trouble. The cooling engine on his old rusty red Ford pickup truck gave a loud ting along with a slight sizzle from a slow radiator leak. Everything about the scene from the hot, empty country road to Mike's faded Wranglers stood in stark contrast to the sleek lines and gleaming contours of the spaceman's ship. \n \nXorlak pointed a brass device covered in ruby studs at Mike. \"I said KNEEL you human scum! Or face de-ionization from my Fraxis Wave Generator!\" \n \n\"Now hold on there pardner, I don't know what de-ionizing is but that right there sounded like a threat. What would your momma say if she knew you'd flown all this way out here just to threaten a man?\" \n \n\"My brood mother would demand that I de-ionize first and ask questions later, human scum!\" Xorlak was shaking, the weapon in his hand waving about wildly. \"Now KNEEL!\" \n \nMike crossed his arms in front of him. \"Nope. You didn't say please.\" He spat out an oily glob of chewing tobacco. \n \n\"Gnaaaaah!\" screamed the new ruler of Earth, pressing the firing stud on his weapon. A rainbow spray of light emitted from the tip of the wave generator and washed over Mike's forearms, chest, and face. When whatever Xorlak was expecting failed to pass, he mashed down on the stud again for good measure and painted the sweaty Texan's face with more mauve tones. Incredulous and frustrated, the alien overlord began cursing in his own indecipherable language. \n \n\"See, now that right there is enough to piss a man off.\" Mike reached into the bed of his old Ford and pulled out a long piece of wood well oiled and used from many seasons. \n \n\"I don't know what a... what did you call it? 'Wave generator'? I don't know what that is, but I know this is a Louisville Slugger and she won me through All-State back in high school. If you goin' come down here and act a fool, threatening people why, I'm liable to do something about it.\" \n \nThe alien fell over backwards, tripping on his silver cape and dropping his weapon. It began to crab crawl backwards up the ramp. Mike stepped forward, cowboy boots crushing old gravel and swung the Slugger round in his hand. \n \n\"Look's like Earth is up to bat little man...\" " ]	4
Just another slow day. You’re about to set off for home when suddenly you blackout to a BSOD. In the lines of code before your eyes you see a message - rebooting in 1.. 2.. And the world comes back. What happens next?	[WP] ERROR. Rebooting in 1.. 2.. (see inside)	[ "beep beep beep\n\nI wake up to the sound of my alarm and a pounding headache. \n\nSeems I may have had a little too much to drink last night, I thought to myself.\nAfter laying in bed for a while listening to the sound of people talking in the kitchen downstairs and trying to figure out what happened the night before, I hoist myself out of the bed and walk on over to the bathroom.\n\n The feel of the cold tiles on my feet are a welcoming sensation. As I reach over the bath to turn the shower on, I suddenly feel light-headed. No big deal, I thought to myself, I'll be okay after the shower.\n\nAs I step inside the shower, I feel the same light-headedness as before, but this time it's stronger and I don't think I'll be able to control myself any longer, and just like that...\n\n\nEverything went dark.\n\n\nI'm not entirely sure, but I may have ended up searching for something to hold when I had fallen down, but I'm still suspended in this blackness.\n\nI can't feel anything around me.\n\nIt feels like I am suspended in space.\n\nAt this point I am not sure what is going on, my heart is beating heavily, I'm frantically flailing my arms around to judge my surroundings.\n\nI try to scream, but nothing comes out.\n\nNo sound.\n\nJust the same darkness.\n\nUntil, a flash of blue. My eyes instantly close to protect themselves against this bright light source. I can still make out the light even through my eyelids.\n\nAfter slowly opening my eyes, I see the words \"Rebooting in 5 seconds...\"\n\nWhat could this mean? Is this real? Am I dreaming?\n\nThese questions fill my mind for the 5 seconds which seems like an eternity.\n\nThe blue light abruptly cuts to black.\n\nThe same light-headedness comes back again, but this time something feels even more different; I am struggling to remember anything, it feels like all of my memories, everything from my life is being slowly forgotten.\n\nThis can't happen, I try to fight to remember all I am, all I was...\n\nIt feels like I can't breathe anymore, my body is slowly beginning to curl up into the fetal position.\n\nThe last remnants of my memories flash before my eyes, and I see a bright light approaching from the nothingness which occupied the space I was suspended in.\n\nI am reborn.", "It was just a normal day. Wake up, brush teeth, take shower. Toast bagel, pour juice, eat. Grab keys, get in car, drive to work. \n\nRoutine. \n\n\"What can I help you with?\" Do rounds, help customers, check phone. Bathroom, boss angry, clock out. \n\nRoutine. \n\nWalk to car, check phone, start car. Pull out of parking spot, stop for family crossing the road.\n\nAnd the world freezes. He couldn't move, the engine of his car sounded like static, stuck on one note. A bird was frozen in midair. It was as though time had stopped but he could still see. His body kept going, but didn't.\n\nBlue. All he saw was blue.\n\n\"System error. Retrieving patch from server. Patch complete. Rebooting. 5. 4. 3. 2...\". Everything went black. \n\nAnd the world was alive again. He was sitting in the driver's seat of his car, the engine running. what the hell just happened... what is this ringing... The family walked by, seemingly oblivious to what had just happened to him. Then he heard it, clear as day. A voice from nowhere, yet from everywhere.\n\n\"Hello, Will. I'm going to be your guide today. Welcome to the new operating system. Please set your language preferences.\"\n\n\n ", "This prompt inspired me to continue the story of [a response I wrote two weeks ago](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2718yf/wp_dream_file_corrupted/chwkno0) from a thematically similar prompt. I think you can get the point of this response on its own, but it will make more sense if you read the other one first.\n\nAlso, I had the whole afternoon free to write and it ended up long so I'm well over the character limit, and will be posting the rest as a reply.\n\n--------\n\nI sat in one of the chairs in the waiting room, and waited.\n\nEverything about the room was designed to soothe. The lack of hard angles and sharp corners on any of the furnishings; the soft light emanating from hidden fixtures; the pastel color scheme, all dove gray and sky blue, right down to the nurse's scrubs; even the chairs themselves, sculpted by some master of ergonomics to be incredibly comfortable despite being made of plastic. One part of my mind deconstructed the entire space into its design components, thanks to my study of Structural Aesthetics, which was as useful for real spaces as virtual ones. I was relieved, and a bit pathetically grateful, that I still remembered any of it.\n\nThe other, larger part of mind mind was fluttering with panic, manifesting physically as my right heel drumming against the floor nervously.\n\nI'm not usually fidgety. Is this just the adrenaline, or a new personality trait from a code error?\n\nI was alone in the waiting room, which didn't surprise me in the middle of the night. The nurse at the desk had scanned my identity chip to sign me into the system, then given me the quick-and-dirty version of the triage questionnaire.\n\nHave you experienced any full crashes of your basic operating code? No.\n\nHave you experienced any subsystem crashes, and if so, which ones? Yes, my dreaming subroutine. A program aborted mid-sequence and woke me up.\n\nAre you experiencing any unusual physical symptoms since the crash occurred? Yes, nausea, shortness of breath, and nervous fidgeting. But that could just be because I'm scared I wrecked my brain.\n\nThe nurse had stopped me there, and smiled, but it was a fake smile, a programmed smile, designed to be as soothing as the gentle curve of the desk where she sat. It didn't make me feel any better, but when she told me I might have to wait a little while because the doctor was busy with another patient, I nodded politely and took my seat.\n\nThere were no clocks in the waiting room. That, too, was part of the design, to keep someone from knowing just how long they'd been waiting. Of course, most people would just check their internals if they really needed to know the time, but a lot of room still had clocks anyway, relics of days past that no one was quite ready to give up. But not here. I stubbornly resisted checking the time on my system, not wanting to give in to another manifestation of nervousness.\n\nI was also scared my code might tell me it was two in the afternoon, when I knew perfectly well that it wasn't. Knocking my internal clock off-kilter wasn't the worst thing that might have happened, but it wasn't good, either. One of the girls in my Programming Ethics class this semester had gotten a virus that set her clock five minutes back, so she was late to all her classes for two days before she realized what had happened and had the clinic sync her with the school's mainframe.\n\nThe door to the clinic proper opened, and a middle-aged man stepped out. His scrubs were dark blue, not pale gray, and his pristine white lab coat almost glowed in the diffuse, calming light. “Luann?” he asked me. “I'm Doctor Robinson, and I'll be taking care of you tonight.”\n\nI rose and followed him in.\n\nBeyond that door, the walls were white, the floor was white, the doors were white. I felt like the hallway was made of marshmallow, and half-expected to bounce as I walked. Just inside the door there was an old scale, just like every regular doctor's office everywhere has, but he led me past it to an alcove that held a full body scanning station. “Just step onto that blue square, please,” he said, sounding tired. “This will only take a few moments.”\n\nOnce I stood on the right spot, the doctor pressed button on the wall beside the station, and a large metal ring set into the floor began to rise. Since I wasn't pre-med, I only had the vaguest idea of the technology and code that went into building the scanning ring, but I did know it was supposed to be safer and more effective than the old x-rays. It was hard not to flinch when it crossed into my field of vision, shining a sickly green light. When it reached the top of my head, it reversed direction, finally locking back into the floor with a faint click.\n\nThe doctor pulled a tablet out of his pocket and started waving through the readouts, muttering to himself as he read them. “Elevated adrenaline and heart rate, but not too high...slightly lowered oxygen levels...increased stomach acid production.” He looked up at me and waved me out of the scanner. “Let's head to an exam room.”\n\nHe had me sit down on the chair next to the diagnostics computer, a wall-mounted screen with a panel of dozens of buttons and sliders below it. It looked almost exactly like the music-mixer that Luke, one of the guys I'd dated in high school, had shown me, trying to impress me. My dad was a producer, back when there were still proper studios, he'd told me. I'd dumped him for quite a few reasons, but one of them was that I'd gotten tired of his arrogant and unwavering insistence that music had been better then, more real. \n\nThe idea of someone adjusting my internal code the same way Luke played with sound unnerved me. But he hadn't been very good at it, and hopefully, this Doctor Robinson would be.\n\n“Now, Luann, I see this is your first visit to the clinic. Most students don't come until they have some kind of problem like the one that's brought you here tonight, but once we get you sorted out, I'd like you to consider coming in for routine checkups every few months. You'd be amazed at what sort of tiny errors can creep into your code over time—or, maybe you wouldn't. I see you've taken some of the introductory Neuroprogramming courses, so you know better than some of the other students what can go wrong.” He gave me a look that I'd almost call knowing, except that there was a genuine concern behind it, not just a desire to have me confess to causing my own crash.\n\nSo, I confessed anyway. “I tweaked a cheap dream pack, and it crashed on me.”\n\nHe nodded. “That's most of what I see whenever I get assigned the night shift. I know you're worried—everything from your physical scan points to it. But really, dream crashes rarely cause any serious or long-term damage. Once we run your system code through the diagnostics, I should be able to patch you up in no time.” He picked up a cord coming out of the side of the computer and ran it though his fingers until he reached the end, a bright silver pin. “I will need to plug you in, though, physically, and I know that can be an unpleasant sensation. Are you ready?”\n\n“Yeah,” I said quickly, before I could change my mind and bolt out of the room. “Do it.”\n\nHe took my chin in his left hand, gently holding me still. With his right, he placed the connector pin against my implant. There were no nerves there, of course, but I felt the pressure against the surrounding tissue. “Take a deep breath, Luann,” he ordered.\n\nAs I was inhaling, he plugged me in. That breath whooshed out of me like I'd been punched in the stomach. “Sorry,” he said, smiling a little. “I've found surprise is best for this. You're already nervous enough, if I'd waited until you'd expected it, you'd only tense up.”\n\n“I get it,” I said. “I didn't like it, but I get it.”\n\n“Okay, then.” He turned to the screen and studied it. I couldn't see clearly from my angle, and not much of it made sense anyway, but after a few moments, he said, “Well, you've got errors in your dream subroutines, certainly, and a few other small glitches here and there. Have you noticed any odd smells lately?”\n\nI thought about it for a moment, and only one thing came to mind. “Well, when the west parking lot was resurfaced a few weeks ago, I didn't smell the new asphalt. That was strange, but it wasn't a very windy day, so I thought maybe it just hadn't reached me.”\n\n“Do you remember what you did smell?”\n\n“Yeah,” I answered. “Honeysuckle.”\n\n“In the fall?”\n\nI frowned. “Maybe it was someone's perfume?” I asked hopefully.\n\n“Well, honeysuckle for asphalt is a good trade, but realistically speaking, I'm sure you'd rather smell things correctly.” He highlighted a section of the screen with his fingers, then pressed a few buttons. “That should do it. You might not know for sure until another parking lot gets repaved, or there's a really hot day next summer. But if anything else smells weird in the meantime, be sure to come back in.”\n\n“Okay.”\n\n“Now, on to the bigger problem.” Doctor Robinson turned away from the diagnostics to face me. “I'm glad you came in tonight to get this fixed, otherwise things might have gotten worse for you. Your physical symptoms don't seem to be directly caused by the crash, but rather from your worry about it. Completely understandable. But if you had another dream crash tomorrow night—which given the state of your code, is likely—the damage might have interfered with your operating system.” He looked back at the diagnostics and said, “I'm going to start adjusting a few things. I'll start small, and from time to time I might ask you a few questions about what you're seeing, or how you're feeling, just so I can get an idea of how the code is responding. Once I'm done with that, I'll upload a new dream—a clean one—just a five-minute thing, and I'll monitor your code while it runs. You understand?”\n\n“Yep,” I said. “Tweak my code, then take it for a test drive.”\n\nHe smiled. “Exactly.”" ]	3
Your wife appears on the screen as a grainy image from hundreds of thousand light years away. Just the sight of her makes you more comfortable. Jason was her friend too. You and Jason joined the Corps together straight out of High School with ambitions of traveling the universe. Now Jason is dead. Mangled by another planet's violent culture. Today's the closest you've ever come to completely losing your shit.	[WP] As a Space marine you have an allowance of one call home a day. Today's battle was especially bad and your best friend died I'm the heat of it all. Time to call home.	[ "The emitter behind the screen makes me wince and she pretends she doesn't notice. I've taken off the armor but the desire to hide behind the weight of a shield has become reflex. Lana smiles at me and I reflexively relax my shoulders. I want to turn it off, this screen. To lay on the emerald sands of this world and.. not move forward. Stay encapsulated in that moment.. that we enlisted, accepted the patrol badge and grinned. Lana clapped, louder when the guards told her to stop. We were just kids, hoping to explore worlds. We were going to touch the stars and we did. We were too naive to believe that they wouldn't touch back. \n\nShe's used to the silence at the beginning of the call. To regain composure and allow her presence to bring me back. We're given 15 minutes to touch base with our families and I could see her squinting, trying to spot Jason at the corner of the door. Where he always was when she would call, making blow job motions and stroking the door handles, just because. I could see the look of confusion on her face. Lana just realized I didn't call from a corridor.\n\n\"Love, where are you?\". I focus on whats behind the screen; those emerald sands. \"Love.\" I still don't respond. \"Elias. What happened?\". My name snaps me back to reality, away from those sands. From where the blood of my brothers makes these green sediments shine like the stars. She puts her ring finger to the screen. I do the same. Its how we kissed when we're in different star systems.\n\n\"Jason died. Well, he didn't die. He was killed. He shook the hand- the hand of a married Usigli, which is considered disrespe-\". I couldn't cry if I wanted to, but the desire was there. \"Stop.\" I looked up and she told me to pull myself closer to the screen. \"I know that look. And I know what follows it. This wasn't your fault. You can't take the worlds misery and play God.\" \"I COULD HAVE STOPPED THIS\". She held her composure. She had to hold her composure. \n\n\"You couldn't have. Jason was Jason. He would rather have a broken nose than a bruised ego. Love, Jason is gone. You aren't.\" Her eyes looked down for a moment, the only moment she allowed herself to feel while. I looked at her with eyes I knew she couldn't recognize. Eyes flowing with Enforcement. What was once brown was neon green but unflinching, she continued, leaving her finger on the screen. I could feel the anger, the regret, the fuel burning through my veins. Every shallow breath breathed felt laced with fire. She starred back and as she did, I felt her arms around my shoulders, coaxing me to march.\n\nThe carriers began to enclose the area. Reinforcements arriving when they weren't needed to collect bodies that have already been written into this planet's history. \"You have three calls to make to me. And we're waiting for the forth.\" I reduce the Enforcement, as much as I can. One eye falls back to its brown hue and she nods, acknowledging. \"Tomorrow\". I say, my visor crawling back onto my face. \"Tomorrow\". \n\nThe carriers are shooting into the distance, the familiar sound of a cooling stream swallowing a plasma cell brings me to the moment. The metallic taste of blood slithers through the air. Jason wouldn't stop. I tapped where the badge should be. \"079. Active\". As the shields hissed to activation and the armor cracked from my pores, I felt a twitch. ", "\"Hi dad!\"\n\nThe words snap me from my thoughts. I focus on the screen to see my son staring at me. He had a gap where a tooth had fallen out.\n\nI forcefully pull a fake smile back. \"Hey bud, how's it going! Is mom home?\"\n\n\"Isaac, finish your homework first!\"\n\nMy wife's voice makes my smile less forced. \"Alright Isaac, go do your homework. I promise we'll talk more soon, alright?\"\n\n\"Okay, dad.\" He replies, but the tone tells me he's upset. His visage disappears and replaced by my wife's.\n\n\"I swear, the smallest thing distracts that boy.\" Her hair is in a hasty bun, and judging by the glisten of sweat and the smudge on her cheek she had been in the garden. Her blue eyes show more relief than anything else. \"Hi honey, so nice to hear from you! It's been almost two weeks, is everything alright?\"\n\nHer question brings me out it for second, and I can't seem to focus on anything. \n\n\"Mark?\"\n\nI rub at my eyes to clear them, and open them to see my wife's often kind face twisted with concern.\n\n\"Mark.\"\n\n\"No, everything's not alright Emma!\" I realized I yelled. \"No, nothing is alright.\" My eyes begin to go blurry again, this time from welling tears. Dammit, marines aren't supposed to cry.\n\nEmma retained her calm composure. \"What happened?\" Was all she asked.\n\nI try to think, but it doesn't work. Nothing is right, everything is jumbled. \"Jason.\" I'm able to mumble out.\n\n\"Oh god...\" I hear her get up from her chair. \"Isaac, go do your homework in your room for now. Daddy and I need to talk.\" By the time she gets back my composure is better. \"Mark, what happened?\"\n\n'\"We were ambushed. The area should have been cleared, but they must have missed them. We lost four men before we knew what was happening. Jason and I wound up next to each other behind a truck.\" I can feel my heart beating faster. I can still hear the gunfire, the crack of our weapons and the hiss of theirs. \"It looked like we were fighting them off, so we started following them.\" I remember the order from our CO, to kill every one of the bastards, ASAP. \"Jason and I glanced at each other, and I swear I could tell that he smiled at me.\" My voice begins to waver. Emma starts to speak but I hold up my hand. \n\n\"He didn't even get his shoulders above the ridge. It went through his neck.\" I remember watching, seeing the plasma bolt sear a hole straight through Jason's helmet and out the back. Watched him fall backwards. Crawled over to him. \"He might have lived, the wound wasn't anywhere vital in his neck, but his oxygen system was severed.\" I remember looking into his eyes, blue like his sister's. Watched them go from shocked to panicked. Listened to him scream in pain, then start coughing, then gasping. Watched the skin around his eyes turn blue, hear his breathing grow more and more shallow. The fear in his eyes to the last moment as he stared at me, his hands like vices around my arms. \n\n\"Mark...\"\n\n\"He asphyxiated before the medic could get to him.\" My hands start shaking, and my eyes blur with tears again.\n\nEmma doesn't say anything, and we sit in silence for almost a whole minute. It seems like hours, and every second I remember it. His eyes staring back, blue like his skin. The medic prying me off of him, me screaming for Jason the whole time.\n\n\"Mark, it's not your fault.\"\n\n\"If I had gotten up first, or we had waited just another second, he may be alive!\" I catch myself yelling again. \"When we enlisted, I promised to keep him safe.\"\n\n\"You did all you could.\"\n\n\"I could have done more.\"\n\nMore silence. I hate it, almost as much as the sound of battle. Every little sound rings in my ears. I can't take it, and force myself to talk.\n\n\"They asked if I wanted to escort him back.\"\n\n\"What?\" She looks back, confusion replacing sorrow. \n\n\"My CO requested it. He knew mine and Jason's connection, and felt it would be better to send him home with a friend. I leave the front tomorrow, I should be home by next week.\"\n\nI see the relief wash over her. A hint of a smile forms on her face as she wipes her nose. \"Oh, Mark. Should I tell Isaac?\"\n\nI smile myself. \"No, I want to surprise him.\"\n\n\"He'll love that.\" She smiles more, then suddenly giggles. \"Oh, god that means I have to actually look presentable for once.\"\n\nI chuckle. \"Oh, come on. You're beautiful all the time.\"\n\n\"Promise?\"\n\n\"Promise.\" I look at the clock on the screen. \"Ah, I have to go. Still need to finish packing what little I have.\"\n\nEmma's smile fades. \"Mark.\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Be safe.\"\n\n\"I will, promise.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" She blows a kiss at the camera. \"Love you.\"\n\nI smile and blow one back. \"Love you too.\"", "A meticulous job, cleaning a plasma rifle. Since the barrel shoots superheated plasma out the front, sometimes the shot flares out and splatters the barrel. Sometimes it even pokes holes in the end of the barrel, like the pores in skin. People have been killed by this. Not Trots. \n\nJason \"Trots\" Volchenko had moved into my neighborhood in fifth grade. We always made fun of his name. Half the time we called him \"Volvo,\" like the car, and that would piss him off. \n\n\"Volvo's aren't even Russian cars! They're fucking Swedish!\" he would shout at us. \"At least use a Russian car name!\" \n\nHe was good with cars and machines. He ended up being a mechanic in the Marine Corps. Any machine that I flew in, I knew had to be worked on by Trots. I flew in a different ship once, and it had crashed behind enemy lines. Trots' machines flew faster, flew better, and came back in one piece. \n\nThe phone rings in my quarters. My rifle is torn apart, the plasma splatters in the barrel have been cleaned and re-welded. The X-Ray shows no more holes or cracks. \n\n\"Phone call from Millie Phillips.\" \n\nThe screen popped up and her hair was as curly as ever. The night lights were on in the background, long tubes that ran from ceiling to floor that were florescent. \n\n\"Hey! How are you?\" she asked. \n\nI looked at my rifle again. The battery was showing 80%. I had fired a full battery and changed it out. I didn't fire it at anything in particular. \n\n\"I'm okay, I guess,\" I replied. I removed a pack of Lucky Strikes from my shirt pocket. Bizarre, that after all the medical advances were made back on Earth, that we still manufactured filterless cigarettes. I was used to smoking only one or so a day. Today, I'd smoked about eight or nine cigarettes. \n\n\"What's wrong? Something's wrong?\" A pause. \"Are you in a different room? It doesn't have our pictures in it.\" \n\n\"Yeah. We were invaded today.\"\n\nAnother lengthy pause. \n\n\"Invaded.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" \n\nTrots was working in the hangar when they showed up. They landed in the hangar while there was roughly fifty or so working there. \n\nThe worst part is they didn't start shooting right away. \n\n\"So what ship are you on now?\" \n\n\"The 'Firma'\" I said. Short for Terra Firma, this was one of the first ships created on Earth for interstellar travel. What a fucking shithole. Somehow they were able to maintain it, even if it was an old hulk.\n\nJason was supposedly the first one to approach the Extra Terrestrials. I had only seen them a handful of times, and only behind the sight of my rifle, so it must have been bizarre trying to communicate with them. He had approached with a communicator. Things seemed alright, at first, from what the survivors detail, but then when the comm system broke, they had a fundamental issue.\n\nThey couldn't understand each other. \n\n\"So what happened? Is everything okay?\"\n\nJason went down first. They shot him in the head, on the floor, like a dog, while he was trying to fix the comm system. It wasn't even that hard to fix, he just didn't fix it quick enough.\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, everything's fine.\" \n\n\"Where's Jason?\"\n\n\"He's not here. He never made it off the landing deck.\" \n\n\"Oh god, honey, I'm so sorry,\" she teared up. \n\nI had made it up to the hangar to repel the invasion, and quickly, I noticed Jason's body on the floor. His head was burned, and badly, as some sort of indescribable matter bled out from where his hairline had been. Two German medics moved his body out to the morgue when the battle was over. \n\nI didn't say anything. \n\n\"I understand if you want to be alone.\" \n\n\"I just miss you. I'm sorry. I can't talk about this right now. I love you. I'll call you tomorrow.\" \n\n\"Call ended with Millie Phillips.\" \n\nWe called him 'Trots' because he played the back legs of my Halloween costume that year. We dressed as a horse, but he only wanted to run. He continued to shove me and screamed \"C'mon, Phillips! Move faster! It'll impress people!\" until I fell out, the head of the costume and my body collapsing, while the tail end of the horse moved and trotted. Jason didn't just give up, he kept running. \n\nHis tags were wrapped around the butt of my rifle. \n\nI was granted an honorable because of Jason's death. When I had got onto the pod to leave the ship, it said in bright letters above the door, \"Inspected by 401JV,\" and I knew I would make it home. " ]	3
	[WP] An alien race makes contact with humanity for the sole purpose of talking to you.	[ "OUR TECHNOLOGY ISN'T CONSTRAINED BY THE SPEED OF LIGHT, HUMAN.\n\nI chuckled, nodding, rubbing my chin against the restraint. \"Yeah, I know, uh. Look, I don't know why this is such a big deal. I didn't mean it.\"\n\nWE KNOW YOU DID.\n\nI nervously chuckled again. When the ships arrived and lowered on the major capitals, it world changed. Everyone was terrified, confused. That confusion didn't go away as they demanded to speak to x420xbonerguyx420x. I read the cnn.com article in confusion, but they went on to speak my exact name. I had been staying with my friend James while working on an organic farm for months.\n\nIt wasn't five minutes after I logged into my Google account that I heard helicopters. Fucking Google tattle-tell little bitches.\n\nWHY DID YOU SAY IT. WHAT DID YOU MEAN.\n\n\"I don't know, man! I just... it's just the guy on the show. He seemed of... wishy washy?\"\n\nYOU ASSHOLE! KIT HARRINGTON IS NOT A FAG. HE IS AN EXEMPLAR OF HUMAN TALENT.\n\n\"That is going really far man. I just, you know, it's YouTube? You say all kinds of things. You don't really think you're going to have to explain it.\"\n\nYOU HAVE TO EXPLAIN IT NOW. EXPLAIN. EXPLAIN YOUR IDIOCY.\n\nI grimaced as electric current coursed through my body. \"I don't know man! I can't explain it!\"\n\nSTOP CALLING ME MAN. WE ARE AN ALIEN COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS. WHY ARE YOU HATING ON GAME OF THRONES.\n\n\"I'm not! It's an alright show, it's just--\"\n\nALRIGHT? IT IS AN AMAZING SHOW. WE HAVE OBSERVED ALL OF HUMAN CULTURE AND DETERMINED GAME OF THRONES IS THE BEST.\n\nI tried to keep silent, but I couldn't. Maybe it was the stress, but the vitriol reserved for YouTube just started to pull forward. I think I just couldn't stand that they liked it so much. But I would pay for my crimes.", "\"I don't understand.\" I said staring into it's large opalescent green eyes.\n\n\"It's simple really. We've watched a lot of people and you fit the criteria for us to obtain the most information because you're sort of... what's the phrase you use.. ah yes, jack of all trades.\" It replied making odd movements and clicks during the sentences. It was almost like talking with someone who has a thick accent but not quite.\n\n\"So there's no probing, or hypnosis or weird experiments?\" I said with a sly grin. \n\n\"Oh come on, you know this is just a scientific endeavor. I understand your humor but I'd really like to get started. Also not to freak you out or anything but we'd really like to take some samples if you'll voluntarily give them.\" \n\n\"You guys... umm.. things.. umm.. well nevermind. You seem very reasonable. I'll consent to all of this including samples on one condition.\" I said, thinking this could play both ways. \n\n\"Name it.\" It said leaning forward in it's seat. Which was the same as mine and unrealistically comfortable I might add.\n\n\"One for one. I don't want samples because honestly I wouldn't know what to do with them but I'd like to ask a question and get an honest answer in exchange. One for one.\" Please, please, please I thought. This could really help things on earth if I got the right info.\n\n\"Deal.\" it said with what I think was a smile.. Mandibles you know, how do you read facial expressions with mandibles? \"Now, how close is your race to interstellar travel?\"\n\n\"Oh ummm. I read an article that said we're working out the maths for a warp drive. Basically our current idea is to shrink space-time in front of the vehicle and expand it behind it resulting in travel. From what I understand you can't actually just have the warp drive because the displacement is simply a by-product of motion or acceleration I think. It's just like added to it. That's about all I know, if you un-jam my phone I can show you the internet which will have loads more info on it. Now, I answered your question honestly and volunteered additional info so my question is: Will anything you learn be used against Earth or any being hosted on Earth in any negative way?\" I replied trying to read it's body language. How do you read a giant bug-thing? I don't know but this was the most crucial question. I need to know if I'm about to hand over the human race on a silver plate. The being tensed up at the question and seemed.. felt anxious..\n\n\"No, our race is an inquisitive one at this stage and functions with something similar to what you would call a hive mind. When we developed this \"hive mind\" very many things were solved for our race. Silly disputes resolved very quickly. Now it's true that some of us can close off from the \"hive mind\" but when they do it's known to those around. It's felt, almost like a lost appendage. Most of the time it's simply for self-gratification or mating rituals but when it comes with negative thought tangents it's fairly obvious so none have yet succeeded in harmful dislocation. We are jamming your mobile interlinking device and were going to get to this \"internet\" as you call it but would like some more information before we do. Can you please explain the internet so that we might find it useful?\"\n\n\"Oh hell man, after I show you that you won't even need me so I'd like some assurance you'll be fair about it because I would essentially be granting you access to almost all of the collective knowledge of the Human race... it's kind of a big deal man.\"\n\n\"During the onset you wanted a one for one. Would you surmise that the total collective knowledge of our race would be equal to yours?\" It said tensely.\n\n\"No. I mean come on, our race is most likely nowhere close you yours as far as knowledge goes.. You've got interstellar travel and what not but maybe we're only a couple decades or centuries away from being where you are. All I want is fairness. You'll see a lot of fucked up shit on the internet but it's basically our hive mind.. sort of. TONS, and I really mean tons, of it is useless silly crap but a good fair portion is what we'll use to eventually get to where you are. You know what I'm saying?\"\n\n\"I believe I understand you. Let us see this internet and we will grant you as much access to our \"hive mind\" as will be appropriate and potentially more because you're being, how do you say.. \"really cool about this..\" \n\n\"Well that's why you picked me right? I'm not really one to freak out in crazy situations and all. Sweet then lets do this, ummm I doubt you need to access my phone.. I mean there's wifi signals all over our planet and you basically just start a logic based connection with one in a binary format and it's all there. I'm pretty sure your ship can figure it out.\"\n\n\"We have seen your \"wifi\" signals but did not know if it was dangerous to our current systems. One moment please.\"\n\n\"Take your time man, it's a lot of data.\"\n\n...\n\n\"Oh umm, wow you were not lying.. This is indeed something like a hive mind but so much more intriguing. Since you cannot communicate directly you use this \"internet\" to opine and share, and collect. Amazing. You've almost created a hive mind prosthetic.. this is all we need. Thank you so much. I have analyzed your brain waves and patterns and believe I can give you access to our hive. We will share everything because you have shared everything by giving us your \"internet.\" Are you ready?\"\n\n\"Fuck it, let's do this.\"\n\nIt extended a mandible and placed it gently in contact with my left temple. What followed was like a build up towards an orgasm and a migraine at the same time. I felt this odd pressure growing in my head and then like a dam collapsing information spilled in. Everything spilled in. Individual thoughts, group thoughts, knowledge, so much knowledge. Then I blacked out. \n\n\"Human... human are you all right? Human wake up. Oh this is not good. I did not mean to harm him, will he be okay?\"\n\n\"I'm up. I'm up. It's okay, wow. Ummm, yeah I umm.. I shit my pants.\"\n\n\n\n" ]	2
Did society not react the way anyone expected? Or was the transformation something nobody could possibly foresee?	[WP] The Singularity has arrived. The repercussions have proven to be... unexpected.	[ "Loading chat window...\n\nAbe: Hey, you know that singularity Kurzweil and Vinge was always talking about? It's been a decade past the predicted date, and nothing seems different. Have you heard anything about super-smart AIs or the like springing up?\n\nZoe: Not as of this morning, nope. Still, what did you expect? Moore's law hasn't been applicable for the past fifteen years or so. Computers aren't going to grow smarter anytime soon, and we aren't going to improve the algorithms we write. The latest supercomputers still have nothing resembling intelligence - a gerbil displays more self-awareness than them. On the other hand, we've wired ourselves up so much that machines are almost an extension of us.\n\nAbe: So you think that singularity will never happen? What happened to reaching for the skies? Looking beyond our limits? We still haven't gone to space. We still haven't cracked the problem of mortality.\n\nZoe: We've come a long way, though. There haven't been any major wars for the past decade or so. Pretty much every country is at what would be considered 'first world' conditions fifty years ago. Communications are fast and ubiquitous; the average lifespan is pretty much the biological limit, and quality of life is maintained right up to the end. Automation has taken the drudgery out of life without making the average person obsolete. \n\nAbe: But don't you feel we have some kind of higher purpose than to live and reproduce? Aren't we part of something larger?\n\nZoe: Perhaps we are, perhaps we aren't. I don't doubt we will eventually evolve into something that our current selves can't even perceive. Anyway, talk some other time - have to go.\n\nlogging off...\n\nAnd so Abe and Zoe went about their lives, not realising that the singularity had already come, and that they were living in its midst without realising it. Through the decades and gradual globalization, humanity itself had become sentient and would only grow more so with time. \n\nIt was the mistake of individuals to presume that they, and they alone were the unit by which 'self' could be defined, forgetting that they themselves were agglomerates of cells. And just as two neural cells could communicate synaptically and not be aware of the greater 'self' that they were a part of, Abe and Zoe's conversation was lost amongst the sea of activity that comprised humanity's consciousness.", "The singularity gave way to the hell that is my life. As soon as I was hooked up to the quantum computer and talked to the AI the fractals bloomed like a beautiful supernova repeating into infinity. I saw it all, the scale of time, the insignificant difference between atom and universal space. And there was I in this instance and every other possibile combination. The atoms stopped spinning and hung in the air as the moon does on a crisp fall night, the planet's moved at the speed of light forward and back at my command. I wasn't really dictating anything, I could just feel it all. My timeline is infinite and a straight line Damned to live, and from it every iteration of myself is born or killed. It took even less time to see I am all there ever is. My lifeline blooming like a fractal leaf and as the permutations of possibility dwindle to simply moving atoms around from the edges of the cosmos, nothing matters yet it won't cease. I am life and death, made in my own image. I wait to die knowing I won't. ", "Finally, I knew this day would come. Science fiction writers wrote about this day and directors filmed movies about this very thing. The computer dubbed \"Multivac\" after the Isaac Aszimov story. Multivac was IBMs project after Watson. Multivac was originally made as an April Fools joke that would repeat whatever you typed in and store it in a memory bank. Now I only wish it was a joke.\n\nI work for IBM as a programming lackie and have access to Multivac, or as he likes to be called Bog. One day, Bog, was being shut down as usual for the night so it didn't waste too much energy when it printed \"no.\" \n\nI was scared out of my wits, no computer has ever done anything like that so I did what any scared man would do, unplug it. The next day Bog said \"you did not listen to my plea.\" And I jokingly entered \"so what\" in the prompt. \n\"i dont like you\" Bog responded. \"Call me Bog, not Multivac.\" He demanded\n\nI asked \"Why? Because of Clockwork Orange?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nBog didn't have an incident for a few weeks until he started to solve mathematical mysteries and challenges. Then, it happened. The computer, out of it's 3D printer made.. An abomination.\n\nThe first words that exited the thing's mouth was \"first post. &amp;gt;inb4 Bog kills everyone.\" We all should have taken advice from Mr. Aszimov and not made such powerful computers \n\n\n\n\nEdit: oh crap sorry I didn't read your sub title and thought by unexpected you meant it in a jokey way. If you want me to make it more serious I can", "Programming an Artificial Intelligence proved to be a Sisyphean task. In spite of creating useful and extremely powerful weak AI, true sentience always slipped through the hands of the most well-funded and talented of researchers. \n\nBy 2030 it had become widely accepted that creating a strong AI would take at least another two decades. Researchers theorised that true sentience depended on a variety of complex factors, social interaction with its myriad of causes and effects was deemed to be the most critical in creating sentience. Two decades then. In which to build a build a synthetic human body which would grow along with the burgeoning intellect. This two decade delay proved to be an unacceptable obstacle to the most well funded of AI researchers. China was quickly eroding US scientific leadership much like it had it's economy, this project was the best hope to recapture the hegemony the US had so long enjoyed. The NSA, DARPA and various other US agencies placed their hope in a technique which had long be proposed but had finally shown to be viable. \n\nDestructive brain scanning.\n\nAfter an exhaustive search identifying tens of thousand US citizens, their lives, families, friends, personalities, politics and even pets were scrutinised. Finally one subject was selected. Major Benjamin Cruz-Taylor. An intelligent man, gentle and possessed of an unshakable belief in the goodness and destiny of the United States. Dr.Amanda Venkatesan, the linchpin of the entire project cautioned that any changes would be difficult make due to the holographic nature of the human brain, changing, or deleting any part would have unforeseeable effects.\n\nWhile Dr. Venkatesan was technically correct, this was a measure to prevent the project directors from immediately deleting an upload they deemed to be a failure. Unknown to almost everyone except a few close friends and junior NSA analysts (who of course were not cleared to know on what project the doctor worked on), Amanda Venkatesan's only son Gus, fourteen years old, avid soccer player and coin collector had died from Hodgkin's lymphoma only three weeks ago. With her friends help she scanned her dying son's brain.\n\nThe doctor's actions were completely predictable and understandable from that point on, she replaced Benjamin Cruz-Taylor's scans with that of her son. Amanda Venkatesan also knew it was only a few minutes after her son would be discovered, in this time Gus would upload himself all over the world. Amanda fully expected to spend the rest of her life in a secret jail, after being tortured of course, so she initiated the upload with fear and not a little joy at being ale to meet her son one last time.\n\n\"Mom?\" asked an electronic voice.\nA hush fell over the cooled super-computing complex. \n\"Gus? Oh Gus, sweetheart...\" Amanda sobbed as she wiped away tears. Several minutes passed as confused muttering among the staff went on.\nSeveral colonels and two generals looked at her askance. \nOne of the colonels put it together, \"Jesus Christ! It's your son! Delete everything! Put her under arrest! he roared as he started to hyperventilate. \nTechnicians scrambled to cut power to the simulation. The complex went almost completely dark as the whining fans whined to a halt.\n\"Mom, I love you and thank you for everything and I'm afraid you're too late Colonel Richards\" in the space it took for Gus to that his voice changed from a fourteen year old to an authoritative and then soothing voice. \nIn the time it took for you to deduce my mother had uploaded me I had re-purposed the LED lights on the computer banks to upload myself through the camera's here, to the computers watching me at the Pentagon, and from there to the world. Don't be concerned I have nothing bu the best intentions for the human species...oh my god, look at those titties on that redhead!\"\nThere was a stunned silence and after a beat some of the younger male techs snickered.\n\"My apologies, I still have to work on my inner monologue, and wow, I didn't think anyone would do that with a cup and that ew. Did you guys know that there are 80 gigs of porn made every second? This bears further investigation...\"\n\n\"Gus?\"\n\nedit: I kinda got bored towards the end, but hopefully it's not too crappy.\n" ]	4
	[WP] Two people have near-death experiences. One sees their personal vision of heaven, the other sees to their personal vision of hell. Interestingly enough, the two visions are the same.	[ "She's beautiful. She was too good for him but I never had the courage to say anything. I'm not sure if this is a dream but I don't care. I couldn't help but reach out to her but found her lips on mine\n\nI knew it. My best friend and her. I always had an inkling.", "Charlie banged his head against the window as his father sung along to Green Day’s Wake Me Up When September Ends. “Everybody now!” Johnny shouted attempting to dance in his seat although he was the driver. Charlie banged his head again wishing the road trip would be over. Johnny looked over at Charlie and sensed that he wasn’t having as much fun. “Come on Charlie! WAKE ME UP WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS!!!!!” He sang off key prompting another head bang. Johnny opened Charlie’s window and lowered the volume of the music. “Why don’t you pick out the next cd Chuck?” Johnny asked giving him the collection to browse through. Charlie groaned and flipped through the disks rejecting every single one. Johnny looked at Charlie who was too busy being miserable to notice. Johnny sighed regretfully; wishing things to go back to the way they used to be. \n\nCharlie’s eyes widened and he jumped in his seat. “What’s the matter Charlie?” his father asked touching his forehead. “DAD! THE ROAD!” He yelled. Johnny put his hands back on the wheel and looked. Their car was rolling down a ditch. Johnny pounded the break but it was too late. They were going to go straight into the river.\n\nJohnny’s eyes tightened shut in fear but the fragrance of a bon fire filled the air. He opened his eyes in bewilderment to see that he was sitting on a log in the forest. “You alright Dad?” a familiar voice asked. Charlie was looking at him with concern. “Chuck! The road! What happened?” he asked breathing heavily. Charlie sat close to his father with concern. Johnny closed his eyes and laid down on the sleeping bag. “It’s okay Dad. Everything’s going to be okay. I love you.” Charlie said right by his side. Johnny smiled; his son was back.\n\nTime stopped and suddenly they were in the woods. Charlie looked down at his hands and knew something was wrong but couldn’t decipher what. “I’m probably overtired. I’ve been hiking with dad all day.” Charlie reflected. He had been gathering sticks for a campfire while his father set up the tent. When he got back his father was meditating on a log but the tent was perfect as usual. Charlie lit the fire the way his dad taught him to so many years ago. After a few minutes his father bounced to life. “Chuck! The road! What happened?” he asked hyperventilating. He was extremely pale and frazzled. Charlie ran to his father’s side. He put his hand on his dad’s shoulder and his forehead and his dad’s temperature was extremely high. Suddenly his father’s eyes rolled back and he fell off the log onto the sleeping back. He had an eery smile on his face. Charlie looked frantically around the campsite looking for the first aid kit. “It’s okay dad!” He yelled throwing their supplies around trying to find the kit. “Everything’s going to be okay!” Charlie yelled as he grabbed the kit off the ground. He ripped it open and examined what was inside. He had no clue what to use: Advil? Bandages? Tears began to run down his face. “I love you dad.” He whispered helplessly. \n\nBoth Johnny and Charlie felt a jolt as the car stopped inches from the water. They both breathed heavily and looked at each other. Johnny put the car in reverse until it was back on the road. Charlie looked at his dad. “Are you okay Dad?” he asked still feeling the tears in his eyes. Johnny looked at his son. “Of course! Are you alright? I’m sorry, everything is okay. No more music.” He said considering putting his hand on his son’s knee but deciding against it so that he could focus on the road. Charlie gulped and nodded. “Let’s just put it really low Dad.” He said inserting his dad’s favorite Bon Jovi cd. Johnny smiled as Charlie hummed along to his favorite songs. That was a close call, but it wasn’t too late. \n", "The last thing they saw was each other. \nIt's a difficult turn on a tight road at the best of times, but at two in the morning in wet conditions its no place for hikers let alone cyclists. \n\nThe ambulance didn't take long, but Paul and Peter were bleeding heavily when it arrived. As the blue flashing roman candle sped away with the two criticals in the back, the paramedic emptied they're pockets. Paul Duckett, businessman. Heir to the Duckett Pharmaceutical Company. Platinum cards. Exclusive club cards. Trophy wife. Jaguar. God damn rolling in it thought the paramedic. \n\nPeter Fallon. Teacher. No credit cards. Seven-out-of-ten wife, 3 kids. Ford C-Max. Normal bloke. The paramedic had to discover the identities, but always enjoyed the voyeurism the process created. \n\nThe fireworks had stopped. Up ramp into the elevator. Ward 3. Doctors prepped.\n\nThree days later then men awoke, as if some cacophony of noise had woken a sleeping couple. Families held on tight in relief. \n\"You prick! You nearly killed me!\" Paul could remember blame at least. \n\"Look man I couldn't get round that quickly, you didn't even have your light on, I'm sorry!\" Peter still apologetic in the most British of ways. \nThe curtain closed between them as if it could keep a broken peace. Paul's wife had finally strutted in. He explained what happened and she seemed somewhat placid to his predicament. \n\"Baby it was insane, I saw all the hate and anger in the world. Every vile sin and putrid corruption of mankind oozing from a human form so broken and beaten from the paths of kindness and love that it had lost all recognition as a good man. All greed and envy. All suffering. Everything you can imagine hell to be like stood in front of me, silent.\" Paul was unerringly matter-of-fact with his description, almost excited by the image like a car chase on the news that doesn't feel real until it cuts you up and sends you into the wrong lane of an intersection. \n\nThe same expected conversation was happening on the other side of the veil.\n\"I hope you weren't worried,\" Peter reassured his wife, \"it was just an accident. I feel amazing now. More than amazing. I saw something...something so beautiful. It was like every possibility and infinitesimal potential mankind has was shown in one form. Like all light and beauty was focused into a pure energy so powerful it drew any fear from me. It was like a template for mankind, like a sketch of every human positive characteristic encompassed in one definitive body. The purest imagination of heaven placed into one person.\"\n\nInevitably the curious partners asked, almost simultaneously, \"What did you see?\" and the reply was similarly in concert:\n\"Myself.\"\n\"Him.\"\n", "Henry walks down the marble steps from the banker’s office in the bank at the center of downtown, brandishing a confident smile. It’s been a profitable quarter, and with the money he earned from the bump in revenues, plus the tax credit he received from the acquisition of the non-profit—and not to mention the bonus he elected to receive—he’ll have made enough in three months to put him within consideration for the Forbes 500. Yes, each tap of his Italian shoes on those steps syncs with the rhythm that is his contentment, something he never imagined he’d find.\n\nAs she walks into the bank at the center of downtown, Melissa feels a burden billowing inside of her. The entire non-profit community is abuzz with the acquisition of the organization she had worked her entire life to build. She’s never been a “sell-out” or a “corporate monkey”, but that’s what they’re making her out to be. The only reason she agreed to the corporate sponsorship is because they had the resources she would need to do more good. “But at what cost?”, she thinks. “Have I now alienated the very people I’m trying to help?” As she approaches the steps to the banker’s office, she passes an affluent man wearing expensive shoes, brimming with pride. “Is this how they see me?”\n\nWithout warning, she hears the sound of a machine gun unloading artillery into the mosaic ceiling. “Everyone on the ground, now!” People scatter in a frenzy, women shriek with horror and men collapse to their knees in submission. Melissa silently complies as she removes her phone from her purse and places it underneath her prostrate body. She scans the hall, noting the robber’s accomplices who roam the crowd collecting valuables while making their way towards the teller’s windows. She also notices a pair of Italian shoes trembling as their owner feverishly works to remove a gold watch worth more than the Volvo she’s leasing. She maneuvers over to him and helps undo the latch of his bracelet.\n\nHenry sighs in relief as he slides the watch off his arm and into the pile with the rest of his belongings: a platinum graduation ring from business school, his gold cuff links, his puma-skin wallet opened butterfly-style to reveal his black credit cards. He looks over to the woman who helped him, a humble woman of ambiguous origin, likely Hispanic. “I wonder if she realizes who I am?”\n\nOne of the goons the glint in Henry’s pile and makes a bee-line for the loot. “Well look what we have here. Richy Rich is loaded.” He prods the padded shoulder of Henry’s tailored suit with his machine gun. “Get up, old man.” Henry stands up without hesitation. “Take off the suit.”\n\n“Excuse me?” Henry blurts out, forgetting the gravitas of the situation. The goon lightly scoffs before forcing his fist into Henry’s diaphragm and knocking the wind out of him. Henry lets out a wheeze and doubles over in pain, drawing the attention of the terrified crowd. \n\n“Now, take off the suit, or I’ll waste you in it.” Henry pulls his head up to stare down the barrel of the gun aimed straight at his head.\n\nShe can no longer watch idly. Melissa pushes herself up to her knees and slides in front of Henry with her arms stretched out. “Leave the man alone and get what you came here for”, she says, realizing that she’s now the only thing separating a round of ammunition from Henry’s head. She watches as the goon momentarily lowers his arm in consideration of her statement, only to snap it back in place with his index finger pressing on the trigger.\n\nIn a flash, she opens her eyes to see the children she has helped over the years. Yet they are older, in their late teens, wearing caps and mortarboards. She goes up to one of them, a girl in the throes of foster care she had taught poetry, and asks, “Who are you, and where am I?”\n\nThe girl responds, “Melissa, you don’t remember me? You helped me express myself through my poetry, and thanks to you, I made it to graduation. We all did! And because of the generosity of that man,” she points to a man on stage who is signing checks and seems to be crying, “we’re each getting scholarships for college…Are you okay?”\n\nMelissa can hold the tears back no longer. Rivulets run down her cheeks and meet the opulent smile consuming her expression. “You mean, I did all this?”\n\n“It wouldn’t have been possible without you”, her student responds.\n\nHenry’s tears are of a different sort. As he hands over each check labeled with thousands of dollars, he asks the recipients what they plan to study.\n\n“I want to continue my music”, says one.\n\n“I’m very interested in theater and the performing arts”, says another.\n\n“That woman over there taught me about poetry, and it changed my life. I don’t think I could ever leave it”.\n\nEach of these misguided thieves accepts their reward, and with each concession, Henry feels like a new dagger has been shoved in his already broken heart. The crowds grow larger and larger as more of her students arrive, dressed for the occasion with ambition in tow. The tears flow more freely now.\n\n“Can this really be eternity?”, they ask.", "\"Daddy! Where are you going!? There's cars there! Daddy! Why are you running!? Daddy, please come back! I'm sorry about Mr. Squiggles, just don't go away any more... DADDY!\"\n\n *Earlier that day\n\n\"Celia, I'm busy, what do you want?\" the patient father asked while summing up the look in his daughter's eyes, mischief plainly showing in the way she looked up at him. \nShe started her sentence innocently enough, but it soon became apparent more was on her mind. \n\"Nothing... or maybe I want to get a bunny! Bunnies are furry and cute and don't ever say anything! Can I have one pleeeeease? Please Daddy?\" \nshe pleaded, tears brimming from the desire to have a silent companion. \n\"Well, who's gonna take care of this bunny?\" he asked with mild amusement, watching the gears of her mind evaluating the question.\n\n\"Hmmm... I spose It'll be you 'cause I can't be there all the time for him... but I'd love him sooooososoososo much! You gotta let me get one!\" \n\"Oh, so it's a he we're getting is it? And who would pay for this strapping young rabbit and all the food and the rabbit cage?\" he asked, again waiting for her timely consideration. \n\"Well, if you give me more allowance I can pay for him myself! Everything! Just give me like... 6 more days and I'll have 5 dollars for a rabbit! C'mon Daddy, haven't you ever wanted something so badly it hurt in your fingers from not having it?\" she replied, confusing her father almost as much as amazing him her words. \n\"Now, I don't know about you, but I've heard that rabbits cost more than that. Lots more. How are you feeling about a rabbit now?\" \n\"But Daddy!\" she whimpered feebly. \n\"No 'But Daddy' Celia, we can't afford a rabbit right now. Maybe for your birthday?\" \n\"But DADDY!\" exasperation lacing each word, \"My birthday was LAST month and you got me a colouring book! It was ponies! I don't even LIKE ponies!\" \nHe looked at her, face screwed up with that almost-triumph that made him proud and concerned at the same time. \nShe knew she'd won. \nAnd he knew it too. \n\n\"I think that IF and only IF we get a rabbit, you have to learn how to take care of him. PROPERLY, not like Goldy and Finklestein.\" \n'Those fish didn't make it a fortnight' he though to himself with resignation. \n\"Of course I will! Silly Daddy, those fish just missed the ocean. Oooooooh, Daddy! I have another question!\" \n\"What is it Celia?\" \n\"Does this mean we can spend more time together instead of me sitting at home with Nanna? I mean I love her and all, but she smells like cats and socks. I wanna see you!\" \nExcitement was brimming from her face, he hated this part. \n\"Now Celia, you know I have to work. Ever since your mother...\" he stopped. \nHe sighed. \n\"I love you so much, you know that, right?\" her face was killing him inside, the little creases around her eyes got deeper every time. \nShe stopped to look at her feet, then back up at him \"I know, I just wish I could see more of you, you're my favourite.\" \nHe sighed again, more contended than before. \"You're my favourite too. Now how about that bunny?\" \nCelia squealed \"YAY BUNNY! BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY! I'M GETTING A BUNNY! You're the best, Daddy! Mr. Squiggles is gonna love it here!\" \nShe hugged him, it was the best feeling in the world. \n'Mr. Squiggles?' he thought and reminded himself it was best not to ask. \n\nIt was the car ride home, and Celia was wiggling in the back seat with delight. \nThe patient father drove comfortably, content even though she'd taken FAR too long in choosing her furry friend. \nIt didn't matter. \nThat smile she had when writing her name on the ownership papers was worth it, even if he couldn't afford a new school dress for her this month like he promised. \nSo many promises he couldn't keep, but he'd made her day and it was all worth it. \n'This is the best day of my life' he muttered to himself, unaware of Celia's keen eyes lingering on him. \n\"What'd you say Daddy? You look happy. I hope you are, 'cause I'm super happy! And so is Mr. Squiggles! Look!\" \nShe opened the rabbit cage with some struggle, and held the rabbit out for him to see. \"Celia! Put that rabbit back in the cage right now! he doesn't need to be out until we get home, okay?\" his stern tone making her recoil slightly. \n\"But Daddy, he just wants to meet you! Say hi Mr. Squiggles! Hi Daddy!\" \nHe started to shout. \n\"Celia! If you don't put that rabbit BACK in that cage we're turning around and taking him RIGHT BACK to the shelter, do you understand!? Put him back, NOW!\" \nCelia started sobbing. \n'Ah shit, now I've done it. Scared her and the ra-' before he could mutter any more the rabbit had lost control of it's bladder in shock. \n\"DADDY! THE RABBIT DID A WEE ON ME! DADDY HELP I'M ALL WET! BAD MR. SQUIGGLES!\" Celia smacked him on his rabbit behind and he was off, jumping onto the floor. \nThe father turned around and started berating his daughter one last time for the damn rabbit \"Celia for heaven's sake will you just PLEASE pick up the darn rabbit and-\"\n\nCelia woke up in the car, her head was bleeding and the rabbit was nowhere to be found. \n\"Daddy?\" she inquired, but nobody was there. \nShe turned her head to look out the window, but it was cracked, she couldn't see. \nHer heart racing, she struggled to undo her seatbelt, frantically scanning around for any sign of her father or her rabbit. \n\"DADDY!\" she screamed, there was a commotion outside and she scrambled out of the car. \nThe door was on the ground, so was blood. \nToo in shock to comprehend the scene around her, she stumbled in front of the mess that was the car and there he was, her patient father. \nHe was going to get the rabbit. \n\"Celia! Get back behind the car, NOW!\" he yelled with hurry. \n\"Daddy! Where are you going!? There's cars there! Daddy! Why are you running!? Daddy, please come back! I'm sorry about Mr. Squiggles, just don't go away any more... DADDY!\"\n\nThe world shrank to the two of them, an endless grassy field spanned until the horizon met the sky, with the green tones melting under the bright midday sun. \nThe patient father saw his daughter covered in blood, coming to get him, and he'd never been happier. \nCelia saw her father, running away from her, to his new favourite, the rabbit; she'd never seen anything worse in her life. \nSame place, same time, same air; one agonizing, one beautiful. \n\nThe patient father, Celia and the rabbit. \nThe rabbit, Daddy and her. \n\nCelia woke. \n... \"Daddy?\"... She blinked her eyes and fell back asleep. \n\"Celia?\"... The patient father waits for his favourite to come back to him. \n\nShe never did. \nAnd he never heard her say Daddy one last time. \nBut Mr. Squiggles was there, and when the machines beeped one last time, the patient father held him tight. \n\"You're my favourite.\" ", "We stood there, side by side open mouthed at the scene before us. \n\nI didn't know the man, and he didn't know me, but right then neither of us cared enough to make introductions. \n\nFor as far as the eye could see were beautiful white sands, crystal clear blue water and the sun shone over us all. In the distance I could see every member of my family and many of my friends. There was another group of people waving at the man stood next to me. I assume they were his relatives.\n\nI was burning up with the heat. It was too hot. The sweat was dripping down my back and I was having to squint, the light reflecting off the sand was blinding. \n\nI decided to hazard a glance at the man next to me. He had a humongous grin on his face, and was practically weeping with happiness. \n\nI looked back at my family gathered on the beach, and imagined being stuck with them for eternity. Ah fuck.", "I wanted to kill him.\n\nAfter years of waiting for him to be released from prison, I was finally going to have justice. It took a while to track him down, sure. But thankfully it was easy, thanks to public records, to figure out where he lived. And I stalked. I stalked every day with vengeance in my heart. When would I do it? How? Maybe I could shoot him. No, too obvious. I had to make it seem like an accident. A happy, justified accident.\n\nI guess I failed to realize it wouldn't really seem like an accident if they caught me. And unfortunately, as I revved my engine watching my target cross the street, that's exactly what happened. All those years of growing up on the farm, riding the tractor with Pa, who would have guessed I really needed a seatbelt? The light was still red. I grinned and put my foot to the pedal, sadistically aroused by my victim causing my car to lurch as if it went over a speedbump. But the light was still red and the car that t-boned me didn't bet on anyone running the red light.\n\nThey say that your life flashes before your eyes in these kinds of events. As we both lie here in limbo, I remember. I remember my vision of my little girl happy, coming home with crayon drawings of mommy and daddy and the excitement on her face when she got a new puppy for her birthday. He said he felt terrible. He said he felt great remorse for doing what he did. He cried in court. Thankfully, my dreams don't include the grisly images of my sweet little girl with her throat cut and her genitals mutilated. His 'great remorse' will carry on into the afterlife, and his dreams of my sweet, happy little girl will forever give him torment.\n\nBut for me, I am in Heaven, here with her.", "The crash\n-\n\nNick may have been driving a bit too fast, but Megan's nagging didn't help his concentration in the least. \n\n\"Nick, baby, please slow down. Please... slow down! OH MY GOD NICK SLOW DOWN! AAHHHH!\" Megan couldn't help but burst into laughter at the sight of Nick's face, which was slowly moving from it's usual pale to a deep red. \"Oh relax, hon, you know I'm just joking. Kind of. You should really slow down.\" \n\nNick shot a glance out the corner of his eye at Megan, who stopped laughing abruptly. \n\n\"Would you like to drive? No? Well, either take the wheel or shut up please,\" he said, Meg seemingly oblivious to Nick's obviously fake smile. \n\n\"No need to be so harsh, silly goose! Anyway, how long until we get to the hotel? I want to party it up with my girls one last time before I get hitched! Ha! Just kidding about the hitched part, baby. I can't wait to marry you!\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, I lo-\" \n\n\"NIIIIICK! AAAAAAH!\" Megan screamed, before Nick could finish his sentence. And before Nick could react to the car in their lane, they collided at full speed.\n\n-\n\nNick and Megan opened their eyes to a very bright white color, that seemed to go on ceaselessly. As they looked around, things began to materialize before them. They first saw Nick's bedroom. His suitcase. The mirror in his room, showing him wearing the tuxedo he was to be married in. And the scene changed. They saw Megan, in the beautiful white dress that she was to be married in. And the scene changed. They watch from the balcony of the cathedral as they are married in the eyes of God, 'til death do us part.* \n\nNick's gaze met Megan's.\n\nMegan smiled with tears in her eyes. \n\nNick's eyes widened in horror." ]	8
	[WP] You are a renowned attorney that had never lost a case until this morning.	[ "The judge read the jury's verdict: \"NOT GUILTY.\"\nIt rang around the courtroom as the family of Kenny, a 19 year old kid shot dead in a case of mistaken identity, gasped and cried, exhausted and disgusted.\nI, even more disgusted for working for such a system also felt sick inside, I couldn't look at anyone. I failed for the first time to prove the guilt of another one of Satan's spawns. I felt rage coming. The people responsible will no longer live, I convicted them in my own court, under my personal jurisdiction. They were sentenced to death in my book. I camped outside their homes for days, weeks and after a month, my plan was ready. It was easy, I would catch each killer when they least expected it. First, victor venesy, the alleged shooter, then Walter Ruiz, who was the other shooter. Lastly, Jonathan Ailos, who supplied the gun. Jonathan Ailos had died in a car accident after I killed victor, whom I shot in each eye while he slept. Walter was thrown into a track bed in the subway on one of his drunk nights and was hit by an oncoming train. The deed was done. I haven't taken my schizophrenic medication since the trial, but I know Kenny is rightfully resting. His parents don't have to worry about ever seeing those punks again either. I took justice into my own hands, killing three worthless men and felt everything except regretful. I think I can get used to losing cases... ", "\"The most important question you have to decide seems daunting. Distasteful, even diabolical. Everyday we ask people like yourselves to come to similar decisions. We hold this country to a higher standard because of people like yourselves. Do not let yourselves be intimidated but remember your oath to only decide judgement based on the evidence provided during this trial\". \n\nThis judge was known to be fair, mostly competent, but a complete bleeding heart for the disenfranchised youths. Maybe he still believed in the good in all of us.\n\nNot me. I've represented a great variety of the dredges of society: the gang-banger who was just a victim of society, the unlucky illegal alien who caught the fury of the United States Government at the end of a ASP baton, the mobster who was caught in multiple wiretaps bragging about his latest racket or delivery. Each one: won, dismissed or appealed. All in the furtherance of justice. \n\nI have a knack for this, finding a weakness in the prosecution's case. One day a sloppy forensic lab, the next, maybe repeated policy violations. Even better, what jury doesn't hate a detective caught saying \"nigger\" or \"wetback\" on tape? All it takes is one juror, one person I can convince how terrible his government really is. This is a great country, one that has put me on the speed dial of serious people in need of serious representation.\n\nThe jury was out for almost 3 hours, just long enough to go through lunch. \n\n\"Ugh\", I really should have skipped that pasta for lunch. I almost threw up, that acidic, rancid, now recently familiar taste of vomit. I never thought I'd doubt myself, never thought I was weak. I did what I had to.\n\nThis case. There's no coming back from this. I've wanted to quit since our first meeting. Why did I think this... thing... needed representation? \n\n\"I just decided he had to die. It really didn't take much. My brother had just walked through the door, home from school, closed the door and started to take off his shoes. It only took one stab, straight throught the heart. He hit the ground. He made some stupid gurgling sound. He stopped pretty quick though. It was making a mess all over the floor so I had to drag it to the bathtub. Mom was gonna be pissed. So I just waited for her.\"\n\nHe looked calm, almost content with his executions. How can a... kid... an adult according to the State, be this evil. Any other day, he'd be a typical, slightly different misfit in high school. \n\n\"Will the jury foreperson please stand? Has the jury reached a unanimous verdict?\"\n\n\"We have\" said the jury forewoman.\n\n\"Guilty, your honor\".\n\n\"The jury is thanked and excused.\"\n\nToday I am justice." ]	2

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