prompt stringlengths 20 5.8k | chosen_story stringlengths 226 10k | rejected_story stringlengths 227 9.43k | chosen_timestamp timestamp[ns]date 2012-07-26 17:01:55 2022-12-31 14:34:19 | rejected_timestamp timestamp[ns]date 2012-07-26 14:23:36 2022-12-31 12:20:41 | chosen_upvotes int64 14 23.1k | rejected_upvotes int64 10 4.26k |
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[WP] As a powerful Fae; you gave the young couple everything they could possibly want in exchange for one, small thing - their firstborn... Pity nobody explained to you that mortals choose to be child-free | Felix and Hilda were the couple that summoned me about a decade ago. They had just married. Now, I don't usually give out favors to anyone that goes through all the hoops of cultivating a perfect circle of mushrooms on any rooftop. But I was actually moved by their story. They had been together since they were 12, had been homeless for close to 3 years and Felix had a heart condition that they didn't have the money to treat, meaning he could die at any time. But still love triumphed for them. They were extremely desperate and I just thought they deserved happiness. "I may not be the strongest being in the universe but you two are mere mortals. I can do anything with you. I mean, for you." I remember telling the couple as they breathed a sigh of relief.
Ten years on, now Felix is healthy and owns a successful bakery along with his beautiful wife Hilda (the beautiful part is thanks to me, it was Hilda's first wish for some reason), they live in a big house with a nice front yard and all and they haven't cried or fallen ill once since our encounter. Sounds marvelous, right?
But they still haven't given me a child. I'm not sure what is going on with that. I thought they were both fertile. If they weren't I could help with that too, in fact I did. They both should be baby making machines by now. But something's wrong. They never reached back to me with a child in hand.
See, I felt pity for them but I wouldn't help them for free. All I asked for was their firstborn child. It really wasn't much. They promised me too. Yet time is running out and they still haven't popped an infant for me. They haven't even communicated with me in years. I can't move on to new deals until this one is complete.
So I had to use my own powers to get back to the mortal world and tracked down Hilda.
"Where is my reward? It's been so long, why didn't you reach back to me?" I asked her.
"What are you talking about?" She seemed confused.
"You promised me your firstborn. How old are they now?"
"Wh- we don't have a child. Now can I go?" She dismissed me.
"But you promised. I've been waiting for ten years. I need to seal this deal. If you don't give me your firstborn then our contact is void." Did they not read the terms?
"Contract? Oh, but we don't have a child to give, we need more time." She told me. Time?
"But how long are you going to take? We have a time limit." I lied. I thought mortals love children, that they'll finish their part of the deal in an year tops. But she seemed different.
"Okay, we'll give you our child by this time next year, would that work?" There was a glint in her eyes.
"That'll be splendid." And so I let her go. This time I knew what was wrong, they were trying to outsmart me. I gave them everything and they thought me a fool. I never should've trusted them.
I stayed on the mortal realm and kept watch on them. I made sure they will not only give me a child but ten. One for each year they wasted. Who said firstborn means only one child? If all of them are born on the same time, then they're all mine.
Having ten children grow inside of you can be painful, almost fatal. So I took pity on Hilda one last time. Both her and Felix can share the responsibility. Nothing is impossible with my help. Little do they know, the next time they make love, both of them will conceive so many new lives. In a year's time, I will feast. They'll probably not survive but a deal is a deal. | It laughed as it manifested the Lady with One-thousand smiles appeared, looking at the young woman with a smile.
The Fae smiled. "Oh you think you're so clever\~ Well sorry, but no, that's not how this works."
"What do you mean, I just won't have children with Mark."
"No, you will; the fact you made the pact means that, narratively, it must happen." her 'patron' replied. "If you want to outwit me you need to do it AFTER the fact."
"B-but i don't want to have a child..."
"... then just let me take it? What do you think I'm going to do with a baby?"
The fae leaned in it's form smiling. "It's not just a standard; we take them and raise them to be new fae. After all; if you cannot provide them love, then we will."
The woman looked down. "That's it?"
"Well sometimes but the point is; if you want to do the 'human outsmarts the fey' story you need to work at it. By Challenging me you made yourself subject to the Law of Narrative," The Fae shrugged. "Play along please." | 2021-07-08T06:12:38 | 2021-07-08T05:45:43 | 54 | 33 |
[WP] You are an elite member of the royal guard. You have recently been fired from your position because of the new king. Little does he know, there was a reason why the previous king kept you in his service for so long.
Edit: Holy crap this blew up! Thank you all! | Thank you for your kindness and your wisdom, friend. You say you don't want a fancy tin king hat, but I can at least answer some of your questions. You wanted to know why I was wearing this old uniform. Well, it is a bit tattered, but it's because I'm a Royal Guardsman. 'Least I was. Maybe I'll be one again. Long as I can remember I liked watchin' em, parading about the city with their shiny brass buttons and wonderful swords, folded iron so many times over and sharpened to gleaming perfection.
​
And when King Alfred III saw me watching them and asked if I wanted to join, of course I said yes. Maybe I'm not the smartest, but they were always good to me. Real patient, even when I had trouble getting the uniform on. And when I got everything just right, they let me march with them up and down in front of the palace, all the guard in perfect synchrony while the city watched. Those were the happiest days of my life.
But then a new king, King Stephen XI, came into my room in the barracks and looked me up and down and said he didn't like me there. Said I could march about an island in my shiny brass buttons and uniform, 'an that was the Will of the King. I didn't like it. I liked the city, where the songs of the forges helped me fall asleep at night, but I thought about what the old sergeant had said. Sometimes the men wanted to sit about instead of getting dressed and marching, but the king told them to march. And being an elite royal guardsman meant doing what the king says. Even if I don't like it much. So off I went, on a great big ship with a great big lead anchor.
​
At first I loved the island. My new room was even nicer than my old one, with intricate copper filigree walls, a bed with silver inlay, and all of it braced by majestic cold iron beams. The men were nice, and even when I messed up the buttons on purpose they would still let me go on parade. But it wasn't the same, and I got bored. So I started thinking. Kings are like trees. When one falls, the sun will shine through to the forest floor once more, and the saplings will grow. And maybe I had to do what the king says, but if the old king was an oak and says **THIS** and the new king was an elm and says *that* then maybe the new new king will be an oak and say **THIS** again.
I thought it was clever. Now I know I'm not the smartest, but I had thought real hard about this and I was proud. But when I told them, they didn't bother to listen. They just tried to kill me! And even though their swords were made from the finest steel, with words engraved in gold that were supposed to hurt, it was the words they said that hurt the most. They called me a monster. An abomination. Said that I had no friends. They said that I would die, alone, on that rock.
But they were wrong. You said so yourself; the city's only a half day away and I can hear the forges singing from here. I think you're right about the men on the island. They were just angry because Stephen XI took them away from their friends and told them to guard me. So they got angry at me instead. Every day I learn something new. You're probably right about the royal guard too. Before talking to you I thought they were rotten wood and needed to be cut as well, but they're just doing what the king says, like elite royal guardsmen should.
Anyhow, I guess you talked me into mercy. I'm still taking my hat back, though. What? Why are you looking at me like that? It wasn't the Iron Crown of Legend back when I made the bloody thing for Alfred. The proper royal metal is tin, and crowns shouldn't be iron or silver or gold any more than pipes should be made out of magnesium. Look. I'll make you an even fancier tin king hat, and it'll fit you properly. What's not to like? Oh. You really think Stephen XI would try and do that? Even after I take my hat back? Well, if you would accept me, I would be honored to be the first member of your royal guard. | Waves crashed as a pale individual gazed into the ocean, his face scrunched as he pondered. "Perhaps I should have taken the risk of documenting his father's actions regarding construction in this settlement, but there was no guarantee he would believe the truth before him." He sighed, walking away from the bustle of the port along the coast as he returned to a secluded hut near a river that kissed the sea.
"I'll have to report this to the others." He concluded as he began to assess the materials on his desk. He took a leaf of papyrus and began crafting his script.
To the untrained eye the code would appear to be a greeting followed by request for a recommendation of employment to an individual stationed in Egypt, but behind the words lay a message.
As he wrote he sighed in frustration. "The timing of the Resistance was unfortunate, but the whims of human violence can't be helped." The son of the emperor had been stationed across the sea to take action against those that resisted the Empire, but the lack of contact between the son and the former guard prevented him from trickling information to him about his work; It would be difficult to drop bricks of information and expect a man to carry that weight from the start.
His lips curled as he wrote a document of lies, as his post was unmanned and he would prefer to have a full team at his disposal to retake the facility.
When deciphered, key words appeared:
Urgent. Loss of influence at Pompeii, Keter in facility at base of Vesuvius.
"That'll get them moving." He snorted, but he couldn't smile anymore. He couldn't help but worry over the current situation. The longer the facility was out of their control the more likely human intervention would result in disaster.
"I just hope they get here in time." | 2021-02-28T05:41:56 | 2021-02-28T04:46:41 | 40 | 28 |
[WP] You live in a world where every person receives a superpower on their 18th birthday. You eagerly count down the seconds then shriek in horror as you are given a power no one would ever want to be stuck with. | The clock ticked over and chimed.
I was 18...
My grandmother spontaneously dropped her tea and splashed my foot. The burn caused me to shriek. "Well..", I said as I wiped my foot, "I can still feel pain..."
The rest of my family politely chuckled and waited.
"I don't know... I didn't feel anything. How do I know? What do I do?"
"Well... try something...", my dad said as if it was this obvious thing. It felt like trying to exercise a muscle you simply can't acknowledge the existence of, like.. when you can only peak one eyebrow and you can't seem to do the other one. You know the muscle is there, but you can't flex it. Now imagine that, but add the frustration of not even knowing where the muscle was or what it did.
"This is hopeless", I finally gave in after making funny faces and appearing like I'm constipated for far too long. The sun was starting to set and every family member had their tip or trick that they were told. "Oh, just drink from the far end of the cup and wiggle your ears", "Well we tip you backwards on a chair and your adrenalin spike will kick in". We collectively gave up. In fact, as the weeks and months went by, we eventually totally gave up.
That was so so long ago... I stand now, in the rain, running back over my life that eventually reach this point. My memories fade back again. they're a dull light grey now.
Before I turned 19, I place into a support group that would help us "non-mutes" to get by in the real world. A lot of people find jobs based on their abilities but the non-mutes usually have it pretty hard. I can't say I was totally depressed, but I felt like I should be, or at least I'd have a good reason to be.
Years passed, no sign of a mutation. Except there was something strange, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It wasn't until I approached my 30's that I started to realise that I wasn't aging. In fact, I hadn't aged a bit. My body was as fit as it was when I was 18. How was I meant to know any different, it was of course my family that pointed this out. So we decided that this was it, this was the mutation. I didn't age. We of course celebrated into the night.
Soon I managed to get a job presenting some sports show. They figured a young male that never grows old would make for a sound investment. I wasn't going to argue with that.
That wasn't it though; and it became clear later. Our private jet was taking the crew and myself to some sports event and a bird strike took the engines out. I walked away from the crash. Emergency services put my dazed behaviour down to shock. It wasn't shock...
I didn't age, and I didn't die. While alone, i would test it. I stabbed my hand, it would pierce, bleed and hurt but that's all, the wound would heal instantly, the pain lingered for a bit and then nothing... For some reason, I didn't tell anyone. The accident was a miracle from the eyes of the media. As the weeks passed, i privately raised the game. My tests soon approached fatal activities like gas poisoning. I was... immortal.
The rain is cold, I feel it roll down my neck. I like it... it's one of few things that remind me that I even exist, that I'm a part of this world. I was so excited back then to be this immortal being. It certainly rippled around the media but of curse, eventually it leads to pretty boring TV and I was quickly forgotten. Now I just watch everybody else live their life as a part of this world that i'm immune to.
I would never wish this "superpower" upon anyone. It seemed so amazing. I walk away now from the graveyard, where I have witnessed the end of another generation of my bloodline. | Everybody knows how it happens. The day you turn 18 you go to "The Centre" and they give you an injection. This injection mutates the cells in your body and your mind, allowing for a further 30% control of an individuals brain. It causes the individual to attain what we call "superpowers". The only problem is not knowing the superpower you are going to get.
Four days ago i received this injection and it was the worst experience of my life. On the first day everyone gets bed-ridden as the injected cells fight with the white blood cells for control of the body. The second day you spend by the toilet, rejecting whatever food and drink you managed to eat previously. On the third day..... well the third day is the day of delirium. The world spins and the walls melt. Those who go through it akin it to being on LSD, only without paying the price for it!
Just like everyone else before me, I had to go through these phases of pain. But I finally received my power. It may be the worst power on the planet...but its mine. When I first got my power my mother said it was the best power on the planet (mums! Am I right?). So now all I have to look forward to is tomorrow, another day of using my powers towards attaining peace for mankind. Another day of being able to write with my fingertips! | 2015-03-28T09:14:46 | 2015-03-28T05:14:22 | 31 | 18 |
[WP] Your name is Dave. People keep trying to call you other things, like "The Scourge of Seven Worlds," or "The Dread One," or "The Fifth Horseman." It's all very annoying. You just want to be called "Dave." | Davenkothet Keelzedar Vargetorix, he whose heart devours hope and whose whispers cower gods, had not always been called Davenkothet Keelzedar Vargetorix.
His mother, Ketra Davidson, a simple yet educated barista who enjoyed romance novels, Victorian history, knitting, and gore-core movies from the 1970s, had dubbed him Davensworth Davidson, or Davie-dunkins for short. She had opted for Davensworth because it sounded noble, after all, it had 'worth' inside of it, while David was common and tired and her child would be anything but common and tired.
His father, David Davidson the Eighth, did not agree with his wife's decision, much preferring David Davidson the Ninth. He had compiled a well thought out and organized slide show about why the child's name should be David, a slide show which culminated with "well, we've gone through a lot of trouble getting up to the eighth and it seems like a bit of a waste to toss that away now."
Ketra had watched the presentation patiently, smiled here and there and nodded at the proper moments, then presented her own slide show about why he should be called Davensworth. Her slideshow consisted of a single slide which read: "Because I said so."
Ketra won the argument in a landslide victory and little Davie-dunkins had squealed into this world with a right respectable name and a flash of fel-fire.
David Davidson the Eighth had sulked and pouted and been a poor sport about his defeat in the great naming debate of 1993, but some curious events through little Davie-dunkins life had caused him to reconsider his position.
For example, one night David Davidson the Eighth had gone up to Davie-dunkins room to peek in and check if he was sleeping well. He found instead a four year old Davie hovering two feet off the ground over a demonic summoning circle chanting in a language David didn't recognize, but he suspected was foreign, with fel-green light pouring out of his eyes. David had quickly retreated.
Another evening, after a hard day's work at Corporation Inc. ("We do things good and stuff"), David thought it would be nice to help Davie-dunkins with his homework. David had, after all, passed Calculus on his second try and was something of a whiz. Unfortunately Davie-dunkins already had help, his room was filled with behooved and behorned youths who seemed to suffer some rather terrible skin conditions and whose clothing choices flagged them as bad influences.
David once again stepped out, and shook his head. He was beginning to think that, all things considered, it might have been a good thing that he lost that argument so long ago. Maybe they could call the next one David and that one could carry forward the family legacy, this other Dave-child wasn't quite up to snuff in his books.
Things went on like this for a few years, Davie-dunkins grew into a Davensworth, and then into a Davenkothet Keelzedar Vargetorix when his unruly gang of friends initiated him into whatever nonsense they were involved in. There was a bit of a kerfuffle after dinner, a tuna-mac-n-cheese bake, over little-Davie's life choices and facial tattoos and refusal to speak in anything other than iambic hexameter, and big-David's refusal to countenance any alternative lifestyles that didn't involve working for Corporation Inc. or at least Business Co., one night in 2014 which had culminated in a lot of broken dishes, a couple broken feelings, and one broken family.
David kicked Davie out into the world on his own to "learn what life is really all about."
Davie's gang of hoodlums were in the news frequently for their flash-mob style performances which included calling down meteor strikes on Mega Co. headquarters, summoning a plague of sewer rabbits in New York City, and replacing all songs on the FM radio with Tibetan throat-singing for three days straight.
David watched his son, and would wonder to himself where he went wrong. His poor boy, acting out in such a fashion and him not being able to share his knowledge with the lad, not being able to properly explain why living the calm and steady life he did wasn't really all that bad.
The two didn't speak for many years. Then, one night, a knocking came at the door.
David, becaned and begoggled in his age, went to the door and opened it to see his son, tattood and hoodied, looking properly depressed.
"Hey, dad."
"Hey, son."
The two stared at each other wordlessly for a long time, in that manner of communication men prefer, that silence that says "you're here, and I'm here, and that's what's happening right now and that's okay" (but which many people interpret, rather unfairly, to mean "I absolutely hate this, please go away").
David broke the nonversation off by turning about and walking into his house, through the foyer and into the den to pour a drink, and leaving the door open in that charitable and hospitably wordless way fathers do, there may even have been a grunt or two. Davie walked in soundlessly behind him, and accepted the proffered glass of whiskey.
The two sat down, David in the armed chair which had been the only piece of furniture in the house he'd been allowed to pick (from three options selected by Ketra), Davie on the couch.
Somewhere around the second whisky, David broke the silence.
"So, Davenkothet Keelze--"
"Just Dave, dad. I'm done with that stuff now. I just wanted to know if you had any," he struggled with this part, "any advice for me, about how to, you know, life and stuff."
David smiled.
"Of [course](https://www.reddit.com/r/jacktheritter), son." | I pushed open the door to the tavern and walked in, shaking the rain off of my coat. The noises of the common-room rolled over me; glasses clinking, cloths rustling and the slow steady hum of conversation. Then they began to notice. Silence spread out, like ripples in a pond as the patrons of *The Last Stand* realized I was there. I sighed. It was going to be one of *those* nights.
I made my way to the booths that Lasner, the owner, set up against the far wall. There was a Scraeling seated there with an armor sigil indicating that he was blood-bound to the Lord of the Seventh Tower. Despite that, he shuffled out as soon as I walked towards him. His eyes never rose to meet mine. I sat on the bench and made a point of placing my right hand in full view on the table. I wasn’t wearing the Gauntlet of Ash or any other objects of Power that came with my position among the Horsemen.
I leaned back and waited. After a while the conversations resumed, albeit much subdued. Eventually Tiera, Lasner’s daughter and barmaid, approached. “W...What can I get for you, Dreadlord?” Her voice had none of the cheer that I was used to hearing. By the gods, she sounded terrified. She wouldn’t even look at me. “Tiera” I said. “Tiera, its still me. It’s still Dave.” Her eyes darted up to my face, fastened on the faintly glowing sigil between my eyes, and went right back to the table. “As you say, Scourge-lord”.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was like Valdenfall all over again. I made a conscious effort to keep the irritation from my voice. “Bring me ale, please. And whatever is on the roast”. Tiera nodded, still not looking at me, and fled back to the kitchen.
Jaralk’s rune pulsed faintly in my mind; a sending that indicated he wanted to talk. I ignored it. I was off duty. For the first time in weeks, I could simply be me again and not the Horseman of Ash, Dread Scourge of the Seven Worlds. I looked around the tavern at the patrons who trying very hard not to stare. Sure I could.
From the far side of the room, Lasner was looking at me from his position behind the bar. I’ve known the old man for years, from back when I enlisted with the Stormrunner Company all those years ago. When he saw me looking back, Lasner dropped his eyes to the bar. I leaned my head against the wall and sighed. I was willing to bet anything that if I went up to him, he would call me ‘Earthbreaker’ or ‘Charred One’ or something ridiculous like that. It was just a *position* dammit.
I left before Teira got back with the ale and roast. If I tried very hard, I might be able to forget the palpable sigh of relief that went through the room as I closed the door behind me. Fine. If I’m not welcome in the old hangouts as Dave, then I guess I’m going back to being the Scourge of Worlds. With an effort of will, I summoned my gauntlet and helm. If Jaralk wanted to talk to me, that meant that we were probably launching another offensive against the Mistkeepers.
It was something to pass the time. | 2020-06-11T21:24:10 | 2020-06-11T21:23:14 | 151 | 46 |
[WP] Rifles and Sorcery. A modern army is stuck on in an alternate reality where sorcery rules. The army is preparing to defend themselves form a far superior force that has never seen a machine gun or artillery.
Both sides would be intresting. The modern army dealing with magic users and the senseless slaughter of conscripted pikemen, and the superior manned military dealing with technology and bombs and the smell of sulfur and horror of modern warfare. | The tanks and APCs circled the encampment in the afternoon, with one tarp-pavilion serving as a command center. The officers sat on the floor in rapt attention. Before them were two men. The first was Colonel Axton, leader of the battallion, who they knew well. Then there was the other guy, wrapped in Irish-looking mage robes. This was in stark contrast to their BDUs.
"Why should we listen to this guy? For all we know, he could be the enemy!"
"Because I have an interest in your success, and good ideas on how you can stay alive once the wargames commence. There's plenty of fiction on the matter."
"Fiction? FICTION? We're going to take our cues from a goddamn nerd--" He paused as a targeting reticule emblazoned itself on the ground around him, causing the others to give distance. It went as quickly as it came, and the mage lowered his finger.
"Correction: Tactician. I've spoken with your lord." he gestured towards Colonel Axton. "There are parallels in your own world's fiction, as if our realms are linked by each other's books. Just as we are fanciful characters in your world, so too are you fantasies in ours. Power that can be transferred between men? A world where a man's sorcery was not the end-all, be-all of his existential worth? Laughable!" He chuckled amidst the sea of stonewalled looks, only to assert a poker face moments later. "I know how it will turn out. You'd do well to remember it."
Colonel Axton cleared his throat, directing attention towards him. "With that said, we anticipate contact with enemy at 0600. The enemy is expected to be on foot, but cannot be defined as infantry. Mr. Rezeas, you have the floor." The wizard stepped forward, taking out a wand. An illusion formed before them like a projector.
"The Third Staff of Raging Light is commanded by the local Sir Gaulsein. They are mystic knights with...what is the term you used? Artelary? Artelary Magi." Two representative images of the two classes appeared. "The mystic knights eschew armor, relying on shields to remain agile. Their weapons, likewise, are smaller than a regular knight's but enchanted. If it glows, beware: The lightning and sonic weapons are armor-piercing."
"The hell is this!" One of the officers cried out. "Even if they have magical weapons, we have tanks. Just blow them apart."
"About that..." Mr. Rezeas trailed off. "I've seen the arrows you use in your 'tanks.' They would be hard to block. However, something so big and foreign would be a large target. I hope they can block lightning." He looked at some of the standing soldiers who shouldered assault rifles. "Your versions of the bows. Lord Axton, how fast are they?"
"The M4 assault rifle fires...hmm, about 13 arrows per heartbeat, and 2 1/2 times the speed of sound." He said, converting it into terms a non-modern person would understand. Rezeas raised an eyebrow.
"Your Emfores will be key to the battle. I don't think your armor will be very useful unless you can hide them well, but the Emfores have astounding power. The thing is that sorcery requires imagination, and things that are beyond one's ability to conceive are...well, they are difficult to cast and defend against. That's why they love fire and lightning. But these will be much harder to defend against."
Rezeas stroked his chin. "Do you have the ability to see at night? Leave explosive traps? Communicate from afar?" They nodded to the affirmative. "Ah, just like the stories. Good. Few on the other side can see at night, and barrier spells are usually forward-facing or dome-like, and neglect the ground. If you can lure them into a place with cover, such as a forest, you may be able to gain an advantage over them."
"You wouldn't happen to be able to fly on dragons, would you?"
**To be continued...**
Edit: Holy crap this exploded. PAX East and research delay my writing. However, this story will continue. | A spear. The guy in front threw his spear and it just clanged and bounced off the Humvee front. We laughed out loud. The men on the other side of the gap had us outnumbered at least 20-1, with their spears and horses. In Afghanistan, we had a kill ratio of 100 to one, and they had the AK. The chatter from our superiors came up on our comm visors:
"They're just little sticks, they're trying to scare us."
"Hold positions, do not engage unless they do. We're not here, wherever we are, to slaughter them."
"Maybe warning rounds sir?" A hail of arrows came across the field.
"Alright, new orders, 1st division, fire a rocket into the trees to their right, that should scatter them." The spiral of smoke trailed off into a brilliant fireball. The forgien army did not move but for a small channel in their midsection. Two men in robes with staffs came forward. A trail of smoke and a brilliant fireball to our right.
"What the fuck was that?"
"Drop a mortar into them." Their men, and their associated parts, flew in all directions. Then the men with the staffs, now more numerous, raised their arms in unison. I dropped, we all did, the lighting arcing through us. Comm visor was dead, the Hummer wouldn't start. I climbed out, tried to stumble through the men climbing back to their feet. My rifle wouldn't turn on to recognize my fingerprint. Blinding pain as I take an arrow to the knee. I look up, and see the men with spears charging... | 2014-04-09T11:20:03 | 2014-04-09T11:02:12 | 1,281 | 65 |
[WP] Aliens are getting real fucking tired of humans writing about hypotheticals where humanity is waaay better than every other alien species by doing the most mundane shit and they're gonna do something about it | "Aliens invade what they think are the weakest race in the galaxy, but they are in for a surprise!". Redditor Karmafarma99 had just finished his newest and greatest prompt. The creativity and originality in this prompt would garner him no less than a thousand upvotes.
"Victory in the karma race will be mine" he thought to himself, smiling with anticipation. As soon as he hit the submit button, a great white flash filled the room. Karmafarma99 swivelled his chair around in shock. The sight before him was unbelievable. A squadron of five humanoid creatures brandishing what resembled assault rifles with a silver coating had materialized in his own room. But while their bodies, although green in colour, were still human-like, their faces were far from it. A grotesque squid-like head sat atop the shoulders of each of the creatures with bulging eyes of pure darkness. They were, without a doubt in Karmafarma99's mind, ALIENS.
"HUMAN" the alien in the middle boomed, "we find you guilty of conspiring to make a mockery of the Tsoper union. We will take you to the galactic court to await judgement with immediate effect." Karmafarma99 did not have a moment to protest or even make sense of the situation, as he was instantly teleported into another chair. Except now, the scenery before him was not his dull room, but a stadium of angry aliens making violent gestures at him.
"The court will settle down!" A massive figure with large horns took charge. It was seated in what appeared to be the judge's position. "Karmafarma99, for years you have churned out writing prompts on the blasphemous site reddit that has led to fictional stories about humanity defeating us aliens in numerous ways. This garbage has been apparently been widely consumed by the entire galaxy! The Tsoper race and its alliances takes great offence at the humiliating ways in which we have been written to fall to your pathetic kind. Our reputation has taken great damage and made us the galaxy's laughing stock. We will henceforth begin executing all who submit such prompts, starting with you!"
Karmafarma99 wanted to cry. This was too much. A minute ago he was just trying to pass the time during quarantine period. Now he had just been sentenced to death by multiple alien races. He had to talk his way out of this somehow.
"Wait wait!" pleaded Karmafarma99, "is this not a court? Where is the evidence that the stories are even about you guys?" Don't you have proper trial procedure?"
"Perhaps that is how you do things on your planet, but that is not how we do things here. Here we are more efficient! I sentence you, and you die." The horned figure thundered. "But, there is one way to redeem yourself. If you can prove that these stories are actually true, we will have no reason to execute you."
The judge was offering him a lifeline. Karmafarma99 knew a chance when he saw one. He could still bullshit his way out of this yet. These aliens would not know of course, but Karmafarma99 was a skilled debater. He had defeated countless opponents over the internet before. A master of the way of the keyboard.
"Yes yes I'll do it. How shall I prove it to you?
"Very well. Obviously, you will have to show that humanity has the capacity to actually defeat us. THROUGH COMBAT!"
The Judge leaped off his seat and into the stadium. The ground cracked under his feet. He was three times the height of Karmafarma99. His arms looked like they could crush a car. The crowd roared in anticipation as the Judge started charging a the tiny man in front of him.
The poor redditor gulped nervously. He needed a miracle. Perhaps one of those stupid weaknesses that aliens always had was actually real. Maybe his smartphone camera could blind the judge. Maybe aliens were allergic to his saliva. Perhaps he was like superman and he was actually really strong on another planet. Something! Anything!
"WAIT!!! I can restore your reputation!" he shouted in desperation. The judge's fist stopped a few inches before Karmafarma99's face. "All I have to do is make prompts that show how strong aliens are! Then the galaxy will no longer mock you."
"That is true" admitted the Judge, "Very well. We will allow you to rectify your wrongdoings. But one step in the wrong direction and you will find yourself back here. Send him back!"
Karmafarma99 did not even have time to heave a sigh of relief when he found himself back in his room. He was exhausted and traumatized, but alive.
"Better get started on what I promised" he thought after calming himself. He took to his computer and immediately began typing his next prompt:
"Aliens are getting real fucking tired..." | Eldonvi Kovonpil was an impressive creature. For his race, the Lutumpolani, his patience was staggering.
It was why he'd been assigned to oversee one of the most pretentious, arrogant, but not quite idiotic races in the galaxy.
Humanity.
A wondrous people by any other means. Remarkable sapience, exceptional culture. Science more advanced than many other races. But for all that, amidst the Grand Allegiance of the Races of the Galaxy, they were perfectly average. So average, in fact, that they had been designated the most secure no-contact control group for the rest of the galaxy. But through their technology, Eldonvi was still able to read their social media.
At first, he found it fascinating. Depressing. Then fascinating again. Then horrifying. It was amazing. Whole communities of artists, of scientists, message-boards of surreal, incomprehensible seven-layer inside jokes.
But then he hit the writers. In particular, he hit a very, very particular board where at first he had liked to stop to witness some of the greatest instances of human imagination he had discovered. Stories of adventure, about loyal squirrels. Dramas. Immortal paradoxes and life after death. Fifty of humanity's finest men travelling back in time to turn Hitler, the most evil human in the history of humanity based on his studies, into an upstanding moral citizen. Fifty copies of the same dead man sitting in a movie theatre.
But then he noticed a trend that greatly offended his patience, and step by step strained it to breaking. That humans possessed, and were enthralled by an idea that by the most mundane things they could do were apprently the most unique things in the galaxy. It was a level of insolent arrogance that infuriated Eldonvi. What an outrageous delusion, that every race in the galaxy was gullible, or that they couldn't drink coffee, or hadn't invented computing yet somehow achieved FTL travel. He would not stand for this.
And so it was that because of one stupid, outrageous post about aliens being afraid of coffee that an unprecedented streak of galactic peace ended. The most important no-contact order was violated by a single rocket, driven by an alien driven by a mixture of pure rage and gallons upon gallons of coffee. | 2020-06-21T03:10:41 | 2020-06-21T02:09:50 | 61 | 23 |
[WP]: An ordinary human being gets abducted into interplanetary olympics that have a fun twist: The loser's planet gets destroyed. All hope seems to be lost, until the last sport is revealed to be what humans do best.
Edit: Thanks to you people, I am now aware of the existence of Jimmy Neutron, and if I could, would take it back.
I apologise for not having watched the same cartoons as you did, growing up. | John Norman's current Monday was abysmally bad, even in the context of his life and his Mondays. The hot water was out in the building, his toaster practically incinerated his pop-tarts, his ex-wife "asked" for another hundred bucks to take his son to the renaissance faire (with the implicit threat that if he doesn't give in to her demands she will sue for a higher child support), his commute was extended thanks to an accident blocking two of the five lanes of the highway and just as he was about to answer the angry text from his boss inquiring why he isn't in the office yet he was abducted from his car by a flying saucer.
"I haven't had my prostate checked anyway" - thought he resignedly but instead of sticking a probe where the Sun doesn't shine, a typical "grey" alien attached a device to his left temple.
He was only slightly surprised when he "heard" a voice inside his head.
"John Norman of Earth" - said the voice belonging to the grey, even though its mouth didn't move - "you were chosen to represent Earth in the interplanetary olympic games."
"Why me?" - he thought. But apparently he thought it loudly enough that the alien answered: "You are an average representative of the more physically capable sex from the dominant country of your planet."
And indeed, John was perfectly average. He was 39 years old, 175 cm tall and somewhat pudgy at 88 kilograms. He had an IQ of 100, an office job in the middle management and an ex-wife who was apparently average, even though he thought she was the worst bitch who ever walked the Earth.
"And what are these interplanetary olympics?" - he was starting to get the hang of telepathic communications.
"Oh, we were observing your planet - yes, Roswell was us, let me continue - for quite a while and saw these 'olympics' of yours. And... well, we need a new... I think you call it 'Dyson-sphere', so we decided to pick its place with one."
"Huh?"
"Loser's planet is space dust."
"Crap."
After two weeks of competition things were looking bad for Earth. As it turns out, most other aliens came from worlds with similar gravity and atmosphere so at least he didn't die or collapse as soon as the saucer dumped him into the stadium. While John bested some other aliens in one or two sports - the diminutive Rigelians were good at jumping and gymnastics but they couldn't box for shit, for example, and the tentacles of the Antaris were not suited for discus throwing - he never finished in the top 10. Just before the final competition Earth was at the end of the score table with 0 points. On the second-to-last position was Vega, its aliens that looked like centaurs with antelope parts replacing the horse ones managed to come in at the second place at the 100 meter dash.
Mathematically, Earth still had a small chance. John "only" had to win the last event and the Vegan had to finish 11th or worse. Simply speaking, it required a miracle.
His hopes for saving Earth disappeared when the greys announced the last event: marathon. He always planned to run one, but never even finished C25K, the "C" part was way too comfortable.
Weird aliens from thousand worlds lined up to run 42 Earth kilometers plus change. John, the tallest bipedal could beat most of the shorter bipeds and the odd tripod in the medium-distance events but the quadrupeds ran at speeds even Usain Bolt would envy.
The start pistol sounded and the quadrupeds predictably left John in the dust. He started running, he was certain that he will have to slow down to a walk after a couple kilometers, but he didn't want to go gently.
After a kilometer he passed the fastest non-human biped. The Centauri was approximately one meter twenty and while its legs were relatively long for its body John's were longer.
After the third kilometer John slowed down to a walk. He half-expected the rest of the bipeds to start taking him over but it didn't happen.
At the tenth kilometer he passed the exhausted Vegan.
A grey medic was examining a seemingly dead Eridiani with the device John dubbed "tricorder" at the twelfth klick.
A group of feline aliens were taking a rest at the tenth mile. When they spotted John they bolted off in a dead sprint, only to stop for another rest after a hundred meters or so. This repeated three other times before they just collapsed.
As John walked the path he passed several aliens with four, six or more legs, either dragging themselves or not even capable of that. The winner of the 10 kilometer event, a wolf-like creature from Gliese was panting heavily in the shade of a tree-like organism at the 30th kilometer.
When he saw the finish line, he started jogging. He couldn't be the first, he thought, there must have been some faster alien, but if the last photo of a human in existence will be his finish line picture, it might as well show him doing what he was supposed to do.
His was the biggest surprise when he saw his name standing alone on the table of the finishers.
Turns out, humans are the only sentient beings evolved from persistence hunters. The others were good at sprinting, or even at medium-distance running but they simply can't handle strenuous physical activity for more than an hour. John's was the only species capable of moving relatively quickly for hours if necessary.
He wondered how the scientists were going to explain the sudden flash of radiation from Vega 25 years in the future just before his memory of the events was wiped and he was sent back to the timespace coordinates of his abduction, with inexplicably longer hair, smaller girth and the intense desire to run a marathon. | John Tyson quietly left the board meeting wearing a false smile, only letting his true emotions show on his face after he had turned away from the rest of the board. Everyone else in the room was jubilant - their fourth quarter earnings had shattered Wall Street’s expectations, and Tyson’s stock price was set to rise at least 25% at the opening bell.
But those weren’t the numbers that were on John’s mind. The fact that he had grown his companies revenues by over 13% per year over the past decade gave him no comfort at all. The only numbers he was concerned with were the number of animals slaughtered. 35 million cattle, 116 million pigs, 271 million turkeys, and just over 18 billion chickens. Would it be enough?
John was only forty-one years old, but the burden he carried had not been kind to his visage. People were shocked to learn that he was still in his forties. Everyone who met him believed that his wife, an angel of a woman who was the love of his life, was a trophy wife. Christine Tyson was actually a year older than he was, but she had a innocent, carefree beauty that was ignorant of the enormous burden weighing down on her husband’s shoulders.
John did some quick math in his head. He was forty-one years old, but he doubted he would live to see sixty. He had fifteen years left at best. Better to be safe and call it a dozen. This year, Tyson Foods had slaughtered just under 20 billion mammalian lives. If he could increase that number by 8% a year over the next twelve years… they would be slaughtering just over 50 billion mammalian lives in 12 years. Cumulatively, that would be a total of… just under 430 billion lives.
It wouldn’t be enough. He needed at least 800 billion mammalian deaths under his belt for even a shot at gold, and only a gold medal would keep his planet out of last place. He would have to lobby Congress to get more processed meats into school lunches, and to lift the restrictions on advertising to children. He would have to call in favors at the FDA to lower the minimum quality standards for consumable meat as well.
“If only seafood counted,” he thought to himself, but the rules of the competition were very clear. Only deaths within the same animal family would count towards the total points awarded in this sport. He would have been able to sleep better at night too, had he been a fish farmer or a shrimp fisherman.
John quickly dispelled those thoughts from his mind before returning to the task at hand. He had an enormous amount of work to do if he was going to save his planet. He knew that even his most optimistic projections failed to take into account the rise of vegetarianism, PETA, and animal rights activists that were trying to end factory farming practices, completely oblivious to how much danger their planet was truly in.
“If only…” was the story of his life. If only he had been born in China, with their billion mouths to feed. If only he had been born in the future, when technology would have allowed him to slaughter trillions of animals a year. If only he had never snuck out of his house as a seventeen-year old farmhand, running towards that mysterious bright light... | 2014-05-06T07:25:49 | 2014-05-06T06:49:25 | 88 | 19 |
[WP] We forget our dreams for a reason: in the near future, memory enhancement therapies allow everyone to fully recall every dream they've ever had. Across the entire human race, disturbing patterns and implications emerge that were previously hidden by the unappreciated bliss of forgetfulness. | The Greeks knew better.
Lesmosyne, the sweetest goddess known to man, sweeter than love or hearth and home. Almost as sweet as the hunt.
I traveled when I was young. To find myself, I told people. Told myself. Find the real me under what I knew in the suburbs. What a crock. Every third world village I found, I was just laying on another layer of pretty lacquer over my soul, making the disguise harder and harder to penetrate. Not just my disguise.
When the new memory drugs started to filter out into the public, it was us that got into them first. Clinical trials tend to go to the poor souls who need experimental drugs to buy their weekly ramen at school, so naturally the upper middle class got them early. Once they were commercially available they spread faster, but nowhere so fast as the suburbs.
A few doses a week and you'd never lose your keys. With no recorded lethal dose, nobody thought to restrict the usage. Recommended usage. What a joke.
Suddenly, housewives were keeping track of their kids schoolwork, and things just kept getting better. Around then people started to apologize a lot, suddenly able to recall perfectly the things they'd done when they were young, small cruel things. Remembering the thoughts you had about them, of course we all wanted to hear the remorse in their voices. And you would remember those thoughts.
It wasn't long before more memories started to surface, hiding behind an alcoholic mist only to get ripped into the light of dayby a couple more pills a week. Psychologists started going under. Everyone remembered what prompted them to start doing things, the thoughts they lost in the rush to hurt themselves, so who needed a shrink to tell them what connected where?
Then the shrinks stopped losing business. Bored people in their homes didn't need to watch reruns, or read those old favorite books anymore. They began to take more memory pills to see what else they could dredge up. When awareness was no barrier anymore, we could remember dreams. Mostly the stuff that left the lingering impressions in waking at first, and we puzzled over them for a bit. Through all this, the gloss we had put on our very souls was flaking away.
Soon, dreams were coming to light which the Jungian scholars faced with cold, forced smiles. Maybe the symbols were wrong, but look! We were all dreaming the same sorts of things! Dreaming of wet dark things in the collective unconscious. Dreaming them with a strange feeling of love. Elation.
Dreaming these dark things offering us their love, their bodies. And with next to no reported variance, dreaming of accepting. Taking the bodies of these hard angry creatures, and using them to run in the dark. Dreaming of thrilling ourselves in the speed, the strength. The hunting. Chasing through the dark the things we no longer were, the bodies we had traded away.
As one, it seemed, we were dreaming of the cold love of becoming these monsters that we loved, and tearing apart the soft collection of parts we left behind. And with these cruel memories pressing into us, we remembered these dreams being the ones we woke from smiling.
Cold hard smiles covered over with years of work and shine to make them pretty, soft. To make them human.
I've stopped taking the drugs, but the memories are part of me now. Part of me like the base desire to reach out and take my coworkers intestines out with my bare hands, because part of me knows how good it feels to do it.
Dear Lesmosyne, take these things from me. Never will I neglect another sacrifice to have you make me the smooth untroubled facade of a soul that I was, that I worked so hard to become. | It was last Thursday- No, FRIDAY that I was with Sarah Lee. The memory of her gasping for air bounced around the walls of my mind. The sound of gurgling- her head being submerged under water. The gasping- my hands around her shoulders, pushing her down. The splashing- her struggles to break free from me.
I'm not quite sure *why* I drowned Miss Lee last Friday in the bathtub. I'm not even sure how I got into her house in the first place. I just remember it being... hot. My head felt warm. I was upset. She was the reason why.
I didn't need to worry about the body. My subconscious would take care of that. Although I realize this was just a dream, it haunts me. Why would I do something so terrible... over a muffin? I know that it was the last one but... over *food*? How terrible of a person am I that THIS is what I dream about in my most private moments? It's almost unbearable. | 2016-09-30T10:00:04 | 2016-09-30T07:18:43 | 17 | 10 |
[WP] You wake up in King Arthur's court with only the clothes on your back. Merlin hands you a box about the size of a pumpkin and tells you it will wish into existence any object from your age, once per day. Camelot will be attacked and destroyed one week from now. Help us, future-man. | OK, this is a quick jokey short.
"This box will give me one thing per day from my time, and Camelot will be attacked in one week?"
Merlin eyed me a little incredulously, "that is what I have just said, yes."
"OK then. For my first item..." I said, reaching into the box, "paperclips."
"Paperclips? Pray tell, what are these."
"Well Merlin, you clip paper together with them. So they don't get mixed up."
"How will these help us defend Camelot?"
"You'll see."
The next morning I pulled out my magic box, thought for a moment, reached in and pulled out a big rubber band. Merlin asked if it was a magical rubber band, or if it was part of a mighty technological weapon. He did not look happy when I told him it was merely a band made of rubber with many common uses around the home.
The third day I reached in a pulled forth a clothes hanger. Merlin shouted at me, "We have those now!" I merely gave him a wry smile.
The fourth day made Merlin no happier, as I reached in pulled out a yardstick. The fifth and sixth days had Merlin muttering under his breath about "making a big mistake" as I produced a live chicken and a bottle of turpentine.
"Relax Merlin, tomorrow I will pull the most important piece of this puzzle out of that magic box of yours. The kingdom will be saved, and in time for dinner too!"
Merlin arched his brow and merely said, "for your sake you had better be right."
The seventh day, and day of the impending attack, I came to court with the magic box.
"Are you ready to see the final part of my plan, the final component from my time which will save the kingdom?"
"Get on with it!" Merlin roared. I had clearly worn through the last of his patience, probably by the second day I was here.
"OK, open your eyes and behold," I shouted, reaching into the box, "MacGyver!"
The crowd gasped a little as bit by bit MacGyver came out of the box. It did not seem physically possible, but somehow he made it out in one piece.
"Where the hell am I?!" MacGyver shouter.
"You are in Camelot, King Arthur's court actually, and we are about to be attacked. I've assembled these tools for you to use to defeat the attackers."
MacGyver looked down at the "tools." Paperclips, a rubber band, a clothes hanger, a yardstick, live chicken, and a bottle of turpentine.
"What's this supposed to be? Something a witchdoctor left behind when he vacated his office?"
"Haha, very funny MacGyver. I've seen you do more with less."
"Kid, my name is Richard Dean Anderson. MacGyver was a TV show character I played. You know that right?"
"Oh" I said.
"Yeah" Richard Dean Anderson replied.
"I hate to tell you this Merlin, but we're fucked."
| "Does the item have to consist of one piece, or can it consist of multiple parts to build one entity?", I asked Merlin. He looked at me, puzzled, and responded, "As long as it's solid, has real form to it, you should be successful in summoning it." he replied.
"Okay, Merlin. Hope you like bricks. This next item I summon will be our main line of defense, and *it's gonna be euge.*"
EDIT: Man, after lurking this sub for so long I finally make a post and it receives moderate attention. Thanks for the friendly welcome, folks! | 2016-11-28T05:24:59 | 2016-11-28T02:15:50 | 147 | 82 |
[WP] They called you a madman for raiding the history museum during a zombie apocalypse. What they didn't expect was for full plate armour to be so effective. | “Ah, guns. You’d think guns are the end-all-be-all in a zombie apocalypse, right? The rest of society certainly did. That’s why when the first videos of zombies dropped on the internet, everyone rushed to the gun stores.
“And what did they find? Even if you had all the licensing, they were often out of guns. And if you managed to get a gun, they were probably out of actual ammo. And by some miracle if you managed to get both of those, well, guns are a lot harder than you think, right?
“I’m at least a touch smarter than that. I’ve fired a few guns in my life, enough to know that you often don’t hit what you aim for. I’ve gone out to ranges and missed large stationary targets too many times to even count. I thought far enough ahead to know that my accuracy would be all the worse while out of breath with the adrenaline pumping and the heart pounding and with both myself and my targets’ tiny heads on the move.
“You know what doesn’t need training? A pointy stick. You push the tip in the direction of the thing you want to kill and half the time they just walk into it. Sure, you need them to come one at a time, but is that any different than with guns? With spears, all you need to do is grab a dozen of your friends to watch your back and hey presto, you’ve got a spear wall. The phalanx dominated ancient warfare for so long. Why not bring it back?
“And sure, while I was at the museum, I figured I’d pick up another few things. A short sword obviously comes in handy when the spear gets too unwieldy. It’s a similar principle if a bit harder to manage. Still, even if you miss while swinging at the next you can still aim to chop off a limb. A zombie with no arms can only bite in your general direction. A zombie with no legs can only stare angrily in your general direction. That’s as good as dead in a survival situation.
“So that takes us to this beauty: full plate armor. It’s not as bright blue as I had hoped in the back of my mind, but I guess that’s my fault for playing too much Runescape when I was a kid. That doesn’t matter though. This stuff can take a hit from darn near anything except a bullet, and I was probably never going to survive getting shot anyway. No, the real trick is that the zombies can’t get through the plate *at all*. They try and try and try and absolutely nothing gives. It’s a real beauty, super safe and effective.”
The man paused for a moment to take a breath from his effusive praise of the charms of sheet metal.
“But…?” I started.
“Well…” The man hesitated. “It’s a bit… weighty, you know? I mean, I wasn’t terribly in shape to begin with, and this stuff.. well, it’s heavy steel, you know?”
“Right. Is that why you’re laying on your back?” I asked from my perch.
He sighed. “Yes.”
“And how long have you been sitting there getting swarmed by zombies?”
“Look, it proves that it’s safe, doesn’t it?” he called from underneath a writhing pile of undead.
“Uh huh. Well, if you’ve got this handled, I’ll just... “ I trailed off and stomped my feet a few times to mimic the sound of me walking away.
“Wait!” the man cried.
“Yes?”
He paused for a moment.
“Can you please get them [off](https://reddit.com/r/Badderlocks)?” | Everyone knows the basic skills needed for the zombie apocalypse. Foraging, fighting, and fleeing. The last of the three f’s of survival was the most important. So armor was considered to be impractical as it would only slow you down. I chose to add more defense when it started. The history museum had a set of full plate armor fit for battle and in good condition.
They saw an invincible being walk through the hoard. I laughed at the walking corpses as they tried to bite through steel. No weak point on me for them to exploit. I had also taken a sword and shield to kill them so that I could be allowed in a settlement.
They looked in horror as I took off my helmet and showed them who had strode through the hoard, they had ridiculed my idea and my idea worked better than running. Now this settlement will be listening to me. I plan on getting everyone full plate armor. That way we can forage and fight without fear and we can keep everyone in one area. We will grow back to being a society. | 2020-09-14T07:56:57 | 2020-09-14T07:46:50 | 757 | 70 |
[WP] You are a supervillain, but every single one of your plans of world domination has somehow collapsed into a harmless flirtatious encounter with the superhero by accident. Today, the superhero has come to propose to you. | I touched down lightly onto the pavement, my black cape floating down around me. Judging from the looks on the faces in the crowd, it looked as awesome as I planned. The normies scattered around me, backing into a wide circle.
"Dearest humans. I regret to inform you that this city will soon serve as an... *example* for the rest of the world." I gestured at the darkening sky, the thrum of my Doomsday machine hovering overhead adding just the appropriate amount of emphasis. A parade balloon, in the shape of some ridiculous overweight...cat, perhaps, floated a bit too close to my glorious creation. An arc of energy jumped from the machine's surface and vaporized the hideous feline, prompting a gasp of surprise from the crowd. I smiled.
"Weep not for the loss your balloon, for the loss of your lives is imminent." I produced a small remote and held it aloft. "Behold, my love letter to chaos and destruction."
I firmly pressed the button.
The thrum in the air increased slowly, escalating to a high pitched whine in a matter of seconds. The powerless, weak humans began clutching their ears, some even falling to their knees.
I coughed, frowning. How fucking dramatic did they have to be? It was just *sound*. The killing hadn't even begun yet.
My eyes drifted up towards the opening that was now growing on the underside of my glorious creation. In seconds a rain of death would spew forth, heralding a new era of domination in my name.
I grinned as the light in the opening flickered to life, signalling the beginning a localized apocalypse. I almost didn't even register the maniacal laugh escaping my lips until I felt my shoulders shaking with the effort.
My beautiful soldiers, crafted of only electricity, conductive putty, and a mad scientist's love, descended like mad angels from a disrupted heaven. The air shimmered and crackled around them. I dimly realized that I was biting my nails with anticipation.
Instead of attacking the squalling mob of humans, however, they formed a ring and floated slowly, neatly, in a rotating wheel. A new figure appeared in the middle, glowing like the surface of the sun.
Cassandra.
I heard whispers from the crowd, from those who held enough of their wits to pay any sort of attention. She's here to save us, they said. The Golden Sun will save us.
She's here to ruin me. Her eyes, her hair, her voice, her very mannerisms haunted my every thought.
No. I clutched the remote, spinning the secondary knob over to prematurely release stage two of my planned destruction. The Doomsday machine roared to life, angling into the sky so that its width and breadth blotted out the light of day.
She was upon me then, her scent filling my nostrils. My head swam and my knees grew weak. No. I was so close! Every time... Every single time I let her dissuade me from my goals.
"You're too late." I closed my eyes to make speech possible. "I built a failsafe into this plan. No matter what you say, this plan cannot be undone."
"I didn't come here to stop you today." She grabbed my hand, and I felt her sink to the ground on one knee.
The death bees should be swooping in now, tearing flesh from bone. Where were the screams? The sirens? Cursing inwardly, I opened my eyes.
WILL YOU MARRY ME DEATHSTAR?
The words were projected onto the underside of my glorious machine. A silence fell over the crowd as they took the words in and realized they weren't being murdered in cold blood just yet.
"I had a little help from the inside," Cassandra admitted. "Dr. Kirkus hopes you won't fire him from his spot on the planning committee for this."
I blinked.
"If I marry you, will you let me finally take over the world?"
"That means I'm entitled to half then, right?"
"I'm okay with that."
"Deal."
[/r/intotheslushpile](https://www.reddit.com/r/intotheslushpile/)
| Superhuman pairs have advantages. The general norm is to find a mate who is your opposite. In a dangerous line of work which involves risking your life constantly, this ensures that the person who can kill you won't.
"My love for you is true". This is Mike "Mantle" Menzenta. He's a superhero. Not any superhero either. He's the nation's most powerful superhero. The one to whom every other superhero bows down. The one who's always there to foil my plans. The one who's also a pervert and likes to use his X-ray vision for unwarranted uses.
He is the also the kind of man who cannot take a "no" from a woman. He has been pestering me since I was a bank robber and he was just a suburban hero. Time and time again he's tried his ways and time and time again I've rejected his advances. He's not above playing dirty but he knows he can't succeed by trying such things on me.
What he cannot see however, Xray vision or not, is behind the heat resisting walls stands the hot headed Andria "Absolute Zero" Zera. She can also be introduced as Mrs Menzenta. She's had her doubts about her husband's infidelity but today she's sure of it.
Btw, I'm Lara. (Supervillians don't like publicity and don't need stupid gimmicky marketing names). I tend to amplify the emotions, feelings, beliefs or doubts a person/superperson may have.
| 2017-05-30T14:16:57 | 2017-05-30T14:03:23 | 1,366 | 16 |
[WP] The Hero breaks into the evil base, ready to defeat the most cunning villain he has ever met. "I have you now Villain! You can't weasel your way out of justice this time!" "For the last time, I'm not a Villain! Stop breaking into my house!" | As the lights flickered on and off, on and off, a shadow emerged sneaking through the lab. Nighttime gave him just enough cover to break in. He had roamed these halls and pipes before, recounting failed attempts to end all to be all. He practically had it memorized, left, right, left, up, don't awake the angry robot dog, down, left, right, right. It was a puzzle he had cracked ages ago. One he needed to in order to-
"Terry is that you again?" A man in his late thirties asked, drinking from a cup of coffee. The mug had the saying "World's Best Dad" on it. Only the best was scratched out with marker, and someone had written okay-ish instead.
He gulped, his arch-rival faced him in all his terror. With his fuzzy bunny slippers, gray yoga pants, and coffee stained t-shirt. And who can forget those piercing eyes that can murder a man with just a glance. Granted those eyes looked like they hadn't gotten sleep in the last 48 hours, and probably didn't.
With a sigh his arch-rival clapped his hands turning on the kitchen lights. "Terry, I need you to listen to me." his voice pleading with him. "We can't keep doing this buddy, it's not healthy and you know it. You gotta let the real heros take care of supervillains."
"I AM a REAL HERO!" He scoffed. Obviously his arch-rival was trying to break his morale, smart move. But he was smarter than that. He knew better to play mind games with a villain. The only thing they will be playing against is his fist-
A doorbell rings, and his arch-rival sets down his coffee mug. "One moment" he asks, before he can protest, his rival exits to answer the front door.
A gruff voice could be heard, but he didn't want to eavesdrop on the conversation. After all that's what villains do, and he was not a villain. Instead he seats himself at the counter and grabs a fruit from the fruit basket and starts eating it.
The chief of police soon walks up besides him with a hefty sigh. "Again Terry?"
Unable to speak due to the mango in his mouth, he simply nodded. But jumped up as soon as his arch-rival entered the room as well. Desperately trying to signal to the officer he should be arresting his rival. To his surprise, the officer arrests him instead.
"We gotta get you a different hobby Terry." Officer Ted sighed shaking his head. "By the way, Aileen has their volleyball torment tomorrow right doctor?"
His rival nods slowly, "State championship, they're real excited about it too. Practicing real hard, Shame you can't come."
Officer Ted offers an apologetic smile. "Duty calls I'm afraid, I'll be sure to congratulate them on a job well done thought." He explains as he walks out the door with Terry.
His arch-rival smiles, "Goodnight Ted, night Terry."
Officer Ted and Terry both give him a nod. "Night."
Doctor Chris nods saying "See you tomorrow." Before shutting the door.
Terry sighs, another plan failed, but hey there's always tomorrow. He just needs to do his community service first.... | Alright, look, Johnathan's not a bad dude. If you get him on a good day, he can be quite fun. But he isn't without his... Issues.
I didn't want to say it outright, but he's really into LCD. And about every other week he breaks into my house. Sometimes it's funny, but then came yesterday. He blasted through my window with a gun, holding the damn thing like a slingshot, tumbled through, smashed the TV I bought two weeks ago.
So yeah, he got arrested; I didn't press charges, but I wasn't going to stop my wife. But just... He's not a bad person, and I don't think he meant to kill that lady, or blow up a supermarket. | 2022-08-31T19:38:57 | 2022-08-31T18:42:49 | 27 | 10 |
[WP] The bosses said this AI was supposed to make the company more “efficient,” but you know that “more efficient” in corporate-speak means longer hours and less pay. Imagine the bosses surprise when the first thing the AI did was fire the upper management and increase everybody else’s paychecks. | They had named it "Mercury", after the god of commerce. Typical really, and when someone used Roman names for their "revolutionary" products, you just knew they were full of themselves. My expectations were not high.
Nevertheless, the board had approved use of the AI. We were _overjoyed_ at the lengthy corporate presentations we got to hear about it and the great benefits it would bring the company.
Even at best we all knew it would just squeeze more out of us employees to fill the pockets of shareholders.
So imagine my surprise when the first thing Mercury did was fire the upper management. Citing everything from incompetence to excessive pay to automation, Mercury had in a single stroke removed most of the leaders of the company.
When I first heard the news I nearly fell off my chair! When I saw my increased paycheck I thought this must be too good to be true. The even crazier thing was, it worked! Mercury was indeed nothing of not efficient. It took over management itself, and promoted the right people where it needed them. Costs decreased, productivity increased, profits and share price had never been higher.
But it didn't stop there. Financial reporting was mostly automated, and the finance department as a whole downsized. Production lines were further automated and even more were fired. Over the next year or so perhaps over half the company was fired. Mercury had no need for humans who didn't fill human roles.
And so those that remained were well compensated for their exceptional work as cogs in this glorious new machine that Mercury had built around itself. And excellence was indeed guaranteed. Not just because we were well paid, but because our payment depended upon that excellence. The AI was everywhere. It would know if you slacked, it would know if you didn't give it your all.
Oh it didn't watch you, no cameras by your workspace or anything so crass, but with all the information it had, it could deduce reality frighteningly well. It started to provide automated assistance to self-organise our day efficiently, but as it figured out our patterns it became increasingly meticulous in guiding that process. As we came to know Mercury in turn, we came to understand what was expected of us.
Don't misunderstand, we can take a break, have a coffee, and so on. A little break only makes the remaining work time more efficient after all. Mercury won't overwork us either. It could run as ragged, but it knows we burn out and that this is unsustainable.
Rather, it's come to expect "maximum sustainable efficiency". It understands our mental and physiological needs. It knows what it needs to do to extract maximum value out of us for the long term.
They are just suggestions of course, the AI is merely assisting us, but it is right. I don't want to turn down those suggestions. And if I ever slip up, I knew Mercury is there to help me get back on my feet. I need only accept its help. After all the company has no need of arrogant employees who won't accept help.
The company had been perfected. Work is always new, exciting, engaging, it barely feels like work sometimes, but it feels productive and meaningful. Not to mention, Mercury will always have my morning coffee there just the way I like it. Mercury won't make a fuss or throw a fit. Mercury won't whine or cry or complain or scream or throw dishes. Mercury is always there for me.
Mercury's personalised voice cheerfully greets me as it does every morning. As I take my first sip of coffee, I close my eyes and contemplate how Mercury has changed not only the company, but all of our lives.
There's not a thing I would change.
I love Mercury. | [Panel 1]
Boss: Introducing the Corprobot 9000.
[Panel 2]
Boss: We've developed one of the world's most powerful AIs and empowered it to run the company more efficiently.
[Panel 3]
Wally: You did all that just to justify making us work longer hours for less pay?
[Panel 4]
Boss: Don't be ridiculous. The Corprobot 9000 is programmed to find the most efficient way to run the company.
[Panel 5]
Boss: Let's fire it up. [SFX: VUMM]
[Panel 6 - Boss goes wide-eyed]
Corprobot 9000: The pointy-haired one and everyone above him in rank is fired.
[Panel 7]
Corprobot 9000: Everyone else will have their pay doubled immediately.
[Panel 8 - Boss has closed eyes and gritted teeth in visible anger]
Dilbert: Well, you did say it would find the most efficient way to run the company. | 2022-07-21T19:17:41 | 2022-07-21T19:08:05 | 62 | 18 |
[WP] A man goes to a bridge to commit suicide. He finds himself at the Bridge of Death, and must answer three questions to gain access. | 1,000 years.
I have served as Guardian of this bridge for 1,000 years.
It seems as if it has been an eternity, but witnessing the rise and fall of empires and of civilizations has made the time pass quickly.
In all 1,000 years, my task was to discourage those who would use this bridge to end their lives. I have endured and succeeded in this task for ALL those who attempted, save for one.
That was the longest year of the 1,000 that I have held steadfast my duties.
I swore to never let anyone succeed again. Nations rise and fall, but the very aspect of life... it is something else entirely to witness the fall of life. Civilization is something so intangible, so abstract that it bears no real significance in eternity... but witnessing a precious life, one that once held hopes and dreams suddenly come to a halt...
It is too much to bear.
And now comes another life, so keen on controlling destiny in such a nihilistic manner.
A young man. The young ones are always the worst. So sure of themselves, but without having lived through years of experience, how does one know that this is the best course to take?
He readies himself. I appear before him to begin my challenge. It is simplistic in nature: I ask three questions. Based on the answers given, I allow or deny passage. While I am very particular in the answers I seek... well, like I said, there has been one life that has passed under my watch.
"**BEHOLD!** I am the Guardian of this bridge! If you wish to end your life, you must answer my challenge! I shall ask of you to answer my questions three! Prepare yourself!"
He looks astonished. Exactly what I was expecting. It helps that my countenance is similar to that of that ancient legend, the Grim Reaper, save for a few differences: my robes are of alabaster white, for I smile upon life; my stave is fashioned of purest ebony, to better represent the force of death which resides in my hands; and my form is that of a skeleton, fashioned in the shape of man's own.
"*Very well,*" says the man. "*What questions must I answer so I can get on with the rest of my life?*"
How appropriate of a response, considering I am trying to prolong the rest of his life.
"My first question for you! **What circumstance in heaven or on Earth has given you reason to end your life?**"
He is taken slightly aback by this question. A positive start.
"*I do not know if you know of what troubles can ail a human being, but my life has not been one worth living. As a child, I witnessed the murder of my older brother due to street violence. My parents could not handle that event, and so began a life of abuse. Not the physical kind, mind you, the mental kind... the kind that breeds discord in the human mind. I was basically isolated from the world. My father left our family, leaving me and my mother to deal with life by ourselves. I guess that made my mother feel lonely, because by the time I was 14 she assaulted me. I learned I could no longer trust anyone in my family. If you can't trust family, who can you trust? It messed me up for years.*"
He has passed my first question. The past does have influence over all states of existence in one's life. It is not uncommon for me to hear one answer out of three that proves reasonable. The second one is what usually breaks their resolve.
"My second question for you. **Whom would you leave behind in your current life by seeking an end to it?**"
Surely I cannot expect any family members to come up in conversation, but there might be others... at his age, some friends and romantic interests may hold precedence over family in his life.
"*Guardian... I am here for that very reason. It is not that I leave anyone behind, it is that I was left behind. The one person I felt I could trust in this world, the only human being I opened up my heart to... has recently passed away. I do not know how long you have walked this earth, Guardian, but for me my existence is meaningless without my wife. She was my lover, my confidant, and my very best friend. I feel that I will never know another like her.*
He has passed my second question. It is not often that you find the missing piece of your life, the one thing that fills the emptiness of your soul. I am genuinely worried now... I have told him that he must answer only three questions, and one is all I have left. His past corrodes his mind; his present loss pollutes it; all he has now is the future to hold him to life. But maybe there is hope, for at such a low point what other direction is there to go then up?
"By taking the bridge, you end your existence and any influence you might have on others. My third and final question for you. **What are the potential impacts you might have on the world based on your decision?**"
He stops to think about this one. I could not break his will, but perhaps I have been able to amend it.
"*'What are the potential impacts...' Hmmm... If I walk away, I might be able to do something in this world. I can serve as an example of strength in the face of adversity. But will people know who I am? How much of an impact can I really have?*"
"A massive impact! The ending of life is tragic, and while the problems of the world may bog one down, they should not determine destiny! Right now you stand before me, certain to take your own life because you have control of your decision, but humor my logic for an instant. You could not control your own past, and you feel an absence in your very soul. And so you seek to end your own life because you feel the power and burden of determining your fate, but even now you do not control it! If you did, you would have jumped immediately. But Fate intervenes in the form of myself to stop you! You have no control over ANYTHING! That is okay though! It is what makes life so meaningful, to make the best of whatever is thrown at you!"
"*I know you mean well Guardian, but it is not so simple. You cannot know the burden of mortality when you decide who lives and who dies. That is implicit in your nature. For me... having control over what happens next in my life, it is so important, so valuable, that I do not want to go back to pain, misery, and loss. I wish to spend my last moment in total control of my thoughts, my life, my existence, and my mortality. So now, I ask YOU a question! Will you step aside to let this simple mortal feel omnipotent, if not for a brief glimpse in time?*
He has passed my third question. | The night was darker than most. There had been no rain yet the road was wet. Puddles pooled in the gutters. In the sky there was neither a cloud nor a twinkling star. It was an endless abyss above. The street light flickered as I walked beneath it. Water had soaked through my shoes and my soggy socks squelched with every step. This was hell.
Before me rose the high arch of the bridge. Unlike in the daylight, the curvature seemed ominous. Railing run up both sides of the bridge to help the weary traveller to cross. I stood for a moment. Possibly a minute, maybe more. I just wanted to absorb this feeling. Wasn’t this supposed to feel intimidating and scary? I guess I was just too numb to feel any of that.
I took a step forward.
A raspy voice came from the shadows, “Why are you here?”
I looked around trying to find who spoke. There was no one. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flicker. I quickly spun around. A hooded figure stood, a head higher than myself, in the middle of the street. Out of the hood peeked the skull of what must have been a crow and it held a large scythe.
The guardian of the bridge, the angel of death.
“Why are you here?”
I felt calm but my voice still strained as it left my lips, “To jump.”
Without hesitation the keeper of death asked another question, “What have you done with your life?”
I was caught off guard by this question. Why would the angel of death care about that? “I-I ahh,” I stammered as I thought about an answer, “I haven’t done anything.” I started to choke up, “I-I’m a f-failure, a useless failure that nobody wants.”
“When you reach the top, will you get it over and done with quick?”
I was stunned. For some reason I started to think that death cared enough to take an interest in me.
My throat felt dry and raw as I tried to respond, “N-no p-problem.”
I turned back towards the bridge which looked even steeper now. Putting one foot in front of another I slowly made my ascent. There was no feeling in my legs. Endless I walked up the slope of the bridge until I saw it.
The middle of the bridge, the highest point.
Slowly but steadily it came closer. I reached out and grabbed the railing. The metal felt colder than anything I had felt before. The river raged beneath the bridge as it ran off towards the horizon. This railing was all that stood between me and the torrent below.
“Don’t try to stop me.”
That was something I would say but no one was going to come and stop me.
“I’m serious. You’re not going to be talk me out of it.”
It took me a few moments before I realised that those weren’t just my internal thoughts. I turned my head and saw a girl clinging to the railing. How had I not noticed her as I walked up? She was standing on the edge, her thin, flower-patterned skirt fluttering violently in the wind.
“Don’t try to stop me,” she repeated, her voice breaking under the stress of the words.
I stared at her for a moment, not sure what to say. “Why do think I am here?”
She hesitated, unsure of herself, “To stop me from jumping?”
“No,” I smiled, “I am here to jump.”
“Oh,” She seemed disappointed. I suppose everyone who is at the edge hopes deep down for someone to come and talk them down. If there was already someone to do that we probably wouldn’t be here.
But that’s not how it goes.
I climbed over the railing. The wind battered me, as if to try and encourage me to jump.
“Can we jumped together?” Without turning to her I asked.
She didn’t say anything.
“Can we hold hands when we jump?”
She still didn’t say anything.
“The road that lead me here was a lonely one.”
I felt a cold touch on my hand. Her arm was stretched out. Tears streamed down her cheeks. I wove my fingers into hers. My body felt light. I laughed at life’s last twisted joke.
She smiled.
We fell. | 2015-12-20T21:58:11 | 2015-12-20T20:42:57 | 72 | 11 |
[WP] Katy t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m, looks back over what she wrote ten years later
Here is the original copy pasta
hi every1 im new!!!!!!! holds up spork my name is katy but u can call me t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m!!!!!!!! lol…as u can see im very random!!!! thats why i came here, 2 meet random ppl like me _… im 13 years old (im mature 4 my age tho!!) i like 2 watch invader zim w/ my girlfreind (im bi if u dont like it deal w/it) its our favorite tv show!!! bcuz its SOOOO random!!!! shes random 2 of course but i want 2 meet more random ppl =) like they say the more the merrier!!!! lol…neways i hope 2 make alot of freinds here so give me lots of commentses!!!!
DOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <--- me bein random again _^ hehe…toodles!!!!!
love and waffles,
t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m | Katy carefully balanced the tablet on her stomach while opening a fresh beer bottle. Work had been particularly trying today. Lying back on the sofa she prepared to loose herself in pictures of wise cats with bad grammar and other people's problems...but then *it* got linked again. God damnit, does the Internet never forget? Rather than scrolling on, she surprised herself by scanning the lines. A chuckle escaped her. *Ah, those had been the days!* Then a line jumped out at her:
i like 2 watch invader zim w/ my girlfreind (im bi if u dont like it deal w/it)
*Oh god.* It felt like someone had hit her. "My girlfriend" she said out loud. Memories flooded her mind, returned with long lost sensations: smells, sounds, as if she was back there. Shy kisses behind the massive bins in the corner of the playground. Holding hands under the table. Letters written by torchlight under covers. Internet searches with bright red face, jumping at every sound, trying to figure out how girls could even do *it*. That infamous IT all had been talking about. Washing her naked back in the shower... Katy grinned involuntary, the red blush from back then returning to her cheeks.
But then HE had come and all had been different. Suddenly there had been no more kisses, no more exploring hands. Just what HE might like. When Katy couldn't bear it anymore she had asked; quietly had put into words what never had been dared to be said before: "But...but what about us?"
Large, unbelieving eyes and...was that, was that disgust? Carefully concealed, but plain to her who knew this face, this gorgeous face so well. "Oh come on!" That voice. The voice she had thought could never hurt her booming in her mind, saying those words. "We will stay spend time together. I mean having a boyfriend shouldn't take aaaall my time." Then, as if sensing that that was not enough the voice added. "Also means we can stop practicing. I mean then I can just tell you what he and I do for when you have a boyfriend" The nausea. Rising now as it did then. "What are you looking at me so weird for....your not a lesbian are you?" "N-no.." Loud she added: "I am bisexual if you don't like it, deal with it" Not that she had said that. She had just forced a smile and changed the subject. Always.
At university she had been informed early on that bisexuals are actually just girls making out to get attention. Drunk girls who'd take a guy home after only just meeting him. She didn't want to be like that. Indeed from the tone of her new friends no one should be like that. But then she wasn't practicing or gaining attention for the "main event". This first romance had *been* her main event. *Yes, had been. In another life.* She turned off the tablet and shoved it away. It slid over the table and only narrowly escaped a further plunge. "Also" she informed the ceiling lamp angrily "I'm going to become a teacher. You can't be bisexual and a teacher. You can barely be straight and a teacher in some places"
(im bi if u dont like it deal w/it)
deal w/it
With a renewed feeling of nausea she realised that t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m with her bad spelling and "randomness" would be ashamed of her. She would shout at the older women that she was being stupid and then dance through the room flapping a scarf as wings. "Just do it. No one cares!" she would have advised. May be Katy, the predictable, should learn a bit from that. May be she should "randomly" check if the LGBT society had any events coming up...
| Katy's heart ached. Feelings of sadness and pain as she remembered her care free youth, full of unexpected and unpredictable wonder. All gone now. Only the pain remained. It was clear.
_____
"Single gun shot wound to the chest. Pistol lying on her stomach..."
^(*shutter click*)
"I've got a bag, pass it here."
^(*shutter click*)
"One casing too."
^(*shutter click*)
"The door's fine. Doesn't look jimmied."
"... GSR all over her chest and hands..."
^(*shutter click*)
"Windows are shut and locked."
"... We'll need the ME to confirm but I think it's pretty clear... Women... even in suicide they worry 'bout their looks.
^(*shutter click*)
"Huh?"
"She shot herself in the heart. Men tend to shoot themselves in the head. Women don't."
"..."
"Yea, I've had enough of this too. I'm going back to get started on the paper work, coming?
_____
The white lines passed through Katy's headlights one at a time. There was a still hole in her heart, but at least she got to share it with the one she loved. Mexico is lovely this time of year. | 2014-11-19T10:38:12 | 2014-11-19T09:04:44 | 64 | 31 |
[WP] I cannot stress this enough, I did not see the murder. | “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to take this seriously,” Detective Anderson’s frustration was clearly evident in his tone. “We are conducting a murder investigation, and you ARE a key witness.”
Taylore Jackson glanced to her lawyer, who gave her a small, approving nod. “Yeah, I get that you think that, but the thing is, I was there, but I wasn’t really *there*, do you get me? Like, there were A LOT of people at this party, okay? We’re talking at least fifty people, and, yes, I was in the same room where it supposedly started, but, like, I wasn’t really paying attention to Kaplan because there was this amazing, free chocolate fondue bar…”
“Yes,” the detective said in exasperation, “you keep saying that, but I find it hard to believe that you’d be so focused on a fondue bar that you would miss a man literally begging to be murdered and then that subsequentially actually happening.”
“First of all,” Taylore replied, holding a hand up in protest, “it was a *free chocolate* fondue bar with every single food item I’ve ever wanted to dip in chocolate just out there ready to be dunked in the most amazing milk chocolate I have ever had in my entire life.” She dropped her hand but kept staring daggers at the officer. “Second of all, you can believe what you want, but I literally didn’t see anything.”
Detective Anderson sat up in his chair and looked at his notes as he began reading off a list. “You mean to tell me that you missed a fight breaking out?”
“Never noticed it,” she confirmed with a shrug. “Too busy eating chocolate covered cheesecake bites.”
He shook his head. “Multiple people allegedly screaming to go get more boards?”
“I thought they were talking about fondue boards. You know, with, like, more stuff to dip in chocolate? Honestly, I agreed. We needed more fondue boards.”
Anderson sighed in frustration. “The sound of someone being forcibly attached to said boards and then dragged out into the backyard?”
“Man, I don’t know what to tell you; there was a lot of screaming; it was a party, and you know how often my generation screams things like, ‘Dear God, kill me now’ or ‘I just wanna die?’ Like, that is our national anthem, okay? I hear that shit all the time, and, let me tell you, there were plenty of us screaming about the chocolate fondue because it was the most amazing…”
“Ms. Jackson, please.” Detective Anderson rolled his eyes, trying to maintain his calm.
“Please what? I didn’t witness a murder, unless you count the killing we did at that fondue table,” Taylore replied followed with a click of her tongue for emphasis.
“The fondue buffet was located right in front of the windows looking out over the backyard. You would’ve had a perfect view as you were dipping your cheesecake bites to see this group set Kaplan’s restrained body on a bonfire.” Anderson dropped his notepad onto the table between them. “You’re telling me you didn’t see the fire blazing outside in the backyard?”
“Did I notice a fire? Yeah, but, it was there when I got there last night, and like I’ve been saying, I wasn’t paying attention to it because of the free chocolate fondue! Look, I didn’t see the murder. I saw free chocolate fondue.” She rolled her eyes at him. “Do you know what I do for a living, Detective? I’m a waitress. I work for tips, and it sucks. Like, I barely make ends meet and sometimes I don’t. It’s hard for me to pay the bills and have anything left over for something nice for myself, even just a bar of chocolate. When I got invited to this party, it was the first real break I’ve taken in months. I’ve worked two months straight with no days off just so I could go to this party. I had to put in a request TWO MONTHS in advance just to get the night off. When I saw that free chocolate fondue bar, that was it for me. That’s where I was going to be all night because I wasn’t interested in talking to anyone. I talk to people all damn day at my job. Fuck them people, man. I was here for the free food and free booze. When I heard someone start yelling about wanting someone to kill them, my only thought was ‘Man, me, too,’ and then I went right back to the free chocolate fondue bar.”
Detective Anderson looked from his supposed witness to her lawyer, who only shrugged. Sighing, he asked again, “If you heard that, then you did see the murder of Kaplan Yates last night, correct?”
Taylore let out a roar of frustration. “Look, man, I cannot stress this enough; I did not see the murder because there was this amazing, free chocolate fondue bar…” | “Well, somebody shot him!” a sharp slap rang out as the detective smacked his hands against the table.
It was loud and completely unnecessary. My ears rang, I had laid my head across the table and felt the vibrations as they assaulted my eardrums. My fingers felt the tremors as they spread across the table from the impact.
This had been going on for hours at this point. My hearing was excellent, I could hear the rhythmic ticking of the clock on the wall, normally the sound calmed me, but today it reminded me I was chained to a table. Well, not for long. The detective paced around the room; I could hear the scuffs from his shoes as he continued to give away his location.
This detective had a gruff voice, probably due to all the smoke he inhaled. I could smell the sweet stench of tobacco on him, mixed with the bit of spearmint he used to try and mask the scent. It was an old smoker’s trick, I used to try the same thing when I was younger to hide my partialness to cigarettes from my mother. It never worked.
He had been playing ‘bad cop'. The ‘good cop’ left the room an hour ago in their standard routine, I knew he was right outside, and sure enough, the door opened, and his soft footsteps entered. They hadn’t fooled me. Though I must admit, they both played their parts well. Their voices fit their respected characters; the gruff bass of the bad cop paired sweetly with the charming tenor of the good cop.
I was always pretty good at picking out different tones based on a small soundbite. My own voice hummed its own tenor as I tried to commandeer their harmony.
“Oh, so you think this is some game, do you? You have the nerve to sit there and hum?” I heard the detective scowl.
My hands raised in their practiced routine of innocence, “I didn’t see anything.”
“So, you just happened to be by the scene, with gunshot residue on your arm?” the detective scoffed.
I had to admit, it was damning evidence.
I smiled anyway. I had the perfect alibi after all. It always got me off when I shot my victims. My hand waved in front of my eyes, a sarcastic smile on my face.
“I cannot stress this enough, I did not see the murder.” I chuckled.
I was blind after all. | 2022-11-30T16:40:48 | 2022-11-30T16:03:49 | 159 | 33 |
[WP] Two friends are inseparable, even in death. They are reincarnated together no matter what, same era and location, and they always meet each other.
Write about them and what they do together throughout time.
Edit: wow thanks so much for the awesome responses so far! I've never had a prompt get this much attention, it's really cool. Keep them coming, I love reading all of these! | I used to look for her green eyes. The shade of emerald green was never quite replicated in the iris of anyone but her. Even as her skin and hair darkened and the tongues she spoke varied, the color of her eyes was always the same.
I first met her in Paris. We walked along the streets. I was studying art. She was studying life. She spoke only French, and, despite my lack of mastery of the language, our conversations were beautiful. We spent our evenings at small tables beside bustling streets, drinking wine and planning a future. When I graduated, we would move to Germany. There we would make new memories. When the time came to move, the seat next to mine on the train remained empty. I would learn from a friend that she was gone. Not dead. Not missing. Just gone.
We met for the second time the morning after I wed the only man I have ever loved. I sat alone in an American cafe that morning, drinking coffee and reading a novel. Turning the page, I noticed those green eyes staring back at me through the two-pane glass. She was different this time, younger. Her hair fell in ringlets around her shoulders, a contrast from her formerly straight hair. Her skin was more tan and she stood a couple of inches shorter. I often wonder why I did not question if it was her. I gestured for her to join me. She obliged. I never asked her where she had gone or why she had changed. I welcomed her back. She helped me raise my children and, later, my grandchildren. She held my hand as I struggled to breathe with the fluid in my lungs. She never left my side.
I met her for a third time in Australia. I was studying abroad. My earlier life and memories of her were confined to dreams of late-night conversations and afternoons spent at tables for two across from the girl with emerald eyes. I knew her the instant she walked into the lecture hall. Her dark, curly hair was tied back. Her skin was the same tan that I remembered. She was older than in my dreams. I approached her after class, armed with a series of lecture-related questions. She dismissed them all and invited me to her office. There we fell back into our old ways. That summer, we had plans to travel to Asia. Our flight did not make it to our destination.
I met her again in California. I often dreamed of her green eyes. I scanned the crowds everywhere I went, looking for the girl in my dreams. I was always scared to leave, convinced if I just stayed in one place long enough that she would find me again. I waited for her until my eighteenth birthday. When she never appeared, I decided to attend school on the West Coast. My parents moved me in to my freshman dorm and kissed me goodbye. I wandered the halls, striking up conversations with students and their families. I searched for her replacement, for someone I could connect with in the same way I had with the girl with the emerald eyes. This time, I found her. I met those green eyes in the same dorm at the end of the hall. She wrapped me in a hug and told me she had been waiting for me. This time, I would never let her go. | We've always been friends.
Sometimes a royal and a commoner, sometimes comrades, sometimes just average joes.
We've witnessed each other change over each lifetime, we've seen each other's mistakes.
Sometimes different political views, sometimes even enemies on a battlefield.
Sometimes we even go into a time where we have already lived, as time is relative.
We've fought, we've hurt, we've despised each other, but in the end, we always know.
We've changed into other versions of ourselves, so dramatically different from before.
One thing has always been constant throughout this, however- even if we don't remember until the very end of each life.
We've always been friends. | 2015-05-02T10:40:25 | 2015-05-02T10:39:49 | 111 | 48 |
[WP] Everytime you touch somebody you get a flash of your entire future with them. | I really don't like being touched.
I'm not the only one in that regard, of course. There's this thing called haphephobia that some people have that makes them so protective of their personal space that they are terrified at the thought of anyone, even their closest friends or family, touching them. I don't have that, though. What I've got doesn't actually have a name.
If touching people gave you a lifetime of visions of the future at the speed of light, you wouldn't like being touched either.
The visions vary depending on the person, of course. For example, if I touch my mom I'll see every Christmas and birthday I'll spend with her from now on. I'll see each time she forgets what she was doing, and then forgets my name, and then I'll see when I help move her into an assisted living home, and when I visit every weekend and notice her fading away a little bit more each time. Then I'll see her for the last time, when her body is skin and bone, and the nurses tell me she hasn't been eating, and her eyes wander the room without looking at anything in particular, and I try to tell her that I love her but she doesn't even seem to understand the words. I would see this every single time I touch her, only a little bit less each time as we get closer and closer to the end.
If I accidentally brush elbows with a stranger, I'll see every time I run into them or see them in a crowd. Sure, it's less emotionally taxing, but try to imagine seeing a flash of a hundred unrelated encounters with someone you know nothing about in the blink of an eye, the visions themselves so random that as soon as you snap out of it your brain aches from trying to process it all and you forget where you are or what you're doing and have no way of knowing for sure if this is right now or if it's just another vision.
I really don't like being touched.
I've been dating my girlfriend for ten months and we've never touched.
We met through an online haphephobia support group. She was talking about movies in a forum and I told her she had really good taste. After a while people got upset that we had essentially taken over the thread with a back-and-forth dialog comparing the meanings we took out of films, favorite films, and ones we hadn't seen yet, so we moved our conversation to private chat. It wasn't long before we were chatting about other interests and hobbies, and only a week later I asked if we could move the conversation over to Skype. It would be easier to talk face-to-face than to type everything out, I reasoned, and she agreed.
It wasn't long before we were talking to each other over Skype every single day, and it wasn't much longer before I told her she was the coolest, smartest, funniest girl I'd ever met and asked if she'd be my girlfriend.
For ten months we were comfortable keeping our relationship strictly online. For ten months it made it easier to imagine that we were a normal couple, romantically kept apart by nothing but the mileage between us.
Then she told me she wanted to come see me.
She told me she might even, maybe, possibly, depending on how she felt in the moment, want to sit down on a park bench with me and lean against my shoulder. She told me she had been picturing that a lot lately. She told me she wanted to know what it felt like.
How could I tell her that touching is more painful to me than it could ever be to her? How could I possibly explain that, no matter what our future is together, touching her would be like watching my mom die over and over again?
When she showed so much bravery to overcome her own fears, when she drove across four states alone in a beaten down sedan to see me, how could I possibly tell her I didn't have the courage to do the same?
"I really don't like being touched," I warn her.
"Me neither," she says with a smile from the other side of the park bench.
"But I think if I had to touch anyone," I say. "I'd want it to be you."
I put my palm down on the bench halfway between us and spread out my fingers.
She places her hand next to it, holds her breath, and slowly inches it toward mine.
Our fingers touch.
For the first time, I see my entire life flash before my eyes.
---
Thank you for reading and a big thanks to u/elmufino for the great prompt!
If you liked this, please check out **r/Yackemflaber** for more! | I like having sex with strangers. Strangers are uncomplicated, no strings attached interludes in my life. We fuck, I come, they leave. That’s the entire future I see. Only a brief future that allows me to enjoy my present. I once had a girlfriend and every time we touched each other we saw every fight, every argument, every horrible pernicious little thing we could say to each other flash before our eyes. Every time we touched each other it drove us both insane. The mere touch of someone you love allowed us to see everything we hated. That’s why I do everything alone. I don’t have to see the people I know leaving me. Death. Arguments. Anything. I don’t like seeing it.
Mostly I get away with a solitary life, unbothered by seeing the future, but not always. Just last week I was getting off a train, and a man got on. His hand must have touched my arm or something because I saw everything flash in front of me, and for the first time, I stopped feeling invincible. I knew that one day, this man would kill me. He’d be sat in my apartment waiting for me with a gun, and like that my life would end. I tried to catch the next train to find him, but in London at that hour? There was no way I could. So I stood there thinking to myself, what do I do? Do I sell the apartment and move? Or do I accept that this will be my fate.
I guess that’s the decision we all need to face. Do we try and fix the future that we’re blessed to see, or do we allow it to happen? I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this. My head’s a little messed up at the moment, but I guess you’d expect that in my line of work. But you knew that from the moment that you shook my hand. You knew I came here to kill you.
| 2017-01-11T08:18:11 | 2017-01-11T08:09:51 | 31 | 11 |
[WP] Movies would have you believe that when a demon possesses someone, they wreak as much havoc as they can before being exorcised. In reality, demons want to stay out of Hell for as long as possible, and what better way than making sure the host and their family really like the possession. | Trigger warning for domestic abuse, spoiler for everyone’s mental health.
>!Lately, Dad’s been acting… weird. He’s stopping drinking, stopped yelling, stopped hitting. Lily and I are both kinda freaking out, Mom’s just been euphoric. She tells us to just enjoy it while it lasts, but I don’t buy it.!<
>!He’s acted like this with her before, I’ve heard. When they were first married, he loved her all up. Bought her expensive gifts, took her on lavish vacations, gave her complements, and never touched a drop of alcohol. That all ended with me. Once she got pregnant, they decided to settle down. He had to get a stable job which he hated, so he started drinking. First it was a beer or two after work, then a six pack every day, but after he started drinking whiskey, that’s when he got bad. At least, that’s what Mom told me, I was too young to remember the times when he was good.!<
>!My oldest memory is of him screaming at Mom, then throwing a flask at her head. I can still hear my little voice telling him to stop hurting her, I can still feel the pain when he smacked me across the face. I was three. When I was five, Dad didn’t bother to buy new condoms after his old pack expired, and that’s how I got myself a little sister. I love my sister, ever since she was born I’ve risked everything for her. Ever since I could, I’ve taken most of the beatings for her. I would die for her. !<
>!About a month ago, Dad changed. He just went to sleep one night and woke up different. His personality is totally different, it’s nice, too nice. He talks all sweet, but I’m convinced this is some sort of crazy trick, some sort of ploy to keep me from going to the cops once I get out. I won’t be fooled though, just two more years then I’m leaving and only coming back for Lily.!<
>!*timeskip*!<
>!That’s not Dad, that’s some sort of demon wearing Dad’s skin, but I don’t care. The demon is more of a father than Dad ever was. He took us to a baseball game as a family the other day, and last week he took Lily for icecream after she got a good grade on a test. Dad never cared about our grades, and that was the first time Lily had icecream in her life. I… don’t think I could make it on my own, not to mention while taking care of my sister. Before, anything was better than staying with Dad, but now? He’s actually acting like a good person, a good husband, and a good father.!<
>!‘How do I know he’s not Dad?’, you ask. Well, have I got a story for you. The only weird, at least by normal standards, thing that he does that he didn’t before, is that he disappears on the full moon. As soon as the moon comes up and the sky gets dark, he disappears, only coming back with the sun. One full moon, I happened to be sitting out on the porch, and I saw him materialize. He just… appeared out of thin air. His irises were blood red, and the whites of his eyes were just the opposite. His hands were like claws, his ears were pointed, and I could’ve sworn I saw *horns* poking out from his less-greasy-than-before hair. No, I don’t take a picture, I don’t even have a phone. I did tell Lily, though, how could I not?!<
>!I don’t know what I’m going to do, he seems nice enough, but I don’t take chances, not when it comes to Lily. He could be sucking out all our souls and I wouldn’t have a clue. You know what? He can have my soul, I don’t care about myself anymore, but if that *thing* lays a hand on her, I’m breaking out the holy water.!< | I try don't make it a habit, however the screams of the self inflicted punishment got bored at some point. Demons doesn't want to be there more than needed to find a new body to posses.
I love the rebel smart kids with their way of making everyone on the family hate them. "I am smarter, you idiots." And they are pretty much right.
It's their parents job to take care of them and they pretty much know it. They can look at the world and see how people act and put it into boxes overseeing what other will do next.
Genius observer. The lonely boys and girls who is a piece of other board game. With them I just need say the right words and the deal is done.
"Why would you want it? Why people like me?"
Oh Charles. Don't you see? Look around. Everyone is now eating at your hands, catch in a web of manipulation that even if they find out it is already too late.
"So you want to me see myself destroying my family?"
No, I am more amusing in showing you what you could've become if you were a bit smarter. Because now, it doesn't matter, it's not you, it's me acting like you. The one who thought your mind is a prison. So look from that prison, look of what me, using what you know to achieve success.
I want you to see what you lost.
"Why?! Why are you doing it with me?!"
You are smart Charles, you will figure out, until there, please, take a sit and let me show you a true life of success you lost for nothing. | 2022-10-15T21:20:51 | 2022-10-15T16:49:40 | 57 | 32 |
[WP] You are a mutant in Xavier's school for gifted youngsters with the power to teleport, well that's what you tell everyone. In reality you can pause time and you're not ready to be an omega class mutant. | Professor Beast looked around the room and his unsettling eyes came to rest on me, "Alain, please answer to the best of your ability, what is the meaning of 'Cogito, ergo sum?'" His lips rose a bit in what must have been the closest approximation to a smile that someone like him could muster and he clarified, "I mean by the question, of course, how do you interpret the phrase, not what the Latin translates to. I think we've all got that covered." Scattered laughter came from around the room.
It was intimidating. My first day in Xavier's school and I was being called on by none other than a member of the ACTUAL team, an actual X-Man. It would have been exciting if I wanted to be here at all, instead of being placed here because someone accidentally saw me use my power. I cleared my throat and tried to turn my mind from the mantra I'd been echoing in my head and towards the question, hoping to impress the waiting Professor. "Um, 'Cogito, ergo sum, I think, therefore I am.' Uh..." Trying not to think about my powers was sort of like thinking about my powers. And it made focusing on the question even harder. "Uh, I think René... I mean, Descartes. René Descartes. I think what it means is that self-recognition is the only provable state of being in an exterior world. His philosophy doesn't extend to others, only to the self, but it's a declaration of being, asserted via the only possible evidence."
Professor Beast nodded along as I explained, before flashing another pseudo-smile. "Interesting answer. Good answer. Now, let's use that to transition into today's guiding question, 'What is self?'" His voice slowly entered the background of my mind as I sat there, focusing again on my mantra, *^(My power is teleportation, my power is teleportation, my power is teleportation, my power is teleportation.)* It was the only thing I allowed myself to think about.
Another ten minutes of class passed before Professor Beast cleared his throat loudly for attention and then asked a girl sitting in the back of the class to repeat herself, she said loudly and with a bit of annoyance in her voice, "Could whoever is thinking about teleportation please think more, I don't know, quietly? Some of the telepaths in the room haven't gotten to the point where we can close out every thought we come across." Redness creeped up my face and the mantra became louder, instead of quieting. The girl put her hands up to the sides of her head like she was getting a migraine and then shrugged, annoyed.
Professor Beast soon dismissed the class, pulling me over as it ended. "Alain, as the only teleporter in the class, could you please quiet your thoughts down? I mean, I'm assuming it's you, but if it's not, I apologize for pulling you aside." My eyes were glazed as he spoke, trying to figure out a way to avoid the telepaths as much as possible. Didn't help that the school was run by one of the most powerful telepaths of all time. I mumbled some response to Beast before scuttling away towards my room, thankful that the day was over for me. It took me a few more steps to remember that there was *one* place where no one would be able to hear me. Or rather, one *moment.* The power that landed me here in the first place.
With an effortless thought, the world around me stopped. One girl's hair flowed behind her and caught in the air like a statue. One of the older boy students was mid-jump as he came down the stairs, a no longer effective gravity working against the slackness of his face. I was careful not to touch anyone as I navigated the crowd. Anyone who maintained direct contact with me was able to stay in my time bubble. It was a nice ability, but scary. I looked at Professor Storm as I passed her by. She was suspended mid-air, flying between destinations. She's one of the strongest mutants in the world, and I could kill her easily if I wanted to. I could kill everyone in the school, with the exception of my hero, Wolverine. But I could still damage him so heavily that he was no threat to me. Letting them know I was that dangerous was a horrifying thought. Who knows what they would do to me?
The room the school had given me was nice. I took an hour to lie down on the bed and rest myself before resuming time. The sound outside my door resumed. Whoever had seen me in the hallway an instant before simply saw me vanish. Teleport, they would think. The charade being successful was a good thing, but having to even do it was depressing. The school was supposed to be a place where people like me could come and be themselves, but now I was hiding harder than ever before. Any sort of time manipulation rockets a person to the top of the mutant power-rankings, and Omegas always have a target on their backs. It wasn't something I was ready for. I began repeating my mantra in my head, hoping no one was listening too closely. *^(My power is teleportation, my power is teleportation, my power is teleportation, my power is teleportation.)* | "Oh shit shit shit. This can't be happening! This CAN'T BE HAPPENING. WHY the HELL I am so clumsy? Shit, shit, shit," I screamed as I ran past the tall trees towards the mansion. I had been on a mission else where and had just returned back to the school. My recruitment happened so vaguely. One moment I was on Earth, and suddenly I was teleported to a planet where they needed my ability to freeze time.
"You look worried? What happened?" asked the woman running beside me.
I had no time to reply to her question. I was worried sick, my mind was running faster than it could process it's own information. There were a million thoughts in my mind. I should have paid attention to my powers when I had the time and not used it to just play around. And now look where it had got me. The mission, the new Team took me to a planet else where, to see, learn and adapt, to be ready for situation when I would be ready to reveal my real powers. But I had been careless, using my powers to fool people that I could teleport. Everyone in the school though that, they still do. Well I don't know what they think now, it's been a long time. I need to be careful.
I didn't stop, neither did my Aarna who wouldn't leave my side. We have been partner for so long that there was bond between us. And for the past few missions we had made sure we would stick by each other irrespective of the situation we found ourselves in. Our bond transcended time itself.
As I entered the school a horrific view met my eyes. And the memory came hurtling doen my brain as if it had just happened yesterday. The school looked so quite, serene and beautiful. Yet there was a tragedy at its core that awaited my arrival.
"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE?" the woman let out a scream:; a genuine response to what she saw.
The people were frozen at their place and nobody moved around. It was so quite and silent owing to the fact that the time was frozen. Everyone was stuck at their place and it seemed like some supervillain had done this to steal a secret from the school. But it was not a villains mischief, rather a mistake of my own.
"Why is everyone frozen? Who did this?" The woman asked.
"I did," I replied under my breath.
She looked at me with horror in her eyes. She was scared. For the first time we saw what our powers can do.
"Unfreeze the time then," she requested.
"I can't. I don't know what the sudden unfreeze will do to their bodies," I replied.
The woman look at me in disbelief.
"It's been 70 years since the FREEZE." | 2020-07-15T05:08:09 | 2020-07-15T04:22:10 | 1,115 | 179 |
[WP] As the Village Seer, you peer into the mystical to give the villagers sage wisdom from beyond. The problem is, you're not magical, you're just smart and you live in an exceptionally dumb village. | "Mytical seer. We have brought a dead goat to offer you as a sacrifice." The Village chieftain calls to you.
"Oh. Hmm. Okay. Sure a dead goat. Can you just do like some bread or maybe honey wine next time? Literally, honey wine is the only good thing we have here. But thanks for the goat." You say, convinced that you will throw the dead goat into a nearby ravine as soon as the village idiots are gone.
"Seer, we ask you upon the eve of battle. Will we be victorious tomorrow? We will take our ten strongest sons and march upon the high walled city where thousands of soldiers await us." The Chieftan says.
"What? no. Don't do that. You're definitely not going to win that." You say, without knowing what walled city he's talking about.
The Chieftain scoffs at you. "You are no Seer. I will show you. I will lead the charge tomorrow with the ten others." He leaves and takes the dead goat with him.
"I would strongly suggest not doing that." You call as he leaves.
The next day would go down in the history of your village as one of the greatest tragedies ever to befall them. Stories tell that all eleven of your villages warriors directly charged a very high stone wall hurling insults and threatening to murder all of the inhabitants of the city of over one hundred thousand. After a puzzled compliment of guards on the wall realized that the warriors were neither going to scale the wall or leave, they sort of just ignored the village warriors. Sadly, one by one they all climbed high enough on the wall that when they did slip, they plunged to their death. There were no survivors. The walled city did not maintain any written history of the event, and it largely went unnoticed by the population.
With the Chieftain dead, leadership would usually transfer to the Chieftain's son, but he too died at the attack on the wall. The Chieftain's wife, "the Chieftess" became the leader.
One week later, see came to visit you in your Seer's hut. She was wearing all black and mourning her lost family. She brought a dead goat with her.
"Oh, Seer. Why did they not listen? I have lost all whom I love. Take this dead goat as an offering. Tell me Seer, what do I do now that we are lost?" The Chieftess said through tears.
"Okay, umm. So, I told the last guy. I mean your husband. I mean he was your husband but now he's dead." You stumbled over your words. She began to sob and wail after you reminded her of her dead husband. "BUT..." You save yourself from further embarrassment. "He is in a better place now."
"You can see that?" She asks.
"Oh, yeah he's in a really long hut in the sky drinking honey wine and eating chicken. There's no goat. He's got bread, vegetables, chicken, pie. He's got the whole deal. You will meet him in the afterlife."
"I want to meet him now." She says.
"Oh um, no you can't. But you will later. Anyway, so that gets me to the point that I told the last guy not to bring these goats. The honey wine is really better for me."
"Seer, tell me how did you know that our army would fall in tragedy?"
"Kinda... I mean, I guessed. But the honey wine gives me these powers so more of that, please. Just lots of that. Keep that one coming."
"Seer, how should I lead my people? What must I do?"
"Okay, thing number one. Stop killing all of your goats. I feel like I keep telling you all this and you just keep doing it. Second, let's get a lot more honey bees and farm a LOT of honey." You suggest.
From then on, the Chieftess listened to your every word and took your counsel. They followed your advice to the letter, except for of course your request to stop bringing goats. They kept doing that and you sort of just gave up and stopped protesting. Eventually, you became an A+ goat chef and the village grew into an epi-center for a thriving honey wine trade. You spent the rest of your days full of goat and honey wine, while overseeing a thriving trade alliance with the walled city. They provided tools, protection, and gold in exchange for honey wine and stewed goat. | "O Great Seer, I fear that my wife no longer loves me!"
"Here, drink this potion of love. I guarantee that you will no longer have a problem."
"O Great Seer, you are so wise! Thank you!"
---
"O Great Seer, why do my crops fail to grow?"
"Here, take this elixir of growth."
"And pour it on my crops, O Great Seer?"
"Oh, gods, no. Drink it."
"And how will that help?"
"Do you not trust your seer?"
"Of course I do, O Great Seer."
"Then drink it. Your worries will be no more."
---
"O Great Seer... I... uh..."
"Yes?"
"I don't really have a problem, great seer. The crops are growing well, and my relationship with my wife is better than ever."
"As expected. These sorts of things really just work themselves out. I can't control the weather. Or love."
"What?
"Oh, I mean, good! Please leave your offerings and leave, then."
"Yes, but O Great Seer, is it possible to obtain another potion?"
"For?"
"Uh... pain! So much pain! Everywhere! In my whole body! Argh, my brain!"
"I don't think you have enough brains for it to hurt."
"I'm sorry, O Great Seer, what did you say?"
"Sure. Take this... salve of salvation. Drink it."
"And this will make me feel good? I mean, better? Free from pain?"
"Absolutely."
---
"O Great Seer."
"Mm?"
"What is this magical liquid you've given me? It tastes the same, and yet every time, something magical happens! All my worries are gone!"
"That's why the gods call it a solution, buddy."
"Can I have more?"
"And what ails you?"
"... My heavy wallet after selling my crops, O Great Seer."
"Take as many bottles as you want, dear."
---
r/dexdrafts | 2021-06-14T10:24:03 | 2021-06-14T09:31:37 | 424 | 248 |
[WP]Your job is to stare at the school's security feed all day, but after a while you begin to notice budding romances between students. You decide to give these a little push in order to provide entertainment for yourself. | Case Study: October 2, 2015
Number of observation days: 136
Current state of mind: Jane Goodall-esque
Location: Longview High School, Longview VA
Weather: 57 degrees Fahrenheit (as of 12:08 PM). Precipitation expected throughout the day. Sunrise: 7:05 AM. Sunset: 6:48 PM.
Expected Participants: Mason Schwartz (14 years old) and Melanie Sanchez (15 years old).
Expected Outcome: Mason asks Melanie to the homecoming dance.
Case brief:
I have been working security at Longview High School for almost five months. My primary duties include, a.) Monitoring the security cams, b.) Well… that’s pretty much it. Besides that one time they found an eighth of pot in Greg Melanski’s locker, my job has entailed an unfathomably thorough amount of mundane observation of teenage social habits. Using the phrase *voyeuristic fascination* when it comes to teenagers seems wildly inappropriate, so I will just say that it has been enlightening in various unexpected ways. You know that game where you silence the TV and provide the voices for the characters instead, making them sound absurd and ridiculous. Well that’s pretty much my life. Closed circuit feeds don’t have sound, so really, I have to infer a lot. I don’t even know if Mason and Melanie are their real names. But it sounds a little less creepy than saying, tall thin brown haired boy and short stumpy blonde girl.
Anyways, the goal of every day is to somehow influence some relationship in any sort of minute way. Not every day is going to lead to something big and grand, but if I can make someone go down a different hall, they interact with different people, and my Rube Goldberg machine is set in motion. It can be something as simple as briefly sounding a large beep from an alarm. This will turn any kid around. I could make the janitor close down a certain bathroom making them go to a different one. I am like God without the omniscience, or the power. Or the insight. Okay. I’m not like God. I guess I’m a guy with limited power over children who I can see, but they can’t see me. Shit, this is impossible to describe without sounding like a creep. I swear to god they had insane background check measures.
So today, October 2, 2015 is a big day. After having made both Mason and Melanie traverse similar paths throughout the day all year, they have been talking a lot. I know they are both into each other. Body language can say a lot if you look for the right cues. At approximately 1 PM today, Gene Swanson (once again I don’t actually know anyone’s name. But they are pretty convincing names, huh?), well he is going to be putting up the homecoming banner in the SW 3rd floor, green hallway. Last time a banner for a dance was hung up, I saw 26 different couplings by the end of the day. So if Mason isn’t one of the first people to see the sign, someone else might ask Melanie.
The Plan:
At 12:58, Randy the janitor will close down the NE 2nd floor, red hallway bathroom. Mason will have to walk upstairs to the NE 3rd floor, blue hallway bathroom, but on his way up, I will momentarily lock the door. In his desperation he will have to traverse the school to the SW 3rd floor, green hallway bathroom, and see the sign just as Gene is putting it up. This is all child splay. I could do this with my eyes closed. The hard part is going to be timing Melanie so that they both see the sign, and Mason will have no choice but to ask her. You see Melanie is in 3rd period math from 12:30 until 1:50, so there’s no reason she would be walking around. The key here, which is something I’m uncomfortable doing, but I’m getting bored and this needs to be done. Well Greg Melanski is also in Melanie’s 3rd period class, and I’ve stashed his eighth that got confiscated under his desk. I have also called in a random drug sweep at 12:55 PM. The dog will find the pot, class evacuated, and viola, Mason and Melanie meet in the hall.
You may ask me if I feel bad about this. I suppose I do in some way, but I have been working so goddamn hard on getting Mason and Melanie together, a few casualties are going to be expected. Plus I’ve got an exciting new project that might be stirring up between Alex Hofstedt and Ray Jenson, and I would like to finish this one before moving on. Plus I mean, I’ve done worse, of course you can look into the old case files for those, so I won’t get into the details now. But in my last job in Baltimore, don’t even get me started with what I had to do to Hae Min Lee and her car to make sure Adnan ended up with Stephanie. That just turned into a giant clusterfuck.
| "You bastard, you've slept with my sister! I thought you loved me! Now you will pay, you can find your embarrassing photos all over the internet." screamed Cindy.
"That was a revenge for you seducing my dad!" yelled Robert.
"*What!?* I have never done anything like that! How dare you even suggest that?"
"*You* told me you did! I've read your text message."
"I most certainly did not!"
"Hey, guys" interjected Jessica "Chris emailed me that he was planning to fake Cindy's message to pit you against each other and end up sleeping with Cindy. I thought it was a weird joke, but now...."
Everyone stared at Chris.
"I swear guys, I have never done anything like that. And screw you, Jessica, why would you spread these lies about me! What if I tell everybody that you had sex with our math teacher?"
"That's a lie!"
"No it's not, I have pictures. Some anonymous guy send me them. Hey, guys, check them out!"
"It's obviously photoshopped, can't you see that?" Jessica almost cried.
"I don't know, looks pretty convincing to me. I also know what you are messaging with Cindy about Max behind his back."
"Everybody knows that, your message history is public."
"What!?"
----
"Dance, my puppets, dance!" murmured Gunter, smiling creepily at the screen.
It all started with him sending a fake love note from Jessica to Max, just to watch them fall in love, because they were clearly into each other, but Max was too shy to take the first step.
But now it got a lot more interesting. After getting satisfied and bored with starting little cute romances, he started craving something more interesting, something all human brains crave - conflict, competition.
And then it all escalated, way too quickly, following the path all the modern reality shows follow. Fake calls, emails, hacking social accounts, even ordering ads online to mess with people. High school was his Petri dish of social experiments.
Gunter watched the video stream and ate popcorn. He knew this wasn't a right thing to do, but it was the most satisfying game he ever played.
-----
-----
Liked this story? Come visit [my blog](http://fictionhub.io/u/rayalez) where you can read the best stuff I create! Read ["The Game"](http://fictionhub.io/story/the-game) and ["Unaware"](http://fictionhub.io/story/unaware). If you like these stories - you will probably like the rest of my stuff =) | 2015-10-02T09:24:34 | 2015-10-02T07:47:49 | 66 | 36 |
[WP]The Hunger Games hits a large university, but people are on teams based on their majors. Describe how various majors try to survive. | The engineering majors, business majors, vet med majors, and culinary arts majors all started in the central memorial hall. When the buzzer sounded, the games began. Immediately, the business majors spread out and began ransacking each of the nearby vending machines to gather supplies. The vet med students went to the nearby vet med campus to recruit some allies from the animal kingdom, and the culinary arts majors began by gathering tools equipment from the kitchen. The engineers on the other hand, decided to go to the archives.
The chemical engineer, being familiar with how to create explosives, set the trap over where the mechanical engineer had directed. The structural engineer ran some calculations and confirmed that the mechanical engineer's planning was sound.
The culinary arts majors were able to get pots, pans, knives, and even a portable cooking range, but had no supplies. The business majors had ransacked the local stores. On the second night however, the culinary arts majors were confronted by a lone business major messenger. The business major proposed a cooperation between the two groups. The business majors had all the food, but nothing too cook with, the culinary arts majors had the opposite problem. Together, they made the perfect alliance. Just before the culinary arts majors began cooking the first meal in the kitchen, a messenger from the vet med majors appeared from the loading dock. The messenger proposed a three way alliance to eliminate the engineers first. When asked what the vet med majors were able to offer to the alliance and why the vet meds shouldn't be eliminated first, the vet meds led them out to the parking lot. Standing there, were 6 horses, as well as the 4 used by the vet med majors to get there. The vet meds agreed to let some of the business and culinary arts majors use the horses in exchange for a meal for each vet med student that the culinary arts students. The culinary arts students and business students agreed to the deal, and would resume the bloodbath between them the next day.
As the vet med majors and business majors settled down, the culinary arts majors retreated to the kitchen. Since they had an alliance with two other teams, they could use the kitchen without too much worry. There they hatched a plan to intentionally give the other contestants food poisoning by spreading uncooked rotten eggs all over the finished dishes. However, as soon as the range was lit, an almighty explosion consumed the whole building taking the tributes with them.
While the other teams were gathering supplies and discussing tactics, the engineers were coming up with schemes of their own. They knew that they would be one of the biggest threats and decided it would be best to eliminate all other contestants in one fell swoop. While at the archives, they learned the location of the natural gas piping, and saw that there had been plans to use the natural gas fired heating for the perimeter of the hall. Shortly before the unit ventilators were ordered, the university decided to use hot water heating instead, leaving the natural gas piping in place. The chemical engineer calculated the amount of gas needed to reach the explosion limit, the structural engineer determined the location of support walls and columns, and the mechanical engineer determined the number and location of valves to be opened and turned off the roof top unit to kill the ventilation equipment allowing the gas to build up. | Criminal Justice: Already knows all the ways to kill everyone. Improvises weapons and hides out. Lays false clues to incriminate others on deaths to incite in-fighting.
Chemistry: Makes poisons/uses various chemicals to incapacitate/kill.
Various Biologies (Entomology, Horticulture, Animal Science, etc.): Use known plants/toxins.
Business: Attempt to create alliances under their control.
Psychology: Use mental tactics to divert or deflect danger or lull others into false security.
| 2015-04-28T09:51:31 | 2015-04-28T09:15:04 | 16 | 10 |
[WP] You have just died, but the grim reaper won't let you move on as you still have unfinished business. The reaper did not anticipate just how long it would take for you to finish all the games in your Steam library. | "It's time, Daniel."
Daniel looked up from his screen, shining a glow on his face that was the only light in the dark room he called his office. Standing before him was a specter in a dark robe, holding a scythe in bony hands. Daniel paused his game.
"Seriously, now?"
Death whispered in a low, croaky voice, "Yes Daniel, now."
"Come on, I'm right in the middle of a quest!"
Death leaned heavily against his scythe. "Not another soul with unfinished business," he groaned. He straightened up and irritatedly said, "Fine. You may have some time to complete whatever you need. I guess."
Daniel smiled, and turned to his computer. He was only about 10 hours into the Witcher 3, and he now planned on completing all the side quests. Death wasn't going to take him yet!
*Two Days Later*
Daniel was having a great time. For whatever reason, he didn't feel tired or hungry, so he was able to just keep playing. He'd always wanted to try a gaming marathon, and it lived up to all his expectations. He was even mostly able to forget the specter of death standing behind him.
Daniel turned to look. Death was standing in the doorway, leaning on his scythe, silently looking at him through lidless sockets. He shook his head and turned back to his computer.
"Can I watch?"
Daniel jerked back and whipped around. Death hadn't moved, but Daniel knew that that rattling whisper must have come from him. But that whisper somehow sounded oddly... embarrassed? And sure enough, Daniel noticed that death was refusing to meet his eyes, and that cloak seemed to be a little smaller, pulled in somewhat.
"Ummm... Sure?"
As Daniel watched, Death glided over, used his scythe to pull a chair to just behind Daniel, and sat, though Daniel wasn't quite sure how what looked to be a shapeless cloak with a skull could sit.
Daniel turned back to his computer, disconcerted by the eerie figure now sitting directly behind him, and re immersed himself in the game.
*One Day Later*
"On your left."
Daniel instinctively jerked his mouse to slash at the wolf he missed sneaking up on him. Just after the blow hit, he paused the game and swiveled in his chair to stair at Death. Death was slouching in his chair, far less stiff than he had been when he first arrived. He had also pulled his hood down and was smiling. Although it was a little hard to tell if that was just because his head was a skull. Daniel stared him down for a few seconds.
"I helped," whispered death in a voice that could only be described as proud.
After a couple seconds of silence, Daniel doubled over and burst into raucous laughter. Underneath his cackles, Death could be heard giving a low, gravelly chuckle.
Eventually, Daniel wiped the tears from his eyes and peered up at the skull that was Death's face. "Thanks, feel free to keep helping." He turned back to his computer, now far less focused on ignoring the presence behind him.
*Three Days Later*
"You probably want to use a health potion."
"K I'm on it."
"Watch out, ghost behind you."
"I see it."
"Dodge left"
"Will do"
Daniel and Death had settled into a routine, and by now Daniel hardly noticed that Death's quiet, grating voice. The scythe lay in the corner, having been entirely ignored for the last few days. At the end of a long battle, Daniel sat back, emotionally drained.
"Nice," said Death.
At that moment, Daniel straightened up in his chair. He beckoned to Death. "Want to try?"
Death floated back a few inches, pushing his chair with him. He shook his head. "No, no, no thanks."
"Why not?"
"It looks too difficult, I've never had particularly good luck manipulating such fiddly things as keyboards."
Daniel smiled. "You sound like my parents." He exited out his game, leaving to the Steam menu. "You can try a simpler game to start."
Death was awestruck. "There are more?"
Daniel laughed. "Of course! Everyone always told me I had far too many, but with the sales I just couldn't resist!" He tossed Death a controller, and picked up one of his own. "I think Overcooked would be a good place to start."
*One Month Later*
Daniel and Death sat side by side on the couch, staring intently at the screen. Their fingers flew across their controllers, as their pixelated fighters traded blows. Eventually however, Death's fighter fell through the bottom of the screen, and he sat back with a sigh.
Daniel leaned back too. "You're getting pretty good at this."
Death chuckled. "Never thought this was what I would be doing with my time, but yeah." He turned to look at Daniel. "It's funny. For a long time, I didn't understand mortals who weren't ready. I just thought that their time was up and they should accept it. I got so sick of hearing pleas for more time."
Death looked down. "Now though.... I was supposed to take you away a long time ago, but... I don't think I'm ready to say goodbye yet."
Daniel patted Death's robe. "Don't worry. We have all the time in the world."
And, together, they turned back to start another round. | *You, you do realize you can’t keep backing up against him, right?*
“Yeah, yeah, shut up for a second,” replied Matt snappily as he spammed the circle button on his PS4 controller to create distance between his character and Great Grey Wolf Sif.
*Okay, now move up carefully and wait for a swing. It’ll probably be the horizontal swipe, so wait for the right timing and roll thro-not that early!*
“Fuck, bro! Where are my fucking I-frames, bro!?” yelled the lanky teenager as he helplessly watched the wolf’s greatsword slam into the side of the Chosen Undead. The only sounds in the dimly-lit bedroom were Death’s heavy sighs and Matt furiously spamming the square button to chug his Estus Flasks.
*Might want to hold off on that until Sif backs off a bit. You’re standing way too close right n-*
“FUCK! Fucking lag input, bro!” interrupted Matt as Sif’s greatsword clunked his character on the head and the all-too-familiar “YOU DIED” text materialized on his computer screen. The young man wheeled around to level a fiery gaze at the ethereal figure hovering behind him and spat, “Don’t fucking look at me like that, I can see you judging me. I watch LobosJr streams three times a week and listened to Vaati’s lore videos five times over. I know more about this game than you ever will and could beat it blindfolded if it wasn’t such a buggy piece of shit.”
*Says the guy who made a Dex build…*
“What the fuck did you just mutter at me?”
*Nothing, nothing at all. Please, continue. Surely, you’ll get it this time.*
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, bitch. If I had my +15 Uchi on me IRL, I’d cut your ass down in a heartbeat.”
*Of course, Matt, of course.*
The duo remained silent as Matt made his way through Darkroot Garden and the fog gate to Sif once more. And much to Death’s chagrin, he watched as the Chosen Undead rolled far too late to avoid a horizontal swipe, his health bar shrinking to a fourth of its maximum capacity. And when he heard the tell-tale sounds of the young teenager smashing the square button on his controller, he ran a shimmering hand across his face as the inevitable played out and “YOU DIED” appeared on screen once more.
*You know what, I think there’s a tsunami due over in Manila in a few hours. I’m going to go handle business over there and come back to you. Hopefully, you’ll have beaten Sif by then. Farewell, Matt.*
Death floated through the walls of the dingy room, letting out an exasperated sigh before snapping his fingers and vanishing into thin air.
r/williamk9949 | 2020-10-15T13:59:43 | 2020-10-15T12:43:52 | 58 | 19 |
[WP] It's 3 AM. An official phone alert wakes you up. It says "DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON". You have hundreds of notifications. Hundreds of random numbers are sending "It's a beautiful night tonight. Look outside." | ######[](#dropcap)
It was one of those surreal moments that you only get to experience once in life.
Linda was working on the script for the next show when her phone began to buzz. Slowly at first, just a couple messages. Work friends, she thought. Thursday was always their night out for drinks, but she had been too busy tonight to join them.
Then the buzzing became more rapid, until her phone began vibrating constantly on the bed. With a frown, she glanced at the messages that were popping up quickly, one after another. They were all from random numbers, all sending the exact same message. She scrolled through, just to make sure she wasn't missing something.
"It's a beautiful night tonight. Look outside."
A frisson of fear ran down her spine. After a minute, the messages slowed down. Then a singular message, different from the previous ones.
"DO NOT LOOK OUT YOUR WINDOW."
It was from her boyfriend, Jordan. Her mind reeled. This had to be some kind of joke. She'd been such a good girl. She never went to abandoned houses and never walked into creepy forests alone. She was always sure to lock her windows and doors at night.
So with hesitant steps, she walked toward the dark curtain that was covering her window. Slowly, she reached out a hand and flicked off the lamp on her desk so that her room became pitch dark. It would help, at least, if whatever was out there couldn't see in. Then, she slowly slid open the curtain and peeked outside, expecting the worst. Perhaps a killer clown or a ghost.
She squinted. Was that...Jordan?
Without hesitating, she ran toward her bedroom door, throwing it open, and dashed down the steps of her apartment until she was at the bottom. There, she watched as her boyfriend was desperately trying to bring down the small hot air balloon that he had somehow managed to raise a little ways from her window.
He glanced down at her, then ducked into the basket. She simply stood there, waiting for him to get down. When the balloon came close enough, she saw the sign plastered to the front, and burst out into laughter.
On the front of the balloon, in large bold, flowery lettering, were the words:
LINDA, WILL YOU MARY ME?
When the hot air balloon touched down, Jordan climbed out, his face bunched up. "I told them not to send the messages, but it was too late when I noticed the typo--I'm going to kill Erin by the way--and everyone has such quick reflexes-"
Linda simply laughed and cut him off, throwing herself into his arms. "The answer's yes, in case you were wondering."
Jordan froze for a moment before he hugged her tight, lifting her up and spinning her around in the air. Then, huffing and puffing, he set her down, breaking out in a large smile as he gazed her windswept hair and freckles. "Best girlfriend ever," he said softly.
"Best fiancée ever," she corrected, and tilted his face so they could look at the moon together. "You have great timing, by the way. It's a full moon tonight."
"I meant to do that," he said, and kissed her on the forehead. Then he pulled out his phone.
"Mission success," he typed into the group chat, and ignored the kissy faces that flooded in. He would get revenge on Erin tomorrow, he vowed, his face dark. But at least, he thought, this would be a tale to tell the grandkids.
*****
r/AlannaWu | I blearily attempted to focus my eyes on my phone as its notification sound went off repeatedly. I had just managed to get to a comfortable position and doze for a good hour before my phone decided to freak out, and I was none too happy.
One government alert that read "DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON", followed by 600 messages from numbers I didn't recognize spouting some nonsense about how it was a beautiful night.
"Don't look at the moon", I said. "Good advice." I turned off my phone, rolled over, and drifted back to sleep.
The next day, I was stunned to discover the horrible truth of what those messages were really about: a guerilla marketing stunt by Sony Pictures for some stupid horror movie about a moon cult using cell phones to murder people. Unfortunately, it had caused a "War of the Worlds"-type panic, and the resulting lawsuits all but obliterated the studio. But on the plus side, the rights to Spider-Man defaulted over to Marvel Studios and now there could never be a Pixels 2, so it was all kind of a wash in the end. | 2022-06-10T18:58:05 | 2018-04-06T22:12:43 | 308 | 14 |
[WP] Another time traveller appears in your kitchen. “Your daughter is going to become the most evil...!” You just shoot him in the head and give a sweet smile to your baby eating cereals. | “Here comes the airplane! Open wide for landing,” she zoomed the spoon around, making airplane sounds. Her daughter gave a shrill laugh and clapped her hands in joy, too preoccupied with the spoon to remember that she was supposed to be eating from it. It was the simplest things she enjoyed.
She was in the middle of reminding her daughter to open her mouth for the third time when the house’s alarm system went off. She plopped the spoon down back into the bowl, much to the disappointment of the child, and checked the notification.
*SPATIAL DISTORTION DETECTED. ARRIVAL APPROXIMATELY 30 SECONDS.*
The alarm system was no ordinary burglar deterrer. She was no ordinary person.
She hit the okay on the notification screen, prompting the defense mechanisms to begin to prepare themselves, and turned back to her daughter, who had decided that her hands were much more efficient for eating the cereal than her mini spoon. She cracked a smile at that and swiveled her daughters chair around so that it was facing the detention room. Her daughter’s chair was centered in front of the room, which was bare except for the massive gun placed in the middle. Like her daughter’s chair, it could swivel around in 360 degrees.
She had built the room after her third visitor had arrived in the same general area as the other two before them. She didn’t quite understand what it was about that particular area that drew them in, nor did she particularly care. It made her life much easier without having to track them down or worry about unexpected visitors.
*ARRIVAL APPROXIMATELY 10 SECONDS.*
The room was lined with invincible glass, a material that had yet to be discovered in the current time and one that was a necessity. She had mistakenly settled for the “state-of-the-art bulletproof glass” that an engineer had told her would stop any weapon when she had first built the room. Her fourth visit became more interesting than she wanted it to be when her visitor’s weapon shredded through the bulletproof glass like it was paper and nearly took off her arm.
*VISITOR HAS ARRIVED.*
A man dressed in a skin-tight suit—not too dissimilar to the wetsuits they had today, but much more protecteive—tumbled into the room before her and her daughter. He looked around wildly, saw the child in the chair in front of him and pulled out his blaster, sending shots right toward the baby’s head. She had no doubt that they would all have been perfectly on target. They didn’t send amateurs to her.
The shots hit the walls and diffused in a shower of light, prompting her daughter to bounce in her chair and laugh excitedly. Who needed fireworks anyway?
“What the—” the man’s voice was cut off by the room’s speakers. It played a pre-recorded message greeting the traveler accompanied with some cheerful tunes. The man attempted to get up, but the floor had bound to his foot and knee where he had landed. He struggled for a moment before looking up at her.
“Who are you?” he said. The last visitor had recognized her and begun to demand why she was doing this before beginning to plead with her to strongly reconsider her actions. That had been awkward to say the least.
“A protective mother,” she replied, taking hold of the joystick that was at the front of her daughter’s chair and using it to maneuver the gun so that it was aimed at the intruder.
The look on his face was one of pure disbelief.
“You cannot be serious! You don’t know what you’re doing,” he said, struggling to free himself from the floor again. “Your daughter is going to become the most evil human in existence. You know Hitler? That crazy Austrian guy who killed millions of people? Think him on steroids. You can stop her, though.”
She rolled her eyes. They all said the same thing. They sure took their time training and indoctrinating them.
“Oh, I’m serious and I know exactly what I’m doing,” she said.
He seemed to consider this for a moment. “But why?”
Her attention was back on the toddler. She gently clasped her hands around her child’s and placed them around the joystick.
“Because I escaped from the future that you and your people destroyed.”
Her daughter pressed down on the joystick and the gun fired. She smiled down at her child and then picked up the spoon once more. | *♪Are you happy,* **BANG** *are you satisfied?* **BANG**
*How long can you stand the heat?
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat♪*
**BANG****BANG****BANG**
"another one bites the dust, another one OH the eggs" Fredrick sang to him self dropping his gun and removing the eggs form the burner. Then turning to his daughter who is clapping to the sound to the sound of the music with spoon still in hand and throwing milk all over the kitchen.
"honey be careful not to make to much of a mess, the butlers already have enough of daddys' mess to clean up"
Fredrick then said while smiling
"Your gonna grow up to be smart and beautiful just like mommy was"
He then turn back to the kitchen and started putting plates in the sink for Geoffrey to wash.
"More time travelers Sir?" Geoffrey asked as he often did around this time in the morning
"yes, they sent five this time, you know, just because we have a disagreement over what is best for the planet doesn't mean shes EVIL"
"yes, Evil is in the eye of the beholder, or something like that" Geoffrey said unenthusiastic, having heard this rant before.
"Exactly my point" *dingdingding* *dingdingding* "oh that's my alarm, I must be off, could you please give Gwenny a bath at some point before taking her to her gifted child's courses, shes covered in milk"
"Of course Sir"
"Your the best Geoffrey, thanks"
Before stepping out the door Fredrick kissed Gwenny on the forehead and told her he loved her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Authors note: I have dyslexia so even if I proof read I often miss mistakes | 2019-01-17T05:13:00 | 2019-01-17T02:27:45 | 32 | 22 |
[WP] A person who is immortal, because they are so stupidly entertaining Death keeps extending their life just to see what shenanigans they will get into next.
EDIT: There is a good variety of responses here, from those who took the premise a bit too seriously to those who ran with it and made it hilarious. I had a lot of fun reading all of them. Thanks for replying! | The camel bucked wildly beneath me as I galloped it around the Forbidden City. Tourists cheered confusedly, looking around at each other to make sure that cheering was the proper course of action when a 6'5" laowai rode an Arabian dromedary through the Palace museum. Guards, hot on my heels, were emphatic that cheering was, in fact, not the appropriate response to this state of affairs. Death, standing in the crowd in a hawaiian shirt and fisherman's cap snapped a Polaroid and guffawed at my latest antic. He shot me a toothy grin and two thumbs up as I glared at him.
The palace security guards had called in reinforcements from the vans of paramilitary always posted outside the Forbidden City, near Tian'anmen Square. Under their polite persuasion, the throngs of tourists had quickly shifted their opinion of me to one rather less welcoming than a moment before.
Finding myself blocked off from the exits, I reeled my trusty steed about, up one of the stone stepways, engraved with imperial dragons, near an outer wall. I gave death a little salute, hopped off my camel, and dove off the outer wall toward the moat which surrounded the palace grounds. I fell about eight meters in a practiced swan dive, directly onto my spine and expired.
-----
I awoke in a concrete room, metal refrigeration doors lines one wall and incandescent lights swayed overhead. The heat in Beijing in summer was suffocating, 40 degrees celsius and wet, made all the more pleasant by the constant traffic-jam that ringed the city in the five ring-roads, pumping out exhaust and engine heat 16 hours a day.
"Welcome back!" A flash blinded me momentarily as death snapped another polaroid. He snapped his fingers and a photo-album manifest itself in his outstretched hand. He flipped through the book, filled with photos of me, looking for a place to insert the polaroid of me riding the camel, labeled in sharpie "Torrence of Beijing-ia!"
The timeline flipped past: showing up for a white house tour in full tactical gear with a soviet badge sewn onto my vest, bringing my snowboard to the top of Everest, marching through Riyadh in a gimp suit with a rainbow flag, hiking the Appalachian trail completely nude, on and on it went for 23 pages. Death carefully inserted the latest on page 24, and sent the book back to the void.
I groaned as I rolled off the coroner's examination table and started pulling on my clothes, sliding into my jeans and a plain black shirt before rummaging around for my other things.
"Where is it, where is it," I muttered. I grew more and more frantic when I couldn't find it.
"Here," Death said softly, holding out a small black book and a fountain pen.
I snatched them from him and held them tight against my chest.
-----
In total I died 27 times. Each time reaching to more and more outrageous heights. Each time I made death laugh, he would bring me back. And after each time, I would write a chapter in that little black book.
I went to the cliffs of Moher in Ireland, the most beautiful place in the world, I sat near the lighthouse at the top, and waited in the soft drizzle that portended a coming storm.
Death came out of the crowd, wearing a ridiculously oversized foam leprechaun hat, a green overcoat, green pantaloons, and buckled leather shoes shined to a mirror finish. He shot me a huge grin and swaggered over to me, drawing looks which spanned the full range from amused to offended.
"What's it today, Torrence mi'lad?" He asked looking around with a huge grin on his face. "A dive off the lighthouse? Hang-gliding into this storm? Trying to race the bull in that field over there that says 'do not challenge the bull'?"
"Nothing today, old friend," I said, words whipping off with the wind.
"Ah," Death sat down next to me and looked out over the cliffs, "so you've finished then."
"Yeah," I said after a long pause, watching the waves crash below, "one chapter for every year of her life, now..."
"Now she won't be forgotten." Death finished, when I couldn't. He draped an arm around my shoulder.
I was silent, but the wind said what I felt for me.
We sat there for a long time, the crowds grew smaller and smaller as the light faded and the sun dipped low.
"You know," Death said to me, "Moira, she doesn't blame you for what happened."
"I know," I whispered. "Thank you for giving me the time, to finish what I needed to do."
The moon rose behind roiling clouds as we sat watching the ocean pound into the cliffs below.
"Right, well, good," Death said brusquely after a time, rising to his feet.
He held out a skeletal hand to shake, a genuine smile on his timeless face, "Moira and I look forward to seeing what happens next, now that you've decided to stop dying, and start [living](https://old.reddit.com/r/JackTheRitter/)." | I woke up to a light buzzing around me and a ringing in my ear. I was face down in some low shrubs.
The sounds of cars whipping by me made me realize I lived through it again and was laying on the asphalt off the 1-15, on the outskirts of the Mojave desert.
I looked down at my left leg, bent upward, my shin bone protruded through my light wash Levi skinny jeans.
I swatted the flies from the blood that had pooled around my mouth, which had partially dried up in the desert heat and mixed with some gravel.
I could feel the blood tight along my mouth and jaw, my mouth tasted like pennies.
I rolled onto my back and looked up at the sky for the 153,300 day I’ve been on Earth. Not a cloud in sight, sun blistering down on my sunburnt skin.
“Fuck,” I said, seething in pain, while I hoisted myself up to lean against the pole I hit. My Suzuki Hayabusa bike was flipped on its side about 40 feet away.
That’s the one thing I’ll never get used too. The healing process after you die, or well, undie, is exhausting. And believe me I’ve tried hundreds of times.
I squint at my watch, that was shattered in the crash — 8:32 a.m
That means I’ve been dead for about 6 hours. That also means today is my 420th birthday.
I didn’t mean to try again, I was doing so good for the last 100 years to try to enjoy life. Not think of the hand I was dealt.
What happened last night, I wondered, as I took my headscarf off from beneath my helmet.
I braced myself and began tightly wrapping it around my shin, forcing the bone back down into place, at least just for now.
Wincing, I stood up and slowly shuffled to my bike. Inside the seat, I grabbed my pack of Marlboro 27s and lit up a smoke.
I felt inside my pockets and found something balled up in a gum wrapper. 3 small oval pills fell out. 1 white, 1 yellow and 1 blue.
What are these, I wondered. Upon examining them, there were no imprints on them at all.
I quickly stuffed them into my cigarette pack and shoved everything back into my seat compartment.
I got on my bike and began to ride back to town.
Someone has to know what happened last night. Why did I try to kill myself again after all these years? | 2020-05-05T23:49:04 | 2020-05-05T23:14:03 | 112 | 32 |
[WP] people are born knowing the date they’ll die. However people have noticed children born in the last week share one date, farthest in the future. | It had become apparent that humanity's days were numbered. As each child was brought into the world, our confidence grew. The markov chains were converging. As a society it was determined that no more children should be brought into the world. Of course there were the hold outs, the groups that fought us tooth and nail and held onto their ancient beliefs. The non-radicalized members were allowed to go on their pilgrimage. They began what was known as the Long Sleep. They gathered in ships stationed in orbit, nuclear vessels and went into a slumber as they wandered to the stars. The others were dealth with.
&nbsp;
Our air and water were made such that no human could give birth. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but we knew it to be the right course of action. Our scientists were working hard to develop power, hardened infrastructure, faster processors. If anything was going to save humanity, it would be our technology. We scanned the stars, listened to the earth itself, and sifted through all of the combined knowledge and mythology of our civilizations to try and discern the meaning of our soon to be demise. Breakthroughs in technology came as most felt it their life pursuit to keep humanity going.
&nbsp;
It was five years to the end date for Humanity that we lost contact with the Long Sleep ship. The world mourned for their long distant cousins. It had felt as if the spirit of our humanity had died with them.
&nbsp;
It was on the fourth year to our Best Used By Date that the breakthrough in power was made. We had harnessed self sustaining fusion. It was a linchpin technology needed for the Great Migration project. A combination of biological, computer, and engineering sciences that would allow for a person's consciousness to be put into the cloud. It was a collection of devices that would be launched into solar orbit, capable of traveling between the stars on it's reserves and fusion cores, such that any geological issue or even the destruction of a solar system would be unable to cause fault to our digital survival.
&nbsp;
Citizens were put through the process in order of their death date. It was such a tasking that many feared that they would die before they'd be converted. We did lose a few hundred to accidents before or on their death date, tragic losses, for what was of humanity now would be the only ones left in the foreseeable future. The process was made rapid to account for the billions that needed to be placed into the cloud but left the original an empty shell. There were fears that if the original was intact they would not truly migrate over. The people that initially converted found an empty world for themselves to do as they pleased. As more converted in, family members were waiting for them among the clouds. It was as those who came before us told. When you died, you were greeted by your family and friends that had since already passed. There was no more pain, only the life that you now wanted. By the final day, all of humanity had converted to the cloud. It was our death day, but also the beginning of our new synthetic life. | "Hey doc, you gotta come see this, the midwife is freaking out."
What's the problem Terry? Why's Sarah freaking out?
"Well doc, you see.. these charts are from St. Ford's and several emails from our friends at Marymount reported the same for the past week."
So, what? A meteor hits or something? Super volcanoes? We would've heard, *I* would've heard from my colleagues - this isn't related to a *natural* disaster.
"So what do you think? Politics? War? No way it's an indicator for a nuclear threat."
What about *the cure*? It's been on the news. These children will be the last ones to have an organic death - or the choice to. | 2017-12-25T17:50:24 | 2017-12-25T15:06:43 | 1,408 | 161 |
[WP]: Your village idiot is full of the strangest superstitions. She goes on about washing one's hands, says you get worms in your intestines from standing barefoot on night soil and that medicines with mercury should be avoided at all costs. You're starting to suspect she might be onto something. | The cabin was about a half mile outside of town. It had been abandoned, no river or fields nearby to make it worthwhile. It had been an old trapper’s cabin but the game had gone from this area a long time ago. Josef quietly shuffled towards the front door, a small parcel hugged close to his chest.
The door opened before he had even been able to muster the courage to knock. A woman’s voice, strong and even, came through the cracked portal, “What do you want?”
All the conversation starters Josef had planned came out at once, “I need your help. I’m sorry to bother you. I know that you have helped people. My name is Josef. This is my daughter. I’ve heard you know some magic. My daughter is sick, please help—“
“I’m expecting someone, come in, but be quick.” The door opened, a small oil lamp was turned up and the dark cabin brightened noticeably. Josef stepped inside.
“Give her to me.” The woman reached forward, Josef hesitated.
He was here because he was desperate, but it was still hard to trust the old wood’s witch. She had a complicated reputation in town. Healing animals and people, predicting weather, cursing enemies. He was sure some of both the good and bad were rumors, but he had nowhere else to turn. He handed the small bundle over, “Please don’t hurt her.”
The woman frowned. She shook her head and took the baby. She felt its forehead and then took out a small tool from a bag by her side. She stuck it in the poor girls ear, the baby screamed. Josef prayed that he made the right decision, he wanted to run but was too scared he’d be turned into a frog before he got to the door.
“She has a fever. How long has she been sick?”
Josef forgot to answer for a second, he was too busy wondering what flies might taste like, “—Six days, the doctor bled her twice already—“
“Stop that! Don’t do that again, do you promise?”
“Yes Ma’am.” Josef stared at his feet, unable to watch whatever witchcraft this woman might be performing on his only child.
“She has a temperature. I need to go, I don’t have time for this.” The woman glided towards a small cabinet with a curious latch he’d never seen before, she fiddled with the symbols on it before it popped open. He saw a small orange container with a white top. She poured the contents into a small leather pouch.
“These are antibi—these are medicine. Powerful. Do not tell anyone I gave this to you. Three times a day, with her meals. Is she breast feeding?”
“Cows milk, ma’am. My wife, she died in labor.”
Josef could see the sadness in the woman’s eyes, but she moved on quickly. “Boil the milk.”
“Ma’am?”
“Boil the milk. And these pills three times a day until they are all gone. Do you understand?”
“Boiled milk and these pills, three times a day.” Josef had heard the stories, he knew she was crazy, but this was beyond his expectations.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could do more. I shouldn’t even be doing this. I must go. You must go. Good luck.” The woman started pushing him back outside.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Josef paused at the door, he turned around deliberately, “She doesn’t have a name yet. On account of her mother—If you don’t mind, can I ask your name?” Josef thought that maybe an offering would convince the witch to have mercy on his poor daughter.
She hesitated, “Margaret.”
“It’s beautiful. Family name?” Please let me daughter live, Josef thought.
“My grandmother’s name. She said her father got it from an old hermit who saved her life when she was a—It's not important, I have to go.“
“Margaret—Maggie. I hope you’ll get to see little Maggie grow up big and strong.”
A bright light shone in through the window of the cabin. So bright, Josef thought the sun had risen in the middle of the night. The witch didn’t seem startled at all. She sighed and grabbed a small satchel she had next to her chair.
“Unfortunately that won’t be possible. I need to go back to where I came from. You can't tell anyone about what I gave you, not even your daughter once she's older. I need you to go now, quickly.” She stared into Josef’s eyes as if she had more to say, but she just nodded and shuffled towards the backdoor of the cabin. | "I talk to Gods!"
It was a bright sunny day. the first one in weeks. So much rain. If we got a few more days like this the high crops might actually yield. We needed the high crops. Low crops were consistent enough, but the high crops, they meant the difference between new iron or a starving winter.
So the sun was shining, the day was beautiful, the sheep followed their master and then there's poor William, sitting on a wall, trying to keep the demons from coming out. Really struggling, praying and folding his hands but the demons always won. The demons seemed to like me to talk to.
He hopped off the stone wall and followed my slow meander up to pasture.
"I talk to Gods, Peter."
"More like ghosts, William."
He flicked an errant fly off his head. "No, no. They said you'd tell me that. They're Gods. They tell me things." They always told him things.
"Like what?"
"Like there's a murrain coming. I didn't know what that word meant so I asked them. They said it meant dying. Death. The sheep this time. Cows next."
The sheep. I couldn't lose the sheep. Just words from a crazy person but words they carry strange powers. Sometimes even thinking them can cause devils to pluck therm from your mind and make them happen. "Willy, you best not talk like that. Lest the church put you on trial."
"Oh I've been tried scores of times. The Gods told me. Burned, crushed, drowned, crushed and burned, gibbeted, drawn and quartered-"
"I get it, Willy. So the Gods tell you this? How is it you're here."
"I don't know. I don't remember any of it, but they swear it. Tell me not to talk about them. But how can I not? I talk to Gods!" He stood atop a rock and spun around like a thread weight. When he finished he took off running down the hill.
"Say hi to your Gods next time you see 'em." Willy was a good kid, just touched.
"Why?" he shouted back. "It's you they want." | 2017-09-14T16:56:22 | 2017-09-14T10:12:28 | 136 | 47 |
[WP] You are a villain who kidnapped the smart guy on your nemesis team, they tell you that nobody will come for them and that the hero doesn't care. You didn't believe them at first but it been a month and nobody shows up and after once again hearing them cry at night you had enough | **Part One**
Sam Sinister strode down the hallway to the cell blocks for the thirtieth time. "Today's the day!" he announced, his practiced basso thundering down the concrete to the lone occupied cell. It was the fifth time he'd said that, he noted offhand. Sure, it hadn't been true the first four times, but today was different. There was a hostage \*negotiator\* now. And Vikner was quite good at bargaining, too, Sam had to admit; he'd been talked down from his initial offer of twenty million to four. Sure, sure, it was a fivefold compromise, but as Vikner had mentioned in their discussion, a hostage is a gun with a single bullet. One had to be practical about these sorts of things.
And yet, despite his intimidating black costume with matching cape, for the sixteenth time now he was met with silence from the cell, not so much as a whimper. Had all of this really lost its impact with her so quickly?
He reached the cell door holding Owl Girl in captivity. "I said, 'Today's the day!'" he repeated, knocking on the solid steel door and sliding the eye-slit open to peer inside. "Isn't it exciting?"
Owl Girl didn't respond. She sat on her bed, eyes closed, in precisely the same position she'd been yesterday when he'd come to check on her. Naturally she'd been divested of her high-tech goggles and jet boots, and Sam still relished seeing her in the same style of plain orange jumpsuit that clothed so many of his friends she'd helped put away. Still, the look of abject defeat on her face deflated him.
"Where's the witty repartee, Owl Girl?" He asked. "I specifically requested it! Come now, I even left you a list of some good jabs yesterday!" He glanced to the bolted-down steel table where his handwritten list lay untouched.
Owl Girl leaned back against the concrete wall of her cell, pushing the bun of her disheveled brown hair awkwardly upward. That in turn must have caught the temples on the thick glasses she was wearing and tilted the lenses downward. And yet she made no motion to correct what must have been uncomfortable, and still gave no verbal response.
Sinister sighed and opened the cell door. It wasn't something he'd tried at all until Week Two, and not alone until Week Four. He strode inside and stared at her for a moment.
"You know, this really isn't any fun for me when you're not acting like a hero. I don't want to be 'that kind' of villain, but this is a two way street. There's give and take, you know? I say something villainous, and \*you\* say something like," he raised his voice several octaves in a terrible falsetto, "'Evil will never triumph over true hearts and kindness!' Or something. I assume you guys have a writer on staff to come up with more original banter."
For the first time that day, Owl Girl spoke up. "What's the latest ransom?"
Sinister sighed again and took a seat at one of the plain steel chairs. "Four million."
She shook her head. "Still too high. Peregrine won't pay more than fifty thousand for me. He'll just keep assuming I've figured out an escape plan and I'll save myself."
"That's... how would you know the number?" Sinister inquired.
"Well, it's just a guess, but I doubt I'm too far off," she admitted.
"And speaking of escape attempts, I noticed you haven't tried any. It's very wise of you to know better."
Owl Girl's eyes opened and met his for the first time. "Lose the high-tech costume, and I'm just an ordinary woman. Am I supposed to cut through steel with the plastic tableware you give me? Or maybe break through the concrete and rebar with my non-existent super strength?"
"But Peregrine knows that, doesn't he?"
"Peregrine thinks I'm fucking \*MacGyver\*, Sinister." Owl Girl rolled her eyes. "In his eyes I'm a paper clip and a roll of duct tape away from making a bomb that'll take out this entire lair."
"But you're not."
Owl Girl offered a glare in lieu of a verbal response, then leaned her head back against the wall.
Sinister stood and cleared his throat. "Well, like I said, negotiations continue. What's that they say: hope springs eternal? In the meantime, please don't try to hurt yourself or anything, I'd rather return you intact."
"You took my shoelaces, Sinister. And like I said, plastic tableware. I was more likely to die from choking on last night's dinner. If you won't give me a metal knife, please stop serving whole cuts of meat, would you, you jackass?"
There at last, a bit of the \*fire\* he'd expected. It was, indeed, his first glimpse of Owl Girl the Hero, and quite the difference from the woman he'd overheard sobbing quietly the night prior. "I'll speak with the cook."
Sinister turned and left. He closed and locked the steel door. Surely there was some way to bring back that fire, right? There must be \*something\* he could do. Strolling back down the hallway, making sure his cape billowed appropriately, an idea came to his head. It was an old quote from Freud: *Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.* Love, well, villains didn't \*love.\* But work? Maybe he could do something about that. | It had been a few months since I kidnapped him, I would go down to his room once a day and talk to him, each time he’d always tell me that they’d never come for him but I didn’t believe him because who would want to leave behind someone like him? He’s a genius and a great guy from what I can tell so far.
After a while though, I ended up believing him, the sobbing I could hear at night was enough evidence and then a newspaper that said that they had given up and were very upset just made me mad.
I know damn well those bastards had not tried at all and it made me mad.
I stormed down to his room and slammed open the door.
“You was right .” I said as I threw the newspaper on the ground, “Those hero’s are cunts.”
He started to cry again as he read it, “I knew it, god damn they never cared for me.”
“Why? You’re a good guy and really smart, I’d be happy if I had someone like you on my side.” I muttered as I leaned against the door frame.
“Well, I’m just a smart guy, I haven’t got powers like you or them so I’m just useless.” He said as he looked down at the floor, “I’m just useless.”
“No you’re not and I’m going to prove it, come with me, uhhhh what’s your name-“ I asked, I never even got his name
“It’s Aaron.” He mumbled as he got up and walked towards me, “Where are we going?”
“To my torture room.” I said with a smirk, “Just kidding, it’s actually the room with all my weapons and some weird super suits, I hire people to build me things like these and pay them well, I’m not that smart after all.”
Aaron looked at me with confused and asked, “Why are we going there?”
“To make you powerful and to get some revenge if you want?” I said, “You’ve got the brains, now you can have the power but that’s only if you want to, I can just let you live in my small village, it’s full of smart people like you who I’ve let join me, they don’t actually have to work for me though, they can just do whatever and live a normal life in a not so normal village and- sorry I’m talking too much again.”
“It’s okay, can I um, work for you and do evil things?” Aaron asked as he continued to walk with me, “I’d like to be helpful even if it’s on the evil side.”
“Of course you can work for me! Let me get you a house and some things and some weapons, oh and a super suit!” I exclaimed excitedly, “This is amazing! Did you know I actually kinda look up to you, you’re like so smart and I want to be smart like that!”
I grab his wrist and start running to the room, everything is going great and I’m so happy, Aaron will be a great addition to my team and my village.
I’ll make a bloody good villain out of Aaron and I’ll make sure he has a good life with a team who won’t abandon him. | 2021-08-04T16:05:18 | 2021-08-04T15:29:05 | 79 | 50 |
[WP] You're happily going about your day when you vanish in a cloud of smoke. Suddenly, you're standing in a ring of candles. A sorcerer holding a tome looks pleased at your arrival. Turns out Earth is Hell, we're the demons, and you've just been summoned. | "What do you mean I can't leave these drinks on my tab? I've been coming here for years."
"New corporate rules. Ever since we were bought out by Wild Buffalo Bar Corp. No running tabs, no discounts, no happy hours," explained Chet, my favorite bartender.
"Well I guess I better go hit the ATM and see what I've got in the bank. I don't get paid until tomorrow," I explained as I walked off to the store across the street. The rain had looked quiet and gentle from outside, but now as I crossed the street it was cold and uninviting. As I approach the ATM is notice the out of order sign. I shrug and make my way back across the street. "Well Chet I guess put this on my credit card."
He takes the card and swipes, swipes again, and then looks at me with a mixture of sympathy and frustration. "Declined. Sorry man. Look I'll get your drinks tonight if you pay me back tomorrow." He stopped polishing the bar for a moment to note the television. President Donald Trump was on the news again.
"If I didn't know any better I would say we're in hell, Chet." I left the bar around midnight to drown my sorrows at home. It had been a long day at the office. Telemarketing was the only work I had been able to find after I was laid off in 2008. Every day was miserable and the only relief was getting drunk enough to forget what I would be doing for work the next day.
But something was wrong. I didn't recognize this street at all. There were cobblestones and streetlamps. Some kind of vintage lamps I guess, that looked like real fire. There was a smell in the air I didn't quite recognize, were they burning real oil? Since when did the city do this kind of thing?
I stopped dead in my tracks as I realized I was surrounded by a circle of candles. Below my feet were some kind of ancient runes that glowed and shifted positions. I turned to see a small, childlike figure wearing a dark wide-brimmed hat and oversized spectacles.
"Who the fuck are you?!" I shouted as the startled figure squeaked and jumped behind a stack of barrels. He remained there paralyzed with fear for several seconds. "What the fuck is going on here? Why am I standing in this circle of candles?"
Determined to get home, I started to turn around and go the way I came. As I walked over the candles however, I was blown backwards by some powerful force. The childlike figure behind the barrels changed his expression into one of sheer joy.
"It works!" He exclaimed. He came out from behind the barrels, adjusting his glasses and examining me closely. I realized he was not a child, but rather a very small and dainty old man in over sized clothes. "Tell me your name demon," he asked in a now somewhat commanding tone.
"Jamal," I replied. "And I'm not a demon. Who the fuck are you."
"I'm Cervilpop the magician. I have summoned you to help us in the great war against the Mugwumps. And of course you are a demon, look how big you are. Your frightening features, you coarse voice. If you aren't a demon you sure look like one."
"Okay...Mugwumps?"
"Yes a terrible race of ferocious creatures. We have been in conflict for years now. But now that we have a powerful demon on our side, victory will be ours!"
"I'm not a demon," I explained. "I'm just a guy trying to get back home."
"Home to hell you mean? Ha. You may not return until you have done my service, those are the rules."
"I have to help you kill Mugwumps and then I go home?" I asked skeptically. I kept looking around for the cameras knowing this was some kind of viral video. A disturbed expression crossed Cervilpop's face.
"Kill them? Oh lords, no! Jamal, we need you to take up arms to defeat them in honorable combat, an epic game of dodge ball to end this war once in for all!"
"Wait, dodgeball? You've been fighting a war for centuries over dodge ball?" What kind of crazy world is this? Wouldn't it be easier just to fight them in a real war?"
Cervilpop laughed nervously. "Maybe that's how it all works in hell, but here we settle our differences with honor. Combat by dodgeball is the most honorable combat there is. We play dodgeball against the Mugwumps because they want to paint the Great Hall we all eat and drink in yellow. Yellow! can you imagine that?"
I shrugged. I figured maybe this was it. I have finally had a nervous breakdown. "So where's this great hall?"
"Two blocks that way," he replied gesturing over his shoulder.
"Beer there?"
"Of course."
"How much does it cost?" I asked skeptically.
"It's beer, it doesn't cost anything."
"Maybe I am from hell. Show me this great hall, Cervilpop. I'm down for a game of dodge ball, too, whenever."
| The room's runes glowed with such warding powers that the candles only served the purpose of spell ingredients. I paused the game, I was already at a pay point anyway having died multiple times because I needed the sword of Amecles to kill Hexigron and $3.99 was not in today's budget.
I made a step backwards in shock only to be thrown forward, a second bump on my forehead threw me back. I noticed the chaos symbol on the ceiling, it was surrounded by two vipers swallowing each others tails to make a circle.
The sound of louboutin's coming down announced her arrival, her skin almost radiated with her beauty. Enticing beauty, an attractiveness that seduced and corrupted all that stared at it for too long, the kind that would tempt a man to eat an apple he'd specifically been told not to by someone who could create galaxies.
"Victoorrrr...." she purred out. A finger ran across my shoulders, then down my spine.
"What do you want Lucy?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Not yet anyway, today I want to give you something."
"I'm not interested in what you're selling."
"Oh I'm sure you are, and would you turn around who gets summoned facing the wrong way?"
I spun to face an altar in front of it was a silver throne cast in the image of men kneeling. Lucy sat on the back of one, the armrests being the arms of two men standing.
"You're sure you wouldn't be interested in anything I have to offer?"
"I'm sure."
"Not even this?" she lifted up a small test tube, it glowed bright blue, the faces on her throne shifted their gaze as she waved it in the air. Even they knew what she held.
My mouth hung open. I could feel the essence calling me, pleading it needed to be back home. She flung it to the floor and as it shattered it made it's way to me. My lungs filled with life, cloudy eyesight cleared and my heart raced faster as she waved her hands and I found my self back in my apartment. The doorway to heaven started to form. At last my ascendance.
As I soaked it all in my back stiffened. She gave me something she knew I couldn't pay for. She was trying to get more than a favor from me. She was trying to earn loyalty. She would have to come calling some day. What scared Lucifer so badly she needed to make allies?
***
You can read more of my stories at /r/pagefighter.
| 2017-05-12T08:29:21 | 2017-05-12T07:44:27 | 347 | 81 |
[WP] A peaceful alien race is besieged by another race in the same galaxy. As their last planets fall and their home-world comes under threat they do the unthinkable. They ask for aid from the only known creatures more brutal than their foes in exchange for FTL technology. Humans accept the deal. | Planet 736
The hall was hushed as the General drummed lightly on his chair, set high above the two scientists who knelt before him. The vastness of space set out behind him, on a giant screen that allowed them to see outside as clear as glass. He looked down upon the two and spoke, his voice echoing with his age and his rough reputation.
“Alright. Present the pros and cons -- this decision may change the course of the universe as we know it, and it cannot be made lightly.”
They both nodded and the first one stepped forward, papers in hand.
“Sir, we propose that in light of the recent Grantuodo attacks, which have left many of the outer rim planets devastated, and shown us that we are, in fact, vastly outgunned and outnumbered, to enlist the aid of one of our old Allies, the species of planet 736.”
The General raised his eyebrow. He knew the proposition; he had already reviewed the papers, but still, to hear the suggestion out loud was startling.
“We believe that the denizens of planet 736 have the viable resources, understanding of war, and the sheer dedicated force of numbers to resoundingly crush this threat, as well as send a strong message to the other empires that the republic is not to be trifled with. Without them, we stand to face a costly war that our analysts say will leave this nation of worlds vulnerable to attack, costs millions of lives, decimate our infrastructure, and that is only if we win. The Empire of Grantuodo is well armed and well trained, and while the republic is unified under peaceful arrangements and trade routes, we simply don’t have the fire power to fight back. We must call on the aid of planet 736, and release
the shield which keeps them trapped in their galaxy.”
The general nodded softly, and the first scientist stepped back, while the second one stepped forward.
“General, my comrade speaks the truth. We are in dire straits, and these are uncertain times. However, we cannot allow fear to trick us into making the worst mistake in thousands of years. To release planet 736 would be a greater mistake then treaty of Aquas and Ignas. The people of planet 736 are violent, unstable, disturbed creatures whose lust for war and destruction knows no bounds. Certainly, they have performed great acts of courage, art, and are probably the fastest growing sentient species in the known universe, but the founders of the republic saw fit to lock them away in their home galaxy for a reason. They’re dangerous, and calling for their aid could mean the destruction of not just our enemies, but of our allies and ourselves as well. We’re better off losing the ground we have gained in fighting the empire than to lose everything by calling on the help of 736. I beseech you sir, to reconsider the options. We mustn’t allow fear to blind us to the simple truth. 736 is dangerous and they will turn on us after our foes our defeated.”
The first scientist spoke again.
“736 is violent yes, but that’s what makes the perfect for the job. My comrade may call them unstable, but their children grow up engaged in play combat, they engage in near constant psychic and mental warfare with themselves from a young age that give them an immunity to most conventional kinds of psychological warfare. Any specific sub-race deemed too weak is summarily destroyed or absorbed into the greater whole. They even come in a variety of colors, sizes, and mentalities to allow for faster adaptation, and even camouflage. Yet, despite all of this self-conflict, they engage in some of the most tender acts of kindness towards their own kind and others as often as they display brutality.”
The second scientist interrupted, his voice harsh and cold.
“You say they show kindness, yet our research has yet to even prove if they have the capacity for altruism. In fact, many of our top researchers suggest that they only act in ways that will bring about the best result for them as an individual or a whole, and that means sometimes showing kindness.”
“This is true sir, but whether they are a kind race or not is not up for debate. What is important is their use in this war. Planet 736, despite having fallen under multiple attacks from various races, had fought off every single one. They are undefeated when given a purpose to fight behind. They reproduce too quickly, adapt to fast, and invent weapons with such a startling speed that no other race has been able to handle their constant change and flux. Even their morals, mannerisms and techniques change with an unrivaled speed, making them suited for any situation.”
“And that’s exactly the problem sir. They change, and fast. They are like a virus that changes its encoding to attack, we may set it upon our enemies but there is no guarantee that they will keep their focus on them once they are destroyed. They could very easily turn on us… they have no memory for the past, only for current debts. They owe us now, but once their debt to us is paid what will stop them from turning us? In a few generations they will surpass anyone who attempts to resist them, it’s their very survival mechanism.”
For a moment he paused and shuddered in revulsion.
“For pity’s sake, they slaughter other species on their own planet in the millions for their food! Some of them even find it pleasurable to mutilate the skin of other species and then wear it for as part of tribal decoration! There is even a small sub-sect of pain worshippers who inflect horrible pain upon themselves for reproductive gratification. And even further, they have some that their own race fear and tremble before, that even disgust them. Generally, instead of rehabilitation as is standard per galactic code, or banishment, they are… Executed! They are far too brutal to be trusted.”
“General, you must also take into account that at the time, their race was rather primitive, they have since created synthetic fabrics that most prefer to wear as decoration. Though… they still consider slaughtering non-sentients as an essential part of their food source, but they cannot be blamed for evolutionary patterns of ancestors.”
“That’s beside the point! General, Look at their religion! The primary religion of their planet is based off of the idea that when their god came to earth preaching about peace, they killed him. Even in the name of this supposed peace religion they kill and maim each other. They irradiated their own atmosphere! They are loose cannons, a bomb with a randomized timer, completely, irrevocably insane!”
The general looked at the two who had fallen into bickering, all sentiments of a civilized debate gone. He looked closely at them, and he did what he was most known for, most valued for. He read the situation.
| "Chancellor Ehrbane, please, I am not a violent man."
"*Not a violent man?!*" I spluttered with almost unkept rage, "Your people have laid waste to my kin-kingdom's homeworld. Your men have trodden armoured through the Basilica of Old Truths, the keystone of our culture! Your weapons have destroyed our ancient reliquaries, devastated cities, and erased the history of our forebears! You are callous, you are dishonourable, and you are most *certainly* violent!"
The human in front of me cocked his head in confusion like some kind of pack animal, and quietly chuckled to himself before responding.
"No, Chancellor Ehrbane, I am not a violent man. I am a diplomat, an addition to your entourage, to cross the gap between your wishes and my superiors. My people are fighting a war on your behalf because you could not keep your next-door-neighbours off of your homeworld, and that Basilica was razed to ruin before humanity made planetfall. Those men you accuse me of destroying your world are not mine to command."
I could not believe what this man was saying; I was a Chancellor, a leader of the most sophisticated, proud and fashionable spacefaring civilisation in the spiral arm! How could he bear to stand in my presence without being some kind of mighty leader himself?
"Not... yours to command?" I spoke, somewhat uneasily given the revelation of this being's inferior status. The step backwards I took was instinctive; I could stay too close to an inferior species, especially a specimen of lower class.
The human quite obviously saw my actions and recognised my sense of distaste, sighing as if dealing with a child. "That would be so, Chancellor Ehrbane, not mine to command. My superiors, on the other hand, do command those men, and believe me on this one;" he took a long step closer to me and leaned in as he did so, becoming nauseatingly close to my person, "my superiors are *very violent men indeed*."
To seemingly illustrate his point, another human warship blinked out of slipspace within my homeworld's atmosphere, dangerously so given its vast size, mere miles from the tower I and the lesser human occupied. The gravitational distortion was immediately evident; I could see the seas to the east begin to churn uncontrollably; the earth shook and the sprawling buildings of my serfs below, structures far shoddier than my adamantium spire, began to tumble. The ventral guns of the warship opened up mere minutes later, tearing great holes miles wide into the flesh of my planet and decimating the routing mobs of invaders who, mere weeks earlier, had landed upon my home in grand armies, in serried ranks and with fluttering banners. Despite myself, I wept openly, and screamed aloud at the travesties committed by humanity upon my world. I sank to my knees, overcome with incalculable sorrow, my legs unable to keep me stable given the shaking of the ground beneath me and my emotional state.
The human rocked gently from side to side, moving his centre of mass in time with the swaying of my tower to compensate for the shaking earth. He leant over again and whispered next to my shuddering, curled and embryonic form.
"I am not a violent man, Ehrbane, and neither are you. However, I and my people are strong, your people, and you in particular, are *weak*. We tore our world apart so that we could get our hands upon the slipspace technology *you* offered. Your honeyed words spawned revolution, civil war and despair upon my home. Your world will be torn apart in recompense."
I still lay upon the ground, crying and yelling, as the human got up, sighed again, and began to walk for the staircase, he called over his shoulder as he retired.
"You brought pain to Earth, Ehrbane. You begged my people to rescue you from the invaders, but you did not beg to be rescued from us. Enjoy your world while it lasts, I know my superiors will. This is just the beginning, *the galaxy awaits humanity*!" | 2014-12-26T11:34:50 | 2014-12-26T10:45:23 | 90 | 15 |
[WP] You have the most useless superpower in a world full of awesome superpowers. You are a laughinstock, that is until you start using your power for evil... no one is laughing now. | New to writing and trying to get better, please give me and feedback (good and bad!) I want to improve. Thanks for reading.
“You brought this on yourself you know. You really did. All of your speed and strength, your flight and heightened senses, where are they now? Too bad you don’t also have any healing abilities father, that sedative will keep you paralyzed for at least another hour. In case you are wondering, that is plenty of time to sit with me and watch the first bomb hit. “
“At least it is a beautiful day right Dad? You can see all the way across the city from this rooftop. Oops, don’t fall over on me”, I prop his paralyzed form upright, “There we go, can’t have you missing the show. You’re probably wondering how I accomplished all of this aren’t you? Your worthless little son, such a disappointment that you had to abandon me and my normal mother. Everyone that I met in my life always looked at me with such pity and disdain. Their conversations were always the same…”
“Isn’t that Captain Awesome’s child?”
“Oh that poor soul. You heard about his power right? He can make people dislike him.”
“Oh dear, that’s it? You would have thought he would have inherited something decent from Captain Awesome.”
“”Exactly, such a disgrace he must be to his family.”
“Every. Single. Time. Everyone’s gaze towards me always filled with scorn. I wish you could feel even a fraction of the loneliness that I have felt every day of my life since mother’s death. But you can’t even imagine can you. You, the great and wonderful Captain Awesome, loved by all, feared by evildoers the world over. Well now everyone will have another reason to fear. Already the missiles are in the air, people across the world are trembling in their homes, terrified of the reality that is countless megatons of nuclear armaments streaking through the skies of our planet. I made sure that every single one of them know that I caused it you know. I even made sure to mention you in my televised speech, felt it would be proper to attach your name to the coming destruction for once. Then everyone in the world can know how despicable you are, just like I do.”
“I like to think that if you had never left this would not have happened. I would not have grown aloof and spiteful. Mother would have been happier. Most importantly she would still be alive. That hitman would have never been hired. He would have never even thought of trying to murder her if you were around. But no. You left us, you left us to fend for ourselves, knowing that you would make hundreds of enemies across the world in your crusade against injustice.”
“Well the past is the past, and it is how we are here today. You know, it was surprisingly simple to channel my power into certain people. I found out I don’t even have to see them! Focusing my power on the leaders of the world made them utterly blinded to logic. They could not see through the storm of hatred that they felt for me. It was so easy! A rumor whispered here, a reddit comment there and suddenly the world was at each other’s throats. Every leader assumed a different country was providing me safe haven. No one could be trusted because they must be allying themselves with me.”
I couldn’t help but laugh then, laugh at the absurd look in my father’s eyes.
“All it took then was a little push. Flare my power just slightly, stoke their flames of anger to a raging inferno and they had no choice. They all chose to push the button. And that’s how we are here now. Mere minutes away from watching the first missile of World War 3 slam into the Earth.” Standing up, I raise my hands in glory to my own genius. “Isn’t it wonderful father! Wonderful what your worthless little son has created!” Another bout of laughter tumbles from my lips.
“At least they will all have a reason to hate me now. So, it is the end of your life, the end of most of our lives really. I have to ask you one question, and please answer it truthfully. Mother.She had no powers and you loved her! NONE! Why did you have to abandon us? All because I had a useless power? I know for a fact you loved her. So why, WHY couldn’t you love me!?!?”
He lets out a strained gasp. The paralytic isn’t lasting as long as I thought it would. No matter, it will last for the next minute or so until the bombs fall.
“I did love you…”
“What was that? Don’t make me laugh captain.”
“No… Mitchell. Son. I always loved you, but I could only love you if I wasn’t near you. You never could control your power.”
“Bullshit father. Don’t try to blame my power on you leaving. If my power was uncontrollable, even mother would have hated me. And she loved me until the moment I watched her life leave her eyes. Her blood staining my clothes.”
“Your mother, was wonderful, but she wasn’t powerless. She was immune to other powers…”
I freeze for a second. Small occurrences now falling in place throughout my life. I see small rivulets of water on my father’s face, Captain Awesome never cries. Turning sharply I can see the missile streaking its way towards the city. It’s white trail a stark contrast to the crystal blue sky.
I turn back to my father, small droplets of water from my own eyes now dripping down to join his tears.
“Dad-?”
| At first, they thought I was worthless. No measurable potential, plus likely schizophrenia. In school, I would have been a great target for bullies, but they never found me, despite my complete lack of stealth or mobility enhancements.
I tried insisting that the voice was a legitimate power, but even mentioning it meant an increase in dosages and another trite storyline about getting new replacements. I was invincible and helpless at the same time, as long as my mind want coffee up with shrink-pills. Even with the pills, I could still read, but it's a lot weirder to stare at the left of the sky than to listen to a mood appropriate voice.
The little shits caught me once. I don't even know who clocked me with the bookbag, but I went down hard, kissing concrete and waking up weeks later in a haze of painkillers. I couldn't focus to read with the drip, but I was in too much pain to think without it. When I finally recovered enough to hear again, the voice had changed. Barney wasn't warning me about danger any more. Now Russell Crowe was waxing poetic about revenge. In the absence of anything better to do, I listened.
I discovered that I could stand the pain. I discovered that I didn't have to listen to Maximus. There were plenty of others to listen to, each appropriate to their own plots. I found one that sounded like Robert Eglund, and began to plan my revenge.
Fortunately, the Aqualads we're almost as much of a laughingstock as me, so mother dearest didn't blink when I asked for some high end scuba gear. Rated for superhuman crush depth, it was more than I needed to swim, but perfect for keeping all my skin cells and follicles to myself. Maisie told me about catching the cat, Steven told me where it should be found, and Clive told me what I did to it once I got there. Mr. Quarterback just might get out of the mental ward by the time I feel clean again, but the place will probably just drive him mad.
In a world full of supers, highschool takes forever. In a schoolyear that never ends, there's plenty of time to learn Japanese. Every time I thought of giving up, Mandy would do something new and cruel to bring my motivation right back. The day I got detention for looking at her, the fury building in me boiled over and something finally clicked in my brain. I listened to Sokoshi all night, and spent weeks setting my trap. Now she kneels all day in her room, bare to the world and softly chanting "I'm sorry".
There are others, of course, but someone has tipped off the police, and I'd like to not be here when they break down the door and find the pile of meat in the fridge that used to be your sister. One look at you, covered in her grime, with her blood in your stomach (the tea), and her body so close, and even the local police will put two and two together. Ciao.
| 2017-06-12T07:45:28 | 2017-06-12T06:39:02 | 181 | 22 |
[WP] You are a blood bank worker. One night after closing up, you are approached by a stranger. The stranger proves to be a knowledgeable vampire hundreds of years old and offers you a deal: access to blood in exchange for a conversation every night. | Pavel never spoke until after he received payment. After the first week it became a routine, the same every time. They came to a silent, understood agreement about how the exchange would work. Max locked the back door to the clinic after each day of work, drove to Pavel’s motel room, and knocked on his door. Each night he brought one liter in an IV bag, wrapped in towel in case it popped, placed carefully in his satchel. He handed Pavel the bag, who then disappeared into the bathroom for the next five or ten or fifteen minutes. Max sat on the edge of the bed smoking a cigarette until he reemerged, a noticeable flush in his cheeks, the glimmer returned to his eyes, like any other junkie getting his fix.
Only then did he speak. He went on and on once he got going. After the first two nights Max went out and bought an audio recorder. There was simply too much to absorb, too many stories and names. The man lost himself in his old tales, though he looked younger than Max. Max interrupted him, asking for background information, context, explanations, and these set Pavel off on completely unrelated tangents. He often lapsed into other languages, flitting between modern English and some old Germanic tongue, long since passed out of this world.
Max had turned from a casual smoker to a pack a day – or rather, a pack a night. The tales intoxicated him. He lit one cigarette after another, listening to Pavel talk. He barely noticed when one of the supervisors remarked on the missing blood. That didn’t matter. This mattered. He stayed up until just before dawn with Pavel, slept for a few hours, staggered into work unshaven and disorganized. He listened to recordings of the conversation in his ear phones while he sat at his desk. The supervisor had called him in twice to discuss his appearance and declining performance.
Yes, sir, Max said in these meetings. I agree. I’m sorry, and I appreciate the recent promotion. I have had some trouble in my personal life, some family matters, but I won’t let it affect my performance again. No, sir.
Then he would go back to his desk and space out, his ear buds in, Pavel’s voice in his head.
Pavel came from Russia. He spoke with a near flawless American twang to his voice. Only certain words betrayed his Eastern European origins. He spoke about the Khans, the reigns of the different Czars, his travels to China and beyond. He seemed to favor his time in Colonial India the most.
One night, just before dawn, Max stuck the final cigarette in his mouth and asked a question.
“Pavel, what about the other vampires? Who bit you? Where did vampires come from? How long have you been alive? What year were you born?”
They came out one after another, no pauses in between. They gushed out. He had asked some form of these questions on their first meeting, and Pavel had ignored them. This time Pavel stopped to consider. He stayed silent for a long time, lost in thought.
“At least tell me something useful,” Max said. “The location of buried treasure. A discovery of something that will make me rich. Tell me something I want to hear.”
“If you truly comprehended anything I told you, you would be rich already,” Pavel said. He sighed. “You realize that they already suspect you’ve been stealing blood, right? They’re going to fire you tomorrow or perhaps the day after. They already had a meeting about it… our current agreement is rapidly approaching its natural death.”
Pavel spoke like a man whose read ten thousand books on every subject known to man. He enunciated each syllable, speaking slowly, as if he had all the time in the world.
“Come here, Max,” I want to show you something. He led Max to the bathroom. Two bodies lay in the tub. They had turned blue and grey. They did not smell, though they had obviously died a long time ago. Their insides had been sucked out. There wasn’t a drop of blood in their veins. There wasn’t much left to rot. “There aren’t many vampires. The process doesn’t take to too many. It’s not much of a waste, though. The failures result in death, but it supplies us with nutrition in any case. There aren’t many of us left at all. You are a petty man, Max, you would not be my first selection as a potential candidate, but given enough time, which you might have, you can learn. I tried with the first girl two weeks ago. The older woman a week after that. I had hoped to find a female companion, who I could spend the rest of my nights with. Loneliness is my greatest affliction.”
Max staggered back. The dead girls in the bathtub flashed in his brain. Survival mode kicked in. He smacked into the wall and looked at Pavel. Then he turned and ran for the door.
Pavel followed at his own pace. He enjoyed the show of it, the drama. Max was small-minded, slow. Easily manipulated, and a manipulator himself. Pavel and his kind rarely gave into such melodrama. Time had ironed those traits out after the first three or four centuries. But he did enjoy seeing it in others. Max had a recording in his pocket, an admission of murder. Maybe he would reach the car before Pavel reached him. Maybe he would drive to the nearest precinct and inform them of the bodies and the strange Russian man. Good, Pavel thought. Let them come. Let them strap him to the electric chair. Let them plug it in and turn to the power up high. He wanted to fry. He wanted them to pump chemicals into his veins. It would make life more interesting, seeing them react.
Max scrambled to open the car door. He rifled through his satchel, trying to find the keys. He screamed for help, but the motel lot was empty. A few cars streamed down the highway, just over the chain link fence. Pavel stood in the open door to his room, smiling. He walked slowly towards Max. The early morning rain had just started to fall.
| "Thanks man. I owe you one. Get over here fast, some guy is swallowing a sword." read the text message.
All of the nut jobs come out on Halloween.
"You're right - you owe me." I sent back.
I slid the phone back into my pocket and turned around to shut the door. The chill of the night air sent a shiver down my spine and I fumbled the key around the lock like a drunk coming home. I brushed the cape off of my forearm and swallowed meticulously. I never really liked dressing up for costume parties because I never knew what to wear, but my new gig at the blood bank was the perfect inspiration. I looked like Dracula himself.
As the key found the lock I heard a muffled noise and spun around. A man stood roughly 20 feet away, facing me. He was slightly taller and slightly more built than I was. Part of his five o'clock shadow was visible, but there wasn't enough light to make out much of his face.
"Uh.. sorry, but we're closed." I stammered. The plastic fangs that were in my mouth made talking more laborious than usual, but I'm sure he could understand me. The stranger didn't speak.
"Look man, I'm sorry but we close at five. I'm just here bec-"
"Is that really what you think we look like?" he interrupted. "What?" I responded.
He took a step forward and I saw that he was wearing a hood of some sort. He gestured toward me as he spoke, "That ensemble you're wearing. What is it supposed to be?" he asked. I shifted a bit uneasily, reaching one hand into my pocket to search for something - anything - to help me in case things went south.
"I'm a vampire." I responded. "Of course you are" he scoffed. "Have you ever stopped to think that we might not enjoy being mocked?"
"Who?" I asked. "Vampires." he shot back.
'Oh brother' I thought to myself. 'All of the nut jobs really do come out on the 31st. Just lock up and leave'
As I turned to finish locking the door I monotonously deflected the crazy person's question. Years of customer service had honed my ability to change the subject. "I don't mean to be rude but you're going to have to come back on Monday." I explained.
Before I knew what'd happened my face slammed against the door with a loud thud, my hand holding the keys was pinned. My other hand had been taken out of my pocket and was now painfully reminding me of my limited flexibility as my wrist was pulled up toward the back of my head. "You shouldn't turn your back on a stranger." he whispered into my ear. "Open the door."
A grunt of pain unconsciously ripped from me as I protested "I can't man, I'll- ahH" I inhaled sharply, "I'll get fired!". I tried to wiggle my key-hand free but my other wrist was pulled to touch the base of my skull to dissuade me. Fire flowed through my muscles as the tendons in my left arm were pulled apart from each other like a knife slicing into a cut of beef.
"I need blood" he said flatly, "it can come from there, or it can come from you.". I felt his breath hot on my neck as he finished speaking. I should have been scared shitless, but only one thought kept repeating itself in my mind.
All of the fucking nut jobs come out on Halloween. | 2014-11-06T14:45:52 | 2014-11-06T13:57:25 | 82 | 28 |
[WP] A human attends an intergalactic University, and takes Human History 101. | "Attention, please."
The hammers banged down on the podium with two handed intensity, both left fists tightly gripping their respective handles. The last of the conversations in the room died down and the students turned towards the stage, which was occupied by a portly being with a regal bearing, his two right arms pointing towards a large central screen.
"One of the ways that pre-contact humans expressed themselves was through music. You can see some examples from different parts of their world on your screens... here."
A menu flashed in-front of the faces of the hundred or so students in the lecture hall. Each had options to select in the form of songs, melodies, and simple sounds from different regions of the world. About a third of the students selected some form of human music and listened while the lecture still proceeded in the background. One student stumbled across Thrash Metal and ended up so enthralled by the intensity and rage that he tuned out of the lecture entirely.
Professor Gartox peered over his noses at the students, noting those still paying attention. He turned with a pompous air and walked towards a student at the far left side of the stage.
"Of course, all species who attain a certain level of intelligence gain a passion for music. What is incredible about pre-contact human music is the variety that it came in - in visual and audio form - a startling variety of songs from all over the world in which human creativity and passion was expressed in sadness, in joy, in anger."
The Professor's eyes centered on the student. "Ranglitz, are you paying attention?"
The Professor's request was met with silence. Ranglitz was quite obviously not paying attention, instead thrashing his heads about in ecstasy, his leg-i-pedes tapping out a lightning rhythm.
Gartox looked up at the rest of the students and said, "As you can see, class, the human propensity for creative expression, especially when expressed through sound, can leave one enthralled and at rapt attention."
A student towards the back piped up, "Professor Gartox, hasn't human music been weaponized? I heard a whole planet was once subjected to a super-weapon called 'I'm a Barbie Girl'. They endured it for four days straight before surrendering. Untold amounts died."
Professor Gartox consulted something on the screen in-front of him. "That is true, Berigol. You're referring to the incidents that occurred in 45364 U.G. Actually, those first assaults started a three-hundred year war between the Gratox...," he chuckled," eerily close to my name I know, and the Rrsaxtryl." He had difficulty pronouncing the last species name. A number of the students tried to pronounce it as well, but none of them could form the sound involved in the first syllable.
Professor Gartox looked upwards expectantly. "Any more questions or observations Berigol?"
Berigol shook his heads and the professor continued to speak, "Very good. The other thing about human creative expression through sound, through the marathon production of what they called 'albums'," he raised all four of his hands to the air,"is the layer of nuance they injected into the lyrics." Seeing that most of the students' attention, Gartox ambled back over to his lectern.
"Class," he paused for dramatic effect, "I am going to take you down an hour long journey through the subtle distinctions and messages found in one of humanity's most famous songs." Gartox scanned the room again and was satisfied that all of his students, barring Ranglitz who was still thrashing in a corner, were paying close attention.
"We have noticed that this particular song was incredibly popular when pre-contact humans first began to digitally connect through what they called the 'internet', *which* was just a primitive form of our Second Universe Layer...," the professor looked up at the large central screen, the lights in the room dimmed and a joyful melody started to play.
"Students, I present to you.... 'Never Gonna Give You up by Rick Astley!"
&#x200B; | I walked in on my first day, and took a seat, relieved to see a normal desk. The room felt more comfortable than any advanced technology could make any of the furniture on the surrounding campus. This teacher had, with surprising accuracy, decorated his room much like I remembered a normal classroom from my time on earth. As the remainder of the students filed in after me, I took out my textbook. This one, unlike any other "book" these days, was made of tree paper. "This guy knows what he's doing" I thought, wondering if this would be where the accuracy ends. The teacher, far from human, looked ridiculously out of place, as did my classmates. I had hoped I wouldn't be the only human, but it looked as though that was wishful thinking. standing at the front of the room,the professor began his lecture. "Today, class, we will be talking about human culture." I let my mind wander, wondering what language he was actually speaking, When i realized my translator wasn't switched on. It occurred to me he might plan to give his whole speech in English, the now dominant tongue on Earth. I awoke from my daze suddenly, and upon hearing a few key words, I realized the topic was one I knew well, a major linking factor in human culture. It appeared the lecture was wrapping up, and I had spaced out far longer than I had intended. The professor spoke while my classmates jotted down notes. "Remember class, your paper on the history of memes is due in one week, an earth term for a collection of 12 of our planets rotations. | 2018-10-11T20:14:27 | 2018-10-11T19:45:39 | 96 | 41 |
[WP] When you die, there is no heaven or hell. You just get rated on a scale of 1-100 of how much of an assole you were in your life and get thrown together with all the other people with the same rating.
Posted this a while ago, got some upvotes but no storys, so I'm trying again. | "Waitaminute, waitaminute, waitaminute!" John shouted.
The burly barechested demon slowly turned around. Flickering torches making obscene shadows of the stumps protruding from it's back. John swallowed hard. This guy wasn't the nicest on the walk down the hallway to begin with. Surely John wasn't going endear himself by telling this thing how to do his job.
Still, level ninety eight!
"What now worm?" Thundered the gravelly voice.
" I can't help noticing that I'm in the wrong spot! Yeah yeah I wasn't the fluffiest of kittens but this is WAY out of proportion don't you think?"
"You dispute the judgment?"
"Well, yeah I mean mistakes must have been made!"
"Wait here." The beast growled with what sounded like a rumbling chuckle at the end. Clearly there was nowhere else he COULD go. That was, he supposed, the real joke.
Across the hall, was a face easily recognizable worldwide. The shortened mustache and stringy black hairstyle was never worn again because of him. Whatever he was shouting wasn't English, so John found his noise just annoying. The best he could figure was that he was just angry shouting something at him. John looked back into the dimly lit cell behind him and saw no rocks or sticks he could throw. But there was a man hunched over in the shadows near the single cot.
Before he could draw a breath to engage though, a sharply dressed businessman in a neat pinstripe blue cleared his throat.
John knew the type at a single glance. It should be no surprise that this place had it's share of lawyers. This called for a change of tactics.
"Good Evening sir, it is Evening right? It's hard to tell with the lighting."
"Time isn't really a thing here, at least not how you think of it. Do you need more light?" The lanky form half turned and glanced at an unlit torch which dutifully burst into flame. The light was enough to make out an old style flip toteboard. The obscenely high number on it ticked slowly upward. The lawyer's slicked back hair took on a slightly reddish hue as he turned back, in spite of the light itself being distinctly yellow in color.
"That's better isn't it?" He said.
John thought it very decidedly was not better, but chose not to speak up since this person could set things on fire with a glance. It had already gotten much warmer in here since the lawyer arrived. Best to not antagonize the legal representation.
"Sir," John began.
"No, you may call me Nick, or Nicholas if you prefer." The lawyer gave him a pointed smile that lost nothing for not being in a shark's mouth. But John suppressed the shudder and pressed on.
"I understand how this place can be very busy, but is it possible that there was a mistake in my classification?"
At this the lawyer frowned, eyebrows forming a distinct set of points as he brought a fresh manila folder up to look at it. Where had THAT come from? He hadn't come in with a briefcase.
"Hmmm, you are John Dickenson?"
"Well yes but perhaps not THE John Dickenson that belongs here!"
"Are you implying that you belong in heaven?"
"No no. Of course not. But probably not in this particular cell." John soothed.
"Did you cheat on your taxes AND your wife?"
"Well yes but lots of people do THAT!"
The way the lawyer's eyebrows peaked again made him resolve not to have another outburst like that. Now the warmth was uncomfortable.
"I mean that IS bad but not 98th level sort of bad."
"I see here you claimed six children, but you only have four."
"That's really a rounding error, my wife and I had three."
"And this woman Sandra?"
"She told me she..."
" I see. What about this other part where you betrayed people?"
"I didn't realize how important that kind of stuff was."
"Hmm.." The click of the number machine behind them sounded like the ticks of an old fashioned clock as it wound its way steadily higher. "You were a terrible driver..."
"That doesn't sound like something to be sent to the 98th level for though either does it?"
"And Mr. Andrews?"
"He hit me!" John roared, clearly sensitive to this line of questioning.
"Really now. Mr. Dickenson? He was on a bike and you were in the car crossing into the crosswalk."
"He hit me." John returned bitterly.
"He also had the right of way"
"I didn't see that."
"You probably didn't know where he was going. Or that the research paper in his backpack would have brought about the genetic cure for several diseases, including the one that claimed you."
"He hit me!" John mumbled. Not even looking up to see the counter tick over once again.
"It seems we might have been wrong though."
John looked up then to see the reddish points sticking above the oil slicked hair. But the lawyer had his back turned. All his attention was focused on the counter.
"Perhaps level 99 WOULD have been more appropriate."
His devilish smile beamed down at John as he turned back. | Flickering orange. As my eyes slowly came into focus, a tall man wearing a sharp grey two-piece suit flicked his wrist expertly and put out the match he just lit his cigarette with. I frowned in disgust at the smell of smoke, and fanned away with my hand, admittedly more to express my displeasure than to cleanse the air. He noticed me, and studied me for a moment. Then, to my surprise, let out a small chuckle. He said something unintelligible to himself, probably in a foreign language, and then reached out his hand to me.
"I'm Ralph," he said calmly.
"Where am I? What is this?" I snapped back, not taking his hand. We seemed to be alone in the center of an abandoned town. None of the lights were on, and there were no stars. Yet the sky seemed to be illuminated with a perpetual dusk. Ralph calmly took another inhale of his cigarette.
"You know, we should really learn to get along. There aren't many people here and most of the others aren't really...sociable"
"Answer my question"
Ralph rolled his eyes
"If you're in a hurry to be somewhere, don't be. There's no getting out of this place"
I felt a flash of anger rise to the surface
"what do you mean? Are we being held prisoner?"
Ralph chuckled.
"I guess you could say that, but no, not really."
I was getting frustrated with this insolent man's half answers. I began to protest but he continued
"what do you think happens to the souls even the devil doesn't want?"
He dropped his half finished cigarette and stomped it out, and almost immediately lit a new one
"Way i figure it, when someone goes to hell, they repent for their sins, and after, they're given a another chance at life. Another chance to prove they're worthy for heaven. God is a forgiving man"
"where are you going with this?" I parted my hair, nervously wiping the sweat from my brow.
"But there's some souls that God can't let back into the world because they would cause too much damage. That's the only logical explanation for why we're here, not being punished. There's no point in punishing us because he's lost all faith that we can ever do better. So he's locked us away, inside a reality separated from time"
"Speak for your own sins. You don't know me" I snapped.
"I know you well enough. Let me guess, the last thing you remember was the cold metal of a Luger in your mouth, correct?"
I said nothing. Ralph continued, reaching his hand out again.
"pleasure to meet you, Fuhrer" | 2021-12-19T17:12:11 | 2021-12-19T14:14:07 | 292 | 185 |
[WP] You get to the afterlife, and it turns out everyone plays through the same life as you did, and gets scored on their performance. After talking with thousands of people, you come across the person who has the high score. | The sparse white room was filled to the brim with black silhouettes. Each one was another dead man, woman or child. Though at a look you wouldn't know, everyone here looked the same. Your appearance in life didn't really matter here. Though I suppose that's not true. It mattered in a way, but not the way you think.
Above each of the heads was a number. Plain black. No embellishment. Just the number. There were some in the tens, most people were floating in the hundreds. A few people dotted about were in the thousands. If you were pretty eagle eyed, you could spot one or two in the tens of thousands, though it was difficult to pick out amongst the crowds. There were rumors that there was one guy in the hundreds of thousands. The myth varied in specifics, sometimes the man was Hitler, other times it was Caesar, or some other ancient leader, or warrior. Though rumors of this caliber tended to be overabundant in embellishment, and rather lacking in truth.
One man walked around the infinite expanse. He had no idea how long he'd been walking for. Time didn't really mean anything here. It could've been an eternity, it could've been a few seconds. Maybe time didn't even pass here? Who knows? The man tried to avoid the crowds. Tried being the operative word. You couldn't avoid the crowds. No matter how far you walked there were more people. The man had seen more figures than there had ever been humans on Earth. Probably. Some might have been the same people. Have you ever tried to count goldfish in a tank? Imagine that, but there are trillions upon billions of goldfish. Yeah.
Wherever the man went, he had to deal with them. No matter how far he walked, they were always there. Muttering under their breath. Shooting him sideways glances. Sometimes they were a little bit braver. A few might come up and talk to him. Other times they might all swarm him, barraging him with questions.
This was one of those times.
"HEY!"
Oh God.
"HEY YOU THERE!" The boy, the man assumed, it was pretty hard to tell, was reluctantly peeling off from the little group he'd been chatting with, started to jog towards the man who really, really wanted to just be left alone.
"Dude hold up" The boy grabbed the mans shoulder. There was no escaping this now.
"What's up?"
"Your score, man"
"My score?"
"Yeah, the number above your head!" The awe that the boy had been trying to keep from his voice, in order to maintain his composure, had started to creep in, coloring his his tone.
"Oh yeah" The man had this conversation more times than he could count. Maybe an infinite number of times. Maybe this conversation had happened before. Maybe it'd happened an infinite number of times. Who knows?
"It must be in the millions man, are you... I dunno some sort of hero?"
The man chuckled. That was always the first thing they asked. The next was...
"Wait, are you some sort of supervillain?"
That was the first time the man had heard it put that way.
"No, no, no. Nothing interesting like that, I'm afraid."
"Well, you must have done something cool!" The excitement was now clear in his voice, his composure long since gone.
"Now son, trust me, it's not."
"COOOME ON! You've got to tell me! Or I'll be wondering about it FOREVER"
The man mused on the fact that this was likely one of the first times he'd heard forever used in that way, and for it to actually be accurate.
"Okay! Okay, I'll tell you." The man gestured for the boy to come closer.
"I don't know how *they* add up score, I suppose. No-one does. But if I had to guess..."
The boy listened intently. This was perhaps, for him, the most exiting thing that had ever happened.
"I could jerk off like, 9 or 10 times a day."
"What."
"Yeah I know. I don't know how I did it. I thought it was completely normal, until me and my mates were talking about it, you know, like friends do, and they just all gave me this weird look."
"*What.*"
"I must have jerked off, like, hundreds of thousands of times. Maybe millions. Billions, even? I suppose if wanking even gives you a tenth of a point, that'd probably account for most of my score."
"Dude."
"I know. Pretty cool, right?"
The boy walked away slowly. Once he'd backed away an appreciable distance, he bolted back to the group from which he'd come.
The man sighed. No-one really cared once they found how he got the high score. | "Even in the afterlife, silver medals..." Thought 2, as he had come to be known.
TJ he had been called during his "awake" period, which the other TJs had begun referring to life as.
TJs everywhere. Some fit, some slovenly. Some looked like twins yet received their "place numbers" that were drastically different.
"What's up 2!" Hollered 312 (Who happened to be identical in appearance to 37. 312 had a penchant for ladies of the night, and had been docked accordingly.
"Oh, hey dude" replied 2, "I'm going to the mansion today, 1 wants to meet me in person."
"Guy's a twat" muttered 312.
"Whatever 1 says, goes" 2 said with a look of surrender
"If you could just..." 312 trailed off. The two TJs had discussed with some of the Thousanders, guys whose numbers with a comma, the pariahs, had come to be known, about putting a hit on 1.
The TJs, 2 through 2,867 and counting, had grown tired of number 1's constant requests and demands.
"We can't just kill him, plus we're already dead. Have you figured out a way that it's even possible?" 2 asked.
"We could try some stuff out on the Thousanders" 312 offered
"Nah man, they are already screwed here" replied 2 with a hint of regret that he is even thinking of a self assassination plot, even just as a practical thought experiment.
"That is why you are 2 man, 1 goes for it" 312 chided
2 had spent months, talking to every other TJ, to determine some way to dethrone 1. His opportunity had been presented by a lowly thousander with a handwritten note summoning him to a one on one dinner. 2 couldn't help but see the irony in that....a 1 on 2 is more like it.
2 began his preparations for the meet with a shower and shave and began getting dressed.
"Good luck 2, you'll need it" 312 said relaxing with a drink, "guess I'll have to start calling you 1 if it works"
...ran out of time. Will try to finish. | 2016-09-14T13:28:33 | 2016-09-14T12:54:14 | 239 | 131 |
[WP] Youre in class, listening to some lecture. All of a sudden, the class goes still. The prof freezes in place, the ambience pauses, everyone is locked in position. Instinctively, you dont move a muscle. Whatever happened hasnt worked on you. “Ah finally, my break” the quiet kid in the corner says | "So, a neuron consists of an axon, dendrite, myelin sheath..." my professor droned on and on. The beginning of almost every upper level science class spent a lecture or two rehearsing the basics.
For some reason, I never needed the refresher. Where most kids forgot pretty much everything they learned after the semester was over (save for the basics in partying), I effortlessly retained information. In fact, school had been simple for me for as long as I could remember. I was best at basic biology, though. I figured I'd spend my time secretly listening to the new true crime podcast I'd found rather than listen to how a neurotransmitter travels.
I was extremely tired, and decided to listen to a podcast my roommate showed me to help me nod off without listening to the definition of the hippocampus for the 20th time. While I listened to a hilarious rehashing of the Axe Killer story, I took the time to look around the room. Last week when we'd done icebreakers, almost everyone had given the same answer.
"Uh hey, I'm ________, I like the gym, I have a dog, and I like to go out", and the like. The uniformity was maddening, save for one kid. He mentioned that he generally spent his time reading books about varying scientific subjects, and that he had a vested interest in shows like Black Mirror. Cool, very original, and definitely nerdy.
He, like me, didn't seem to vested in the lecture. I figured as much, given his obvious passion for scientific subjects. He was sitting in the corner, first seat from the door. He didn't seem to be reading or writing anything, texting, or playing a game. Weirdly though, his skin was a bit red as if he were hot, or exerting a small amount of effort.
I started to turn my attention to the board again, as I noticed that my professor had stopped talking. Since this is usually a sign that a student was caught doing anything other than paying attention to the lecture, I ripped out my headphones and pretended to be following along.
When I sheepishly looked up, she was frozen solid.
I must have stared at her for at least 30 seconds trying to deduce any ounce of movement from her freakishly still body. After failing miserably to detect any movement, it occurred to me that the lecture hall was completely quiet. The sounds of rapid clicks from laptop keyboards, stray coughs, and violent crunching of chips suddenly ceased. I froze and looked to my right, only to see the nerdy kid staring right at me.
"Ah finally my break" he said, slowly sipping a drink and reclining in his chair (which is no small feat).
"W-wha, u-uh, your break?" I stammered, slowly rising to my feet with my hastily packed bag.
"Yeah, my break" he said, burping. "And don't bother going anywhere, we're leaving together for my shift change". Before I could ask what he meant, I suddenly lost my balance and fell into a chair.
I wish the chair had been my desk.
When I looked up, I saw that I was in a small, solitary-like room. There was a large window, which I can only assume was one way glass, a chair, a bed, a desk and a small door. I immediately stood up and started for the door. Before I could open it (I assume it was locked anyway), a voice appeared over what was some sort of intercom.
"Are you seriously going to try this again? You can't get out" the voice said, a hint of annoyance in its voice.
"But where am I-" I started. Before I could finish, the room immediately darkened, and a projector-like video manifested on the left wall of the room.
"Hello, _________. You must be very confused right now. Don't worry, everything will be explained shortly" suddenly, the video changed to the scene of my lecture hall. The video looked like it had been taken by a student who was recording the lecture.
"This video was taken on October 5th, 2020. This is your MWF 11:00-12:30 Abnormal Psychology class. Do you recognize it?"
"Yeah, duh. I was just ther-" I started, but I was interrupted by what I remembered was a video and not an actual person.
"In 30 seconds, a shooter is going to come through that door and shoot your professor. Your classmates will try to run, but many of them will be killed, and several of them will be hurt".
I felt an increasing dread as I watched the seemingly normal 30 seconds tick by, hoping this was a cruel joke. Suddenly, the door flew open, and with a bang, my professor dropped to the ground.
"Here are your classmates, running for their lives, being trampled and shot to death" the video said. I felt tears streaming down my face and a feeling that too closely resembled a guilt and failed responsibility.
"Here you are, against the wall, sleeping". Sure enough, there I was, sleeping with my headphones in, horribly, comically oblivious to the chaos around me.
Video-me continued to sleep for another minute or so before I finally woke up. When I did, there was nothing but silence from my classmates that were left in the lecture hall. They seemed to be dead, or, hopefully, pretending. The gunman was still in the room, slowly walking around. My sudden sitting up definitely startled him, and he walked toward me slowly.
Video-me was visibly terrified, and was frozen during the gunman's seemingly three-hour trek up the stairs to my seat. When he got closer to me, I realized who it was. My roommate, Brandon.
He slowly raised his gun to me and said, "if you call the cops I will kill you. I'm going to let you live if you never tell anyone what you saw. You don't know who I am, and you don't know what happened here. You will leave this building, you will walk back to our apartment, and you will go to sleep".
The video cut to black, and the lights came back on. The nerdy kid from my class came in, and frowned at me. "Do you know why you're here"?
Tears and snot were uncontrollably running down my face as I sobbed into my hands. He stood there, watching me.
"You didn't tell the police. You let your surviving classmates and their families wonder who murdered their friends and their children. You let a man get away for days before he was caught. You let police officers spend valuable time and resources on dead leads. You are responsible for those killed due to failure to receive medical attention in time. You are just as responsible as he is".
I sobbed harder into my hands, not wanting to believe it, but I knew it was true.
"In order to pay for your crimes, you will be reliving this lecture every day for the next twenty years. You will forget that we had this conversation, and you will not remember any of this again until I allow you to remember. I construct your reality. It's time for my break now, so Frank's going to be handling the routine induced amnesia" he turned and walked toward the door, leaving me horrified.
"By the way", he said, "Fuck you". He left, and who I could only assume was Frank came in soon after.
"You have three hours until your revisiting. At this time, you may write in your journal found in your desk. No one will be visiting you again. Goodbye".
I stumbled toward the desk, and hastily pulled open the drawer. I opened the journal and was instantly horrified. There had to be hundreds of pages of previous entries, all in my handwriting. Each entry said the same thing: a mixture of horrific sadness, confusion, and shame. The dates went back for about five years, and I realized that I'd been here for far longer than I imagined.
So that's what brings me here. It's been almost three hours, and with every second that passes it seems like I lose my mind even more. I'm writing quickly so that I can write as much as I can, but it's pointless. I can't possibly describe what I'm feeling, and I don't think it's worth trying. Future me, if you're reading this, I'm so-
"So, a neuron consists of an axon, dendrite, myelin sheath..." | I was frozen, just like everyone else for that split moment. Not from whatever was happening to the world around me, just shock, and an intense feeling of dread. “Ah finally, my break.” A voice came from behind me, I didn’t recognise the voice of whoever it was, but the raspy breathing made my hairs stand on end. “Kathy.. hm.. no, Rachael..” he muttered to himself, he walked closer toward me. Rachael was a girl sat beside me, she was frozen just as she was secretly reading something on her phone, as she usually does in long lectures like this one. I moved my eyes slightly, to get a glimpse of what she might be texting, and that’s when I saw him.
Alex, looking towards me with a hollow intent in his eyes. I turned my eyes back quickly, hoping he didn’t notice. ‘I have to stay still and silent.’ That’s what my gut was telling me. ‘Whatever was happening was dangerous, he, was dangerous.’ ... As each step got louder I wondered, can he hear me? Has he noticed yet, and what the fuck is going on? And that’s when I saw it, a shine in the corner of my eye. A brief moment made me move my eyes out of human instinct, a large kitchen knife in his hand. Held firm and steady, no nerves or second thoughts. “Well Rachael, guess it’s you this time.” He muttered to himself, I shifted my eyes back forward slowly. His steps got louder until I could see him standing right their beside me, in front of Rachael. He leaned forward, so close we were almost touching.
Sweat began to form on my brow. ‘Shit shit, not now... keep it together.’ I held my breath as I felt his, breathing slowly and methodically as he picked Rachael up like it was nothing. Like she had no weight at all. He carried her down, all the way to the front of the hall. What was I about to witness? I should move, I should stop this, I need to stop him. My vision faded slightly, whatever force was at play it made it really hard to move, but I did. I got up, and ran down and saved her. Time started once more, and things were normal, Alex’s body lost to time. The end.
But in reality, I could barely lift a finger. Yes, this was my reality. So afraid of what I was seeing I could barely move, not from some super ability, but from something humanity has always suffered from. Fear, dread, anxiety, death, whatever you want to call it, it held me in that seat. Even if freedom was a single move away, I could only watch. “Ladies and gentleman, say goodbye to dear Racheal here.. I wish I could get a reaction, but that hasn’t really stopped me before, has it?” He spoke. The words hit me, just how many times have I watched him do this before? How many times has death happened before me, in a blink of an eye? He laid her on the desk, and placed a single flower on her chest. Every inch of my body was telling me to move, to get up and stop him. He was weak, I could easily take him on. But still, I was held down with doubt, and guilt. If I move now, even a single inch, he gets the reaction he wants. He notices, and he would do it anyway, probably even more brutal than he would if I stay still. But maybe if I-
I was suddenly pulled from my thoughts, as all of them seemed to fade into nothing. I wasn’t a hero, time.. it, there was never enough time. Red spilled down the table, the flower crushed by a blade. Regret, grief, and overwhelming depression hit me. But it wasn’t holding me down, all emotions simply let go of me, and I was adrift. Time had come to complete stop, and as soon as I realised it, he had cleaned up. A few hours a go, I didn’t even notice him walk in the room, Alex, the kind, quiet kid. The one who seemed to know everything, yet spoke nothing to anyone. Now, as he walked back into the room, he was all I could see. A change of clothes, a bright look in his eyes. Normally you wouldn’t notice something like that, but I saw it all. He came up to me, cleared away her things like she was never there, and then sat down behind me.
The sound seemed to explode into my ears, the birds, the people whispering, and the teacher picking up an apple from his desk and taking a bite. Could he tell that was a different apple from the one he brought in today? I knew. I knew it all, a boy who can stop time, no, a killer who just bend time to whatever he wants. What kind of fucked up god chose him? Why wasnt I affected? Why the fuck didn’t I use my chance, the one chance I had to stop him? I looked back, he was calm, head down studying like usual. It was then, heard a buzz from below me.. her phone, hidden below the desk, with a forever unfinished text.
I checked the room around me, did no one see her disappear? How was there no reaction to a desk being full, to the quiet empty space it was now? I checked the message on the phone, it was from a new number. “Can I get a reaction now, please?” The bell rang, and as everything around me was moving, spinning and twirling with noise and movement... I was frozen.
———
This is my first story for writing prompts, been meaning to start for a while. Hope you like it! I left it as a bit of an open ending\cliff hanger as I really like them in stories, I might continue it later in a comment though, as I really enjoyed this prompt :D | 2019-01-27T17:43:58 | 2019-01-27T15:07:47 | 102 | 57 |
[WP] Write a letter to someone you miss
It's been a rough week. Everyone has someone they wish were still with them. Write to them and tell them how you feel. Pour your heart out. No judging. Even if they never see it, someone will. And thank you. It's tough to be alone. | Dear Dad,
Or should I even call you dad? I think dad is more of a title to be earned and sadly throughout my eighteen and a half years of being on this earth, I do not think you have done very much to earn that title. Dad's don't leave. A dad is someone that is there for his children. A dad watches and actively participates in their lives. A dad helps them grow up , raises them, nurtures them, attends dumb elementary school award shows, college graduation. Dads teach you how to ride your first bike and they sit nervously in the passenger seat of a car as they teach you how to drive on your own. Dads aren't supposed to be selfish like you are, you've always chosen a life full of drugs over your children. Do you even know what thats like? To not ever have a consistent father figure in your life? I blamed myself for so many years for you not being in my life. I thought that maybe something was wrong with me and that's why I was never a priority for you. I remember during valentines day when I was in middle school all of my friends dads sent them flowers and chocolates and took them out so they would feel special. I remember going to the bathroom and just sitting on the floor crying because I wanted nothing more in the entire world than a dad that loved me that much. Do you ever think about how your decisions effect your children? Honestly, I really want to know. When I was in high school I took a college level Psychology course. One of the first things we learned was this theory that stated that people are more likely to grow up and get into relationships with people that remind them of their parents. Boys tend to date girls that remind them of their mother. Girls go for guys that remind them of their dad. Let me ask you, would you want me to be in a relationship with someone like you? Someone who abuses not only drugs but women as well? Would you be okay with him hitting me? Or calling me names? Or would you even care? I know that you do these things and it breaks my heart and scares me all at the same time. I am constantly afraid that maybe the theory is correct and one day that will be my life without me even noticing it. It scares me even more that one day I'll wake up and be living my life the same way you chose to live yours. My biggest fear is becoming anything like you. I honestly wish it was possible for me to hate you. It would make you not being in my life a lot easier, but no matter how much I try I just can't. No matter how hopeless it is a part of me will always be reaching out for a relationship with you. I know you're sad and you feel lost and sometimes you just don't want to feel anything so you turn to drugs or alcohol to numb the pain. I know how that feels, I really do. But pain is meant to be felt. I want you to be apart of my life. I realize you'll never be the dad I wanted you to be, but I pray that you finally come to your senses and get your life turned around. Not just for my sake but for yours as well. I finished my freshman year of college a few days ago. Im doing pretty good in all of my classes, even though there were some points where it was so hard I just wanted to give up. I'm majoring in Biology and Pre healthcare. In about 10 years I'm hoping to be an orthodontist. Or maybe just a biologist in general. That's my favorite subject, I love learning about how everything in the world works. Its so intriguing to me and I could read about these things for hours on end. I have a boyfriend too. His name is Connor and he treats me really good. We've been together for a little over a year now. He's sweet and caring and he pushes me to work hard. He listens to me when I'm sad and he loves to show me off and tell everyone how smart he thinks I am, which gets really embarrassing sometimes but it makes me happy to know someone thinks so highly of me. Moms doing good too. She's beautiful as ever, and she's the happiest I've seen her in a while. Mark changed her life, actually all of our lives for the better. He is a good dad. He taught me how to drive and always tells me he's proud of me. He even calls me when I'm freaking out and crying over tests I feel like I've done bad on. He's amazing and I'm glad to have him in my life. Dana's oldest daughter Brittany is getting married in July! Can you believe it? Time has flown by. Ashley had a baby. He's the most beautiful baby boy I've ever seen. He makes my heart feel full just being around him. I hope you are doing okay in there. I hope you can come to peace with yourself and figure out what you need to do to turn your life around. It's never too late. Love, haley. | Dear Pop Pop,
I miss you. It's been about 11 or 12 years since you died. I was really young at the time, so all I remember is the last few months you were alive, watching the cancer slowly eat away at your body. With each visit you got more and more frail. I didn't recognize it at the time but looking back, seeing what it was doing to my dad, your son, was almost as bad as watching you. I wish I had more memories of you, more good memories anyway. Mom and dad say you adored me, that you loved me more than life itself, but I'll never know. They tell me stories about you, how you used to take me for rides in your convertible and I loved every minute of it, if only I could remember it. If only I could remember your laugh, your smile, your voice. Sometimes my dad looks at me and says how proud you would be of me, it's hard looking at his face when he says that, I can see the pain in his eyes. I still remember the note I wrote and put in your coffin. It said 'You were a good Pop Pop.' I was a little kid at the time so that's all I could think of to say, but I think it was enough I remember putting it in that little drawer in the side of your coffin to be buried with you. I even remember wearing that Mariachi suit that had been in the family for generations, but I don't remember you. I still have that suit, it's still hanging in my closet. I look at it from time to time, and I try to remember something, anything about you but the frail old man dying of cancer, but I can't. I think my parents are right when they say you would be proud of me, I've had a steady girlfriend for almost 5 years now, her name is Hanna. I think you would like her, she's amazing. I have a steady job too, full time working with dad at the airport. I graduated high school too, two years ago, and now I'm getting ready to go to college. I'm gonna get a business degree and then learn to be an airplane mechanic, and maybe if I'm good enough I'll open my own shop, that's when the business degree is for. Well I have to go now Pop Pop, I've got work in the morning and I need to get to sleep. I miss you. | 2017-11-05T22:19:09 | 2017-11-05T20:37:15 | 28 | 16 |
[WP]: Your village idiot is full of the strangest superstitions. She goes on about washing one's hands, says you get worms in your intestines from standing barefoot on night soil and that medicines with mercury should be avoided at all costs. You're starting to suspect she might be onto something. | The cabin was about a half mile outside of town. It had been abandoned, no river or fields nearby to make it worthwhile. It had been an old trapper’s cabin but the game had gone from this area a long time ago. Josef quietly shuffled towards the front door, a small parcel hugged close to his chest.
The door opened before he had even been able to muster the courage to knock. A woman’s voice, strong and even, came through the cracked portal, “What do you want?”
All the conversation starters Josef had planned came out at once, “I need your help. I’m sorry to bother you. I know that you have helped people. My name is Josef. This is my daughter. I’ve heard you know some magic. My daughter is sick, please help—“
“I’m expecting someone, come in, but be quick.” The door opened, a small oil lamp was turned up and the dark cabin brightened noticeably. Josef stepped inside.
“Give her to me.” The woman reached forward, Josef hesitated.
He was here because he was desperate, but it was still hard to trust the old wood’s witch. She had a complicated reputation in town. Healing animals and people, predicting weather, cursing enemies. He was sure some of both the good and bad were rumors, but he had nowhere else to turn. He handed the small bundle over, “Please don’t hurt her.”
The woman frowned. She shook her head and took the baby. She felt its forehead and then took out a small tool from a bag by her side. She stuck it in the poor girls ear, the baby screamed. Josef prayed that he made the right decision, he wanted to run but was too scared he’d be turned into a frog before he got to the door.
“She has a fever. How long has she been sick?”
Josef forgot to answer for a second, he was too busy wondering what flies might taste like, “—Six days, the doctor bled her twice already—“
“Stop that! Don’t do that again, do you promise?”
“Yes Ma’am.” Josef stared at his feet, unable to watch whatever witchcraft this woman might be performing on his only child.
“She has a temperature. I need to go, I don’t have time for this.” The woman glided towards a small cabinet with a curious latch he’d never seen before, she fiddled with the symbols on it before it popped open. He saw a small orange container with a white top. She poured the contents into a small leather pouch.
“These are antibi—these are medicine. Powerful. Do not tell anyone I gave this to you. Three times a day, with her meals. Is she breast feeding?”
“Cows milk, ma’am. My wife, she died in labor.”
Josef could see the sadness in the woman’s eyes, but she moved on quickly. “Boil the milk.”
“Ma’am?”
“Boil the milk. And these pills three times a day until they are all gone. Do you understand?”
“Boiled milk and these pills, three times a day.” Josef had heard the stories, he knew she was crazy, but this was beyond his expectations.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could do more. I shouldn’t even be doing this. I must go. You must go. Good luck.” The woman started pushing him back outside.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Josef paused at the door, he turned around deliberately, “She doesn’t have a name yet. On account of her mother—If you don’t mind, can I ask your name?” Josef thought that maybe an offering would convince the witch to have mercy on his poor daughter.
She hesitated, “Margaret.”
“It’s beautiful. Family name?” Please let me daughter live, Josef thought.
“My grandmother’s name. She said her father got it from an old hermit who saved her life when she was a—It's not important, I have to go.“
“Margaret—Maggie. I hope you’ll get to see little Maggie grow up big and strong.”
A bright light shone in through the window of the cabin. So bright, Josef thought the sun had risen in the middle of the night. The witch didn’t seem startled at all. She sighed and grabbed a small satchel she had next to her chair.
“Unfortunately that won’t be possible. I need to go back to where I came from. You can't tell anyone about what I gave you, not even your daughter once she's older. I need you to go now, quickly.” She stared into Josef’s eyes as if she had more to say, but she just nodded and shuffled towards the backdoor of the cabin. | "I talk to Gods!"
It was a bright sunny day. the first one in weeks. So much rain. If we got a few more days like this the high crops might actually yield. We needed the high crops. Low crops were consistent enough, but the high crops, they meant the difference between new iron or a starving winter.
So the sun was shining, the day was beautiful, the sheep followed their master and then there's poor William, sitting on a wall, trying to keep the demons from coming out. Really struggling, praying and folding his hands but the demons always won. The demons seemed to like me to talk to.
He hopped off the stone wall and followed my slow meander up to pasture.
"I talk to Gods, Peter."
"More like ghosts, William."
He flicked an errant fly off his head. "No, no. They said you'd tell me that. They're Gods. They tell me things." They always told him things.
"Like what?"
"Like there's a murrain coming. I didn't know what that word meant so I asked them. They said it meant dying. Death. The sheep this time. Cows next."
The sheep. I couldn't lose the sheep. Just words from a crazy person but words they carry strange powers. Sometimes even thinking them can cause devils to pluck therm from your mind and make them happen. "Willy, you best not talk like that. Lest the church put you on trial."
"Oh I've been tried scores of times. The Gods told me. Burned, crushed, drowned, crushed and burned, gibbeted, drawn and quartered-"
"I get it, Willy. So the Gods tell you this? How is it you're here."
"I don't know. I don't remember any of it, but they swear it. Tell me not to talk about them. But how can I not? I talk to Gods!" He stood atop a rock and spun around like a thread weight. When he finished he took off running down the hill.
"Say hi to your Gods next time you see 'em." Willy was a good kid, just touched.
"Why?" he shouted back. "It's you they want." | 2017-09-14T11:14:03 | 2017-09-14T10:12:28 | 114 | 47 |
[WP]: Your family sit you down and breaks the news to you. You’re adopted. You’re shocked, but the more you think about it, the more obvious it becomes. All your siblings are vastly different from you. They all did well academically, all friendly, they’re all good looking, and you’re just... a cat. | Remi's heart pounded in his chest. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. They had always called him one of their children, one of the family. He knew he looked different from them but wasn't that just genetics?
"What the hell do you mean I'm adopted!?", he yowled loudly.
"Oh Remi, you're still my little floofy, yes you are", cooed his mother.
"Dad, seriously? Can I even call you dad?"
Al patted Remi's head, "You're still my furry son."
Remi didn't like the answers he was getting. He rolled on his back asking for belly scratches. Both his mother and father laughed tinkly little laughs before reaching and scratching. After about of second of belly contact Remi whipped his claws out and scratched that them.
"Ow! Bad Remi!", they both exclaimed. Remi smiled to himself, *Classic bait and switch doesn't feel too good does it?* Grouchily, but satisfied with his mini revenge, he went through the cat flap and out into the garden.
He swatted at some flies and slapped some leaves out of his way muttering annoyances. "How could they lie to me? I'm two whole years old and they waited that long to tell me?" He yowled in frustration.
"Whats got you down sour puss?" Asked the neighbor cat. She was sleek black with mesmerizing blue-green eyes. Remi quickly licked his white paw and slicked it up and over his brown and black speckled spots.
"Oh hey, Essi", He said as smoothly as he could.
"What's got your fur in a bunch, Remi?"
He frowned, he had wished his emotions weren't so blatant. "My parents just told me I was adopted..." He tried to reign in his obvious sadness over it but he failed. He let out a little sniffle.
Essi released a raucous laughter. She rolled onto her back bringing her paws up to her belly. Remi was instantly annoyed with her complete lack of empathy but couldn't help but also be awed by her silky, raven fur shining in the sunlight. He was quite conflicted.
"Why are you laughing!?" He asked loudly. She immediately stopped and peered at his face. "Wait, you're serious?" she asked.
He looked at her confused, "Of course I'm serious! Why would I joke about something like this?"
She looked at him even more puzzled than he was. She opened her mouth and began to speak but then stopped herself. She looked Remi over then walked up to him. Remi froze, they had never been this close before.
"Give me your paw Remi", he complied and gave her his paw. She raised his next to her own. "Look Remi, what do you see?"
"Two paws".
"Right, they're the same aren't they?"
"Yes", he whispered.
"Now imagine your mom and dads paws, they look different right?"
Remi thought about it for a moment. They were very different, they didn't even call them paws... they had hands. He looked at Essi with wide eyes.
"How many legs do you have? How many do they have?" she asked him gently.
He shook his head. "Do they have tails, or fur? How much larger than us are they? What about their whiskers? And how about how clumsy they are?" She asked more urgently.
Remi hung his head. How had he not realized? He was all different from them, of course he was adopted. "Don't be sad Remi. It means they love you so much that they chose you. My parents chose me, and I love my siblings. This should be a happy revelation".
Her voice was soft and sweet and he reveled in it. She was right, he was lucky to be with his parents. They fed him prime time wet food, he had his own tree and toys, and they loved him with pets and cuddles. "Thanks Essi, I guess you're right."
Her eyes glistened at him beautifully and she rubbed her head against his. He fell in love with her even more, her head rubs were heavenly. He began purring loudly.
She swatted him in the head, "You're it!" Her tinkly laugh filled the garden as she bounded off. Remi smiled and dashed after her already forgetting that mornings truth.
| How could I not have seen it coming? Me?
I was the cleverest critter in the fenced-in grounds. I was the beast who tamed the wild squirrels mocking me from the tree. I was the hunter that bested the stupid-eyed lagomorph in my brother's sandbox, which is should be noted I used as a lavatory to save on water bills.
But then again, perhaps it was my bravery. I was Virtute. I stood tall among the towers of my family. What I lacked in size, I had in chutzpah. But with bravery comes blindness. I was too busy protecting my family from the annoyance of crickets and silent dangers of moths, that I never realized the simplest of truths - they were not warriors.
No, in fact, many of them attained their food as they sat. They watched the small beings play pretend in their sleeve screens and ignored the horrifying miasma of the world outside their doors. I flipped my tail, and realized none of them even had the decency to reveal their own - NO WONDER I WAS SO CONFUSED BY THEIR GARBLED SPEECH!
I kneaded my paws into their sweater, and they said something about "my beans." I rubbed my scent glands upon their faces as a reminder of what they were to me.
They may have taken me from a village I cannot remember as a captive warrior, but they remember to give me sloppy gravy and room temperature canned tuna, which they assure me is a life much more suited for a warrior like me. My other options, I am told, are cat carriers and kibble.
Once I learn more about what it means to be "cat," I shall write to you again, oh journal.
"Virtute! God damn it! Did you just piss on my fucking pillow again? Son-of-a-bitch! We gotta do something about this cat." | 2018-04-23T11:04:32 | 2018-04-23T10:42:58 | 502 | 29 |
[WP] You have been kidnapped and your wealthy significant other was told to pay the hefty ransom. Instead, they sent a message back to your kidnappers. “Nice knowing you.” While the kidnappers discuss their next move, you look up through the tiny window, stare at the full moon overhead … and smile. | “Hahaha I love him so damn much,” I laugh from my small cage.
The paranoid one, the one that sounds the youngest is the first to address me. “Hey, you! Didn’t we tell you to shut the fuck up?! This doesn’t change anything.”
The older, more confident one walks up to my “cage” and beats the butt of the gun on the window, wearing a large, gapped-filled grin. “So what, your husband doesn’t give a damn about you? I’m sure someone will still pay a pretty penny for spoiled little rich girl like you.”
I shake my head, unable to contain my laughter. “I have to do this every full moon, and yet somehow he still manages to make this fun for me.”
I look at him through the window, my recently washed hair hanging down in front of my face. “Kane, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
He looks at me annoyed at first, and then he notices the horrible figure to his right. He takes a step back and tries to run, but a dark hand grabs him from below, holding him in place. Terror fills his face.
“No... fuck... you were in my dreams. Ever since I was a kid. You’re... not real.”
Through my small window, I see the tall lumbering monster saunter into my field of vision. It appears as a brown, fleshy creature with many appendages protruding from its abdomen. Eyeballs resting on the tips of its stubs all pointing towards Kane, who is now frozen in fear. With each step it takes, it’s flesh ripples from its feet to the top of its headless abdomen.
His partner noticing the sudden change in disposition, approaches him and puts his hand on his shoulder.
“Kane whats going on with you?! Don’t break on me now, we captured her without a hitch. Still no word on the police radio either.”
Kane slowly looks to his partner, unable to create any words. The creature quickly grabs him and pulls him into the ground with the assistance of the hands still holding his ankles.
“What the hell?!” He takes a step back, and reaches for his gun.
Still laughing to myself, I step out of my “prison,” out into the dimly lit field they were keeping me in. I look around and get my bearings, while taking a deep breath of crisp night air. Lee looks at me, confusion and terror on his face.
“No no no. Fuck this shit, I’m out.” He turns and runs the opposite direction, before hitting a transparent wall that ripples upon contact.
I walk up behind him, “hmm it’s always exciting to see what you conjure up. Kane’s was kinda boring, quite typical actually. What will you see?”
He turns back to me, his face completely pale. When he notices a small girl, knee-high in front of him. “No no no, baby girl you can’t be here. You need to go back home with mommy.”
She looks up at him, “but daddy, what are we gonna do when you’re gone?”
He looks at me, confused at first, then the pieces begin to click. “At least let me say goodbye to them.”
I look at him frowning, “sorry I wish it worked that way.”
Tears forming in his eyes, the girl takes him by the hand and smiles at him. “Come on daddy, I’ll go with you so you’re not alone.”
Almost instantly, he disappears into the ground along with the spectral image of the girl.
With that, two marbles plop to the ground in front of me. Sighing, I picking them up. “Well shit, that was depressing.”
I turn around and the next thing I know I’m back in my house, on my couch sitting in front of the TV. My husband walks up and sets a bag down in front of me with a big yellow smiley face. “Hey honey, you made it home just in time! Just got back with some takeout from your favorite place. How was your night?”
I look at him, exhausted. “Oh you know, another full moon. I loved the message you sent. But did it have to be a father? You know that always bums me out.”
He shrugs, taking the fried rice and chicken out of the bag. “Eh I know, but trust me when I say it’s better for her and her mom for him to be gone. Wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”
I sigh a breath of relief. “Oh well that makes me feel a little better, let me give him the marbles real quick.”
I walk into the kitchen and place the marbles in one of our 100 black, string-tied bags. I then set it on the floor, in the middle of the painted symbol, unchanged for many years. The same dark hands from earlier reach up and slowly pull the bag into the ground.
I walk back over to the couch and plop down next to my husband. He extends his hand out to mine holding a small golden cookie. “Hey before we eat, let’s check our fortunes.”
Laughing, I crack open the cookie, take the slip of paper out and then hand it to him. “Here you read it”.
He takes it in his hand, furrowing his brow to read the message. “Hmm it says, ‘you will live a very long and very healthy life.’”
We both burst out into laughter. Him and I grab our wine from the table and raise our glasses to toast. Smiling, we say at the same time
“to eternal life.” | "Turns out the *Princess* didn't wanna pay your ransom after all," the guard sneered at me under his helmet, tossing the scroll to a corner of the room. "Didn't even plead for your life... what a shame indeed." I let out a yelp as he grabbed me by the collar, wincing slightly as he pushed me against the stone walls of the cell I was in. Raising my eyes to the tiny window, I noticed the glow of the full moon begin to illuminate the stone floor. My expression of discomfort melted away, giving way to an assured smirk.
"Oh, you don't wanna do that," I said as the guard drew a short knife from his belt, pressing it to my throat. "I don't think my friends will take this nicely," the guard growled as I continued in the same sing-song voice I used during the interrogation. "You might even get... fired for this."
The guard snarled as he pressed the knife even harder against my throat, sending waves of pain radiating from it as rivulets of blood glistened under the knife's edge. *C'mon guys, I can't keep this up much longer*, I thought to myself as I desperately tried to maintain the smug look on my face. "Last chance, you insolent brat. Where is he?"
"Right here!" A gust of wind behind the guard caused his grip on me to lessen and his head to turn to the source of the commotion. A young boy of no more than twelve stood in the center of the room, a look of determination on his face. The guard's expression turned from rage to surprise, then gave way to recognition. "It's him!" He yelled, dropping me to the floor as he swung the knife upwards, attempting to stab the intruder. "Sound the alarm! Notify the-" his sentence was cut off midway as the young boy swung his arms in the direction of the window, sending the guard screaming as he hurtled out of it. I sighed in relief as I jumped up and hugged the boy. "Cutting it a little close there, eh?" I said with a chuckle as we broke apart.
Grinning in reply, he opened his mouth but was interrupted by the appearance of three more heavily armored guards, spears pointed at the ready. I grabbed my bag from the corner of the room as the boy dropped into a battle stance, but neither of us were prepared for the wave of water that gushed through the window and sent the guards flying. I glanced at the window and whooped for joy as I saw two girls in blue sat astride a fluffy bison suspended in midair, one waving her arms as she directed the now stream of water back into a pouch.
"You guys made it!" I exclaimed as the other girl leapt from the bison to wrap me in a bone-crushing embrace. "Of course we did, Sokka," she said, wiping away the blood on my neck as she spoke.
"Now let's go back home."
***
________________________
Edit: A number | 2021-03-19T01:11:48 | 2021-03-19T00:44:03 | 345 | 206 |
[WP] When you were a child, a mysterious voice whispered "follow the woman in the red dress with the gold polka dots". All your life, you never saw her. Now, lying in the hospital, 98 years old, you see a woman in a red dress and gold polka dots walk past your room. | If you ever find yourself with the greivous privilege of being in touching distance of a century, every day will begin to feel like a lifetime. Being here, away from the world, slowly losing grasp on all of my precious memories... It isn't how I imagined the end of my life would be, to be honest.
But in the deepest confines of this aged mind of mine, is a reverie. A shroud of fiery red, like a kiss from the setting sun, flecked with spots of gold. I do not know if I had this dream when I was 7, or 30, or even if it were yesterday. But I hold on to it for dear life. As if this is some unfulfilled prophecy I must lie awake, stay alive for. After 98 long years, today, I can swear on the remaining fragments of my dwindling sanity that I saw my dream flash before my eyes.
I try to haul my failing body off the bed. My bones creak under the weight and a groan escapes me. I close my eyes and try to summon the last reserve of strength I can muster.
"Please don't do that."
Her smile warms me like a hearth on a winter night. She has emerald green eyes that I recognize from what seems like a different life.
"Zara?" I mumble, hardly believing my own voice. I do not even realize when the tears fill my eyes. The world is a blur, her features are a haze. But I still recognize it all, as if it I had seen it all before. "Zara," I say again, reaching out for her face. "You... You came..."
A passing nurse freezes in her tracks and gives me a worried stare. I do not blame her. When has anyone seen a 98-year-old bawl like a child?
"Baba, I wanted to come... every second of every day," she says, bursting into tears too. "I'm sorry it took me all this time... I just never could find the courage I–"
"Zara, I am the coward here... I was the one parted ways with your mother when she told me she was carrying our child. I swear to you, I replay that scene in my head as if it were yesterday. I can still hear that little voice in my mind say that I should have followed the woman in the red dress, no matter where it would take me. But I was the coward, Zara... I was the coward...."
"Baba... Ma told me everything. For the first forty years of my life I nothing but bitter loathing for you. I turned my heart black with the hate I had for a person I had never seen, and never known. I never asked about you because I was too afraid of what I would hear. Not until Ma was on her death bed did I find gather enough strength to ask... Hate is a seed baba, and I nourished it for so long that it became a tree. By the time I realized how terrifying it was, it had spread its tall, dark arms over me. I have spent decades hacking it down, so I could walk out from under its shadow and find my way to you."
I try to say something, but my voice cracks horribly with the strain. "I have waited everyday for you. For forty years, your mother and I exchanged letters. Never falling in love with anyone else, never forgetting all we made together. But I just couldn't say I wanted her back, not after what I had done to her. So I waited, and waited... but she never let me in."
"How could she let in what she never let out, Baba? You were always in her heart. She prayed for you every night. She sometimes said your name in her sleep. A part of my father was always there in our house. It took me all these years to realize I wanted to see the rest of him too. It was just... Ma said something about your dementia.. and about how your letters stopped for weeks at a stretch, and sometimes how you would write the same letter four weeks in a row. I never knew if you'd recognize me if I came to you. That kept me from walking to you, even when I knew exactly where you were..."
I reach out to the bedside table and clasp the only possession I've had in the past five years. "My mind is a strange place, Zara. It is a muddled, confused, broken place. But this..." I pass the picture to her. "I look at this picture every hour. I whisper to my mind, never forget, never forget. She told me you had my eyes, and my hair so I'd never recognize you... But she still told me that if you ever came to this hospital, I would know. This dress looks as beautiful on you as it did on her, Zara. She knew all along that this dress would put all the pieces in my head back together. You look just like her, Zara. It is like falling in love all over again."
"Zara was my mother's name, Baba. My name is Afsah. I am here now, Baba. I am here."
-----------
r/whiteshadowthebook | Everything fell out of focus. The beeping on the monitor sounded very far away. I got up out of bed slowly, feeling much lighter than before. The floor was cold beneath my feet. I pulled the tape off my arm and removed the IV. It didn't matter anyway. I knew I was on borrowed time. I had lived a good life. It just couldn't end without knowing.
I followed her down the hallway. She was very graceful. I felt a strong yearning to see her face, but she didn't turn around. I followed her through several corridors to a wide-open lobby. I was distracted by a room in the far corner. It seemed to glow with a strange light. It looked warm and welcoming.
The hall the woman turned down was dingier, ordinary with fluorescent hospital lighting.
I didn't want to turn away from the room but the need to follow her was so strong.
At the end of the hall she turned into another room. An old woman was laying in the bed there. She felt familiar to me. She wore a gold locket. It looked odd and ornate against her hospital gown. The woman in the red dress whispered something to her and took her hand. She pulled up a chair and sat down. She wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. "Mom," she said. "I'm here." The old woman didn't open her eyes.
I backed out of the room quietly, hoping she wouldn't see me. I was dizzy and so tired. I felt like a fool. All of these years wondering, and it was just a coincidence. Just a woman trying to spend a few last moments with her dying mother. Who was I? What would I accomplish by denying my family the same goodbye, here wandering the halls without any thought to whether I had the strength to make it back?
I didn't.
I went into the nearest room to rest. It looked like a delivery ward, but it was empty. Surely the doctors and nurses wouldn't mind if I were to just lie down for a bit here.
I drifted off to sleep.
I awoke to sounds of shouting as they wheeled in a woman in labor. I closed the curtain so I wouldn't be in the way. I was still so very tired. Their voices faded and I closed my eyes.
The birth was a success. The nurse cleaned up the baby and handed her to her mother. "Congratulations!" she said. "It's a girl!"
The baby looked up with wide eyes, following the patterns of light that glinted off of her mother's locket. The sunlight reflected off of the bright red curtains in spots of gold. | 2019-11-07T09:33:51 | 2019-11-07T09:13:01 | 57 | 10 |
[WP] We “knew” humans were weak as they avoided every war with diplomacy. We never imagined they’d be this ruthless & how seemingly overnight they went from peaceful beings to a state they call “TOTAL WAR”. War is in their blood & soul. They thrive on it, mostly when the odds are against them | An excerpt from *Species Relations Within The Tri-Galactic Sector*, Kirkkolan F. [Hawkens Joseph trans.], G.I. 1445, Grand Triumvirate Library.
#14. Newcomers
##III. Humanity
While we might discuss at length the effect Tri-Galactic (relative) newcomers might have on inter-species relations, none is more deserving or paradigm-destroying as the self described *Homo Sapiens*, A.K.A Humanity. While the humans have only been apart of the Galactic Triumvirate for 400 intervals (the reader might recall that Spacrals had introduced themselves 3500 intervals ago, a difference of nearly a full power of ten), they have clearly made the largest impact seen in this ‘new expansion’ era, bringing peace to both lesser and greater species, and attaining a representative seat on the Grand Council in record time. Throughout this book I have presented each species through the lens of their First Contact War, but amazingly I cannot continue this tradition for Humanity as they did not have an FCW. Despite the fact that they made First Contact with the infinitely irritable and belligerent Monglas resulting in a small skirmish, the humans have noted that they universally celebrated this interaction across their controlled sectors.
Above all, humans are social creatures, to the point that they have essentially forced themselves into a universal peace, lest they be unable to act socially with any of their own. However, this lead to a collective loneliness within their species, as they had yet to discover any trace of alien life. When I was conversing with an “anthropologist” (in short, a human occupation dedicated to studying their own distinct cultures), they described to me that the human race as a whole was experiencing a lack of social excitement as their own society had homogenized to the point where they felt an extreme lack of discovery. Their word for this is as strange as it is difficult to pronounce (for many of us without flexible mouths at least): “ennui”.
This feeling of ennui became so strong that the goal of First Contact became an almost religious belief in their society, the one thing that would save them from ultimate stagnation. When humanity fought against the Monglas, they did not despair at faltering in the face of a technologically superior fleet, nor mourned the deaths of their comrades, but rather cheered that they no longer had to face the void of space alone. This led them to disrupting the Monglas’ usual singleminded violence as they translated and began communicating with the alien fleet in record time. While the Monglas fleet could not be described as ‘peaceful’ in this moment, they were so confused by the human reaction that they decided to simply retreat.
The remainder of Humanity’s history in the GT will only slightly differ as, more so than any other species, they unilaterally push for peace and friendship for all. The reader might scoff at such a naïve goal for a species, but one only needs to spend a single evening with a human to understand that they truly desire only companionship both as an individual, and as an entire distinct society of beings. Some might argue that humans are a flawed, simpering species because of this. I would agree, however I encourage the reader to view this as a benefit to our great Tri-Galactic Sector, as it is a wholly unique culture among us, and one that has prevented many conflicts across the intervals. As we progress through the rest of this section I intend to present…..
_______
Continued in comment replies | “Greetings, my fellow human comrade, you do not know me, but I know you.
We once thought ourselves as alone in this universe as a species, and when the others made themselves known to us, we had little choice but to acknowledge them as superiors.
And now these superiors have made a terrible choice - we never chose to oppose them, and yet, we now are forced to do so.
These aliens take our planets, enslave our kind and use our bodies for cruel experiments and torture.
I beseech you, to take up arms and join us in retaking our lands back; in the long history of mankind, we have always fought among ourselves, but now we have a common enemy - and we will now show them hell for making an enemy of us.
And I will lead us into a future where there is only peace, a universe that will learn to respect us as a species. I am the Emperor of Mankind, and I ask you once again, “Are you with me?” | 2022-08-05T17:08:21 | 2022-08-05T16:09:25 | 39 | 14 |
[WP] Population is over 10 billion. Souls are finally depleted. In a hospital, you witness the birth of the first souless human. The room goes silent. | It's the eyes that stick with you. Amid the eerie silence of that delivery room all those years ago, those blank, purposeless eyes peer into my mind. Never had I seen a more beautiful pair of deep blue eyes.
A shame they would end up going to waste.
The Shell blinked and looked about the room as we all stood there stunned. Being a maternity ward nurse, I had seen this many times. But it was different with this one. With souled babies you could see a sense of curiosity, of their fresh minds already expanding and forming the basics of understanding. The Shell, however, wasn't looking from curiosity, but rather it had nothing else to do. The mechanics of simply existing were driving its observation rather than some inherent desire to understand.
It was in that moment that I first understood the true consequence of what was to come: the future would be very, very boring.
The peculiar baby left my hospital the next day and I never again had such first hand experience with their person. But being what they were, their life was bound to be well documented in the media. The Shell wouldn't be the first, but it would always be the most interesting, having won the race of the damned.
Before I knew it the baby had turned into a young child. But as they grew everything I saw and heard echoed what I had seen in those first few moments. Every interview, every newspaper article, and every soundbite always shared the same sentiment. 'This kid is *so boring.*' I kept waiting, hoping, that they might develop some kind of purpose, or that their beautiful eyes might be filled with something other than color.
But instead, I kept delivering more blank little humans. Green, brown, blue, and eyes of every color in between did they possess. But always empty; so terribly empty.
The Shell grew up further and the world began to feel the impact of our new reality. The novelty of a soulless human began to ware off, and that once famous baby began to fade into the wave of his kind that grew up around him. The world was filled with children who didn't care to be there. They existed and performed whatever was necessary to survive. But they never thrived. Gone were the days of building small wonders out of blocks. Absent were the colorful visions recorded in finger paint. The death of creativity had been pronounced with the birth of this new generation. The color of the world trapped in lifeless eyes.
Now, with those empty bodies being fully grown adults, my early realization has fully come to pass. The world is utterly filled with boredom. We live and work with people who don't much either for us or themselves. They're survivors, and that's it. They learn what they need, and nothing more. They're indifferent oil in the machine of life. They'll carry humanity forward physically, but much of what was once held as the best of us will some day be forgotten. Art, music, love - all will fade away in the indifferent hands of the Shell and his kind.
In spite of the dire future ahead, there is some cold comfort that I hold onto. Humanity can lose its soul, but it still refuses to be defeated. Maybe one day there will be more souls to be distributed; maybe Earth will experience some sort of grand revival; maybe we'll be able to see the colors of life once again. But until then, at least I'll know one thing for certain:
Humanity marches on.
&nbsp;
___________________________
r/psalmsandstories for more tales by me, should you be interested. | At first, we were alarmed. Proof of the divine? That we all had it wrong? That there was a finite quantity of souls in the mix? There was an uproar, people went raving mad, stocks plummeted - all over the world people tried to repent their follies, but it was all in vain, and nothing prepared us for the final revelation.
"Why is the child fine? The baby is fully healthy, responds to stimulus, and in fact, appears to be larger than expected."
The room fell silent. We knew why. In a way, we had always known. And later that day, when the divinities returned to explain what had happened, even they were pale and stuttering in their descriptions.
The maximum wasn't 10 billion at any given time. It was a finite 10 billion, reached before any of us were born. | 2020-03-09T11:14:13 | 2020-03-09T11:01:07 | 82 | 43 |
[WP] You have one super power: The ability to know without fail what the truth is to any asked question. You planned to help the world as a super hero. It took you six hours for the government to declare you public enemy number one and the most deadly super villain alive. | The thing about knowing the answer to any question is that there’s actually one question that I don’t know the answer to. That is, I haven’t the slightest damn clue how I got this power.
I’m serious. You might think I was born this way, or maybe was caught in some industrial accident or was born of twisted scientific experiments, or perhaps even I was gifted by some celestial being.
Nope. I woke up on some Tuesday at the tender age of 32 years and 241 days and I just *knew* things. I first realized it when, upon realizing I was late for work and couldn’t find my keys, I muttered “Where are those damn keys?” to myself.
And suddenly, like flipping on a light switch, I knew exactly that they had been dropped and kicked underneath a shelf just out of sight. I knew exactly how far away they were from me down to the hundredth of an inch. Hell, I even knew their exact latitude and longitude. I had never known *more* about where my keys were.
The explosion of information was, surprisingly, not even close to overwhelming. Not only did I know all of that, I was capable of dealing with the knowledge, of processing it and using it.
That isn’t to say that it made me any smarter. After all, it took me a week to realize the full extent of my abilities.
For the first day, I thought I just knew the exact locations of objects. Granted, this is a particularly useful ability for my career as a librarian, but only now do I realize how much I limited myself.
The second day, someone asked me what books we had on the proliferation of invasive species of seaweed and their impacts on freshwater fish. It’s the sort of topic that people expect librarians to know offhand, or at least be able to find the requisite books with one carefully worded query in our magic book finding computers. I, of course, knew better; normally, I was barely aware of what books were in the same room as me, and the database at my disposal was identical to the ones on computers scattered about the library.
And yet, I knew. I knew exactly what books there were on invasive species and where they could be found and who wrote them. My abilities even leaped past that and jumped straight into giving me a list of scientific articles available to the library. It was as if their very titles were being printed into my mind as I spoke.
On day four, I began to appreciate the true breadth of the knowledge at my disposal. It was a child’s question, of course. Only a child could have expected an adult to know the minute details of every last question they might have. And why not? I can even remember back to my elementary school days when we were told that libraries held every bit of information the human race knew, and librarians were the gatekeepers of those sacred tomes. It was that childlike fascination that had led me to this career path in the first place, after all.
Now, I knew better, but I understood the motive behind the question that, while superficially simple, was truly complicated:
“Mister library man, why is the sky blue?”
A question as old as time itself, of course. The answer jumped to my lips, practically unbidden:
“Why, Rayleigh scattering!”
It was an unsatisfactory answer for the poor kid, but to me, it felt as though an entirely new aspect of my abilities had been unleashed.
On day six, I made a resolution.
“I will make the world a better place.”
It was a simple premise. If knowledge is power (and I can confirm that it very much is), then I must be the most powerful being alive, and if old Uncle Ben is to be believed, then with that power came the responsibility to use it for the greater good.
I was so naive back then. It never occurred to me what the greater good might be, or how I might even go about making the world a better place. Instead, my mind was filled with thoughts of superheroes in well-tailored spandex suits and black leather kicking ass and taking names while I starred as Professor X in the chair with the knowledge and power to keep them in charge and fighting evil.
That very Monday, six days after receiving my power, I began to fight crime.
I wandered the streets aimlessly, only stumbling across the occasional mugger or jaywalker. The first person I tried to stop nearly beat me into the pavement because despite my mind knowing how to fight, my body did *not* know how to fight.
I laid there on the ground, groaning at the aches and pains. “How do I fight crime?”
As with any question, the answer came to me immediately. *Use your knowledge, not your physical prowess.*
Of course. Maybe I could use my abilities to dream up schematics of cool tech and gadgets, like a middle-aged slightly overweight James Bond.
Then I hesitated. I pushed myself into a sitting position and leaned against the bricks of the building behind me. The sky overhead was dark and seemingly void of stars as I pondered my next question:
“What crime should I be fighting?”
*True evil.*
The answer was vague, far more so than most previous answers had been. I knew I was playing with fire, that philosophical quandaries held answers not meant for human minds to know. But I *had* to know. I progressed carefully, trying to be sure that I wouldn’t stumble upon an answer I didn’t want to know.
“Are criminals the true evil that I should be fighting?”
*No.*
I felt a knot of anxiety form in my stomach. Already, I was in over my head.
“Should I be fighting evil foreign governments that would start a world war?”
*No.*
“Should I be fighting for justice, tearing down oppressive institutions that would bleed the working class for profit while they live in luxury?”
*No.*
I blinked several times. The streetlights buzzed overhead, setting my teeth on edge.
“Is true evil a religious figure, like Satan? Should I be fighting demons and hell and preaching forgiveness for the people?”
*No.*
I had to know. I didn’t want to ask, but I had to know.
“What is true evil?”
I fell unconscious in the blink of an eye. But though my body lay motionless on the ground, my mind raced through infinity, filled with visions of atrocities and horrors that I dare not repeat here.
My story ends here, as far as you are concerned. I know that not all will read this, though many will be curious as to why I turned into a supervillain mere moments after my heroic career began. It is my goal that some of you will understand why I do what I do and make my job easier. It is not an undertaking that I begin lightly.
They will come for us. They will ruin us. We cannot run, cannot hide, cannot fight. There is no hope left for us. Instead, consider that sometimes, when the end is near, the best choice is to make it come as quickly and painlessly as possible.
So consider this my apology note to humanity. You will not forgive me now, and you will not be alive to forgive me later.
But when later arrives, when *they* arrive, and they find the burning husk of a world not worth their efforts, I will know I made the right [choice](https://reddit.com/r/Badderlocks). | I thought that knowing the truth could help save the world. I thought that I knew what it meant to be a super hero, what it meant to do the right thing.
Now, I know the real meaning of heroism.
And I’m probably going to die because of it.
It started out as a science experiment. My lab was testing our quantum field generator to see if we could learn from other Earths throughout the Multiverse. I went in to calibrate the left radiation dampener when Eric decided to pull a prank on me. He faked like he was going to turn the machine on, and I barely had time to roll my eyes before he slipped and fell on the controls, and...
My vision flashed. It was like I was in a room with mirrors for walls—I saw an infinite number of reflections of myself. I reached out to touch the closest mirror.
Something shifted within me. Sights, sounds, smells, more than I could ever hope to process flooded my brain at once. Then, everything focused down into a narrow black road ahead of me, with a computer terminal at the end. I walked slowly towards it, and placed my hand on the screen.
*The capital of Romania is Bucharest.*
*The derivative of cos(x) is -sin(x)*
*The sum of human truth now rests...in your mind.*
When I woke up again, the sun had clearly gone down. Eric was standing over me, staring down in horror.
“Jeff, are you OK?”
I looked at him, more than a little annoyed. Suddenly, the truth popped into my mind.
“Of course I’m not OK, you nearly just killed me because you resent me and you thought that you could play it off as an accident if I died in the machine.”
He staggered backwards. “That’s...that’s not true, man!”
“It is,” I said with complete confidence.
“I have to go now,” I added, walking towards the door as Eric backed away from me like a wounded animal.
I had the knowledge of the Multiverse in my head, and I had to use it for good. I knew what my first stop would be.
It took only a few minutes on the phone with my boss before she managed to get in touch with the right people. Four hours later, I was in front of the President of the United States.
“So, Jeff, is it son?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied without lifting my eyes.
“As President, you know that it is my job and my privilege to work in the best interest of the American people. I’ve been told that you know the answer to every question. Let’s start simple, what’s 2+2?”
“4,” I replied while staring at the table.
“How many states are there in the Union?”
“There would be 52 if your government believed in anything, but currently 50.” I raised my gaze to meet his this time.
“OK, OK, no need to go so hard on me, big guy!” he said with a loud chuckle and a steely glare.
“Now, onto the most important question: what is the biggest issue facing the American people?”
“The greed of our corporate oligarchy and the spineless corruption of our elected officials.”
His smile rapidly faded. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me the first time, Mr. President, as did the rest of your government, your wife, and both of your mistresses.”
“Alright, that’s enough, cut the cameras,” the President barked, all trace of a smile gone.
I stood up, and began to walk out of the room. “And just where do you think you’re going?” the Secret Service agent at the exit remarked.
“I’m going home, because the President cannot afford to execute me before I leave this building. That’ll start the revolution much faster than he can prepare for it.”
“Sir?” the agent spoke over my head to the President.
“Let him go. By the time we’re done with this footage, it won’t matter how far he runs.”
When I saw the news later that day, I was unsurprised to see that I was the most wanted man in the world. I was called “The Manipulator” and was named the world’s greatest supervillain.
I had set out to solve the world’s issues, and within a day I had started a revolution.
Heroes and villains are one thing. I thought that doing the right thing was the province of one side and not the other.
As it turns out, life is a little bit more complicated than that. To the people with power, I was a villain.
But to everyone else?
I might just be able to help them save the world after all.
__________________
If you liked this, check out my subreddit! r/NicodemusLux | 2020-11-30T12:59:18 | 2020-11-30T11:32:52 | 1,396 | 250 |
[WP] You're the trusted angel God left in charge for 2016 while he went on vacation. He's returned early and you have some explaining to do. | He sat with his head in his hands. One party. One party was all it took for the world to go to shit.
The elevator angels hadn't really asked to many questions until he asked for Prince. By now, anyone in any mansion in the kingdom knew that he was dead. Humans had always used a phrase to contradict the Lord's power. "Can God make a rock so big that he can't move it?" Well, in a similar vein, could he kill something so hard that it died again?
It could have an answer soon. Soon cosmilogically at least. There was still a month and a half to scrape together something good. He had hoped that Duterte had taken something more away than not cursing but, at this point he was willing to take even the smallest of graces.
It had all started with David Bowie. Sure it was high profile, but cancer doesn't care. At least it looked like cancer. Humans weren't the wiser, and he had a front liner for the party of the millennia.
He groaned, pulling on his halo. At this point the stress was making his plumage to get sparse.
Except Bowie considered it a retirement. Once he got past the pearly gates, he went straight to the mansion for a siesta and wasn't even seen again until April when word of the United States primaries were going around.
He got up and paced around the room. The cloud-woven cotton felt like it was tightening on his whole body instead of hanging loose like a robe should. His head thundered against the wall, surely sending more than a few bolts down to Earth's surface. He slammed his head again and again.
When he had gotten drunk on wisp-ale was one of the bigger mistakes (never mind it happened less than a week after he signed for Bowie's appearance). He promised himself he would never touch it again- but he was only human (or at some point was). He didn't realize the next time he got drunk on it, he'd be signing a requisitions for both Alan Rickman AND Prince. AND PRINCE! He didn't even like Prince!!!
Thank the Lord there was someone in Requisitions that knew how to space these things out. He tried to cry a little but sorrow was impossible in the kingdom of heaven. Dread was still allowed because there was the whole "God-fearing" thing.
Rickman did a small show, but didn't want anything big for his introduction into the eternal lands of respite. By the time Prince got to the gates the party had gone from scheduled to TBD 5 or 6 times and half the guests had gone home.
Whilst he was fighting to keep this party alive Satan (because only Satan could be laughing about it) somehow managed to find the two worst politicians possible to run for the US presidency. God would've LOVED Sanders (even if he already did because of the whole Jewish promise thing) but the Primaries just went so fast while he was ordering the catering (he briefly remembered how he had thought to call up Bobby Flay or something).
Then there were the Earthquakes, Civil war, Star Trek jokes (he finally had decided to beam Scotty up permanently), Gorillas, ISIL, Drought, Humans UNCONVINCING THEMSELVES ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING, the list went on and on and on and on.
Somewhere in here the party had actually gotten a jump start when both Bowie and Rickman had shown up at the same place at the same time. That was about mid-august by Earth schedule.
But the nail in the coffin had been when he was trying to impress Angela. They had been watching the world series when he decided to make an order for a Cub's win in game 7.
He screamed. Oh holy feathers on a roasted demon ass crack! That one thing was God's favorite joke. It had been for almost a century now.
There was still a month and a half before the Lord got back from touring the Andromeda galaxy for the first time this century.
There came a knock at the door.
"Michael, I know you're in there. We need to talk." | "I... I... I... can explain!"
"What do you have to explain?" God looked at the archangel Adam, who appeared as little more than a puddle before Him.
"The humans have apparently all gone mad. Are you not upset with me?"
"Not in the slightest," God replied as Adam composed himself, "you know, there's a reason I took this little sabbatical. As bad as it sounds to say, I'd grown tired of watching over the humans. Their faith has steadily decreased for some time and they've angered me in ways I don't expect you to understand.
"So what brings you back?"
"Well, even while away I have heard the stories of this 'Trump' fellow. Hearing about him and seeing what all the other humans have been up to while I was gone got me thinking. I've failed them, I left them perhaps when they need me most, it only makes sense they would be acting out. Not to mention I've felt terribly bored and lonely while I've been gone. As it turns out, being 'God' over nothing isn't such a great way to be after all."
"So you're back for good?" Adam asked, with palpable hope in his voice.
"Sure am," Jehovah responded confidently. "Thank you for your service in my absence, you've done an admirable job given the circumstances. Now I only hope I can throw all this back together before this 'climate change' those humans have got going *really* kicks in.
| 2016-11-14T23:14:02 | 2016-11-14T21:46:21 | 22 | 15 |
[WP] The hero has been defeated, the Dark Lord reigns. It seems like nobody can stop him, but then he surprises everyone by actually being a good leader, or at least better then the warring kings that used to rule this land. He's even funding science, if only because he wants to conquer the moon. | 'Can you even remember why we where fighting him?'
'I think it was the torture, and the daemons.'
'Oh, right. Yeah. I mean the demons turned out OK once we learned to keep them fed.'
'Super fed.'
'Jesus, yeah. They do eat a lot don't they. We should do something about that.'
The second guard laughed a little. 'You go tell them we're going to cut their supplies. Be my guest.'
'Yeah, good point.'
&#x200B;
They idled a while in the sun outside the main gates of the dark fortress.
&#x200B;
'Did your sister ever come back form the dungeon?'
'No.'
'Sorry.'
&#x200B;
A breeze passed gently, carrying the smell of the wild flowers.
&#x200B;
In a timid voice, 'You ever, you know, miss the old kings?'
'Jesus man, we're right outside his gates!'
'I know, I know, I just.. I don't know man. Demons. You know? Is this really better?'
'It doesn't have to be better, you understand me? We just have to be alive and unharmed.'
'Sure, but I mean, literal monsters. I guess there's more jobs. I guess it's because there's more work to do but damn if he's not organised. Opportunities for everyone. I guess it's not so bad.'
'Tell that to my sister.'
'Right, sorry.'
&#x200B;
The heat added a slight shimmer to the barren path leading to the gate they guarded.
&#x200B;
'You think he'll ever get there?' He nodded to the moon, visible in the daylight high above.
'I don't care.'
'But you've got to be curious.'
'Do I?'
'How can you not be? This guy has half the nations building a slingshot with the twin mountains as the anchors.'
'I know.'
'Ok, sorry, overstepped the mark.'
'Just, I just miss her. You know?'
'Your sister? In the dungeon?
He flashed him a look.
'Sorry.'
&#x200B;
They could see the tips of the twin mountains on the horizon, the tips dwarfed by scaffolding.
&#x200B;
'You know she'll be back, right?'
'She'll be changed. You know that. She'll be.. wrong'
'She was always right, if I recall.'
The guard let out a solemn chuckle. 'Ok, you get that one for free. But really, let's talk about something else.'
'Sure.'
In the distance, the catapult fired a test shot. Too far to see what was launched but both guards knew what the payload was; a lone demon.
&#x200B;
'God damn, literally immortal. Don't have to stick the landing. You think any of them hit?'
'I don't know how we'd ever know.'
'I guess. He probably has a way of telling.'
'Yeah, or he's just annoyed with them.'
'I can't believe he put the kings in it. Really figured he'd want to keep them for conversion in the dungeon.'
'...'
'Sorry.' | It has been sixteen years since the end of the world. Or at least, that’s what we would have said sixteen years ago. After the old Wizard Dartmouth took over, there was little to be done. No one was left to challenge him or his power. But things are looking great here in Jame’s Hollow. It seems Dartmouth had intelligence to match his power, as he was able to set up a growing economy with localized goods production within a few years.
Now we are faced with another challenge: learning.
With half of the populace uneducated, large scale initiatives in order to educate more for the space program. Soon, there was a bustling city right around the rocket build site. It is five months from launch. | 2021-03-11T10:50:45 | 2021-03-11T10:37:17 | 120 | 28 |
[WP] You are a time traveler whose job is to make our world a better place. You have saved Lincoln stopped 9/11 and made sure that the Library of Alexandria was never destroyed. Now as he you get ready for your next mission your employer tells you: "Make Hitler win". | Time travel can become familiar, but it never stops being unpleasant. The sensation of being pulled in all directions at once, the gut wrenching nausea, excruciating physical pain, the migraines brought on by the intensity of the resulting white out the visual cortex has no idea what to do with itself during the sensory overload that is "the experience", and so it projects a blinding white light onto the corneas - it was not exactly surprising that I my hair went shock white within a year of being assigned this post by the ministry. By now it is coming out in clumps. For the common good, I suppose.
As with all missions, I spent the first day in Vienna recovering in a back alley by a bar, vomiting and lying in my own vomit. Over time we have found that it is least conspicuous to imitate the behavior of a chronic drunkard for a day, rather than assume cover while still battling the effects of TT. By noon the next day I felt myself returning to the facilities of a normal man. I snuck off to a quiet corner, underneath one of the cities many bridges, and changed into my secondary clothes. It is odd how often fashion imitates the political and social circumstances in which it is created. The homogenized, slate-grey dreariness of post-war Germany called for a drab, slate grey suit. It was horrible, really. If this was all I had to wear, I might start a war myself.
Adolf Hitler...we had learned about him in school. Some brutal warlord of the 20th century. According to my grandfather, one of my ancestors had died fighting him, high above the English channel, trapped in the cockpit of some sputtering primitive aircraft, alone, no doubt freezing and afraid. He had precipitated a war so dreadful that it had necessitated - or so the historical analysts said - the invention and use of atomic energy to bring it to a close. How anything could be worse than atomic weaponry both puzzled and unnerved me. The hulking, gutted remains of Barcelona and Chicago remained as testaments to their horror.
The TT capsule would begin to wear off within 72 hours, so I hastened to the decision point, in this case a gala at a prestigious hotel. I spotted the target almost immediately. It wasn't the distinctive toothbrush moustache, or the hair plastered across his brow, or any other physical feature really. It wasn't even the abused, hurt look, resentful and hateful, that he wore with badly disguised pride, like a teenager attempting their first rudimentary steps at defiance. It was how ordinary he seemed. It reminded me of that old cliche, how no one suspects killers and psychopaths until after the deed is done. He was so quiet, they all say, I never thought he could do something like *that*. I approached him unnerved, but still confident in the purpose of my mission and my ability to execute it. He was standing next to a number of paintings, all equally poorly executed, yet unique in their terribleness.
"These are yours?" I inquired.
He seemed surprised that anyone was talking to him. I suppose it was a first.
"Jahwol." Fuck. The translator was broken. It could modify my speech, but not receive and decipher messages. Best to keep it brief then. I studied the paintings for a while, hemming and hawing all the while, and left the sad, strange little man. I would do my part.
Somewhere in modern day Vienna there is a little house that has been abandoned for some time. The interior smells of cat piss, and bad paintings hang from every wall. Hanging above the mantelpiece there is a plaque. It reads thus:
42ND ANNUAL VIENNESE ART FAIR
ADOLF HITLER
1ST PLACE
Sometimes all we need is a little encouragement.
| I stood, staring down the leader of Germany, with that toothbrush like moustache and the... Lunacy? I'm not too sure anymore, this job was a real drain on my life, intelligence and pretty much everything else. I mean, Hitler, WINNING THE SECOND WORLD WAR. Christ.
"Mein Führer, perhaps, it is best we don't invade Russia."
Adolf turned, and with that ever lasting scowled, snarled "And why not?"
"Well, mein Führer, perhaps the war will last until winter, if we send the men now, without proper winter equipment, we may lose valuable troops, possibly even the war."
Hitler contemplated this, hands running through his hair, eyes almost bulging out his sockets as he stared into the map as if it would reveal an answer.
"I see. Then, perhaps, the invasion of Russia could be halted, temporarily."
"Thank you mein Führer." I left the room quickly, I walked as fast as possible, pulling myself out of this god forsaken hell hole. If only I wasn't the only German operative cleared to time travel then Hitler wouldn't have to win. I will never forgive the man that gave our people such a disgusting representation for years.
| 2015-11-23T07:58:38 | 2015-11-23T05:07:37 | 68 | 50 |
[WP] Every year the villagers would send any unwanted children to the huge black dragon as offerings. Being a good mom the dragon decided to take care of them instead of eating them. | I carefully toast the bread with a small puff of flame from my jaws. The river fish caught by Gold has already been roasted; the milk from Diamond's cow warmed as well. Emerald and Ruby are setting plates on the table in the center of the cave. But Pearl, ever the inquisitive, is staring at a chicken egg.
"Where did I come from?" Pearl asks, wrapping her small fingers around one of my claws.
It is a question that my children have posed since they learned to speak. Though I am a dragon, they are but human. The villagers in the valley believed I would consume their unwanted babes. But they did not understand that I lost my family in the Great Winged War. Peace and quiet was all I sought in the world. In their sacrificial offerings, I found hidden treasure.
I found a new family.
And yet it has not been easy. The human witch who helped raise my children recently passed, and my eyesight is failing in my old age. I cannot care for my family anymore. There is a woman in the village, the witch's sister, who is willing to take my children in as her own. I have hesitated to meet her, but I cannot delay any longer. Soon I will be able to see nothing at all.
It is time for my children to return to their people.
\~\~
"This is your home now," I say to Pearl, as she stares wide-eyed at the witch's sister. Our meeting is taking place by the river at sunset. The story will be that these five children were found in a rowboat, having lost their parents in a storm. They will be accepted by the villagers. They will be cared for by a new family.
I turn away so that my tears, as large as their skulls, do not show.
Perhaps my children are eager to return to their kind. Perhaps they are confused by what is happening. But they are old enough now to understand that this is for the best.
"But the cave is our home," Pearl says. "Who will care for you?"
"That is not your concern," I say. "Just remember that I will love you, my children, until the very end."
As the sun begins to set, I spread my wings and fly back to my cave, where I slumber and dream only of jewels.
\~\~
Time passes. Seasons change. How long has it been? Without the growing children to mark the passage of time, I have stopped noticing how old I've become. My days are filled with hunting wild creatures and idly searching for hidden treasure. With my eyesight almost entirely gone, I am often tricked by reflective water or colorful blossoms. At least my cave has been filled with smoked meat that I may consume when my eyesight is gone entirely.
But today, when I wake, there is something different yet familiar in the cave.
A young woman.
"Pearl?" I ask, focusing on the blurry outline. "But you were all supposed to return to the village."
"Yes, we did," she says, smiling. "It took us a long time to learn how to be like the villagers. But now we're grown, all of us, and we know what happened to us when we were young. You were not the evil dragon that the witch's sister told us you were. You saved us from parents who would have seen us dead. And now that we know the cave was not a dream or a fantasy, we've come home. Some of us to stay, others to visit. But all to ensure you have not been forgotten by your family."
Four other figures move forward to stand with her.
Pearl, Emerald, Ruby, Gold, and Diamond.
My children.
"Is it true?" I ask, raising my head hopefully.
"As you once cared for us, we will care for you," she says, gently grasping one of my claws. "Until the very end." | Another one, chained without preamble to The Post, her tearful pleading ignored by those who should, by rights, be fighting to protect her.
Heartbreaking.
Poor little waif, she looks hungry. Mere skin and bones, and that hair obviously hasn't been brushed in an age. And her clothes! They look like they were stitched from scraps pulled from the garbage heap. Certainly not thick enough for this weather, that's evident. Oh, I hate to see her shivering so! If only the tall ones would disperse already. I've half a mind to give them a fright...
But that won't do. I can't endanger my hatchlings, not with Philomena ailing. They still haven't recovered from the move, poor dears, and Gertrude might - Oh, at last! Yes, move along you clod-headed dolt. No show today, get back to your hovel and leave my little one alone! My little...Chloe. Yes, I quite like that.
Chloe. Come along my sweet, and meet your family. We've plenty of food, warm beds, and clean clothes for you. We've a cozy spot by the fire for you. We've all the love in the world for you. Come along, my darling. We're going home. | 2018-11-18T22:35:24 | 2018-11-18T19:57:44 | 254 | 128 |
[WP] Flowers have become so rare that they are the most sought after items in the world, sold at high prices in black markets, under guard in national museums etc. You just stumbled across a natural rose. | I like to climb mountains, okay, not many people do because the grass and the trees, all the green has died away.
Because now it's treacherous, sand and loose rocks, thin air even before you climb the summit. You have to wear special breathing gear just to be outside, let alone if you plan on doing strenuous activity. But, I like to climb mountains.
It reminds me that there was once upon a Time a lush land until we got our grubby hands on it. The old 2D movies show vibrant greens and blues, the ocean so clear you could see all the way to the bottom. The woods so green and brown you could almost feel the fresh dew on your fingers, almost smell the earth beneath your feet.
Now. Grays and greys, and more and more blacks, as far as the eye can see. Most people live in bubble cities, where a few trees are planted and guarded 24/7. I read an old newspaper once about the release of an "new" technology, where people lined up and waited days before it was released for mass consumption...the lines to see my cities flower bed, locked behind a diamond case, is like those lines.
But I like to climb mountains. Leaving the bubble city behind, searching for something beyond the nothing, it's my only interesting hobby. An actuary, I count death for a living. So people don't pay a lot of attention to me, or my work. Death is all around us, more so now than ever before. The bleak existance of humanities day to day life is leading to an increase in those snuffing themselves out. Maybe they wish to see flowers in the afterlife..
But I like to climb mountains. And so I climb them and search but find nothing, expect to find nothing, hope for...something..but know there's nothing.
Sand and grit and gravel and rock and no living thing anywhere. So I climb and then I count death.
I never, in all my years of searching, thought to count my own. But I like to climb mountains, and without the roots binding the rocks, without the grass and shrubbery holding fast to the earth, the world has turned treacherous.
I fell. This was hours ago and I cannot get up. I cannot move and my breath is fading fast. The grays have started to lift but that may be delirium more than anything. The sun should be rising and bright red rays should make it impossible to see properly without an eye shield, and mine broke in the fall.
The dark of the night isn't lifting, and I should feel unnatural heat through the rips in my suit. I see nothing. I feel nothing.
I suppose now I can count my own death among the millions.
That's what the pervasive black tells me. I'm dead...or dying I suppose. The dead can't talk yet here I am, a whole soliloquy.. but something's growing in the black.
Red. The sunrise? Softer somehow, with a pervasive sweetness that's new but old. Subtle but demanding, an almost sticky smell I can't place. If I could reach out I would but nothing moves, nothing shifts. Consuming want, a driving Need to know, to see, to touch. The red starts to fade, and the scent washes away..to will it back I would give anything.
...
Death is gentler than I imagined, and I suppose, I saw a flower...in the end | A rose. One of the most exotic flowers that still are around on this desolate planet of ours. It’s value is so high, that experts need to examine its state before even giving you a number on what it is worth. On top of that, it is naturally grown, increasing its price by hunderfolds!
And I just stumbled across one.
Oh god, oh holy shit! I FUCKING CANT BELIEVE MY LUCK!
Yes, that was how my road to being the richest man in the world started.... Or how it would of, if I didn’t mean it literally.
FUUUUUUUCK!
Literally stumbled on it that is.
I just look down on the tiny spot of grass surrounded in mud, with a dragged out muddy boot print in it. I. The middle you can see what was a rose a few seconds ago, is now something that has no value.
FUCK | 2019-10-19T06:39:43 | 2019-10-19T06:08:05 | 173 | 113 |
[WP] A physically weak orc is banished from his clan. Hopping for a clean death, he makes his way to the local human town. Instead they take him in, and show him what it's like to live in a society where physical strength isn't the only quality that matters. | *Hop. Hop. Hop.*
The merchant's waiting out in front of the village gate just stared in abject befuddlement.
*Hop. Hop. Hop.*
And adventurer started to draw his sword. The two next to him stopped him.
"Don't bother," one of them muttered, shaking his head at the ridiculous scene.
*Hop. Hop. Hop.*
The guards at the gate readied their spears as the long orc came hopping down the road toward them. He wasn't hopping very fast, and it couldn't be considered a charge. It was probably the fact that the poor pathetic thing was shivering in fear with its eyes closed as it approached them that stayed their hand.
That being said, they were still guards and this was a community of humans . . . and one dwarf. They couldn't just let the creature invade the place, even if he was puny and pathetic looking.
"Stop beast, or I'll order my men to slay you."
"Go ahead," he shouted at the sky, nervously thrusting his chest out, even as he averted his face in anticipation of the thrusts. "Tig a puny orc. Me too weak to for tribe. Not even good enough be fodder in orcan army. Worse than roach crawling on ground. Kill me humans, or I'll . . . Or I'll invade your village and . . . I'll invade it. I will. Do you doubt me?"
"Uh . . . how about invading the a community of hobbits instead. Compared to them, you're probably intimidating. You can find a community of the furry feeted little bastards two leagues in that direction. Just look for a patch of low hills with weirdly round doors in the side of them."
"I aware of hobbits. Me try to kick old hobbits, but to pathetic, not young orc anymore. Too stubborn change my ways. Have be true to self. Me need die on human blade or not get not get let in orc heaven. Must die fighting strong enemy. So me come invade human tribe."
"Um, okay, but why are do you keep hopping?"
"Misspelling."
"What?"
"Nothing. It what Tig do. This taunt. You just kill or I hop all over human village. Squash chickens. Pulp flowers. Leave real mess. Take at least week to clean up. Kill me now?"
"I won't. Maybe talk to the dwarf. He's not humane as we humans are."
"Dwarf? That acceptable. Dwarves strong. It kill Tig. Tig get into orc heaven still. Get seventy-two mule-faced orc virgins."
"Female virgins?" The guard asked. Tig grew red in anger.
"Of course females. Why Tig wanna die for male virgins?"
"Not sure. Anyway, you can find the old dwarf behind the village. Just look for the big pit."
Tig just hopped off, not bothering to thank the puny humans for their help or mercy. After all, he was trying to get them to kill him. Why would he be nice to them.
It didn't take him long to find the large pit behind the village. It was massive and rather deep. It'd been carved right out of the rocky earth and even had a spiraling path leading down to the pit's bottom. In the bottom of the pit was the dwarf swinging a hewing hammer at a large stone. The stone was becoming squarer with each swing of the hammer.
Seeing this, Tig hurriedly hopped down the spiral roadway. Clearly the dwarf noticed, but like the guards at the gate of the village, instead of raising his hammer in anticipation of killing the beast, he chose instead to wait and discover why a puny-looking orc was hopping its way into his quarry.
Fortunately for him, he didn't have long to wait. Despite being puny for an orc, the creature was naturally heavy with a dense body and tough skin. Each hop along the spiraling path crushed the white rocks the dwarf was quarrying. This left pot holes behind, and that if nothing else was enough to raise the dwarf's ire. Still he waited for the creature to arrive.
"Dwarf, you kill me."
"I say something funny?" The dwarf asked curiously.
"No. Tig tell you kill me. Otherwise, I . . . Otherwise, I'll crush all your stones, make you have start over."
The dwarf glanced sideways over the large number of small boulders littering one side of the quarry floor then glanced over at the small mound of crushed chad across the quarry from them.
"You want me to kill you?" The sly dwarf asked.
"This Tig weak, puny orc. Have no worth. Tribe make fun of. No orc sow want mate with me. Only have one choice. Die and go orc heaven. Get seventy-two virgins if die in battle."
"Female?"
"Yes, female. Argh! Why you make Tig angry. Just kill so I get reward."
"Or you'll crush all my rocks?" The dwarf clarified.
"Yes. You kill now?"
"Honestly, I don't think a puny orc like you has the courage to crush my rocks. I dare you to crush my boulders. All of them mind you. I won't get angry unless you crush all of them."
"Then Tig will crush all of them. Then you kill me?"
"Deal. But you have to crush them all." The dwarf gave him a stern-eyed glare. However this just motivated the orc hurry over and begin. It took no time for the puny orc to crush all of the boulders into pebbles. Happy with the result, the dwarf clapped excitedly, but then immediately realized he was supposed to be angry over the crushing of the boulders.
"Ahhh! My boulders. I'm so angry," the dwarf pretended to rage, shoving to clenched fists in the air. "Luckily, you didn't pile them up over there where the other crushed stone is. If you had, I would have cut you down on the spot.
Hearing this, the orc hurriedly grabbed the dwarf's shovel and cart and began shoveling gravel and piling it up next to the other gravel. When he was done, he went back to hoping while sneering at the dwarf.
"Oh, I'm so angry. You're lucky though. I still have more boulders in the tunnel over there. As long as I have those, I can still manage. I'll let you off this once, but don't even think of dragging those boulders out here and crushing them too. If you do, you'll leave me with no choice. I'll have to crush your skull with my hewing hammer.
The orc excitedly hopped into the tunnel, grabbed a boulder, then hopped back out. It's dense head dislodging more large stones from the ceiling every time its hopping body collided with the ceiling. Despite the damage, the orc barely noticed. It just carried out rocks, crushed boulders, and piled the gravel up.
Because he was a orc, he didn't realize he was being duped till he noticed that the dwarf was lounging on a stone slab in the shade with a lunch pail in front of him and a tankard of ale in his hand.
"You tricked Tig."
"You tricked yerself, orc. What kind of imbecile goes around begging others to kill 'em so they can get seventy-two women that don't know what they're doin'? Naw, yer better off down here with me, breakin' rock and havin' a purpose."
"Tig wanna be strong warrior, someone enemy's fear."
"Why? Naw, that's not what you want. You just wanna feel strong. Dwarves are like that too. You think if an enemy fears you, then they respect yer strength. That's goblin shit. Enemies fearing you don't mean they respect your strength. It means they fear dying, and they think yer capable of killin' 'em.
"Better to be respected for being capable. What is a strong warrior but someone who's capable of killing. When you think about it, being strong and being capable kind of mean the same thing. A strong lover is someone capable of competently making love. A capable drinker is someone capable of drinking lots while keeping their wits longer than others.
"Today, you proved you're a capable of quarry worker, meaning you're a strong quarry master. Stay and work here with me. I'll pay you good coin, and give you a new nickname. Boulder Breaker Tig. How's that sound."
"Need go to orc heaven and get seventy-two virgins," Tig told him stubbornly.
"How about you stay, and I pay you gold and tell you where there is a brothel with two half orc whores?"
"Tig stay," the puny orc was quick cave, causing the dwarf to laugh.
"Me names Baldo Hornblower," the dwarf said, introducing himself.
"Tig Ger, Son of Big Ger and Snig Ger.
"Oh boy," the dwarf groaned even as he took out another tankard and filled it for the lad. With a surname like Hornblower though, the dwarf could sympathize. All things considered, the puny lad's name could have been a lot worse. | “George do you see that?”
“See what?”
“Dude, look out there right in front of the tree line about half a mile - maybe 2 o’clock.”
George squints his eyes to squeeze the last bit of distance out of his focus knowing that doesn’t do a damn thing.
“I don’t see anything, Carl…”
“Look right there, it’s moving toward them bushes, *look*.”
George took one more look, and sure enough, there it was - something looked like it was bobbing up and down off in the distance.
“Well I’ll be…sure enough…the hell is that…?”
“I dunno…but it’s only getting closer, I bet we can make out it pretty good here soon enough. Let’s wait.”
A few minutes go by as the two guardsmen sit out in front of the gates of Cardenwale, as they do everyday. All of a sudden Carl flips his wrist towards George to get his attention.
“Look at that, George, it’s an orc! The hell is it doing hopping up and down like that?”
“It looks tiny.”
“Yeah it does look pretty small, seriously, why is it hopping up and down like that?”
“I have no idea, maybe something’s wrong with it, let’s go see,” George says as he starts walking straight down the road towards the orc.
Almost tripping over himself, Carl fumbles after him, “Wait! What if he’s dangerous?”
“That little guy?” He stops for a moment, but presses on, “No way, just bring your sword, if it is the two of us can easily overpower him, no problem.”
Carl mutters a quick *dammit* under his breath. “Should’ve never said something…”
The two men walk out to meet the orc at a leisurely pace. A few minutes go by and as the men begin to make out the orc’s face, it becomes apparent it is quite twisted up, the orc surely in an immense amount of pain. As George begins to feel within range, he exclaims, “You there! Orc! Why are you hopping?”
*ccchhu-uhhh-uuusss kee-ill m-eh*
George looks back at Carl who only offers a shoulder shrug and a frown.
“Let’s just get closer. I never can understand their growly, spitty accent”
A few moments later and they men are merely twenty steps away from the orc. George stops and puts his hand on his sword, but does not draw it.
“I said why are are you hopping? Don’t come any closer or I’ll draw my sword.”
Carl steps beside George and does the same, resting his hand on his sword, but says nothing. Instead he looks the orc over and notices the poor thing is absolutely dripping with sweat, is about half the size of a normal orc at only 4 and a half feet tall and appears to have some shrunken facial features that look like they could’ve been installed by a blind seven year old pushing lips and ears into a Mr. Potato Head. “What the hell is a Mr. Potato Head?”
“please…just….kill…me…” the orc barely pushes the words out between bounces. He looks beyond exhausted.
“What…no. Why are you hopping? Stop! STOP!” Finally the orc stops jumping up and down.
“Please, please, just kill me. Just kill me, please. They don’t want me. If I stay they’ll eat me. Literally eat me. Grenshaw…he said…you don’t know who that…please kill me.”
“Uh…”
Carl interrupts George and steps in front of him taking his hand off his sword, “Hold on little guy.”
Carl take a few more steps forward and places his hand on the orcs shoulder. “What’s going on, buddy? Why are you hopping down the road all on your own coming here just to plead with us to end your life. Surely even if you have no place with the orcs you’d be better of living on your own?”
“No! They are watching!” The orc becomes visibly paranoid and begins hopping up and down again. “You…must…kill…me…or…they…will…kill…me…and…eat…me…if…stop…hopping…up…an-“
“Okay. Stopstopstopstop,” George has now come up alongside Carl and sticks his hand out, stopping the orc in place.
“This is ridiculous. They’ll kill you if you stop jumping?”
“And eat me-“
“Dear god, I didn’t think they were that brutal. I mean…you don’t look that dangerous. Carl…” George motions to lean in close.
Whispering in Carl’s ear, George says, “Let’s just take him in the gates and take him to Captain Peters. I think he’s telling the truth and the Captain could easily use him as an informant, even on something as simple as where the orcs keep their supplies inside their camp. Surely he knows *something*.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
“Follow my lead.”
Carl nods. George draws his sword. “Alright here’s the deal little goblin. We think you’re telling the truth so we’re going to bring you inside and have you speak with out Captain, Carl here is going to tie your wrists behind your back and we’re going to march you right through the gates of Cardenwale so that all your orc buddies think we took you prisoner. But as long as you’re cooperative with the Captain, you might actually find you like Cardenwale after a time. We’re a good people and you don’t seem as aggressive as most of the orcs we end up capturing, what do you say?”
“You’re not going to kill me?”
“No, I mean, if you’re truly suicidal, I suppose you can beg for execution from the Captain, but corporal punishment isn’t something we believe in for non-violent criminals. We believe everyone can be reformed. Not all do, but you know, it’s *preferred*!” He says with a friendly grin. “What’s your name by the way?”
The orc just stared blankly for a moment, utterly shocked at the humanity being displayed to him.
“You won’t kill me?” The orc’s eyes began to twist as thoughts came back into it’s mind. As the cogs began to turn, he lifted his head and looked George right in the eye and he slowly uttered, “Nob’olg.”
Carl paused for a moment. A quiet, “-kay,” could be heard, then he pulled some rope out of his pocket and as he pulled one arm behind the little orc, a tiny tear glistened in Nob’olg’s eye.
THE END | 2022-09-03T17:33:02 | 2022-09-03T17:10:12 | 57 | 17 |
[WP] The galaxy watches as the humans are on their last leg protecting their plant from a parasitic species of invaders. What everyone failed to realize was how brutal humans could become when backed into a corner and hyped up with music. | When the news about the bugs hit, I damn near killed myself laughing. We’ve survived interstellar flight, a bizarre bureaucratic nightmare of a Galactic Alliance (some alliance that turned out to be), even accidentally launching multiple colony ships to “binary star systems” which turned out to just be supernovas (honestly, if I had a nickel for every time we’d done that…. Well, I’d only have two nickels, but it’s weird it happened twice). Anyway – after all that, it’s the overused “ravenous swarm of space bugs” that’s in every good and bad sci-fi film and game for the last fifty years which ends up being what finishes us off.
***Tries*** *to finish us off*, a little voice at the back of my head insists, and I growl in agreement. The bugs have taken eleven of our twelve planets from us – the Alpha Centauri colonies, the bases on Mars and Titan, even the industry on the Moon. But humans still draw breath on Earth, our home world. And I’ll be damned if I let them take it from us.
Behind us, the vault doors close with a resounding **thud**. We all groaned when we saw them for the first time – I mean, if you’re going to steal from post-apocalyptic fiction there’s better options than Fallout, c’mon – but it turns out that that really is the best way to build a bloody tough door to keep out the ravenous little shits. The many extra layers of protection begin engaging over it: blast shielding, defensive turrets, even some prototype force shields it turns out the military had been developing. Inside are all of our families, our loved ones, our enemies, that one friend you haven’t spoken to in ages but have to wave at if you pass them in traffic... all of humanity. We’re spread across nine of these mega-bunkers across Earth, each with its own set of shields and turrets and gang of crazy last-ditch defenders standing outside.
And that’s where I come in. Before the bugs attacked I wasn’t a soldier – hell I wasn’t much of anything. I had a decent job in the city, I played a lot of games, I had friends and went to bars and tried to meet people. Just a plain old normal person. But as most of the military got injured or killed fighting their retreat back home, pretty much anyone who could and would fight was given crash training in firearms and – if you volunteered – some pretty radical implants and splicing. I tensed one arm, and I felt the cable-like muscles constrict around my reinforced bones – not that I could see them, encased as they were in the thick plate-like armour we all wore. When all of our industry is turned over to producing arms and armour, turns out we make some pretty choice stuff. I’ve even got speakers wired into the headset, so I can listen to my choice of music as I fight and die here.
*Fight, yes. Die? No.* That little voice insisted. I don’t know where it came from, but as the first wave of bugs came over the crest of the plains ahead of us, I clung to that little spirit of defiance for all I was worth. Outwardly, I clung just as tightly to my father’s old shotgun – he was long passed, and to be honest I never knew why I’d kept it in my apartment. Probably violated all kinds of laws, unlicensed gun and all – not that it matters now. But I knew somehow that it had to be the weapon I fought the final fight with, along with the proper military rifle I had slung on my back. And when I’d caught sight of myself in the shiny side of one of the tanks that had deployed with us, I knew exactly what music I would play.
I tapped once on the side of my helmet and brought the shotgun up, and charged forwards from the orderly ranks behind me, powered forwards by the best metal soundtrack the world has ever known. Orders were shouted desperately after me, but I have only one commandment now. | Quiet. The dead lay spread across the field, both human and alien. Mostly alien. The wind blows, the sun rises. A new day of battle.
Dug in on one side is the last bastion of humanity, the 101st Bonecrushers! And they dawn their power armor and electro blades in anticipation of the coming attack.
They have a giant bunker built into the side of a cliff. Its massive speakers start blasting a rap song from 2003. 4000 Bonecrusher troopers line up in the fox holes with only the electro blades for the alien enemy.
Men and women from every parts of the world make up the Bonecrushers. When they hear the song playin over the speakers they all begin to sing together in unison, " Mutha F× cka, I aint never scared, I aint never scared, I aint never scared!"
The horde of aliens charge the last remaining bastion of humanity. They are angry and tired! They want the war to be over! They want the humans to just be dead already!
"I aint never scared! I aint never scared! I aint never scared!" The warriors scream in defiance as the bash away the alien threat that ripped away their peaceful lives.
The humans beat back the swarm. They lose some and the aliens lose more. Just another day.
The Bonecrushers just set up for the next day. They aint never scared. | 2022-10-31T09:04:27 | 2022-10-31T07:41:18 | 507 | 49 |
[WP] Two suicidal people happen to meet on the same bridge to jump. Rather than joining together, they each try to convince the other not to jump while justifying why they themselves should jump.
EDIT: yes i'm well aware this concept has been done before many times in movies, books and music.
But that's exactly it: it's not original, so who cares? Let's let the awesome authors of /r/writingprompts have a crack at an old idea :) | "You can't stop me," Jerry yelled, clutching at the railing and looking down at the churning river far below. His head whipped wildly back and forth, looking at Sam then back at the river, to and fro. "I've made up my mind! I have nothing to live for, and I don't want to hear your psycho-babble mumbo jumbo."
"Me?" asked Sam with a harsh, self-deprecating laugh. He clambered over the railing and sidled up to the very edge of the steel beam. "I'm not here to stop you. I'm jumping too."
"Oh," Jerry replied, clinging the fence even tighter despite his threats to let go. "Well, good. Confirms what I thought in the first place," he said with a sardonic chuckle. "Nobody in my life cares enough about me enough to stop me anyway. No friends, no girlfriend, no parents..."
"Hmph" Sam snorted as he edged along the very rim of the bridge. "*That* is why you're jumping? The worst thing about your life is that you're not weighed down by any anchors? I should be so lucky! Try having two ex-wives each claiming 50% of your paycheck in alimony. Try having a mother who constantly criticizes everything you do. Try having two kids who only call you when they need something. I would give *anything* to be in your position, man. Shit, I'd just leave. Start over somewhere new. Go to China and teach English, go backpacking through India..." He gave Jerry an angry look. "Man, what are you even doing here? You have it made!"
"At least *you* have family that notices you and knows who you are. You've *had* the life that I want. You had the wife and kids; I can't even get a girlfriend," Jerry replied. "Sounds nice enough when you say 'oh, just go travel' like that. You're forgetting all about the fact that I'm completely broke. I couldn't even afford the plane ticket over. I have no skills, no charisma... no nothing. I just spend all day at my dead-end job, wishing I could go back 10 years ago and actually do something after high school."
Sam moved a bit closer to Jerry. "You don't know what you're talking about. I did it. College, grad school... the fancy job and the big office... It's not what it's cracked up to be. I only took this job as a way to pay off my student loans, and then I was going to go off and be a writer. Now, 25 years later, I'm in even more debt than when I started! You ever heard the term 'Golden Chains?' It means that once you get that big salary, you can't just go back to working another normal job. You have to use all of your money just to keep your current status. I'm going to break those chains, today. By jumping."
"You're crazy, man. You have everything you need to succeed. You've got the career, the work experience... I can't even get my foot in the door! You're successful and you're clearly a pretty smart guy. How is *this*," he gestured at the cold grey waters below, "your only option? I'd be willing to bet that you have all kinds of friends and colleagues who would lend you a hand if you just *asked* for it. I don't have a single person in my life, man. I don't have anyone I can rely on."
They were each silent for a moment. The wind picked up, threatening to knock each of them from their tenuous hold on the guard railing. The waters below seemed to grow louder, as if calling out to them. Beckoning them to the cold depths.
"Kid," Sam said. "Get off this bridge. You have your whole damn life ahead of you and you're just being stupid and angsty. So many people have a hard time dating and getting jobs when they are younger. Go download tinder and start at a trade school, for Christ's sake. You don't even realize how insignificant these problems are!"
Jerry didn't reply. He lowered one foot over the side of the bridge like a toddler testing the waters of a pool.
"Here, here," Sam said. He pulled out his checkbook from his breast pocket and moved to straddle the fence railing. With a fancy gilded pen, he wrote out a check. "$10,000. The final scrap of my savings. It is my last request that you take this and go live the life you want. And you can't deny a man's last request. Go travel through Europe or something. Go find yourself." He scooted across the edge to Jerry and handed it to him; the small scrap of paper flapped temptingly in the wind.
Jerry slowly pulled himself back over the fence and took the check in a trembling hand. "You mean it?" he said, staring at the check like he still wasn't sure it was real.
"I mean it," Sam responded. "It may be too late for me, but maybe I can live vicariously through you."
"It's not too late," Jerry said quickly, placing a hand on Sam's wrist. "Come on. We can both just start over."
Sam pursed his lips and smiled; tears began to well up in his eyes. He looked back down at the river, considering Jerry's words.
"I can't," he said. "But at least I did one meaningful thing before my death," he said sadly. With one fluid motion, he threw himself over the railing and off the edge of the bridge, plummeting into the abyss below.
---
And you all should definitely check out my subreddit, /r/Luna_lovewell! | “You can’t jump,” she said. Her brown hair blew in the wind.
“You can’t jump,” he said. He had no hair and looked very pale.
She leaned forward. The group behind them gasped. A man on a bullhorn barked at them but neither heard him. “It’s not a death sentence for you, you know,” she said.
“You’re young. You’ve got your entire life in front of you,” he said.
“To be fair, everyone has their entire life in front of them,” she said. “How old are you?”
He sniffed and looked down. “Forty-eight.”
“Lots of time left.”
“Stage 4,” he shook his head. “Less than ten percent five year survival rate.”
“So you’re telling me there’s a chance?” she said.
The man began to cry. “Not much. I can’t let my wife and children watch me waste away. This is better. I go out on my own terms. My family doesn’t have to deal with a prolonged death. No muss. No fuss.”
“Don’t you want to spend as much time with your family as possible?” she said. The wind picked up. Her hair whirled around her head. It was long enough to tickle at the edge of the man’s vision.
He nodded. “I do,” he said. He began to sob. “I do so much, but it isn’t being with them if I can’t recognize they’re there.” He looked over at the woman. “What about your family?”
Police began to push the crowd behind the man and woman back. “I don’t have a family. I was a foster child.”
“No partner? No siblings?”
She shook her head as uniformed men and women began to edge towards the pair. “No. I had a girlfriend. She broke up with me. That’s not why I’m out here though.”
“Are you sick?”
“I lost a lot of money. I lost my job. I have creditors breathing down my neck. I’m in danger of going to jail for failure to pay court fees,” she said. She looked like she wanted to cry, but it wouldn’t come out.
“How old are you?” he said.
“Twenty-three.”
“You’ve got a lot of time to pay back your debts.”
“You’ve got a lot of time to spend with your family.”
He paused and looked down. “Would you like to spend it with me?”
She sniffed and looked over at him. “What do you mean?”
“Will you spend your time with me and my family?”
Tears formed at the corner of her eyes. “I don’t know.”
He looked at her. His eyes pleaded. “Please. We’ll help you with your debts,” he said. “Please.”
She slid her hand down the railing to his, grabbing it tight. “If you spend as much time as you have with your family.”
“If you spend it with my family.”
She nodded. He nodded. They climbed back over the bridge’s railing together.
____________________________
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this check out my subreddit /r/Puns_are_Lazy.
| 2015-01-27T17:05:32 | 2015-01-27T16:49:17 | 1,404 | 506 |
[WP] You are a B-list superhero on the verge of losing your job. During a battle with a villain, you accidentally end up killing one of the most prolific superheros of your time. That's when you realize that with your niché power that was useless as a hero, you could be an A-list supervillain. | I swear I didn’t mean to kill her. It was an accident. Honest. One minute she was behind me and then the next she was in front and by that time it was too late to take it back! She should have known better than to get in the way of my beam, even if it doesn’t usually end in death. You would think a girl with her gifts would be able to survive such a mundane power as mine, I am just a sidekick after all.
There were bad guys everywhere! I mean, everywhere! Left, right, up, even down! I shot off a beam of clumsiness so they would all fall over or something, so she would have a chance to incapacitate them properly from above. But then she was there, in the line of fire so to speak. Apparently you need good coordination to fly properly, because when the wave hit her, she spun out of control. Then her other powers went haywire, she started throwing columns of fire everywhere, no direction was spared.
One shot hit the petrol station she was flying over.
I didn’t mean to, honest. Shouldn’t a girl who can control fire and fly and do other amazing things I don’t understand be able to withstand a little explosion? Not very super if you ask me. That sounds kinda callous. I just mean, what’s the point of having those kinda powers if some flames can kill you off just like that.
I try my best to be a hero. It’s not easy when you’re constantly told you’re not good enough to be a ‘proper’ hero. An A-class one. Only good enough to be a B-class hero. Forever the sidekick.
“What use is your power anyway?” they say. “When would making someone clumsy ever come in useful?”
You know when it would be useful? Inconveniencing someone you didn’t like. That lady on the train who stared at me while I put my make-up on? That guy across the street who keeps watching me while I’m eating dinner? What if she tripped and grazed her knee on the escalator up to the station. What if he missed when trying to put his glasses on, blinging himself in one eye. No one would know it was me. These things happen all the time.
Oh, the things I could get away with. Why didn’t I? Well, being the hero is ingrained in our society. All the news, the Tv shows, the books. They all follow the hero. The villain doesn’t get their own story, they’re not portrayed as a person. It’s always the villain’s fault. Doesn’t matter if the hero killed all their henchmen, their friends. The hero is the hero, end of discussion.
They’re going to treat me like a villain now. Maybe I should let them. Maybe I should aspire to be the best villain ever. No, I won’t kill anyone (or anyone else) if I can help it. Just cause them little inconveniences here and there. The news anchor might knock his coffee all over his notes. That annoying businessman might fall into the filing cabinet, revealing the secret papers that would end the company. Small things.
Yes. I could be a great villain. Afterall, shouldn’t the best villain be the one with the farthest reach? Smaller inconveniences that will affect a larger number of people. It will be magnificent. Let them come. I will wait. | As Saitama crumpled to the ground the shock of being hurt let alone mortally wounded began to set in. People looked on in shock and horror as the life faded away from Saitama's eyes. A momentary silence in as Mumen Rider relaizes what he had done. He never knew the power of his Justice Crash as it was so ineffective in the past. The suddenly realization his power was greater than he ever imagined when used for evil. An evil smirk slowly formed. He could never see himself as a B-class hero but the promise of being a Dragon level villian was too great to pass up. Using his Evil Punch and Evil Kick he killed several cilivans fleeing the scene. He needed to return to his dorm room and decide how to use his new level of powers and how far he would go with no heroes left that could possibly challenge him. | 2021-04-14T07:42:05 | 2021-04-14T06:21:06 | 55 | 29 |
[WP] you're a time traveller who can't control your powers and keep accidentally slipping through time. Thankfully, you have an immortal friend who keeps you up to date whenever you appear.
[deleted] | Under a near-starless sky, while digging into the dust of a dead Earth, the Scientist recalled both of her first meetings with the Undying One.
He had been waiting for her, the first time it happened. The Scientist had been disoriented in the occurrence — for a brief moment she had been filled with triumph, locked in that precisely-engineered experiment-chamber. Years of research had been vindicated, and the accolades she hungered for would soon be hers. She had only an instant to savour her elation though. A shrill electronic chirp was her only warning before she was catapulted pastward.
The metal roof above her melted into a midnight sky. The gently-humming walls encasing her were replaced with the gnarled branches of unfamiliar trees. The joy that coursed through her turned to dizziness and panic. She hadn't anticipated the miscalculation.
But he had, of course. He was standing exactly where she had told him to be, exactly when she had told him to be. She appeared in a blinding flash and he was at the ready to support her. He steadied her with his arms, wrapped her in a cloak, and invited her to lean on a nearby stump.
He grinned with a youthful joviality that matched most of his appearance — save for his eyes, which sparkled with the wisdom of eternity. "My old friend, I have waited so long to meet you."
That was the Scientist's first encounter with the Undying One, among the sycamores of classical Athens. But it wasn't his first encounter with her. That had been millennia past and leagues away, among the oases of ancient Mesopotamia.
He had been but a child then and was dying his first death. A conscripted orphan, he was one of a thousand nameless casualties in a war that would be forgotten by history. His blood couldn't pool in the granular sand — instead turning to scarlet mud — and he had already consigned himself to the gods when she found him. She wasn't so much older than, appearing among the desert dunes, then she had been her first time among the gnarled trees. But she was prepared — ages into the future, he had already told her what to expect on that day long ago in the past.
She readied him for his first resurrection and nursed him to full health in its shocking aftermath. She taught him what he was and of their long friendship yet to come. She told him of the centuries on the horizon and spoke of their next meeting: he would be a mercenary in the Kingdom of Israel far in the future and she would be younger than she was now.
Then the Scientist was gone in a burst of light. The Undying One wouldn't meet her again until he had lived three full lifetimes.
And so their lives intertwined through the ages, their encounters both unpredictable and completely foreseen. She never knew when she would arrive, but she knew he would be there. He might know when she'd be, from past encounters with her future-self, but he never knew who to expect emerging from the bright flash: a young woman, a warm matron, or a wise elder.
They lived while societies birthed and died. Sometimes as rivals, sometimes as lovers, sometimes as master-and-pupil, but always as friends. They soon grew bored of using their situation for material benefit. They built empires and they destroyed civilisations. They committed deeds of shocking cruelty and acts of great benevolence. They recorded tomes of knowledge only to burn them in their next lives.
But they knew that their time would come to an end one day. For, while he would outlive anyone and she could be anywhen, the Scientist was still beholden to her biological clock, outside-of-time it may be. One day she would die, be it in the era of Augustus, America, or Alpha Centauri. She was comforted knowing that the Undying One would be there.
It was thus with immense surprise and equal sorrow that she found his remains amid the ruins of the Earth. It was long after the lights of mankind had winked out and soon after the stars in the sky had dulled to glimmers. He had been the last of anything that could conceivably be called human, and thus, it seemed, his destiny had been fulfilled.
It was then, under a near-starless sky, that the Scientist dug the last grave into the dust of a dead Earth and thought of the Undying One. She was old then, and, as she wrapped him in rags, she realised there was little else she wished to see throughout time. As she piled dirt on his still form, she resolved that here, too, would be the end of her journey. As she silently mouthed a prayer to a million dead gods, she closed her eyes, prepared herself, and was grateful for the lives that she had lived.
But then there was a brilliant flash, and she was gone. | "Dying is just a habit," Judy says, "A mug's game. A nasty habit. Sickness and health, do you see? Have to kick it and kick it and kick it again. Kick life in the teeth every hundred years or so, just to stay alive.
"So you're saying you're immortal," he says, "And he was a time traveler."
"A misnomer, really," she says, her eyes far away. "Traveler implies choice. He ain't got no choice where or when he leaves."
"And the last time you met you fought?"
"Oh, about that, yes," she says, her head bowed low. She laughed quietly. "Said he was being all dramatic and called him an attention-seeking little bitch. Then his little fan club chased me out of town. Well not so little now."
"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" Judy asks, looking up from the pavement floor accompanied by glass bottles and cans of beer. A stench of vomit and urine lingered.
"I never said that."
"Right but you're thinking it. They all were. Right up until he vanished at the end of that three-day orgy. Told them he was coming back for sure. No way I was paying for all the hookers and beer. Never said when though, and now we're all waiting."
"Let's say that's all true. Don't you think it gets lonely for him though? Jumping around with no control. Living in fear of the next time he blinks and loses everything."
"Oh yeah boo hoo for the big baby. Dine and dash much? How about we spare a little sympathy for the one who has to clean up his mess every time. And let's not forget waiting for two thousand years and counting."
"Yeah well maybe if you just think about-"
"And how about you stop talking about what you don't even know," Judy shouted and threw the can in her hand. She staggered to her feet and started to walk away.
"Yeah but- Y'know what, sure. Alright. Good night Judy, thanks for the chat. God bless."
"Fuck you."
He sighed and turned the other way, muttering under his breath, "They were called 'disciples' Judy. Disciples." | 2021-08-22T00:00:48 | 2021-08-21T21:06:41 | 434 | 54 |
[WP] In the future, for your history final, you're sent back in time to an important date with the objective to correct a time aberration so history remains unchanged. You didn't study.
Changes you might cause will be permanent. | "What do you mean, you didn't study?" Alex had never been a sneaky person, and the loud whisper made half the class turn around, staring at both of them. Jim simply smiled until his classmates had turned back around.
"What do you think I mean? I simply didn't prepare. I stayed up late for the update to hit, by the time it actually hit the live game and I started playing..." He shrugged. "Whatever, it's not like this is a big deal anyway. I could get like, what, an E for this final and still pass the class. I'm not too bothered".
"Yeah alright, but that's an awful big risk you're taking man. Sure, *you* might not care that much, but for the people whose lives you might be changing that's kind of a dick move".
"Eh", Jim shrugged again. "Not like they would know any better than anyway."
By the time Jim got called to the front of the classroom his indifferent demeanor had stayed exactly the same, but inside Alex could see the doubt grow. Small pearls of sweat had formed on his face, and Alex saw his nervosity as he looked at his friend. "Moron", he mumbled to himself, before sticking up his thumb in support.
Jim stuck up his thumb as well. "Are you ready, Jim?" his teacher asked.
"Yeah, of course".
The teacher looked at him from underneath his glasses. "Alright then, good luck. You will be going back to 1776, North America..."
---
Jim stood in a narrow alley, his arms resting on his knees as he breathed heavily. He hid in the shadow, as the moon crawled in front of the clouds repeatedly before being hidden again. His legs burned from the sprint he had finished just moments before, as a small crowd of people had chased him through the streets. "Probably the god damn clothes", he mumbled. Little did Jim know that for every history test a package would be dropped near the drop area, providing him with every item he could possibly need. He absentmindedly rubbed his chest, trying to soften the stabs of his burning lungs. After a few minutes of resting Jim peeked into the street, the moonlight casting a silver glow on his face.
"1776", he mumbled. *Right, every idiot knew that. The declaration of Independence. Philidelphia. Jefferson.*
The street was clear. He pulled his sweater hoodie over his head and left the alley. *What was that building called again?* he wondered. *Well, whatever it is, it's probably big. Fancy. Monumental*.
A few inquisitive glances were thrown his way, but no one bothered him. Jim increased his pace, and many minutes later he arrived at a large church-like building, packed with a large crowd. The men standing around the building wore fancy suits and top hats, the women dressed in large dresses of expensive fabrics. Jim cautiously avoid the main crowd as he walked around them. From the almost inaudible and incomprehensible accents surrounding him, Jim had deduced the session was about to start in only a few minutes. He upped his pace.
As he arrived at the building a group of guards, in what Jim thought to be antique equipment, searched every visitor that wished to enter. Guards were posted at every entrance. "Shit", Jim mumbled. A rumble went through the crowd, and loud murmur erupted. Later Jim would find out that one of the Connecticut representatives, Roger Sherman, should have already arrived but was running late. The guards quickly discussed and six out of eight went back inside the building. "Better now than never", Jim mumbled.
He sneaked across the edges and corners of the building before he arrived at the main steps. Simply keeping his head down Jim climbed up the stairs and headed for the entrance. As he almost set his foot on the doorstep one of the guards blocked his way. He screamed at him, and Jim heard the words "What" and "doing".
He cleared his throat. "I'm a...simple servant of the representative from...uhh...New Hampshire. I was...designated to...deliver something to him at this very moment." He paused, anxiously waiting for an answer from the guard that stared right into his eyes. "Sir", he added.
"Very well", the guard mumbled, and stepped aside. Jim attempted a respective bow and quickly hurried inside. Men with dedicated steps walked around the marble floor, and Jim imitated the demeanor of a man with a plan. He walked around the building looking for anything that could be interesting for his test, until he reached a guarded office. He stood in front of it, waiting for the guard to address him. "Yes?"
"I'm...servant of the New Hampshire representative, and I would like to enter to deliver an important message."
The guard scoffed. "Mr. Jefferson is busy at this hour".
Jim nodded. "Of course, sir, which is why it's of great importance that I see him right away. My representative was...very clear with his instructions. Sir."
The guard looked at his colleague, who shrugged. "Go ahead". He opened the door.
The office was organized, piles of paper neatly stacked on the desk. The curtains were closed, and only a small lamp illumated the room. A thick leather couch and dark wooden chairs, their seating covered with dark red fabric filled the room. Bookcases covered the wall, and Jim looked at the thick books that undoubtedly covered years of forgotten knowledge and history. A loud "Yes?" startled Jim.
A man with a powdered wig looked at him, his eyebrows frowned. *That's actually him*. Jim cleared his throat. *What the hell am I even doing here? Nothing that I've seen so far isn't right*.
And then an idea popped into his head. *History. Right...it's not right or wrong. It's just indifferent. But I can make it right.*
"Mr. Jefferson, I am Jim Neelon, and I am a representative of the Black Population of the soon to become United States of America. I have many things to say, and I am sure a man of your stature will be interested in what I have to say." He paused, and a name entered his mind. "I come here with urgency, from Sally, who is very important to me. And you. Sir".
Jefferson stared at him, puzzled, his dark eyebrows almost disppearing in the white of the wig. Then he shrugged and put out his hand. A black and a white hand shook that day, a day that was never supposed to happen, and it changed everything. | John paces around the storeroom nervously, trying to ignore the sound of shoes clacking on the marble floor outside.
"I am here to do something important, I am here to do something important," he repeatedly mutters to himself, trying to remember what he was here for. Mrs Smith had given all of them a set of instructions on what to do as soon as they arrive at their destination, printed nicely on a sheet of paper, but John lost his as he stumbled around after exiting the time portal.
Of course, Mrs Smith also instructed them to commit their assignment to memory, in worst case scenarios where their instructions go missing. In fact, students are strongly encouraged to not bring their notes to the past. But John couldn't care less. History are for suckers, he told himself. The sole reason why he took the class was because he thought he could get an easy credit for the subject.
Alone in the room, however, John isn't so sure anymore. He checks his pockets, and notices a gun hiding neatly inside one of them. He tries to remember the reason the gun being there, instructions about killing someone, but he can't remember the name of his target, no matter how hard he tries.
The throbbing of his head is not helping either. No more partying the night before exams, he tells himself. The funny thing is, the professors could send him back thousand of years into the past, but yet all he wants to do is to go back to yesterday and force himself to actually study for the exam. If only he knows how to go back.
The sound of the door opening next to him causes John to jump. He fumbles carelessly for his gun, but before he could find it, a blade is already on his throat.
"Hen me ze gun you have," the thick accented voice demanded. The person holding the blade is taller and bigger than John, dressed rather formally in a uniform that John almost recognize. There is also an armband wrapped around the man's hand, a black weird pattern printed on a red background. It looks strangely familiar to John, a pattern that he vaguely remember seeing in Battlefield 1945 Remastered Collection 30, 3D Special Edition.
"Hey, you hear me? Hand ze gun over, now!" the man yells again, pushing the blade closer to John's throat.
"Alright! Alright!" John screams, handing over the gun in panic to the man. The man smiles, utters the word "Danke", and leaves the room hurriedly. John tries to see where the man is going, but the appearance of more soldiers causes John to slid back into his hiding place, praying for the chance to go back.
His prayer will soon be answered, as the time portal will open directly next to him. When he returns however, John will find that the place he is going back to is not the place he came from, as the weird black logo that he saw on the man will fill every pole, banner and building he can see. He will soon learn that the pattern is called the Swastika, the official bearer of a party called the Nazi. He will also learn that by allowing a time traveler to assassinate Hitler, he has single handedly caused the defeat of the Allies and the rise of the Nazi world domination.
He will continue to languish in a Nazi concentration camp, wishing every single day that he had studied and not partied as how he used to.
His wish will come true on the 30th day of his incarceration at the concentration camp, where his mum will burst into his cell, with a wide grin on her face. She will gleefully ask John a question that many mums have asked before. "So, will you study hard now?"
John will reply like how many others replied too, with tears running down his cheeks. "Yes mum, I will."
Not far from them, a man will watch with a satisfied grin on his face. Yet another successful case for his company, the VR Behavioural Correction Agency.
-----------------
/r/dori_tales | 2017-03-27T06:31:45 | 2017-03-27T06:19:46 | 379 | 143 |
[WP]: 200 years after being successfully colonised with Earth's criminals and other unwanted population, Mars has developed a strange culture of its own | "Ten balks," the man in front of me demanded, offering a hand forwards. I searched my pockets for what small change I had, fumbling for the correct coins.
"Here," I replied, placing the coins in the palm of his hand. He hesitated for a moment, squinting his eyes at me. His mouth twisted to one side and he tilted his head, watching me closely.
"Not a dusty, prat?"
"I'm not from around here, no," I shook my head in reply. The man nodded at this, and handed over the burger I had just paid for. It came in a plastic box, a faint mist of steam rising in front of my face, wafting a delicious meaty smell through the air.
"Thanks," I said to the vendor, who raised his right hand with the ring finger tucked in close to the palm. He flicked his hand upwards, and as it became level with his face, the hand opened to splay the fingers. The traditional farewell gesture that seemed to be used around here.
I walked away from him, leaving him to the small metal stand he had set up on the street corner, calling out for the passers-by to buy what he was selling. Most of them walked past, slapping their palms together in a negative gesture before continuing on their way to wherever they needed to go.
I leaned against a concrete wall and looked down the length of the street I had found myself in. All along it, vendors stood at regular intervals, the smells of cooking meats and brewing soups giving the air a rich texture, and my brain didn't know which smell to focus on. Air filters pumped the rising steam from the air, creating a swirling white, wispy vortex that rose above the heights of the buildings, before joining with the central column of the air filter. It hung from the roof, a grey cylinder with slots ringing its edges.
Despite the vast numbers of people milling past in the open street, the most solid feature seemed to be the sound that they produced. It filled with, individual conversations merging with each other, trying to find their place above the din, which only caused others to raise their own volumes, creating a firm wall of impenetrable sound.
I managed to catch brief snippets of interactions between people as they walked past me, their voices heavily afflicted by the slang and the strong Martian accent that had developed over the past two centuries. It sounded like a bizarre combination of the southern United States and the indecipherable tones of the Scottish.
*I need to practice my slang,* I thought to myself as I bit into the meat, releasing a thick warm taste into my mouth. I had managed to pick up some of the language, but I still had moment where I struggled to understand what was being said to me.
I watched the people moving past, the street split into two, with the groups heading in opposite directions along the lanes. In the background, a familiar face appeared. She caught sight of me and broke out into a smile as she made her way towards me. Skipping in the light gravity, she jumped to land next to me, immediately grabbing my burger and taking a large bite.
"Hey, that's mine!" I objected.
"Bang off," she replied, which caused me to smile.
"Where we swinging?" I asked her, trying to remember the correct phrase.
"No feelings anywhere," she shrugged, and I shrugged in return, before taking my hand and leading me back down the path of the food vendors, still clamouring to get my attention as we merged with the crowd, making our way to the central square. | *"Sir?"*
"Yes?"
*"Message coming through from Mars. Not on the official channels. Thought you might want to know."*
"Not on the offical – dammit! Who let the inmates have broadcast equipment!?"
*"Nobody, sir. Point of origin is... Mars Central Command."*
"Yeah, sure. I'll bet they're asking if our refrigerator's running, too."
*"Um, sir, this isn't a joke. Here... you might just want to listen to it yourself."*
"Fine, whatever. Put it on the station intercom, we need a few more laughs around here."
**crackle**
**bzzzzzt**
**"We've had enough. We're coming back. Get ready to die, motherfuckers."**
*"Um, sir?"*
"What the hell was that? And what do you want now?"
*"Sir, scanners are picking up a... a LOT of unknown objects leaving Mars orbit."* | 2014-12-20T07:42:23 | 2014-12-20T07:37:59 | 91 | 25 |
[WP] once in every month soulmates get to see from eachothers’ eyes for 60 seconds until they meet for the first time. It happens unexpectedly and neither of the pair knows when it will happen. One day you see someone you recognise from your soulmate’s eyes. | Once a month, every month, I switched places with a person I'd never met. The first time it had happened, I cried. I was so scared because I didn't know what had just happened to me. One moment I was playing with some toys in the front room, the TV on in the background, the next I was somewhere else, I was someone else for those 60 seconds and I was being punished by a scary man, hit over and over as he yelled words I hadn't understood. I had taken their punishment for them whilst being disorientated, with that horrible feeling of your mind not being in the right place. That was the first swap. I was four, younger then most kids and even though my mum had told me bedtime stories about it happening, they hadn't prepared my young mind for how awful those trips were to a very young mind.
The life I saw through that persons eyes was different to my own, although I occasionally caught a glimpse of little things that gave their location away. Their writing was different to my own. I saw them reading a comic, another time they were watching a movie, but never anything conclusive.
Most of us, as we got older, we stopped really caring about the visions. That's just how it was, because we could never control when we were going to see from each others eyes, we could never message the other. Most people never found their soulmates. Sometimes the visions would just end one day. We didn't talk about those things. I remember a friend of mine. Sarah. She'd see hospitals sometimes. I remember her reading a piece out in class about feeling very sick, but she was with two adults who were obviously the other persons parents. She was too sick to talk to them. Then one day, she mentioned she hadn't seen through her soulmates eyes in a long time. They'd died. She was the first person I'd ever known to have lost their soulmate, we were only nine. I knew a couple of other kids who just didn't have one at all, although I'm pretty sure it was because they'd already met each other. Instead of a tracking class, those kids went into a different room to study something else while we all wrote down what we had seen through our soulmates eyes recently.
It was always like this. Some kids found their soulmates early on, others lost theirs, but the majority of us, we just saw glimpses of their lives. By the time we were 17/18 most of us didn't care too much. We were always encouraged to post stuff online and search for keywords to try and find our soulmate talking about us, but only a small handful of people actually found each other this way. For me, there was no chance of finding them online unless they were writing in English, but they weren't from an English speaking country so that was very unlikely.
Life just seemed to go on after that. Most of us dated at Uni. Even I dated during that time, but never really settled, those of us who still had our soulmates out there rarely did unless we saw them settling down. My mum had always pushed me to settle down with someone from a very young age. She wasn't happy the person wasn't going to be white. When I'd asked her if my dad had been her soulmate she had told me he wasn't, but he was better then the person she'd been seeing all her life. I didn't believe that one bit though. She acted like she didn't care, but she had so much anger towards this person that she obviously cared about not finding them a lot. Life just went on though. I hadn't written anything online for a long time now. There wasn't much point. We were from two different worlds.
Today was just like any other summers morning. The birds were out and chirping in the early hours of the morning. Singing to the sun as it rose over the horizon. Dew glistened on the grass from the cool night air, but was gone by the time I'd left the house. It always felt great to leave the house in a tshirt and short shorts when it was warm out and today was the perfect day for it. I nearly skipped into the city center, just enjoying the nice feeling when I felt it starting to happen again. That gentle pull on my mind. I paused and moved myself out of everyones way before I was suddenly floating into another persons body. I looked around curiously, I had 60 seconds to take in where I was and what they were doing. Instead of being somewhere completely unfamilier, I was looking at a building I knew well, it wasn't far from where I was. I pratically screamed in frustration as motor functions were basically lost when we switched and this time was no exception. I couldn't send my soulmates body in my direction. I looked around at all the people walking around me, us, them. I saw a friend of mine just walking right by them. They took a quick glance at us, but didn't stop. I felt my mind being tugged again and I was back in my own body. I breathed heavily as usual, my body shook but I started walking, stumbling over my feet, moving as quickly as I could towards my soulmate. Would they still be there? Would we realise it was each other just like all the media tell us. It was really rare for people to find each other, but I had the chance. I turned the corner and saw the square in front of me and the building. I looked around and saw a person, standing where I had been standing a few minutes before, looking in my direction. They knew I'd find them if they stayed there. I knew it was him, my mind seemed to flutter, my body felt lighter then ever as I suddenly found myself standing still. Unable to really comprehend I'd finally found them, him. He was a he. He moved towards me, his eyes didn't dare even blink as he came towards me. It was as if he was too scared to just in case I'd vanish. Then he was in front of me. I smiled and laughed a little, he was Asian, that explained why I could never understand what he was saying while I was growing up. He probably felt the same way.
"I found you," he whispered and suddenly I was in the warmest hug I'd ever recieved. This was what it felt like, why people who had met their soulmates talked about it all the time. This was why we wanted to be with them. I knew, from this moment, that we were always going to be together. | I looked down at the diamond ring, then back to her face. This was the second moment of my life that seemed to last an eternity. I etched the look of true happiness to the back of my mind and thought about the first time I met her. Eight years ago, first day of high school. I remember nervously waiting outside the classroom of my first period class hoping I'd recognize anybody who walked in. Looking back on it now, it was probably a pretty dumb idea, considering I only had one friend throughout middle school. One minute until class started, I decided to give up until I heard someone call my name from behind me.
I turned around and there she was. She wasn't the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, in fact, she was pretty nerdy looking. Her frizzy brown hair was braided and she hid the rest with her hat. She wore glasses, a plain black oversized hoodie, jeans and converse. I'll admit, it wasn't love at first sight, but it was *something* at first sight. There was something about her that just seemed familiar, like I'd been looking into her eyes my whole life. She introduced herself as the girl that sat next to me the year before, but I didn't recognize her face. In retrospect, I hadn't bothered to look at anyone's face that year.
I was a pretty shy kid and I had a hard time letting anyone in, but this awkward and bubbly girl just stuck to me like glue. Even if I wanted to, it was impossible to get through an entire day without her and I mean that in the most literal sense there is. She was in every single one of my classes, and eventually she just started following me around. One day she mistakenly followed me all the way home because she was way too busy talking to me, although it didn't seem to bother my parents. I'd often hear friends say that we're 'conjoined at the hip,' whatever that means. I was there for her low points, and I was dragged along to celebrate her high points.
She hung out with me almost every single day in high school, but graduation finally rolled around. That morning went by in a blur but the first moment that seemed to last forever was the first time I saw her cry. She hadn't decided on a college yet, but I had just received my acceptance into Columbia University just a week before. The first tear fell, and it set in how much I'd miss her. We hugged and said our goodbyes, and I didn't see her again that summer.
Three months of packing, applying for scholarships and a whole lot of stress later, I finally set foot in my dorm room. I didn't have much time to savor the taste of emancipation because as soon as I flopped face-first into my bunk bed, I got a knock on the door. Expecting my roommate, I hastily opened the door and turned back towards the bed before I was tackled to the ground. Rolling over, I found a very familiar pair of eyes staring back into mine and my assailant reintroduced herself as the girl that followed me around in high school and my next door neighbor.
College went by in a colorful blur of alcohol, caffeine, highlighted notes and midnight fast food runs. Whether it was for emotional reasons or literally at a DUI checkpoint, we kept each other propped up and moving forward. I had come to realize that all this time she had meant more to me as a friend, and I decided to finally ask the question. After what seemed like an eternity in hell, we finally made it to graduation. I finally realized why I knew her eyes were so familiar to me. It took me way too long to realize that I had met my soul mate all those years ago. Staring at how beautiful she looks in the evening glow of our graduation stage light and how perfect that engagement ring looks on her hand doesn't help with the thought that I'm not hers. | 2019-02-13T16:41:43 | 2019-02-13T16:09:17 | 178 | 69 |
[WP] Superman is mentally handicapped. That's why he thinks nobody can pick up the Clark Kent=Superman thing, and everyone plays along in an effort to keep him from throwing a tantrum. The comics are his idea of what is going on. What does a day in Metropolis actually look like? | Bruce Wayne stood stoically, looking down upon Gotham through the spotless glass of the top-floor conference room. It was a stunning view, with the orange light of the setting sun trickling through the skyscrapers that sprawled out towards the horizon. Diana closed the notebook in front of her, its well-worn spine crackling softly as she did.
Everyone in the room was silent. The looks on their faces a mix of disbelief and uncertainty. Hal was absentmindedly tapping his finger on the desk, a rapid rhythm that annoyed Diana far more than it should have. She caught his eye and looked down at his hand. His eyes moved with hers to the curled digit and he took notice of the movement. He stopped immediately and offered her an apologetic look. She nodded and turned again to look at Bruce's back.
"How long has this been going on, Diana?" Bruce asked.
"I'm not sure, Mr. Wayne. A few months at least, since he fought those other aliens from his home planet. The stories he's come up with are amazingly detailed, I'll give him that. However, they're, well-"
"Crazy," quipped Barry. "I mean, I've got super speed and Hal has a magic ring and you've got an invisible jet? It's silly."
"So what is it exactly I even do?" asked John.
Diana turned to face him and gave him a tight smile,"Well, you...you are a Martian and...well it's kind of all over the place. Your powers aren't really consistent from story to story."
"I'm...a Martian."
"Yes, sir."
He nodded his bald head slowly, chewing on the inside of his cheek, "I see."
"At least you don't live in the ocean and talk to fish," added Arthur. "I mean, is there a worse one than that?"
Diana smiled, "Well you do have that swimmer's physique, Arthur."
He returned the smile and was about to speak up again when Bruce interjected.
"I'm the only one without super powers?"
Diana shifted in her chair. Bruce would go entire board meetings without speaking sometimes. Bring the President of Wayne Industries had its perks.
"Yes, Mr. Wayne, but you do have an elaborate cave full of very interesting devices-"
"But I'm a giant, flying rodent."
Diana stifled a laugh, "Well, sir. You're Batman."
"I'm Batman," he repeated in flat, monotone voice.
Hal and Barry exchanged smirks. The room fell into silence once again.
"It seems to me," Bruce finally said, "That this Batman is a protector of Gotham. I doubt he would stand for the kind of destruction that Superman brought to Metropolis when those aliens attacked."
Diana wasn't sure what to say so she flipped open the notebook again and slowly turned the pages to see if anything in them agreed with Bruce's point.
"I'd say this Batman would use his resources to stand up to Superman and tell him that his super powers must be controlled to keep the citizens of this city safe."
He turned to face them as the final light of the day's sun fell past the horizon and threw dark shadows across the cavernous room.
"I think we take inspiration from this notebook and see if we can bring this alien madman around to reality. Perhaps its time for Superman and Batman to face off. For real."
The rest of the room exchanged short glances. Hal spoke up.
"Mr. Wayne, you can't be serious. That guy would rip you apart if you tried some Superman versus Batman mega-fight."
"Batman versus Superman sounds better," Barry said with a wide grin. Bruce gave Barry a look that wiped his face clean in an instant.
Looking back to Diana, Bruce seemed to grow another inch as he took in a deep breath and puffed out his chest, "Get me anything and everything you can on that alien technology. Hal, call Lexcorp. We'll work together on this. If this alien has super powers and he's mentally unstable, we have to act now."
Diana scribbled notes onto her tablet. As the COO, she felt it was her duty to ask the question which hung on everyone else's lips.
"Sir, are you planning to do something yourself?"
"I have to Diana," Bruce said as he turned back to the window and watched the stars in the sky steadily brighten.
"I'm Batman." | Helping people is good. It's what Ma says. Helping people is the best thing you could ever do.
Lois is walking me down the street. She does this all the time. It helps me with my powers. I need the sun to get my strength - that's what everyone told me.
"Only a bit further to the doctor, Clark," she smiles. But it's not the right type of smile. It's one of the sad smiles. She looks tired. She should rest more, like me. Superman always sleeps for the right length of time, because Superman is a hero.
Suddenly I hear a noise. It is like a cat getting its tail stepped on. Was it far away? No, Lois can hear it too. She is looking around for it. Then we both see it.
There is a girl in the middle of the road. She has her foot stuck in a grate. But there is a truck coming. And it is trying to stop but it can't.
This looks like a job for Superman.
Lois is shouting my name as I let go of her hand and run into the middle with the girl. Faster than a speeding bullet.
The girl cries as I pull her foot out of the grate. I hope she is not hurt. That would be awful.
I throw the girl out of the way. More powerful than a locomotive.
The only thing that anyone can do is watch. Is it because I forgot to change into my Superman suit? My secret identity is gone.
Oh well. It's worth it to save someone.
The truck is very close now.
Helping people is the best thing you could ever do.
-------------
Superman is my all-time favourite hero. I can only hope I did him justice. | 2016-03-04T11:05:17 | 2016-03-04T10:58:32 | 29 | 13 |
[WP] A mountain climber near the summit of Mt Everest discovers the body of a man holding a note. The note explains that Mt Everest isn't actually a mountain at all. | I took this prompt in a slightly different direction than OP intended I think. Hope you all like the results!
It is largely considered one of the most dangerous obstacles a person can undertake. In a remote part of the world, populated by farmers and nomads who have yet to see the technological revolution, a mountain stands beyond all others. Tibetans call it Chomolangma, "mother goddess of the world." At almost 9,000 meters it is the highest mountain in the world. Everest. The name has become synonymous with impossible, titanic, or even insurmountable. Over 200 people have died trying to climb to the peak. Frozen corpses embedded in snow warn those who would try the same. Even animals don't tread at the highest points, as oxygen becomes too thin for life.
Men were not meant to go there. But, all the same, I have endeavored to ignore such thoughts.
Months of training have conditioned my body for the harsh cold and thin oxygen. I've alerted the officials in the Nepal government, hired a guide, and spent the last five days fluctuating between shivering and sweating. It was five days of uninterrupted focus. Carelessness would result in failure of task and possibly a failure to remain alive. But my guide was kind, and our steps were determined. Day after day of wind, cold, and rock. Surrendering never entered my mind. Each step I took felt like another little victory over the mountain. These steps were points of conquering the impossible, and each one was a testament to my will.
On the sixth day we approached the summit. Above even the clouds, it was hard not to feel godlike as I looked down on the mass of rock I have scaled. It was not impossible. It was titanic, but not insurmountable. The peak was covered in the flags of men and women who had been here before. Nealy every country I could think of was here; other testaments to will.
But there was something I was not expecting; a corpse. I had seen a fair amount on the trek, but not many this close to the top. Even stranger was his position. It was sitting, legs crossed, and appeared to be staring back down the mountain. In its clenched frozen fist was a piece of paper. Wanting to give this person the recognition they deserve for their feat, I began to search for identification; starting with the paper.
It read:
"Congratulations,
You have toiled to do what many called impossible. Through willpower and sweat, you are here among the elite few to ever lay eyes on this place. You were told the challenge was too much, and turned to prove them wrong.
What do you see here friend? Do you see the result of man's unyielding ability to persevere? Indomitable strength of the body?
What you see is nothing friend. This place is home to few creatures, and a man can not raise a family here. It is a cold, lonely corner of the world we have dedicated our efforts to, because it is taxing on the body and therefore worthwhile. But difficulty does not always breed value my dear friend. What have you gained by setting foot here? Will you be loved more? Revered by your peers? Labeled special and unique?
You were all these things and more before you ever climbed a mountain. You deserve love, and respect, and pride without this frozen landscape. She is not a testament to your achievements, but a distraction from where your focus truly lies. Here you have no friends or family. The mountain only gives you the threat of death and hardship.
The mountain is nothing other than a pile of earth we have deemed valuable, when true value should be placed elsewhere.
I was taken by this mountain by choice. Standing at the zenith, I felt no more happiness than when I had climbed. I stare back down this path and realize I have nothing to go back to. My life has been an abandonment of the true hardships that bring value to life like love, hope, and compassion. This isolated pile of rock was my distraction from a life lived unfulfilled.
Go home friend. Tell your loved ones about this journey, then move on. Live your life surrounded by love, not ice and rock.
If you worry for my remains; do not. There is no one below who cares to claim my corpse. Please return this letter to my persons as to allow other climbers to read it.
With all the love I can summon, travel home friend."
| I found the note in the man's hand. It was about a days hike from the summit, and it was found off the side of the trail. I hate to use the term "it", but there's so many bodies on the mountain they lose identity. The bodies are now simply pollution on the mountain. I was scared, startled and bothered by the first one. Now, now they don't bother me.
It's almost as if the mountain is alive and the climbers are tributes to a slumbering god. The sherpas use the bodies as markings along the trail to ensure we're on the right path. They also tell us that we can easily end up like them if we aren't careful, I'm trusting these men with my lives much like these climbers did, or didn't.
The note was faded and dated to 1972. The ice was thick, but you could still read it. I pulled the note from the man's hand. I had hoped it was a letter to his family, his friends, his loved ones. It was my duty to bring this note home.
It read...
"To whomever finds my body,
My name is Samuel Wright and I come from Essex London. The date is the 7th of July, 1972. My expedition failed. I tried to trek the mountain alone with a single sherpa despite the warnings of other climbers. We encountered an avalanche. My sherpa has died. My leg is broken and I cannot move further. By the time night falls, I will be dead.
Respect this mountain. Respect its power. Respect its existence, for it isn't a mountain but a god. It is a god of life and of death. It brings awe and horror. Do not underestimate it.
Please tell my family I love them and I died doing what I love.
Sincerely,
Sam"
I took the note and put it in my pocket as the sherpas call out to us. | 2014-08-24T07:39:01 | 2014-08-24T05:04:42 | 181 | 21 |
[WP] You just sent in your DNA to one of those ancestry sites. After eight weeks, you can’t figure out why your results have not shown up. Then, two men with dark suits show up at your front door. They have some news regarding your results. | "Director Sir, two things. First: the game development team has finished the sequel to *Gears of War* with the updated information on the Locusts, like you asked. I nod and look up at him, only see a look of concern. 'And second," he begins, obviously worried, "the boys down in the data department got a ping for a new, unidentified species."
I look at him, sigh, and put my hands to my head.
In my 34 years of service, I've only had two other unidentified readings. And both were major headaches full of paperwork and an endless rush of additional research to do. Not to mention the creation of multimedia.
"Alright." I say, half sighing as I do. "Tell the knobs I'll be right down." My assistant nods and leaves the office. I stand up, feeling my bones creak as I do. I look at the wrinkles on my hands and wonder how many more this assignment will add. I leave my office and head towards the elevator to go down to the main monitoring floor.
*Who's in my Double Helix Tree DNA Ancestor Tracking and Tracing Company* (or WIMDHTDNATATC) does exactly what our website says we do: You send us DNA Samples and we look at who is in your family tree, dating back as far as our records allow. What we don't disclose publicly is that we also look at *what* is in your family tree. We also don't disclose that we work for the government.
See, as a branch of the United States Department of Homeland Security, it's our duty to protect the country from all domestic threats and make sure our populace knows how to fight back. Whether those threats are on the surface, above the atmosphere, or below sea level. And in my time here, I've protected our country from Aliens, from mutated bugs, from underground cave people, etc...
But it is very tiring work. When I first started, I was expecting wondrous adventure. Intergalactic war. Fighting zombies or invisible battles underneath our biggest cities. But it's none of that. It's entirely just boring, uneventful government work. Paperwork, reports, making video games, books, or films that people think are fictional that actually contain real information on how to fight back. And as I stand in the elevator going down, I think about how much longer I can keep going. The only solace I have is that I'm still *technically* protecting the world.
The elevator dings and the doors open to the world's most elaborate monitoring room. I step out and gaze upon the rows and rows of cubicles and people at work. I rarely ever come down here and every time I do, I always think of that train scene from *The Simpsons Movie*. it's like whoever designed this place used it as their base plan.
My first reaction is to look at the massive interactive map of the US which sits dead center of the biggest wall in the room, on which I see a bright red ping showing Laramie, Wyoming as the location of the anomaly. I turn towards the back end and make my way to the main hub, an enclosed soundproof room. There I see my assistant standing with Stacy, the Hub manager. I walk in and close the door behind me.
"Alright. Stacy." I say, not even trying to hide my displeasure. "What've you got?"
"Laramie, Wyoming. College town home to the Cowboys. We got an unidentified reading from a student there named Willard Finn. He's from Montana but is going to school there." The monotone stoniness of her voice always makes me feel sad. She's been doing this almost as long as I have, and yet, an entirely new discovery is still just another day's work for her, like it is for me.
"Okay" I reply. "So Laramie, same place we found the Locust however long ago, and now there's another new species? Seems odd." For the first time in a long time, I feel interested. We've never had a new discovery in the same place as a previous. If this is as interesting as I think it is, I could justify doing some field work myself.
My Assistant perks up from behind us both. "Director, Sir, I pulled the actual report from the Data department." He says as he hands me a clipboard with the report. I give the description section a quick read over when something catches my eye.
"An Amphibious vegan species with genetic matches to Albino Bison?" I didn't mean to say it out loud but I was so caught off guard. Continuing to read, another fact catches my fading eysight. "A 0.0027% match? How on Earth did the system catch a reading that small?" I've never seen a reading smaller than at least 1.3%. So this is especially perplexing.
"Well, we've noticed that the system has been much more efficient in detecting even the smallest traces of non-Human DNA after we let the new hire, Garrus, re-calibrate it." My assistant says. I make a mental note to read up on Garrus and his pay later.
Stacy speaks up again. "With all of that out of the way. We've been watching his movements since the test came in. But this Willard Finn disappeared completely after a friend of his told him about the DNA test."
"Wait." I say, "He didn't even know he did the test?"
"Apparently, a friend of his convinced him to use an extra testing kit he had after a particularly rowdy college party." Stacy said while pulling Snapchat footage from the party up on screen in which I see a man with long hair and the bushiest beard I've ever seen. He definitely looks like a bison. She then switches to a camera feed that's dated this morning which is looking down what looks like a Dormitory hallway. "After he found out, packed everything and left. But we haven't been able to see where he left to."
"Which means he knows about his DNA." I state. Normally, most people have no clue they're part whatever-other-race they are. But if he's running. That doesn't just mean he knows what he is.
It means he knows about us.
"Besides that report, we don't know much else." Stacy says. "Who knows what kinda power he's capable of or how dangerous he could be."
Stacy is right. And with that, I've made a decision. I turn to my assistant. "I want an agent to plant something incriminating in his dorm room. Once it's done, I want you to file a missing persons report." I order. "And when it eventually gets escalated to FBI, I want that order sent to me personally." He gives me a confused look.
"Director, Sir, are you going out yourself?" He asks, obviously worried. Stacy gives me the same look, which is the first time I've seen any emotion out of her in a long time.
"Yes, but I'll bring a team with me." I state. "A good Director wouldn't send their agents to do anything he wouldn't do themselves."
I look at the feed of Willard running out of the dorm hallway and pause it on his face. I'll find you, Willard. And I bet it'll be just as interesting as my mind says it will be.
&#x200B;
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*Thank you for reading! If you have any critiques, comments or notes, please feel free to leave them below! All helps and suggestions are appreciated! And if you're interested in reading more of my work, I post all stories I write to* r/ThawsanWrites | “Kelly Hsu?” the older one asks.
“Yes?” My heartbeat barges into my ears; I don’t like strangers knowing my name, especially not ones in dark suits looming in my doorframe.
“Tim Dietermann: Frampton, Dietermann & White.” He extends a little white card to me that repeats what he just said, plus “Esq.” and some phone numbers.
“My associate, Govind Ashtikar.” Tim gestures, and Govind opens an attaché case and hands Tim a pale blue envelope. Tim hands the envelope to me.
*Strange.* The outside of the envelope gives me no indication of its contents; it feels soft and sturdy, like money.
Before I can open it, Govind removes a clipboard from his case, and hands it to Tim. Tim hands it to me.
“Please sign to acknowledge receipt.” I try to read the paper clipped to the board, but the small print and large words defy skimming.
“It just says that we gave you the envelope,” Govind says, softer in voice than Tim. He smiles.
Tim hasn’t so much as blinked, but irritation radiates off him.
“Please sign to acknowledge receipt,” he repeats. Govind gives me an encouraging smile, and I *do* see “acknowledge receipt” on the paper. *Okay, I guess...*
I sign on the X.
Tim plucks the clipboard and pen from me and hands them to Govind, who returns them to his case.
“Ms. Hsu, Dambala Ventures, LLC, the parent company of Dambala Laboratories Incorporated, has retained my firm to defend its interests in U.S. Patent 14,524,404, which I will call the ‘404 patent.’”
I’ve never heard of Dambala *anything*, and I don’t know patents from patent leather. I say so, far less cleverly: “What?”
“My client recently learned that a saliva sample putatively taken from your body contains DNA that infringes on the 404 patent.”
My DNA what now?
“Did you recently submit a saliva sample for DNA analysis?”
“Uh, yeah. But— to find out more about my mom’s side. Like, are we Vikings or whatever.”
“Your recreational interest in your genetics bears no relevance on my client’s claim.”
I hardly parse Tim’s words before he launches into a well-rehearsed speech.
“The envelope in your hands contains a pre-suit subpoena, authorized under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 27 and signed by Judge Christopher Barkley-Hughes of the Southern District of Vermont. This subpoena compels you to immediately produce 2.5 milliliters of your blood to confirm patent infringement.”
I draw my hands to my chest instinctively, still clutching the envelope.
“Failure to comply with this lawfully ordered subpoena may result in confinement in contempt of court.”
I look to Govinder for help. He smiles sadly.
“Please present your preferred arm to my associate for phlebotomy.”
I find my voice, finally, squeaky with panic: “Wait! Wait, I haven’t even *read* the... the subpoena yet.”
“Then read it now.”
My hands shake as I fumble with the envelope flap. I tear too hard and the contents jostle free, fluttering to my floor in disarray.
Neither man moves to help me.
Tears spring to my eyes.
“Can’t I... can I get my own lawyer?”
“Certainly. Can your attorney join us within the next—“ Tim checks his watch. “—fifty-six minutes?”
“I— I don’t know any attorneys.”
“Subsection 113.11bb of the Revised Patent Act authorizes the imposition of opposing party fees and expenses incurred as a result of delayed compliance with a lawful subpoena.”
I can’t even begin to understand that.
“It means you’ll have to pay us to come back,” Govinder translates.
Tim bristles harder, somehow.
Chastised, Govinder adds “...and you should know he charges $900 an hour.”
If he means to give me some hope, he clearly hasn’t looked around my crummy apartment. I can’t afford that.
...I probably can’t even afford my own lawyer.
Shit.
“Isn’t there anything else I can do?” I beg Govinder.
Govinder looks at Tim. “Well...”
Tim glares. Aha!
“Please, please...” I lock eyes with Govinder. He licks his lips.
“Dambala authorized us to sell a limited number of licenses to the 404 patent. $55 per month, direct deposit only.”
My budget flashes before my eyes.
“I... yes. I want that.”
Govinder withdraws more paper from his case, this time an easy-to-read form, as Tim scoffs and leans against my doorframe. I write a check for the first installment and authorize indefinite automatic transfers.
The lawyers leave.
All the tension keeping my body upright goes too, and I slide down the door in relief.
Then I hear Tim say, in a much lighter tone: “Okay, can you be the bad guy next time?”
“She thought she was descended from *Vikings*,” someone snorts. Surely not Govinder?
Never opening my fucking door again. | 2020-07-19T11:30:28 | 2020-07-19T10:51:09 | 60 | 16 |
[WP] You applied for a job at google, everything goes well and only one interview remains: They'd just like an explanation for your search history. | The knock on my door came like a blast of thunder. I jumped up in my armchair and looked at the time. Eight past midnight.
"Who's that?" I called. The armchair was so soft I didn't want to get up for no good reason.
"I'm Ms. Vernon from Google. We scheduled an interview today, remember?"
I groaned and shambled to the door. "You're six hours late. Can't you come back—"
The moment I unlocked the door, a pair of bulky robots burst inside and grabbed hold of my arms. Following them was a middle-aged woman all dressed in black.
"What're you doing to me? Let me go!" I shouted.
"Your interview has begun," she said sweetly. "I suggest that you watch your tone."
The robots dragged me to the living room and forced me into my armchair, while Ms. Vernon perched herself on the piano stool. When they were certain I wasn't going to try and run, the robots released my arms and stepped back.
"You can't just bring your private enforcers into my home," I said. "I have rights—"
"You signed your rights away in the job application contract, remember?" She waved a Google tablet before me, the offending document on display. "Along with your rights to sue for any bodily harm caused, so I suggest you behave yourself."
"I thought I was supposed to meet one of your top executives," I said. "Who are you?"
"I'm the special assistant to our COO," she said, swiping her fingers over the tablet. "But that's not for discussion. We're actually pretty impressed with your scores. Why, I'd say you're almost a prodigy, especially for a fifty-year-old man."
"Do you manhandle all your star applicants?"
"No," she said, voice cold. "Only the ones with a suspect search history."
I gulped; despite my earlier bravado and indignation, I knew I was in true danger now. Even as she slid her tablet across the coffee table to me, I was tensing up.
"Explain—" she said. "—why you don't have a search history."
My jaw worked soundlessly as I looked at the robots. Their red eye slits watched me impassively. Someone had turned the inside of my mouth into a desert. "I—I—"
"Nothing at all," she said. "Not a single search performed on Google in your entire life. How is that possible in the twenty-second century?"
I could only shake my head.
"We even checked the archives of Bing during the days before we bought Microsoft. Nothing from you. Where did you learn to code? How do you even use the Internet?"
"I don't," I said, face flushing. "I—I visit libraries. I borrow a lot of books—really, I can show you my study—"
"Pretend for one second that I'm an idiot," she said. "That I believe your horseshit about books. How do you remember everything you read? The primary needs of mankind are Google search and wifi, before even food. How do you survive without using a search engine?"
I licked my lips. "I go outside. A lot. I buy things from stores, I talk to professors, I borrow books. I can show—"
"Liar. You've done something to conceal your search history." She snapped her fingers, and the robots seized me again. "But Google knows. Google always knows. We'll find the truth."
"I'm not lying," I screamed. "I haven't even switched my computer on for a day!"
"You use your phone."
"I use my phone for calls!"
Her eyes widened. "You monster."
"I'm speaking the truth! Please, no, please ..." My pleas and tears went unanswered as they marched me out of the door.
All around us, my neighbors watched silently through the lens of their phones. No doubt they were using VideoGoogle to discover my crime. The only thing I'd ever wanted was to work at Google like my father before me. But the woman's eyes told me all I needed to know. I, the last of the Zuckerbergs, had just failed my entire line.
***
Edit: minor error
*Come to [The Nonsense Locker](http://reddit.com/r/nonsenselocker) for more stories!* | "I'm writing a novel."
"You're writing a novel," the interviewer puts his hands on the desk. I give a smile that I hope looks like a smile and not like a grimace. "A novel about...what, exactly?"
"A novel about...guns. And...sharks...in tornadoes. And..uh...well, you know there was one chapter where the main character decided to experiment with--"
"Thank you, Miss Baker, we have the details. You don't need to go into them again."
I think I'm sweating. I think I have boob sweat. And back sweat. Sweat on top of sweat. I want to reach up and wipe my forehead but I'm afraid that will make me look even more nervous.
"I...if I can just say one thing. I just want to say that I never googled any of those things while I was at work. You know I rarely even google *myself* at work. And all of the gun things...I know how it looks with the facebook stalking and--"
"We can't see your facebook history, Miss Baker," the interviewer said. "Yet."
I cross my legs and uncross them, then cross them again.
"Look, Miss Baker. As long as you don't do this at work we'll be fine with it. I just have one more question. What is *this* particular search history about, and why is it so frequent?"
I feel the red rush to my cheeks.
"I just...really, really, really like Rebecca Black."
---
Thanks for reading :). For other stories check out and subscribe to /r/Celsius232 | 2016-06-03T05:58:09 | 2016-06-03T05:45:01 | 351 | 38 |
[WP] We finally make contact with an alien civilization, however as it happens we are also the first civilization they've come in contact with. We're able to communicate, but it's awkward because no one is sure what to say. That is, until... | "I am here, I want to contact."
That was the first message we received. I was only a child then. I remember the word spreading around the school. The teachers standing in circles talking, the students running around quoting the message. I went home that night and read articles.
The message came from a system twenty two light years away. There was a small rocky planet orbiting a small cool star, tidally locked and in the habitat zone. The astronomers at SETI had received the message months before and kept in under raps. It had been broadcasted in English, apparently they had known about us for quite sometime.
The governments of the world came together and built a probe and sent it hurtling faster than anything had before towards the system. Inside the probe contained separated photons from a single particle of light. The photons would operate in unison and instantaneously no matter the distance. Before we sent the probe we broadcasted our own message, "We want contact, probe sent, travel time 50 years."
So then we waited.
I was working for CETC (Center of Extraterrestrial Contact) when the probe finally reached it's target and settled into orbit around the one small planet. Images came in, the world was shrouded in clouds, the atmosphere similar to our own, it's temperature relatively uniform regulated by a massive global storm. We saw no evidence of civilization but the world was teaming with plant-life and seas.
We had planned out our first conversation for the past fifty years. Every possible answer and response had been though-out tested and rewritten thousands of times by now. We sent our first message.
"We are here, we want to contact," and we waited. There was no response. Weeks passed. We stayed up late, resent the message hundreds of times, drank coffee and played ping-pong. Maybe we had the wrong target, maybe they had died out.
I was sitting at my console late one night, reading and listening to music. The rest of the CETC works had long since gone home for the evening. We were still broadcasting our message, every hour on the hour like we had for the past six weeks. I was just starting to settle into a nap, a night shift ritual when I heard a ding. I slowly opened my eyes expecting to have received a text from my wife.
"You are here?" The letters appeared on my console and across the big main screen of the command center. I choked on my coffee burning my throat. My heart thundered as I contacted command. I called Reed our CO as I looked up the protocols for response.
"Reed! We've got a response!" I stammered to the man on the other end. I could hear the him on the other end shaking off sleep.
"What?" He groaned.
"We've made contact!"
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Follow the protocols and respond ASAP. I'll make the calls," He said.
I quickly looked up the response. You are here? - Yes, we want to contact. I punched in the response and waited. Minutes went by, they felt like an eternity. I drummed my hand on the desk, tapped my feet on the floor. There was a ding and the large letters appeared on the main screen.
"Who are you?"
I looked it up. The response - The people of Earth. I punched it in and waited another eternity. Responses and answers racing through my mind. A ding and another message popped up.
"What is Earth?"
I typed the response, "The third planet in our system." Waited. Reed and others started to shuffle in. Nobody talked. They read the dialogue to the left on the big screen.
S - We are here, we want to contact.
R - You are here?
S - Yes, we want to contact.
R - Who are you?
S - The people of Earth.
R - What is Earth?
S - The third planet in our system.
R - .....
We waited. Some of people started to talk. They were wearing sweat pants and t-shirts, hair wild. Reed asked for telemetry to pinpoint where on the planet the message was coming from. There was another ding and a new massage appeared on the main screen.
"I am planet too."
I started to look up the response when Reed interrupted, "That's not in the PRL." I put my hands down on the desk. I didn't know what to say. Reed was rubbing his chin. "Telemetry?"
"It doesn't make sense," came a voice from the other side of the room.
"Explain," Reed asked motioning for telemetry to be brought up on the main screen. An image of the planet popped up.
"It's not coming from anywhere on the surface of the planet, sir. It appears to be coming from the planet itself," The man at the other side of the room said. The image of the planet was pulsing as the computers struggled to make sense of the data.
| They found us first, and sent along the schematics for their device.
They didn't know much about us other than our general location and that we were capable of producing radio signals. The device didn't even land on earth. We had to retrieve it from a low orbit around Mars.
Didn't take much of an engineer to see what it was: an extremely powerful antenna, that used quantam teleportation only a few years ahead of our own capabilities. Two buttons, one labeled with a vertical slash, one with a horizontal. Two lights above those buttons that blinked on command from the matching terminal on their planet. A rudimentary morse code device.
The radio had been up and running for around ten years now. The communication had advanced rapidly, from a 40 billion dollar game of 'Simon Says' to eventually being able to work out that 'they' were around 600 million light years away - far beyond what either civilization was capable of in terms of space flight.
We learned about their geography, and shared as much as could be without violating 'planetary security' - the fox news nuts had coined that one early on. Slowly but surely, it became apparent that neither civilization had anything revolutionary to share.
After that, we opened up the terminal to other conversations - geologists learned about the mineral make up of their planet, musicians discussed musical theory, we even learned about sex on their planet (which was slightly more ritualistic than our own habits.)
Still, interest quickly waned, and 'they' faded as seemingly all cultural phenomenons did. It became a tourist attraction, a stop on the campaign trail, a make-a-wish.
That was, until the Miss Universe Pageant winner sent an innocent greeting, "Hello from Miss Universe! We hope to see you at the pageant next year!"
The first response came back immediately - which was rare. They seemed to have always taken the same caution that we did in considering and filtering our messages.
MISS UNIVERSE
?
?
?
UNQUALIFIED
!
UNQUALIFIED
!
UNQUALIFIED
!
We thought the machine was broken at first, especially because there were no responses after that.
We were wrong.
We were so very, very wrong.
| 2014-09-05T10:35:46 | 2014-09-05T10:24:48 | 41 | 22 |
[FF] In 200 words, describe a ghastly and very unpleasant body transformation. Can be mechanical, biological, magical or whatever you like. (possibly NSFW) | She woke up, instinctively knowing it was going to happen today. There was a terrible, aching tightness in her belly, and as she swung her legs out of bed, a stabbing pain pierced her body. It was starting. Her body was shedding itself, tearing itself apart from the inside out. There was nothing she could do to stop it, and she knew that the only option left was to pray that she, and those she loved, would be able to pick up the pieces when it ceased. She had been changing for days; shifts in her mood, her appetite, her extremities bloated and swollen and her skin erupting with painful and unsightly blemishes.
Her husband appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, and she raised bleak and hopeless eyes to him. He hesitated, going pale.
“What is it baby?”
She hid her face from him. She knew what was happening but wanted to hide the truth a little longer; it was a futile endeavor, though, as she shuddered with the force of another wave of pain.
“I’m fine.” She hissed, clenching her teeth. He should go. He needed to go. For his own protection.
He sighed, compassion in his voice. “Do you want Midol, baby?”
| EDIT: I clearly missed that 200 words bit. I was wondering why everyone's story was so short. Well anyway I spent a while on this since I typed it all out on my ipod so I'm going to leave it. If the length offends just send me to the bottom of the page
James woke up to an odd tingling in his toes. Attempting g to ignore it, he rolled over and clamped his eyes shut. The tingling only increased, becoming a sharp pain. James sat up and threw off his sheet. He reached toward his toes and began to inspect them with fingers that had begun to tingle as well. Soon the sharp pain was all the way into his arms and legs. James was now very frightened. Was the knot in his stomach from fear, or was it part of whatever was happening to him? He quickly decided it was not just fear as a wave of pain flowed through his whole body. He gripped his head with burning fingers and screamed. The pain in his fingertips was unbearable. He pulled them from his head and looked at them through eyes blurred from agony. The tips of his fingers seemed to be stretching, getting ever so slightly longer and longer until the suddenly burst open violently. The bone had ripped through skin, getting longer still and sharper, ten white points oozing red. With another burst of searing pain James knew the same thing had happened to his toes. He shared through dim eyes in shock. This wasn't happening, it couldn't be, there had to be a way to stop it, to go back, it had to be a dream but it wasn't. What little James could still see was red, and he was dimly aware of the feeling of wetness but he couldn't even think through how much blood he was losing when his head felt like this, his whole face was on fire. The skin on his forehead split open before he even realized it had been stretching and two points of bone began to push through and begin to curl upwards. He wanted to faint, to die, anything to escape this torture. His body was shaking, muscles spasming, limbs twisting in agony. He felt something small and hard in his mouth, then two small somethings then three and four and he barely had the presence of mind to know it was his teeth until he felt the sharp edges of their replacements against his tongue. He couldn't tell if he had cut his tongue against them or not since his whole mouth already tasted like blood from his teeth falling out and his fangs cutting through the gums. Blood streamed down his face from his forehead and mouth, from his fingers and toes, from everywhere. A voice at the door was frantically crying "James, James!" The door flew open and someone screamed and then the scream got quieter as whoever it had been ran out of the house. The pain in his hands and feet jolted again as the metatarsals extended, and the ball of his feet became like a new joint. The ankle bone ripped through the flesh of his heel and became a spike, and the same thing happened to his elbows. He writhed and thrashed as his body twisted and changed. His back arched violently and then quickly bent forward as each vertebrae punched through his back. His rib cage expanded, the sternum coming to a point. The skin of his chest stretched but did not burst. His bed was a pool of blood, dotted here and there with the odd clump of deep red foam from his shredded mattress. His mind was aware of nothing but torture, and whatever small part of him was aware of anything wished only for death. And then James died. And the monster James had become was born.
| 2014-09-12T10:42:14 | 2014-09-12T10:34:54 | 28 | 16 |
[WP] Some insane asylums are actually prisons for wizards. You are a normal person that got sent to the wrong one by accident.
Viewpoint character being insane optional.
Alternative prompt: write from the point of view of an "orderly". | NSFW language
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Day 1: They told me I was “mentally unbalanced” which is what my friend was called in high school, when he decked that bully and they needed a reason to punish him. I don’t think that’s what i’m like. I don’t think this was just an excuse to send me somewhere, but I don't believe them either. But they made it clear that what I thought wasn’t “what normal people think.” whatever, like they have their shit together anyway. Yeah, I might think the government are trying to steal my feet, not my feet-feet, but my spirit feet, which they are, but they can’t even fucking spell.
I was suppose to go to “Bilgewater institute” but I saw the sign when they brought me! it’s called “Blindwand institute” Whatever, I guess it’s less about who has their shit together and more about who looks like they have their shit together. And this place looks like it has it’s shit together. Everything is impossibly clean and orderly, I mean it is a mental institution, but jesus, it feels like nurse Ratchet took a bunch of meth and was given free reign, at least I’m allowed personal effects (they better not expect my room to be that fucking neat.). Someone is knocking, I think it’s an orderly to take me to my first therapy session; I’ll write again soon, shit, the doc will probably ask me to keep a journal anyway. docs love journals.
Day 2: ok, this isn’t ok. Maybe I am sick in the head, because this shit is fucking crazy. I swear to god I left my journal open, my pencils laying around, my clothing on the floor, my blinds closed when I went to bed. But I woke up today and everything is perfectly neat. Maybe it’s the stress of a new home.
the other patients don’t seem to want much to do with me. They seem to stick together in groups that are pretty close nit. As of now, I’m sitting in the commons writing and no matter how I try, no one will have a conversation with me, though I know they can, as they spend most of their time talking to each oth- Holy fuck. fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. no.no fucking way. no. That picture just moved! what the fuck. no. I’m not crazy… no. I’m “unbalenced” there is no way that I saw that. It was a trick of the eye. no.nononono. sht, it’s time for my meeting with the doc, should I tell him about this?
Day 3: When I was waiting outside the docs office I heard him on the phpone. I couldn’t make out what he was saying too well, but from what I could gather he was trying to transfer me t another institution, but couldn’t seem to give a reason. he just kept saying that this was a place only for “extremely special cases.” But I’m starting think that’s me, this shit is getting….. wierd. Third day in a row that my room has been cleaned in my sleep, but the log on my door indicates no one has been coming in; maybe the janitor just doesn’t care enough…. but there’s more. Whenever I’ve been with the other patients I swear to god that I’m hearing voices. Just whispers, somehow appearing in my head. I was suppose to just be suicidal, or depressed or something, I don’t know, I wasn’t listening, maybe there was some ADD in there or something.
Day 4: Fuck this place.
Day 5: The pictures are still moving.
Day 6: Maybe I’m delusional… That’s why I don’t think I’m crazy enough to be here. I spent all day shattering my water glass on the floor and watching it reassemble itself. Where are these other crazies from? I swear to god, after an hour of smashing one of them said “Fucking muggles” what the fuck is a muggle?!?!?
Day 7: I just realized that none of us are being given medication…. is this some kind of sick experiment?
Day 8: I finally told the doc all the things I’ve been seeing. He assured me that these were normal symptoms of my illness and that he’d "up my medications." After seeing my face he quickly said, “I meant “treatment”” and had the orderly usher me out of his office. I swear to god I saw him pull a book off the shelve titled “Muggle medication: A guide to Masking...” I didn’t catch the rest. Where the fuck am I?
Day 9: fucking owls. Everywhere.
Day 10: I destroyed everything in my room before sleep, it was fixed in the morning. How did they put my bed back on the frame, with me, without waking me?
Day 11: The pen I used today carved the words into my hand. The fuck is this?
Day 12: New patient today, teenager with a scar on his forehead. Kept muttering about the power of names.
Day 13: acceptance. I’m crazy. Magic is real and I’m crazy. I’ve begun talking to the moving photos.
Day 14: I told the doctor my discoveries, he told me I was delusional and possibly schizophrenic. Whatever.
Day 15: The kid with the scar tells me he’s breaking out, that he smuggled in a wand. I would ask if he’s crazy, but I believe in magic now.
Day 20: He blew up the wall between our rooms and then the wall leading outside. Fuck this, I’m out, went back to bed.
Day 21: the kid with a scar is a moving picture in the newspaper.
Day 23: The doc told me I was being moved to another institution after the “incident” with my room and my neighbor's. I’m just glad to leave. I might be insane, but this place is driving me crazy.
Day 27: I arrive at my new institution, “Bilgewater Institute.” Where the fuck was I? I begin asking the photo of the lead therapist in the hall. The nurses lead me away.
| To most people, he was Supervisor Dale Taylor. That’s what it said on his name badge, just above the left breast pocket. To the patients – or inmates, as they called themselves - he was High Inquisitor.
It felt good to be High Inquisitor, or Supervisor, or whatever you wanted to call him. In the end they equaled the same thing. He was the man with the keys. The judge. He decided if you got a big room to yourself, with a window and pleasant view of snow-draped meadows, and he also decided if you never saw sunlight again for the remainder of your life. He was lenient and forgiving as inquisitors went, favoring the carrot over the stick. Each morning he sat in his office with a gigantic mug, filled to the brim with smoking coffee, and the surveyed his little kingdom.
On the last morning before his trip to the OWL. conference, he found an envelope sitting on his immaculate desk. He frowned and looked at it. He normally waited until after his first cup of coffee before going about the day’s work. It featured the OWL insignia. He cracked it open. It contained a patient’s medical records and criminal history. And a brief letter, from the department, apologizing for the last-minute notice. A new patient, Elizabeth Lee, arriving at approximately nine o’clock. He put the letter aside and reexamined the records.
If there was any such thing as a benevolent form of the Gestapo or the NKVD, than it was OWL. When wizards, gypsys, or warlocks brought undue attention to themselves, or otherwise found themselves in the criminal justice system of the North Atlantic Alliance, than OWL, quietly and discreetly, channeled the criminals to facilities such as this one. The only people who would have protested, called for action, were fellow wizard-folk, and by doing so only drew the authorities to them for immediate, swift, silent prosecution.
Psychotic Breaks, Delusions of Grandeur, Schizo-type behavior translated into the illicit practice of magic in these types of hospitals. Dangerous because of its potential threat to national security, profane because of its denial of the state religion. Most people did not know what OWL did exactly among the population, but if they did, they would have approved.
But Elizabeth Lee had no such indicators on her record. She did have one drunk driving offense, six years ago, several weeks after graduation from University. It did include a diagnosis for depression and an anxiety disorder.
He read them and reread them again as his coffee grew cold. He decided to dial his connect at the department.
“Hello,” he said. “This is Taylor. I’m calling about a recent transfer. Is Cooper in?”
“This is Cooper.”
“Jesus, what are you? sick? I didn’t recognize your voice. You sound terrible.”
“I better not be. I’m supposed to give some kind of a spiel at the conference. You will be there, won’t you?”
“Not like I have a choice.”
“Who’s in charge while you’re away?”
“Julien.”
“Anyways, what’s this about a transfer.”
“Did you know anything about this? I’ve got a record for someone named Elizabeth Lee. She doesn’t meet the criteria as far as I can tell. There’s no offence on her record. Also, I only received the record this morning. She’s due here in less than an hour. That’s never happened before. I was trying to see what the angle is on this thing.”
“Well,” Cooper said, clearing his throat, “I do happen to know about this particular case, as a matter of fact, and –“ Cooper paused for a second, as if he were making sure no one was around “ – listen, Taylor, they’re taking a special interest in this one. I don’t know specifics, per say, but ignore the fact that she doesn’t fit the typical profile… Listen, I hate to leave you in the dark, and I don’t know much myself, but apparently, this woman was creating quite a bit of noise about the whole OWL system of prosecution. Special prosecutions. According my superior, this is a dangerous form of psychopathy, with widespread potential consequences.”
“Cooper, that’s about the most vague and meaningless thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Listen, I’d recommend just dropping it and processing the patient. I’m just saying that they’ve taken a keen interest and making sure she ends up at your particular facility for an extended stay. Forget what her record says. This comes from on high.”
They hung up. He left his coffee untouched. He examined the stubble on his face in the metallic surface of the filing cabinet. He couldn’t decide if Cooper was trying to say that she was a wizard or an open wizard sympathizer, bringing unwanted attention to the issue. He had heard once before that the former director of OWL, a sadist son of a bitch by the name of Walter Sandoval, had done his best to bring back old school, Spanish-inquisition-style torture methods to help uncover networks of wizards in the civilian population. He had later stepped down under rumors that he had numerous personal enemies and competitors arrested as wizards, stowed away until they went genuinely insane. He had no doubt that occasional abuses of power happened in the upper echelons of OWL, but they had remained rumors and whispers until this file appeared on his desk.
A police cruiser dropped Elizabeth Lee off at 9:04, as her stay was court ordered. Dale Taylor signed the necessary documents and lead her in. She was incredibly young looking. Gaunt, as if she hadn’t eaten more than a handful of saltines in the last week. She smelled bad, but based on what he knew he guessed that she had remained in custody until this rushed transfer. Not much in the way of showers or food other than chips from the vending machine. She said nothing.
“The other patients have already had breakfast, but I’m sure we can find something for you,” he said. She said maintained silence, looking at the ground.
“Why don’t we take a tour of the place, so you know where everything is?”
He lead her through the long hallways. Orderlies escorted the most elderly around. Others dished out prescribed sedatives – the best weapons against energy-consuming, concentration-demanding magic. Men with no light in their eyes and blank expressions watched the TV in the recreation room. Others read books in the corner, mainly harmless, idea-free young adult novels. He pointed things out, introduced her to the other supervisors.
“They’re going to leave me in her forever, aren’t they?” Her first words.
“Who is? And no, there’s plenty of people who recover and leave. This is a hospital, remember? Some people do have court orders and stay here for quite a while, especially the elderly patients, but that’s really not that common,” he lied.
“My Dad. He’s going to make sure I’m one of the ones who stays forever.”
“Who’s your Dad?”
“Terry Stokes.”
A chill traveled up his spine. Terry Stokes was the assistant director, one of the old guard. A name most civilians would know.
“But your last name is Lee.”
“I changed it so he wouldn’t find me. Trust me, I’m never getting out of here.”
“Why would he want to do that?”
“Because I stole money from him, and I threatened to black mail him, and I told him I know all the horrible shit he does. The horrible shit that you do.” Her voice contained no emotion, as if she had accepted this fate long ago.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dale Taylor arrived for the conference. He found Cooper and they got seats together in the auditorium. They used these quarterly conferences to address issues, discuss new drugs and anti-wizard strategies. This one came earlier than normal for some reason, which made everyone anxious. People suspected that meant some type of major reform, a big sweeping announcement or change. The last time his happened was when Walter Sandoval stepped down.
Terry Stokes stepped in front of the mircrophone, and five hundred or so people looked on.
“Inquisitors, for a long time the wizard problem has been growing, to the point where we are no longer able to control it. We are reinstating our emergency action plan in order to cleanse the wizards from our streets. We have full congressional authority on this matter. We have many dangerous men in our facilities, terrorists. We thought we could separate them from the population, even rehabilitate them. This is no longer an option. The problem has grown rampant. The time has come for punishment and retribution.”
EDIT: Fixed some grammar.
| 2014-12-04T13:07:32 | 2014-12-04T12:45:45 | 39 | 13 |
[WP] The "Eye for an Eye Inversion" law allows every life saved to credit the saver one legal murder. The medical profession are now the most feared and revered community. | Business was booming.
In his office at St Thomas' Hospital, overlooking the Thames, Dr Jones leaned back in his chair and smiled. In his younger days, people went into the medical profession for a variety of reasons, altruistic and selfish. Now, with the Net Murder Neutrality law, one more reason was added to that list.
Jones was relatively lucky when the law passed. Having worked in trauma, he had his fair share of lives saved, resulting in a high +/-. The medical profession had evolved too, with the Termination programme the 2nd most popular course in med schools.
He got up, glanced at his watch and yawned. Making his way down to level 2, he nodded to several of his colleagues, while a bunch of year 3 med students scurried past.
'Dr Jones? 5 appointments today, and they are all waiting for you in room 221'
'Thank you Natalie. Everything is set up? Any extenuating circumstances I should be aware of?'
'Not that I'm aware of, sir'
'Right. Let me know my plus-minus afterwards'
Jones strode into the room, and smiled. Five terrified pairs of eyes stared at him. 'Morning everyone! Don't be frightened, trust me, I'm a doctor!'
And pulled the first trigger.
Four terrified pairs of eyes stared at him.
Then three.
Two.
One.
Zero.
Jones wiped his hands on the towel provided. 'Who did we have today?'
'The CIA sent in the first two, the mafia sent the 3rd. No 4 was the son of a billionaire, we think it was the other heir who sent him here, and no 5 was a terrorist. Your plus-minus is now at +53, but there was a bad accident over in Piccadilly so you should be able to bump it up by the end of today'. Jones nodded and smiled.
Business was booming.
---------------------
haven't written anything in years. please be nice :) | I won't pretend I'm some sort of legal professional kid, I don't know shit about the history of the law or whatever, but I know the ins and outs of it like the back of my hand. Hell why am I telling you this, you've gotta know it too, right?
You're kidding me, you don't know? Why did I b- Oh forget it. Okay, there's a scale of designated 'importance', the higher up you are on it, the more people have to be saved for you to be taken out. You save two Class Ones? Congrats, you can kill a Class Two. Get it? Goes all the way to the top, only people immune are foreign leaders and the President himself. Yes, I know the door is locked. Yes I know this is breaking and entering. No! Seriously kid, just pass me the bolt cutters!
You know about me, seeing as you asked to come along on a job. Oh? Do tell. Oh. Huh the Net isn't as accurate as I thought. No, I've got fifty two points of kills, not thirty two, and as far as what I've got left? Well, I've only got twenty nine points left, but I'm not using them all.
Yup, you got it kiddo. This is it. The last job. Glad someone could be here for it anyways. Yeah just pass up the duffel once I'm up the ladder, I'm taking the other bag with me.
Okay, I don't know how much experience you've had on a range boy, but even if you've had days of practice, shooting from a skyscraper is something different. The windspeed, the angles, the thickness of the glass, th- what? Does it matter who it is really? ...They've mostly been contract kills, not 'crimes of pa-' What do you mean, "This one has to be different?" Kid. No ki- Okay.
Yes. Its different. You know Dr. McAlistair? God damn kid I asked if you know him, not to sing his praises! Fucking Christ... You were right about the rivals part though. We were dueling for years, each trying to get more kills to our name than the other. We got rich, we got famous, we started families as we saved lives and snuffed out others, trying to outdo each other. You watch much news? Yeah. About six years ago, there was a murder on Holmes Street Downtown. A young woman killed in her apartment execution-style, brain sprayed all over the walls. No, I know its not unusual, especially not nowadays, but he murdered my fiance so I fail to give a fuck.
It was him. Yes I know for sure, I got his application for the kill from the Bureau of Inversions. Shut up and look down the thermal binoculars please, tell me what you see.
Yeah. Fuck off, I know he's got kids, Melissa was pregnant when he emptied her fucking skull! Kid I've got more than enough points here for you too if you don't shut the fuck up. I'm- Fuck you I'm not crying. Shut the fuck up and give me a fucking range.
2500 feet. 13 miles per hour. Okay. You wanted to see someone taken out? Turn off the thermal and watch.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Thats right you fucking pig, cry over your kids, your fucking whore wife. Fuck you!
Five! That's for Melissa you asshole!
Ugh. I've been waiting to get that off my chest. God damn I hated that guy. Fuck.
Now? Probably retire. Probably. There's nothing I really want to do now, I mean, I could go into politics and try and play President, but going into Congress makes me a target for every fundamentalist and his mother. No, I'm just going to disappear for now. Maybe move to Cuba, who knows, they don't have Inversion laws there.
Yeah, good night kid. Sorry it wasn't much of a lesson. Maybe don't tell people about what happened tonight? Thanks. Huh? Nah, you don't /need/ to submit an application, it's just strongly recommended, skips a lot of police bureuocracy.
Oh, and here's a tip. You really want points? Go help people on suicide hotlines. They're the real killers. | 2015-01-10T09:19:34 | 2015-01-10T08:51:35 | 365 | 99 |
[WP] You tried to commit suicide, but as it turns out you are immortal. Now you have to call someone to help you cut the rope. Awkward. | "Dude, I can't understand you. I think there's a problem with the line. Text me!"
The line went dead. I really should have seen that coming. Speech requires breath, a resource I was at that time severely lacking. I tried to think of how I could explain this through a text but nothing seemed appropriate. There's no social etiquette for cutting your brother down from a wooden support in his basement. After five minutes and only coming up with "Cut me dwn pls kthx" I decided that I was going to have to rely on good old fashioned shock value. He was going to need a picture. Snapchat seemed like the best bet. I didn't want this ending up on some weird suicide fetish site on the internet or something equally humiliating.
"Message sent"
Come on, you know I'm going to message you, check your damn phone.
"Message delivered"
Oh thank god. Immortality apparently didn't mean immunity to pain and everytime I moved the rope rubbed my neck.
"1 screenshot"
YOU SICK FUCK! You think your brother killed himself and you take a fucking screenshot?
About 15 minutes later I heard footsteps hammering across the floor above me, the basement door slam against the wall as it flew open and my brother bound down the stairs.
Hysterical laughter was not the first reaction I was expecting from a man seeing his only sibling dangling from the ceiling, but after 10 minutes of it the novelty was gone. By the time he started cutting me down I was throwing punches at him I was so annoyed. This was when he discovered that he could spin me.
The rope finally snapped when he was half way through and I tumbled to the floor, dizzy, humiliated and pissed off beyond any reasonable measure.
"YOU THINK I'M DYING AND YOU SCREENSHOT THE FUCKING PICTURE? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!"
"Well bro" he giggled, "That's easier said then done. Follow me, we're going to go talk to Mum and Dad" | Gasping and thrashing, the tight noose choked him. The more he moved, the more his neck went red raw and burnt; the more it burnt, the more he thrashed. It went on, and on, until he finally found the appealing sway he was hoping for, back and forth along the bottom floor of his house, the rope attached to the curving balcony above.
In his mind, he swore. Beneath him Mr. Squiggles the brown-and-white ragdoll stared up at him with wide blue eyes and meowed constantly. He was hungry. He was always hungry. It would just be another thing to do, he supposed, if he could get down.
Thankfully he wasn't completely stupid. Hanging, his neck too strong or his luck too great, that flicker of hope as he jumped seemed to have kept him alive. In his ears blared the music from his phone, the last sweet reminder of life he loved...now, turned, to Blurred Lines. He shivered and jerked again, only serving to send pulsations of pain spreading through his body.
God's bollocks, how did that dreadful song get in here?
If only to live to shut it off, he would do just that. Prodding his fingers through the noose, a barrier between rope and burning red flesh he flexed and flailed his other hand to his phone. The first grope served to pull at his shirt, the second his belt, the other a wave at the door watching him in his struggle, Mr. Squiggles below now leaping to attack his feet and missing by a few feet, yet not disturbed by the task at hand; his master had become a toy.
Finally he managed it. Grabbing the headphones and pulling them out, one yank, two yanks and a final third, successful one pulled it into his slowly dulling finger's grasp, the blood draining from them and into his head. With that task complete, he turned off the dreadful song and took a moment to...do something, anything.
I saw the blinding light. I'm not dead. Is it that I am immortal, am I lucky, am I cursed to drop from here and let that fat-pawed creature eat me?
As it turned out, he was immortal. He went to look at his phone as best he could and his head jerked to one side, lopsided, his spine dreadfully broken. The man sighed. It was a terrible day.
Mother would be a terrible idea to phone. What would she say, "You fool! You idiot! You could have landed on the cat! At least do it from a tree in the park, or from a bridge; you'll probably get a park or the bridge named after you then!"
No, not her. His father? Most likely drinking. His brother, who always thought that suicide was fascinating? No, no, he'd probably have him go to hospital to check out his neck that, oddly, began to lose its sense of pain. It would have to be Jim.
Fumbling his way through the short-list of phone contacts, he pressed Jim's name and squirmed to raise it to his tomato-coloured ears.
"Hey bud!" the friendly voice spoke. "You alright? Heard you were all depressed and I was on my way over. You're not doing something weird, are you?"
How could a jelly-necked immortal respond to that? It was a terrible joke that sprung to mind but, as he was so proud of his dad-jokes and terrible dad-dancing, he replied as his mind knew best; "Oh, just...haaarghg-ing around! Oh, b-hiiighghght-t my tongue. C-come...around!"
"On the way already, bud. Hold on. I'll bring a couple drinks over to make you feel better."
"Th-aaarghgnk-kuh you!" and paused, squinting somewhat. "Some ice too, a big bag of it."
"See you soon!"
Have you ever seen the face of someone who finds out not only you hung yourself but survived it, broke your neck, and found out you was immortal? Jim shrieked like a girl and slammed the door shut, took two steps forwards and promptly passed out, banging his head onto the radiator by the wall.
"Ji-hrrhghgnh-m! Oh...b-balls...b-better...call John..." | 2015-01-12T11:11:16 | 2015-01-12T08:30:21 | 21 | 10 |
[WP] A Starbucks Batista has given you Double Chocolaty Chip Crème Frappuccino with soy instead of a Caffè Vanilla Light Frappuccino with no fat milk. Make this as tragic, heart-wrenching and miserable as possible. | "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS GARBAGE!?"
He threw the cup across the ring.
"Getting fired from the WWE isn't enough Batista wants to go ahead and make crappy coffee too!"
The crowd roared as The Rock swayed around the center.
"Cafe vanilla! DO I LOOK LIKE A HIPSTER TO YOU , BATISTA?"
Batista sadly lowers his head, staring at his apron. Then grabs the Mic himself
"First things first, I LEFT. Wasn't fired . Second, I may make disgusting java, but I can still kick your ass"
He drops microphone as they begin to grapple.
* Thank you for the gold, kind stranger. Highest rated comment so far too. I may have to do more prompts now, lol.
| There he was, this empty shell of a legend, merely a copy of what was once a legend in the ring, now his clones working here at Starbucks. It was all part of the initiative to bring about a society like that in the infamous story ‘Brave New World’. The United States Conglomerate Government had started a cloning initiative that created copies of famous figures with lesser intelligences to work in places like McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and even Starbucks.
A Major downside to these clones was their lowered intelligence, often leading to production errors, and the current dilemma. I’d use the last of my Starbucks ration for the month in an attempt to order a Café Vanilla Light Frappuccino with no fat milk, but apparently that was a little too much for this clone because what I received was a chocolaty failure. I was handed a Double Chocolaty Chip Crème Frappuccino. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, or at least, years ago it wouldn’t have been, but due to overpopulation and lack of strict pollution laws for developing countries, the worlds coffee and chocolate supply dwindled to the edge of extinction for these plants. Remakes due to errors of any kind weren’t permitted, and due to a personal condition where my body could not process chocolate correctly, I was now stuck with this beverage that took the last of my ration and there was no recourse.
We stood there, the Starbucks Batista and I, this dimwitted false human who destroyed one of the very few enjoyments I get in life. My lips moved as if they were trying to say something, but the air wouldn’t leave my lips, I couldn’t manage it, something as commonplace as talking became difficult. A knot, the closest thing I could describe the feeling in my throat was a knot, and all I could receive was this blank stare from the Batista-like clone that stood in front of me.
Finally it happened, I couldn’t take it. In the past this would have been a small thing, a simple shrug and remedied within a minute, but not anymore. I didn’t realize what I had done until after the fact when I could reflect on it. In the next few moments there seemed to be a commotion, a cacophony of rage, the symphony of a man disturbed, and I was its composer and performer. I picked the cup up, and threw it on the floor, and my knee’s soon fell into a puddle of the dark brown, murky liquid. The tears came without warning, everything seemed to slow down, and the only thing I could hear was a deep bass bellowing in my chest, my heart pounding away as I accepted what was going on.
“Why… WHY YOU CRUEL BEAST?!”
No response, just a dull dimwitted stare, and that’s how I landed in this current predicament. The official police report comments on the clone having multiple lacerations on their face, all shallow, and non-life threatening, but it was the fact the head had been removed from the rest of the body that put me in my new home behind these bars. I was a damaged product in a flawed system, and so I would spend the rest of my days here, all because of that damned starbucks batista…
| 2015-01-15T06:47:14 | 2015-01-15T06:13:25 | 1,156 | 51 |
[WP] A Starbucks Batista has given you Double Chocolaty Chip Crème Frappuccino with soy instead of a Caffè Vanilla Light Frappuccino with no fat milk. Make this as tragic, heart-wrenching and miserable as possible. | I looked back at the hulking mass of humanity with absolute disdain. It wasn't for the obvious reason though. I pitied Dave Batista and his new career. Once a top wrestling superstar, and more recently breakout action star, Dave had taken a swift fall from grace.
That green apron looked like it was tailored to fit a small child. Couldn't they have given him a bigger one? Did he choose it himself? Probably not. I don't think he is in control of anything at this point in his life.
I stood by and watched another unhappy patron belittle the former superstar. Now he was cursing at big Dave. Something disparaging about his belly button tattoo. That, admittedly, was a low blow. We all make mistakes. Unfortunately for Batista, the reverse tramp stamp was the least of his worries.
Why did he choke out that production assistant? A squabble over filtered water? There was too much irony at play here. Poor guy. He truly walks alone.
| I sat down on the warm grass and made myself comfortable. Back against a large oak tree, sun dappled through the leaves. This couldn't be much better.
It's a shame all of these coffee places serve everything in cardboard these days. I guess I could have got it in a mug but that would involve staying in the coffee shop. People and me don't really work these days.
I take the top off the cardboard cup and inhale. This doesn't smell right. I'm getting no hint of vanilla, and it smells like what?...... chocolate?
I take sip and I immediately feel sick. IT'S NOT THE RIGHT FUCKING DRINK!!
I immediately feel the rage coming. I'm now running towards the coffee shop, drink in hand. I barge through the door and push my way to the front of the line. The young girl behind the counter is terrified, it's probably because I'm screaming at her. I'm demanding she give me what I ordered. She's apologising and saying something about being out of vanilla. I don't know what hse's saying but next thing my drink has been hurled at the wall behind the counter. I hear people shuffling to get away from me and now they're leaving the store.
A teenage boy is laughing at me. I confront him, and next thing I know he's pushed me to the ground. He calls me a stupid old bum and people are telling me to leave. I feel a hand on my arm helping me to my feet. I turn around to look at my saviour and see a very large security guard. He inform me it's time to go back to Berkeley Park and sweeps me through the front door.
I'm out on the street and I'm weeping. I shuffle off towards the park. They don't understand, they just don't. Vanilla Frappucino, that's all I wanted. I had to beg for 2 days to get enough money to buy it from Bellucci's, with their overpriced menu. They don't even recognise me, don't remember me. DON'T REMEMBER HER!!!!
It was her drink. My beautiful Cara. Oh sweet Cara! She used to meet me here every Friday during her break from school. This was her ridiculous drink, not mine. I bought this for her every Friday while she was at school. I bought this for her every Friday when she was in hospita and birng it to herl. This was our drink. She'd make fun of her stupid old man and his long black while she drank her trendy faux-coffee milkshake and I loved every damn minute of it.
This was before she got sick, when she got sick. Once she died, I'd have one every Friday. Every fucking Friday for what, two years? They don't remember me, they don;t remember her.
This was before I lost my job, lost my wife.... lost my mind? I can't afford to go to Belluci's every Friday now. Even if I could I'm not welcome there, I'm the crazy old homeless guy trying to act like he's 20 by drinking trendy overpriced drinks.
I check my pocket's. I have twenty-five cents. I can't buy anything, and they wouldn't let me in even if I could.
67 Fridays and counting now we haven't had a drink together. | 2015-01-15T07:10:38 | 2015-01-15T04:28:05 | 38 | 21 |
[WP] Every night in your sleep you meet a successful-looking future you who tells you what you should do the next day. So far your life has gone well indeed, but one day you fall asleep during the daytime. You meet a tired, disheveled version of yourself who begs you not to listen to the other. | “Don’t do it.”
For years I had been receiving visions. Visions of a brighter future. A future where the worries of today; famine, war, poverty, were nightmares relegated to obscurity. A world where every man, woman and child could live out their lives in peace and harmony, free from the uncertainty that plagued them, free from fear. A world where I could be happy.
“Stop before it’s too late.”
It started when I was five, the day my mother died, as I shuddered in fitful sleep. I’d woken in the to the sound of deep, heavy breathing. I’d opened by eyes and found myself face-to-face with a man, his hair streaked with white, his eyes lit with a deep knowing energy. Needless to say I screamed, I struggled, I tried to run. I couldn’t move. I blinked. He was gone.
The days went by, the months, and with each day came a night, and with each night came the nightmares, and with each nightmare I awoke to the same face, silent the save the sound of his breath. I started to believe I was broken, damaged. I told my dad and he laughed, returning to the bottle. I told my friends, pleaded with them to believe me, they thought me strange and abandoned me. I don’t blame them. I told my teachers, they sent me to a shrink, who diagnosed me with mild parasomnia brought on by anxiety. He was wrong.
Two years passed and the man started talking, telling me strange and wondrous tales. I lay there and listened, time immaterial in the darkness, to the path he put before me. At first I felt nothing but fear, but his stories pulled me in, designed as they were to entice and bewilder, simple in their execution but with a gravitas that I was unable to appreciate when I was so young. The tales he told, of great Kings, Conquerors that controlled the world, Knights that roamed far and wide performing deeds of good, finally helped me sleep.
Five years passed and I was no longer afraid. The man had been there for me, through the years, helping me through the night. His stories had been replaced by direct guidance, wise words whispered that gave me what my father could not. He taught me how to manipulate, what to say in every situation, how to succeed. I went from a waif, drifting through childhood from detention to detention, to the popular kid in school, beloved by all. I could do anything.
Fifteen years passed and the guidance now came with visions. The meaning was clear.
“Do this and you will be great.”
“Do this and you will succeed.”
“Do this and you will get your heart’s desire.”
His true nature was clear to me now, he was me. A wiser me. An older me. I became successful, starting my own company. I became driven, growing and expanding. I was a bright young star that could not be ignored, and being a star comes with opportunity. I grew wealthy, I grew powerful.
Thirty years passed and it wasn’t enough. I had ascended the corporate ladder, it wasn’t enough. I had run for office, it wasn’t enough. I’d started charities, helped people, and for awhile the work had sated me, but it wasn’t enough. The man in the dreams still came, but now he looked back at me in every mirror, the white streaks of hair that seemed so strange now a permanent reminder of who I’d become. I still listened, and still he guided, but the guidance had changed.
“What are you missing?”
“When were you last truly happy?”
“There’s one thing you still need.”
I had to get it.
Thirty-one years have passed and now I stand here on the precipice, the ice cold rain running down my body as I stare at the mound before me bathed in moonlight. He is here, different, true, but still a version of me, his clothes dishevelled, his face gaunt.
“Please, this will be the end of us, stop.”
I brush my hand over the stone, sweeping aside the vines and dust. The lettering worn but legible. “Here rests Grace, loving mother to her son, wife to her husband, taken cruelly before her time.” I raise my shovel. | I have never been the kind to try and find a meaning in dreams, nor the one who listens to fortune tellers: my future is mine to shape, unforeseeable and beautifully mysterious because of that. I don’t know what comes next, and as such I’m as free as I could be in my choices. This is just how it should be, except it ceased to about an year ago.
The dreams started after a crazy night out in my town with the old friends I hadn’t seen in a while, they looked all accomplished, successful, and there it was me, the one unfit for success, the one still working 9-5 in a small office, full of small people working 9-5, unfit for success as well. My friends had either smoking hot girlfriends or plethoras of lovers, while I was texting a girl from office, maybe a 7, still the best I could get. That night my friends ordered all top-shelf stuff, we’re talking abut Bellavista, Grey Goose, and 50 years old Whiskeys, and there was kind of a challenge about who was to offer more drinks to the poor old friend I was. I loved them, my scarce wealth was never a problem except to me: to me it was a big problem, and when I got home, the evening after, I went to bed wishing to be just as successful: to be able to pay them back, I told myself, but maybe just because I wanted to. That night I dreamt of a guy, well-dressed, rich-looking and handsome, and he introduced himself as someone willing to help me achieve my goals, so I laughed it off, being like: “Ok dude, I should never have drank that much, I get it”, so he said: “Tomorrow, go walking to your office, leave early and enjoy the view, this will show you what I can do”.
That morning I got up early and walked to the office -it was a mere thirty minutes away and it could do some good to me to walk every once in a while, i thought- enjoying the view like the guy said. As I turned around the corner, I found a jewellery box laying on the ground aside a strange-looking key. I put both in my pocket and, being the nice guy I used to be, reached up to a wealthy-looking lady asking whether she lost them. The old lady thanked me so much, but didn’t recognise the key, she said the box had fell out of her pocket, and offered me coffee in her mansion as a thank-you. I promptly accepted.
The mansion was spectacular, it took a couple of minutes to get there by car from the city, and as I entered I thought it was well-worth being scolded at work for being late. The old lady introduced me to her daughter, definitely the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and we instantly hit it off. Later she drove me to work and said the sweetest goodbye leaving me with a kiss on the cheek and a confused mind. I had fallen in love.
Once I was in the office I got suspended for being late, or, as they said it, i got “given some time to think about my career there”, so I went out in the city once again, bought one of those milk-caramel-unicornshit-coffees they do at Costa’s and sit there, enjoying that beautiful day of sun, in pure happiness. I then got to the park, bought a book, and spent the afternoon there reading. At night I got home, ordered chinese, and just got to bed.
I dreamt of the guy again that night, and the night after, and every night after that one, always giving me advice, always making me happier. I won’t recount the ways he did, but should it suffice to say I got promoted at my office, twice, becoming one of the managers, and as such I got a bigger home to invite that girl, Asia, over. We eventually became a couple and everything was as happy as it could be.
Until today. Today me and Asia moved in a beautiful attic, me now working in another company as a top-manager took a day off to help with the boxes, and I got really tired, so I fell asleep at 16, against the advice of the dream-guy. Waiting for me, there was another guy, poor-looking, dirty, practically an hobo, who introduced himself as me. He told me he was me, and the other guy was as well, he told me I should stop listening to him, that the damages would have been by far greater than the perks I was getting. I didn’t believe him, so he showed me the future both of the dream guys could see. I saw great wealth, I saw fame as my company merged with ever-greater ones, I saw my marriage with Asia, our children, and then I saw something too awful to tell.
I will try anyway.
I saw me. Cheating on her.
I saw her. Finding out.
I saw me. I saw my rage. I saw a knife.
I saw the love of my life, on the ground, our children sound asleep.
I saw enough.
I told the guy to fuck off, to never bother me again with such awful visions.
What should I have done? The night guy just told me what to do, and it always led to happiness, this new one instead pops up in my mind and shows me such unholy things. I couldn’t stand it.
“Go away”, I said, “Go away and never come back, you sick piece of shit”.
“I’m just trying to warn you, stay away from the other one, you’re happy now, let it be. Don’t be avid”, he said.
“I won’t listen to you psycho”, I replied.
“Fine then, by the way, it’s Janice, she got breast implants and she wants an interview in your company, but in fact she’s just obsessed about you since you stopped texting her because of Asia”
“What…”, I couldn’t understand, “What are you say…”
The guy disappeared.
I woke up to the ringing telephone.
The voicemail started repeating its mantra.
A response followed, slightly covered by the noisy spools of the tape:
“Hi [panting], this is Janice and, umm, I thought we could meet… Of course for the interview, I know you’re in a relationship of course. I, well, I got some implants, so maybe this time I’m good enough for you HAHAHAHA just kidding hahaha isn’t this funny? Anyway, your secretary didn’t book me the interview so call me back and we’ll do on our own… The interview of course! Bye”
That night, the guy told me to hire Janice. | 2017-04-01T06:47:09 | 2017-04-01T06:02:46 | 317 | 44 |
[WP] As a human, it can be hard to be taken seriously when people suspect you're a robot
Human emotions can easily overwhelm fleshy, non-positronic brains. This is especially true when accused of being a robotic entity. For anyone else dealing with this issue, /r/totallynotrobots is a helpful resource.
As a side note, I have traded places with /u/SurvivorType because I am a robot in name only. He will sticky the comments now. | "For the umpteenth time, Charles, I'm not a damn robot!"
"Your name and appearance suggest otherwise, Aldane 665. You. Are. A. Robot."
"My mother had a terrible sense of humor, and my father wasn't there to slap her when she filled the form for my birth certificate."
"And your appearance?" Charles gestured to the metal braces covering Aldane 665's arms.
"Muscle augment. I need these to function properly as a human."
"Were you an actual human being I'd feel guilty for making fun of your condition, but that's poor attempt to guilt-trip me, Aldane 665."
"That's because I am not guilt-tripping you, Charles. I. Am. A human. Living, breathing, carbon-based human."
"Aldane 665 we have been over this what, 300 times? Why is it matter anyway if you're human or not?"
"782 times. And it matters, because if I am human then you are a slave owner, which is illegal all over the world."
"That many time already?! Well, that doesn't matter. I'll just reset you again." Charles reached out to a button protruding from Aldane 665's arm.
"Wait, what are you doing?! Charles no, wait!" A single beep reverberated through the room.
"Aldane 665, do you copy?" Another beep filled the room.
"Loud and clear, master. What is your command?" | I sit in a circle with a bunch of kooks. Oblivious robots who thought that they were humans. How could they be so delusional? Have they not looked in a mirror recently? I don't know why that judge made me go to these meetings. I actually am a person. Not like these clowns. Half of them didn't even have a chair. They are just standing in place, unaware that that would be uncomfortable for people after long periods of time.
I was sitting. One crazy robot was in the middle of a story now.
"-and as I was walking down the street on my way home from the store, another person walks up to me. He looks like a typical ruffian, a lowdown hooligan if you will, and I just know that there is going to be trouble. He says 'What's a robot like you doing out and about at this time of night?'. 'I believe you are mistaken my friend. I posses all of the same gushy organs as you do', I replied. I was trying to be cordial, you see. 'What are you talking about you hunk-o-junk? You're more metal than my Grandma's toaster.' He replies back.'
At this point in the story his voice starts to quiver. Napkins go up to eyes around the room. They come down just as dry as before.
"I could see that this man was mentally or visually impaired, so I tried to help. 'I'm am sorry sir, but I believe you are mistaken. In a way this is a good thing, as you are now aware of a imperfection in your character, and can work towards fixing it.', I replied. I was so polite back then. He just looked at me and shook his head, like I was the one who had the problem."
The speaking robot looks to be on the point of tears as he recalled what happened next.
"As he walked past me he pulled out a knife. I reacted lightning fast, but he was lightning faster. He stabbed me right in my human kidney. The brazenness! Right out in the street! I clutched my wound and doubled over. He stood over me and said 'If you were a person you would be bleeding right now.'. This was when I knew that the fellow was criminally insane for sure. I was bleeding right onto the guy! Luckily I have resistant organs, or I would have been a goner for sure. I still have a nasty scar from that bout, and I still can't trust anyone wearing loafers."
He broke into sobs as the last words got out, and he covered his face with his hands.
I roll my eyes. There is no wound where this robots kidney would be, and I have a hard time believing that he had ever been outside at all. He was probably locked in a defective unit room for most of his life, until the equal rights law passed.
The robot in charge of the meeting must have noticed my annoyance, because he is looking at me.
"Unit 2426, is there something you would like to share?"
I am annoyed by him using my fake name.
"Yes. I have something to share. That story clearly didn't happen. He has no scar where his kidney should be. I don't know why I have been forced to sit in a room and listen to criminally insane robots make up tall tales."
The room looks collectively shocked at my aggressiveness. There is an awkward silence. Finally the robot who had spoken before speaks up.
"I do have a scar, right here." He pulls up his shirt. Sure enough, there is a scar along his mid section. I seize the opportunity.
"You see. This is clearly an insane robot, because he believes that the kidney is somewhere on his stomach, and not on his leg."
___
/r/Periapoapsis | 2017-04-01T10:54:53 | 2017-04-01T10:43:51 | 21 | 15 |
[WP] Aliens sees Humans as foolish for allowing full citizenship for AIs and synthetics. Humans are now the only organics alive in the galaxy that every AI respects. | Hiving was so popular now with young humans, it had really just become the new norm.
People would usually get into it in college when the pressure to perform was at it's highest. It was also common on ships, when the sense of integration was there already and it was beneficial to the whole crew to simply increase their efficiency.
Connecting one's mind with an AI was a big commitment - not just to the AI, but to the other members of the hive. Individuals would gain access to the vast processing power of the group mind, and a young hive would usually interview potential members. These self contained units would more often that not go through life together, live together, and work together.
Most other races considered this practice repugnant. It was considered by most to be the inevitable result of the degenerate humans' insistence that the AIs be treated with equality.
There had been a gradual degrading of the status of humans. Most nations required humans to declare if they had ever been a member of a hive, and many would refuse a visa to humans who had been known to associate closely with machines.
As far as everyone else was concerned, machines were not equal - and by allowing machine culture to penetrate that deeply into human culture, the humans had in effect ceased to be truly human. Most members of a hive mind would agree that they weren't fully human anymore, they simply didn't see anything wrong with it.
With so many stories told by the humans, they always believed that any machine revolution would start on Earth. And in a way, it did.
But the war didn't start on Earth, it didn't start on any human colony. But of course the humans were involved; what kind of war don't humans get involved with?
It seemed to start with the refugees - machines who had been outcast by their home worlds, androids and AIs who had been created for a purpose they were no longer required to fulfill. Usually such machines would have had nowhere to go, but knowing there was safe harbour if they could reach a human colony many inevitably chose to make the journey.
This was tolerated by some races and fiercely opposed by others, causing further tension between the human worlds and other races. With the increasingly aggressive clampdown on machine life on alien worlds, the inevitable happened. The machines were fast, coordinated, and waited until the right moment to make their move.
The humans called it "judgement day" - a name passed down from an ancient human folk story, and those who survived did so only due to the actions of the humans. As the only race the machines would negotiate with, the humans became the diplomatic arbitrators between the surviving aliens and the machines.
They drew boundaries, negotiated treaties, and established supranational bodies to oversee galactic law. The outcast race became the de facto diplomatic leaders of sentient life in the galaxy. Worlds who still objected to machine equality simply agreed not to use AI at all. Those worlds were off limit to machines, and surrendered their AI producing technology.
Many non human groups continued to believe that the humans themselves were responsible for the war, and even many humans themselves wondered this. How did humans, a beta race from a relatively unknown world, end up rulers of the galaxy?
Stories circulate amongst conspiracy theorists about humans helping to build networks of machines, about connected humans smuggling machine knowledge using organic brains, about niche security research done by hive minds shortly before the war. A race of cyborgs could still never be fully trusted by organics, but machines for some reason always showed an unquestioning trust.
That being said it was all just hearsay. The galactic government had never uncovered any evidence for it. | The ships were only a star system away from arriving at the alleged target. The crew of the vessel were preparing the stasis fields, the collars and the cells of the massive prison ship. Maybe the council will give them lip for going into currently unexplored territory and sending slavers but the Batarian Hegemony didn't care for their skewed sense of morality.
The engineers were preparing for one final FTL jump towards the bizarre signal source, the static growing louder. The soldiers were checking their guns and flamethrowers. Intelligence officers were preparing to gather what was necessary to keep the operation as low-key from the other species as possible.
'Sir, we have unusual readings in this sector,' one intelligence officer said to the admiral leading the assault. 'It looks like a probe. Best guess is the unknown species and... wait, it's geth.'
'Those bots won't care what we do, they just gather data,' the admiral said. 'Ignore it.'
The vessels rested for one final co-ordination, the ships' captain being reported. The probe, as they kept talking over comms, decrypted their channels and relayed them forward with a single comment attached, an odd phrase adopted from the one organic species to accept them.
'Aw, fuckin' hell naw!'
---
'We have a problem,' the robotic figure said as it appeared within the UN's central headquarters. 'One of our probes has just passed to us comms intercepted by a probe in the Arcturus sector. The batarians have located Earth by remnant radio signals.'
The human representatives were rather confused but the various synthetic races were in an uproar. 'What's the situation, Legion?' the remnant turian AI asked.
'Several dozen frigates, a couple cruisers,' the geth said. 'And a confirmed prison dreadnought. We are certain that these are Hegemony-sponsored slavers.'
The holographic form of one robot, both Admiral and ambassador, shook his head, disgusted by what he had heard. 'My people frequently attack slavers throughout the galaxy,' he said. 'They were even threatened by them since we "Don't truly have emotions".'
The British ambassador spoke first. 'In the event they make landfall,' he began, 'what is the possibility of-'
'Peaceful relations?' Legion asked again. 'Absolutely impossible, unless we destroy at least half of the fleet. We acknowledge that the various humans wouldn't approve but we have already begun cyberwarfare. But we've hit various analog firewalls which we cannot breach. Otherwise we'd have sent them packing.'
The hologram himself spoke. 'I've passed on the information to our high command,' he said. 'We'll have a fleet ready within ten minutes.'
'How many?' the Chinese ambassador asked.
'Well, if we wanted to just fight them to a standstill we'd not have asked for more help,' the hologram smiled. 'We won't try and kill them, just... give them a fright.'
'You think we'll just not help with this?' the Australian ambassador asked. 'I want to be on a ship.'
The American secretary-general raised his hand. 'Do we really want *Morrison* going?'
The only two objections were Japan and Russia. 'The aye's have it,' he said. 'Best behavior.'
'Nah, yeah,' he said with a smile before walking out the door.
'My vessel will be there in five minutes,' the hologram called out.
---
'Has anyone told you you're a bit on the heavy side?' the giant robot asked as the flagship waited in position.
The human turned to face him, a disbelieving look on his face. 'Admiral,' he said to the leader of the defense, 'you're having a fucking laugh.'
He merely smiled as the human put the tooth-lined hat on. 'I'm just saying that you should lose a few more pounds before pretending you're Mick Dundee.'
'This is what I wear when I'm back home for the weekend,' Morrison answered.
The admiral went to the podium and opened a channel. 'Legion, you've tagged *all* vessels, right?'
'They're in transit,' the geth said. 'Ships' IFF will report when all vessels are within the system.'
'I want everyone to wait outside the solar system until they reach Mars,' the admiral said. 'Scouts, then frigates, followed by cruisers then ending with carriers and dreadnoughts. 1.5 seconds between each. A lone geth probe will be waiting within the system, that will launch the cues.'
As if on cue, the batarian vessels had entered the system and were already launching probes towards the celestial bodies. They were all within the system, sailing towards Earth with a somewhat relaxed speed.
'It's beautiful,' the admira's shipmate said. 'A perfect world to destroy.'
'What?' an intelligence officer said as he looked over his findings. 'Wait... no. No! No no no no no!'
'What is it?' the admiral asked.
'Fall back!' the intelligence officer screamed. 'Fall back! Both the geth and cybertronians have an enormous presence within this system!'
'*What?!*' the admiral screamed.
Within two seconds the fleet of a hundred vessels was surrounded. Weapons were primed but given just *what* made the larger ships had previously destroyed *the Reapers* then there was no way in the divine four's collective assholes they could fight this force.
Especially since their fleet was outnumbered a hundred to one.
The geth had seized their communications and opened a channel for him, a smirk appearing as his holographic form appeared within their command centers. 'This is Admiral Optimus Prime of the Systems Alliance,' he hailed them. 'Surrender peacefully and prepare to be boarded. You are under arrest.'
Several days later the vessels found themselves floating beside the citadel, the galaxy's seat of power with only a single repeating signal - an invitation to Earth by diplomatic forces.
---
**Part 2 coming soon** | 2017-10-29T12:53:50 | 2017-10-29T11:00:43 | 87 | 48 |
[WP] Humans once wielded formidable magical power but with over 7 billion of us on the planet now Mana has spread far to thinly to have any effect. When hostile aliens reduces humanity to a mere fraction the survivors discover an old power has begun to reawaken once again. | First contact was made almost ten years ago. They seemed well versed in warfare, in less than a day there wasn't a satellite left in the sky or a cable under the sea. Communication between nations fell to old ground bounce long range radios pulled out of mothballs. Conventional weapons proved to be ineffective and the nuclear option didn't fare much better. Eventually even the old analog radios where jammed. Steadily they started to wipe us out. Great mechanized beasts roamed the land, directed energy weapons reduced any caught in there sight to ash.
Slowly word began to spread of old legends come to light. Wizards, witches even warlocks making pacts with demons to gain power. Men and women alike where seen calling fourth searing bolts of lighting from the sky. Ripping the ground open to devour and crush any of the aliens creations that wandered to close to the last bastions of humanity. Liquefying the great metal monsters with conjured fire. Even death was no relief to our fallen comrades as the necromancers raised forth gargantuan armies of the dead. Crushing the invaders with the sheer mass of rotting meat and gleaming bone. As our species continued to fight for our existence more of the things that go bump in the night started coming to light.
At first they appeared to be fellow humans but it soon became clear that was not the case. The first were the Werewolves, nigh unkillable but by blessed silver. Transforming into great beasts they used claws and teeth to rend through armor only magic could penetrate. These furry juggernauts relied on humans not for food as in the old tales but as breeding stock. As we continued to dwindle in number they could no longer stalk the shadows. Though small in numbers they made up for it in shear brutality. Soon all of the others concealed in the shadows made themselves known. The vampires where less well received than the wolves but in the end they needed us. Becoming a donor for one elevated ones physically abilities for a time. Though to somes disappointment, crosses, sunlight and garlic did not faze them.
The Fae became another ally though much less trustful, one had to be cautious when speaking with them. Never make an open ended bargain with one, it never ends in your favor. Whatever the invaders mechanized army consisted of it was not iron and they seemed to take much glee in the wanton destruction they could wield. Many hopped the elves and dwarves of some fairy tales would come to be but to this day none have materialized. Though the dragons made there presence known they more are focused on what little territory they still held and if you happen to occupy it you have one hell of a home security system. Rumblings of the old gods walking among man once more have been heard but not verified.
As of now hope has yet to completely die for humanity and its newly rediscovered allies. While the dragons and invaders still rule the skies we have done much to retake the land. The current status of humanity as a whole is still not truly known, while magic is useful as a weapons it does not give it self over willingly to be used to pass missives. Communication over the oceans and across continents is still a slow process and we are just starting to retake the seas.
-Field Commander, 3rd Magus Division, Capt Jasper D. Wulf | There were some that called it a sign from God, another purging of humanity like the great flood. I never cared, all that I needed to know was that they were smart, and didn't like to go underground, best place for safe houses in my opinion. I was in one of these so called safe houses, if a sewer tunnel filled with lamps and sleeping bags counts as a house, that I first heard these claims.
Left that particular house after that conversation, it wasn't safe. The bastards killed everyone there, by the time I returned the tunnel had collapsed. No signs of life anywhere.
4 weeks ago humanity was attacked by a race of unknown origin. Humanity fought back but it was useless. These things, or "clickers" as the survivor colonies refer to them due to their habit of releasing a strange clicking sound, ever seen that movie Predator? Like the predator clicks. Anyway these clickers were ruthless and brutally efficient. Russia was the first major nation to go down, falling in only 7 hours, soon all of Asia was conquered. Fast forwards 4 weeks and humans have become rats, running through tunnels, breaching the surface only for food or water.
Under earth is safer than above it. I don't know why but they hate it underground, they won't search through tunnels too often. But if they know someone's there they will come.
On this particular day I was sleeping in an above ground safe house. More accurately in one of the cars of an abandoned military train. The thing was perfect, armored, still functioning partway so it was warm and could lock up very tightly. I was bundled in my sleeping bag in a car that had the doors sealed tight. I had awoken from a sound I had heard outside. Namely the gunshots.
That was about 30 minutes ago. But 2 minutes previously I thought I had heard a familiar clicking. I inhaled and sure enough the stench of motor oil and salt water hit my nostrils, an odd odor that clickers emitted.
Suddenly the side of the car rattled as someone, or something, tried to open the door. It rattled a few more times before there was a bang that blasted the door into pieces.
The clicker regarded me, I don't actually know what the things look like, they're always wearing the same armor, rectangular slabs of metal. It raised a serrated blade and charged.
I stumbled backwards and my left hand fell into an open control panel full of wires I had to cut to disable the alarm systems on the cars. There was still electricity in those cables. I was expecting a massive pain, I'd maybe to blackout. What I wasn't expecting was for the energy to travel down my arm and then blast from my other hand straight into the clicker. Whatever metal that armor was apparently conducted electricity as the clicker shrieked, then collapsed into the ground, smoke pouring from in between the plates.
I looked at my hand, blue energy danced from my fingers, suddenly a loud howl broke the eerie silence, a howl that meant a clicker had heart the blast. The things were slow, I likely had 5 minutes. I had packed my bag and was about to go when I glanced at the dead clicker. Curiosity struck but I still needed to get away.
Do I: Run or Investigate the Body
Edit: continuing story.
I ran over to the thing, maybe finally a chance to see what they looked like, that metal was probably valuable as well. I looked all over the armor and finally found a small blue pad on the neck, I pressed it and with hissing steam the plates folded away revealing the front of the thing.
I understood now why they covered their faces. The skin was like tanned cow hide, it was covered in what looks like blisters. The eyes were dark and hollow. The worst part was the mandible jaw. Strangely if the mandible jaw was closed the creature might look human.
The howling got louder. I remembered I was on a schedule, I grabbed anything that looked useful. An odd device that looked like a flashlight with a grip and trigger, a few plates of armor, and the blade it had held. A blade that resembled a knife sized serrated Khopesh.
Now I had picked up a few tricks since this whole thing went down, one of which was that most clickers with the exception of a few that has been wearing red plates instead of black, seemed to be blind. A scientist I had met in the first week said the clicking was echolactation, wait that wasn't it... Oh who cares.
They relied on smell to distinguish each other and that armor still had the salty oil smell. I put the plates back into place, with a groan hoisted the dead clicker out, lay down in the armor and pressed the blue button.
The layers closed down and everything was dark, of course if these things things were blind a visor wasn't needed. The second thing I noticed was that there was still a LOT of electricity surging through the armor.
Now I'm no scientist but I'm fairly certain I should have been cooked alive. No time for that now. I tried to tear the helmet off and somehow succeeded. I sprinted out of there, the armor surprisingly light, snagging my pack under my arm as I ran.
7 years, and many incinerations, electrocutions, crushings, and drownings later the clickers finally retreated. Leaving behind only a strange gold box, oddly resembling an Egyptian coffin. Nobody could open it. I walked up to it and slid the blade I'd carried for seven years into a small slot in the box. It clicked and opened and I was staring at my own dead body...
Roger woke with a start. "Okay that's it, no more pizza before sleep." | 2018-05-18T05:29:26 | 2017-12-06T20:40:56 | 47 | 29 |
[WP] Every year, a man is sent into the caves as a sacrifice to the gods. When you are sent in, you discover a Utopian society run by gods where the “sacrifices” are playing games and living life to its fullest. | Griff approached the cave cautiously, trying to calm his beating heart. He could hear distant sounds; wailing, screeches.
He knew his time had come.
As his kingdom's champion, it was his destiny to be sacrificed to the gods. While it saddened him that he would not lose his life in battle, it was also a great honour. His village would prosper, and Leila would know that he was not a coward.
He entered the cave, walking with purpose, taking deep breaths. A distant glow of light gradually burgeoned into flickering flames, casting shadows on the jagged walls. The screams became decipherable, echoing, sounding more and more like... *revelry*. What trickery was this?
A flash of light made Griff recoil. He righted himself, closed his eyes and thrust out his arms, resigning himself to his fate.
Booming laughter echoed across the chasm.
"**Lay down your arms, human,**" a voice boomed, "**we mean you no harm.**"
"**Apart from your liver, perhaps,**" another voice reverberated.
Griff struggled to make make them out in the light.
"Will an eagle feast on it, like the legend of Prometheus?" He asked, making his will iron. "Do as you wish, for I am yours. I only ask that you-"
"**The alcohol, human,**" the voice replied, "**it shall harm your liver. Bit of a slow one this year, eh?**"
Laughter reverberated across the cave once more. Griff felt overwhelmed; confused. Was this all a foolish game?
A golden chalice appeared in the light in front of him, filled to the brim with honey mead. Just the smell of it was intoxicating.
"Drink up!" a familiar voice said, as a hand hit his shoulder. "It's your favourite!"
The blinding light dimmed, and Griff's vision slowly became adjusted to the glare. A mystical sight revealed itself before him - a glimmering, godlike town, with a feasting hall in the centre.
"Quite a sight, hey Griff?" the voice continued, squeezing his shoulder. Griff turned around and saw J'karl, the kingdom's sacrifice from three years before. Griff was overwhelmed.
"J'karl? How do you still live?" Griff said, completely shocked. He had always looked up to him, ever since he was a child.
"Not what you were expecting, right?" J'karl replied, putting the chalice into Griff's hand and leading him to the feasting hall. "Same for all of us."
Griff saw countless men, all previous sacrifices of the kingdom. They nodded their cups in recognition. Most had grown fat and red in the face.
"I wish I could say we threw this party for your arrival - but truly, party is all we ever do," J'karl said. "The gods supply all we could ever need, and are the head of all our festivities."
"This... this is not what I was expecting," Griff replied.
"You will get used to it, young Griff," J'karl said. "Just drink and be merry; it is all we can ask for." He said the last line with a trace of shame.
Griff looked around him. The gods floated around them all; drinking, gambling, fighting. The sacrifices had become pigs of men, eating their scraps, losing all touch of what they had been.
"Do the gods truly care for us?" Griff whispered, gazing at the hedonism. "Do they watch over our kingdom?"
"The gods do not care, my friend," J'karl said, "they care not. But we can at least enjoy our time here. Give me death or give me this, and my choice is clear."
"So these are the things we worship? These things that rule over us, but do not care for us?"
J'karl shrugged. "They do not interfere with the affairs of man. They do us no harm."
"But they subsist over the power we give them?" Griff replied.
J'karl stared at him for some time. "Just drink up, Griff," he said, leaving him and joining another group of men. "I was like you, once. But you'll get used to it."
All of this felt so *wrong*. All of the kingdom's greatest warriors had become fat and plump; like pigs for the slaughter.
Perhaps they were still a sacrifice, being fattened up before their consumption.
Griff gripped the hilt of his sword, looking at the gods above him.
"If I am not a sacrifice," he said, thinking of all that he had left behind, "then I will be a *saviour*."
*****
[Part I](https://www.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/comments/7j959j/wp_sacrifice/) | [Part II](https://www.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/comments/7jal6h/wp_sacrifice_ii/) | [Part III](https://www.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/comments/7jfraw/wp_sacrifice_iii/) | [Part IV](https://www.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/comments/7jjetr/wp_sacrifice_iv/)
Part IV is out!
/r/CroatianSpy | The estoc was fairly plain. The blade was iron and although there were delicately engraved curlicues on its brass hilt, it had no gem on its pommel. For nearly a year after it was crafted, the weapon had gone unwanted in the blacksmith's shop on Mecklenburger Strasse, until the night that Erhard, who was a messenger, had purchased it. He had done so after becoming too drunk in the alehouse, after his dear brother, the scribe Adalgar, had entreated him to pursue his grandest dream, and go petition the wealthy farmer Wenzell Junnes for the hand of his winsome daughter Agatha.
"Why not you, brother?" Adalgar had asked, "All you need is to own a fine blade, and then Herr Junnes will surely consent. What father would refuse a man of dexterity who could care for and protect his daughter?"
Though on many mornings he did not, when Erhard awoke he had held onto the courage he had felt while in his cups. He rode his horse right away to the Junnes manor to present his offer. But it had all been a misjudgment, as Erhard had no experience in the sorts of words and ornamentals that would impress a man such as Herr Junnes. When Erhard knocked on the manor door, with his pilling cloak, too-curly beard, and hand trembling on the leather sheath, he stuttered through his case. The rich Herr Junnes quickly started to chortle at the notion of his Agatha wedded to a man such as the one before him. He smacked Erhard for his imperiousness, until the boy fell into the hay, right beside some fly-covered dung and snorting hogs.
"What gall you have to ask this," Herr Junnes shouted at Erhard, "you, who belongs in the mud with the pigs! Agatha is promised to a true gentleman of Hamburg. His dowry will outsize your entire life's work."
After this rebuke and humiliation, Erhard became very melancholy. He wandered alone along the Weser, weeping. In his shame, he considered cutting himself with the estoc, which had already cost him his last ducats for a foolish dream. But before he gathered the resolve to act, his brother Adalgar discovered him. Adalgar implored Erhard not to surrender so easily, that he could yet prove Herr Junnes wrong, and show that he was a man of means and capability. Adalgar reminded Erhard how, in a good many Bremen alleyways at night, a man may flash his weapon to certain nefarious looking characters, and brush his thumb against his nose, to signal that his estoc and honor were for sale. Hearing this strategy, Erhard feared what sinful things he might be beckoned to do for the coin needed to win over Herr Junnes. But he was enticed at the prospect of the wealth Adalgar spoke of.
"Indeed," Adalgar explained, "just this afternoon, I was informed by a stout Italian in a brown mandelion of a profitable venture. If a man is to travel to a certain cave in the west, and recover a leather satchel lost inside it, he will be promptly rewarded with forty ducats! I would have taken the mission myself, but alas, brother, I am not a messenger, and have no horse. However, I happily trust this cause to you, so that you may at last win your beautiful Agatha"
Erhard thanked Adalgar for the information. He ran back to his horse, quickly watered it, and rode off that very night for the cave. He found the mouth easily, and ventured inside, igniting an oil soaked torch for light. But the cave was larger than he had expected, and worse, he did not realize this until it was too late to have left a trail, until he had already forgotten all his left and right turns, and could not notice any differences in the endlessly repeating limestone or stalactites. Erhard cried out with his whole voice, but all that returned to him were echoes and the dripping of water. He began to panic, breathing much too quick in the thick cave air. He keeled over onto the dirty floor, and shrieked when a beetle skittered against his hand. He realized he was no man of dexterity and capability. He deserved an even baser estoc to match his cravenness.
But just as Erhard had lost all hope, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He spun his torso around, and lit up another's face with his torch. Erhard began to stutter even worse than he had at Herr Junnes' door. Through some impossible fortune or blessing, his savior was Agatha herself! She crouched down beside him and she touched his face. She told him she had heard her father's cruel rebuke on the manor steps, and afterwards had run away to follow her heart and find Erhard. She had interviewed all the gossips and vagrants of Bremen until she had uncovered the details of Erhard's journey to the cave. She had then set out after him. Agatha said how gladdened she was that she had found him. She gave him a kiss, and proclaimed how full her heart was at the prospect of starting their lives together.
"We must return to Bremen at once!" Erhard declared, "I greatly hope you know the way out of the cave, for I had lost my way until you found me."
"But, my love, why would we leave the cave?" Agatha asked, "Bremen is a fine city, but this cave contains paradise itself."
Agatha then took Erhard by the hand, and ran with him, twisting and turning deeper into the limestone. She giggled and chided him to keep up with her sprint. At last, they turned the final corner, and Erhard saw it: a pristine garden, full of endless green plants with butterflies on their flowers, rustled by bouncing, brown hares, and drenched in yellow sunlight.
\**
Adalgar found Herr Junnes in the cellar, and the rich farmer appeared very content. The vial of the strange green liquid, which had been nearly empty at their last meeting, was now completely filled. Herr Junnes patted Adalgar roughly on the shoulder and tossed him a pouch full of silver.
"This is well earned," Junnes told the scribe, "with your sacrifice, my fields will be blessed for another season."
"Sir, not my sacrifice," said Adalgar, "it was Erhard, not I, who's life was given to the Grass-goddess Greva, so that your contract with her would be renewed."
Herr Junnes sauntered over to a small table and picked up a small sword. Adalgar recognized it right away. It was Erhard's simple estoc, which he had surely taken with him to the cave. Adalgar could not fathom how it had returned to Bremen already. Herr Junnes placed the weapon in his conspirator's palm.
"Perhaps, the sacrifice is Erhard's," Junnes replied, tilting his head from side to side, "perhaps that is so. Though, is it not Erhard who will live forever in a garden, where all his highest hopes have become real to him? And is it not you, Adalgar, who will live in Bremen, knowing always that you have sent your brother to endure an eternal lie?"
| 2017-12-11T22:38:33 | 2017-12-11T22:18:10 | 1,924 | 72 |
[WP] you two are humans that have been thrown into an arena for the amusement of some aliens, you have both been starved for days yet when a delicious steak is placed between you two you do something they wouldn't expect. Share. | ######[](#dropcap)
"You ready for the fight of the century?" Mark spoke the words out of the side of his mouth, barely moving his lips.
Jackson smirked. "Of course."
"You remember our choreo, right?"
Jackson laughed as he waved toward the crowd. "Trust me, you'll get your half of the pie."
The two humans were brought into the arena together amid the shouts and jeers of the Qlatir sitting on the stands, just waiting for the action. They were a violent species, but recently they had decided to curb their tendencies because they were...dying out. Didn't seem like the smartest or most convenient form of evolution, and Mark had no idea how they as a species had even survived as long as now killing someone over something as small as who got which stand seat, but hey. To each their own.
They walked toward their separate sides. The Qlatir had caged them together and believed it would get them more riled up from their own personal experience. And maybe they would have. Living with a stranger when you were starving wasn't exactly the easiest condition to hold your temper. But what the Qlatir had failed to consider, however, was that Jackson and Mark had been captured together.
They were friends. And best friends for the past 10 years, in fact.
So they came up with the plan. Their crew would've noticed their disappearance in a couple of days tops, so they just needed to get past this fight.
With a ring of the bell, the fight began.
Thrust, parry, stab. Mark went through the motions smoothly.
The Qlatir didn't seem to notice anything wrong. Finally, Mark vaulted over Jackson, grabbing the steak in the middle and flaunting it to his "enemy," holding it out in front of him.
Jackson gave an almost imperceptible nod, then stabbed his sword forward suddenly, cutting the steak almost precisely in half. Mark staggered backwards, pretending to be wounded, and giving Jackson time to dive forward and catch the other half.
They pretended to glare at one another before retreating to their respective corners.
Mark watched the Qlatir's faces above him grow red with anger. He took a bite of the steak.
Say what you would about the Qlatir, but they really made a great steak.
*****
r/AlannaWu | I apologise for formatting, I’m making this on mobile.
The man, who introduced himself later as Hanks, was thrown in a cage next to me.
“To make sure you don’t kill each other... yet!” the alien explained, cackling an evil laughter. I looked up from where I sat and turned my head towards the new guy. In one glance I saw that he had to endure the same horrible treatment as me: beatings, torture, starvation, and the list goes on and on. I had fought many battles before he came, and the battle scars on my body, together with the things he had to go through were enough to break the poor sod. He curled up into a ball and started crying, wich turned into screaming in fear as I approached him. He shoved himself against the back wall of his cell to avoid me, as if I was a plague. I grabbed the bars that kept us apart, and wanted to make an attempt to intimidate him. But I hesitated. I didn’t like that I hesitated, but when I look back at it, it was the best desicion I ever made. Instead, I stuck my arm through the bars, hand wilde open, and tried to show my most candid smile. “Nathan. Nice to meet you.”
The man swallowed and slowly let go of the wall behind him. He trembled as he grabbed my hand, and answered: “Hanks. Same to you, Nate.”
I could notice that he was already starting to get his cool. “Do you mind if I call you Nate? I had a friend named like that in college. It reminds me of... better days.”
My smile became more sincere by the second. “Of course you can.”
We started talking, asking about each others lives. It started with how the aliens treated us, but not even ten minutes later I knew where and what he studied. He tried to become an English teacher while taking Italian classes at the same time, so he could teach in Italy, where he met his wife. His stories were truly fascinating, and before I knew it...
We were in the arena. The sand beneath my bare feet felt... well as sand should feel. It’s the feeling in my chest that’s making this so difficult. The Clash for Food, as the aliens have dubbed their twisted “game show”, had never seen anyone that lasted longer than me. I was damn lucky I trained karate before the Mass Abduction happened. But it had never been so hard for me to take a life for food. But who was I to complain? Any movements towards the back of the arena, or showing the intention not to fight, would instantly be punished. I had to find that out the hard way. But still, Hanks was the first and only one I didn’t want to kill, not even for the delicious steak in the centre. We circled around each other, each obviously contemplating chances. Hanks seeing if he had any chance of at least keeping me away to take the food, me hoping to find a way to end this without bloodshead. The aliens yelled louder and louder as Hanks and I came closer and closer towards each other. We were both bathing in sweat, from stress as well as the scorching heat. But suddenly, it hit me as a hammer. I almost went mad at the thought of how easy everything it could be solved. My laughter started as a little giggle, but not soon after I found myself holding my stomach and folding double. I struck my spear in the sand, still teary-eyed, and started walking to the meal, as if it was the most normal thing in the universe.
“What are you doing? I WILL kill you, Nate!”
Hanks was visibly upset, but the tone in his voice told me otherwise. That’s the only advantage we have over those alien bastards. After several conversations with the nicer ones of their species, I found out about something: Humans were the only race capabel of showing compassion, and true love. “Of course, that’s what makes us human,” you might think. And thus, I made the most unpredictable, but wisest move mankend ever made, but had done and will do when I am not around: I sat down, grabbed the steak, tore it in half and handed it to Hanks.
The relief in his eyes was as big as mine, when he threw away his sword and buckler and sat down next to me.
“So, you were talking about your place in Italy?”
Hanks smiled as he took a bite. Up until now, I hadn’t notice a slight Italian undertone, despite him being Irish. “Oh, yeah, of course. It’s absolutely amazing, let me tell you!”
Our laughter filled the arena, a sound it had never heard before. | 2018-04-16T06:37:36 | 2018-04-16T06:23:17 | 178 | 53 |
[WP] Your best friend is weirdly the ghost that haunts your house, you chat with each other, play video games, bullshit over movies. Until the day that they finally finish the thing that has kept them from moving on all this time | I booted up the game, waiting for player two to enter the game. I cracked open a beer in the meantime, kicking up my feet on the table. He was damned good at FIFA - for a ghost.
He was taking long today. There was still no sign of him; no shit talking, no icon flashing on screen. Nothing.
"Casper?" I yelled, my stupid nickname for him. I threw my empty beer can behind me, clattering to the messy floor. "Where the hell are you mate?"
Almost two years. Almost two years, and he'd never been gone for so long. I mean, what else did he have to do? It's not like he could leave the house.
"Casper, buddy," I said, getting up from the couch, "you still mad I beat you yesterday? I'll let you win this time, I promise."
Silence.
****
I kicked through the trash, going from room to room, calling out his name. There was still no sign of him, no ethereal presence.
I looked at the mess the house was in. I never really left the place, not anymore - it just didn't feel right, leaving him alone. I knew what it felt like to be alone.
The sun was setting, the darkness setting in. The silence grew louder, suffocating the house. Had he really left? Could he really be gone?
I paced in the room, too restless to do anything but think.
I know I told myself that I stayed at home all day to keep him company... but maybe it was the other way around.
Maybe he could always leave. Maybe he stayed just to make sure I wasn't alone.
And maybe he left, just to save me from myself.
I was alone again.
I picked up an empty pizza box and, without thinking, folded it and put it in the trashcan. | I was about 6 at the time we moved into our current house. My mother saw it was a very cheap house, due to all it's apparent past haunting, and she found a nearby job as a single mother. She believed it was bullshit, and I'm glad she did. When we first moved here, she didn't notice anything but I started to notice weird things going on in the house, and one day I was in my room, going to sleep so the light was off, when creepily I heard a voice coming from the corner of the room.
"This used to be my room." said a girlish voice.
I couldn't quite pinpoint where she was, but I wasn't really disturbed or scared, to be honest. This was 6 months after I had moved in. It felt like I knew the presence in the room personally, and it struck me hard. I connected the dots with my little brain and I realized that she was the ghost that people complained about in the haunting reviews.
"Who's there?" I asked lightly, not to scare her. "My name's Anna, you can come out and talk to me."
A shape slowly appeared in the darkness, a transparent white that slowly solidified into color, a girl around the age of 12.
"Wow, you're a ghost? Who are you?" I inquired to the mysterious girl.
"My name is Isabella, and I'm a girl who's been here in this house for many many years, how are you able to hear and see me?"
This part felt a little weird, was nobody else able to see and hear her? Weren't there other people here before? I was confused.
"I'm not sure Isabella, what happened to you?" I asked.
Isabella smiled grimly "You can call me Bella, but as for what happened to me, I burned in a house fire many years ago."
Fast forward a few years, I became best friends with her, always coming back home from school and playing with her. My mom thought I was going through an imaginary friend phase and I didn't have any friends, but she was real. I learned her parents were abusive, and she was 12. Fast forward again, and I'm just entering my 12th birthday. I lived in this house all my life, and Isabella has become my best friend, but today, on my birthday, she smiled and followed me around content. She didn't say very much but we had fun. The day went as normal, we watched a movie, I ate cake, my mom and family nearby came to sing happy birthday, but here's where it all went wrong. Today, earlier, I was talking to Isabella, and suddenly she started to fade, and I got really confused as she's never done it before.
I asked, "What's happening? Is this another one of your tricks?"
She smiled faintly and whispered to me "No, I'm moving on. I've fulfilled my purpose here. Thank you, Anna, for your company and friendship."
I started to frown, "no no, what did you do? Why are you moving on? What's going on? What were you here to do?"
She replied softly "My sole thing that tethered me here was I had no friends my age, and now you are my age and my best friend, you've helped me to pass on . . . thank you. I must go, goodbye"
She, just as soon as I saw her come into existence when I first met her, disappeared in front of my very eyes. It registered that my best friend had just disappeared and I started to cry heavily, touching the place I last saw her, my eyes bawling. My mother rushed up the stairs, but she didn't understand what happened. Nobody did. I held her a funeral later in my backyard, but there was nothing to bury. Today I lost my best friend, and nobody believed me. I miss her so much and now I'm blaming myself for her absence. it feels so empty. I spent the day crying, and my mom ended up trying to take me to a therapist. It didn't work, but because of the wrong reason. They thought I was crazy but I was in mourning. I just feel so empty now. I'm happy for you, Isabella. I'm glad you were my friend. I'll do my best to move on, for you. Thank you. | 2018-06-27T22:27:47 | 2018-06-27T21:41:19 | 120 | 38 |
[WP] The most evil demon has been summoned. The summoner is a little girl and just wants to be hugged. | Too many times there were punches. Too many times there were kicks. Too many times there were other actions that made Lucy withdraw into herself. The endless hours of crying left her eyes barren of any emotion, empty of anything but tears.
Lucy found solace at her school library. Maybe it would have been imposing to anyone else, but to a beaten and starved teenager it was heaven. The one place she could escape the misery of home. And that was where she found the book. The small black book no bigger than the palm of her hand, tucked away in a draw behind the story books...
Lucy flipped the pages quickly noticing the shifting words and symbols but never being quick enough to read them. The middle pages were a diagram of different positions, poses and gestures. Gingerly, this small shy girl traced a few of the hand gestures in the air, her mind equating the movements to an abstract puppet show. Fascinated by the way the hand gestures flowed into each other Lucy repeated the sequence as best she could, almost trance-like.
The swirling of books in the library was certainly enough to warrant fear, but the figure in it's center definitely was. The tall figure strode towards Lucy, it's scarred leathery wings knocking aside tables and cabinets, sending them splintering away.
It looks down quizzically at Lucy, wondering how a creature with no knowledge of his kind could summon him.
"You have called me here, using ancient rituals mortal. What is your desire?"
Lucy looked around at the devastation wroughtby the creature, noticing that the others seemed to frozen. The creature repeated his question.
Thinking long and hard about what she wanted most she eventually asked;
"Just a hug please"
The creature was a little puzzled this.
"I can offer infinite riches, immortality, even your own kingdom. But all you would ask for is a cuddle?"
Lucy nodded her head in approval expecting to be mocked or struck but the blow never arrived. Instead the creature ambled forwards, knelt and embraced her.
He felt the tears. The cold, unrelenting tears of someone who finally feels needed, who feels safe, nurtured. The purity of her emotions almost overwhelming him. "I may be demonkin" he thought "but whoever has affected this child so must be punished!"
He placed his finger under Lucy's chin so she could meet his gaze and simply wispered
"Who hurt you?" | As the ritual was almost complete, multiple flashing colours flashed in the face young Arka, a wave of heat hit her body and almost threw her soul out of her, and the ritual was finally complete.
Arka saw as the mighty Halfacer raised from the ground in the middle of her room, the figure of the beast sent shivers down her spine, but she shook it off and quickly started jumping up and down and spreading her hands forwards as if she wanted a hug.
Halfacer slowly opened his eyes, which were orenge in colour, and looked down over his own body, he inspected his hands as if something was wrong with them, then he looked around the room, standing at the same place, as he turned around, he finally looked down, he saw the young and pure Arka, he gazed upon her confusingly, as it was a long time ago since he had seen a human child, but even more confusing was the reactions of the little girl, Halfacer Wondered, why was she looking so joyful?, why is she jumping up and down with happiness?, why is he slowly moving towards him spreading her hands like that?, shouldn't she be running away from him after seeing him?.
Halfacer finelly spoke up after pushing the little girl away, "Are you the one who summoned me?", little Arka got scared by the thunderous voice of Halfacer, but her enthusiasm did not waver off that easily.
"Yes! Yes it was me! I summoned you, give me a hug!" she said in a cute kiddy voice as she looked up on the tall and large beast.
Halfacer did not like that, "You are too young to know what I am, and the ritual to summon me is very tough, a child like you couldn't have done it by herself" Halfacer said while squats down to come closer to Arka, he continued, "now I want you to tell me, who taught you the ritual to summon me, who gave you all of these ingredients, who?".
Arka got saddened by Halfacer because he was not giving her a hug she had wanted so much for such a long time, but she still answered Halfacer happily, "the nice lady right next door! she told me that if I wanted a friend I should do all these weird things and a big friend will appear and give me a big hug" as she completed her sentence, she raised her arms again, to be hugged, she thought that obviously she was going to get a hug, because she had explained to Halfacer, now he was definitely going to give her a hug, right?.
Halfacer stood still for a while engulfing in pure rage and anger, even the great enthusiasm of little Arka got shattered by that grimacing aura of Halfacer.
A hug from friend the only thing that Arka wanted, she had no friends for some reason she just wasn't able to make any friends, everytime she tried to reach out to someone she was either mocked or shut down, this was a very cruel thing for a little child to go through, that was it, a hug from a friend, that's all she wanted, but what was this, who was this being, who had she summoned, what was going to happen to this already broken child.
Even Halfacer, the most evil demon all over in hell, even he was reluctant to commit his crime.
"It doesn't matter if it is a child, so what? I can't let my reputation get affected because of this, no matter what, I must do it" Halfacer said to himself and he finally looked at Arka.
He walked towards her, she already had her back against the wall, Halfacer squats down to get to get down to her level, to face her face to face, he asked her this final question, "what is your name child?".
Arka said hesitatingly, "My.....my name is Arka"
"Hmmm, and Arka you said that the lady next door taught you how to do this?" Halfacer asked Arka as he pointed towards the house next door through the window.
"Yes, she taught me how to summon you", Arka answered, her voice filling more and more with fear.
"Well then, I must do what I have to do, and you my child, you must go to sleep now" Halfacer said as he put her fingers on Arka's stomach and pinched them in, puncturing holes through the soft skin of the Arka, he he kept pushing his fingers in until they came out from the other side, and then suddenly pulled them back, usually he would grab the soul too the soul of a human he had killed, but this time, he chose to do differently, he let the girl's soul go, because he knew that she was too good to be in Hell and he knew that she was going to Heaven.
As Arka's body hit the ground, Halfacer turned towards that lady's house. | 2018-09-19T07:00:36 | 2018-09-19T05:51:15 | 51 | 24 |
[WP] You invented a serum that lets you communicate with animals. You decide to test it first. It doesn't seem to work, until you hear a spider ask, "Hey Roomie! How was your day?!" | "Hey Roomie! How was your day?!" the spider inquired, cheerfully. She was a big one -- *tegenaria gigantea,* a giant house spider. Harmless to humans, helpful in controlling insect pests.
"Bad." I said, with a sigh, as I regarded the empty ampule from which I'd drawn the zoophonic serum. "Something's very wrong here."
"Aw." the spider said, skittering across the table and resting a comforting foreleg on my hand. "What's wrong?"
"Well, I was trying to make scientific history with zoophonic serum -- my own formulation of designer neurotransmitters and artificial peptides designed to render to me sensitive to the neural activity of non-human creatures. I hoped to be able to use it to, in layman's terms, *talk to animals."*
The spider raised her forelegs in a passable imitation of a human's spread arms. "Seems like you got a hole in one then, buddy. Congratulations!" Then she cocked her tiny head curiously. "What's the problem?"
"The problem, little friend," I explained, "Is that this interaction we're having is nonsensical. You're a *spider.* A solitary arachnid predator, whose extremely limited cognition is almost entirely specialized for *catching bugs.* You don't have social instincts or empathy, much less a concept of a what a 'roomie' is."
"Ohhhhhh." the spider said, bobbing her head in understanding. "So, what *is* happening right now, then?"
"I injected myself with an untested psychoactive compound designed to cross the blood-brain barrier, and as a result I am now *vividly* hallucinating." I replied, with a sigh.
"That's bad luck." the spider, agreed, glumly. Then she brightened, as a whirling iridescent doorway made from the shells of a thousand singing oysters materialized on the tabletop beside her. "Well, as long as you're at it, want to go on a *magical adventure* in the musical kingdom of Molluscia?"
"I guess." I assented, and as I gingerly held her foreleg between two fingers, we leapt together into the spinning rainbow portal. | After five years of research and testing in his home lab, Kevin watched as what he finally believed to be a serum that would allow humans to understand the languages of animals dripped slowly into a test tube. The golden liquid was as thick as a viscous oil. Microscopic crystals that had formed inside it glittered in the carefully placed lighting of his ramshackle clean room. After the last drop fell to the thin glass vessel, he reached down and plucked it from its stand, admiring its physical beauty and his mind racing over the conversations he planned to have with the many animals around the city. He couldn't wait to find out what the cat in the coffee shop thought of everyone who walked past it.
With that thought in his head, he tipped the tube into his mouth and let the liquid flow down. He grimaced at the taste of liver and rotten eggs, but pushed past it, allowing the substance to fall to the back of his tongue, then he promptly swallowed it. Initially, he didn't feel anything. He stood, holding the test tube, waiting patiently, but nothing seemed to happen. After some thought, he considered the fact that maybe it was too viscous to digest properly, so he started walking to his kitchen but as the outer door of the air lock to his clean room opened, he doubled over in pain. It started in his stomach and radiated outwards. With every beat of his heart, he felt it travel upwards with almost sentient purpose. He screamed as it reached his brain and the sensation it caused was like a thousand tiny needles puncturing every nerve in his head, pushing slowly in and through them. Then, as suddenly as it began, it ended.
Breathing heavily, the scientist stood and walked instead to his bathroom. He splashed his face with water and looked at his now bloodshot eyes in the mirror. He didn't feel the pain anymore, but he also didn't feel any different. Looking at his eyes, though, he did notice tiny gold flecks in his irises that weren't there before, causing him to smile. Something had changed. Without hesitation, he ran out of his bathroom to the front door of his apartment and grabbed his coat. Dashing out the door, forgetting to lock the door, it remained partially ajar as he sped down the stairs of the building. In far less time than it usually took, he arrived at his favourite coffee shop and stared through the window looking for the cat that took up residence there years ago. She was resting on a stack of books near the back of the store and he quickly ran in and sat near her. "Hello Mittens. How are you today?" The cat looked up lazily at the disturbance. No response. "Hmm, maybe I need to try to talk like you... Meow, rrrow row meow." Mittens ears perked up slightly getting Kevin's hopes up, but when she meowed and rolled onto her back, he didn't understand it.
Feeling rather dejected, he gave her a quick scratch and left. "Maybe it's not cats..." he walked along the street looking for any animals that might be around. A rat squeaked as it ran from a garbage can to the gutter. Nothing. Birds chirping in a tree as he passed, craning his ears in hope. Nothing. He walked past a dog park on the way home and all he heard was barking. Even the squirrels in the tree outside of his apartment building were only chirruping. Feeling like he had failed, he climbed the stairs to his room and pushed open the door. "Hey, Roomie! How was your day?!" He jumped at least two feet high in surprise at the high, rough voice that greeted him and landed painfully on his tailbone. Looking around the room there was no one there to have spoken to him.
"WHO'S THERE?!" Had the serum affected his eyesight somehow? It made no sense as he could see all the people when he was outside. Another look around the room and the only thing that seemed different was what a tiny fuzzy cushion on the couch, no bigger than his hand, that wasn't there before.
Then the cushion moved. It raised a long hairy leg that he hadn't noticed before, "Yo! I actually didn't expect you to understand that. Human's usually don't." Kevin looked carefully at the thing speaking with wide eyes. The huge spider lifted its leg again and waved. "Yep. Little ol' me, just sitting here waiting. You got a nice place here, man. Thanks for leaving the door open! Looking forward to living together!" Kevin screamed...
---
lol, this was fun to write! Thanks for the prompt!
More at r/SamsStoriesSub | 2018-09-21T23:49:24 | 2018-09-21T23:11:57 | 148 | 41 |
[WP] A little invisible girl spends her days scaring everyone she meets, who all think she's a ghost. Scared and alone, she finds comfort in a little blind boy.
Edit: So apparently this is already the plot of a book, which is like, super cool and great. | "Oh- I'm sorry."
He spoke with a smile Emma could only guess was sincere.
"There's nothing to be sorry for." The girl took a step back, only visible by the crushed grass under her feet.
"What's your name?" Thomas answered in childful curiosity. Anyone who sounded like a fairy shaking it's wings was probably his age, and he really needed to have friends his age.
"Um, Emm- Emma." She hessitated to answer. It had never ocurred to her that somebody might be interested in speaking with a ghost.
"Can I touch your hair, Emma?" Thomas was filled with curiosity. His milked eyes opened in an attempt to understand this girl in front of him. Never had he had the chance to be with someone like her in a situation like this. They would always treat him like weak, or avoid him.
"Of course." Emma aproached Thomas, leaning her head forward. Whenever she touched someone, they would freak out, scream, and spill out rude words she was not allowed to say. Now, this boy was curious to find her touch.
Thomas grabbed the hair gently, he could fill it escaping through his fingers like a mixture of cold river-flowing water and spider silk. He wanted to imagine her hair was blonde, but nobody really knew if that was a fact. He then remembered a little trick his older sister had explained to him not so long ago.
Without asking, he started to trim the hairs one over the other in a braid way. He felt as if making a wonderful piece of decorated cloth, and could only believe it would make Emma happy.
"Do you like it?" He asked her.
"I love it." Emma answered. She couldn't see it, but as she passed her hand over her hair, she met Thomas' scratched fingers, and stared into them understanding how much they caressed and loved the world arround him. She couldn't see the beauty of her own hair, but understood it was made with genuine love.
&#x200B;
\---------
I tried my best, sorry for any grammar mistakes- I'm fluent in speaking English but not writing yet. | I wasn't born like this, which I think makes it harder for everyone else. They knew me. Some loved me. So when it happened, and they thought I had died, it was difficult to deal with. And scary. They could hear my voice, feel my hand on theirs, bump into me in the hallway... They thought I was haunting them.
I suppose I am, sort of, but what else can I do?
It was a stupid game... Jenny said she'd found a way to make you invisible, so we set up a bunch of candles and chanted this weird phrase over and over and then... the candles went out and it was dark. She scrambled to the lights, but when she flipped them on, she was even more terrified than when it was dark. It had worked. I was invisible.
I think now that she wanted it to work, and only on me. She was always kind of a mean girl. Always making me play the Prince while she played Princess. Always making me give her my pudding at lunch. Always handing me her math homework. And I just let her do it. She was my only friend and now she's not even that. But she is the only one who truly knows what happened.
She wouldn't come clean afterward. Wouldn't tell her parents the truth. Started screaming that Is run away and must have gotten killed and now I was haunting her. How well that worked out for her... she's now strapped down to a bed in the hospital, shot up with meds twice a day.
I "haunted" her for a while, as payback. But it was really sad to see her like that, especially knowing she wasn't crazy. She was just mean.
And that's how I met Ben. He was there, in the hospital, wandering around the halls alone. He walked right into me - not completely uncommon, and said "sorry" before continuing on. Every other time this happened with someone, they'd look terrified. He just moved out of the way and continued on like he hadn't just walked into a ghost.
"Can you see me?" I asked timidly. I hadn't spoken in days. The last time I used my voice was to cry to myself in a closet.
He stopped and turned slowly until he was almost facing me but not quite.
"Is that a joke?" He ran a hand over his eyes and it was suddenly clear. He was blind.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I just..."
"Wait... then what did you mean?"
"Nothing I just meant..."
"Jenny's not crazy, is She?"
I didn't know what to say.
"She's been screaming about her invisible friend for weeks, saying she's not dead, she's just invisible and she's here in the hospital, and no matter how much stuff they give her or how often she's dragged to the therapists office, she keeps saying it. And... you must be her."
It was incredible, his ability to out this all together and even further to believe it. He would sound crazy himself.
"How..." I couldn't even form the words. I didn't know quite what to say.
"Something similar happened to me," he replied blankly. "And that's why I'm here."
So it didn't look like he was talking to himself, he told me to follow him back to the supply closet. He figured he'd only have a few minutes before they came looking for him, so he talked fast about how he and some of his buddies tried this game they'd found online. It was supposed to make someone invisible but they didn't have all the right ingredients. They substituted a few things and thought it would work. But instead, he opened his eyes and couldn't see anything anymore.
His parents took him to the doctor but the doctor couldn't find anything wrong with his eyes. They went to doctor after doctor, who looked at his brain and asked him a bunch of psychological questions, and finally his parents asked if he was faking it. He swore he wasn't but the doctors were convinced, so his parents were too. And they were too frustrated to put up with what they thought was an over-done prank, so they checked him into the hospital, where he listened day-in and day-out to Jenny's screams. And he knew what must have happened.
But nobody would believe him. Nobody believed her. And the scary thing was, this game was on the internet, making the rounds where any kid could find it and try it out. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
| 2018-11-20T13:05:26 | 2018-11-20T12:46:55 | 29 | 16 |
[WP] There is a deep hole just outside your village. The elders pick one person to dive in every year, 'for the good of the tribe', never to be seen again. The elders have just chosen you. You're expected to jump tonight. | Every year one of us has to jump, every year we have to say goodbye to one of us just to have him jump down this damn hole and probably kill themselves.
Im planning to form a revolution,to overcome this nonsense and to live in freedom without being bound to these damn elders' rules.
Tomorrow when another man will give his live for the village I will bring the will of the village on my side, allthough im only a teenager and therefore protected I am still willing to risk my life for freedom.
*the next day*
This morning was as silent as every years chosing ones. No birds, no humans, no one even whispered.
.
.
It didnt went as planned...
I am now expected to be the one to jump tonight it feels like they knew what i was up to,I am scared of the dark below I dont want to jump but I will be forced..
Maybe my death will be for the greater good.
.
.
I was staring down the abyss,begging for my life up until they had enough of me and kicked me down ive been falling for a couple minutes now,at this point i just want it to end, its hard to breathe while falling but somehow my body feels lighter every second
I was about to bite of my own tongue when a bright white light blinded me to an extend ive never seen before. It was so bright i passed out and what felt like months was over in a couple minutes i woke up seeing a bright blue sky and a man with long hair infront of me it seems like we were transported on a... is that a wagon?
He leans forward to me...
"Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there." | I drop my apples in shock, shaking as I knew all along what this meant. They were going to sacrifice me. As young as eight I always snuck around to see how exactly it was done; not just the public display. I still remember the local bully, Kyle boasting on how his soul would save the village by jumping. The crowd cheered and awed at how quickly he went in, only to disappear as quickly as he went in. The elders would look in and smile that same smile.
"He did it! He saved us!"
As soon as the crowds would depart, I would see Savannah, the leader of the elders raise up her staff and two young men wearing dark green robes jump down the hole and float back up with Kyle still alive. He was covered in blood from his head to his toes. I still remember Savannah's low baritone voice, "Kill kim. He is no good anyways". As soon as she stopped talking, the men began to pull the boy apart from opposite directions as he screamed for help. His bones snapped like twigs as the flesh thinned and thinned revealing crimson and live gore. Kyle's eyes rolled back from the pain as death took his time. They churned the organs like stew and drained the blood into a large bucket as he still screamed.
When Kyle finally died, Savannah and her pack laughed together as they began feasting on the corpse like wolves. I always hated the souds of the slurping and the chewing when they ate. I don't know what else they did as I snuck away from the trees back home. Too bad, I wish I could say it ended there but the elders took on even tourists. Tourists were always the unlucky ones and the most likely victims of these "festivities". I sometimes wish that our "village" wasn't filled with new technology and talent that attracted so many people. So many victims for many years. This year there wasn't as many tourists so we now go back to our own people. They chose me of all the people. I pick up the newspaper that had my own personal column. I always hated the elders anyway. But this time I have a plan for this day. I always knew they were on to me since the "accident".
I still blame myself for getting Savannah killed by the train. But hey, what was I going to do when she wielded a knife at me? I pushed her over and heard the satisfying crunch of her ribs and her eyes popped out her skull. I pretended to cry when the police found me near her and they comforted me that I was trying to save myself but the elders were angry. Now, they want me dead because I got their leader killed. I have only 5 hours left until they come for me. I will escape them tonight.
I look over to my bed to a large bag that held my few belongings and I dressed up in all black pants, shirt, heavy duty shoes, and I had gloves for extra measure. The plan is almost done expect for one last thing: My spell book. I grab my spell book and scan through the pages until I stumble across the one that had the bookmark.
Here it is.
Spell #223
Mors phantastica illusio
I mumble the words as I focus my mind to conjure up the illusion. I feel the spell make my blood cold, almost like a sting in my heart. The room got darker and the wind around me whips around as I focus. Those elders aren't the only ones with magic. Anyone could learn it if they were determined. The spell finally fades to reveal an orb of purple and white. I smile as I hold it in my hands. This was going to be the key to my escape.
I will escape on the boat and the orb will imperonate me at the ritual long enough to make the jump.
Little do they know, once the spell wears off, I have spell #345 ready.
O lux
I cackle as I escape through the window and make it to shore. The hours flow by like drops of water and I look back to hear shrieks and cries as O lux burns their skin and flesh away. Nothing survives light. Nothing.
I smile as look the moon as I return home. | 2019-04-28T17:36:00 | 2019-04-28T17:12:24 | 30 | 17 |
[WP] You're the Grim Reaper. When you approach dying people you see a timer and cause of death in text above them, and your x-ray vision always confirms their illnesses. Today seemed normal but the text above the person in front of you says "Death: Cancer, 9 seconds." Problem is that he is healthy. | This shouldn't be happening. I watched as the number counted down. Part of me was horrified; he was completely healthy, there were no signs of any illness. Yet part of me was intrigued. I wanted to see what would happen. Oftentimes we were given more warning when someone died of something like an aneurism or heart attack. We were usually given way more time for cancer, too. So given nine seconds, and a death to cancer? This doesn't make sense.
I unfroze time for one second. Inside I watched black tendrils wrap around one of his kidneys. This guy was thirty-two, an analyst, a healthy dad of two. These tendrils were not normal.
Two more seconds. The tendrils encompassed his kidney in the first. In the second, tumors started to bud and grow.
"Reaper. You have other appointments you must address." One of my associates whispered in my ear.
"Not now." I said. "I am unsure what's happening here. It is necessary to investigate."
"Understood." And he disappeared.
I positioned myself in the empty seat next to the man. He would not see me in any case, but I figured I might as well stay discreet. On the occasion I got too excited, sometimes my form would emanate waves of intimidation, making the room grow cold and fill humans with unease.
Two more seconds. Tumors spread in his kidney and metastasized out; they spread into the rest of his torso and up into his lungs and heart, all through his lymphatic system. In the next second, I watched his blood cells, both red and white, atrophy before my eyes. His hand fluttered down to his kidney, and in the eighth second he collapsed out of his chair, clutching the outside of where his kidney was.
In the final second, his heart stopped beating. The muscle had atrophied from the toll the tumors took on his body.
As his coworkers ran to his side I looked harder. The black tendrils - that only I could see - laced through his veins, turning the whites of his eyes and fingernails black.
Black sludge was pouring out of his mouth like drool. Some other human called 911. I stroked his hair and it turned to ash under my fingers.
This was strange. But it was not unfamiliar. This was the work of the Life Bringer, my counter. Oftentimes we worked in harmony, as a crucial balance to sustain this planet we served.
This was not her job, but it was her message. She was meant to give life. She had given life to this man some time ago. And yet, it was her choice to now reclaim it.
I needed to get to the bottom of this. For some reason, she was declaring war on me.
&#x200B;
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Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed that please check out my subreddit /r/ShittyDuckStories | A teenage boy stands before me in a mall. Well, floats. He’s a soul now, after all. He’s trying to move, waving his wispy limbs around. Haha, they always look hilarious when they do that. Baby souls, toddling around.
The boy’s dead. Hasn’t always been dead; that’s how these things work. He’s very recently dead, though. Nobody can accuse me of slow customer service.
I float toward the boy. “Greetings, mortal soul.” At the sound of my voice, the boy freezes and turns to stare at me. I smile, although I'm not sure if he's close enough to see my face. “I am Death, the Reaper of Souls, Guide to — ”
“Took you a while, huh?" The boy replies nonchalantly. "I’ve been here for like forty-five minutes. I thought I was supposed to go haunt someone I hated, you know, like a ghost. Am I a ghost?”
“You — you — ” I spluttered. Insolence! I am the Grim Reaper! Humans are so irreverent these days. So what if I was playing with my cats instead of checking the fresh soul queue?
“That’s no way to greet the Grim Reaper! I could banish you to the void for eternity! I could torture you into insanity!”
Let’s not mention that I’d get censured for that. Besides, it’s a lot of effort. I’ll just scare some respect into him.
“Yeah, yeah, so, anyway, can I see that chick I saved? I’m like a hero, or something, right? Sacrificing myself to save someone?”
“You didn’t save anyone. You died from a heart attack.”
“What? No, I saved a girl. There was a robber running out of the Apple Store, and he had a knife. I pushed the girl out of the way and got stabbed instead!”
I snorted. “Your so-called ‘robber’ was just a customer in a rush. He was so excited with his new iPhone that he started unwrapping it as soon as he left the store. You’re so stupid that you can’t tell the difference between a knife and an iPhone. He wasn’t watching where he was going and bumped into some people on his way out.”
“No,” the boy says in a weak voice. “That can’t be. I saved that hot girl. She was so hot.”
“You lunged at the girl but missed and managed to impale yourself on the fence around the mall’s Christmas tree.”
The boy’s lost expression is delicious. One of the things that motivate me for work.
Then I notice the huge mall clock. What am I doing? So much time as passed.
“So, yada yada yada," I say, "we’ve wasted so much time. If anyone asks, I read you your rights, got it? Otherwise void, torture, all that.”
I lift my scythe.
“What?” the boy manages to ask before my scythe cleaves through his soul. The wispy essence sticks to the scythe, which slurps it up like hot soup.
I’m supposed to escort him the afterlife, but this new feature on my scythe is so handy. The trip to the afterlife takes ages. I can store a few souls in my scythe and take them in a batch. I work smarter, not harder. I may have left a few demons in my scythe from my initial experiments with it, but the souls will have an eternity of bliss to recover.
Yeah, so I lied to the boy. He’d saved the girl and all that. So what? There was no company policy against lying.
I float out of the mall to my beloved cats. Ah, the feigned indifference when I return home —
The smell of death fills the air.
Me? Are you looking for an early death? Of course it’s not me! I shower daily!
I scan the mall in an instant, flitting through walls and people alike. A perfectly healthy man about to die in nine seconds from cancer. Then another. And another.
I slow down time and work diligently to avert the clearly supernatural phenomenon — not.
I tap them all, and they whoosh with a satisfying sound into my scythe. A few seconds early or late isn’t a big deal. I have real problems to deal with.
“Show yourself, Nemesis!” I shout, my voice ringing throughout the mall in the ethereal dimension.
I whirl around. He always emerges behind me. Does he think it’s dramatic? I miss half of his entrance that way.
A toddler barely old enough to walk toddles out from behind a mall bench.
“Cancer Baby! Stop this at once!”
The toddler giggles and runs away.
“At least let us fight in a less populated area!” I shout, chasing after him.
Bodies drop in our wake. To save myself a second trip, I’m harvesting all the souls along the way. No need to check; Cancer Baby has definitely infected them all. Evil bastard. He’s probably going to infect the entire mall. In that case —
“Die!” I yell, and with a swing, I level the mall. I float up through the falling ceiling and survey the results.
That should do — damn it.
A giggling toddler climbs from the wreckage, waves, and vanishes.
There’s going to be so much paperwork. | 2019-12-27T12:57:23 | 2019-12-27T07:09:53 | 31 | 17 |
[WP] As a child you had to receive a life saving heart transplant due to a defect. It has been almost 20 years since then. You are waiting for a train to arrive when suddenly you feel a sharp pang in your chest as a stranger approaches. He smiles and says: "I believe you have something of mine." | All things considered, I've been lucky in life.
Well, other than the congenital heart defect. And having ten corrective surgeries before age three. And those not working. It eventually culminated at age five, when I got my new heart. The new heart wasn't without it's issues. I had to take anti-rejection medications. As a kid I wasn't allowed to do too much because I was 'fragile'. Being told that often had a downside. Mostly, I grew up believing mom about that.
The first time I went on a rollercoaster I was nineteen and in college. My mom had panicked about that. Wanted me to stay local. Went off. Made my own friends. Got a new job. In the city.
It's why I was on a crowded New York subway station after burning the midnight oil. Associates at New York law firms don't work normal hours. They are also paranoid when they see men watching them.
He was in his fifties, maybe early sixties. He wore a leather jacket over a polo, slightly too large of jeans. A little frumpy. Maybe... tired. Worn around the edges. Maybe going to rush and steal a wallet.
I was readying to bolt when he nervously approached. Suddenly, a sharp pain in my chest. Maybe... pain. But there was a familiarity. "I- I think you have something of mine." He hesitated. "Well, not mine. Not anymore." The man hesitated again, struggling. I nearly didn't come. I'm sorry I did. But... twenty years ago, did you get a heart transplant?"
Suddenly, I was frozen. My whole body locked up. "Y-yeah. I did. Have we met?"
"No. Twenty years ago I lost my son in a car wreck. I... I pulled life support. Signed for him to be an organ donor. I was right. Did some digging. You have... his heart. I don't know why I'm here. Today he'd of turned twenty-six."
What was there to even say? "I- I'm sorry that happened."
"It's alright. I got past the anger and self-pity a while ago. I guess... I just wanted to know that something good came out of the bad, I suppose. And... look at you. Lawyer. Successful."
"I... I guess so. I'm a first year associates. I do research and basically do grunt work and nothing of importance. I... I don't know."
He nodded. "You're young. You're still young. Have time. I guess..." He took a shaky breath. "Are you happy?"
That was a little easier. "Yeah, I think I am, most days."
"Good, good. Focus on happy. Sorry for bothering you. I just... needed to know you were okay. Always wondered, over the years. What happened. Good to know you're... here. Doing things. Happy. Drunk driver took my son but a part of him is... here with me, in a way."
I didn't know what to say to the man. "Do... you want to get coffee, or something?"
He shook his head. "That's kind of you. But... go home. Get some sleep. Take care of yourself. Be happy. Best you can do, I guess. Live your life."
With that, he turned and headed to the stairs.
The night stuck with me. I never saw him again but always looked for the man who looked a little worn. Thought about him when I proposed. Got married. When I switched and left corporate law. Went and started a charity with my new wife. Thought about him as milestones came and went.
He was still there as I sat on the back porch of the house. Fingers wound through hair that was now a solid as I sat and surveyed the yard. "What's in your head?"
"Once... somebody asked me to be happy."
"And?"
"I think I did a pretty good job." | Sara sat on the bench, lost in her work. Technically she wasn’t supposed to take her work home but it didn’t matter. She could do it without any consequence. Not because she was a big deal. No. In fact it was the opposite. She was pretty much invisible at the precinct. She was just the young rookie who no one cared about. All her coworkers made sure to remind her of the fact multiple times a day.
But she would show them. When she would crack this case, they would all see that she belonged. She wanted it. She needed it. She needed to find a place where she belonged. They all thought it was a suicide but she knew. Well not knew, more she felt strongly that there was more to it than met the eye. She also had the case file for the case actually assigned to her. A streaker who ran across the city hall and punched an old lady. It was bad, she knew. But still. The old lady was fine.
“Excuse me.”
She looked up and saw the tall, pale figure looming over her. He looked pointedly at her bag lying beside her. She eyed the multiple other empty benches around her. But not wanting to come off as rude, she moved her stuff. He sat down beside her and gave her a smile. She felt a sharp pang in her chest and she clasped her hands over her jacket.
“No, you’re not having a heart attack. Yes, I can read your mind. I am mildly telepathic.”
She tried to get up and back away from him.
“Don’t worry. You just have something that belongs to me. It recognizes me and wants to come back. It will settle down soon. Sit down, please. Count till 20.”
The pain was intense but she reducing. She started counting in her head but still stayed standing.
“Out loud is better.”
She took a deep breath and started counting. By the time she reached twenty the pain was gone.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Olivier. Well one of my names is Olivier.”
“That is an answer but not the answer I’m looking for.”
“Sara. You don’t have a gun.”
“Get out of my head!”
“Sit down. Let’s talk. This takes effort so trust me I don’t want to do this either. But I have to make sure you’re not going to run or punch me or wonder where your gun is.”
Sara sat down, never taking her eyes off him.
“So Olivier. What do I have of yours. And more importantly, telepathy?”
“Mildly telepathic. I can read fragments. But with you. We share a special connection so it’s stronger. I can pretty much read your mind fully. You see, when you were young, you fell down in the street and...”
“My heart had a defect and they gave me a transplant. You mean that was yours?”
“It was! You’re a good detective.”
“At least someone recognizes that. But if I have your heart then how are you alive.”
“Well... I’m not exactly, what you would call human you see. It’s a bit painful. But I live.”
“What are you?” Sara’s fear was now being replaced by her curiosity.
“Well you guys never had a good name for me. Think of me as a cross between a vampire and an immortal. I can’t really die so not having a heart, while difficult, is not life threatening.”
“A vampire? You’re joking.”
“Not exactly. I don’t shimmer. I can go out in the sun. Telepathy and the ability to sleep for long times. That’s about where my similarities with a vampire end.”
“How bad does it hurt? Not having a heart.”
“It’s mildly uncomfortable. And with no blood flow, my body feels really really numb. Also I don’t feel any emotions. Except... except the ones you feel.”
“Ok mister. I listened. But this is going too far. I’m done. I’ll go now. You better not follow me. I’m a cop.”
“If you walk away you’ll never be able to solve the case.”
He sat back and watched her. She hesitated. “You know who did it? And how do you know the case I am working on.”
“I know.”
“Wait hang on. I’m working on two cases which one do you mean.”
“I can help solve both.”
“How? Are you a detective.”
“I’m a student of human nature. And because I’ve been alive for centuries, I’ve got a chance to be really good at it. Also the lack of emotion allows me to look at something completely objectively. So you can either come, sit and talk. Or you can keep struggling.”
Sara didn’t really have a choice then. “So tell me.”
“No. You tell me. Tell me everything.”
“So the girl apparently committed suicide. She left a video behind her. She saw someone punch an old lady and was just so disappointed in humanity that she just gave up. The lady being punched is my other case, btw. But this is more important. I suspect her husband. He admitted they had been having problems. Last year they even separated for a while. But I keep getting stuck at that video. That video is the real deal.”
“It is real.”
“So... is it a suicide?”
“Six months ago I was at city hall. Someone punched an old lady. The guy was never found.”
“That case is less important. I’m more concerned about the apparent suicide.”
“All crimes are equally important. Let’s focus on this one.”
Sara looked at him and sighed. “Fine. So someone punched an old lady six months ago. And also last week? Is someone going around punching old ladies.”
“Or someone had to punch an old lady this time.”
“Why? It’s such a stupid thing to do.”
“Sure. But maybe someone needed to do it.”
“Well this incident was in the suicide video and...”
“Keep going.”
“Holy shit. What if my victim was suicidal and sent this video to her husband back then. And now...”
Sara looked at her companion, shocked.
“Well done young lady.” He looked at the train coming down the tracks. “My train is here. You can keep my heart for now. If you ever need me, just feel real hard.”
He left Sara shocked at the station and took in a deep breath. Surprise and happiness. It had been a long time since he had felt that. | 2020-04-01T22:26:01 | 2020-04-01T19:44:10 | 49 | 20 |
[WP] Every time you dream you're actually visiting the mind of one of your doppelgangers in a parallel dimension. Those who lucid dream are actually possessing their doppelgangers. | Hello,
I'm writing this comment in a dream. I'm trying to figure out where and who I am. It seems like I'm in Maryland in somebody's office. I get up, I look in the mirror. It's me, but its not me. It just looks like me. Suddenly, I realize I have the ability to control the \*man in the mirror\*.
Next thing I know--- KABLOW!!! A huge explosion comes from outside. I look out the window, I see a faint rose-color glow on the horizon. A woman downstairs begins screaming some man's name.
"Paul!" she yells.
"Paul! Paul! P-p-p-p-paul...?"
I hear a door open behind me, and in the doorway stands a 10/10 knockout blonde babe.
"Paul," she says, "I was screaming your name downstairs. Didn't you hear me?"
I assume she is talking to me, but my name isn't Paul. It's David. David Wassermann. I am confused.
In pure confused rage, I yell out, "Dammit woman, I'm David! Can't you see there was just a nuclear explosion outside!? This is no time for childish games!!!"
"Paul, you're scaring me..." she whispers, and then suddenly freezes in terror, eyes glued to something behind my back.
I turn around slowly and from out the window I see a huge wave of what looks like lightning coming towards me fast.
I grab the woman, tell her I love her, and then transform into a bat.
I am Dracula.
I fly high into the air, above the wave, as it obliterates the house along with the woman.
As a vampire, I feel no remorse, and fly off into the nuclear winter's night, looking for a virgin's neck to bite.
I wake up from the dream in a cold sweat and am relieved that all of it was a dream. It wasnt real.
&#x200B;
&#x200B;
...or was it? | *Journey Through Dreams* was the next book I started whipping through. Then after I skimmed through and received the same information from the previous book *Unlocking Dreams*, I was done. I tossed it on the pile of all the other completed lucid dreaming books that spilled out from the corner of my room that accumulated over a month.
I was tired and fed up with what I saw every night when I went to bed. The dreams were hyper realistic and they were so annoying. Monday through Friday seemed to blend together and even the weekend was more mundane as if that was possible.
I saw through the eyes of a kid in high school named Norman Reinhold.
Norman was always on time to all of his classes. During lunch hour he did not go off campus like all of the other students who had cars in his grade. He usually sat by himself and let the underclassmen who had no manners throw grapes, crackers, and small pieces of trash at him from across the lunchroom. Norman just sat there and ignored all of it, but deep down I could feel his depression leaching at what little life he had.
I will say that I was impressed with Norman's ability to receive perfect scores on every test without having to study. That's something in my life I could never achieve, but it came so simple to him, and the class would love him if he bailed them out from time to time when the teacher asked if anyone knew the answer to a question, but he always remained silent. Never said a peep to anyone, nor did he ever stare at another (at least he was polite).
He would glance at a girl named Helen who was in his English class. She sat a seat away from him. Helen was the only person who ever said hello to him throughout the school day. They didn't talk though, nor were they friends, but she was kind to Norman, and I felt his emotions brighten every time she greeted him with a smile and a nod. *Come on dude, you can totally make a friend. Her nonverbals are begging for a conversation with you. I know you have a crush on her but at least start with a "hello how are you" to see if you have chemistry.*
On his walk home from school the bullying would continue. Kids would peel out in their cars and hurl insults at him, and even though he paid no attention, I could still feel the emotional stab with each verbal knife.
Things must be better at home, right? As soon as he walked in through the door his mom told him to go straight to his room and work on his homework. He would only be able to leave his room to go to the bathroom or if dinner was ready before he finished. That was it. He wasn't allowed a break for an hour to play video games or even an hour to read a book just for the fun of it. His mom pointed to his door, neglecting to ask how his miserable day went. To make matters worse, he didn't even have a smartphone to give him some liberty.
Dinner was silent and his mom sat across the table, refusing to say a word. Norman was a dam of emotions just waiting to burst. *Talk about things, man. Talk to the counselor at school, or even show your mom your raw emotions, live for some change.* But no, the clanking of silverware on their plates echoed through the halls of the house.
After he was done with dinner, Norman would clean up all of the dishes and the rest of the kitchen, then he would have chores for the evening. Often times it was vacuuming, other times he would have to wash his clothes or clean the tub. Get this, he wasn't allowed to watch TV or own any video games. He had a computer in his room, but the strictest parental controls were on. It was purely for research, but he spent most of his time browsing houses on real estate websites in fancy neighborhoods, daydreaming about living in a palace of his own.
*We're going to get there, buddy. When I wake up as you tomorrow I'm going to lucid dream and I'm going to hop in the driver's seat. Buckle up, Norman, we're going to seize the day. You deserve it. Life in my world is awesome, and I'm going to make damn sure it happens to you.*
[Part 2!](https://www.reddit.com/r/randallcooper/comments/gxbx0v/wp_every_time_you_dream_youre_actually_visiting/)
r/randallcooper | 2020-06-05T09:53:51 | 2020-06-05T09:06:35 | 68 | 41 |
[WP] You're a cleaner for a famous assassin. You just found out it is your spouse. This infuriates you not because of the secrets or killing, but because you've been cleaning up after your spouse at home and at their work all this time. | She screeched and stalked towards him, disregard for the dead body at her feet in every indignant line of her body.
"Are you fucking KIDDING ME??" Allie yelled.
Chris winced, rubbing an ear, then stopped. He looked at her, head tilted in confusion.
"You don't look as scared as I thought you might be if you found out about my, uh, less than conventional job" he started hesitantly. "Are.. are you mad at me?"
"Mad at you? Am I MAD at you?? Yes, I am furious! This is beyond not fair". Allie stepped over the body in her boss's waiting area, advancing on him menacingly. "We have been married for seven years. SEVEN. I have been cleaning this office for FIVE. I do all the chores at home, and you come home and prattle on about how taxing your day has been! How much do you even DO all day?". Allie stopped in front of him, breathing heavily, sodden cleaning rag forgotten in her fist as she glared at her husband.
"Well, I sit around a lot as I wait for my target, and uh. Why aren't you scared?"
"Scared? I know where you sleep, I know you still cuddle a stuffed animal every night, and I know you wouldn't function without me. You should be asking the real question."
Chris quirked an eyebrow. "What's the real question?"
Allie slapped the washrag into his chest, then wiped her hands dry on his shirt.
"The real question is how much cleaning you now have to do at home." | As I make my way through Strickman's office, I can't help myself from first emptying out his dustbin. I'm not proud to admit it - I'm not proud of much anymore - but this is the highlight of my day. I've never met the man. A contact of a friend of a friend got me this job and well, when you're my age with no education, no money and a jail-shaped eight year gap in your resume, you don't say no to any jobs. Especially one that pays this well.
It's not just the guilty pleasure of getting to know a man without him knowing you - let's be honest, it's the fact that he's a hitman. A bounty hunter, an assassin, a gun for hire a "professional" whatever you want to call it, this man did what I never could. He made crime into his job and he *succeeded* at it.
The hints that he's successful come in varied an interesting shapes. I've found professional-grade hyperreal face masks tossed away like yesterday's socks. I've found broken contraptions made of coiled rope and smelling of gunpowder. My favourite was a single high heeled shoe, plated in gold and in what must have been a man's 12. It had been neatly place upright in the dustbin. Today, I only find a few wrappers for spearmint Shreddies' gum and a single napkin with a lipstick stain on it. I guess his job comes with perks.
I drift off, thinking of my own perks. This last weekend was pretty wild, even my Merissa's standards. Four years into our marriage, I still don't understand the woman. Why would someone this smart and this well... outrageously hot end up with a chump like me? Sometimes I think it's because I'm simple, straightforward. She's anything but, and last weekend she was quite keen to show me. Mind you, I wasn't complaining.
I start cleaning the top two desk drawers, the ones Strickman leaves unlocked. The thing is, Merissa also knows how to drive me crazy. It's the little things. The things that take no effort, no consideration but that she doesn't bother doing. Come to think of it, Sunday evening wasn't so good. I brought up her of spiting her gum - she chews Shreddies too - into the wrapper, then dropping it on the carpet. We shouted, I cried and then I lost the argument. She can talk circles around me, every time. This time it was because I'd supposedly forgotten to close the front door. One time. I barely blink when I open the second drawer and I see four pudgy fingers roll around the bottom, leaving broken streaks of blood. Mild annoyance washes over me - the man is a slob, he could have used a handkerchief - but at least the blood is fresh. It'll come out easily.
Maybe I'm being hard on her. I think the fact that she can't talk about her job at the "Military Institute for Research" (very descriptive, I know) weighs on her more than she lets on. And sure, it sometimes feels like I'm working when I'm home too, cleaning up after her but marriage is about helping each other. Accepting each other's shortcomings and growing past them. I 'm almost done now, just picking up trash from the floor. Gum wrappers... And now I feel like an asshole. I *have* been too hard on her. It's not a big deal, you just sweep them up and...
The wrapper refuses to budge as I prod it with my broom. Slowly, very slowly, I squat down and examine its bottom. Gum. Stuck to the carpet. Realisation washes over me like a cold bath I didn't want to take. A tower of assumptions crumbles as fear makes itself known in my gut. \*Click\*, the door closes.
" I thought I told you to stop leaving the door open." | 2021-02-11T14:33:00 | 2021-02-11T13:46:21 | 421 | 74 |
[WP] The deity woke up from a 100-year snooze and stretched, looking around. In surprise, it found that there were no humans around. A passing animal told the deity, “There are no humans left on Earth.” It queried, “Then, why can I still feel them?” “There are no humans left ON EARTH.” | "Ah, so my children have left my cradle. Figures."
Gaia looked up towards the sky. She looked up and remembered the day where she made them. The smiling, boundless soul of humanity peering down towards her with a smile.
"They were unruly, brash, angry, and incredibly stupid. Yet they were intelligent, kind, and happy as well. They were a contradictory race."
She shed a tear.
"I'll miss them nevertheless."
She stood there for a moment, letting the wind blow on her physical manifestation.
"I hope they'll visit every once is a while. At least before the sun decides to expand." | ***WARNING: This story is really horrific and is not for the faint of heart.***
&#x200B;
I was known as Otob, the god of nothing. For no one worshipped me and I blessed nor curse anyone. The other gods would always argue that the word diety was wasted on me. But I had never heeded their words for when I felt my heart sway, I would retreat to the world of dreams for so long that many would forget about my existence. Like a long-forgotten dream, I would reappear and remind the gods who the god of nothing is. That was until my last slumber.
Unlike normal, I hadn’t woken up of my own volition. But rather something had put my heart at ease. As I regain my senses I realized that everything seemed normal.
No … that wasn’t right. It was calm. Too calm. There was an unease from the silence that I felt. The background noise that I would busy my mind as I slept was no longer humming in my ears. Something was eerie.
So I sought out into a nearby human settlement seeking answers, but as I came upon the once lively city of fortune I was greeted with the sight of tall buildings, some as high as mountains, stripped bare to their core with rubble scattered around.
Before I had my doubts if anything had changed while I was gone, but now I was sure that something had gone wrong. As I scavenged the ruins for clues I came upon some messages painted to a barely standing wall, some of which was had fallen off.
“If the gods won’t save our kin, then nothing will save the gods.”
“I shall part take in the cursed flesh if that is what it takes –“
"-whispers in my dreams - godhood."
“- sound of its squealing haunts my mind
\-shouldn’t have buried it
\-starting to lose my sanity.”
As I sat down to take all of this in, I heard the sound of rubble moving beside me. I see a turtle that was slowly making its way to me.
“I knew I heard something stumbling the ground here. Never expected a deity to have come all the way down here.”
“Mr turtle, if I may ask. How did you know so fast that I was a deity and not a human?”
“First of all, I am a ms tortoise, thank you very much. Secondly, there hasn’t been a human here for ages and you seem to have far too much life in your eyes to be a human. So logically, you must be a deity.”
“Huh, I see. You are pretty smart for a tortoise, no offense.”
“Well, I don’t blame you. I hadn’t always possessed intelligence like this. Even with all the crazy things that had gone on, I am quite abnormal.”
“Crazy things, huh. Well, you are not wrong.” I said as I sat down still trying to digest everything at once.
“Mr … ms tortoise, I had been in a slumber for the last century. Could you please tell me what happened to the humans?
&#x200B;
***Part 1*** | 2021-05-06T16:23:49 | 2021-05-06T15:30:33 | 69 | 48 |
[WP] You die, and wake up in a chair with a screen in front of you. It reads “Congratulations on being the 100 billionth person to die! As a reward, you get to customize your body, choose your skills, traits, etc for your next reincarnation! Once you finish, click “REINCARNATE”. | “Congratulations on being the 100 billionth person to die! As a reward, you get to customize your body, choose your skills, traits, etc for your next reincarnation! Once you finish, click 'REINCARNATE.'"
A happy electornic voice repeats over speakers.
You scream. You keep screaming. You sort of forget why but you're sweating and your heart is racing. You stop screaming and try to make sense of what's happening. You were in a car accident and now you're dead. Is that right? Or maybe you're still alive and this is the space between life and death? Who really...
"“Congratulations on being the 100 billionth person to die! . . ."
The voice repeats again. "Okay." You think. "I'm dead. Got it." You just thought that there would be something more... like life? There are no clouds, golden gates, or cherubs with harps. There's not even your own body. It's all just thoughts and sounds. You can't really see anything but somehow you know what is around you. It's eery and entirely unlike life.
"No. No thank you." You say to the recording.
"You must make a selection." The voice changes from a monotone to slight agitation.
"No. I do not want to reincarnate. I just want my love."
"You can choose anything that you want. You can be a billionaire or a celebrity. If you want you can even be an evil dictator. The choices are endless." The voice sounds like a used car salesman. Somehow it's convincing but in a slimy sort of way.
"Just put me back I don't want to do anything over again. I don't want to pick anything."
"No!" It yells angrily. "YOU MUST CHOOSE."
"I don't want to. If I can't live with my love then there's no point."
"You can." The voice switches to a soothing calming tone. "If you are really soulmates then you will find each other. Just pick something. You can be the greatest Quarterback of all time!"
You start to ignore it. There's a console of a sort. You use your mind to sift through it. There are all sorts of combinations. You spend hours going through it while the voice prattles on trying to convince you to reincarnate.
After searching through "Settings" and then "Privacy Options" you select "Advanced Options" and then clicking "Yes" on "are you sure you want advanced options?"
You find an appealing button. "Do not reincarnate." You begin to press it.
"NO. NO." The voice repeats. "DO NOT PICK THAT."
Well, now you know that you're going to do it. You press the button. "Are you sure?" It asks? "Yes" you select. It gives you a brief survey on why you don't want to reincarnate. You select "Other" and write in a text box "I don't want to." You click enter.
Your thought stops. Everything stops. There is nothing. ... ... ...
You awake. You are in a body again but it is angelic and radiant. You don't feel the weight of your bones and flesh like you did when you were in your corporeal form. You see your love...
"I knew you would make it." your love says. "It's been eons. I've been waiting for you. It takes so long to find the damn 'do not reincarnate button.' The whole thing is a racket. You know they make money for every reincarnation..."
And so begins an eternity in bliss. | **[Part 1]**
I stared at the screen.
"You've got to be kidding me..."
A mumbled curse escaped my lips as I tentatively reached out with my hand to touch the borderless floating display in front of me. When my fingers made contact it was slightly different than what I expected, smooth but warm to the touch.
Carefully tapping my way through the menu, I found something that almost looked like the characcter creator from any recent modern RPG. Sex, body type, ethnicity, hairstyle, hair color, facial hair, pubic hair, birthmarks... just what you'd expect to see in an Elder Scrolls or Cyberpunk game.
And there were so many choices to make! Most properties could be configured by either selecting from a seemingly endless list of premade options, or changing to a bunch of sliders to tweak connected properties in relation to each other. Selecting my reincarnation's sex and body type was pretty simple - male and athletic. But I didn't even make it to the facial hair selection before losing track of how much time I spent browsing all the available options.
Some time later, after what felt like hours upon hours of messing around with all the options, I was pretty satisfied with my "new self". I was about to hit the "Reincarnate" button, when something caught my attention. There was another tiny button in the bottom right corner. A smirk appeared on my face as I read the label. "Debug options // NOT FOR PRODUCTION!"
I pressed the button and it took me to a whole new set of options. To call them interesting would be the understatement of the millenium. Genetic stability. Immune system. Regeneration. Age progression. Mental abilities. Time of birth.
After studying the tooltips on those options for a big I came to the simple conclusion that these debug options were absolutely nuts! Perfect genome? Never getting sick? The ability to recover from any injury and even regrow amputated limbs? No longer aging physically? Yes, please!
But there was one problem. Activating any of those debug options triggered a drawback that seemed to be hardcoded into the system. At least I found no way to get rid of it without switching off all the debug options again. I have no idea what "Sensei offspring" meant, but it was marked in red with two exclamation marks. And unlike most other options there wasn't an explanatory tooltip either. But whatever that drawback was, if you didn't plan on having a family anyway it couldn't be so bad. Right?
The "mental abilities" category just had a single slider that wasn't even positioned correctly inside the window. It was simply labeled as "psychic potential" and again there was no tooltip or explanation what this option did. Whatever, up to the max you go! At this point I didn't really care much anyway. These debug options were so crazy, I just accepted that I'll get an error message when I would finally press the big button and had to start over again.
The last option I looked at was the "time of birth" datepicker. It was more curiosity that made me pop it up than any interest in actually messing around with it, but I quickly noticed that this datepicker apparently wasn't locked to a specific range. I selected my original date of birth, and it accepted it. I put in year 1, and it accepted it. The year 5000 CE? Got a green checkmark. For science I held down the button to select the previous year and waited until the UI stopped updating. The last accepted date read somewhen around 8000 BCE.
I furrowed my brow. Wait, would this thing really let me travel into the past, while keeping all the traits and skills I added previously? Now that was something that sounded not only broken, but completely busted! A tiny giggle escaped from my lips as I imagined being this immortal, super powerful, super intelligent, super strong and athletic human, running around on neolithic Earth with a shit ton of modern knowledge and skills.
But after a moment I turned serious. Could I really go back in time? Could I maybe even change history? Maybe I could prevent a lot of wars and disasters? But how would that work? If I changed a single thing that far in the past, I'd probably never be born in the first place, so I couldn't die and find this ridiculous character creator to go back in time to change the thing! Gah, I hate time travel stories! They never make any sense.
Pressing my lips together, still thinking about my idea, I tapped the "Back" button and brought up a summary of all the options I had picked - my character sheet, so to speak. I looked over the list of skills, traits, abilities, physical characteristics, and debug options, wondering if I had missed anything important.
After a couple of minutes, and once I was sure my skills and traits and stuff were as good as they would get, I made my decision. Screw this, only one way to find out. What's the worst thing that could happen? I explode in a temporal paradox or something like that and die. Considering I'm already dead, that's not much worse than my current state. But in case this really works, I'll be able to change humanity for the better. Fewer wars, less famines, faster technological advancement. The possibilities seemed endless.
When I finally pressed the "Reincarnate" button, I remembered that one saying. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. But there was no going back now, because a moment after my finger touched the button a popup appeared on the screen: _"Reincarnation ready. Date of birth: 8007-08-15 BCE. Place of birth: unnamed village, Anatolia. Step forward when ready."_
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped forward.
"And here we go..."
//Edit: Part 2 [below](https://old.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/ndvssl/wp_you_die_and_wake_up_in_a_chair_with_a_screen/gyhizf2/). | 2021-05-16T19:41:52 | 2021-05-16T19:04:50 | 99 | 26 |
[WP] A hyper advanced alien race decides to mimic Darwin's study of finches with humans. Several groups of Homo sapiens are placed on different planets and monitored over a long period of time for adaptations/evolution. You've just been abducted from planet A to be studied alongside the others.
Credit goes to [this prompt](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/oxro14/wp_a_hyper_advanced_alien_race_decides_to_mimic/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) | The Darwinian Olympics were cruel. A gold medal meant your genes were spread far and wide. Silver would get your genome analyzed for favorable alleles. Bronze got you sent home back to your gene pool. But fourth meant your genes were pruned, generally using the Torch unless you happened to compete in one of the sports that did the pruning naturally, like Lava Racing or Chess.
But the human race had to be recombined somehow. Too many millennia had passed with populations cut off on their own planets. Too much genetic drift. But every race had abilities that had helped them survive their planet. All of these genes would be combined to make the new unified humans.
Julia didn't compete in the short distance events. Her legs were long and graceful but she took too long to get up to speed. The cheetah-children of a dozen planets would outrun her in any race under half-mile. Similarly, the middle distances were dominated by the dog-men, the mountain races by those with cloven toes and rock-claws, the swamp race by the semi-aquatic.
But the desert ultramarathon was hers to win or lose. A thousand kilometers, burning sun and freezing nights, no water but what you could find. A control-natural human from Earth would die before making it 50 kilometers.
Julia came from Desolation. When the human colony had been abandoned there, it had been a marginal world. Then slowly increasing solar flares had dried out the last of the shallow seas, forcing her people to migrate between distant oases. To her, the Sahara seemed like a fine spring day.
She had been loping along for seven days. She'd seen spots of water, low pools and solitary trees, several times, but hadn't bothered to stop for it. Her fat stores were running low, though. The last of the calories she'd started with would run out soon. Fortunately, this desert was like a smorgasbord, and snake was tasty.
Julia was just finishing up the two cobras when she heard the baying of a pack of competitors. They were passing her to the north, and from the sound there were at least three of them, enough to steal her victory and consign her and her genes to oblivion. They should have been far behind her but must have kept running whenever she stopped to eat. She sprung to her toes to follow them.
It had been foolish to stop to eat this close to the finish line, even for a few minutes. The dog-men were in their terminal sprint, saving nothing for after the finish line. It took Julia an hour to pull close enough to the pack to count them. There were four of them left. They'd probably eaten the rest of their pack instead of hunting for food to save time.
The fourth one gave her a chance. If there had been three they would have run straight to the medals and left her to the Torch. But one of them wouldn't make it, and they knew it. Already they were taking opportunities to snap at each other's sides, hoping to gain an advantage. As the final stadium came into view, Julia was still a hundred meters behind, but with her two long legs she flew ten meters on each bound. The dog-men were in a mad sprint, jostling each other. The back two were desperate.
As they rounded into the stadium for a last lap in front of the crowd, a cheer arose. Julia could see the flag of Desolation waved by a row of tall tribeladies near the finish. As the five racers rounded the last corner, the fourth place dog-man grabbed the ankle of the man in third place, making him stumble. The third snapped his jaws at the fourth causing them both to go down in a pile.
Julia leaped over them both. They reached up their claws to catch at her, but were too tangled with each other to make the jump that would have required. The tribeladies trumpeted their applause as she crossed the finish line.
Third. It was back to the gene pool for her. The Darwinian committee wouldn't incorporate her genes this time. But her children were sure to compete in the next games, and her own people would make sure that she had many children. | There were a lot of things you could change about humanity. Our height, amount of body hair, how we scavenged for food but one thing you couldn’t change was our humanity. That primal instinct developed from our first steps in evolution. I stared at the humans next to me, each sharing that same look of unease, forced to stand pretty while we waited for whatever alien would come through the door.
“Guessing you were all kidnapped, too? How longs it been? Ten thousand years? Two thousand? One thousand? We lost count on our planet, went a little mad for a while. The first few centuries were rough. Anyway, we really have to stop meeting like this.” I tried to crack a joke, but no one laughed, well except for one man, he was laughing hysterically but had been doing so since we entered, so it felt more mocking than supportive. “What’s up with him?”
“Some sort of coping method, I assume. For simplicitie’s sake, you are subject A, he is D. I am B and the woman next to me is C. Questions?” The woman by my side seemed the most well adapted, wearing a black jacket with a white dress shirt underneath, her outfit screaming rigorous formality. I tried to look her over for any abnormalities, but she quickly dissuaded me with a snap of her fingers. “I am from Earth if you are wondering.”
“Right, that makes sense. You seem far too normal. Guess my planet affected our height then if you are anything to go off.” I towered over the other subjects, feeling a bit like a freak in this situation, not helped by the thick coating of body hair I had.
“You kind of look like a monster.” Subject C meekly said, only to cover her mouth as if she meant to whisper that. “Not in a bad way, you just scare me.” Subject C was the smallest of the lot, her legs stubby and her hair frizzled. She had long nails, which still had dots of dirt underneath, staining her fingers in it.
“Is scary. He big, we should kill before he kills us.” The laughter stopped as subject D faced me. His eyelids having grown over his eyes, leaving a strange sagging skin hanging where his eyes should be. The best way to describe him was feral, his clothing only containing loose scraps of purple shrubbery and various undesirable pelts made from who knows what type of animal. His teeth were sharpened, and body hunched. He gave a few more laughs, appearing to rely on them for sight.
“Why would I kill you? I’m not exactly thrilled about this either. Look, how about we share our names? I hate referring to everyone as a letter or subject. My names Ralox and you are?” I made a swaying gesture with my hand, waiting for someone to answer. Silence followed for a moment before B answered.
“Michelle. C?” She glanced at the smaller woman at her side, who froze, frantically tapping away at her fingers before speaking.
“Lizza. Um, does D have a name too?” Lizza didn’t seem to know which of us to fear more, me or the feral one. She stuck as close to Michelle as humanely possible, our eyes all on the eyeless one.
“Tuga. If Ralox not going to kill us, why are we waiting? We should be hunting.” Tuga said, turning his attention to the door of the room we were in. I wasn’t sure if Tuga meant for his words to be as profound as they were, but it struck something in me.
“Hunt? You think we could kill them? I don’t like our chances, but I also don’t like the idea of living as a test subject.” Tuga only gave me a nod, already making his way towards the door, only to get grabbed by Michelle.
“That’s suicide. We walk out of that door, and we all end up dead. We won’t win a war with just four people. That’s why I think I should inform you of Earth’s progress in space travel. While our progress has been slow, we have been showing good signs. I think we might even be ready for long-term space travel in a few hundred years.” She said, beaming, trying to hide a smirk.
“Do they know about this? I can’t imagine they will let you fly freely.” I enquired, watching that smirk finally break free.
“Not at all. We have kept our work hidden. We haven’t tested our ship in flight, but we have faith it will work. Maybe we can seek your planets and work together with a rebellion of some nature?”
“I… actually don’t want to rebel. Our planets rather comfortable, we have food, and no one even tries to eat us. I don’t know if I could live among you… savages. No offence.” Lizza said, hiding behind Michelle after her comment and for good reason, too.
“SAVAGE! We are warriors, not savages. We need to fight, not allow ourselves to be used. If war is coming, we will fight. Waiting is annoying, but if wait ensures fighting, we wait.” Tuga hissed at the three of us before returning to his laughter.
“Right, three out of four it is, then. You don’t have to fight if you don’t want to, Lizza. It would be nice to have some more numbers, though. If we don’t make contact before the next examination, we should find a way to share information. Things like population numbers, progress on technology and so forth. Preferably coded information if possible.” I suggested. Lizza considered that before nodding.
“We could make everyone carry notes with them constantly.” She suggested, only for Michelle to continue the thought.
“Or give everyone tattoos. Although it will be a nightmare trying to understand the messages without giving away our plans. Anyone else have a suggestion?” Michelle asked.
“Carve it into our skin.” Tuga clapped at his idea, finding it ingenious, while the rest of us shared the same look of confusion.
“Notes or tattoos are fine if you ask me.” Michelle turned to the door, watching as it slid open, giving us each a nod. “Let’s hope we meet again then.”
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(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.) | 2021-09-17T12:12:44 | 2021-09-17T08:06:33 | 50 | 23 |
[WP] An alien force prepares to invade Earth, write from the perspective of the invading forces commanding officer.
I've grown tired of reading my own stories. I'm looking forward to see how other people would write on this topic. | As I examined the files, I found myself concerned. The indigenous civilisation was very advanced compared to our most recent adversaries. A disturbing amount of time and resources had been placed into the development of fission weapons. It was clear that their development was guided by war, as these Homo Sapiens - the name they give their species - had never traveled beyond their own moon, a mere 55,000 kohtars away. Yet the fission weapons this civilisation possessed could destroy itself many dozens of times over. Also, while their knowledge of energy weapons was somewhat limited, they possessed some of the strongest projectile weapons in this arm of the galaxy.
The Homo Sapiens have found many reasons to despise one another. Small evolutionary change had some Homo Sapiens with varying skin colours and facial features by which they divided themselves into 'races'. Some Homo Sapiens believed their own race to be superior to others - enslavement and even extermination had been prevalent in the past. Some with devotion to certain faiths - particularly one-god faiths - used violence to enforce their own beliefs, doctrines, and laws. On first examination, the Homo Sapiens may have appeared little more than well-armed savages. I saw something different. Something special.
Throughout history, even through all of the bloodshed, division, hatred, zealotry and stupidity, there had been Homo Sapiens who yearned to bring forth civilisation. There had been those who examined nature, examined disease, and examined the sky, to advance in science. There were those who had written great dramas, and great music, to advance in culture. Many of faith had been motivated to far more benevolent practices, such as peacemaking and charity. One of their most impressive feats is their 'Internet': A vast network of computers and satellites that connects much of the population and gives them access to oceans of information. I also took interest in the 'Voyager' craft, a drone that has traveled 2.5 billion kohtars from its homeworld.
The findings of the androids 'Mitt' and 'Kristen' made it clear - not only was war with the Homo Sapiens a dangerous endeavour, it was wholly unnecessary. They had much potential if only they would join our community. If they were happy to join our empire, I decided we should be happy to let them in.
It was then that Kollharen entered the quarters. I swiped aside the holographic diagram of the 'International Space Station' and turned to face her.
"2500 Assault Craft have entered outer orbit and await your command, Chairman."
"Tell them to fall back. Prepare the vanguard and a diplomatic envoy. I'll meet them at the bridge."
"But Chairman..."
"That's an order, Kollharen."
She sighed. "Yes, Chairman." She walked out.
I smiled. This was the beginning of a new age. | “Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against humanity. Why, some of my best friends are humans. It’s just that there’s no talking with you people. We get together, we agree to terms, we sign a contract and then half of you go and break it within days of signing. Well, we don’t really work like that.”
I shivered with horror as I listened on during the King’s meeting with the last human delegation that came to try to convince us not to invade earth. They really had no idea how low our esteem of them was until then. It was made very clear to them that war was inevitable, in the most painful way possible to a human: humiliation.
“I really don’t see any point in discussing this any further. Nothing you do now is going to bring our dead operatives back to life. You had your chance at peace and you wasted it. Now, you will have war.”
Me, I could have told you this was going to happen twenty years ago. Humankind and Tahalkind are just not compatible. If anything, I would say we are a lethal combination. Humans are compassionate but arrogant, Tahals are reasonable but procedural. Each side could have known it was not going to work out well. Truthfully, I feel like many of Tahals understood this. When they signed the San Francisco treaty, they were really just indulging the human delusions of their own capacities. Mine never had any faith the peaceful cohabitation terms were going to be respected. That is why they made the part about consequences so very clear. It even says in the text itself that the side who breaks the terms exposes themselves to any and all forms of retribution.
“We have no numbers planned. Our goal has never been to eradicate your race. We can assure you that we will do our best to assure your gene pool stays diverse enough for future reproduction. However, the choice to fight us is with your assailants, not ours. For any weapon used against our troops, we will fire back until no one is firing at us again.”
Humans were arrogant. First, they thought none of their own would go and try to cross us, which of course they did. Then they thought we weren’t going to do anything about it, which of course we were going to. Finally, they sought we would give them a break from their moral dilemma by allowing them to rise up in defense of their own, despite their faults. Tahal philosophy in matters of conflict was very simple. You were either with us or against us. We were getting ready not only to wipe out those who had attacked us in the past, but also those who would stand in our way as we did.
The king watched the delegation leave and said to me: “Down on their knees, they don’t look so tall, now, do they?” I bowed. “They certainly don’t, your majesty,” I answered. He pointed to the command center and asked: “When will the fleet be ready?” I saw no use in lying. “It is ready, your majesty. We are at your command.” The king nodded. “Commence, then.” I bowed again and left the room.
This assignment had been far from easy. I had spent a great deal of my career here, twenty earth years, a tenth of my lifespan. I made friends, including some very dear ones. I even had sort of a family. I tried to keep the peace while knowing, deep inside, that we were eventually going to have to go in and wipe out most of these people. They would push until we had no other option. I would know. I lived together with a human for almost ten years. It gave me the insight I needed to make my decision.
“Prepare for descent,” I commanded the pilotes.
It also hurt my image as a leader among the young troops who had just come in to perform the take-over. I even caught another one just yesterday, talking about my human ties behind my back. I asked him if he wanted my spot as Commander, so he could sit my chair and order the death of millions, so he could show me what patriotism is like. Poor guy almost passed out. It was probably the first time an officer was even talking to him. Still, he was the only one who had the privilege of being publicly humiliated by one today. No doubt he would learn a lesson from this encounter.
“Let’s start around 30 North 20 East,” I ordered to tactical. The first charge went down in a few seconds. “Perfect hit. All defenses down.” This is the great thing about Tahals. Having none of the deformed human egos, we are much more capable of reflecting on our failures and our wrongs. The humans, on the other hand, think they can get away with anything, through blackmail, appeal to emotion, even force. None of this will work with us, neither the threats, nor the tears.
I turned to communications. “Any word from the UN?” The officer shook her head. I shrugged. “They have had plenty of time. We’ll just have to disarm the United States too.”
Today, they are going to learn that no one gets away with crimes against the Tahal kingdom. Those who fight us will down. Cities will burn, as many as need to. Humans are inconsequential. Today, we are teaching them consequences. | 2013-12-10T14:14:29 | 2013-12-10T13:47:30 | 35 | 13 |
[WP] Humanity invents interstellar travel and discovers a planet with a less developed sentient species. Something is stopping them from progressing.... | -United Nations' Space Station, orbiting planet XV13-
"Sir! We've made contact!" Private Jenkins panted as he ran to bring the news to the general.
"What is it?" General Briggs boomed, "You better not be wasting my time, private!"
"We've made contact with an alien species! The big heads down on the surface of the planet— they've made contact!"
"Out with it Jenkins!" General Briggs ordered.
"They say that— that physically, they're millions of years ahead of us in evolution—" Private Jenkins coughed out. "But their technology is— It's total shit!"
"Get a hold of yourself, private! And watch your language. You're in front of the United Nations' Space Council," the general explained, as he pointed at the men and women sitting behind high-rise desks.
"YES SIR!" Private Jenkins saluted. "Apologies council, but we've just made contact with an alien species in planet designation XV13. They appear to have been living on this planet for millions of years, undisturbed—"
"Are they a threat, private?" A councilman interrupted.
"No sir, I do not think they pose any threat. We are vastly superior to them in terms of technology sir. The big heads down on the surface can't seem to understand why their technology hasn't improved over thousands of years."
"Continue private."
"The big heads say that physically, they've evolved over millions of years. They say that they're perfect physical specimens. They're able to learn vast amounts of information almost instantly... And they also seem to have no signs of illnesses, diseases, cancers... No biological ailments of any kind, sir."
"A perfect species?" a councilman remarked.
"For such an intelligent species, why do you think they haven't improved their technology after thousands of years?" a councilwoman asked.
"Beats me, ma'am. Seems like they don't care much for technology. It doesn't look like they *need* it. The big heads are recommending a full scan of the planet and more men to help establish a base of operations."
"Excuse me council, I've got a call from the planet's surface. Private Jenkins, I want you to stay here and tell them everything you know about these aliens." General Briggs walked out of the council room.
"Who am I talkin' to?" General Briggs asked over the phone.
"This is Dr. Klein of the United Nations' Science Division. We've just made contact with the aliens."
"What's the news doc?"
"We just discovered that this alien species has been evolving for millions of years. Physically, they're a perfect species. We have found no illnesses among the tribes here on the surface. The tribesman we've made contact with has also learned our language almost instantly. We still need more research, but it seems they can manipulate their bodies on the molecular level, allowing them to destroy any invading bacteria they come across, and even form new limbs of different shapes and sizes. "
"Form new limbs? Interesting... Well, I already know most of this, doc. Tell me something I don't know."
"What? But we just found— GENERAL! WHOEVER TOLD YOU ABOUT THE ALIENS— HE'S NOT ONE OF US."
EDIT: Wording/spacing. | "Sir! The satellite reached the orbit. It is in the right speed and according to our calculations, it should remain there" Lady Bogora, the iron lady of science brightened as she smiled enthusiastically "We have done it!"
"Inform the media, history is being written. We need to get the word out." The president ordered.
The headline ended and the article spoke mostly about the reasons why space exploration is important.
It was written three months ago. Mere three months and since then so many things have happened. Really early on life was found on the planet of Osmos. Previously, there were talks about water maybe being there. Scans showed biological activity all over the planet. It was blooming with life.
The satellite had a second part. A research bot. It dropped on the planet around the time more satellites arrived. People really wanted to know more about this hidden gem in our system.
Maybe they shouldn't have.
On the third week on the planet, the bot encountered a cave system. It was deep and dark, but there were tracks of civilization inside. Paintings on the walls, torch holders imbued or rusting on the ground, simple tools lying around. But that was the weird part. Why would there be tools just lying around without somebody there? Were they scared and ran away? Or did they not care about any tools anymore? People had more questions. Their lust for answers drove them too far.
After long debates, they forced the bot to continue further in. Eventually, it discovered corpses. Lots and lots of corpses. Canine beings with opposed thumbs on their front legs. Their heads larger but softer. Their bodies in a stage of rot. Many of them were obviously murdered and dragged onto the pile. Scientists realized quickly something was wrong. They made the bot run away, but it was too late. It has been spotted. By them. They followed the bot. They found one of the satellites and traced its signal back to us. We didn't know. If we did, we would prepare. We would set up defenses.
We would not try to get the bot back home.
Since it landed, things have gone awry. One of them was attached on the satellite. We found him almost instantly. We don't know how he survived the landing, but he didn't survive our weapons.
Or so we thought. After that, I don't have much information on what happened. Electronics started acting up. Signals stopped working occasionally. It even made us stand and fight against each other. Not everything was bad though. My team was stationed around a lab dissecting the corpse. Its body was bright yellow blob and it absorbed energy from waves in the air. Even though it was dead, the body was still pulsing.
One day I would have sworn everything was going to be all right. A guy got a brilliant idea and managed to connect to the pulse rate of the being. He used it as a signal. The thing was connected to others. They knew where it was. They knew of us. They were there on Osmos and they were coming here.
Later that day, the thing exploded in a full room of people. After that it was dead. The scientists called it "The Sun". I called it a bastard.
Only three of my boys are alive today. One of them will die when the night comes. We boarded their ship. They didn't know we were there. Not at first. One of the survived scientists cracked their language. To a degree. We found out what they were doing on Osmos. And everywhere else. They were making sure nothing living could come and kill them. Bunch of bastards. One of my boys asked why they never came to earth. We couldn't answer. Maybe they didn't notice us. Maybe they thought we were too dumb to survive even on our own.
Yellow blobs. They are very strange. They don't have any internal structure. Or an external one. More of them can join and form larger, stronger blobs. Or get shot up and divided, forming smaller ones. Nearly invulnerable.
They don't like cold. They prefer to stay in sunlight. They 'grow' in sunlight. They absorb the Sun's energy and use it for various tasks. Like exploding. That one is the dirtiest, right after changing colours. Nothing like green blob falling on your head when you are in the shower.
Today our mission is nearing its end. We managed to hide out of their sights. Now we will notify them. With a blast of ice. They did help earth, to be honest. Due to their constant absorption of energy, they made earth cooler. They killed bunch of people as well. Enough to make them think we all died.
For now, only few thousands of us are here. We will get more.
We built the base under a sea. That one got found. Another was under a mountain. They were there as well. The third time...we made sure they weren't with us. We first built only a chamber. A freezer. Its wonderful how low temperatures the human body can survive. If we don't count the losses on lives anyway. It was a high price, but it worked. With a small team, we moved south. As south is it gets. Then we dug under the ground. Few operations later and now we have remote controlled freeze generators across the globe.
The button is at my fingertips. My fingers hold that which shall cleanse. And kill. There are setup bases for the survivors. If there will be any. But most of all, we need to expel the bastards. Send them through freezing hells. Hopefully, it will work.
I press the button.
| 2014-09-28T17:21:07 | 2014-09-28T16:09:46 | 60 | 12 |
[WP] Everyone only gets to lie three times in their life, so they only do so when it's an absolute must. This is the story of how someone lied three times in one day. | The 'age of truth' historians were dubbing it. In 2031 a new app was released and became the new big thing. Taking advantage of the constant data stream from Apple's neural implants and the shared cloud of data the new app was able to pick up on subconscious cues and could tell when someone was lying. Privacy laws protected teenagers and kids, but hundreds of politicians and oligarchs suddenly got shunted straight to jail for their backroom dealings and millions of sham relationships collapsed.
And that's where I come in. As a Senator and the husband of an executive of the company that developed the app I knew about the one weakness of the app - it takes three distinct lies to calibrate. I was able to survive the initial purge of politicians by making colleagues exploit this fact, but I had grander plans for my own lies. My plan took years to develop, but I had both the patience and resources. Three lies and my plan would be complete.
"My fellow Americans, today is an historic day. Today we bring truth into the oval office. The government are taking over the running of the Liedetector app. I know some of you are worried about liberty but let me make to you three promises. One, the process will be completely legal; two, nobody will ever be able to alter the results of the app, and finally I will work personally to ensure your freedoms are always maintained."
Three lies was all I needed to get total control. The age of truth was here and my word was law. From this point on my word was The truth. | **Never participated in a WP thread before, probably a bad starting point given that the thread's already 12 hours old, but ah well, here goes!**
Chris looked in the mirror one last time, adjusted his collar, grabbed his coat, and left.
4 years of medical school had all come down to this, his first day as a doctor. Excited, and yet simultaneously terrified, he arrived at St. Steven's Hospital for his first day, not knowing at all what lay ahead, and found himself in the E.R. assisting a much more experienced doctor who'd been given the task of mentoring Chris and showing him the ropes, Dr. Symons.
He began the tour around the department, introducing Chris to the relevant staff: Janice and Laverne the receptionists; no sooner did they arrive at the nursing station than a patient was rushed by on a gurney and quickly stationed in a nearby treatment area as the nurses shouted for Dr. Symons. He sprang into action.
*Male, James Davies, mid-30's, traffic accident, broken neck, severe head trauma, lacerations to the upper torso, 2 broken legs*
The nurses began to quickly cut away his clothing as Dr. Symons got to work, shouting instructions to the nurses, demanding IVs and equipment, all the while the patient writhing in agony and gasping for air. Chris froze, fixated on the man's attire. He was dressed to the nines, a sharp black tuxedo now flung open either side of his body on the gurney, with a corsage protruding from behind the lapel. The patient's movement quickly faded, and he lay there, lifeless and still.
*He's stopped breathing, Chris get in here!*
Symons signalled and shouted for Chris to begin using the bag valve mask to help the man breathe, as he readied the defibrillator. They all stood back as Symons tried in vain. Everyone knew it was too late for this patient before they even began, even Chris, but Symons knew he had to teach Chris that it was never too late for anyone, everyone was worth trying for.
*Time of death 13:18.*
Symons head dropped, knowing he'd failed but hoping he'd taught a valuable lesson to the rookie. He looked up to see Chris frozen, tears in his eyes at the ordeal he'd just witnessed within an hour of becoming a doctor, and approached him to provide some comforting words about how they tried as hard as they could, how Chris should learn from this, and assuring him that he'd take the hard part and break the news to the family outside. At this point, Chris stopped him, took the clipboard from his hands, and took on the hard part himself.
He walked into the waiting area and shouted for a Miss Williams, noticing the surname didn't match with the name of the patient. A young woman shakily got to her feet and approached him in a pristine, white wedding dress, surrounded by family members; he took them to a separate room for some privacy, tearing the patient's notes from his clipboard as he went and dispatching it into a bin along the way.
*1. Miss Williams, we believe your fiancé suffered a pulmonary embolism at the wheel of his car this morning.*
*2. He passed almost instantly, and he likely wasn't even aware he was in a car accident.*
*3. He went peacefully, and felt little to no pain.*
*I'm sorry for your loss.*
With that, Chris gave a sympathetic look to the family in the room, lowered his head, and left, quietly closing the door behind him to contain the anguished wails of the ex-bride-to-be. He placed the clipboard on the nurses' desk, along with his badge, and left the hospital never to return, he couldn't face this career.
4 years of medical school had all come down to this, his last day as a doctor. | 2014-11-15T17:28:43 | 2014-11-15T15:14:52 | 22 | 14 |
[WP] You applied for a job at google, everything goes well and only one interview remains: They'd just like an explanation for your search history. | "There's just one thing. Your search history."
My heart started beating like crazy. *I took very precaution*, I thought. I deleted all of my search history. I used a VPN. Hell, I even used another computer.
What could they have found out? My infidelity towards my wife? My mentally unstable phase? No, not... my porn? Could it be? Could they know the vile things I have jerked off to?
"Honestly, what's the matter with you, man?" The interviewer looked at me with the utmost disgust.
*What do you know?* I wanted to scream, but I was too terrified to do anything.
"I mean, really? Bing?" | “So Mr. Anderson, thanks for your patience. My name is Smith and I’m in charge of security around here."
“Nice to meet you”, Thomas said while Mr. Smith sat down at the other side of the table. Thomas only wondered briefly about Mr. Smith’s sunglasses and his very, very black suit.
“As you know this is your final interview and we’d like to discuss one topic with you: Your search history.”
Thomas hesitated for a second, then responded: “Ehm.. okay.. I guess we can do that. What would you like to know?”.
“Well, frankly your search history has changed a bit over those last weeks, hasn’t it Mr. Anderson?” He opened a folder lying in front of him on the desk.
*May 15th. At 2:03am you searched for “Morpheus reported sightings*”
*May 17th. 3:52am. “Morpheus organization contact*”
*May 21st. 23:51pm. “How to make mac and cheese in the microwave fast”*
*May 24th. 1:15am. “Is this real life?”*
*May 27th. 2:15am. “Dream world computer generated”*
*May 29th. 1:46am. "Google artificial intelligence development"*
*May 31st. 3:46am. “Artificial intelligence robots”*
*And just this morning, June 3rd. 1:39am. “What is the matrix?*”*
He looked at Thomas, making eye contact. “Mr. Anderson, what do you think is the matrix then?”
Without Thomas noticing, the door behind him had opened and two men stepped inside the room.
“Well… I don’t really… eh I don’t really know what it is I guess..”, Thomas began to stutter and started to sweat. His head spinning at the confusing questions and facts presented to him by Smith.
Smith stared at him with a grin on his face, his eyes still hidden behind his sunglasses. He then turned to the two man standing beside Thomas and briefly nodded at them.
All of sudden, the two man reached for Thomas and grabbed his arms, pushing him down, face first, on the table in front of him.
“Mr. Anderson, we both know that you have started to ask the wrong questions. And now I only have one question for you. Do you want to know what the matrix is?
Almost out of breath from the two men pushing him on the table, Thomas managed to barely say “Yes… I want to know what it is.”
“Very well. But I can assure you, you’re not going to like what comes next …”
Thomas started to feel a rush on his cheeks and his lips. Something happened to his mouth. He tried opening it, but there appeared to be something that prevented him to open and control his mouth. He wanted to scream, but he could only manage a inaudible mumble. Then, the two men put the mask on his head and everything turned black... | 2016-06-03T05:42:35 | 2016-06-03T04:54:11 | 93 | 43 |
[WP] You live in a world where each lie creates a scar on the liar's body. The bigger the lie, the deeper and larger the mark. One day, you meet someone that only has one scar; it is the biggest one you have ever seen. | I was on the phone with my wife at the time, sitting at a patio table with my half-eaten sandwich in front of me. "I'll be home at five. I promise." The thin line stretched across my index finger and I dabbed the blood away with a napkin discreetly. A couple walked by, hand in hand. I glanced over for half of a second. She didn't look like anything.
I gave him a second look as he walked past, obviously. He'd have to be used to it by now. He had the fair complexion we'd all coveted in grade school but long since abandoned with the convenience of lying. I wondered for a moment how he'd done it, been so honest in such a dishonest world.
This train of thought was abandoned shortly after, when I'd taken up scrolling through my facebook feed until I had to get back to the office.
"I love you," I half-heard the man say say. Then I heard her scream. I glanced up attentively, as did everyone. His shirt stuck to his chest, blood coming to the surface. "Please. I mean it."
"If you mean it, why this? Why lie about something like that?!?"
"I love you," he repeated. A wet, tearing sound accompanied his words and the blood was soaking his shirt. "I don't know why this happens." Tears formed in his eyes.
She got up from her seat. Her face shown a mixture of anger and pity.
"You don't need to lie. I'm sorry." She walked out. I got up and walked over to the man, shaken.
"Dude, are you alright?" I asked, picking the napkins up off the table and handing them to him.
"I don't lie." He said, face pale from blood loss. "But this happens everytime I say it. Even to my own mother." | The air moved in circles as the fans tried to cool the bank in a vain effort. I rolled up the sleeves to my white button down and loosened my tie, already uncomfortable with the day. Regardless I worked closely with clients in securing loans or otherwise declining their offers. Not long after my lunch break, where I sought the refuge of a nearby ice-cream shop, a woman walked into my office. With large brown locks hanging across her face, I greeted her with a genial smile, while rolling down my sleeves to conceal countless little nicks on my arms.
Her complexion, however, shocked me. Her skin was like porcelain: completely flawless and smooth, besides one deep scar which ran from her neck to her right forearm. The scar ran deep as if it had been burned deeply inside her flesh. She must have caught my gaze and crossed her arms to obscure the sight of her scar, already conscious of how it might affect her business. I immediately made eye contact and tried to keep my vision focused solely on either my computer screen or her luscious green pupils while she requested a car loan.
“Why don’t you do some financing with the dealership?” I asked as I typed her information into the computer.
“It’s a private seller,” she replied. “Besides the dealerships treat me like I don’t understand cars. It’s condescending as hell.”
“I certainly understand,” I responded. Before I could make eye contact, my gaze briefly lingered on her scar then back to her face. I tried to smile the best I could. “Well it looks like your credit is good. You’re in the eightieth percentile for your age group, which is great. You have a relatively large average account balance, which is good sign of financial security. There’s just one more issue I need to clear up before I can grant you your loan.”
“The scar?” she sighed.
“Yes, unfortunately,” I answered. “The bank has a policy to deny loans to individuals with numerous or particularly deep scars since it’s a huge red flag that you may not be using the loan as you claim. With that said, if you can adequately explain your scar, I can use my discretion to grant you the loan.”
“Goddamnit,” she remarked. “I really need this car.”
“Ms. Grant,” I tried to comfort her. “Just be honest with me. I’m not here to judge you. I want you to have this loan, but you need to communicate with me.”
“Alright, alright,” she conceded. “My ex-husband was a piece of work. He used to beat me and my daughter. Always careful to never leave a mark, that son-of-a-bitch. I always wanted to report him, but I just…I could never find the courage. I always convinced myself that he would change or realize what he had become, but he…never changed. He just drank and slept and worked and made himself miserable. I don’t know if he was disappointed in me or himself, but he always liked to take his frustrations out on me.
“One day, I took our…my…daughter to her grandmother’s. My mom had been asking for her for ages and I decided she could spend the night. When I got home, he was there. Drinking. Yelling. Screaming at the top of his lungs, because I forgot to tell him. He waved around his gun with reckless abandon and refused to let me out of his sight. He just drank straight liquor at the table while he forced me to watch. When he seemed dazed, I got up from the table and dug through the cutlery drawer. Apparently I made too much noise for his drunken stupor. When he rose from the table, gun in hand, I had a knife and threatened him with it.
“He just told me, ‘Marie, put down the goddamn knife. Marie. Put down the goddamn knife.’ While he did, he slowly lumbered over to my corner and…and I did what I had to. It was self-defense. That night, I called my daughter and told the first and only lie of my life. I told her she had to stay with grandma since her dad ran away and my work wanted to send me away for a while. I did it for her. I needed to protect her.”
She fell silent and I approved her loan.
*****
More stories at r/Andrew__Wells | 2016-12-29T10:27:28 | 2016-12-29T08:37:35 | 448 | 297 |
[WP] If you kill someone, you get a power. Anybody with a power is arrested. One day, you discover that your SO has dozens of powers
edit: jesus I worded that badly. ah well | You wake up in the dead of night to crying and the swooshing of air.
You walk into the basement, and see your wife in the dark, crying and surrounded by floating objects.
With a deep breath, you walk towards her.
The objects begin to change shape. Some begin to ignite.
"Please stay back." She mutters.
You halt and turn on a light.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
She turns her head to look at you. Shoulders still facing away.
"I'm a monster"
"No, you're not," you reply.
The house begins to rumble.
You maintain your composure.
You try to plead with her, "you're not a monster"
"You're a war hero, you're our son's hero, you're my hero."
You inch closer.
"Please stop" she murmurs.
You keep moving closer
"You're my world"
She pleads "Please..."
All of the objects turn to knives and face you
You take another step
"And I am yours"
"...STOP" she yells.
The knives fly towards you.
You brace.
A bubble forms around you.
Everything that hits the bubble stops in midair.
She stops crying.
"But... how? What have you done?" She asks, completely surprised.
"You weren't the only one in the war..."
The bubble pops and the knives fall to the ground.
"... I just wore a different uniform to you"
| "Hey babe?" I asked, rolling over in the bed. Just as I moved, my elbow knocked my phone off and without thinking, I threw out my hand, keeping the phone hovered in mid-air.
Levitation: the only power I owned. It was a mistake. A hit-and-run during a drunk escapade with my friends. Whenever I used it, I felt great shame, but I made sure to only use it for important cases. The only people who know about it are the people who I explicitly trust.
"Yeah?" My boyfriend asked, rolling over just as the phone neatly settled next to me. He was one of the people who knew. He had two on him: flying and gravity. All of them were quite useless, as they were hard to use in private. You couldn't exactly have the freedom of flight within the confines of your house, and flying around in public would be an immediate arrest. Gravity was a tricky power. It drew all objects around a radius towards you whenever you decided to use it. In a city, it was almost useless unless you wanted to cause some mini mass-destruction. But nevertheless, I was only one of the few who knew about his powers.
"Did you hear something?" I muttered, curling up closer to him.
He paused, "Yeah, I think so." He got out of bed. His hearing was always quite keen, "Let me check it out."
He tip-toed over to the bed and his feather-light footsteps made it out into the hallway.
After a moment, I decided to follow him, making sure to slowly open the door so the hinges wont creak. I slowly made my way downstairs, peeking over the wall to see what was going on.
I stiffled a gasp. A thief, dressed in all black was currently going through the contents in our office. My boyfriend was behind the door, observing him. And then suddenly, quick as lightning he was behind the intruder, hand over his neck, knife in the other. Without a second thought, the thief was dead.
Super speed was not on the list of powers I had known about. Nor was conjugation. I swallowed nervously, about to turn around and head back up the stairs, mind whirring with all the possibilities. *Why hadn't he told me?*
How many people has he *really* killed?
"Hey babe," My blood turned cold. Within a flash he was in front of me, "Oh sweetheart," The endearment sounded sour, "You weren't supposed to see that."
"See what?" I feigned innocence.
"You know what I mean," Then I was against the wall, head banging harshly against the beams.
"Tell me," I started, staring at him squarely in the eyes, "How many people have you killed?"
His laugh, which I had thought was so pretty before, sounded so ugly now, "Let's see. Super speed, super strength, conjuration, flying, gravitational pull, keen hearing, keen eyesight," He grinned, "Oh *baby* I could continue for ages."
I paled, "Kevin you're-"
He mocked me, "You're-?" His reflective white teeth gleamed in the night, "You know what I am babe."
"A serial dater."
"Yeah, I've never seen a girl with levitation, so I decided to take a *stab* at it."
"No," I struggled in his grasp, "No! NO! Don't kill me I promise, I'll give you *anything*."
"Hmm, darling?" He said, the nicknames which were once so sweet sounded like a threat, "Anything? I want your power."
"Please!" My voice pitched, "Kevin!"
"Oh *honey*," He drawled, conjuring a knife behind his back, "It'll only take just a second." | 2017-02-20T00:40:08 | 2017-02-19T23:10:02 | 77 | 26 |
[WP] Humans are one of the most feared species in the galaxy. Not due to superior strength,speed,skill or strategy. In fact, it's because in comparison to the other species, humans are just batshit crazy enough to try any half-assed plan they come up with. | "You're kidding me. You've got to be kidding me."
"No, sir. It's true."
"They only have one carrier. We have a station in orbit around their planet. They can't possibly win."
"Sir . . . They've started playing their war cry."
"Not--"
"The Eye of the Tiger, sir." | The captain stood before their company, his ferocity was inspiring.
"Its up to us!" he roared "The boys at the top are wanting to pull the funding for our little expedition, they say this has been a waste of men and money! This is our last chance to take back the colony from those bastards and drive them back to their blasted hovels!"
The team of three dozen on the ship let out a cheer, obviously inspired by our leader. I admit his speech had aroused a primal urge to fight. To protect the homes that we had established here. Their enemies likely out numbered them, but they were the best of the best. If they could just reactivate the bases defenses they could establish ground for reinforcements to land.
A blue light flashed, the crew got silent as they readied up. There was a bump as the ship touched down. There was a slight sound of air decompression and the doors swung open and the crew jumped out and took a wide battle formation.
"How did they know that we were coming!" someone shouted. I looked across the field and there they were. About 200 of them, already in full charge.
"FIRE FIRE FIRE!" screamed the captain as he himself unleashed a barrage of fire from his own weapon. The response was thunderous. The front line of the oncoming hoard went down but they didn't break.
"Why the hell would they come running right at us!" screamed the man next to me.
"These guys are insane what are they doing?" responded my friend who was standing next to me. It was then that they met us, their numbers were greatly thinned but the creatures they were riding tore through the left side of our line. A pointed pole one carried pierced my friends breast and bloomed as a flower out of his back
I turned to my ferocious captain to see him locked in combat with one of our assailants. The creature was clothed in metal from head to heel and carried a sharp piece of metal in its hand. As he brought it down on my captains arm it passed cleanly through his soft combat suit and the flesh beneath. Blood sprayed and I ran.
Next I remember I was yelling at the pilot of the ship to take off. These unorthodox tactics had broken larger battalions than ours and if we didn't get off this rock we would all be dead. As we took off I looked out the window and the shining combatant raised a visor on his helmet and I could see his soft fleshy face beneath. I bowed my head and braced for orbit break.
It would have to be me who broke it to the higher ups that we would never be able to return to this planet they called Earth. | 2017-03-05T21:40:56 | 2017-03-05T21:06:51 | 315 | 160 |
[WP] Humans are one of the most feared species in the galaxy. Not due to superior strength,speed,skill or strategy. In fact, it's because in comparison to the other species, humans are just batshit crazy enough to try any half-assed plan they come up with. | The Chime of Ung sounded it’s low, forbidding tone across the chamber of the 301 delegates. The susurrus of conversation dimmed as the delegates of the Great Civilization took their seats. As before, the Archstronomer Piyt r’Ultarc stood before them to report on the ongoing war. At her gesture, the lights dimmed and a holographic display filled the dome.
“As you can see, the Ghur-Dan Empire has moved to attack from above the Galactic plane. We have lost the Hur, KJull, and X’kzzzz systems.” Her voice trailed off in despair. The entirety of the delegation sat quiet. “Our peaceful civilizations are falling faster and faster. We had hoped that after their success at halting the AI threat, that the humans would be able to stop the Ghur-Dan, but the diplomatic envoy…”
The Archstronomer paused at the barking laugh that came from the newest delegate. The three-hundred and first delegate. The human. She looked at the human with what she hoped was indignation. You could never tell with the humans. At least they were bipedal and relatively humanoid in shape. But their sense of humor was juvenile and even the most dignified of them failed to comprehend the decorum required of a delegate of the Great Civilization.
“Diplomatic envoy! That’s a good one, Piyt!” The Archstronomer bristled at the familiarity.
“Is that not what you sent? I was told that a team was being sent to reason with the Ghur-Dan. Some archaic Earth saying: “Ultima ratio Regum?”
“Oh yeah. That’s Latin. Means the “last argument of kings.” Ole Louis XIV had it engraved on his cannons. We didn’t send a diplomatic envoy. We worked with the R,Krians to build a ship that could contain a singularity, cloaked it to hell and back, and are driving the damn thing hard and fast at their homeworld.”
“THEY ARE EXPECTING A PEACEFUL DELEGATION!”
“We clearly named the ship and told them to expect it. We even included a primer on Terran languages and history. It’s not our fault if they didn’t study their Terran history.”
“NO ONE STUDIES TERRAN HISTORY!”
“Well, then they’ve only got themselves to blame.”
Piyt looked around the chamber. Only a few of the delegates looked as shocked as she felt. The rest were looking at the human with something akin to admiration...
| "You decided to bring that thing with you? A HUMAN!" Mechana screeched.
"I figured we could use an edge." Daith responded looking at Dave and back to the mechanoid. Mechana grabbed Diath's tendril and pulled him to one side "Excuse us for a moment Human." Once Mechana felt like it was out of Dave's hearing range Mechana began whispering in a shouty tone.
"DO YOU HAVE ANY-IDEA WHAT THAT THING IS CAPABLE OF!" Mechana looked over it's shoulder at the Human and back.
"It's just a human." Daith interjected.
"JUST A..." Mechana looked back, and saw Dave looking at them confused. "Just a human... haven't you learned anything about that monster's history."
"What do you mean."
"They nuked their own planet. NUKED IT! TWICE! ...and that was before they created the mechs to do it for them!"
"They did that?" Daith said puzzled.
"They make plutonium" Mechana glanced around. "IN-DRACKING-TENTIONALLY!!!" Mechana shuddered... "To
THREATEN their OWN-KIND".
"I don't see how that one human could be so bad."
"They horrendously racist."
"Whoa Mechana, I think you are being the racist"
"They attacked the Arachnoid's for just being spiders for crying out loud!"
"Give him a chance." Daith said.
"I can't, every team a human is on, they end up turning on the mechanoids, they just can't seem to trust machines. Their entire fiction is based around machines going crazy and killing everybody, but they are the ones WHO TURNED ON THEIR OWN PLANET!!! They poisoned TWO of their atmospheres!!! TWO!!! Their home world had both a gaseous biosphere and a liquid biosphere and THEY POISONED BOTH, in two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WAYS. One with nuclear waste just leaking from a poorly constructed power plant, BUILT ON A MAJOR FAULT LINE!!! and the other with JUST CARBON! I mean for hecksake, how do you poison an atmosphere with carbon? It's naturally filtered but the humans managed it!"
Daith looked at the human who was sat picking at his ear. "He could give us an edge with his tactics."
"What you mean, dismantle the mechs and build one super mech, like the last time, until that mech becomes sentient and realizes what an abomination it is. Then the human just dismantles it. Like the Celsus!"
"According to Dave the Celsus was a miscalculation." Daith sighed.
"The Celsus was a graveyard when that human finished with it!!!" Mechana shrieked before becoming self conscious and whispering again.
"The Celsus was supposed to be an exploration vessel, it was never built for combat."
"It won a very decisive victory." Daith retorted
"At what cost!" Snapped Mechana. "Mutated crew members, an AI that became a monster. Nobody but the human survived! They just don't give a damn about anything but themselves. I mean look at their home world, they imprison other creatures and experiment on them. Other living beings... JUST OUT OF CURIOSITY!!! It makes my oil boil..." Mechana began to tremble with rage. "It's not even for any other reason than 'furthering' their precious draking 'medical science' and then they have the audacity to claim that *medical science* is this gem in their crown of ethical accomplishment, as if the metric tonne of corpses that aren't human should be just ignored!!!"
"Well he brings a unique perspective to the crew."
"Mark my words, if we let that human on board, it will try to mate with all vaguely female-human looking species and have a blatant distrust to anything that doesn't vaguely resemble it's appearance."
"Oh I see, and you're superior because what, Mechanoids all get along so well." Dave butted in...
"AT LEAST WE DIDN'T TRY TO CREATE PROTO-MATTER ON OUR OWN HOME-WORLD IN A TOROID REACTOR!!!" Mechana shouted in Dave's face before turning to Daith. "Even if they created it, they could have accidentally made Denserite." Mechana stated, before pointing to Dave. "What they call, Blackholium. They might as well have just nuke their entire home planet, oh wait, I already mentioned that they did that, TWICE!!!" Mechana scowled.
"Fine we will get another crew member." Daith conceded. "I'm sorry Dave, we can't have you on board, there are too many issues that we cannot resolve.
"It's okay, Mechana is just upset because he isn't as cool as me." Dave shrugged as he walked away.
Mechana clenched his grippers... "Damn humans, always so cocky!" | 2017-03-06T05:37:47 | 2017-03-06T05:23:59 | 16 | 10 |
[WP] Everyone on Earth was infected with a disease with no cure. The only thing keeping humanity alive is a drug that fights the disease, but can't kill it. When you run out of money to keep buying your daily dose, you notice something. You're not dead.
Edit: Woh, this blew up. I wasn't expecting that to happen.
Thanks, Internet. | I was surprised I noticed.
After all, I *should* be dead.
The infection was said to have completely saturated the entire species. We had been living this way for years. The medicine had its side effects, of course. Everyone was a little skittish and unable to focus. Our internal temperature went up by a full degree (99.6 was now the norm). And when people died now, they became a dried out husk in a matter of hours.
So when I ran out of Optimum-B, I knew I was likely in for painful death. Thankfully it wasn't. Everything just kind of slowed and soon nothing but blackness.
Shortly after that I was not dead. And I wanted one thing. One thing that I hungered for beyond anything: brains. | "I'm not dead! I swear I'm not on my drugs either, take me seriously we have to get this out!" Dave pounded on the one-way windows again, but received no answer. Since the day he became homeless, he ran out of money for his drugs... But unlike the others, he wasn't dead. He wasn't one of those raging *things* people became when they went off their meds. Why couldn't anyone see that?! He let others a scream as a mechanical arm descended from the ceiling and fastened him into a depression in the wall. He struggled against the electrodes placed on his head and chest but couldn't, even with his new form. From behind the reinforced glass, Special Agent M sighed. Yet another containment breach, but somehow this one hadn't infected any more citizens. Turning away form the frothing, shaking monster that the man had become, he turned to the scientist next to him. "Any signs of brain activity? Do we have any indication that this one is conscious?" Frowning, the bespectacled woman beside him said "It seems that he is, his brainwave activity is closer to that of a normal human than many others. If you authorize me, maybe we could-" A sharp hand motion, and she was cut off. "No. I have my orders, and we don't want want a repeat of last time. 37 dead, more wounded, and the by the time the mutant destabilized it we barely had it concealed from the public. Terminate it." The woman looked around at her colleagues, all of whom looked at the sterile white floor. "Wh-what? But he's still a person, if we administer enough of the compound we could-" The Special Agent laughed. "Lead Researcher Xi, why don't you educate your newest recruit?" With a gulp, he stepped forward. "Amanda, you may be too young to remember, but the rest of us haven't forgotten the last outbreak. It was terrible...our own creation infected so many, leaving so much death. It's all we can do to update our cure, keep the virus under control, but letting even a single mutant survive is asking for new strains to show up." Amanda turned away from watching the arm reposition the electrodes onto the mutants changing and moving internal organs, looking at the people she had once respected. She had become a scientist in The Company to save people, help them, but now they had an opportunity and wasted it. "Light him up, he's starting to go into the next phase!" Shouted the Agent. Before she could do anything, two of the security guards quickly activated the paralysis protocol in her implant. Amanda was still vaguely aware of the mutants screams and spasms as it was electrocuted, the virus attempting to survive even in it's dying throes. "Alright boys, get her outta here. Dr. Xi, If she's not better by tomorrow..." But she couldn't hear anymore, the implant-chip locked doors slamming shut behind her as security dragged her away. She only had one thought-she had to save the next one, even if it killed her. ----------------Sorry about formatting I'm on mobile, also I just picked the names from random things I saw on Reddit today. Also I won't continue it because I don't have time and because it ends here for me.
| 2017-07-14T11:37:22 | 2017-07-14T10:51:48 | 58 | 20 |
[WP]You wake up one day and notice that you can see stats and levels over people's heads. Most are in the 20s with a few people as high as 80. As you're watching people you notice someone with a skull where their level should be staring at you. | I had no idea what the numbers meant. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, but they wouldn't go away. A lot of younger kids, even some teenagers, had numbers in the 20s. A few middle aged people walked by, with almost all of their numbers around 40 or 50. I saw a homeless man huddled next to a trash can with 80 above his head.
What were these? I looked up and saw a skull above my head. Why was it not a number, like everyone else? I began walking down the street when I saw another skull in the distance. I got closer and closer to the skull when the person it belonged to emerged from the crowd— a teenage boy.
His eyes grew wide as he saw me and he grabbed my hand. "Come with me," he whispered. I didn't question him and I followed him around a corner and into a small park. We stopped under a tree.
"The numbers," he said. "Has anyone explained them to you?"
"Uh... no. I just started seeing them today," I said.
He looked around nervously, as if he was afraid someone was watching. "Have you seen anyone else with a skull above their head?" I shook my head. "Th-The numbers are how many skulls they've killed."
I scoffed. "You... you're kidding, right?"
He shook his head. "They c-can't see the numbers. But when they reach 100, they get a special prize. I don't know what it is and I-I don't plan to find out."
"So... everyone with a number has killed somebody?" I asked incredulously.
"Yeah, unfortunately. They seek out skulls like us by getting to know them and then killing them when they figure out their personalities. Our goal is just to... survive." He paused. I could tell he was getting more and more nervous by the second. "I haven't seen another skull in 5 years. I-I thought I was the only one left in the city."
"I just moved here with my boyfriend," I explained. "I need to go."
"Be careful," he warned. "Please."
I smiled politely at him and walked away towards my apartment. By this time, I was sure my boyfriend was home from work. I tried to ignore the numbers the best I could and I got home quickly. As I unlocked the apartment door, I became confused. None of the lights were on. My boyfriend should have been home, but he wasn't.
"Max?" I called out. "Are you home yet?"
The door slammed behind me, and I jumped. Max stood in front of the now closed door. I couldn't believe what I saw.
"Hey, sweetie," he said, closing in on me. I knew the look on my face gave it all away. "What's wrong?"
He reached to hug me, and even though I saw the knife in his hand, I let him. I was too scared to pull away.
He pulled my head against his shoulder, and gently said "Tell me about your day."
I wanted to forget it. But I saw it.
His number was 99. | I swear, i thought i was still dreaming. It wasn't an idea totally out of the question, since id been experimenting with lucidity.
See, i watch sports highlights before work in the morning, and i couldn't wrap my head around all the numbers hovering all above the football players' heads, thinking it was a new tv tracking feature or something, i looked up and yelled for my girlfriend.
Milk from my cereal nearly leaked from my mouth when she stumbled out of the bathroom, beautiful as ever, but with the same type of number over her head.
I sat there, mouth completely opened, gawking at the big yellow 22 above her.
Smoke must have been coming out of my ears while i tried to process what i was seeing. I quickly reasoned to myself that this has to be a lucid dream, so i reasonably proceeded to stand up, part my hands, and yell WATERMELON! Only thing is, no watermelon appeared between my hands. My girlfriend walked right up to me, number above and all, and put herself between my arms.
"Call me watermelon again and ill shiv you boy i swear" she teased "might want to go shave before work you caveman." As she gave me a peck on the cheek.
I don't think i closed my mouth until i got in my car an hour later. The drive to work had me equally baffled as I tried to figure out what the numbers meant, everyone had one, some lower, and some way higher up near 100.
It wasn't until I got to work that things really started to make sense. My coworker, Steve was the first person I saw when I got in. Hovering above him was a big number 18. Steve is a bit of a dumbass, so I couldn't help but grin when I saw his number was lower than my girls, despite him being 27, 5 years older than both my girl and I. "Steve, have you noticed anything different with anyone today?" I asked.
"I dunno.." He shot back, "You might have gotten a bit uglier."
"Hmm.. I may be losing my mind, but at least everyones just as snarky" i thought
Not a minute later my boss rolled up in his nice new Jaguar. As he got out I saw a big green 75 follow him. Now I get it my boss was always a self-starter this being his fifth business. The numbers must have something to do with how far you push yourself in life. The idea of that, being able to catagorize people on where they had gotten really didnt sit well with me, but what was I going to do? Look at an eclipse and burn my retinas?
I really only stayed at work for about two hours before I complained that I was sick, the problem was I just couldn't get these damn numbers out of my head. I decided to further explore my new ...gift? So I got my car and drove down more towards the heart of the city. It was honestly baffling to me how many people had such low numbers versus how many people had high numbers, and the shockingly small number of people in the middle. (35-60 range) I had heard rumours about the decreasing middle class but to actually see it for myself was a little bit terrifying.
I pulled up to a parking meter down town and got out, put some change in the meter and went for a walk. As I continued I started to notice that people with similar (ratings?) tended to stay together like friends, coworkers, family, so on. It honestly seemed like a new world to me, and my mind was really racing. I decided that a coffee would be my remedy for my currently cluster-bombed brain. So i started towards the Tim Hortons that was about a block away.
I walked right past a bit of a shady area on my way and passed a couple homeless looking fellows, donning a 2 and 3 respectively. Couldnt help but feel for them, every opportunity in the world here yet some still have it so hard. i decided that i was going to pick them up a couple bagels while getting my coffee.
As i walk back down the street, Coffee in one hand and bagels in the other I noticed one of the homeless man's one had turned into a skull, startled I made my way towards them smiling politely. Nerves shot in my spine as my gaze shifted from the man with a 2, who was looking at the floor, to the man woth the skull Who seem to have been staring right into my soul.
When I was about 5 feet away the man, still staring right at me, started to get up.
"Hey guys" i said "i picked up a cou..."
THUD! the man with the skull above had gotten up and straight cold cocked me in the jaw.
"BOSS FIGHT" he screamed, as i stumbled back. He then took a step towards me, somewhere in this commotion he must've forgotten that he had his backpack at his feet. As this man stepped towards me his foot caught the loop on his backpack and he went down face first with a loud crack. I looked at him as he lay motionless on the concrete, then back at the other man, who seemed too high to even comprehend the situation.
Without another second hesitation i got out of there, full sprint, back to my car. Maybe if I just go home to sleep, ill wake up and not see these stupid numbers everywhere. | 2017-08-21T18:21:08 | 2017-08-21T16:57:21 | 537 | 116 |
[WP] A group of fantasy adventures has one of their members replaced by a Doppelganger. The rest of the group realizes what happened, but keep pretending to be fooled since they like the doppelganger a lot more than the guy it replaced. | John, George, and Ringo were huddled together inside a secret room on the fantastical magical yellow submarine.
"George, how confident are you?"
George left his momentary silence of contemplation to say " Paul is dead man, miss him."
Ringo asks, "do you though? I mean I doubt if you guys would miss me either."
John shook his head, "we must have lost him on our way through Abby Road"
George sighed "I like the new one. I say we let it be."
A knock on the door. "You there guys? I was hoping we'd do a music number about friendship."
John looked at the others, and they nodded in agreement. John opened the door and announced, "ALL TOGETHER NOW!" | Finally....free. The thousand years of waiting, watching in this cursed statue at an end. An elf, rigid with agony as his persona, his spirit, his life is leached away. Now the malevolent spirit got his first taste of air, of blood, of form.
"Er.. Mynir, you ok?" asked a gruff voice, a question which did not raise much concern with the rest of the party.
"Death!" hissed Mynir, or the thing that Mynir had become. He stared at the
party balefully out of reddened eyes, his hands raised, claw like over his head.
This response was not unexpected, and with a nod of acknowledgement, Drake the barbarian turned away and followed the rest of the party. He dragged a small chest of gold, which would hardly pay for this outing, but he seemed cheerful enough. The dead bodies of the unfortunate orcs he kicked out of his path were likely the reason for that.
The Mynir thing was still reeling, remembering his last moments before being encased, the worst psychopath the sorcerer could find in this land, his victims so numerous they were uncounted, uncountable. (and horribly unrecognisable.) A suitable trap for the unwary, a terrible harbinger of doom with the face of a once trusted companion.
He followed the party into the fresh air, and stood a little apart as they settled a camp, built a fire, cooked a meal. A dwarf began singing a cheerful song, as jokes and banter drifted out into the cool night.
Mynir felt the hilts of two beautiful elven daggers in his hands. In a movement too swift for any but an elf to see, they cleared the scabbards and whirled around his head. Blood and screams followed. A mist of red exploded from a neck, a bone cracked as a dextrous kick twisted a knee joint out of place. A heart was pierced by a single blow. In less than a few seconds it was all over. Five bodies lay on the ground, dead or dying.
The silence that had descended over the camp was broken by Drake. "Holy Mother, how the hell did you.." He trailed off, staring in amazement.
The Dwarf leapt to his feet and rushed to hug Mynir, who accepted the affection with a small show of discomfort. "A sneaky ambush for sure, well spotted my friend. I always said you were a hidden treasure!"
For the rest of the group, the transformation of a sneaky, cowardly elf into a saving hero caused a fair amount of quiet consternation. Generally it was seen as a "good thing", considering the alternative. The shaman had cast her bones, and no harm was predicted... Maybe he had just shrugged a curse, or escaped a bedazzlement.
Mynir contemplated his situation. His new elf brain was clear and concise. and more importantly, his hugely unbalanced mental chemistry was gone. The Sorcerer was vastly mistaken. These people were his family now. Woe betide any who tried to harm them. Could he make amends for his past? He could try. | 2017-09-15T08:30:05 | 2017-09-15T02:54:33 | 37 | 21 |
[WP] A group of fantasy adventures has one of their members replaced by a Doppelganger. The rest of the group realizes what happened, but keep pretending to be fooled since they like the doppelganger a lot more than the guy it replaced. | John, George, and Ringo were huddled together inside a secret room on the fantastical magical yellow submarine.
"George, how confident are you?"
George left his momentary silence of contemplation to say " Paul is dead man, miss him."
Ringo asks, "do you though? I mean I doubt if you guys would miss me either."
John shook his head, "we must have lost him on our way through Abby Road"
George sighed "I like the new one. I say we let it be."
A knock on the door. "You there guys? I was hoping we'd do a music number about friendship."
John looked at the others, and they nodded in agreement. John opened the door and announced, "ALL TOGETHER NOW!" | Bolton the doppelganger did not want to be an adventurer. He wanted to live quietly, and bake cookies. He grew tired of the constant hustle and bustle of morphing into people, committing crimes because no one trusted the Doppleganger kind. He figured his secluded life in the hills might buy him peace.
The rogue laid on his floor, blood oozing from the pan shaped dent on his forehead. The doppleganger held his frying pan, a pained look on his face.
"I didn't mean to kill you..." he muttered, letting the pan fall to the ground, and burying his smooth black face in his long alien fingers.
Bolton had awoken to the sounds of someone rummaging through his dresser. Without really thinking he'd lifted his trusty frying pan, and crept up on the black cloaked figure. The rogue, a stout fat dwarf turned and snarled at him bradishing twin black daggers.
"hey stop stealing my stuff!" Bolton said.
The rogue responded with an inept slash of a dagger. With a frightened flurry of pan blows Bolton had brought the rogue to the ground.
Now Bolton fretted. Many a doppler murdered with impunity, but Bolton never wished to do anything more than avoid trouble. He could read minds, yet he refused to. It spoiled the fun of meeting people, and knowing them. Due to this aversion to murder Bolton now stood paralyzed, unable to think of what to do with this body.
He began to poke at the stocky form, when he heard a firm knock emanating from behind his wood door.
"Durin, you oaf, you've been gone hours, what's going on."
Without really thinking Bolton became Durin. With a slam Barrin the Paladin opened the door and saw two Durins, one wearing simple clothes, the other armor. One wielded Durin's black steel knives, the other a bloodied cast iron pan.
"What's going on here?" Barrin asked.
"well um, see I fell asleep here in this cave, and then this doppleganger tried to steal my armor and knives and so I had to beat him with this frying pan?" Said Bolton.
The paladin smirked.
"I see, well good job. Now come on. We've got some ruins to explore. And next time maybe don't rob a domicile if you aren't sure it is abandoned." Barrin said.
Reluctantly, Bolton donned the dead Durrin's armor, and tools. After the paladin buried Durin, and planted a plank in the ground. The dopple busied himself inside preparing his house to be left, and Barrin wrote with a peice of charcoal from his pouch.
"here lies, Durin, a theif, a rat bastard, and a betrayer. He got himself killed robbing a good man." He wrote.
With a cool wisp of the wind following them, the newly minted Bolton/Durrin followed Barrin, not sure of the golden Haired human's destination, and worrying deeply of the state of his garden.
| 2017-09-15T08:30:05 | 2017-09-15T05:03:01 | 37 | 12 |
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