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[WP] You’re a necromancer that has been run out of every town you’ve ever settled in for being who you are. You wipe tears out of your eyes as you dig a deep hole, finding solace in your work. Your shovel bangs against bones and you stop, tears suddenly forgotten. Dinosaur bones. Now they’ll pay. | Necromancy was the oldest magic known to the world. The first mages had stumbled upon the soft touch of magic as they carved their glory upon the bones of their prey, their rivals, and the finds of their scavenging. It had been the bedrock of civilization, what had brought humanity from apes banging stones together to beings that transcended the mundane world.
Eubia Robin, the last necromancer, wiped the banana peel off of her head and tried not to sink deeper into the trash heap.
Necromancy was the oldest magic known to the world, and also the weakest. In antiquity it had not been so. There had been grand beasts whose skin, whose bones, whose very blood had run with power waiting to be unleashed. But no longer. As humanity had raised themselves from the dirt, they had made sure there were none to send them back. Any threats had long been hunted to extinction and their remains had been used to fuel their progress.
That process had led to the discovery of magic beyond relying on rotting corpses. Pyromancy, astromancy, divination. Humans now wielded the elements, the stars, the future itself. As for necromancy, it had fallen out of favor as without proper corpses for its rituals. The few remaining acts that could be accomplished with the types of remains still available were nothing that other schools of magic could not do and do without the distasteful use of bodily remains.
It had been that way for over a century, and nobody was so foolish as to needlessly cling to the past. Nobody except for Eubia that was. She came from a long line of necromancers who, if they could be believed, traced their lineage back from apprentice to master all the way to the first bone cities.
They had come a long way since then, Eubia mused. From throne rooms to garbage dumps. She had been chased out of yet another city. Necromancers had acquired a poor reputation in the last years of their struggle for relevancy. Grave robbing, museum theft, anything to get a leg up and feed their power. It had gone on for so long that they had been barred from most places on sight.
No, necromancers weren’t wanted anywhere.
She had hoped things would be different in the capital, that people would be less prone to label her a criminal despite her lack of criminal acts. She had been wrong. When people had noticed the assortment of small bones she kept in her cloak when she had foolishly held it open too long, they had immediately raised a fuss.
She was used to fleeing from the angry crowds and had escaped in a trash collection carriage. It wasn’t the first time she had been thrown in the trash, but she was growing tired of this treatment. What had she done to deserve this? She had studied. She had devoted herself to her craft just as much as the oracles, the fire spitters, the storm callers. So why were they praised and living in luxury while she was hated?
It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.
Her anger reached her core, and her mana bubbled in response. It lashed out, impotent without the proper materials.
Or so she had expected.
Eubia felt a thrum in her ears. It was muffled and distant, but she was sure of it. Something had reacted to her power. She sent out tendrils of necromantic mana in every direction, reaching, feeling for something.
There.
Deep under the trash heap was a deposit of dirt. But under that dirt was another trash heap. It made sense; the capital had been build atop an even older one of ages past. It figured that this spot had served the same purpose in past civilizations. Past civilizations when necromantic remains were still abundant. There was a great scattering of bones buried in the heap.
Dragon bones.
Eubia began digging, ignoring the smell and slime. She had to get closer, get a better grip on those distant remains. She called to them and felt them stir.
The world had not seen draconic necromancy in centuries. She would be happy to show them what it was like.
***
If you liked this story, subscribe to r/Inder for more like it! | "Its just not fair!"
I shouted in the rain as I dug. I had been run out of yet another town, for what? I had saved them, when the bandits attacked. A couple of stabs had brought one down, and then his body fought for me. I hadn't killed anyone important, but apparently they didnt care.
I never wanted to hurt anyone. I would do, if they threatened innocents, but I would never harm civilians. But they didnt care. They ran me out of town, my 5 zombies following behind me. I had ran for a while, aimless, hoping to find a new place to stay. But they i realised, when looking at the maps, I had wandered to the Great Graveyard.
I knew it was the place, what with the sense of death enegy around. I set my zombie's to digging, joining them. As we dug down, memories of what had happened echoed around my mind, drawing me deeper into depression. But it was all forgotten, when I uncovered the first bone.
We quickly uncovered the rest of the head, and I realised it was the jackpot. A Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton was here. I focused, and cast my spell. I felt it wrap around the bones, and it rose under my control. It pulled upwards, earth erupting around it.
I laughed, emotions turning from sorrow to joy. As it reared above me, I looked over it, seeing its full size. I knew that things would now change for me. They would pay. Not the villagers, as rude as they were. No, I would go after the bandits, the scum who forced me to reveal myself.
I looked over the site, and the thoughts of all the bones buried here exicted me. I had the literal building blocks of my own army, beneath my feet. And I would seize it with both hands. | 2020-08-30T11:24:51 | 2020-08-30T09:54:08 | 78 | 40 |
[WP] Humans have the reputation of being both an extremely dangerous species and social creatures that are easy to bond with, making them great crew members for voyagers. You and your shipmates are worried about your newly recruited human because you don't know what an introvert is.
Inspired by various "Humans are space orcs" posts from tumblr. I reposted this to change some minor grammar errors | An eerie silence had fallen over the big, sparsely populated cargo-ship. What had started out as a run just like all the others had turned into our greatest nightmare. Yet everything seemed so great in the beginning. We had been curious to meet our new crew member, especially as no one had met a human before.
Sure, there were rumors about humans being the most dangerous predators in the galaxy, about them not only surviving in a hostile environment, but mass-murdering the largest *predators* on their planet before they even invented the wheel. But those were just stories, the ones that got told every single time a new sentient species was encountered. Surely these were exaggerations once again, weren't they. Plus, no one would have accepted humans in the first place if they weren't intelligent, social and reasonable. They were all of that, every reliable report had been fairly positive, save from the initial misunderstandings always happening. And so, they had welcomed Jerem- Jul- ... their first human crew member (they all looked alike) aboard, given them the tour, socialized, the usual.
But shortly thereafter, things started to feel odd. Sure, J had done their work as well as expected. And everybody felt somewhat relieved knowing they had someone aboard who'd know how to face danger on this long journey. Anything could go wrong in deep space. Humans had survived in an environment with some deadly predators, like le-ons, so they knew how to handle themselves.
And yet, shift after shift, day after day, a menacing feeling set in. One that all of us shrug off at first, only to have it come back with greater horror. The human... *wasn't social*. Oh, it acted like it was so, at first. Responded well to our greetings, didn't seem too awkward, had some interesting things to tell, did a good job as navigator. Yet, slowly, but surely, they noticed how it spent most of its spare time alone. The more we tried to include it in the group, the more it retreated, further away each time, leaving behind the safety of the group. Spending hour upon hour somewhere in the dark corners of this ship.
The worst part, however, was when we gathered all our courage and confronted them - they insisted this was normal. We backed off slowly, trying not to show our fear, as everyone dispersed. Normal? No, never. Or rather, it was normal. But not for an ordinary, friendly being. It was, however, normal behavior for an apex predator.
Everything went downhill after that. We were somewhat used to fighting dangers from the outside - but a predator *within*? *Sentient*, like us? One, that had not only survived the attacks of, but *exterminated* some of the most vile creatures the galaxy had ever seen? Le-ons, enormous creatures, as large as 10 humans, fangs as long as one, that ran at a tenth the speed of sound? We thought those were mere exaggerations, but no, the stories were must have been right!
We have to do something, anything, but we can do nothing ever since the crew lost their mind. Now, everybody went into hiding somewhere on this tomb floating in space, each on their own. I'm barely staying sane myself. Yesterday, I found our captain and the second mechanic dead. Heart attack - they just couldn't handle the pressure.
Now, they ship's engines are dead as no one's operating them. Have been for a week. Every now and then I hear some creaking and I run whenever I hear the human's footsteps. If I hear them. Barely evaded it several times. Fortunately, I was hidden well enough. But I can't keep this up for much longer, it will find me eventually. And if that doesn't happen, I will run out of food. Or the reactor will malfunction, or...
There is only one way we'll be making it out of here alive. We have to take destroy the ship and escape via the emergency shuttle. It's the only way to be safe! I just went to comms and sent out a silent message to the rest of the crew, hoping they will make it. Fortunately, the reactor isn't far...
"Jesus! Helloooo! Where is everyone? Aren't you supposed to be working? Seriously, what is *up* with you folks?"
By the holy St'acl, he found me! This is the end! No, perhaps I can hide in this locker!
...
Did it hear that? I'm still hearing footsteps... closer, closer. It's still hunting, searching...
That was close, but I hid well enough. Sigh.
No! It heard that. It's coming directly towards me! It's about to open the locker! I, I...
...
​
. | When Elaine had a moment to relax, she liked to stare out the porthole in her room and watch the planet pass below. Staring at that amber marble, with its black seas and swirls of white cloud, filled her with a sense of awe and longing she couldn't quite explain. When she joined the science vessel, she thought she could handle the isolation of deep space, light years from the nearest fellow human. Now she wasn't so sure.
At first she ate in the kitchen with everyone else. She had her own meals; the yellow nutrient packs were for her only. She would sit at the perimeter of the group and try to understand their conversation, but their language wasn't her first, and they typically talked about their work with technical terms she didn't understand. The experience left her feeling stupid, and gradually she shifted her meal times to avoid colliding with the crew.
Elaine was a mechanic by trade and maintenance of the spacecraft was her responsibility alone. Humans are particularly adept at navigating small, confined spaces, and a small vessel such as this had those in abundance. She spent much of her shift in narrow maintenance tunnels away from the crew, with her tools drowning out their chatter.
But she couldn't stay in the tunnels forever. And anytime she left she was forced to face the others, who would tell her that'd she'd done enough work, and that she should take a break with them. But all she could do was pretend to understand, weather the occasional "why aren't you talking," and watch them grow too intoxicated to notice her excuse herself. She never thought she'd miss the much larger city stations, where one could hide in the chaos and save their energy for a close few. Now that she was forced into proximity with a bunch of strangers, she'd do anything to bail on her contract.
Even on a smaller ship, there's always work to be done for a mechanic. She used work as an excuse to avoid socializing. That only caused them to characterize her as hard working. Clearly, they would say, there's nothing she needed more than to take a break with them. Elaine was beginning to resent them for their disingenuous guilt-tripping.
There isn't a point to this story, nor is Elaine exactly an introvert. She just wished someone would thank her for the work she's so passionate about instead of trying to separate her from it, but that never really happens. | 2019-11-17T02:35:00 | 2019-11-17T01:24:32 | 904 | 253 |
[WP] As it turns out, the Avatar is still being reborn to this day. Unfortunately, if the government finds the Avatar, they’re killed before they liberate society. The handful of Benders left are few and far between. And you, an introverted Earthbender, just froze the liquid in your cup of tea. | "Whoopsies."
The young waitress froze, her hand still clasped tightly to the handle of the tea kettle. The once scalding brown liquid in my cup was now a rounded block of dark ice. And it wasn't stopping. Even as I sat there, dumb fingers wrapped firmly around the cup, I could feel the energy emanating from my hands and freezing the tea cascading from the spout in mid-air. It was then that the waitress dropped the kettle with a yelp.
I put a finger to my lips, quietly beseeching her to not attract the attention of the two officers drinking coffee not five seats away from my own very unfortunate spot. The kettle clattered as it hit the floor in protest.
I always had the shittiest timing.
Benders had become a rarity in a world once rich with them. The few of us who existed were forced to keep our abilities secret, no matter how hard they raged in our blood. Because despite what was being claimed by newscasters and politicians, we weren't safe. Police officers still patrolled the streets ensuring we didn't use our abilities while hunters roamed the city looking to chase us down for the exact opposite reason. We were a commodity, being sold off to anyone smart enough to glean ways of squeezing a profit out of us. For that reason, I was taught to suppress my bending from the moment it manifested. Which explained how I was able to fuck up by waterbending my tea with all the control of a five-year old.
Because I was an earthbender and that should have been impossible. Unless . . . Nope.
The universe had just enough mercy to grace me with a silent waitress (probably struck dumb by shock but still, who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth?) and I quickly smashed a fist through the floating ice waterfall.
"Sorry about this." I whispered, dropping my due and a *very* generous tip on the counter before getting up and making as quick and discreet an exit as I could on shaking legs.
This shouldn't be possible. I shoved my hands into my pockets, silently cursing them. It might have been my imagination. Okay, not even I was desperate enough to actually believe that. But what other explanation could there be? No person could bend multiple elements. Well not for centuries, at least. And even then only the . . . Nope.
Quickening footfall behind me ended my mental gymnastics and I turned my head just enough to mark the two officers trailing me, the distance between us growing increasingly menacing with each step. I hastened my own pace, eyes plundering the asphalt beneath my feet for a boon. Bingo.
Every loose rock found a way to trip them and the moment I heard the first crash of body to pavement, I gunned it. I made sure to zigzag around as many blocks as I could without retracing any steps.
As I passed into an empty park, sure I was alone, a thought struck me.
I wasn't sure if this would work. I'd never tried it before but then again, I'd never been able to manipulate water either. I pulled out my lighter and rolled the sparkwheel, then flicked the bic. Concentrating on the tiny dancing flame, I extended my conciousness to each particle, syncopating the rhythmic lick of fire to my own pulse. Slowly, I inhaled, visualising the element's diminishment. Despite the lack of wind, the flame was instantly snuffed out. Heart pounding, I exhaled, imagining the particles sparking to life until it bloomed into existence once more.
I nearly dropped the lighter.
"No. It can't be. They're dead. They don't exist. I . . "
"How do you think they ended up dead, kid?" The stranger's voice was gravelly, thick with wry amusement. I turned quickly, glad to feel the comforting power of my birthright element beneath my feet. I took a defensive stance.
I couldn't see the stranger's face beyond the feint smile. The melodramatic cowboy hat he wore did a good job of obscuring every other feature in shadow. The only identifying marker was the firebending tattoos twining his fingers.
"You're in a world of shit now, kid. Better not to attack the only true ally you have."
Confusion eddied my thoughts but fresh panic sliced through the fog as a dozen officers materialised from the trees surrounding us.
*Shit.*
The sudden rush of energy beside me pulled my focus from the ensuing attackers, who in my peripheral, halted at the sight as well.
The man had condensed his flame projections, forging two thin blades of flame in each hand. He wielded them expertly, the lethal chaos of fire confined to elegant clean-cut lines.
From the fleeting looks of fear that passed along the faces of the first assailers, I'd guess they were more familiar with the stranger than I was and this would not be a happy reunion. For them.
The man nodded to me. "We fight our way out of this one first, then I answer questions later. Deal, Avatar?"
I knelt, placing a spread hand on the ground, stirring the waiting earth to ready itself. "Deal."
The first brave soul ran toward us, gun poised with fire power of its own to kill. I felt rather than saw my new friend unleash the opening shot.
Then it began.
***
Edit: For those interested, [part 2](https://redd.it/7s8gx7) | "Black tea please."
I took a seat near the end of the bar table and out of the corner of my eye I saw a Patrol squad enter the bar.
*Fuck*.
I cinched my hood tighter.
They took their seats at a round table right behind me.
Static buzzed from one of the soldier's radio transceiver, "Arsonist on the run since last night. Suspected Fire Bender. Last spotted in the West of District E."
"Roger," a Patrol guard spoke and clicked off his radio. "After we finish our break we will rotate with E-12 and continue our search."
The men groaned. "Yes Sir," they said with reluctance.
"Here you go," said the bartender as he handed me my black tea.
I handed him the money without speaking.
A bell chimed and the front door opened. The sound of a light shower resounded throughout the suddenly quiet room. I frowned at the sudden silence of the guards behind me. I dared a look behind me. They were staring at the people who just came in.
A couple with their daughter, a preteen. The little girl, she was shaking herself dry and without realizing it, she was bending the moisture out of her clothes.
"Water bender sighted in central," said a guard into his receiver. "Proceeding with arrest," as he said that, the squad stood up.
They moved swiftly with purpose towards the family.
The father stepped up, "Hello, may I ask wha-"
A guard took him down onto the floor and restrained him.
"No! Please! Please spare my daughter!"
The mother held onto her pubescent child for dear life as the guards grouped up around her. One of them manhandled the mother from behind as he restrained her.
I stood up.
*Fuck. This really ain't my day.*
I dropped a wad of cash on the bar table. "Sorry for the mess," I said and as I left the table I saw the fear in the bartender's eyes as he reached for the money. Frost had permeated the table where the tea cup sat.
"Hey fuckers!" I shouted.
They turned and looked at me. Their faces twisted with surprise and recognition. There was five of them in total and just one of me... but I was the *avatar*. It was *almost* fair.
Electricity sparked from one hand as water twirled around my finger tips in the other.
They brought out their guns and aimed.
-----
**[Part 2 Here](https://www.reddit.com/user/Em_pathy/comments/7s347e/modern_day_avatar_part_2/)**
**[Part 3 Here](https://www.reddit.com/user/Em_pathy/comments/7s85n4/modern_day_avatar_part_3/)**
**[Part 4 Here](https://www.reddit.com/user/Em_pathy/comments/7s9bom/modern_day_avatar_part_4/)**
**Thank you for the appreciation! I went ham and now there's 4 parts. Enjoy!**
| 2018-01-21T11:30:02 | 2018-01-21T09:13:54 | 2,313 | 1,088 |
[WP] "I saw it during WW1. It had no meat, no bones, just veins and nerves. And there it was, striding toward us, bullets sliding off it like water. Men came apart or became things just being nearby. We know now it's a war god from another world. And it was drawn by our war like a fly to a wound. " | “I remember the Woëvre”
The grizzled old veteran half muttered. He slouched a little further over the oak bar, and with a sigh took a hearty gulp from his drink.
“That day was hell” he stiffly pronounced, “I don’t really have patience for gods, but that was the day I prayed“
He sighed, pensively nodding to the bartender who brought another whiskey and coke. Adam shifted nervously in his chair, waiting for old man to speak. The old man sat for what seemed like an eternity, at moments ever so slightly shifting and twitching, rocking in turn an inch forward and an inch back every few moments.
“And?”
Adam pushed himself forward, leaning in expectantly.
“What did you see?”
The old man turned and nodded.
“We were in the trenches. Narrow ol hallways cut into the dirt; the only thing keeping us from getting cut in half by the Jerry machine gun fire . You get used to running around in em, every so often poking yer head up to see if the those bastards were trying to make a run for it. I got really good at running the trench, ya see. Even with all the gear they made us carry. Running at a crouch, full speed 500 meters down the line wearing those god awful gas masks.
Well, that day, we had been fending off a raid for the better part of the whole morning. Those damn stormtroopers just wouldn’t quit; there’d be a barrage of explosions and gas and then they’d just run straight at us. It was an impressive attempt, really. We almost lost the outer line a few dozen times. All of a sudden, they just stopped— firing, yelling, dropping mortars on our heads. Everything went quiet. Let me tell you something son, when everything just goes quiet all of a sudden you know something isn’t right...”
The old man paused and gulped another hefty swig from his drink”. Adam leaned forward with bated breath, almost falling off his perch on the bar stool in the process.
“So we peeked over the top, you know just to see why they stopped shooting.... Oh, we saw alright. This. Thing. Was. There.”
The old man shook as he spoke, as he continued his voice took on an raspy, distant tone, like a man having a vision.
“Must have been 12 foot tall, had eyes that glowed like fire. Right when I saw it, it had ripped the head off of some Jerry officer and was swallowing it, helmet and all, while his body just lay there spurting blood and twitching. Didn’t look like a man, that thing, more like a bear and a cow put together upside down all haphazard like.
It had no meat, no bones, just bundles of fleshy veins and writhing nerves. We started firing at it, sent hails of .30 caliber into that thing. Bullets just slid off like water. As it strode towards us, I swear to god it’s face contorted into some kind of sadistic smile. It came up about 5 yards away from the line when our sergeant pulled us back. I turned and ran with everyone else like the devil himself was behind us, all the way back to division hq.”
He stopped and shook himself for a moment, almost like a man waking from a bad dream trying to get his bearings. Adam nodded and stopped scribbling on his messy legal pad.
“And did you ever see it again?”
“Nah” the old man replied. After that I got myself medically discharged. A piece of shrapnel in the leg is better than getting your arms ripped off so some beast can play fetch. Call me a coward, I don’t care. Last I heard, the brass called in the big guns and dropped 10000 pounds of ordinance on that whole grid. Whether it survived or not I never cared enough to find out.”
With that, the old man stood, straightened his tie, and walked poignantly to the door. Before leaving, he turned to look at Adam, a deathly glint in his eye.
“You know they still don’t let people into Zone Rouge, kid. If I were you I’d steer clear, no silly story is worth your life”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge | I was in that war, and by God it was a war. My men and I were stationed at the very front, as sandbags to soak up the grenades and the bullets, the stones and arrows. Every morning we woke up to the whizzing sound of Death taking potshots, and those sounds kept us alive. My men were machines created to win wars, but in these dark holes surrounded in all manner by beings that sought their blood, they were turned organic, into creatures that only wished to fight.
We soon ran out of supplies, but we couldn't afford to fall back. Staying at a distance gave too much of an opportunity to the enemy, so we closed that distance every time, using our fallen brethren as footstools, nutrition, and a reason to continue on. We abandoned our guns and took to using our knives and fists, tearing flesh from bone and eye from socket by our muscle alone, blood its only sustenance.
The war continued for days and weeks and stretched to years and then centuries, and we pressed forward all the while. Our bodies rejected food and sleep and found everything it needed from the souls that attempted to escape our faceless enemies. Without these departed spirits, our bodies would collapse, so like thirsty hounds we consumed life after life, the screams nurturing to our lips, advancing aimlessly through a hazy torrent of hellish time and space.
And then we laid witness to Him, to a figure that watched dispassionate from afar. He was as grand as a mountain and as unforgiving as our fate, and His skin was ancient, twisting muscle. All while we consumed, laughed, and suffered in unison, his fiery black eyes kept constant watch on our ruin, transforming our folly into a righteous crusade.
Every murder became a sacrifice in His name, and every death became an offering to His forgiveness.
And in that moment, we had finally found purpose. | 2019-02-27T19:40:27 | 2019-02-27T18:30:16 | 51 | 10 |
[WP] Cause of death appears to you as floating text over people's heads with no time indication. You start noticing a trend.
edit: thank you for all the truly great stories, and for taking this in directions I didn't expect. | Ever remember that scene from "The Sixth Sense", where the little kid says "I see dead people?". That was pretty much exactly how I first tried to tell people about my power. I was only six, and my parents laughed it off. My father is going to die in a car accident. My mother, a heart attack.
You see, I can see how people die. Their cause of death is shown in a little text box over their head. It normally shows something like my parents, an accident, or just old age. I tried to help people as I got older, trying to give people as much time as possible. I told cancers to get a check-up arranged. Car accidents to drive safely. Every goddamn one of them laughed it off. Said I was crazy. Well, Charlene died from a car accident a few weeks later. John has terminal cancer. Every single one of them died. I stopped trying soon after Sarah died from a drug overdose.
At first, there was no time. I couldn't tell when these deaths were going to happen, just how they were. Then, I noticed people's words becoming more opague. The closer they were, the more solid the words became. As I grew older, I noticed that they were cracking, shot through with veins of color. I started guessing how long they had, choosing the urgent cases, the brick-like car accidents and the tombstone murders. I couldn't interfere, just tell them to be careful. I examined them, carefully noting the color change. I soon had a system.
Blues, the long term people. Two decades or more, I'd guess. Greens, a decade. Yellows had a year, two tops. Reds, the next few months. Purples, a week. Blacks, a day or two.
I was sitting on a bus when I saw him. A boy, the same age as me, leaning his head against the window, looking out at the world passing by. Among all the other passengers, he was the only purple one, the rest a mess of greens and blues. There was a few yellows too.
Everyone else had the usual. Car accidents, cancer, one tiger, that was going to be rough. Nothing too bad. He had the word "suicide", surrounded by deep purple.
He lifted his head off the window, and glanced down at his hands. He seemed to have made a decision.
I watched as the colors shifted from purple to black.
I had promised myself not to interfere again.
I smashed that promise into smithereens as I got up and sat beside him.
"Hey, can I talk to you? My name's Nick... are you okay?"
He glanced up at me, and then back at his hands. I saw a hint of a smile...
Just on the edge of my vision, because I was too busy staring at the text box. It now read "old age", in the palest, most beautiful and perfect tracery of blue you can imagine.
**Thank you all so much for all the lovely comments. I had no idea how much of a reaction this reply would get. Thank you, thank you, thank you! <3** | Like I said, I was always used to this up until The Moment. Even as a little boy, I had to pretend like I didn't see a picture of a broken heart over someone's head or a cartoonish smashed car. Words eventually replaced the images and they got more scientific as my vocabulary grew. Old age... cancer... coronary embolism...acute pumlonary edema... whatever. They would walk around and smile and I just kept my mouth shut. But I was always okay with it. I'm not really sure why. You get used to things just like you get used to seeing tragedy on the news every goddamn night. Then, The Moment: I saw my own fucking name over a stanger. It was raining... I couldn't move... | 2015-03-31T11:10:46 | 2015-03-31T07:48:21 | 241 | 123 |
[WP] The current rulers of the galaxy exert their dominance by showing showing new races a glimpse of their terrifying nature inevitably either driving the unfortunate victims mad or causing them to retreat in fear. It does not work on humans however, they are used to it | Life had a unifying feature.
It didn't matter if your species evolved in the oceans of a moon on a gas giant, or in the crevices of a planet tidal-locked with its star, it will always have one critical trait:
Fear.
Fear is what keeps species in check, what ensures that they don't kill themselves in foolish endeavors. Fear is the power that allows a civilization to grow and become stronger; fear of one's neighbor, fear of hunger, fear of poverty, fear of sickness, fear of death. Fear ensures that nuclear weapons aren't used to bring about their own apocalypse, that antimatter reactors have proper safeguards and never too much fuel, that interstellar travel is strictly regulated and properly defended.
And it is fear that we have conquered. Our species, the self-proclaimed Forebearers, were the first and most magnificent of races. When we stretched our hands out to the cosmos, we found a fledgling universe, filled with potential, yet without any to protect them. As we marched forward, we claimed civilization after civilization under our banner, showing them the dark futures that existed, and the safety of life within our control. As our technology advanced, those civilizations under us were provided greater shelter and safety and comfort, and reminded how steep the fall from our graces was.
Our control of fear allowed us to expand to over a quarter of the galactic arm. We had mastered it, mastered the ability to instill fear and terror and show species the better way. Our way.
Until we met them. Humanity, they called themselves. One of millions of species on their planet, they were the sole species that could begin to understand the universal truths. They'd expanded to their moon and their nearby planets, inhospitable as they were. Still primitive by all accounts, they held promise to become the next in line to join our ranks.
Except they didn't.
Maybe we'd foolishly relied on fear for so long that we'd never considered other options, but when the vast might of our civilization was thrown on display, when the veil of the future was ripped back and exposed for all to see, when our arcane technology that can split reality and reshape it at will was brought forth, when the sheer terror of how tiny they were compared to the great and grand Forebearers gripped them thoroughly... they simply acknowledged us. When given the option to join us or be left to drift for all eternity, they chose to drift. When told they would receive no help from us and would end up as so many other species we'd failed to reach before they'd rendered themselves extinct, they had ready their reply.
And such a simple reply it was: "When we were young, we looked to the heavens for the potential of our species. When we grew older, we found we could reach out to test ourselves. And when we took our first steps on new worlds, our elation was palpable. Now that we have met you, we have seen all that we can become, but we also see that, under your reign, we will not reach the heights we know we can. We have hope that we will be able to come to you again, as equals, in the future, and beg you to anticipate this joyous occasion."
Fear united our grand vision. We had conquered fear, but still, it controlled us.
Fear does not hold humanity.
And that is unacceptable. | I sat watching the news, petting my cat, Harry.
"A civil war has broken out in South Sudan once again, with estimated deaths in the 100 thousands. Around 500,000 child soldiers- Breaking news: a massive object has entered the atmosphere. Scientists cannot recognize any part of it. The government-"
I perked up my head, suddenly interested. It wasn't every day aliens invaded the planet. Harry sprang off me, apparently finding interest in his own hairball I hadn't cleaned up yet.
"Greetings, Earthlings," I turned my head back to the screen. This was definitely aliens. Now the big question was, would they be nice aliens, or mean ones?
"Behold the terrible wrath of the Kathraxi,"
100% mean ones. The screen turned to millions of starving aliens. (I don't really have time to finish. Someone remind me to come back later) | 2019-06-11T10:06:47 | 2019-06-11T05:53:12 | 363 | 99 |
[WP] Everyone is born with a special talent that's weak when young, but grows stronger and matures at the age of 30. A kid that's a little stronger than his peers will grow up to lift mountains. Another who like tinkering will revolutionize civil action. You? Well, cats just seem to like you...
*civilizations
Edit: WP was more popular than I though. Reading through the stories delayed because I'm traveling. Keep them coming I'm loving them! | Should I ask him to repeat himself?
Is that rude?
I can't exactly be at fault for not listening too well. I wasn't exactly expecting... well... words...
"Did you get all that Steven?"
Oh wow, ok yeah he definitely spoke and I completely missed it.
"Will you do it?"
I stared blankly at Jasper who was sitting over a coffee table in my living room surrounded by every single cat in the neighborhood. I scanned the cats from left to right.
Snowball belonged to Ms. Cassandra from across the street, I gave him left overs from my sandwich on my way back from school whenever I could.
Smudge was a stray cat who followed me home often and, despite the warnings from my mother, would always be friendly with me.
Tiger was Randy's cat. He would always got jealous cause the cat would only be at ease around me. I'd hear stories of clawed out curtains, and scratched fingers, but he would always comfortably purr on my lap when I came over.
This was only to name a few.
I never thought much of it. I like cats, and cats like me back. But on this day the words coming out of that furry, toothy mouth revealed to me that this was indeed my special talent.
Well not the words themselves, more like the action of the words coming out. And subsequently my understanding of those words...
More than the sheer surprise of hearing my pet talk, I was shaken to my core in pure disappointment. Others usually got super strength... or flight... or mind reading... I guess I got... cat likeness? Wait until the others hear about this?
But oh well, gotta make the most of it.
I looked at Jasper who I could tell was beginning to get worried.
(Wait can cats look visibly worried? Must've been the talent.)
"Actually... umm... if you don't mind... could you just repeat that last part one more time?" I said to Jasper, hoping to not be offensive in anyway.
"Of course Steven!"
"We're all here because we all feel a sort of connection with you. We understand you as much as you understand us. And to any feline with half a brain it'd be plain to see that you should be the one to lead us!"
A resounding 'meow' reverberated across my room, like an adorable war cry that struggled to be taken seriously.
But the 'meow' kept going, bouncing onto my ears over and over, and suddenly the cry took the shape of words.
"Praise the Great one Steven! Praise the Great one Steven!"
Just then my front door slid open. I braced myself for the stellar and totally reasonable conversation I was about to have with whoever opened it.
That's when I saw a massive paw slam into the room, followed by another, then another until the figure entering the room was entirely revealed.
"Praise the Great one Steven!" bellowed the great lion with a mighty roar, both completely shattering my reputation with my neighbors, and my center of balance and mind.
I fell onto the floor with eyes open so wide, you'd think I was a cat hunting at night.
I looked up at the ceiling with a complete utter lack of words. Not only did the cats have my tongue, they had torn it to shreds.
Eventually I gathered enough strength to lay out a single word.
"Huh..."
I believe it was profound.
EDIT: Oh wow! That's way more upvotes than I expected! This is my first time writing anything in writingprompts so I thought I'd give it a shot! Thanks to everyone who commented, and I'm open to any criticism! | Life is unfair, they all say. Tim, who was just slightly stronger than us, grew up being able to lift mountains and move continents. James, who enjoyed taking apart stuff and putting them back together, grew up be one of Earth's most celebrated inventor, revolutionizing the industry.
Me? Cats only seem to like me. They all laughed at me. Ridiculed me. What can a person who only cats like do at the age of 30? Meow everyone to death?
They laughed. They mocked. But little do they know the extent of my powers. They underestimated me.
Unlike them who constantly flaunt their power, I have secretly honed mine in the past few decades. Slowly putting my plans in motion. Eliminating dogs from society. Making cats the pets of choice. Secretly I have been planting my agents across the globe, ensuring that they have access to all the most secure places in the world.
They may have forgotten me, but come tomorrow, I will show them the true extent of my power. They will come to fear me, no matter what their powers. Because come tomorrow, they will finally learn the hard way what a real Crazy Cat Lady can do.
ME-OWWW.
------------------
/r/dori_tales | 2016-12-30T08:57:01 | 2016-12-30T08:28:43 | 2,633 | 56 |
[WP] You gain a magic coin that can grant wishes, but only if you flip it. If it lands on heads, your wish is granted, but if it lands on tails, the opposite of your wish happens. | Wiping a tear off his cheek Derek opened the box he received this morning. Coughing from the dust that that had settled on the box his thoughts went to his grandma. She had been amazing, taking him in when his parents had abandoned him. Raising him to the man he was today. Glad to help his community and to work at the nursing home for the elderly nearby.
Wondering what items his grandmother left him in her will Derek pulled out the boxes and books from the box. Spreading them out on his desk its contents became clear. It was a rather large coin collection. One he immediately decided to keep.
Making a note to call his notary to alter his will so the collection would go to a museum after being put in a coffin and cremated Derek opened the first book. Going over it page by page he was amazed at the diversity. There were coins from the Roman empire to those first minted after the United States had been founded.
Pulling out more and more books, all heavy with coin, Derek nearly reached the bottom of the box. Standing on it, in between several smaller coin books was a a special stand. Taking it out and dusting it off a sentence became readable on the top.
Above the glass window showing a near blank coin it said: “Warning, only rub in emergency situations!”
Wanting to get one good laugh out of grandma her silly jokes Derek opened the little door and took the coin out of its stand. After rubbing it for a second, making it shine once more, Derek opened the little door again and put the coin back.
Reaching over to grab the last few things from the box Derek jumped back in surprise as a blue man faded in right next to him from thin air.
Bowing before Derek the ghost stood up and as Derek grabbed an umbrella and held it up it said: “Greetings boy, I am Pani. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to stretch my legs after the decades spent locked in that damn coin. Now, you can make as many wishes as you want which will come true if the coin is.-”
Listening closely Derek immediately jumped over to the coin holder, opening it and taking out the coin. Yelling: “I wish for world peace,” Derek flipped the coin high in the air, observing it as it fell down to the ground.
Upon landing on the carpet sirens go off outside, blasting their loud noise to every house.
“What happened ghost,” Derek loudly asked of Pani, accusation clear in his voice.
Looking at Derek, slowly blinking, Pani scratched his neck.
“You modern humans. You did not even bother letting me finish my explanation. When it lands on heads your wish is granted. Does it land on tails, well, then the opposite of what you wished for happens. In this case a world war. Which includes every nuclear missile in the world being launched!”
The genie, now followed by Derek‘s scornful gaze sat down in the comfortable chair in the corner of the room, giving him the thumbs up.
“Also, I am a genie! Now boy, go and wish for world peace again. And hope this time the coin lands on heads before you are obliterated,” the genie said, laughing out loud at the stupidity of this boy.
----------------
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, then please check out /r/MaisieKlaassen
| My guide to life is a 2 euro coin.
I know, it's really weird, but the coin is my genie.
If I flip it heads when I ask for something, I get that. If I flip tails, I get the opposite.
Having already failed several times, I keep testing my luck. I've been robbed of my entire house, fortune, and knowledge in a night. But as far as I know, if I keep flipping, I'll eventually get rich.
Even though I'm homeless, I try my best to help the other homeless people. Today is my chance to finally change someone else's life.
I flip the coin into a homeless man's cup, praying for heads.
"I hope this man gets back on his feet," I mutter.
An hour later, I feel the coin back in my pocket.
Tails. Definitely tails. | 2016-08-26T07:51:15 | 2016-08-26T07:21:22 | 20 | 10 |
[WP] You are born with two names tatooed on you body somewhere, one of your soulmate and one of the people that will eventually kill you. There is no way to tell who is who. | The Captain filled a small container with what had to be bourbon, carefully sealing the spout to prevent any of the liquid from floating away. As I dogged the hatch behind me, I saw that he already had his drink in hand.
First day aboard a starship, and I'm drinking with the boss? Not a bad start.
Captain Leonov sent my drink floating through the air. I caught it without thinking, using my other hand to hold onto the wall of his quarters. I had never been drunk in 0 g, and this small container wasn't going to do the job either.
"You handled spacedock well, Commander," He said. "I was told that this was your first deep space assignment, but from your conduct, I could not tell."
"I've been on the Titan run for the last year, and Luna before that." I shrugged, the tiny movement a third of what it would have been dirtside. More than that and I'd float off. "Spacedock is just a bigger port, when you get down to it."
"Perhaps," the Captain replied. Now that I had a chance to listen, I could tell that something was on his mind. The old man was worried.
I floated closer to him, approaching the cupola-style window of his quarters. "What's on your mind, sir?"
He looked at me, with a tinge of sadness in his eyes. "How did Natalya handle the launch?"
My wife had been angry, truth be told. We were shipping out sooner than planned, and going to parts unknown for who knows how long. She wanted stability for our sons, and the run to Jupiter space had afforded that - one month on, one off. Yesterday had been the angriest I had seen her since before we revealed our names, hers on my shoulder and mine on her ankle.
The relief on her face when she knew that she was mine, and I hers - we had made love that night, for the first time. I think we started Anatoliy that night, honestly.
"She was fine," I lied. "She is a spacer's wife, sir."
The Captain nodded, saying nothing. He took a pull from his drink.
"Sir, what's on your mind?"
The Captain looked at me, and that sadness was there still. He grabbed a folder from the wall, Velcro breaking the quiet with a stiff ripping sound. Tipping it to me, he sent it on a slow trajectory across the room. Plucking it from the air, I unzipped the folder and looked a the contents. A bright red EYES ONLY across the top gave me pause. Below that, I saw the table of contents - and noted that the package included first contact protocols.
My heart stilled as I got to page two.
"72 days ago, we received this transmission. It's from an object in the belt. I don't know the details, of course, but I guess the big brains figured out that it was base 8. And that let them figure out that it was a series of pixels, and that those made images." The Captain nodded toward the folder. "You're holding some of those images in your hand. The first confirmed signal from a non terrestrial intelligence. Our mission is to go to that point in space and see who sent this."
I looked again, to be certain. The image I saw, the one that changed everything, was a star chart. Ours was marked, as well as several others. Eridani, Centauri, so on. The markings were utterly alien - and immediately familiar. I looked at the Captain.
He rolled up his sleeve. The Naval tattoo he had on his forearm took new meaning. On the hull of the small spacecraft, a series of dots and swirls was apparent. You might miss the alien script, if you didn't know to look for it.
"No one knew what it meant," he began. "So I covered it up, as soon as I could. Command knows, of course - your names are always recorded. But I figured mine was a placeholder, that I would die somehow with no one to blame." A sad chuckle came from the man. "How could we know?"
Wordlessly, I unzipped my uniform. Pulling the tunic open, I saw the captain's eyes grow wide as he saw. For on my collarbone was the same set of dots and swirls. The same alien script.
The Captain nodded. "Everyone on board has the same. 72 men, 14 women."
I nodded, absently. Then I emptied my drink. | My first ever writing prompt attempt, part 1..
--
'Well this is a conundrum', I bemused whilst nursing my coffee on a dreary Monday morning. My reflection staring back at me as the scenery dances past in a blur of colour.
Barely noticeable a small tattoo peeks out from behind my ear. So small and brief the words spell Eve with a large mole accenting it before the name.
I stare, idly wondering about fate and destiny, scratching at the other name inked against my skin. Again 'Eve', branded against my inner wrist like a trademark. I never understood why both names were the same for me. Could the one named Eve bring me both joy and sorrow? Life and death?
Pouting I stare into the inky abyss of the dregs of my coffee. Concern creasing my face in a conundrum I could never understand. Why am I fated with the pendulum dancing above my head but also with the knife pointed at my heart? 'Love shouldn't entwine death' I croaked, a hoarseness clawing at my throat.
I thought id found 'the one'. My Gabriel, he swept me off my feet in a flurry of passion and spontaneity that I was in awe. We soon wed before things turned sour. We had two kids to bridge the gap between us, to try and seal our differences, but the ineffective mould soon cracked and we divorced, not able to sate one another or coparent effectively. I see my children, Grace and Daniel twice a week. Im on my way there now as a town sign flitters into existence as the train slows.
As we come to a halt I grab my bag and make a move to leave the carriage. A strong warm body hits me promptly leave me stumbling whilst trying to hold onto both my dignity and belongings. "Would you mind?" I half shouted, half screamed, whirling to face a tall, dark and very angry man. The look in his eyes made me squeak out a "Nevermind" before I hurriedly tried to exit the carriage and train successfully. I was halted by a hand enveloping my wrist and a firm "Could you wait a second ma'am? I would like to have a word with you?" | 2018-03-11T08:45:50 | 2018-03-11T07:50:31 | 120 | 24 |
[WP] The Hero is ridiculously overpowered but has none of the usual moral objections about using their power. They just defeated the last major supervillian and now the city nervously waits to find out what happens next. | Vulture Storm stood above the wreckage of Hero Tower, watching as Darkness drew her last breath. *It’s over. It’s finally over.* Above, a camera crew flew, the blades of the helicopter spinning in near silence. To his left, the final pillar on the tower he had called home, collapsed back onto the empty street. The crew zoomed in while a reporter shouted commentary to those watching on T.V.
“At last, Darkness’s reign of terror is over,” the reported screamed, trying to be heard above the fire and wreckage that consumed the nearby city streets. “We just have to thank god Vulture Storm was here. The power he showed…it..it…was terrifying.” She paused wondering if she should even say what was on her mind. ”Now, we just wait. Wait to see what he will do next. We can hope that he doesn’t…doesn’t…go the way some other hero’s have gone.” Even from here Vulture Storm could hear her words. *Go the way other heroes have gone? That's some way to put it.* Looking around, he saw what the battle had done to the street. *To my city.* Main street was basically gone, it would need to be completely torn down and rebuilt. The people though had been evacuated. *Bloodless.* He sniffed, enjoying the smell of smoke that wafted through the air. The scent brought him back to his first super villain fight, the first time he had nearly died.
The school’s had just gotten off and children had littered the streets. Screaming, crying and running amok, their mother’s were already stressed. Vulture had just bought a drink, cherry coke, from the shop on the corner. Standing there, basking in the sunlight and the sound of the kids, he allowed himself a smile. Already that day, he had stopped two muggings. *Not a bad day's work,* he thought. Then, it began. The fight that would make him one of the most popular heroes in the world. Fallen Angel. That stupid fool. Creating a tunnel system under the city, he essentially collapsed every building in a twenty mile area, killing thousands instantly and for whatever reason had decided to appear next beside where Vulture had stood. Gliding up, Fallen Angel shouted out his plan for world domination, his booming voice could be herald across the city. They had fought for hours and in the end, Vulture Storm had ripped the Angel’s head right off. *All on camera.* Another camera crew had caught the fight's final moments. They had watched as Vulture collapsed onto his back exhausted, blood-soaked and crying. And the smell of smoke lingered in his nostrils for months to come.
A woman’s scream, high and wild, brought Vulture Storm back to reality. Without thinking, he flew to her, finding her trapped beneath a street lamp.
“Don’t worry,” he smiled, trying to sound as soothing as possible. “I’m here. It’s all over. The supervillains are all gone.” Without breaking a sweat, he threw off the lamp post, bundling the woman in his arms before taking the woman to safety, across half the city in under a minute.
Already a sprawling sea of tents had been set up on the city's outskirts. Usually for victims though this time, thank god, only for those who had lost their homes. A few crying children sat on their mothers knee’s though most seemed too frightened to feel anything at all. Doctors and nurses mostly comforted though now homeless. One doctor spotted Vulture Storm with the woman in his arms and asked to put her on a nearby bed. When the woman was surrounded by help, Vulture Storm floated off, wandering through the tents.
A camera crew, interviewing a small child spotted him hovering and rushed over for an interview.
“Mr.Storm,” the reporter asked, looking up at the hero, wided-eye and in awe. “Can we get an interview?” With a sigh, Storm nodded, and came down to earth.
“Of course,” he said, forcing a smile. The reporter smiled back, ordering her crew to ready the camera once more.
“Here we are,” she began, turning from camera to hero and back again, “with Vulture Storm who seemingly has defeated the last of the Supervillians. Vulture Storm we just want to say thank you. Thank you for saving our beloved city. But what now? What’s left for a hero like you?” Storm bowed his head, thinking. Of the lives he saved, of the lives he couldn’t. *What now?*
“What now?” he repeated back to her. “Well, I think…I think...it’s time. Time to retire.” All the people talking around him stopped, the silence was deafening. “Too often, we see what happens when heroes as strong as I am continue on too long. Their morals become warped. Their power corrupts them. So what's now for me? Think I will go home, play some playstation. Smoke a joint. Chill out. For once.” | # Soulmage
**The elf's skin bubbled and snapped as he rose from his crouched position.** As one, the four of us took a step back—we all knew Iola could kill us with a snap of his fingers, if he so desired.
"Well." Iola turned towards us, grinning a smile that drooped and melted. I had no idea what his eldritch flesh was made of, but its eternally-regenerating nature meant that Iola was nearly impossible to kill. "Fancy meeting you four all the way out here. How can a war hero like me help some fine citizens of the Silent Peaks such as you?"
"We're not citizens of the Silent Peaks," Meloai pointed out from my left. "We left the Silent Peaks because of *your* actions."
I winced. Meloai meant well, but... that was the wrong thing to say. Iola's grin stretched wider and wider, squelching wetly as it distended his head. "Why, whatever actions could you mean? I was simply trying to reclaim what was mine. After all..."
Iola's soul shifted, space *melted*, and in a heartbeat he stood behind the four of us, one arm around Lucet's throat. Lucet herself stood stock-still, eyes wide with numb disbelief as Iola whispered, "The hero gets the girl."
And then Lucet spoke.
"No," she whispered.
Iola tilted his head. "What did you just say to me?"
"I said, *no!*" Lucet spun around, drawing power from her soul, and hurled a frost spell that rent the air with a shriek of ice and froze Iola's lower half solid. Iola staggered back as Lucet balled her fists, readying another frostbolt.
But the unkillable elf got to his feet, laughing, a manic, inhuman light in his eyes.
"That," Iola whispered, his voice slimy and rough, "was the last mistake of your life."
And the four of us closed ranks as Iola surged towards us, arms outstretched as the war hero prepared to tear us apart.
A.N.
This story is part of Soulmage, a frequently updated serial in progress. Want to know what happens next? Check out [the table of contents](https://www.reddit.com/r/bubblewriters/comments/uxmwe4/soulmage_masterpost/) to be notified whenever a new part comes out! There's already thirty-six other chapters before this one, so there's plenty to catch up on. And if you want more stories, check out r/bubblewriters! | 2022-06-27T08:38:54 | 2022-06-27T08:06:16 | 348 | 26 |
[WP] One day people's spirit animals appear and they turn out to be first generation Pokemon. You are happy with your Charmander, since most got a Magikarp. Your significant other, who has never seen Pokemon, calls and is very excited about their "blue-eyed, pink, floating cat-like thing". | I sat in my living room, staring blankly at my Spirit Animal, pondering where I'd gone wrong in life to deserve this.
...No, sorry, scratch that, staring blankly at my Spirit Pokemon. Charmander, I'd gotten Charmander. I knew one day he'd evolve in to Charizard and I absolutely dread that day. I live in a cruddy apartment in the Midwest, I'm not even allowed a pet cause of it and now there's another burn mark in the carpet becau-NO, NO, STOP, DO NOT STICK YOUR TAIL ON THE COUC-OH GOD WHY YOU KNEW YOU WERE DOING THAT NOW YOU'RE JUST BEING STUBBORN!
Uggghhhhh, I love you to death, Charmy, but we gotta figure something out before we make The Great Chicago Fire look like a mild camp fire.
One day, the world just suddenly went sideways and everyone had Pokemon. No one knew what the hell was happening, and suddenly blammo, hey, here's this sentient beast that can and accidentally will probably destroy something you enjoy but goddamn if they aren't adorable. Weird thing was, though, it was only the original 150 from the first generation. Try as I might, I couldn't ever find anyone that'd managed to get any of the super adorable Baby one's from the 2nd gen or those weirder ones from the other gens when it was totally obvious Game Freak was phoning it in.
There was this 12 year old part of me that was screaming in absolute joy at all of this. Dude, Pokemon were real now! And everyone had one! Like, one day, out of the blue, poof, Pokemon.
Some folks got on the whole "IT'S THE WORK OF TEH DEVILS!!!!1111~" bandwagon super quick. Those folks are the best, they're so funny to watch as they are decrying this whole event while their Onix and Machomps and Parasects are wrecking havoc in the background of their news casts.
Others started battling them without much of a thought or care. You know how many unofficial Pokemon Leagues popped up over night? So many 'champions' wandering around with these trinkets and baubles saying they're the very best, like no one ever was. It gets tedious. God does it. Nothing like getting challenged to a fight taking out the trash or doing my laundry.
And then there was my girlfriend Marie.
Marie's top notch. Seriously, she's sweet and loving, smart as can be and sharp as a tack, but we're two totally different types of people. I'm a nerd through and through, I work in IT and I play video games and music. Marie, on the other hand? Complete softie, loves the great outdoors, and wants to be a doctor.
I don't know how or why, but things are pretty great for us....which is why when my phone went off and I saw her smiling face I got the butterflies in my stomach like I always do.
Or were they now Butterfree in the stomach? This Pokemon thing was going to change a whole lotta stuff....
Not even waiting a moment after I hit the answer button, I hear her nearly hyperventilating on the other end of the line.
"OH MAN OH MAN IT'S HERE IT'S HERE IT FINALLY HAPPENED I GOT MY POKEMANS!"
Marie didn't get her Pokemon right away like a majority of people. It's fine, it happens, there's still a load of folks getting theirs despite not waking up with a small bonfire in the living room like I had the first day. She didn't really seem too phased by it, she'd never been one to play the games as a child and made mild fun of me for being so in to it and she absolutely loved Charmy when she first met him, but hearing her excitement made me feel really happy for her.
"Honey, that's fantastic! Do you know what you got?" I said, noticing that Charmy was investigating my shoes with some heavy interest.
"I don't know, it hasn't said anything yet, it just sits there and is sort of smiling at me and it looks so cute and I want to just hug it but I'm afraid I'll freak it out!"
Marie was obviously excited by this and I was super happy for her. This was great! I was actually looking forward to when hers came along so we could spend time together, me teaching her about Pokemon and helping her take care of hers, it was going to be awesome.
"That's adorable. Hey, don't worry about freaking it out, just treat it like you would a friend, it'll be alright. What's it look like, I might be able to tell you about it." I said, trying to move my shoes away from Charmy. I liked these shoes. They were comfortable shoes. I'd spent a bit of money on them and I knew Charmy would probably accidentally set them on fire, then he'd give me the sad Pokemon eyes and I'd feed him marshmallows til we both stopped feeling so bad.
Marie finally caught her breath and exhaled again. "It's pink and fuzzy looking. Smiles a lot. And big eyes."
Pink. Fuzzy looking. Big eyes. Smiles a lot.
Oh man, Marie got a fraking Jigglypuff? I'd have to make sure she didn't try to duet with it, she was always singing and I could see that not going well in rush hour traffic.
"And it's got these weird huge feet too and this tail as well."
...I don't think Jigglypuff had weird feet. Clefairy, maybe?
"And it's got big round eyes, as blue as the sky and almost as cute as yours."
Well I do have some cute eyes, yeah, but I'm still unsure at this point.
"And it looks like a cat too. Baby, you know how much I've wanted a cat for a long time and can't get one cause of the dorms? But here it is! It's a cat!"
Blue eyes, pink, big feet, fuzzy, tail, looks like a cat.
Wait. Wait, no, hold on. No, no. Just...
No.
I hear some faint rustling in the background of the phone and Marie laughs. "Hank, it's sitting on my shoulder nuzzling my head! It's so warm and adorable and oh gosh it's so cute!"
And then I hear the one word that makes me drop my shoes.
Distantly, I hear her Pokemon enthusiastically say its first word.
"Mew!"
Oh bo-DAMNIT, CHARMY, THOSE WERE MY FAVORITE SHOES!
Edit: Forgot Jigglypuff doesn't have a tail, edited it a little there. | "Jase I found it! And I was able to cancel the plumber and the guy checking the hot water tank before they got here, apparently they're all backed up with a bunch of other people who had the same idea—"
"That's nice," I said absently. "So where was it?"
"In the freezer." She sounded ridiculously proud of herself. "No idea how it got there. And it's not a carp either!"
"*Magi*-karp, it's not nerdy anymore it's gonna be the new basic stuff like dog breeds and—assuming this is real and gonna last, anyway. Sorry, so, what?"
Her sigh gusted through the speaker. "You're still totally wrapped up in your lizard aren't you. What have you got to now?"
"This is *Pokemon in real life!* I'm trying to figure out if mine's a girl or boy."
"Seriously?"
"Oh shut up. I think they must be like crocodiles, with all the parts on the inside. You know how you figure out the sex of a crocodile? I'm trying to get this thing to like me. And I don't wanna stick my finger up anywhere and go probing regardless."
She laughed harder.
"Your thing! Your not a Magikarp! Tell me about your not a Magikarp. What is it then?"
"You expect to me know?" she asked rhetorically, but launched into an enthusiastic description anyway. "It's pink, and kind of... unfinished, a bit? I was a little worried at first, it looked like a giant fetal kitten, but now it's gone rounder and... god, these shapes don't make sense! I mean it's adorable and it's real but it just *shouldn't* be—it's got a... ball, for a body, with arms and legs stuck off it, and its face is just on its..."
"It what? El?"
"Ooh, we're changing again, hang on—oh, it's *purple* now, it's *so cute*, it's a big purple mouse—or rat—oh look at its little *teeth*—"
"What?" I protested, my phone falling to the floor. I rescued it before Charmander's curious claws got close enough to touch and hastily wedged it between my shoulder and chin again. "Oh my *god*! You got a Ditto! That is so unfair, you didn't get one Pokemon you got *all* of them—you wanna trade? I'm coming over right now so we can trade."
"No I don't want to trade, what happened to that rhapsody you were spouting off earlier about your fire lizard? This is my... what did you call it?"
"Ditto."
"Seriously."
"I swear. It's called a Ditto."
"Well I'm naming it... something else. A real name. For the love of god, *ditto*..."
"Look, some Pokemon have names that kind of make sense as portmanteaus from real words, like Charmander, and some are Dittos okay? Maybe names'll change if we figure out real animal kingdoms and subspecies and Latinize stuff. But I'm coming over now anyway, we've got a huge advantage we need to take now over the Magikarps before they start evolving—"
"You're babbling again. And my mouse looks like some weird radish with feet now. Can I get it to turn back to a mouse somehow?"
"We'll work on that. That sounds like Ditto training. Oddish is good though, Oddish can cover Charmander's back typewise... no, electric will be better against Gyarados... send your Ditto toward a wall outlet, can you? Or unplug something and give it the cord. See what it turns into."
"You're still making no sense..."
"Do it anyway, pleeeeeaaase?"
"What if it hurts—oh my *god*, now it's a bigger yellow mouse with these *ears*—and its tail looks like *lightning* this is so *cute* hang up I've got to take a picture—"
"Yes! Keep it like that! We're battling doubles forever, I'll help you train—it eats electricity, okay, just keep giving it power cords, I'll be there in thirty minutes! As soon as I figure out... maybe a leash, or... god, somebody better invent pokeballs fast now..."
| 2015-06-20T14:05:27 | 2015-06-20T13:54:47 | 118 | 37 |
[WP] School is now mandatory 24/7 around the world for kids. They eat, sleep, and bathe at the school, much lIke a prison. The biggest mystery is the disappearance of the kids who can't make good grades. | All day.
Every day.
A few years ago, if you asked, I could tell you my favorite thing to do when I got home every day from school. Seventh grade was a pretty tough year for me. And those eight to three school days felt like they'd never end. But of course they did end as every day before had. And like every day before, at the buzzer I'd barge out the doors and zip home, and practically jump from the mailbox to my desk chair.
Runescape. Sometimes I didn't even piss on the way inside. Later in the year I got in the habit of going right before last class, and so every afternoon was made that much more enjoyable with an uninterrupted RPG. I wasn't very good, but my friends and I made some great memories. Now, though, there's not many memories worth remembering. Today, if you asked me what I liked to do once I got home after school, well; welcome to the IES.
Involuntary Educational Schooling was quickly enacted in the summer before I started high school. The services are of course much more than the previous system. Now there was child housing in every town. As well as guarded campuses with the housing enclosed. Towns that border others, a lot of those places became a collective – Super Schools. And rumor has that there's a tier greater, where regions joined together and, well, I don't even think we've come up with a name yet for those.
Sleep. Eat. Learn. Repeat. Mix in some yard time and talent-weekends, and that's the basics of every week. Guys and girls are separated. But of course that stops no one but the shy and religiously indoctrinated. As with anything, you want it bad enough you'll find a way to get it. You learn that one quick.
Do I wish to no longer be in here? Yeah. Good luck getting passed the guards and security though. A few certainly have. Though, once out there's never a peep from them again. Speculation is all we have. And then there's the part about kids going missing. And to clarify these aren't disappearances because they're hiding. No, these kids are taken. Rumor had it it was the dumb ones, at the end of every month, who silently get slipped out of the routine. Others have a hunch that they're secretly the smartest, whether they know it or not. But, you don't really know until you've lost someone you know.
Kids go missing, like I said, monthly, but if no one freaks out then everyone moves on. Though if a kid goes missing and someone does freak out, then we pay attention, but soon enough that person almost always calms down and equally soon enough acts like they never knew them.
But when my friend Drew went missing… then I knew something serious was up.
Drew sure was eclectic, but he was a genius. He wasn't proud, just, really smart. But so this past weekend he went missing, and he's definitely not someone to just go missing for shits and giggles. So, I did what any friend would do. I started looking for him. Though to be honest, I sort of wish I hadn't.
...
•
sorry sick and recovering. I'll jump back into this later, it also needs polish and more structure yeah | Please see me after class.
I was so close to passing. I had studied and crammed for weeks on end. All for it to end up with a 69. What a sick joke. Alone and drowning in sorrow I awaited my teacher to come talk to me.
"Nelson. You were not satisfactory. Please follow me."
The hallway seemed darker than normal. Humming, the elevator plummeted downwards.
"What is going to happen to me?"
He stood stoic, and would not meet my gaze. Blinding light pierced my eyes as the doors opened. A hand shoved me from behind and I collapsed into... What is this? After awhile my eyes cleared and it looked like something out of a science fiction film. Brown, grainy flooring with green strings? Reaching my hands I scooped some of the grains.
A small circular creature with spots jumped off and flew into the air. I looked at the world for the first time. | 2017-09-15T17:49:51 | 2017-09-15T17:36:42 | 228 | 39 |
[WP] You are the city's premier supervillain, but you have a secret. The crimes you commit are not for gain, or to hurt people. You are always subtly testing and pushing 'your' heroes to excel, to be the best they can be. Then a villain with a reputation for murdering heroes shows up in town. | It didn't take a super genius to know that our world didn't exist within the herculean struggle between justice and evil as the media would have us believe- but rather our choices often blurred the lines. There was a spectrum- shades of gray as it were.
Gray like my prison cell.
But within the shades of daily gray, there sometimes emerged bursts of color, sensationalism, and expressiveness. A break from the TV static; the white noise of adulthood that permeates our lives after we've abandoned our dreams as unrealistic or unobtainable.
We call them Super Heroes.
Quirky, bright-eyed, idealistic if not a little naive, explosions of personality who find themselves endowed with unimaginable gifts and the moral compass to use those gifts for the good of all mankind. But as with all things- powers come in shades of gray.
Nobody wanted a hero with the power of disintegration.
So I did what any young teenager would do when rejected by society despite my best intentions- I ran away. I seethed with anger, plotted revenge, and allowed myself to seep into the darkest recesses of my id. Maybe at first, I meant to hurt people for abandoning me without even giving me the chance to be good- but the first time I saw my actions rip a family apart; a woman wailing over her dead husband; the traumatized eyes of the children.
It changed me.
Or maybe it reminded me of who I truly was.
They put me in prison, mostly because I allowed it. I spent as much time as I felt I deserved at Tyson Max before disintegrating the walls and escaping. You see, I'd had a lot of time to think behind those iron bars. I realized that I could do good in my own way. I could push them- the faces plastered all over my walls in my youth.
The Reef.
Longman.
Whirlwind.
Goliath.
Herald.
I could make them better. Give them the kind of chaos that pushed them to think outside the box; force them to make decisions quickly under pressure, and I could do it the way no other villain could. I had to be careful of course, not to disintegrate them- it took practice and years of making it look like a close call, but the truth was, I never would have hurt any of them. So imagine my surprise when the little box in my prison cell began spouting off about a new disaster.
"Folks, the carnage is unreal today in the downtown area as Death Ray once again challenges the league!"
It was Andy Rutherson, the anchor for Channel 3 News. I furrowed my brow and wandered closer to the colorful box as he continued.
"We'll try to bring you in closer to the action with the Channel 3 Skycam. What we're seeing here is- oh, hold on. I'm being told that Death Ray is behind bars right now. If that's true, then we're seeing something wholly unique today. The rise of a new villain!"
I stared intently at the little screen and began adjusting the antenna for a clearer picture. The camera panned over the smoking city as explosions rocked the downtown area. As much as I despised Andy Rutherson, he was right. There was no villain capable of this except for me.
As the Skycam moved in closer, I could see her- it was Herald. Her long red locks and yellow outfit were unmistakable from any distance. She was hovering over him: the new villain. He was standing in the wreckage of a building below her. He was dressed all in black with a red cape and cowl. His arms were outstretched as he strode around the rubble.
He was monologuing.
"We're getting confirmation that the new villain isn't a *new* villain at all," Andy cut in. "His name is Deathwish, and he's apparently an extremely capable villain from overseas! He's killed dozens of heroes in Japan, North Korea, and eastern China. What a spectacle we have here today, folks!"
I was grinding my teeth in my mouth as I watched Andy's stupid coif bounce around as he laughed. This was a life or death situation; he cared nothing for these heroes, and clearly nothing for the populace.
Suddenly, Deathwish pointed at a nearby building. The base of the building exploded as a hundred pounds of TNT had been set off in the lobby. Herald recoiled at the sight.
"C'mon, Herald," I whispered. "I did this to you in 82, don't panic. You remember don't you?"
She quickly zipped away from view of the camera as Goliath appeared on the scene to engage the villain. The camera didn't follow her- the action was in front of us. Goliath, dressed in his barbarian garb, threw one of the tomahawks on his belt and used it to close the distance on his opponent- just as I'd forced him to do back in 86 when I fought him in that open field in the outskirts of town.
I smiled like a proud father when Goliath picked Deathwish up and tossed him into the side of a building.
"Attaboy, Goliath. Destabilize him."
Whirlwind suddenly appeared as the chopper turned to get a better shot. I was on the edge of my seat. I remembered suddenly, so long ago like looking through a foggy mirror, sitting with my mother on the couch as I gripped my Whirlwind action figure. Watching my heroes go to work was the highlight of my week as a child. And as I watched them team up against the new threat, I couldn't help but feel that swelling in my heart like I used to.
"We're getting reports that Herald has set the destroyed building down gently along Old Mill Road, where, as usual, there was little traffic in her way. Debra you just have to *hope* that nobody inside is badly injured. We go now to a word from our sponsors."
I sighed deeply and bounced my right knee nervously as they ran the stupid deodorant ad. They must have paid billions for that slot, and I'd be sure to never buy it again just for pissing me off. They'd used Goliath for the ad.
"When I'm carving up bad guys, I work up a sweat!"
I rolled my eyes.
When the commercial was finally over, and they cut back to the action, my arms fell to my sides. Andy's face in the sidecam was pale. They weren't talking- it was just a close up feed of Deathwish holding Goliath's head by his hair as the helicopter passed over.
I sat back in my metal folding chair and stared in disbelief.
The disbelief turned to sadness.
The sadness turned to anger.
The anger evolved into unabashed silent fury as I stood up.
"Um... Can we... Can we cut to another-"
KKGHZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
The channel cut to static. I swallowed and turned toward the wall as the TV hissed. I stared at the wall and began to disassemble it along with whatever was on the other side of it.
*It was time to go.*
- - -
[Part 2](https://reddit.com/r/A15MinuteMythos/comments/nhg0vx/wp_you_are_the_citys_premier_supervillain_but_you/)
I used to get a 15-minute break at work and write as much as I could during that break. I'm self-employed now, so it's kind of a self-challenge at this point. I kept getting interrupted all morning while writing this one, so I just went ahead and took my time.
If you enjoyed this, consider following me at r/A15MinuteMythos | “Micah, my boy, what do you think is the truest expression of evil?”
The wizened old man sat the wrong way on his chair, arms resting across its back, chin and long, wispy gray beard atop them. He wore plain clothes, his body no longer conforming to the tight, chiseled physique expected of a super-anything. The man across from him was his opposite in every way. Young and hale, standing rather than sitting, blond haired, blue eyed, so muscular that he forced a shape upon the sleek kevlar of his jumpsuit instead of the other way around.
Micah, the young man, bowed deeply. “I don’t know, master.”
The old man sighed. Servants brought wine at a gesture, a plate refreshments appeared a moment later, and in between sips and bites of expensive cheeses, he set to educating his apprentice.
“When I was your age, I thought it was chaos. I thought evil was a burning skyscraper or a demolished downtown. Once, long ago, I transported a whole elementary school to the nether realms and thought myself a god. Do you know what happened then, Micah?”
“Of course, master. I’ve studied the holotapes. After the Incident of ‘97 the government cracked down on the Supers of both stripes. It took nearly 40 years for you to rebuild your organization.”
The old man frowned. “As ever, you miss the point. What happened then, is that they mourned. For a week. Soon enough to people forgot, and all save the parents let it slip back into the past, just the like the school itself. There was a massive memorial on the first anniversary, a smaller one on the second, but by the third people were no longer coming. The fourth may as well have been an empty room for all the good it did the parents. No Micah, true evil takes a longer view.”
Swirling the last droplets of wine around in his glass, the old man paused, considering what was to come. Shadows took shape around him, the darkness materialized into people, and places, hints of lives lost already and more losses still to come. For a moment there were faces reflected in the wine in his glass. Children’s faces clinging to each drop. He poured them out on the floor and broke the glass. Micah waited patiently, head bowed.
“You know why I called you here?”
“To kill the heroes,” Micah said.
“Yes.” The shadows faded. The old man looked somehow smaller in their absence, the room somehow brighter. The lines in face were chiseled in stone, all save for the grim slash mouth which was nothing less than rending flesh.
“I’ve invested decades in these heroes. One might say that as much as anything, they are my life’s work. Every child in the world wishes to go the academy, to discover whatever small power they might hold. Every teenager, upon realizing they aren’t one of the lucky few, watches the streaks of blue, gold, and white in the sky as their heroes fly off to confront my demons, and at the triumphs held by cities across the globe, people fall in love with their faces. Micah, you might think me a recluse, but from my seclusion I’ve crafted the dreams of an entire world. It’s your job to turn them to nightmares.”
Micah smiled. Sparks up his arms as little fires danced along his fingertips. The blue of his eyes turned to the dull of dried blood, then deepened to scarlet as his turned his fist to a flaring inferno.
“I’ll make you proud,” he said.
“I know you will. You were chosen for a reason. Go. I’m an old man, I’ve waited a very long time. Go bring my life’s work to fruition. Give them a show they'll remember.”
The ceiling opened, irising outward to expose the calm blue of a perfect day. Micah saluted sharply, his body exploded into the same inferno as his fist, and then he was gone, sailing through the sky towards the city center.
The windows of the far wall turned opaque and then became a vidscreen as the old man leaned back, glass abandoned, drinking wine straight from the bottle.
“The true meaning of evil,” he whispered, as the vidscreen turned into the pristine scene of the Heroes Academy. Gargantuan trees swayed in the breeze, shadowing the campus beneath Green Thumb enhanced canopies. Water burbled from three sources, artificial lakes and ponds where the lectures were held on nicer days, days like today. There was a class of normal schoolchildren touring the grounds, exiting from the telekinetics building at that moment.
Then the trees turned to funeral pyres, the water evaporated, and all else was obscured by smoke.
Decades of effort went up in flames as the old man’s real student went to work. He smiled into his wine, turning up the volume of the crackling fire. Every magazine in the world carried front page stories of the heroes. They starred in television shows when their powers waned, played on professional sports teams, went into politics or the military or education.
He’d created the ultimate symbols of human desire and perfection.
Now he’d destroyed them.
True evil was a fitting legacy.
r/TurningtoWords | 2021-05-20T07:09:29 | 2021-05-20T06:23:15 | 350 | 211 |
[WP] Ever since you turned 18, every day, without fail, one random person tackles you to the ground, covers you as if they're protecting you from something, inspects you to see if you're ok, lets you up, dusts you off, and walks off without another word. One day, you dodge one... | At my feet lay the crumpled figure of a defeated man. He looked just like anyone else on the street, a simple hoodie and jeans, but after 4 months of this torture I could see the difference. The slight bulge of elbow and knee pads, the simple shades and ballcap combo that made a face impossible to recognize, and the wristwatch. Always the wristwatch.
I felt a perverse satisfaction at seeing the eyes of one of these assailants for the first time. They were filled with sadness and defeat. It was like winning the longest game of monopoly on the planet, all the time they’ve invested in keeping me down made entirely moot by one well placed shop window and a simple sidestep. I didn’t expect the fear in his eyes as well, but it made the schadenfreude all the greater.
After the initial ecstasy of finally winning (winning what? Had this gone on so long it was just a game to me now?) my head filled with all the questions I had yelled every day at the backs of these strangers ever since I turned 18 in June. He was stuck, frozen in shock at his loss, still in the awkward folded position he landed in like dirty laundry tossed on the bed. I felt like he would have to answer every question I had now that I have **won**. How long had he been lying on the ground? It felt like hours, the rush of adrenaline diluting time to an exten-
*Christ, finally you dodged one.*
A second burst of adrenaline as a slightly annoyed female voice shot through my head. Not through my ears, through my *head*. “What?” I dumbly said to the man yet to break from his loser’s trance.
*Hey genius, the agent isn’t talking to you, it’s the girl in your head.*
I pressed my palms to my temples as if I could juice this second voice out of my skull. “What the fuck?” My slightly extended dumbfound expression seemed to snap the man, the ‘agent’, out of shock. He rolled to his knees as that voice intruded once again on what I thought was my only safe space left.
*Ok, this whole dumb reaction thing is pretty funny, but we’re going to have to pick up the pace now. That man is about to shoot you for making contact with me.*
“I didn’t contact you! I didn’t do any of this!” The man rose slowly from his knees to his feet with his palms out facing me. The 115th agent opened his mouth.
“Do not trust what they say. This is what we were trying to prevent. They are invaders in your mental space.”
*If you could see me, I’d be rolling my eyes. He’s full of shit. You need to get out of Dodge while he’s trying to explain himself*
“There is good reason for all of this, if we wanted to really hurt you, we could have at any time.”
“Both of you, shut the fuck up for a second” I spat through gritted teeth, still massaging my temples. It felt like the world was shrinking, like everything was getting closer. No, wait, that wasn’t a feeling. I did a quick glance around me and saw that about half the shopping center I was in had changed trajectory in the past few seconds. Seconds. They were all wearing wristwatches.
The agent must have seen something in my eyes since his hand suddenly dropped to his waist and revealed a holstered pistol hidden beneath the slightly oversized hoodie.
*Stay calm and focus on the gun. Don’t move, just concentrate on that feeling that you really don’t want him to be holding it anymore.*
The voice in my head was somehow speaking three times the speed of a normal person now, and yet I could still understand them perfectly. As the agent drew his gun up, I did what was asked. I couldn't think to do anything else. I couldn’t think of anything else, except the gun. How much I wanted that gun to be out of his hand. His hand.
With the loudest crack I will ever hear, his hand bent backwards quickly so far that his knuckles touched his arm. The gun fell to the floor. He screamed.
*Now run. Please fucking run.*
I ran.
_________________
First submission here, just really wanted to take a crack at this one, so any feedback welcome.
Edit: Thanks for all the positive comments, I really appreciated all of them and even if I didn't reply I read every single one. First off, let me say I won't be writing any more of this story. I'm not a writer, it isn't like this is my hobby and I just discovered this subreddit or something, this is literally the first creative writing i've done since my sophomore year of high school and i'm 21 now. I just like browsing this sub and for some reason this prompt really hit me with a bug and I had to write this story down. I wasn't really expecting (or wanting) it to be this popular.
For those of you still wanting more though, here's some details of this 'world' that I had in my head that would go unanswered otherwise.
A lot of people were saying matrix in the comments, which I love, but actually in my head I just was thinking normal government conspiracy. Some sort of black ops government division dedicated to stopping these people and this event from happening. What exactly happened?
ESPers basically, of the telepathy and telekinetic vein. My general idea was at 18 some have the potential to be 'activated' by another ESPer from a sort of global community of them, but only at a certain time when the 'waves' or something was right. If this specific time was met uninterrupted then the person would be activated. The agents were trying to prevent that with precise timing (from their wristwatches). After a few months the activation window would pass, and the person would no longer be activate-able, and the 18 year old would go on with their life with a really really weird period in it they would slowly forget. This would be the first *unintentional* failure to prevent activation.
The idea of a secret community of ESPers and underground government agencies are not exactly original so I'm not keen on expanding it. I just had a good idea for this quick action sequence and I don't really want to give it much thought beyond that.
| For a man with no direction, my gaze doesn’t tend to sway very often. When I am on a delivery, I move through countless environments. The subway, the street, the malls, the apartments, all those people, and yet almost all of the time I look straight, my mind somewhere else.
*“I’m sorry,” she says, hugging me hard, the way she does when I come home too late at night, or with cuts from the bullies at school.*
*“Where are you going, mommy?”*
*“Somewhere very far,” she says. I feel a tear, hot and warm, drip down onto my neck as she retreats.*
*“When will you come back?”*
*“I don’t know.”*
*“Will you come back?”*
*Her lips tremble, and I feel fear, fear at realizing that for the first time, she cannot put a smile on for my sake.*
*“I will,” she says, finally, her voice shaking, her brown-flecked eyes trembling. “I promise.”*
*“Okay.”*
*“Do you believe Mommy?” This time, I get the feeling she isn’t asking for a specific answer, but rather that she genuinely does not know.*
*“Of course, mommy! I’ll miss you.”*
*“I’ll miss you too. So much, you don't even know…”*
*That was the last I saw of her.*
I wonder what she would think of me now, lethargic and lost, no longer even searching for an aim, falling deeper and deeper into a life she would be ashamed of. Ever since that night, I have felt like I have been waiting for her to come back…to tell me what to do.
Sometimes, during the day, I stop, just to catch my breath. I dip my head, close my eyes, and imagine that when I raise it, she will be there…
*The first time happened in a park, as I moved to sit down and take a break before my final batch.*
*The park is almost empty. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and look up. Will she be older? Does she still wear glasses? Will she recognize me?*
*The force comes suddenly, and all the wind is knocked out of me as I lay sprawled on the ground.*
*Hands move swiftly over my body, firm but not too intrusive. Fingers on my neck, to check a pulse.*
*“Blocked, sir. Contact not made,” a voice says. I open my eyes to see a man leaving, without even a glance back to see if I am okay.*
*I look up, around the park. It is completely empty.*
So began the attacks. I reported it to the police once, who then asked to inspect my backpack to make sure I wasn’t involved in “illegitimate activities for a young man.” I had gotten up and left after that.
Even trying to isolate myself in public, it doesn’t work. At McDonald’s, on the train, at the grocery store, on the block my dingy apartment is. They come dressed in black, and that is all I ever see of them.
But today, I saw him, as I raised my head at the crosswalk. He was coming at a diagonal, from my left, and I waited, hearing his footsteps get louder and louder, and…I jump back, and look up. I see his body lunge, and crumple to the ground, his eyes wide with shock at having missed. I am about to take off running, when I see, across the street...
She takes off her glasses. At first, I don’t believe it’s her. A second passes, an eternity. My heart, my head, they don't know how to react.
And then looks at me for a moment, her eyes speaking even across the street, and smiles, a smile to fill in all the memories of her that have faded throughout the years…
\-
[r/penguin347](https://www.reddit.com/r/penguin347) | 2019-01-28T16:54:33 | 2019-01-28T16:12:35 | 2,452 | 1,207 |
[WP] You and your fellow Succubi and Incubi are gathered together in your favorite bar in hell, swapping stories of your sexiest, funniest, and weirdest times being summoned. NSFW
I am on mobile so I hope putting NSFW in the title counts for tagging it. | Khan's is a shit hole, With all the health inspectors down here, you'd figure it would have been shut down a long time ago. There hasn’t been any electricity here since the owner decided it was witchcraft, even after several practicing witches tried to convince him otherwise. For music there’s this terrible bard who only seems to know Three blind mice and can barely play that on his broken lute. The washrooms are literally just holes in the ground out back with little walled areas, even through the sulphur you can smell the place letting off an ungodly (I know, shut up) stench. It is probably the least pleasant place in hell short of actually being in the lakes of fire, but succubi drink free and the last time someone tried to make an unwanted move old Genghis roughed them up but good.
Of course, when you’ve got the succubi coming to your flophouse of a bar you’ve got the rest of Hell by the nuts, and while they drink free I’m paying a 20$ cover to sit on a stool that might actually have a stool sample on it. I’d almost ask myself why except it’s pretty obvious to me and anyone with eyes or feelers within a mile that I’m stupid over Lillith. Me and every other stupid Incubus, demon, tortured soul, and a statistically improbable amount of the succubi, but hey, a man can dream.
Tonight in particular, she’s wearing this… I don’t think there’s a term for it, it looks almost like it could be lingerie, except there’s the odd little spike and ring and it doesn’t seem to follow any pattern or style, and what little fabric is there just seems to wind around her in little lines to it’s own design. It looks almost like it wasn’t crafted, but it just so happened to attach to her, some kind of clothes based life form, with enough sadism in it to hide all the best bits just barely. She always looks great with that long inferno of hair flowing around her, held aloft by some wind that doesn’t seem to touch the rest of her. She denied having it enchanted, but I know a guy who said she’d had it done about 600 years or so ago, not that long.
We’re doing that thing we always do, measuring our dicks (not literally, those of us that came equipped did that centuries ago) again, who’s got the most fucked up story? This all too perky Succubus Beckie (Well, Rebeccubus, but that’s a stupid fucking name) gets the ball rolling talking about a couple twelve year old boys who sold their soul to her just to watch her feel herself up. Said she felt bad for them, gave them each a wank before getting the contracts signed. She calls on me to go next and winks. I can’t stand her, she thinks just cause we hooked up a couple centuries ago we’re going to be a thing or whatever, but now everyone’s looking at me like I’m supposed to wow them or some shit.
Searching my memory for any good stories I have that I haven’t told, only one thing comes to mind, and I push it back at first, remembering how I promised I’d never share it again, but really nothing else that hasn’t already been said is coming up, and the only conquests I’ve had in the last month were an old lady looking for one final ride before she kicked it and this dude who just really REALLY wanted to suck my dick. Maybe it was the peer pressure, maybe it was the booze, more likely it was Lillith’s eyes boring into my very being and judging me the lesser for hesitating, whatever it was it made me open a vault I’d locked a long time ago and share a story I promised to keep to myself.
Taking a deep breath, really inhaling the pungent odours of the bar as a twisted inspiration, I looked around, making sure I had everyone’s attention, as I sure as fuck was not going to repeat myself “Alright… About 800 years ago, in Kiev I was summoned for a pretty standard seeming contract with this baron. The only caveat was that I had to bring him to climax. I went to grab his dick, you know, warm him up, but then he slapped my hand and started telling about all of his various sexual conquests, both straight and gay. Said in his youth he’d snuck into a princesses bedroom after dark and had his way with her, and afterwards he snuck into her father’s room and fucked him from behind while telling him what a slut his daughter was.
“Apparently he once saved a town from a group of bandits by going into there camp and challenging any one of them to best him in a sexual encounter, and over the course of two weeks had established dominance over all of them. I was already rolling my eyes at this, of course, but he just kept going on like it was all matter of fact, about how he’d had every kind of experience I could have imagined, and had them enough that they’d long since been old hat to him started talking about raping some girl to recapture the magic or something like that but I’d already begun tuning him out and getting into game time mode.That’s about when he opened the door into the room that will live on forever in my nightmares. | "I never really understood *why* you've gone so soft in the last...what was it..." a silver skinned succubus twirled a lock of dark violet hair--the majority of which was put up in a chilling headdress with a jeweled skull centerpiece. "Three centuries? With all these humans practically falling into our laps these days, why not splurge a little? Like old times?" She sipped her glass of Cerulean Essence, a frothing specter brewed for the enjoyment of the more bloodthirsty demons, in a manner that was far too classy for the wretched establishment the pair had chosen to meet up.
"You just said it though," I said as I emptied the remainder of my more modest drink, disposing of the glass. "I get an average of twenty-one summons a week! That's a massive improvement in recent memory. I don't even need to wrench the soul from my, erm, subjects anymore." I conjured a small, cyan apparition of a human male in the palm of my hand. "With each summon I can just *pluck,*" I tore a small portion of the rendition away with my midnight-black nails, leaving the little soul looking no worse for wear, "a small part of each of my summoners away each time. It's plenty for the low-effort line of work we do." I remarked and moved to shift my seating position, crossing my bare red-skinned legs over at the knee, and bringing my devil tail across my thighs.
Antox scrunched her black lips into a frown, which barred small pearly white fangs. "That's exactly my point Nashymyr! Sure you can eek by and continue to exist by doing just that. But Imagine the power you could attain by completely tearing the soul away from just *one* subject a week; It can be so fucking satisfying!" She suddenly crushed the wineglass she was holding allowing, its former viscous contents to cascade down her chest, illuminating her lean and curvacious form. "Fucking hell, not again." She cursed and began licking away what fragments where in reach; which was a surprisingly wide range due to her deceptively long tongue.
I giggled at her fit. "You can be so passionate, you know that?" I smiled and reached for my third glass of blood liquor.
"Well I'm *sorry!* A little too much lust here, a bit of ecstasy there, and a tinny itty bitty bit of aggressive sex, and all of a sudden the house is crushed. As well as his pelvis. I can't help it." She fluttered her massive wingspan in a prideful manner, narrowly missing the table of three Incubi. "it's what I'm known for, after all." She smiled a smile that would paralyze a mere mortal, with lust or fear, it didn't matter much to me. It was just another charming tidbit about her character that I find enjoyable. | 2014-12-08T17:07:45 | 2014-12-08T14:22:13 | 37 | 17 |
[WP] The hero was killed, the princess was sacrificed, and the evil king rules the land. For the average citizen, though, things have taken a turn for the better. | **Eldrich The White Knight**: "Fair gentlemen and gentlewomen of Farlandia. I have come to avenge the deaths of your good King Fairlawn and his daughter, Princess Moon. For years since the Black King took over, you have lived in this" *Motions around* "squalor. I for one seem to- uh... look I don't usually do questions... Ok. Guy in the second row".
**Peasant**: "You do realize this is Historic Farlandia right?".
**Eldrich**: "Historic?".
**Peasant**: "Yeah. It's a tourist town. Most of us live in the city by the factories".
**Eldrich**: "Ahh yes. The factories. The Black King, has taken it upon himself to sell arms to the Orcs of Novenguarde and the Elves of the Red Forest".
**Peasant**: "If by sell arms you mean brought industry to a former farming community then yeah. He did that".
**Eldrich**: "So you think it's justified than?".
**Elf**: "You do realize it's called the Red Forest because the former King's father burned those villages right?".
**Eldrich**: "Yes but that was because-"
**Elf**: "We worshiped the tree gods. A practice the Black King okayed. Actually he made it legal to worship anything of your choosing. My husband worships the orc gods".
**Eldrich**: "Husband?"
**Elf**: "Yeah...Why?".
**Eldrich**: "Well... it's just that you're a... you know.... a male elf".
**Elf**: "Wow"
**Peasant**: "Not fucking cool bro".
**Elf**: "You know it's prejudices like that the Black King's 'Equal Work' Program is trying to stomp out".
**Eldrich**: "EITHER WAY! You are forced to slave away in the factories-"
**Female Peasant**: "If by slave away you mean work a mandated 8 hour shift for good pay then yes we do".
**Eldrich**: "I'm sorry and you are?"
**Female Peasant**: "Miranda. I'm the head of the sword makers union. And I know personal stories don't set a standard, but I'll have you know that 'slaving away' made me enough money to move from my wicked step mother's house. You know what opportunities are available to women who live with their wicked step mothers? Either die and be a tragic heroes backstory, or marry a prince".
**Peasant**: "And... I hope you don't mind me adding Miranda" *Miranda holds up her hand and shakes her head in an 'It's Ok motion'* "Thanks. The Union has given us a minimum wage, a great healthcare plan, and no more sudden songs. When I was a farmer, Princess Moon would make us all burst out into song about birds and crap whenever she was happy. Which was fucking always. I got three kids. One in college to be a guard. I don't have time for singing".
**Eldrich**: "Ah yes. The Guard. Or as we call it, The Black Army".
**Elf**: "Who have cut our crime rate down by 75%. You see the key is community policing".
**Eldrich**: "ENOUGH! *draws sword* I WILL STILL AVENGE.......What is it now?"
**Peasant**: "You have a permit for that right?"
**Eldrich**: "What man needs a permit for a sword?"
**Peasant**: "Everyone. Don't get me wrong the Black King decreed that the right to own a sword is guaranteed by decree. But we still have criminal background checks".
**Eldrich**: "If you're all so happy with your King then why are you listening to me?".
**Elf**: "We all have the day off. Blood Moon Day. The Black King made it so all important religious holidays are observed".
**Eldrich**: "Hmm. I guess he would with any Pagan-".
**Elf**: "Wow!"
**Peasant**: "Not fucking cool bro".
**Miranda**: "I bet the only reason you want to overthrow the King is because he's a BLACK King".
**Eldrich**: "NOOOO! I have plenty of friends who are Black Knights".
**Miranda**: "They just shouldn't be king right?"
**Eldrich**: "Well. Some of them-"
**Miranda**: "Uh-Huh. I see what this is about. Come on everyone. Back to the festival".
**Eldrich**: "Wait. No! You have to rise-"
**Orc Guard**: "Excuse me... Do you have a permit for that sword?"
**Eldrich**: "I don't-".
**Orc Guard**: "Ok pal. You're coming with me".
**Elf**: *To Orc Guard* "See you at home babe".
Edit: Thank you for the gold | "A great man has died", the ink at the top of the first thick brown page of the Adventuretown Times read.
Olaf skimmed the next few lines as he sat eating a crust of bread with cheese at his sturdy wooden table. Their so-called glorious leader and hero, Smartin, had been brutally murdered. Luckily, the paper stated, his wife Henryilda had not been left a widow for many seconds before she was as well slaughtered. And according to the Times, one might as well just abandon hope now, as the evil man Pugly was now the ruler of these lands.
To anyone else, these news might have seemed frightening, but Olaf had lived in Adventuretown his whole life, and this story was far from unusual.
"Another so called dark lord has come to take over, huh" he muttered to himself as he went outside to milk the cows.
While squeezing the white liquid out of the cows breasts, he tried to recall how many days it had taken before their now deceased leader had gone from dark lord to hero and savior. Not more than a fortnight, he concluded.
The leaders of Adventuretown changed often. Ever since the founder of the town, John, had been killed by a man that was in fact truly evil, an endless stream of wannabe heroes had come to rescue the town from its oppressive leader, this meaning that each time one hero had taken over, another one came around.
And with no imminent danger around, many of these heroes seemed to degrade into something else entirely. No matter how valiant they might be when defending the weak, they almost all caved as soon as they got the sweet taste of power.
So when Olaf returned to eat his lunch, he skipped all the mind-numbing litterature describing the takeover, and simply inspected the last pages, describing the new taxes, rules and so forth that was to be implemented under the reign of the new, 138th hero and savior of Adventuretown.
He was very pleased. Lower taxes on crops, benefits for the farmers, who had been having a tough time making it under the rather strict rules of Smartin.
After a long day of work and quietly celebrating the coming of new, better times with his wife and two children, Olaf went to bed.
The next morning he woke up even earlier than usual. The sun had just risen, casting a faded light on the landscape of the outskirts of Adventuretown. His heart sank a little as he saw the source of his awakening; an ironclad man riding a white stallion, followed by a horde of trumpeteers and servants, announcing his intentions - to liberate the citizens of Adventuretown.
Olaf let out a heavy sigh and went back to bed.
| 2016-07-10T15:53:09 | 2016-07-10T11:47:00 | 2,386 | 230 |
[WP] Superman announces on the news that he is going to kill each person on earth, one by one, until humanity is wiped out, in alphabetical order.
What would happen? What would happen from a local to a worldwide level? | "I'm not sure why you are helping me with this, Bruce, you know I'll have to kill you eventually too." Superman said, hovering above the supercomputer in the bat cave. A very aged batman sat in front of it, typing at a rapid speed.
"I understand why you're doing it. Maybe it will shock the world out of their reliance on heroes, or maybe it will make them realize they have bigger problems than arguing over gun control and healthcare." The old hero coughed, shaking his whole body with the force of it. "Besides, I missed out on my life by helping people. Alfred's gone, the rest of the kids are gone, each has their own lair or cave or whatever, and I never had enough time for a family, being batman and all. Call me a bitter old man, but I'm done caring for these people."
"I was always too busy saving the day to make Lois happy. We never started our family either, and now....now she's gone." The Man of Steel looked away from the other hero, not wanting to cry in front of his lifelong friend.
"Interesting choice, though, going in alphabetical order. Lots of people in the world. You could just destroy a city or two at a time, make things faster."
"I want them to know its personal. That I'm trying to kill one person. I want them to know fear."
"List is done processing now. Glad the old bat computer can have some use, it doesn't get to do much anymore but collect dust." Batman grabbed a small device from on top of it, and turned it on. The screen glowed with a single name and an arrow pointing east. "This thing will pull up the next person on your list, and show their general direction. If you come back at some point I can update your list, can't have some Aaron Aardvark getting born halfway through the process and ruin your day." He tossed the device to the floating kryptonian, who caught it easily.
"I can see why our enemies always had such trouble with you. You are smart and devious enough to be one of them."
"And you pretty much are one now." Bruce said, slowly standing with the help of a cane. "I'm sorry things didn't work out better, Clark." His thumb hit a small button on the grip of the cane, and a needle sprung out of the device in Superman's hand, piercing his skin and injecting a green liquid into his body. The former hero plummeted ten feet to the ground, landing in a writhing heap.
"What...what did you do?" He screamed in agony.
"You gave me kryptonite to make sure you never went out and did this very sort of thing. I'm your friend, Clark, but I can't stand by and let you do this. I was hoping there was some...sense I could talk you into, but hearing you now...you're too far gone." He slowly walked towards Superman, cane echoing loudly through the cave.
"Why...help.....them? They've....all.....broken....your....rules.....your....trust."
Batman unsheathed a green-edged blade cleverly hidden in the cane. "Because, Clark....Even I have to break my rules sometime. I'm the hero they need, not the hero they deserve." He plunged the sword into Superman's heart, and twisted it. He pulled it free of the lifeless body, and threw it aside. Bruce sunk down to the ground next to his former friend, and shut the man's eyes. Quietly he whispered.
"I am batman." | Mr. A Aaron Aarons had always hated his name. It was after all a clerical error at the hospital that led to the unique handle. His mother had told him that she wanted to name him Adam Aarons after his grandfather, but somewhere in the haze of drugs and child birth she signed A Arron Aarons and the name just kind of stuck.
Mr. Aarons, like most of the world, was watching Superman give his press conference live from the steps of the famous Daily Planet newspaper office in downtown Metropolis. Everybody in Mr. Aarons office was huddled around the break room television trying to hear what the greatest hero the earth has ever known had to say.
"Yes Miss Lane, you heard me correctly. Time after time I have I have saved this planet from certain destruction. I have battled mad men drunk with power, robots from other dimensions, villains more powerful then the human mind could ever fathom, and for what? So the human race could continue to hate one another? To take advantage of each other for profit and power? To slowly poison the very planet I have risked my life to save?
The truth is Miss Lane I am tired. Tired of everything. So yes, you and the world heard me right. Every last person on this planet will be killed in alphabetical order. Starting Now."
A Aaron Aarons felt his heart drop, then felt his neck snap. A blue and red blur was all his coworkers ever saw. | 2015-07-12T23:51:26 | 2015-07-12T21:32:54 | 295 | 16 |
[WP] You are immortal, but a quirk of your condition also renders the person nearest to you immortal as well. A selfish king obsessed with living forever has gone to extreme lengths to keep you as the closest person to them at all times. | The chain was chafing again. It wasn't really a big deal, but after four hundred years it was the little things that got you. The best food, staring at the most beautiful women and immortality. It wasn't a bad life, but the chains that attached my neck to that of the most powerful kings that had ever lived was getting on my nerves. He was nice enough, a bit obsessed with conquering and killing for someone who couldn't die. Not as long as I was the closer to him than anything else. I was damned lucky that he treated me like an animal rather than an object. Four hundred years we'd been together and I was like a cat. He'd had to get rid of those because of me.
If he really wanted to live forever he could have bronzed me into the throne. It would have been gruesome, horrible and extremely effective. My list of efficient ways that I could be better used as an immortality talisman was not going to be shared anytime soon. Certainly not making me into a living coat. That one had been a little difficult to cope with for a couple of weeks. But it put the chain in perspective. All the same it chafed something awful. Anyone that crossed the line in front of the throne was shot, so the only conversations I got to experience were with him. Honestly if he could do without mortal pleasures I probably wouldn't get the best of everything. I was especially lucky he didn't fancy me. I turned to watch the large TV that was twenty feet away.
It was a large TV and the king mostly let me use the remote. He was too busy directing a war that had gotten out of hand recently, something about nuclear weapons. He had to shout most of his instructions, but he didn't mind. The king liked shouting. The king had tried a number of experiments to spread the immortality around. After all if he could keep the same generals and ministers alive forever and ensure loyalty with a few toes on strings who could blame him. But anything that got cut off disappeared and reappeared in its rightful place without so much as a pop.
So I left him alone, except when he wanted to talk, and he let me do my thing. After 400 years there weren't any secrets between us and we were well on each others nerves. Still I was invaluable to him as the only person he didn't suspect of wanting to steal his immortality, so that created a bond. Besides I was better at technology than he was, so I had to translate the cyber warfare divisions messages. Almost half the digital world was under his rule, so it was going pretty well.
Besides He and I switched off sleeping, and neither of us snored. The various assassins and politicians that tried to win me over never got as far as the third trap. There were 57. Honestly I was more impressed with the compression of traps than the extent that the king had gone to keep us separated from the rest of the world. Besides an underground bunker that had been made entirely of the hardest stone and metal that 400 years ago could provide. Still it was very deep. And the king wouldn't have lasted so long if he wasn't obsessed with his own survival. It turned out that living 200 feet underground surrounded by traps was pretty safe, but also pretty bad for running a constant war against everyone. I wasn't sure he was even really in charge anymore, but he thought he was and plenty of people were still trying to kill him.
Well I was in for the long haul, I'd been immortal for a millennium before the king had found me and I'd live long after he was dead. I was going to get a friendly dog and live in the forest. It would be glorious. I'd have to find a way to get food delivered, but technology had gotten pretty far. I'm sure it would be fine. I'd give it another fifty years before I pick locked this damned chain and headed East, into the sunrise. | Humans.. so absolutely delightful. Their fears, so handsomely written across the pages of their faces. Painful portraits pristinely polished to... *Perfection.*
Bashful Bastards Boasting Battered Broads. Cantankerous *Cards* Crawling Carefully Clasping Coat-tails. Dangerous Deeds Deserve.. Dashing *Deaths*. And I smile through it all.
I'm a cat, i think? A moose? Mounting Marble Making Monsters of them all. A cat? I think. Stripes? And fur.. I could be tile, or carpetted wall. Wailing Winds Whip *Wonderfully*. Hopes Hindered, Heads Hopping, Happy Hunting.
I'm a cat? I think.. Alive? Maybe.. no.. dead? But the queen who lives here is mad..
All the whispers.. running through her head..
Ah! It's spring again, I love roses? Or heads? I don't really care for either... What really makes me smile, are seeing the Roses Red.
.......................................................
Thank you for reading. I'm not too great at writing, so I just wanted to do these casually to gain some practice.
It's set in the mind of the Cheshire Cat. I don't know how to make that obvious, so I made it vague with hints scattered throughout his babbling. Also, to show how, the Queen of Hearts became so mad. | 2017-05-13T06:16:05 | 2017-05-13T06:03:50 | 259 | 26 |
[WP] Out of sheer boredom, God decides that us humans must speak the brutal and honest truth no matter the consequences. The absolute excrement hits the metaphorical fan for twenty four hours straight. | Jarvis woke to the sound of sirens.
The consistent wail had become familiar to him, living in this city. Every few months or so he would return home to his parents house in the suburbs and marvel at the silence that surrounded him when he was there.
The drone had become a constant for him. A sort of noise-blanket that was weirdly comforting. He had come to that conclusion one morning on his walk to work.
As he struggled to open his eyes, he remembered that day. He thought of his job and his life and how little he had accomplished.
"Jesus, Jarvis. You're 31 and still working at this dead-end job?"
Jarvis worked for a tech company located in one of the cities skyscrapers. Initially when he was hired, he expected to use his new position as a jumping off point for his career. Excited, he had phoned his parents right away to relay the good news. They had been so proud. Six years and two meager raises later, his position had devolved into the workplace equivalent of unplugging and re-plugging the wireless router.
"Pathetic", he muttered.
He thought that was kind of harsh self-talk, even for him. He slowly got out of bed when a strange thought popped into his head. If he was so used to sirens, why did they wake him? He struggled with this for a moment before jolting up and flipping open his laptop.
The sound of sirens didn't wake him, the sound of *multiple* sirens woke him.
*"The entire world is telling the honest truth, and you're all a bunch of fucking morons"*, read the first post on the front page of Reddit.
He thought that was pretty rude, but hit the up-vote anyway. His eyes scanned the page, and then widened. Everyone was telling the truth. Antivaxxers were admitting they were wrong, Flat-Earthers were flipping sides and hundreds of people were posting apologies for lying about picking up trash.
The sound of the sirens caught his attention again. He ran to the window, unlocked the latch and flung the glass open. The noise filled the small room, going from muffled to crystal clear in an instant. Even eight stories up, the sound was disturbing. People yelling, sirens wailing, and distant cracks of sound rang out that Jarvis could only assume was small arms fire.
He was so caught up in the drama that he almost missed the knocking on his door.
He made his way through the studio apartment, and peered out the small hole. A man stood there, panting, completely doubled over and out of breath. He had a man-bun and over-sized glasses. He wore plaid pants and suspenders with a belt. Jarvis opened the door.
"You're out of breath, and I dislike your haircut", Jarvis said.
Without flinching, the man looked up.
"You look depressed and overworked.", he exclaimed as he breathed heavily.
"Correct.", agreed Jarvis, "Well? What do you want then?"
"I just had to let you know.", the man said between pants of breath, "I just have to let *everyone* know."
There was a long pause as Jarvis waited for the man to catch his breath.
The man calmed down, gathered himself and looked Jarvis directly in the eye.
"I'm Vegan"
------------
EDIT: Grammar | Ben: Hey, Frank!
Frank: Oh, hi Ben. What are you doing here?”
Ben: Frank, I came here to tell you the worst secret I have ever kept from you: last year's Christmas, when I was invited to your family dinner party… and I kissed your father on the mouth for the first time.
Frank: Ben, what-
Ben: Frank, please don't please don't interrupt. I still have to tell you about your brother. He wasn't really transferred to his company's branch in Venice. He saw the two the of us together and simply couldn't handle the burden of keeping such a secret from you, and he left the country so he didn't have to.
Frank: Ben… why?
Ben: Because I'm in love. And I can't hide it anymore. Also, I'm gay. That's my third biggest secret. | 2019-03-15T11:48:36 | 2019-03-15T10:53:46 | 189 | 31 |
[WP] The eldritch god stood before the girl, in almost human form. "Your parents sold you to be my bride. I accepted, knowing that if I don't they will just try another deity, but I will not force this on you. Have this credit card and live as you wish. If you want something else instead, just ask." | My father was not a good man. Not a man at all really. He tried his best. Sometimes I wish he hadn't, but no one chooses their parents. I'm lucky I had one who cared to try at all. My birth parents were sick and angry addicts, desperate for any kind of power. What was a daughter when compared to endless cosmic fire?
It didn't quite work out for em, but that's what happens when you trade in human life. Sometimes you lose it.
Like I said, Father is not a good man, but he tries.
I don't see him often. He writes me letters, in a sense. Constellations bend for him. Me too, when I concentrate. This one was different. More urgent. When the stars danced last night, they coiled and they *burned*.
I never thought that gods could die.
I never thought that father's could.
I have inherited some of his... gifts. Don't ask me how. One of them is how to Walk.
It's the name he gave me after all, "The Walk Along the Narrow Path."
I took a step...
...along
the edges...
... of the world
Into blackest night.
It was cold, dark and full of bitter hollow wind. It feels like home.
The throne was made of stone and bones and smaller, older things. The Lord of Hollow Mercy sat upon the stairs beneath it. He was tall, as if his body was stretched upon a rack and left halfway pulled apart. His face was hidden by a grey hood, draped across his shoulders. The world split around him and the light blistered against his pale skin. Even with the shadows on his face, the eyes still shown through. Red.
He looked tired.
"Path."
"Father," I said.
"I've missed you," he said. The ground began to bleed.
"You could have visited," I said. I gave the ground a Look. The blood boiled away.
"I have been occupied."
"It's been years, Dad."
He sighed. The shadows sighed with him. I sat down beside him on the steps. A splinter of ice leached inside the silence. A wooden box with red ribbon appeared in his hands. The ribbon was twisted about itself, and the bow was uneven. But he tries. I took the gift with the reverence it deserved. My Father does not give gifts without reasons. I have the scars to prove it.
I untied the ribbon and opened the box. Within the box was a crown. I dropped the box, my face as pale as him.
"I am ending, Path."
"You're a god."
"Only in a certain slant of light."
My hands shook as I lifted the silver circlet from the cold stone, it was braided from silver thread.
"Why would you ask this of me?"
"There is no one else."
"I should be honored, then."
"No, but it's yours all the same."
"You know what I'll do with it."
"Yes. Walk the Narrow Path."
As I said, my father was not a good man, but neither am I. | For years I have been nothing more than "The offering "... less than the any servants for they had purpose to their lives, less than the animals for those had names.
Never any kind of human interaction other than the basic teaching done by masked teachers who never told me their names.
It's just the biggest irony that the most humanity ever shown to me was done by this being, to whom I should be less than a grain of sand. This being who is infinite in both power and wisdom gives me a chance to actually live a human life.
"Thank you, great one, I shall not forget your kindness today"
'WHAT WILL YOU DO?' asked me the one who was trying to save me.
"I will live, love and help save others like me that only know darkness"
'GOOD LUCK HUMAN'
I smile and wave.
In a second I'm standing near a city... noise of people coming and going and the smell of civilization.
"Human... I wasn't that until today" | 2022-08-09T17:25:18 | 2022-08-09T16:56:10 | 514 | 118 |
[WP] During a flight you accidentally damage a window and find out that they aren't actually windows, but monitors. | 1:43AM. Michael checked his watch. His knee pulsed up and down impatiently with a mix of anxiety and excitement. Flying was never his thing, but work kept him in the air. LA, Seattle, and Miami were the corner's of his own personal Bermuda's Triangle, a blackhole that sucked away his time and life.
But in the center of the Triangle was paradise. In a small town in Colorado was a white house with acres of land. Sure, with his paychecks he could afford something less modest, but he was never big on anything big. The size of his property was trivial in comparison to the jewels waiting for him: his wife and his daughter.
1:47AM. He sighed at his watch. Tap-tap-tap. He had been drinking a lot during this flight, trying to calm his nerves. The stewardess must have sensed his extreme nervousness because she never once seemed to question if she should cut him off.
"Sir," the stewardess craned over him for the hundredth time of the night, "you sure you don't want anything? Our snack menu-"
"No, please, stop offering your damn peanuts to me," Michael replied flatly, trying to get his annoyance across. "You've asked me every time you've come through."
"Another beer then." And before Michael could reject her, the beverage was presented to him. She held it out to him nervously as if she was feigning kindness.
"Pfft," he noised and grabbed the beer and waved her away.
Immediately he felt bad for how treated her. Michael was so tired that he was irritable. His eyes were so heavy and stinging that he wished he wore contacts just to have saline around. If it wasn't for this flight he would have been nicer to her even if she was going above and beyond her customer service duties.
1:55AM. Everyone else in the cabin had been comatose for a couple hours now. It was dead quiet except for the low rush of air vents. Couldn't even hear anyone snoring or readjusting their chairs. This just made him more upset. Why couldn't he sleep as easily as everyone else?! All Michael wanted was to have that sweet relief of waking up at his destination, but between the thoughts of his plane ride and seeing his family again sleep wasn't coming.
Sarcastically he told himself that he should knock himself out and he wrecking balled his head into the window. The dull plastic thud against his head hurt more than expected.
"Son of a *bitch*," he whispered and groaned, going over in his head how he had managed to convince himself that this was a good idea.
As the pain waned and he looked to the window, Michael squinted. Had he given himself a concussion? Instead of the night sky all he could see was a blur of colors. As his vision cleared he saw what had really happened. Just like that one time his daughter had thrown a ball at the tv back home, sure enough this window had cracked revealing an ice cream swirl of different colors. The starry black sky was no longer available as it never had been a window in the first place.
Immediately the slightest bit of panic set in and he elbowed the guy beside him.
"Hey, man... Hey. Hey!" But this guy was not waking up and so Michael unbuckled and moved into the walkway to flag down the stewardess who was no where to be seen. The first couple steps were fine, but after that his knees buckled and he hit the floor. Suddenly he felt overwhelmingly tired. He shakingly hobbled to his feet using the seats on either side of him. It didn't last long and again found himself on the floor.
Black heels entered his blurring sight and he looked up to find the stewardess. While before she was wearing a fake smile, now she seemed to pity Michael.
"Nothing personal," she coldly announced as she pulled a handgun above his head. "Had to go the liquid route. Should have eaten the peanuts like everyone else."
And she pulled the trigger. | He was 10,000 feet in the air when it happened. Mr. Brandt was flying out to Los Angeles (from Fredricksburg, VA) for the weekend. He boarded South West, flight 7456. He remembered getting his ticket, boarding, and the rush and sensation of taking off. He was a few hours into the flight when he had to get up to pee.
Mr. Brandt stood up, but foolishly forgot to put his tray table up. The laptop he was working on fell off the tray table with a loud *ka thunk* and his water spilled all over his lap.
Mr. Brandt went to the bathroom; on his way back, he picked up a handful of paper towels from the stewardess cart. When Brandt arrived back at his seat, he generously wiped the whole thing down, effectively drying it enough to sit on. He reached down to pick up his laptop when he saw it.
There was a crack in his window from where his laptop hit. The window flickered. *wait* The window flickered? Brandt tapped the window with a bit more strength this time. He jump backed when he saw the mark his laptop made when he pressed the screen.
Brandt started to freak out and mercilessly hit the screen/ window until pieces started flying off. He made just a big enough hole in the window to barely see outside. What he saw weren't the Sierra Nevada mountains, which should have been visible at this time in the flight; he saw the ocean. A large, blue expanse of sky and sea ... and a bright sun ... coming from the East. He was heading East. He has been heading East for hours. The plane was no longer in America.
"Where are they goddamned taking me!?" Thought Brandt to himself as the Stewardesses dragged him away.
"WHERE ARE YOU FUCKING TAKING ME!?" | 2015-02-05T07:50:56 | 2015-02-05T07:44:50 | 297 | 22 |
[WP] Some assassins are paid extra to make deaths look accidental. Your job is the opposite. You're hired for those rare instances in which accidental or natural deaths need to appear as if they were murders. | How do you make an idea last? Make it really grow roots into the minds of men, when such minds are fickle and rarely capable of grasping any idea fully? You make them follow a symbol. Someone who can speak the words to them and make the words and indeed the very idea a part of their soul, if only for a brief moment. But how do you prevent the rot? Keep the sickly force of corruption that follows all those who gain followers? How you keep the errors of their past from tainting the movements that will change the world? The answer is that it is completely impossible to do this. What do you do then, when their vices catches up to them, and they die with indignity and dishonour?
That's where I step in.
You've heard of assassins who can walk into a crowd and escape while making the deaths they have caused looked like nothing more than a mere accident. In a sense, I do the exact opposite. When a political leader has had an overdose, or an important artist has fallen down and broken their neck, or if somebody became embarrassingly dead, they call for me.
I can make any death seem like a murder. Leave it to me. Actor died of auto-erotic asphyxiation? I make it seem like a mob hit, make the actor a hero for not allowing the mob to influence the arts. Proud and rich man pays me to ensure that his death will be mysterious and spoken about, when he is dying from some sort of embarrassing disease picked up from an overuse of exotic courtesans? I make it seem like an anarchist plot as I blow up his sick bed. Vain model dead because she refused to get medicine which would have given her acne? Make it seem like a poison job by a jealous rival.
Why? Because you need drama. If you die a stupid death, your star dimishes. Many live grand lives, but fear mundane deaths. So they bring me in. Make it seem like their deaths were as glamorous as their lives. Sometimes even more. It isn't easy. I make sure that there are untraceable but clear signs of intruders in the house. Untraceable hair bought directly from beggars in Central Asia, which police in the states won't be able to identify. Clear signs of a struggle. Perhaps even some blood here and there. Or perhaps make it so the overdose taken seems forced upon them, that one is always a good one for people to argue over.
Some might ask what if rigor mortis has set in, what if it seems that the body might have been dead for hours or days before they got injured? Easy. I am an able chemist, and a wizard with the human body. With the right knowledge of the human body, the right chemicals, the right way of doing things, I can make any corpse seem like it was killed by its post-mortem wounds. I can't work on corpses older than three days, unless they've been frozen. But I can make any corpse that falls into that criteria, seem as if it has died from the evil will of its detractors, turning it from a case of pity and scorn, into a story of determination and bravery.
And today, oh today I have a masterpiece on my hands. The Vice President is dead, and I have to make it look like a brutal murder. As I work, I can say that I am positively giddy. Because I have to make it look like it was the president who did it. The greatest story told via a murder that never happened. He just had a stroke. The face is the first I correct, make it look betrayed and scared. The wounds come next. Strangling around the neck, leaving bruises, after the VP fought off the president in this story written with an exquisite corpse. A knife wound in the arm, with the VP's own blood re-liquefied from its dried form, following out naturally. A few slashes across the stomach. Finally, the braindamage, partially to keep the stroke hidden, partially to show the brutality of this murder. I know how to be quiet and secretive, so I already have hair from the president. Already have his fingerprints on the murder weapon. It has been deposited in his private quarters.
When I am done, I have to take a step back. The perfect fake murder. Indistinguishable from the real thing. And my biggest job yet. Cults who don't want the sheep to know that the guru was a filthy bastard, companies that don't want their image tarnished from the actions of their CEO at the time of their death, rich families covering up their screw-up members when they inevitably jump into that early grave. They've been nothing compared to the scope of this day. This'll go down in history. When the president tries to flee in his helicopter, there will also be a subtle error in the engine, causing him to crash and burn. The work of my esteemed counterparts, who make deaths seem like accidents.
I walk out and blend in with the crowd as a noticeable person but not a particularly suspicious one, in contrast to my counterparts who are good at being unnoticeable, but seem very shady wherever they go. Everyone puts me down as looking like a noticeable, but harmless goof. I hear the police sirens, I hear the press talking about the rumour. I see the helicopter fly away and then crash down into the National Mall.
Perfection is my art. Everyone will always agree that you must have been murdered when I am done with your corpse.
[/r/ApocalypseOwl](https://www.reddit.com/r/ApocalypseOwl/) | My job title is crime scene creator, I bet you're wondering how I came into this role?
Unfortunate circumstances really, my step mother was a narcissist, she relied on my father's money, and verbally beat him down constantly.
She needed to go, and I was willing to do whatever it would take.
The decision was made, I set up sound recorders and hidden cameras about the house, the evidence started rolling in.
"He only gave me £1000 spending money this month, I could murder that useless fool, I don't know why I married him" shrieking away in confidence.
"You know I'll be so much better off without you, and then I can but whatever I want"
The smirk I grew as I watched this evidence was almost frightening.
One morning I begin to bag up the evidence, thinking I'll send it to the police claiming she's abusive and wants my father dead, but it seems nature was in my favour, my step mother shrieked, but it wasn't in the usual tone so I ran towards her, to find my father who appeared to have peacefully passed away during the night.
You could see the money signs glowing in my step mums eyes, and I could see my life falling away from me, and that's when the lightbulb went off within me.
"Dear sweet Cynthia" I said sympathetically to my step mum. "Why don't you go across the road to Mary's house, calm down and perhaps start planning the funeral".
And just like that she went, she couldn't resist a gossip, especially the ones where she could brag.
I wasted no time, I had a particular interest in crime and murder stories, so my brain knew how to work quickly, I found some strong painkillers in the cupboard, ground them down and mixed them into liquid, then fed a tube down my father's throat, I poured the liquid in to his stomach. The amount of networth we had, they wouldn't refuse a post mortem examination. I noted some hairs from my step mum in the pillow, and carefully inserted them into my father's nose.
Now the trap was set, I called the police
"My father is dead, and I'm so worried, my step mum was always saying she would kill him".
*Some days after his death*
The police violently hit against our door, Cynthia answered, and was immediately arrested
I barely shut the front door, before there was another knock, a very well dressed man. He handed me a thick A4 envelope, and a business card that had just a phone number.
My eyes widened as I read it's contents, I had underestimated the skills of the elites of the world, I had my every move watched and they thought my skills were good enough to fix crime scenes full time.
It's been 20 years in this job now and dressing my father's death as a murder was the best decision of my life.
EDIT: thank you for the responses. I tried to fix grammar so apologies if it's still wrong!
Formatting on my phone didn't work, so speech has bunched together instead of being on seperate lines! I also don't mind if you point out other grammar mistakes. | 2020-07-20T14:55:28 | 2020-07-20T14:26:08 | 2,020 | 192 |
[WP] For his kindness, the dragon taught the squire the dragon song. A song that was sure to make whoever sang it irresistible to the ladies. In hindsight, the squire should have known that by ladies, the dragon meant lady dragons. | “MINE!!!”
Phyrra grabbed Hughie and pulled him close to her chest as the three women walked by. They just gave a concerned look at her and kept walking.
“Hehe, sorry. She’s new to the whole conversation thing.” Hughie laughed while breaking out of Phyrra’s hold. “Stop being so territorial.” He nudged her. “These aren’t dragons, their humans. I’m not exactly ‘irresistible’ to them. That’s why we moved down here.”
“Sorry, old habits kind of die hard you know.” Phyrra nervously scratched the back of her head before leaning into his ear. “Last night, I tried to soar into the starry sky but I forgot that I don’t have any wings in this form. So when I jumped, I just fell flat on my face—snrk”
The three women, Sabrina, Myranda and Jamie, observed the odd pair from a distance.
“Those two, I really don’t understand.” Myranda began. “She looks like a goddess and she could marry a prince if she wanted to but she settles for a squire.”
“FORMER squire,” Sabrina corrected. “Now he’s a bakers apprentice in town. They both are, come to think of it.”
Jamie stared thoughtfully. “Well Hughie’s never been a bad guy. Everyone seems to like him.”
“I suppose he is very sweet. Though, she’s clearly the protector in the relationship. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Myranda laughed. “He’s certainly not the dashing knight like that Sir Alexander.”
Everyone in town knew of Sir Alexander, the knight whose service Hughie had been assigned for when he became a squire. Alexander was looked on as the model knight. He was charming, skilled, graceful but Hughie knew something about that no one else did: He was ambitious and his ambition turned him to ruthlessness.
“Whatever happened to him, by the way?”
“They still haven’t found him, everyone’s assumed the dragons got him. Poor man.” Jamie answered.
“Good riddance.” Sabrina stared grimly until the distance.
“SABRINA!!” Jamie and Myranda said in unison.
“He was inhuman, girls! They say he trampled a child with his horse!”
Alexander wanted to grab a dragon egg for the king, just so happened to be the unborn embryo of Phyrra’s younger sibling. He stole it from the nest but Hughie grabbed it back from him in his sleep. This led to a confrontation the following day where Hughie said he was tired of being forced into helping him and that he was going to make something right. Phyrra hovered overhead, hearing everything. In his fury, Alexander tried to kill him before Phyrra intervened and incinerated the knight. She carried Hughie and the egg back to her father who was impressed by his selflessness and taught him his favorite song as a reward. A song to make him irresistible to women but not human women as it would turn out.
Hughie and Phyrra were walking down the street holding hands when Hughie stopped.
“Can I ask you something, Phyrra?”
“Sure,”
“Every dragon wanted me after I learned that song, they even fought over me.”
“Yeah…”
“Is that why you fell for me? The song?”
“Well…” Phyrra looked up into the sky. “ At first, that’s what I was scared of. Then, I thought that I was just in love with what you did.” She grabbed his other hand. “But, since I moved in, I kind of realized that’s not it at all.”
“So, what is it?”
She brought his hands to her cheeks.
“My dad is very distrusting of humans but he saw something in you. I see it now, too. You’re kind and even when you’re terrified, you’re still brave enough to be kind.” She stared at him with her beautiful doe eyes. They almost seemed misplaced on such a powerful creature. “And when you were brave enough to love me too, I was so glad you did. I can trust you’ll do the right thing in our relationship and you’re not afraid of what I am.”
They gave each other a long, warm smile before Phyrra broke the silence.
“Seriously, though” she stared grimly at the mountains in the distance. “We’re not going back up there any time soon: It’s…breeding season”
“Oh,” Hughie responded blankly. “Well, it really is best we’re down here then.” Hughie imagined sprinting away from dozens of lustful dragons who wanted his body. He gagged in his mouth.
“I love you, Hughie” she threw herself around him.
“I love you too, Phyrra.” | It should have been clear from the start... That there was something that I was missing when the great Níðhöggr offered to teach me the "Draki Að unna", the dragon song. They said that it would give me the power to be irresistible to ladies...
As soon as I started singing it because very clear who the target audience for my singing was. Thousands of beautiful dragons came through the air at amazing speeds towards me. Among the dragons, I could see both descendants from Níðhöggr and Jǫrmungandr. The nidhog children with their huge wingspan and red scales, while the Jornmungs children of course had slender bodies and green scales.
The first dragon to get to me was one of the nidhog called Idrafjäll. This wasn't the first time I had seen her, but I had never seen her like this. My singing had done something to her... She almost looked feral. Close second to her was Ynghil, also a descendent of Níðhöggr. Within seconds I found myself standing on the small knoll with thousands of dragons standing on the green luscious velvet grass.
This was not the plan. I wanted to find love within my own race... Now I had to make a choice. Do I go along with it and see what happens, or do I beg for Níðhöggr to fly me away from everyone? I could feel all of their eyes on me. The seconds ticking away on my watch.
'I need to say something', I thought to myself. I could feel the sweat starting to form on the top of my forehead. Soon a stream of sweat was pouring down past my brow and down on my cheek. From my vantage point, I could see how the dragons closest to me started to get irritated with the fact that I wasn't saying anything. I took a big breath and started speaking.
"Ladies... You are not my normal type. But I can make this work! However, I think it's best to take the rest of this story on a different site."
-----
This is the first time I write something for /r/writingprompts. Sorry, it's a bit short. But its something!
To be honest, this is pretty much the first time I try to write something coherent to show someone. | 2022-11-06T08:07:08 | 2022-11-06T07:55:05 | 85 | 30 |
[WP] What they didn't tell you about having a catgirl girlfriend is that beyond the cute "nya!"s lies the other, more annoying catlike urges like getting stuck in trees and bringing dead mice to their boyfriends. | Around the world, millions of young, lonely men have dreamed of living my life. They fantasize about girls with perfect round eyes, twitching feline ears, and a long, sinuous tail. They imagine them purring, enjoying headpats, and making cute little "nya" noises when satisfied. And they do all those things, it's true. The problem is... all the other parts of being part cat.
From behind me, I hear a slow, steady sliding noise. I turn around just in time to see Anya, my dear, beautiful, beloved Anya push a full glass of water off the table and onto the floor. Again. She looks me dead in the eye as the water splashes and sinks into the carpet and the glass rolls away. I sigh. I can't even muster up the energy to be properly angry at this point.
"Anya. Two minutes ago, I asked you not to do something. What was it I asked you not to do?"
She cocks her head to one side and continues to stare silently at me, one ear twitching slightly.
"I set that glass down on the table, Anya, and I very specifically asked you not to knock it off. What did you just do, Anya?"
"I knocked it off", she replies. Her voice is sweet and pure, and the content of her words makes my head start to ache again.
"...Why?"
"Because I wanted to."
She says it as if it's incredibly obvious, and I'm stupid for asking. She unfolds herself languidly from where she's sitting by the coffee table and saunters towards me, tail flicking behind her as she walks, before leaning over my shoulder to look at my computer screen.
"What are you doing?"
"Playing a videogame." I look behind me towards the glass still lying on the carpet, and I'm about to get up and set it back on the table when Anya suddenly hops up to sit on the desk in front of me, mashing half the keys on my keyboard and displacing my mouse in the process.
"No. Pay attention to me."
I sigh deeply, headache coming on in full force now.
"Anya, I tried paying attention to you yesterday, and you bit my hand so hard I needed a bandage. Today, I just want a little alone time. Now, could you please get off my desk?"
"No."
"I'll get the spray bottle" I say warningly. She responds by hissing and glaring at me, and remains obstinately seated. I get up, turn, and walk into the kitchen. When I come back with the spray bottle in hand, Anya is nowhere to be seen. I sit down with another sigh and massage my forehead. She's probably hiding under the bed again. She'll probably go to sleep down there and only come out when she wants me to feed her. Or maybe she'll wake up at three in the morning and decide that she wants attention again, and it's my job to give it to her, my own sleep be damned. I'm so tired.
I never should have agreed to this godsforsaken exchange program. | \[poem\]
A cat girl.
A genuine feline, looking fine, all mine cat girl.
She's cute, kawaii, she's all kinds of fun.
When she's mad she pouts, when bored she'll pounce.
But most of the time she just lays about.
With a nyan and a kiss, she's my number one.
Yes a cat girl!
Furry eared, human reared, little fangs that bite my ear cat girl.
More girl than pet and not too young.
She's in every way woman, with quick wit and emotional acumen.
But in love making I wish she was more human.
Alas when it's time to have adult fun,
my cute feline girlfriend has a cat tongue. | 2021-12-17T12:28:51 | 2021-12-17T11:50:18 | 218 | 34 |
[WP] Scientist have created a machine that allow people a window into alternate realities. It becomes mainstream and people talk about alternate versions of themselves. Finally you decide to take a look only to discover that there are no alternate versions of you. You're the only you in existence. | "Mr. Coleman," the suited man on the stairs said, still and stern as the near clone beside him. "I believe we have the answer to your problem."
Daniel set down the icing spatula and was about to open the door when something stopped him, a gut feeling something was off about these guys. "What problem?"
The man lifted his sunglasses as he flicked through his phone. "Do you have the username BatterBoss? Did you complain about not finding other versions of yourself in the dimensional visitation viewer?"
"This is about some Reddit post I made? How did you guys even find me?"
"We represent a Government Agency that deals with issues like yours. Please, may we come in?" Through the peephole, Daniel could just make out a building tension in the men. He couldn't see their hands tucked out of view. All at once, the door was kicked in and slammed Daniel to the linoleum.
The men were over him, training guns down on him with a boot on the door, squeezing him. One of the men looked around the apartment, seemingly unimpressed.
"Sorry, didn't get a chance to clean," Daniel wheezed out.
"Where your lab?" One of indistinguishable men asked.
"What lab? I'm not even in school this semester," Daniel said with a cough
"Explains why we couldn't find this one before now. Hard to believe there's actually a stoner underachiever version."
"What are you-" Daniel started before a loud pop accompanied a spreading red mist.
The men fell back slack as ragdolls, headless somehow. It slowly dawned on Daniel he was now covered in their gore.
"What the fuck," he yelled as he scrambled from under the door, ineffectually wiping his face.
"Dialed in microwave discharge, resonates with CSF," a voice called from the destroyed doorway casually. Daniel flicked the blood off his fingers and looked up to see himself, but somewhere in the neighborhood of eight times as cool.
"You're me, from another dimension," he said, incredulous. "I never got to see one."
"You and very recently me are the only ones free. That's because the organization those stiffs worked for put a lot of resources towards gathering us and locking us away."
"Why? What did we do?" Daniel said, having to look away from the teeth that lodged themselves in the nearly finished birthday cake.
"What didn't we do?" the man asked, lighting a black cigarette as he began pulling on various recipe books in the kitchen. "Let's talk in your lab. Where's the door?"
"Why does everyone think I have a lab!?" Daniel yelled.
The version of him paused for a moment, scrutinizing. "Holy shit," he said finally. "What do you do?"
"I'm kind of between jobs right now," Daniel said. "I'm selling cakes out of my apartment ever since the bakery I worked at shutdown."
"You bake cakes," the man said, shaking a more grizzled head. "Just my luck."
"What do you expect me to do? Can you please explain what's going on?"
"Daniel Coleman, in every reality except this one, is a super genius rebel, creating technology and fighting against Big Red and all it's government stooges. A version of us invented the dimensional engine that's so popular. What we didn't expect was the enemy to adapt so quickly and use it against us. They've been gathering up all the versions of us in every dimension and holding them in a prison where they're forcing them to work on something. I escaped just before I got there."
"So, what do we do now?" Daniel managed to ask as his brain spun. He was always gifted in school but super genius?
The other Daniel threw a handful of popping pebbles on the floor. A portal appeared below them, slowly steaming. "What else? Prison break. Get ready for a few crash courses."
/r/surinical | An eye peeking through a hole leading to an incomprehensible multiverse of infinite choices... and I'm not one of them...
The other realities change by very little, I can see various people still looking into the windows, seeing us from the other side, I can see my milkman, who in this world is a pop star, I can see my neighbor, who in this world lives in my department... I can see my husband, but he is still selling flowers outside of my workplace...
There's however, something missing, something... that I failed to notice at first... me, for how much I looked into this other reality... I was nowhere to be found, I fell in desperation, trying to desperately find something of use...
My mother had me, but here, she is the state general, however... that's not the issue... no, no, something had happened to me before I got to the city...
The investigation was abandoned, my other self... the one on the other side of the window... went missing and nobody looked for him any longer. I heard them talking about how the world would be better without me, I heard my own husband say how he never talked to me, but heard I was a horrible person... and finally...
...looking into my neighbor's freezer... I found myself, my own rotting skull... being eaten piece by piece...
When I came back I looked around me with discomfort... and ran back home with a pulse in my heart I couldn't control... and then... just when my temper had calmed a little... there was a knock at the door... | 2021-06-02T05:38:51 | 2021-06-02T02:58:45 | 508 | 58 |
[WP] In space, wars are typically quick. One side attacks and then the other side surrenders. When aliens attack a human city they belive the humans are defeated. They are not prepared for what the humans call "Retribution" | Galactic Records Archive:
Section Jardol 5. Subsection 253A: The Greatest Wars Of History Listed Chronologically.
319-2847-2017 \~ The Battle of Wanbortol;
The "East" side of the planet of the war's namesake was vaporized by a beam of concentrated sunlight, controlled by the forces of Harbringham. The "West" then shortly after, decided that they would rather surrender than wait 12 hours for their demise, and surrendered before daybreak.
132-4284-2017 \~ The battle of Tixinize;
The Portolia Army took a detour home from a major war with heavy munitions still aboard. They attempted to attack Tixinize with their remaining firepower. Overcalculating, they blew up both the planet of Tixinize as well as all of their remaining fleet.
015-7418-2017 \~ The battle of Earth;
The Harbringham Forces attacked earth. With much less sophisticated technology, the earth stood no chance against the most decorated attack force in the known galaxy. Some said that only killing 1 of the 7 billion population was a blessing, but the people of Earth didn't surrender. The Harbringham then began to heat the planet until the humans couldn't breath the air around them. They still would not yield. The planet instead began working tirelessly to replicate the technology being used against them. They fought back in every way that they could, and then found ways that defied norms of space travel. They had built their first interstellar nuclear warship before they had any other form of interstellar travel.
After the 4th year of war, the Harbringham forces were unraveled, destroyed and dispersed throughout the galaxy and their home planet had been attacked, pummeled to a pulp. The Harbringham Forces had surrendered and dispersed LONG ago, but the human's refused to let even one of them live after the atrocities they had befallen.
The war ended 12 years later, when the last Harbringham was pulled from hiding and slaughtered by the human hunters. The entire race had been wiped from existence. The Humans have since become the leaders of the Interstellar Galactic Panel of Allied Solar Systems, which has become the largest governing body in the Universe, and the overarching governing body to make all decisions in the known universe. The IGPASS has stood for your safety ever since It's founding 4 million years ago.
001-0004-2042 \~ The battle of Anxarpathene;
The Juxapols attacked the Anaxarpathenians over a land dispute for a planet that spent part time in each solar system. The IGPASS Ended the war by intervening and bringing both sides to their knees within hours of arriving. Neither civilization survived IGPASS intervention.
001-0005-3051 \~ The battle of PanraJu;
The last known war of any meritable size. This war was waged a thousand years after Anxarpathene. Two unknown speices went head to head on the turf of the foreign planet, and IGPASS destroyed, the planet being warred on, as well as the home planets of both of the species. Nothing is known of their history, or them as a whole, as their entire history was evaporated with the power the humans now possessed in weaponry.
Many battles have been fought and won in the name of one species or another, but if the word War is uttered in the midst of any form of violence, be assured that the IGPASS intervention will mean the death of any civilization who may seek to wage war on another. If an alien species has even a drop of hostile blood in their cardiovascular systems, internal or otherwise, they will be removed from the history of the universe just like the fools of Panraju. And whatever you do, never let a human out of your sight. | we thought of them as saviors when they first came they expected immediate surrender on our part. They thought after slaughtering millions of lives we would surrender. they were wrong. We were faced with what could have been our destruction our annihilation but we would not so easily bend into their fold. Nay we rose against our attackers when they struck our cities we reverse engineered their technology and took the fight to the heavens where they came from. We used our own ships our own weapons of mass destruction and we slaughtered them like the dogs they were. They attempted to resist our retribution of course, They fought tooth and nail against us but they underestimated our ferocity as well as unleashing futuristic technology against them we used old tactics boarding ships and engaging in close quarters combat. We fought for years and we chased them down across the galaxy to their homeworld where we brought retribution to their doorstep we invaded their cities burned their capitals glassed their farms. We sent ground troops down to crush any chance they had at resisting our attacks. They came in the thousands but we came in the millions. Millions upon millions of angry and blood thirsty troops ready to revenge their losses back on earth when their cities were destroyed and we were forced to hide underground, Little did these invaders know of our resolve little did they know of our hate. Like striking a hornets nest we came at them as one and we crushed their fleets as one and we slaughtered their troops as one and we burned and glassed their planets and outposts as one. Because of these invaders we became one and we became the most fearsome civilization in the galaxy. | 2019-12-17T14:24:25 | 2019-12-17T11:20:18 | 45 | 21 |
[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 with your arrival. Turns out Earth is Hell and we're the demons. You have just been summoned... | Damn Netflix!
&#x200B;
Someday I'm going to grasp why I cannot, for the life of me, remember a damn password that I made up myself.
&#x200B;
I, for one, blame all the auto-logins. If I lacked that convenience I'd probably have no issue using whatever streaming service I wanted when I got a new phone.
&#x200B;
But the new S10 was settling in nicely, the hole punch was going to bother the ever loving crap out of me but every new phone has one now, so here I am, dealing with "edgeless" displays where the edge is moved into an annoying pinhole and--okay why is there a ton of O-Zone in the air suddenly?
&#x200B;
Mild panic hits me as I try to assess what high tech electronic device is currently frying itself into oblivion when the scenery changes drastically.
&#x200B;
I look down, yes that's a summoning circle at my feet. Looking up I spot several people with strange symbols carved into their foreheads and I can feel my eye twitch in frustration as I see them.
&#x200B;
Either I'm dreaming thanks too many Isekai Anime lately or, by some horrible twist of fate--
&#x200B;
"Oh, Great Demon! Bend to my will!" the lead summoner shouts.
&#x200B;
Well Shit. Curse you multiverse theory!
&#x200B;
I look around and see I'm standing in a courtyard of some kind. I heave a sigh, "Okay... I can see where this mix-up happened, and I fully get WHY you got *me* but I really need to exp-"
&#x200B;
"There is no Mix-up, I shall bind you to me, demon!" he drags some poor sap in front of him, pulling out a ceremonial dagger. "With the cost of this soul, I shall make you my serv-"
&#x200B;
I interrupt, "You're going to taint your soul in the process and suffer in the burning pits of Hell if you do that. Just, an fyi."
&#x200B;
He stops, staring at me. "Pardon?"
&#x200B;
"The scriptures skip that part, you see, you're going to sacrifice that person, but it's your soul that is traded, not theirs. It's the sin of killing for power, you know, Pride, Wrath, etc... all that good stuff." I notice I'm a fair bit taller than all these folks. I look around and pull out my phone. One of those damn Isekai's had this as some horrible weapon of sorts, and or God mode activator. Granted the Galaxy S10 didn't seem to have any new UI from before being summoned. I could toggle the wifi on and off, no signals or network of course. I grumble, "You guys better have a way to reverse this."
&#x200B;
The main priest or sorcerer is flipping through his tomb's pages rather quickly, muttering through a few portions as he speeds reads.
&#x200B;
"Bad idea to read partial incantations," I advise.
&#x200B;
The summoner glares at me and shifts his attention back to the book, now reading in silence.
&#x200B;
I poke at the edge of the circle with my pinky, seeing that I am pretty much stuck in the circle, for now, least until the guy manages to undo the spell or bind me to him. I have no intention of getting bound to some hapless summoner, thus the stalling. "Okay, you guys did get the circle right, good on you there. By any chance did you ask for the demon by name or...?" I trail off.
&#x200B;
The others stare at the head summoner, a few in indignation.
&#x200B;
"I knew it!" shouted one, "I knew it Fasstitidus! I knew it! you were supposed to name the damned demon to summon! I told you! But no, No I got the 'any demon will do!'" he harrumphed and stormed off. "I wasted a whole evening for this!"
&#x200B;
I shook my head and looked to the main summoner, "Could you send me back? I've got things to do in my realm. Very important things. I'd suggest redoing the ritual but, you know, requesting a specific demon." I grumble, "Do NOT pick Belial. He's a dick."
&#x200B;
He grumbles, "I don't know how to send you back, I hadn't thought of that! Why would I focus on sending an all-powerful demon 'Back' to the horror-filled world of the damned? I wanted one to serve me and be my minion!"
&#x200B;
I cleared my throat, "Okay, send me back now or I start casting spells." I bluff.
&#x200B;
"Oh, like what?"
&#x200B;
"Solar Flare!" I shout as I turn on the flashlight to my phone, pointing at one of the summoners.
&#x200B;
To my shock, he turns to dust.
&#x200B;
Shit, I think to myself, shutting down the flashlight app. Samsung proving superior to Apple once more, never seen an iPhone vaporize someone before!
&#x200B;
Fasstitdus falls to his knees, "Spare me o' mighty demon! Oh great and powerful--er, what's your name?"
&#x200B;
"Just call me /u/Zithero \-- now send me back home, I have important stuff to do." I clear my throat, "and write." | As our lips grew closer, I closed my eyes and I heard her whisper:
"ARISE, DEMON! DEMON ARISE!"
&#x200B;
I bolted open my eyes, and there, inches from my face, wasn't my beautiful bride-to-be, but instead an impish creature with red skin, horns, and a great white bushy beard. Strange symbols looked to be tattooed around its head. Though its eyes were shut in concentration, it grinned, as if it knew I was staring at it intently.
"Wha...where...who...?" I spluttered.
&#x200B;
"Mighty lord, what is your command?" the red-skinned creature asked, ignoring my string of inarticulate queries. It remained motionless, as if trance-like.
"This is a dream," I lamented, more to myself than to the creature. "This is just a bad dream that I'll just wake from any moment now."
&#x200B;
"A DREAM!" cried out the creature, startling me. "Well said my lord. This is indeed a dream, a dream this world has yet to wake from. But you are here now. You will wake this world. YOU WILL MAKE THEM SEE!"
&#x200B;
At this last proclamation the creature let out a blood-curdling laugh. Suddenly more horrid laughter erupted around me and I realized I was surrounded in a circle by more red-skinned creatures with tattooed head symbols.
&#x200B;
"BRING OUT THE FIRST SACRIFICE!" roared the bearded creature.
I whipped around as a door behind me creaked open. The circle of creatures around me parted slightly, allowing me sight of two robed figures entering the room. Between them, cursing and flailing, was another red-skinned creature, though its head was clean and bare. Like all the other creatures in the room, its eyes remained tightly shut.
&#x200B;
"Let this foolish slumberer look upon our lord," ordered the first creature. The room went silent.
&#x200B;
The bare-headed prisoner began cursing even louder and tried wriggling away from its captors. Two more robed creatures entered the room, each putting its claws around the prisoner's eyes and slowly prying the eyelids open.
&#x200B;
The prisoner struggled as long as it could, but eventually its eyelids were pried open, and its frightened, black eyes eventually met mine.
&#x200B;
It's body went slack. Nobody in the room moved or said a word. But after a few seconds, a freakish grin crept up its face as its pupils rolled back into its head. It let out a shriek so chilling, my blood nearly froze. The robed captors released the prisoner and shuffled back against the walls.
&#x200B;
The prisoner's shriek then turned into a twisted laughter and it began to claw at its own eyes. It sank to the floor, continuing to violently dig out its eyes all the while laughing that horrible laugh. Blood began pooling around the creature as it ripped its flesh away and tore into its own body.
&#x200B;
I watched the creature mutilate itself to death. When it was all over, I sank to my knees, holding back the urge to vomit and cry.
&#x200B;
I felt something scaly on my shoulder and turned to see the bearded creature gently touching my shoulder with its claw-like hand. It's eyes were wide open, staring into mine. As a grin crept across its face, and its pupils rolled back into his head, he whispered to me:
"Hail, ManHughLou." | 2019-04-25T19:10:16 | 2019-04-25T19:06:22 | 42 | 20 |
[WP] Many years ago, an alien invasion nearly wiped out Humanity. Now, the galactic government is desperately trying to reason with a vengeful Humanity by saying that it was a rogue mining company that attacked without their approval or knowledge. | ***“This landmass”*** the eyeball beckoned, bubbles in its chamber. ***“Look at it”***
Xerena tilted her head to the hologram. “Yes?”
It blinked. Flushing the liquid in its giant, pillar of a beaker very slightly. It was blue, and transparent, complementing the sleek and oppressively small color pallets of the rest of the room. Offset only by a dim artificial light behind the beaker. She eyed the map again.
“Tell me about it.”
**“Tell** ***me*** **about it!”** It growled.
“They we’re dark, lacked pigmentation at the palms and soles. A few months of decrypting the slashes in that other landmass” she pointed “Showed it was named… Efreeka?”
#“Is that it?”
The sharpness bled itself into her posture, throwing her gaze in the eyeballs direction as an unusual number of bubbles formed near its dark green holes.
**“C.O Xerena. 83% of the sapient beings that our provided manpower failed to exterminated reside on that continent. Do you understand what this means?”**
“I do-“
More bubbles. She began stammering
“We found. Very. Very low quality reso-“
#“Resources?”
“That all there fucking was!”
**“Xerena. You*** ***do not*** **understand the gravity of your crime. 60% of the sapient population on B-39 has expired. This was done under your command, as the council and other sapients provided you their manpower. Their resources. Their ships. Their offspring. This has damaged a valuable cognitive resource and created a potential enemy. You are to pay for this””**
Silence followed, Xerana's attempts to speak came out as short huffs and sobs, as she stared to the wall. Finally, she poured, “They. Were. They were-
***“You have destroyed the knowledge, history, and genome of a sapient species for monetary profit, C.O Xerena. What is your justification?”***
“They were primitive…”
It bubbled harshly. **”Insufficient. Four limbs. Bipedal. Live birth. Two eyes. Mammalian. Primate. Social. Minimal fur. Bisexual reproduction. 9 month gestation period. Only significant difference: Yellow pigmentation. Flat skull structure. Six fingers. Four toes. Tail.”**
“Talius isn’t primitive like that wet rock,” she mellowed. “Im sorry, I’m so sorry. But why are you comparing them?”
The beaker began beeping, in a piercing tone that disturbed the holograph, stiffened her tail and caused her ears to bleed. She kept to her knees and head burrowed on the chrome floor long after it ended.
**“G-94-Z. Climate: identical to B-39. Logical conclusion: species of both planets are compatible to the others' ecosystem. Blunt: You** ***are*** **similar. Xerena.”**
She raised her head, sluggishly, to stare at the beaker. Speaking with a slight sliver Olof respect for the first time. “You lie to me, please don’t lie to me.”
**“Would you enjoy extermination?”**
Her face darkened more that it was already.
**“You were not helpful. Your species was never helpful. Xerena. And now I see it is selfish. So that shall be your punishment.”**
“Just me, I beg. I beg. Please! They didn’t do this-“
#”Denied. Your planet and its resources have been forfeit to the sapient species of B-39 as compensation. You alone are spared”
- - -
I’m not as proud of this as my other stories, but the prompt was too good to pass up. | *we saw as our family’s, friends, love ones was massacred right infront of our eyes. Everything we loved and build destroyed. No lies nor deception was going to keep us from getting revenge. We slammed our fist down and screamed at them.*
*”STOP LYING, WE LOST EVERYTHING ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING AND YOU EXPECT US TO BELIEVE THAT?!”*
*the aliens spoke in a language we couldn’t understand, luckily we had translators we developed after stealing, analyzing and harvesting the alien exotic technology. When we used them to decode their words we found.*
~~*”we originally ordered them to take the location of the planet: mars. We never ordered them for your planet. We also follow the rule of never taking a planet with life.”*~~
*we still didn’t believe them, the more they spoke the more angry we’ve became and honestly we was about to return the favor and kill each of them, but war would just end us because they outnumber us and have better technology.*
*”YOU DIDN’T MONITOR THEM!? TRACK THEM!? DID ANYTHING TO STOP THEM!? YOU JUST LET THEM, WHEN DID YOU DISCOVER THEM KILLING US ALL!”*
*one shouted with a fiery tone.*
~~*”we’ve discovered them a few days ago.”*~~
*a few days was ironically when they first landed on earth, meaning they was aware yet did nothing….we when silent.*
*”men open fire.”*
*and those words started the great race war.* | 2022-12-17T17:54:36 | 2022-12-17T12:26:17 | 181 | 91 |
[WP] Satan is a single father trying to raise his son, who, in a rebellious phase, is all into peace, love, and harmony. | It was humiliating. Lucifer was the mightiest of angels, though fallen, and he alone ruled the most feared realm in existence, and yet here he was, pushing around a shopping cart full of items they didn't need. His son Azazel was the one doing most of the shopping, though.
"Dad!" He called, a large smile on his face. He ran a hand through his blonde-gold hair, like he always did when he was nervous. "Can we buy some canned foods?"
Lucifer gave his son a strange look. "Why do you want canned food? We don't eat."
He laughed lightly as though Lucifer had been joking. "It's not for me, Dad, it's for the homeless shelters."
"Homeless shelters?"
He nodded. "Y'know, for homeless people?"
Not even a little surprised, Lucifer sighed a little too disappointedly. "You want to help a bunch of humans who are too weak to help themselves?"
Azazel looked taken aback, and his eyes flashed a dark yellow, a sign that told Lucifer that he had messed up yet again. This whole parenting thing was difficult. Did Lucifer always have to agree with his son? Even when he loathed every choice he made?
"Just because they're weak doesn't mean they're worthless, Dad. You would think you could relate."
Lucifer bristled with oncoming fury, and he ground his teeth together. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Azazel didn't miss a beat even though he knew the consequences. "You know what I'm talking about. *He* gave you a second chance when you didn't deserve it. He saw strength when your brothers disagreed. Grandpa spared you."
Neither father nor son could comprehend Lucifer's movements. Suddenly, Azazel was being shoved against the rack, and Lucifer was seething. Azazel had never spoken so outwardly like this before, and had never brought up his grandfather. He knew that was a sensitive topic for Lucifer.
Yet, his son wasn't hurt, or sad by his father's outburst, but strong. He was defending himself without uttering a single word. No one ever talked back to the Prince of Darkness, they both knew that, and although he had meant every word, the razor at the edge of his tongue carved the words to defend Lucifer, too. That was foreign territory, but he recognized it nonetheless.
Lucifer hated the way his own anger evaporated. He couldn't be angry at his son for merely speaking his mind, especially when he learned it all from Lucifer, and besides, it had been true. God had given him a second chance with Hell, and a third with Azazel, and only now was he beginning to learn.
Lucifer eased himself off of Azazel, but wouldn't let himself meet his gaze. Perhaps he'd have to grow up a little too if he wanted that privilege.
"Alright, Azzie." he whispered. "If you really want to, we can help."
| "My son, why are you behaving like this? Why are you always so kind? Why do you not enjoy ripping the hearts out of poor little mortals? You know what, to let you know what are missing out on you little prick, I'll send you up to the real world, so you know what true suffering is!" says Lucifer.
"I'll prove you wrong dad, this isn't just a phase! When I die up there I'll go live with Uncle God, and YOU CAN"T STOP ME!" Says Jesus.
Edit: words, and more dialogue.
Edit 2: took out words | 2016-11-06T07:08:47 | 2016-11-06T05:39:27 | 211 | 99 |
[WP] One day you decide to make a deal with the Devil to change your life around for the better. But everytime you try to summon him, nothing happens, not even a 'Hello'. So you decide to summon regular demon, only to have them bow before you and call you King. | Nothing. Again. I knew the Lord of Darkness was a busy entity but he could have at least given me a sign. Even just a "Hello.". I was a nice evil sorcerer with decent powers, I just needed him to give me a chance to impress him. I had been trying to contact him for a while now, but neither the pentacle invocation nor the black mass worked. I even sacrificed some virgins and didn't even received a "Thank you" card in return. The Unholy Ruler's behaviour was bordering on rude at this point.
Well, if I couldn't reach him directly, maybe I could ask a damned soul to carry a message for me. I searched the Dark Pages for a suitable candidate. Balgor the Marked looked good. Maybe he could tell me why the Antichrist wasn't returning my calls. I already had everything ready to summon him, and with a few words of the cursed language, he was here. He looked impressive, with flames and snakes circling him.
"WHO DARES TO SUMMON BALG... Oh I'm sorry your majesty, I didn't realise it was you. Please forgive me for this mistake."
With a gesture, he made the flames and the snakes leave. He kneeled.
"Majesty? What are you talking about? I wish to speak with the Master of the Damned."
"Who? I'm sorry your Majesty, but you see, we have so many titles it's difficult to remember them all and..."
"You know, the Dark Lord? the Cursed King?"
It was usually hard to read a demon's expression, but Balgor's was definitely a blank stare. I sighed.
"The Devil?"
"Oh... Well, I'm confused your Majesty. You are the Devil."
"Me? That's ridiculous. I would remember that, wouldn't I?"
"Welll... I think it has something to do with hiding from another demon who wants to take your place on the Dead Throne. A kind of plot where you hide as a human and cut all contact with our world until your army settle this matter. That's why I was surprised when I saw that it was you who called me. You know, that was pretty dangerous for you and..."
"Enough! Begone now!"
So I was Satan himself, heh? And all I needed to do to gain absolute power was to remain hidden from demons until I died? I could do that. From now on, there would be no more summoning. A small price to pay for the Throne of Hell.
_____
Balgor the Marked returned to hell and immediately kneeled again.
"Did he buy it?" The Devil asked.
"I think so, my Lord. But why don't you just tell him you aren't interested?"
"It's easier this way. You never know how people like him handle rejection."
As he was saying that, a goat appeared in the room. Etched on its skin where the words "Hey, what's up?". The Lord of Darkness sighed.
"I think there is another one again, Balgor." | [Poem]
I wanted them gone
I wanted them to die
No one would listen
No one would try
I wanted the devil
I tried and tried
Nothing would work
Satan wouldn't pry
So I summoned a demon
And on the last step
The demon was summoned
I was filled with delight
But before I could open my mouth
The demon looked at me with distaste
"King, why did you lie?"
I was so confused
Then all of a sudden
I realised why he wouldn't come
Satan wasn't ignoring me, because Satan was I! | 2019-09-12T03:04:44 | 2019-09-12T02:42:41 | 49 | 13 |
[WP] The world of Avatar is real, only there are not 4 elements, there are 118. For every element on the periodic table there is a group of benders. You are one of them. | *"OXYGEN BENDERS SAVE CHILDREN TRAPPED IN AVALANCHE*
*NEW CARBON BENDED DIAMOND SELLING QUICK ON MARKET*
*RADON BENDER PREVENTS URANIUM MINE FROM LEAKING DEADLY GAS*
the same old stories on the newspapers again. another boring shit bender saves the fuckin day again, by doing some boring shit. i grab the newspaper and throw it into the garbage. something inside me tingles as i get near the socket on the wall, but i stifle it for now.
there's too many benders in this world. any dumbass can go fly out and learn how to bend an element. normally they choose something basic. they almost always pick oxygen. i don't blame them, but it's boring as all hell. some of the edgier ones pick uranium and plutonium, thinking they can control nukes. most of the time they end up killing themselves in the process.
it gets tiring, when the same people are praised over and over again when im stuck here, forced from young to learn a useless element. some part of me wishes that i could have just been normal and learned how to bend something basic bitchy, but safe. it's too late for that now, though.
i step outdoors and walk to a coffee shop, the sun drab and unpleasantly hot. normals walk to and fro and watch, eyes glued to the television screen showing yet another basic bitch bender doing basic bender shit. they eat it up. call them a hero.
at this point, something inside me breaks a little. the Masters called me talented. said i had a knack for the element. like i knew it in a past life. and i wasted it all, by being born into a dumbass family. a waste, all of it. i could be one of those fuckboys on the TV every day. i certainly know im better than them.
it's not like i have anything going on in my life anyway. poor old calvin trodding through aimlessly with a boring job that pays too little to buy food that tastes like nothing to live in an apartment that's too small and what do i have to lose, really?
i may not be on the TV every day, but ill make sure i get on there at least once.
i pull my strength together and clench both fists tight. the drywall bulges slightly and a socket sparks. someone notices, jumps back in surprise, then sips their coffee again.
the copper wire gets torn out from the walls, and I clench my fist harder, harder, until the copper flies around the room and tendrils split like a rift is being opened. sparks fly, and people scream, and all i feel is power. energy coursing through the wires as i push it all towards the crowded coffee shop, directing it all like im pointing a gun.
I feel unstoppable, like fuckimg finally. my spotlight. my time to shine. looking around the shop, people trying to flee in terror but they're wrapped in the coils of the copper, spasming wildly and uncontrollably like ragdolls. i don't see the man outside the window, looking around heroically, the man on today's newspaper as the oxygen bender who saved the children in the avalanche. he sees me, and something inside him triggers.
then something inside me stops. loosens. air flies out my mouth, being pulled forcefully out of my lungs and deflating my blood vessels. my fist unclenches, and im not sure if im seeing stars or sparks anymore. my legs weaken, the wires fall from the ground, and i scan around in a final motion. things happen too fast and i collapse, the wire separates from a socket and the shop goes dim.
*OXYGEN BENDER SAVES DOZENS OF LIVES IN COFFEE SHOP* | Iridium. Atomic number 77. Transition metal. A commonly forgotten element, unless you study the periodic table for an excessive amount of time in your 7th grade science class or used a random number generator to pick a random element.
Or maybe you know it because you control it.
There is a small group of people who control a certain element. A group of roughly 15 people per element. I am one of the Iridium benders. Not anywhere near as cool as the oxygen or carbon benders, but WAY better than those who control elements that are so rarely found, like ones only made in labs and such.
When i first found out that i could control Iridium, my immedeate reaction was to go find the uses for the element. With a quick search on the internet i didnt find anything interesting besides it being a good crucible for things with high melting points. Okay. Good. I always wanted to work with metal.
After making one thing using this crucible i made from iridium to make a small dagger, i realised how dumb that was and that i have near perfect control over an element. What is stopping me from making things out of iridium? Im not the brightest person.
Alright. What else can I do? Lets see here... What does the internet say...
Make crucibles, tip pens, good electric conductors, treat cancer WAIT WHAT?!? I can treat cancer with this newfound ability? Cool! Im gonna make a sword! | 2019-09-19T09:14:49 | 2019-09-19T08:40:23 | 251 | 162 |
[WP] You are a superhero who keeps his identities private, even your sidekick doesn't know your normal identity. Today you come home to find your wife in bed with your sidekick. | *I don't want to play hero anymore*
I would have never imagined something like this: I believed to be a good husband, friend, confident, partner or whatever she needed at that moment, every single moment of joy and pleasure of my last months came from spending time with her at home, my work is my façade and not me, my love is real, my, my…
My mind collapsed for a brief moment, only able to repeat over and over those thoughts, meanwhile the most bizarre and painful scene: my best friend and sidekick was in my bed with (only) his mask on my wife was beneath him, smiling.
‘Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, it’s my fault sir. I would never made this if I knew…’ as he spoke, he comically tried to put his boxer without reveal anything from me, something absurd because I have seen him like that before, but he wasn’t paying enough attention to realize that. ‘…knew that this may happen. Eeeeh, I am deeply sorry.’
‘Stop that Tom, or he will think that the great Bulletwise is something as lame as he is.’ my wife said, still smiling ‘Did you run upstairs due to my screams? No need to worry that’s me having real fun.’
‘No no no, mister Fischer, I will leave this house as fast as possible, you have my word’ he was putting his clothes really fast indeed and trying to look anywhere but me or my wife. ‘She drank too much, do not mind those words… But I need your word that you will not speak about this to anyone, whatever the cost may it be.’
So that was the hole in this bank account… bribing husband to maintain his honor. Damn, that also hurts.
‘Leave him, mister Fischer here is no man ha ha ha’ I believe that there was no humor behind that laugh but there was a bottle in her hand just like Thomas insinuated. ‘Anyways, I’ll be leaving soon, solve this between you tw…’
The door slammed before she could reach it, as I was regaining my senses. Everything single thing in that room was deeply disgusting to me, and I only tolerate disgusting things at work.
‘Thomas, I did tell you to call me Jonah, aren’t we partners?’ Tom’s face went from mildly concerned to really really surprised, I don’t know how my wife was, I wasn’t able to look at her face. ‘My dear Sara, could you please explain this before leaving? I am trying to comprehend and not make an scene.’
‘Do you want what? After months of noting but making me stay home, without explanation at all, without telling me what you do when you leave this house, without a single word about your feelings or mine’s? Do you still need help to understand anything?’ she shouted as she tried to open the door ‘I hate you, I hate the moment I felt for your romanticism and your beautiful eyes, I hate the moment I accepted to move here. There is no further explanation. Why is this \*\*\*\* door still close?!’
‘He closed it Sara, he is MindKind’ whispered Tom, who was petrified in the middle of the bedroom. ‘Jonah, didn’t you tell her anything about your job? After all this time?’
‘Nobody asked you, now shut up’ I close his mouth by attaching his teeth and lips, it wasn’t anything new to me except that I was doing it to someone who haven’t committed a crime. ‘Sara, I love you, I’m so sorry that you discovered everything this way but it was the only way to not put you in danger’
‘Really? Do you think I can’t notice my husband when he wears a mask and a hood?’ she left the door and came to face me ‘You are the only telekinetic in this world, and do you expect me to not see the levitating thing while you sleep? Every single time I said that your eyes were exactly like MindKind’s or that the wound on your shoulder was in the same spot as he had been hurt, you denied it or dismiss it or make up an excuse to leave the room. I did love you Jonah, however I can’t stand that, not anymore. Now open the door.’
‘So, is it all my fault? It can’t be my fault; I only want you to stay safe. This is my way of saving you and saving myself, I can’t express my emotions at work when I’m using my power, I only feel something with you around.’ My eyes were flooded with tears while I said that, the door started cracking and Tom shaking so I had to let him speak.
‘Let me go, for God’s sake, I haven’t seen you mad and I like it that way.’ He ran to the door and blasted the lock as he usually does to open locked doors, but this one cannot be moved. After he realized that, he pointed his gun at me. ‘Open and save your marriage or whatever you’re doing here’
‘Thomas, remember why we make a team in the first place?’ For a moment, the tears stopped and my mind went normal. ‘You needed someone to cover you, not a single bullet will exit that gun of yours… Neither will you. You brought suffering to this house, it is fair that you get some too.’
Normally it was difficult to me move things that are not in my view field but twist his stomach felt was right. To me, he collapsed and coughed blood. In that moment, Sara screamed and the bottle slipped from her hand, for a second I thought “That’s a shame, the carpet is ruined with all that blood and wine”.
‘That’s me Sara, that’s me letting go my emotions at work, you made this to hurt me right? You’ve accomplished it, now give a reason to not give it back to you.’ Maybe, just maybe, I should have listened before I butchered Tom, she wasn’t able to speak nor think clearly, or that is what I thought when she took the gun and shot me.
I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t able to stop the bullet mid-air, when I reacted only an inch separated my eye from the bullet. My only reason to live and believe in humanity just betrayed and tried to kill me, I guess it was too much: the door exploded, the wall collapsed, the roof fell on us…But I survived, my subconscious kept a barrier against all external damage, however the internal was greater.
After what I did, none would ever see me as “Kind”, now MindFlayer seems more appropriate. | A Hero Just Like You
“Donna?” Her eyes shoot open and nearly bulge from their socket; her chubby cheeks turn that classic rosy red that she gets whenever she gets too flustered. At that moment I nearly forgot that I just saw my girlfriend changing out of a superhero suit. It’s the first time she’s been naked and my mind doesn’t start drooling at the boobs and hips, “What the hell?”
Donna’s face freezes, stone cold, just like those statues in the park she loves to spend hours taking pictures with, “I can explain,” her face grows two shades redder than I am accustomed to and starts to pull the costume back up, “I mean it’s exactly what it looks like…that’s a good place to start.” I can start to make out the logo on her chest as the suit flips over bosom and now my cheeks and eyes start to grow as wide and red as hers.
“Y-Yo-You’re Crimson Star!” I can feel my legs weaken as the words leave my mouth, it’s the weakest I’ve felt in the last 6 years.
“Yes, I am Crimson Star,” Her gaze shifts to my roughly crafted homemade suit. A small smirk appears on her face as the hue of her face comes back to a mild pink, “Who are you supposed to be?”
“Well, I guess I’m just a nobody compared to you,” My eyes nervously shift to the floor as some witty remark fails to come to mind, first time for everything, “I just help where I can, you’ve made a real difference.”
“All of it matt-” I lose focus as she starts to speak to me. My eyes glance at the walls of my sloppily organized room. I stumble over to the bed, collapse like a sack of bricks, and cover my reddened face, “Grayson, are you listening?”
“No!” I feel her sit beside me on the bed, her soft hands rub on my shoulder, a feeling so familiar and loving stings as an act of pity now, “You’ve seen my walls, I look like a pathetic fanboy!”
“Yeah,” She softens her voice to lessen the blow, a usual for her, but I’m not sure she has the pitch to soften this impact, “But if it makes you feel better you’ve been dating and banging Crismon Star for a few years now!” I move my hands and peer over at her with a playful glare, “Are you okay, babe?”
“Yeah, my life is not in danger,” I flash the best smile I could possibly muster in the moment, she reciprocates with her dazzling politician smile, always perfect. How did I never notice? Baffling, “I can’t believe I didn’t put that all together.”
“Nobody ever believes a hero or someone they look up to would be in their bed,” She leans closer and places a gentle kiss on my forehead. I’m dating Crimson Star and she loves me. My seventeen-year-old self would give me the best fist bump now, “add in some mystery like with superher-”
A sudden buzzing cuts through the air distracting Donna from finishing her thoughts. It’s over nearly as soon as it starts, just barely perceptible. She shoots up from her seat and her soft, sexy gaze changes to something more steeled and heroic. In the blink of an eye she’s back at the same window I just entered, looking back at me with a face I’ve seen so many times, “You coming along, slow poke, we’ve got a B class villain to apprehend.”
“Where the heck did that buzzing even come from?” She smiles and points to the symbol on her chest. I stumble over to the window, much less smooth than usual.
“You never told me your name, hot shot.” My cheeks turn tomato the moment the words leave her lips.
“Promise not to laugh,” I take a deep breath and confidently look Donna in the eyes, “My name is Scarlet Nova!” | 2022-03-23T11:32:15 | 2022-03-23T10:09:46 | 60 | 29 |
[WP] His childhood trauma had made him truly sinister. His crimes had grown more and more severe as he grew older. The FBI has his house surrounded. The negotiations had ended poorly and SWAT teams were primed to breach and clear, but Kevin McAllister just smiled. This was to be his masterpiece. | It was this day two years ago that I was first handed the McAllister file. Some of his earlier crimes, when he was just a kid, had a kind of whimsy to them – setting off a firework in a teacher’s car, rigging a locker with gum to explode in a bully’s face. Okay, yeah, it was illegal but it wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t evil. As the years went by, the crimes took on a more sinister edge. He had cut the brakes on a cheating girlfriend’s car and she ended up reversing into McAllister’s former best friend, whom she was having the affair with. They were okay but they ended up moving within the month. McAllister’s mother told us he had a rough relationship with one of his cousins, who he was often forced to share a bed with as a child. We found that cousin walking down the street in just his underwear, shell-shocked and reeking of piss. He never told us what happened but it didn’t take a genius to guess McAllister had a hand in it.
After a few spells in and out of prison, McAllister went quiet. We couldn’t locate him anywhere but, even after conferring with officers in neighbouring states, we never found any crimes that matched his MO. Maybe he had enough of the prison life, it might have just changed him we said.
Now I'm standing outside his childhood home in the freezing cold, the Christmas lights from the house illuminate my team on this closed-off street. I spoke to him earlier briefly but he refused to continue our conversation after I sent three men around the back to maybe find another way in. Two of them suffered broken legs. The other punctured a lung and broke the majority of his ribs. Once round the back of the house, they found the door unlocked and decided to enter. They must have triggered a trip wire because they reported the room to be empty but a wooden beam, infused with metal spikes, swung at shin level and crushed the legs of the two lead men. The third man managed to leap over the attacked but slipped on the greased floor, where several bowling balls were released from the ceiling. He ended up being lucky he only took one to the chest and that one of them didn’t crush his head.
Two other teams had been sent in earlier. One through the obvious route of the front door and, being careful to look out for trip wires, they were caught out by a motion sensor which set off maybe a hundred darts into the bodies of my team. Distracted by the assault, they attempted to run through the battle zone but only managed to stomp on to the sharp nails that had been hammered into the floorboard from below. They were dragged out by my second team, who later decided to storm through the front bedroom window with the help of a ladder. No trip wires or motion sensors in here, they found the door had been locked from the outside. These were well trained, bulky officers who knew it would be no trouble to trample the door down. Once they had it knocked down, they crept into the hall. I can almost imagine the smug look on their faces by this point. The lead officer signalled to a phone placed on the ground. The team stopped and he picked it up. There was a text on the phone from Kevin McAllister.
“Don’t look up.”
They looked up and the rubber bullets swept in from the sides. Holes had been carefully cut in the walls and weapons placed on the other side. They dragged themselves back to the bedroom they had entered through but none of them had the strength to come back down the ladder, never mind continue the search through the house.
I turn from the house and look at the men and women at my disposal. We only have a quarter of our original number and I can see the look of fear and apprehension in their eyes. While I consider my choice of words to motivate my team, we hear movement from the house. A giant white sheet unfurls itself from the roof. Is this a sign of surrender? Something tells me it’s not. Somewhere from the front of the house a projector, hidden in some plants, beams an image on to the sheet. It's McAllister’s face. He's smiling.
My team shifts nervously as we wait for him to deliver his message. I'm growing restless. What does he want? Finally, he speaks.
“I’m not in the house.”
All the lights in the house turn on and Jingle Bell Rock blasts from inside. Confused, I go to consult my team but they’re all on the ground. One man stands amongst their bodies. The deranged look in his eyes makes my insides go cold. Slowly, his hands creep to his cheeks and, never breaking eye contact, he opens his mouth and screams. | The screens painted the room dull hues of grey and blue, reflections dancing off of his glasses as he eagerly watched. This house is the culmination of years of planning, preparing, and now execution. *Heh*. *Execution.*
&#x200B;
Pleased with his well-timed double entendré he swung around in his chair. Situated in the middle of a room surrounded by monitors, buttons, levers and thing-a-ma-jigs. The screens displayed live-feed video of cameras situated throughout his stronghold. It had been some time since they arrived but now there was some movement finally occurring. Both the front and back yard cams had several officers in clear view, it seems they were preparing to breach. *Mmm, I wouldn't if I were you.*
&#x200B;
The rear squad was the first to enter, using a battering ram one officer smashed in the door with professional precision and three more instantly entered in order to cover each angle of sight. *Boop,* he thought as he pressed a button, a flashbang fell from a new opening in the ceiling followed by Javelins flying out of the adjacent walls. The left officer was hit in the side, it tore through the side of his vest and implanted itself deep in his ribcage, his death would soon follow. The force of being hit threw him into the centre officer, which might have saved him from being hit had he not already had a hole accurately punched right through his throat. In a outstanding stroke of chance that javelin then continued on and killed the officer who had used the battering ram. *Collateral, awesome.* The final officer, having reared back from the blinding flashbang was missed only by a few centimetres. As soon as his sight regained he retreated outside, and did so quickly. The man could see the officer screaming into his radio, and almost in unison a visible amount of hesitation appeared in the body language of the front squads.
&#x200B;
Such an amazing sense of excitement flushed the man's body. *This shall be glorious*. And glorious it was.
&#x200B;
Officers stabbed, shot, shredded, gassed, burnt or otherwise mutilated: Sixty-three. Kill percentage: 71%.
Subject: Kevin McAllister: Cause of death: Self-inflicted euthanasia. | 2019-07-30T05:17:13 | 2019-07-30T05:14:33 | 216 | 21 |
[WP] Your roommate is literally the Devil. Surprisingly, he is the best roommate you ever had. | You can imagine I was at least a bit skeptical when he dropped the news. I mean sure, he'd always had that de-facto superhero villain evil vibe around him, typically coming home fully suited as if he himself were giving out the Oscars to whoever had given him the most soul. Skeptical as I was though, the confirmation of knowing he was something other then human at least settled me. Honestly, aside the fact he'd so suddenly dropped it I was pretty mellowed out by it.
"---but, you can just call me Luci. Or Lucifer. Or Satan, hell kid I don't give a fuck".
Initially it was just the slightest bit uncomfortable to adjust to the fact that the man coming through the door, paying half the rent, ordering the take out and sharing the Netflix account was the real bonafide Satan. No red horns or devil wings or spiked tails, just an amazing sense of style and a new meaning to the phrase devilishly handsome. Maybe it was a by-product of living with the ruler of Sin but more and more I seemed to lose myself. I'd like to say I didn't notice it, or see it coming, but I knew exactly where it had started. Just not the outcome.
One night he came home, unsurprisingly a man of his stature, I didn't even blink at the 2 women he had brought home. The only abnormality was that were 2, but I wouldn't for a second count Satan as the man to deny a Threesome with a beautiful blonde and an equally gorgeous redhead. Things changed when the redhead left the room to come out front, where I'd been blasting the T.V in my best attempt to mute the screams from Luci's room.
It was as if he'd knew I always had a thing for redheads. Hell he probably did. Without skipping a beat, she straddled me. Crawling on my lap. Pulling my lips to hers whispering how much she wanted it. It wasn't long before the clothes came off and the condom went on. In a moment of sheer Lust, I slammed her against my bed and did as you'd expect.
I'd never been a man to kiss and tell but when morning came and the laddies left, Luci came out. He'd neglected to put on anything but, again, a man of his stature needn't worry of embarrassment.
"How was she?"
"What?"
"The redhead. You haven't been getting much lately and she thought you were cute. How. Was she?"
"Come on Luci, you may be the Devil but respect the code o-
He cut me off in a heartbeat
"Michael, come on. Take pride in last night. It's been a very long time since I heard screams like that. How was it."
My heart swelled inside me. Initially unbecoming and unwilling to tell the details of my one night stand, I felt empowered. I wanted to tell him. I wanted him to know. I wanted him to notice how fucking amazing my night was.
"She was fucking amazing. I took her around the world."
"Yeah??!" Satan trailed off laughing, sharing details of last nights sexcapades.
More and more he brought multiple women home. More and more we spent money on alcohol. Although I'd taken the vow not to try the heavy stuff, we spent more and more on weed. And brought more and more women home.
One night, Luci went in. With all the girls. And none of them came out to greet me.
How could they ignore me completely?
How could he not send one of the women too me- better yet why had none of them come to me on their own?
Luci hadn't needed to send me a girl since the first night. This wasn't right. The women loved me just as much as Luci. I'd show them my fucking Wrath that none of them thought to leave him for me.
I barged in the room, we hadn't bother locking the doors anymore. In an instant of Wrath and Lust and Envy I grabbed up both Women on Lucifer. He'd opened his mouth to contest but I cut him off, "I'll bring em back when I'm done". Niether women contested, in fact they both seemed excited, and Lucifer just trailed off into a laugh.
Goddamn, I had the best roommate ever.
As if that night had been a sign, from then on I was never shafted. In fact I began going out with Luci more. Initially I wanted to focus on Law School, but hell, you only room with Satan once. I'd found out he'd typically go out to the College bars, which wasn't for a moment surprising. He'd order the ladies some drinks, and woosh them away to an unforgettable right.
That night, Luci managed to skip a beat. He'd forgotten his wallet at home.
"Michael, pick up my tab yea?"
I thought for a second. I'd never really mind picking up his tab. I mean, hell, I was usually a very giving person. But something snapped. Not in the sense I was angry, just in the sense that I didn't feel the need to do it.
"Not tonight man, I'm taking these broads home" I said, pointing to the two bimbos holding onto me and laughing.
"Come on man are you fucking serious, you brought yours."
"Seeya at home, Luci!"
The next few days, school work didn't seem too important. I would just laze around the house. It wasn't a problem, Luci kept to himself those days. Until one night he came home, furious.
"WHERE IS ALL THE FUCKING FOOD?"
"What do you mean?" I said, barely turning up from the coach to look at him.
"I JUST BOUGHT FOOD LAST NIGHT WHERE THE FUCK IS IT ALL"?
"Oh, hah I ate it."
"You ate all the fucking food?"
"I was hungry, man."
"You fucking Glutton." he said, again, trailing off into laughter. It was an odd phenomenon I never really noticed, whenever Luci should be furious he'd just start laughing. I did notice it actually, far too late however.
See, I learned that day that you don't need to sell your soul to Lucifer. You simply need to succumb to his side of the deal.
You simply need to truly enjoy all 7 sins before your soul is his. | Charles opened up the fridge to grab some milk for his coffee. He bent over slightly to put his head into the fridge and then paused when his eyes landed on it. Wrapped neatly and with consideration with cling wrap there sat an entire goats leg on the middle shelf. Everything that had been on the shelf had been moved to another spot and the fridge was still in order, only itscontents had shifted. On the leg was a note that read 'Property of Damien L. Wallace: please do not not take :)'.
"Why would I want to," Charles mumbled groggily aloud.
He reached and grabbed his milk and then shut the fridge. When he turned back just behind the counter Damien seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Charles jumped slightly and put his hand up to his chest.
"Jesus Christ, Damien. You gotta stop sneaking up on me like that."
Damien grinned slightly at Charles. His sharp features illuminated by the light from the kitchen.
"Sorry, man. Hey I didn't keep you up last night did I? I know the chanting can be loud."
"No, no I slept okay. I woke up briefly around 2 a.m. because I thought I heard a goat sound," Charles glanced back at the fridge, "guess at least I know I'm not crazy."
Damien laughed. His laugh was interesting to Charles. It seemed genuine and often they laughed at the same things. But there was something strange about Damien's laughter. Sometimes he laughed at really strange occurrences. Other times at stuff that was down right sad for other people. In a word it was 'weird' but it certainly wasn't the strangest thing Charles had dealt with surprisingly. There was, however, a strange pattern of lights sometimes flickering when he laughed.
"But I do gotta ask: what's with the goat leg?"
"It was part of an," Damien paused, "experiment, I suppose you could say. Though that leg is leftover. I'm gonna finish the prep for it outside and bring it in to cook later. I'm thinking stewed goat meat or maybe tacos."
"Tacos are always good," Charles said pouring his milk, "hey by the way can I get another check for the electric bill?"
"But I thought I gave you the check yesterday?"
"You did but the landlord is a stickler for blue or black ink. The red ink won't fly man, sorry."
"Ink...right."
Damien said trailing off. His gaze suddenly far off. Damien was always good with his bills. Always paid up by at least the 3rd of the month. In many ways Damien was the best roommate Charles had ever had. It had taken some getting used to. Coming home to a house lit only by candles, black cats looming around the outside of the apartment, the fact that Damien was a Yankees fan while Charles rooted for the Red Sox certainly caused tension during the season. But it was all in good fun. Except for that one time where the Sox scored a double and things in the apartment began to shake and levitate. Which was odd but worth it to see how mad Damien got.
"Oh hey by the way," Damien interrupted Charles train of thought, "I'm having some friends over later. You're welcome to join us but we'll mostly be in my room."
"Thanks for the offer man but I don't want to impose."
"No imposition at all! But the offer is there. Well I gotta get to work," Damien said producing a large black bag that he slung over his shoulder, "I'll grab the trash on my way out. Have a good day Charlie boy."
Charles raised his cup and nodded. Damien smiled and proceeded out the door, locking it behind him. Charles set his coffee cup down and walked to the bathroom, flipping the light on as he entered. He turned on the faucet and then looked up to see his reflection in the mirror. On his chest was a large painted star.
"Oh god damn it Damien, again?" | 2016-03-10T11:15:45 | 2016-03-10T09:49:42 | 107 | 39 |
[WP] Your significant other is possessed by a demon. Soon after; you realize you love the demon and not your SO anymore and it's actually mutual. Now the exorcist has arrived. | Laying down on my couch enjoying its softness, hearing the sound of rain outside combined with the sound of a knife repeatedly cutting veggies and the smell of something delicious from the kitchen, these were the ideal conditions for a short nap. A truly peaceful one.
Unfortunately, someone interrupts my little ritual by patting me on the shoulder, but I don’t get angry, I can’t get mad at the person crouching in front of me.
“Helen…?” not her real name, by the way, it’s the name of the person she’s inside of.
“hm” she makes a little sound without opening her mouth and extending a spoon towards my face, it smelled delicious, looks like she wanted me to try her new creation, I sit up on the couch and gently grab the spoon along with her hand guiding it to my mouth.
“It’s really good, it’s…the bunny you caught this morning right…?
She nods. With a smile on her face clearly proud of her earlier hunt.
“But it could use a little more salt, Helen” she pouts and nods, she still doesn’t like talking much, she fears that she’ll say something that’ll make my ears bleed. I noticed that I’m still holding her hand and that she is looking directly into my eyes. “Helen…?”
She leans and gives a quick kiss when she pulls back I see she had red cheeks and a toothy smile on her face. She quickly gets up and walks back to the kitchen.
I keep a smile on my face until she leaves. And lay back on the couch.
*why am I still alive…? This situation is so bizarre. Is she just playing with me…?*
*maybe she is just fatting me up to eat me at a later date, and she has been doing so for years…!*
I snort.
*If she really wanted to eat me, she would have the first time we met. So there is no mistake that this is all real. Her feelings are and so are mine…It’s already too late to have doubts*
*for now... all we need to do is hide from everyone*
The smell from the kitchen was making me really hungry.
“Hey, Helen is it done yet-“ I hear something outside, a horse, which should be highly improbable in this rain, adding to that, we were in the middle of a forest away from civilization! Who would even know we're here? I look towards the door hearing footsteps, someone was behind it.
Helen walks out of the kitchen with a worried look, her hands together like she was praying. She switches between looking at the door and me. We both hear another sound behind the door, one I didn't recognize, Helen face is filled with fear and is sweating.
"ma-maybe is someone who got lost...?" I said to her *trying* to sound reassuring.
She starts to run towards me, but before she can reach me, the door is shot in her direction. Throwing her towards the wall.
“Helen…!”
I run towards Helen and hold her in my arms, she is bleeding in various places, she opens her eyes and looks at me with a smile on her face, but only for a second. She pushes me with her small hand and I’m shot towards the living room falling on the floor, hard.
“He-“I look at her direction just to see that her chest has been stabbed by a long thin sword, almost like a rapier.
The man with the sword was tall and was wearing completely dark clothes, like that of a priest, combined with a cape, military boots, and a white faceless mask. Helen starts screaming in pain, the wound has smoke coming out of it and it sounded like bacon being cooked on the grill. that sound combined with her screams made my skin crawl.
“HELEN…!”
“That’s her name...?” the man says in a deep voice, he lifts Helen in the air effortlessly with his sword. She tries to grab the sword but can’t, she tries to kick the man but can’t reach him. “…doesn’t sound very demonic, but looking at the reaction she had by being stabbed by a holy sword, I know I got the right one”
“Stop, she, she hasn’t done anything wrong! Please!” I yell at the man, but the moment he faces towards me, my legs stop moving.
“I’ll be with you once I’m done with her, demon worshipers can be even worse than demons sometimes-”
He is kicked in the stomach and flies outside, but that shouldn’t be possible, Helen is too small and her legs too short how did she-
Something is coming out of Helen's skirt, *various* somethings. Legs and abdomen like the ones of spider, dark and menacing. Her old legs disappear.
She stands, much taller than me, and looks at my direction, with a sad expression, tears are trimming down her face. I’m able to move my legs now. I walk with easy steps looking up at her. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her in this form.
“E-e-everything is going to be okay! For now, we need to leave the house, find some other place to hide, they won’t find us this ti-“
Helen suddenly grabs me and carries me out of the house breaking the wall in the process. I look back just in time to see the house caught on fire.
*what? How did it-*
The house starts to fall apart, the fire engulfs it completely. Everything is lost. I stand on the ground looking at the scene dumbfounded
“no…” I hear her mutter in a really low voice almost inaudible, she really loved that house. But we don’t even have the time to cry over it.
A man appears from within the flames, completely unaffected by them. Flaming sword in hand. Helen looks at him angrily, her face starts to distort, black eyes appear on her forehead, and her jaw starts to extend letting out a hideous growl.
The man, no, the *exorcist*, points his sword at us.
| "Right then," the exorcist, a man in a black suit with a white clerical collar said as he walked in the door, closing it behind him, "Where is it?"
"What?" Ian said.
"Where is the demon? I was summoned here to perform an exorcism."
He looked at Ian a while, who remained silent, before eventually turning to Alex, who lay in the bed in the centre of the room, tied to the bedframe with sheets anchoring each limb.
"Is it her?"
"No, that's my wife. She's fine."
"Then what is she doing tied down like that?"
"She's on a diet."
"A diet?"
"Yes, you know -- it's one of those diets like Oprah Winfrey always goes on about, but instead of padlocking the fridge, she just ties herself up. I help a little of course."
"So you tie your wife down to the bed -- I'm sorry, is there some sort of sex play going on here?"
"No, nothing like that, father!"
"Ah, fuck off priest!" Alex said.
"I beg your pardon!"
"She just gets cranky when she's starving, that's all."
"Okay, so where is it? I mean, am I dealing with a possessed person here, or what?"
"Umm, it's me. The demon's inside me."
"Inside you?"
"Yes, that's right," Ian said as he stammered, "F-flip off f-father!"
The priest glared at Ian a while. "Mr. Pringle, I don't take kindly to having my time wasted. Now, if we're done here, I really should go."
As he turned to leave, Ian reached out and stopped him with his left hand, and then with his right hand he leaned back and slapped the man right across the face. He paused a second, before reaching into his pants pocket where he produced a handkerchief, which he used to dab the corner of his mouth, before placing it back in the pocket. He silently looked at Ian with cold blue eyes.
"Well, what do you think of that then?" Ian said, "Ya fecker!"
The priest put down his briefcase, and walked over to the night stand, where he retrieved a glass of water, while looking at Alex, who struggled slightly, before returning to the foot of the bed.
"Doesn't it have to be holy water?" Ian said.
"Silence, demon! The Lord God almighty commands you!"
While holding the glass of water with one hand, he took out a cross on a chain from around his neck with his other hand, and moved it from side to side on Ian's body, then up and down, and then muttered an unintelligible prayer of sorts, before retracting his hand with the cross, which he put inside the pocket on the inside of his jacket. He then threw the glass of water right in Ian's face.
"Do you feel better?" the priest said.
"Yes, father! It's amazing, I feel completely normal now..."
Before Ian could finish his sentence, he felt a stiff fist connect with his jaw, and he went down like a ton of bricks, and hit the carpeted floor.
"Good," the man said, before walking back over to the night stand, where he placed the empty glass. He picked up his briefcase, and headed out of the room, closing the door behind him. Ian and Alex looked at each other, stunned, as they heard the front door slam.
"Well, you deserved it for that fucking ridiculous diet story," Alex said.
Ian turned his head to look up at the ceiling, as he rested his head on the floor, and closed his eyes, falling into unconsciousness. | 2017-10-10T03:19:24 | 2017-10-10T02:15:25 | 156 | 32 |
[WP] Stereotypical 'chosen one' story but the chosen one is a 46 yr old mother of three who ran out of fucks to give five years ago | The night was stormy. Driving rain, gusts of wind, flashes of lightning that illuminated the entire sky. In the bitter cold I trekked down the small road, the staff in my hand *thumping* softly against the pavement.
Until I found myself standing in front of a moldy green bi-level home.
I made my way to the front door, carefully avoiding the dented plastic fire truck and the wilted petunias that flopped over onto the sidewalk. I stared at a wreath made of pine hung on the door, the needles all brown and shedding. “I thought they only worshipped the pine trees in the winter,” I muttered to myself.
I knocked three times.
Soon footsteps sounded on the other side. The door swung open, revealing a short, slightly pudgy woman with long auburn hair. She was older than I expected, wrinkles lining her green eyes. *I told Themolos that “erraguh” translated to five, not six, eons after the Tunguska Fireball. Pompous fool.*
“Jennifer?”
She swallowed whatever food she’d just been loudly chewing. “Yeah. What d’you want?”
I lowered my voice. “You are the chosen one, Jennifer. You are the only one who can unlock the amulet of Genella.”
“Mom! Is that the pizza?” a voice called from deeper in the house.
“No, it’s just some stupid salesman.” She turned back to me. “Sorry, I don’t wear jewelry. Bye.” She began to close the door.
I pushed my foot between the door and the frame. My middle claw twinged painfully. She raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not a salesman, and I’m not *stupid*,” I growled. “There is an amulet. Deep in the crevasses of a glacier. And *you*, Jennifer Thompson, are the only one who can open it and unlock its secrets, that have been guarded since the dawn of humanity.”
She blinked. “What’s in it for me?”
“What’s in it for you? Everything you’ve ever dreamed of, Jennifer.”
“Like laundry that folds itself?”
“Um—”
“How about Instant Pot that preps vegetables?”
“What is an Ins—”
“Or a kid that picks up after himself every once in a while?”
“Uh… no. I meant glory. Fame. Adventure. You know, the stuff life is made of. The stuff they write books about.”
“Not interested. Sorry,” she replied, trying to push the door closed. My middle claw twinged with pain again.
“But if you unlock the amulet, everything we know about the history of man will be changed! This will change everything, and it will be *your* name in every history book, on the tongue of every person—”
She yawned.
*Yawned.*
“Mom, I’m huuuuungry,” a voice complained from inside the house, younger sounding than the first one.
There was no way this was going anywhere.
*Unless…*
I thought of my wizard comrade. Mertin. He’d owed me a favor for years now, ever since I’d saved him from that nettle lizard. I wondered if he could enchant some clothes …
“You know, Jennifer, I think self-folding laundry could be arranged.” When she didn’t react, I added: “If I come back in a few days with a working prototype, will you come with me to the Alps to find the amulet?”
She gave a disbelieving laugh. “Um. Sure”
*Sure.* That was a legally binding agreement to them, wasn’t it? Or was that “yes, sir”?
I had to hope it would be good enough.
“I’ll be back in three days,” I replied. Then I turned on my heel and walked back into the driving rain, my cloak billowing behind me.
It was time to have a talk with Mertin. | "Crysthast Jeriesiel, run faster, she's gaining on us!" Yelled Carlylian to his gnome brother Bogsworthis as he took a moment to look back.
"I'm going as fast as I can, it'd be a lot easier if you carried me" Bogsworthis shouted as he continued to pump his short stubby legs as fast as he could.
"You're too heavy, you'd slow me down."
"That's not true I've lost a lot of weight."
"You still weigh nearly 50 lbs."
"I'm doing my best"
"Stop talking and focus on running." Said Carl growing irritated with the banter as they ran for their lives.
Seeing a dark passage coming ahead Carl quickly turned right, and pulled Bogs in with him.
The person that had been chasing them ran past as Carl held Bogs in his arms with his hand over his mouth.
After a few moments he pulled his hand away and asked in a low whisper "What did you take?"
"This" Bogs said pulling out from his satchel what could best be called a rattle.
"Why would you take that?" Carl asked confused.
"The little person on her back seemed to be really enjoying it" Bogs said.
"Why?" Carl asked.
"Because it does this" Bogs said as he began shaking the rattle with all his might.
Carl as quickly as he could snatched it from his brother but it was already too late, a large looming shadow appeared behind them, Carl's stomach fell. | 2022-04-13T01:12:58 | 2022-04-12T22:46:58 | 45 | 16 |
[WP] After one’s death, the ‘creative mode’ is unlocked. You replay life, except everything goes the way you want it to. Unlimited wealth, complete domination of the world, you name it. Unknowingly, that play-through is what is used to judge whether you belong to heaven, or hell. | “You mean I can do anything I want?”
“Anything”
“What’s the catch?”
“There is no catch, just a way for you humans to fulfil all their earthly desires before fully passing on to the other side”
Interesting. I didn’t have much regrets in life, I had lived a good one, probably a little above average but nothing as brilliant as the people frequently on news headlines.
I let my mind wander as I thought about the major moments and successes in my life, then I began to think of my failures, things I could have done better and then the trivial things that weren’t worth anything in the long run but still stayed with me until now.
I want to go back.
The man in the suit must have noticed my change of expression as he quizzically asked, “Well?”
“Okay.”
————
I went back to the time I was 17 years old and then submitted my application into the military, blessing myself with a good enough physique and a capable enough mind to endure the rigorous demands of the army and spend the downtime learning new skills and information. I’m abusing the shit out of New Game+ but fuck it the beginning steps are always the hardest. Besides I merely gave myself the tools, I still have to carve the product out myself, I hope it’s not considered cheating too much.
The years passed in a blur, I gathered valuable resources, connections, knowledge and exceptional skills. Dealing with people was always the hardest part for me in both lives, I had to reinvent myself and step out of my social comfort zone, the never ending liquid courage and the inability to get drunk did make it a lot easier though. The foundations were laid down, it was time to get out of the army and establish a new shadow government.
I gathered the brightest and sanest minds I could find and installed them in positions of power across the world, while slowly and steadily removing threats that seek to undo my plans, vile men and organizations that seek to fuck the world up further. Players in the game that didn’t understand the objectives of the game.
At this point it made things a lot easier with way less bloodshed. We were able to push for global reforms and solve global issues, sometimes even before those same issues were even issues. I believed humanity is inherently good and I wanted to prove it in this life.
The economic returns were better than expected. World wealth was still concentrated at the top 20 percent because that’s how things goes but with all the changes, poverty was eliminated, everyone had good opportunities and chances in this new world. It was a giant snowball effect that didn’t seem to have any signs of stopping. We were finally able to look towards the stars without neglecting our home, we were finally past Level 1.
In my twilight years, I spent the time raising successors, people who can continue my legacy, people who knew the objectives of this one big game, constantly vetting, testing, finalizing.
Then I silently exited, choosing a small remote cottage in Australia, where she would too choose to retire. I had done my best, my truest and I had no more regrets.
—————
I heard a knock at the door. Without waiting for an answer, the doorknob turnt and the same man in the suit a lifetime ago stood in my cottage.
“Tea?” I asked, smiling even as I knew my time had come.
The man waved away the offer, instead choosing to take a seat on the table across from me.
“You made some questionable decisions but at the end you caught all of us by surprise.”
I nodded as I sensed there was more to come.
“Apologies for lying but this was a test to determine your placement in the afterlife and by right for what you have done, you deserved Hell.”
“But?”
“We appealed for your soul, many of us appealed and the big guys above and below came to an agreement.”
This time it was me that was puzzled by his expression, he was trying to remain professional but he was having trouble trying not to smile.
“You wanna do this again? For real this time. We will help, with an extra favour at the end of everything.”
I thought back to my previous two lifetimes and thought of her again. As long as she is happy I didn’t mind, but maybe I can be selfish, just once.
“Okay.” | Let's see.
Top of your class. All of them. For all fifteen years. Easy enough with a lifetime of knowledge.
Managed to get with Jessica too, huh? We thought it was cute, while it lasted. Monica, after that. Then Jen. But you only did that to get back at Barry Allen didn't you? Broke his heart you did, and hers. Then Liz's, Steph's, Annie's...quite the collector aren't you?
Won the lottery a few times. Fair enough, that's the first thing most people try. Then you took the stock market by storm. Bought your mom a big house by the beach, spent three years by her side before the cancer. Ah. Now that's what we like to see.
Graduated with first-class honors, recruited straight to head management of your dream company. There you really gave Barry Allen the reckoning from your past lives. You know he's still on the streets now. Yes we know, justice is sweet no matter the lives that pass.
Then you got bored and tried your hand at mayor. Spent many a night with a chardonnay in one hand and a lady in the other. Oh, banned plastic straws too. Turtles are booming thanks to you. Gave everyone on the street a bed too. Very good. Yes, you really were quite good.
You deserve Heaven? Well, you have achieved all you have ever wanted. Surely, there is nothing more we could offer you.
Oh no, don't misunderstand. You are not going to 'Hell' either. Well, at least not the Hell of your imagination.
You are going to the one of your creation.
Welcome back to Earth, Barry Allen. At least you'll have a bed when you're greying.
We'll see you soon after that.
r/bobotheturtle | 2020-07-20T03:18:26 | 2020-07-20T03:18:12 | 184 | 67 |
[WP] At the age of 16 everyone gets teleported into a small room. In front of you is a table with all kinds of meals from apples to gourmet meats. Whatever you take a bite of will determine what superpower you'll get. You are the first Person to take a bite of the table itself | The crunch echoed through the room.
Kevin didn't think much of it, until he realized just how quiet everyone had gotten. Opening his eyes after chewing the harsh texture for a moment, he noticed how many eyes were on him.
"...What? What's wrong?" He asked.
No one said anything. Some of them still sat there dumbfounded, a look of shock across their features.
"Is... Is there something on my face?"
"The fuck??" One of them responded. Carl himself was levitating nearby in an attempt to get a better look. He'd eaten grapes the first time around. And now, to Kevin's chagrin, he could fly.
"What??" Kevin asked them all again.
"What're you eating the *table* for?!" Carl pointed out hastily.
Sandra yawned nearby and excused herself as a small ball of flame rolled out of her mouth. Jalapenos had been her ticket.
"I just wanted to see what would happen."
"Bro, you gotta eat the food. You eat the food to get a superpower! Just pick something! Stop it."
Kevin considered this as he kept chewing. "Eh, no sense in backing out now..."
"Goddamn it Kev." Sandra said as she palmed her head at her friend's idiocy.
The sorcerer meant to monitor such a thing, Iliana, still watched in sheer amusement. Maybe it was the way he'd done it. Or just the sheer stupidity. Either way, she was having a great time.
"You gonna have splinters." Carl cringed as Kevin crunched more down.
"Eh it's more grainy then anything." Kevin shrugged. "Kind of bland. Anybody got some hot sauce or something?"
"Man you're sick." Someone else commented.
"Dude, I remember you said you ate crayons as a kid." Sandra added again. "But this isn't it."
"It tastes better than it should be." Kevin said after adding Sriracha to the piece he'd broken off to eat.
Iliana had heard of this only once before. And it fascinated her to see it take place. Others didn't comprehend it. People looking for answers hadn't understood the smile slowly creeping across her face.
"At least look out for nails or something." Carla said as he tried to get Kevin to stop.
"Man's got a mouthful of bricks." Someone cackled as he watched the human rendition of a woodchuck continue his work.
"Enough." Iliana said as she stood. "It is done."
"What? I'm done?" Kevin said.
"Yes. You've gained a power very few manage to obtain."
"...And that would be?" He asked after her silence.
Iliana glided around the table, her robes trailing behind her as she approached him. Kevin stopped chewing only to look up at her. The dagger she suddenly jammed into his ribs caused the room to panic, the horror encompassing all as they watched.
But Kevin didn't die. He had barely reacted to the move as the others screamed. Iliana pulled the dagger back to reveal the metal had bent to the point of being unusable.
"Invulnerability." She smiled. "Well done."
"But... but..." Sandra asked. "He ate the table."
Iliana explained it with gusto many had yet to see. "Whatever you take a bite of gives you your gift. We didn't say it was just the food."
"...So does this mean I can finish this? Or?" Kevin asked after he put more Sriracha on the wood he had left.
---
Feedback and criticism are welcome! r/Jamaican_Dynamite | The examiner smiles at you.
"Well done for seeing beyond the superficial, and choosing what your heart desires. I have been waiting for this day. Captain Table"
With that bite, you gain the power to turn into an inconspicuous table at will.
People laughed at first, Captain Table is a lame name they said. But the Ministry of Inteligence didn't laugh. Instead, they recruited you.
After your orientation you are taken to see the Director a man you recognize as the examiner.
"Why do you give the tests?"
"Who beter to know exactly what kinds of powers our heroes and villains will have, who better to judge the character of a person than I. You see when I was 16 I took a bite out of a glass, the power it gave me was foresight, but only of people that I can see. I have used this power to move through the ranks, and to protect the world. The second you took a bite out of the table I knew that I had met a kindred spirit, and upon using my foresight I saw that you would become one of my best agents. Able to go anywhere, overhear anything."
Thus began the illustrious career of the worlds best Super Spy
Captain Table. | 2020-03-19T09:06:50 | 2020-03-19T07:02:46 | 587 | 388 |
[WP] As the infected sprinted towards me, I quickly swung my bat. It connected and he fell in a heap, crying out in pain. He looked scared and confused, but his humanity only showed for a moment, before the rage took hold again. It appeared that pain made these 'zombies' briefly human again. | He’s right behind me, and fast, faster than me, but less coordinated. In complete panic, I take sharp right into the sporting goods aisle. Too sharp. I trip sideways, just dodging his outstretched hand.
My back slams into the baseball bats, causing them to clatter onto the ground around me. I barely have time to raise my head to see him barreling toward me. He leaps at me with a sickening roar. Flinching away, I grab a bat and blindly swing, terror adding to my strength. Unbelievably, it connects, hard against his skull. He falls, sliding to a stop on the ground next to me, unconscious.
A pause. For a moment, I can recognize him. It’s just Dylan. With the rage wiped from his face, he looks like the brother I know, the bother I would do anything for, the brother I’ve been hunkered in this Walmart with for months.
The bite mark is a crimson red on his neck, from when he’d tackled and killed the intruding zombie just moments ago. A pang of guilt runs through me. He wouldn’t have had to fight it if I’d just shot it in the face like I was supposed to.
He stirs, and I jump to my feet, readying myself with a baseball bat once again. There’s no rage on his face as he pushes himself to his hands and knees. He just looks up at me, confused and hurt. Is he back to normal?
A moment more and his face begins to contort into pure malice once again. Acting fast, I drive my bat hard into his back, forcing him back onto his stomach. I put my full weight on him with my knees. There’s no immediate struggle. With the precision of someone that quit the wrestling team after the first day, I grab the zip-ties from my back pocket and clumsily bind his hands tightly behind his back. I do the same with his feet, struggling to keep them together as his rage returns.
Now he’s bound there on the dirty linoleum floor tiles, writhing on the ground, roaring and roaring. My eyes won’t be torn away. My feet won’t let me move. All I can do is watch to see if the binds hold.
Finally, his voice becomes hoarse and his writhing becomes less intense. There’s blood around his wrists from fighting against the binding, but he’s still held tight. Satisfied, I leave to wander the store.
It’s time to go shopping, shopping for pain.
—
I roll my shopping cart up to the sporting goods aisle about an hour later. My heart almost explodes out of my chest when I don’t find him there. Grabbing a hammer from my cart, a stalk the trail of blood that leads around the corner of the aisle.
He’s only managed to wiggle himself a few aisles over, now surrounded by blue LEGO boxes he knocked off the shelves. He’s still at first, but as soon as he realizes I’m there he begins writhing again, even more forcefully that before.
Soon I have my cart pulled up to him. I’ve got hammers, sledgehammers, nails, knives, shovels, hairspray and some lighters, and even a few power tools that I have no idea how to use, like a drill and a chainsaw. Everything I could find to induce pain.
That part was fun. This part is not. If our positions were reversed, I know Dylan wouldn’t have a second’s hesitation in grabbing a knife and stabing me in the thigh if he thought it might help me. I’m not built like that, though.
Instead I grab the smallest hammer and stand near his feet. Before he has time to turn his head toward me, I get on my knees and whack a foot.
For just one breath, he slows down and the barest hints of that hurt look from before touches his face. Then he’s on his on his back again, writhing and roaring again, trying to sit up to bit me.
Again I hit him, harder this time. Another brief pause, but It’s not enough. I reach into the cart. My hands find a steak knife. Just as he makes a huge arc with his back, I make shallow cut into his calf, just enough to draw blood.
He screams, but it’s a human scream, not that demonic roar. Then the scream turns to a maniacal laughter.
“Again! More!”
I slice again into the same cut, going a bit deeper. Blood splatters into my face. More laughter. “More!”
I know what I need to do. I need to cut deeper. I need to cause him real pain. But I hesitate.
Laughter turns to terrifying roars again. Before I can cut him, he launches himself onto me with a massive sit-up and bites my neck before falling onto his back.
Anger. Crimson burning rage. An all-consuming inferno blossoms into my very being. There is only anger.
I lean back on my knees, arms flexed and wide to my sides, face turned toward the ceiling. A roar erupts from deep in my chest.
Why am I so weak? Why, when the moment comes, do I always fail to act? Why couldn’t I save Dylan, why couldn’t I save my children, why couldn’t I ever do what I knew was right?
Just as my sane thoughts boil away into pure insanity, I take the knife still in my hand and slice deep into my forearm. Blood gushes onto the linoleum, red like my vision.
The pain cuts clear through the anger, tethering me to reality. But I feel the gap closing with red again.
Again I cut. More clarity, more blood, but it’s not enough.
Enlivened by my frenzy, Dylan’s begins again. The wrist constraints are getting loose.
I fall back, grabbing the side of the cart, tipping it over on its side, spilling everything inside. Just as the red nearly overtakes me again, I find the lighter, then the hairspray.
For a moment I hold the lighter up to my leg. Then I hold it up to my nose and aim the hairspray at my face. Spark, fire, spray. Boom.
A real inferno erupts before me, actual fire in my eyes. The pain is unimaginable, like having my skin peeled off with fish hooks. My skin seems to melt off my face.
The seconds are an eternity. When I finally stop, all the rage has disappeared to pure agony. But it’s me. It’s my agony.
Dylan is coming for me. I hear him crawling toward me on his hands, he must have broken the constraints. I’m barely able to crack my eyes open. He’s just before me, rage, a rage I now recognized, cut deep into all his features.
I hold the lighter up to his face. Spark, fire, spray. Boom. | If some people screaming on the streets are to believed, and that being a zombie is truly retribution from god, Chandler Hines would have been a zombie sixty times over.
Instead, he looked down from his penthouse, as naked as the day he was born. Sometimes, he liked to imagine that he was giving it to the city, and upon the common peons on the streets down below.
It turns out that being one of Hollywood’s most successful television executives and being a good person required two diametrically opposite personalities. He watched the brief splatters of gunk on the street—sometimes blood, sometimes rotting guts, and certainly sometimes, grey matter—and sipped on streaming black coffee. The mug read *World’s Worst Boss*.
“Freaking zombies,” he said, sighing. “Nobody’s watching my shows.”
Chandler took a shower with steaming water, incorporating his usual five routines. After shaving and wiping himself dry, he picked out a set of casual clothes, one that he didn’t quite mind getting random gunk on. The same logic applied to a few baseball bats. Pushing the front door open revealed two beefy security guards rapt with attention.
“Boys,” Chandler said. “Let’s go have some fun. And clear out any obstacles in the way, will you?.”
Forty floors, four and three-quarters zombies, and a slightly crunchy exit of the car park later, Chandler drove slowly around the streets, occasionally popping down his window to swing hard at a zombie. He chuckled as they fell on the ground, then slammed the pedal away.
“Why don’t you just run them over, boss?” the slightly larger of the two asked. “You are in a car. It’s pretty safe.”
Chandler stared at the rearview mirror for a while. He couldn’t quite remember his employee’s name.
“More fun this way,” Chandler shrugged. “Up close and personal. But I want you to have those guns ready, if I look like I’m in any danger, alright?”
The guard nodded, resuming his vigil outside the window.
Chandler drove up to another zombie, a man in a red dress. He swung hard as he could out of the window, but cursed as he lost his grip, watching it fly out of his hands. Chandler’s hand frantically shot back inside the window, ready to tap the button to close it.
“What… what the hell is going on?”
Chandler froze, his gaze slowly drifting upwards to watch the man’s face. Where a feral snarl once resided, confusion and fear now filled the furrowed lines on his forehead. He looked down at his dress, hands fervently smoothing out the creases.
“This is crumpled. That’s not good.”
And then, the face contorted once more, resetting back into its growling state.
Chandler scrambled for the front seat, reaching for another bat. He poked the barrel towards the man’s face again, watching it contort in pain—then to uncertainty once more.
“Seriously,” the stranger said.
There were a few seconds of clarity, and then they evaporated into thin air.
One more direct hit to the nose stunned the stranger momentarily, and Chandler rolled up the window.
“Fascinating,” he mumbled. “They seem to respond to pain. Have you ever noticed this, men?”
The two look at each other.
“When we hit them, they tend to explode,” the slightly smaller one said.
“Well, stop hitting them. Just grab a few of them, and bring them to the studio, will you?”
***
Chandler watched the zombies shamble around on the set. It reminded him of better days.
Chandler was in television. He was familiar with pain. So he jammed the lights on, trained every camera on the zombies, and activated the microphone.
The speakers crackled to life like an eldritch abomination from the deep. Chandler drew a deep breath, preparing a dive into the abyss.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?”
The zombies displayed a pristine moment of synchronization and lucidity, each a deer feeling the unfamiliar headlights on them.
“Act. Act it up! What the hell, guys? I’ve seen school theater productions better than you guys. And I mean preschool level!” Chandler continued pouring his lungs into a bellowing speech. “So act properly! Or, god help me, I’ll execute you guys on the spot!”
Chandler began hearing chatter on the floor. The unhappy whispers, the sore feet, the pained faces.
“Ah, reality TV,” Chandler smiled. “How I’ve missed you.”
---
r/dexdrafts | 2022-01-15T10:44:02 | 2022-01-15T09:38:46 | 45 | 30 |
[WP] The hero was killed, the princess was sacrificed, and the evil king rules the land. For the average citizen, though, things have taken a turn for the better. | Jack was smiling, for once, even though he was handing a bag of coin to the tax collector. Though taxes hadn't been lowered since 'The Hero's execution and the death of his Rebellion (in fact, they had been raised somewhat), the benefits of having an Evil King with full coffers and a fair Princess with a degree in economics for a 'sacrifice' had been enormous.
Monsters and bandits which had plagued the lands were being hunted down within days of showing their faces, rather than the months it took a village to raise the money needed to hire a hunter, the result of several lucrative contracts with the mercenary griffin riders from the North. Without the near-constant pillaging of villages, disruption of trade, loss of livestock and razing of fields, everyone's purses were a little looser, the economy booming as roads were rebuilt through the skeleton army turned engineering workforce.
Thus, Jack could actually afford to pay the taxes. He didn't have good numbers, but he certainly knew that the sock under his bed was heavier than it had been past seasons, and that was knowledge enough.
"Afternoon, Paul." Jack nodded, even as he upended his bag into a bowl.
"Jack." Nodded Paul the Tax Collector, starting to count the money already as he sat there, flanked by his two guards. Another benefit of the surplus of money was a redesign of armor. It was still black as night, and featured a grim red dragon, but rather than grisly spikes and snarling mouths, the new armor was much more pleasant: smooth, round plates and a wolfish design to its helm, which now allowed them to see more clearly. It was certainly something which caused less property damage during a casual search of the house, and much more safe for children to be around, overall lessening animosity from the tide of unpleasant misunderstandings between the guards and local citizens.
"Is the wife feeling better now?" Paul queried, finally finished with Jack's coppers.
"Aye, the Coven put her right. I'm paying by labor. The witches need a new writing desk, it seems." Jack smiles, thinking to the small coven of witches at the edge of town, their brightly lit (but very much darkly painted) house now tending to a stream of ailments, assisted by the townsfolk's many women. Gone now were the days of asking for firstborn children. Instead, their prices had been 'subsidized by force', thanks to the Dark Lord, and now two days of slavery per week for a year had become the asking price for a life-saving cure, one happily divided by members of the families that needed them. A side benefit of such was that even now, more and more womenfolk were taking up the Witches' Hat to pay for the cures for their husbands and sons, and the lasses were migrating to smaller villages with their knowledge, spreading the methods of the Coven of the Black Bandage far and wide.
"Young Jan's daughter took up the pointy hat, I hear. That, or that klutz Loren has melted another desk." Commented Paul, carefully examining a badly dented silver. He passed it on to Mongo, the guard to his left, who dutifully pounded it flat with his war-hammer. "Mmm, and Marissa's gone to Southbridge, little cosy cottage near the site of a big battle they had last year. You know, the King of Light's men? Found herself a handsome necromancer. Only two scars on his face, she says. They're going to raise an army together, I hear."
"Ah, the best to them, then. All done here?" Jack grins, taking back his pouch from Paul. He left knowing that the inevitable regiment of skeletons would eventually be used to grow the empire, bringing in a new influx of immigrants and refugees. It'd be a bother to feed them for a while, but once they had gotten on their feet and eaten the local food, he was sure they'd come around.
They always did. | This herald speaks for me, King Loatheb: Butcher of the Ruling Class.
You are under my rule now petty citizens, the 1000 year age of darkness begins today. Lord Xanthar the Just's head adorns my mantle. No longer will your young men be conscripted to fight and die honourably to destroy the ruling tyrants of neighbouring nations, you will die slowly and painfully as your bones crumble in your body of old age, taxes will be invested in medicines to prevent you escaping such a slow demise from infectious diseases.
The righteous wage cap is lifted, no longer may you attempt to live a pious life, free from the temptation of worldly desires. You will be surrounded and consumed by the temptation of greed for material luxuries. Fine silks, robes, and jewellery will drive you to vanity. Sweet food and great quantities of wine will rob you of your dignity and destroy you from the inside. Prayer is forbidden, you must now devote your free time to some meaningless hobby in an attempt to pass the time.
The sacrifice of the princess in the unspoken ritual has gained the approval of the god of the deep himself, his minions have risen from the pits of darkness and work the mines tirelessly. Leaving you purposeless without such hard manual labour, you will be consumed by sloth and gluttony in the riches of the administrative work you must now do.
I leave the petty decisions of how to govern in the hands of the people, with majority consensus deciding the outcome. You must shamefully accept the full responsibility of the disasters you will bring upon yourselves. Such as the cataclysmic economic destruction of leaving the Templar union. Prepare for regret, foolish mortals. | 2016-07-10T18:13:31 | 2016-07-10T15:59:45 | 17 | 10 |
[WP] Cause of death appears to you as floating text over people's heads with no time indication. You start noticing a trend.
edit: thank you for all the truly great stories, and for taking this in directions I didn't expect. | Post-mortems become a lot easier when you know the answer in advance. They change from an exercise where you are searching for small pieces to solve a much larger puzzle to one where you know the answer which tells you what to look for to support the thing you already know. I figured out around high school that pathologist was a natural job for someone who already knew the answers. So I kicked my ass into gear and went to medical school. In my pathology residency my professors called me a, "natural," and a, "savant of death investigation." I currently have the lowest rate of unexplained deaths in the country, probably the world. Of course, I do have a few- I have to put in a couple to make it look good.
It starts when I open the bag, there the sign pops out to me:
"Cerebrovascular Accident." Okay, so do all the boring administrative work, weigh the organs, determine the last meal, take samples, and then try to act surprised when you cut open the skull and dissect the brain and a giant blood clot plops out.
"Idiopathic Cardiomyopathy," repeat the administrative work, perform exacting measurements on the heart walls and write it down.
"Idiopathic asystole," is one I can either hate seeing, or love seeing. Depending on the patient. If they're old people usually don't question it. When it happens to a young person though, then I can pretty much bet my bottom dollar that I'm going to end up testifying in court at some point for some reason because of a fucking lawsuit. The worst part is, I can't just blurt out, "It was unexplained because the giant fucking neon sign hovering over your kid's head told me it was unexplained." The damage to my reputation would be immense and irreparable.
My assistant, Jenna, rolled through the doors pushing our first customer of the day, bagged and in a stretcher. Her long blonde hair was tied into a tight, neat bun. She flashed a million-watt smile at me, "Good morning Dr. Stephenson." Her's says, "suicide." It has always struck me that the ones that say "suicide" are always the happiest looking people. "Good morning Jenna. Who do we have today?" She reaches over and hands me the file and says in her sing-song tone, "Laura Lipmann, 32, 65 inches tall, 143 pounds, mother of 2, unexpectedly died and was found in her home yesterday," her tone darkened the singing tone from before was flattened and tinged with sadness, "her youngest was crawling on her body."
I unzipped the bag, and the woman inside was gorgeous. She looked like she could have been an actress. Her raven hair was long and flowing, her face having the softened curve of a baby's, her skin smooth and flawless. I glanced up near her head, "mixed drug toxcicity, diaceytlmorphine and ethanol." I glanced up at Jenna who was putting on her protective gear, "does the file indicate a history of drug use?" Jenna shook her head side to side, "nothing that I saw."
I pulled the tissue samples to test for drugs and finished the autopsy in record time. We'd decided to get lunch after Mrs. Lipmann's post-mortem, so I stood there waiting for her to finish cleaning up. "So where are we going again?" Scrubbing her fingers the sing-song tone having returned to her voice, "I was thinking Chuey's." I made a sound of approval as she turned off the faucet. Chuey's was only a couple of blocks away so we decided to walk there together. I glanced at signs as we walked past, cardiac infarction, CVA, hepatic failure precipitated by diabetes. The diseases of civilization are on track to beat out malaria for the largest killers in history.
I sat there, eating my encheladas the first time I saw a sign change. In my entire life I'd never seen a sign change. They flipped over like some sort of weird game show prop. I noticed the motion first outside the restaurant. I curiously peered past Jenna, whatever story she was telling me about the date she went on the past weekend totally tuned out. Then the wave of change swept into the restaurant. When Jenna's changed I got a look at it. "Vaporization."
I could feel all the blood drain from my face. Jenna looked at me curious, "What's wrong you look like you've seen a-," Outside the windows a flash that seemed thousands of times brighter than the sun blew in. Jenna flipped her head around, "What the fuck?" | He worked alone, he always had. Not because he wanted to, but people just had a tendency to not notice him. It was depressing really. Every person he ever met instantly forgot him, or tried to ignore him, it was hard to tell sometimes. As for his work, well, he worked in travel, a mostly administrative position.
As far back as he could remember, and he could remember a lot, he'd been able to see the cause of death of every person he'd ever met, floating above their heads with a little countdown timer right next to it. It had never fazed him. At first he'd just been there, at the end, to see it happen. But as the years drew on he'd become more interested in what you might call the more important deaths; politicians, movie stars, media types generally. He'd always show up, usually at their funeral, and mingle with the crowd, comforting them and just being a part of it. He'd always found a certain pleasure in this, like he was helping in some way, letting people know that death was just the next step in a person's life. The last great journey.
He did notice a worrying trend though. While he was attending the funeral of a renowned author, the timer for a newborn child was showing that his cause of death was to be by meteor strike, with a date some 70 years from now. As more children were born they too had this very same timer, and some that were to die by radiation poisoning, nuclear explosions, freezing to death and starving in the few years after the event. Again this didn't faze him.
He closed the door to his office and got to work with the planning and admin role to which he was very accustomed by now, he'd been doing it long enough. The buzzer on his desk lit up and the words of his P.A. came tinnily through as he looked up to the corridor, seeing a large, hulking figure though the glass.
"Azrael, I have a Mr Waugh here to see you."
***
I took some liberties, in that I actually wanted to use the idea of a timer in this story. Sorry. CC welcome as this is my first ever submission. Be gentle haha! | 2015-03-31T11:16:39 | 2015-03-31T09:57:05 | 22 | 10 |
[WP] You were born with special eyes, the sea was as clear as glass to you, by the time you got old enough to join a ship's crew, you were smart enough to not tell them about everything you saw below the waves | I was young when I first realized that not everyone else could see the Other World. My mother pulled me away from the pier when I asked my questions, shushing me with fearful glances over her shoulder. “Not now, *Dia,* tell me about it later, okay?”
I would wait until evening to tell her of the Others, the ones who watched. They were so pretty, with their dark hair and eyes, their beckoning hands. My mother would sit me down by the fireplace and braid my hair, humming to me while I asked my questions. *Who were they? Why didn’t they come out of the water? Could I go play with them next time?*
Her reply was always the same—“Stay out of the water, *Dia,* it is dangerous.” She never answered me how, but I listened.
I stayed out of the water.
We were poor, so each year when the floods came and the ocean rose higher around our homes, I could not help but see the Other World again. And the Others, with their watchers and beckoners. The wealthier families went to their summer homes, away from the rains, but my mother and I stayed. When my mother wasn’t around in the rainy season, sometimes they would sing to me. I never told my mother, and she always warned me when she got home to stay away from the water.
When I reached adulthood, my mother got sick. I joined a fishing crew, and I came home every month to give her my earnings. “You are staying out of the water, *Dia?”* She asked, every time. Every time I told her *Yes, mama, I have stayed out of the water.*
The Others are most common after storms. I knew that something was different when we pulled up the net, and there was no movement. The fish in the net were dead already, and a stench came from them. My captain went to the net and released it, dumping the waste onto the deck, where I saw her. We all saw her.
She writhed on the wood deck of the fishing trawler, and I watched as my crewmates realized what she was. Her hair was as dark as kelp, and her skin the soft grey of a midmorning storm. *”Monster,”* they called her, but I knew her as an Other. One of those from the Other World, from the brilliant golden cities that shimmered far, far beneath the waves. She had watched me for years. Sung to me.
I looked at my crewmates, and I heard my mother’s warnings. I saw the greed in their eyes, the hunger in their leering faces.
*”Stay out of the water, Dia, it is dangerous!”*
I grabbed her hand, and pulled. It took a moment for my friends and colleagues to realize my intent, too late. We slipped over the edge, together, into the crystal-clear water below. Ice grabbed me by my throat, suffocating me, and the frigid water stabbed my limbs with a thousand knives. I saw her, watching, waiting.
I breathed in, and I gasped as water flooded into my mouth. I expected to choke.
I didn’t. She approached, holding out a hand, beckoning. She gestured towards the golden city beneath us, one that I had seen for years.
*”Home, Dia. Come home.”* | We finally spotted what looked like a small island in the distance. We had been out at sea for longer than intended and hoped we could find some food on the island as we were running dangerously low.
As we approached the island I spotted a sunken ship. As we got closer to the ship I noticed movement. When we were finally moving over the ship I jumper back and couldn't believe what I saw.
Against my better judgment I looked over the edge and down at the ship again. That's when they saw me. The undead crew of the ship still going about their business like they were still sailing on the sea not under it were now all looking up at me.
Thankfully we quickly passed the sunken ship and I was able to let out a sigh of relief.
After we anchored our ship and took the rowboats to shore I decided to take a look back towards the sunk ship. I stood in horror as the undead crew were slowly lumbering toward the island. | 2021-11-06T12:12:01 | 2021-11-06T09:19:07 | 199 | 62 |
[WP] You open the door to your house. You notice someone who looks exactly like you sitting in a chair. You don't have a twin. "Can I help you?" The person looks at you. "I'll give it to you straight: I'm a shapeshifter. I'm in danger. One of us needs to stay in the basement for now. Best it's you." | Snow always fucked up Julia's commute. As a nurse, she had to go in, regardless of the weather, and her all wheel drive car did just fine, but the other idiots always slowed things down. But she didn't work for four more days, so when she got home she was really looking forward to stripping off the scrubs, taking a criminally long shower, and hiding under a blanket in front of the television for a socially unacceptable amount of time.
Her driveway's snow was pristine except for a set of tracks headed towards the front door. Those new boots she'd ordered must have finally arrived. She had no plans on shoveling, but perhaps an enterprising neighborhood youth would earn twenty bucks.
The living room looked normal. You could see it from the front door. A centrally placed television, and giant cushy couch, a light dusting of food wrappers that she would definitely get around to cleaning up in a couple days. And herself, sitting on the side chair.
She never sat on the side chair. That was not, of course, the most disturbing bit about the vignette, but it was what she picked up on first. A normal response would have been to yell, run, or fight the intruder. Normal responses were for people who were not coming off of sixteen hour shifts.
Instead Julia stood gape-mouthed for a full thirty seconds before saying anything. Her doppelganger smiled politely and sat with her hands folded on her lap. It was wearing an inappropriately short black dress, the one Julia only wore to fancy parties. Fancy summer parties. Julia wouldn't show that much leg again for another five months. And something about her hair stroked at Julia's memory.
"Are you actually there?" An odd thing to say, but it felt like the right response. What she said next was purely the product of spending too long that day on her feet dealing with bitter patients. "You look like me."
"Julia, don't panic. I'm not here to hurt you." The other Julia's voice was weird. It started out deep and slowly shifted to match her own pitch.
The way the doppelganger had her hair finally clicked with Julia. "You look like me at Tarquin's work party."
"It's the best picture of yourself that you have displayed." The voice was still weird. Did she sound like that to other people? "I'm a shapeshifter."
"I was kinda picking up on that, yeah. I mean it was either that or I accidentally dosed myself with something at work. I'm actually leaning towards the dosing theory." Julia put her purse and work badge down on the counter and turned to go take her shower.
An iron grip clenched her bicep. Her doppelganger had moved very fast. "Listen, Julia. I'm sorry to put you in this position, but I'm in danger and I had no choice. Very likely they will track me here. It's best if you hide in the basement until the danger has passed."
\---------------------------------------------
Something that looked like Julia sat on the giant cushy couch, obscured somewhat by the blanket. The food wrappers had been cleaned up.
The television was turned up enough to be heard from outside, but it still didn't drown out the loud pounding on the door. The thing that looked like Julia on the couch ignored it.
The front door was unlocked. Julia had insisted on that point. When it opened, the man that walked in barely fit through the door. He had to duck under the garland trim decorating the entryway. The man barely fit the definition of a man. While technically the shape of a human, he looked like someone had moved the sliders all the way to the right in the character designer.
He pointed a finger at the thing that looked like Julia on the couch. The finger gleamed metallically. "Alright, Odo. Come easily and you won't be vaporized. That's my best offer."
"My name is Julia," said the thing that looked like Julia on the couch. "And I just got off a sixteen hour shift, so you'll have to have this conversation with the garland."
The maybe-man opened his mouth to complain. That was his last mistake. The garland trim unhooked itself from the ceiling and dropped on him, working its way around his neck and into his mouth.
The fight was short. Within a few seconds of the garland entering his mouth, he had dropped to the floor. It took another minute for the rest of the garland to slither inside. Then the maybe-man stood back up. When it spoke it had Julia's voice.
"You were right. This was a good plan." The maybe-man bowed.
The thing that was actually Julia on the couch buried herself under the blanket and said, "Shovel the walkway when you leave."
\[More writing at r/c_avery_m\] | *You open the door to your house. You notice someone who looks exactly like you sitting in a chair. You don't have a twin. "Can I help you?" The person looks at you. "I'll give it to you straight: I'm a shapeshifter. I'm in danger. One of us needs to stay in the basement for now. Best it's you."*
After telling the shapeshifter that they need to leave your house, they become agitated and refuse to go. They insist that they are in danger and that one of you needs to stay in the basement for protection. You try to remain calm, but you are starting to feel uneasy. You know that you need to take action to protect yourself and your home.
You decide to call the police and explain the situation to them. They tell you to stay on the phone with them and not to engage with the shapeshifter. They also dispatch a squad car to your address to assist you. In the meantime, you try to keep an eye on the shapeshifter and make sure they don't try to leave the house or cause any harm.
As you wait for the police to arrive, the shapeshifter becomes increasingly agitated. They start pacing around the room and muttering to themselves. You can't make out what they are saying, but it sounds like they are speaking in a different language. You start to wonder if they are truly in danger, or if they are just trying to manipulate you.
Just as you are starting to feel overwhelmed, the police arrive at your house. They enter the room and quickly assess the situation. However, due to the shapeshifter's ability to mimic your appearance, the police mistake you for the shapeshifter. They tell you to calm down and to cooperate with them, but you are confused and startled by their mistake.
The shapeshifter takes advantage of the situation and manages to escape while the police are focused on you. You try to explain to the police that you are the original person and that the shapeshifter has escaped, but they don't believe you. They handcuff you and take you into custody for questioning.
You are shocked and confused by the turn of events. You try to explain to the police that you are the victim and that the shapeshifter is the one they should be looking for, but they don't seem to believe you. You are worried about what will happen next and hope that the police will be able to catch the shapeshifter and clear your name. | 2022-12-05T09:58:58 | 2022-12-05T05:55:43 | 77 | 41 |
[WP] You're a dragon who enjoys living a peaceful life away from humans when one day, a princess shows up asking you to "kidnap" her so she doesn't have to get married. | “I... I just need a place to stay for a few days. Or weeks. Maybe a couple months, but no more than a year. Or two.”
The dragon looked down, his scaly muzzle betraying how incredulous he found his current situation to be.
“I knew it. You’re blind. Well done on finding me, all things considered, but I am a dragon. Burning flesh, missing cattle, murderous glare and all that.”
The young woman, dressed as a beggar, but of obviously royal blood, only stared back. As if the dragons words were going in one ear and out the other. The dragon was beginning to wonder if they were even hitting her ears at all.
“You don’t understand. I’ve been promised to a vile fungus of a man. He’s creepy, and his hands stray to unchivalrous places at the first opportunity. He neither bathes nor changes his robes, unless instructed to by his mother. He’s got a horrible burn that, instead of humbling-“
“Burn? What burn? Tell me more about this burn.”
“Excuse my crass nature, but it is horrible. It covers half of his-“
“What does he look like?”
“Excuse me?”
“What does this fiend look like?”
“Blonde hair. Piercing blue eyes. A slight limp since childhood.”
“Tall, strapping young lad? A bit cool in the cauldron? Only thinks with his long, pointy ends?”
“Why, yes! Sir Randolph! How did you know?”
The massive dragon leaned down, placing his head on his mighty claws, putting the two of them at eye level. Somewhat.
“You, my fair maiden, are mistaken. Randolph is dead. I gave him that burn when he came to steal my treasure. The last time I saw him, was when he came to ‘restore his honor, and murder the evil beast that marked him.’ Sounded good for a moment. Then he was on fire, and running, and screaming. Not in that order, though. The screaming started first.”
The princess perked up a bit at the dragons recognition. They shared a common enemy.
“That is him, sir. He is still among the living. He said that he was burned, when he opened up your throat and fire came spewing from your ‘vile corpse.’ It was a harrowing tale, until you burned half of the farmland. But royal blood is royal blood. He is still in line for the throne.”
The dragon looked off into east, the direction of the King’s castle, while chewing on an imaginary lambs bone. An idea was brewing in his ancient mind.
“No shit, huh?”
“No shit, sire.”
The dragon was taken aback by the language. Not that he cared, but when he was in the kidnapping-and-ransom business, most of the royal line shied away from curses. This one was not so fragile in constitution.
He liked her already.
“May I ask a question, *m’lady*? If I were to kidnap you, Sir Randolph would be honor bound to rescue you, correct?”
The princess lit up with understanding.
“Yes, sir!”
“And would you be opposed to escaping, while he valiantly engaged this mighty beast in mortal combat? Perishing so that your life may be spared in place of his.”
“No, sir.”
The monster pondered this a bit longer. Something still didn’t sit right with him. Something was missing.
“Tell me about that burn, madam. You mentioned it earlier.”
The princess gagged slightly, as she recounted the young princes new hobby.
“He lets it get infected, sir. Then when it’s oozing puss, he gets it all sweaty, and rubs it on everyone he can, sire. His mother, his father, the handmaidens, the sheep-“
“My god! The sheep! Which ones? The Smith’s? The Richardson’s? I mean... continue on.”
“All of them. He says he’s reminding everyone of his honorable sacrifice, despite there having been no sacrifice at all. No one asked him to slay you, sir. We thought you were a myth, until he began stirring things up. We believe he thinks it’s funny.”
The dragon mulled this over. A shiver of revulsion raced down his scaly, spike-laden spine when he thought about the sheep. *The bloody sheep.*
A dry heave of sulfur even escaped the great beast.
“Fine. Welcome to your new home your majesty. I make cattle runs every-“
“Tuesday and Thursday.”
“-correct. I’ll help you light the fire, but you’re on your own with cooking. Understood? Any questions?”
The future queen studied the treasure room, before pointing a slender, pale finger.
“Can I sit on that?”
The dragon followed the finger to a stunning, gem encrusted throne made from pure gold. The throne he had stolen from Richard the “Dragon Slayer”, while he was still sitting in it almost two centuries ago. The final fanfare before the dragons retirement.
“No.”
“But you’re not using it!”
A large, scaly tail slid lazily over the throne, only the spiked end resting on the cushion.
“Now I am.” | ######[](#dropcap)
*What's wrong, little girl?*
Tharos glanced at puffs of blonde hair that stuck out of her head as little buns.
"I don't wanna get married."
*Sometimes these choices are not up to us.*
"Can't you just take me far, far away? Aren't dragons supposed to kidnap princesses?"
He trained his large, golden eye on her rosy red cheeks and the two indignant fists she propped up against her waist.
*I am old, and tired. I have no longer have the strength to fight soldiers.* He laid his head down on his giant claws, his eyes becoming half-lidded.
"Please." She walked up to him and laid a hand on the scales by his forearm. He glanced at her. Though he was old now, he still had the strength to throw her against the wall. She wasn't a wise one.
"You don't understand. I don't even know the prince who I am to marry. He lives in a faraway kingdom whose name I don't know how to pronounce, and he paid for my hand in marriage with a couple thousand troops to my father's command."
Tharos thought of his own mother. He had been the only one left alive of his brothers and sisters, the others having been killed from a cave collapse caused by humans catapulting large boulders at the cave entrance. He could still see the fire in their eyes as they walked near with blazing torches, and the snarls on their teeth. And then his mother, tall and magnificent, swooping in to save him.
Just days later, she would abandon the nest, leaving him to fend for himself against the coyotes and timber wolves in the forest. At first, he hadn't understood. What had he done wrong?
It was only later, when he talked to other dragons, that he realized the truth. But it was not the lack of love that drove her, no.
It was simply out of necessity. The runt of the litter just does not survive. And a mother cannot waste her time trying to save one dragonling.
He could still remember the way she looked back at him, every wingbeat. Somehow, he imagined that that was because she loved him.
*Go home,* he told her, closing his eyes. *Your father married you of necessity, but he still loves you dearly.*
"Really?" Her eyes widened. "You're sure?"
*I'm sure.*
In truth, he had no way of knowing. Maybe her father had married her off out of lust for power. Or maybe he had married her off for necessity. But did it really matter, in the end?
Wasn't it better to have a dream to cling to, even if it was false?
*****
r/AlannaWu | 2018-05-05T23:10:15 | 2018-05-05T22:32:22 | 17 | 11 |
[WP] In an apocalyptic world, the last of humanity live in controlled, supposed paradise cities surrounded by towering walls; taught that the world outside died to wasteland centuries ago. You’re a smuggler, helping people escape the wall into the world beyond. | The haze of smoke in the bar was thick; a veritable smokescreen that hid its occupants from the world outside and wrapped them up in the embrace that they so badly craved throughout the workweek. I sat in my usual place at the corner of the establishment, my eyes glued to today's paper as I nursed my coffee.
I would need to be a sober as a newborn baby for what I was about to pull off.
And it didn't matter how many times I acquired a new customer- they always approached me the exact same way. I didn't have to take my eyes off of the paper to see him through the smoke. He wandered into the bar like he'd never been there, meandered suspiciously around the room long enough for everyone to take notice of him, and waited until all eyes were on him to slink into the booth across from me. I lifted my eyes briefly, before turning the page and lifting my mug to my lips.
He fidgeted with his fingers and glanced over his shoulder a few times before clearing his throat to grab my attention.
"Hey," he whispered. "You ready?"
"Don't whisper," I said in a normal speaking voice. "Talk to me like the two of us are just having a normal conversation."
He swallowed hard and glanced around nervously. "Are you crazy?!" He whisper-yelled.
"Must be," I said in my normal speaking voice before setting the paper down. "Now let me make one thing perfectly clear, you listen to everything I say, you don't question it and you obey me to the letter from this point forward. Am I clearly understood?"
This was the first time I'd gotten a good look at him. He was wearing thick-frame glasses, was cleanly shaven and was wearing a collared shirt. No wonder he was looking for me; he was mostly likely a code-monkey sitting in a tiny cubicle in some high office building being fed a line of crap about how lucky he is to have stability.
"Y-yes." He whispered.
I leaned across the table and made the most menacing face I could muster, and asked him again, "Am I clear?"
He paused a moment before nodding, "Yes." He said it firmly and in a normal speaking tone.
I sat back down in booth, the sound of leather rubbing against leather as I adjusted myself. I never took my eyes off of him as I popped my paper back open.
"Good," I said.
After a few seconds of silence, he piped up, "Are we... Are going?"
"No," I stated flatly. "There is a fifteen second window we'll need to hit precisely. We leave when I say."
He squirmed around in seat and looked around nervously. This wouldn't be an easy one. He was all nerves. I needed to get him at least a *little* loose if we were going to pull this off. I turned my eyes up towards the rotating camera on the opposite corner of the room. It wasn't good at picking up expressions through the haze of smoke, but it would certainly pick up his exaggerated movements.
"Order a drink," I commanded. "It's on me."
He lifted his hands defensively, "Oh, no no, I don't drink."
I dropped the paper and flashed him an annoyed look. "Order. A drink."
He looked shocked. He clearly wasn't used to being spoken to like that. It most likely felt like a threat, which was illegal within the walls. Of course if he didn't like it, he wouldn't have sought me out. Or payed me all of that money in advance. I watched it happen in his eyes- he realized that when I told him he would have to obey me without question, that order was effective immediately.
"Do you want out, or not?" I asked piercing his eyes with my unblinking gaze. "Order something sweet. I don't need you pissing yourself, I need you to settle down a little."
He got up and made his way to the bar. I heard him say the words 'fuzzy navel' and judging by the snickering around the bar, everyone else did too.
"I think it comes with a free tutu!" Someone called out from across the bar, generating even more laughter. I sighed rested my head in my hands, massaging my temples in a failed attempt to stave away an impending headache. He returned to the table and set down his glass- it had come with a long curly straw, which he sipped on during the silence that hung in the air between the two of us.
"Is it true?" He asked. "Can you really do anything out there?"
I nodded silently.
"... I know it's safer in the walls," he confessed. "But... I just feel like there's more to life than this."
"There is," I stated before tipping up my mug and finishing my coffee. "You're going to find out first-hand."
He smiled briefly and sucked on his drink a little more before he came back with more questions. "Jerry. You know Jerry right?"
"Don't say his name out loud."
"Sorry," he apologized. "He told me some things... He said... He said that you can have sex any day of the week. He said that you could kill a man just for looking at you funny."
I lifted my finger as the waitress walked by, and after catching her attention pointed at my mug. She nodded her head indicating she understood, and I turned and locked eyes with the client. "You can do anything you want out there. Unlike in here, it's up to *you* who you are."
"That's what I'm talking about!" He said happily, and slapped the table.
I glanced at my watch. "Take a bathroom break," I said. "We leave in five."
He scooted out of the booth and hurried for the restroom. I opened the paper and found the spot I'd left off as the waitress returned to fill my coffee.
"Another one?" She asked.
"Yep."
"What are you telling that poor man?"
"What he wants to hear. I'm a salesman."
"He won't last a minute out there," she said in the same manner as a mother would speak to her son.
I lifted the mug to my lips and took a sip of my coffee.
"It just might be the best minute of his life, Sally."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I get a 15 minute break at work aside from my usual lunch break. I pick a prompt, spend a couple of minutes storyboarding, and then do as much as I can within the confines of my break. I took too long making narrative decisions on this one, and had to rush the ending >.<
If you enjoyed this, consider following me at r/A15MinuteMythos | I didn't know where I'd end up. I still don't. All I know right now is I'm running for my life, and as I do, I think about how I got here.
It was fairly simple, all things considered. But I was terrified. Scared that with every step I took, someone might notice me and say "Hey! Guards! She's escaping!" I remember that first night, the first time I met a Smuggler. The reason I'm out of the City.
"Help." I whisper, petrified, at the doorstep of a person I know only by reputation. He's the guy who can set me up, get me to a Smuggler. He's the first part go getting out of here.
The door opens and I see a tall man with a scar over his eye. "Come in." He says, not bothering to ask who I am. A person huddled in a worn coat in the rain. Most people would think I'm a beggar and turn me away, or call the guards. But not this man. He knew exactly what I was here for.
"Sit down. We'll discuss your fee."
"Straight to business, eh?" I let out a weak chuckle. He doesn't smile. I clear my throat. "I need to get out of the City as fast as possible, without being noticed."
"That will be difficult, considering your...*position.*" He snickers. "Imagine that, someone like you wanting to leave the City."
"Is there anyone who can take me out of here?" I ask him, praying he'll look past my identity and see someone he can help.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. A man who's good at his job." He doesn't mention this person's name, and I don't ask. I don't even know his real name. Everyone just calls him Scar.
People in his line of work never tell anyone anything. They can't.
We talk a little bit more about cost, where and when to meet, and I leave about 10 minutes after I arrived.
2 days later, I meet him. The man who's going to take me out of the City. Midnight exactly, those were my instructions.
"You cut your hair." He says when I take off my hat.
"I cut it right before I left. It'll make it harder to recognize me." I say.
I doubt people would recognize me, anyways. Even with who I am, I've always been a mouse, careful to draw a little attention to myself as possible. That way, I can leave more easily.
Of course, it will always be hard for me to leave.
"You're all ready?" the man asks. "You've packed some things and you're ready to go?"
"What would I pack?" I say. There's nothing of value to me at home. All I have on me is a change of clothes.
"Right. Follow me." The man and I walk through the city's twisting streets in silence until we've made it to the edge.
"Last chance." He says.
I can still turn back now. Walk back home, make up an excuse about staying up late, and that's if someone notices I'm gone.
"No. I'm going." I say. I made up my mind years ago. I'm leaving.
The man I'm with shoots silent darts at the Guards, making them fall asleep. Hard to get, sleep darts.
We sneak through the gates, any other problem having already been taken care of. A Smuggler really starts hours before actually taking anyone out, they hack into the gate and get rid of alarms and whatnot.
That's it. The rest of the world. I'm here. Outside the City.
"I know it's not what you expect." the man says.
"It's...it's a wasteland."
Of course. I knew it would be like this. There was just some part of me...some part that hoped it wasn't this bad. There are buildings. Thousands of them. All decrepit, falling down, broken. It clearly used to be a bustling town. Now it's gone.
I start walking out there, needing to make sure it's real.
I'm really here! Away rom the City, from all responsibilities. I'm done.
I look back at the City, and the man watching me go out. He turns around and leaves.
I smile, and start walking away. | 2020-12-16T08:53:13 | 2020-12-16T08:40:23 | 46 | 19 |
[Wp] The scariest thing in Hell isn't the endless halls of torture, the demons, or even Satan himself. It's the sweet old lady living in the cottage in the middle of a lake of fire. | I was raised to be a believer, and taught to live as a caring, decent person. And while I had given up on a purposeful life in my teenage years, I had always suspected that maybe I would pay for my years of sin. The subtle urge to repent lingered throughout my life, but I never cared to act on it, even as I awoke in the afterlife.
As I acclimated to the heat, and the scorched, lifeless surface of hell, I had to admit that I was not surprised, nor particularly disappointed. I had grown strong and tough in my years on Earth, qualities that would suit me well as I tried to make a new life for myself here.
With that in mind, I set out to find a place for myself in this new world. Life in hell was uncomfortable, and at times quite difficult, but never unbearable. I learned quickly to avoid the greater demons, but was able to make a few friends among the lower ranks. We spent our days gambling, to take our minds off of our unpleasant surroundings. It wasn’t perfect, but it was much better than I had pictured eternal damnation.
As the years passed, I grew tired of the same dice and card games, day after day. More than that, I grew lonely. While the demons were easy enough to get along with, I quickly grew conscious of the fact that I was the only human in our outpost. When I asked if there were others like me, they told me of the cottage, a three day hike away.
I was curious, so I began my journey at the coolest part of that night. The trek was long and brutal, perhaps the most difficult experience of my years in hell, but I dragged my feet forward until I reached the boiling lake.
The cottage in the lake’s center was like nothing I had seen in my time in hell. Smooth, gray stones made up its frame, and large windows showed off the bright bouquets of flowers and plush furniture that sat inside. I walked carefully along the narrow pass to the center of the lake, and took a deep breath when I reached the front porch. Out of old habit, I wiped my dusty shoes on the small welcome mat before knocking on the door.
The creature who answered was small and hunched, with wrinkled skin and a high, sweet voice. She looked nothing like the other inhabitants of hell that I had seen, and after several seconds of staring, I confirmed that she was human. “Hello ma’am,” I said, through cracked lips and a parched throat. “I saw your cottage while I walked, and was hoping I could come in for a few moments, to shelter myself from the heat. I would be happy to repay you for your kindness once I have cooled off.”
The woman smiled warmly. “Such nice manners,” she said, opening the door wide. “Please, come in.”
The rush of cool air as I entered the cottage felt like no less than a gift from heaven. The woman shut the door quickly behind me as I entered. “Don’t want to let the A/C out,” she said with a chuckle, before looking me over once again. “Please, make yourself at home. Would you like a glass of water? Or maybe a cookie?”
“That would be wonderful.” I smiled and sat on a vibrant green couch.
The woman retreated to the kitchen, and returned seconds later, with a sweating glass of ice water and a hot tray filled with cookies. “I hope you like snickerdoodles!”
I smiled. Snickerdoodles had been my favorite cookie as a child. I accepted the glass of water, which felt immaculate in my hand, and even better as I swished its contents around my mouth. When I took my first bite of cookie, I could only close my eyes and sigh, a large smile plastered on my face. “You have no idea how happy you have made me,” I say. “Thank you so much for your hospitality.”
“You’re very welcome.” The woman takes my glass of water, and refills it. “It’s so nice to have company. I’ve been waiting for forty years to see another human down here, and I’m so pleasantly surprised that it has been such a kind young man who has come to my door. I’m surprised you’re down here at all.”
I can only laugh at her words, and shake my head. “Thank you, ma’am, but you can trust me. I definitely deserve to be here.”
For the first time, the woman’s face turns sour. “You deserve to be here? For what?”
“For…” I don’t even know how to answer that. “For a lot of things, I guess.”
“Oh.” The woman rises to her feet. “Are you sorry for what you did?”
I shrug. “I guess? Not really, though. Truth be told, it’s not all that bad down here. Especially now that I’ve found you.” I pause and look at her again, suddenly confused. “Do you deserve to be here?” I ask.
“Oh, that isn’t up to me.” The woman chuckles briefly, before the warmness leaves her face. “Satan himself calls for many pure hearts to be taken down to hell. He does it because most men care little of their own suffering. What they need, to really feel punished, is to know that they have caused someone that they love to be put through the same cruel fate.”
“Oh.” I rise to my feet, and inch toward the door. I’m not sure I like the direction that this conversation is going, and the house is starting to feel a little warm. “I should probably be going. I have a long journey back to my outpost, and need to leave during the night, while it’s still cool.”
“I understand.” The sweetness of a dozen cookies returns to the old woman’s voice, and she walks me to the door herself. “It was so nice to meet you, Charlie.”
I stop in the doorway, and wince. No one has called me ‘Charlie’ since I was a little kid. It’s not until a second later, however, that the realization hits me.
I turn, and look at the woman once again. This time, I recognize her. “No…” I take a step back, but feel my legs wobble and shake, before they fail me completely, and I fall to my knees. My vision runs blurry with tears, which I let fall on the welcome mat. I can’t stand to look at her.
“It’s good that you are finally ready to repent, Charlie,” she says, putting a warm hand on my shoulder. “I promise you, we’re both going to get through this.”
I rise to my feet, and force myself to look her in the eyes. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
___________________________________________________________________
Of all the writers on this site with their own subbreddits, I'm certainly one of them. More stories at r/mvdww
| The man desperately struggled, his arms whirling through the air as his feet pounded against the lake of fire. The lake itself was not fire in the strictest sense, but rather viscous lava. A single moment wasted would cause him to sink slowly into the lake, ending in an eternity of sinking through the molten rock. He stared forwards, gauging the distance between himself and the shore of the island.
“One hundred yards to run,” he thought, “I only have to run a hundred more yards!”
And run he did, with a desperation caused by the fear of eons of torment. If the legends held true, it would all be worth it. Once again, after what seemed like an eternity of running, he looked up from his feet and checked the shore.
“Over halfway there, just fifty yards left. I can make it,” he gasped, breathing in the sulfurous, searing atmosphere around him. His lungs, nearly destroyed, managed to absorb enough oxygen for him to sprint that last fifty yards, screaming in agony the whole way. Finally, he collapsed on the shore, his eyes fixated on the small, rustic cottage in the middle of the island. He considered resting, but as soon as his face touched the rocky ground it burst into flames, threatening to consume him if he failed to move onwards. He got up. He staggered, gasping, to the house. He raised his charred hand and knocked upon the door.
“Oh, a visitor! Come in dearie, it’s been so long since I’ve had company,” a voice called from within the cottage. The man obliged, grasping the surprisingly cool door knob and pushing inside. The single room cottage was mostly barren, save for a kettle at the far end of the room, sparse furniture around the walls, and a diminutive old lady rocking back and forth in her chair.
“So, why have you come to visit me, poppet?” the lady crooned, slowly lifting herself from the chair. She grabbed a nearby Cain and propped herself upon it, staring down the visitor. The man attempted to speak, but only wheezing came from his ravaged throat. Wordlessly, the lady reached a shrivelled hand to his throat and grasped it. With a cacophony if tearing and popping noises, his throat reconstructed itself within her grasp. Drawing back her hand, the lady spoke again.
“As I was saying, Judas, why have you come to visit me?”
“My name is not Judas, ma’am, it’s John,” the man protested.
“Oh, we are all Judas down here, lad,” the crone responded, easing herself back into the rocking chair, “is that all you came to say?”
“No, I have questions that I was told you would answer. I’m not sure you know this, but I was a very good man in life. I never murdered, I never raped, I never even stole. So when I was sent down here, it came as a bit of a surprise, you see. Now I know Lucifer has been talking about sieging Heaven when he’s Abel, but I was told that you knew some way to get out of this place.”
The crone listened acutely to the man’s words, nodding along to his speech. The visitors all seemed the same at this point. When the man finished speaking, she sat in silence for a few minutes, rocking back and forth as he waited for her response.
“Well, Judas, I do know how to get out of here. You’ll have to listen closely, though,” she enunciated. Then she ceased speaking.
“What is it!? Please, tell me!” the man gibbered, notes of desperation in his voice.
“Oblivion. That’s how you get out of here. Oblivion.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“It means the following the morning star to Heaven won’t work. There’s no way out of here lad, until Yahweh casts us all into the lake of fire. There’s no way out then either, but we won’t be around to think about it,” the crone chuckled. John stared emptily at her, waiting for a some additional detail, some way to break the now solidly set line to nothingness that was his future.
“So there’s nothing I can do? All that’s left is to wait until I’m gone forever?”
“There is something,” the crone baited, waiting as the man listened to her with bated breath. Finally, she spoke again.
“Walk into the lake and you can enter oblivion now.”
| 2017-07-04T10:48:56 | 2017-07-04T10:47:10 | 128 | 14 |
[WP] Aliens aren't surprised when most of humanity is considered a 'level 1 threat', the lowest possible. although they are shocked when they scan a singular human and find that they are a 'level 10 threat', the highest there is. | Jace stepped through the scanner carrying his duffle bag, pausing at the sound of an alarm. Odd, that hadn't gone off for any of the aliens entering the station ahead of him. Sure, he had his trusty Ka-Bar (never leave home without such a useful tool, especially if it doubled as a self defense impliment), but he was told very plainly that galactic civilization wasn't concerned with knives smaller than the claws on some species. Especially not when they were being carried by squishy, peace loving humans.
Jace turned to look at the guards, who looked as confused as he was. With a shrug they motioned for him to step aside for further processing. Jace sighed and stepped over to the indicated area. They scanned him with a handheld scanner and it pinged. The insectoid guard clacked it's mandibles. The translator in his ear relayed the message.
"Level ten. How?"
"Level ten? I thought we were a level 1 species."
"You are. The rating of a species is determined by the majority of its members. Deviations of as much as 3 levels aren't unusual. Deviations of 5 levels are rare. A deviation from 1 to 10 is unheard of." The guard eyed him. "You're not a Dogelpan posing as a human are you? Please don't be a Dogelpan."
Jace held his hands up defensively. "No, no, I'm human."
"Fine. Well as you're reading as a level ten threat... somehow... I'll need your profession, personal history, and reason for visiting this station."
"Lieutenant Jace Edwards, United Earth Coalition Army, 7th Rangers Regiment, retired. Here looking for work." He paused. "I can't discuss my personal history beyond that. Most of it is classif-"
Another alarm went off behind him and Jace turned to look. An innocent looking Antin suddenly sprouted blade tipped tentacles, grew until it towered over all the guards, and opened its mouth to reveal row upon row of teeth bigger than Jace's Ka-Bar. One of the tentacles whipped through a guard, slicing the being neatly in two.
"Fucking hell. You had to mention them, didn't you?" Jace glanced back to the guard interviewing him to see the Rogden had turned a sickly shade of yellow and was backing away in fear. "Shit. Up to me then."
Jace drew his Ka-Bar and shook his head, grumbling to himself. "This shit is why I retired." Then he roared, "Hey, ugly!"
The Dogelpan whipped its head towards him, flinging a piece of a fourth dead guard back towards the shuttle where civilians huddled in fear.
"Let me guess, the mission is scare everyone. Well mission fucking failed asshole." Jace started sprinting towards the space monster. A tentacle whipped towards him faster than the bystanders could follow, only to go flying off at an odd angle as the Dogelpan pulled back a stump. Green ichor dripped from the Ka-Bar. Jace didn't slow down.
Faster than anyone could possibly react, the wicked maw snapped towards the human, intent on removing his head. Jace whirled desperately, moving faster than the Dogelpan. The jaws closed on nothing as a Ka-bar sprouted from the back of the Doglepan's head.
For a second, everything seemed to freeze. The Dogelpan's massive bulk hit the deck, the vibrations of the impact being felt through the whole of the station. Jace retrieved his Ka-Bar, wiping it on the tunic worn by the now dead Doglepan and looked up at the guard who had been interviewing him.
"Fucking hell. How long have you worked security. NEVER mention Doglepans unless you've just killed one mate. Never. They'll show up every fucking time." He took a breath to calm himself. "Now as I was saying, I'm retired Earth special forces, and I'm here looking for work." He looked around at the bodies littering the deck. "And you seem to have four openings on your security team."
EDIT: Fixing the formatting errors caused by coping this from my text editor. | “Why the artifice around the creature’s expiration? Don’t they expire on a regular basis?”
“Sir, it’s quite common on their planet, they call it, ‘Faking your own death.’ And we…well, this specimen is rather unusual…”
The High Admiral exuded irritation. “Explain.”
The functionary—actually he was an Administrator but *this* one made him squelch like a Servitor—hesitated, collecting his thoughts.
“Sir. We’ve studied these people. We understand them quite well. The vast majority are, indeed, Level 1. However, a small portion have elevated themselves through sport activities that resemble war fighting. This effort is referred to as ‘martial arts’, as if there any sort of artwork involved.”
The Admiral exposed a rear incisor three *mel* to indicate ongoing comprehension and impatience.
The Administrator hurried to continue. “Among this smaller group, it is not unusual to see a level two or even a level three. I personally have witnessed seven level fives.
“This type, however, is a flat out Level 10. It is legendary among its people for its implacable power and destructive ability. They tell stories about it.“
The Admiral frowned. “Explain…further.“ The incisor crept out another *mel*.
“Well..among this people, it is said, *”The last thing that goes through your mind when it head-kicks you is its foot.“*
“That’s just an example. There are quite a few more…” He continued down a very long list.
Half a span later, the Admiral scurried away, shaking. This planet must be scoured by fire, warning beacons set, other worlds searched for surviving members…
Could there be another Chuck Norris out there? | 2022-08-28T07:56:59 | 2022-08-28T02:05:46 | 79 | 22 |
[WP] Everyone has magical control over a single thing. When a person finds thier domain, they are called The (blank) Witch/Wizard. You don't seem to have a domain. That is, until one faitful day at a pizza shop, where you find it. Now begins your legend. Now begins the legend of The Pinball Wizard. | The jealousy used to consume me. My friends had found their masteries a long time ago: matchsticks, bottles, even drawers. All the while, I used to sat crossed-armed, gazing at them disdainfully, blood welling on my the back of my face.
But that's long gone. I, by sheer fortune, have found my mastery: the pinball. Yes, you read that right. I will save you the details. They are not interesting. Let's simply say that one day I craved pizza, went into a pizza shop, the wait for my pizza was ridiculous, so I played a game of pinball. All of a sudden, I had won the jackpot.
Perplexed, I tried and succeeded again. It was then when I realized the tiny metal ball was moving at the command of my thoughts. Soon, rumor spread and people crowded the pizza shop only to watch my magic.
I was the Pinball Wizard.
At first I thought nothing about it. It was cool, sure, people enjoyed it. Yet, I couldn't live of playing pinball, especially because other jealous wizard banned me from their establishments, as they claimed my mastery was unfair to the competition.
But my worries were quickly buried six feet under the ground when The Pizza Witch offered me a percentage for attracting customers to her establishment. Again, the rumor spread, and other owners decided to hire me too. Crazy how wizards change when there's money involved.
In time, I was touring the entire country. As insane as it sounds, I had a massive following. People from all over travelled to watch me conquer jackpots, witness the bright lights of the machine, hear the crazy, mysterious sounds only those who beat them have the pleasure to hear.
I was living a life of fantasy. There were rumors of wizards writing books about my feats, about how I went from being a person lacking a mastery for thirty years to the biggest star in the country.
However, I craved more. I'd fun playing and being the center of attention. I won't deny that, but the truth was that, after a while, the monotony was weighing down on me. The cheers faded in the background; the lights didn't move me anymore; the smiles and congratulations didn't excite me anymore.
I was tired, worn-down. I needed a change.
It was in one of those crowded nights, when things took a turn. It was not the one I'd expected, but it was a turn.
I stood at the heart of New York playing Pinball. Crowds gazed at me holding their breaths. The silence was absolute, wide as the night. The Moon Wizard and The Cloud Wizard had synchronized their masteries so the whole shine of the moon fell upon me, unbroken. A spotlight of sorts.
However, the silence turned into a cacophony of screams, yelps and squeals; fiery lights flickered at the corner of my eyes, defying the deep darkness; the cold winds turned hot, carried strings of fire.
Buildings and houses were roaring ablaze, melting under the heat of the flames. It was no unintentional conflagration, for the fire slithered like colossal snakes, tinging the sky an infernal red, setting the clouds afire.
My extremities trembled. My face burned. All the while I stood there, doing nothing. I was crippled, caged in my spiraling, despairing thoughts.
It was then, when out of sheer luck, I spotted a man laughing like a madman, swinging his hands wildly amidst the endless inferno. The flames followed his movements. He was the arsonist.
I gazed at my pinball, at the routing crowds. The fire was consuming the oxygen, smothering the entire city. I had to do something.
There was a *crack.* The glass of my pinball had shattered and the metal ball was hovering in the air. Then, as I smiled, it hurdled toward The Fire Wizard, and sneaked, like a bullet, inside his mouth and down his throat.
The terrorist gripped his neck, his skin turning blue. The flames entwined between each other, still following the motions of his hands. He fell to the ground, gasping for air, until he ceased moving.
The wizard witnessed this and rushed to get a hold of the man as the metal ball came back to me. The pyromaniac gasped back to life, weak and handcuffed.
The following day, my deed was everywhere in the news.
I smiled. I could certainly get used to be the nation's new hero. | John did not find his domain until a ripe age of twenty-three at the faithful pizzareia. Even then, his life was virtually unchanged, because really, what use is a pinball wizard besides bragging rights on his occasional nights out or the satisfaction of overflowing the high score? That is what John and everybody believed, and so he continued his current career as a theoratical physicist. Until They arrived.
They seemed to have walked right out of an 80's alien movie. They brought no diplomacy nor commerce, only death and destruction. With all of humanity's magic, the tide was against them; years of peace have led most domains to become utility oriented rather than war. Most have lost hope until what later became known as the Reclamation Day. Following their path of conquest, They finally arrived at the doorstep of John's hometown. As he calmly awaits his end, an idea that John has been brewing subconsciously materialized in a spark of ingenuity.
What defines a pinball machine? Is it the bright lights and jovial music? Or the meandering paths guiding the ball through the machine? No, to John, all a pinball machine needs is a ball, a target, and flippers. As their fleet looms over the panicking town, John imagined the entire universe as the most grandiose pinball machine, with steel balls of photon, alpha particle, and gamma rays ricocheting off each other in an eternal game of pinball that began with the Big Bang and will end with the heat death of the universe. Steadying his hand, he took aim at the undefeated invaders, and fired. With the universe as his flippers, the fleet was obliterated within seconds, as an unstoppable force pierced through their hull like butter and crashed any dreams of conquest.
When the dust settled, They had been chased out of the solar system. No matter where they run or hide, the Ball always finds them, initially bouncing off buildings, than meteors, and finally planets. John was no longer just a pinball wizard, he is now the myth, the legend, the pinball space cadet. | 2018-11-04T06:11:56 | 2018-11-04T05:13:16 | 62 | 35 |
[WP] A new rule on Earth is made which allows everyone to legally kill 1 person in their life, this affects the world severely & changes how everybody acts. | I was 25 years old when they eventually enforced it as common law, for about 2 years before we had the protests, a few riots but low and behold the shit still passed. Took a little while for people to grab hold of the idea but once those early hitters started hitting the theory became practical pretty quick. At first the victims were abusive ex boyfriends, cheaters, drunk driving killers, suspected pedophiles plus a couple of tyrannical bosses, what you'd expect. Then the reports were coming in that teachers were killing kids, kids were killing parents, fathers killed by sons and mothers killing daughters. People stopped talking to each other overnight, shit scared to say the wrong thing to a person with a killing of right left, problem is it was so crazy in the early days nobody kept track of who killed who, only the Administration of National Honor Killing (ANHK) held those records so it was a guessing game. The first killing of right I ever saw was on the roads, I indicated right on my usual way to work one morning when 2 cars collided, the car in front braked too hard, the guy who braked too hard wasn't a day over 20 if that, the guy who smashed into him was around 50, build thick like a farmhand. Old farm hand jumps out the car instantly and before anybody had an idea of what was going on he'd dragged this poor young man from the driving seat and proceeded to smash his face into the tarmac as if he were violently deflating a football. I got myself out the car subconsciously and tried to intervene but just as I got in reach a traffic officer restrained me, He told me “Listen here sir we've already checked the license on our records through the plate, this man is well within his rights to kill this man”. I was speechless, as I was being restrained another officer came and stood next to us, all 3 of us watched this farmhand mash that young mans skull into mince meat, after he was done he wiped his hands on his t-shirt, straightened out his pants while profusely panting then got in his car and drove away. I stayed on the highway for about an hour after that, I couldn't get the noise his skull made on every beat to the tarmac, took me a few months to get my head round it but after a few more instances of watching people get murdered you kind of get used to it. Fast forward 2 years and I'm cruising to work, by this point the only people who hadn't used their killing of right were children and nice people or those saving it for the right time. The population had taken a massive drop and the economy was better than ever, for the first time in a long time I felt normal, I hadn't seen anyone brutally murdered in a while and abolishing the killing of right was gaining traction in the remains of government, and they were some bastards that near on ended themselves. At the exact same set of traffic lights I'd been at 2 years prior I was minding my own business waiting for the lights to change, in the peripheral of my eye I see the next car pull up, I gave him a look and went back to the light. As if completely taken by a earthquake my whole being shuddered, the guy in the car next to me was none other than the skull crushing farmhand, he caught my eye and I his, I nodded and he smiled and nodded back. The lights changed and the farm hand turned right. I normally go left here, but I indicated right. | Every since The Amendment, there has been an increase in kidnappings; babies in hospitals to lonely adults. People started buying slaves, the rich buying by the dozens. The Amendment states that anyone who is a registered citizen is allowed to legally kill one person registered or not.
The only country that has not accepted The Amendment was Switzerland. There was a growing concern about how all countries including the rogue North Korea quickly implemented The Amendment.
When conspiracy theories went wild online, large parts of the Internet was shutdown. Various news media also had to follow the guidelines of the state to censor their broadcasts and / or publications; which of course was not publicized. Censorship ran rampant everywhere.
Countries fell one by one into anarchy as everyone started killing each other whether be it revenge, hatred or just for fun. Switzerland stood alone, doing damage control and securing their country along their borders.
The rich grew more powerful overnight. Money talks. Soon a new group of elites grew out of the anarchy, which called themselves by a familiar name, The Illuminati. They collective gathered their resources and were now looking to go after the remaining safe haven, Switzerland... | 2017-12-03T08:18:16 | 2017-12-03T06:28:57 | 89 | 39 |
[WP] The Dark Arts are fair: for a terrible, personal price, they offer raw power. And lots of it. Self-centered villains typically renege on the contract and thus their powers fail them at a crucial moment. Now, for the first time, the heroes face someone who paid in full. The powers are all theirs | When I was younger, I could never understand the villainy of greed. The villains I read about were motivated by many reasons and philosophies. Rage, lust, pride, these were the reasons that compelled me to love the villains of the story. Standing alone among the common motivations of evil was greed. He did all this for money? She tore the world apart for treasure? I laughed at these villains in the stories I read. Surely the villain who found her strength in her anger or pride was the best villain.
Then I grew older. I know better now.
Money is power made manifest. To have power over someone else was always a testy business throughout history. Usually, the threat of violence would keep people in line. But money is better than a mere threat, it’s a promise of hope for a better tomorrow. Everything and everyone has a price. Even the most stalwart hero needs to eat lest their hunger devours their mind and morals whole.
The last one who tried to destroy me was a principled man. Pious as he was persistent, he pursued me from kingdom to kingdom, reminding me incessantly of his promise to kill me. It was cute, like a child reminding their parents of her excitement for the upcoming festival. But all good things must come to an end.
The hero’s quest had exhausted his wealth as an adventurer. Even on his last legs, his faith was strong. He truly believed that I was a monster and dangerous to the innocent he had sworn to protect so long ago. His convictions at least were admirable, but he was desperate, fueled only by faith and his remaining rations. Only one of those I could take, and only one was required.
My plan were set into motion, propelled by the Dark Arts I had purchased as a youth. I bought the cities food supplies and entrusted their safekeeping with my Friends Below. Now, the great city of Haman would share in the hero’s suffering and desperation. Their stomachs would sing in harmony on those dirty streets beneath my hotel window. Riots started. People cried out, unable to feed their children and elderly. Rumors of cannibalism started on the second day and were violently realized on the fourth day of artificial famine. I bought the desperation of these innocent souls, and I would certainly be happy to sell their relief.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and necessity, like everything, has a price.
It cost over 300 innocent souls to fall to the hero before he found me. Bleeding, ragged, about to break, I let him spend his final breaths to tell me how I would never succeed in the end. How I was doomed to fail, if not by his blade, then by another after him. I spent the brief time to ponder who would come after him as the mob ripped him limb for limb. Their suffering was immediately ended that very day. Now that they were no longer hungry, their minds could beyond their stomach to greater aspirations. Of course, I did not feed them enough to sustain all of them. It cost time and money, but eventually, I bought the death of the cities’ royalty for a few carts of food. I rebuilt Hamam into a meritocracy, where the capable and clever eat in decadence and the hungry scheme to take it all away from them. In the end, I had bought a city for a few days of food. My soul is forfeit upon my death. But I know now that the my teacher of the Dark Arts was foolish and short-sighted. For now I know the ultimate truth that binds us all together:
“Everyone and everything has a price.”
Even eternal life can be paid for. It is of great cost, more than any one man can pay. More cities will need purchasing before I am ready to pay in full for my sovereignty from Death.
I used to think greed was foolish. I know better now. | How much would someone pay for power? For some, not a lot.
For others, it was as far as the human limit would allow.
But each and every single one of them could not deliver. Sure, some paid half, some even paid 99% of the balance.
But nobody paid in full.
Until now.
Reduced to a former husk of himself, he was done. Done with the world, done with life. He’d gotten all he had out of it. There was only one reason he lived, one reason that would become his life.
He sought them out relentlessly; they could not run or hide fast enough. Each and every single one of them knew that their days were numbered.
His predecessors could not carry out their last act, their grand finale, their master plan.
But he would.
Most paid in installments. An accident to a family member here, a stroke of bad luck there, or even just a daily annoyance. But they could never follow through. They could not finish the remaining 1%, the last hurdle.
But he was different. His balance was wiped out in a single instant. No time to reconsider, no time to second guess himself. It’d happen so fast, even he couldn’t control it. It was practically prepaid.
And what was his price?
His dog, along with his Ford Mustang.
His name was John Wick, and he’d just lost everything.
____
This was a lot shorter than what I normally write, but I had fun nonetheless! | 2021-06-27T21:16:41 | 2021-06-27T18:54:42 | 102 | 55 |
[WP] Skin is actually an alien parasite that long ago enslaved the peaceful skeletons of Earth.
That's all I'm giving you to go on. Use your imagination. | "You don't have to go in there if you don't want Jones."
"I can handle it boss, trust me."
"Listen Jones, it's barely been a month since you moved up from the desk. We can make you first one something easy, a regular homicide. Not this-"
Jones walks through the front door, leaving detective Morrison standing outside holding a book recovered from the house. Morrison thumbed through the leather-bound pages, scanning each one one schizoid patterns, spiraling from one to the next. His fingers ran over the uneven creases of the book's cover, feeling out each crease.
"Hand bound," he mumbles and closes it. The color in his face is drained and his worn eyes struggle to support the bags lurking below them.
Jones stumbles out, staring through Morrison who looks down and shakes his head.
"The scars?"
"Self inflicted. Cigarettes and knives mainly, but the deep ones are old. A accident maybe."
"His whole body?"
"There's too much blood to tell, but the coroner will know more if forensics finds all the pieces."
"Why?"
"Do you actually want to know?"
"No."
Jones reaches for the book anyway. Morrison stares at the ground while Jones reads.
- - -
***August 1.***
*I finally understand it after all these years. I'm one of the lucky ones, maybe father knew when he spilled the oil. His bones certainly did. We're prisoners, trapped and consumed by our own cages-cum-coffins.*
*It's not just the skin though, but the meat. Sinew and fat which devours and consumes us. Even the brain is a construct.*
***September 27***
*It's still awake, just sedated, slowed to almost-a-crawl. The pain helps, although with each assault it grows stronger, reforming into wicked keloids, as if to lock itself shut.*
*Initial research has shown that it's the brain that's in control, although the skin and ligaments act as fetters and are just as important to destroy. Although it attempts to deceive with "nervous" responses, I know better. A kitchen knife was enough for the finger.*
***October 5***
*For the past week I've felt unerring freedom, even as it retakes control. The bones think without the stimuli of a meaty-nervous system. They instead resonate, all in harmony. It's beautiful to hear really, even with senses that are alien to my true self.*
*If this is what one finger can do, imagine the whole body.*
***October 6***
*It's fighting back. I've had to forfeit the finger, as the parasite's blackness had taken it to fester and rot.*
*I can hardly imagine how long they've taken hold, although the means of oppression are apparent. Burials and cremations. Meant to keep the freed host from thriving.*
*I must be quick.*
***October 7***
*I've made the first cut.*
*The rest will be easy.*
- - -
"What do we do?" Jones asks, shutting the book.
"Burn it, Jones. Burn it all." | Imagine two skelebros just reclining in chairs, and then they see the first line of skin parasites fall from the sky.
Left one shouts, "oh shit!" And jumps to his feet.
The right one said, "we gotta scare 'em off. You know how we need to do that."
"Aw yeh."
Then they both break into a spooky scary skeleton dance, with bone switching and other spoopy stuff, but the parasites are unfazed.
"Why isn't our spooky dance working bro?!"
"They must be soulless monsters--aAAAAAAAGGH!"
"BROOO!"
He sheds a tear as the skin strangles the bones, and he says, "SKELEBROS FOREVER!" | 2014-11-18T20:20:06 | 2014-11-18T20:05:34 | 18 | 10 |
[WP] An advanced alien race has done extensive research and deems us an easy target. As soon as they invade, all earth governments simultaneously reveal all their secret weapons. | "Sir, it's a shitstorm! We've lost the Sentia, aldjynm, and &#€×€!£€!"
"What do you mean lost?!?!"
"Sir, our information was incorrect! They're insane and far more advanced than what's on the surface!"
"Control yourself soldier! Now tell me what's happening."
"Sir, the continents separated from the others have lexion radiation cannons. They've appeared in their deserts from underground."
"Sweet smixmarth! What of the landing teams?"
"Sir! The teams landed near a large crude wall extending some 10000 gams. Upon approach of the city the wall collapsed. Inside were with communications devices. After broadcast the local population began to charge the teams. They ignored all fire and tore the team to pieces. They're eating them as we speak!"
"What else can go wrong? What of the battlecruisers over the poles and the colder lands?"
"Sir! The cruisers on the pole with the lands and locals began using exoskeletons and flying to the ships. They are proceeding to slaughter all crewmembers. They are chanting something the computer translated as least kills buys the vodka."
"What about the targeting systems and the defenses?!? How did they even get on board?!"
"That's just it sir, the computer and the defenses don't see them."
"What of the other pole? What happened to the cruiser there? Scans showed no life we should be able to place a base and turn this around."
"Sir, it's dark."
"What the poewstha do you mean it's dark?!?"
"Sir we can't see or scan anything in the region. The entire continent is wrapped in darkness!"
"....."
"Sir?"
"Sound the retreat..."
"Sir?"
"Sound the retreat! All forces still alive are to meet at the next planet in this system! Put out an emergency call to the galactic committee! We relinquish our mining and slave rights to this planet and request the planet be designated $#&÷€ danger zone!"
Three hours later.
"Sir I understand the retreat with our losses and being under equipped, but couldn't we reorganize and come back and take this planet easily?"
"Soldier, how's your history?"
"Sir. My marks were acceptable."
"They don't teach this in the learning centers anymore, but the knowledge is there for any who want to read it. 50,000 galactic lers ago there was a war. It wasn't large but it was brutal. The enemy used shrouds like that. No one could touch them. Whole planets became a weapon. Then those planets disappeared in one moment."
"Sir. I thought that story was a myth."
"Negative soldier. The beings left behind a message that simply stated they had left behind descendants and to leave them in peace or they would return to annihilate the entire galaxy."
"Sir, who were they?"
"They called themselves the Atlanteans." | The US: We are bringing back the Nuclear Railgun! We can launch these damn Manhole Covers so fast, they could vaporize half the ship!
China: Alright, so while you were all bickering about North Korea, we built a secret Laser Station in orbit, the thing can vaporize the alien invaders!
Canada: We sent them a Welcome Gift Basket with some Maple Syrup
USA: You realize they are invading us right?
Canada: *It has a 500 Megaton Hydrogen Bomb In it*
All other major countries: (._.)
Edit: Sorry for weird format, Mobile is a pain in my ass | 2018-01-12T12:59:38 | 2018-01-12T10:40:07 | 102 | 76 |
[WP] You are a barista in a 24 hour coffee shop. Every night at 3:33am a demon appears for the Dark Lord's latte. | 3:30am. Time always seems to slow down as I wait for the demon to show up. The first couple of times he came looking for a latte was absolutely terrifying. I can always smell him before he actually opens the door, the stench of sulphur and blood. It puts you on edge. It’s like your subconscious knows that smell and what it means. But nothing prepares you for when a 7 foot 8 inch demon walks through the door. He has to duck or snag his horns on the door jam. Even though it is the dead of winter, shows up wearing nothing but a chain mail loin cloth. His rippling muscles covered in deep red skin and nasty looking scars. He is a sight to behold.
3:31am. It is tempting to start making the latte early, just so he leaves early. I learnt the hard way that he wants it made so he can see you make it and so it is as hot as can be. I tried to make it early…. Once…. He yelled and banged his fist on the counter. Yelled is an understatement but I don’t know what else you would call it. The glass coffee pots exploded and it drove me to my knees. I tried to plug my ears as they bled. The front counter collapsed under the impact of his blow.
It was weird. He apologized and didn’t come back for almost a month. I had convinced myself it was a bad dream…. And then he started coming back again.
3:32am. I turned half of the over head lights off. It is so bright that it makes him squint and he is visibly pained. It is all about making the customer happy after all. The first time I turned off some lights for him, he was visibly relieved. He even got chatty, which was oddly terrifying. He has a voice like scraping rocks that is deep enough that your guts vibrate as he talks.
3:33am. I can smell the sulphur and blood in the air. The bell on the door dingles, letting me know we have a customer. I look to see him coming in from the driving snow. He is literally steaming as the snow melts off of him.
He ducks just enough for his curly horns to miss the door frame and walks in. A slight jingle from his chain mail loin cloth as he walks to the front counter.
“Hey Clair, how’s your night going?”, he says. Making small talk with a demon. So weird.
“Oh, same old, same old, Steve. I thought you might be late, given the blizzard out there.”, he wouldn’t give me his name when I had asked. Something about a true name freely given having power or something. I don’t know. So I started calling him Steve. He seems ok with it.
He chuckled, a terrifying sound. Like squishing kittens between rocks. “I made a snow demon in the parking lot. I have never laid down in the snow before. It was quite nice.”
I chuckled at that. “What can I get you Steve?”, I asked. Trying to keep it friendly but professional.
“Oh the usually. A double latte with a hint of Tabasco.”, he said with a smile as he leaned on the counter. There was a bit of flesh hanging from a fang and a bit of blood on his chin. Probably the demon equivalent to a bit of spinach in your teeth.
The “hint of Tabasco” threw me the first couple of times. No matter how much I added, he would always ask for a hint more on his next visit. Now I brew the coffee using Tabasco instead of water. It makes my eyes water but Steve seems to like it.
I do my best to make a nice hell themed picture in the cream. Today it is a horned skull. A useful skill around halloween time too.
“There you go, Steve.”, I said as I slide the cup over to him.
“The skull is a nice touch”, he says and gives me a wink. He takes a sip. He rolls his eyes and lets out a sigh. “That is, dare I say it, divine.” I smile as he takes another sip. “Thank you Clair.” He put a gold nugget on the counter, about the size of a robin’s egg. “See you tomorrow.” He says as he flashes me a smile and walks out humming some nameless tune that his pointy tail is keeping the beat to. | I poured the cream in the Dark Lord’s latte. I was told to make it dark as a corpse’s soul, and sweet as the honey of a million deceased honeybees. Whatever the hell that meant.
The demon lackey grunted when I handed him the latte, and tossed a penny in the tip jar.
“Thanks,” I said with the most insincere politeness I could muster.
“Is that sarcasm I detect?” Said the demon.
“There’s a line forming, so if you don’t mind…”
The demon was having none of it. He slammed the latte on the floor, growling deeply.
I glanced at the fallen cup of splattered latte. “You’re going to have to tidy that up.”
“You’re dead, barista boy…”
I laughed inwardly. Little did he know my covert secret. But I didn’t want to lose my job by revealing my side hustle.
The demon jumped up on the counter, and kicked his black clawed foot at my face.
“Ok then, I guess this is happening,” I said. I grabbed his support leg, and tripped him to the floor.
He hit the tiled ground with a loud thud, cracking his skull. I reached into my boot, where my demon-slaying dagger was concealed.
I held the knife to his black throat, told him to freeze. He didn’t listen. He grabbed my face with his claws, puncturing my cheek. Big mistake, freakshow….
I slammed the dagger into his hand, and he screeched. “Where did you get that weapon? You’re a damned rat!”
“No,” I said, lunging the dagger at his dark heart, shoving it to the hilt. “I’m a damned demon hunter.”
I wiped the green goo off the dagger on his raggy clothing, and stepped over his corpse. The Dark Lord would not be receiving his beverage today. And he would never receive it from me ever again…
I threw my apron to the floor and strode out the front door, into the cold morning air…
Because now and forever…
*I quit*. | 2022-10-30T08:38:35 | 2022-10-30T08:28:01 | 2,033 | 73 |
[WP] On everyone's 25th birthday, they gain the ability to shapeshift into an animal. The animal is always random for every person. People once laughed at the animal you got, but 10 years later are now envious of what you can do. | Try getting a date when you're a cockroach.
Girls want to date tigers. They want to date eagles. Maybe they might settle for hippoes or giraffes but there's no way any girl wants to be with a cockroach.
When I turned 25, my parents and my friends were shocked, but did their best to pretend it wasn't a big deal. I just ran around in circles on the ground, completely confused. After I transformed back and realised what happened, I kind of spiraled.
I'm 35 now. Maybe being a cockroach isn't too bad. People slowly take on the qualities of the animals they transform into and I found myself becoming very hardy. Injuries didn't stop me from moving, and I was always hyper aware of my surroundings thanks to my keen sense that picked up vibrations around me.
So it made sense for me to pick up boxing. I was pretty unbeatable in the ring, and I loved being able to get into the zone when it was just me and the punching bag, or a sparring mate.
Mates... Well now I only wish it was easy to find one.
I think I broke the Spot and Stripe dating app. When you download the app you get to say what classification of animal you are, and what kind of animals you are looking for. The app then shows you anyone who is interested in your animal group.
For the first week I had absolutely no profiles shown to me. I thought it was a glitch.
But then I matched with a chick, (she was an actual chick, and she swiped on me by mistake). I also encountered a praying mantis, a lot of ants (though they seem to be only into one other), and several beetles.
Even the beetles don't want me. The female beetles tended to be beautiful in their own jeweled way. They would bleach their shells, add shimmer to their wings, and clip the hairs on their legs.
But there's no way you can dress up a cockroach, is there? I could be fit and look handsome as a human, but it doesn't matter if my animal is disgusting.
Still, that doesn't stop me from trying to meet people. I go to bars, concerts and the like with my friends. I get to meet a lot of girls, but the conversations usually go like:
"Wait you're a cockroach?" and then they laugh a bit.
"...Yeah."
The responses after that vary from pity, to disgust, to fake sympathy.
But one day, things changed.
I was at the Blue Beasts live show with my friends and feeling a little bummed by the hot gazelle who basically fled from our conversation, but eh, what's new. I was drinking some beer when I noticed a cockroach on the wall. It wasn't moving. It almost seemed like it was surveying the scene.
I moved to a less crowded space and transformed. Running up the wall, I found the cockroach. I could tell she was female and around my age.
We can't talk, but we can sense each other's vibes in a way that's almost better than speaking. I could sense that she was weary.
Our encounter went like this.
"Well, shit. You're a roach too," she said.
"Yeah. You're the first roach-former I'm meeting."
"Same. Who are you?"
We can't share names or technical terms like 'boxing' when we communicate like this, so I said: "I'm a fighter. I fight for money."
"Woah. That's cool." She suddenly scampered behind the wall, away from me.
Seriously?
I followed her only because I could sense that her awe from earlier was genuine.
I found her near the door to what I assumed was the back alley. There weren't other people around. And this was the restricted area.
She morphed. From a a little brown cockroach into a tall woman with silvery blue hair. She looked like a rockstar. Oh. I morphed back into a human. I was just a little taller than her.
Just like me, she looked nothing like her animal. She had warm, tan skin as an Asian, beautiful, almost black eyes. She flicked her hair and gave a wry grin.
"I'm Slyvie. I play the guitar for money," she said playfully.
"Ralph," I said, dumbstruck.
"I've got to head back on stage now. But if you're still around after the show, I'll catch you here?"
"Yeah," I said, half smiling, half gaping.
She winked and scampered away.
Alone in the back room, I laughed to myself. They used to laugh at me... But maybe this once, I'll be the one who gets to laugh. | Was I upset about getting the snake? Not really. Something vegetarian might've been a bit more palatable to be sure, but it's not so bad. People had their opinions of course; I'd say it's human nature but that's kind of a contradiction now isn't it? It's interesting, how a creature so feared in the world could also be so scorned. *"You don't even have limbs!" "What good are you like that?" "You're just a symbol of evil!"*
Honestly, I really don't even do much. Some sunning, some climbing, a rat every now and then...almost like clockwork. The shedding itches something fierce, but new skin is a pretty glorious feeling. The constant tongue flicking was cumbersome at first, but being able to smell with my mouth is actually a pretty cool experience. Not blinking is still rather odd, and I could do without the poor vision, but I'm not a whiner.
So fickle though, how opinions like that can change over a decade. People find out your new lifespan and get a little envious. Those poor suckers who get the power (and new lifespan) of flies...well...sucks to be them I guess. And while the scorn remains, so does the fear, and hidden sense of respect. No limbs, yet still an effective killer. I hugged a lot as a kid, did that factor in? I'll never know I guess. Above all else though, there's the fame.
We're "exotic" you see; sensual, slow, deadly, and alluring. Charmers think we dance; playing along reaps better rewards. TV shows, music videos; my good friend Kendra was actually in a movie a few years back. CGI version of her was dreadful though. I've got my fair share of appearances too, and they all want to know what it's like. The albino nerd who made it big in show biz! I tell them of course; it's nice to know I'm raking in the bucks while Cooper slobbers over some suburban drunk housewife in Cincinnati.
Anyway, I gotta go. Curtain's in five and I'm due on the shoulders of the newest blonde pop sensation. You know how it is! Oh wait...you don't. Enjoy your mediocrity filled life as some one horse town pet or something! Ssssssssssayonara! | 2021-05-02T22:24:18 | 2021-05-02T20:19:46 | 33 | 22 |
[WP] Aliens arrive at our planet, but strangely their technology is decades behind ours. Apparently the key to hyperspace travel is an easy one that humanity simply missed and kept creating new sciences instead. Now, the secret to traveling the galaxy is sitting in orbit, protected by muskets. | The airship's bridge was buzzing with activity. Science officers were carrying in handwritten reports from the observation deck for their assistants transcribe via typewriter, the head engineer was briefing the first mate on the state of the genusinc engine, and all of the crew members cwere discussing the magnificence of what they had accomplished.
"What has been discovered about the indigenous life? " Captain Ulam asked second mate Rena.
"The world is mostly covered by water. The oceans do contain life, but we can't tell how much. The land is mostly covered in immobile plants. The most noticeable mobile organisms which have been spotted appear to be mammalian; one particular species appears to be vastly more advanced than its co-inhabitants."
"How advanced, exactly?"
"More advanced than us, sir."
"Is that possible? Wouldn't we have met them before?"
"The scientists are speculating that they've been waiting for us to make contact with them. They have more electric lights than we thought possible to manufacture with all the resources of our world, they've built structures which nearly touch the clouds, and aircraft that travel at a hundred times the speed of our airship."
As Ulam was thinking this over, first mate Muav approached the two of them. "We will be ready to open a home-bound portal in eleven Moikrol turns, which corresponds to about 8 turns of this world."
Ulam would've been fine with this. After all, the data the scientists were collecting would revolutionize the study of biology back home and story of the voyage would act as a great inspiration for generations to come. However, the presence of a highly advanced civilization bothered him. Had they ignored Moikrol so as to let it develop on its own? Or was his world so insignificant to this race that they had simply never bothered to investigate it?
His pondering was cut short by a loud buzzing noise from outside the ship. He stood up abruptly and walked briskly over to the viewing window to see nine strange aircraft hovering a good distance away from his ship.
"Tell me what you see," ordered Colonel Bradworth.
"Not much," replied the captain, "Just an ordinary blimp. Well, maybe not so ordinary: it doesn't have the Goodyear logo, it's just brown and old-timey-lookin."
"How in the hell did it just *show up* above the East coast of Florida last night?" thought the colonel, "The military had used several frequencies to try to make contact with it, but to no avail. Whoever was piloting it didn't appear to mean any harm, they hadn't dropped any bombs or anything. But *who* were they? And *how* did they get there?"
"We need to signal them to land," he dictated to the rest of the channel, "shouldn't be too hard for them to find a suitable spot, plenty of wide, flat spots in the southeastern US."
"How do we signal to them to land if they aren't responding to radio?" Someone on one of the helicopters asked.
Bradworth groaned to himself. It was a perfectly reasonable question, and he had no idea how to answer it. Not yet, at least.
An anxious air now filled the bridge. It had been half a day, in terms of this world's rotation, since the strange aircrafts had approached them.
The one thing that almost everyone in the chain of command had agreed on was that the ship's speed should be minimized, so as to not agitate the unknown beings that were observing them.
"They're backing off!" exclaimed an assistant whose eyes had been glued to the viewing window for almost the entirety of the ordeal.
Rena assumed it was just wishful thinking, but glanced out the window anyway. It was true! "Captain!" she shouted.
Ulam abandoned his conversation with the head of the science team and ran over to where Rena was standing. He felt relief flow through him. "But what's next?" He thought out loud.
He didn't have to wait long to get an answer. Soon there was another type of aircraft in front of the ship, it had wings and appeared to be propelled by a pair of spinning blades. It dragged behind it an enormous blue rectangle of fabric with a single red shape printed upon it. The shape looked like a short, wide spear with the tip pointed towards the ground. The message was clear to everyone on the bridge: land the ship.
Bradworth was absolutely exhausted. His day had been spent managing the squad of helicopters that had been surrounding the blimp, convincing pentagon officials that things were under control and that the stupid balloon didn't pose a threat, and giving a few sparse comments to overly inquisitive journalists.
Now he stood before the massive ship, in a miraculously larger field. It was a good scene for concluding a stressful day. The sun was beginning to set behind the trees at the edge of the field. Hot pink clouds striped the magenta sky, and a cool breeze blew across his face and caused a satisfying ripple in the dandelions that covered the field.
He and his subordinates approached what appeared to be the door to the giant cabin. As the door opened, Bradworth was partially distracted by enjoying the fresh air and watching one of the clouds being blown to the side to reveal a beautiful crescent moon. He lowered his eyes to give a stern look to whoever emerged from behind the door.
He was confused for half a second because, although he was looking straight ahead, he saw a waist. Then this confusion turned into disbelief as he looked up. What he saw was a stumbling, twelve-foot giant with blue and green scales. Small spines which jutted out from the front of its forehead continued onto the tail which protruded from the back of its head and waved back and forth as its four eyes looked around frantically in four different directions.
As he heard one of the officers behind him faint, Bradworth realized that the stress of his day had just begun.
EDIT: [Here](http://ebencowley.com/resources/docs/stories/voyagers.html) is the extension of this story that I've written. | First contact was a lot less flattering than we expected.
The craft didn’t appear in Roswell or Siberia or wherever you might reasonably expect, but instead in the main street of Middlebury, Pennsylvania, to a crowd of about a hundred people. It came down quietly, humming and making an odd popping noise, and plopped down on the pavement before going silent.
This was the situation for a few hours, during which the single police officer trying futilely to establish a barricade was replaced by a large group of military personnel and several dozen reporters, brandishing weaponry and microphones, respectively. A number of helicopters waited nearby. The civilian crowd grew as well, numbering nearly 10,000 before the craft finally showed another sign of life.
The din of the crowd quieted as a panel opened in the side of the craft. It made a horrible grating noise, second only to the awful voice of the creature which emerged.
The thing had a sort of human shape to it. It wore something that could be assumed to be a spacesuit, and stood for a second on the street before addressing the crowd with a high pitched and scratchy voice speaking something no one could interpret before ducking back into the craft. The military men steadied their guns and a representative stepped forward.
An uproar came from the crowd.
The alien stepped back out with a long rod over its shoulder, planting it in the grass next to the road, and unrolled what must have been a flag. It attached the flag to the pole, stood straight, and announced something again before making to leave.
The representative cried out, getting its attention, and it stood there looking at him impatiently.
“Look here,” the representative said, “you can’t just go around planting your flag wherever you like! Who— what are you? What do you want from us?”
The thing stepped toward him, and the military men raised their guns and tried to look threatening. The alien seemed to snort, and motioned at the craft. Two more things stepped out of the door, wielding flintlocks that they pointed right back. The first thing fiddled with something on its suit, and then spoke again.
“We are a representation of the Naki. We are claiming this land for the Naki. You are free to stay and go about your business. Thank you, and good day.” The thing nodded, apparently pleased with itself, and made to enter the craft again.
“But wait! Who are the Naki? You can’t claim this land! This is ours!”
The thing looked irritated. “The Naki are our race. And why shouldn’t we?”
“Why— you just can’t!”
“Look, we’re not interfering with you at all. Claiming this puts you on our radar as a potential trading hub, nothing more.”
The man swallowed. “What have we got to trade with you? You’re a spacefarer, surely you’re far past us?”
“Oh, no. You’re far more advanced in your technology. Take this, for example.” The thing pointed at a nearby car.
The representative spluttered. “You mean to say that we can make a craft like yours easier than an automobile?”
“Oh yes. It’s very simple.”
The representative seemed at a loss for words, and the thing nodded again, evidently concluding that the talk was over. It climbed back into the craft, and the audience began to yell once more.
“But how?”
The alien looked back one last time. “We will be in contact.” Then it shut the door, and the craft shuddered to life. It quickly rose up and out of sight, leaving a proud flag and a very bewildered crowd. | 2018-10-11T19:48:58 | 2018-10-11T19:11:47 | 154 | 71 |
[WP] While at a football game, you notice the man sitting in front of you is livestreaming the game to his cell phone rather than actually watching the game in front of him. You see on the screen a player running the football in for a touchdown, 32 seconds later you watch it happen in real life. | Am I allowed to post a story on my own writing prompt? Oh well...I'm going to anyways. Hope you guys like it...its been awhile since I've done any writing!
I tried not to stare but I wanted to so badly . I must have been confused. He was just watching a different game from a different time and it was just a coincidence. I went back to watching the game, summoning all of my willpower to not look at the man’s phone. My willpower is weak apparently because within 5 seconds I was staring at his phone again. I was sure I wasn’t imagining things now, this was definitely the same game. The man abruptly stood up and began working his way towards the stadium stairs. I looked around to see if anyone else had been watching this man like I had, but everyone’s focus was on the game. He was at the stairs now. I tried to get a good look at his face but it was mostly obscured by the hood of his jacket. I needed to know more about this man and his magical cell phone, so I decided to follow him. I stood up quickly and began shuffling down the aisle, bumping into people, spilling drinks and apologizing profusely. I made it to the stairs and looked back at the row of disgusted, angry people that I had left behind and made one final apology before dashing up stairs after the man. When I finally spotted his bright blue jacket again, he was nearly at the exit. I hung back as far away as I possibly could without losing sight of him again. It had been a long time since I had followed someone like this and I realized how much I had missed the thrill of it. There weren't many people in the hallways right now, everyone was watching the game so I didn’t have a crowd to blend in with which made things a little more challenging. The man abruptly turned around a corner and I lost sight of him. I picked up my pace a little, still trying to be inconspicuous. When I rounded the corner, all I found was an empty hallway that lead into a parking lot. I sprinted to the end of the hallway and into the middle of a parking lot just as empty as the hallway had been. I let out a disappointed sigh. My curiosity would have to be left unfulfilled I suppose.
That’s when I heard a familiar sound, a sound I’d hoped to never hear again.
Gunshots.
Then screaming.
My stomach twisted itself into a knot. The sound was coming from the direction of the football field. I turned to run back, to find some way to help. Before I could even start to run , a red Subaru came to a screeching halt in front of me and the passenger door swung open.
“Get in Tim.” I looked around the parking lot for another Tim to come running up and get in the car.
Apparently I was the only Tim in the parking lot. In fact, besides the Subaru, I was the only person in the parking lot. The gunshots and screaming continued. I looked to the stadium. They needed help.
“Look at me Tim!” I looked back to the Subaru. A pretty brunette pushed back the bright blue hood of her jacket to reveal her face. My mystery man was a mystery woman.
“You can't save them. If you try, you will die and you are not supposed to die. Not yet.”
| Holy fuck, it happened. It just happened.i couldn’t believe my eyes. The next thing I knew, the screen showed a loud explosion during half time . 💥 I immediately got up from my seat and began running. Pushing, shoving everyone out of the way. No time to think, no time to explain, no one would believe me, I had less than a minute.
After 29 seconds I made it outside before getting hit by a car as I was running out of the stadium. And that’s how I died and ended up in hell. How bout you?
Oh me ?... well I was operating this new confetti explosive during half time. At the same game you were at. I must’ve used too much power. The explosion sent out a blinding light and I ended up dying in the hospital from a brain injury after my head hit some equipment. Luckily I was the only one seriously injured. | 2019-01-09T23:38:19 | 2019-01-09T23:22:09 | 33 | 16 |
[WP] You are the villain in a typical superhero story. Knowing that the superhero must win in the end, you try and stall killing your victim as much as possible for the hero to swoop in at the last minute. However, the hero seems to be taking a while. | We all have problems. Every one of us. Right now, my problem is that Power Man hasn't shown up for work. Normally I kidnap someone or steal a serum or some good scientist's prototype. Then Power Man comes and kicks in my door, calls me a menace to society, and breaks some of my stuff before flying back off into the sunset.
"Any sign of him yet?" My hostage asked from above. I looked up and shrugged my shoulders. Power Boy was obviously getting bored. He'd been tied to an over-sized garlic press for about half an hour now, and his legs were probably falling asleep.
"Nothing," I told him. I turned to my taciturn partner in crime, Doctor Jetpackforaface. "Go untie him, and give him some bombs to disarm or something else to do while he waits." With that the jetpack on his face roared to life and he lifted off to go untie Power Boy, while I checked the radar again.
Doctor Jetpackforaface let the boy down, and gave him some bombs to keep him busy. He sat at a console nearby, quietly untangling wires and shorting the electronics of spare bombs we had laying around while we all waited for his boss to show up and save him. It was the super-villain equivalent of giving a kid a coloring book. For a while we all sat around the lair, with the radar beeping, getting our hopes up every time a bird or a plane flew overhead. We quickly ran out of bombs for Power Boy to disarm, and he eventually began to fidget. Power Boy kept looking at Doctor Jetpackforaface, trying not to stare.
"Okay," he said slowly "I've always wanted to ask: how did he get a jetpack for a face?"
I sighed. "You know how getting struck by lightning gives people superpowers based on whatever's near them? Taxidermists and hunters tend to get animal powers, chemists get powers based on the chemicals near them, etc etc?"
"Yes."
"Well, he was working on a jetpack when he got struck in the face with lightning. Fused the jetpack to the bones in his face and gave him flight powers. It's a bit of a technicality, but when you can fly your facial deformity to work everyday like he does, that's a legitimate super power."
"How can he see?"
"He was wearing really good safety goggles."
"How does he eat?"
"He puts jet fuel in its gas tank. In eleven years I've never seen him 'eat' anything else." I was worried the line of questioning would continue, but that seemed to satisfy the lad. We continued waiting and the lair became silent again, save for the sound of various machines. As bad as the boredom was for me I was sure the teenager was having a harder time with it.
"Okay," I said. "This is getting way too boring. What is going on with your boss?"
Power Boy fidgeted. "He...."
"He what?"
"He has to recharge his powers for a full day once every two weeks. I thought it'd be tomorrow but he must be doing that today."
"*What?*" I asked, incredulously. "As his arch-villain doesn't he think that's something I need to know about?" I gestured at a calendar on the wall with certain dates and times marked off. Above it was scrawled 'Power Man's Schedule'. "We go through all the trouble of accommodating his secret identity's day job, doctor appointments, and religious holidays, and he doesn't even have the courtesy to tell us there's two days of the month he can't fight? Does he have no respect for the amount of work us bad guys have to put into this arch-rivalry business? How am I supposed to give him the best arching experience without this kind of important information?" I fumed.
"Look, he's really sorry, he just-"
"Just what? Doesn't want me to take a day off? Because I could have spent today straightening up around the lab or terrorizing the village people." I felt my temper getting the better of me, turned around, and took a moment to cool off. "Look, this isn't your fault." I told the kid. "Why don't you go. The door's open. Break something on the way out and chalk this up as a self-rescue. Tell your old man though that if we're going to make this work, I need him to take this relationship more seriously. I mean what if I ever sent a robot to step on him on his day off? Someone could get seriously hurt all because he's being overly secretive."
| I stood glowering over the top of the princess, her confidence in her own escape withering away as she struggled and failed against the ropes binding her.
"You thought you could stop me? I, Evil McBadGuy? You have no power in this world, Wonder Woman. I alone hold power here!"
She slumped, defeated, against her bonds and looked desperately to her valiant steed beside her for salvation. Her hopes were dashed. The magical talking horse had fared no better against his haltering than she, though he seemed in a much more confident frame of mind.
"You'll never succeed, Evil McBadGuy!" the horse neighed in defiance. "Our princess will never be defeated by a mere villain. It is only with love that can she be tamed!"
"Yeah!" Wonder Woman shouted, beginning her struggle again. "I'm always going win against you, because bad guys are stupid!"
I could see her twisting her hands behind her back and waited patiently for the trick knot to untie itself. It took surprisingly less time than I'd expected, but as she launched herself toward me for the standard battle I saw her falter. Why?
I stood like a lump, waiting for the amazon to make her move and she just stood there, looking, blinking, from my face to the door of the incineration chamber and back again. I stalked towards my nemesis, slowly, menacingly. Perhaps we needed more drama this time?
Without warning the amazon collapsed into a pile of tears. I surged forward and held her tightly as her body heaved and shuddered.
"What's wrong, honey?" I pleaded. Her answer was staccato in between sobs.
"It's *hic* not *hic* fair *hic*. I *hic* forgot *hic* my lasso *hic*. I *hic* wrecked it."
Her sobs turned to gasps now, but I could only laugh with the flush of relief. The stuffy horse seemed to laugh along with us.
"I think I saw it in the kitchen earlier. Don't worry about it honey, we don't have to take your brother to soccer for another hour yet. We've got the time." | 2016-01-02T13:30:43 | 2016-01-02T12:50:16 | 14 | 10 |
[WP] It's the future and you just purchased a brand new device that lets you know how much someone has left to live. Right as you try it out while going through the city, you realise that everyone's remaining lifespan is the same. | Dorian looked at his watch. Men in suits brushed past him on their way home from work. Cars honked, and people rolled down their windows to shout at their peers.
“Stop blocking the sidewalk, Punk,” someone said and elbowed him in the ribs.
The device finally whirred to life, and Dorian turned it against his attacker. The screen showed two minutes. A smiled crept up on his face while he rubbed his side. But that’s when he noticed that everyone else also had the same amount of time left to live.
He cursed and started running. Sliding between cars and pushing his way through crowds of unsuspecting pedestrians. All his mind could think of was the incoming terrorist attack. Was it a bomb this time? Perhaps an airplane again?
An entire block away and the timers for everyone around him still kept ticking down.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he mumbled as the sweat poured down his face.
Three blocks away and thirty seconds left. It was a nuke, wasn’t it? *Oh god, World War III has started*, he thought as he dove down the steps into the subway.
****
“Hey!” James Connelly said. “Your watch, Dorian. Get that sand out of your eyes!”
Dorian rolled over to the side and put his water bottle to his lips. It was empty. He sighed and sat up. The concrete walls of the underground tunnels were blurry. He stumbled to his feet, despite the pain in his leg, and put his hand on the grip of the rifle. The pain medication was wearing off.
They needed to make a supply run soon… well, actually a week ago. Water was almost out, and nobody had eaten anything for two days. Someone had even managed to stomach the sour pears that nobody had touched for four years. It had been a running joke in the colony that at least they’d always have the pears to fall back on if times got tough.
Dorian had tried to convince Connelly that they had to go, but the man was adamant. No supply runs until the Morgs eased up their presence outside. Running into massed shredder fire meant certain death... but so did starvation.
Six years had passed since the sky opened and the sleek undersides of the Mawmorg ships appeared over the city. The initial shock barrage had leveled the skyscrapers and killed millions instantly. Then the walkers had been lowered into the destruction – three-legged monstrosities made out of some black metal – and started cleansing the streets with liquid fire and massive shredder cannons. Dorian shuddered at the memory as he made his way down East 2nd Long.
The gravel of the tunnel crunched under his boots. The Mawmorg didn’t often venture underground, for some reason. Perhaps they were afraid of the dark, Dorian thought and chuckled despite himself.
As he passed Outpost R8, his stomach started churning again. He was close to the surface now. It would only take him five minutes to sneak up and take a look. Driven by the hunger, he diverted from his patrol route.
The purple thunderclouds and the smell of burning ozone met him as he reached the surface. He’d never get used to that. If only he could get a glimpse of the blue sky.
The street was empty, but he could hear the metallic whoosh of a walker’s hydraulic legs around the block. Maybe he could… if he was fast enough…
He took a deep breath and started sprinting. He only got a couple of steps before he was tackled sideways into a pile of mortar.
“What the hell are you doing?!” A woman with red bangs and viridian eyes appeared next to him. “Can’t you see the place is crawling with sensor drones?”
“Uh, oww,” Dorian complained. “They won’t hit me…”
“Of course they would, Dumbo,” she hissed.
Dorian rubbed away the last of the dried eye-goo. The woman had freckles. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen someone with freckles.
“Who are you?” Dorian mumbled.
“Marissa,” she said. “You solo or with a group?”
“Uhm, I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“I just saved your life – the least you can do is let me help you.”
“We don’t need your help.”
“God, that stubbornness will kill you before the Morgs do.”
Dorian sighed and threw up his hands. “We have a colony of about fifty people.”
“Fifty? Really?” She gave him a lopsided grin. “What’s your name?”
“Dorian.”
“Take me to your leader, Dorian.”
*****
r/Lilwa_Dexel for more! | There was no doubt- it felt good. No, *great*. The hottest tech product since the first iPhone, and he was the first person on the entire planet to own one. There was no thought of the week's worth of vacation days he taken from work to stand in line, or the fact that the glasses cost roughly that week's wage. He felt only adrenaline as he stood on the sidewalk, tearing apart the packaging in front of the thousands in line behind him, the menagerie of reporters, and the more intimidating half of the NYPD. The various competing religious groups turned off their megaphones , and now their attention too was directed at him. Every eye on Fifth Avenue was on him. He shook the glasses free of their box, and hit the power button, praying he wouldn't have to charge anything. They powered on.
He put them on carefully, and looked around. First he looked at the reporters. 3 years. 3 years. 3 years. 3 years. *3 years*. Then the cops. 3 years. 3 years. 3 years. Everywhere he looked, every person: 3 years.The largest tech launch of all time. On New York's Fifth Avenue. There had to be nearly ten thousand people in his field of vision. And above all their heads read *3 years*. He couldn't say a word. The reporters were screaming at him, asking the quickest questions they could think of, looking for anything unique to write about on the world's most unique product. He didn't hear a thing. He ran into the store, where the CEO stood shaking every customer's hand as they shelled out the money for the glasses. Above the celebrity's head hung the virtual words: *3 years*. The user dodged the security right to the CEO, and began explaining that something had to be wrong. There must be some sort of bug, he said. How can everyone only have 3 years left, he said. The CEO assured him that they had done extensive testing, and that there were no bugs. Try mine on, the customer said. And he did. "You don't read 3 years," the CEO noted, eyeing the customer through his years of hard work. Then he looked around. At his loyal employees, and his loyal customers.
"Oh..." | 2017-06-20T15:24:59 | 2017-06-20T14:53:09 | 81 | 16 |
[WP] After WW3 and a century of rebuilding, the world has been at peace for 300 years. We've let go of our violent and aggressive tendencies and abolished war. You are the leader of an alien invasion that sees the Earth as an easy target; but soon you learn we can revert to our warlike past easily. | K- 1210 had long ago been logged under observation by the deep range scouts of Zel ‘Ot expeditionary forces. This tiny blue planet near the far edge of known space had been written off of strategic plans for longer than an intelligent species had existed on it in a meaningful way, due mainly to the remarkably harsh conditions of its biosphere and the quickly approaching death of its dependent star. From the perspective of resource acquisition, it offered nothing to us. From the perspective of scientific inquiry, it had been believed that it nearly offered less. Treading upon it offered only painful and purposeless deaths, not honorable ones, and as such it was of no interest to any among my species.
From the point of its first entry into spacefaring charts, the planet had undergone an almost unprecedented number of mass extinction events of its admittedly wide range of sentient native species, creatures barely meeting the standard for intelligent life generally, and the climate on the planet had managed to remain almost constantly in flux. Nearly every time K-1210 was reported on in cyclical updates, it seemed to be either entering or exiting a period of extreme cold and non-inhabitability for any but the hardiest of its rudimentary species. By all evidence and points of comparison, K-1210 was a doomed planet, unremarkable in every way spare it’s abhorrent hostility to anything that lived on it.
But then, in an instant by the standards of a species with no source of natural death, something new had come to call it home.
We had seemingly missed their earliest beginnings in gaps between cyclical reports on far edge prospects, each gap a period of dozens of thousands of the planets cycles around its dwarf star. Even with the great variance in perceptive relativity, it had been long since K-1210 had been displayed in front of my eyes, and thus, very long since any had observed it in any close detail. The planet had been under constant observation from automated pioneering platforms, at a massive distance but still able to flag and transmit relevant statistical variations within the planets solar system accurate to within a few of its cycles, including minute differences in atmospheric conditions on its eight planets and significant deviations in exhibited light. And that was how we noticed them.
One small flash, then another, in the center of one of the planets continents. Then, two bright flashes, very nearly at the same time, and almost directly adjacent to each other half the planets diameter away from the other two. In those amongst us who were truly old by the Zel standard, these flashes and their location patterns were instantly recognizable, and the excitement throughout the fleet was palpable. Those, undoubtedly, were weapons. Primitive weaponry by current standards, but the most dangerous we had seen since J-345. In the moments following this revelation, I was certain there were more eyes fixed on that planet than had ever or would ever live on it. By the time I officially ordered immediate preparations, they were already nearly complete.
It took us time to get to the adjacent galaxy, more time than we should have allowed. You must understand that the sheer technological gap between the weapons we had seen and those that we carried all but assured us of victory, ultimately. Of course, as is the tradition of Zel conquest, we would allow our warriors the opportunity to die with honor in combat against a foe that stands not as his brother Zel, should such a thing be achievable by our adversary. But in the end, once we had learned all that we could about them, archived them, and fought them to our satisfaction, we would execute a final campaign of eradication, as has long been the way of our kind. To collect, to catalogue, to conquer.
At our final rally point, we made close and final observations of the condition of our foe since their detection. It had been nearly 500 of their cycles since the detonations that we detected, and in the interim thousands more of such weapons had been utilized on the surface and within the low atmosphere, increasing consistently in magnitude and sophistication almost without exception. For some time, the infrequent and localized detonations mirrored what could either be testing protocols for weapons, or a long, global war of attrition. This news heartened all among us. This was a species that was no stranger to war, and was also fragmented, which may save them from the fatal error of attempting surrender when they witnessed the spectacular nature of war we had prepared to bring upon them.
But then, the weapons stopped. The cities shown brighter, and the slowly degrading quality of their atmosphere began to more closely resemble the purity of its past. They had established a sizeable colony on their orbiting moon, and had the very beginnings of the technology that would allow them long-term survival and transit in the vacuum of isolated space. It was at this juncture, that I first felt the creeping pull of doubt. This does not abdicate me of responsibility, but let the record show that I was not an utter fool about the potential of this threat.
This species had to be extremely young, even taking into account the observational gaps, they could not be more than 300,000 cycles old, as Zel scouts had walked upon K-1210 and encountered nothing that we believed could have so quickly become capable of the feats we now were witnessing. To specify, their works themselves were not necessarily remarkable, but rather the timeframe in which they must have been achieved. In a few hundred native cycles, to have gone from weaponing the process of splitting an atom to nearly achieving perfect fusion was, with absolutely no possible contention, unobserved up until that moment on the bridge of my dreadnought. And to have done so without destroying themselves was in itself a marvel. It was this awe at the rate of their expansion and the dumbstruck reaction of some our best evolutionary scientists that I took as affirmation toward our purpose. This species was out of the ordinary, and we would discover how, and why, and then we would take their fates and place them beneath our feet.
After some deliberation over the potential for defensive actions by the inhabitants of K-1210, I ordered the advance of my fleet into the outer edge of their Solar System. Almost immediately, the electronic and radio communication on the planet exploded in a chorus of color across our monitoring displays, and almost as quickly, nearly all communications greater than localized radio waves ceased. It was clear from the magnitude of these communications and the greater details we could observe from this close distance, that the species numbered in the tens of billions. At the time we could not understand anything at all of those broadcasts in their languages, of which there are thousands, but we intercepted them and catalogued them, and they have been provided to the council pending a fuller translation at least of the planets chief language. Very soon after this communication blackout, we detected a repeating transmission in all of their languages, which we could not decipher but from the length and cadence understand to have been variations on the same message, from every major city on the planet.
Whether or not this was a warning, or an invitation, was unknown at the time, but I ordered my fleet to hold its position and combat formation, and I transferred myself to one of our smaller cruisers to make an embarkation onto K-1210. I wanted to see the interesting new spacefarers for myself.
***Got a lot of ideas, will write more if you all are interested. Need a cigarette so figured I'd put this out here and brainstorm a bit. Hope you like it :D*** | I should have known. They had it all there, available to view on their version of the Hypernet. So much information, the sum of all of their human knowledge all sitting their in that database they called Wikipedia. Their science, their religions, their philosophies, but most importantly their history.
&#x200B;
If only I'd had the automats download and search the database, it could all have been averted. I'd have avoided that Pale Blue Dot. That's what one of their scientists called it, What was his name? Peasant Kettle? Or something like that. The auto-translator has trouble with some of their names, despite having now scanned the whole of their Hypernet.
&#x200B;
I should have given the planet a wide birth, and I would not now be looking through the holoscope at the remnants of our armies. I would not now be watching as the humans use mechanical shovels to scope my brothers and sisters into waste processors, turning them into fuel to heat their
primitive homes.
&#x200B;
Had I not been so impatient for conquest, and to once again breath air that was not laden with toxins and microbes, I would have taken my time, read through the major events in their history, learned why no living being should ever threaten that backward little planet and it's insane inhabitants. I left it too late to learn the truth.
&#x200B;
I would have learned about their first great war, when men had stood in holes and hurled lead and toxic gas at each other across coils of wire. I'd have learned about the piles of dead, the starvation, the disease. I'd have learned that they swore it would never happen again, and how that promise did not even last a human lifetime.
&#x200B;
I would have learned about the second great war, when flight had been perfected and they could rain fire upon the homes of their enemies. I would have learned of the camps where humans forced other humans to breath poison and they pilled the dead into ovens to burn their corpses. I'd have learned of the weapon, the one they thought was the most powerful that could be created, and how they used it not once but twice. I'd have learned how they swore it would never happen again, until it did.
&#x200B;
Their third war was the deadliest, for it left one in five of them dead. Death by microbe, unchecked and uncontrollable. A fifth of all humans were dead within seven rotations of their planet, and a further two fifths died as their societies collapsed. They swore it would never happen again, and it probably would have, had it not been for one human.
&#x200B;
Big Tree Smelly Animal Rectum was the human that solved the problem. A simple mutation in their already weird and mutated genetic code was all it took. That human released a new virus on the planet, but this did not bring death, but the power of death.
&#x200B;
Can you imagine living in such a society? Where anyone around you can kill with a thought. Where you have to consciously make the decision not to kill every living thing you ever meet?
&#x200B;
There were problems of course. An entire island of people were wiped out within a few days of contracting the virus. An argument over a queue in an establishment that served boiling water filled with the extract of dried leaves was where it started. One human was unhappy about another human pushing in front of him, and thought him dead. That was the first mind-murder. Others panicked and thought those around them dead. Soon an entire nation was gone, but a lesson had been learned.
&#x200B;
It worked for them. They were forced to be civil to each other, to keep the peace, to forgive and forget. For when everyone has the power of life and death over everyone else, you tread lightly and make sure to never offend. There can be no arguments, no threats, no anger, envy or greed. When mutually assured distruction, is actually assured, peace is the easy option.
&#x200B;
My soldiers did not know this of course, for I have learned it all just now. My soldiers landed in their millions, the best trained, the best armed and the most ferocious warriors in the galaxy. They were dead the moment they met their first human.
&#x200B;
I can see their little ship approaching. It burst from their atmosphere and is heading for my battleship right now. I could blast them from space, but they would just send more. I could run, but they would follow. I think I'll just let them board. I'll see a human in the flesh for my first and last time, and let the little thing kill me with it's mind. Better that then let them try to follow me, for I can not imagine a worse plague to release on the Universe than that of humankind. | 2019-02-26T11:10:09 | 2019-02-26T10:58:57 | 45 | 25 |
[WP] Humans have just entered the galactic community, using our patented versatility to make ourselves noticed. One thing, however, stands out about our culture: almost all of our scariest monsters are based off of ourselves, and a lot of aliens are getting worried about our species’ mental health. | Garrick sat, thinking. He found himself to be doing this particular activity more than what he was actually supposed to do—the relatively mindless task of typing numbers into little rectangles—as he considered his new friend, X’ytok’s words.
He didn’t dislike it. This thinking business, anyway.
“Now that I think about it,” Garrick mused. “Vampires. Werewolves. Ghosts. Witches. Banshees. Demons… huh. You are right.”
“Right? All the scariest monsters are based off humans!” X’ytok said. “We don’t have those. It is universally agreed that the scariest monsters are those horrifying G’ershurds.”
“They are just… weird little alien dogs,” Garrick said, managing to type two numbers. “Pretty fun to be around. You really need to give them a chance.”
“Me? Me?! No, not at all,” X’ytok scoffed. “But seriously. How do you guys do it?”
“Do what?”
“Think of yourselves as monsters?”
“We don’t think of ourselves as monsters,” Garrick said, before his fingers paused on the keyboard. He turned around, facing X’ytok, who nervously licked her eyeballs.
“Never mind. Actually, we do,” Garrick conceded. “But pertaining the human-like monsters? It’s fun, I guess.”
“Fun?” X’ytok mumbled. “You and I have very definitions of fun. Us X’yleans idea of fun is to congregate and sing loudly. Mostly to ward off G’ershurds.”
“Hey, humans do that too,” Garrick said, then shuddered. “But some of us don’t like that. Too many sweaty people.”
“See, that’s what I don’t get,” X’ytok said. “You guys never agree on anything. How do any of you function? Isn’t your time just wasted from arguing with each other.”
“We don’t… never mind, we do,” Garrick sighed, before thoughtfully placing a finger on his chin. “But you know how all the X’yleans are in this department?”
“Yeah?”
“But you can find humans everywhere? Like, we might not be the best engineers, compared to the Kolshars, but we do pretty well for ourselves. And the Blocos have all those security guards because they are terrifyingly huge—”
“Muscles. Just pure muscles.”
“—but you can find humans there too. And yes, I only have ten fingers compared to your twenty, but I do this typing thing pretty well, no?”
“I’ve filled two spreadsheets while your hands were barely moving.”
“The human can be anything,” Garrick said. “So why not a monster?”
X’ytok clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, which produced a sound much like a woodpecker knocking on wood.
“Isn’t that terrifying?”
“It can be,” Garrick admitted. “But it’s a large, wide scale. We are varied in the workplace, and out in the open too. Just as a human on the street can be a monster, they could be walking side by side with a man that’s… good.”
“Still,” X’ytok said. “I wonder why.”
“Maybe it’s both a reminder and inspiration,” Garrick smiled. “We all look the same. But we can choose who we want to be.”
---
r/dexdrafts | A1: Uhhh, so, why are most of your monsters vaguely human?
H1: Because of the uncanny valley.
A2: The what now?
H1: There is a measurement of what imagery is disturbing or endearing based on how similar it is to us, the bottom of the endearment hill is stick man figures, further up is the simpsons, then old school Disney cartoons, then the Incredibles, then there is a dip which is the "valley" where things like the movie "Polar Express" and physical things like human-like robots lie... At the top is actual humans.
H2: Oh THAT'S what it is? I thought the uncanny valley was a disturbing tv that people use to compare things like scps.
H1: Speaking of scps, 096 is definitely at the BOTTOM of the valley.
A1: Ok, I just looked up that 096 thing and what. the. actual. FUCK?!?!?!?
H1: Yup
A2: THAT DOESN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!
H2: Yup | 2022-03-02T18:38:26 | 2022-03-02T18:07:30 | 629 | 134 |
[WP] Every time you sneeze you find yourself in someone else's body. It's usually no real problem; you change back in 60 seconds. This time when you sneeze you find your tied up. In front of you is guys with guns. "Alright Franky, you got 30 seconds to explain why we shouldn't kill your ass" | ######[](#dropcap)
Andrew wracked his brain. "I have a family. Please, my child is sick and I'm the only one with a job in the family, and my wife has been severely ill since the pregnancy, and I just... please!" He didn't even understand the words coming out of his mouth. His mind had blanked as soon as he saw the black barrel of the gun facing toward him.
The guy named Joey hawked a loogie at the ground and sneered at him. "Bullshit. We were friends for so long, you think I don't know you don't have a wife and kid? Who are you joking?"
Wait. They were friends? Then why Joey was trying to kill him--Franky? This didn't make sense.
Andrew tried a different tactic. "Look, I'm really sorry, man, I didn't mean to."
Maybe it was his imagination, but Joey's shoulders seemed to relax the slightest bit. Andrew quickly glanced at his surroundings. He was in a run-down apartment. Trash littered almost every surface, with fast food bags everywhere. His eyes honed in on a picture frame sitting in the center of the kitchen table. The table was the only surface bare in the room, so it must've been important. In the frame was a picture of Joey with a woman with brown hair.
"He doesn't mean it, boss," a guy piped up from the couch, casually playing with a handgun. "Don't listen to him."
Joey raised a hand. "Nah, I wanna listen to what he has to say. What are you sorry about, Franky?" His jaw set, he set his gaze on the man still tied up in the chair.
Andrew panicked. He had no idea what he was supposed to be sorry for! But clearly Franky wasn't someone who was into apologies, otherwise Joey wouldn't be this shocked, and clearly they had once had a good relationship. Think, Andrew, think!
"I'm sorry about what I said or did. I really didn't mean to. I wasn't thinking at the time, and I'm sorry that I've betrayed our friendship like this. Truly. Please forgive me." Andrew held his breath. That was as specific of an apology as he could get without revealing that he didn't know what the hell he was actually talking about.
But it seemed to appease Joey, to an extent. The beefy man glared at him, even as he dropped the gun to his side. "It was your condescension I hated. I looked up to you, man. And you treated me like trash. Told me that you were just using me, and for what? For a couple thousand dollars?" His face contorted, and Andrew felt his heart slow. He felt sorry for Joey. The man was clearly in pain over the loss of a bad friend. "My wife...she's dead because of you!" he shouted, slamming his fist into a wall. "We needed that money so badly. I shouldn't have lent it to you. I shouldn't have..." he murmured, retreating into his own thoughts.
Andrew felt his body heat up. Whoever Franky was, he deserved to die. How could anyone do this? This guy was clearly scum. He glanced at the clock on the wall. 45 seconds. Could he do it? He had just enough time left if he was quick.
"Actually, she deserved it," he said. "She was a dumb bitch for not being able to deal with the pressure." His heart pounded in his ears. 48 seconds.
"What did you say?" Joey asked, his voice dangerously low as he lifted his head. His eyes were bloodshot as he stared at Franky in disbelief. 52 seconds.
"I said she deserved to die, and you're such a coward you would never shoot me," Andrew taunted. "I dare you. Shoot me!" he shouted. 57 seconds.
Joey cocked the gun in his hand. 58 seconds.
"Go to hell," he said, aiming the gun toward Franky's head. “This is for my wife.” Andrew barely saw his finger pull the trigger when his vision went white.
60 seconds.
***
*A dead body has been found in an abandoned warehouse on the side of Clerington Street. It's been identified as belonging to a man named Frank Johnson. Police are still investigating the cause of his death, but it appears Frank was involved in several pyramid schemes and owes quite a large amount of debt. He was previously accused of manslaughter, but was then acquitted due to a lack of evidence. In other news...*
***
Per r/timothybeans suggestion, I've added the small piece at the end with the news!
I post prompt responses every so often, so if you like what you see, feel free to check out r/AlannaWu :) | *Alright Franky*, Jess thought to him, *Help me out of this*. But of course Frankie's brain was off line. *Useless*, Jess shook her head in her/his mind. She had never tried to see what would happen if she died in the body she was in. She did know that her body back at home zonked out and looked like she was asleep. The amount of times she had gotten detention in high school had been ridiculous, seriously 60 seconds was apparently too long for some teachers.
Anywayssss, back to the issue at hand. "Look guys, let's be real here. Hiding a body is such a pain in the butt. First the way you kill me. Shooting, there's a gun to dispose of. Staging a suicide, well we all know the cops can tell that from a murder. Drowning? The little fishies will eat some parts of me, not all. Eventually I'll wash ashore."
Jess was taking any info she knew from crime shows and the like just to make sure she didn't have to answer that question of what happens when she died in someone else's body.
"Not good enough," One of the masked men said, "Boss man can manage anything. 10 more seconds."
"Look, look just give me 60 more seconds okay? I can explain, and we all know I'm valuable or you wouldn't be giving me the chance to explain. I just need a bit of time to prove that I was set up."
The masked guy looked at his watch, "2 more seconds."
"You don't want my blood on your hands. Come on Joe," Jess threw out a random name hoping that it was right, "You know I got a girl to live for. Just help me out."
"Sorry Man. The boss has rules, you know them as well as I do." The man raised the gun and fired.
Jess woke with a start, back in her own body. Oh gods, she had just caused the death of a man named Franky. She needed to throw up, she needed comfort. She rolled over, trying to find her husbands body. He usually slept next to her. "Dennis? I need you."
Instead of finding him she found a note, "Had to head out for a walk to clear my head. Love you Babe. DFR." Dennis Frank Reed. That was his name, when he was younger he said his friends always called him Franky. | 2018-11-15T13:47:51 | 2018-11-15T13:15:12 | 1,084 | 623 |
[WP] Immortal monsters of legend have returned after lying dormant for thousands of years. However, the legends were made before guns were a thing, and the "immortal" thing was kind of overblown. | “Now Mortals! I, The lost King of Babylon Kuzaamanaga the Immortal, have risen from my unearthly tomb to once again rule the kingdoms of gods and See a thousand years of tyranny!”
“Well That’s all mighty fine there, you filthy Arab. But how bout you you drop the sword and staff and come with me so we can sort you out.” A very american soldier said. He stood in front of his squad who had been tasked in retrieving the lost king. The legends had foretold of him coming back and recently scholars had converted the time to show the year he would come. Having heard legends of his power, the world had deemed it an international crisis waiting to happen.
Cut to now. Unsurprisingly, the US army had encroached on Arabic land to “save” the world as they continued to say. Now a single squad of marines met the the Immortal king, hoping to end the situation before a war started against the immortal.
“You dare speak to me, ilk? I don’t understand the tribal patterns you wear, but they are shoddy compared the robes I will wear once my conquest is finished!”
“Yeah? Well how bout you saunter over to us so we can start working on your duds right away, majesty?”
“What are these… duds?” The King sneered.
“You know. Pants. A shirt. Perhaps some underwear?”
“Do not speak nonsense to me, mortal”
“Hey, you’re the one who can speak English but doesn’t know what pants are.”
“I know all the tongues of my people. It is why i’m destined to rule.”
“Well could you at least take shower? One we have you, you’ll be provided a shower”
“Silence, Filth! You have spoken ill of me for the last time. Now face the immortal might of Kuzaamanaga!” With an outstretched arm, he used his staff to summon a dark force. Black mist sprung forth at the marines, consuming them in it’s murky soot.
“Ahahahaha! That will show-” The king paused as the smoke cleared. The marines stood, confused.
“Uh. Was that supposed to do something?”
“I Don’t understand. You should be dying in pain. Covered in boils!” The king shouted.
“What? Like the black plague? We probably evolved immunity to that. Considering how old it probably is”
“Why you! You have the gall to embrace immunity when the immortal gods stands before you”
“Listen. I've heard enough. Wanna just get into our Humvee and we can talk about it on the way back to base?”
“Kuzaamanaga does not accept favour. I will destroy you and all you love. For I am the lost king of Babylon, ageless and immune to disease. My skin is hard as Diamonds and My blood is acid for those lucky enough to spill it. I can cripple men with but a gaze. Now, worthy adversary, DIE!” The king rushed forward, covering ten of the twenty feet between him and the marine. The marine shot and the king collapsed.
Several hours passed. The king awoke and found himself strapped to a gurney. A figure with a white mask covering the lower half of his face and blue robes looked over him.
“Ah! Are you a demon? I cannot die! Send me back to the living demon. Have mercy!” HE king pleaded as he struggled feebly. The masked figure pressed down on the kings shoulders
“Relax, you’re not dead.”
“Then who are you?”
“I’m your doctor. I dressed your gun wound. For a thousands of years old guy, you sure can take a hit.” The doctor displayed his bloody robes and the bullet left on a tray.
“I thank you for saving me. As such, I wish to save you by informing you to take off your robes.”
“Oh? Dry spill leave you craving? Sorry buddy, I don’t swing like that.”
“What? No. My blood is potent acid. Quickly, before it burns you to the bone.”
“Sorry. You’re blood isn’t actually acidic. Where did you come up with that?”
“Oh… Well. i thought to be the case. No one had spilt my blood. My skin was Diamond. UNBREAKABLE.” The king shouted.
“Actually, we’ve broken diamond before. The gunshot wound seemed to do the job just fine, actually. Does explain why the stitches were so difficult.”
“Break diamonds? No. it can’t be true.”
“Yeah. Pretty simple”
“Well… No matter. No mortal can kill me!”
“Maybe lupus will.”
“What?”
“Yeah. turns out while you’re resistant to most diseases, it’s not all of them. Plus, viruses have evolved a lot since you entombed yourself. Without some help, you’d be dead in 2 months, tops.”
“Oh.”
“On the bright side. You don’t seem to age. So that’s cool i guess.”
“I feel very unimportant.”
“Yeah. I get that. Anyway. See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah. See you”. The doctor left quietly. The Immortal stayed awake that night. For the first time ever, he thought of death. | "My skin is iron to their puny swords! One swing of my limbs could level entire villages! My breath is a whirling typhoon which had sunk ships and destroyed entire coastlines!
And yet here you are, a lanky child standing with an old book and a twig? Come forward maggot and face the wrath of Myz Chu'thl!"
Those were the words of a fool, a fool who had forgotten that even humans may harness the magicks of the Old Gods. It had only taken a whisper of an incantation from that ancient tome to seal me away beneath the earth. I was dragged down deep into the depths of the earth's very core where I was chained down and left to be forgotten. Each day of my imprisonment my power waned and I shrank down to a mere husk of my past self. The humans probably celebrated my so called defeat, those welps haven't seen the last of me.
You see the human boy that sealed me away did indeed use a powerful artifact to imprison me but he had horrendous technique. As my power was drained and dispersed back into the earth, I could eventually also feel the grasps of these chains loosening ever so slowly.
Today was the day that the chains had finally come loose. The incantation's power had run out and now I was free to rule the earth yet again! I spread my wings and with what little strength I had, I pushed through out of this blasted prison and out of the earth's crust.
"Tremble before me mortals! Your eternal lord has retu-"
BANG! A loud explosion had rang out through the field I was in followed by a loud thud as one of my smaller tentacles fell to the ground. What is this magick!? Have humans advanced this far that they now posses powers even beyond me?
Another loud explosion followed and this time it had hit me square in the head.
"W-what is this! I am all powerful! What kind of power can dare injure me!" In the first time of my existence, I was truly terrified.
I could hear several more explosions but this were weaker and I assumed they mostly missed as I had not felt anything. I looked around my surroundings and saw the source, two small human boys. Lanky and with peculiar clothes, they carried black sticks made out of wood and metal.
"AGHHH!" I screamed in pain as a shot from their weapons had hit me. This one was painful as I fell to the ground.
The human boys slowly approached my form. One of them poked me and excitedly said to the smaller one. "JUNIOR! Get the darn tartar sauce and call mama! We're havin some calamari tonight!"
| 2019-03-20T19:36:22 | 2019-03-20T19:35:21 | 129 | 48 |
[WP] After working hard your whole life you’ve finally done it: You have a stable job that’s rewarding, a wonderful wife, two young children, and you just bought your first home... You awake. “Thanks for grinding out those beginning levels for me.” The stranger says. “Your money’s in the bank.” | You're groggy...the lights are too bright, the noises too loud.
"Wai... Wha.... But.... Jul, where'sjul" you say in a voice more slurred than coherent.
"hey, hey...it's ok, this is totally normal, just take some deep breaths while the disconnect finishes up" says a voice overhead.
You turn your head, trying to grasp reality; not recognizing your surroundings, you try to swallow the panic and bile rising in your throat slowly realizing that you're, in fact, finally awake. It was all a lie. An incentivized lie.
"takes a few seconds to get your bearings friend, don't worry, this is completely normal. Hell, you're already doing better than most. There's usually a lot more flailing and kicking. I'm just happy we don't have to strap you down like the last chick hehehe" the voice overhead blares, the chuckling making you feel violently ill.
Ever so slowly, like the heartbeat of a tortoise, images start playing like a sideshow in your mind. Driving towards a looming glass building, walking through angular titanium doors that could have been pulled straight from science fiction. The sensation of fear and anticipation as men in labcoats strapped monitors to you, a catheter in you, a robotic looking helmet and visor on your head. The thoughts flicker rapidly between these faint but somewhat familiar scenes, and of your life with Julie, your children, your corporate level job you worked so hard for, the anniversaries, the parties, the fights, the tragedies. Julie. Julie.
But these images start fading as you suck in more and more air; your brain tries desperately to remember the smell of her hair and the sensation of her hands, but your mind is now relentless in reminding you of what you did, and why.
You once again feel the shocking desperation of extreme poverty , scrounging for food in alleyways, doing the unthinkable for a few dollars.
Simlife. You now remember you had seen it everywhere; ads plastered to those same alley walls that you would stare at desperately while performing acts that required strong mental distraction, otherwise you would have just killed yourself from the shame. "Short on cash? Come join the Sim life experience and get paid today! Guaranteed $1,000.00 for your first job" the ads would read. What's a dollar worth? You knew damn well what it was worth, and in this life you had done anything to earn it.
You were back now. Fully back. Immersed in the misery that is your existence. Yeah you had made a cool grand. You wouldn't have to worry about food for a while, you could keep couch surfing and street sleeping to stretch the money out. You should feel relieved. It had been years of misery, you kept telling yourself. This money changes everything.
But something kept gnawing at the back of your mind. That life. That life you lived, Bill Christopher with his beautiful wife Julie. Their 2 perfect children Matt and Kelly. Why didn't these memories go away? Why wouldn't they go away? You felt an immense sadness crushing your chest with the weight of a thousand disappointments. To never kiss them goodnight again. Yeah it wasn't real, but fuck if it didn't feel like the most real thing you had ever experience, even moreso than this shit show of a life you were enslaved to.
You look next to you and see him. Laid up on the table next to yours, same monitors, same helmet, just recently put under so he could now enjoy the life that YOU fucking made with them. Your efforts, your tragedies, your love story. Yours. You know it was his voice you had heard near the end there....thanking you for "the grind." You grimace remembering his greasy voice. You now hated him more than anything or anyone you had ever encountered.
The rage was sudden; not even you expected it. You had slept on the streets so you knew your way around a sharp object. In one swift motion you lunge for the scissors on the tray table next to you and you plunge them into the neck folds of this undeserving fat bastard next to you. Who the fuck does he think he is, you think, taking my family, MY FUCKING CHILDREN. Somewhere nearby alarms blare, panic ensues; you see movement all around you, security rushing from behind the glass trying to get into the Simlife suite that you're in.
The voice overhead is screaming now with desperation and worry "CALM DOWN, YOU NEED TO CALM THE FUCK DOWN, SECURITY GET IN THERE QUICKLY. SAVE HIM AND STRAP HER THE FUCK DOWN, SHE'S NOT TOLERATING THE COMEBACK, WE NEED TO SEDATE HER.....NOW!"
You look down at your hands, painted in crimson life, and you purposefully make your way across the room and lock and jam the doors.
It won't hold them forever. You know this. But it doesn't matter. None of it does. As you aggressively retrieve the blood soaked helmet off his cantankerous skull and ease it back onto yours, you activate the simulation and feel yourself returning, just one more time, even if it's for a few minutes, back into Julie's warm embrace, back into her world. Your home. Your real life
As your eyes finally start to shut, you slowly smirk, realizing that no matter the outcome, in the next few minutes peace will finally find you. | There is always a delay. It is the worst part of being a lifelunder. It is the most agonizing 11 minutes one can endure. You are receiving information. Seeing again. Hearing. Feeling your environment. For the first time in 8 months. Senses you've depended upon to be brought to you are gone, and your brain literally computes nothing. It takes about 11 minutes to basically reset your own programming. As advanced as we are, the brain is so overcome with new data that you remember nothing. You can technically receive data with these senses at this time, but it is always lost after 11 minutes. You just all of a sudden wake up and then it is back to life.
Most of us are on 9 month visas. Perpetual tourists. Just trying to make enough to retire young, and do nothing for the rest of our lives. At 33, I am the oldest of the clan in this block. Having to only pay to live 4 months of the year, and have 8 months of premium pay affords one either a lavish 1/3 of their life, or a comfortable early retirement. This was my last run. The hemorrhaging had led to severe nose bleeds the last time I came out. Hell, I might not even live to spend the profit of my sacrifice. It is one thing to share in the life of another. It is quite another to give away your own for someone. And for someone that is always gone before the 11 minutes is up.
After all this time, I still don't understand how they don't see that the detriment of our society is so closely wrapped to the elimination of the 'hard work'. The pain of being human. The depths of control one must have to develop this type of successful life on your own. The fact society clings to the very epitome of lackluster, aloof, underachievers, to play their game to a point it is comfortable, is beyond me. We don't do shit but smoke weed. Gamble. Skateboard. Hell, BooBoy buys so many hookers, I'm surprised his dick hasn't fallen the fuck off. We're just incapable of giving enough of a damn to pursue our own development, so we avoid our own hard work, and do it for those too scared to actually live. The irony.
It is hard to get so close to the story. To be it. To manifest what others cannot for themselves. And awaken 11 minutes later, and the stranger you just poured your life into, is gone. Only to reap the reward of your achievement unlocking. And only to usually end the next game save with divorce, suicide, alcoholism, chemical dependency, or self-loathing. Humans just can't make anything of themselves, even with the perfect assist. Even with the hard work done for them. So we just take their money. Knowing they probably will just squander the opportunity. I'm done. I'm set to have my life achievements unlocked, and get onto my own life. With so much more information. Hoping to beat the boss, and see the Princess. | 2019-09-12T23:49:21 | 2019-09-12T22:23:29 | 2,563 | 43 |
[WP] You died at the gym as you were trying to take a selfie while bench pressing. Thus you find yourself in Swaghalla, the Halls of Brodin.
EDIT. "Swaghalla" was the best pun I could come up with for Valhalla. Use something else if you have ideas.
Note: Swolehalla seems to be the proper name, pardon my mistake
second EDIT. Sweet, first time front page
third EDIT. I've had many good laughs brighten my Monday, thanks guys :D | Darkness. Cold steel pressing against my neck. Cries of "oh shit bro!" Echoed in my ears. And then, I saw the world turn to a blur. Time held no meaning, and I knew not where I went.
And so it was I found myself staring at the iron bars the All-Spotter had built as an entrance. An entrance that to some is Hell. To others, pointless. But to His children, it was all we ever asked for. Swolehalla.
St. Arnold stood at the gates, staring into my soul. I could feel his gaze rake over my body, and he nodded once. Acceptance, I knew. I was worthy. As the gates sailing open, I could hear the clack of plates being loaded on bars in the distance, the thundering boom as power cleans were completed, the grunts of exertion as sets were finished, and the slap of meaty, muscular flesh against eachother as Bros from all over clapped eachother on the back.
As I walked twords His great hall, I felt my pump come to me, and yet I had not lifted. It was as if within this place, within this sanctuary, my Gainz would be ever plentiful, my biceps ever swollen, and my test ever high.
The Swolefather greeted me with caring, loving eyes, and without a word I understood. "Welcome home, my son" we're his words to me. Bros around stopped lifting and looked upon me. Bros whose arms were more massive than my thighs, whose lats flared like a great Dragon taking flight. And they smiled, and talk enveloped Paradise.
"Bro, welcome!"
"You need a spot man? I got you"
"Bench pressing?? Oh what a whey to go..."
The rest was a blur. I was taken to the Racks of Squatting, the Bench Halls, machines I had never even seen before abounded all around me, dancing in my vision.
And oh, the sups. Brands from every corner of the Earth, clean cups at the ready. Whey, our Ambrosia and Nectar combined in one, upon every shelf. My Brethren bestowed upon me all flavors, every kind of pre workout we could find.
I was home. And, yet...
I looked down upon the Earth, down past the Cardio which Broki cursed so many souls with, past those who would mock our bodies, upon a skinny, frail man of 19. Bradley. Laying below him, was my sprawled out body, my cell phone still in my clutches post mortem, the bar crushing my neck as life left me. Had taken Brad into my Temple and taught him the Whey of Iron. I had made him a disciple of Brodin. And there he was, struggling to lift the Baez lifting with all his might to save his Bro, and yet it was for naught. For his arms were too skinny, Broki had sapped the strength from him for years, and he was not yet ready.
"You seem troubled, Bro"
I turned and beheld Zyzz, our prophet, as he gazed down with me upon the minibro struggling amongst the mortals.
"I saw you teaching him. He was a good student. A shame. He won't have the motivation to continue after this. We lost two Bros today, one in body, and the other in spirit."
And I saw, clearly. For as beautiful as the Swolefather's Halls were, I was needed elsewhere. I was meant to teach young Bradley to lift, to walk with him upon the Path of Iron so that he too might gaze upon the beautiful sight of Swolehalla.
"O All-Spotter, I pray until you, let me return! Allow me life upon the Earth!"
"My son," He responded "Is it not enough for you here? Is there more you desire?"
"Nay, Father, for all I desire is the Soul of my Bro here beside me, to guide him to your gates as you have guided me. Allow me life, Father, so that young Bradley may not relinquish his Gainz from greif!"
Brodin looked upon His son, and smiled. "Young lifter," His swole voice bellowed, "You have shown your worth this day. For not only are you Swole of body, but Swole of heart as well. Go, and teach young Bradley The Path, and join me again once you and he have walked The Path of Iron until your bodies wither away, and you shall 've welcomed into my halls with celebration and rejoice"
"I cristen thee Latzarus, from henceforth, and grant you Swolness of mind, to aid upon your journey. Go, and return to us, Bro"
And with a flash of light, it was so. As my eyes opened and my arms lifted the bar from my neck, Bradley screamed with relief.
"Fuck bro I thought I killed you!!!"
And I resolved to complete my task.
"No biggie brah, c'mon, let's do some curls. We got alot to do if you wanna get huge"
-The Legend of Latzarus, In accordance with the Swoley Texts
| "Woah."
The world around me is eerie and bright, like a morning hangover. I flip down my neon plastic shades. Much better.
How the fuck did I get here though? I was hulking out at the gym and--what's that sound?
*Clank. Clank. Clank.*
Wait, that's the gym. Someone's dropping plates. Scrub.
Hazy white mist swirls and clears before me and a giant wooden hall appears. Some kind of Skyrim shit. Seriously, where am I? I check my phone. No service, no maps. What the fuck? Only the smiling picture of my babe on my background. Did her eyes always look that distant and empty?
The clanking intensifies. It's coming from the weird wooden building. I approach. Maybe some dude there can tell me what's happening.
When did this shit get so far away? And why is this path so steep? Shoulda done some cardio once in a while, damn.
I reach the top and find two Monstar-looking dudes pumped out with their arms crossed on either side of some kind of Ninja Turtle door. Carvings of dragons and trees and some kind of jank-ass goat spider thing. I give them a head nod, you know the one. Dudes just keep on with their Buckingham shit.
"Yo dude. Where am I?"
"You're in Swaghalla," one says, not even turning his head.
"This is the Hall of Brodin," says the other.
"Okayyyy. Y'all have a phone I can use? I'm not getting service out here."
"To enter the Halls of Brodin, you need only open the door."
I eye up the door again. Mounted on either one of the double doors are what I can only guess are some kind of whale bone. The fuck? The sound of plates dropping keeps coming through.
"Whatever. I can open a door."
They don't answer.
I walk up and grab the bone. It's got these little pits on the inside edge that skeeze me out. I swallow. No problem, no problem. I got this. Just do it. DO IT.
I pull. Shit balls, this is heavy. I square up and brace, digging my heels into the ground. It doesn't move. Fuck. No way. I try again. My lungs are tight, my chest is like a steel-trapped barrel. I force exhale against a closed throat. Move damn it. Move. My vision goes white on the edges. I'm maxing out. God damn it. It's just a door. It's just. A. Do--
I'm flat on my back in the gym. A dude's on my chest with his lips on mine. I see my eyes refected in his. He gets off.
"No homo, brah," he says.
"What the fuck?" I say.
My bar is on the mats next to me. A bench is collapsed nearby. My chest hurts.
"You died, bro."
"Fuck." | 2015-11-02T07:45:58 | 2015-11-02T06:32:26 | 17 | 10 |
[WP] You are a traveler who reaches a city where powerful magicians exist. The stronger a wizard, the less other wizards can sense him casting spells. You start showing off some card tricks to the locals for some coins and realize that some people in the audience look terrified. | It was Balthasar the Brilliant's first night in the Kingdom of Igok, and he had to admit, he was rather enjoying himself. He'd never even heard of the Kingdom before, never seen it on a map, and yet he already felt at home. He'd been travelling through the mountain-pass, when he'd seen it sparkling like a golden jewel below him. A splendid valley kingdom, certainly worth visiting, he'd thought, if just for a night.
Now, looking around, he was sure he'd been correct to do so. Maybe he'd stay more than a night, if this first one went well. The tavern he'd entered was packed to the rafters with patrons. A lute player was plucking and singing tales of dragons, and a fire was crackling in accompaniment. Balthasar took a deep breath through his nose, enjoying the scent of stale booze, if not so much the even staler piss. He had not been to such a prosperous place in a long, long time. He'd do a few tricks, make a little money, and then join in with the drinking himself.
Balthasar scanned the room looking for the most likely candidates, to be first impressed, and then willing to give coin for their amazement. It shouldn't be hard. Few towns he visited had seen magicians of his skill before, and this place wasn't likely to be different.
It didn't take him long to find his marks.
"Good evening, ladies," he said to a group consisting of three inebriated middle-aged buxom brunettes, as he slicked back his black hair.
"Good evening," crooned the tallest of the women in reply, giving him a wide smile. "And who might you be, Sir?"
"Balthasar the Brilliant," said Balthasar the Brilliant. "But you can call me Baz. I am a travelling wizard who has arrived at this here tavern to win both hearts and minds." And wallets, he wanted to say, but caught his tongue in time.
The woman frowned. "I, too, practice the magical arts. And I must admit I'm quite interested to see what you can do."
Balthasar winced. He didn't need someone else who was in on his tricks. They might give the game away. Ah, what the heck, he'd try anyway.
"Well, for my first feat, I had planned on defying the hands of time, and making you all five years younger." He leaned forward and turned his voice down to a seductive whisper, "But if I did that to you, they'd throw you out for being too young to drink here."
The woman laughed, but her friends remained stone faced.
Balthasar stepped back. "Instead, I am going to show you all a little magic with this golden crown." He held a circular coin between thumb and index finger. The women's eyes watched in semi-excitement as he squeezed his fingers together, the coin vanishing complete.
He had expected a clap. A cheer, maybe. A house number, if he was lucky. But they all just stared at him. Eyes wide as if in disbelief.
The woman who claimed to practice magic let her mouth drop open.
"Are you alright?" Balthasar asked.
No response.
"Lady?"
Silence.
The trick was good, but it wasn't *that* good. It was a warm up, really. Not meant to end the night but rather to start it. Had these folks never seen magic before?
"I'm just, uh, going to step away for a moment," said Balthasar. "Give you all a little time to recover from the shock. I'll, uh, I'll come back and maybe show you something a little less explosive later. Okay?"
Still silence. Just eyes following his every move.
"Okay," he said, walking away and sucking in a long breath. "*Weirdos.*"
Card tricks, he thought. That would be the ticket! He took out a deck from his robe pocket and sauntered off to a group of men.
He hadn't expected one of them to faint when he had produced the missing ace.
In fact, every trick he did, no matter how grand or how lowly, was received as if it were a miracle. This was *it*, he decided. These people thought he was the dog's bollocks. He could have his own show here. Pack out the theatre every Saturday night, maybe even have his own assistant. How lucky it was, he'd stumbled upon Igok!
Then, it happened.
Something was thrown over his head, engulfing him in darkness. "Ey, what's your game!" he shouted, his words muffled by the burlap sack.
"His hands!" hissed a voice. "Bind them, before he destroys the entire city. Better do his feet too, just in case." Then, a bump on his head, and darkness.
---
Balthasar awoke to blurry candlelight. His head spun and his body was cold. He looked down to see he was completely naked and tied up by huge iron chains. Must have had a good night, he figured. Hell of a night. Then, when a man's voice disturbed him, he wasn't so sure it had been.
"Oh great wizard, we have been waiting for someone like you. How fortuitous your arrival! What serendipity the Gods have provided!"
A hazy figure came into focus. Two more figures at its side. One looked like a stocky, heavily bearded... *dwarf*. And the other, a beautiful woman with swirling blue eyes, who had pointed ears and for all the world looked like a... No. Impossible. Fancy dress.
The man who was speaking wore a crown of gold, with great green jewels encrusting it.
"You've... been waiting for me?" said Balthasar, still in a daze.
"Yes," said the King. "You are, as I'm sure you know, the most powerful wizard that has ever found his way into our Kingdom. What great luck for both of us!"
"Well, I am pretty good," said Balthasar, allowing himself a smile. Maybe he wasn't in trouble after all.
"That of course, is why we have restrained you. Not one patron and the Flute and Owl felt your magic as you used it. You're dangerous."
"Only after a few pints." He stuck his tongue out and considered. "What is it you want of me, exactly?"
The King drew a long breath. "The Ice Queen's fingers have stretched far across the land, and those that have not yet been killed in war have been sent to work in the Ice Mines. But thankfully, the Ice Queen has not reached the warmth of Irok. Not yet."
"The Ice Queen? Not heard of her? Where does she perform?"
"You have a simple choice, mighty wizard. I have put together a band of elite warriors for you to lead. They are to my side. You are to be the third and final member. You shall travel to the Ice Kingdom itself. You will free the slaves, returning them to their homes. And, if possible, defeat the Ice Queen herself, melting her kingdom forever with your great magic. There will, of course, be mountainous heaps of treasure for you as a reward."
What was going on? Had someone slipped him something in the tavern? Did these people really think he could perform actual magic? Were they lunatics? "Uh... And the other option?"
"The gallows, at noon," said the King with a jolly smile. "That would also be quite a show."
He didn't consider for long: he'd never been much of a swinger, and mountainous heaps of treasure did have a certain ring to it. He'd join the party, then either abscond when the chance arose, or try to find whatever treasure there was without being killed or found out. "Well I guess it's settled," he said. "Where do I sign up?"
| The city, set on a hill in an unrealistically beautiful landscape gleamed in the sunlight. The birds chirped a perfectly beautiful song. Water cascaded in the river merrily. The walls were a perfectly creamy white. Not a single stone was out of place.
Theo hated it. Magic poured out of every orifice. All he could do was shake his head at the waste. But this was Marinhall, home to the college of magecraft. Of course they would want it to be welcoming for everyone. It wasn’t that long ago that mages were feared and hated. They had a reputation to rebuild. More so in Theo’s opinion than most others.
He had come here to swindle the people out of their money. He was a traveler, a jokester, and a bit arrogant. He had practiced all over the country before heading here. He fully believed that the Mages would try to manipulate his tricks, so he had made friends with a few of them in their travels, practiced any way that they might mess with his tricks. He was ready now for the city.
Once inside the alabaster walls, Theo searched around for the largest market he could find, as a city this size was likely to have more than one. As he walked people laughed and smiled, completely relaxed and enjoying their day. It made him sick. How could they be so comfortable with mages around every corner? It wasn’t fair that they could manipulate reality and the lives of those who had no magic. They had no right. It was how Theo’s father had died. Some mage proving that he was superior, commanding a legion of men to their deaths, keeping them from running from the field even as the sureness of defeat spread. His father had been one of those soldiers.
The college was at the very center of the city, and of course the largest market was right outside. Theo made his way into a spot between a vendor of fine leather and one selling sweet pastries. He briefly wondered what had previously occupied this space, as the ground still had marks from the edges of a stall. It didn’t matter. He set down his many bags and started pulling out his many accessories. Juggling pins, knives, scarves, even a couple of batons that when lit were quite large fireballs. Then out came his cards for his favorite imitation magic tricks. Logic beat true magic any day.
He started juggling with the brightly colored scarves, his hat laid by his feet. It was only moments before the jewel colored fabric had drawn the attention of many of the surrounding shoppers. Once he had a decent sized audience he moved on to the pins - heavier but he could manage more of them. That got some applause, but not enough for Theo to be satisfied. So he moved onto the knives. They were received with shock and a few screams as it looked like they were going to plummet into him point down. He chuckled and moved on. A match was lit, and then he had three blazing fireballs. The crowd, now substantial, took a collective step backwards. Then the cheers came. He was tossing them faster and higher. He had really reeled them in.
Once he was done with his act, he took a over exaggerated bow, and sat, his hat receiving more money than he had seen in a while. He played it cool though, shuffling his playing cards and making the cards fly between his hands. Some of the onlookers had moved closer, now that the fire was gone.
Now was his time to make the real money. Once donations into his hat had stopped, he slid it behind him. He waved over a young girl watching him with large eyes.
“You there miss! Would you help me with my first trick?”
She nodded and slowly walked over.
“Pick a card! Any card! Then show it to everyone behind you. But not me!”
She did just that, and as she slid it back into the deck at his motion, her eyes got even larger. He started rapidly shuffling the deck, and then dealing it out onto the ground in front of him. Once he was done, he grabbed one, and held it up, to her and the audience.
“Is this your card?”
“It is!” She and the crowd clapped, and the true card tricks followed. Ever the salesmen of his abilities, Theo kept a close eye on the crowed. And while most of them were laughing and smiling, point when he did one trick or another, there were a few whose faces were pale and worried. Theo had to hold back a laugh. One of his friends he had met while traveling had told him that mages could sense when other mages cast magic, though the more powerful a mage, the more skill they had at hiding it. Theo had already caught one mage trying to turn the odds in their favor, and he had maneuvered around it. They thought he was a mage, and that he was casting magic. And they couldn’t feel anything.
Of course they didn’t feel anything. He wasn’t a mage, and this wasn’t true magic. But oh, this would be fun to manipulate. Maybe he would finally be able to get back at the mage who killed his father. Maybe he could bluff his way into the college. Theo was a fast thinker, and he couldn’t help but smile at all the possibilities.
Another mage tried to interfere with his current trick, and he dodged their attempts again. More pale faces. Theo’s smile grew even larger.
&#x200B;
r/LandOfMisfits | 2019-01-07T08:01:35 | 2019-01-07T07:56:05 | 305 | 221 |
[WP] Your mum has told you you're sick all your life. You take tablets everyday and agree to travel in a wheelchair because she says you're too weak. One day a counsellor and police officer come to your door. They tell you your mum has been taken away and everything she has ever told you is a lie.
&#x200B; | "Mom?" The house is quiet, aside from the squeaking of my wheelchair as I roll across the wooden floor into the kitchen. The clock on my bedside table read 11:32 when I finally mustered the strength to climb into my wheelchair on my own. Mom usually doesn't let me sleep this late, insisting that I start on schoolwork to keep my mind sharp even when my body destroys itself.
"Mom?" I call for her again, and there's still no answer. I wheel into the living room, and see that her keys aren't on the hook by the door. She's probably just running an errand, and will be back soon.
After doing some schoolwork, watching TV and preparing lunch for myself, I'm starting to get worried. It's not like her to forget to tell me where she's going, or even load me up in the van with her if she's going to be gone for a long time. I have random spells where my organs fail and have to go into the hospital for a few days, and since I was nine, I've been in a wheelchair since suffering paralysis. Doctors don't know what it is, believing it to be a combination of muscular dystrophy and my immune system turning on itself, but even at 17, we're still not sure.
I'm considering wheeling out onto the sidewalk and asking Mrs. Thatcher if she saw Mom leave this morning when there's a knock on the door. I wheel my way over and open it. A policeman with a harsh face and grey hair stands next to a small woman with dark hair and a simple skirt.
"Can I help you...?" I ask. The woman smiles at me softly.
"Are you Eric Fields?" she asks, and I nod slowly. "My name is Dr. Teresa Aldrin, and this is Officer Derek Rhodes. May we come in?"
"Can I ask what this is about?" I ask, feeling a noticeable lump in my throat. Dr. Aldrin nods. "Of course. We need to speak with you about your mother, is that all right?"
"Did something happen to her? I haven't seen her all morning, and she usually calls--"
"Eric, it's better if you calm down. May we come in?" Officer Rhodes speaks for the first time, and his suggestion is more of a command. I roll my chair out of the way, and Dr. Aldrin and Officer Rhodes step into the living room. I gesture for them to sit on the sofa, and I place my chair across from them.
"Eric, we've been called here on behalf of Child Protective Services. We've spoken to your father, and he's agreed to let us temporarily take you into our custody while he makes arrangements to come get you himself."
I scoff. "You talked to him? I don't understand. He and my mom divorced almost ten years ago when I first got sick; he couldn't handle it." My brow furrows in anger that they would call him. "Why would you talk to him instead of my mom? *She's* the one who takes care of me, not him."
"Eric, we understand your confusion and frustration, and though she's not dead...your mother has been taken into police custody. I know this is very difficult to process--"
Dr. Aldrin's words ring in my ears, but they don't register. Mom's been arrested? For what? What could she have possibly done? Is this some scheme by Dad to get me in his good graces?
"I'm a minor, right? Aren't I supposed to have a parent or guardian present? My Mom needs to be here!"
My chest feels tight, and I can't breath. Oh no. I need my medicine, but it's in the bathroom cabinet. I hit my fist against my chest, struggling to get a breath. Dr. Aldrin and Officer Rhodes stand from the sofa and come over to me, but their invasion of my space just makes the suffocating feeling worse.
"Eric, you need to breath. Just focus on breathing, okay?" Dr. Aldrin says, but my lungs feel like they're burning and might collapse on themselves. Finally, I'm able to draw in a shaky breath, and after that it's a bit easier.
"Medicine," I rasp, pointing weakly to the hallway behind me. "Bathroom...down the hall."
"I can't in good conscience give you that medicine, Eric," Dr. Aldrin shakes her head as she kneels down beside me.
"What?" I ask, and she purses her lip, thinking of what to say.
"Eric, are you familiar with Munchausen syndrome?" I shake my head, and she continues. "It's a disorder where the person suffering believes they suffer from a disease or symptoms that they don't have."
"What does that have to do with my medicine?" I ask, wheezing.
"Munchausen syndrome sufferers can also impart these made-up symptoms on a proxy, usually a child. Sometimes it's a matter of telling doctors and nurses conflicting information than what tests show, but other times it's more dangerous. Poisoning, suffocation, injury in an effort to make the symptoms they believe real."
The lump in my throat is back again. "So you think..."
"Eric, we believe your mother has been poisoning you with your medication. The hospital contacted us after your recent visit because they recorded something shocking on your test results--your reflexes in your knee. If you were fully paralyzed, you'd have no reflexes in your leg whatsoever. So doctors familiar with your case studied over it and discovered other conflicting reports, so they ran some more tests and discovered toxins in your blood that manifest as weakness in the muscles and nerves."
Oh my god. Oh my god. This can't be happening. Mom's been hurting me this entire time? But it can't be...it can't be true.
Using the bit of strength I have left, I wheel between Dr. Aldrin and Officer Rhodes. Dr. Aldrin is shouting after me, but I don't stop as I wheel down the ramp onto the sidewalk. Can Mrs. Thatcher help me? *Would* she help me? I don't know who can help me if my own mother has been hurting me.
I don't get to make a decision, because Officer Rhodes' hands catch the wheels of my chair and pull me back. He holds me in place and kneels down in front of me as tears stream down my face. Is it sick to say that I want my mom? | Thud!
"Uh! What was that!?" I slowly opened my eyes, the light from the window made it hard to see.
"What time is it?.. 11:15am!", my mother wakes me at 7:30 every morning. "Shit! I've missed my first round of meds, and the second are due at noon. Where's my mother?".
I dragged my legs over the edge of the bed and slid into my wheel chair, the pill box hasn't been filled either, and I can't reach the meds cupboard, its up too high for me to get to from my chair.
"Mom!.. MOM!" nothing, no reply.
Well, gotta pee - lets hope she's back before the hallucinations kick in, I've not been this long without my meds since I was about 7.
Thud! Thud! THUD!
"Who's there? Just a minute!" It's probably my mum, must have left her keys - hopefully she has the meds all sorted. Flush the toilet, quick squirt of the hand santitizer and head to the door.
Odd, my mothers coat and handbag are still in the hallway. Damn, the latch on the door at the top is too high, I don't remember the last time I answered the door by myself.
"Just a minute, the latch is on the door, and I'm in a wheelchair.".
"Mr Brown?" called a deep voice from the other side, the silhouette of a large man and a thinner person next to him was just visible through the frosted glass.
"Yes.. who are you? And who's your friend?" my voice cracked slightly, I'm not used to being alone.
"Mr Brown, I'm special detective Porter - with me is Dr White, she's a counsellor, of sorts - can we come in, we need to discuss your situation.". My situation? "What are you talking about, do you know where my mother is? And the door latch, its too high to..." Huh.. the latch is now unlatched, I'm sure that was locked tight a moment ago.
I openend the door and let them in, they scooched past me and headed for the living room.
"Mr Brown" her voice was soothing, almost apologetic just saying my name. "Mr Brown, we have taken your mother into custody, unfortunately, she had been taking prohibited, untested experimental medications from the lab at her work. These drugs are very dangerous, and we need to.." Detective Porter interrupted, "We need to locate and secure this medication as soon as possible, you need to come with us Mr Brown."
"I'm not sure how much help I can be, and why would my mother steal medication? All my meds are prescription, I've seen the labels on the bottles. I can't believe my mother would."
"Wait! It's YOU, that has been taking the medications!?" the doctor went several shades whiter, Porter looked to her, sirens in his eyes. Into his lapel, he shouted a series of semingly random words, within seconds, the room was filled with armed officers. I laughed, a little in terror. "I'm a cripple in a wheel chair!" Where could I go, I reached down to my wheels, but no, no need for wheels - I was feeling strong, my mind clear, for the first time in what felt like forever.
"Mr Brown? Mr Brown - you need to come with us, calmly and quietly now." Porter's voice was the one that cracked slightly this time, he was scared. He signalled for the armed officers to move forward, then a buzzing sound began, turned into a sawing whining whirr, all went red and the room exploded crimson, warm, wet, blood; the entire block, levelled. My chair gone, my home gone all my house guests gone, sirens wailed in the distance, what did my mother do to me? What did I do to those people? For those answers, I needed to get to my mother. | 2018-09-04T09:06:23 | 2018-09-04T07:51:57 | 43 | 20 |
[WP] On every planet, there is one being who is a living recorder for everything that happens. During the yearly recorder meeting, one always comes in emotionally drained. “Look. It’s the guy that has earth” | Every year, they held a conference between key recorders of all the habitable planets. This conference has been a tradition of the Salkin race and is treated with almost religious dedication. Currently, the conference table had one free seat, Aztal still yet to make an appearance. Annoyed whispers moved throughout the room, only for Aztal to appear. A flash of white light accompanying his sudden appearance before the thin white rays of his teleporters beam fizzled out, revealing the lanky green skinned figure.
Like most Salkins, he had the signature triangle shaped mouth, with two piercing pure white eyes. His figure, however, was lankier with a slouched posture, most likely given to him by the large tome he held in his hands. They sent these Salkin recorders to various planets that show intelligent life with the sole purpose of recording their events so that if the race ever dies out, their legacy will be recorded for others to learn from. Most people have come across a Salkin unknowingly in their lives. If you have ever felt a cold shiver pass you during the day, that was most likely a Salkin recorder wandering past you, hidden from your view thanks to its spectacular camouflage.
“Look, it’s the guy that has Earth. Why does he always look so exhausted? How can a planet so early in its cycle be that exhausting?” Mixil said, gossiping with Faren about the latest arrival to the conference. Aztal dragged his feet, carrying a large tome with him, one that appeared to be weighing him down both physically and emotionally. He dropped the tome onto the metallic table in front of them, letting out a small huff of air.
“Sorry I’m late. The humans are at war with each other, so I needed to write a few notes before coming here.” Aztal could barely keep his eyes open, covering his triangle shaped mouth as he yawned, trying to keep himself awake. “Is this meeting going to be long? I have a lot more things to record.”
Jazzak crossed his arms, giving Aztal a disapproving shake of his head. The most senior member of the conference fed up with his excuses. “Yes, yes. You have used that excuse for the last ten years. Do you truly expect me to believe that? I know your humans are a little less intelligent than the creatures that we look over, but what sort of race would pointlessly fight each other for over ten years. How can you expect any of us to believe that they have been at war for ten years?”
“Oh, no, they haven’t been at war for ten years. That war ended a little into last year, this is a new war.” Aztal said, opening his tome, the cover rocking the table when it collided with it. He scanned through the pages, pointing to a written recording of events. “Day 20, two human factions have gone to war again only months after the last peace treaty was signed. This war resulted from a human leader called Gabriel, pulling the chair out from the opposing leader Steven.” Aztal said, staring at the shocked faces surrounding him.
“Are you saying the war started because of a chair being pulled away? Did that act cause Steven to die? It must have been an accident of grave proportions, right?” Faren said, trying to understand the information being presented to him.
“Oh, no one died. At least none of the leaders did. Millions of civilians have died though.” Aztal said casually, flipping through his pages, trying to find the death toll, only to slap his forehead. “Right, I haven’t finished recording the numbers. They were going up too quickly. Steven didn’t die, but they hurt his pride. So, he wanted to get Gabriel back.”
“H-how did he get Gabriel back? Did he spit in his lunch or something?” Mixil asked, shivering at the thought of encountering such a feral race of creatures.
“He blew up a hospital. Oh, a hospital is where humans keep their sick.” Aztal explained, casually pulling out a long cylinder stick with a pointed glowing green tip, doing some equations in his tome, trying to calculate the death toll on the spot.
“Oh, I think I’m going to be sick.” Mixil covered her mouth, trying to keep herself together as Faren patted her back. Even Jazzak, the most senior member of the conference, looked a shade of light green, never having heard of such a thing in all his time.
“It can’t all be bad, surely? Have the humans done anything good?” Jazzak seemed eager to hear some good news, not wanting to scar poor Faren and Mixil any further.
“Good news…” The pause was terrifying. Aztal closing his eyes for a moment, making the surrounding members think he had fallen into a light slumber. Jazzak was about to wake him, only for his eyes to open. “They got rid of their nukes?” Aztal said, about to open his mouth again, only to get interrupted by Jazzak.
“Ah, how good is that. They may be at war over a pointless matter, but they have ridden their planet of its deadliest weapon. This shows progress in humanity. Maybe someone else should speak now.” Jazzak tried to push the conversation away from Earth, but neither Faren nor Mixil had time to reply before Aztal spoke again.
“Yeah, they replaced the nukes with these mega weapons called a Nuka. It’s like a nuke, but its blast radius is even bigger. They have only used three of them though, so it’s an excellent result.” Aztal said, with a very low standard of what an excellent result was. The momentary looks of relief that the other members held was now a mix of horror and despair.
“That can’t be right. In your last report, you said a nuke had the power to nearly destroy one of our planet’s moons. You are saying they have something stronger than that? And they have used it three times. How is the planet not a pile of dust?” Farren questioned, leaning forward on the desk.
“Well, there’s a lot of dust and destroyed land, anyway. It doesn’t make much difference. They are rather resilient; you can read about it in my findings. I have made copies for all of you. It’s ok if you don’t read it. I’m sure your planets have had similar troubles.” Aztal gave up on his calculations, shutting his tome before giving the group a nod. “Ok, who’s next?”
Everyone awkwardly looked at their thin notebooks, sheepishly kicking their feet against the floor below them. None of them had concerns that were even close to rivaling Aztals. Mixil was the closest to having what they could describe as a ‘conflict.’ The race she was watching over having a temporary shouting match about who could use the northern spaceport they had built. This conflict, however, ended in hugging and song, far less violent than what the humans would have done in the same situation.
“Actually, you look tired, Aztal. I don’t wish to keep you waiting, go have a rest.” Jazzak feigned kindness, just wanting to get him out of the conference room so the rest could talk without that feeling of guilt.
“Really? That would be great. I haven’t slept in a century. I’m not sure how you all do it. Guess I’m just not a hard worker.” He struggled with his tome for a moment, before heaving it up into his grasp, awkwardly stumbling towards the teleporter. As the white light surrounding him, he let out a huff, getting a brief glimpse of Earth in the radiating beams of white. “ANOTHER NUKA.” was the last thing they heard before he vanished.
“Maybe we should make these meetings every ten years…” Jazzak said, as the other two quickly nodded their heads, wanting to avoid this awkward encounter until at least a decade had passed.
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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.) | “You okay, Zekt?” asked Regg. “You look you haven’t slept in a week. Your eyes have rings bigger than Saturn.”
“Ah, I’m okay.” Zekt slumped down into the seat next to Regg .”Just another one of those earth years, you know?”
Regg slapped Zekt’s back, “Relax, only another billion and you’ll get yourself a new assignment.”
“A billion? I’m not even sure earth’s got another thousand in it. The humans have scared the ice so badly it’s trying to get away from the poles. Whole thing’s going to turn into a big meltwater before you know it. A real Parkoa Two situation.”
”You’re exaggerating. Things can’t be *that* bad.”
”Ah, I don’t know. Maybe I am exaggerating. I do like the cats. It’s just the human, you know? And I have to take their form seeing as they’re current alphas. I can’t stand out either, so I have to look a bit below average in everything. Humans, of course, pick on anything below average, so it’s not an easy ride. Honest to god, it’s making me miss being a hippo.“
A black hole rose up from the center of the galactic table, hovering steadily above them. It tugged at Zekt’s hair. Thinner hair than this time last year. Like hairs on a coconut.
The million or so beings gathered around the circular table opened up their briefcases and took out their notepads.
Regg ripped out three pages and threw them to the wind; the black hole sucked them into it for consideration of the Ever Accountant, seated at the dark spot at its heart.
Zekt tore out page after page from his notebook and let them flutter like birds towards the hole. The paper birds slowed down the nearer they got until it looked like they came to a complete hovering halt.
“Gee, you filled the entire pad?” asked Regg. “I only got three pages worth of events.”
”You bet I filled it. Things are moving so fast down there. You know they got elevators now where you just call out what floor you want it to go to?”
”Voice controlled elevators? Well that’s really something,” said Regg looking at his index finger. “We never even thought of voice controlled elevators. I’ve been pushing a button all my existence.” He shook his head. “They’re a smart bunch, that’s for sure. And you’re complaining about them, Zekt?”
“You’re asking me if I’m complaining about them?” Zekt tore the last page out of the notebook and then, to Regg’s astonishment, took out a second pad. “First time I used one of those elevators, I was inside it with this very pretty lady — and you know how embarrassed I get around pretty beings.”
“Oh yeah, we all know how gassy you get.”
“Well the lift asked, very casually: *what’s your floor?* Well I’d come straight from therapy and misunderstood the question entirely. I said, small reproductive organ.”
Regg frowned. “Easy mistake, Zekt. Don’t let it get to you.”
”Then I hit the emergency stop thinking the elevator would let me off at the next floor. Boy was I hopeful. We were stuck in there for three hours. And you know how I get.“
”We all know how you get. Say, would you like a drink? Maybe you need one — it’ll help you relax.“
”It’s all just changing so fast there, Regg. I’m struggling to keep up with all the craziness. I’m a nervous wreck.”
”They didn’t kill another Christ did they?”
”Who knows! There are eight billion of them now. How do I keep an eye out for the next Christ in all of that traffic? Every day, about a thousand of them claim to be the second coming, which doesn’t help matters.”
Regg whistled. “Lot to keep up with.”
“You’re telling me. What’s your planet got? Five species, three of them static? Total population of… what? Two hundred?”
“One-nine-nine, now. Bad year for the portal bees.”
Zekt raised his arms. “Bad year! Bad year. You want to hear about bad years? I got some plagues I could tell you about that’d make you question your own sanity.” He took a deep breath and took out a third notepad. He didn’t bother ripping up the pages this time, instead throwing the entire pad into the void.
”Zekt, I know you’re stressed but the Accountant likes it page by page.”
”Ah, what’s she going to do? Worst punishment she could give me is what I’m already doing.”
”You don’t mean that.”
”I do. I really do. What if humanity lasts another billion years? I can’t think of anything worse than sending me back there.” Zekt paused for a moment and watched the paper birds of his notebooks hovering someway in front of him. Then he raised an arm in triumph. “Eureka! I got it!”
”Got what?”
“Goodbye Regg. You’ve been a real pal the last hundred million years or so.“
”Zekt?”
But Zekt was up on his chair. A second later, he‘d jumped. Very, very slowly, he moved through the air towards the black hole. Zekt figured it’d take a billion years for him to reach the center.
By then, humanity would be gone. They had to be. *Surely*.
Yes he’d forsaken his duties. But as long as humans were gone, then there would be no punishment left in existence that could possibly fit the crime.
He smiled.
A smile he’d keep going for the next billion years or so. | 2021-08-13T07:22:55 | 2021-08-13T06:38:07 | 714 | 535 |
[WP] You are a demon that takes firstborns as payments. When it comes time for payment, you don't do anything evil with the children. Instead, you raise them to be outstanding people. You are responsible for generations of leaders, Doctors, and Heroes. | "But why?" asked the demon hunter. He finally let up and put the cross away, hesitant as he may have been, which allowed me to speak with more comfort.
"Because they deserve better," I said. "What kind of a parent gives up their child for a sack of infinite turnips? Do you honestly think they would have had a better life with them?"
The demon hunter opened his mouth in protest, but only let out a defeated breath. I can only suspect what he'd anticipated to find - a black stone soaked in the blood of the innocents or a dark sabbath singing my praises and prancing around with bits of flesh on their lips. Not a large, well-lit house with a garden and a swing set.
"But why do *you* do it? There must be a reason," the demon hunter continued. I got up from my chair and walked over to a wall covered in pictures and paintings, pointing one of them out. It had 2 adult demons standing by a smaller one, her wide smile showing the silver glint of her new bracers.
"My parents own a farm in the Wrath Ring. They raised me well. When I learned what some of you humans do to your children, well... I felt responsible."
The demon hunter finally accepted my previous offer and sat down in the soft, cushioned chair in the living room. I can't fault him for suspecting foul play - the Church propaganda ran deep, but seeing the kids happy and healthy, not even he could deny it.
"Mind you," I continued, "they're not always bad," I said and took one old portrait off of the wall, handing it over to the hunter. He looked at the likeness of an older couple proudly standing by a young but clearly adult woman in a Victorian-era dress. The subtle bridges of their noses and cloudy grey eyes instantly betrayed their biological relation.
"Her... parents? I mean, birth parents?" he quickly added as to not insult me.
"Yes. Not everyone gives their kids away for personal gain. Mr. and Mrs. Talbot here were simply too poor. Do you know what they asked for in return?" I said and sat back down, taking another sip of my tea.
The hunter said nothing but looked at me expectantly.
"To raise her well," I said with a smile.
"...did you?"
"Of course. She was one of the first female doctors admitted to the Newcastle hospital. I had to pull some string for that, but you should've seen her face when she got the place," I said and subtly wiped my eye.
He looked back at the picture, noting its age.
"How long have you been doing this?" he said and shifted his eyes to the wall of pictures. Some of them looked remarkably old and had people in all manner of clothing attire, in some cases centuries out of style.
"A while," I smiled. He seemed content with the answer. He sat there in silence for a moment, then spoke.
"What am I supposed to say to my order? I can't just say 'Turns out the Demon is friendly'."
"Tell them the truth. That the report of a demon abducting and tormenting children was misconstrued," I said.
"Oh, and before you go - one of the children, Jeffrey, has been watching a *lot* of movies about demon hunters and seems dead set on becoming one. Do you mind talking to him, telling him what it's like?" I cheerfully asked.
"You'd let a... ward of yours hunt down your own kind?" he replied with surprise.
"As if humans don't have a profession that hunts down other, bad humans. Would you mind if your child wanted to become a policeman?" I said with a stern look. He looked puzzled but conceded to my point. Seeing this, I allowed my smile to return to my face.
"So, would you talk to him, *demon hunter*? It'd make his day," I said with a laugh.
The demon hunter put the portrait back onto the coffee table and, for the first time since his visit, smiled.
"It would be my pleasure. And," he said with what I suspected might have been genuine kindness,
"It's Garreth." | I love them all like they are my own offspring. Those humans, forsaken by their own kin, traded like nothing but mere coin, they have become my own family through the years, decades, and even centuries that I have kept up my business.
Even though I gifted those neglectful parents with every riches, power, fame, and whatever other earthly possessions and influence they could ever dream of, the children and I are the ones that always come out more advantageous after every deal.
Because in loving and nurturing those disregarded babies, I achieve power beyond anyone’s imagination. Power that allows me to give those babies a better future than their useless parents could even provide them in the first place.
And my kids, as I affectionately like to call them, not only grow up to be important people, that change the world for the better every time, but with their actions, they manage to spread the word about me. It’s always subtle, no reference to my demonic nature in order to not scare away the others, still fearful of my kind after millennia of lies, but it’s more than enough.
My name is revered through generations, so my power and influence grow amongst other demons, turning me into one of the most respected inhabitants of Hell. Yet I don’t truly care about the power I wield nor what it means for my position, not in the way many of my contractors do. All I see useful about it is the opportunity to make Hell a better place of eternal rest for my children once they pass away.
And for their biological parents, I make sure they suffer the worst destiny imaginable. A fitting punishment for letting their greed and selfishness give up something as precious as what my family has become. | 2022-02-05T10:32:19 | 2022-02-05T10:20:44 | 465 | 108 |
[WP] You arrive in the year 1000, and all you have are the clothes on your back, a laptop with the entire Wikipedia library, and a solar charger. | Day 1: I awoke in what I can only assume to be a wheat field.. (maybe barley?...whatever..). The sun is low in the sky...east...it must be morning. This is not the first time I've woken to find myself in a strange place, but at least I'm wearing pants...sometimes it's best to focus on the positives during times of confusion...especially when you're this hungover.
After collecting myself I wander through the field until I come across a small farm...or cabin...or shanty. I honestly can't remember seeing a house constructed quite in this manner. I guess maybe it's some kind of makeshift storage shed used to store tools...because it appears to be made mostly of hay, and what I can only assume to be either shit, or smelly mud. I think I'll have to stay here awhile until I figure out a way to call for help..
Day 3: So...it's starting to become clear I am no longer home. I was able to locate a small village, and was able to barter for food by trading some furs (that I stole)...and a few small tools (that I also stole). The local inn/tavern agreed to rent a room to me for the duration of my stay...no price was discussed...so far payment has not been asked for. I figure I'll just hide out here for a few days while I get my shit together...then high-tail it out of here before rent is due. Shitty I know...but what else is there to do? I've hidden my laptop in a small cave north of town...it's dry enough, and unlikely to be found..hopefully.
Day 37: With the help of a local merchant I was able to trade some knowledge in herbal remedies (thanks to the laptop) for a ride into the capital. Once I arrived I proceeded to do odd jobs improving the lives of the townsfolk. One such job caught the attention of the King when I single-handedly ended a horrible plague which had taken many lives. Basically the solution was "Let us try to refrain from shitting directly into the drinking well for awhile...and see if that helps". The idea was a success..and new cases of the illness have fallen drastically in just the last 3 weeks.
Day 257: After earning respect from both the king and his court, I was given the title of "Royal Advisor"...also I serve as "Master of Arms"...my knowledge of battle formations and tactical strategies is unrivaled. Mostly due to the unfair advantage of 15+ years playing Command and Conquer. I even have a apprentice...a giant muscular hulk of a man named Preatoris...although I prefer to call him Tiny. I've organized a group of knights to guard the king at all times. The king wanted to call them the Royal Guardsman..but after much persuasion from me..we settled on the name "Dirty Dozen"...for obvious reasons.
Day 376: The throne is mine. Using a little Wikipedia magic...and some good old fashioned elbow grease...I was able to put together a small conductor using some copper, which I've fashioned into small wires. I etched a small hole in the kings bed chamber...and was able to run the wire from a small closet under his room, through the hole, and into his bath. (Can you believe these stinky fuckers actually bathe together?). I waited until I had built a significant charge in my laptop battery...disconnected it...connected the wires to the correct points for + and -, and fried the sonofabitch. He had no descendants...he had no queen...the poor bastard was all alone. It was easy enough covering up his death...I mean burning alive for no reason while COVERED with water??! Obviously it was the Gods..smiting him for some wrong....or maybe he was a witch? Eh...whatever you need to tell yourself. Of course..who do you think these morons turned to for guidance now that their king is dead?? Me...that's fucking who.. hell, I could have just walked up and put the crown on myself...no one would dare try to stop me...but I'll let them have their ceremonies. I've got better things to think about...BIGGER things to consider...plans to be made.. | I should have prepared more. I didn't though it will work on the first run. And the return mechanism is not ready yet - and never will be now. I do have most of the required knowledge and a good memory of my own plans but even with all that knowledge I'll never be able manufacture, or in that manner, create the machinery to manufacture the delicate and microscopic components of the machine. Not in my life time.
But first I need to ensure the safety of the laptop. I could dig a hole and hide it but the ground is damp and I don't have plastic bags. And it could rain any time.
Anyone interested in part 2?
Edit: Part 2
I'll just hide it under the coat. Damn! My clothes! I don't want to draw attention.. Think think.. Dirt. I'll pretend as a beggar. First I need to get rid of the shoes. I'll dig here.. Shoes are gone, hope nobody ever find them. Now let's get dirty.. Ok but something is missing.. I need to wear the clothes. I'll rub it with this rock. A little hole here and a little rub there. Looking good. Were there socks in that time? Let's check.. There were but not machine knitted and definitely not for beggar status. Off they go.
I'm walking 10 minutes and my feet are already hurt. I'll just rip the bottom part of the coat and wrap it around feet.. It still hurts but a little less.
Ok. I can see the village. I hope the people are nice. But what should I do? I need shelter but I don't have any money. It's probably some silver and gold coins. Lets see... Silver and Cooper also. Wait a minute!!! The silver mine 10 kilometers to the South. When did they found it? Lets see... They found the first nugget only 200 years from now. That is great! I can later go there and look for some nuggets to get me started. For now I'll try to find some shelter and food in exchange for some work they might have for me.
To be continued? | 2016-12-27T18:00:37 | 2016-12-27T12:31:19 | 128 | 21 |
[WP] It started normally enough: A doctor brought you back from the brink of death after an accident. Then it happened again after illness. Then again after a heart attack. Hundreds of years have passed and you can't die or age. He always drags you back. | As sweat runs down my face I keep praying that this goes right. I am on second highest floor of a brand new building. After living in the mountains for almost two hundred years, I have an affinity for tall buildings. For now, I am living in this high rise apartment that finished construction just a month ago. No tenants have moved in but they will soon. I plan to be in a different place by then. A more permanent place.
Everything is in place. Time to die. Again.
I climb up the stairs to the highest floor. I enter in my makeshift apartment: a chair, a table, a few dirty clothes in the corner, a plant by the window and a mattress in the middle of the room. I say goodbye to my plant. I grab my revolver from the table and aim it at my chest.
He doesn't like it when I spill too much blood. Good. I close my eyes and pull the trigger. There is a sound of the trigger and a loud bang. For a second I feel nothing, and then a wetness making it's way down my shirt. I collapse on the ground.
When I wake up, I feel too weak to move. I am still on the ground. He is hovering over me with his pointy and Gothic tools in hand. He smiles. "Gunshot again? I have told you they are the easiest to fix."
"Is the blood loss," I manage to speak through the haze, "easy to fix?"
His smile disappears. "I had presumed this whole ordeal was to make me upset. Is that correct?"
"You can go fuck yourself." My energy is coming back and I can think clearly now. I need to convince him that this is just another rebel act, nothing more.
In another ten minutes he finishes and puts his tools back in his briefcase. I get a glimpse of the bottle that has haunted my nights. It looks just like a normal water bottle except it is made of transparent glass. After all, blood is heavier than water.
"Did you get your blood supply?" I ask from the floor. I am still too weak to get up.
He smiles again and this time I see the white fangs at the corner of his mouth. "There was heavy blood loss and most of it was on the floor but I have managed to store it after purifying. Technology these days, I am telling you. Do you remember the time I had a wooden container? You used to be more happy around that time."
"I had a family back then, you freak."
"And you can still have a family!" He is now ready to go, briefcase in one hand and the bottle with my blood safely tucked inside it. "Just a new family, and when they die, another new family. And you don't have to work, I will sponsor it!" He smiles like a salesman displaying his best product. "Just don't die, old friend, your blood is too precious, too... delicious. I am too used to it now." He turns round and makes his way to the door.
I call after him. "Can you switch on the fan," I say through my teeth. Careful now, almost there. "Old friend?" I finish the sentence.
He turns around and stares at me for a moment. I am sitting on the floor, trying to control my heartbeat. I know he can hear it. Maybe it is the weakness from the injury or maybe it is centuries of frustration coming together for a moment of resolute determination, either way I manage to control it and give him a tired smile.
"Why of course, old friend!" He is smiling again. He presses on the switch next to the regulator. I hear a faint CLICK from below the floor and I know it has worked.
In my last moment on earth, I take solace in knowing that he will die too. The bomb is powerful enough to bring down the neighborhood buildings in this abandoned area. I know he has some sort of super speed because he arrives at the site of my suicide quickly enough to save me. And I know he has the power to stitch me back up even when my head is detached from my torso. But this bomb is something else. No one can survive this.
Time to die. For the last time.
I feel the intense heat from below and then... nothing.
A moment later I wake up in agony that no one is capable of imagining. I open my eyes to see his smiling face over me. "Oh that was your best attempt yet. But you know you will always come back, and so will I."
I have the urge to scream from pain and hopelessness but I am unable to. As if reading my mind, he says, "Oh I have chosen to stitch the mouth back at the very end. It's easier if I don't have any interruptions, you know? But you can cry if you wish."
He is humming a melody while he carries on his work. I know this tune, but I can't place it. I mentally surf through centuries of my life to the very beginning, to the village I was born in. I used to hum this tune to my daughter, my first daughter, back when I was truly alive. But all the memories of my house and village are gone except one: Me standing with a fire-torch outside his house, shouting with the mob and burning it down. No one else survived his wrath that night. I don't know why he chose me but it doesn't matter. I am his revenge and he will not stop until he is satisfied.
I close my eyes to get away from this purgatory and as always, I am still here. | Light begins peak through as I gently open my eyes. I feel my chest rising and falling letting me know that I am alive.
Again?, I think hoping and praying that this is a different experience.
As I regain my senses and turn my head to the left I realize I am in the hospital. An adorable holographic nurse tells me that all my vitals look good and that on my bedside table there is some reading material for me. The advancement of technology never ceases to amaze me.
I still remember my first time ‘waking up’, it was in Texas right before they broke off and became their own country. 2020 was such a good year, until the NRA decided to invest all of their money into the Texas government. The amount of guns that existed in Texas always gave me anxiety. With the help of the NRA every citizen had a gun and knew how to use it. Eventually I was the only one without and the fear and stress associated with Texas’s seceding caused me to have a major heart attack.
I thought I was blessed to wake up then. Not so much now.
I’ve ‘woken up’ somewhere over a hundred times. Each time I die a more horrifying death than the next one. This last time I was killed while in my own home during an earthquake. I lived for days as I felt the home I had grown to love crush me between the Earth. I thought this time I would be beyond salvation. I began to look forward to being completely crushed under the weight. Finally getting to experience complete darkness.
I guess I was wrong about being past the point of salvation. Unfortunately I have never met the man who has kept me alive all of these years. He always just leaves a note that says “you’re welcome”.
This time is different though, there’s no note. What if this time I was just saved by plain old medicine? Seems impossible. I go to sit up and notice that I’m restrained at the wrist. The lights in my hospital room begin to flicker unwaveringly. The holographic lady who informed me of my vitals just moments before glitches into darkness.
“Hello?”, I attempt to call out to the darkness. It comes out in a rasp.
I see something moving in the darkness; moving towards me. I’m too afraid to even attempt to fight it. My mouth can’t even move to make a noise. I am completely frozen in fear. I feel something cold grip me with intense strength. It lessens it’s grip as it trails up my leg. I can’t tell if I’m feeling nails or claws as they reach the area behind my knee. I feel a sharp pain as I’m stabbed in the soft area. Everything goes dark.
I wake up this time to a room full of doctors with clipboards. I am surrounded by machines. They look visibly awed.
“She’s awake,” I hear a few of them mummer.
A doctor approaches me slowly, “Hello, I’m sure you’re wondering what’s going on. You’ve been in a coma for about four months. Your family has given us permission to try out an experimental drug that causes coma patients to dream to attempt to boost their adrenaline levels. Is this all making some sense to you?” | 2019-09-14T08:49:52 | 2019-09-14T08:22:20 | 32 | 12 |
[WP] A son dies, and his parents leave his room untouched. A year later, the son's distant father enters the room for the first time since the death. He decides to look through his son's computer in an attempt to finally get to know who his son is. | OP, I forgot you said a year later by the time I started writing, so I changed it to 10 years. I hope that's okay. Otherwise, you're still going to hate me when you finish the story.
***
As I opened the door, the first thing I saw was the dust. No matter where you looked, that was the first thing you saw. A thin film of it was hanging over everything. No one had been in here in a long time, and that fact was fairly obvious. I'd been avoiding his room for a decade now but I'm alone now. The hinges squeaked, requiring more force to swing open than they had years ago, or maybe that's just me being too weak to enter. My footprints left noticeable gaps on the floor, and my breath was enough to stir dust from around the room. The first thing I had to do before I could even bother to look around was open a window, unless I died of suffocation.
As the rays of sunshine hit the room for the first time in a decade, being hidden by the curtains, I could feel the catch in my throat. The tears started to build and I gulped, hard, to suppress them. The pain was overwhelming, all of his belongings seeming to scream that it was my fault he was dead, my fault alone. I took a couple of steps to his desk and I hit the power button on the old Compaq. The sound was deafening, the whirring of the fan stirring up even more dust and sending another wave around the room.
It took a couple of minutes, but soon the monitor lit up with a photo of us all. I remember when it was taken in our backyard, a mere month before he died. I remembered my wife staring at a copy of the photo in her hands a decade ago, screaming how he looked so happy. How he never could have been so depressed to take his life. The tears started to spill, landing on the keyboard tray.
On the desktop was a word document that was set apart from everything else, a file laid on top of my face. I double clicked it, waited for it to open, and set about reading. Each word was a stab to the heart, each line more painful than the last. The tears weren't stopping now, a small lake forming on the wood below my head. The suicide note of a child is something no parent should have to read.
Yet with the pain came the clarity. 10 years later and I could remember, crisply, every second of the day this was written, and my mind poured through the details as it did every day for the past decade. Waking up in the morning and cooking us all eggs and bacon. It was a saturday so the three of us were going to go to the park and enjoy the sunshine. My wife got a call for a shift at the hospital and she had to go, leaving the two of us.
The plans for our day quickly changed, my suggestion for woodworking in our backyard winning over his suggestion of seeing a movie. We went out back and started off. He was making a birdhouse, I was working on a new mailbox. He kept looking at me and smiling, and my heart kept breaking. Around lunchtime we broke off, with him going inside to eat. I stayed out in the shop, gathering some supplies.
When he came back outside, he was confused by the rope hanging from the ceiling. I remember explaining how it was a swing for him to make him feel like he was flying. His eyes perked up and his smile blossomed. I picked him up on my shoulders and instructed how he was supposed to climb into the swing. When he told me he was ready, I lifted him up off of my shoulders and let go.
The drop wasn't anywhere long enough to break his neck, so instead he choked. His small hands were flailing, his face accusing, and it took a long time before he finally stopped. I was crying the entire time, I knew I would miss him but it had to be done. When the only motion was him swinging softly, I put a small stool near him and went back into the house for some whiskey and go upstairs to type out his note.
My wife came home later, asking where he was. I said he was playing in the backyard, and it wasn't long before I heard the scream. I went through my practiced motions, trying to hold her and console her, while screaming in agony myself. The police were called, ambulances, but I knew there was nothing that could have been done. His skin was ashen and his eyes glossy and unfixed.
Having him was an accident. The condom broke and we ended up with a kid that we never wanted. We had to sacrifice our education for a while, only my wife able to go back to her nursing courses years after. I became the stay at home dad for a kid I had always resented. I grew to love him, in a way, but I always knew that our life would be better together without him. It was a hard decision to make, but I did make it.
Our life after was rocky. The first year was impossible and she tried to divorce me, but I wouldn't let her. She never accepted he killed himself, but instead started to ignore his existence altogether. His room was locked and the tiny hallway to his door was walled over. We carried on, but it was never the same. We did enjoy ourselves, but never enough. Then last week, she took her own life in the same shop. Her note was typed out on her computer. She had known I killed him, but she felt similar to me at first. She tried to enjoy the life without him, but it never took and she couldn't stay with me, a monster.
So now I'm sitting here in front of his computer, staring at the note that I wrote and lied about for a decade. Sitting surrounded by his toys, and books and everything that he owned screaming at me, blaming me. Well they won't need to blame me for much longer, because I'm writing my own note now. This note. I'll never be able to take back what I've done for as long as I've lived, no matter how much I might want to. For 10 years I was able to hold it together and actually thrived without him. Now I can't close my eyes without seeing his face, and my wifes face, consumed by fire and screaming my name in anger. Maybe this will give them some peace.
Goodbye. | My first attempt at responding to one of these :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He sighs. The weight of his sigh lies on his shoulders, nowadays in a permanent stoop. He is in mourning.
The door stands slightly ajar, as it always has.
She doesn’t go in. They haven’t, since that day. One year ago today, when their lives ended, yet kept continuing, in a horrible onward journey that neither of them had energy for any more.
*One whole year.*
He takes a hesitant step forward. Nudges the door with his toe. It swings forward, with a hesitant creak. The dust motes dance in the shaft of light from the window, coming from between hastily drawn curtains. The bed is roughly made. A spread of books and a school bag lie on top of the quilt. AP Chemistry. AP Physics. He knows if he opens them, he will see painstaking notes in the margins; in a boyish scrawl, but somehow neat.
He feels his eyes welling up. This boy, he could have been anything. He could have cured cancer. Gone to the moon. Or just lived a simple life. President of the Rotary Club. Cute wife. Cute kids.
*Grandkids*. One tear drops lightly onto his cheek, but he doesn’t notice, doesn’t wipe it away.
While he still has control, he moves purposefully towards the desk. Before he changes his mind, he presses the Start button on the laptop. It whirrs to life. He’s certain it will have a password, but it surprisingly doesn’t. A weak quarter smile flashes on his face, before it settles back into the permanent etchings of grief. At least he trusted them enough not to pry. And now... now it doesn’t matter.
When it finishes loading, he rests his hand on the mouse. Moves it awkwardly to the Start Menu. Navigates to the Document folder. Not sure what he’ll find.
It’s mostly homework assignments. A couple letters to grandparents in stilted formal English. He reads those, again flashing the quarter smile once or twice at the memories these invoke.
He sees one Word document, saved with the title “Letter”. He blinks twice, clears the tears. Opens the file.
It reads:
*Dad,*
*I know I am not the son you expected. I also know you aren’t disappointed in me. I know you are proud of my academic achievements and that you’re grateful I’m a good son. Even though you don’t say it, I know this. For a long time, I wasn’t sure. I felt like I was not who you wanted me to be, and I struggle to connect with you. For a long time, I thought that was your fault, and I thought I hated you for it.*
*But last week, when we watched that game on TV, I finally felt close to you again. And I realised that I’m just as guilty as you. I don’t make the effort either. I’m into science. You’re into sports. I’ve felt like that separates us, but maybe it doesn’t have to. I can watch games with you, and you can explain the rules. And then maybe we’ll be able to talk about the stuff I’m interested in too.*
*I’m not sure when or how this divide appeared, but I want it gone. I want my dad back, and so I’m going to try, which is why I’m going to the football game tonight with my friends. I’m going to learn all about it. I’m sure you would have liked me to play… but this is a start right?*
*I don’t know how to talk to you about this. So I wrote this letter. I probably won’t even give it to you. Hopefully I’ll read this back in a year’s time, and laugh to myself at the angst, and then head back out to the den to watch the second half, with you.*
*Your son.*
It is dated the day of the car accident. The accident that ended his son’s life. The day that has left him in a torturous, languid limbo.
He can no longer hold back the tears.
*My son.* | 2015-02-25T13:14:20 | 2015-02-25T13:08:16 | 24 | 17 |
[WP] You've saved the lives of thousands. You're the reason names and dates aren't associated with horrendous disasters. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you're an uncatchable serial killer with inscrutable motives. | There are lines, you know. No, not that kind of line, not the ones I cross when I take a life. Take a lives. Take lives? Yes, that’s it. Sorry, they distract me. The lines, that is.
They’re everywhere, all over the world, coming together, flowing apart, from person to person through time and space and heartbreak. Joy, too, sometimes, but I don’t care about that. Joy can happen all it likes.
Convergence is hard. It's delicate. So many things have to be just right for it all to come together. I mean you knew that, we all do to some extent. Destroy is easy, build is hard, right? Right. Just takes a nudge to stop things in time. This person here plus that person there plus him and her and him and her and they come together and now there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, as the saying goes. People dead, or hurt. So I nudge here and nudge there and boom, doesn't happen. Great.
Except it wasn't enough, not in the long run. At first I thought, yeah, bad things mostly happen because things come together, and they do, and still it's great, great that I can stop them. But I had to stop them over and over and I started to notice.
Same people, over and over. Same people I had to nudge. People who were just the right combination of conscienceless and smart. And they started to notice, started to notice me. It's not good for people like that to notice you. I had to do more nudging now so that the bad things didn't happen to *me.*
And I started to believe in not just bad, but in evil. Didn't used to. Thought it was all circumstance and chance and that. Some people are raised bad, makes them bad, but not *evil,* that's not a useful word, not a useful concept, it doesn't show up in the lines, just the hurt at the end. But that doesn't mean it's not real, because these people? You'd nudge them away and they'd be right back at it. There were the lines, all threading together into some new horror. Striking agricultural workers slaughtered by corporate kill-teams. Yes, that happens, look it up. Terror attacks, though honestly those aren't the worst of the things I prevent, not by a long ways.
Wars. Economic crashes. Just money, you say? Wrong. Suddenly people can't afford health care. The stress makes hearts go out. People turn to crime. It's a cascade. I can see all the lines. And sure some of the lines are spread out, lots of responsibility, circumstance, excuse. But.
But. Some of them keep going back to the same people. Again and again.
Only one way to be sure, only one way. I don't like it. I'm not a violent woman. I mean, that's a lie, obviously I am, look at all this blood. But I'd rather not be, if there were another way. Prison, I guess, if I were a state, but I'm not. Tried that anyway, reporting them, getting word to the police, to the press. But these people, these terminus-of-bad-lines types, they get out of it more often than not. They wriggle. And it happens again.
So I cut their lines short. Not hard to avoid getting caught, I can see those lines too. I don't hurt police, I understand why they're hunting me. I just avoid them, make sure their lines don't intersect with mine. It's hard sometimes, the other lines, the good lines I guess, they can be persistent too. But it's worth it.
I have killed 1,034 people as of this morning. I'm still scrubbing the blood from my gloves. I caught and cut his line at just the right time, where I knew no other would cross its path for a while yet in the future. I'll be long gone by the time they start looking for me.
I have saved 7,324,556 lives. I think. It's hard to keep track. But I can. Because that's how I am, with the lines. The world is a better place now, and no one knows why. It does make me smile, and that's fine.
Joy can happen all it likes.
&#x200B;
r/Magleby for more elaborate lies. | It's said that death is the great equalizer. And if that's so, then call me Death.
I was granted this power long ago by the spirits of the dead, and for a time, I was terrified to use it. Getting to decide who lives and dies was a responsibility that only those with the highest morals would have. The responsibility that only a god should wield.
Then again, even God in the Bible killed people he didn't like.
The first death was a test in a rise of mounting anger. Furious with humanity for hating, for fighting, for killing, I set my sights on one of the world's powerful leaders. Hating them for hoarding so much while others had so little, laughing while the chaos of the hierarchy below sowed the seeds of their own destruction.
Shortly after the the first dictator was struck down by my own force of will, the news outlets were flooded. One of the top most wealthy and corrupt people in the world, who others had feared and was untouchable, was gone. Fallen from the tower of privilege that they had built for themselves, confident that no one could reach them.
Except death.
Feeling a rush enter my mind, a realization at the potential of my power and what I could change, I looked up whoever I could think of. Those who halted the progress of others, those who oppressed other humans for their own gain, those who tried to restrict the use of resources while spending their own wealth extravagantly.
One by one, they fell from their position of the gods they assumed they were. Crumbling to dust that they had built on the fractured hopes and shattered dreams of others.
Any potential threat of war, any shred of evil, I struck them down. Sadly I couldn't control their actions before they died—the things I would do with such a power—but I could cause them to drop dead at the drop of a hat, and choose their method of death.
A heart attack was preferable.
Under my watch, there was no more war. No more fear. No more suffering. At least, aside from those who deserved it.
God refused to answer the prayers of the populace. I swept in to respond instead. | 2019-04-03T06:10:47 | 2019-04-03T06:06:49 | 220 | 12 |
[WP] When they turn 14, every human gets an obscure super power with a lengthy description of it so they know what it is. But when yours arrives, it only says four words. “Don’t… | “It’ll be pyrokenisis”, my dad said, for the thousandth time, as his fingers sparked the hob beneath the kettle. “It’s one of the most heritable powers, and we already struck out on Dan. I’m just saying, the odds are on our side."
Mum rolled her eyes, for the thousandth time. “Whatever it is, it will be wonderful”, she replied, giving my hand a quick squeeze. “Any inkling at all yet, Sims?”
I shook my head. I'd woken up feeling utterly normal, though I was so nervous I thought I might be sick — lord help me if *that* was part of my power.
My eyes were glued to the clock. Less than 24 minutes left before my life would be irrevocably altered.
They ran a course at school for all the kids turning 14 the following month. We’d learned about the transition itself, what to expect from the letter, and how to read its various sections. The final week was focused on acceptance — you weren’t meant to set your heart on a specific power, even though we’d spent our whole lives imagining what we might become. Like most kids, I’d been through various phases: at eight, I wanted super speed, and fantasised about my wall of medals. At 11, as adolescence curled my hair and filled out parts of my body, I’d dreamt of invisibility. That was part of what they were trying to teach us, I guess: lives are long, and the “best” power will look different in 10 years, or 50.
I sipped my tea to fight back the nausea, and my parents let me sit with my thoughts and nerves, speaking softly to each other. I was grateful not to have to make conversation.
At school, they'd also taught us that our powers wouldn’t define us. We could chart our own path. But really, could we? How many professional athletes succeeded without super speed or strength, and how many politicians or estate agents didn't have powers of persuasion or charisma?
I'd spent the past few weeks playing out different scenarios in my mind, and at this point, frankly, I just felt overwhelmed. More than any specific power, I just wanted the wait to be over. To be able to sketch an outline over the blank years stretching out before me.
Soon enough, the second hand of the clock was at 5-to.
We headed into the hallway, my parents buzzing with nervous, excited energy. I was mostly focused on keeping down my toast. God, wouldn’t it be *classic* if my transition story took place with Mum holding back my hair over a toilet?
We stood back at the end of the hall, as though making space for the outsized importance of the small letter that would, any moment, drop through the mail slot.
"No matter what, Sims, it's going to be fine. It's going to be great," said Dad, wrapping his arm around me. Mum, on my other side, squeezed my arm and kissed the top of my head. I could tell she was floating, just an inch or two off the ground, the way she often did when she was excited.
At 8 o'clock sharp, a cream-coloured envelope dropped onto the tile.
I stepped forward, slowly, transfixed by the thought that my destiny had already been written but was still -- for a few more seconds, anyways -- unknown.
The envelope was heavy stock, cool under my fingers. My name was embossed on the front: MISS SIMONE WEST.
I tore it open, removed the letter, took a deep breath, and unfolded the thick paper.
At first, I wasn't sure what I was looking at. We'd gone over generic transition letters at school -- and this wasn't what it was meant to look like. The page was mostly blank, with just four words printed across the centre of the page:
DON'T ANSWER THE DOOR
"Mum, Dad... what is this?" I brought the letter to them, and saw the confusion spread across their faces.
"It must be some kind of mistake," said Dad.
"That's not possible, though, John! It's from the Ministry. All kinds of powers are used making these. Could someone have intercepted it? Maybe it's a prank."
"But why? You'd go to prison for tampering with a transition letter, surely! And what kind of power would you need to pull something like that off? Why use it on this?"
There was sharp knock on the front door. Dad handed back the letter and started towards it, when suddenly, it clicked. I gasped and grabbed his elbow. "Dad, don't!" I whispered, holding up the letter and pointing at the message.
"Don't be daft, Sims, It'll be one of your friends checking in. Or maybe someone bringing your real letter!"
But the idea had already lodged itself in my mind, with a cold kind of terror. "Dad, please!"
More knocking, louder now.
"At least let me see who it is?" I nodded, and held a finger to my lips. He stepped softly up to the peephole, then came back. I winced at the sound of his shoes on the tile. "It's some official looking types. I told you, they're probably just here to apologise and give us the right letter."
Three more heavy knocks sounded on the door. And then, a voice -- which didn't sound much like it wanted to wish me a happy fourteenth birthday.
"SIMONE WEST, THIS IS THE SECURITY SERVICES. WE CAN HEAR YOU MOVING AROUND INSIDE. OPEN THIS DOOR, NOW."
Dad frowned, and moved back to the entryway. "This is Simone's father, John West. Can you hold some identification up to the door? What is this all about?"
"MR WEST, YOU NEED TO SURRENDER SIMONE INTO OUR CUSTODY IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS A NATIONAL SECURITY MATTER. IF YOU DON'T OPEN THE DOOR IN ONE MINUTE, WE WILL ENTER BY FORCE."
"Now, sir -- there must be some misunderstanding," Dad replied. "My daughter is not a threat to anyone. I'm not opening this door without seeing your identification. Do I need to call our solicitor?"
Mum wrapped her arms around me, and an odd stillness fell upon the hallway. Then, I noticed Dad's hand start to jerk. Small flames were licking the tips of his fingers. *What was he doing?* He shook his hand, and the flames grew, before leaping to the sleeve of his jacket. It was only when he started slamming his arm against the wall, and cried out in pain, that I realised Dad wasn't the one doing this -- someone on the other side of the door was controlling those flames.
A loud, rhythmic thud began to sound against the door. They were forcing their way in. I felt Mum pull at me, and realised she was floating again -- but her eyes were full of terror.
"Simi, you have to run," she whispered. "Go out the back, and find Aunt Beth."
"What's happening, Mum? I don't understand! I don't--" Dad had begun to scream. I turned to see his shape, engulfed in fire. I felt Mum’s grip on my shoulder loosen, and my eyes snapped back just in time to see her head slam against ceiling.
"Simi, RUN!" | I took a deep breath in. Closing my eyes as I started to open the packet. The research done about my powers took a lot longer than everyone else's. It has been some months after I took the power test. Once the results was mailed in, I sat there excited. My packet was different from the others. Bringing my hopes up that it's something powerful and deserved special treatment.
Once I opened the packet, I poured out all the papers and even the stickers they sent with it. I searched the mess I made, quickly regretting dumping it all out like a box of Legos.
Eventually within the mess. I found it. Quickly flipping though the papers and looked for the name of my power. Instead of it even having a name, the spot was left blank. After that, I noticed the description was also short.
"Don't write any stories".
There was nothing else on the paper. I quickly looked though the words again before beginning to look though the rest of the papers. That was when I realized that everything else was just request from other companies to retake the test.
I was so confused and just sighed. "This whole power thing was never my cup of tea. I guess just the possibility of becoming super strong and famous was just a wish and dream". I then started putting everything back in the packet and sat it down on my nightstand. I then sits down on my bed and picked up my Xbox 360 controller. Putting on my headset.
"Apparently I can't write story bois". They all laughed at me and asked what my power was. "It's undetermined I bet". I looked over at the packet before starting up a COD game.
*6 Years later*
I stepped inside my house and sat down on the couch. Setting the mail down on the coffee table. Starting to open them up and just read the main bits of it. I then just throw everything in the trash.
"It still says I can't write". He shook his head and picked up his Xbox One controller. "Where are we dropping bois".
They instantly began roasting me like always about how I didn't have any powers. They always have since the beginning.
Despite basically being powerless, I still was able to land myself a good computer job. Turns out that area has been lacking in knowledgeable tech wizards for years. I happened to be one of the better employees there.
However it still stood out to me that my power didn't have a name. I haven't wrote anything noteworthy to really see what happens if I did write. I had some companies just say to write and see what happens. I just been to much of a pussy to try it out.
At this point my friends have all agreed that I didn't have any powers. Which was fine by me because I am still able to love happy.
"What if I actually wrote something". I sat down my controller and dug out one of the pieces of mail. Picking up a pen and just began writing what came off the top of my head.
'A beautiful white flower is blooming in the spring'. I sat down my pen and just looked at it. I then just shrugs it off and stood up. Walking over to the kitchen and grabbed a mountain dew bottle.
Then something caught the corner of my eye. A glimpse of white and sun shining through my kitchen window. I looked out of it and seen a single tulip starting to bloom just outside.
It took me a moment to connect the dots as I look back over at the pen. Rushing back over to the paper and crosses out the word white. Writing blue right above it. Going back to the window to see that the tulip had already changed to the color blue.
"No way". I then just began writing. Writing all of my hopes and dreams down on one piece of paper. Before I knew it, I had a crowd of people outside my house. Apparently being famous here at where I live was an bad idea so I crossed that one out.
I then thought about it. This was a lot of power one could have. So after a long ten second decision, I just quickly scratched it all.
"I can't let people know I have this power"! I grabbed a new piece of paper and wrote on it. 'No one can know I have the power to create anything I write'.
A few days has passed and I gotten more mail about my powers. When I opened it I went straight to the point like I always do.
Name: Powerless
Description: No powers have been detected
I looked at it in disbelief. I then picked up my pen and wrote on the paper. 'Ands the powerless guy gets some real life friends and a raise'.
The days that followed was amazing. I got a nice promotion for my hard work and I met some new people at the grocery store. Turns out, whatever I writes come true. The power behind this is far beyond my comprehend that it's best kept a secret. Even then, being known as the famous person to be the first in a thousand years not to have any powers is amazing. I still ended up being famous in the end. | 2022-05-08T12:14:09 | 2022-05-08T11:24:06 | 241 | 91 |
[WP] The Genie looks at you puzzled 'So... you wish for everyone to have 4 arms?', and you say 'yes, I wish that tomorrow everyone wakes up having 4 arms, no explanation, just 4 arms, and if they only had 1 arm or none now they have 4' | I stepped out onto my front porch, and greeted the sunrise with a yawn, and a wide stretch of my arms. The hands of my *other* arms rested on my hips. It felt like I'd always had the extra limbs, even though I'd just woken up with them today.
*"I wish everyone would wake up tomorrow having four arms! No explanation, just four arms -- a-and if they only had one arm or no arms, they now have four...um, oh, yeah, and everyone knows how to use them!"*
That was what I'd said to the genie, yesterday. As you might guess, I made that wish in haste. That's because my *first* wish was to be clairvoyant, able to see coming disasters before they happened. Well, I saw what was going to happen today in *horrifying* detail.
Billions of interdimensional creatures, like insects the size of cats, would start appearing from the ether, I foresaw. They resembled wingless parasitic wasps, who'd leap up and latch on to people's faces. Most people wouldn't be strong enough to pull them loose in a timely fashion, but their face-hugging, while terrifying, was relatively harmless. The adult creatures had no mouths or mandibles -- it wasn't like they could eat your face off, or anything.
The real danger was their long whip-like tail with a needle-like stinger on the end, that was actually an ovipositor. While people were distracted trying to pull the creatures loose, they'd be covertly injected with their eggs. The creatures would die and fall off a few minutes later, but the day after, their human victims would also die, *horribly,* as dozens of newly hatched larva ate their way out of their guts.
The little bug larva would kill everyone on Earth this way, before pupating and disappearing into another dimension to start the cycle over.
I shuddered at the memory of my vision of the events that would occur today, as I stood on my porch. It was a terrifying scenario.
Well, it was a terrifying scenario for people who had only *two* arms.
As I stood on my porch, one of the prophesized creatures materialized before me, then leaped up and latched onto my face. As I had been granted the native reflexes of a four-armed creature, I instinctively seized it with all four of my hands. Three yanked it off my face, while the fourth restrained its lashing tail. I threw it on the ground, and stomped it flat.
As I looked around, I saw my equally four-armed neighbors having similar encounters with the hapless invaders, who were getting pulled free and squished by their would-be hosts. I smiled. The human race was going to be okay.
I felt a small hand tug at the leg of my pants. It wasn't one of mine. I also don't have kids.
I glanced down. My golden retriever, Rex, was tugging on my pantleg with one hand. Another held his leash, and the other two were making excited beckoning motions. I could tell he wanted to go for a walk, and maybe chase some of those weird bug things falling from the sky.
Ah. In my wish, I had said *everyone.* Not every *human.* I shrugged. Well, as genie-wish side effects went, I decided this was fine, all things considered. I clipped on the leash, and my dog gave me an exuberant fist bump, which we both 'blew up' thereafter, because me and Rex are party bros like that.
I felt pretty good, as I walked Rex down the street. I had the ability see future disasters, and one more Wish left to thwart the next one -- should it be needed, that is. It seemed to me that whatever challenge faced humanity next, we'd basically be *twice* as capable of dealing with it, even if I never used my final wish.
After all, forewarned is four-armed. | I pulled myself into the Genie's cave, cursing every inch of rocky ground. "Genie!"
The only answer was the drip-dripping of water into a distant pool of water.
"Genie," I growled. "I know you can hear me."
She popped out of the air with a laugh. "You knew the rules. One wish. No take-backs. Be sure about your wish, for you will never see me again."
I grasped onto her last point. "Ha! I'm seeing you now, right? So clearly there's some wiggle room."
"That last one is more of a personal policy than an actual rule. Cuts down on the whining. But for the most interesting wish I've heard in an eon, I can make an exception for one extra conversation with you. Now, is there a problem?"
"Is there... Oh come on! You know this isn't what I meant!"
I waved my second set of arms for emphasis, which had replaced my legs. I'd finally gotten the hang of walking on my second set of hands, but my new arms still got tired quickly, and I'd been reduced to crawling into the cave.
"That's your fault. Four arms for every person in the world? In a single night? Do you have any idea how complicated the musculature is? I had to use some existing infrastructure. And you still have four limbs, right? I even gave myself the same upgrade to be fair!"
"Fair? You can FLY. We have to walk on our hands. I never fully understood how gross shoes are until now."
"What has four thumbs and doesn't care?" She gave me a cheeky four-thumbs-up. "This genie!" | 2022-07-11T09:31:58 | 2022-07-11T09:12:18 | 549 | 210 |
[WP] "The light can never go out," explained the old lighthouse operator. "Ships don't need us. Haven't in quite some time. It's the people here on land who'll suffer if that light ever goes out." | The summons for Lucia Farrowstone came, as they always did, a pinch too late and a tad too cryptically.
“Harperston,” the parchment read, “North by northeast, two hundred miles. Forty-eight hours before situation becomes untenable. No others available, you’re on your own.”
Having served its purpose, the parchment slowly curled up and yielded to the spontaneous blue flames licking its edges, settling finally into a tidy pile of ashes on the ground.
Lucia was minded to reject the assignment, which was her fourth in as many weeks, but her sense of duty stilled her rebellion. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that they were short-handed, and they would really owe her after this. Lucia sighed, broke camp as the morning rays spilled past the clouds, and rode hard for Harperston.
By the time she crested the hill and came across the tiny coastal town, night had again staked its claim upon the skies. Lucia’s back was aching, and her rump was sore, and she would have made her way to the local tavern if not for the rowdy mob angrily making its way to the light-tower at the edge of the coast.
“What’s happening,” Lucia yelled, trying to ignore the caustic smell of burning pitch filled the air.
“Old Herrold has been lying to us all this time!” came the angry reply, as the swarm of bodies continued on its march to the light-tower.
Lucia followed at a respectful distance, anxiously biting on her lower lip as she tried to assess the situation. Intervene too early, and she would incur unnecessary blowback for being “heavyhanded”. Intervene too late, and she would have the Cabal to answer to. Decisions, decisions.
As they approached the light-tower, Lucia perceived the object of the mob’s ire – Herrold, at least 70 years of age, leaned over the parapet as angry beams of light spilled out from the trapped sunstones behind him. His voice, surprisingly strong for his age, washed over them, fortified perhaps by strong conviction.
“I’m not backing down, you ignorant lot! I will guard this light-tower with my life, so if you think yer’ gonna get me to shut it down, you’ve got another think comin’!”
His words only served to inflame the mob. The tall man leading the pack, whom Lucia figured to be a village elder of sorts, took the lead in responding.
“Herrold! You said the light wasn’t for the ships, it was so’s that we wouldn’t suffer!”
“Aye, that I said, and I ain’t taking it back!”
“You lied to us!” yelled the leader, as the crowd brayed their support. “For the first time since we set up the light-tower, you forgot to keep them sunstones going, and we saw what you’ve been keeping from us! And you call that suffering?”
“I didn’t forget! I was ill! And yes, that is suffering, and you fools can keep on dreaming if you think I’m going to let them come back!”
The exchange jarred loose a long-forgotten memory in Lucia’s mind, and as the buried drawlings of her teachers resurfaced, she realised why this town’s name had rung a tiny bell earlier. Swivelling to face the sea, Lucia focused... and there was no mistake as to what she was seeing.
A massive confluence of naturally-occurring leylines.
Lucia grabbed the nearest villager. “When the lights went out,” Lucia said urgently in hushed tones, “did the dead return?”
As if she had heard Lucia’s question, a woman at the front of the mob sank to her knees in front of the light-tower, tears spilling down her face.
“Herrold, please. I’d even begun to forget what my Bursely looked like, but when the lights died that night, he came back to me. I saw it with my own eyes, Bursely, as fine and strong a man as he was before he died, emerging from the waves, coming up on the shore, looking for me. I’d never cried as hard as I did, Herrold.”
The floodgates open with that impassioned speech. Other members chorused in, shouting similar accounts of how their loved ones had also returned, a veritable army of shades, rising in unison from the unending sea. Lucia felt the raw emotions spill from the massed humanity.
“And it was your light, your cursed light, which drove them back!” resumed the leader of the mob. “Your light made them disappear, even before we had a chance to say our goodbyes! And that’s why you must shut it off, this very instant!”
“No, I cannot… I’ve been charged to this duty. Trust me… we have to move on, we cannot live in the past with them… they are but shades…”
“I even saw your Jerina, Herrold! And your children, Torsten and Sylvia! They came upon the shore too, asking for you, for their papa! Are you telling me that your duty is so important that you do not want to see your family again?”
At the mention of those names, names which had not been uttered to his face since they died all those years past, Herrold stiffened, as if he were ready to fight this latest assault on the duty he had sworn to bear. Then, the words died in his mouth as the memories overcame him, wearing down his defences. Lucia had no doubt she was looking at a man broken, torn between duty and love.
“Aye, I do want to see them again. But I also swore upon my honour to keep the lights aflame... there is not much left for me to do then, eh?”
And Herrold leaned forward, gently, until his centre of gravity tipped past the railings. Like a giant raindrop, Herrold plummeted towards the ground.
Now, thought Lucia, is the time to intervene.
Lucia leapt forward, the spells loosing with practiced slickness from her lips. Blue tendrils of energy shot out from her wrists and wrapped around Herrold, suspending him in the air.
Simultaneously, Lucia lifted up the amulet hanging around her neck, which glowed with an incandescent brightness in the still of the night. Her voice, amplified with a subtle application of magic, carried easily over the crowd.
“Stand down. I am a Second Order Mage of the Cabal, and I have been sent here to investigate. Return to your homes this instant, for I have business with Herrold. That is all.”
She was initially worried she would need a heavier hand, but there were few in the land of Ankharra who would dare defy the Cabal, much less a Second Order Mage at that. That didn’t stop a few of them cursing her, but eventually the mob dispersed, the fight having been sapped out of them.
Lucia lowered Herrold to the ground gently, where he sat, dazed. She chose her next words carefully – in her experience, not everything was accomplished by magic. A lighter, human touch was all that was needed.
“You were brave, Herrold, to keep to your duties in the face of all that.”
“Aye, but the secret’s out. No one will know peace now, with their loved ones so close. And if the lights do die, and the shades return, will we still live as men? Or will we be trapped in the past, forever?”
“You’re right, Herrold. We have to set the shades free, let them ascend. It’s not their fault that the leylines have trapped them here. They mean no harm, but this is not natural.”
Herrold sobbed. “Will the village have to move? I came here as a wee lad, and my life, our lives, it is all here. Where will we go?”
Lucia smiled, and placed a reassuring hand on Herrold’s shoulder. The seeds of a plan were sprouting precious leaves in her mind. It would be difficult, but that’s perhaps why the Cabal sent for a Second Order Mage after all.
“No, no one needs to move. Tonight, we rest. Tomorrow, we will disperse the leylines.”
---
/r/rarelyfunny | The mist was thick and wet and Hugo could feel it pushing down on him like a thousand tiny hands; it was as if something was warning him, *imploring* him, not to go any further. No, he was reading too much into it. He was still feeling jittery after the ship's near-miss.
"Hello," he yelled out, but his voice was swallowed up by the soupy darkness. He knew he was near the lighthouse, athough he could not yet see it. What he *could* see was a brilliant white-light high above him that cut through the thick mist like a blade through skin. *Swish*, *Swish*; the beaming arm swept out across the heavens like clockwork.
*Onwards, Hugo. Nothing to fear, but fear itself,* he thought, attempting to steel himself against the oppressive darkness. He stumbled his way further up the broken brick path, edging ever nearer to the source of the light. His boots and socks were soggy and his feet dragged clumsily.
The building came at him very suddenly from out of the gloom and Hugo stopped only an arms length away from it. It was truly *ancient*; the paintwork and much of the bricks themselves, had been eaten away by the salty sea air.
Hugo walked around the base of the lighthouse, almost hugging it for fear of losing it, until he found two steps leading up to a rotting wooden door. He knocked loudly and waited. He knocked again when nothing came of it, harder this time; his fist splintered the damp wood and went clean through. A long thin shard of timber stuck out of his palm like a javelin; he winced as he drew it out.
Hugo turned the handle and pushed the door open with a creak. He stepped through into further darkness; a deeper darkness, if that was even possible.
"Hello?" he yelled, his voice echoing in the round chamber. He took a tinder box out of his jacket pocket and plucked a match from within. With a tiny *hiss,* it sparked to life.
He recoiled as spectres of winged creatures darted and danced around him; the shadows of long deceased animals, mainly carrion birds: hawks and kites and eagles, and some species Hugo didn't recognise at all. The room was like a taxidermists layer. Thick swathes of mould and moss covered the walls and shimmered in iridescent greens under the flickering light. Hugo walked over to a stuffed bird that *looked* like a vulture, but was much larger and had a great long beak that was twisted and red. Entranced by the strange creature, he reached out an arm and gingerly stroked the beak with a single finger. It felt cold and hard like it was a type of metal.
The beak suddenly drew open and snapped at his finger; Hugo pulled his arm away a split second before razor sharp teeth would have ripped the skin off it. He stumbled backwards and fell; the match was snuffed out and darkness was released back into the chamber.
Hugo reached into his pocket and found the box of matches. He heard something high above him - something flapping. He fumbled with a match but his cold fingers and shaking arms were clumsy; the match dropped to the floor and was lost. "God help me," he whispered. Then, he smelt it; the rancid breath of a long dead creature wriggling its way up his nose.
He snatched at another match and flicked it against the box. Nothing! He tried again and again, and just as something warm and wet brushed against his face, the match caught and there was light! A wonderful, dancing light.
The animal was gone. The vulture-creature was neither near him, nor back by the wall. It had vanished.
"What're you doing here," asked a slow, guttural voice. The voice of a person who had not spoken in a long, long time.
Hugo would have jumped if he'd not been on the floor. He looked around to see a gnarled old man standing at the bottom of an iron staircase. The man's grey beard hung down by his knees, and his face was more wrinkles than not. He somehow looked even older than the dilapidated lighthouse. Hugo scrambled to his feet and tugged at his shirt as he tried to regain a semblance of composure.
"Good evening señor, my name is Hugo Ramores. Your lighthouse saved both my ship and my crew. We are most grateful. I've come to pay our thanks." Hugo reached into his pockets and pulled out a tiny silk bag. He shook it and the metal contents nosily jingled and jangled about. "I also hoped that I might be able to purchase some supplies from you. Our journey is long and I'd rather it was not more uncomfortable than necessary."
"Your ship is gone," said the old man curtly.
"Excuse me?"
"It's gone. Sailed away. Left."
That couldn't be... they'd never leave without him. He was their *captain*.
"There must be a mistake, señor."
"No mistake. They have left you."
"That cannot be."
"It is so, and they will not be back - that I promise you. Tonight you best stay with me, and then in the morning, I'll take you to the village. Perhaps they can find some use for you. I'm sure they need all the help they can get."
"Stay with you?"
"If you want to see morning, yes. Now, I have already been away for too long. Come with me and I will show you the true purpose of the lighthouse."
Hugo shivered as he followed the old man up the iron staircase. Perhaps from the top he'd be able to see his ship. But deep-down he knew the old man was right; it had gone.
| 2017-02-22T10:14:57 | 2017-02-22T10:02:36 | 899 | 44 |
[WP] Two years ago the sun winked out, utterly without warning. You are a member of one of the last human settlements on earth, huddled around a geothermal vent in Iceland. This morning, again without warning, the Sun rose. | I went a little overboard with this and the story ended up being almost three thousand words long. So, this is just the introduction. But thank you for the great prompt and motivation to do some writing!
\-----------
The Dying Light
Haley-Deanne was born April 14th, 2021, at 3:47 pm on a beautiful sunny spring day that would have been hard for anybody to describe as anything less than perfect. She came into the world no different than any other child does. Crying, confused, angry, sore, and covered in muck. She had all her toes, and all her fingers. Her voice was loud and strong. Much like the day she was born, it would have been hard for anybody to say she was anything less than perfect.
Despite the perfect day, and despite the perfect baby, Haley’s mother was panicking. “Give me my baby,” she said, holding out her hands. But nobody acknowledged her. The doctor and nurses spent the first minute of the child’s life checking her over and oohing and awing about how beautiful she was.
“There’s no time, you idiots! Give me my baby!” The mother yelled. Once again, nobody paid her any attention. The second minute of the young girl’s life was spent getting cleaned up by one of the nurses, who kept asking Haley if she knew how lucky she was.
The mother, who’s panic only kept increasing, looked over towards her husband. “Make them give me my baby! There is no time! You know there is no time!” But he too ignored her and was looking over the nurse’s shoulder at his newborn daughter. The third minute of Haley’s life was spent being admired by her father.
The fourth and fifth minutes of the baby’s life were spent getting another looking over by the doctor, checking for anything abnormal and marveling at what a perfect little child he had just delivered. The mother was still alone, crying and screaming and begging them to hand over her daughter before it was too late. Didn’t they know what was going on? Why were they all so calm? Why was her husband not helping her?
Six minutes into Haley-Deane’s life she was placed into the arms of her father. His face seemed to be all smiles, the kind of pure emotion expression that infects others around them with joy. The nurses were crying, and the doctor left with a pat on the back for ‘ol dad. “Good job, sir, you made a great baby.” The father held the baby and rocked her, the full-faced smile never faltering for a second.
The mother was screaming by now. Screaming and bucking and doing everything she could to get free. To protect her daughter. But she was trapped. She was strapped to the bed and it didn’t matter what she did, she could never escape. The fear and misery were all that she was, and all that she knew. She only wanted her daughter to be safe, but nobody was helping her.
Her husband, the father, and man she thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with, finally looked up at her. The smile faded. “I’m sorry,” he said, walking towards her. “I love you, and I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. I have to go.”
“Go! What do you mean, go!? No, you have to help me! You have to help protect our daughter! You can’t leave me!”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. He placed Haley gently in her mother’s arms, kissed his wife on the forehead, turned, and walked out the door.
“Come back,” the mother screamed. “We need you!” She rocked back and forth, the joy of having her daughter undercut by the loss of her husband. What were they going to do now? How would they survive? She lay on the bed and screamed and wailed. All around her the nurses went about their business, still ignoring her completely.
Eight minutes after the birth of Haley-Deanne, the sun died. | Do you think on the lives of ants when stepping on the ground?
Do you erect a dam and consider what animals drowned?
So how can you blame us when we snuffed out star
considering how negligent you are.
***
We surrounded your star with metal to take heat,
and never once did we consider the effects of this feat.
You withered and died, but some of you held on
like weeds that keep coming back when you think they're gone.
***
Hundreds to Millions and millions to billions.
Eons passed and like you we fell to others with bigger guns.
Our metal forgotten our species forgotten,
And yet it took 5 billions years for one of you to say how warm it had gotten.
***
Your star pushed heaved, and burst from it's shell.
Devouring the metal around it around it like paper in a fiery hell.
And what was left of you saw the light explode in the sky.
You shrieked and cried as the sun burned almost every eye.
***
The light did not cease, nor did it dim.
It became hotter and larger until there were no oceans to swim.
In anger it grew, striking everything in sight.
And swallowed your planet in a show if its incredible might.
***
And like us, you ended, forgotten, and the universe went on with out us.
Perhaps it is for the best.
***
I have literally never done poetry outside of school (though I've done a ton of prose). Feedback is more than appreciated. Please do not hesitate to say it sucked, tell me how I can improve! | 2018-07-21T12:59:48 | 2018-07-21T12:21:38 | 67 | 38 |
[WP] Obsessed with using postit note reminders after learning of Alzheimer's Disease running in his family, a man tries to offset the disease early in life. One day he discovers a postit note warning him that something or someone is in his house. A postit note he doesn't recall writing. | Jeremy savored the feel of the cold water on his face. After a long day's work in the July heat, it was just the thing he needed. He toweled his face off and noticed something that he swore hadn't been there before; a post-it note on the mirror in front of him.
*GET OUT!*
Jeremy stared at the note. He didn't remember writing that.
Was someone toying with him?
But no. That was definitely his handwriting. The note was from the stack he kept on his nightstand, the pen was the blue Bic he kept beside that same stack. The words were drawn hastily, but... they were definitely his. And it definitely hadn't been there when he walked into the bathroom.
Had it?
He whirled, looking around his bedroom. Nothing was out of place. He grabbed the baseball bat he kept propped against his nightstand. No way was this happening. It was too early. 28 is far too early to lose your mind.
Had he caused it? Had he brought about the illness by focusing so intently on it? Had he made his memory unreliable by choosing to record his memories instead on post-it notes?
That didn't matter now. Something was wrong. He had to get out of the house. What was it? Gas leak? Fire? He didn't smell anything. Was someone inside?
He crept out of the bedroom and turned left to go to the front door. It was dark. When had that happened? Should he turn on the light? No, that would alert whoever was in the house with him.
He held the bat at the ready, creeping down the hallway. Something crinkled under his bare foot. Another post-it note. He peeled it off his foot and squinted in the half-light spilling from the bathroom.
*NOT THIS WAY!!*
What the...? Why would he have left himself a note like that? Why not just get out? Alzheimer's didn't work that way. You didn't just lose your memory instantaneously, in the middle of a life-or-death situation. He knew, he'd done research, he'd talked to people, he'd observed, God knows he'd seen it in Dad often enough...
No. No no no nonononono. No time for that. Have to get out. If the front door wouldn't work, the back door would have to do.
He changed direction, heading for the back door. Through the kitchen... Post-it notes were everywhere, to remind him what he'd need to get at the grocery store, where everything was... What if there was an important one in there somewhere? Suddenly he couldn't trust his memory to tell him which ones were old and which might be new.
*Click.*
Jeremy cringed as the room filled with light. There was someone by the light switch. He stumbled away. The person didn't move.
*Such a strange thing, these notes.* The voice seemed to echo unnaturally in the kitchen. Jeremy realized with a shock that he wasn't hearing it at all.
*The translation of a thought into a picture... the recording of that picture on a fixed object... and the re-interpretation of the picture back into its inspiring thought. How strange you are.*
Jeremy's eyes finally adjusted. There was a tall, slender figure standing at the light switch, inspecting one of his notes. Too tall. Way too slender. He was wearing a black robe with the hood pulled up.
*You are the first specimen I've seen who writes to himself. Tell me, why is that?*
The man turned, and Jeremy's stomach turned along with him. The man was not a man. It was a demon. The hood concealed a bulbous gray head with four tentacles spilling out where the mouth should be. The writhing tentacles concealed a wicked beak like an octopus. Above the tentacles, beady green eyes *glowed* from the shadow of the hood.
Jeremy turned to run, fumbling with the door lock.
*Relax.*
He relaxed. Every muscle in his body relaxed. He was barely able to stand. His fingers flopped helplessly against the deadbolt.
*I can see this game is wearing thin. Very well. Just one more repetition.*
"What..." Jeremy groaned. His mind was getting foggy.
*What you should be asking is* why. *And the answer is, I like to play with my food. Do not fear forgetting, mortal. Shortly, your mind will be made perfect, and you will never forget again.*
Jeremy blinked. He was in the bathroom again. And the thing, the monster... It was nowhere to be seen. What was happening? The image of the thing's face was slipping away. NO! He had to do something, something, anything. What could he do? How many times had he done this before? It said one more time. Hadn't it? One thing to do. Just one thing. One last chance.
He grabbed the stack of post-it notes and scribbled furiously.
Jeremy savored the feel of the cold water on his face. After a long day's work in the July heat, it was just the thing he needed. He toweled his face off and felt something on his forehead. He peeled off the soggy post-it note.
*KILL IT ON SIGHT.* | It's like living in a fog; everything clouded in a mix of déjà vu, jamais vu, time like a scroll, curling up on both ends and you have to tack it down.
They make paperweights for that very reason, so that you can hold things down. There was a time once where a really really long piece of paper was unrolled and even though there wasn't a lot of wind that day it just kept blowing and blowing and everyone had to get clumps of dirt to make sure that it didn't just
fly away.
It's like walking down a highway, right, but its very foggy and you can't see very far, and instead of signs there are these little breadcrumbs that just won't *stay still*, why aren't they staying still, why can't ***they just stay***—
Someone visits, in the fog, sometimes. The kind of connection that you only feel when when a person knows far more about you than you do them. Always formal, very polite, but never seen. At the same time the person giving weight to the paper, holding it down, and the person that switches on the fan and blows it away.
There was a time when it was really hot, scorchingly hot, and someone turned on a fan but since everywhere was hot the wind was hot and it only made things *worse*. Why do people do that? There was someone who told me fans kill you at night. That's reasonable. They're evil.
A lot of things are evil. Someone once said that there was a man far away who was evil and did evil things. A person who was in charge, what are they called? They wanted to be the person in charge so they hurt people. Why? They're already the person in charge why don't they just stay the person in charge?
There was a classroom, and there was a kid named Billy and he wanted to be class president but he was stupid and nobody liked him and he went cross-eyed, but he wanted to be class president but nobody wanted him to be class president because he was so stupid, why was he so *stupid*, why didn't he just take the hint, ***why couldn't Billy just be normal***—
Write it down. Write it down. Tack it down. Give it ground. What's going on. Billy. B-I-L-L-Y. Good. Let's look at the little breadcrumbs. Pick it up, put it down. Read the scroll, give it ground. Go backwards for a minute.
*Billy*. He was class president, once. He's on the ground.
*There's a man.* What man? Where? I don't see a man no siree I've been here the whole time—
But it's on my paper—
It's on the ground—
What do I do when all my paperweights don't weight? When all my clumps of dirt are turning to dust and just
flying away? | 2014-12-11T08:02:51 | 2014-12-11T04:08:01 | 44 | 28 |
[WP] You are 16, living with your parents, a man claiming to be your long lost brother shows up at your door with a gun, he slowly says, "They... are not your family"
[A unique version](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/56fbbe/wp_on_a_fine_friday_afternoon_you_find_yourself/?st=IU0NPQJ7&sh=2cc3d789(httpswww.reddit.coWritingPrompts/comments/56fbbe/wp_on_a_fine_friday_afternoon_you_find_yourself/?st=IU0NPQJ7&sh=2cc3d789) | Clay was alone. Finally. How long had it been since he'd last had the house to himself? Weeks? *Months*? Callie was back from college and equal parts jobless and hopeless. She spent most days sprawled out on the couch in the living room, hugging a MacBook to her chest and sighing loudly. Dad didn't have any friends. Mom didn't have any interests.
Thankfully someone died. Well, it wasn't great that the person had died, that was probably sad, but Clay couldn't remember her. It was some old lady from back when they went to church. Used to babysit Callie back when the world was all ice and cavemen or something. Clay begged off, claiming a math test. And that had worked. Somehow, someway, that had worked.
He was scrolling languidly through PornHub, looking for *just* the right smutty experience, when someone starting pounding on the door. Clay zipped up, swore, and slammed his laptop shut.
"Yuh?" said Clay, as he cracked the door open. The man on the other side was young...hardly much older than Clay, but he wore a bone weariness you didn't often see from teenagers.
"They're gone?"
Clay stealthily slid his foot against the door. "And who are you?"
"Are you alone?" said the man, trying to sneak a peek into the house past Clay.
"No, no, it's a full house here," said Clay. "So who are you?"
"You're lying," said the man. "They went to the funeral, right?"
Clay scowled and tried to quietly slam the door shut, except the man already had his own foot jammed in the opening. "Clay, don't freak out. I need to talk to you. Getting this opportunity took a lot of work."
A system of tiny gears clicked in Clay's head. "*Opportunity*? Are you saying...?"
"Mrs. Rosemont was already dying," said the man. "Don't worry about that. I'm worried about you. You *need* to hear what I have to say."
"No thanks," said Clay. "You need to get the hell out of here before I call the cops."
The man shook his head. "Alright. Fine. I was hoping we wouldn't have to do things this way." Suddenly the muzzle of a handgun was leering at Clay through the crack in the door. "Can you step back from the door now, please?"
Clay did as he was told, backing away on unsteady legs. The man stepped through, closing the door and gesturing towards the couch. "You may want to sit down."
"Okay," said Clay, lowering himself slowly onto the couch. "But how about you put away the gun first?"
The man seemed to consider this for a moment. "No," he said finally. "I'm starting to think it'll be faster this way." Then he pulled the trigger and shot Clay in the head.
Clay screamed. And screamed. And kept on screaming. And only after 60 seconds of screaming did he finally realize he was still alive. He touched his forehead. There was nothing.
"There," said the man, pointing towards the floor in front of the couch. Clay looked down and saw a crumpled bullet underneath the coffee table.
"What the *fuck* kind of psycho trick was that?" hissed Clay. "You scared the shit out of me."
"You think that was a trick?" said the man. He aimed at the coffee table and pulled the trigger, blowing a hole through the center of the wooden top. "Not a trick. Want to see it again?"
"Wh...what?" said Clay, looking rapidly from the ruined coffee table to the man's gun.
"We *really* don't have time," said the man before firing another round directly at Clay's face. The boy screamed again and this time, under the burst of terror, he felt something...something like a mosquito brush against his skin.
"They aren't your parents," said the man. "Not your sister. Not your family. You're not one of them."
Clay was rubbing his forehead, only vaguely aware of what was being said. "I'm not?"
The man rolled his eyes. "How many times do I have to shoot you in the fucking head? No, you're *not* like them. You're something entirely different. They told you you have diabetes, right?"
"Told me? I *have* diabetes, yes," said Clay. "Since I was a kid. For as long...as long as I can remember. Why...what about my diabetes?"
"You're not diabetic and those shots you've been taking all these years aren't insulin. They're inhibitor shots. Mild doses of radiation. They keep your powers in check."
Clay picked up the second crumpled bullet. "*Powers*? So I...no. No, wait. That doesn't make any sense. I *got* my shot this morning. If those are shots are inhibit-whatevers, than how come...you know...?" He held up the bullet.
The man smirked. "Surviving a gunshot to the head is the least of your powers, buddy. The things you can actually do...you're going to change the world."
"Me? Just...just by *not* taking my insulin I'm going to be...?" Clay shook his head. "But why? If this is true....if any of this is true and I can do...whatever it is I can do...why would anyone lie about that? Why would they hide that from me?"
"Because," said the man, "some people are afraid to let the gods come down from heaven and walk among us. They're afraid you might not like what they're doing...and end up doing something about it yourself." The man stowed his gun and held out a hand. Clay took it and pulled himself off the couch. Maybe it was mental, just a figment of his imagination, but he already *felt* stronger. "And Clay?" The man smiled. "We *don't* like what they've been doing. We don't like it at all. So now we're going to do something about it."
And Clay smiled back. He felt something like the crackle of electricity tingling through his fingers. "Good," he said. "Lead the way." | He barges inside the house, slamming the door behind him. He bites down on his cigarette and grips his shotgun like a holy book.
"And who the hell are you?" I shout.
"Your long lost brother. This ain't your family. I'm getting you the hell outta here." he says, looking down the hall and into the living room before bursting through the archway, pointing his gun to both sides, scanning the room.
"Where the fuck did you come from?" I yell, following him into the room. He turns to look at me, lowering his shotgun.
"We don't got the time to talk about that shit. Long story short, they took you, killed mom and dad, and now I'm here for you." he says.
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about." I say. A smell of alcohol and smoke hits my nostrils. I burst into coughing.
"Fuck, don't start getting sick now. Where are they?" he asks, moving in closer. The stench strengthens.
"Shit, why the hell am I gonna tell you? Get out of my house!"
"You *need* to tell me. They're gonna do to you what they did to mom and dad."
"Get the fuck out of my house!" I yell. A scowl spreads across his face and he proceeds into the kitchen.
"Tell me where they are." he says.
"Or what?" I ask.
"Or I'll make it difficult for you to keep being a little ass." He lets out a hiccup.
"What did they do to 'mom and dad?'"
"Chopped 'em up. Killed 'em. Maybe ate 'em. But they're gone, and I know these people are the reason. And I know you're my sister that got taken."
"When was this?" I ask as he moves into the dining room.
"Maybe ten, twelve years, shit I dunno, something a while ago."
"When I was four? I remember living here when I was four."
"You're remembering wrong. They musta done some shit to your head." he says, proceeding to climb the stairs.
"Last chance. Where are they?" he asks.
"They're not here." I say. He keeps climbing up.
**BANG.** The gun goes off as he trips and falls at the top of the stairs. I sidestep out of the way as he tumbles to the floor and grab the gun.
"Put that shit down, kid." he says, rubbing his head. His eyes squint at the sunlight coming in through the window.
"What do you want?" I ask, pointing the gun at him.
"Put that *down*." he says.
"I don't think you're in a position to say that."
"Kid, you don't know who they are."
"Oh yeah, I'm gonna listen to a random drunk man who comes bursting into my house with a shotgun threatening to shoot up my parents!" I yell.
*Who the fuck does this guy think he is?*
"I'm your brother. I'm your real family, not those people."
"You aren't shit. And even if you were telling the truth, you'd be really fucking selfish for trying to pull something like this." I say. A tear rolls down my eye, but he just lies there and stares.
"I'm calling the cops. Get up, don't move." I say. He complies and we move into the kitchen where my phone lies on the counter.
I handle the call with the police and await their arrival.
**BANG.**
**BANG BANG.**
He thought he'd just waltz up and try to break up my family? Try to do something so selfish? And maybe he was telling the truth. But it doesn't matter. My family is my family. Not someone who got confused after a little taste of gin.
Shit. Now I get to live with this forever. | 2016-10-07T20:23:45 | 2016-10-07T19:38:09 | 141 | 46 |
[WP] A soldier almost dies on the battlefield. While bleeding out, a valkyrie descends to take him away but he's saved by a medic just in time. He keeps on volunteering for increasingly dangerous missions in hopes of seeing her again. | Blood obscured his vision as Scott woke up until the combat medic standing above him wiped his eyes clear. As his eyes focused on the face, he discovered that for the second time today Kris had saved his life.
“Fuck, Kris. Stop this. Let me go!”
Scott grabbed his weapon, stood up, and rushed back into combat. Bullets flying everywhere, blood soaking the path he sought, and the screams of pained solders around him.
Kris tried to stop him unsuccessfully, and just shook her head and moved to the next patient.
Scott found himself under fire, and looked for a worthy mission to get him back to Valhalla. To his left about 50 yards ahead of him to the left, he saw a young solider that had been shot and was wounded. He needed extricated.
“Perfect,” Scott thought, and stood up and charged forward. Opening fire, he knew he was hitting some enemies when he watched all of them dive for cover and concealment. The young soldier he was headed toward looked at him in awe as Scott stood tall and charged forward to pull him out. They made eye contact for a second, and then resumed fighting for their lives. The sight and odor of ejected casings filled their nostrils, and for once blood and burned meat wasn’t the only thing Scott smelled. He made it to the wounded soldier. Looking him over while the solider provided cover fire, Scott saw a single bullet injury to one leg.
“Let’s go!” Scott yelled to the solider. “I don’t care if you have to drag your ass back, let’s go!” Using his body as a shield and continuing to shoot cover fire, Scott wondered what it would feel like when he died. Would he feel the bullet? He didn’t feel the first one. Would it burn? He couldn’t remember if the first one did.
Back behind lines, Scott motioned a medic to help the wounded man and then Scott leaped back toward the front line. Nothing would stop him from getting back to the Valkyrie. He rushed back the direction he came from.
From the foxhole he had just rescued the solider from, he saw another solider about 50 feet in front of him laying down. He was breathing but not conscious. Scott threw his rifle behind his back, crawled forward, grabbed the man, and sat up to start dragging his from a seating position. He was headed to the foxhole when it happened. He was afraid, he discovered.
It burned.
It hurt.
It shredded his clothes and his skin.
As the bullet tore through his chest, Scott could feel every bit of his life energy drain from him. He could taste the metal on his tongue as the darkness overwhelmed him, and he felt the ground striking his body as though it was someone swinging a baseball bat at him. Everything faded to black, the pain and smells went away, and he found himself face to face with the same Valkyrie.
“Fear not the hand that sends you to me, but the hand that takes you from me.”
“I don’t understand,” Scott screamed to the Valkyrie woman floating before him.
“I know,” the Valkyrie replied as she reached for Scott. Her hands came forward to grasp for him. But once again he found the pain returning and the Valkyrie fading from his sight. The darkness set in, the smells returned, and he realized he was back. Again.
Kris stared at him. “Do not do that stupid shit again.”
“But I was dead.”
“Not until I say you are.” | "Okay, listen up" said the Mission Coordinator (M.C.). "This is another suicide miss-"
A hand shot up.
Nobody was surprised.
"Craig, why don't you take it easy, huh, bud? You've been on the last 15 missions. Our mental health unit is starting to get worried about you. Your luck isn't going to hold out forever."
Craig's hand stayed up in the air. His face was set and determined.
The M.C. sighed. "This is going to be the most dangerous mission of them all. Craig, are you *sure* you want to do this?"
Craig's hand stayed up in the air. His face was set and determined.
The M.C. sighed. "Okay. Here's the mission. My wife sent me this picture of her in this new dress. She's stopping by to drop of my lunch, but really she wants to show off the new dress. Your job is to tell her she looks fat so she never wears that new dress again."
Craig's hand stayed up in the air. His face was set and determined.
But Craig chickened out when she arrived.
Craig smart, smart man. | 2019-06-02T11:58:54 | 2019-06-02T09:36:45 | 169 | 88 |
[WP] Write a horror story where the protagonist just doesn't give a fuck.
Edit: Damn, this is now my most upvoted post. Thanks for all of your responses, they've been amazing! Good for a laugh or a two on this great Friday :) | Years ago, when visiting a "haunted" house in the oldest neighborhood in the city, Dave had first felt what he now referred to as "The Pressure". It was a sense of dread, a prickling of the hairs on the back of the neck. Every sense in his body would key up, warning him that Something was coming, and it wasn't friendly.
After nearly a decade of this, it wasn't quite so exciting. Dave was currently nestled into the thick cushions of a disturbingly Gothic couch, the dark oak twisting and writhing in near-impossible curves around obscenely plush purple velvet pillows.
Dave could still hear Jennifer and Mark in the other room, noisily having sex on an equally Gothic four-poster bed. He had a certain grudging admiration for their ability to make the bed, which had to weigh several hundred pounds, occasionally jump and hit the wall. He wasn't really that surprised when he felt The Pressure earlier in the evening; an isolated cabin, offered out of the blue by an unknown relative, with furniture so ornate that Dracula himself might say it was a bit much? Dave rolled his eyes just thinking about it again.
He had a pretty good feel for how this would go, after experiencing it so many times. The FBI had basically given up trying to address the problem, and simply had a unit on standby for cleanup. They tried putting him in prison once; at least they could explain that one as a prison riot. Dave began ticking off on his fingers, curious if he could get the exact moment correct this time. He lowered one finger at a time as he mouthed the numbers silently. Six, five, four, th-
The familiar sound of steel slicing into flesh, followed by a scream of agony from Jennifer and a (oddly) equally girly scream from Mark interrupted his counting. Dave frowned; maybe next time. The squelching noises cut off, and the sawing and hacking began. Jennifer's screams finally cut off, and Mark sprinted through the doorway, his eyes wide with terror, blood streaming down his chest. He screamed something unintelligible at Dave and continued running.
Dave sighed; time to get up and move on. Shame really, this couch was absurdly comfortable. He tried to sit up and found himself completely enveloped in the couch, the soft velvet not giving him enough purchase to actually get out of the damn thing. Whatever had chopped up Jennifer slowly glided past the couch, wearing her flayed face and hands. Gee, Dave thought, I've only seen that trick about a hundred times; this one wasn't going to be interesting, he could tell already. The fellow with the spiked body armor, now THAT had been interesting. Dave tried reaching out to the arms but they were just a hair too far away for him to get a good grip.
More screams followed down the hall as Dave continued trying to get out of the couch. He flailed around furiously, making some progress, but as soon as he stopped he sank even deeper into the cushions. He glowered at the couch, and decided he needed a new plan of attack. Mark had apparently gone outside, since his head came crashing through the front-facing window of the living room and rolled to a stop in front of the couch, his face still locked in an expression of horrified surprise. Dave twisted his body and tried rolling off the couch; success! With a loud "thump" he rolled off the couch and hit the floor, knocking Mark's head down the hallway. Dave swore and massaged his banged-up knees a bit before standing up and brushing himself off.
A loud crash informed him that something had entered the upstairs of the cabin, probably through the conveniently large plate-glass window. More screaming followed, as a background to the slicing and hacking. A drop of red appeared on Dave's arm, followed by another, and another. The pace increased until it was raining blood in the living room, a crimson downpour complete with waves of red oozing down the walls. Dave sighed. The dry-cleaning bill for these was always a bitch.
Dave ambled out of the house, reasoning that there was no reason to rush since he was already soaked, and gently closed the door behind him. He triggered the FBI contact fob and tossed it onto the porch; the cleanup crew would be around later. He yawned, and idly wondered if that furniture store down the street could find him something similar to that couch... | "Just get out of there, fuck off..."
The shadow slowly trickled down on the floor from the closet and slowly crawled towards the bedroom door. Alex threw himself down on the bed and turned off the lights.
Soon the thumping in the stairs started, Alex slowly turned over and looked at his door, contemplating if she would even care to go and open it.
"Can't you just get over with it and leave? I have a test for tomorrow and I'm not in the mood for your silly games."
The thumping slowed down and stopped, the lights outside the door flickering. Alex sighed as she turned over and faced the wall.
"Not again...."
Alex felt the surge in her stomach as she started falling into the abyss, feeling how her face relaxed while she fell and her teeth falling out from her mouth.
She closed her eyes as she landed on a large green, sunny plain. Dreams always were her favorites, since she at least could get it over with quickly.
She ran around for a while, waiting for her alarm to wake her up in the morning. She smiled and closed her eyes as she turned her face to the sun in the sky, then she heard beeping from the distance.
She opened her eyes and looked around, she frowned as she noticed the lack of light flowing through her curtains. She stood up from the bed and looked around in the house.
Nothing.
Not a single monster in sight. Where could they be? She smiled at the thought of them finally leaving, they could not scare her anyways, there's nothing special about them, just shadows and sounds, never anything that can actually hurt her.
She felt a breath behind her neck and she just walked slowly away. The footsteps followed her to the kitchen where she turned on the lights, there the shadows would go away.
The light flickered for a second before it finally shone up the kitchen.
What did she really notice first? The broken window? The presence which did not leave?
Or the hands around her neck? | 2017-05-05T07:22:19 | 2017-05-05T07:21:53 | 31 | 12 |
[WP] Most young mages use incredibly complex spells and extremely rare ingredients to summon their familiar. You just drew a circle and threw a bag of chips in it. | Three years in and still I needed remedial tutoring. It was humiliating. I knew all the spells, could recite all the formulas, but once it came time to actually put it into practice, the magic always did what it wanted, when it wanted, no matter what I tried. It did have a bad tendency to knock random items off walls and tables, and all my teachers *hated* that.
I sat at my desk and stared listlessly at my spellbook. At a knock on my door, I jerked upright. Already knowing it was my longtime tutor and friend, Sherry, I didn’t even bother trying to pretend like I had cleaned. I just threw the door open and walked away.
‘Well hello to you too!’ She said drily. I just rolled my eyes and grunted.
‘I thought we’d try that summoning circle again today.’ Man, she was really determined to get under my skin today. She knew I couldn’t get it to work. But we both knew that getting my familiar to finally reveal itself might help figure out my problems with magic.
Familiars tend to reflect the magic of their mage. For example, Sherry’s familiar, a small mockingbird, reflected her ability to observe magic once and replicate it. Obviously, magic had always come easily to her. Try as I might, I couldn’t resent her for that. She always stuck by me and believed one day we’d figure out the key to make my magic work.
‘Whatever,’ I sighed as I cleared the black floor and dug my chalk out of my backpack. I began the painstaking process of drawing out the summoning circle.
Two hours, four complicated drawings of the circle, many four letter words, and a very sore back later, I slumped back against my desk.
‘It’s no use. It’s just not going to happen. I may as well just move on to something else...’ I rubbed the bridge of my nose to soothe my aching head.
‘Come on, one more time. It really felt like you were so close that last time!!’ Sherry began to erase the previous circle. When she was done, she pulled me off the floor and pressed the chalk back into my hands. ‘You can absolutely do this. Come on.’
I moved back to the middle of the room with my hands on my hips and sighed heavily. One more time? I’d give her one more time.
With a quick movement, I scrawled a messy, crooked circle (if I’m being honest, it was more an oval), began the incantations and moved to the side. As I continued chanting, I threw my last sacrifice to tempt my familiar into the center of my drawing. To my surprise, it began to glow. As I continued with the spells, the light grew brighter and brighter until, with a blinding flash and final shout, the light disappeared and the room rang with silence.
When my eyes cleared of the light spots, I had to blink a few times. There, in the center of the circle, was a small black and white ball of fur.
I sat down abruptly in shock, and a head popped up. *It’s about time you figured things out* I heard in my head.
My new cat familiar sat up and began to wash her whiskers. As my mind began to comprehend what it was seeing, all of a sudden, my problems with my magic made sense.
*So where’s my food bowl and if I see the bottom of it, I swear you won’t sleep for a week*
First time posting, first short story (ever), and I’m sure there’s grammar errors. This just popped into my head and I couldn’t get it to leave! | Magic, magic is controlling the way electrocules react with other electrocules. Animals evolved with a vascular system that contained magnetite-surfer molecules which reacted strongly with ambient electrocules. This fluid is called magein. It evolved as part of our bodies to enhance blood flow and electrical signals.. it helped birds fly longer by making their blood more efficient essentially.
Some animals started gaining control, many fish where able to slingshot their magein forwards for a huge burst of speed. Birds used it to break off branches, there are so many examples of how magein being used to control electrocules past the body.
Mrs. Yatea had taught me much about the history of magein control, I was 25 now, and the only person able to create ancient-shadows.
These ancientiers where basically the remnant of animals’s electrocules, arranged and reformed to simulate what once was.
All I had to do was draw a circle, pumping my magein into my thumb and pinky, pull my hand up through the center of the circle and use my other hand to throw a bag of chips through the trail I’d just created...
The ancient that had walked right there 5 million years ago had appeared as a chain reaction made dust raise from the ground and cling to the ancient. All I had to do now was puppeteer my dust-rock T-Rex. | 2019-04-05T15:47:48 | 2019-04-05T14:03:34 | 102 | 19 |
[WP] You have the ability to see ghosts and other supernatural beings, but have to pretend otherwise so that you won't get their attention. You had been successful, but after your spouse died in an accident, you struggle to ignore their attempts to interact with you. | I lay down on my bed, eyes closed, tears steaming down my face. The worst part of this whole funeral business is knowing that if I open my eyes, I’ll see her. My wife Janette has been, for the past few weeks after that man tried to car jack us, telling me that it’s not my fault. I saw the shadowy figure that looms over the ones that are close to death, but knowing she was healthy, I said and thought nothing.
I wish I’d told her. I wish I could have shown her that I can see people that have passed on. See them, hear them... but I can’t feel them.
People keep their personalities when they die. All their memories, all their quirks. If someone glowed when they were alive, they shown like a beacon on the other side. That being said, Janette’s phosphorescent beauty illuminated our room. She called to me this morning as I woke up, she wished I could talk to her, or see her... I stared through her as I got up and brushed my teeth, those freshly woken eyes allowing me to squint past her glow, which does not help, seeing as the glow is not of my plane of existence, it’s of their’s.
That was a few hours ago, anyway. I could hear her crying on her side of the bed. She told me everything, and I listened through closed eyes, awaiting the moment when she left me and crossed.
Soon, the crying subsided and we laid as we had so many countless nights, right next to each other. The difference now is that when I reach my hands out, I feel nothing. Not the warmth of her body, or the softness of her auburn hair, or those beautiful hazel eyes that can transcend space and time.
I opened my eyes after a considerable time and found myself alone. When someone I’ve known for this long crosses over, it leaves an emptiness. It’s different than a friend, it’s a hole that will never be filled, that will remain open until I myself may join them. Until I may see Janette again...
As the hours ticked on in our room, I glanced out of the window so I may watch the sun rise and set again. Food never sat well with me after something like this, nor drink, nor any anything that may save my lost body. The weaker I grew, the closer I saw the shadowy figure looming outside of my window. Death is not the worst punishment, however. The worst one was hearing her come back and beg me to get up, but I could not.
As the hours ticked on in our room, her phosphorescence faded, as my power is intrinsically tied to life. My eyes finally rolled back and the world went black. I would finally see my love again on equal field.
When I woke up in the fluorescent-light, dull white room of a hospital, I perceived at once that no one was with me, living or dead, and this being a hospital, that was weird. My power had faded, lost into the void beyond our realm. I tried to sit up but felt it physically impossible, as well as my neck turning, extremities, et cetera. Claustrophobia soon set in. My breathing quickened and my body closed in. I will die on their time now, and no longer shall I see the friends I’ve made throughout my life.
Most of all, I do not which is worse, hearing her pleas to talk to me, or knowing I may never hear my beautiful Janette again, and knowing that as I lay here wishing for death, she always wished for life. | You linger
In my mind
Juliet
On my mind
Everyday
Moonlight that should
Give way
To dawn
I see you at the kitchen table
As I hold my tea
And add in salt
In splishing splashing drops
A slick rainbow smudge
Drifts aimlessly across my drink
As I stare at you
Across the table
You have your hair
Long locks that had fallen from you
Your skin less stretched across
your cheeks
Less smeared across your bones
Pale palid face
Now glows
I hear you laugh
Giggle
I taste your perfume
As it plays across the air
You whisper my name
As you reach out a hand
Come
The tea trembles
scared in my hand
It weeps down the mug
I close my eyes
My heart thumps
You're not there
I tell myself
You're not waiting
Just shadows playing
You're not waiting
Do I keep you here, Juliet?
Do I coax you back
To stave off
Despair
Or is that who you are?
I open my eyes
You remain seated
I remain
| 2019-03-30T05:08:22 | 2019-03-30T02:32:25 | 86 | 26 |
[WP]You are a patient in a psych ward. You decide to break out, but find that the entire place was abandoned long ago | *Janet Morgan.*
My name, my mantra.
It's really the only thing I can remember now - my identity is the only thing left, the thing I cling to. This institute is the only thing I can remember; countless hours of ECT and endless jars of potent pills have destroyed my childhood and my adulthood.
Only white walls, white pyjamas and white coats remain.
The treatments I remember well. The taste of birch between my teeth as the electrodes touch my temples, the smell of smouldering stubble. Did I ever have hair? Perhaps I did once. Maybe long auburn hair, maybe short jet hair.
I rub my pale arms; it's cold in my cell and they haven't fed me for too many hours. I'm not confident I always had such pale skin. I remember brown skin and *freckles* but I don't know why.
There is no water in the cell and I'm thirsty. Someone should have come to attend me by now.
Deja vu strikes intensely and for a moment I feel trapped in an endless loop of time.
It passes and I chant my name to myself, rocking gently on the mattress.
*Janet Morgan.*
As the sun recedes, the light from the tiny window dims and my prison grows dark.
With a sudden and certain dread, I realise that no-one is coming for me.
I scrabble at the door but there is nothing to pull on the inside. Undoubtedly it is locked firmly on the outside.
*You're going to die in here.*
That chilling thought echoes in my mind, ricocheting around a skull devoid of meaningful memories, bouncing off the screams of insanity that fill the void.
I don't want to die in here.
Filled with that desperate thought, I launch myself at the white-painted, iron door, clawing at the surface, bashing my fists, elbows and knees against it. Scarlet stains blossom on the surface. An endless, wordless scream spills in Niagara syllables from my chapped lips.
Then the metal bounces on the doorjamb.
It is open.
My blood-slicked fingers struggle for purchase on the precious millimeters of door and I pry it tortuously open.
The corridor is empty and full of leaves.
Startled, I stand and stare, barefoot in my linen pyjamas.
Some of the other doors hang open, only mildew and lichen decorating the walls. Rust streaks dapple the light fixtures on the ceiling and I realise that there was no electricity in my room *because there hasn't been electricity here for a long time*.
My feet slap the cold concrete as I pace to the day room. A tree has grown through the empty window frame and more drifts of dead foliage pile the corners. A field mouse dashes across the rucked tiles, roots growing under them.
*What has happened?*
I start running now, heading for reception. The doors are all open or gone; splinters of wood or just corroded hinges.
Then I'm outside, standing panting in the dusk drizzle, my pale clothes slick and transparent on my heaving breasts.
In front of me stands a tumbled concrete sign. Once it held brass letters, but now only the shadows of those letters remain;
*The Janet Morgan Institute*
Howling I drop to my bruised knees.
I feel myself deflating; my substance growing ephemeral and fey. With a great *rushing* I feel my *being* pulled into a shoestring of anguish and fear - coalescing back in the cell.
Then everything goes dark.
&nbsp;
*Janet Morgan.*
My name, my mantra.
It's really the only thing I can remember now - my identity is the only thing left, the thing I cling to. This institute is the only thing I can remember; countless hours of ECT and endless jars of potent pills have destroyed my childhood and my adulthood.
| I opened my eyes. The room was blurry at first, but soon everything was clear. The walls and ceiling were white, as was everything. I looked around, trying to figure out what was going on. But then I remembered. They had thought I was crazy.
When the vision first came to me, I thought I was insane or something. Well, I had just broken up with my boyfriend, after a stupid argument that I had thought I was in the right in. I couldn't even remember what it was, it all seemed so stupid now. Even when the vision had come again and again, I hadn't believed it. But after a few months I started to think it might be true.
The vision had been simple: a mad scientist had invented a cure, some vaccine or something. Only that vaccine had something evil inside of it, some sort of virus or something. Not that anyone had believed me when I told them. The visions only got me sent to a psych ward, not someone helpful.
It took me a few moments to register my surroundings, but I finally got up. As I checked the door, I realized it was unlocked, and decided that I needed to get out and warn people. When I looked back, I noticed the paint on the door was falling off. It was odd, but I didn't have time to wait.
I raced out of the psych ward, knowing time wasn't on my side, but the building looked abandoned. Was it too late? As I looked around, I saw nothing but empty streets, and there wasn't a person in sight.
"I must have been too late," I said out loud to myself. "No one believed me." | 2015-06-25T19:48:31 | 2015-06-25T19:46:56 | 103 | 57 |
[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. | "I don't understand general, how can you expect to beat them with so few!?"
"What do you mean ambassador?"
"We gave you their numbers ahead of time. They have over 200,000 units in the city! Why did you only bring 300 of your own?"
"Ambassador, you also gave us their equipment specs, a full layout of the city, and videos of their tactics. 300 is really all we needed for this operation. Honestly we probably could do it with half this, but reinforcements never hurt."
"I... I don't understand. How can you expect to win such a fight. You sound so sure of it."
General Adams chuckled for a while at the Ambassadors worry. The videos of the enemy were painful to watch on first view. You may as well have given 18th century farmers high powered rifles.
"Ambassador, there's more to winning than having the biggest guns. Well, assuming you want to conquer. From what we understand this is the first galaxy spanning conflict in over 200 centuries. The enemy clearly lacks the evolutionary honing to be a threat."
"I don't understand. They have weapons that can obliterate half of your 300 men with a single shot. What else is there other than such weapons?"
General Adams sighed, the ambassador was too far removed from conflict. He didn't see what every soldier in the war room saw when watching the videos.
"Ambassador what the enemy lacks, is a thing called tactics. Humans have been honing this skill for generations. It's not about finding a weapon that can kill a guy, it's about finding the best possible way to kill the guy with the weapon. Here, please pull up zone sigma block 43c. We're about to start our operations there."
"Sigma 43c!? But, but that's the enemies headquarters! Over half their troops are stationed there in a massive building!"
"Exactly. Who in the world would be dumb enough to do that? But I suppose we aren't on my world anymore."
"I... I do not see. Are you committing all of your units to that one location?"
"No, just Alpha Squad. Commander Reeves, this is General Adams. What is Alpha Squad's status?"
"Reeves here general. Little bored over here, but ready to go. Is it really gonna be this easy?"
"Haven't seen anything to say otherwise. Commence operation 'Hello from Earth' boys."
300 voices blasted into the room over the communications line simultaneously.
"Sir, yes sir!"
The Ambassador had been warned when he suggested the idea. This species, so small on a planet tucked away in an otherwise lifeless galaxy under a tiny sun, was dangerous. The politicians had watched them play with their dirt and mortar. building "cities" and poor excuses for a civilization. Even their weapons, causing only small area damage and being woefully ineffective in the long run were laughable. No one could ever figure out why the anthropologists were so afraid of them. Every species had a calculable danger level. Even their current enemies had been assigned roughly a 6 on a scale out of 10. The few times a 9 or higher had appeared, it was clear why. Warlike civilizations budding throughout the universe. They were quickly dealt with as their armies first left their planet. But not humans. Most anthropologists came back with the strangest answer, "they don't fit the scale".
Today the ambassador understood. They had given them nothing more than information a few months ago. No new weapons, no technology, just some maps, documents, and videos. As the 5 humans in Alpha Squadron stood and simultaneously launched a single RPG each at Sigma 43c's primary structural supports, the ambassador looked on amazed and horrified. The building collapsed in seconds. In no more than one of the humans minutes, half the enemy force was gone. The select few that made it out the door were quickly shredded with turret machine gun fire.
"Hah! Can't believe that went so smoothly. No scouts, no barricades, no structural reinforcement, and all packaged so nicely in one spot. Delta Squad, how did it go with you boys?"
"Delta reporting in general, similar story here, the EMP took it all down before they knew what was going on, and the satchels took care of anything alive. We're gonna double check that all hostiles are down before we pull out."
"Poor bastards, Delta was working on their communications hub. I bet they spend the rest of the day wondering what the hell happened down here."
The ambassador finally managed to stammer out his question
"H... h.. how many did you just kill?"
"Hm? Well there will always be a straggler or two I suppose, but with their comm networks down and the snipers we placed, they won't last long. They don't know how to retreat or hide. So I suppose by the end of the day, all of them."
The ambassador was sitting before he realized it. It had happened so quickly, so efficiently. The only comparison he could bring to mind was a master artist. Everything done so perfectly, so flawlessly, but this species painted death. He had wanted to get rid of a beast plaguing his people, but he had unleashed a monster to do it.
Edit: words | "Radiation?!" The general sputtered "That’s... Insane!"
The chamber evidently agreed. The war council of the senate had been silent until this point. But learning that the humans had defiled Kresna 4... shudders shook the room.
"How will they resettle their young?" The senator from the Iron Spire gasped "They've poisoned the entire surface for a generation. They can't use it anymore, can they? Are the humans immune to radiation? We always feared..."
The adjunct was gentle with his words. He knew there would be much need of softness in the chamber today. "No, Senator. Our best understanding is that it kills them, albeit very slowly."
The Senator shook her head wildly, before composing herself "Then... Why?! It doesn't make any sense! We've never even... Every species that has ever developed large scale nuclear arsenals has blown themselves to bits! We only survived by total disarmament!"
"Our intelligence indicates that the Humans themselves feared this possibility, but instead of disarming..." The adjunct looked at the floor. He spread his hands wide to indicate his shameful lack of understanding before the senate.
"Yes?" The General barked "What did they do?"
"They built more."
The Senate shook in unison, gasps and shrieks and the flapping of wings echoing through the chamber. Demands for clarification came from every direction at once.
The adjunct spoke clearly. "They called it the policy of assured destruction. The major powers gave every separatist faction on the planet as many nuclear weapons as they wished. In this way, any wars that occurred would result in the destruction of all factions at once. We estimate that each of the 300 or so factions could have destroyed Human-Prime many times over. It seems to have worked, while it lasted."
"Disgraceful!" shrieked the General, climbing his table and digging his talons into its shined top "Madness! They gave that much firepower to every minor faction? What if a death cult received them? What if they fell into the hands of amphibians or the dull-witted? How could they be so irresponsible?"
The senator was calmer "You say it worked 'while it lasted'. What event ended this policy?"
"The Secna. When we sought to seize Kresna 4 for our Young, the Secna engaged the Humans. They spoke diplomatically with them."
The General laughed derisively "And what? The Secna convinced these apes to stop aiming their weapons at each other?"
The Senator did not laugh. Her eyes opened wide and she flew out the doors. Many other senators did the same, as the realization dawned on them.
The adjunct whispered above the din. "Yes. They convinced them to aim their weapons at us." | 2016-05-13T09:31:34 | 2016-05-13T09:18:50 | 40 | 26 |
[WP] Your significant other is possessed by a demon. Soon after; you realize you love the demon and not your SO anymore and it's actually mutual. Now the exorcist has arrived. | Laying down on my couch enjoying its softness, hearing the sound of rain outside combined with the sound of a knife repeatedly cutting veggies and the smell of something delicious from the kitchen, these were the ideal conditions for a short nap. A truly peaceful one.
Unfortunately, someone interrupts my little ritual by patting me on the shoulder, but I don’t get angry, I can’t get mad at the person crouching in front of me.
“Helen…?” not her real name, by the way, it’s the name of the person she’s inside of.
“hm” she makes a little sound without opening her mouth and extending a spoon towards my face, it smelled delicious, looks like she wanted me to try her new creation, I sit up on the couch and gently grab the spoon along with her hand guiding it to my mouth.
“It’s really good, it’s…the bunny you caught this morning right…?
She nods. With a smile on her face clearly proud of her earlier hunt.
“But it could use a little more salt, Helen” she pouts and nods, she still doesn’t like talking much, she fears that she’ll say something that’ll make my ears bleed. I noticed that I’m still holding her hand and that she is looking directly into my eyes. “Helen…?”
She leans and gives a quick kiss when she pulls back I see she had red cheeks and a toothy smile on her face. She quickly gets up and walks back to the kitchen.
I keep a smile on my face until she leaves. And lay back on the couch.
*why am I still alive…? This situation is so bizarre. Is she just playing with me…?*
*maybe she is just fatting me up to eat me at a later date, and she has been doing so for years…!*
I snort.
*If she really wanted to eat me, she would have the first time we met. So there is no mistake that this is all real. Her feelings are and so are mine…It’s already too late to have doubts*
*for now... all we need to do is hide from everyone*
The smell from the kitchen was making me really hungry.
“Hey, Helen is it done yet-“ I hear something outside, a horse, which should be highly improbable in this rain, adding to that, we were in the middle of a forest away from civilization! Who would even know we're here? I look towards the door hearing footsteps, someone was behind it.
Helen walks out of the kitchen with a worried look, her hands together like she was praying. She switches between looking at the door and me. We both hear another sound behind the door, one I didn't recognize, Helen face is filled with fear and is sweating.
"ma-maybe is someone who got lost...?" I said to her *trying* to sound reassuring.
She starts to run towards me, but before she can reach me, the door is shot in her direction. Throwing her towards the wall.
“Helen…!”
I run towards Helen and hold her in my arms, she is bleeding in various places, she opens her eyes and looks at me with a smile on her face, but only for a second. She pushes me with her small hand and I’m shot towards the living room falling on the floor, hard.
“He-“I look at her direction just to see that her chest has been stabbed by a long thin sword, almost like a rapier.
The man with the sword was tall and was wearing completely dark clothes, like that of a priest, combined with a cape, military boots, and a white faceless mask. Helen starts screaming in pain, the wound has smoke coming out of it and it sounded like bacon being cooked on the grill. that sound combined with her screams made my skin crawl.
“HELEN…!”
“That’s her name...?” the man says in a deep voice, he lifts Helen in the air effortlessly with his sword. She tries to grab the sword but can’t, she tries to kick the man but can’t reach him. “…doesn’t sound very demonic, but looking at the reaction she had by being stabbed by a holy sword, I know I got the right one”
“Stop, she, she hasn’t done anything wrong! Please!” I yell at the man, but the moment he faces towards me, my legs stop moving.
“I’ll be with you once I’m done with her, demon worshipers can be even worse than demons sometimes-”
He is kicked in the stomach and flies outside, but that shouldn’t be possible, Helen is too small and her legs too short how did she-
Something is coming out of Helen's skirt, *various* somethings. Legs and abdomen like the ones of spider, dark and menacing. Her old legs disappear.
She stands, much taller than me, and looks at my direction, with a sad expression, tears are trimming down her face. I’m able to move my legs now. I walk with easy steps looking up at her. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her in this form.
“E-e-everything is going to be okay! For now, we need to leave the house, find some other place to hide, they won’t find us this ti-“
Helen suddenly grabs me and carries me out of the house breaking the wall in the process. I look back just in time to see the house caught on fire.
*what? How did it-*
The house starts to fall apart, the fire engulfs it completely. Everything is lost. I stand on the ground looking at the scene dumbfounded
“no…” I hear her mutter in a really low voice almost inaudible, she really loved that house. But we don’t even have the time to cry over it.
A man appears from within the flames, completely unaffected by them. Flaming sword in hand. Helen looks at him angrily, her face starts to distort, black eyes appear on her forehead, and her jaw starts to extend letting out a hideous growl.
The man, no, the *exorcist*, points his sword at us.
| Arthur knocked on the door, and waited.
This case was right up his alley. Woman reported a sudden change of personality on her husband, started seeing lights around the house and was sure she heard the man speaking tongues. She was worried he had been replaced , and wanted an investigator to come take a look.
Of course, rest of the folks on the PD laughed it off. Arthur didn't blame them. He was, as far as he knew, the only one on the precinct aware of the existence of the supernatural. Also, the only one who could summon and control thunderstorms. And fly.
That usually helped.
These sorts of calls were usually pranks. But Arthur knew what to look for when it was the real thing. Her statement was too coherent, the traits clear. That was either demonic possession by a being from the Abyss or a very drawn out stroke.
The door opened.
The man who opened it was not himself.
To the untrained human eye there was nothing wrong with him, other than the pornstache and the vest. But to Arthur's inhuman eyes, the deep thrumming of a not insignificantly powered demon's energy formed arches around the man's figure.
Arthur immediately outstretched his arm, pointing it directly at the demon's face. The air crackled with electricity, and energy arced through his fingers.
"This idiot won't be able to take all that, Conduit" the demon said.
"Sorry if I'm a bit overkill. Not keen on you and yours getting too near me".
"If you would please point that thing somewhere else, I imagine you'd be engrossed by my tale."
"As if I could forget. The woman is terrified, mate. You should be back at the Abyss. I know what happens to a human's soul after prolonged demon exposure. Is he even still there? Or you've had your fill?"
"He's not leaving" a third voice said.
The woman was young, pretty, and directed a terrifying glare to Arthur. She quickly put herself between the two of them, directly in front of a gigawatt of energy. Her aura was interacting most strangely with the demon's when they touched each other.
*Great, I'll have to call Rhea to wipe her* Arthur thought.
"Ma'am, your husband is about as dead as he can be. This one here is taking his body on a ride. You should probably back away."
"I know" she said " and please, if you see the ghost of Andrei, tell him to stick it. Bastard was going to kill me and claim insurance, before Azlral took his body. He saved me."
"If it's anything, I didn't get in him voluntarily" the demon said. "He was rummaging through the attic.and touched my soulstone. It wasn't my design. And me and Lily are getting quite close now that I've saved her."
"I tried to kill him" she said " and it turns out he... Enjoys that. After the third time I stabbed him I just thought to myself 'you know what, why not just talk to him'. We have a lot of common interests. And he's better than Andrei ever was at almost anything. He is NOT hurting anyone. Don't take him away" she added, voice cracking the fearless facade, "Please".
"You're marked" Arthur said, lowering his arm. "I'll be back for a deeper chat. Wait for me tonight at the rooftop, demon. There is enough trouble on this city."
"Yes, I could quite see that. The Night Queen, is that how she calls herself? We'll see what can be done."
Arthur grunted, and left.
This could be interesting. | 2017-10-10T03:19:24 | 2017-10-09T15:40:03 | 156 | 23 |
[WP] You're a supervillian. Your power? Making anybody and everybody nearby feel the same emotion you feel except 100x stronger. Mostly you've been using it to force people to donate absolutely all their life's savings into charities. Superheros aren't quite sure how to deal with you. | The Salvation Army Santa Claus was busier than he had ever been. He waved his bell eagerly as a line of people waited to place personal checks, bankers notes, and piles of literal cash in his collection bucket. The line wound down the block, around the corner, and down a bit further even from that.
Heartstring watched the display from the shadows of an alley, grinning to himself as he projected impulses for charity and compassion into every person within range of his emotive aura. People were leaving their cars at red lights, or even in the middle of the street, to queue up and give of their wallets for the good of others. Heartstring pulled a metal cigarette case and a lighter from his jacket pocket. All natural, hand rolled. Better for the environent.
"Allen. You *know* they consider this to be theft. GRAND theft."
Heartstring, real name Allen Wakefield, chose not to look behind him as the woosh of air and a sense of mass levitated behind him. "The Man can eat me, Cap. I'm doing the right thing, and you know it."
Captain Solar shook his head sadly, looking over Heartstring's shoulder at the line of people. "Are you? Today these people are giving. Tomorrow, they'll have nothing. People who have nothing, start taking."
"Sounds like you'll have some thieves to arrest, then. You know, *actual* crimes." Heartstring puffed his cigarette casually.
"All you're doing is re-distributing. This isn't solving anything, it's just shuffling the inequality around." Captain Solar placed his hand on Heatstring's shoulder. "Stop this, Allen. Please don't make me arrest you again."
Heartstring glowered. But with his emotive aura on, his flicker of irritation magnified, and spread. All of the sudden, the crowd of people started to grow restless. Angry, yelling. They were beginning to become a flash mob...
Captain Solar threw his arms around Heartstring's torso, held him tightly with his arms pinned as he flew them both skyward, and pulling him out of range to affect the crowd. Captain Solar scowled and hissed through angry teeth, barely maintaining control of himself through the aura. "Look what you almost did, Allen! Jesus Christ."
The mob fizzled as quickly as it had started. With the emotive aura no longer affecting them, the crowd of people stood disoriented and confused. Some of them began staring at the money sitting in their hands, panicking, frantically shoving it into pockets. The Salvation Army Santa found himself surrounded by a rush of people grabbing at his bucket, demanding their money back.
"This is a mess, Allen. ANOTHER mess. You know what this means right?"
Heartstring nodded. "Solitary, most likely. A telepath babysitter to keep my powers neutralized. No other prisoners or staff within a hundred feet so I can't manipulate my way free."
Captain Solar nodded glumly. The pity he felt was his own true emotion, not induced by Heartstring. He knew how to tell the difference. "So why did you do it again Allen, knowing what awaited you if you pulled a repeat offense?"
"Someone has to try, Cap. Someone has to try to make people be better."
Captain Solar said nothing to that. A few spoken voice commands to his communicator and the woosh of air as he redirected his flight path toward Broadcreek Maximum Security Prison were the only sounds made. | "Guy's Doctor Evil Mpath is doing it again, he broke into an EA board meeting and had them all jump out a window."
"Finally some real evil from the Doctor, I've had it with explaining to the media that i'm a good guy and was only beating up civilians because they were generously donating to charity."
*Five hours later*
"Give it up Doctor we have you surrounded."
"Super friends why are you bothering me during dinner? "
"We know about your crimes, how you forced those innocent EA board members to jump."
"I did no such thing, had i used my powers they would have ripped each other apart, no the suicide is something they did on their own when i warned them that i used my power to have them investigated. "
"Investigated for what?"
'I don't know, i was bluffing, but now i'm honestly curious. Now shoo"
"I'l get you next time Doctor Mpath."
"Sigh, fine and Charles you can call me Evil you've known me long enough to use my first name."
| 2018-12-17T13:44:56 | 2018-12-17T13:19:43 | 657 | 126 |
[WP] At the age of 18, people summon an animal that perfectly fits their personality to be their Guardian Spirit.
The animal would probably not be of the user's choice.
Just putting that out there. | *ritual soon omg cant w8 u onli summon once so #yolo #yoso #spirittime*
*@kaseters omg excitd wat do u tink ure gettg*
*@cutecheekbuttswag i dunno prob sth kool lyk a jaguar for mi inner beeyatch lol or sth random lyk a penguin or eggsotic lyk a peacock*
*@kaseters wat if it's #uknowat*
*@cutecheekbuttswag ill kill miself dont u dare even think it*
"Casey put down that damn phone, everyone's waiting for you."
Casey rolled her eyes. "God, mom, it's *my* summoning ritual, you know."
"Yes, and all your grandparents and aunts and uncles are here to witness it, so show some respect. Move!"
Sneering, Casey tucked her phone into her bra -- she had shorts on, but they were so short and tight that she couldn't fit anything bigger than a couple of credit cards in them. Not that anyone needed more than a couple of cards.
She went through the preparation for the ritual (*lookin swag in mi ritual paint, shld get a totes adorbs tatt like this 1ne #selfie #spirittime*) and the traditional steps (*old pple shld just #shutup) with increasing impatience. Finally, when her mom nodded at her, Casey blew out the candle, said the ritual words, and then threw her arms in the air and screamed: "COME TO ME PENGUIN OF DOOM!"
There was a loud *crack* and a thud as something heavy materialised in the middle of the circle. Casey shrieked in excitement. "*Turn on the lights! Moooom!*"
"Yes, yes hold on -- huh."
The lights came on. Everyone stared.
"Braaap," went the sheep. It blinked at them, and began chewwing placidly on its own floppy ear.
One second went by. Two seconds, three, four.
The sheep went, "Braap!" and stopped chewing, shaking its head in pain. There were teeth marks on its ear. It stilled, looking confused as to where the thing that was hurting it had gone.
Another three seconds.
The sheep started chewing on its ear again.
Casey started to cry.
**Epilogue**
*#uknowat #spirittime*
*@kaseters omg im so sorry u got #uknowat at least u can say ure part of e new gen #99percent #sheeppower rite???!!!*
*@cutecheekbuttswag #shutup*
**End**
^(I nearly shorted out my mental circuits trying to write in text speak.) | Her family all sat around her, waiting. Before long, there was a fog in the house. Her family smiled, knowing the spirit was coming. Out from the fog came a man. Not an animal, a man. The girl's family shrieked in fear and ran, while the girl let out a chuckle as the man slaughtered her family.
The Girl Was A Monster, And Only A Human Could Fit Her Needs... | 2014-06-26T02:25:59 | 2014-06-26T00:07:08 | 45 | 24 |
[WP] It turns out humanity was the first, and only spacefaring species to master the atom. After a horrific galactic war, humanity had to bring out its nuclear weapons, to the shock and horror of the rest of the galaxy. | Gabriel knew his name would become synonymous with traitor. But really, what did it matter? Better to be a traitor than to be subservient to madmen, or to look the other way as the galactic genocide continued. On the ship's holographic screen, the tiny pinprick of the green planet was growing -- a grassy blade slowly becoming a hillock.
He'd been a soldier once-upon-a-time. Back before wisps of grey hair had strangled his natural blond. Before the pain arrived that squeezed his back each time he leaned over the ship's dashboard. Before the Totanians had been wiped clean from their planet that was now a charred ball of black -- a radiated graveyard of a once-great species.
Gabriel had been one of the first to sign-up when the war had broken out. Five civilizations battling for control of this sector of space -- as if the empty blackness contained any meaning at all, anything worthwhile. It wasn't even a barren no-man's land they'd been fighting over... it was literally *nothing*.
Supply and mining ships on their way from Earth to a new colony in the Betelgeuse system had gotten caught in the war's crossfire. That had forced the Solar Alliance -- and Gabriel -- into the fray.
It was strange, thinking back, how glitzy and glamourous a war in space had once sounded. Like those old films he'd watched growing up. Men charging out of fox-holes and bunkers and sticking a flag down in the liberated land. But by the end of the first year of the Solar Alliance's involvement, all of Gabriel's friends in the corps had been killed, their ships annihilated.
Their deaths had been the first pang of guilt to swell in his stomach. Why had Gabriel had survived and they hadn't? What was the purpose of his living while those around him died? -- He felt like there had to be a greater reason for each dogfight he survived.
When the Committee had voted to do something that would have seemed unbelievable only a year before, Gabriel had nodded, silently. The right choice. It would end the war early -- and there would be fewer casualties in the end.
The war between the civs had historically been fought in space and *only* in space. That was the way of the galaxy -- few civilians could be killed if there was no war on a planet's surface.
Humanity changed the rules.
"We deliver a couple of little parcels," his commander had told him, "onto one or two of the planets, and that's it. Game over. We've then done what they couldn't achieve in a thousand fucking years."
Gabriel had believed it. None of the other species had developed nukes... And once they saw the destruction, the fiery mushroom hell that only humans could deliver... That would be the end of all war forever. They would bow. And yes, humanity would have done something bad -- something terrible, even. But for the right reasons and for a just cause.
Only it hadn't been that simple.
Never was, Gabriel figured.
The 'green planet' careened into view. That had been its nickname back when it had been pristine. Now it was a smoldering muddy wreck, cratered and barely habitable. Not green anymore.
A ship orbited the planet -- twenty-times the size of Gabriel's one-man craft.
"Greetings, Gabriel Launder," crackled a voice over his intercom. "You may dock when you're ready."
Could he really do this?
The problem with the nukes had been first been demonstrated on Totania. Yes, they had inflicted the damage the Solar Alliance had intended. But the Totanians didn't just throw their hands up and surrender, as had been predicted.
They didn't surrender after a hundred nukes had fallen. Not even after a thousand.
They had *never* given up.
Not until the very last one of them had screamed into a fiery nothingness.
Every species involved in the war was proud -- and rightfully so. And they were all sickened by what the Solar Alliance had done. None would surrender to such a callous race of beings.
In time, Gabriel had been sickened, too. These weren't fighters or warriors they were bombing. These were children and parents and teachers and all the things he kept precious in his sugar-coated recollections of his own childhood.
The bombings were still happening. The galaxy-wide cleansing. It would continue until humanity was the final space-faring species in the galaxy.
Unless he did this.
Unless he gave them all the secrets of the atom.
Because the only kind of destruction humans ever respected, was mutual.
"I'm ready to dock," said Gabriel.
---
I raced my regular co-writer Ecstatic to write for this. I don't want to say hers was faster and better, but... :) If you enjoyed either /r/nickofstatic has lots of serials by both of us :) | The Herald of the Council rose to its microphone. A robotic voice in Galactic Standard came through the speakers.
"We have assembled the Galactic Council; Sector B: Neutralization required. All options: 1) Ground combat. 2) Short-range space combat. 3) Long-range space combat. Option ~~|0) Diplomacy|~~ has been terminated by the Krannoks' unwillingness to give up their illegal collection of Skorollian Crystals. Military strikes on the ground have an estimated 4% chance of success, and space strikes, 2%. X-5 level consequences estimated in the case of failure. A vote will commence in forty seconds to initiate plan 1, 2, or 3. 40. 39."
A buzzer sounded.
All of the Council members turned to the Human representative. Carol spoke into her microphone. "Requesting permission to propose option 4."
"Permission granted," came the reply from the Herald.
Carol continued. "Option 4a) Fusion weaponry strikes. Option 4b) Antimatter weaponry strikes."
The Skorollian representative leaned into their microphone from their seat. "With all due respect, I'd appreciate if you wouldn't make jokes during a \*\*\*FUCKING CRISIS!\*\*\*"
&#x200B;
The Herald pressed a button and a short sine-wave played. "Skorollian representative muted for one minute. Respect must be paid during Council meetings. Human," the Herald turned to Carol. "Elaborate."
Carol said nothing, but pressed a few buttons below her microphone. The holo-display in the center sprouted up and showed a jet-black fighter unit flying at cruising speed over a digital rendering of a barren moon. "This is option 4a) Fusion weaponry strikes."
The fighter dropped a small metal gray egg-shaped object that sailed down towards the moon. The fighter flew away just before the object vanished in a massive flash, a flash so bright that the hologram automatically dimmed for a moment.
Carol sped up the holo-display and the dust settled quickly, and slowed it back down. Various gargles and gasps were heard throughout the room as the massive expanse of scorched moon was revealed.
Carol looked around at the other representatives with a smug smile. "That's our older technology. Would anyone like to see option 4b?" | 2022-12-15T08:44:27 | 2019-12-19T08:01:35 | 431 | 18 |
[WP] You are the dark lord in a fantasy world however you rule a fair and just kingdom you just like to look evil while doing it. | *It's loud.*
Murmur sounds outside my castle. I groggily opened my pocket sundial. *It's only 7. What's with the commotion with these people? Shall I have Remilia reminds them of the rules?*
"開," I said with a sigh, disliking when people disturb my beauty sleep. Immediately, a small cloud appeared in front of me, allowing to see anywhere within a radius of 1 km. *Oh my, what's this? Heroes?* I zoomed in, analyzing their armor and weaponry. Must be from the Republic of Ai. I grinned at myself. *This will be fun.*
----
"Down with Lord Zero!" Arthur yelled as he chanted, holding his sword up into the air. "Do not worry fellow citizens, the Triforce is here to save you all from his deadly grasp. We will ensure your safety."
"Hey Arthur," Della leaned in and whispered. "Don't you think it's weird that the citizens are just watching? They aren't joining along. It kind of gives me the creeps."
"Must be a mind control spell," Arthur said. "Lord Zero is a world-tier magician, we must be prepared for what is to come. The very fact that he had enslaved half of Ai's population through flattery and manipulation is an injustice. And we shall bring judgment."
"Um..." Mick said as he finished his surveying spell. "There doesn't seem to be any magic...despite how a scouting spell was summoned earlier. Something tells me otherwise."
"We'll be fine!" Arthur grinned in his golden shiny armor that he had received from a diamond-level quest. "After all, we are the legendary heroes of Ai. There's no way they'll dislike us!"
---
The crimson castle door sprung open as I slowly walked out, greeting my fellow naive guests who had came without an invite. *This will be amusing.*
"Lord Zero!" the golden knight cried. "Ready to meet your demise? We will take back this land and save the citizen from your rules." A crowd had started to form around us, watching this extraordinary event unfolding.
"Save?" I laughed as I smiled at this intriguing hero. "No no. These people don't need saving. In fact, they *chose* to live here. All I did was provide a law system, residential areas, and several necessities to living."
"Liar!" Arthur pointed his sword at me, several murmurs in the crowd. "Rumors has it that you execute anyone who speaks against you."
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." I shook my head disagreeingly, it was only then the heroes realize that the crowd was getting angry for threatening their Lord. "Let me ask this. Is it better to live in a system where you have a strong controlling leader or a system composed of hooligans who call themselves politicians debating nonsense back and forth?"
"What do you mean?" Arthur said as he lowered his sword. *I see doubt in your eyes.*
"The people here chose to *leave* Ai. While the so-called "leaders" are having their little silly debates when the people are suffering, I offered them shelter in which I have destroyed the vampire domain, conquered the southern Lands, slain the Elder Dragon, built new roads and created an education system for every social class." *Checkmate.* "You are welcome in this land, but if you threaten the leader they look up to. Then I cannot guarantee your safety."
I gave them a mischevious wink to conclude this silly show and with that, I yawned and stretched, chuckling and savoring the heroes priceless expression before heading off for my afternoon nap. | From my granite balcony I surveyed the depths of my domain. The sky was a bloody orange, flecked with clouds and the rising smoke of burning buildings. People, the size of ants, were torching statues and government buildings, the legacy of my rule. I turned around.
‘Why did you have to do all of this?’, the Hero said, brandishing his sword. ‘Why were you so evil in your rule’.
‘I wasn’t’, I said. ‘I really wasn’t. All this’–I made a sweeping gesture over my city–‘was necessary to my rule. My policies were harsh. I admit it. But for the continued survival of this small country, with goblins in the south and orcs in the north, it had to be done.
‘I’m sorry’, the Hero said as he thrust his blade through my chest, kicking me over the edge of my balcony. ‘You might’ve been a good person, but this is what the people want’.
A roar of approval erupted from the populace as I fell from grace, plummeting towards the cobbles, below. My last thought was of my failure to the kingdom; my failure to protect it from the myriad of foreign nations.
**Please critique this.**
**Edit:** word choice
| 2017-06-12T03:14:29 | 2017-06-12T01:33:38 | 107 | 21 |
[WP] You are one of several Princes fighting in a battle royale to inherit the Kingdom. All the Princes get a God as a sponsor, who grants them boons and abilities. Powerful sponsors include gods like Zeus, Ra and Neptune. So, it was a surprise when you found out that your sponsor is Death. | I knew this contest would be the death of me. A last grand gesture of my father to ensure the rest of his aristocrat friends had something to be entertained by before a new king was crowned. It wasn't like him in his wisdom to search for bloodshed. It wasn't right, but I was the only one fit for the job.
I'd been at his side forever, even on his deathbed while my brothers conquered, pillaged, or negotiated their ways into fame and fortune. My practice at the sword was done in theory only, training in the castle yard. I figured this would be my end, the reward for my hard work and loyalty, and it wasnt fair.
So as I approached the empty altar my heart was heavy with dread and anger. I knelt before it, offering up my sword.
"Gods of our world, worthy of far more than praise, I ask you for your aid. As my brothers have received boons before me, I too ask for a boon. They have spent their lives searching for fame and fortune, but I search for justice only in terms of this tournament. I wish to survive this tournament and come out as king, the position I have trained for my whole life. Give me this boon and you will forever be praised by my people, and I will live my life according to how you'd want me to live, presiding as king over this great land, a humble servant to you just as I had been before to my father. I, Prince Kharos, beseech you for your gifts in this upcoming battle."
Then I waited in silence for too many moments before a chill ran over me. The candles' flame went blue. Someone had answered my plea, but it felt like I had been instead targeted. I stood and turned to face a dark-hooded man with his hands behind his back, face looking down and away from me.
"It is foolish, Kharos, to promise praise from a nation before knowing who your benefactor will be. You may find them unwilling, but I don't require it from them. I've gone on unacknowledged for many years now and I'm used to it."
The face turned up to look at me, hood peeled back to reveal the face of the dead king.
"But... Father it can't-?"
"And it isnt." He responded, before that face faded away to reveal an impassive looking skull. "It is an inevitable truth that all shall meet me at the end of their days, your father was no different. And neither will you be." Death spoke, letting his head fall again.
"Your brothers bring many to me. But how they do it brings me no pleasure. To receive these suffering souls to my arms and hear their cries that they were cut short, without reason, or that they had families, or goals, or that they were just starved children with entire futures ahead of them. The sadness they bring to my doorstep is an injustice I want you to repair."
At first I said nothing, unsure of what he meant by repair. Then I began to understand.
"Many who come to my embrace come with tears on their face. It isn't right. I think that this suffering has gone on long enough. Defeat your kin, subdue instead of kill. Rule your kingdom to prosperity and happiness, so that any death that comes from it comes from long and fulfilled lives, so that those who come to my arms no longer cry into my cloak. Teach your people to live well, and die knowing that things are alright." Death said, raising his head once again. His face had taken the shape of my mother's.
"Go forth, Kharos. You will find justice and victory." She said, and a kind of peace washed over me.
"Yes lord. I will do all that you ask." | My brother's mocked as my sponsor was announced. Death by no means was strong or powerful. I was used to the mocking, being the youngest of 13 Brothers was never easy. I gazed around the field looking for him, my only chance of living to see the glories of tomorrow.
A cool breeze chilled my back, the hairs on my neck stood tall. Cold and steady, I realized it was not air, but the rotten breath of death. I turned to meet his gaze. Though any trace of the God was hidden beneath his shrouded hood, I could still feel his eyes burning through my soul.
"Why me?", I asked worried he would he would since my doubts. Death did not speak, he simply raised his boney fingers and rested them upon my head. He then withdrew his hand presenting me with his own Reaper.
The staff was cold, made entirely of human bone, carved with runes lost from long ago. The blade was a sharp Steel. Smooth and clean it hardly looked as it belonged to staff which held it. As I turn the weapon in my hand a name shown ever so lightly inscribed into the blade. Amorous, my oldest brother. It was then I realized why death had chosen me. For he may not be the strongest or the most powerful, but he was wise and cunning. He had already known who would be walking off the battlefield and who wouldn't, because no one can escape death. | 2018-11-14T09:21:33 | 2018-11-14T08:39:17 | 40 | 12 |
[WP] A stereotypical High School Anime, but the main character is a loud and proud American girl from Texas who moved to Japan with her family. | Saving to come back later. Anyway:
She has blonde hair, sunkissed skin, freckles on her face, speaks broken Japanese (although quite well for what its worth) and has beautiful green eyes.
She sits next to me in class. She was shy at first, and I could tell she had just moved here from America, but I could also tell she would quickly acclimate, which she did. Her name is Amanda Jackson. AJ for short. She insists on that nickname. It's cute. It fits her.
AJ's got a strong sense of family and is very protective of those she calls a friend. She's brutally honest, believing the best way to act is with an honest heart and to wear it on your sleeve. She's quoted as saying "better to ask forgiveness than for permission." Here, at least in this small suburb, we tend to all keep our issues and problems private. We are in no way exuberant like she is.
One day AJ decided that I was going to be her friend. At first I had no intention of associating myself with her. She is so loud, and I just want to keep to myself anyway. She would not stop pestering me. Every time I denied a request from her to sit, talk, eat or lend my notes to her she simply would smile and ask again a few minutes later. Eventually I caved and AJ pried her way into my life.
AJ steadily learned more Japanese, and as she got better at it, she learned how to speak more naturally. Her southern Texas drawl as she called it came through beautifully, and I'll be honest, it was adorable.
Unfortunately, many others around AJ did not cave to her and did not want to be her friend. While it may not have shown outwardly, AJ was hurt by this. She decided to confide it in me. AJ is a tall, work hardened young lady with a figure most girls my age would die for and muscles most guys would die for, but for all that toughness, she had a soft inside. She teared up, but her face remained resolute. She would not be broken.
As the school year dragged on, more and more people would warm up to AJ. They'd be seen conversing with her, eating with her and even on some nights I'd run into her with a posse of classmates while I'm out with my friends. We would then join our groups and go have a few rounds of soda, on AJ of course. And me.
But then, something peculiar happened. One day AJ never showed up to school. She usually would get to school before any of the teachers did. The entire school was worried. Then we get a PA announcement from the principle before homeroom ends.
"A letter was received this morning. I'm sure you all know a girl by the name of Amanda Jackson from class 3B. It has just come to my attention that her brother has died and Amanda has returned to the states to bury her brother. Her brother had been suffering for some time and passed peacefully in his sleep. It is unknown when she will return, but we shall do as she has done for us and pray for her and her family. May she return in high spirits."
This shocked us. We never knew she was harboring such pain. But then we all learned. We knew we had to do something for her, this girl who has shined so brightly for us. We never knew we needed her light until it was taken away from us for that short moment. We all knew that we needed to be that light for her in this dark time in AJ's life. So we got to work.
After learning a date she would return to Japan, thankfully, faculty and class representatives organized a welcome back party for AJ and her family. All of us had a role to play with my class 3B being the main attraction. The food would be American classics. Burgers, hot dogs, bratwurst, fried chicken, you name it, we all worked hard to make it or source it. The more handy students got to work on a bunch of what can only be described as fairground equipment. I had never seen hardly any of these contraptions in my life. We made the gym and schoolyard a fairground.
I was made to greet AJ as she returned to school, early as usual. I got up at four in the morning to be there before her. She walked up no more than ten minutes after I did. She asked me why I was here so early and on a Friday no less. I simply said I needed to ask her something and it would be best if we did so prior to the start of school and I had asked a teacher to give me access into the library so that we could work on something. It was all a lie, but she bought it and we went in. She could tell something was up.
The library was almost ironically located right across from the gymnasium. It was perfect. When we got to the library, the lights kicked on, revealing every single student and teacher. AJ got so many hugs.
After a while AJ found me and asked why we all did this for her. When I told her why, she started crying happy tears, and, probably on impulse, kissed me square on the lips. I was shocked, but enjoyed it.
We've been lifelong friends ever since. And that, kids, is how I met your mother. | It was her first day of school after moving. The 16 year old female stood in front of her mirror adjusting her skirt. It was rather weird seeing her in a school uniform rather than her normal getup of pants and a t-shirt. She felt out of place even though she was only in her room. Her ma said the last time she had worn a dress was when she was small. Like her brothers age, Ben who was 9.
"Kaitlyn! Yer gunna be late I'd you dont get a movin!" It was her older brother tommy who yelled for her. Ever since her ma and pa died in that car accident Tommy had taken both her and Ben in. He even went so far as to join the military where after basic training and schooling he was stationed in Tokyo, japan.
She found herself down in the kitchen of the apartment they lived in. Ben already in his own school uniform that almost matched hers besides the grade level. Her brother Tommy dressed in his civilian clothes. His blues and his cammies both in his bag. She looked towards her older brother and sighed. She remembered when ma and pa were still alive and all were living on the farm. Tommy looked nothing like he was today. He uses to be tanner, had softer green eyes than he did now. He stood poised and ready for just about anything. She missed when he seemed happy. Before ma and pa passed.
Kaitlyn must have spaced out again thinking of the past as she was now in front of Ben's new school when the back door to the car closed. Ben was already running up the stairs as an older female seemed to wait for him on the stairs. Tommy started to drive once more as he turned around when it was possible. Her school was in another district compared to Ben's.
"....after school. Kaitlyn did you hear me?" She turned back in as soon as she heard her brother call her name. He sighed heavily before pulling off the side of the rode and in front of a large building full of kids coming into the building.
"Sorry Tommy, I was thinking... about being back home. I miss ma and pa." He reached over and patted her arm, giving her arm a good squeeze.
"We cant go back kaitlyn, there was no way to make a livin there. I did what I had to do for you and Ben."
She didn't bother to listen any further, getting out of the car and slamming the door shut. That apparently angered him as he rolled down the driver side window to holler at her. "Damn it Kate! Fine. Dont forget to pick up Ben after school. I'll see yall when I get off of work. Be smart lil sister."
Almost everyone seemed to now be staring at her now. Some whispering into their friends ears. She ignored them. She needed to find the faculty office and meet her homeroom teacher.
(Sorry for any grammar issues, on phone as I wrote this. I grew up in Texas born and raised, this is how i normally talk. hope someone likes it as it was fun to write!) | 2021-07-17T10:03:01 | 2021-07-17T08:39:54 | 109 | 33 |
[WP] Video games were just added to the Olympics. | "...and I hear when the games are over, everyone just goes back to the village and has some sort of giant fucking orgy."
"Thanks, Max. Glad to hear it," said Ben halfheartedly.
"Are you kidding me right now? That doesn't excite you? Pure, 12 hour shifts of straight fucking?" Max's voice was ecstatic.
"Max, take the time to think about why we're here. We're professional video gamers. If a hockey player goes up to some hot skier and talks about the mechanics of taking a slap shot, she can at least pretend to be impressed because it sounds kind of cool. If you or I go up to that girl and talk about how you only need one Mekanism, then we look stupid."
"You know what else makes us look stupid?" Max waited for a serious answer from Ben, but none came. "Looking like fucking pussies makes us look stupid."
Max chimed in with a heated voice. "No, what really makes us look stupid is how we're categorized as a winter sport. Just because of the idea that its cold outside in the winter, hence why we're indoors playing video games."
"And if we were a summer sport, you'd be bitching about how they think we never go outside at all," said Max.
Ben could not deny Max's logic. Still, he couldn't help but feel that no one here took them seriously. He wanted to fit in as an Olympian, but he couldn't.
"You see the way they look at us," said Ben. "It's like they laugh every time they pass us by. They think we didn't work as hard to get here just because we're skinny, because our sport isn't physical."
"Ben, if it makes you feel better, the Koreans look at us like they want to murder us."
"Man, fuck those guys. They expect to win just because they're Korean gamers."
"Exactly!" said Max. "And when we go in there tomorrow and beat their asses, everyone is gonna know and then we will be drowning in pussay."
"Great," said Ben sarcastically. "But we have to beat Finland first."
"Are you joking? They're a bunch of fuckin' noobs. They picked a Drow Ranger, and the only reason it worked was because New Zealand picked Sniper. I didn't even know Finland had video games until I got here."
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right."
Ben turned away to focus on his thoughts about the whole situation. About the probable win over Finland today, about the probable tough battle against Korea tomorrow, and about the trove of beautiful women he may or may not have a shot with. Then, he heard a clicking noise accompanied by the sound of escaping air.
"Max, what are you doing?" he asked with urgency. "I don't think you can do that, man!"
"Do what? Drink a Red Bull? Why the fuck not?"
"We're gamers. Isn't that, like, using a PED or something?"
"Oh shit, maybe."
Ben and Max hid the drink where it belonged. In the trash. They may not be the best gamers at the Olympics, and they may not be ladykillers, but one thing they knew for a fact they weren't? Cheaters. | "..and in Olympic news; the inaugural year of the Gaming sub-division has started out with a smashing success. Live broadcasts of the games over the internet combined with traditional TV viewers broke records as fans tuned in in record numbers to watch the first of five eight nation tournaments.
The first tournament, in StarCraft II, ended when South Korea's Lee "Flash" Young Ho beat Sweden's Johan "NaNiwa" Lucchesi for the Gold Medal. Canadian Sasha "Scarlett" Hostyn won the bronze.
Tomorrow, three other tournaments will run, in the games Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Street Fighter IV and Quake Live. Tickets to watch the Counter-Strike tournament live are being resold at record prices as local Brazilian gamers turn out in force to watch their nations best chance at taking a Gold in the Gaming division.
Sunday will finish with the last tournament, in League of Legends. League is currently one of the most popular games in the world, and viewership is expected to double today's numbers during the finals." | 2014-01-17T06:59:13 | 2014-01-17T05:46:41 | 60 | 12 |
[WP] An uncontacted island tribe ventures off their land for the first time in millennia, only to find the ashes of a long-gone, long forgotten highly advanced society.
Full disclosure: this is not my idea. Credit goes to /u/manwithfaceofbird, from [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/689m90/fed_up_with_endless_encroachment_on_their/dgx2h5s/). I just thought it was neat. | Our people built boats- it was our finest craft.
We bent wood and weave and Water to carry us across the rivers of the jungle. It is a miraculous thing, when you think about it. This conquest of water through cleverness and craftsmanship. We often forget how many marvels surround us, when we have grown up surrounded by them.
We live in a grand jungle, where the air is thick and hot and the rain is constant. In the old days, our elders say, this jungle was shrinking, being cut away by tall men from beyond the jungle. They gave us paper and Shining things in the hope we would not care, and because of their power we were helpless to stop them. We retreated into our jungle, and made new homes and built new boats. But the tall men fled long ago, so they say, and the jungle has retaken it's rightful place.
I have decided to lead an expedition to visit a neighboring tribe we had contacted long ago. They were like us, but had red-painted faces and singing words, while we spoke with blue faces and low tones.
The water was fast, and me and my fellows hunted fish and watched birds. Soon enough, we could the tribal grounds. But their village was empty- their huts old and derelict. We found old bones and rags that spoke of a battle or war.
We considered turning back, but we had many days to spare, and decided to see what had become of our neighbors. We began to follow a path through the jungle, thin and snaking, past massive trees and across thick roots. The path led us for days through the jungle. Occasionally we would find more bones and broken spears, and places where camps were made.
Soon after, we discovered something magnificent: water, endless water, crashing rhythmically against the bulwarks of the land. The water was warm, but tasted foul and stunk of salt. On the coast of this salt-lake we found something interesting: tall square homes, broken and old, covered in vines. The homes are made of wood or brick, with many metal tools within.
These must have belonged to the Tall Men, we thought.
The path merged with a larger road of open dirt that followed the shore of the salty lake, and we decided to press on. We saw many abandoned homes, with more bones within, alongside strange metal carriages, some turned on their side, others blackened by some ancient fire, and warped like crushed paper.
To build upon all these strange wonders, we saw an even greater sight: tall mountains on an inlet of the lake, filled with these square homes. They layer over each other like sand in an anthill, and huge steel boats lay in the bay. We searched through the strange stone paths of the great village, no longer searching for our lost neighbors. We discovered strange illuminating metal squares, and blocky metal bows which shot thunder.
We continued to climb the village-mountain until we saw, on a distant peak, a sight which still chills my soul: on a lonely mountaintop, a great stone man rests, arms outstretched and draped in a curtain of plant life. He looks over the village with a protective, fatherly gaze, and seemed to be welcoming us into his home.
We no longer build boats- those days are past us now. We build great towers of wood and metal out of the abandoned square homes. We start fires with foul-smelling liquids that let us burn food in minutes. We send our soldiers with metal bows to conquer other tribes. We have destroyed much of the old city, searching for metal bows and tools, and the great stone man now looks more angry than welcoming. We cut down the forest for firewood and to hunt, and I reflect that we must look very much like the Tall Men of old, with our fat bellies and iron bows. | We have left the island were my people originated, seemingly forever. It seems like only yesterday that I sat with my brothers fishing for food to help the village. On that fateful day the gods sent us a sign. My oldest brother had caught a fish on his line and was reeling it in when we caught sight of it, a ship. A small fishing ship, but not one that my tribe owned. Thinking we had found something, my brothers and I waited until it floated close enough to swim out to and we did, but as we swam we smelled something terrible, the smell of death. As we got closer the smell only got worse, then we saw what was on the boat, it was piled high with corpses.
After we dragged the ship back to the island we got the village elders who decided our tribe must flee our island, as this was a sign from the gods. We did as we were instructed and packed up in only two days as we did not have much to carry, we then put our stuff on boats and all piled in. The trip was hard and seemed to take forever but we finally saw shore.
As we docked and gathered together on dry land. Someone pointed out what seemed to be a large metal tree in the distance. The village elders interpreted this as a sign and we traveled in that direction eventually reaching what seemed to be a forest of metal trees. But it smelled horrible, the same smell as the ship. People used to live here, but who and where? And what killed them? | 2017-04-29T18:04:15 | 2017-04-29T16:26:41 | 34 | 12 |
[WP] Dear diary, I’ve been feeding this creature that fell from the sky for a few days. It strangely likes to drink water, the liquid we use to fuel cars. I noticed a patch on its suit today that read “NASA”. I’ll ask it tomorrow what that means. If that’s it’s name. | Dear diary,
This is my first entry into this notebook. I don’t really know why I’m doing this, but I guess that it will help me record everything about the creature that I found. Yesterday, something out of metals hit the surface of my jakura-fields, right from the sky. It resembled a bit our space-racers, but it was too small to actually being able to contain enough fuel to even start flying and there was a single creature inside of it. I don’t think that only one creature would be able to do everything that needs to be done on a space-racer. I let it slide and picked the creature up, guessing that this kind was able to multitask.
The creature was weird. I knew that there existed other living forms on other planets, we even made alliance with the Dar-najun’s a decade ago, but this creature looked just...weird. It was nothing that I knew of, it didn’t resemble any of the aliens in a few light-years of radius away. It was boney and soft and had a weird bubble of glass around its head. I laid it on my bed and examined its body for a few moments. My antennas wiggled excited, not ever seeing such kind of fascinating skeleton and complex set of organs, and my feathers couldn’t stop themselves from puffing up.
After a while I figured it was safe to take of the weird costume, that probably had a decorative, maybe ritual or religious background. If it was sacred, I hoped the creature would forgive me. But I’m sure it will, when it realizes that it was essential for tending its wounds. If it even had that level of cognitive and rational thinking.
I wanted to put the glass on the table beside me, when I heard a weird, painful moan. I dropped the glass and my feathers turned a dark purple out of fear. I turned to the creature. It was covering the sides of its head after the glass bubble made a loud noise when it crashed onto the floor. At least I know where their hearing-organs are.
After a few moments of silence filled with heavy breaths that came from the creature, its energy around it changed from confused to panic. It’s hands quickly touched their face and their body. My antennas became still out of the amount of fear the creature gave and I couldn’t help but gasp. It’s head immediately shot to me, it’s face filled pure fear of survival. It looked at the costume in my hands and at the glass bubble on the floor and put its own hand around the place where an organ that my antennas detected earlier gave it life force. The creature half-closed it’s eyes, staring at me. The rhythmic beat of the organ seemed to relax the creature and it sighed.
It widened its eyes and stared at me. The orbs seemed so intelligent, and at the same time ready to either fight or flee for its survival. I slowly put the costume away, almost inching to not to alarm the creature. My antennas reached out to it to read its emotions better. The creature eyed them warily. It seemed like they don’t trust strangers. One point to intelligence.
It’s gaze came back to my eyes and I slowly sat down. The creature barked something and I couldn’t help but to click out of surprise. The creature shuffled back, it’s back plastered to the wall. It frowned and gave out the exact same click. I almost jumped out of my clothes hearing it.
“You are good at mimicry,” I said, making the creature frown.
My antennas detected confusion. Why did I expect it to speak the same language as I? I don’t know. It kinda slipped out.
Anyway, I bit my tongue and sat on the floor, lowering my gaze to show it that I’m no treat.
Seconds after, I heard shuffles of material and pained groans. I looked up, to see the creature on the floor too, it’s limbs crossed in a weird way. It bared it’s teeth. My feathers straightened up, making themselves sharp and ready to stab someone. My antennas put me at ease, assuring that baring the teeth was supposed to be a weird way to show sympathy.
“You...re’good ‘t mimicry,” it said slowly in broken Ugalian, tripping at the clicks a few times.
In conclusion: the creature can mimic noises with impressively good quality, but only with practice and without knowing what it just mimicked. Short clicks are easier to mimic, complex sentences are confusing for their tongue.
It apparently started to give me trust, because he rolled up the clothes around it’s chest and showed me a deep wound and a few bruises. Then he lost consciousness, falling right into my arms. If that isn’t a sign of trust, then I don’t know what it could be.
+++
Dear diary, I’ve been feeding the creature different things for a few days now. It strangely loves to consume water, especially when it’s the fuel that is used to fuel cars. When it came to the other things, it was more cautious. It observed me closely as I gave it food and liquids and took just a small bite or a tiny sip before he either spit it out and showed it away, making a gesture with its head, or consuming it with satisfaction. It remembered too after two days what things it liked and disliked.
So:
-It has a short-term memory, potential long-term.
-it likes water for some reason.
-it likes corns the most.
I also found a patch on the costume. It read 'NASA'. I don’t know the meaning of it, but I’ll ask it tomorrow. Now the creature is sleepy and needs rest. I already suspect that NASA is the creatures name.
Other notes:
-DO NOT GIVE IT KADINEM, I SWEAR I THOUGHT IT WOULD DIE IN MY ARMS. It forgave me though. Or at least I think. It didn’t want to consume anything after trying kadinem.
-for some crazy reason it loves caffeine. Yes, I’m serious, that poison. That son of a gun consumed caffeine and it apparently helped the creature stay awake???
-> make tests about durability of the creature against poisons and how much it benefits it to consume them
-it has a rhythm where it lies down on my bed or anything that is even a bit comfortable and doesn’t move for around ten hours to preserve energy. It is normal. It isn’t dying. I think.
-> the creature’s equivalent to our relaxation?
-it has sensitive nerves and it experiences pain more than my kind (or all us known species in space for that matter) it was hard for me to tend its wounds.
-> check what amount of pain is tolerable for the creature because it sometimes sheds water out of their eyes.
(-> the eye-water thing: an emotional? reaction to too much pain)
+++
Dear diary,
NASA isn’t the creatures name. It took a long time for it to understand, and that after I used written language and images.
I drew myself and the creature on a whiteboard.
“Me,” I said and pointed at myself. The creature mimicked me clumsily. “You,” I pointed at the creature and it nodded.
“My name,” I said, pointing at the board and writing the word ‘name’ above the drawing of myself. “Is Esal,” I said and wrote my name beside the word 'name'.
I looked at the creature. It was confused. I sighed.
“Me,” I pointed at myself. “Esal,” I pointed at my name on the board. “Me, Esal. Esal is a name.”
I needed to repeat it once more for the creature to understand.
“You Esal,” it said and I couldn’t help it but scream out of joy and clapping my hands. My feathers changed to a happy yellow. It bared it’s teeth again.
“You?” I asked and showed it the patch. “NASA?”
It gave again a gesture that I understood as a 'no'.
“Cecil.”
Note:
-that creatures language is hard. No wonder it has the ability to mimicry so good
I tried to learn to say the name, but it took way too long. The creature proposed to be called 'Ce'. It was honestly a lot more easier.
I asked him afterwards what NASA was. My antennas detected unsureness and hesitation, not knowing how to explain what NASA was. It tried to draw and explain it to me, but together we decided that it wasn’t really worth it. The only thing that I understood was that NASA was behind the tiny metal space-racer, but nothing more.
Other notes:
-it likes to do different things. After it healed, it started to get bored and did so many things just to keep entertained.
-> keep it busy, try to continue it to learn Ugalian because I have a headache and my hands hurt from pointing and drawing everything.
-hot things have an opposite effect as caffeine; either if it is the sun shining at its face or a warm room/blanket or liquid makes it drowsy.
-IT APPARENTLY IS NORMAL FOR THEM TO CONSUME THE DEADLY BANKUJ, THAT CREATURE CAN EAT DEATH
I AM DONE
**im a new writer so criticism is really helpful!** | She was a frail creature, much smaller than Levi was, but she had a sense of familiarity that lingered over their time together. Like they had known each other far longer than a few days -- when he found her, after she hurtled from the sky and landed miles from his home.
For the first few days all she did was sleep, confined to the prison box that she came down upon. Most, Levi thought, would think it a curse. But he, unlike many in his village, was curious of the world and the stars and the legends of their ancestors. No one remembered the days when people flew amongst the stars, but the books were littered about old ruins. Old ruins that Levi felt drawn to.
On the third day, she woke, gasping for air and throwing the box open in a mechanical hiss. For anyone else, they would've turned tail and ran, but Levi merely sat there, a giant compared to her, waiting for her to say something -- do anything.
She asked for water first, choosing not to acknowledge Levi's extraordinary size compared to hers. And so he gave it to her. Hours later, she asked for food, and Levi offered what sustenance he could. *She was lucky,* he thought, *for my hunt had just begun.*
They did not speak after that, but instead sat in silence as the bear meat cooked over a roaring flame. Her eyes were transfixed on it, on the fire, on the meat, on the world around her that Levi knew she did not recognize. He stared at her the first few nights, wondering what her eyes were looking for -- trying to find an answer in the dark shades of honey he saw within her irises.
*I will ask her,* he thought, *when the time is right.*
____
It came the next morning. She was awake first, kindling the embers of a dying fire. For a moment, he did not acknowledge that he was awake. Instead, he laid still and examined her. She had long, flowing hair that was disheveled and bushy, and wore a suit of cloth that Levi did not recognize. More so, across the suit were letters and numbers, but the most distinct was a patch on the left side of the suit. Clearly printed, on blue and red, were four letters. NASA.
He rose his head slightly, then sat up, crossed his legs and stared at the women on the other side of the cracking embers. She looked at him, poked the embers with a long stick, and smiled. Levi smiled back.
"Nasa," he said, breaking the silence that lingered between them that morning. "Is that what they call you?"
She stared at him, her honey-glazed eyes blinking in the morning sun. Shock. Confusion. Levi did not know what plagued her thoughts.
"You came from the sky," he said.
She nodded, silent still. He gave her a moment. She reached for the bag filled with water, the same liquid that powered his hovercraft, parked just feet away. Nasa drank it straight from the bag, lifting the cool water to her lips. She let the water dribble around her mouth, before wiping it away.
"Do you--" he began, but stopped when she stood up. He did not move, remaining cross-legged on the other side of the fire. *Patience,* he thought.
He wondered what she was doing. Then she looked up to the sky and took a deep breath. "You can call me Nasa," she said -- her voice was rough, coarse, as if not used in years. "If you think that suits me."
He nodded. When she stood, she was as tall as Levi was when he was sitting. *Frail,* he thought again, *for someone to have come from the sky.*
"Do you have a name?"
"They call me Levi," he said. "My village, that is."
"I see." She said and stretched her arms into the sky. She took a few deep breaths, then looked at Levi. The smile lingered for a moment, then faltered. "Was there anyone else?"
He knew what she meant. She fell from the sky during a great storm and came crashing down to earth in a single, sudden ball of fire. Levi shook his head. She acknowledged it, sat back down, poked the embers again.
They sat that way for a few minutes.
"I did not come from the sky," she said, "but rather another world."
*Curious,* he thought.
"Another time, perhaps." She spoke in half-truths, Levi knew, something held her back.
They sat in silence a while longer.
"I read about you," Levi said. "Well, not you--you, but your kind. Sky-farers. The books say there were hundreds of you, thousands even."
"Astronauts," she said, smirking. "Or cosmonauts. That's what they called us. One in the same at the end of the day. Just people looking for a home."
"My village is near," he said, "if you need a home."
She poked the embers, staring silently at the small flames that popped in the morning air. "I did have one," Nasa said, "a home that is. Never wanted to leave, but the greater good and all that." She shrugged.
*She'll explain,* he thought, *let her.*
"I was not supposed to be the first," she said.
"Of the--" he sounded out the word in his head, then said it aloud, "Astrahnaughts."
She smirked, "Close enough. Yes."
"What happened to them?"
She looked at him now, straight-on, her eyes staring into his very soul. Levi had felt the familiar come over him again, as if he was staring at his grandmother, her eyes that held wisdom behind them. "A question for another time," she said at last. "For it is just me and this world," she looked back at the fire, "this time is not what is was supposed to be."
He thought about pushing, about asking more. His curiosity burning inside of him like a great fire, stronger than the embers that whittled and died in front of them. But he knew that she felt alone, scared and lost, in a world she did not know. He had known that feeling. Maybe that is what he sensed in her -- the familiarity of being lost.
"I can take you there," he said at last, "to the ruins -- the books I read of your people. You may not be alone, Nasa."
She smiled. "A wonderful thought. I would like that," she said, still staring at the embers. "But for now, tell me about this world, this place." She looked up at him, "About you."
And so, he opened his mouth, and told the story of his world.
________
EDIT: Thank you everyone for the nice comments! I am working on a possible continuation for this prompt, but we'll see! | 2020-10-11T08:16:19 | 2020-10-11T07:32:54 | 1,195 | 313 |
[WP] You are a superhero, and your mask has just been ripped off by your arch nemesis. Lucky for you, when you aren’t busy saving lives, you live as a hermit away from all of society. Having your identity revealed means next to nothing, and the villain has no idea who you are. | Scorpious lifted his foot off of my chest and let go of the neck of my costume. My mask still clenched in his fist.
“You’re.... just some guy....WHAT?!”
The lower part of his face was in pure shock. His mouth hung open in disbelief.
I rolled over to my side and back into one knee. Wiping the blood was from my nose and mouth.
“Who did you think I was under the mask?”
Scorpious looked around where he was standing then moved a few feet to sit on a twisted piece of debris scattered around like a chair. He sat down and then quickly got up again to hand me my mask.
“I don’t know, I always figured that if we ever got to this part that I would recognize you or that ... oh shit! Hang on.”
Scorpious lifted his fist and began talking into some sort of communication device.
“Galaxy Man is not Richard Lexington. I repeat, Galaxy Man is NOT Richard Lexington. Please stop all of our stuff with his residence. Over. Back to work, uh keep up the good work guys...”
He let his arms fall to his side.
“Aaaah jeez. I thought you were Richard Lexington.... we have been messing with him for years...”
“So what now?” I asked.
Scorpious looked defeated, even with his current victory.
“I don’t know? Do we keep fighting? Should I let you get back up and we do this again? What are we really doing here? Shit I don’t even remember what I was going to do today for me to even put all this stuff on before we started our little fight. How come I’ve never seen you before? Are you even from here? This city? Earth?”
“ I actually grew up like 3 miles from here, I went to Jackson High.”
“Get the fuck right out of town? Did you know a Sarah Chantz?”
“Yeah! Sarah she was a year younger than me!”
“She’s my sister! I went to Denton Academy over south”
“Wow. Small world huh?”
“How do you stay out of the public eye and all that?”
“I got a cabin on Big Bright Lake. I bought it a few years ago. It’s quiet and only like a 5 minute flight for me. It’s nice.”
“Good fishin?” Scorpious asked.
I just nodded with a smile.
“I had just filled up my propane tank for my grill got some beer and was ready to take my jetski out this weekend before I got the word you were downtown here.”
“Man I am suddenly completely embarrassed about all of this. That sounds like a great way to spend the weekend. Sorry about all this.”
“Tell you what, how about you come to my cabin and we go fishin, have some beer, grill up what we catch and reminisce about all of our fights?”
Scorpious stood up.
“That sounds like a great idea! I’m in!”
He extended his hand to help me off the ground.
I was so relieved that he agreed to it that I didn’t see him pull his blade to sink it into my stomach.
My last mistake. | I gently step away from him.
Well shoot.
Now that he’s seen me, he’s gonna try and use that against me.
“So The Pesky Bird’s true identity is...who? What? I don’t...” My arch-nemesis Moredoor looked at me, bewildered. I heard them softly mutter, “what the hell...”
“May I have my bird head back? I kinda need that.” I say, carefully taking back the bird head.
“Who the hell are you?!” Moredoor responded in anger.
“I’m just a Hermit,” I respond with a smile, gently putting my mask back on and flying away before calling out, “always have been, always will be!”
——————————————————————
[Inspired by Grian!!](https://m.youtube.com/user/Xelqua) | 2020-08-21T05:56:23 | 2020-08-21T05:31:55 | 33 | 17 |
[WP] You have the power to wipe memories. Instead of becoming a super villain like your brother, you started a service for people who want to watch the same movie over again for the first time. | She arrived on a blazing summer afternoon in an ocean blue dress. Her eyes were concealed beneath the shades, as if the straw hat had yet to hide her face enough. She tapped on the glass, short and decisive, enough to disrupt me from my nap.
"I heard you can erase memories." - her strawberry lips wasted no time.
"I can. But that's not what this store is about."
"Movies, right?"
She pulled out a VCR tape from her purse. There was something urgent in her actions. At least, that's what I thought.
"You want to watch it here or bring it home?"
"Here."
"This way."
I had a VCR room, just for cases like this. Some people believe the old-fashioned way was always better, but trust me, it's just nostalgia.
"It's a little dusty in here." - I said, opening the door.
"That's fine."
"Let me set up the VCR."
Luckily, the device did not malfunction like it should be. When I turned around, the woman was already in her seat, handing me a stack of cash.
"$427, according to the amount of time you erased."
"Well ma'am, you certainly did your research."
"Yes, and when do you start erasing my memories?"
"I already did."
I slipped outside as quickly as I could. Some people often ask me to watch the movies with them, and most of those experiences were not so pleasant.
When I returned to the counter, Jefferson was standing outside the door. He's a cop.
"If you're here to look for my brother, he's not here."
"Not today, no. I'm looking for a woman."
He handed me a picture. The woman in the ocean blue dress.
"Never seen her."
"Cut the crap, Chad told me he saw her walking in here."
If you need further clarification, Chad's a snitch. And Jefferson was so stubborn especially when it came to me. Granted, I did busted my brother out of jail once, but I was ten back then, and he was the only brother I had. Also, he only lit a car on fire. It wouldn't amount to anything he does today.
"She went that way."
"....you....I....um....what...what was I....?"
"You were asking me if I had seen a woman like this, and I might have seen her going toward Jenny's."
"Oh...um...oh... Thanks?"
He rushed out with a puzzled look on his face. Believe me, it was not like I am against the law or such. I did take the woman's money, and she deserve to watch that tape. I called out to Jefferson.
"Just take it easy, Jeff. She sprained her ankle or something."
If he got a heatstroke chasing after a ghost, I'd feel really bad.
Back at the store, I quietly flipped the board to "Closed", patiently wait for the woman to finish her tape. When I counted the stack of money, there must have been $2000 there.
She walked out calmly, too calm, too content, like someone who has finished all they need to do. I asked.
"How was the movies?"
"Good enough."
"About this amount of money..." - I raised the stack of cash.
"Keep the change."
"There was a cop looking for you."
"I know."
"What did you do?"
"I killed my husband."
I intended to press on into the matter, but her tranquil look stopped me.
"What are you going to do now?"
"Turn myself in. What else?"
And she left. I ran after her.
"What?" - she asked.
"I... may I watch that tape?"
"...sure."
She threw her purse at me. When I caught it, the woman was gone.
There was not much inside. The tape, some change, a lipstick,... Now, I am not usually interested in what my clients watch, but this one...
I hit the Play button.
It was the recording of a wedding. Nothing unusually, even dull if you ask me. Boring and uneventful, I spent over four hours remembering only the scene where the couple danced. And it was not spectacular either.
But I believed, or rather, I'd like to believe, that at some point in time, they were happy together.
| It was the 25th of June. I was awakened by the sound of trash cans being tossed, as well as blaring sirens. The rank smell of burning rubber permeated the air. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my panic alarm. My twin brother had given it to me, after the 3rd time we were confused with each other.
You see, he was now the ruler of Best Korea. Nobody in Best Korea found it odd to see a large black man ruling a county of diminutive asians. After all, he had fallen from the sky to rule them as a God amongst men.
My brother had learnt to wipe memories as well as implant them. I hadn't taken much effort into mastering my skill. Wiping the memory of movies was more than enough for me. Besides, it pays the bills for this Manhattan loft, and my Netflix.
After swallowing my panic, I slowly shuffled to the window to see what's going on, but my heart leaped back into my throat as I heard a heavy handed rap on the door. I looked through the peephole, but all I saw was a green glow. I could barely make out a hooded figure, but nothing made sense at this late hour.
I still don't know why I did it, but I opened the door. There stood a 6 foot man in a hooded brown robe, holding a green lightsaber. Behind him was a long line of people snaking down the stairs. Some dressed as wookies, some as storm troopers. I even saw a tiny kid in a droid suit. The hooded man silently shoved a few hundred dollar bills into my hand, and then he uttered three words which still shakes me to my core..............
"Jar Jar Binks"
EDIT: Spelling :( | 2018-01-12T04:04:41 | 2018-01-11T23:10:01 | 29 | 21 |
[WP] Create a fictional mythological race, (werewolves, vampires, skinwalkers, etc) and the legend behind it | Bright red letters warned on the TV weather report: “Polar Vortex expected this evening. Low of -23C. Vortex Bears likely. Stay inside.”
“I’m tired of the damn vortex bears.” I grabbed my coat. It was going to be an extra hard day at work, knowing that I might not be able to go tomorrow due to the cold.
“Dad, what’s a damn bortex bear?” My four year old daughter was perceptive.
“Please watch your language in front of the children.” My wife looked at me disapprovingly. “Don’t worry honey, they’re just a myth."
My wife and I exchanged a glance, I then looked down at my phone, realized I was running late, and grabbed my backpack as I ran out the door.
“Don’t forget to buy a gallon of milk on the way home from work," my wife yelled as I stepped out the door and ran to the car. It was already bitter cold.
-------
I knew I was in trouble as soon as I stepped back inside after work. It was toasty warm in the house, but as I shut the door, I remembered my wife’s request that morning.
“Fu… frak!” I quickly changed my swear seeing my daughter looking at me. “I forgot the milk. I’m going to run down to the store really quickly.”
“Are you sure?” My wife asked. “The temperature is dropping quickly." I glanced at the thermometer next to the door that showed it as -17C outside. We all kept these thermometers next to our doors these days. We know what can happen when it gets below -20C.
“It’s two blocks. I’ll be fast.” I zipped my coat up high and stepped back outside. It was 5:30 at night and as dark as midnight in the summer. I hate winter. I could see my breath in the air under every street light.
The shop owner looked surprised as I walked in. “Hey man, I was just closing up. You shouldn’t be out right now. Polar vortex.”
“I live close. Just needed some milk for the kids tonight.”
“Ok, well hurry.” He glanced at the digital thermometer next to the door of the shop. -18C.
I paid and made my way back outside. Stepping quickly, I concentrated on getting home, not on the cold. Not on my breath. I still had 2 degrees. Plenty of time. Just need to cross this street….
HONK!!!
A bus flew by me, laying on its horn. I was three steps from being run down. My heart pounded in my chest. My breath formed in front of me. And then it swirled and solidified.
“Oh shit!”
I could see two brown eyes and a black nose looking back at me from steam from my breath. I took three steps to the left and then raced for home.
Like the klutz I am, I tripped on the curb on the other side of the street. I shook off the pain in my knee and turned back to see the gray bear almost completely formed behind me. Only its feet were missing. It was staring right back at me, waiting for the ability to move.
I turned and ran for home. I only had to make it one more block. | The TuneMakers;
The tune-makers are the undertone of everything, they play the strings that string theory itself consists of.
As they operate outside our perception of time there is no need to say when they began as in a non-linear fashion they have always been. Some speculate they were a paradoxical creation of an an advanced super-intelligent race that traveled back in time to create themselves but that is yet to happen.
The Tune_makers are energy based and the purest form of E in the Equation of E=MC2. They control every minuscule universal movement from the subatomic level, arranging everything like an equation. To them there is no greater enjoyment than destruction as it leads to entropy. Their purpose is pure entropy and as such they leave destruction in their wake. | 2016-12-16T08:46:55 | 2016-12-16T08:06:49 | 22 | 10 |
[WP] The team's healer is absolutely sick and tired of always being insulted or forgotten about so they join the bad guys; they are a much more terrifying villain than anyone thought possible. | Her eyes settled on her blood-covered teammate. He walked along with the others up front, boasting about how he single-handedly won this for them, and they should all be buying his drinks.
She could feel her head pounding, and her anger slowly building. What would a rogue know about carrying a team? What would he know about helping since all he does is scream for heals and run full tilt at the enemy?
The wizard caught her attention. "Come now Drell, you may have stabbed the Goblin King in the back, but I'm the one who blinded him with fire first."
The healer held back the urge to scream. Sure, the Wizard knew all kinds of spells. If only Declan knew how to aim. The healer grabbed the burned edges of her robe. It was a sacred item, and without apology or remorse the wizard burned through her to get to the Goblin King, after all, a healer can take care of themselves after right?
"Mell, you should learn to position yourself better. Let's start working on that." The paladin gave the healer an accusatory stare from beside the wizard. His armor shone in the light of the small-town road.
"Position myself?" There was a threat of violence in her voice that no one took seriously. The rogue and wizard rolled their eyes and headed into the tavern, avoiding the lecture and laughing at Mell, who was getting the short end today. It was a common occurrence.
"Gallant, you don't need to position yourself because you hide behind sheets of metal and a holy symbol, don't lecture me today."
The paladin frowned at Mell, puffing out his chest and stopping her attempt to pass him by. He grabbed her by the arm and cuffed the side of her head with his other hand. His gauntlet left a cut over her temple.
"Stop bringing the team down. You're being a selfish bitch right now. Just do your job and go to bed, you're full of shit because you're tired."
Mell allowed her wrath to settle over her like a cold blanket and smiled at him. "You're right Gallant. I'll grab a drink and head to bed."
Gallant looked pleased with himself and let go of her, pushing past the door, and letting it slam in her face.
The healer entered the bar after an hour, and if anyone had cared at all to look, they would notice the streaks of tears at the edges of her face, where she hadn't remembered to wipe. The tears did not betray her, and for once she was so very grateful to be unimportant.
She ate her food, read one of the many books she carried and prepared her nightly poultice. She was to treat all party members with the poultice before their long rest so that they would never be ill or sore the following day.
One by one they undressed for her, no shame or care, and one by one she took care of their remaining wounds. The rogue and wizard muttered something about her skills improving since this poultice didn't sting like the others. The paladin grunted something about her babying the team.
When the moon rose in greeting to the sky the rogue, the wizard, and the paladin woke abruptly. Each could not scream, each bent over in pain. They looked around, thinking that someone must have poisoned their ale, but when they saw the healer sitting quietly atop the bed, realization hit.
"You tire and bore me boys. I must protest. I found a patron the other day. He's been sending me countless requests. I never really considered joining the Emperor, but today I think I understand why I should. "
The paladin tried to push a smiting prayer past his gasping breath, but to no avail. Like a twisted children's tale, the healer took from each warrior what they truly valued.
From the rogue she took his dexterity, straddling him, crippling his hand and shattering his ankles.
From the wizard, a sharp spike through the head would suffice. He breathed, but his eyes were glassy and empty.
Lastly, Mell kicked the paladin into a more desirable spot, kneeling down beside his weak and weary body.
"You know Gallant, I really think you should work on your perception, you're being shit at your job and it's quite literally killing your team."
Gallant's mind was shattered. He wasn't supposed to succumb to poison, he was immune. How could this happen?
Mell bent over his face, her long hair tickling his neck and forehead. She wrapped her fingers around his holy symbol and ripped it off. Her lips moved to his ear.
"My position has never been merely submission, I might be on the bottom, but that where I have power. I decide who lives and dies, and up until yesterday, I hadn't changed my mind. Learn your place."
Something heavy held on to Gallant's heart and he drifted off to a fitful night in hell.
Edit: Spelling. Also, part 2 is further down.
Edit: There may be a couple more parts.
Final Update: To everyone who asked for more, I have just finished with the 6th part and it's down in the comments. It's the epilogue so I hope you all enjoy this short story adventure.
Thanks to everyone who encouraged and complimented me, I really appreciate you all! | “You used me as a heal bot. I did have other spells you know.” The desperate anger in his voice sounded so... sad.
“Treble, come on man, let’s talk about this.” The mostly self proclaimed party leader tried to placate him.
*Treble’s player developed a wicked grin, “roll a wisdom saving throw”*
The warforged bard briefly chants a brief incantation and the fighter’s eyes grow unfocused, and a malicious grin splits his face and he says, in a voice not his own, “I now have strings to hold this clown, enhance my smile, to make you frown...” Treble cackles maniacally as the fighter throws himself at the wizard, brandishing his greatsword.
“Now you will understand why I am the strongest member of this party. You will understand how truly dangerous I can be.” Trebles taunts managed to roar over the clashing noise of battle.
Treble focused on the fighter as he did his level best to kill the wizard and marveled at how well his plan has gone. Then he heard a flattering of steel against something equally unyielding. “Ah, thief, a pleasure you could join us.” He turned from the wizard and the fighter, and his unchanging grin became more unsettling despite its sameness as ever.
“Is this about the gold I ‘borrowed’?” Pleaded the rogue.
“It is about that and everything else, every other slight over the past few years.”
“We came here to help you.” The wizard accused Treble.
“You came here after I offered payment. I had to bribe you to help me with my difficulties. How many times did I volunteer to help you with yours before price even came up?”
None of them responded although that could have been because the fighter was under Treble’s thrall, the rogue was seething in a force cage, and the wizard was forced to burn a spell to shield against the fighter’s onslaught.
I’m almost bored of this, so, fighter, finish him off quickly. Then I can deliver you to the overlord.
If the other two had seemed shocked before, they looked absolutely baffled now. “You’re working for the overlord now? We’ve been trying to stop him for months. Why would he accept your help?”
“Because I get results.” Trebles grin remained plastered on his face, but it seemed mocking to them. “The overlord, for all his ineptitude does have a tactical sense. He noticed that while the three of you were mighty, it was at my whim that you were indomitable. Now you may see just how powerful I really am.”
Finally, exhausted before the onslaught of the dominated fighter, the wizard could no longer hold him off and one stroke, two strokes, three mighty swings of his greatsword felled the wizard. The rogue was dispatched with a ray of enfeeblement, and the fighter was taken to the nameless overlord.
Remember, kids, never take your healer for granted; they have access to more than just healing. | 2020-01-05T10:33:13 | 2020-01-05T07:42:58 | 1,546 | 889 |
[WP] People often attribute your success as a superhero to your power. However the truth is the power itself sucks, you just learnt how to use it well despite its limitations over the years, as one power stealing villain painfully learnt | I have been in the superhero game for a lot of years, since I was a preteen as a matter of fact, and have grown to become one of the best and most successful heroes in the world. I’ve served on countless minor teams from the Combat Kids to the New Crew and even spent a couple of years on Young Victory, the “feeder team” to the prestigious Hero Guild International. I spent time as part of the revamped HGI, I was a member of the Freedom League of the World, and even had a short stint on the now-defunct Righteous Action Team.
Each team gave me ample time to develop into a respected hero. I’ve had my share of villains gunning for my life and even had an arch-villain or two declare eternal vengeance and doom upon me and yet I was still active, even at forty-three. All these years gave me time to perfect and master my power. It was a life-long journey that hadn’t come easy. It was a lesson that my current “Arch-Enemy” Photostature was about to learn the hard way.
“Ha, ha! Fuck you!” the villain laughed as he adjusted a dial on his gauntlet, “I found the right frequency! How did Kill’em’all struggle with you for all those years?!”
Photostature was the latest in a line of villains who thought he’d make a name for himself at my expense. He had only recently taken up the spot as my “Arch-enemy”, not even a month aft Lord Kill’em’all was locked up in the interdimensional prison for villains. I knew a bit about him, including the fact that his ability to temporarily steal powers was amplified by technology, and I knew that given the chance he’d try to take my power as soon as he could. He obviously planned this for a while since he managed to ambush me as I was patrolling the rooftops.
Purple energy lanced around my body and battered me to the ground and I felt my powers momentarily dissipate. Weakness flowed through me for a moment as Photostature’s machinery did its job. The harness infused him with my power, or a nearly exact copy of my powers at least and I saw the sick smile of his spread across his face.
“This power! This energy! Now I have the power that makes you one of… the… gr… eat… est…”
I shook my head.
Very slowly his grinning smile turned sour and become a frozen grimace of horror before he vanished. I took a deep breath to steady myself as my powers returned. I reached out and altered the flow of time around myself. As the world around me slowed to a stop I too vanished from the rooftop.
Photostature stood, still as a statue as I appeared. His face was a mask of horror and fear as I approached. Around us the world was gray and lifeless, frozen in a moment in time. He turned and ran at me. A quick motion froze him in his place.
“So is it everything you thought it would be?” I asked as I stepped aside and released him.
“What the hell is going on?!” He screamed as he desperately fumbled with his harness, “You have mastery over Speed and Velocity! Everyone knows that! You’re fucking famous for it! You can make things go faster or slower!”
I shrugged, “That’s not really my power. That’s basically a side effect of my actual power. You see it’s taken me a REALLY long time to learn how to do that. My power is actually the ability to alter and control the flow of time. I can manipulate time so that stops almost completely around me… or I can increase it so that I can move faster than light itself. I can also affect creatures and objects as well.”
Photostature grimaced as he concentrated for several minutes until finally, he fell over, exhausted. Breathing heavily and sweating profusely the villain cursed until I sat down next to him. With an angry look, he glared at me. I gave him a little smile.
“Look, when my power first manifested, I spent six months trapped in a pocket of stopped time. Six goddamned months trapped in a completely still and silent world. I tried to will myself back to normal time every day. Every day, all day, until I was exhausted and burned out. It took me six months to manage it... and then I returned as if I had vanished less than a moment earlier.
It took me many more years to get a hold of my powers and truth be told, I still don’t have it perfect. Harry… Lord Kill’em’all, knew that. I talked to him a couple of times like this, just me and him… it was always a good time. Except… well you know the Villainous International League Extraordinaire has quotas and benchmarks to meet. To appease VILE, every so often Harry had to make a real go at it. And well, the last time he really screwed the pooch. Ripped up way more of downtown than normal.”
“What the shit is going on here?” my newest Arch-Enemy asked bewildered, “I’m not your fucking friend. I’m the guy who is going to kill you!”
I laughed, “Yup. Doing a bang-up job of that sport.”
“Son of a bitch!” he screamed as he scrambled to his feet.
I waved my hand and held him in place, “Yuh-huh. Look… My powers kinda suck normally. It took me forty years to master them and I still manage to slip into this… Time Void when I fall asleep. Do you think you’ll be able to master them any faster?”
“I don’t have to. I can turn off my rig and be done with this shit.” He said as he flicked a toggle on his chest.
When nothing happened I laughed, “You’re untethered to the time stream now. Caught in a moment between now and then. You only exist here, in the Time Void and you’ll be stuck here until one of two things happen. Either I return you to functioning time or you wait here until your borrowed power ends… which, given what I know about you would normally be an hour, but here? Maybe a year or so?”
“Goddamn it. The fuck do you want?”
“Honestly? Tone it down a little. Don’t take this whole thing so seriously… do it for the money or the fame but don’t put the citizens at risk. Keep the collateral damage to a minimum. Don’t be a monster, be… I don’t know… be better than that.”
“Are you kidding me? Is this why Lord Kill’em’all went soft?!”
“Look I don’t expect you to be like Harry. He was a friend. I just want you to understand that people get hurt when heroes and villains fight. And I want you to understand that if anyone gets hurt when you’re gunning for me there will be consequences.”
I shot him a cold, hard look and he choked down another curse.
“Fine.” He mumbled, “Get me back and I’ll take it easy on you old man.”
I nodded and extended my hand. Slowly time began to flow around us. Color began to filter back into our world first, going from pale and dull to their normal hues. Motion came next with sound soon after. My enemy smiled and flipped the toggle on his harness, shutting off the stored power. I nodded again, a gesture of our new found understanding, and turned to leave.
I sighed as I heard the sound of metal scraping leather. I let my concentration lapse and my power kicked in full force. Everything around me stopped. A bullet hovered in mid-air and Photostature grimaced at my back. I felt little more than disappointment as I let time flow around him and only him, giving him the ability to move freely yet trapping him in the Time Void.
“Oh shit.”
“Oh shit indeed, asshole. I’ll be back for you eventually… maybe then you’ll have learned your lesson?” I said before returning to normal time. | ***GOO (Short story)***
Chapter One:
“The Gelatin! The Gelatin!” The people cry out my heroic name as I step through the masses to face the bank in which the tellers are being held hostage. “The Gelatin! The Gelatin!” Okay, I mean, my hero name sucks, but The Hero Association is the one that gives out names according to the powers a hero has, so you can’t blame me for that hideous lack of creativity. For quite some time after the decision for my name I was put out, always conscious of the snickers my horrible name brought from other heroes — until a realization struck me. A name meant nothing without the hero behind it. So even though both my name and power are laughably terrible, nonstop work has placed me in this position, lauded by all and one of the first choices of help to any disastrous situation. At first only a pile of goo that couldn’t move, I managed to learn how to control my transformation. Soon, I had learned a fair amount of tricks I could do with this strange ability — though I still couldn’t move as the goo. No matter, I had worked around it. Suck it, DeathMaw! You have a fricking mouth on your stomach, and you made fun of ME? Well, that’s all behind me now, and this bank is currently what’s in front, so it’s time to spy out the situation.
The wind ruffles my wavy red hair, which would look heroic if it wasn’t for the fact that I wear a light green spandex outfit to cover my body, and nothing else. This spandex may look ridiculous, but I wouldn’t part from it for anything in this world. With my good friend, the scientist Meca N. Ich’s help, this spandex has become the one thing between me and being naked the moment I use my power. Not only this, but while a bullet might cause me severe bruises, the spandex was unbending from the outside, something which had kept me alive — albeit rather busted up — over the years. I observe the bank, my years of experience giving me a good eye. *One front entrance, two back ones. All guarded*, *I assume.* The district’s City Guard Overwatcher walks toward me, her long black hair streaming behind her as she briskly approaches. *Man, can that woman make a uniform look good.* Not that I’d ever say anything to the kind to her. She stops directly in front of me, glowering black eyes and entire five-foot-three body bristling with anger.
“Gel”
“Maria”
“They have an insider on this one.”
“Of course they do. Because nothing can ever be simple for us”
She gives me a bitter smile. “We weren’t alerted about this until it was already over and they had their demands ready. They want three choppers, twenty million in untraceable credits, and to keep three hostages with them.”
“They seriously think we’ll give it to them? There is no way-”
“One of the hostages is the High Chancellor’s daughter.”
“Oh, so we’re definitely going to give it to them.”
“Not if you can stop it.”
“What’s the low-down?”
“Twenty-five highly trained DarkOps with full equipment.”
“Sonofa- they actually hired DarkOp mercenaries?”
“Clearly, this is something bigger, but we need to focus on what we can do now.” She motions to an aide, who rushes up with a blueprint map that details the bank’s architecture and insides. “Infrared scans show the girl is here” she points at one of the lower vaults, and draws a little circle. “They keep the vault opened for air, but will seal themselves in there if we cross a certain point.”
“‘If you screw us we screw you back’?”
“Exactly. So this is why you’re here. Can you make it back there without being noticed?”
I look at the blueprint, tracing the points with my fingers. “I think so. I need light strike forces of, say, three men, at every entrance, plus a couple snipers taking pot-shots. Three men… no, four. Send a Wolfpack.”
“Why not a Bull squad or Pheonix team?”
“You won’t actually be trying to get in — just attract their attention.” I point to a small panel, much too small for any kind of human to get through — except maybe The Rodent, but he’s over in the Eurasian Iles for a special mission this week — and so unguarded. “I’ll get through here, which leads right to the corridor of the vault in which the girl will be. Sound good?”
“Excellent, I’ll get a squad.” Maria grabbed her comm. “Give me three Wolfpacks and four solo Eagle-Eyes.” The comm crackled to life, and someone crisply answered, “Roger that, ma’am”.
She turned to me. “Don’t die in there.” A crack in her stony façade that only I’ve ever seen, over our ten years of teamwork.
I pout and give her a wink. “And here I was hoping to get shot in the face a bunch of times. Ugh, you wet blanket!”
She slaps my shoulder and grabs it. “I’m serious.”
My face darkens as well, and I give her a succinct nod. I turn to the bank and roll my shoulders. Time to get to work. *Maybe I can get home tonight in time to watch the first episode of Riverdale’s seventy-sixth season.* Somehow, I doubt that’ll be the case.
**(A/N: Next chapters in comments)** | 2020-12-02T11:03:41 | 2020-12-02T10:37:43 | 16 | 12 |
[WP] It turns out humanity was the first, and only spacefaring species to master the atom. After a horrific galactic war, humanity had to bring out its nuclear weapons, to the shock and horror of the rest of the galaxy. | Gabriel knew his name would become synonymous with traitor. But really, what did it matter? Better to be a traitor than to be subservient to madmen, or to look the other way as the galactic genocide continued. On the ship's holographic screen, the tiny pinprick of the green planet was growing -- a grassy blade slowly becoming a hillock.
He'd been a soldier once-upon-a-time. Back before wisps of grey hair had strangled his natural blond. Before the pain arrived that squeezed his back each time he leaned over the ship's dashboard. Before the Totanians had been wiped clean from their planet that was now a charred ball of black -- a radiated graveyard of a once-great species.
Gabriel had been one of the first to sign-up when the war had broken out. Five civilizations battling for control of this sector of space -- as if the empty blackness contained any meaning at all, anything worthwhile. It wasn't even a barren no-man's land they'd been fighting over... it was literally *nothing*.
Supply and mining ships on their way from Earth to a new colony in the Betelgeuse system had gotten caught in the war's crossfire. That had forced the Solar Alliance -- and Gabriel -- into the fray.
It was strange, thinking back, how glitzy and glamourous a war in space had once sounded. Like those old films he'd watched growing up. Men charging out of fox-holes and bunkers and sticking a flag down in the liberated land. But by the end of the first year of the Solar Alliance's involvement, all of Gabriel's friends in the corps had been killed, their ships annihilated.
Their deaths had been the first pang of guilt to swell in his stomach. Why had Gabriel had survived and they hadn't? What was the purpose of his living while those around him died? -- He felt like there had to be a greater reason for each dogfight he survived.
When the Committee had voted to do something that would have seemed unbelievable only a year before, Gabriel had nodded, silently. The right choice. It would end the war early -- and there would be fewer casualties in the end.
The war between the civs had historically been fought in space and *only* in space. That was the way of the galaxy -- few civilians could be killed if there was no war on a planet's surface.
Humanity changed the rules.
"We deliver a couple of little parcels," his commander had told him, "onto one or two of the planets, and that's it. Game over. We've then done what they couldn't achieve in a thousand fucking years."
Gabriel had believed it. None of the other species had developed nukes... And once they saw the destruction, the fiery mushroom hell that only humans could deliver... That would be the end of all war forever. They would bow. And yes, humanity would have done something bad -- something terrible, even. But for the right reasons and for a just cause.
Only it hadn't been that simple.
Never was, Gabriel figured.
The 'green planet' careened into view. That had been its nickname back when it had been pristine. Now it was a smoldering muddy wreck, cratered and barely habitable. Not green anymore.
A ship orbited the planet -- twenty-times the size of Gabriel's one-man craft.
"Greetings, Gabriel Launder," crackled a voice over his intercom. "You may dock when you're ready."
Could he really do this?
The problem with the nukes had been first been demonstrated on Totania. Yes, they had inflicted the damage the Solar Alliance had intended. But the Totanians didn't just throw their hands up and surrender, as had been predicted.
They didn't surrender after a hundred nukes had fallen. Not even after a thousand.
They had *never* given up.
Not until the very last one of them had screamed into a fiery nothingness.
Every species involved in the war was proud -- and rightfully so. And they were all sickened by what the Solar Alliance had done. None would surrender to such a callous race of beings.
In time, Gabriel had been sickened, too. These weren't fighters or warriors they were bombing. These were children and parents and teachers and all the things he kept precious in his sugar-coated recollections of his own childhood.
The bombings were still happening. The galaxy-wide cleansing. It would continue until humanity was the final space-faring species in the galaxy.
Unless he did this.
Unless he gave them all the secrets of the atom.
Because the only kind of destruction humans ever respected, was mutual.
"I'm ready to dock," said Gabriel.
---
I raced my regular co-writer Ecstatic to write for this. I don't want to say hers was faster and better, but... :) If you enjoyed either /r/nickofstatic has lots of serials by both of us :) | Only a human could be this mad. For millions of years the Galactic Federation of The Milkyway (GFM for short) had known about nuclear power but since it was not abundant outside of Earth we never thought to use it as a power source. Instead we had just propelled our solar energy techniques to be able to create power out of even the slightest amount of heat. We never could have imagined what nuclear weapons could do to the universe.
We had always kept an eye on the humans, they were after all the only species not to have practical space travel yet in our galaxy. They hadn’t discovered light speed until recently so we were waiting for them to make contact when they figured out how to use it. The plan was for them to discover it and our outpost on Pluto (who’d been watching them closely this entire time) would take a ship down to greet them. What we didn’t realize was they knew about our outpost and were making preparations to destroy the entire planet as soon as they figured out how to travel at light speed. Our team barely had a chase to message the home planet before the fiery destruction blew through their souls.
Shocked, the fifteen countries of the federation took arms to go invade their planet. You had Glorxs and Jurads, natural rivals on the planet Tymes, putting an end to their civil war to help the coalition. The Federations best general even came out of retirement to avenge his brotheran who had fallen at the outpost. Blinded by rage we sent the entire armada their way: five hundred of the newest most deadly destroyers, millions of plasma bombers and fighters, all lead by the fastest planet buster ever made making its maiden voyage.
The battle lasted an hour before it was over. We had barely made it past Jupiter when their hellfire was experienced first hand. Out of the black space came missiles going so fast they barely showed up on our radars. The first one turned the planet buster into splinters. The next one hundred turned the armada into dust. Of the twenty million soldiers sent to annihilate the Humans only seven hundred came back. Their suffering was not over though as they all became sick with radiation poisoning that we often saw from people working closer to suns, mutations we hadn’t ever documented, and burns that left most people unable to move their bodies without splintering their skin.
As we take care of these few unlucky bastards we wait. We wait to see if their hellfire has chased us back home. If it has then I pray we end quicker than these unlucky few. | 2022-12-15T08:44:27 | 2019-12-19T05:25:06 | 431 | 25 |
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