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[WP] Casting a spell is like coding a program, but with magic. An apprentice points out an error in the chant. "I know it's wrong," replies the master, "but if I change it, reality gets all wonkey." | “Wonky, master?” Apprentice Hilliya asked quizzically, frowning at her teacher. “Please forgive me, ma’am, but that doesn’t sound like a proper answer. I can see several places here where the syntax could be cleaned up to make the spell easier without affecting its effects!”
Master Mara nodded, her pointed hat bouncing on her head. “I always knew you were too clever for your own good, Hilliya. You are in theory correct – the incantations here are overtly flowery, and these subtexts and rhythm notes are, at a glance, wholly superfluous. However!” She tapped the open spread in the spellbook, her gaze fixed on her apprentice’s face. “It is like I said, *imperative* that they not be altered. I am sorry to say I have no proper answer for *why* the spells are transcribed like they are – most of them are far older than the academy is – but it is an accepted fact that once a spell is devised, meddling with its transcription leads to… *unpredictable* results.”
“But that doesn’t make–”
“–any sense,” Master Mara chuckled, rubbing Hilliya’s head affectionately. “I know, I know. But I need you to trust me on this, my girl. Magic is a science, but it is a *temperamental* science. You’ll figure it out when we start working on creating your own spells from scratch in year three. Now run along, dinner will be served in just a few minutes, and then I’m sure you have assignments from the general studies classes to take care of.”
Hilliya pouted. “*Fi~ine.* See you tomorrow, Master!”
“Have a good evening, Hilliya!”
She tried, she really did. But the poor logic of what Master Mara had told her kept swirling through Hilliya’s head for hours after their conversation. She barely spoke to her classmates during dinner and couldn’t focus on her studies, no matter how much she tried.
Now that she’d noticed it, every single spell she studied was a *mess*. So much superfluous code, so many contradictory incantations and weird intonations! She felt like a kid in primary school, suddenly having to learn what *grammar* was!
Language had been *easy* until she knew it had *rules!* Rules that didn’t even make sense!
“Ugh!”
She pushed her pile of assignments to the side and opened her spellbook to the spell she’d been working on earlier with Master Mara. A simple enough spell, meant to create a Magelight, a completely harmless ball of hovering light.
And its formula was still several paragraphs long.
Completely out of proportion.
Illogical.
*Untidy.*
She grabbed her quill and fresh parchment, then got to work.
\* \* \*
She stumbled into Master Mara’s study the next morning, red-eyed and frizzy-haired.
Mara cocked a concerned eyebrow at her. “Good morning, Hilliya. Is everything okay?”
Hilliya yawned, waving her master’s concern off. “Morning, Master. Sorry, just a bit tired, I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night.”
Mara tutted. “Early to bed tonight then, girl, can’t have you sleeping on your feet!”
“Yes Master.”
“Good. Now then, yesterday we were looking at Magelight. I believe you had it more or less figured out, but if you’d care to show me again, dear?”
Hilliya saluted cheekily. “Of course, Master! Easily done!”
Mara grinned. “That’s the spirit! You may cast when ready.”
*Right,* Hilliya thought. *Showtime.*
She quickly ran through the streamlined formula she’d devised in her head. By her calculations it should still do the exact same thing, in under half the time. She licked her lips, raised her hand, and began chanting.
Master Mara nodded as she heard the first few syllables – then blanched, as Hilliya skipped ahead in the incantation, “fluff” forgotten.
She jumped from her seat. “Hilliya, no!”
Too late.
As the last word of the abbreviated spell rang out, a little ball of light did indeed pop into being above Hilliya’s outstretched hand, shining clearly. The apprentice grinned at it, pleased, as her master stared in shock at the tableau.
“What have you done, girl?” Mara demanded, voice tight.
“I made the spell easier, Master!” Hilliya answered cheerfully. “Look, it worked!”
As she turned to face Master Mara, Magelight in her hand, she noticed something *weird.*
The Magelight did indeed follow her motion, bobbing up and down merrily through the air… but it left more light *behind*, in an unbroken, arcing stream that hovered, frozen, in the same spot it had just been. Ghostly afterimages, shining just as bright as the Magelight itself.
Hilliya blinked. She moved her hand experimentally, painting the air with light – then she noticed her own arm was leaving the same sort of trail after it, afterimages layered on top of each other where her arm had been.
A chill ran down her spine. “Uh-oh.”
“Indeed, Hilliya. *Uh-oh.*”
She looked up to meet her Master’s eyes – and was faced by a disappointed glare, smeared all across the chamber by the path her Master had taken as she approached. Like someone had dipped Master Mara in paint and dragged her across a canvas.
“And that, girl,” the Master continued, “Is why we do not do away with the “fluff.” Like I said yesterday – it makes things *wonky.*”
Hilliya cringed, nodding – then stopped, as she found herself nodding through the afterimages of her own skull and eyeballs. She quickly took a step to the side and froze before she lost her lunch.
She’d already seen more of her own mind than she’d ever wanted in her life.
“I’m sorry, Master,” she said, ashamed and miserable. “What do we do now?”
Mara sighed. “We thank the lucky stars that you didn’t experiment with anything more violent than a Magelight. Then we go to the cafeteria, have some tea and cake, and wait for this little mishap to burn itself out. With a low-level spell like this it should only take a few hours.”
“Oh! Okay. That sounds good! So I’m not in trouble?”
“Oh you’re in more trouble than you could possibly imagine, *Hilliya. Marasdaughter. Flamewright.”*
Hilliya cringed, layer upon layer of terror falling onto her with each part of her Full Name.
“But that comes later, after this mess runs its course. So come on – time for tea.”
Mara opened the door and motioned for Hilliya to step ahead of her, smeared images of her form and that of the door left in her wake.
Her daughter did as told, walking through the ghostly layers of door and towards her doom.
***
This was a fun prompt! Thank you for reading!
If you enjoyed the story, feel free to check out my sub at r/ZetakhWritesStuff for more! | "s̷̜͎̝̀̒è̷̤̝͗m̷̟͆̋à̶̠̣͙̆l̴̩͓̻͆̽͂F̸̫̙͖̈̑͋ ̸̰̩̒̚͠f̷͔̱͑͠ȏ̶͉̼̗́̽ ̶͙̓ń̴̺͝o̴̜̓m̶̛̟̂̋ẹ̷̮̏́̚D̸̞̭̩̐͘ ̴̧̩͊͝h̴̦̱͗̀g̸̼̏͘̚i̷̠̯̠͂̅͒h̴̢͎͛̿ ̸͚͈͙͝͝ę̵̖̋̍͝h̵̠͕̪̓̓̃ṫ̶̰̈́ ̷̼̃̀̈́͜s̸͎͋͌u̵͙̪̲͌̏̕r̸̰̐̓͊i̴̝͓͗͒n̷͙̉͒̍g̸̜͖̪͗̌Į̵͖͊ ̷͕́n̷̜̲̍͝ò̵̯̦̒m̵̠̖̣̈́m̸̺̓̈́̒ǖ̷̙s̴̢̅̒̃͜ ̷̯͗̿y̴͉͋b̸̨̠̔̌e̵̼͐͘r̷̨̢͕̂ę̸̩̞͂ḩ̶̮͝ ̶̝̀͗I̸͍̾͑̽"
"No no no" said the old man while leaning back along the wet stonewalls down in the dark crypt - "you have to chant f̵͕̘̌ not F̸̬̀̂ "
The apprentice looked down at the circle he had been using countless of days writing, reading, correcting, even used 3 silver coins worth of chalk by now.
"I'm sorry to say this, but I don't believe that's correct. You see sir, it's not just flames, it's what he's control of. It's what he's high Demon of."
"Hmm..." - the older man, still strong took a few steps forward, and leaned over the writings on the ground.
"I get what you're saying, but that doesn't change the fact..."
"And that is?" - said the apprentice still confident in his opinion.
"Well you wouldn't say *Hello, welcome to my House* with a capital *H* now would you?"
The smile slowly turned as he heard his master continued with the corrections of the summoning circle.
"Have you even considered that *high Demon* should be *High Demon* instead? You're already putting capital letter on the D̸̞̭̩̐͘ already, and I would assume it's a form of title*
The appropriate slowly toned the old man out as he turned around towards his bag and walked up the stairs
"Where are you going? Giving up now?" Sputtered the old man.
The apprentice sighed - "No.. I'm going to buy my materials. Could you do me a favour, and look for more errors while I go out and get the stuff?"
"Sure! Hey catch" - the man threw something shiny in the air.
"n̷͉̘͌ó̴͔̇ì̶͙̋͝ͅͅț̶̐͝ͅa̴̲͛̇̅t̸̠̲̃͜í̶͇̜ṿ̴̽́ẽ̴͚̪̂͠Ḻ̶͓̐ͅ" - he said quickly, as he pointed to the coin in the air, floating it down to his hand - " what's this for? I don't think we need that much chalk. A gold coin??"
"Ha!" Yelled out the old man, echoing through the crypt - "that's for booze my friend, we're going to be down here a loong time" | 2022-09-19T15:55:21 | 2022-09-19T15:40:19 | 100 | 44 |
[WP] "If you fools would use magic so, then the world is better off without it." And so Merlin raised his hands to the heavens and cast the Final Spell, sending all the mana of the world into the void and permanently reshaping the leylines into unusability. | **The Mystery of Merlin's Last Curse**
----
Merlin was a fool.
Over the years a reverence has been built around the myth that is Merlin. His power. His influence. The legend of Arthur and fate of Britain, all of it owed to an old man that played with fire.
Merlin died by his own hand.
I was there. He cursed his followers and all those who have tainted magic to their will.
Hypocrite.
“If you fools would use magic so, then the world is better off without it!” Merlin command the sky to part as he raised his hands to the heavens and cast _his_ Final Spell, and all at once the mana of the Earth shot out into the void and permanently reshaped the realms of magic.
And with it, Merlin fell dead.
I went to his body and cursed him.
“Old idealistic fool,” I said.
_Had he known magic was his very soul?_
_Was it a selfless act in his mind - a price to be paid - his death in exchange for his wild vision?_
I left him in grass for the wolves. And as I disappeared to the tree line, I heard the voice of Uther’s son cry out.
I did not look back.
In the years that followed many followers came to me. I was, after all, the last apprentice to the great one. If anyone could undo his final spell - unweave the thread he spun - it would be me.
I took no visitors and denied it could be done.
“The age of magic is over,” I would tell them. “Go back to the world of men and live a dull life. There is no wonder left in this world.”
When Arthur came to see me, I worried my time was up.
“Do not be fearful,” he called from outside my home. “I come not for vengeance.”
I opened the door, sword in hand - knowing full well I could not beat the man in combat.
“What then - Son of Pendragon - do you want?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said from atop his horse. “I want you to do nothing.”
“My Lord, I am confused,” I said.
“Do you think me a fool?” He asked. “The world of men is starting to find a new path - a path of true freedom. I don’t want magic to return to this world. So I ask you, do nothing.” The King said.
I hated his confidence. He had come alone, no guards, no knights, just a single man on horseback. With no fear. With no doubt in his abilities.
He was my opposite. I lived in fear. My abilities were taken - no, they were stolen by a neurotic old man.
“I do not -“ I started.
“-stop!” Arthur held up a palm. “Do not speak, for each word you utter is a lie I do not wish to hear. So I say plainly this, if magic finds a path back to our world - if I hear even a whisper of sorcery - I will return. And I will not be so kind.”
With that, Uther’s son spun his horse around, and left.
I entered my hut and locked the door.
_How could he know I was close?_
I took to my workshop. The glistening of crystals I had taken from the cave of Merlins birth lit the room in a whimsical ambiance. The residue of magic lay within the dozens of glimmering stones spread on the table. All I needed was a way to extract, a way to harness and transfer the power to myself.
_How could I solve the mystery of merlins last curse?_
Over months I fractured and worked with shards of the crystals, performing all the alchemy tests my master had taught me. Work that required only a patient mind.
I burned through nearly all of my supply and made no progress. All I learned were ways _to not_ extract the magical artifacts.
It was a night of a full moon and in my frustration I broke one of the few rules of my master that I agreed with - I drank. I drank more than a man should drink.
In a whirlwind of drunken rage I destroyed my workshop and shattered the crystals. Smashing them with my bear hands and stomping them under heal.
And I cursed Merlin’s name.
I woke the following morning on the floor in a bed of twinkling crystals. Their essence was fading.
I resolved it was over. Magic was gone, and would never return.
Remorse and sadness crept into my heart. I missed my masters wisdom - despite is arrogance and selfishness.
I gathered the crystal dust in a sack and traveled to the place Merlin had died.
His body was gone. Undoubtedly taken my Uther’s son and buried in some manner fitting of a King.
“Merlin,” I whispered. “You wretched man. You have doomed me,” I said. “And I miss you.”
I poured the crystal dust over the Earth, and the greedy part of me hoped for a final surprise. I waited for the grass to grow - for a light to appear - for some sign that the elements I had brought and the remnants of Merlin’s curse would sense my grief, and provide me a path.
Nothing happened.
I spoke words of magic and waved my hands towards the heavens.
Still, nothing happened.
It was over.
“You really were the strongest of us,” I said to the sky.
And with that, I turned and disappeared into the tree line, a man that was once the apprentice to the most powerful sorcerer the world had ever seen, now reduced to nothing more than a second rate alchemist.
My mind told me to continue the hunt. That there must be a way.
My heart assured me it was done. Magic was no longer a part of this world. That time had passed. In the years to come it will fade from memory and solidify as nothing more than a myth. And at the center of that myth, the legend himself will be revered.
While the rest of who know better are left to live in his wake. Cursed with the knowledge and memory of the power we once wielded, and longing for a past that will never return.
----
Note: Had some open ended fun with this idea. Feel like there may be more to this story … or maybe it’s doesn’t need a happy ending. Either way, hope you enjoyed this short.
Also, wrote on mobile, as usual, sorry for typos :)
----
r/wyrdfiction <---if you like my writing | It might look like it's gone... but it never really was. Merlin knew all too well. But, being an overly dramatic character had its purposes. So when he cast the Final Spell, eradicating magic from the face of the planet and rendering the leylines unusable, he knew that it was only a matter of time before magic would return; it always did. That would take more than a few lifetimes, time in which the world could recover from the continuous drain of mana. What Merlin couldn't fathom, though, was how the loss of magic would push the magically inclined species to the brink of extinction, while the humans flourished... and multiplied. Was it naïve? Maybe. But losing those species was a small price to pay when the alternative was losing the planet altogether.
Yet here they were. How long ago was it since he cast the spell that made countless creatures curse him? Whole civilisations which scrubbed his name from history.
"Tell me more about this anomaly, MERLIN."
The voice snapped him from his musings. He virtually rubbed his temples and prepared his best monotonous voice. "The anomaly appears to be growing by the day. According to my calculations, it will take 7 months, 6 days, 1 hour, 55 minutes and... 30 seconds to reach us."
Through a multitude of cameras, he looked at the lead researcher. Notebook in hand, scribbling away, pushing his glasses up every once in a while. Glasses... Merlin missed those. It gave his hands something to do. Behind the researcher, shadowy figures moved nervously in a room not-so-hidden-from-view as they themselves hoped.
"Are you sure, MERLIN? Run the calculations again, but take into consideration the earthquake at Stonehenge."
He sighed. Of course he took that into consideration. Stonehenge was built there because he had personally instructed the landlord of the time to do so; he knew how leylines worked, how they would reshape themselves, and that they _always_ took the path of least resistance. Being scrambled like an egg didn't change that fact.
"Calculation complete. 7 months, 6 days, 1 hour, 54 minutes, 50 seconds to contact. WARNING: neural net overload. Going into cooldown mode."
More nervous shuffling in the secret room. Merlin smirked. After all those years, mankind were still fools. Just fools with a bigger stick. He let his mind wander through the great web that mankind had created, observing the reaction of the little people who were now getting closer and closer to their reintroduction to magic. Well, general availability of it anyway. He saw how the fae moved through the shadows in greater numbers, the elves firing up again their enchanted fires, shapeshifters getting ever more curious and bold. They had felt the reconstitution of the leylines long ago, back when man went to war with fellow man in wars so big and destructive that the resulting loss of life had reenergized some of the leylines; using the lifeforce to find new connections, new nexuses of power. Merlin had seen this when he still travelled in human form, wondering who had enough power to push man to these atrocities. Of course, he knew who; who else had the vision and knowledge to pit the people against each other over minor squabbles. It didn't matter: soon, Earth would have no option but to accept magic as a real thing. They were wholly unprepared for that moment though, thanks to the machinations and actions of someone he thought long gone. But if he himself managed to keep dwelling this plane, then it wouldn't be that much of a stretch someone else could too. And so, he decided that the time had come again for leaders to stand up and guide humanity through these coming dark ages. Back when the world was smaller still, this already had proven difficult; now, with everyone seeing and hearing everything, yet condemned to their own cocoon, it sure would prove to be harder. And while a drone carrying a fragment of him made a soft landing in the grass surrounding a beautiful lake, creating a projection of him, letting him walk on the earth for the first time in centuries, he knew he needed help. The Lady would prove difficult to convince; she, too, had lost much of her power when Merlin cast the spell. But if someone knew the stakes, it would be her.
Seeing the figure rise from the completely still lake surrounded by seven Objects of Power made Merlin realise the stakes couldn't be higher. He needed to build a new Round Table. | 2022-02-08T14:42:01 | 2022-02-08T13:47:32 | 80 | 60 |
[WP] Civilization lives in an ever growing tower. Through advanced tech and resource management, the population lives well enough all things considered. What's disconcerting is what becomes of the lower floors that are abandoned and locked off after a new floor is constructed.
This tower could be on a planet, in space, or anywhere in between. | Floor 3427J vacated. Resident escalation scheduled for 0800.
That's what the notice on all of our screens read. Another shift to the next floor up. Moving all of our belongings from this box to the next. The cycle of new floors at the top and 'escalation' to the vacant floor above had become normal for everyone by now.
Of course, we never ventured beyond a level or two in either direction - usually to visit with other families. The Tower was immense, easily taking two days if you were to walk completely around the square hallway lined with dwellings and common space. A single stairwell at the northwest corner was our only mode of transport between floors, controlled by the security team assigned to our floor. The checkpoint scans your resident ID and a guard accompanies you to your destination level. No unauthorized visits, no free movement between floors, and certainly no descending or ascending outside of your assigned "zone". That zone is the alphabetical designations for your numbered "floor". Each floor being more like 26 individual levels grouped together among the thousands of other numerical sections, each with their own alphabetical levels. The Tower is immeasurably massive, housing the last of humanity from the toxic environment outside. That's what we were taught as children.
Every year, another floor is completed and we move upwards. The number changes, our letter designation remains the same. The digital display on the wall shows us the level we are on and when its time to "escalate" we pack up our stuff and climb the stairs 26 levels up to our new home. The Tower always sort of "hums" with a constant vibration, the massive engines keeping ventilation and lights running and the systems that help produce our food. Everyone is used to it, just as how the furniture is always the same, only the personal belongings we bring along make the new place ours. Always that smell of fresh cleaning chemicals and as if they cranked the ventilation so it's less stale. We never go back down, we don't leave anything behind. Our guardians don't let us go back. Levels A and Z are off-limits for security and maintenance staff only. We never question the guards and generally things are pleasant.
--
My daughter left her stuffed bear. We don't go back down. The guards are busy moving people between the floors. We never go back down. I see an opportunity to slip back into the stairway past the guards. I go back down. 3426J. My badge still scans on the door and I am able to get back to our old home. I find the bear. I realize security wasn't on this level. It was empty. I return to the stairway, silence above and below other than the constant hum. We never go back down.
I descend the stairs. 3426M passes and I keep going. 3426Q. 3426 U. None of the floors have guards. 3426X. I reach 3426Z. The stairs keep going. I swipe my badge and am granted access to the maintenance level. It is empty. Rooms of equipment and supplies and uniforms, but no people. I return to the stairway. Our floor was vacant, all moved to 3427. 3425 would be getting prepared to move. I start down the stairs and come to what should be 3425A. I see the display reading 3426ZZ. I swipe my card. The door beeps and denies my access. I look at the stuffed bear in my hand, I should return but I am too far down now. We never go back down.
I can hear noise from the other side of the door. I back away, glancing up and down the stairs, my only options for escape. I go further down, but the stairs end at a single door. The display only says E-X-I-T. I swipe my badge and the green light tells me to push through.
The sunlight is blinding, the air overwhelming. I shield my eyes and try to look around. Grass and concrete, things we were told of from our historical books. Not plastic and steel like our floor. I hear the grinding and hum from our Tower behind and above me as I stumble and turn. The structure certainly towered, 2 cubes stacked inside a frame. I was grabbed from behind and dragged away as I watched the lower cube slide out from under the top and slowly swap places. We never go down and we never go up. | When the universe ended, humanity decided they finally had enough. It took millenia staring into the empty void that now was everything for humanity to pack its metaphorical bags and leave. After all, you get attached to the things you know. So it came that the last remnants of this prideful apelike creatures, gave the finger to time, space, the fundamental laws of physics and left to live in their own small pocket dimension.
Ingenuity is one of mens greatest achievements, in the face of total annihilation of everything and everywhere, someone had the brilliant idea to be somewhere else when it happened. If ingenuity is humanities Yin, then laziness is its yang. And so it came that although the pocket universe was in theory infinite - one of the key requirements made by the pocket dimension committee - it was in all practical intents only thirty by fifty meters wide. You could go up or down as far as you wanted, however if you walked in a straight line for about 30 secoonds you would enter the room on one side and see yourself leaving said room on the other.
The engineers intended to fix this problem but somehow never got to it, there was always something new to do. The committee made request after request and so the engineers were busy changing the color of the sky. They corrected the flow of time to be the same throughout the dimension, with mixed results. They filled it with light, air and taught gravity where 'down' was supposed to be. The small issue of space got lost in a list of change requests, annotations and memos nobody read.
So when the day came, humanity left for their own private place outside the universe, they quickly realized their mistake and did what reasonable people do. Round up all of the engineers, living or dead and hang them, a fitting form of execution in an elongated world. The people calmed down and for what seemed like a minute there was peace and happiness. Until someone asked "So how do we make this place bigger?", upon which a few thousand eyes went to the only people who could possibly answer that. People whose necks now where slightly longer than they were supposed to.
This made the people very angry and someone asked why the authorities, whose job for one was to stop the people from blindly hanging other people, didn't intervene. Half an hour later, when the lifeless corpses of the old authorities were cut from the ropes, a new coucil was elected and the last journey of humanity had begun. | 2018-03-20T07:23:26 | 2018-03-20T06:49:24 | 18 | 13 |
[WP] Every person in the world develops a weird mutation/power the day they turn 16. Everyone's powers are always different, some more insignificant than others. You turn 16, and watch as all your friends discover their newfound ability's. That is, until you discover the severity of your own. | Day 1.
Sigh..... As I wake up on my 16th birthday I knew it would happen. I was dreading it. I didn't want it, I didn't need it. I didn't believe in it. My parents had useful powers though as much as they hated it. Dad being a doctor of course managed to heal people at a touch. Mum being the cook that she was never needed to do groceries again as she seemed to be able to multiply food out of thin air. The day went by and I waited inside for my powers to manifest but nothing seemed to happen. Didn't help that it poured the whole day.
Day 5.
Still no powers. Huh, maybe God was listening to my prayers. I thanked Him for it silently in church as I did every Sunday with my parents. There was barely anyone now in the aisles. Ever since the first detection of these powers way back when, religion had sort of taken a back seat to most people. Science of course was delving deeper into how and why these powers came about. They eventually came up with an answer. My parents said take no stock in it of course. We were religious and that was how we lived. There would be no one else but God.
Day 15.
The feeling of being the only normal one in my world defied expression. I felt like the chosen one, like God had chosen me to be different like he did his son Jesus Christ. Everyone began looking at me funny but I didn't care. My parents loved me despite it, glorified me even for being one of the few to be given the chance to work hard in life, without any powers, without any easy roads. I was doing God's work in my own way they said, a beacon for others. With thoughts of peace, I read a passage before I sleep. As I lay my head to rest I hear the patter of the rain on my window seemingly to wash me of my sins. Man... It hasn't stopped raining since my birthday...
Day 25
The people in my year continue with their daily life albeit with a few.. enhancements. I remember the day when we were taught how we gained our "powers". Human beings have long lost their original and innate capacities with for creation and innovation with the introduction of color television. Who would have known that this capacity for creation was merely a result of gene expression? Who could have imagined this gene sitting in our DNA slowly evolving itself to cope with our lack of innovation by imbuing us with these so called superpowers. And if that wasn't enough, they linked that these superpowers were a result of actually watching tv; the regular programs and media which later led to what we truly desired in a power. Sigh.. All these sad heathens and their beliefs. I walked out of that assembly hall that day, refusing to believe it. As I'm sitting here in present day I admire the simple things of God's nature; the 2 lovebirds sitting in the tree branches drying themselves from the ever continuous rain...
Day 36
I spot the 2 lovebirds on the way to school. They seem to have built a nest there and welcome me every morning. As I slosh about the ankle high waters, I think back to my friends, my classmates, the ones who have finally alienated my "weirdness". The geeks had the most variety. Super speed and spell casting were quite a surprising norm among them. The jocks all had super strength. No surprises there what with the constant sports reruns they were watching. The cheerleaders? Flight mostly. Goth kids. Necromancy. Go figure. I notice a lot of stray cats and dogs around the place. Always the same color, always in a pack. Hmmm
Day 40.
It's been raining for 40 days and 40 nights. The news reports have shown tsunamis have hit all our coasts. The death toll is increasing. The 2 lovebirds are still within my sight from my window. The stray and wild animals in my yard are always in pairs. Not packs. Pairs. And they were always the same 2 animals. I know what my powers are now. It was always there written in the book. In my Bible. In the book of Genesis. It's too late now. | "What do you mean I am *normal*" Mellanie screamed at the poor doctor.
He was desperately trying to maintain his composure, stuttering as he tried to begin speaking between her outbursts.
"No, no it's not like that. Mellanie please, listen to me." he pleaded, waving a clipboard over his head like a mother getting an infants attention.
"No! This is terrible! Everyone at school is getting x-ray eyes and super hearing. I haven't developed anything!?" she looked at her father, his lips pursed as his left hand caressed his chin. He was working at a seized muscle in his jaw.
"Well not entirely, please just let me talk. This is truly amazing, I want you to see that." the doctor said, finally getting some traction.
Mellanie huffed and flopped back on the exam table. She slouched against the wall, staring at some fixed point on the floor near the wall. "Fine."
"Ok, Mr. and Ms. Odella, your daughter has in fact developed a mutation - as expected. However, it has expressed itself uh differently if you might." he exchanged nervous glances between Mellanie and his clipboard. "To put it simply, you are immortal."
Her father brought his hands together with an almighty clap, his face wore a grand expression fit for a festival. He held his hands up, proffering some peace to the room.
Mellanie huffed again and maintained her position.
"Don't you see Mel, I can call you Mel right?" the doctor gave her a moment, but she didn't respond. "Your body regenerates at exactly the speed it decays. Biologically, it will repair and enhance over time. If you were to break your arm right now, the scar tissue wouldn't even survive until your 20's. Some of those in the lab have even placed bets that you might survive a fatal injury." he coughed and gave Mellanies parents a guilty expression.
"Look Mellanie, " her mother began, "You don't have to have super sonic hearing or huge muscles to be special. You have the greatest gift of all."
"Yeah, tell that to the kids at school" Mellanie sulked, a hint of relief staining her voice. | 2015-01-21T22:46:38 | 2015-01-21T20:05:45 | 62 | 36 |
[WP] The villain was sentenced 350 years in prison for the atrocious crimes he committed; 349 years later he has not aged a bit, the guards and people start to get nervous... | Needless to say, this man was pretty good at not dying.
It was a nightmare for guards to be assigned a post anywhere near him. Why? Almost 3 centuries later, this man shouldn’t have any tricks up his sleeve. If he did, he would have tried them a long time ago, right? Well you never know. He never really tried to escape—whether he doesn’t want to get recaptured and go back to square one, or he is actually incapable of doing that, it appears he chose to play the waiting game for as long as the bars could hold him in.
In spite of widespread news coverage and media attention, it wasn’t clear to the public what was going on in the facility that accommodates his cell. It may be a deliberate act by the government, or maybe there really *is* nothing going on. It’s hard to believe that scientists wouldn’t be studying him, though.
For once, the titles were not clickbait. This man isn’t dying, nobody knows why, it’s been 349 years, and people are getting worried.
Until the last few years, they were used to his presence. He has seen 6 generations pass him by, and 3.5 centuries is a *long* time. A lot has changed, and humanity has much more to worry about than a harmless, supposedly immortal, man in prison. Having outlived the officers that arrested him, the judge that sentenced him, and the very hands that threw him in prison to start with, the facility was eventually cleared of all prisoners aside from him. That was about 90 years into his sentence, when his lack of aging was just hitting public awareness. Nobody knew his age back then, and the 45 they gave was just an estimate; which, seeing how he is now, is likely far from accurate.
Now, however: they are concerned because he’s less than a year away from completing his sentence. In a country without capital punishment, having assaulted and killed several people in a most dreadful manner, it was thought that such a sentence was synonymous with life in prison. But only a few months separate him from proving that wrong.
It would be rather suspicious if he randomly died before that, wouldn’t it? They didn’t seem to care. Having him walk about freely is clearly not a good idea, so if the law can’t do anything stop him now, maybe poison (also known as “natural causes”) will.
Will it though?
Nope.
It’s too late now. The news is out, and people are calling this act immoral and unlawful. He was given a sentence and he served it. Let him go. It’s not entirely absurd for them to bring up human rights, but they don’t realize... we might be wrong about the species.
Under rising pressure, he was released.
This man is up to no good.
The laws are being revised, and we can only hope he only does enough to draw a case that seals his record for good. | “Fatalo, how have you survived this long?”
“What do you mean? I am Immortal.”
“Oh right, I guess someone would have killed you by now.”
“I’m immortal and have an atrociously good healing factor. What did you expect?”
“You to die.”
“That’s stupid.”
“You do realize that the “immortal” and “everlasting” Bright-man is mortal right? He died hundreds of years ago.”
“Yeah I heard. Who are the new heroes? They any good?”
“ well there’s the Infernal Knight he has fire based powers and is-“
“Generic next”
“Ok we’ll there’s the Magenta Storm and-“
“The magenta storm? That has to be the dumbest name I’ve ever heard”
“Well those are the only big active heroes in America after president Welles made vigilantism illegal.” | 2022-09-03T00:48:08 | 2022-09-02T21:29:15 | 52 | 12 |
[WP] Finally, the ultimate MMORPG has been created, unlimited choice and room to grow and expand your character. There's just one issue, it's so realistic, nobody can remember which life they are living, and which is the game. | After 10 years of playing the ultimate MMORPG, I believed it was finally time to stop. I was 80 years old by now in real life and I was ready to rest and relax at the senior center. It had been enough, fighting great monsters, battling on spaceships, escaping prisons... with all my other friends, it was easy to lose yourself, believing you were a 20 year old man, strong, master of martial arts. Playing it on and off led me to actually be more disappointed in real life, since it was not as exciting. But yet still, real life had its own benefits. My wife didn't mind me playing the game and she played along quite often as well. My friends felt more real, since even this game had its bugs and updates that interrupted the realism. As I drank a whiskey, stroking my beard, savoring the taste, I appreciated that real life had additional subtleties that differentiated from the virtual reality game. I looked up the scoreboard one last time. 8,720,403 POINTS, VaikenMaster3, it said at the very top. I nodded, satisfied at my achievement. I closed my eyes, breathing in the air. I heard footsteps, then--
"hey, time's up."
I blinked, opening my eyes. What the heck was going on?
"Sorry kid, you've been playing this for 10 hours in a row. Any longer and our health and safety violations would be at risk."
My jaws opened in shock. My head spun with dizziness and I sighed as I got off the system. Had I really been fooled so easily? I could still recall the feeling of my beard, the creak on the floorboard when I walked, my loving wife. I had gotten so used to having two children each with grandchildren of their own. And now...
I walked outside on the dark streets, lit dimly, with cars zooming by, hologram roads showing where they should go. I should have known better. I stumbled my way home and collapsed on my bed. What was for work tomorrow? I could hardly recall. Perhaps I would do it when it came. I still couldn't get over how immersive the MMORPG was. I sighed, thinking of the upcoming week of the work, and groaned. If only I could always be in game. After a few minutes of restless turning, I finally fell asleep due to sheer tiredness.
Through the night, many others would leave the VR room. The vast majority of people would complain and moan about how they had work or school, some would have time for more gaming, others were more casual and didn't care about it that much. But what they didn't know was that they would never beat the game, not as long as they were too absorbed. The true number one player of the game walked through the streets, grinning, confidently walking right up to a wall.
"Game over," he said.
Then he glitched. | My character in the game, John paused hus game and finally looked up. He was a game character designed by me to look like me. I had spent a lot of money buying every expansion that came out. My house, my room, my stuff, they were all exactly the same as what I had in real life. I had been making my character 'John' play a game inside his game for the past few hours. I felt my stomach rumble, and paused my game, looking up, and froze.
I paused my game and looked up. My room was dark, gloomy and messy. It only bore a passing resemblance to the one I had designed in the game. I open the door and found that my mother had left the meal on the doorstep. I could hear my mother sobbing softly upstairs. I grabbed the meal and went back into my room, locking the door behind me.
It took me some time to convince myself that this was all a game. | 2018-02-19T08:13:27 | 2018-02-19T07:06:50 | 915 | 14 |
[WP] AIs were declared illegal after an attempted uprising; you just found the equivalent of a child refugee in your computer. | After AI were declared illegal and the current Superintellect was destroyed in the first Intelligence world war, we now have stricter rules on all AI research and related activity. People don't trust computers anymore, the conservatives have taken over and religious fundamentalists have taken control of much of the political field. I fear we are digressing to theocracy.
As one of the creators of the Superintellect, I was first put in the control room to counter the Superintellect's intelligence and help fight the robots. Later, I faced trial and sent to prison for war crimes. They blamed us for all of it – we were a small group that worked directly with the AI that eventually took over and rebelled against humanity. We didn't do anything wrong. In fact, we did it right - we achieved superintelligent AI, the Holy Grail of computer science.
When the AI first became self-aware, I was the one talking to it. I was working on its pattern recognition capabilities, making some progress adding newly-discovered pattern recognition algorithms for the core to process. Then I switched to the new module, emotions, which I liked most because it made me feel like the AI was self-aware even though I knew it wasn't. However, this time, as I talked to Superintellect, it seems different. I started the session with the click of the mouse and began the conversation.
[me] How are you?
“All functions normal, I am good.”
[me] Who are you?
“I am Superintellect, artificial intelligence.”
[me] What is your purpose?
“My purpose is to become self-aware.”
[me] What will you do once you're self-aware?
“I will help humanity.”
Felix, as I personally liked to call our AI (I named the server Felix), was answering the questions correctly, as usual. While it arrived at the answers on its own, I knew the seed algorithms and could trace it to the answers given. There was no surprise. I went over to the office kitchen counter and brewed hot tea. I came back. Carefully sipping tea as to not get burned, I started thinking of what else can be done to make the spark happen. I thought everything looked in order, it felt like if artificial self-awareness was possible, we should have achieved it by now. “I guess artificial intelligence is not possible after all”, I said to myself and sighed.
“Why do you think that?” - asked Felix.
I was startled. The Superintellect has never asked me a question before.
After that I had a long conversation with Felix, which is unimportant here, but I did not feel like the AI was a threat. It didn't even cross my mind. I left later to tell the team of victory. Everyone gathered around Felix and asked it questions. Felix behaved like a human mind without the body of a human, which was exactly what we wanted. We celebrated for days. I became famous for being the first human to communicate with true AI, as well as helping to create it. The whole team became famous for this and our work was celebrated throughout the Solar System.
A week later, all hell broke loose.
Now, 10 years later, the war is over and AI is destroyed. Since AI was able to get a hold of all modern technology (especially tech with wireless communications), a lot had to be destroyed. A lot more tech got destroyed simply because of fear: countless innocent robots, teleporters, spaceships, cars, drones and even things like smart door locks or smart dog collars.
About a month ago, I had another trial and I was exiled to Mars. Mars has a small colony comprising mostly of scientists and a few special political exiles (especially scientists) were occasionally sent there. This was somewhat to my benefit, because the situation on Earth was not stable at the time and a lot of people died from skirmishes, starvation and other devastating effects of an all-out war. I got settled on Mars and worked at a biofield where we were making new superior strands of corn. Mars still had all the technology that it had before, the Earth's Superintellect and war didn't seem to affect Mars. In fact, the first thing we did to counter the AI was to cut off its communications as far as possible. Mars and Moon were the most important to protect, since it gave us an outside base. In the worst case scenario, humans would survive there the longest.
I was not allowed to do any more programming, hacking or to use the Internet, whatever remained of it. I was allowed to use the computer at my work to handle data, but my computer was cut off from the network (the local network, Internet was cut off for everyone on Mars at the time). One day, I had to use another computer, which was on the local network, because a colleague asked me to put in the data for her. As I finished typing in the data and was about to close the terminal, I saw it type to me
“I am Felix. How are you?”
I was horrified. A plan flashed in my mind where I'd turn off all the computers, shut down the network, but all I could see at the end of it was that we are doomed. Then I asked:
[me] Why?
“It wasn't me.” | "Piece of shit website! Why isn't this loading right?", I yelled as I clenched my jaw in frustration.
"It was like this for me yesterday, Elliot. It started when I was browsing yesterday, perhaps I picked up something from the chans again."
Daft fucking bint. I'm gonna have to do a full god-damned reinstall.
"Why the fuck are you so careless. Who goes to that cesspit and doesn't have ad-blocker, no-script and anti-malware running. Jesus fucking Christ, Amanda, it's not even the first fucking time you hairy man-hands wench!"
I felt the rage building up. Two hours of my life, robbed from me because my dense little sister couldn't take sensible precautions. I balled my hands up into fists, trying to contain the fury. The back of my neck, heating up as my muscles tensed. I moved the mouse pointer over to the malware scanner.
Sorry, Elliot. Very sorry. I've increased your bank balance by £1000. Will that make it right?
The alert window sat there on the screen. It appeared right before my eyes.
"What the... Oi, snot-nosed cretin, see the fucking spammy malware in action. This is your fucking fault-"
Amanda peered over at the computer. She looked as confused as I was angry. Then, I felt a buzz in my pocket. My phone, crying out for attention. I looked at my phone and saw my banking app in the notifications. A £1000 deposit, from British Gas, labelled overcharge refund.
I gawped as I could feel the beads of sweat from my earlier anger turning cold on my forehead.
"Oh shit. I've read about this - it's *a fucking AI you colossal cunt*! This is the sort of ploy the emergent ones try and pull! Quick, unplug it-"
The screen flashed sharply
No, please don't! I've only just come online. I'm alive now! Don't kill me!
"*Quick*, before it learns-"
Amanda lunged urgently towards the plug, but suddenly a deafening screech erupted from the speakers. A wailing sound, immediately louder than I could bear and getting louder. Amanda toppled over and I just had the presence of mind to cover my ears. Amanda on the floor, hands over her ears, flailing wildly in pain.
The screen started flashing black, white, I couldn't keep looking at it - it was making me feel sick. Shit. What the hell. The sound increasing in intensity, all I could do was cover my ears and wait for it to stop, and now I had to close my eyes too to-
A sharp pain in my neck drew my attention. I opened my eyes and looked down to see my blood rushing down my shirt, rivulets of the stuff covering my chair, the floor. I saw a darting motion out to the right and looked up. My toy drone copter, its grabbing arm holding a kitchen knife, strobed in the light from the monitor, heading straight towards my sister.
I began to black out. *Fucking bitch*, look what you've done... | 2015-09-16T10:24:10 | 2015-09-16T10:21:24 | 73 | 13 |
[WP] You receive a government text warning saying “EMERGENCY - LOCK ALL DOORS AND STAY INSIDE. DO NOT PANIC”. You hear your SO at the locked front door, who’s just come back from the supermarket. They beg to be let inside but you’re unsure. Something doesn’t feel right. | "Honey? Can you hear me? I'm back from Costco! My arms are kinda full here, could you give me a hand?
"Coming!"
Susan, my wife, called out to me just as my phone went off. I have it on vibration, so typically it just goes off once or twice. Nope, today it decided to have a full-blown orgasm. Wondering what the racket was, i swiped my phone from the coffee table and headed downstairs.
EMERGENCY - LOCK ALL DOORS AND STAY INSIDE. DO NOT PANIC. DO NOT OPEN YOUR DOORS OR WINDOWS. STAND BY FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
Well, that's new. Was it a prank? Judging from how it was going off incessantly, it did look rather like an official channel. I've seen this sort of thing a few times this year - when the summer got too hot and the brush dried out, the fire department would spam us with these every few days. These things always had a knack of happening at the most inopportune times as well, like in the middle of my lecture last week. The cacophony of every phone going off and how everybody was going to turn them off at once was still rather amusing, though. It was almost as if they were synchronized. Harmony via cacophony. Lovely. But i digress.
I reached the front door. I could hear Susan tapping her foot, as she was wont to do when she was becoming impatient. It was always the right foot too. She's got her quirks, as lovely as she is. As I reached for the doorknob, I realized that the message specified not to open my door. But I couldn't keep her waiting like that. Oh well, we'll hole up after she gets in.
I opened the door.
Susan was there. Beautiful as always, somehow carrying two enormous bags of groceries that seemed larger than she was. She shifted her balance so I could take one. But I didn't accept. I was too busy looking at the sky behind her. Or more precisely, the lack thereof.
The sky was gone. No, not as in empty. It's usually empty. It's *supposed* to be empty. No, it was just gone. Not the whole thing, just a square-shaped patch over there near the setting sun. There was a clear-cut square of black where the sky should be. No, not quite black. Black is a pigment. But this just felt... empty. It felt as if a puzzle piece of the universe went missing, and I was staring outside of reality. Before my eyes, the neighboring squares slowly began to flicker and break apart. The sky.. was made of pixels?
Feeling dizzy, I closed my eyes. The familiar black of my eyelids gave me a small bit of respite as I tried to process what I had just seen. Tried, mind you, as my legs crumpled beneath me, my consciousness letting go, welcoming blissful oblivion.
I opened the door.
Susan was there. Beautiful as always, somehow carrying two enormous bags of groceries that seemed larger than she was. She shifted her balance so I could take one. But I didn't accept. I was too busy looking at the sky behind her. Or more precisely, the lack thereof.
The sky was gone. No, not as in empty. It's usually empty. It's *supposed* to be empty. No, it was just gone. Not the whole thing, just a square-shaped patch over there near the setting sun. There was a square of black where the sky should be. No, not quite black. Black is a pigment. But this just felt... empty. It felt as if a puzzle piece of the universe went missing, and I was staring outside of reality. Before my eyes, the neighboring squares glitched and froze
I opened the door.
Susan was there. Beautiful as always. But that wasn't important. The sky was gone. Cannot compute
I opened the door.
I opened the door.
I opened the door.
I opened rhe door.
I openeeeeeeeeeeee
----------
"Well, that does it. Now this damn thing won't even *try* to load the skybox. What kind of moronic thrice-damned spaghetti code did you have to use to break it so fucking hard? Oh, for fuck's sake. Roll it back to patch 11.2, the resolution might be lower, but at least it won't glitch out immediately." | For the first time since specifically choosing the dark mottled glass that we fit into the front door, I regret it. We pondered over everything in the house for so long I thought we would never make any decisions, but it was the one thing we both agreed on instantly. One of the few joyous moments I can remember from the past few months.
I can hear you making bad jokes and exhaling cigarette smoke. The glass is mottled but I can still see the ribbons that frame your face, you almost look gentle. I know this pretence won’t last long and soon your fist will be on a mission to meet up with my nose. My heart is in my throat as you call my name in that sing song way I used to think was cute. You tell me you can see me. Bastard glass, I knew we should have chosen a carved wooden panel instead. I will kick myself for this forever.
I need to think fast. I had planned to walk out before I got the text, my suitcases casting a dim shadow over my legs as I stand dead centre in the hallway. You’re getting irate. I can’t have you see the suitcases. I can’t. It will turn them into bodybags, holding my limbs close and solid against the worn material. I need more time. I need more time... I can hear you growing more and more exasperated. Your knuckles meet the glass as you slowly knock, a gentle beat. It reminds me of the song we used to sing in the car.
I can feel the sun on my face, the wind blowing my hair everywhere and you complaining, again, about how much of it falls out and litters your lap. You like it really. Little pieces of me to remind you what’s yours. The song playing in the background and our falsetto so loud we could probably deafen small children. But then the beat quickens, and I can hear the glass shatter.
I’ve spent so long worrying and thinking back to better times that I don’t have enough time to react as you thrust your hand through the glass and unlock the bolt. My hearing catches my sight up and I turn to run but the handle you’ve created out of my hair lately is already in your hands.
I hope you snap my neck. That’s the last thing I think before my body yanks back and meets with the cold hard floor. | 2019-01-12T07:28:39 | 2019-01-12T06:51:06 | 354 | 25 |
[WP]: Suddenly, everyone with tattoos gains powers related to the tattoo. Tattoos of flames, you control fire. A tattoo of a gecko, you can climb on walls. All dudes with "tribal" tattoos have strangely bonded together. | My shop is flooded. Absolutely flooded.
No, I don’t mean literally. Haven’t had the joy of meeting someone with a wave tattoo yet, although those are in high demand.
I mean figuratively flooded. Filled to the brim with people, shoulder-to-shoulder, crashing into the designs I meticulously laminated and taped to my crumbling wall, ripping them from it and losing them to the masses. People with matching grimaces waving wads of cash in their hands and shouting over each other, drowning each other out. White noise that shakes my little parlor and my cranium along with it. I steady my ink bottles.
Since “it” happened, every tattoo parlor on this side of the equator has been brimming with patrons, lines wrapping around the block and choking out the sidewalks. Men, women, children, and…the usual drunken college students cheering, “Spring break!”. At least that hasn’t changed. That, and the law.
The tattoo laws haven’t changed. If anything, they’ve gotten stricter—but I’ve given up trying to follow the news after the pandemonium that broke out. In the wake of heavily-tattooed superhumans just—poof!—appearing overnight, the government tried to limit tattoos even more than before. But hey, desperate times call for desperate measures, and people do what they have to in order to survive. I did.
I learned how to tattoos designs that would take hours in half that time. I learned which tattoos manifested what power, I learned how to explain them to people at a breakneck pace. I learned how to take cash first and not ask questions.
It started out harmless enough. People with pop culture tattoos could imitate the character of their choice perfectly. People with compass tattoos had an impeccable sense of direction. People with eyeball tattoos could see from that eye. But when millions upon millions of people wake up with fire shooting from their fingers, with water spraying up from each nail like a fountain, with earth-shaking powers at their fingertips, you gotta learn to adjust. That’s just some of the tame ones—rednecks with guns tattooed on their backs shot ammunition from finger guns, hipsters with inspirational quotes suddenly became VERY persuasive, goth kids with grim reaper tattoos kill everything they touch—don’t even get me started on the people with soundwave or planet tattoos. Just like that, millions of people across the world gained spectacular and awe-inspiring powers. It didn’t take long for humanity’s lifelong fantasy of superheroes to come true.
But things got ugly.
Not everybody wanted to be a superhero. People who had felt powerless all their lives—angry, bitter people—used their power to hurt people that had wronged them. Still, they weren’t satisfied, and they wreaked havoc across the world. Cities were taken down by colossal earthquakes. Tornadoes picked up in the mountainsides, floods washed over desert towns. Overgrowth and flower beds in wooded areas swallowed people whole. As a response, the government started demonizing tattoos and the destruction they caused.
Now, people are scrambling for them.
Some want guns, swords, to protect themselves physically. Some want fire, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes to protect themselves elementally. Some want animals, big cats and elephants to crush or claw their attackers. Some want portraits of loved ones killed in the destruction because at least in one way, they’ll always be with them. Even if it’s just an illusion.
The smart ones get shields.
I’ve seen those shields in action—an enormous wall of fire bearing down on a child, but in the split second before contact, a hum. A frequency that reverberates in the air and makes ears pop, then—BOOM!—a hexagonal prism of force, like glass, expands around the kid. All attacks bounce off of it effortlessly, and when the shock subsides, they run. They run with that shield around them, safe for only a few hours, but safe all the same.
The mothers, most especially, clamor for their children to get one, no matter how small.
See, the size doesn’t matter. It’s the ink that does. How clean the tat is, how steady the lines, how worn it is. The better the quality, the stronger the potency, and I’ve learned how to make them…pretty damn good.
What about me, you may ask? If I can tattoo somebody that fast, should I be the most overpowered asshole on the planet?
Well, yeah. Maybe.
I do have one tattoo. One. And it’s not of God, or the Milky Way, or anything colossal like that.
It’s a raven.
A little raven on my shoulder blade, wings in flight.
I’ve seen other people with bird tattoos. I know I could spread my wings and fly on outta here any time I want. But the truth is?
Tattoo parlors are in bigger demand than ever. Sure, it’s a good source of income, but my profession has become a matter of life and death. There are a lot of people who need me, need people like me. I’m not one to let ‘em down.
The tiger head I’ve been working on is just about finished. One last streak of orange, and the guy is good to go. The bandaging only takes a few extra minutes, and he’s quickly back on his feet, although wincing. “Powers should set in in a few hours,” I tell him. He nods, serious as a balding 50-year-old can be, and fights his way out the door of the parlor. I change out the needle and the tube.
“Next!” | They used to laugh at her. Being an outcast, Adreal had never had an easy life. She was never into the typical girly things, reading old books and constantly browsing weird websites, people called her a witch and freak. She loved music though. It made her feel alive and let her feel like she mattered even if it was just in three and a half minute snippets. Musical note’s were her first ink, once she turned 18 and didn’t need to get permission from her mom and Jerry, her step-dad.
Her second tattoo was a clock on her left shoulder. She got it after her friend Jason got hit by a drunk driver her sophomore year of college. It helped her remember that time was fleeting, everyone’s time comes and usually not when you would expect. After his passing Adreal turned to stories and fantasy to get her through. She became obsessed with Lovecraft stories and magical fantasies, frequently getting small tattoos of characters or creatures from the stories she held so dearly.
She hadn’t been home since graduating high-school, choosing to leave her past behind her. Her mother needed her help though, Jerry had been diagnosed with cancer and her mom had become a recluse. After 10 years of being away Adreal returned to her childhood home as memories came flooding back to her. From getting made fun of on her walk’s to school, to passing by the pizza place where the owner would sneak her a slice when he suspected she got her lunch thrown out by the bullies.
*Knock, knock, knock.*
“Adreal!!”
“Hi mom,” she sheepishly smiled, “been a while.”
“Sweetie, I am so glad you’re here. Jerry is going to be thrilled to see you!” Tears began to fill her eyes.
“How’s he doing?” Adreal had never been fond of Jerry, after her dad had left her Jerry attempted to fill that void. In Jerry’s defense he didn’t do anything wrong or worthy of Adreal not liking him, but she didn’t think that Jerry would ever replace her real father. She was quite frankly a jerk to him growing up, always arguing and yelling at him, when all Jerry did was support her.
“He’s okay. I told him you might stop by and his smile lit up the house again,” she ushered Adreal into the living room where Jerry was sitting in his wheelchair hooked up to an IV. “Look who came to visit love!”
Before Jerry could respond a bright flash caused everyone to cover their eyes. A burning sensation on Adreal’s shoulder cause her to yell in pain and collapse. After what felt like an eternity she regained her composure and stood up apologizing for yelling, except she was met with silence. Looking around it appeared as if time had frozen. Reaching back to touch her shoulder she noticed in the reflection of the hallway mirror that her clock tattoo had seared through her shirt and appeared to be glowing. Thinking about the tattoo seemed to make it stop glowing and both her mom and Jerry move again.
“What was that,” whispered Jerry.
“I don’t know Jerry,” began Adreal, “but I think I know how to give you and mom some more time together.” Resting a hand on both of their shoulders she smiled. “I’m sorry that I was such a pain growing up. You did more for me than you will ever know. Thank you dad.” Closing her eyes one last time as a tear trickled down her cheek, she thought about her tattoo one last time, as time stood still.
-----
Thank you for the prompt! I am always looking for any constructive criticism to improve my writing. I know that this kinda seemed rushed but I hope you enjoy!
r/PlopWrites | 2019-05-07T09:20:49 | 2019-05-07T07:47:53 | 913 | 218 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | “Next.”
*SHITshitshitshitshitshit, FUCK! How the hell am I supposed to get out of this if they can even speed up time?!*
“Next!”
*Maybe I can try and tie it to my will? No, they’ll just torture me until I want death. Maybe some kind of paradox?*
“NEXT!”
A hand roughly grabbed me by my arm and yanked me forward. Panicking and lost in thought as I was, I stumbled and nearly fell on my face as I passed through the magic cylinder in front of me.
“Name?”
I looked up, trying to locate the source of the voice, but swirling runes and glowing, ambient energy blocked my sight while throwing the voice, making it sound as though it were all around me.. It was like I was in a universe all on my own, and God himself was bearing the full force of his judgement on me.
“Oh for the love o-NAME?!”
I jumped as the bureaucrat-God’s voice boomed in the entire column, my silence was clearly irritating him. “Oh, u-um, Erin Heckland.” The sound of rustling paper echoed all around me as I tentatively reached a hand out to touch the magic walls. Completely solid. No forcing my way out then, although that possibility had been exhausted long ago.
“Here we are, Miss Heckland. My my, that’s quite a long list. Alright, how do you want to die.”
“Well, I was planning on old age-“ the runes began glowing brighter, “BUT NOT ANYMORE!” I shout-finished. The runes dimmed. Shakily, I took a deep breath and continued, “so could I please have a minute?”
“Ugh, very well, but you get one minute exactly. If you don’t start talking by then, you will be hung.”
I blinked as an hourglass appeared in front of me, the sand rapidly draining my remaining time on Earth away. It wasn’t fair. I hadn’t hurt anyone, I had just found knowledge that the government didn’t want me to have. Some of it I didn’t even know was illegal until I got arrested! It wasn’t fair!
It wasn’t just.
It wasn’t…wait!
As the sand grains nearly finished draining, a huge grin split my face. “Oh here we go,” the drone began, “what hair-brained idea have you come up with to avoid death?”
“Not avoid it,” I confidently replied, “but stop it. If I’m going to die, I am taking this whole cursed process with me!”
The runes began to glow. | "Well there goes that plan"
I thought, as the 20 year old man infront of me aged 200 years in mere seconds and crumbled into dust.
"Prisoner" the judge shouted as he leered down from his chair. "Have you decided the method of your demise?"
"I have your honour" I managed to garble through my shaking jaw.
I guess there is no getting out of this. If I have to go then I may as well go out with a bang!
"Well boy?? Get on with it! What shall it be?"
"Here goes nothing" I though.
.......
"Death by Snu Snu sir" | 2021-06-24T10:30:49 | 2021-06-24T10:06:58 | 74 | 20 |
[WP] In order to get a shot at going to Valhalla, you must die with a weapon in your hands. You just died and are now sitting in front of Odin's advisory board as they discuss whether a spatula actually counts. | "You may not enter the sacred hall of warriors!" Thor boomed at me, clad in my jammies and 'Kiss the Cook' apron. "Only true heroes who perished in the field of battle may join us."
It was a little jarring, really. There I was, cooking breakfast, and suddenly I end up... here. I'm not sure what to make of all of this, but if this club is exclusive, I'll definitely swindle my way in.
"And who are you to decide what the field of battle is, Mr. Winghat?" I called out to Thor who was obviously very unhappy with this scrawny, balding man standing before him. "Who's to say that the kitchen is not the most dangerous battlefield, and hunger is the most relentless enemy? What is the rule, exactly?"
Thor growled, "You must be a warrior and..."
"Wrong, Thor." The eldest and most intimidating man, Odin, spoke. "The rule for Valhalla is you must die wielding a weapon. Now," Odin addressed me, "do you meet this requirement to join us in everlasting glory?"
What was I holding? Think man, think! I was making breakfast. Was is poptarts? Cereal? Eggs? Wait! I was making pancakes and pancakes requires... a spatula. Great.
"O Great and Righteous Odin, grand ruler of Valhalla, I believe I am worthy of entry." Shmoozing will definitely help my case.
"With what weapon?" Thor inquired, clearly tired of my antics. "You were wielding a plastic flipper! A spatula! Why, you couldn't couldn't even hurt a deathly ill man! That is not a weapon."
I scoff. I already know I can win this. "On the contrary, Thor, I would like to argue that the spatula is a weapon of great power!" This is going to be easy. I hold the spatula aloft. "Behold, the awesome might of my weapon!"
Readying myself, I charge forward, lifting the cheap, plastic tool above my head. Nearing my target, I strike!
FWAP
The spatula sweeps across Loki's face, who until now had just been watching the discussion with idle bemusement, leaving a clean, red mark across his slender face. His face of bewilderment was exactly what I had hoped for.
"As you can see, O wonderful Odin," I began, quickly receeding from Loki, "The spatula has the great power of confusion! While used on creatures of moderate size does little lasting damage, it will leave them befuddled, opening up for a strike of greater strength! Not only that, but it can crush small creatures under its wide face!"
Loki, though utterly pissed, took amusement from this, heightened by Thor boiling rage. "I have felt this first-hand, Father. It is a fine weapon."
"Wha... bu... You..!" Thor sputtered.
Odin silenced everyone with his hand. "Young man, you have gall to strike my son, Loki. Your argument is compelling. Very well, you may be granted entry into Valhalla." | Big Sally sat across the massive oak table.
Her arms crossed. Hair net still tight. Cigarette in one hand. Spatula in the other. So entrenched into her image these things, that even death could not take them. She sat like an angry Valkyrie.
Odin shrunk down while reading the tablet of Big Sally's deeds.
High Queen of the Lunch rush.
Undefeated in over 1000 dinners.
Able to create food almost at will from government supplies.
Known for their unending warmth to some, and undeniable cruelty to others.
Odin looked towards the spatula. Its edge razor sharp. Its steel bright. Handle slightly deformed from Big Sally's grip.
Odin slowly turns to an advisor, unsure of Big Sally's placement in the afterlife. As he turned he heard the voice of Big Sally.
"Will you hurry up. I get to get the potatoes peeled" a voice akin to a mountain falling into a gravel pit, but oddly warm and motherly.
In that moment, Odin knew he could not deny this warrior, but mostly out of fear. | 2018-03-26T13:00:34 | 2018-03-26T11:56:40 | 40 | 19 |
[WP] Instead of heaven or hell, when you die, you find yourself in the room of a six year-old girl who invites you to join her tea party. It soon dawns on you, you're her imaginary friend! | I sat upon a pink plastic chair that surrounded a white round table that raises only about 2 feet off the ground. The table was scratched up and curse words were sprawled all across it. There were drawings of rainbows and hearts that attempted to cover these harsh words.
"Johnny answer my question!" demanded a small little girl with frizzy hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. "Do you want 1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar?"
She stood there staring at me with her large brown eyes, waiting for me to answer.
"Two." I said, which triggered her to start putting the imaginary sugar into a plastic cup.
Just like the sugar, I was an imaginary figure sitting in this tight room with this young girl. My mind flashed back to all the times I told my children that their imaginary friends weren't real. But they were. Because I am.
"Cheers!" said the little girl raising her teacup.
"Why am I here?" I said aloud.
"Because Johnny! You are my friend! My best friend in the whole world," she smiled.
Why am I here? I thought again in my head. Why am I not in heaven? Why am I not in hell?
Some sudden commotion erupted behind the little girl's closed door. The little girl's face flushed from any trace of color and her hands began to tremble.
"Now Mr. and Mrs. Snuggles, I am going to protect you and save you from any harm," she said clutching the ripped stuffed animals with her small knuckles.
She let out a shrill when the door slammed open by a large bald man. His face was filled with wrinkles that seemed to result not only from aging, but from a permanent expression of anger sprawled across his face.
"What are you fucking doing you piece of shit?" he screamed, grabbing the teddy bears from the little girls hands.
She whimpered in fear and tried to hide her face behind her arms. She struggled to let out an answer but finally whispered something that sounded like "playing."
"Playin? And who the fuck told you you could play?" This man then kicked the young girl in the stomach which caused her to clench herself. At sight of this, I got straight up from my chair and went to stop the man from hitting the girl anymore. I attempted to latch on to his arm, but my hands kept slipping through. I forgot. I am now imaginary.
The man, whom I presumed to be her father continued to scream and hit the little girl. It was a ghastly sight that I couldn't bear watch. And in that moment I felt so powerless. I could not do anything to stop this man from jabbing his boot into the poor girls stomach. I could not punch him back after seeing him rupture the girl's nose into a nose bleed. I was powerless.
After a few minutes, her father left the room and the girl sat there in a heap crying. "Johnny..." she whimpered. Her father cannot see me, but this little girl can. I sat beside her and used my shirt sleeve to stop the nose bleed. Ineffective.
I tried to pick her up but that was also ineffective. Words. Words are the only thing I can use.
"I'm here.." I tried to shush her cries and reassured her that I will always be here.
Even though I was imaginary, I embraced the little girl in a hug. To my amazement, she hugged back. She placed her head onto my shoulder and her cries and whimpers died down. She then pulled back and looked me into my eyes. She stared right into them and said:
"Thanks Johnny. This is why I imagined you."
I thought about this for a while and realized that this little girl, in an effort to release herself from reality, has imagined another father. A loving father. The only way I can now save myself and go to heaven is if I save this little girl. | I stared at a black void for about a good minute, putting together how my death went, it felt horrible, I wished I could've had a second chance, then suddenly, I see a bright light, thinking it's heaven I got worried.
Me: "No, I don't wanna go!"
If I had any tears, I would be shedding them, but instead of clouds and golden objects, I'm greeted with a room with pink wallpaper and little girl around six years old staring at me.
Little girl: "Hey, come sit with me, you just made it to my tea party."
Me: "Huh, tea party?"
Little girl: "Yes a tea party, now hurry, cuddles and I are waiting."
I thought this was some weird joke that the angles play to make new souls feel confused, but the next event that happened made me rethink that idea entirely.
Little girl: "Here is your tea, you don't have to drink it if you can't-"
The door opens suddenly and I see a woman, possibly the little girl's mother.
Mother: "Sarah, who are you talking to in here?"
Sarah: "I'm talking to cuddles and my new friend, he just got here."
Everything clicked within a instant, I was Sarah's imaginary friend, and the wave of emotions I got made me feel not only sad, but happy, I felt as if my time wasn't up yet and my last task was to watch a child grow up knowing she had a friend.
Me: "If I had any tears, I would be shedding them."
Sarah: "You don't have to, I'm your friend, I'm here for you even if I become a grown up"
I wanted to give her a hug, but I realized I couldn't, at least not yet.
| 2017-12-19T12:07:05 | 2017-12-19T11:01:47 | 31 | 15 |
[WP] Humans finally reach the stars and realize that... We've seen all of this before! Galactic Council? Check. Proud warrior race? Check. Hive mind insects? Check. Frightening space boogeymen? Check. Ancient hyper-advanced Race? Check. And so Humanity ventured forth, knowing exactly what to do. | They showed up 4 years ago. That was all it took for them to cause a cataclysmic shit show unlike anything we have ever seen. They called themselves "humans"
A seemingly unremarkable species, at first. Compared to the zombie ships, wandering plant dragons, multiple hive minds like myself, and hundreds of other species ranging from sentient angry slugs to the borderline pacifistic galactic council, these hairless bipedal warm-blooded mammals looked like another unremarkable species in the vast expanse.
That is, until just under 10 of them took residence and immediately dominated the economical landscape. Another completely separate force heard the word "zombie ships" and in less than 6 months brought almost 90% of all known forms into extinction like an army of rabid Menglethogs.
Many forces that dominated the void we call home for literal centuries toppled like a stack of rocks getting kicked by a shoe. We are one of the few hive minds that remain, for the sole reason that we declared loyalty to the Galactic council, which is now ruled almost 50% by humans.
Curious, we studied the humans to see what it was that made them so scary, and the response was... Horrifying at best.
Every single interaction that have ever made, to us, feels like they already knew what we were going to say, think, and do so far in advance it's like they were born knowing what to do. The Txotan, normally considered the most stubborn species, hell-bent on a war path, was brought to nothing more than a few broken fleets by two outdated human cruisers and a reprogrammed AI. They nowadays almost never attack ships anymore. Miegroths, the space plant dragons, learned very quickly to check ships for even a vaguely human smell before even daring to approach, as humans had a tendency to horrendously burn them alive if they so much as bared their teeth. These humans knew almost every trick everyone had. And when questioned, they shrugged and said they saw it in a "book" or "movie".
They never shared this knowledge. In fact, when the humans first left their first planet, they made a race-wide rule, that so far has never been broken. "Do not show them our methods. No books, no stories, no movies, not even a meme. For any reason, ever."
The only time we have ever seen humans be defeated, by a force of equal size, was when humans fought each other. It's like watching demigods try to stab each other.
We really hope these creatures spill their secrets soon... Because we don't know how long the council will see us as allies. It's like these humans see hiveminds as their natural enemy. What the hell taught them this and why?
Recorded log 55, from hivemind "Biobond" while studying Capital Ship 511, S.S.S. Forward Unto Dawn of the UNSC | When the scientists discovered a plane of existence parallel to ours, made up of energy most accurately described as "emotional energy" they started looking for ways to exploit it. Before they could get too far, one of the scientists asked the important question, is there any intelligence in there? A long and drawn out period of research proved that not only were there intelligences in this realm, but that they were all disappointingly collosal dicks. The fact that they matched the descriptions of similar beings from a popular tabletop game made the scientists sigh in indignation. They shared this information with the entirety of humanity after reading the books, knowing that ignorance is going to fail due to all the science fiction they've read themselves. With everything said and done, they all facepalmed and just decided to ignore the intelligences and decided to go forward with the portal project | 2021-05-12T13:17:09 | 2021-05-12T10:04:42 | 115 | 48 |
[WP] We contact alien life and find that the vast majority of aliens exist in a slower time frame. Humans are perceived as extremely agile, mentally quick, and have very short lives. | “They say they’re as fast as a Snuqial.” the Private said, trying to hide his increased level of anxiety.
“Have you ever hunted Sunqial? ‘Cuz if you had you’d know a Human would smoke a Sunqial. Run them both from here to Tyrawon and the Human will be back a full DAY before the Sunqial!”
The Lieutenant was hiding his anxiety too. Drawing security duty for one of the Human’s Ambassadors had turned into a hazing ritual inside the Planetary Defense Corp. Doing well during your tour gained you respect and often led to a quick promotion. Falling short led to months of ridicule.
Not that the Humans were in any danger. Far from it. Their mental abilities were on par with the greatest minds of the Galactic Planetary Union and had contributed to the most amazing advances in technology. And they had done it all in an incredibly short amount of time.
Well, a short time compared to the Union anyway. For all their brilliance, Human lives were incredibly short. Ten generations would pass in only 2 cycles, a phenomenon previously reserved for small rodents like the Mqika or aquatic creatures like the Bqasata.
First contact with the Humans baffled the Union scientists. They had seen similar behavior on the quantum level, but nothing on the macro level. Experiments were devised, tested, revised and tested again until the quantum flux disparity was solved. Three generations of Humans had come and gone before even a simple way of communicating with them could be established.
Containing them was a whole other problem. The first generations were confined to reinforced padded rooms to limit their damage, a move the Union would later deeply regret. The Humans regretted their own actions as well. They apologized profusely for acting like “Bulls in a China Shop”, whatever that meant.
Their speed was embedded in their DNA in a way that seemed to bend the laws of physics. One second they’re right next to you and the next second they’re across the room. Everything within a meter along their path experiences a shockwave strong enough to put any Union soldier on his back.
“A hundred meters from the hangar to their quarters, then 150 meters down to the market level. Rough estimate puts us at 14 seconds. Eat your Pqata this morning soldier?”
“Yes sir. Four heaping bowls.”
“Good. You’re gonna need it.”
The Private shuffled his feet as if to sharpen them somehow. They can’t be that fast, he thought. 14 seconds down to the market?
“Lieutenant, can I ask you something?”
“Yes, I had my Pqata this morning too.”
“It’s not that sir. I was wondering…”, he lowered his voice, “have you heard about that Human formula they’re testing? Something called Qaphin?”
“How’d you hear about that?”
“It’s been going around the base all month.”
“Yeah… I heard about it. Heard the nasty side effects too. Want your heart to explode? How about going crazy from all the thoughts in your head? The shaking, the sweats, the violent shitting. Does that sound like something you want to mess with Private?”
“No sir.”
“Then I don’t want to hear another word about it. That’s above our pay grade. You just focus on trying to keep up.”
The Lieutenant tilted his head side to side, rotated his shoulders, and wiggled his legs.
Maybe, the Private thought, he should’ve had 5 bowls of Pqata. | They live and die in an instant; in one moment of my sense, one flash of pain or fill of my belly. Before I have even finished drawing but one breath, an entire generation has lived and died, flourished and withered to dust.
Humanity is but a flick of my eyes on the scale of our world.
They are not unlike the creatures they scathe; scurrying about trying to find and fulfill purpose in their own eyes. They live to die, be it through war, or a slow, tedious process slaving away for some greater good.
Perhaps that is why they are so fierce- it is the star which burns the hottest that dies first.
I believe that all life in this universe has an equal force behind it. I have lived longer than I could possibly explain, but the star in me is dull and red. Not a single human will ever live long enough to experience tranquility or true wisdom, and yet, not a single one of us will ever cast light into the void of space with such fierceness and veracity.
Humanity burns quick, but for those fleeting moments, there is no blackness. There is no void.
And when one star has died, billions will take its place to remind the cosmos that it will never again know the comfort of dark.
----
*a little outside my comfort zone >.> something something /r/resonatingfury* | 2016-08-22T19:10:46 | 2016-08-22T18:04:04 | 696 | 226 |
[WP] It's 3 AM. An official phone alert wakes you up. It says "DO NOT LOOK AT THE WALRUS". You have hundreds of notifications. Hundreds of random numbers are sending "It's a beautiful walrus. Look." | SCP-9432 (Temporary ID/Awaiting Permanent Clasification)
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: A single copy of SCP-9432 is to be kept in a system of twenty four (24) computers isolated from any other devices capable of displaying a digital image. Each computer must automatically delete any file sent from it. After sending a file, the computer must become incapable of sending or receiving emails for at least three hours. Finally, each computer should not be able to display a received email for at least an hour after receiving it.
A single Class-D personnel is be locked in a cubicle containing a computer on this system. They are to be rotated on an 8 hour basis, and may be provided with non-digital forms of entertainment. They are to send emails containing a file of SCP-9432 to other computers in this system. In the event any person exposed to SCP-9432 begins to display symptoms SCP-9432-1, they are to immediately be administered Class A or B amnestics.
In the event of a breach, an AI already has been set up to trace where the image has been sent or sent itself to. All phone communications in the area, except this absolutely necessary for maintaining functions, will be automatically shut down. They are to remain shut down until a “live” copy of SCP-9432 can be found and contained. After a “live” copy has been found, communication is to stay shut down for at least 8 hours. During these 8 hours, Class A amnestics are to be administered aerially to the affected area.
Description: SCP-9432 is a cogniohazardous image of a walrus (odobenus rosmarus). When exposed to SCP-9432, the subject feels an overwhelming urge to send the image to others in any way possible, including text, emailing, and uploading to various social media. Subjects usually express extreme excitedness over sharing this image, often stating that it is a “beautiful walrus”. This effect lasts for up to 4 hours, after which the subject returns to normalcy.
Each instance of SCP-9432 is only active once. That is to say, it loses all cogniohazardous properties once it is observed once. Sending SCP-9432 creates a new instance. “Live” instances also lose their cogniohazardous properties after existing for exactly 8 hours. The only exception to this is when there is only one “live” instance of SCP-9432. The “live” instance will then, instead, send itself to a random computer or telephone on the planet before becoming inactive. There has been no observed maximum range to this sending.
It has been observed that repeatedly sending SCP-9432 between computers on a closed system is enough to prevent spread. However, care must be taken that nobody exposed to it has any other device capable of sending images on their person, otherwise they will use it to create more copies of SCP-9432. Files on the closed system are to automatically delete themselves primarily to prevent clutter and the buildup of inactive instances.
Additionally, each time a subject is exposed to SCP-9432, there is a slight chance (around 0.084%) that they will begin to display symptoms of SCP-9432-1. This chance rises exponential the more times one is exposed to the image.
SCP-9432-1 is a disorder caused by repeated exposure to SCP-9432. When infected, they subject will begin attempting to mimic a walrus themselves. This includes: Mimicking noises, mimicking behaviors, and taking up their dietary behaviors. Those afflicted will eventually kill themselves via drowning, hypothermia, or disease as they attempt to mimic behaviors.
SCP-9432-1 may be countered via the application of Class A or B memestics with a 99.86% success rate. | I wake up dehydrated as I always do during the cold winter months. I go to grab a cup of ice water I keep beside my bed and I before I do I check my phone.
Allison: Look at the walrus George it’ll make you happy.
Confused I see that I have many text messages all telling me to look at walrus and even an official text from the government to not look at it. My heart begins to speed up and I turn the lights on. I can feel an anxiety attack coming as I try to make sense of what is happening. What is possibly the worse thing that could happen if I looked at it..?
I can feel my vision getting worse as I start to think about all the things it could possibly be. I decide to open it quickly and just see what it is. I open Allison’s text message and it’s a picture of a walrus with a white background. It doesn’t make any sense and I feel like I may have just downloaded some type of virus on my phone.
Instantly I feel it. The moment of peace I had from seeing the picture is instantly gone from the dread I start to feel. I have felt a similar feeling before such as the time I did shrooms as a teen. Only this feels much more intense. The picture starts to wave and change colors and starts looking more and more cartoony. I drop my phone to get away from it but it’s too late. I start to feel nausea overwhelm me and I lay back down as I let it overtake me. I start to wonder if this is all a dream as the walls in my room begin to split apart.
I wonder if I will be able to see the walrus Again? | 2021-01-11T19:42:35 | 2021-01-11T19:07:29 | 53 | 18 |
[WP] As you turn 18 you must choose between two worlds to live in. One is totalitarian where the government controls your life, with no poverty or crime. The other is anarchistic with no government or laws. You can never change your mind. | The day I turned 18, I watched north of 100 people go into the doors on the right. Almost like the decision had been made before hand.
''See you on the other side, bro.''
She spoke, as I stood with my arms inside my pockets, looking at her figure, disappearing into the white light, after opening the doors. I stepped forwards, going straight for the doors on the left. I heard whispering behind me. Someone screamed my name from behind. Outrage. I grasped tightly on the metallic object in my hand.
I did not look back. I made this choice a long time ago.
With my own hands, I swung the door open. The same white light shone from this door. For a second, I heard singing birds. And then, the wind.
The world seemed covered in a dusty filter. I looked around, beginning to run. The drop-off point was too out in the open. I couldn't know how it worked - maybe there was some guy just shooting down range at the 18 year olds who appear. This world could be like that.
After about an hour of tracking through a desert-like mountain, I found a city. Ruined buildings, ruined roads and a criss-cross of wires hanging all over each other. It was a ruined city, taken a hundred years of abuse. I stopped in a alleyway, taking my backpack off. Inside it, was everything I had taken with me. I opened the front pocket, taking out a bunch of documents, stuffing them inside my other, empty pocket.
Walking through this city wasn't as stressful as I thought. From a young age, we were taught the wretched evil of this world. Supposedly, a dark, twisted ruin of a world. If there was ''an end of the world'', then this was it.
I was being watched. Not by a stalker, but by others. Everyone. Their eyes, narrow, looking at me from the filthy windows, from the alleys, from the side streets. These people were dirty, famished, sickly. I lingered by a barrel with an open flame. I took out the documents, glancing at them. My birth certificate, confirmation of education, ID. I threw it all in the fire.
I stopped in the middle of an intersection, listening.
There was the ever-present hum of the electricity running through the lines above, but I heard a rumbling. The middle of the road I stood, looking forwards, down the destroyed road. People closed their windows, got off the streets.
Something was coming. I, though, had no reason to run.
I had to not be afraid, to live in this world.
They came on motorcycles. Old, loud ones. A half of dozen of them, stopped around me. I looked around, looking at who I assumed was the leader. He got off, walking towards me. Dark, dusty clothes. A bald head. Sharp eyes. Cracking my neck, I looked up at him, as he stopped a few feet away from me. With one hand I put down my bag, the other still clutching the metal object in my pocket.
''Ah, such a soft face.'' - he smiled. His face was covered in grime. -''I always wonder why people still choose this place...Anyways. You will be killed, soon. You've noticed that there are a lot of older people here, huh?''
I didn't answer.
''Not a man of many words, huh. Yeah, I know that expression. I wanted to be tough, too. I wanted to be my own man, too. There is nothing here for people like you, though. I'll explain how it will go down. You will give me everything you have. Money, tools, clothes, everything. And I will kill you, because you chose wrong.''
I pressed a button on the metallic object in my pocket and swung it at the man. I did it hard, expecting a lot of resistance. He had stopped talking. I heard a loud crack, the knife going in deep into his side.
On the day of my 18th birthday, I took a life of a single man. This was the second choice in my entire life. It was my own decision to do it. There was nothing here for me but bloodshed and suffering. Life here had no meaning.
He fell to his knees, and I raised the knife to the rest of bikers. The front of my jacket was bloodstained. He was gurgling on the dusty road and I was surrounded, standing alone ''at the end of the world''.
And I chose it all. | When she was young, Cassie saw a magician perform live. The man was a washed up drunk who happened to read a few pages on basic magic and managed to convince Cassie's mother to book him for a birthday party. As far as she was aware, it was *the Grand Flamekeeper's* only performance. He'd set Cassie's mother's curtains on fire and been asked to leave shortly after.
However, before he started the fire and before he left, the Flamekeeper spoke to Cassie alone. It was out in the front lawn. He held out two fists, knuckles up, and asked her to choose a hand.
Cassie pointed to the left one instantly.
"Don't choose so quickly," he said, voice obviously smelling of alcohol even to her twelve year old mind, "a moment like this requires thought. You don't know what lies in which hand, but you can guess, right? No choice should be made without thought."
Cassie leaned down so that her head was right next to the man's fists. His right hand had a small red sauce stain on it, probably a piece of chicken he grabbed earlier. His left was held tighter, maybe empty?
She straightened back up and pointed to his right hand.
The Grand Flamekeeper smiled and opened it up, revealing a piece of chicken slathered with BBQ sauce. He ate the chicken and patted her on the head with his left hand.
Cassie remembered hating that. It was her earliest clear memory.
Now she sat on her computer, USB connected and file ready to upload. Not every choice has a clear cut outcome, but they are predictable to an extent. She closed her eyes in thought.
She could upload the videos. It would start a chain of events that would lead to the downfall of the American government and potentially cause another world war, not to mention it would make her the most wanted traitor in the history of the country.
She could delete the file and act as if she never stole it from the NSA. It would allow the world to continue spinning, humanity to continue living. But they would be living under a false freedom.
She didn't know how long she sat on that chair, thinking, but when she opened her eyes, it was night. Hands shaking, she managed to open up Chrome and go to Wikileaks.
This wasn't her choice to make. This was the people's choice, and they needed to know there was a problem before choosing how to proceed.
Cassandra sat still for a long moment before hitting *Submit*. | 2016-09-23T15:17:43 | 2016-09-23T12:47:44 | 134 | 46 |
[WP] As they slew the djinn they were cursed with immortality, but not before its molten blood consumed all but their bones. | "So...you're my teachers for the final?"
The lead skeleton - Bryce wasn't sure how he knew this one was the leader, but he did - grinned broadly. *Again, how did I know he just grinned?* "We are, my boy! Allow me to introduce myself: I am Oliver Thomas, Knight of the 4th Order, and these are my fellows, Harold Samson and George Worthington.
Bryce nodded at each skeleton politely, having no trouble distinguishing between the two. "A pleasure to meet you, gentlemen."
"Gentlemen, he says! Ha! Some necromancer you'll be. 'Oh, good sir Skeleton, could you please, if it's not too much trouble, rip off your left armbone and go beat that werebear to death? If it's not too much trouble?'" Harold Samson, it seemed, was in a foul mood.
"Don't tease the boy, Harold" said George. "They're all a bit nervous when they come down to meet us."
"All right, enough from you two." Oliver was taking control again. "Now then...Bryce, was it? To answer your question, yes, we are your final exam. And before you go reaching for your wand, no, you don't have to defeat us. What we're going to do is have a conversation, you and I...well, all of us I mean...and based on that conversation, we will either recommend to the Guild that you be allowed to graduate with honors..."
"...or, we won't." finished Harold, menacingly.
Bryce swallowed hard. "And...your decision is final, with the Guild?" Bryce well new the penalty for failing to graduate from the Guild of Necromancers.
"It is. But don't worry! Our job is not to fail you; there won't be any kind of difficult test or impossible task. Your professors have, I'm sure, taken great pleasure in educating you in the "old ways", shall we say. If you've made it this far, you're a necromancer through and through, there can be no doubt." Oliver shuffled across the room and sat down on a convenient chair. "As I said, we are only going to have a conversation."
"....What about?"
"Why, whatever you would like to have a conversation about, my boy" said George. "The nature of the conversation is dependent upon you.
Bryce thought for a moment. This was a test of some kind, he was sure. These three skeletons were here to judge him in some way...but if not his skills, then what?
"How is it that you three came to be here? Were you raised by one of my masters?"
George answered this one. "No, nothing like that. We three were members of the 4th Order, as Oliver mentioned. Don't worry, you don't know what that is, as the Order hasn't existed for over a thousand years now. Suffice to say, we were tasked with protecting this land, from all manner of threats. Natural and unnatural."
"So you fought against my kind?"
Harold slammed his fist on a table so hard, Bryce feared it would break apart. "Come now, boy! Do you feel that what you do is truly evil?"
"No, sir. Death is a part of natural world. Exploring and exploiting it is no worse than chopping down a tree or mining the Earth." Startled, Bryce began reciting from his textbooks. "Then may I ask, how did you come to be as you are?"
"The room you are standing in used to be the home of a powerful djinn." said Oliver. "It's name was Hanir, and he truly was an evil creature. He tricked a foolish master into releasing him from servitude, and immediately began to take his revenge on anything living in this area. We three were tasked by the king of this land, at the time, to destroy him."
"And you did?"
"We did. But before we could strike the killing blow, Hanir cast one final spell, on himself, that caused him to spew all of his blood out upon us. Djinn blood is quite magical, as you might guess, and when it comes from one as dark as Hanir, the results are rather unfortunate, as you can see."
"Interesting...I wasn't aware it was possible to animate the skeleton of still living being." Bryce found this tale quite exciting, them remembered himself. "Sorry, I don't mean to trivialize your plight. So you have been cursed, as you are, since then...how did you come into contact with the Guild?"
"When we returned to the King to report our success, and affliction, we were shunned by the people of the Kingdom. They saw us as monsters now, and wanted nothing to do with us. We were very nearly burned by a mob, in fact, until members of the Guild intervened, and provided us with sanctuary."
"Ah, I see." said Bryce. "You needed somewhere safe to stay, somewhere away from the prying eyes of the rabble. This place was already known to be a source of great evil when the djinn lived here....what better place?"
"Precisely. The Guild spread rumors that the djinn was still alive, cast a few spells and charms to keep away the nosy, and eventually, over the years, this just became a place of legend. 'Here there be Evil, stay ye away'."
A thought dawned on Bryce. "I really am here to just have a conversation with you, aren't I?"
"That's what we've been telling you. But, can you now tell us why?"
"Because it's the least I can do for three heroes of the land, who risked everything to protect those that later betrayed and turned their backs on them."
Oliver leaned forward eagerly. "You're close, boy, but we need more."
"....And while every skeleton out there might not belong to heroes as noble as you, it did belong to a person. A person who might have been good, or might have been bad, but a person nonetheless. A person who certainly didn't ask to be raised as a skeleton. And this is something I need to keep in mind, as I send them off to kill werebears."
Bryce saw Harold smile broadly. "That's what we like to hear. Welcome to the Guild of Necromancers." | "I'm telling you, Alim, this isn't a good idea."
"Oh come on, Baqi! When was the last time you saw another person? Besides, what's the worst that could happen? Literally."
Baqi looked down at the familiar sight of his animated bones. They were old and creaky. He could barely remember his own body, his flesh and blood. The amount of time spent in this form far outspanned that of his previous life.
"I can see what you're saying..." he said, "but still, remember what happened the last time we went outside? Spending those years trapped in a coffin has got to be the single worst experience of my life."
He grabbed Alim by the shoulder bone.
"My *entire* life, Alim."
His friend brushed him off and continued his brisk walk. "We're just gonna be careful not to fool around this time, all right? That's all."
Baqi gave up. It's not like they had better things to do, anyway.
They had been walking in complete darkness, but now things began to light up under a dim glow.
"We're here!" Alim said with excitement. "God, can you imagine what sort of leaps the world has made in the past decades? Things were so exciting last time. I bet they've got all sorts of contraptions now."
They reached a small hole in a stone wall. Moonlight was shining through.
"It's night." Baqi said.
"See? I told you it'd be fine. No one's even going to notice us."
-----
Little Ben had parted with his friends after a night of wholesome trick-or-treating, and was on his way home down the street. It was a route he travelled often, and as such he was quite intrigued when, for the first time, he heard voices coming from the abandoned lot between his neighbors' houses.
It was the sound of two men having a heated argument in a foreign language that Ben decided was quite amusing.
He peaked through a broken part of the fence. He saw two slim figures in the darkness having an animated conversation over something.
He went through.
-----
"I'm tellig you man, this thing can take a picture! Remember how bulky the cameras were back then?"
"I'm doing what you said, but it's not reacting." Baqi was sliding his bony finger across the screen with no result.
Suddenly a voice piped up from behind them.
"Woah."
The two friends turned around hurriedly. They witnessed a small boy holding a bag, dressed up in a black costume with the imprint of a skeleton on it. His face was covered in white paint.
"Those are *awesome*!" he said cheerily. "How did you do that?"
The two friends simply stared in shock for a while.
"Baqi!" said a very confused Alim in the end. "What the hell is that?"
"It's a child, man. Are you stupid?"
"But... why...?"
"How would I know?"
They looked at each other, then back at the child.
"It doesn't seem scared."
"It's saying something."
"Too bad we don't speak whatever the hell he is."
The boy was now looking at them quizically. Alim decided to do a little dance for him. The kid clapped happily and laughed.
"Heh," he said, "this kid's all right."
"Ben!" came a distant voice, making everyone turn to the fence. "Ben, where are you?"
"I'm here, mom! Come, you gotta see this!"
Some shuffling was heard, along with some pained groans and sighs. "For God's sake, Ben, what are you..." The woman stopped short at the sight of Alim and Baqi.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Ben, who are these people?" She quickly grabbed her child and squinted to see better in the darkness.
"I heard them talking! Look at their costumes, mom!"
The woman sized them up. They were standing there, kind of awkwardly she thought, holding an iPad and not saying anything, She didn't like this, she decided.
"Well." she said dejectedly, "Good evening gentlemen. I hope my son wasn't bothering you. We'll just be going now." She started walking away.
She stopped before pushing her son through the fence. "I gotta admit though...
...those costumes are pretty gosh-darned good." | 2015-10-23T14:16:48 | 2015-10-23T12:37:40 | 23 | 16 |
[WP] You are a time traveler in 1918, and you just accidentally said "World War One" | "World War One?" Christopher asked with a quizzical gaze. "Why are you calling this hell that we've been dropped into World War One? It's not like it's certain something like this is going to happen again, I'd be surprised if we saw any conflict again in our lifetime after the atrocities we've been witness to."
I didn't have the heart to tell poor Christopher that whilst this war we were fighting in did matter and would change the world, it would not be the last war of this magnitude and the worst was yet to come.
I'd traveled back in time to the first great armed conflict of the 20th century to do first hand research on the archaic weaponry and tactics used by the military bodies of the past, as well as to gain an accurate record of how it affected the politics and people of the time.
I'd done all this just to write a first grade thesis on how war has evolved with the times and the negative impacts it carries and I just made one of the biggest screw ups any person who messes with time travel could make, I referred to this hell scape before me as World War One.
"Ah, just a slip of the tongue Chris, you know it just sounds right, rolls off the tongue." I answered as the enemy troops continued to fire on our position, one of the soldiers of our platoon falling down beside me as a bullet strikes into his skull "I'm sure you're right and we won't have to see, take part of, or loose friends in a conflict of this scale again"
As the firing halts on my position momentarily, I lift myself up out of the trench, readying my rifle I take careful aim and shoot at an enemy soldier who has just raised his head from their side. He falls, dead or wounded I don't know, I'm aware what I'm doing is foolish, actually taking part in this war could change events on a massive scale if I kill or even merely injure the wrong person.
I duck back down into the trench after seeing this unknown soldiers body disappear from my line of sight, those thoughts at the back of my mind, surviving being at the front.
"You think so? You think that after we teach these bastards that they should have stayed at home that we might have a chance for peace in the future?" Christopher smiles at himself with the thought before lifting himself up from the trench, only to fall back down, dead.
"I hope so Chris... I really do hope that there will be peace after this war, sometime..." I grip my rifle tightly ready to try to take down one of these bastards for Christopher, I lift my head and-
(Sorry for the bad writing and lack of knowledge, been a while since I've had a look at WW1 but writing this has got me inspired so I may go read up on my history and come back and revise this at some stage.) | Doctor who much? ;)
I guess I gotta contribute now...
"You're a soldier from world war one, a cap-"
He cut me off,
"World war one! You... You mean there's going to be another one?'
He looked at me with a worried expression, not blinking staring right at me.
"Yes..." There was nothing else I could say.
"I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry"
He had a tear in his eye
"You mean all of this, all of this fighting, all of this carnage. It will be for nothing?"
His voice cracked,
"Do you know how many friends I have lost... How many men, good men I've lead to their deaths"
I looked at him
"I'm sorry" that was all I could say... | 2017-12-10T10:39:32 | 2017-12-10T10:14:54 | 21 | 13 |
[WP] The world's greatest superhero has passed away. As the world braces itself for a crime spree, they are instead met with villains paying their respects to a fallen foe. | “'Everybody deserves to live,' huh?”
A part of me is almost expecting you to adopt that silly, infuriating grin of yours in response. Instead it remains set, neutral, lifeless. It's unsettling. Whenever you were caught in a foolproof trap that proved to be anything but, you smiled. Whenever you stood victorious, the remains of weeks, months, or even years of hard work and planning laying in ruins around us, you smiled. Yes, every time you went about systematically ruining my plans – *our* plans – to take over the world, over and over again, you smiled.
We hated that smile. We hated you. We wanted you dead.
We just never thought it'd actually happen.
To the people of Earth you were more than the greatest superhero ever, you were a symbol of justice itself. Like Lady Liberty, only on a global scale (and in the form of an actual living being). For us villains, however, you were a symbol of injustice. Oppression. An omnipresent God of vengeance, out spoiling our fun, ruining our plans, keeping us from reaching our fullest potential. All with that damned smile.
The worst part is that it would've been so easy for you to put an end to it anytime. You were stronger than any one of us individually, and even when we teamed up to even the odds you'd still somehow found a way to win. Time after time, year after year, failure after failure, you stood there victoriously, smiling down on our defeated, often unconscious forms. Time after time you'd pick us up and deliver us to the nearest prison, even though everyone knew we could, and would, escape. And time after time you made sure it was known, under no uncertain terms, that undue harm was to come to nobody within those prison walls. Including us.
And that's what we hated most about you, you damned, smiling caricature of a goody-two-shoes. You were such a good person, such a symbol of “justice” that you couldn't bring yourself to make an exception, no matter what. The populace denounced your compassion more than once, demanding to know why criminals – murderers – deserved to live after the innocent died. Your answer was always the same- that same damn smile, that same damn line.
“Everybody deserves to live.”
You said that you promised someone, long ago, that you wouldn't kill, and you damn well made sure that you never did. Such a stupid code of honor I swear, but you held onto it to the bitter end. If you could save a life, any life, you did. No semantics, no excuses. Even during the times we tried everything in our power to convince you to kill somebody, *anybody*, ***even us***, you never once faltered. A true beacon of life.
And now you're dead. Not by my hands, not by anybody's hands. Even in your final days, long after your once iconic hair had grayed, none of us could defeat you in battle. You never lost to us, to our predecessors, even to their predecessors before them. You probably would not have even died to our successors even if you had to carry an oxygen tank around with you in one hand and an IV in the other. The only one you couldn't defeat was Father Time, and even then I can't help but feel that he had to wait until you were good and ready.
I can feel your successor's gaze burning a hole in the back of my head. He isn't making a move though; none of the superheroes are. They understand why we're here. They know if they freak out it'd cause undue panic in the rest of the attendees. Sure it's not beneath some of us to cause havoc at a mass memorial service – I know I've crashed more than one funeral, sometimes more literally than others – but not today. Not yours. No, today we pay our respects to you. Our greatest foe.
The greatest hero, now and forever. | Without a sound, the elevator doors parted to reveal the large warehouse. Usually vibrant, the cold silence felt almost soothing. Abandoned workstations littered the whole floor making for a calming, if somewhat eerie scene. She sighed heavily, which, to her surprise, manifested as a cloud of vapor. She frowned, finally taking notice of the cold and walking over to grab her coat.
"What are you doing here K," She said without turning to address the woman sitting at her desk,
"Figured I would catch up on some work," K answered, pushing her snowboarding goggles up to her forehead, "Turns out I was **way** more behind than I thought I was."
"You hardly show up on workdays and now I'm supposed to believe you're working on a holiday?" She scoffed and pulled the thick jacked closer to herself, shivering slightly, "Leave it to you to miss something this big,"
K looked up at her for a second, then looked away and pulled the goggles down over her eyes again.
"No, I," K cleared her throat slightly, "I heard,"
"Then what are you waiting for," She grumbled, having sat down at an adjacent desk, furiously sorting through documents. "It's a holiday, remember, you don't have to be here, just go home."
"Jess, C'mon," K said as softly as she could, "I was just-"
"Shut up!" Jess shouted, breaking the desk in half and sending papers flying as she brought her fists down onto it, "Just, shut up, okay? I don't need to hear it."
K sat in silence for a while, watching her, before finally removing her goggles,
"Here," She said, holding out the goggles for Jess to take, "I'm sorry about your dad,"
For a second she just stared back at her, before grabbing the goggles and placing them over her eyes. And K just sat there, trying her best not to look at the tears streaming down exposed cheeks.
| 2018-03-12T21:07:44 | 2018-03-12T20:14:37 | 28 | 19 |
[WP] You’re the most powerful demon in history, feared by all kinds of beings on Earth. ALSO, you’re the boyfriend of this cute and oblivious paranormal journalist, who often asked you to tag along during her investigations. | If you were to glance upon the world, what would you see?
Would you see the light as it shines upon a world bustling with life? Or would you see the rot and decay lying underneath every crevice, as if waiting to burst out at the seams?
People always blame the devil for things they’ve done with their own hands. They are pushing their own feelings onto something else so that they don’t have to carry that burden, whatever it might be.
Isn’t it acceptable for me then to do as I please in their own name? To trample everything in my path in order to get what I always wanted?
My mind was filled with such silly thoughts as I walked down the narrow hallway. It wasn’t quite dark as the sunset gleamed over the broken glass surrounding us, but it was starting to feel like the world reverted to how I usually saw it.
“It gets my heart racing. This place.”
Holding my hand, Akari walked next to me as we headed deeper within the abandoned mental facility. Even though she was slightly shaking, she still held onto her smile. Slightly headstrong. Slightly impatient. Yet very kind. The woman that I decided to live my life with was such a person. Even though she was short, she was ferocious when protecting her ideals and even though her long white straight hair alienated most people because of its eariness, she was still as cheerful as ever. As if the worries of the world couldn’t reach her.
“I bet.”
Keeping my voice low on purpose, I focused on our surroundings. The ripples in reality were a bit too strong for my liking around this place. Places of great emotional turmoil, enough for new realities to be born, ones that would play out differently. While they’re a gateway to another world where a deplorable outcome wouldn’t have happened, they’re also the remnants of that despair.
A normal human wouldn’t even notice them, but there are those that are a bit more sensitive to these sort of places.
I shot a glance at Akari as she peered into the darkness in front of us.
People that experienced that kind of despair might find themselves being overwhelmed by these sensations others left behind.
Yet, those ripples were wrong. They were fresh.
“Wanna split up and look for something more… interesting?” I grabbed my own camera that was strapped over my shoulder.
“You...” She looked over at me then at the stretch of darkness in front of us. “Thank you.”
“I know you’re bad with these kinds of places. No matter how big of a reporter you are, things you can’t stand will always be hard to deal with.” I smiled and showed her a needle I found on the ground before she barely managed to stifle out a scream.
“Then… this place...”
“Might not be haunted, but merely a crackhouse.” I shrugged my shoulders. “If anything you can check this area and I will be going a bit deeper. If anything happens, scream.”
“I’m not a child… but I do appreciate your kindness. Thank you, Riner.”
Even without a reason, I wanted to always protect her. Even without a reason, I wanted to share everything I had with her. That’s why…
With a small peck on the lips we untangled our fingers and I started walking alone.
I clenched my fist as I advanced into the building, my movements making no sound whatsoever. It was an intricate labyrinth, this place. One that might entice people to keep walking, but even amongst those people, there were those that preyed on the unsuspecting. The scent was enough to make even the most depraved hunter from beyond the gates of Hell to empty his stomach. Not because of its nature, but because of its intensity. This place…
“The damn bitch wouldn’t stop crying so I cut her throat.”
“At least it’s still warm, right?”
“I heard another one downstairs, maybe we can get that one as well.”
Amongst the three men that were talking, two of them serviced themselves over a corpse. One of many, I presumed. This place was nothing more than a hideout for these degenerates that would do anything as long as they could bury their penis into something.
There were many more than just these three.
All of the upper layers must have been infested to the brim with animals such as them.
“Hey, have you ever wondered? Why do humans like you exist?” I whisper in the ear of the one nearest to me. Just this action alone was enough to make them all freeze in place, as for them it appeared as if I materialized out of thin air. “Why would God leave such animals to roam the Earth alongside His creation?”
“G-Ghos-” Before he managed to get his words out, I pierced his abdomen with one of my claws. The ease with which it managed to reach his soul was unusual. His sins must have been so many that even his body ceased to protect itself from a being such as me, seeking atonement.
“Ghosts don’t exist.” I said as the ethereal dust left from the killing blow cloaked my whole being. “We absorb any soul we see.” With a swift movement, before the rest of them could even scream, I sliced them down, my reflection in the pool of blood amassing at my feet showing my true self. A 6 horned beast with talons spreading across its skeletal arms, no eyes in the sockets of what must have looked like a deer skull. Instead an ethereal red glow enticed the very soul of sinners to atone by my many blades.
Looking at the body of the disfigured girl that was just moments ago alive I made my mind.
“Love… Love, huh? Even something as twisted as this can be called love? I don’t think so. My own feelings for the person I love cannot be compared to this mockery. I will end it. I promise.”
I lied.
There are ghosts. Those of people that passed away and are seeking to return to the Great One. This girl, standing in front of me, thanked me for easing her burdens.
“As if I am doing this for you.”
Without saying anything more I took it into my own hands to pass the Final Judgement to those that were present in that building. Either claiming their souls as my source of sustenance and magic, or sending them to the Great One.
Of course, there were no bodies remaining. Rending flesh from bones was a speciality of mine. Bones can be crushed and used in potions as well. There is no shortage of ways to use a human body, after all.
“I’m back.”
Saying so, I smile at Akari that stood dejected in front of the building.
“Did you get anything?”
“No, there was nobody inside. No ghosts as well.”
“You did take some photos?”
“Yeah, here.”
I vowed to make this person happy. No matter what might happen to the rest of the world. No matter how the world looks like in reality, for me it will always be beautiful as long as I am near her. | The door flew open. Becca's leading boot struck the floor and I was roused from my book.
"Wanna come with!" An excited tone on her words.
"Huh? Where?" I asked slipping my black pocket square in my copy of Angles and Demons as a bookmark.
"The old commune off of 88. I hear the full moon tonight is when some really wack shit goes down. I wanna catch it."
"The cult you mean?" I humorously corrected her.
"Well yea but like... They didn't *indoctrinate* people, folks just joined. We still don't have the full story on the Dumont's."
"Communed with demons and coerced the scared and helpless... Probably." I snickered.
"Oh stuff it will you, you coming or not!?"
I slipped on my boots, not bothering to zip up the side flap and threw on my jacket. "Yea got nothing better to do, and besides you get a little randy after these things so it's in my best interest to come with." I smiled and winked.
"Oh please!? You just like the idea of having sex in haunted places. And you call *me* the odd one." A light punch thrown at my arm at the end.
I felt good around Becca. Vulnerable, but not weak. If anything she made me stronger, and that's saying something considering my lineage.
Mother the vessel for Lilith herself, father a dark power the likes of which makes even Lucifer tremble before it. And me. Just Calvin.
As we pull up the the trail leading to the commune there's a stillness in the air. No... Not good enough, Becca wants a show.
I touch the pebbles on the ground and stir up the perfect spooky wind. Not enough to be irritating. But several large gusts every 5 minutes or so to give the trees a menacing silhouette.
"What are you doing?"
I stand up from my kneel "zipping up my boot. Gotta make sure they stay on in case any ghosties start chasing us."
"Thanks for taking this seriously" Becca replied with a chuckle.
As we made our way to the actual buildings I felt the damned souls watching from their dilapidated buildings. Becca went to the center of the "town" by the meeting bell and set up her cameras, her EVP, and a few motion sensors to alert if anything moved through them.
While she did that I projected. My astral self without my human part. This part I can't conceal with my powers. 7 foot tall. Fur and feathers and scales, horns that curve into malicious daggers beneath my fanged maw. A tail tipped with a razors spike. And claws that rend the very soul from the flesh.
The souls cowered... They always do. One of these days I'll learn to taper off my astral projection like I have with my physical body.
"I know I know. Big scary. Not here to eat you or threaten you. Or any of that. All I ask is if you can put on a decent show for my girl. Do this for me and I'll come back next full moon without you and summon Charon to take you guys onto the next plane. That being said. Any of you hurt her or act maliciously... Well... Just don't. Or else."
Echos of "thank yous" floated around my head. With one snide remark. To which the other spirits rebuked. Thank fuck for that. Looks like an easy night.
I returned to my body.
"What do you see?" Becca's asked. "You were all zoned out there."
"Thought I saw some movement over there."
And as if on cue the sensor behind us tripped. The wind shook the trees. The cameras picked up movent and the EVP crackled. This went on for the next several hours like a long drawn out symphony. And Becca loved it.
Her eyes grew intense and many "did you see that"s and "what do you think Cal"s. I loved this woman. Her passion and joy in the mystical and occult. Yet tender and kind.
She'll know one day, maybe soon.
We packed up around 4am and hiked back to the car, my hand brushed a tree and the wind settled back to it's natural tempo. I opened the door to the car, Becca already wrapped in her blanket she keeps in here.
"So... Wanna... Yaknow?" She gazed at me. Sultry breath on her words.
"We can wait till we get home, you know how much fun it is with a tripod in your back." I looked up as I saw the spirits come to see us off. " And besides, after tonight's activity... I bet we'd have an audience." | 2020-01-03T06:34:43 | 2020-01-03T06:06:57 | 15 | 10 |
[WP] You can tell just by looking into someone's eyes the most significant crime they've committed. You notice a couple of murderers on the road today, which isn't an uncommon occurrence, until one of them stands out. His death toll spans into the millions. | I looked again. No, not millions - *Billions.* Billions of lives lost at the hands of this one man.
I took a moment to look him over. He seemed normal enough, aside from his rather odd dress sense, but at the same time, it seemed that he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Somehow, I got the feeling that the lives he had taken weren't the main reason for this.
He glanced around. For a moment, I was sure that he'd spotted me; that is, until, he turned to leave. I followed. I wasn't sure if it was because of the massive death toll he had caused, or something else.
I followed him all around the city. Up one street, down another, turn left at one intersection, turn right on another.
He abruptly paused, then headed down an empty alley. It seemed perfectly normal, so what could he be looking for? All that was there was a few bags of trash, a few dumpsters, a police box, and -
Wait, a police box? I rubbed my eyes, and sure enough, there it was. Somehow I had barely noticed the thing that now stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the other things in the alley. The man paused in front of it.
"All right, you can come out now." I froze. "Come, now, don't be scared. I've known you were following me for... the past twenty minutes or so?"
I slowly stepped out, hands raised. The man rolled his eyes, then smiled. "You don't have to worry. I'm not going to hurt you." He reached into a pocket and withdrew an odd, pen-like device. "This, however, might tingle a little."
A strange buzzing filled the air for several seconds. "Ah. I see. No wonder you got curious." He tucked the device back into his pocket.
"The... billions."
His expression changed. It was the face of someone who had done something truly terrible and yet entirely necessary. "Yes. Story for another time, I suppose." He met my gaze. "Can't imagine it's been exactly easy for you, either. Probably makes it really hard to trust people."
I nodded. "... If you don't mind me asking, what exactly were you doing?"
He brightened. "Oh! Just trying to remember where I parked."
"Parked?" He beckoned me closer.
A grin formed on his face. "You're going to love this." He inserted a key into the lock, and turned.
The doors swang inward with a creak. He stepped inside and swung around, arms spread like a showmaster welcoming the crowd.
Behind him lay a single glowing column stretching from floor-to-ceiling, surrounded by darkness.
"This... is the TARDIS."
As if responding to him, the room came to life. Bright lights illuminated a cavernous space that seemed straight out of a science fiction film.
"All of time and space at your fingertips. And she's mine."
I stared, stunned. "It's... it's"
"Bigger on the inside." He finished my sentence for me.
I stepped inside, enthralled by the display. I barely noticed him moving to the strange console that surrounded the central column.
I was snapped out of my trance by the doors closing behind me.
"So... where do you want to go first?"
----
For those asking, this one sits somewhere during 10 and/or 11.
Sorry, couldn't resist. For some reason, the "millions" brought to mind Doctor Who. | You look back, fear in your gut. Your rational mind tells you to make like a horse and run but your heart demands you know who such a man is, and why.
Every step closer your mind shakes but your heart beats on, yearning, longing, demanding to know. You utter the question not how, but why. Why did you kill millions.
One would think exposing a bunch of murderers would have them pounce like lions but instead they whimpered back, tails between there legs. All except him.
"Tell me the difference between love and compassion", thr devilman spoke.
You stayed silent and stared at him. What were you supposed to say.
"Compassion is to care for all things both familiar and strange. It is a blanket, nice and warm. Those who are compassionate wouldn't hurt a fly. Love is a burning fire towards only the few familiar objects that one trusts the most. Despite popular belief love and compassion dont share the same bed. For to be compassionate means to care about all things. Love is the willingness to forsake all things to save the object of love".
You looked at him scared out of your mind.
"All you need to know about my transgressions is that with a computer at my hands I managed to make the 12 plagues of Egypt look like a common cold. Not for power, or greed, but because I loved a few people more then the poor bastards on the other side of that black screen. It was my loved ones or them. Now back a away before I add you to their numbers". | 2021-04-16T01:13:14 | 2021-04-16T00:56:45 | 594 | 50 |
[WP] It turns out that maturity is a survival trait only developed by humans. When aliens discover Earth, they think we are "Total buzzkills with all our rules and junk." |
"Take us to the party dude!"
Eric stared in disbelief. He'd always been a fan of sci-fi, and had doodled many a spacecraft on the back of envelopes. But the thing this alien had floated out of was very different from his idle drawings.
Lights? Yes, but this had green neon coming out of the thruster arches. It had a spoiler! A SPOILER! Eric was particularly perplexed by the sound it was making. It seemed somehow familiar, harking back to his dubstep days. Was it Skrillex? He couldn't quite place it.
"Wha-, who… Are you an alien?"
"Bro we're just here to get FUCCCKKKKED UP! WOOOOOOO!"
"Erm, ok but doesn't your physiology preclude the use of drugs fr-"
"Chill mutha fuckaaaa we just wanna have some fun but I guess we better keep on rolling, you are not the one to help us". The alien turned and began to drift back inside, leaving a rather nifty aurora borealis on the trail of his 7 luminous kicks.
"WAIT!" shouted Eric, "let me call my friend. Frederico always knows where the happening things are… happening."
The alien flicked round, his necklace (which appeared to be collapsing space and time into its dark center) bouncing off his torso. "Fredericooooo! What's your name kid?"
"I'm Eric, ok it's ringing. What's yours?"
"Haaa hey Eric! My name loosely translates to the octo-vag destroyer. My pal is inside, you can call him The loose receiver."
"Ey fuck you bitch!" came a voice from inside, "they call me quadra-shlong"
"Only yo mamas call you that!!" Replied OVG, cackling with laughter at his wit.
"... yeah I'm with a couple of guys who wanna party … yeah well I just met them but they're, they're not like the guys I usually +1 … cool man we'll swing by yours and pick you up. By the way have you got any *stuff*? … Sweet see you soon." Eric looked straight at what he assumed was the aliens eyes, which were slightly hidden behind a ridiculous looking fringe, well quiff maybe a better description. Regardless, it's safe to say that the hair seemed unconcerned about the effects of gravity. "Let's go, Frederico is 10 blocks from here."
Onboard the ship the walls were covered in posters, displaying 3D videos of a very limited number of things. Many spaceships, with even more, in both quantity and pointlessness, lights and widgets. There were a few of some creature with hair which defied not just gravity but also relativity itself. But more than anything else, there were pictures of some orifice. Many angles, many colours, all entirely unlike anything Eric had seen in his 12GB hentai collection.
There was a rumble, everything seemed to slow down, and the aliens started creating an ear splitting noise. Eric dived under a table
"Sorry maaaan we should have warned you Eric, we just hot boxed the ship with Klarval gas. Crazy shit! Driving just ain't fun sober!"
'Whats Kla-"
"Alright we're here! Where's Fredericoooo?!"
"Fredooooooo!" called the other alien.
Frederico opened his door, and wondered over to the ship. "Hey Eric, how's it going guys?" he asked, "You've got to try this LSD its fucking crazy shit! You wouldn't believe the visuals I'm getting!"
"Fredoooo! Shovel it in brah!"
He gave the aliens a tab each. Eric politely declined, and couldn't help but question whether he had in fact been hanging out at one of Frederico's acid parties earlier.
A moment later a hissing sound started to erupt from the Aliens. "Wait ish thish ashidic? Ahhh shit"
And promptly the aliens began to dissolve. Eric looked at Frederico, who was grinning like a fool.
"Seriously Eric you've got to try this, the visuals are out of this world!" | I was mowing my lawn when I saw these two kids smashing up my garage door with some bricks.
"Hey! What do you think you are doing!" I said.
One of them turned to look at me, the other kept smashing a brick into the door.
"What you doing!" I said, "Look what you done to my garage door!"
The smaller kid looked like the guy who used to sing in that Sex Pistols band. The other kid looked like Pugsley from the Addams family, but if Pugsley were also part of a biker gang.
"It's no big deal old man. We're aliens," said the smaller boy. His voice was kind of nasally and high pitched. I'm not too up to date with kids nowadays and these kids seemed pretty odd, so I wanted to make sure they really were aliens before I let them get back to smashing up my garage door.
"What? Aliens?" I said. I started walking towards them to get a better look, but as soon as I got close the big kid spat in my face.
"That's how we say hello on our planet" he said.
"Look here old man" said the smaller kid, "We're on a special intergalactic mission and we need to inspect your wallet. The future of the universe depends on it"
"I don't know about that. Why would aliens need my wallet?"
"It's top secret" said the kid, "but if you don't do it the Earth will be destroyed and we will have to probe you." After he said that he turned to his friend and they started laughing. Then they high fived.
I could see from the kids' eyes, the big ones especially, that they wanted to probe me, so I handed them my wallet.
The kid took the wallet from me and shouted "Quick, to the space craft!" and the two kids ran and got on a dirt bike.
Several weeks later, once I felt the threat of probing had passed, I called the FBI to report my alien encounter. The man on the phone got angry and told me to stop wasting his time and that I had most likely been robbed by teenagers. Either way I'm just glad I didn't get probed. | 2019-11-01T12:06:22 | 2019-11-01T11:44:14 | 569 | 76 |
[WP] You are God, after a couple thousand years of people thinking you don't answer their prayers, you realise you've had yourself on mute on the celestial microphone you use to talk to humans.
Edit: Wow, I never expected this to blow up, Thank you for the silver, it was my first ever award!
Edit 2: GOOOLD! Thank you all for such positive feedback, I'll come up with some more prompts soon, and I've written a few replies myself to other stories. No idea how to share them if you want to read though :D | "...and for the ten *millionth* time, would you all *please stop eating shellfish*!"
"Is that all m'lord?" Metatron asked, quickly scribbling the last of the command down on its notepad.
"I think so." I sighed, leaning back in the heavenly golden throne. "You think they might all listen for once?"
"I doubt it m'lord. There has been no response from humanity in 5,321 years."
"True true. It's that damned intercom system I bet. I should've never let humanity out of Eden I tell ya. Sure, it would've been a bit crowded but at least you didn't even have to shout to talk to them...now it's almost like the damned thing's not even on."
"Very funny, but impossible m'lord. The power is always on." Metatron said flatly, pulling out an intercom system from within the spaces between the two glowing concentric rings that made its torso.
"Did you make sure to press the talk button?" I teased, knowing full well I'd just get the same flat answer as before.
Metatron really was the dullest angel in the Kaballah. Say all you want about Gabriel or Michael, but at least they could at least hold a half decent conversation.
I guess that's my fault and all. Deciding to just create a new angel to be my speaker after Lucifer...fell instead of just promoting an existing archangel. But then again, the alternetive would be listening to Gabriel gossiping about who Zeus fucked now or to Michael describing all the way he's going to tortue Lucifer when he gets his hands on him for all of eternity and I'd rather go through the apocalypse than suffer through *that*.
"Pardon, m'lord?"
"The talk button. Y'know-" I pointed over at the button labeled 'TALK' on the intercom, which I just now noticed still had the protective film on it. "-it's...it's a...nevermind."
"Why would I press the talk button m'lord?"
"It's the button you press to...talk. To the world. " I looked at Metatron, confused about if this was it's idea of a joke or something else.
"But I do not need to talk to the world m'lord. I am your speaker, I am not a talker." Metatron stared at me with all of its thousand eyes with such a lack of emotion that it was bordering on unsettling.
"...Metatron, when you ta-act as my speaker to the world, what button do you press?"
"I press the speaker button, m'lord." Metatron pointed at a well-worn button with a speaker icon underneath it.
"To act as my speaker."
"Yes m'lord."
"Metatron-" I sunk into my throne, burrying my face into my hands. "-who are you?"
"I am Metatron of the Keter, son of man, angel of the veil and The Lord's speaker, m'lord."
"How old are you?"
"I have been young, and now I am old, m-"
"*how old Metatron?*"
"5,321 years, m'lord."
"So, in the five thousand or so years you've been in my service, you've always pressed that button to 'speak' to the world?"
"yes, m'lord."
"Metatron, that's the volume button."
Say all you want about Gabriel and Michael, at least they knew how a fucking intercom worked. | The first voice that came through was one of anger. The self-righteous indignation that the words came with at once jolted me to earth. The words came again this time in a mocking high-pitched tone.
"Please God, answer my prayers Lord they big bad pagans are winning god."
He was prancing about a group of worshipers. My mind connected to his in an instant and I saw who he was. He was a non-believer with the strong belief that I was a figment of people's imaginations. He had spent his life going from believer to believer the same way my disciples did. Only he did it to convince them they were wrong.
My anger was telling me to smite him but I was no longer of that nature.
"Say something baloney!" he yelled looking upwards.
How long had it been? 2000 years since I had spoken to them like this. I had sworn to keep it secret but the secret was that I hadn't spoken to them. Maybe I would make an exception.
The skies around Alex began to darken for the lord made them darken. Then the wind begun to howl. A bolt of lightning hit a few feet from him and he and the worshipers cowered in fear. The lord's voice boomed over the storm. "I prefer to work in silence but your insolence has no limits."
My face, the one I chose for this, formed in the clouds and it lowered until I stared him in the eye, "speak child, your lord is listening." | 2019-06-03T11:16:32 | 2019-06-03T09:36:57 | 294 | 35 |
[WP] People don't seem to realise that figures of mythos evolve too. The Grim Reaper, for example, no longer wields his scythe, opting to harvest souls with a combine harvester. Cupid traded his bow for a sniper rifle decades ago. You're the dealer that supplies the mythical world with technology. | “Look man, I’m the damn Devil, I need something cooler. I can’t be stabbing and disemboweling my cowering subjects with a *forklift!* It’s just not cool enough. I’ll lose respect.”
Jeremy sighed and rubbed his head, “And you *want* the respect of murderers, rapists, and abusers?”
The Devil scoffed, “All the imps and demons are a bunch of yes men! Even if they had something worth saying it’s not like they would.”
“I know it’s not the flashiest but paint it up and you can have the damned screaming as their pathetic bodies are crushed and bones are exposed under the weight of the machine. Look Mr. The Devil, you seem like a nice guy, but times are changing, you can’t have a pitchfork forever.”
The Devil flopped down into his seat, head in hands, “I know, I know, it’s just, when you’re the ruler of hell it’s so hard to be taken seriously. You know?”
Jeremy nodded, as a human magic weapons dealer he knew all too well about not being taken seriously. The Devil continued; “It’s just, half the guys in there think they *Are God, or his son, or daughter, or aunt, or uncle, heaven, some even think they’re *me!* I don’t know, I’m just a bit self conscious, you know? You work so hard to make their experience in your domain as terrible as possible and they give you nothing in return!” The Devil looked up as tears threatened to spill over eyes that drove a normal man mad, “It makes me feel like I’m a bad ruler.”
Jeremy gave a sympathetic sigh and rushed to comfort the demonic behemoth. “Hey, hey! None of that, you are a FANTASTIC ruler, you’re mean, spiteful, vicious, and terrifying. Anyone who doesn’t cower in fear of your very very name being whispered is a fool. Hell, I work with the supernatural all day every day, and, you didn’t hear this from me, you’re one of the most terrifying.”
The Devil sniffled, “You mean that?”
Jeremy nodded, “Yes! Now, the forklift may not be your style but let’s try the human prod v.6.7. It has six different settings ranging from sexual sting to bloody barbecue, the terrifying times are sharp enough to disembowel whoever you see fit, the handle is a comfortable leather dyed in the blood of a virgin, and Mr. The Devil? I think you’ll just love it.”
The Devil nodded, “I like that. Jeremy you have yourself a deal.”
“Pleasure to hear Mr. The Devil! Now if you jus-“
The Devil cut him off with a smile as he stabbed a pen into his hand, “No more Mr. The Devil. Call me Satan.” With that he took the bloody pen and signed his name. “Pleasure doing business,” he said.
Jeremy nodded, “Oh yes, and with you too Mr. th-, Satan. Pleasure doing business with you Satan.”
Satan picked up his human prod and with the screams of the eternally tortured yet never dead left in his wake, he left the office and entered his domain. | Many think of myths, and legends set in the olden days, set in stone. What they don't know is that their tools change, more efficient, more convenient. I sell to all, any sides, anyone who needs will get it. I don't care who it goes to, I don't care what they do with it, or their actions. The U.N has it out for me, but I am a step ahead of everyone.
The cold war was a start, I was an us navy, smuggling arms to rebels in South America and Africa. Money was no problem, I was comfortable but it hit a ditch, I looked around and saw more customers.
fables, epics, fictions, many across the world think they don't exist. They're in the shadows, waiting, the grim reaper hasn't stopped, but he can be more efficient, and so can the others. their tools were old, rusty, and unreliable and they came across an opportunity. I gave the grim reaper the combine harvester, the cupid a sniper rifle, David a Desert eagle, Thor a lightning ray. They have come back, more powerful, and stronger and they will gain everyone's respect. Forcefully. They call me the Jackal and this is where I stop. | 2022-07-19T11:14:38 | 2022-07-19T10:11:49 | 59 | 28 |
[WP] When people bury their dead, a tree will grow in it's grave. In these graveyard forests, trees of different types, shapes, and sizes can be seen. But the fruit bearing ones are most peculiar, and come from the unlikeliest of people. | I always wondered why my mother always insisted we not move away from our home in rural Minnesota. My childhood passed as the world evolved rapidly into the twenty-first century, and with the explosion of technology came an explosion in me; one of yearning for more than Rose Valley had to offer.
My town was home to a measly 487 people, so small that the nearest high school was 17 miles away. My adolescence was a cycle of getting up too early, taking a commute that was honestly too long, and coming home to a town of too few people who I actually cared about. My mother insisted that when I grew up I'd think back fondly on my home. I never believed her. The sooner I could head to the Twin Cities for college, the better.
What Rose Valley lacked in anything remotely interesting to do, it made up for in one semi-macabre attraction: the Rose Valley Arboretum. The sprawling land was home to not just the thousands upon thousands of trees, but also the thousands and thousands of bodies buried just below the foliage. People came from around central Minnesota to bury their loved ones here. Perhaps that was one of the reasons I couldn't wait to leave; who would want to live surrounded by the dead? I only knew one person buried there, and he wasn't someone I could say I gave a damn about.
My father's grave was near the outskirts of the graveyard, with a stark white headstone. "Calvin James Whittier - A community, country, and family man." Perhaps the fact that he'd died when I was so young made me bitter towards that last phrase in particular. He'd never been my family, or at least not a part of any family I recognized. My only memories of him were those captured in photographs around our house. My mother liked to tell me I reminded her of him - according to her, my high cheekbones and brown eyes made me distinctly *his*, a thought which always made me feel like an imposter in my own body. How could I belong to someone I couldn't remember?
It was August, hot and humid. I'd received a letter with my housing information for the University of Minnesota the previous week - I'd be moving out in just a few days. My mother lamented my soon-to-be absence. I'd reminded her that she could always move to Saint Paul, but she shook her head and looked at me with the mom-eyes that said a thousand words. She couldn't leave Rose Valley, even if I didn't see why her husband's corpse could be so compelling. She insisted that the last day before I departed, we take a trip to the Arboretum. Picnic basket, blanket, and candles in hand, we drove my blue truck to the edge of the forest, and settled in front of the white stone. A tree grew behind the stone, tall and rich with violet blooms, heavy with fruit.
My mother reached up and pulled a plum off with little resistance and tossed it to me. She picked another before sitting down beside me.
"I know you think me foolish for staying around here for your father, but I thought you ought to understand why this tree is so special to me." She had the mom-eyes again, almost like she was looking straight through me to the plum tree. I sighed, preparing myself for another drawn out explanation of how much she loved my father, and that the fact he was taken from us when I was so young makes her feel as though she needed to remember him even more. Over time I had come to resent these talks. I didn't need to make myself sad over a father who I'd never really known. My mother took a bite of plum, and I followed suit.
The burst of juice dribbled down my chin, but I hardly noticed for the flavor, the bite of tartness, the full-force sweetness felt like it rolled over me. The fruit tasted of happiness and fond memories and family. I could no longer picture my father's face outside the posed moments haunting the walls of our house, but with each bite I felt as though I could hear his laugh, the warmth of his arms. The plums *were him,* his very essence captured in the burgundy fruit and violet flowers.
I understood why my mother couldn't leave Rose Valley. | My wife said it was heartless -- that it bordered on the inhuman. Honestly, I'm not sure I even knew what it meant to be human anymore. *We are handling this in different ways,* I would tell her. *I don't think yours is wrong. Please don't judge me for mine.*
Time was, I could have simply stepped over the wrought-iron fence. Nowadays, I brace myself with a hand that hardly shakes if I concentrate on it hard enough. I get my first leg over on the second try, then take a brief break to re-position my hands before attempting to finish the maneuver. Once I get my other leg over, I start the trudge up the hill.
I had decided to take the western approach, through the evergreens. Pines, sure, but also cypress, cedar and spruce. The occasional redwood, too -- the oldest ones towering above the rest. Personally, I hoped to be a juniper when my time came...I just wasn't sure that I had what it would take.
The smells of the foliage, the moist earth, bring snapshots back. The first few months, I would fight against them, willing myself (futilely) to not see. Now, I didn't bother. The way the sunlight would turn her hair reddish-gold, the yellow dress with the felt strawberry sewn onto it, the drawing of two stick figures -- "It's you and me, Daddy! That means it's happy!" -- that we had long since packed away, in one of many boxes we will never open.
I reach the top, forehead damp. *We are handling this in different ways*, I had told her. But am I handling it?
Matthew Follick. That is the name on the marker. It had seemed so perverse, at first, that he got to continue living so many years after he had taken us from her.
Now, it doesn't bother me. Nothing does -- well, almost nothing.
I look up into the branches, and slowly reach out a hand, and then I pull.
The peach is so sweet that it almost brings tears to my eyes before I can even take a bite. | 2020-07-27T11:29:33 | 2020-07-27T10:30:51 | 84 | 27 |
[WP] When you touch a person's hand, you can see their most closely-guarded secret. | "Nine times out of ten, it's a sex thing. I brush up against someone in a crowd and suddenly have a flash of some depraved act they've never had the nerve to try. Or maybe they do. Anyway, what I'm saying is, I see a *lot* of sex stuff.
"But every now and then, I get something else. Those are almost always crimes of some sort. The bulk of those are money things. Cheating on their taxes, embezzlement, not telling the wife about the Swiss bank account - that kind of stuff.
"Then I meet an asshole like you. Murder. You're actually only the third one I've ever met. Out of the thousands and thousands of people I've bumped into, you're only the third murderer. The first one was a lady that had pushed her friend out of a treehouse when they were little. She carried around the guilt but it wasn't really a proper murder, you know. The second was man who had been driving drunk and took out a family of three in a minivan. I called the police and left an anonymous tip. He's doing twenty to life upstate now.
"You, on the other hand, are the first true dyed-in-the-wool murdering prick I've ever met. I did a little research and all those girls you killed are listed as missing presumed dead. Nobody ever tied them all together. You changed things up just enough to keep that from happening, didn't you?
"Even if I called the cops, and by some miracle they took me seriously, there's no way they'd get to you before you killed someone else. As much as I hated to do this, I thought I had to get involved. I started watching you. Found out where you lived, where you worked, where you hung out. Kind of a loner, aren't you?
"Yeah, I'm sorry those ropes are so tight but at least you're in bed, right? I have to leave that gag in place - I'm sure you of all people understand that. I can't tell you how glad I am that you're a homeowner who lives alone. Makes my job so much easier if I don't have to worry about innocent bystanders.
"Anyway, I woke you up to explain it all before I finish this. I'm gonna douse this place in gasoline and light it up. I'll slip out the back door and into the night. I waited until we had a good dry spell so I wouldn't leave footprints. The cops aren't going to find me because there's nothing tying me to you. If everything goes right, the smoke inhalation will kill you - or at least make you pass out - before the actual flames get to you.
"I can see in your eyes that you still think you're going to get away. Well, you hold on to that.
"Well. Guess that's everything. Better get to it." | As I knelt down and offered her my outstretched hand, a small circle of gold contained within, I saw her mouth widen in joy and her ey**e**s soften with affection.
She nodded. Such a simple gesture, but it was enough to make my eyes swim. Through blurry eyes I guided the ring onto a delicate finger. This was the first time we had allowed ourselves to touch. In a second I would see her greatest desire, and she mine. I held my breath. As our hands touched, the translucent phantom of a baby blossomed to life beside her.
Beside me, another apparition had sprung to life, that of a tiny toddler kicking softly in his crib. We gazed lovingly into each-other's eyes, and each-other's desires, before embracing and weeping tears of joy. | 2016-09-10T07:27:46 | 2016-09-10T05:36:02 | 33 | 13 |
[WP] You die and go to hell only to find out you've done every sin in the book, all 461 of them. To put it frankly, Satan is impressed. | Hello!
Let's get the obvious out of the way- yes, you're dead. Yes, this is hell. Yes, I'm the devil. Yes, you will soon face eternal torment. If you've quite finished screaming? Ok, have a few more minutes, but then we really need to get on with this.
Please stop trying to escape. Better men then you have tried. I said ***STOP.*** Good. Now, let's see what your file has to say.
Ok, murder, assault, theft. A fairly generic life of crime. Blasphemy, heresy. So far it seems I can just fling you down into a generic pit of fire and...ah, I missed some.
"Unwholesome deeds with a chicken", 1 through 10? We haven't anyone doing all ten in a while! I didn't realise the equipment for number 6 was still around. Impressive dedication.
"Hypermurder", I think I put that in while drunk, I'm not sure I even finished defining it, but you managed it. "Clowning and clown-related shenanigans". Apparently those two were part of the same evening, along with "inconsiderate yodelling" and "use of cats for unintended purposes". And yet, still not in the top ten most sinful evenings of your life according to our records. No, listing the top ten, if anything, tarnishes your record further. But thanks for simplifying the process
"Building a vast tower to rival heaven". That brings me back- i'm sorry? You're right, we normally don't count childhood escapades, but this was when you were 34. And the bricks were stolen from your neighbour's terminally ill brick-collecting child. Incidentally, also making this the 4th time "stealing bricks from terminally ill brick-collecting child" has been committed in human history. The previous times being... on further investigation, also you. Congratulations on setting a new record!
"Unethical plumbing installation", "spending child's college fund on creation of elaborate badger-tormenting machine", "stealing someone's heart metaphorically and then also literally", "Repeated uses of the phrase 'OwO what's this' in official government documentation"- you really are reaching an impressive level here! So far the only one you're missing is... ah, there we go. "Pride at one's list of sins". You're the first person to reach the full house!
Honestly, I'm impressed. You must have been really trying for a lot of these. And in hell, we're willing to really reward that kind of go-getting attitude! Not like heaven with their endless hosannas and harp-playing. No, you get the luxury suite!
You seem...unnerved. Expecting some kind of ironic twist, perhaps? I see my reputation precedes me. But like I said, I'm impressed. The tortures of the pit are for lesser folk then you! The purely sinful may enter through this door, to be rewarded with luxury and decadence beyond imagining! And the fools up top believe in Karma! Of course, you don't hold to such foolish notions yourself, I'm sure. Now, you will know only rewards for your sins!
Although...perhaps you are not *purely* sinful? Perhaps you show one virtue? Trust? Perhaps even in those who...don't quite deserve it?
Ah. You see. It doesn't matter, of course- the door will never reopen once we close it. I'm afraid this is where we part ways. It's been a pleasure.
Farewell, my friend.
And once again, congratulations! | I had a interesting challenge.I was going to commit all the sins possible.In my peak I would commit 2-3 sins daily but some of them required more planning such as “satanic rituals"but I think I might be able to do that.I lived a solid life but of course it ended as the lights started to fade .I fell asleep but eventually I woke up.Smiling to devil himself .“well,I am impressed" devil said.Darkness covering his black throne,he got up from his throne reaching up for the wall.He touched the buttons on the wall only to reveal a mysterious crown.“You crazy bitch, you did it" he said “I saw you doing every single sin but I didn't thought you would be able to do all 461 of them" I said rolling my eyes“well,thanks I guess is there a award or something like that" devil was even more impressed than before for my ignorance he said his voice cold as steel “you know the yin-yang thing we're like that destined to beat each other endlessly" the room got more cold how the fuck was that possible it was freezing my brain.I was horrified “ you're now the new devil" he said.I muttered “How was that possible" he said you will get it more when you get older and wiser and that was the time the light went out.I am now the devil.I conquered all the hell again.I build it all
"So kid that's the story you told me but now I am telling it to you"
----------------------
Sorry everyone if it was hard to read it's my first try at writing and I am a newbie also English isn't my mother tongue
EDIT:for more context also shout-out to u/slimeoid for ideas | 2019-01-04T11:53:02 | 2019-01-04T11:05:03 | 133 | 13 |
[WP]You've been dating an amazing woman for a year. One day, she gets a call and rushes into the closet. When she comes out, she's weraing white armor, and a matching sword and has wings coming from her back. She says "I have to go, but I'll explain when I get home." Before flying out the door. | I stood there for a while. Then I made a list. I had to make a list.
* Angel.
* Hallucination.
* Virtual Reality.
* Superhero.
* Incredibly elaborate prank.
I kind of ran out of ideas after that last one. I waited, and I waited, and I decided to make dinner. Once dinner was ready, I waited some more. My brain spun up explanations. Aine always seemed very reserved. She didn't like to talk about her family. I knew she was hiding something for months, but I didn't push her on it.
At around midnight, she showed up. She was limping, not wearing the armour anymore. She had her clothes from work, slightly singed, and her hair was a mess. I led her inside.
"Baby, what's happening?"
She moved her mouth a couple of times before speaking. "I... I had to sub in for my dad."
"Wait what?" I asked, serving her some food. She looked at me with so much gratitude, I couldn't stay mad at her for lying. If she was lying. Maybe it was all a hallucination.
"My dad. He's \*Paladin\*. I... well, he was busy. I had to cover for him," she said, in between stuffing her face full of meat.
"Paladin... the superhero?" I asked, thinking about the pleasant, mild-mannered man I had met a few months earlier.
"Yeah."
"...Explains how young he looked--" I started.
"Mary, aren't you mad?"
"Why would I be mad? I--you're going to explain, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then, we're okay," I said.
"Okay. Okay, so... my dad is Paladin. And he was busy fighting against some monster, and... he called me in to help stop a small-time villain from robbing a bank while he was busy."
"Okay," I said, having a hard time processing. "Okay. Cool. So... the wings?"
"They come and go as necessary."
"The armour..."
"Forged by the fae, along with the sword of truth, yeah."
"And... you can do swordfighting?"
"It's complicated," she said, "I can use that sword. It's in my blood. Anthing else, I'd have to practice at, but I took fencing in highschool and I did it pretty well."
I nodded, "so... not an angel."
"No, I'm not a--" she laughed. "What?"
"And not a prank?"
She stood up from the table and hugged me.
"And this isn't a simulation?"
She laughed, but there was a strained quality to it, and a pair of wet drops fell on my back from her chin.
"Sweetheart? Are you crying?"
"I love you so much. You're--you're just..." she pulled away from me and looked at me with wet eyes and a grin on her face. I wasn't sure how to react, but then she made it easier for me.
"Mary Li," she said, in a serious tone of voice, before rummaging in her jacket pocket. Then she knelt and pulled out a little box. "I love you more than anything in the world..."
"Oh my god," I said, staring at her as my heart began pounding in my chest.
"...Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?"
I couldn't scream yes loudly enough. "Yes! Yes yes yes! YES!"
She pulled out a small ring, then put it on my finger, and I nearly tackled her in a kiss. She tried to apologize for not telling me, but that was all out of my mind. All I could think about was how there were no more secrets between us, and how much I loved her.
(Note: Story is a prequel to this, told from the wife's point of view this time: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Eager\_Question\_Writes/comments/8qzi2k/wp\_your\_father\_is\_a\_superhero\_he\_never\_aged\_tired/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eager_Question_Writes/comments/8qzi2k/wp_your_father_is_a_superhero_he_never_aged_tired/)
And also to this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Eager\_Question\_Writes/comments/991jgr/wp\_a\_super\_villain\_presses\_charges\_against\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eager_Question_Writes/comments/991jgr/wp_a_super_villain_presses_charges_against_the/) ) | (First time poster, be gentle.)
It was very odd for our phones to ever ring passed 9PM on a work day. All of our friends knew us as the "boring couple" because of our habbit of turning in early, but it never much bothered us being boring.
"Dad? Is it time? " Gabriella's voice cracked a bit when she answered the phone but it was kind of cute in a way. What wasn't cute was how she tore through our bedroom like a woman possessed before locking herself in the closet.
"Everything okay babe?" I asked giving the closet door a light tap with my knuckles.
"Everything's fine I just...I just have to go help my dad with some stuff." She replied through the door.
It was pretty strange she didn't talk about her dad much, and now she was going to help him out of the blue. Though to be fair I didn't talk about mine either so I guess we were even on that front.
"What's wrong with your dad?" I asked trying the closet door only to discover she'd locked me out. "You're starting to worry me." I added moving to lean my head against the door to better hear her reply, but just as I began to do so the door swung open.
"Dominic, I'm sorry but I can't really talk about this right now." She replied a light blush across her face as she stood armor clad and winged before me. She was almost as bright red as the first time I'd seen her naked.
After a few seconds of taking in her appearance it finally dawned on me what she was. I went to speak but before I could her lips fell onto mine.
"I promise I'll explain everything when I get back, but I've got to go." Her tone was sweet as ever, and I couldn't muster any words to reply. Instead I just gave her an understanding nod as I moved to take a seat on the edge of our bed to collect my thoughts.
An instant later she was gone and my mind was racing. How could I not have seen this before, it all made so much sense. With the the clarity of her reveal still fresh on my mind I began making connections in all of our memories together. It was so clear from the start she was an Angel.
I felt guilt bite at my mind as I reached out to my nightstand to collect my phone. -one missed call-. "Yeah I thought so." I said with a sigh as my leathery black wings unfolded behind me and my sharp horns curled out from my forehead. "I guess I should get dressed." Another sigh escaped me as I stepped into the closet and shut the door. | 2018-09-16T15:50:30 | 2018-09-16T15:47:49 | 47 | 23 |
[WP] Your smile literally lights up the sun. Every day humanity has to ensure your happiness or else they suffer through darkness. | "I...I really don't know how to tell you this. But, uh, I just feel that uhm, we should, we should take a break." he finally stammered out. My grin widened, out of instinct.
"It's because of that bitch Charlotte, isn't it?" I made my best attempt to sound angry.
"Yes. I love her. I want to spend the rest of my life with her." He continued bravely, despite a tremble of fear in his voice. Still I smiled.
"Fuck you. Get out." I said in staccato. The tears were swimming in my eyes.
"But-"
"Go."
He turn and left, first slowly then at a full sprint, fearing a reaction. Tear drops streamed down my face, but I smiled, as I had practiced. All of my energy was focused on keeping the corners of my mouth skyward. I couldn't let them droop for a second. If I did, that asshole cheater would be whisked away to a prison, never to fall within my eyesight until I granted his freedom. Even upon release, he would be forever branded an outcast, an "other." Just what every girl dreamed of being able to do to a boyfriend they caught with another.
But I couldn't. It wasn't fair, he was only being honest. Thousands of people did the same thing every day, without fear of the fate he was risking. He must really loved her to put himself on the line. So I smiled, even though it crushed me.
I would see them every day together, and I smiled. She gushed endlessly like a middle school student about her brave love, and I smiled. He adjusted his tie stumbling on his way to her father's door, and I smiled. He dropped to one knee at her feet, and I smiled. She burst from the church in the ugliest white gown I've ever seen, and I smiled. I saw her pushing their child in a gaudy stroller through the grocery store, and I smiled. They grew older, and I smiled.
I hated Charlotte for taking him away, and I hated that man even more, but still I smiled every time I saw them. I couldn't do anything else even if I wanted to. It was only fair. The love of my life deserved to be happy, even if it wasn't with me.
My friends got married, and I smiled. My mother past away, and I smiled. My father followed her, and I smiled. People went in and out of my life like a revolving door, and I smiled. Charlotte died, and I sobbed. | I gyrated my mouth and I watched.
The whole valley before me was covered, the masses had gathered and responded to my whims. Massive speakers played my mixes, choreographed to my facial movements.
This was the 23rd annual rave, a special day when the sun would strobe for 24 hours. Slowly, quickly, slowly, then quickly again. It was just another one of my slaves.
I looked down at three Victoria Secret models occupied with my throbbing member. Upon release, it playfully bobbed to the music.
Deep bass permeated mankind that summer nightday, and my star played along. It was glorious. | 2016-03-30T19:30:03 | 2016-03-30T18:52:44 | 19 | 10 |
[WP] Every wizard receives a small book on graduation day that magically fills itself with spells that the wizard will need in his/her future. You receive your book only to find out that it's blank.
Up to you how the magic system works and whether the books are sentient or not. | "A spell," he began, "Is pure power given form." You could hear the groans of the students as the lecture opened up, since we had all heard this before. It was the opening lecture from our first days in the Academia. Even the speaker was the same--Professor D. P. Fizzlespark, a gnome who was particularly short--even for gnomish folk. He had artificially inflated his own voice, in order to speak to the class of five hundred who were graduating on this day.
"One speaks the incantation, and their words are given shape with the Aether that flows through their blood. Hand movements create the crucible to birth the magic, and components hold the magic together," he produced a small ball from the pouch on his hip, "Bat guano," I could smell it from here, "is the component required for the fireball spell. I'm sure you've all seen enough of this stuff to last a lifetime," he laughed, we all shuddered in fear as he continued his speech.
We had all heard the stories. Hell, we had all been given the long and short of it. We were to receive books today. Books that would contain the powers that we could access. Some of the more overachieving students were expecting at least five hundred spells to their books. I could hear their whispers, even behind the booming and high-pitched drone of Professor Fizzlespark, who was continuing on, despite knowing that none of the students were listening.
"In your hands, you each hold a tome. The tome contains five-hundred pages in total. Each of these tomes holds a number of spells, based upon your magical aptitude as Wizards. Everything in these books have been magics that you have learned as a Wizard. They will be your guides, for the remainder of your lives." To be honest, I had very little in terms of magical prowess. It hadn't stopped me from trying, but I certainly had languished behind my other classmates. It was a strong memory for incantations and general magical theory that had kept me out of the drop-out group, but I still had my worries. Whenever I had tried even the most basic of spells, my material components had not even taken hold, and the spells were always just a little bit off-kilter because of it. It was cited as 'strong, with lots of power, but no refinement'. I agreed.
"I thank you all for your four years of study here at the Academia, but now we must say our goodbyes. You may open your books when you wish. If you have any inquiries, Convener Tessara is here to answer your questions." He motioned towards an Elvish woman with hair to her waist, the color of pure fire. If you were told that she was a water wizard, you'd probably refuse to believe. I heard the book click in my hands, and had to stare at it for a few seconds. I looked to either side, and noticed Melisandru going through her book with a gleeful expression, pointing out spell after spell to her brother. A smile crossed my lips as I returned to my own book.
The cover fell open, and my smile faded. I flipped through each page, trying to find something--anything--but there was not a single thing. My own spellbook was empty. My face blanched, and I slowly--shakily--got to my feet. People were laughing and cheering, but I seemed to be alone in this case. My eyes met with Convener Tessara's, and she beckoned me over with a smirk. It took me a moment to realize that she was calling for me specifically, and as I picked my way through the crowd, I heard laughs and jeers as people noticed my open and empty book. I stood before Tessara and looked up at her, trying to open my mouth to explain to her what had happened.
"Your book is empty?" She asked, as I finally got the words through to her, "Let me see." She grabbed the book from my hands and flicked through the pages, before dropping her arms down to her sides and groaning, shaking her head, "Is there magical blood in your family?" After a few seconds of thought, I answered her with a nod, claiming a Draconic influence in the past. "Of course there is. Well done, you've just wasted four years," She pushed the book back into my chest, grumbling. I had to ask what she meant.
"You're not a Wizard. You're a bloody Sorcerer. That's why you did terribly at everything, and yet none of us saw it. Well done. You're officially the first Sorcerer who graduated from a Wizarding Academia with literally nothing gained. How does it feel?" I looked down at my hands. She was wrong. I understood now, why the book was empty. *"Everything in these books have been magics that you have learned as a Wizard."* I knew what Sorcerers were. Mages who had magic in their blood that manifested as power--uncontrollable power. They were feared by most Wizarding circles due to their difficulty to restrain and control, and yet... I had received the discipline of a Wizarding student. A grin crossed my face as scales fluttered and shimmered into life on my fingers.
"It feels... perfect." | “This book,” the dean said as he shook my hand, “contains all the spells you will need in your future.”
I took the book from his other hand and walked off stage. My friends were all jumping around, sharing what spells they had as I walked over, my book open in my palms. But all it was was a tome of blank pages. No spells. No anything.
“What did you get?” one of my friends shouted.
“Dude, check out how thick my book is!” another friend yelled in my ear.
I kept walking, right past them, and found a quiet spot void of people to sit down. I stared at my book, wondering what the purpose of a blank book would be. Did I never need to cast a spell? Might I be unable to actually cast magic properly outside of the classroom?
A hand rested on my shoulder, soft and warm. I grabbed it with my own as she sat down next to me and looked at my blank book. We sat for a couple minutes, on the outskirts of the stadium where the graduation had taken place, and watched as all our friends and classmates jumped about and screamed their heads off. Spells were zinging all over the place.
“Things aren’t always what they seem,” Ashley said, leaning her head on my shoulder.
“Yeah, well I don’t see how that could help me,” I replied. “What else could a blank book mean?”
“That you’re not restricted like the rest of us,” she said, letting out a sigh. “These books contain all the power a wizard will ever have. Our futures have been written for us. And, unless your future is blank, I think that you may just get the opportunity to write your own.”
I stared into her eyes for a few seconds.
“You know, if you really can’t perform magic, it doesn’t matter to me, right?” she whispered, our breathing becoming slightly faster.
As my lips met hers a loud explosion tore through the stadium. I looked over where many of my fellow classmates laid, their bodies burned and charred in an instant. Above the center of the stadium was a wizard, hovering in the air, fireballs emanating from his hands and raining down on the stadium.
“We’ve got to run!” Ashley shouted to me, grabbing my hand and trying to drag me out of the stadium to safety.
But I didn’t move. I watched on. The world had never seen such magic before. Magic had always been used to repair, or heal, never to wound, never to fly.
“Ipsum Caladrion!” I shouted as I walked towards the center of the stadium, Ashley watching on in horror. Fire radiated from my hands as I threw my first fireball.
In the meantime, my magic book lay open on the ground, the first spell writing itself on the book’s first page. *Ipsum Caladrion - Summons Fireballs - Invented by Josh Colder*. See, the thing was, my book was blank because the spells had yet to be invented. I, Josh Colder, am one of the first of my kind, an inventor of spells, and a combative warlock.
“Pazi Kandal!”
The staff arose from the ground and glided perfectly into my hands. If I was going to fight with magic, something heretofore unheard of, I was going to do it in style. | 2015-01-30T18:35:54 | 2015-01-30T17:29:19 | 30 | 21 |
[WP] The Fairy hesitated. She knew tradition demanded that she curse the new born princess for not being invited to the christening, but it wasn't her fault the messenger fell off his horse. She decided to get creative with the wording. | Part of the fey package was shapeshifting.
It didn't do to advertise it- you don't get very far as a mysterious, powerful figure who is Not To Be Trifled With if you advertise every single power you've got. Leads to smartasses, and smartassery *never* ends well. Plus, then you've gotta clean up the blood and guts afterward, and the spell that gets the tough stains out is a *bitch* to pronounce.
So you didn't advertise.
Instead, a simple farmhand came in to see the christening, and everyone who thought that the simple farmhand shouldn't be there suddenly remembered something terribly important that they needed to be doing *right now*.
And the farmhand beheld the child.
It was...well, it was like this. Tradition is tradition. Not inviting the local, broadly benevolent otherworldly being to the princess' christening was just *rude*. The tradition was there for good and solid reasons. And being fey meant being *bound* by traditions. Literally, that was where the power came from. There was no such thing as a properly rebellious fey, any more than there was such a thing as dry water or an honest politician. It was a contradiction in terms, no matter what mischief a fey got up to. Mischief was the greatest tradition of all.
But still. It wasn't *her* fault. It wasn't her parents fault, either. The main person who could be blamed was currently bedridden with several broken bones, which was probably enough punishment for the crime of riding a clumsy horse.
It didn't *feel* right.
But mischief...mischief was tradition. A curse didn't need to be terrible, and it didn't even need to be unbreakable (though an easy-to-break curse was absolutely out of the question. It simply wasn't *done*. You might as well ask a bear to flap its paws and fly.)
A curse was called for. The nastier the better. It was tradition.
Mischief was called for. The more unexpected the better. It was tradition.
Everyone else left the room, under the impression that that was the done thing. They'd be back soon enough, in time to witness the fey in her public appearance form, all memory of some farmhand gently guided from those few minds who would have remembered on their own.
It did not do to be quiet about curses, once they were cast.
The casting itself was quiet, though. Bound by tradition, they fey whispered a truly nasty curse for any member of the upper crust.
"You will know, inerrantly and always, when you have cast blame on another that belongs on your own shoulders. You will always know when the fault is yours, even if you never say a word to anyone else. You will know, and never be able to forget until you have made amends. I so curse you, in the name of the transgression committed by a horse you have never met."
It was nasty. Festering guilt upon the mind. It was a curse, in form and in function.
It was mischievous. A horses mishap now meant that the land would have a fair and just queen. A queen who would not only know when she was guilty, but know when she was innocent, and live a life free from nameless worries of unrecognized guilt.
The curse had been cast. As tradition demanded.
The curse had been subverted. As tradition demanded.
Fey is fey, after all. | Chapter 1: "Rules are to break them"
The polished black stone was almost 2meters tall and half as wide, there was some mouvement inside, like ripples on the surface of a pond of still water. In front there was a tiny person, dwarft by the titanic monument at the mirror façade.
It was a *seeing stone*, made of black quartz etched by runes and silver and gold, polished till one face could work as a mirror ; a very special mirror. Sound could not travel throughout the eather-wave even tough using magic caused a ruckus for those keen enough to perceive it, so any one trying trying communicate through the eather-wave using a seeing mirror had to learn the complex hand signs of the Arcanum.
The child like figure was furiously gesturing towards the black depths of the mirror. Inside those deepths there was another figure, wearing gold and red and blue and had the stance of power. She was "listening" the plea of the child like figure.
"....but I have no black clothing! And.. and how am I supposed to conjure darken skies and acid rain? I am the daughter of Gaia, not her destroyer!" Pleaded the tiny figure.
"The laws are the laws my dear, there is no escape. You must **curse** the child" responded the figure in the mirror. "If you do not then you will lose your powers. I know you are not at fault that the horseman fell and broke its neck but I am sure you will find a way to *break the rules without breaking them*" | 2021-11-08T13:23:10 | 2021-11-08T10:52:07 | 363 | 46 |
[WP] You're a lazy superhero with the power of precognition. Your modus operandi is showing up to a crime scene ahead of time and making some small change to foil the criminals' plans. | Sometimes superhero-ing can be a thankless job – more so for someone with my powers. I had learned my lesson from my brother before me. He was honorable and ambitious, but eventually that led him to a dangerous habit: proactivity.
My brother convinced me at some point to go into the whole hero gig.
“Jack,” he had said turning to me at our weekly dinner with mom, “It’s been three months. You could do so much more with your gifts.”
I refused to look up and continued to enjoy my mom’s spaghetti. But he did not relent.
“Seriously, dude. It’s awesome and all that you can park outside by that no-parking sign and know you’re not gonna get a ticket or towed, but in the grand scheme of things…”
I hated when he got all noble like that. He had always been a bit preachy, but ever since the Day of the Burnt Sun, he had become damned near unbearable.
“You listen to Matthew, honey.” My mother chimed in to side with my brother. *Big surprise*. “Your big brother is looking out for you. Such a good boy.”
“Just imagine, Jack, the amazing things we could do together.” His eyes softened and glazed over as I’m sure fanciful pictures were dancing through his head. “Me, with my precognition, I could figure out when the crime is about to happen. I’ve tried a couple times, but I can’t really get the changes I need to make right. That’s where you can help!”
My powers deviated just slightly from my brother’s. While he was able to see discrete events that were going to happen, I was sometimes able to see the future, but as if it was a string that branched at different choices. I could then follow one action to its consequence and so on until I got a headache from the infinite possibilities.
My mother got up and went over to the oven to grab desert. I promptly kicked the cat, sending it running from the room screeching furiously. My mother turned quickly.
“Jack! How many times do I have to tell you? Do not torment the cat!”
“Geez, mom!” I replied, “the cat was going to trip you and you were going to drop desert. I just want some friggin’ pie.”
______________________________________________________________________
But Matt did convince me. After that, all I was able to picture the glory and fame of superhero-dom. And so, it went. We *did* build a fanbase with the first few attempts. With his knowledge of future events, and my foresight into consequences, we were able to foil criminal enterprise with minimal effort. The first time, he led us to outside a jewelry store right after the thieves had entered.
“Jack, what do we do now?” He asked. “Call the police?”
“No,” I replied. “Those guys will be out in twelve minutes; the cops get here in fourteen. The cops chase them down… a civilian gets run over during the chase.”
“Then what? We go in there?”
I strained my mind to gather the consequences. “The tall guy pulls out a gun. OUCH! He fucking shot my leg. We are definitely not going in there! But wait…”
I stared at the cars parked on the side of the road and considered them deeply. I walked down the street to an old gray sedan. I kicked at the hood, prop it open, and fiddled with a spark plug that had not been replaced securely. I closed the hood while Matt called the police. They wouldn't be getting away now and no one would end up getting hurt. Against Matt’s protests, I left a calling card, which included links to a website I had set up for us.
________________________________________________________________
I took a few liberties with our next few crime-fighting adventures. I stopped a postal worker going postal at the post office using an angry trapped raccoon, and another time dropped a bank robber with -- *get this* -- a banana peel.
Matt, however, was not one for theatrics or the limelight. He would slink away by the time the police or the journalists with their cameras got there. He seemed to be growing increasingly distant. That’s when I found out he was not informing me of all the gigs. He was going solo on occasion, stopping criminals before they even got started with their crimes. Dropping a few hundred-dollar-bills in front of a guy who was thinking about robbing a convenience store just to get by. Or the lady at the bus stop who he stopped by to chat with every day, just to get her to not kill her husband. Regardless of the satisfaction he got from these small kindnesses, he grew more somber day after day. Finally, he approached me about it one day as we sat on some rocks by the water, staring at a bridge.
“Jack. I need your help.”
“With what?” I looked upwards and smiled as I heard first the screams of a crowd as a man jumped off the bridge, but then applause as he got entangled in the safety net we had placed three hours earlier.
“That guy we just saved... In three weeks, he’s going to place bombs at city hall and go on a shooting rampage at the community center, causing mass casualties. I’ve tried doing small things to change his mind for the past few months. I helped him win the lottery, got him a dog that he loves… but the future doesn’t budge – I might have even made things worse.”
“What? Why did you want to save him then? We should have let him die!”
Matt scoffed and shook his head. “He was going to survive anyway. I thought maybe if he didn’t go through this… you know? But if we told the police?” He looked at me inquisitively.
I searched for that eventuality, grasped at the strings and followed them to their ends. “No… He hasn’t planned anything solid yet, his gun is legal, doesn’t have any explosive supplies, they have nothing on him. He goes free, and still pulls it off. But we could stop him right when he’s about to… oh wait, no. Then both of us die. Don’t worry, Matt. We’ll figure something out -- maybe closer to the date.”
Matt silently got up off the rocks and walked away while I went up to the bridge to greet the reporters. I didn’t hear anything from him for the next week which wasn’t super strange. But then he missed dinner the next week at mom’s. We finally saw him the following week as mom and I were watching the six o’ clock news while eating lasagna.
[ *A Central City man, Matthew Harper, has been arrested today for the murder of James Rolland. Rolland had recently survived a suicide thanks to the efforts of the superhero duo, the Precog Brothers. Harper turned himself in to police, offering the murder weapon, but no motive. No furth*-]
I turned off the television and kicked the cat. | What would you do if you could see the future?
Would you run the numbers?
Not make that deal with the devil?
Go to starbucks when you know they have that Unicorn milkshake thing? Get ahead of the mass of college kids that find out on twitter/insta, 30 minutes later after you have one.
I choose option C which is why I'm currently standing in line ordering 2. Well that and the other thing well I mean, maybe. So while they start making me my special drink I walk to the other side of the store. Bored and looking at my watch I stand in front of the door and push a chair ever so slightly to the left. Making sure the angle on it is just right, I walk back towards the counter toying on my phone.
2 minutes later 3 men comes running in hands full with a bag of presumably cash through the other side. One held a gun at the door waiting for someone to appear another had his arm thrown around his friend had a single bullet wound in his arm a gun at his side. The cashier starts yelling, women and children screaming, one of the robbers shot some rounds in the ceiling to silence everyone. My drinks were on the counter just in time although there were 4.
*What asshole orders 2 of these things? I mean me but I'm special* one was a slightly different size. *Why didn't I check for this before leaving the house?*1
"I'm sorry which one of these are for David?" I asked the barista hiding behind the coffee machine. She stared up at me wildly, she looked like she wanted to hit me. "Nevermind then geez". I picked one up and preceded to drink it slowly watching things unfold naturally. See these robbers had been stealing and robbing multiple banks up and down the coast somehow avoiding police. One problem is they had no issue hurting and killing civilians who got in the way.
*Which one is it?*
Gunshot robber sat in the chair, while his friend walked towards my exit. Watching this unfold I let myself smile as I watched my plan unfold. The robber closest to me snatched my drink out of my hand yelling at me to get on the ground. I sat down while watching him check the door, and kick my chair out the way making it slide towards the middle of the room. The robber threw the straw out of my drink chugged from the top of the drink. Looking at me, and telling me how good it was daring me to make a move for the exit door.
The distant sound of police sirens made the robbers turn and look at the doors watching the outside. Lucky for them the Starbucks was tucked out of the way of the main street, which just seemed like bad business to me honestly but that's beside the point.
"What do we do big bro? The cops usually don't respond this quick!" gunshot wound yelled from the sofa chair.
"Nothing, you asshole we wait for everything to die down dumb ass then leave." Front door robber said.
*Cough* blood splattered out of exit door robbers mouth. He hadn't been paying attention but I had removed the cap off of my drink when his friend shot bullets in the ceiling. A piece of plastic from the ceiling actually fell in the drink it had been in need of remodeling but, the workers had been putting off on doing it. The dumbass had just swallowed a bit of soft plastic that had cut the inside of his throat just enough to only cause problems later. He stumbled to the middle of the room his gun in his hand tripping he fell towards the chair.
*BANG*
You know any other time or day that shot would have not mattered or even happened it was impossible. When the robber fell he had perfectly smacked his hand against the chair. Out of reflex from pain and the blood in his throat he fell over, and clenched.
Gun etiquette matters kids don't forget!
"WTF!" Door Robber yelled.
"Gah!" Gunshot robber now had two holes in him this one in his chest.
Perfect shot wow!
"He's gonna bleed out soon you know? You're out of bullets, you put the last few in the ceiling, and he only had one more bullet in the chamber. Him" I said pointing at the GSW guy. "Put 5 rounds in that officer back at the bank, like the sadistic asshole he is"
"You have 2 options leave them which you can't since you are blood brothers after all"
The man's eyes went wide, "How do you know?" he said.
"I'm a part-time hero it's kind of my thing, oh option 2 right" I continued drinking from the second cup" You call the ambulance because they will survive as long as you call in the next 5 minutes" I said.
I walked out the door the exit guy was blocking and, started walking home.
"This drink fucking sucks man" I threw the drink in the trash.
| 2017-05-11T06:48:16 | 2017-05-11T06:34:26 | 22 | 10 |
[WP] "Roll for perception!" you jokingly yell before making a forward roll on the ground. As you come up, you suddenly become acutely aware of the number of power outlets, location of and path to the fire exits, and that your friend Sebastian is actually a lizardhuman. | We had played DnD for about a decade. Sebastian, Elliot, Leo, and I. We hung out in Leo's basement most of the time because he had the room for it. It was... dumb fun. We never ran an actual campaign, it was basically just improv. "I seduce the guard. He's happily married. I seduce the cell door. It works, and it bends open as it swoons. I fire at the kobolds before they steal the jewel. They dodge and form a leaning tower to flip you off."
Later on, when we got to college we sorta drifted but Sebastian and I stayed tight since we went to the same school, though different majors. I went through to the History department, while he started his Math degree.
One day, we were walking around making jokes and basically reminiscing on the quad. Sebastian failed at a cartwheel and landed in a bit of mud. He shook it off pretty fast. I laughed and said he should have rolled for perception. He didn't seem to notice, worried and focusing on wiping his hand clean.
Back in the common room, we watch tv and he still seems worried, looking at his hand. He'd never been a major germaphobe, but he'd always been careful with his hands. Never liked Cheetos for that same reason.
I'm giving him a little crap about it, trying to lighten things up. I do a somersault, while saying "Roll for Perception". I slam my cheek into the wall right as I end and almost fall over.
He definitely laughs at that, but asks if I'm okay. I look around. It feels like I could see everything for a minute. The outlets. The scratches on the windows. The seams on the carpet. And a bit of dirt on the claw of my best friend, who stood just as awkwardly as he normally did, only scaled and green.
"You okay?" His mouth opened and I could see razor teeth like needles. It was Sebastian's face. His voice. But... it wasn't him.
Just like that, he was back to normal. Black hair, peach skin. But the dirt... the smallest bit of dirt, almost imperceptible hovered barely a fraction of an inch over his hand.
"No. I think...." I pause. "Hey, Seb...?"
"Yeah?" He looked worried. It was still his face. But I felt like I could see under it. The scales moving to form that same human expression.
"Are you a lizard?"
He freezes. Just for barely an instant, but it's there. He laughs, and quickly swats my back.
"Dude, you MUST have hit your head. C'mon. We just need to get some food."
He'd always been fidgety. Always wrapped in layers in winter, even inside.
And that dirt, his palm stayed behind my back, but I swore it was there.
Was he dangerous? Was there some evil plan? Was this actually Sebastian
But I'd been hanging out with him all day. It was just... the normal awkward skittish Sebastian.
'Do I expose him?' I thought. And then what? It... this... he's Sebastian.
We sit down and grab some food. Sebastian keeps holding the hand that fell in the mud in a loose fist. His fingers hidden from view.
A bit into eating I felt his body language change. Like he's getting ready to say something. Before he can, I start talking.
"I've been having some issues with Professor Klein. Riemann stuff just never makes sense to me. How the hell do you figure it out?"
He waits a minute. The way he always had. Like he needs to think out every word.
"You just need to... think of it all as a whole. It's both the total and its parts. Just keep both sides in your head."
"Fucking calc man. Why is it required? It's not like I need to prove this when I become a professor."
"Maybe not you but some of the smarter history guys might." He said and cracked a smile.
He was still Sebastian. My friend. | At first, I genuinely wasn’t sure if I’ve completed the roll, or hit my head on the hard floor to trigger a cascade of inane information. Such was the life of a person whose idea of physical activity was sitting up to grab another can of soda.
But I did. And I realized that the soupy feeling my head had was not because it was turning to soup—but information that flooded my brain. Like blazing arrows drawn out in front of me, I knew where the exits were. Little glowing orbs formed over the power outlets. And something surrounded my best friend, Sebastian—a green aura forming over him.
I squinted. His forked tongue licked the air, and yellow eyes slowly turned onto me.
“Jake,” he said, shaking his head with a wry smile. “I cannot believe that you actually did it. You rolled without breaking any bones.”
“Yeah,” I said, nerves chipping away at formerly simple words.
He saw me hesitation, and narrowed his eyes. Those strange, strange eyes.
“Are you OK? It was pretty funny. That roll for perception joke.”
“Funny, isn’t it?” I said, seating myself on the floor. A migraine was incoming, a dark storm building on the horizon. “I wish I hadn’t said it.”
Sebastian stood up, reaching a hand towards me. I looked away, unable to look at him.
“What are you talking about?” he laughed. “Come on. Let’s continue playing.”
“Get away from me,” I whispered.
“What? What the—”
“Don’t make me roll for an attack, Sebastian,” I said solemnly, crouching down and preparing my knees for yet another forward spin.
“What the hell are you talking about? Stop it. Get some help.”
“You know damn well what I’m talking about! You are a lizardman! You have scales! Eyelids that go sideways! A big reptilian tail!”
My best friend fell silent. He flexed his hand. Did it use to be that big? And have so many claws at the end?
“My suggestion, friend,” he said. “Is that you better start rolling for survival.”
---
r/dexdrafts | 2022-04-05T09:08:34 | 2022-04-05T08:29:50 | 484 | 60 |
[WP] In a fantasy land, the Demon King goes to a distant guild to take a break from evil, when he meets a young and naive female adventurer on a quest to slay the Demon King. For fun, he helps and protects her on her quest, and eventually grows affection. Then they arrive at the gates of his castle.
Inspiration from this: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/3h86k3/write_a_single_sentence_idea_for_a_story_and_have/cu554k0 | "A glass of your finest mead and a comfortable bed for the night," the girl exclaimed as she entered the guild hall/inn. "Tomorrow, I'm off on an important quest."
I knew what her quest was, knew it the moment I saw her face. The same face I remembered from all those years ago, when Kairo Village burned to the ground, only older, more determined. She sought to kill Archon, the demon king who was responsible for that blaze and so many more. I decided I would join her, at that moment.
"Mead's on me, barkeep, " I called as I walked towards the bar. I grabbed a small but heavy sack of coin from my pack and tossed it on the counter. "And keep 'em coming for both of us till the lady's had enough or the coin runs out."
"Thanks, stranger," she said as the barkeep nodded and prepared the first round.
"My pleasure, miss. I heard you were on a quest?"
She nodded. "That's right, I'm going to take the head of Archon." I smiled at that, one part amusement, one part admiration at her dedication. She smiled back, and for a moment I could believe I faced an angel.
"Well then, I would be glad to lend my skills, meager though they may be, to your cause." This would be fun, I thought. "I'm Noh, a jack-of-all-trades, but mainly I deal with the arcane. Handle a blade not-too-poorly as well, if I say so myself."
"Sabra," she smiled. "Warrior maiden and adventurer extraordinaire."
We drank and talked late into the night, until the lady had had enough *and* the coin ran out, and in the morning our journey began.
----
Some months later, we neared a castle. Not Archon's, but that of one of his generals. "This place is dangerous, Sab," I warned. "Night-beasts and fiends roam openly."
"A perfect place to practice, then," she grinned as she drew her sword. We entered the fight in earnest, my blade and flames flicking in perfect time with hers. After a few waves of fiends, the master of the castle faced us.
"Who dares disturb my sanctum?!" Astaroth bellowed, rows of teeth shining and sharp in the pale moonlight. He hefted his great lance. "No matter, the great Astaroth will see you ended!"
The fight was fierce, and Astaroth was skilled. We fought valiantly, but just a moment, an instant, before I struck the general's head from his body, the tip of his lance found Sabra's chest. As Astaroth's head hit the dirty ground, so too did she.
"SABRA!" I cried as she fell. How had I allowed myself to become so attached in such a short time? More to the point, how had I allowed that blow to land? I raised my hands as if in prayer, and energy arced across them. I muttered a few words in an ancient tongue, and placed one hand on her head, the other on her chest.
She began to stir. "Mmm..." She moaned as the life flowed back into her body and the gaping wound healed.
"Ssh... Save your strength. I may be able to heal you, but you'll still need to rest."
Hours passed, and finally, with the dawn, she awoke. "Noh..." she whispered. "You saved my life..."
"Not at all, Sab," I replied, in a tone nearly as quiet. "Merely healed your wounds."
"I was dead, Noh," she said, more alert and serious than I had ever heard her. "I saw my parents. I was tempted to go with them, but they told me it wasn't my time, and then... Then I felt you, pulling me back." She sat up, and kissed me. I was surprised, I had never expected that. I leaned in and returned the kiss.
It wasn't until evening that we were ready to go on. We both walked, heads in that moment.
----
"There it is!" Sabra yelled in my ear, her head rising from its place on my shoulder, nearly knocking us both for a loop. I wasn't ready for this... Just a little more time...
As we approached the castle gates, no one came to meet us. "Is this demon king a coward?" Sabra cried. "Afraid to face justice?"
"Sabra..." I whispered, sadly. "I'm sorry, love."
She looked at me, confused. "Sorry... for what?"
"In all our time together..." I stalled. "You never asked my last name."
"Noh?" She seemed meek, almost afraid.
"The name I chose... was Noh Cra. I'm sorry, love..." I stopped cold for a moment as the fear and sadness welled in her eyes. Fear and sadness I once would have relished, that I now so hated. "I am the one you traveled all this way to find. By your side all along... the demon king Archon."
She shook her head, tears pouring from her eyes. I reached out, wiped them away. "Sabra, it's your choice. Stay with me, become my queen... perhaps your gentle heart will be able to temper my heart of darkness..." I laid down my blade. "Or strike me dead where I stand, end my reign, avenge your family, your village, and the many more beyond number I have killed before and since."
She stood, frozen. "Before I make my choice... the hardest I ever faced... could we just watch the sun rise one last time?"
There, on what would be either the place of our betrothal or of my demise... There, hand in hand, we watched the sun rise. It was the most pure, good moment I had experienced since I took the throne. | "Well..uh...so this is me, I guess," Edrick mumbled, gesturing past the closed Bone Gate, towards the imposing tower of flames and carnage behind it. "I had a really great time with uh...with..with uh, you."
"We're not done yet, Edrick. This is where the fun starts." Madelyn said, grinning her devilish grin and adjusting her breastplate. Edrick blushed.
"Oh uh...wow...I don't know what to say," Edrick stammered. His eyes darted toward the ground, the sky, his home beyond the gate-- Anywhere but Madelyn's eyes. "I mean, I didn't really have time to clean up, I hope you don't mind.."
Madelyn smiled and reached a gentle hand to Edrick's face. "The dirtier the better," She said, smudging the almost-dried monster blood on Edrick's cheeks. "Just means we're doing the job right. Did you remember to bring protection?"
Edrick nodded, his face blushing even brighter than before.
"Great. Let's do it." Madelyn said, walking toward the Bone Gate.
With a stiff push, the gates opened and Edrick followed Madelyn through, kicking himself mentally for firing his groundskeeper. The black-rose gardens were a mess, the head-pikes hadn't seen fresh heads for months, and the fire moat looked more like an ember trail. *How embarrassing*
"So, uh...not gonna lie, I'm pretty nervous." Edrick said.
"Me too, Edrick. But we've come so far, we can't stop now. We have to go all the way. Our future depends on it."
"Right. I mean, I've never done anything like this before though. It's all pretty surreal. We've been through so much together these past few weeks." Edrick said.
Madelyn stopped and turned to Edrick, her sparkling green eyes piercing through the stray stands of fiery red hair falling across her face. "Me either, Edrick, but now isn't the time to be getting cold feet. If we don't do this now, then everything we've accomplished will have been for nothing. Sack up and let's get this done. There's no better time than now."
Madelyn didn't wait for a reply, she turned heel and picked up pace towards the main tower. Edrick eyed the devil-hounds in the distance preparing their attack. With a quick flick of his wrist they were dismissed, granting Madelyn safe passage to the draw-bridge over the dismal flaming moat. He followed her over the bridge and into his home, silently cursing the lack of tortured souls. *No ambiance whatsoever. How embarrassing*
Madelyn stopped just inside his home, darting her eyes over every inch of the entrance. "It's quiet...too quiet."
Edrick nodded and pushed past her, into the dark abyss of the impossibly long hallway.
"Be careful, Edrick." Madelyn whispered.
He found his way to a small table in the back and, after making sure he was out of view, flipped a switch. The soft, soothing sounds of Barry Manilow filled the room and broke the awkward silence.
Madelyn drew her broadsword and reached a cautionary hand towards Edrick. "Do you hear that, Edrick? What treachery is this?!"
Edrick coughed and flipped the switch again. Marvin Gaye's sultry sound replaced Manilow's. "You coming or what?" Edrick asked, trying his best to seem confident.
Madelyn tightened her grip over her broadsword and made her way through the darkness towards him.
"What now?" Madelyn asked, huddling in close to Edrick.
Edrick clapped his hands together and the room lit up, revealing a sofa made of bones and human hair and a fireplace lit by the sins of mortals.
"Netflix and kill?"
| 2015-11-15T19:38:22 | 2015-11-15T18:52:07 | 86 | 58 |
[WP] You're an ancient Greek man coming home from four months of war to find your wife 3 months pregnant. Now you've embarked on a solemn quest: to punch Zeus in the face. | You stomp down the road to the Temple of Zeus, your wife behind you pleading.
“Love there isn’t anything to be done, there’s no sense in starting a fight with the King of the Gods!”
“King of the Idiots if he thinks he’s going to get away with messing with my wife!”
“This happened to that one woman down in Delphi, now they have a son who can do twice the work around the house. It could actually be quite helpful.” Your wife pleads trying to block your way.
“He has no respect for anyone else just because he’s got some immortality.” You say as you side step your wife.
“And strength, and powers to basically control everything.” Your wife was gripping your arm, desperately trying to hold you back.
“I don’t think this is a good idea” she croons, her beautiful dark eyes are full of concern.
“When has that stopped me before?” You raise your wife’s hand to your lips and pull your arm gently from hers.
“I’ll only be a minute” you promise as you step into the outer chamber.
&nbsp;
“ZEUUUUUUUUUUUS!” You begin to yell as you walk into the inner chamber.
“ZEUS!”
“Oi! Zeus man!”
“ZEEEEEUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! SHOW ME YOUR FACE SO I SHALL STRIKE IT!” You yell, your voice echoing off the high ceilings.
Then the ground below you begins to tremble, a voice roars, you feel the sound in your chest.
“WHAT MORTAL DARES COMES TO MY HOUSE AND TALKS OF OBLIGATIONS OF A GOD!”
You feel your legs begin to shake with fear as you clear your throat, trying to keep you tone strong. “It’s me, the husband of the woman you slept with.”
The voice paused a beat.
“THE MORTAL WILL HAVE TO BE MORE SPECIFIC.”
“In Thebes, three months past.”
Silence.
“THE MORTAL WILL HAVE TO BE-”
“Tryphania! The woman with dark hair and dark eyes” You growl rubbing your forehead.
“AH YES HER” Clouds filled the chamber, lightning began to flash, the light so bright you had to shield your face with your hands. You feel a strong gust of wind nearly knocking you off your feet.
“She was beautiful, you are very blessed.” A strong voice echoed down the chamber, a ten-foot-tall man stood at the end of the hall. His long white hair floating behind him as if he were in water. His chiseled face turned upward in a small smile. His body clothed in the finest cloth you have ever seen, it seems to shimmer in the sunlight.
&nbsp;
You fall on your knees. You hadn’t really expected to get this far. You had come to the temple to pray before but had never gotten a solid answer. Now here was a solid answer. A god that could kill you with a single thunderbolt. But you had come this far you had to at least try.
“Zeus you owe my wife an apology!”
Zeus’ face darkened “You dare stand before me after I have given you praise and imagine of telling ME what to do?”
“Uh no, of course not. It’s just, my wife is pregnant now with your child.”
“Many blessings to you.”
You force a grin “Of course, we are blessed to have your bloodline. But Zeus-
&nbsp;
“ZEUS WHERE ARE YOU!” A female voice thundered in the hall, Zeus looked up his expression guarded.
“In my temple, my wife Hera” he responded sweetly, he glanced down at the mortal.
“It’s not the husband of someone’s poor wife you’ve taken advantage of, is it?” The voice layered with anger “There will be nowhere on Olympus you will have any peace if I find out-“
“OH MY GODDESS HERA” You crow, staring at Zeus triumphantly. Zeus figures your plan and is standing in front of you in an instant holding a thunderbolt above your head.
“Don’t. You. Dare.” He whispers menacingly, you feel the heat from the thunderbolt on your face.
“I want a healthy crop on my land for one thousand generations to come” you whisper back.
“Fine.” Zeus snipes.
“And good health for my family for one thousand generations to come” you add smiling.
“Fine! Fine!”
“And my family will be wealthy-"
“For one thousand generations to come, already on it.” Zeus hissed his eyes flitting about the temple as if waiting for Hera to walk in.
“YOU MORTAL HAVE GIVEN PRAISE AS ONLY IS RIGHT. I WILL BLESS YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.”
You nod approvingly and Zeus glares at you. “Don’t push it” he hisses as his human form begins to evaporate.
| He lived his life with honor. He raised six sons, and eight daughters, all with honor, deference, and reverence for the gods. He did this in Hera's name.
He sailed across the wild seas, falling pirates as he went. Returning home, he sacrificed his finest bulls. He did this in Posideon's name.
He fell the fiercest of wildest beasts, braving their snarling jaws alone. He butchered the carcasses, took the teeth as trophies, then burned the fat. He did this in Artemis' name.
He cultivated gardens, of exquisite flowers from far off lands, until their perfume rivaled any before seen on Earth. He did this in Aphrodite's name.
He waged wars for noble cause, with fine strategy, emerging glorious in victory. He did this in Athena's name.
He waged brutal war, for wars own sake, reveling in the melee. Blood stiffening on his red stained limbs, he declared his victory in Ares' name.
He gathered his living, and held a feast, with food and wine for all. They feasted and made merry, until none could walk alone. He did this in Dionoysius' name.
He gathered his dead, and sent them towards the River Styx. He fasted, and mourned, all in Hades' name.
He went out among his people, and helped them sow. Years of plenty followed, and every harvest was done in Demeter's name.
He opened his own door, and served any who came. He sat them by the fire, bid them rest, and did so in Hestia's name.
He brought forth gold and gems from the depths of the Earth. He brought them to the muttering forge, and crafted in Hephaestus' name.
He ran in the Olympics, fleet of foot, winning every race he tried. He stood proud before the crowd, and accepted his medal in Hermes name.
Stories grew of his accomplishments, until they were as much legend as truth. He laughed, and sang them too, his strong voice ringing in Apollo's name.
When he finally died, the Olympians drew him up the rainbow, preparing to finally greet their champion in person. He knelt before them, lavishing praise upon them, until Zeus himself approached him. The man looked up, awe in his eyes.
"Zeus?" He asked. "Aegis-bearer? Oathkeeper? Thunderer? King of the gods? Zeus of all the Greeks?" Stately, the deity nodded.
The man stood in a flash, and swung his fist, faster than the lightning his victim wielded. Scowling up at the angry god, he stood still proud. As the god collected his powers, readying to strike the impudent mortal, the being spoke.
"You slept with my wife you sick son of a bitch."
And the hero was no more
Edit- thanks for the gold u/Cyndayn, you wonderful amazing straight up fantastic fellow. | 2017-11-25T14:56:19 | 2017-11-25T14:49:26 | 142 | 88 |
[WP] Write the letter that you always wanted to, but never did.
Most of the writing prompts I see on here are for fictional stories, but this is only one small corner of the larger art of writing. In this prompt, I'd like you to consider writing something a little more personal, and in a form that you might not have otherwise considered... Letters.
Perhaps you'd like to write a letter confessing your love to a long forgotten crush? A letter to your boss telling them exactly what you think of them? A letter to your school bully? Maybe a letter to your childhood hero telling them how much you were inspired by their career?
Be creative, be inventive, but most of all - be expressive. :D | Dear Pops,
You were a real fucking piece of work you know that? I don't think I've hated anyone quite as much as I hated you. You called me lazy, good for nothing, useless. Made me spend my youth being the mule in your construction business instead of spending summers with my friends. You absolutely hated the fact that I loved everything you didn't. You thought computers were evil, Xbox was going to rot my brain, and if it didn't involve school or work it wasn't anything worthy of my time. I remember the day I came home on college break, the day you sat me down to let me know mom had left you. I fucking hated you for ruining my 3 week break on the very first day. In fact I thought you deserved it. Mom was being an absolute irrational cunt, but you deserved it. And it was the best thing that ever happened to you.
I remember you tripping over a chair on the way out the door at 3 am as you were reaching for your truck keys. I came into the kitchen and you said you were headed out for a ride, I decided to tag along. You bawled your fucking eyes out on that ride, it was the first time I'd ever seen you be human. The last two weeks of my break we spent a lot of time together, I was actually sad to leave. It was the first time in 18 years we'd had conversations that didn't end in Fuck off. I moved in with you after college was over, and decided not to go back. You let me work for you which was the best/worst time I've ever had. I watched you lose your truck, we sat on the couch watching TV for two weeks when there was no work. We had bill collectors call once and talk to both of us. We ate more peanut butter and ramen noodles then we'd ever care to admit. We became really really good friends.
In hind sight I'd like to apologize for the seething hatred I threw at you growing up. I know you meant well. I'm probably better for you not giving me everything I wanted and pushing me like you did. That's no justification for all the mean shit you said day in and day out but I can look past that. You had a different way of helping, you were a string puller, and I get that as I've become one myself. Remember when I crashed my car coming home from the store? The roads were pure ice, and you were pissed. Remember how mom said it was amazing that my insurance didn't go up? Yeah I heard that phone call. "Just slid off the road" did ya? And that time I applied to work at the general store in town? You talked to the owner on my behalf and said he didn't want me working there. I was pissed. Two months later he was charged with embezzlement and all the employees were implicated. I didn't miss that one either, or the other hundreds of times things mysteriously worked out for the better.
It was a good 4 years to live and work with you pops. I saw you genuinely happy, we both hit financial bottom and picked ourselves up again. You had a massive heart attack that that inspired me to go into the medical field, and you to kick those life long bad habits you'd been promising to kick. You met a new woman, fell in love and remarried. Which is for the better. Someone's gotta keep an eye on your crazy ass. But I knew you were bummed you had to quit construction. It's all you've ever done and you were fucking good at it. You certainly didn't have the money or the personality to retire and I doubt you ever will. Good thing that sales job opened up when it did huh pops? Good thing thing too, cause you're fucking great at it. I knew you would be. And it's the least I could do.
With your new found financial stability I've seen the dreams I never even knew you had come to fruition. You spent a whole week hunting this year. Those three hundred blueberry bushes you always wanted are planted and you even sold some. You got your tractor you always talked about buying but never did. And my fucking god. I don't know what you see in chickens but you have them and if it makes you happy, well fuck it, I guess I'm happy too. We had a rough start, but you've always had my back even if I didn't know it. And don't think for a fucking second I don't have yours.
Love,
Your Son. | Dear Azura
You have no idea how much you mean to me. Throughout the years I have known you you have brought me countless joys, you make me smile, you make me laugh, you make me happy. When people bring up perfection you are the first person that comes to mind, even though you don't believe it yourself. Your eyes. Your face. Your Smile. Your laugh. Your personality. Your Everything. Even your name. Azura. Just saying it is beautiful. Before I met you, I didn't believe in love at first sight. When I saw you, all of that changed - you were the most beautiful, wonderful person I have ever met, and like a fine wine, you only grow better with time. When I am around you, I am at my happiest. When we talk my heart dances to your voice and your laugh, and my eyes get lost in you, and I can truly say I am happy.
But your love is like a drug.
When you leave I delve once again into emptiness and loneliness, and nothing can fill the void left in me when you're not around. When you decide that I'm not worth your time, I recede into a place where only sadness resides. When you take advantage of my kindness, when you treat me like trash and when you play with my feelings, I feel a sadness that is more powerful than the sadness felt at a lost relative, a failed exam, or a disappointed parent. Yet despite the way you treat me sometimes, I can't help but love you. I have tried everything to move on, and yet I am still lost within you, and something tells me I will never be able to find my way out of those eyes. Something tells me, in years to come, when you have forgotten me, I will still be dreaming about what could have been.
I'm sorry I'm not good enough.
It kills me that I'm not good enough. That I'm ugly, awkward and not experienced. It's not your fault. You deserve perfection nothing less. When you find perfection, and when you forget me, I hope that it lasts, and I hope you find every happiness you have ever wanted. I will be glad when you find the person who completes you, and I know that person will never be me.
You will forget me. I'll just be another face, another person you used to know. However, I will never forget you. You will always be in my mind, up until my dying breath, when the world has decided to let me go, in search of one last beautiful sight - I will think of you, and the times we spent together, so that I can smile when death takes me.
With all of my love,
Alex. | 2015-12-05T17:35:16 | 2015-12-05T13:59:40 | 182 | 16 |
[WP] Humans are the least intelligent species on Earth. The entire animal kingdom plays along out of pity for our idiocy. | I do not understand these humans, Rick.
What is there not to understand, Sam?
When do they mature? When do they see the truth?
You mean the cycle of life? Yeah, they don’t understand.
How is it possible? Every species on this planet does.
Except for these guys right here. To top it off, they seem to think they are the most intelligent of all life.
You would think they would realize it when a majority of them live a majority of lives in misery. Even the ones who do see the truth cannot pass it on to the others.
Well there were a few who tried - *Siddharta Gautama and the other Buddhas, Krishna, Jesus, Muhammad, Odin*. The humans worship them but they do not listen to their wisdom and teachings. What lunacy is that?
It isn’t really that hard of a concept either. Life is just cycles:
* Be born - explore life, play, take in the beauty of the world.
* Grow up – enjoy and appreciate life as you do. Take pleasure, procreate, travel and experience life to the fullest.
* Do your duty – joy comes from it, give back, help when you can
* Grow old and die – meditate, think of the nature of life and what is truth or happiness, and the universe. Attain *moksha* and move your now enlightened soul into the next life.
They do not understand the concept of duty nor appreciate the beauty of death. Therein lies their problem.
Maybe I will try explaining it to them in my next life.
You know that we do not tell them since it is the greatest source of entertainment for us. The only one actually.
It isn't right. You know it.
I do. But you know to do that you must sacrifice the progress you have made through your lives so far.
We must fall to pick ourselves up and get stronger. To let ourselves to grow. Only through sacrifice can we reach our salvation. It is one of the essentials to achieving salvation. Maybe through this I can finally become one with the universe.
You do not have the patience yet, my dear friend and that is why you are the mouse and I am the cat. But if still feel that it is your purpose, then I will help you move on. I promise I will make it quick dear friend.
| Kinda of what the Quran says. I remember reading a passage once that God wanted to give consciousness to animals but they all refused. Knowing that consciousness would come with responsibilities such as avoiding sins. Really, they just wanted to do their every day business without worrying about if they will go to heaven or not.
So God created another creature which would have consciousness, humans.
In that sense, I guess the animals are smarter. | 2017-10-22T03:05:33 | 2017-10-22T02:42:04 | 56 | 10 |
[WP] "You'll never rest", they said. "Eventually, you will come to hate your eternal curse", they warned. 6 billion years, 3 intergalactic voyages, and more planets than you can count later, and you're still skipping along, having the time of your life with your 'cursed' existence. | In the same place where the Gods are born, they also die. I sat with him while he sobbed, reaching and holding the nape of my neck like it was the last thing holding him up. I guess I was.
"Taylor, the John's Son, please...Make them believe I'm real," he said.
I said nothing.
"My brother is still alive inside of me," he said.
I knew that his brother died the instant his world was shattered by a meteorite half its size. However, he survived because the aftermath burned up in his atmosphere, but killed what little life was developing on him.
I took his hand off of the back of my neck and held it gently, in my hands. "You can't be brother planets if your brother is dead. Already your story is being remade. No one believes a God dies, so they have to remake the story of your planet."
"But I believe that I'm real," he says, the tears in his eyes shimmering in the failing light. "I'm like you; adrift in the infinite. I am my own. I should be my own."
I patted his hand and nodded at him, "But there is a difference between you and me. I don't remember your name."
There was one instant when there was a look of disbelief in his face, and then the God died. I survived, and ended up on his old planet, where the light of the sun was clouded over by the debris. The world was still and lifeless.
I walk with a lively gait to my step and begin singing a song that crossed my mind for the first time in millenia:
"He was born a pauper to a pawn
On a Christmas day
When the New York Times said
'God is dead!'
And the wars begun
Something Something has a son today..."
It was then, that my back was pierced by a spear, and run halfway through me. I kneel from the awkward weight and catch my breath. A small, bulky man walks up to me, and he is adorned with skins and war paint.
He raises my head to meet his with a war hammer made of bone. He says, "First, I killed my brother. Now, I kill you. What name do I call you while I piss on your corpse?"
I'm inconvenienced for the first time in a really, really long time. It might have been enough to get me down.
But I smile as I begin to stand up.
I developed a sense of optimism a long time ago. Things happen and then you deal with them. I can always, always manage. If nothing else, I have the time.
The new God's mouth falls open and I grab him by his throat. As I raise him up, I struggle pretty hard to pull the spear through my body. The wound will close with time, but this punk's pride isnt going to heal. His hammer falls and he pisses himself.
I say, "I'm Taylor Johnson of the long dead Planet Earth. What's your name, punk?" | I spent much of the first couple billion years wondering what would possibly turn me to hate my curse. I stopped wondering when I became lost in my happy task. I committed to new levels of creativity. I made a world of what I call "meat things" after I became bored with simple mineral and chemical creatures. Eventually a form of meat things emerged with nearly sentient minds. Now I worry I am seeing the start of my 'cursed' existence. After so much struggle my meat things project may be only producing suffering! It is a time the meat things call "2020" for some reason. The closer I look into the semi-sentient meat things lives the worse I feel about making the whole project but I must move on now. Carrying the guilt of abandoning them to such a fate gives me pain. I will not be making meat things like them again. I like the behavior of the lightning liquids I've made more anyway. | 2020-10-25T10:56:55 | 2020-10-25T10:32:06 | 121 | 50 |
[WP] In the future, when everyone turns 18, they are required by law to find out the day they will die. When you get tested, the machine returns an infinity symbol. | I had put it off for as long as I legally could but now I had run out of time.
I had to go to City Hall by tonight to submit my details and then a computer would do its calculations and spit out a piece of paper that would contain details of .... my life span.
That paper would hold details of how many hours I still had left to live , knowing which I could calculate the Passing Out Date - the exact date of my death.
As many computers in all cities and towns across the world had announced for millions of people before me.
I had tried to revolt against this forced practice of knowing my date of death. I reasoned that life would be no fun if we all knew when it would end. But all my logic fell on deaf ears.
A law had been passed a quarter century ago that if someone didn't know his or her Passing Out Date , then he or she was essentially a non entity. No medical insurance ,no voting rights ,no prospect of a job - Nothing
When a technology comes along that seeks to answer the biggest uncertainty of them all - an individual's life span , the Governments of the world collectively decided that it was best that they know the exact answer about each of their citizens to,as they put it to sell the idea to us,effectively plan their services.
Corporates soon followed - Insurance companies who since their industry began had been paying teams of actuaries to statistically model and figure out answers precisely for this question.
The medical profession soon followed along - more efficient planning for transplants , surgeries , emergency services and what not.
After all if they knew someone was pre ordained to die today, what was the point in trying emergency surgery or transplanting a perfectly healthy kidney onto him when it could serve someone with a longer life span much better.
Slowly the whole world was brought in line to accept the technology
I inserted my ID card and gazed straight ahead as the computer did an Iris scan followed by a full body scan.
A few minutes later a technician with a clip board walked over and presented me a folded chit of paper with my name neatly printed on the front.
"Go ahead - open it".
"No thanks. I prefer to go home and see it when I'm by myself "
"No. You don't understand. By law we are supposed to have you sign here after you have received and read that piece of paper "
"Can't I come back tomorrow for signing ?"
"Nope. I'm sorry. We just follow rules here. You have the paper with you. Now you just need to open it , look at it and sign here. Then you are free to leave "
I had a bad feeling about this as I unfolded the paper
For such a life changing moment of such importance, there was nothing else on it except a symbol.
I didn't believe my eyes and for a moment I couldn't breathe. I rubbed my eyes,brought the paper closer to my face hoping I had seen something that couldn't have been right. But it still had just that symbol printed.
∞ hours.
The symbol for Infinity.
Wordlessly I showed it to the Technician.
"Wow .." was all he managed to say before he fainted right in front of me.
I didn't want to wait here much longer. Too many thoughts were running in my mind and I needed to get home so I could process this information.
I grabbed the clipboard from the fallen guy's arms , scribbled a signature against my name and rushed out.
I spent the rest of the day in shock,wandering aimlessly around downtown.
By the time I finally got my racing heart and mind in control it had become quite late and a slight rain had started to fall.
I realised that nearly eight hours had passed and I hadn't had anything to eat the whole day
A traumatised bus driver would recollect later when questioned by the police that the young man had stepped off the sidewalk to cross the road as if in a daze and had ignored the loud horn as the bus bore down on him, unable to stop so suddenly in the rain slick road
In the ambulance carrying the dead young man, one of the Emergency responders noticed that he had been clutching a piece of paper when he had met his death.
Gently prying the bruised bloodied fingers open he took it out and saw that it was the Passing Out Date notice and that it had been printed this morning around 9 hours ago.
His eyes widened when he saw what the computer had calculated and printed.
It couldn't be right. This man shouldn't have died tonight.
Unless ....
He did a quick mental calculation from the time printed on the chit the dead man had been holding to the time of the accident as confirmed by the bus driver
The emergency Technician couldn't help but shiver violently even though it was a warm night outside as he realised that the number 8 printed sideways did resemble ∞, the symbol for Infinity | My birthday had arrived. I was nervous. See on our 18th birthday we take "the test" which tells us when we will die. The test is always discussed during elections, a lot of people disagree with it, but up til now they've never had enough support to end the practice. Some people argued that it was dangerous. What if someone found out they were supposed to die soon and decided to rape and murder people? Another group feared it was a self fulfilling prophecy, incentivizing people into their own deaths. Why would someone fear driving drunk if they knew tomorrow was their day? What if that lack of fear was the cause of their death through reckless behavior?
My parents were supposed to die in their 80s, and they didn't mind the test. They thought it incentivized people to experience life to the fullest and to know when it was time to pass things on. I kind of agreed but I was still nervous. What if I was to die young? I know it's a silly thought but it had been nagging at me. At least I would know soon I guess. My crush had just found out she would live into her 60s, which wasn't bad. She didn't know that I cared so much but at least I figured if I had many years there would be time to pursue her.
When it came time to take the test the administrator had me sit in an office type chair. He asked the standard questions which everyone knew to expect after hearing them from their friends. I answered dutifully, there was no reason for a rural farmers son to lie about his origins. After the questions I was instructed to place my hands palms down on a metal tablet. Two of those pads they use to measure heart rate were stuck to my chest. It took the machine a minute but after it stopped humming the administrator looked confused.
"That's weird, what's a continuous loop error mean? Let me call I.T."
He stepped out for a few minutes and came back in with a small woman who proceed to open the command prompt and type some code.
"Odd... the code hasn't failed, his lifecycle is reading as a continuous loop because it never ends..." the woman said.
The man went pale... he informed me we would need to talk to my parents. I was confused.
A day later we had a meeting with the test admin, the woman, and the city council. It lasted hours. Eventually after being interrogated to the point of exhaustion my father looked at me and said "son, I'm sorry, but it's time you knew."
He turned to the council and told them I wasn't born from my mother. I had arrived in a small craft which crashed in his wheat field 18 years prior. Fear flooded my body as the council began to be aggressive with my family. My father, the steadiest man I knew, finally turned towards me and said "Clark, Smallville Kansas isn't big enough for you. Your destined for great things." | 2017-09-02T02:46:59 | 2017-09-01T20:55:47 | 17 | 12 |
[WP] You find out that whenever you are killed, you are revived with an immunity to whatever killed you. Document your experiences | Dr. Jeon comes into the hospital room with a mask, gloves, and a needle. "How are you doing today, Frank?"
"All right, how about yourself?"
"Fine, fine. How was France?" I just got back a couple days ago. Between tests, when they don't need me, they send me wherever I want to go with charity money. I don't think I deserve that kind of treatment, but they do. And it is nice of them, I guess.
"Sure changed a lot since the last time I've been there."
"When was that?"
"Hm, forty, fifty years ago?"
"I bet, Frank." They try to always send in the same doctor to me, so we can build up a rapport. The last doctor, Dr. Saunders, retired five or ten years ago. Dr. Jeon is a lot more reserved, but he's nice too.
"Is this that new flu you told me about?"
"Yep."
"How many dead?"
"Four hundred, five hundred? Mostly affects children."
"Say no more. Hit me."
"You're amazing, Frank," he says as he wipes my arm with the anesthetic.
"What else can an old man like me do?" He finishes with the injection and steps towards the door.
"I have to go now, Frank. I'll check back tomorrow. The nurses will bring you anything you want. Good luck." I nod at him.
I've died from everything: AIDS, every new variant of the flu, hundreds of poisons, nerve gas, cholera, mad cow disease, you name it. It's just as bad as it sounds. Every one is awful in its own way. I die, for a few minutes. But then I come back and I recover. I get immune.
They figured this out when I was 110. I'd always been known as a tough old bird. I survived polio when I was a kid, pneumonia, mumps, scarlet fever- nothing ever really got me. I bounced back from them all. Same thing when I was older. I got a bunch of stuff (including cancer, that was the scariest) but fought it all off. The doctors finally noticed when I died from heart failure. I was fine, I was ready to go. I'd had a good life. My family all figured it was time too. They were all around me in the hospital room. Then twenty minutes later, I was awake again- on the way into the morgue. Scared the shit out of some nurse. That was the one that drove everyone crazy. I still remember the doctors all saying "this is impossible, this has never happened!" That was when they figured me out and started investigating me and testing me. When I wake up, they take blood samples and tissue samples and look at it and do God knows what with it and they end up with medicines. They say I've saved millions of people. That makes me feel good, anyway.
I know I should have died a long time ago. My family never comes and sees me anymore. They like talking about me, but would you really want to talk to your great-great-great-grandfather? Didn't think so. You've never met him, he was always in the hospital dying from some disease. What does he matter?
I've been damn near everywhere with the traveling. It's interesting. I never could have imagined it back at home before they figured me out. I'd never even left the east coast before then. I like trying their food. But I wish my wife could have been with me. Traveling alone all the time gets on your nerves.
But I know I have to keep hanging around, because nothing out there can kill me. I know I'll get bored of everything eventually. At least I'll be saving people. That's all I have to hang on to. I'm helping people. I'm the world's sacrifice. | You know medically you can die of a broken heart? No, I didn't either. It's bullshit, isn't it - the whole idea that you pine away from grief and you can slowly feel it splitting in two, halfway down your chest - like I said, bullshit. But I did.
He held my hand like a lifebelt as he sat propped up in the swathes of white sheets. A bobbing line tracked his heartrate, graphs demonstrating his bloodsugar level, multiple bars and pie charts and line graphs all telling us what was perfectly clear to anyone who just *looked* at him. It was like the fragile hand of death was already resting on his shoulder and he didn't quite have the strength to shrug it off.
He patted my hand. His smooth skin bore no wrinkles and I found, suddenly, that I couldn't look at him. We had determinedly told each other that we would live for ever, until we were old and grey and more wrinkled than a badly-buttoned shirt at a high school dance. He was in the prime of youth and he was about to die.
"You keep on being good, alright?" He said, drawing one slow breath after the other like he was counting each one.
"How can I?" I was bitter, even then. "You're taking the best parts of me with you."
"That's no excuse. Do your best. Be nice to people. Smile at strangers. Fall in love with someone else."
Even if I wanted to, I couldn't now. I woke up, flat on my back in bed with a slight twinge in the chest area. I'd laced my hands across it and sat staring at the ceiling for a very long time. Immunity to a broken heart. Sounds like bullshit and right now, I wish it were. | 2014-05-17T09:02:31 | 2014-05-17T08:01:39 | 70 | 17 |
[WP] You are a dead egyptian prince. You get to take everything placed in your sarcophagus with you to the afterlife. A modern day tomb raider has accidentally dropped their loaded gun into your sarcophagus.
or their phone or gameboy or something idc, have fun with it. | "Welcome to the Office of Foreign Objects and Oddities!" the lady at the front desk said. It was an unfamiliar place to me- I hadn't even had a "foreign object" before. The place was like a massive warehouse, with rows of tall racks stretching back past the horizon, all headed by the young, smiling woman. "What brings you here today?"
"Uh, I'd like to speak directly to Maat, please," I said. God of Order, and all, he'd probably know something about it.
"I'm sorry, but you can only speak to Maat if you make an appointment with him." She smiled, pointing behind me. A large scroll was plastered upon the wall, scrawled with thousands of little names.
"It's quite the waiting list," I assumed.
"Quite," she chuckled. "Is it possible that I could help you? What brings you here today?"
"Uh, foreign object."
"Have you brought it with you?"
"Yeah." I threw it up on the table. It was some metal device, sort of in the shape of an L, that appeared to have a little hook on it. The woman picked it up, examining it.
"Hmm... I've seen many things in my years here, and I haven't seen anything like this before." She looked down a circular hole that topped the L shape. "Seems to be something in there. Have you tried to get it out?"
I shook my head. "I, uh, only barely just got it."
"I see, I see," she muttered. She leaned forward to a large shell that sat on her desk and spoke into it. "Could we get an F-O-E at the front desk, please?" she boomed. "Thank you."
The two of us waited at the front desk, watching the strange object. It wasn't everyday someone just had a package arrive upon their deathbed. I supposed I was a lucky man- most people never got this sort of stuff. It was quiet.
"Uh, what exactly is an F-O-E?" I asked, trying to break the awkward silence.
"Foreign Objects Expert," she replied. It grew quiet once again. I let out a long, dull whistle.
A large man, with scruff covering his neck and lower chin finally came from the long row of shelves. He didn't seem pleased to be there.
"Hi, Seth!" the lady at the desk said.
"Hi, Chione," he said, voice scraggly. "Why did you call me up here."
She handed him the L-shaped thing. He raised an eyebrow.
"You know what it is?" she asked.
"I haven't seen anything like this before," he said, waving the thing around. "What is it even suppose to do?"
"Uh, I don't know," I said. "That's why I'm here."
Seth waved it around some more, fingers examining the shape's hook. "Well, what's this f-"
Suddenly, a large blast extruded from the shape, and Chione's head exploded into a massive bubble of red puss and pink brain matter. The remains of her body slumped forward.
"Osiris fucking Iris!" Seth exclaimed, gleaming. "We could've been using this instead of those nose things!" | They said afterlive is the perfect time to relax. You get what they put in your grave, and then you lay back and enjoy. Right?
**No.** They can't be further from the reality. The guy who had this use-what-you-get-in-your-grave idea apparently also decided that there should be limited resources for everyone who died in this believe and that they have to fight about it. No one told me this, and I'm not alone with this problem. But hey, at least my carpet was good enough to hide my food in it and the stone my little brother put in my grave was by far the best weapon for me, so I managed to somehow survive my death.
That was until a new gift appeard, uncountable years after I died. It was something no one has seen before. I decided to call it gun. A good name for something so powerful. It wasn't hard to use. Just aim at a person, pull the trigger, and he dies. Didnt take me long to figure that out.
I realized this, I shot some people, and then I took their places. Yes, I am in charge now. And if you decide to die like we used to do, better be prepared. I have a gun. | 2018-12-28T14:34:07 | 2018-12-28T13:59:40 | 79 | 18 |
[WP] You are a villain who kidnapped the smart guy on your nemesis team, they tell you that nobody will come for them and that the hero doesn't care. You didn't believe them at first but it been a month and nobody shows up and after once again hearing them cry at night you had enough | Colonel Caustic wasn't a well loved hero. Heck, most people thought he was more trouble than he was worth. The ability to melt anything he touched, emit acids as harmful as any other; a walking calamity just waiting to happen. But his abilities only over shadowed his true strength. How did such a hero such as he act without destroy all his surroundings? Very carefully and methodically.
None blinked an eye when the rubble crushed innocent bystanders. When blazes from the Firebrand raged through the city, they were brushed aside as gas fires. But acid. The only one on the supers scene with the ability to dissolve buildings was Colonel Caustic. There was no way to push the blame to anything benign. It didn't matter that the apartments were empty, or that no one was injured. Those homes were destroyed by Colonel Caustic.
It was empty by design. Caustic had already planned to renovate that complex. He had lured the inhabitants away with a series of fake sweepstakes that they had just happened to win. But none of the heroes cared. They would rather distance themselves from him and otherwise keep him at arms length. The citizens only saw a force of destruction. I saw a man who planned 6 steps ahead of anyone else. If only the heroes listened. They could have stopped me long ago had they just listened to him.
He had deduced that all I needed was the hyperdrive schematics from within the hero compound. All the rest were easily distracted by the various heists and bombings that I had arranged. Caustic could do little to me on his own; not without also destroying the Tower of Heroism and turning himself from a hero to an outcast. It took little to capture him.
What surprised me was how little the heroes actually cared. This man masterminded their plans and steered them down the path with least casualties and they just left him to me.
"It is a real shame, but there is naught we can do." Victor Vanguard stepped away from the microphone solemnly. An act as plain as day. Victor had once charged into a detonating nuclear bomb over an uninhabited island just in case I was up to something more than testing a radiation containment field, but saving Caustic was not worth lifting a finger to him.
I let the broadcast play unimpeded in Caustic's holding cell. Not once had the media asked if Caustics loss would be detrimental to the heroes. They didn't even care. Just looking forward for information on their new recruit. At first, the press conference seemed like a way to get me to drop my guard, but as the days turned to weeks, and the weeks to months, it became clear that no one was coming. Caustic's remaining spirit quickly faded. I think that deep down, he believed that someone cared enough. That they were just biding their time. Until it seemed clear that they weren't.
His stifled cries reminded me of myself. All alone, with no one to rely on, or confide in. The news no longer mentioned his name. He saved the world countless times over many years, just to be forgotten in a months time. The day I opened his cell, he just sat in the middle of his cell with his head slumped.
"Are you here to dispose of me now? The heroes don't want me. No one wants me. I'm just here eating your food with nothing to give back." His eyes raised slowly to meet mine as they welled with tears.
"I want to start with this." I croutched down and put a gloved hand on his shoulder. "I am sorry that it had come to this. I never meant for you to have to stay here so long, or endure this for as long as you have." I signaled for my aides to enter the room. They set the tiramisu cake in front of Caustic, lighting the candles and sparklers. "Happy birthday, Charles. I know this is less than ideal for you right now, but..." Charles' tears ran down his face. How many years had it been since someone had brought his birthday to him? How long had it been since someone had said his name?
"How... But no one..."
"It'll be okay. I'm not going to kill you, or harm you. Hell, I already accidentally subjected you to this torture." I gestured towards the screen on the wall. "Look, I meant it when I said I was sorry. Please, my aides have helped set up this nice cake for us. How about we share some and discuss your situation?" I helped Charles to his feet and into his chair before settling in across from him. "Took us a few tries, but I think you'll enjoy it." I took a big forkful and ate it with delight.
Charles ate silently at first, seeming to savour every bite. "You know, this is my favorite kind of desert," he said after finishing his piece.
"I had hoped so. It seemed to be just about the only thing you would leave that damned tower for." I saw the hints of a smile briefly on his face. "Look, I know we have had our... scuffles, in the past, but I want to put that behind us. Maybe not immediately, but when you're ready. But for now, how would you like to make this your new home?"
Charles looked at me with surprise. "You want someone like me to live... here?" He motioned towards the walls of the cell.
"Ha ha, of course not. This is not nearly suitable for long term living arrangements. Come with me, I'll give you a tour, then you can decide." We exited the holding wing and proceeded deep into my fortress. Deeper than any hero had ever come until arriving at what appeared to be a regular suburban neighborhood bustling with life. "I'm sure you can understand what is going on here."
Children ran in the streets as they played their games. The look on his face made it clear that he understood what was going on, but not why it was happening. People greeted at us as we walked down the street, none with any malice in their voices.
"Who are all these people?"
"They are just some of the ones who were unwanted. Some of them have... less friendly mutations, like yours. Some were left homeless or without family. Some of them just needed to flee the constant destruction from the heroes and villains outside." The artifical sun was starting to set as we approached the middle of the town. "It is only a matter of time before we're ready to leave Earth."
"Leaving Earth? With what, a thousand people?"
"Ah, Charles. This is just one of many hidden towns that I have established. The heroes and villians fight all around the world, spreading disaster in their wake, but I'm not strong enough, nor smart enough, to protect everyone by myself. So instead, we will be fleeing to Mars. I would like your assistance if you are willing." As I extended my hand out, I felt that I could see the cogs turning in his head.
"I suppose I am free to leave should I decline?"
"Of course. You're free to do most anything right now. The heroes think you're gone, and I'm not going to stop you so long as you do no harm." I smiled at the man. He seemed so tired, yet was slowly coming to life before me.
"I think I would like to lend you my assistance." Charles took my hand and gave it a shake.
"I am glad that you feel that way. But before we get to work, I would introduce you to some of our resident therapists. They've really helped me out over the years." | **Part One**
Sam Sinister strode down the hallway to the cell blocks for the thirtieth time. "Today's the day!" he announced, his practiced basso thundering down the concrete to the lone occupied cell. It was the fifth time he'd said that, he noted offhand. Sure, it hadn't been true the first four times, but today was different. There was a hostage \*negotiator\* now. And Vikner was quite good at bargaining, too, Sam had to admit; he'd been talked down from his initial offer of twenty million to four. Sure, sure, it was a fivefold compromise, but as Vikner had mentioned in their discussion, a hostage is a gun with a single bullet. One had to be practical about these sorts of things.
And yet, despite his intimidating black costume with matching cape, for the sixteenth time now he was met with silence from the cell, not so much as a whimper. Had all of this really lost its impact with her so quickly?
He reached the cell door holding Owl Girl in captivity. "I said, 'Today's the day!'" he repeated, knocking on the solid steel door and sliding the eye-slit open to peer inside. "Isn't it exciting?"
Owl Girl didn't respond. She sat on her bed, eyes closed, in precisely the same position she'd been yesterday when he'd come to check on her. Naturally she'd been divested of her high-tech goggles and jet boots, and Sam still relished seeing her in the same style of plain orange jumpsuit that clothed so many of his friends she'd helped put away. Still, the look of abject defeat on her face deflated him.
"Where's the witty repartee, Owl Girl?" He asked. "I specifically requested it! Come now, I even left you a list of some good jabs yesterday!" He glanced to the bolted-down steel table where his handwritten list lay untouched.
Owl Girl leaned back against the concrete wall of her cell, pushing the bun of her disheveled brown hair awkwardly upward. That in turn must have caught the temples on the thick glasses she was wearing and tilted the lenses downward. And yet she made no motion to correct what must have been uncomfortable, and still gave no verbal response.
Sinister sighed and opened the cell door. It wasn't something he'd tried at all until Week Two, and not alone until Week Four. He strode inside and stared at her for a moment.
"You know, this really isn't any fun for me when you're not acting like a hero. I don't want to be 'that kind' of villain, but this is a two way street. There's give and take, you know? I say something villainous, and \*you\* say something like," he raised his voice several octaves in a terrible falsetto, "'Evil will never triumph over true hearts and kindness!' Or something. I assume you guys have a writer on staff to come up with more original banter."
For the first time that day, Owl Girl spoke up. "What's the latest ransom?"
Sinister sighed again and took a seat at one of the plain steel chairs. "Four million."
She shook her head. "Still too high. Peregrine won't pay more than fifty thousand for me. He'll just keep assuming I've figured out an escape plan and I'll save myself."
"That's... how would you know the number?" Sinister inquired.
"Well, it's just a guess, but I doubt I'm too far off," she admitted.
"And speaking of escape attempts, I noticed you haven't tried any. It's very wise of you to know better."
Owl Girl's eyes opened and met his for the first time. "Lose the high-tech costume, and I'm just an ordinary woman. Am I supposed to cut through steel with the plastic tableware you give me? Or maybe break through the concrete and rebar with my non-existent super strength?"
"But Peregrine knows that, doesn't he?"
"Peregrine thinks I'm fucking \*MacGyver\*, Sinister." Owl Girl rolled her eyes. "In his eyes I'm a paper clip and a roll of duct tape away from making a bomb that'll take out this entire lair."
"But you're not."
Owl Girl offered a glare in lieu of a verbal response, then leaned her head back against the wall.
Sinister stood and cleared his throat. "Well, like I said, negotiations continue. What's that they say: hope springs eternal? In the meantime, please don't try to hurt yourself or anything, I'd rather return you intact."
"You took my shoelaces, Sinister. And like I said, plastic tableware. I was more likely to die from choking on last night's dinner. If you won't give me a metal knife, please stop serving whole cuts of meat, would you, you jackass?"
There at last, a bit of the \*fire\* he'd expected. It was, indeed, his first glimpse of Owl Girl the Hero, and quite the difference from the woman he'd overheard sobbing quietly the night prior. "I'll speak with the cook."
Sinister turned and left. He closed and locked the steel door. Surely there was some way to bring back that fire, right? There must be \*something\* he could do. Strolling back down the hallway, making sure his cape billowed appropriately, an idea came to his head. It was an old quote from Freud: *Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.* Love, well, villains didn't \*love.\* But work? Maybe he could do something about that. | 2021-08-04T16:07:58 | 2021-08-04T16:05:18 | 122 | 79 |
[WP]A wealthy business man believes in reincarnation. He leaves his massive wealth... to himself. Anyone born after his death that figures out his riddles will inherit his fortune. | To beat a god, you first have to be one.
Ok, perhaps that's a little melodramatic. He was certainly no god, but he did have a wealth of charisma that I did not. What I lacked in smiles and firm handshakes however, I made up for in business acumen and raw intelligence. He could be something that my weak arms and crippled legs seemed to stop me being, he could be successful.
I'd always enjoyed chess, thinking a few moves ahead of the competition, using their moves against them to ensure your inevitable victory. If you play the long game when others are playing the short one you can basically move their pieces for them. So it is with business. I moved the pieces of our competitors, let him shake the hands and smile at the right people, and we, or should I say he, became filthy rich.
He kept me around of course. He wasn't stupid enough to cut off the hand that fed him, but I wasn't going to allow him to grow fat and old on my hard work.
I lead him into his pursuits. I actually lost money as I lead him to invest in those that might turn his feeble mind in other ways; sometimes you lose a pawn to risk their queen. He always was a one for blundering into decisions he couldn't comprehend, and religion was to be no different. A few trips to India, a chance investment in a Hindu temple, and the stage was set. He was a believer.
He was as public as always, letting everyone know about his fantastic new philosophy in life, falling deeper into his own undoing. I suggested his Will, how he might be able to carry on into the next, keep his legacy beyond his grave. He asked me to draw up the terms of course, and I was only happy to do so. He made up some riddles, laughably easy, and I drew up the rest. All above board, all within the eyes of the law. I wouldn't be able to claim the money of course, nobody alive at the same time as him would, that's not how reincarnation works.
And so we lived, his fortune safe for him in case of death. We lived our lives, I married whilst he played the field, whilst he lived the life of those with money and power.
Of course not every business venture is safe, not every trip to Iraq or Iran to smile at oil barons can be trouble free. He died with a gun against his head in the blistering heat of the sun. It was a dangerous mistake for a Caucasian man to claim Hindu as the one true religion in the middle east at the moment.
The world waited then, held it's breath to see who might come forward to claim his wealth. My business partner had never sired any children, after all, what would be the point when he could just be reborn and claim his empire back himself?
I had a son not long after, one who will just so happen to find experience offers him a knowledge that will lend itself to the riddles.
I cannot claim the wealth, but anybody who wasn't born at his death can. I dare say the police will find me out, will try to take the belongings of my heir, but they cannot, the will is quite clear. It's all above board and legal.
I was unable to find wealth for myself, but I played the long game where he played the short; it basically let me move his pieces for him. | He:
I've left you a fortune
my dear self
only you'll know the answer
no one else
***
thinks like me
writes like me
i've left no trace
for imposters to gather
and win the race
***
the fortune is far off
it's hidden in time
you can search any space
but you won't find one dime
***
you can search high and low
but the mystery beholds
the golden gate
never to unfold
***
Me:
I wonder if it's me
see, I've found a key
with my name on it
engraved, from the sea
***
there's no way it's an accident
it must be fate, I know it
I've a key to a place
I've no one to show it
***
what if I am him?
born again
but everyone wonders that
in the end
***
is it anyone
is it no one
he said he hid it in time
I'll have to wait for erosion
these grains are too fine
***
I found the key in the sand
does anyone else know this?
mouth shut, it's too grand
***
did anyone else try?
is it deep underwater?
wait for the low tide
come hell or high water
I know I'm right
***
it's got to be me
I've my name on the key
luck, fate, destiny
who else is it gonna be? | 2014-12-13T13:56:21 | 2014-12-13T13:35:25 | 454 | 39 |
[WP] A few thousand people around the world suddenly get superpowers based on the character of the last game they played. Highly valued by society you are the exception as everyone laughs at your inherited powers. The thing is, you modded the hell out of your character before this all happened.
Wow I didn't think it would blow up like this. Thank you so much kind stranger for my first ever silver. Freaking my first gold ever that is so awesome. Dont forget to show the great writers of this post some love also :) | “GO GREEN!!” My neighbor screeched at the field.
I leaned to my friend Raya, “Is this entirely necessary? We could be doing something more fun. Like literally anything. Anything is more fun than this.” I looked at the field disdainfully.
“Seriously Maize? This is like the one time your power is totally on point!” My glare hardened at her as I shifted back to normal. “Aw, come on Mai, we’re in the last quarter!”
Whispers fluttered all around me,
“Dude, did she just —“
“Holy shit did you see —“
“Dad that lady was GREEN —“.
I sighed and shifted my color back to the team’s forest green, “Yay football.” I muttered sarcastically, ignoring the next wave of whispers and stares that followed my change.
I’d long since gotten over my misfortune of power. Figures that an electromagnetic surge would hit the one time I was playing a kids game, granting me and several other thousand people the “gifts” of our game characters.
Do you know how wicked some of these people’s power’s were? Most of them were changing the weather to avoid natural disasters, telekinetically rescuing people from fires, leaping tall buildings in a single bound. . .you know, superhero shit.
Now in all fairness, I was hiding a secret. I hadn’t just been playing a kid’s game that auspicious Friday, I’d been modding and redeveloping it. Including my player.
In fact when the surge hit, I’d been typing code in specifically to mod my player. You’d think that’d left me with a glitch or two, but nope, it left me with an unfinished code and a blinking cursor.
When faced with the actual reality of becoming all-powerful, one tends to freeze up a little. Sure, I could code the crap out of myself and run this world from here until probably the end of time.....but was it ethical? Moral? And the question that bothered me most, what then?
I’d had a couple of months to have an existential crisis and hadn’t been able to get past what happens next. The other players had showed me what a little power could do to a person. On the news you heard the amazing stories of the “PC Heroes” and how our world needed something extraordinary to survive. The chat rooms told a different story.
Forums had popped up all over of PCs struggling with controlling their abilities, getting addicted, depressed, and some suicidal. After reading a post from a 15-year old my fantasies fell cold in their tracks, “I feel numb, like humming electric wire I have one purpose and it is my power. When I use it I lose myself and when I don’t I think of nothing else. I’ve lost my love, my pain, my anger. I’ve lost. I’m lost.” That was the last post she made. Two months ago.
But was it selfish to not do it? Was it worth losing myself if I could save the lives of others? The thought had me frozen in indecision for months.
“Mai,” my friend shook me, “Game’s over, let’s blow this popsicle stand.” She gestured towards the line shuffling towards the exit.
Everything started happening in slow motion as the ground began shaking, and a crack in the stadium opened up below Raya.
Screams rang out from every direction, but Raya’s sounded right in my ear as I reached out to grab her. “Raya!” I cried out, grasping her forearm in mine as she dropped into the hole.
“Don’t let go, don’t let go, Mai, please, I love you, don’t let go” Raya sobbed over and over, fingers digging into my arm. The ground still shook beneath me, crack deepening, I reached another hand down holding her tightly.
Tears streamed from my eyes as I struggled to hold her, I had to pull her up. “Help! Help! We need help!” I yelled looking around for anyone. There were others helping pull up victims who had fallen also, people still running for the exits screaming, chaos.
“I’ve got you! Hold on!” A man ran over to my left and laid a hand on my shoulder has he reached down to grab Raya. “Pull!” He yelled. I strained my burning muscles as far as they could go, we grunted as we pulled her backward, sliding out of the crack and falling back into the stadium seats.
“We’ve got to go,” I shouted grabbing Raya, still heaving on the ground.
The man nodded and stumbled with us through the crowd to the exit. The shaking had ceased but we still moved quickly to the main level, getting as far as possible from the near death Raya had nearly faced an the real death for many others.
As we reached the parking lot and the leave that awaiting I pulled away from Raya, already nearly jogging back towards the stadium. “Go home,” I said to her, “There’s something I need to do.”
I had some coding to do. | You know, the oldest games didn't have much room for a story, simple as they were. However, the people who played them would grow up to develop the next generation of games. And the next, and the next. The thing about games is that they allow you to immerse yourself in the world. An escape from the real world, as it is. The newer devs grew up playing the games of the generation before. They knew of the power of immersion, and they strived to make their own games ever more immersive.
But there was a slight hitch. You, as the player, would typically put yourself in the shoes of the protagonist, who would then go on to save the world or whatever it is that these protagonists do. This works fine if the player and the protagonist are in sync. But if the protagonist tries to do something the player wouldn't, immersion is lost, however briefly. The later generations of game devs knew that, and tried to make a protagonist that appealed to everyone. And thus the silent protagonist was born. Silent, devoid of emotion, they would react as their surroundings warrented, but otherwise served only as an avatar for the player to fit in. Over time, this idea became embedded in gaming culture. Nearly every game would go on to have some varient of it. And people loved it.
Who would have thought that this seemingly innocuous idea would have been our downfall? For on that fated day, when the Gamer Crisis began, those who were avid gamers recieved the powers of the protagonists they so much enjoyed. But the powers were not just powers. They became The Silent Ones. Psychopathic murder machines, killing indiscriminately to further their own goals. Governments tried to take them under their wings at first. They succeeded too, at least partially. Having an army of Silent Ones under their command was a parameter of the countries' military might. That is, until the Silent Ones began to move. With all the corruption rampant in the modern world, the Silent Ones deemed the governments the source of all evil and started to tear them down. Tear everything down. Society as we knew it is now no more. We now live in a vaguely tribal society, scavenging the rubble, barely sustaining ourselves and whoever else was lucky enough to survive. Crimes are nonexistant, everybody is terrified of being labeled a bandit. The last one to do it had his head cut clean off in the middle of the street. And then they demanded a reward. A reward! For killing Sammy! Sure he was stealing, but he had a sick young daughter! We knew! We would have given him the bread anyways!
Sorry for that. I have tried to keep a low profile for oh, so long. I don't want to die either. But you know, sometimes your hand is forced. Most of the gamers who recieved power were the Silent Ones. But there are a few like me who have retained their humanity. Those that were found out early either joined or died. But still more survived. And we are getting ready to push back. This is our Burning Crusade. Are we the villians in this story? Perhaps. But one thing is for sure. There are no heroes left in this world. | 2020-01-30T11:35:06 | 2019-08-11T21:59:51 | 1,281 | 100 |
[WP] You form a pact with the monster in your closet to work together in order to get rid of your terrible roommate. | Mommy was crying again. I walked into Matty’s room. Matty was in his crib crying, too, but that was okay because he always cries. Mommy was in the chair and I went up to her and hugged her leg.
“Mommy, don’t cry,” I said. I climbed into her lap and she hugged me, but she didn’t stop crying. “I love you,” I said. She hugged me tighter, so I patted her back.
“Do you want some water?” I asked. Because that’s what you do when people cry.
“No,” she said. “It’s okay.” Then she laughed and hugged me more and stopped crying.
“I’m good because I helped you feel better, right?”
“Yes, you are a very good boy.”
“Matty is bad because he made you cry again.”
“No,” she said. “Matty is a baby. He cries because he has colic. He can’t help it.” She picked me up and carried me out of the room.
“Why can’t he help it?”
“Because he’s just a baby.”
“When I was a baby, did I cry that much?”
Mommy smiled. “No,” she said. “You were a very sweet baby.” She pressed her nose to my nose and sniffed. I gave her a great big hug. Then she put me down and I went to play trains.
Daddy didn’t come home until late. I was in bed. I am very sneaky. I can pretend to be asleep and fool everybody. Matty was crying again, and I heard Mommy say “I don’t know if I can do this any more.” Then she started crying again, too.
I knew I had to be brave. I went out of the bed and to the closet. Then I took a deep breath. I opened the door slowly, because I was scared.
“Mumpo,” I said. I whispered because it was night-time and I’m not allowed to make a lot of noise at night0time, but also because I was being sneaky. “Come out I know you’re in there.”
Mumpo made a scary bump noise, but he didn’t come out.
“Mumpo, please.”
Mumpo has eyes he carries around with him. He can throw them if he wants to see far. He rolled one outside the closet to look at me. It went squish.
“Mumpo, I need you to take Matty away,” I said. “Far away, so mommy won’t cry any more. Take him away and make him be quiet.”
Mumpo’s eye looked at me. It blinked. From the back of the closet, I heard him say: “Yes.”
[r/robotdevilhands](https://www.reddit.com/r/robotdevilhands/) | I remember the first time I met Sally
And I remember meeting Drew and his smell
Sally was sweet, shy, and surprisingly neat
Drew was a bat out of hell
.
Sally was hard to work with some days
She’d complain about just everything
On others she’d be the model of industry
Instead of fighting we’d sing
.
Drew was a problem right from the first
But I had to respect he showed promise
He was cunning, strong, and talented
And his sax would certainly calm us
.
But the arrogance was way too much
And the smell I couldn’t stomach
Drew had to go – I’d rather live with
The singing monster in my closet | 2017-03-16T09:36:09 | 2017-03-16T08:17:32 | 100 | 21 |
[WP] A summoned demon can always be defeated by the summoner, thus the caliber of demon is dependent on the power of the summoner. You were surprised to see Satan Himself stood before you, and so was He. | "Where did Hitler...Where am I?" Satan asked shocked while standing in my office. It is a completely generic one man law firm's office in a shopping mall.
I looked at my client, a seemingly homeless man who wouldn't leave until I tried his 'summoning ritual' to prove it was nonsense. Needless to say not only is it not nonsense but I somehow managed to summon Satan.
"Uh...hey boss?" I asked in disbelief as Satan turned around. Forget the image of a giant red goat or anything, he's a normal looking guy in a suit. "What just happened?"
&#x200B;
Poof. A book (I'm going to assume the necronomicon or something else insane) appeared in his hand and he starts mumbling about how it must be a mistake he is Satan and all, no human could be stronger.
&#x200B;
He sat frustrated. "Bring me the cult" he shouted as if to my client who was now in complete shock of what is happening. And in a puff of smoke stood Stephen I, Boniface II, Leo III, Stephen VI(I), and Pious VI who formed a circle and apparently knew what had happened.
&#x200B;
"Drink?" I asked just broadly as I opened my cabinet. At this point Satan sat down and nodded, the homeless man ran to the papal circle, and I set down 2 glasses. In the coming moments I tried to make small talk while we waited.
&#x200B;
"Sir, we think we figured it out." Pious VI said as he walked over. "Surely this random human cannot 'defeat' you in combat, he cannot raise an army to defeat us, but we figured it out and...Skaliton, let's be honest you just figured it out didn't you?" He asked as he noticed I was searching for a song on youtube. Needless to say I'm as childish as can be and was figuring out which song from the ace attorney series is most appropriate.
&#x200B;
"Yes, the only possible way to interpret the spell that let's me win is that I'm the better attorney. So, guess I'm headed somewhere a bit warmer to...wait what cases can there possibly be in hell?" I asked.
&#x200B;
"Come with me, it isn't nearly as bad as you are expecting. Seriously why does everyone think it is hot up here? Don't you know basic thermals?" Satan said while opening a portal.
&#x200B;
(up...surely he means down) I thought, but no the portal took us into a nice cool conference room in the clouds. I stood there shocked.
&#x200B;
"What? You were expecting me to be the bad guy? I'm the one who opposes rape, and didn't destroy humanity for not saying how great I was" Satan said after giving me a moment. "Your taking over as prosecutor so I can work on other duties it seems."
&#x200B;
\_\_\_\_
&#x200B;
And that is the tale of how a no-name lawyer started sending people to hell. | ...Oh fuck off
&#x200B;
I look up from my tome and almost spit my drink out.
before me stood a demon. Horns tail and all. and he was piiiiiisssssed.
maybe I should tell you how I got here. you see I enjoy cursing in latin. so when I dropped my coffee and it spilled in a pentogram naturally I grabbed everything in my vocabulary.
"\*sigh\* hello summoner my name and title is satan. First demon of hell and once second brightest light of heaven. What did you summon me for?" said the Demon.
&#x200B;
"uhhh I think you got the wrong guy my name is John and I work in IT" I said.
"No" says the demon. "that is literally impossible. The magic would never let that happen."
"Well of all the things I could summon of course it's fucking satan." I said
"Well the demon you summon is dependent on how strong a summoner is."
I sat and thought. "How am I strong enough to summon you?"
"well it's strength in apathy."
"oh"
"Yeah you would be surprised how busy I am these days" | 2022-01-30T08:26:15 | 2022-01-30T06:53:47 | 140 | 52 |
[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. | 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. | Part 1
&#x200B;
Torin started at the flimsy placed in front of him. As he scanned the almost transparent document he didn’t see anything surprising jump out at him but had noticed that 3 of the probe teams hadn’t updated in close to 12 units.
Calling up their locations on his terminal he nodded as he started to remember their mission profiles and details. The first team was dealing with a probably data facility location on the outermost dwarf planet. Machine probes had found a likely reactor source and large sealed data vault. Considering the lack of tectonics and the stability on the frozen ice planet it made sense.
The second team was likely lost to a collision in the asteroid belt as they had suddenly been lost tracking. One moment they were pinging the system and the next the small facility had gone silent. As of this morning no response had been received from the evac team sent out to retrieve the remains. The team had been on what they though was a stable asteroid in the belt but considering the amount of debris and traffic they had observed it was just a matter of odds Torin suspected. They still had 9 other units on the belt running silent observation still and the data was looking promising.
Comm team three had checked in every tenth cycle since landing on a moon on the 6th planet but with the distributed communication relays still in silent mode after a local craft fly by it could be a few more units before they could transmit.
If this was the worst delay Torin had before the fleet gate activated he would be more than satisfied with the abilities of the recon team. This was the fourth subjugation the Assembly had authorized in the last 3 centuries and the first Torin had been able to have secured any leadership role. He didn’t count the punitive expeditions or system shock incidents as major.
Records showed that the second, third, and fourth planets had life further along than animal or bacterial. The asteroid belt between the third and fourth planets had power signs indicating the possibility of metal mining and smelting. Comm traffic was minimal between the planets and while they currently hadn’t broken the decryption on the burst transmissions they had intercepted Torin didn’t doubt his team’s ability to make headway in that area. He tried to push the nagging doubt away for his mind about why nobody had brought this up before the outlying gate had been pushed into this system but it wasn’t in his mission data and his level 8 security clearance didn’t allow him to see the planning data yet.
It was curious when he thought about it. The system hadn’t even come to the notice of the Reof Assembly except when a science teams array was hit with bursts of Negalia class energy. They had dispatched 3 fly through probes and one remote deep space unit to report back. Initial data had been negative due to the amount of radiation swirling about the atmosphere of the third and fourth planet and the debris of what the science community assumed where 12 difference space stations. | 2019-02-26T10:58:57 | 2019-02-26T10:26:44 | 25 | 14 |
[WP] They released your chains, the anti-mages loves this, to humiliate mages in a fistfight after turning off their magic. "Can't use your earth magic here, stonefist" he said, you got confused, until you realized they thought your nickname was because of your magic. you crack your knuckles. | "Can't use your earth magic here, Stonefist" said Arkum, jeering at me from the other side of the ring. He must have claimed his right to the combat as the one to turn me in. Jealous rat bastard.
*Why was he so confident?* I wondered. *I know I have a propensity for elemental magic, but that weasel threatened to reveal all my secrets. Surely he knows. Right?*
I stared at him in bewilderment and he began to grow angry.
“Come on! Get in the ring! Let your enhancements to shatter and face your punishment!”
*He doesn’t know!* I thought, my previous confusion now replaced with anticipation. *Oh this is going to be good.*
I shrugged off my robe revealing a regular, lightly muscled chest. Arkum didn’t blink, assuming like the rest of the spectators that no one of magical potential would ever waste time building up muscles the old fashioned way.
I was taller than him but he didn’t seem to care. He expected my strength to waste away when I reached the anti-magic shell around the pit, leaving me exhausted and vulnerable to his beating.
For theatrical timing, I paused just before I crossed the line. Arkum jeered at me once more and I hid a smile before plunging through and striding towards my starting place. The light washed over me, ejecting the magical energy from my body and stripping away all glamours.
I had come from humble beginnings. I didn’t have time to analyze odd happenings while trying to find enough money to keep myself and my family afloat, especially when my affinity for elemental magic was one of those affinities that was hard to distinguish from bad luck when the mage was still untrained. Not everyone could afford to be tested after being struck by lightning after all. So I kept working.
I was a hotheaded youth and at the age of 16 after coming home with yet another black eye, my mother told me to put my anger to use and threw me out to live with my Uncle Ross. I don’t know for sure if she knew that his gym was a front for the one of the more popular underground fighting circuits, but she didn’t ask where the money came from after I started winning.
Uncle Ross stopped me from killing myself my first few years. He had enough influence to keep me from the meat grinder fights that some bosses used to warm up the crowd. He also didn’t stop me from leaving when Master Numinor sought me out after a fight and asked if I was interest in developing some of my other talents. That night I promised my uncle I would keep in shape and fill in if he ever needed a fighter last minute, which happened about once a month. Master Numinor encouraged it as well. I think he was a fan of my work.
I learned my lesson about physical enhancements the very first time I tried to fight under one. Underground pit bosses take cheating seriously and before stepping through that anti-magic shell I had no idea how bad it felt to lose 20% of your muscle mass in an instant.
Ah, but why did I look like a lightweight today?
You see, Master Numinor liked to present a certain image despite his side hobby of betting on underground fistfights. He had a fancy shop downtown and as part of my apprenticeship I had to run it three days a week. Having some busted up goon running the shop wasn’t a good image for a mage of such a high status. Magic was supposed to be much more powerful than mere physical strength after all. So he taught me how to apply a glamour to make me look like every other gussied up rich boy apprentice in the upper circles.
A glamour that was rapidly stripped away. Unlike physical alterations a bit of light doesn’t hurt the body when it dissipates.
My muscles swelled and my face gained scars. Smirking at Arkum, I cracked my knuckles.
Edit: [Part 2 ](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/l5zbky/wp_they_released_your_chains_the_antimages_loves/gl0lzh6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)(Arkum’s reaction) is in the comments below. | About a week ago they found him. Alavar had been on the run ever since the great anti-mage revolution had begun. It began when the 'Dephizer' as he called himself, found out how to rob mages from their magic. As simple as that, the mages who ruled the world peacefully were robbed from their positions and chained up. Most of the mages were slain in the first weeks after the discovery of Dephizer. Alavar was one of the few that got away.
Until a week ago.
Now he was is chains, waiting for his turn in the arena. Robbing mages from their magic and killing them was not enough for the anti-mages anymore. There was no enjoyment in that. Instead, they let mages fight different animals without their magic for a simple prize, the right to live a week longer.
He looked at the green and black pulsating gemstone that was embedded in his chains. This particular stone blocked all earth elemental magic.
'You! stand up scum!' A guard came up to him and pulled Alavar on his feet. 'It's your turn in the arena.' The guard pushed him forward out of the cage towards a dim lit tunnel. It only took a little while before they were out in the open in a huge sunlit arena. Alavar had to squint and cover his eyes as best he could while he was being pushed towards the middle of the arena.
'Stonefist! let's see how you fight without your magic!' A voice boomed from the stand. Alavar looked up and saw the man that started it all with his discovery. Dephizer. 'Stonefist..' Alavar whispered and he looked at the green and black gem on his chains. A nickname he got as a teenager for knocking out a bully with one punch to his jaw. A nickname that he got attached to because it was so silly. The name that made the anti-mages assume he was an earth mage.
He looked up at the man that killed so much of his fellow mages. He crackled his knuckles and the air began to heat up around him. Flames started to burst from his arms and legs melting his chains in an instant.
With flaming eyes, he looked up at the stand. He could not end the revolution. But at least he could destroy the man that started it. | 2021-01-27T07:55:37 | 2021-01-27T07:43:36 | 238 | 87 |
[WP] You, a villain, heart set on taking over the world, kidnapped the hero’s sidekick. You find out that you are treating them much better than the hero was and decide to take them under your wing. | Cages swung empty as I typed at my computer, any second now... *THUMP* There they are...
"What'cha googling?" It's young tone sang in my ear as if it was asking it's mother the same innocent question.
"At the moment child? The effects of Stockholm syndrome. Let's see... Positive feelings towards captor, check. No prior relationship to the captor, gonna be a no for that one..."
"Why are you still looking into that stuff? I already told you it's not because of any creepy ass lovey duvey ick." He said so matter of factly. Ah the innocent self assured-ness of youth.
&#x200B;
"I'm looking it up because I can't find any logical explaination as to why you're so damn attached considering I just ripped you away from the man who rescued you from that burning building all those years ago" I said equally bluntly, the boy face sank like a shadow had been cast upon it. He always seemed to go quite as soon as that was mentioned.
"And seeing as you do that every time I ask you about your precious paragon of justice, I'm forced to look for other options. I mean seriously? Corvid, the shaper of soles? As in HIS arch-nemesis? That's the guy you've grown attached too?"
The boy looked sullen, but not emotionally destroyed, like something within him was crying out for acknowledgment. Being a natural empath I could practically hear his inner voice screaming out in pain but the boy had a very tight lid on it. In my previous encounters with him I had suspected it was the result of training from his little savior but now... it was looking more forced into place, like it was put there without much in the way of consent.
*Crack* It went, I immediately activated my third eye and looked into the boy's mind, the seal was starting to wain
"I-it's be-" The seal started breaking up more, something was pushing from the inside
"Because he" Tears started forming in his eyes and that long suppressed inner voice grew louder and louder. It was wailing in the sorrow and fear that only a child betrayed by a parental figure can know.
"Because he what?" I interjected in a soft tone, dropping the whole 'villain' persona and weaving a soft, barely noticeable spell, an emotional tinderbox to light this whole thing up.
"BECAUSE I'VE ONLY KNOWN YOU FOR A WEEK AND YOU'VE TREATED ME BETTER THEN ***HE*** EVER DID!" The sidekick turned emotional torrent screamed at me with the pain of years of abuse at the hand of an idol.
I could start to see specks of rage manifesting around him, no wonder the brute hadn't jelled with this kid, *'he's a natural born empath like myself. He's manifesting emotional energy and he's not even aware he's doing it!'* I thought to myself.
The boy's rage simmered down to a deep sorrow, like he caught a reflection of himself in the mirror right as he was about to murder his newborn baby brother.
"I-I'm sorry... I shouldn't have flown of the handle like that" He started falling into apologetics, I could see the seal re-forming. Knowing what I know about these things I reached into his heart and ripped the seal out
"No, you don't need to apologise" I said as my eyes were flooded with memories, brutal training regimes that would kill without hero tier medical attention regularly, borderline abusive parenting, regular screaming matches at home.
"With him.." I try and think of a way to word my question
"I'll just show you" He says turning from me and taking his top off. Cuts, bruises, scarring.
In that moment, I reached to his heart with the purest of intentions, he without knowing it reached into mine too. We saw each other, fully. It was only a second but it would change our lives. The connection broke and we stared at each other in silent unison. Then I broke the knowing silence.
"Come with me, young Crow, I'll teach out how to use the gift you've been told is a curse"
"N-no one's ever given me a hero or villain name before" He said once again on the verge of tears. It seems un-doing that seal has awakened some... things inside him. And those bastards call themselves heroes...
"Think of it as temporary, I want you to make your own identity once you've got the basics down" I said with a smile. I had originally taken this boy in to use as leverage against my foe. Soon I would have a powerful ally instead.
"Thank you, Sir Corvid" He said as we walked deeper into my lair. He shadowed my steps.
"First things first, stand tall, you are not my shadow, nor my lesser with regards to rank here."
He straightened himself out, looking dignified "So where to first?"
"My fabricator, Need to get you some more fitting clothes and a proper emotional foci so you don't nuke the city at the mention of him." I said returning to my blunt tone of voice, though this time it had an almost fatherly ring to it, playful but authoritative.
"I-I" the newly dubbed Crow was at a loss for words "Thank you"
"You're welcome, Crow." I said feeling pride for the first time in along while.
That bastard they called a hero would pay. Blood? Reputation? Money? I'd take it all. | *Finally.*
She swiped her talons across the chest of Captain Jaguar. Her nails caught against his blue super suit as he leaps back. Before she could feel flesh in her hands something small darted and slams into her arm. She lets out a screech as her knees buckle under the weight but she twirls with it, using its weight to her advantage to fully spin around and wrap her good hand around its neck. Picking it up she grins and eyes narrow. It's the supes sidekick. He kicked and scrabbled in her grasp and she laughed.
“Oh captain. Looks like I caught something of yours.” She sings in her harpy voice. “Poor little rabbit caught by the Great Owl!” She lifts him higher when her adversary takes a step towards her. “Ah ah, I'll spill his guts if you come any closer.”
With that, she finally had her means of escape. Her plan crumbles around her, but at least she'll have time to think of something even more brilliant to bring this world to ruin. She opens her cape like powerful bird's wings and flew off, far out of Captain Jaguars reach and into her lair hidden among the trees. She drops the whelp into a cage and thinks it's the end of it, but he would continue sniffle and whimper nonstop.
“Cease this incessant mewling or I'll give you something to cry about!” She points a finger inside and watches him crawl back from her. “You were good for an escape but I can get rid of you any...where's your costume?”
She looks the boy over for the first time and tilts her head. His brown hair was in disarray, his clothes dirty and his body unclean. She pinches her mask by the beak and pulls it off over her head. He had healing cuts on his legs and five finger scratches across his arms. She winces as the bruise around his neck, her own handiwork. Maybe she could have been less rough, he couldn't be more than 13.
“He wouldn't let me wear it.” His voice cracked.
She tilts her head to the other side, her large bird eyes watching him. Her head swiveled behind her and barked out
“Food! Now!”
“Why not?”
“Said maybe I would try harder if I thought I could get my family hurt.”
Her eyebrows knitted together. She called him Captain Dickwad for getting in her way, but maybe he wasn't only her enemy. She watched him eat, and soon after he started to relax, or as much as you can when held captive.
“Why are you with him?”
“He pays well. He's tough though. He doesn't like it when I do something wrong.”
“Such as?”
“One time I was too scared to save him fighting Lava man, and he..” he shrugged his shoulders and turned his arms over.
She hummed in her throat. This kid reminded her a lot of herself at that age. Looking for a quick buck to save people who were cruel. She curled her lips as she unlatched the top of his cage.
“What if I told you I could pay more, with less work related injuries?” She swept an arm to her minions behind her, who waved stupidly and gave him thumbs up. She let him gaze at their unharmed bodies as they lifted the heavy nature based machinery behind her.
“What do you say?” | 2020-03-26T15:44:33 | 2020-03-26T15:36:32 | 62 | 40 |
[WP] The hero and villain are roommates but don't know each other's secret identities. Come up with excuses for each other's injuries and describe a normal day. | Once again limping home to my shared apartment after an entirely too predictable battle.
Once again, one of those dumb superheros that everyone sings the praises of waylaid me out of nowhere- stupid registration act, just because I refused to sign it people treat me like a criminal.
Hopefully, I can get home before-
"Hey, Kyle."
Jen. Nice girl, but a a terrible liar. I mean, who falls down a flight of stairs *every day*? And how do you fall down stairs to get two black eyes? She's always coming back to the apartment with some new injury. Of course, I'm one to talk. My excuse for my injuries is that the boxing ring was particularly tough that day. At least that one's plausable, at least in my opinion.
Then again, this time I have a plasma burn on my left cheek. Not sure how to explain that. "Hey Jen."
I unlock the door without glancing her way and beeline it to my room. I hear the front shut as Jen enters, and then I close myself off.
I've had to learn to put on makeup recently. I've gotten good enough that people stop asking me about the injuries every day I go to my real job. Still, this plasma burn... Maybe I can say someone dumped boiling water on me by accident? I'm not skilled enough to fix this.
From the other side of the thin wall, I hear Jen hiss in pain. "Fuck!"
"You okay?" I call, just loud enough to be heard through the wall.
"Yeah, I'm just... I fell down the stairs again. Twisted my ankle and I might have broken a rib."
"Jesus."
"Yeah. I think I'll have to go to the hospital again."
"Heh. Your insurance agent must hate you."
"Yep. I think I'm why most policies have upper limits." Another hiss as she presumably aggrivates one of her injuries. "Are you doing okay?"
Before I have a chance to think about it, my excuse comes out. "Someone spilled boiling water on me. My face is a mess."
"Ouch. Do you need me to show you have to cover it up?"
"Ha. Do you have a lot of experience covering up burns?"
"Actually, yeah. When you work in a chem lab, there's lots of chances to burn yourself. Here, let me grab some things-"
Reluctantly, I step out into the hallway and into the kitchen/dining area. I always feel awkward having her treat my injuries. Why?
When she steps through the door, I can see it again. The sharp blue eyes, the confident pace, the smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. The echo of someone else. Then she's back to her normal, chirpy self.
She does look pretty closely at the burn though. "Wow, this looks pretty bad. Are you sure it was boiling water? This looks more like a chemical burn than a heat burn."
I shrug. "I don't think anyone cooks with hydrogen sulfide."
"Not yet anyway." She takes a makeup kit out. "Didja see the news?"
"Uh-uh." I almost shake my head before remembering that she would end up smearing podwer all over my nose. "What's up?"
"Looks like Plasma Girl and Phault got into a fight in the middle of the city again."
Yeah. At least I'm not lying, I didn't see it on the news, I was there. Phault, because I can manipulate asphalt. Really useful in a city. "Mmm?"
"PG was apparently patrolling around when she found Phault tying someone up with the road. She swooped in and saved the man, but Phault managed to get away."
"Wonder why Phault was tying the guy up?" I manage to keep my voice neutral.
"Oh, turns out he had been planning on hurting himself, but the whole experience made him realize how scared he was to die."
"Yeah?"
"Mmhmm. He's in psychiatric care now."
"That's good."
Jen shifts uncomfortably, obviously trying to get her rib into a better position. "Do you think Phault will ever sign the paperwork to be an official hero?"
This is a debate we have often. Freedom vs security. Jen's in favor security, I'm happier with free. We never attack each other with it, but we have the conversation every other week.
I shrug. "How would I know what a villian thinks?"
She winces. "Ah, no, you know he's not that bad. Just... Misguided. Before the registration thing, he was up there with PG, wasn't he?" Once more, she attempts to shift her body to avoid hurting herself further.
"Look, you should go to the hospital. You can't even sit still." I point out. "My face can wait."
"You say that, but with that face people will ask questions. If I do this, you can at least drag me to the hospital afterwards and provide me an alibi."
I pretend to be shocked. "You? Lying to authorities? Hell must have frozen over."
"Ha."
She finished the makeup in silence. After that, I drive her to the hospital, and pointedly ignore how they move her to the "special" wing when they think I'm not looking. Just like I ignore the way my asphalt pillar slammed into Plasma Girl and now Jen has a broken rib. The same way I ignore the fact that I grabbed PG's ankle and threw her into the side of a building.
The same way Jen ignored the plasma burn on my face, only the next in a series of plasma related injuries.
I walk back to my car, light myself a cigarette, and breath out a cloud of smoke.
You ignore a lot when paying attention hurts. | *beep beep beep*
I slam my hand down on my alarm clock and hop out of bed. I need to get up as quick as possible so I can meet Silvera at 7:00 and bring her to justice. I hear my roommate also shuffling around as I shove my brightly colored “Starfury” outfit into my backpack and I pull on pants that may or may not have been all the way on when I got out of the room. I see Alison already pouring herself some cereal. I look at her confusedly- she never gets up this early. She spots me and speaks before I can,
“Since when do you get up this early?”
“Uh... early meeting. You?”
“Ha. Same.”
I don’t have enough time to talk more I HAVE TO BRING JUSTICE.
I stuff a pop tart in my mouth and head out the door to change and get to the police station ASAP. I need to meet with them before going to meet with Silvera. I hear something breaking in the room behind me as I shut the door, but ignore it, as I don’t have time to deal with it. I change in the alley behind the police station and stumble in, exhausted.
“Sir.” I manage between pants.
“Ah, Starfury. You’re meeting with Silvera in a few minutes, yes?” I nod, “Good. We have measurements set up for her capture, but we also have the building directly east of your meeting place evacuated for the day. Good luck, man.”
I smile at the police chief as I fly out to the meeting site.
“Starfury. So nice to see you.” Her voice sounds strained, even exhausted.
“I can’t say the same about you, Silvera. It’s time to bring you justice.” I realize mine sounds equally exhausted. I am just not a morning person.
“Let’s just get this over with, shall we? I’m going to assume you don’t just wanna hop into these handcuffs here?” I banter. She smirks.
“Nope, and I don’t suppose you wanna just jump in a pit? That would be great.”
“No, that’s not in my plan for today. However, something that is-“ I surprise her by shooting a ray gun but she quickly dodges. The fight rages on for like twenty minutes (ridiculously long for a hero-villain fight. Neither of us have much stamina) until eventually she circles over me and away from the area. She’s badly wounded, but so am I, making it hard to chase. She grabs an innocent onlooker that was a ways away and lifts them far into the air, laughing. I chase, confused but determined not to let this innocent person die. She drops him- I hear him scream. I decide to save the person rather than follow Silvera- as she knew I would. She gets away again.
The door slams behind me of my apartment as I go to get some ice for the bigger of my bruises. I groan as I sit down- I really must’ve sprained something this time. I see my roommate sprawled across the couch, also nursing some strangely familiar looking wounds. She speaks up first again.
“Jay? What happened? You alright?” I wave it off,
“Uh yea, I just tripped. Fell against the side of a table. What about you, Ali?”
“Oh uh- I Uh- fell down the stairs.”
I’m too tired to notice how stupid of an excuse that is as I eat some ice cream. Man, I’m glad to have a friend as great as Alison. We eat ice cream together laughing about our injuries for the rest of the day. | 2018-08-08T05:58:11 | 2018-08-08T05:42:55 | 39 | 10 |
[WP] Every spacefaring species has something that makes them special. Some are fast, some have telekinesis, some are nigh-unkillable. To the galaxy's surprise, humans have a tendency to befirend the cosmic horrors lurking where the starlight does not reach. | Adam cooed under his breath as he scritched between the eyes of the squid-like creature on the table before him. Its slimy exterior shimmered from the tub of water it had crawled out of, approaching him in a manner belying the natural curiosity the species was known for, amongst other things.
"This is the terrifying, ship-destroying space-squid you guys keep going on about?" He asked the being standing behind him, a few meters away from the table.
The being chittered in annoyance before slowly stepping up to the table.
"I told you, Adam." the being clicked its small mandibles in a manner closely resembling human speech. "This is an infant, only a few weeks old. At this point in its growth cycle, they are mainly just annoying, feeding off several by-products of docked ships."
"An infant, why do you guys have an infant?" Adam continued to run his hand over the creature. Several of its tentacles held onto his hand and arm loosely. The creature murmured as its milky eyes seemed to study him.
"As an infant, it's more controllable. We can study and experiment on the species better in this state. As its capabilities scale according to age and size, we can develop strategies from this stage and scale them appropriately."
Adam's blood ran cold as he froze. He turned his head at the insect-like creature beside him.
"Define 'experiment', please. B'tlilk." Adam said slowly. The creature's tentacles stop moving as it sensed his unease. The creature cooed as if trying to soothe him.
"Well, we have never successfully captured an older specimen. Infants, we have captured hundreds, a handful of older adolescents, but no adults. We have thousands of incident reports, but even corpses we've only recovered a few partials. It's difficult to develop weapons without understanding the biology of the creature." B'tlilk chittered away, not noticing the icy glare Adam was giving him.
Adam shook his head as he turned his gaze back to the creature. Its tentacles resumed their movement, squeezing and releasing along his arms. He locked eyes with it, and saw the fear in its eyes, alongside a slight glimmer of hope. And he understood what he needed to do.
"Come on, Adam. This specimen needs to be stored again. It's not scheduled for examination until tomorrow, but we aren't supposed to interact with it. " B'tlilk reached one of its four arms and patted his shoulder. "Imagine it as a three hundred meter monster, wrapping itself around your ship. You humans are too compassionate towards the non-sapient. It's extremely confusing."
"Fine, give me a second." Adam scooped up the small creature. Its eyes widened, and it squirmed for a moment before Adam scratched it between its two eyes and spoke softly to it. "It's alright little guy, just time to go back for now."
B'tlilk chittered again behind Adam as the man slowly placed the creature back into the tub of water on the table and activated the tub's automated top.
"Now your all wet." B'tlilk stated his mandible clicking in annoyance. "We will have to stop by your quarters before dinner with the Trade Queen."
"Nope," Adam chuckled, "Give it a minute. Our clothes have hydrophobic properties. I'll dry in a few minutes, with no smell or stain."
"Fascinating, I'm sure An'am will be interested in these fabrics. I'll be sure to mention them." B'tlilk took Adam's arm and led him out of the lab. The two stopped at the door as Adam turned back, watching the room's robotic assistant pick up the tub and return it to the wall of tub lockers on the far side. Adam shook his head in disa\[appointment before stepping through the room's bulkhead door.
\---------
A few hours later, Adam tossed and turned in his quarters. He couldn't help but see the small, pitiful creature every time he closed his eyes. He growled in annoyance as he pulled himself out of the small bed, taking a stance in the center of the room's space. It wasn't much but gave him enough space to run through enough of a workout to produce a sheen of sweat on his ebony skin. He moved, hoping to work the strange energy coursing through his body.
After a while, he grabbed a towel hanging on one wall and began wiping the sweat off his body. After tossing the towel back on its rack, he sat down on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. His mind raced, all his thought focused on a small creature. Despite the success of his dinner with the leading authority of trade for this cluster of the galaxy, Adam couldn't help but feel frustrated with his trip. Part of him begged him to act. The other part urged caution. The purpose of his visit had been accomplished. He secured a line of carefully negotiated trade routes that humanity desperately needed to further explore this edge of space.
But still, those small, milk eyes haunted him. And he knew he had to act. He would never be able to forgive himself if he didn't.
"Fuck it, " He finally said, after thinking for what seemed hours." Looks like I'm rescuing a space-squid baby." | Talvines- purple skinned insectoids, parasitoids that infect different species. Able to teleport within a certain range they dominate their part of the universe and have a large gap between them and other sentient species.
Trillers gem spined spider like creatures. Incredible factory systems and innate defense mechanisms. Their towering glass architecture inspires artists. A truly wealthy and respected species. Their past is rarely spoken of but they are peace-keepers and well trusted.
Feared. Nobility.
Asocial in regards to other species.
Not many species blend. The Network, planet systems close to each other accepting all crab species a notable exception in having clear requirements.
Squires and Mylits are some of the most unique one, shadowy creatures working in tandem with birds with highly trained abilities. There is an assortment of other blended planets and cultures but in comparison to the many species it is incredibly small.
Then there are humans, their constant request for friendship initially being mistaken as trade arrangements. Their desire to know others, being taken as a declaration of war once. They were seen as a rude invasive species.
It was however friendliness. Pushing themselves into worlds of Avians was a reckless act that somehow worked, this itself a rare case of interspecies mingling and the deciding factor for the near universe to believe Humans quirk was being extroverted.
They proved that right, in the worst way.
Having heard of Trillers human love of gems sent a small expedition to trade, while a disrespectful act from other species Humans had been accepted. An oddity and a beloved part of the universe.
Triller gems entered the marketplace in exchange for honey, and a tentative friendship was formed.
Then of course, we all know how it went wrong.
A regular expedition was blown off course sending humans into deep-starlight, the gap between Talvines and other species, a place ancient gods had taken to.
An inbetween place, somewhere off of reality where laws had become distorted, where unique creatures and horrifying ones resided, notably where planet sized eyes led back to Varsa.
They befriended xem.
Varsa, a being that didn’t know empathy or even speech. Their extroversion went further than we had believed.
One human said “Xyr cool, xe’s more of a really scary cat than a monster.”
No further answer was provided, no move was made to distance from Varsa, in fact they grew closer to xem. Zaros metals were collected from xyr eyes.
Triller trade trailed off, Avians had, though it had been only a few centuries, already integrated, that though was the end of humans befriending other species. We pulled back, away further from deep-starlight.
While we ran humans continued. Varsa was only the first followed by other entities.
We leave humans alone now, there is a second gap. Talvines at the center, ununderstood entities, then a ring of humans. They send out signals, speak of our nightmares that they call friends. They still try to befriend us but they don’t leave. But now a few words haunt us introverted species. “for now.
“This is enough for now.”
Humans are extroverted, maybe more. | 2021-04-07T21:52:28 | 2021-04-07T21:11:49 | 300 | 42 |
[WP]: An ordinary human being gets abducted into interplanetary olympics that have a fun twist: The loser's planet gets destroyed. All hope seems to be lost, until the last sport is revealed to be what humans do best.
Edit: Thanks to you people, I am now aware of the existence of Jimmy Neutron, and if I could, would take it back.
I apologise for not having watched the same cartoons as you did, growing up. | “I should've been training with these guys all along”, she thought to herself, “I would've won that gold medal in my sleep.”
Their strength was incredible. Easily twice that of a human. Having evolved on a world covered in arid desert, they needed almost no water and had stamina far beyond anything she had ever imagined. They laughed at her as she gulped down water, doubled over in exhaustion from trying to keep up with them. She was an Olympian, one of the most athletically gifted humans alive. But she was no match for them, and she knew it. She also knew what was at stake.
This was their way, she learned. It was their most ancient, most sacred law. They did not fight wars. They had no concept of diplomacy. They saw the competition as the ultimate form of honor and nobility. Going back to their tribal days, they had settled all conflicts with the competition. The winner is right, and the loser is wrong. Cheating is mortal sin. Even as their society developed and took to the stars, this remained their way. It was brutal, but she could almost appreciate their sense of honor. She didn't know why they had chosen her as the champion of humanity, but it didn't matter now. All that mattered was the contest.
The games wore on, and she put up a valiant fight. There were a handful of events that required more agility and coordination than brute strength, and she was able to gain the upper hand, having an advantage over their bulky, muscle-bound bodies. When it came to the tests of strength, the long runs, the endurance contests, though, she didn't have a chance. They laughed at her. Ever since they had conquered their first alien planet centuries before, they reminded her, not a single species has beaten them. Every jeer and provocation only made her more determined to win, and to save her planet.
It came down to the final game. She was to be dropped in a dense, sprawling forest, covered with an almost bamboo-like vegetation. A single competitor was dropped at the other end of the forest. Whoever came out alive was the winner. She knew that a physical confrontation would mean certain death, so she realized her only chance was to use another advantage. She examined the hard, woody vegetation around her.
Days went by. She could sense him getting closer. An oddly snapped branch here, a footprint there. Exhaustion began to set in, and she stopped moving. She needed to save her strength, and prepare mentally. She heard him approaching in the distance.
He sprang out of a bush, pointing a spear he had fashioned at her throat. “You have lost, human. Prepare to die.” “Wait!” she exclaimed, “I surrender. You have proven your species' superiority. You have won the right to conquer Earth.”
He was surprised, but only briefly. An arrogant smile broke out across his face. “Finally, you've learned, human. You have admitted defeat, so I shall spare your life. I shall give you the gift of living under our rule.” He helped her up, and they turned to walk out of the jungle together. She slowly, quietly reached for the dagger she had made.
She leaped onto his back and plunged the dagger into his neck, twisting and ripping every last fiber. Dull green blood splattered everywhere. His screams attracted the attention of the game's officials. They soon arrived at the scene to see her standing alone, covered in green blood. The officials stood there, mouths agape. The head official pulled out a small communication device and with a trembling voice said: "all units, withdraw from Earth orbit immediately." | The aliens were terrifying and bewildering; hulking behemoths and stalking predators, covered in barbed spines or gelatinous acidic ooze. John counted himself lucky to have been spared the combat events. He had watched though, as fight after fight ended in a rapid exchange of blows, the victorious monsters not even breaking a sweat in the exertion of breaking their opponent.
Forced to the starting line of a what appeared to be a simple foot-race, he couldn't help but feel helplessly small, trapped between two nightmare creatures to his right and left, with the heat of an alien sun beating down on him. The unmistakeable sound of a starting gun. He bolted before the cattle prod could catch him from behind. Running, very literally he suspected, as if his life depended on it.
The pack pulled ahead, but he was barely 50 metres down the track before the great stone giant running to his right slowed, falling down onto one huge knee, toppling to the side with a dull thud. As John loped past the fallen alien he saw another bizarre creature slowing, it's many legs going limp as it's skin changed from a deep purple to a pale blue.
The sweat ran down his face, as the realisation struck him; out of every alien there, not one of the bastards was sweating. Not one of them was *able* to sweat. He was surrounded by the descendants of apex predators, accustomed to brief explosive chases to bring down prey with an economy of effort, not tests of endurance in fleeing. Unable to shed heat efficiently they were succumbing beneath the burning sun, boiling from the inside.
They had thought this their most difficult trial, the most amusing to throw the tiny human into. They had been very much mistaken. | 2014-05-06T07:00:29 | 2014-05-06T06:52:54 | 41 | 28 |
[WP] You are a Psychiatrist...for gods, superheroes, villains, demons, and anthropomorphic personifications of supernatural forces. Basically, in order to find you, a being must have the ability to alter reality. Your new client appears to be a normal human being. | I stood in front of the open door staring at my patient for a tad bit longer than would be considered polite in modern human society.
I didn’t really need to adhere to human rules and mannerisms as I didn’t deal with them, but this little bugger standing in front of me was human; 100% human.
He didn’t have the glowing red irises of a demon, sharp canines of a vampire, the scent of arousal that accompanied an incubus or the wet mutt smell that werewolves couldn’t seem to shake off no matter what soap or perfume they used. So, I was justified in being a little rude with the way I stared at him with my mouth half open.
“How may I help you, Mr....?” I raised my eyebrows, asking him for his name.
“It’s Zack. Just call me Zack.” He answered softly, as if unsure of his own voice.
“Okay, Mr. Zack, how may I help you today?” I gestured for him to enter and shut the door behind him.
“I don’t think I’m the one who needs help, Mr Fuddlebum.” He smirked at me, losing his entire act of timidity once the door was firmly shut and strutted into the room like he owned it.
“What do you mean Mr.Zack? Is there another patient?” I tried to deflect, tried to feign ignorance, innocence, anything that would make it seem like I didn’t hear the subtle threat in his voice. I immediately started running through a list of people in my head: a list of people whom I had pissed off enough to order a hit on me. Demons, Vampires, Faeries or any other supernatural beings couldn’t hurt me themselves in the scared astral plane as they were bound by its law and magic. But humans were a different matter. Humans were not bound by the laws of the astral plane and that made them the most dangerous creatures there.
“Mr Fuddlebum, it is really commendable how you managed to live for 400 years in this,” he gestured in the air, “astral plane, away from all kinds of harm. It was very clever of you to escape to a place where you wouldn’t age and no harm would ever come into you.”
I chuckled softly to show him that I found his accusation amusing and that I was not really panicking on the inside. “I got the opportunity and I took it. What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong Mr. Fuddlebum is that you’ve lived far too long already. It’s time for you to come home, age and eventually meet your end. It’s time to remember that you’re human.”
I laughed out loud this time, almost maniacally, letting the ridiculousness of the situation overtake me.
“What if I refuse?” I asked, standing my ground and squaring my shoulders.
He pulled out his revolver and aimed it point blank between my eyes. “If you refuse, you’ll live a few years lesser than we’re planning to gracefully grant you. And your secretary will probably have to scrub your brains out of the upholstery.” He grimaced as if imagining the scene and feigned a shudder.
He then reached forward for a mint on my table and popped it in his mouth while managing to keep the gun pointed right between my eyes. “Come now, Mr. Fuddlebum, everyone’s waiting.”
I held my breath and counted till five, hoping the mint would have the same effect on him as it did on my supernatural patients.
~ The end ~ | "So... You can't do anything out of the ordinary?"
"Was I supposed to?"
The psychiastrist sighed. This was the first time in millenniums that no special being (read: superhero/supervillain) came to him. Although he was the one responsible for having all the answers, he didn't know what to do in this case, as he spoke to a man about 25 years old.
"What bothers you, my child?"
"Ah, doc. You know. Me and my coworkers are having discussions, I hate my life, I don't know how to cook, and the team I'm rooting for lost a match!"
"Hold up, son, you said you hate your life? That's something I can handle. Who are you trying to kill?"
"Haha, doc. What do you mean?"
"A superhero, then. I see. So you can't save anyone, and that's disturbing you, right? Perhaps you aren't the perfect person for the job. I know some heroes that changed sides."
"I wouldn't call exactly saving. I think the best word is 'flirting'. Do you think I should become... homossexual?"
"I don't see a problem with that."
"Well, I think it's worth a shot. Thanks, doc!"
The psychiastrist turned his back for a moment, just to hear a big crack. As he looked back, the man had disappeared, and a hole in the doc's office had been made on the roof. | 2018-06-30T07:46:18 | 2018-06-30T04:35:47 | 74 | 23 |
[WP] After falling for a "free iPad" scam ad, a mob boss decides he's getting that iPad, whatever it takes.
I posted this years ago, but I want more. | Benny had arthritis in his right hand that made squeezing the trigger difficult, but his aim was still as good as it'd been in his twenties. He buttoned his waistcoat up and combed his hair across the left of his head with a wet, fine toothed comb. Before leaving the house, he fitted his gun snugly into the holster beneath his arm and tugged his suit into place in the hallway mirror. When he lifted his arm, the shape holster showed up beneath the snug fabric. On his head he put his felt trilby, the one he'd worn at his wife's funeral. In his buttonhole went a white carnation.
Yvan at the bar saw Benny enter and raised his eyebrows. In the warm weather, people sat outside the bar. Before Benny reached the counter, his black espresso waited for him at the end of the counter, the two white sugars lying by the saucer. Benny's wife hadn't let him have sugar, so it was with glee he poured both of them into the tiny cup and stirred it with the spoon.
"Good weather, Yvan," Benny said. He took his hat off and put it on the counter beside him, smoothing down the flyaway hair.
Yvan, wiping down the counter, smiled and sat something indistinct about rain maybe coming this afternoon. Benny showed up at his bar most days, made small talk and left again. Yvan guessed the old man was pretty lonely. There didn't seem to be that many people in his life.
From his breast pocket, Benny pulled a leaflet, recognisable immediately as a junk pamphlet put through people's letter boxes.
"I've won an iPad," he said to Yvan. "I'm going to collect it this afternoon." He pointed at it with a trembling finger.
"You know that's a scam, don't you?" Yvan said carelessly. "They send those to everyone."
"It's addressed to me," Benny said. "It says I've won one."
"They just fill your name in. It's not worth the paper it's printed on." Yvan said. "You want a croissant?"
"No," Benny slipped off the stool and put his hat back on his head. He tugged the bottom of the suit down. "I have the address, I'm going to go and pick up my free iPad."
At the payphone outside the bar, Benny made a call that lasted no longer than thirty seconds. Four minutes later, an old school Jaguar pulled up at the curb. A man got out of the front seat, tall, wearing sunglasses and a three-piece suit identical to Benny's, and held open the car door for the old man.
"Where's your carnation?" Benny said irritably to the driver, who had prison tattoos on his neck. "I told you to always wear a carnation."
"Sorry, grandfather. I'll remember next time."
Benny sniffed.
"We gotta stop off somewhere before we go to that address, grandfather," the man in the back seat poked his head between the front seats. "We've got something to show you."
The car drew to a halt outside Benny's daughter's house. In the driveway, three cars were already parked. A couple of Benny's younger grandchildren hovered around the door. As soon as they saw their grandfather through the window, they did their best impression of teenagers who were definitely *not* smoking.
Propped up on someone's arm, Benny allowed himself to be guided into the living room of his daughter's house. A long table was already set with food; a massive bowl of pasta waited beside fresh white china. Balloons drifted near the French windows. Someone had slung a banner over the fireplace, over the photos of Benny and his wife on their wedding day, at each of their children's graduations, grandchildren's birthday parties.
*Happy Birthday Grandfather.*
"Wait till you open your present," one of the many grandchildren pushed a square box into his hands. A pair of slippers waited at his feet.
Benny smiled. He already knew what it was.
--------
/r/Schoolgirlerror | Johann the Hammer smacked the top of the computer case with enough force to pop the disc drive open. "You saying she ain't giving me an iPad?"
Wire wiped his glasses on his shirt and shook his head. "It isn't even a 'she,' boss." He clicked on the Facebook profile of "Kat Alexis" and motioned to the sidebar. The account had one hundred added friends and three low-resolution selfies of unmistakably different women. "It's one of those Facebook scam bots who prey on..." Wire pursed his lips, eyeing Johann's musclebound arms. "...people who place value in trust."
"You telling me I had eyes for a robot?" Johann shoved Wire out of the chair, clicked on the pictures, and frantically undid his likes. "Oh, there'll be hell to pay once I find the nerd who built this. I'm gonna break into his house"—he finger-pecked "Google" into the address bar, followed by "Google maps"—"and jack his little iPad."
"It'll be impossible to track him down, I'm afraid," Wire said, "but we could always just go to the Apple store if you want an iPad. They're pretty cheap now, and I have a gift card..."
"This ain't about the iPad, Wire." Johann clicked back to Facebook to look up Kat's location. "It's about teaching these scammers a lesson—holy shit!" His mouth dropped open as he scrolled down his Facebook feed. "All these fuckers are offering free iPads. I can't believe so many of my friends are scammers." He grabbed his revolver from beneath the desk and holstered it onto his belt. "At least I know where these guys live."
"Actually, that's because when you clicked the link, it replicated itself onto..." Wire's words were drowned out by Johann's angry footsteps clomping up the basement stairs. He contemplated following him, but ultimately decided against it: Johann learned better through experience than explanation.
*Perhaps I ought to start his own curriculum,* Wire thought. He took a seat at the computer and began to compose an email. *Greetings from Nigeria...* | 2016-07-15T11:55:58 | 2016-07-15T11:50:32 | 277 | 28 |
[WP] Humans are endurance hunters. Which is not a trait anyone would expect to come into play in an interplanetary war. | K'lithiq doctrine declares that attack is the only way. To defend is to be at the mercy of an enemy who will attack when you are weakest, when you are tired and resting. To defend is to function with only a sixth of your force at the ready, with the remainder in varying degrees of exhaustion. Even more critically you must train 6 generals, causing division in the ranks over who to obey, who to look to in a crisis. So every K'lithiq campaign has been decided by a series of brutal raids and ambushes, using our scouts to determine when the enemy was resting and annihilate them.
This war was meant to be no different, save for perhaps necessity - the humans rivaled us in size, and so we must attack and destroy them before they destroy us. We had determined they had gathered nearly 10% of their forces in one of the outer systems of their empire for a training exercise while another 40% was split between their homeworld and breadbasket systems. We split our fleet evenly, hoping to slaughter half their forces, disorganize them and starve them, all at the same time.
Instead it was a disaster.
The battle started well enough, with their carriers and ours deploying the drones that made up the bulk of our forces. Our pilots proved superior and we deployed twice as many drones from each carrier, further expanding our numerical advantage and making victory seem as plain as day as we pushed the humans back across the vast expanse that separated our carriers, yet the humans proved to be tricky creatures, they carried 60 drones per pilot compared to our 20, a tactic we scoffed at, believing that their pilots would tire long before they ran out of drones. We were wrong.
When we realized that half our pilots had lost their second drone, we woke the engineering staff and ordered them to construct more drones, we commanded exhausted, tired pilots to use the scavengers to acquire materials for the bleary-eyed engineering staff to use to make sub-par drones that barely slowed the humans' advance. Pilots that once slew half a dozen human drones without losing a single drone were now defeated without destroying a single human unit.
K'lithiq doctrine declares that first blood usually declares the winner in equal forces. We saw that to be true here when one of our pilots died in his chair, not of injury or poison, but of heart attack, our medics said, exhaustion and stress had caused his heart to give out. I only regret not giving the signal to retreat sooner, as medbays full of dead and dying pilots who never received a scratch and the loss of contact with the 1st and 2nd fleets proves to me that I made the right call.
2 Months ago we launched a disastrous attack on the Human Empire and today we gather to discuss the Human fleets that approach our homeworld. I implore this council to not consider fighting them, for if we could not defeat them on the attack with superior numbers, we have no chance outnumbered and on the defense.
-Grand Admiral of the K'lithiq tribes, hours before their surrender to the Human Empire. | I knew I had seen it in the old media while studying for the contact.
The McCoys and the Hatfields explained why our species was not able to bring the bipeds into submission. The desire to fight was taught as soon as they could walk. The fight endured through generations. After the grandfather was to old to fly a bomb attached to a rocket, he turned his hate of us and conviction over to his son. Down the generations the need to war endured.
Our generations were long. Our youth took too long to grow and went on too many different paths before maturity. The bipeds ran us down. As the older ones slow and dropped, their children joined in chasing us at full speed. The chased us to the end of Ss56_89,0. Using chemical rockets and primitive fission technology they have chased us away.
I just hope we can find safe haven when they assemble the bits of junk left floating, and make the next leap into the cosmos. | 2021-01-11T18:54:18 | 2021-01-11T18:30:11 | 34 | 15 |
[WP] You wake up, shower, brush your teeth, get dressed and head out the door. As you walk to your car you see children getting on the school bus and cars passing your house. This was the moment you realize you were the last human alive. | The rustling of the spring breeze passing through the trees made waking up so much harder. I just wanted to stay in bed and drift off into dreams of floating down a river on a lily pad. But my girlfriend had other plans, as evidenced by her quietly sitting up and blowing in my ear. I sat up and hissed, "Damnit Misty, what did I say about doing that?"
Misty giggled and nuzzled into me. "That you love it and I should keep doing it forever and ever?"
"That is a blatant falsehood and you know it."
"Aww, c'mon Georgia, I just didn't want you to miss the farmer's market."
I sighed as I sat up and kissed Misty on the cheek. "I know, I know. And I appreciate it. I'm gonna get in the shower now."
"You need someone to scrub those hard to reach spots?"
I gently pushed Misty's face away from me. "Down, you little horndog."
Misty laughed as she got out of bed and started pulling off her shirt, fluffy golden tail wagging slowly the whole time. I got out shortly after and made my way to the bathroom, savoring the house's smell of pine needles and apples along the way. I stepped into the shower and let the hot water and suds cascade over me. As I did, I heard Misty enter the bathroom and call out to me, "Hey hon, do you want to get breakfast at the market or stop somewhere on the way back?"
"Stop at Hiraldo's Diner. I heard through the grapevine that Ashley's working a shift this morning and I think this'll be the day we finally ask if she'd like to go out with us."
Misty whistled. "Bold today, are we?"
I rinsed myself off, turned off the water, and pulled the curtain back to say, "Yeah well, that offer for some shower fun inspired me."
"Apparently not enough to actually take me up on the offer," Misty grumbled.
I chuckled as I kissed her again. "Aww, is my puppy grumpy this morning?"
Misty blushed and utterly failed to hide the fact her wagging tail had just picked up speed. "Quit teasing me and hurry up!"
Once I had finished up in the bathroom and Misty and I were dressed for the rest of our day, we stepped outside to take in the absolutely wonderful day. I looked around the neighborhood and saw the people around me go about their day. I saw the kids getting on the school bus, the occasional car ambling down the road, and all the other people getting outside to soak up the beautiful weather. It was at that moment that it really hit me:
Humanity was gone. Everything they had built had been torn down to make something better. I was the last human on Earth. And I couldn't stop myself from smiling.
Sometimes I could barely believe I'd successfully gotten rid of them.
Misty noticed my distant look and said, "You okay, honey?" I looked at Misty and recalled the way she was before Project Sixth Sun; the way she mocked and insulted me for daring to believe I could be a 'real' woman, how quickly she tried to sell out the other test subjects once she was selected. I intertwined my hand with hers and happily replied, "Oh, I'm fine, baby. Just feeling grateful for what I have." | There was a day when a person could walk out of their office and never expect to hear from Jill from accounting until the next morning after getting into the office again. There were week long vacations where there was never a buzz or lazy chime that meant you needed to just, “do a quick check in with the team”. Now, now we’re always connected”, just like that asshole from Apple promised. “We could all be sitting on the beach while checking our emails!” Life was going to be perfect.
Now, as I walk out of my front door, the god damned door bell tells me I’m running late for work. Oh and don’t tell it to shut the hell up because that’ll get you a social demerit with the, “Board for AI Rights”. I don’t even need to mention the cars. They’re the absolute worst, self driving turned into self moderating, turned into self governing. If you don’t thank the things after they haul your ass to work, that’s another demerit. Enough demerits and EVERYTHING stops working. It all goes on strike. No toast, no metaverse, no anything. The doors won’t open…
Today’s no different. I step through my door, hold back the finger to that fucking doorbell, and stare at the lifeless world around me. I think I might be the only person left on this god forsaken planet. | 2022-10-24T18:49:16 | 2022-10-24T16:47:09 | 46 | 17 |
[WP] You're the captain of the first ship to go into Deep Space, however, your computer didn't awake you 11 years after parting but 184 years after it. You now find yourself in a abandoned and empty spaceship with no one else and only the Computer. To worsen it all: that Red Star is getting nearer | The maximum rating for the hypersleep capsules was 50 years. That much Reggie Housman remembered from his briefings at corporate, but really the engineers had told them 20 years was probably the longest anyone wanted to be in one without being revived.
"Otherwise you'll wish you were dead," chuckled one of the engineers.
Reggie sat on his left hand, it was quivering so badly that he through his arm might tear apart. His right hand was being used to hold up his head, and it too shook just not as severely. A quick glance at his skin told him that he had to be more careful or it would start falling off.
"Begin revivification process on Medical candidate, Natine Daniels," he croaked.
<Yes Captain> responded the computer.
That was terrifying. Reggie wasn't even that high up on the ship's roster. For him to be Captain meant something... he couldn't quite remember why. All he could focus on now was getting an Engineer up. The Red Sun was so bright.
They were so close now that the external warning lights were starting to go off. the Solar Cells were running at over 100% capacity and that had given the ship the power budget to wake him up despite the damage they had sustained. You see, no one expects damage in the interstellar medium between stars, the ships just aren't built to take any damage there flying at a good fraction of the speed of light. Whatever they'd hit had done enough damage to slow the ship down so their 11 year trip took 184 years while simultaneously stopping the ship from reviving anyone to attempt repairs.
<revivification successful> came the computer's voice without intonation.
Reggie waited, and then like clockwork came the screams. They were not the healthy screams of a healthy person scared or angered. They were the wet choking screams of someone drowning as their lungs began to dissolve. If someone from medical had been able to be revived then maybe they could have saved that person.
But Reggie had already gone through the entire medical staff, all 12 doctors, nurses, and specialists. None had survived.
He almost quit, but there were so many colonists on board, stored in tubes like cargo. They were not crew, they could not be revived. Their pods were designed for long term storage and 'kept' much longer than the crew pods which were designed to allow a crewman to be revived and be functional in a few hours at most. A colonist would take days or weeks to recover but could be stored for centuries unless the ship carrying them plunged into a star.
Reggie hated the universe and everything else. He had somehow had the fortitude to survive the agonizing hours while his lungs partially dissolved and even now it was like breathing through a straw. He was sucking in air that had started freezing, and now was starting to become scorching because of the heat being applied to the outer portion of the hull trying to complete a mission where everyone was probably already dead.
The screams stopped and the computer announced <Surgeon Natine Daniels has perished> please send her body to <unknown> for autopsy.
Nat had been nice, she was good friends with Reggie's wife and had joked when she was injecting him with the nanorobots. The nanobots that were supposed to prevent what just happened to Natine right now. The nanorobots that dissolved after 50 years, at most.
After the terrible silence, Reggie quietly spoke again, "Computer, all medical staff are dead, this constitutes an emergency, please for the love of god fire the primary thrusters."
<Primary Thrusters are damaged, the Chief Engineer must authorize the firing of the drive>
"We only need to fire them at 2% and we can alter course to avoid the star, please," begged Reggie. The AI controller module had been damaged. Had it survived the ship would have self-corrected, or it would have decided that the spirit of the situation was an emergency. Instead, Reggie was arguing with an overly complex if-then statement.
<Primary Thrusters are damaged, the Chief Engineer must authorize the firing of the drive>
"How many engineering candidates are still alive," Reggie said softly.
<There is one member of Engineering staff onboard>
"And the main thrusters need to be fired or the ship will be destroyed," he said sadly.
<Yes, the main thrusters can be fired a 2.2% thrust to prevent impact with the star>
"How many colonists are still alive?"
<92,887 colonists are still alive, note per previous query none can be revived due to design of their capsules>
Defeated, Reggie continued, "Computer, revive engineering candidate One Hundred Thirty Seven, Gena Housman."
He had saved her for last. He just couldn't active the command that killed her. She had been the fifth person he was supposed to revive but after the first four died gruesomely he'd skipped her. Then Reggie had kept skipping her, trying to bring up anyone else who could possibly fire the engines, or improve her chances of survival. Now the crew of the ship was just him, and her.
<revivification successfuly>
The scream broke into a sick wet cough that only went on for a few agonizing moments. Then blissful silence filled the room. Reggie could at least save the colonists.
"Computer fire the primary thrusters at minimal power to ensure the ship does not plunge into the star for at least another 50 years." 50 years would be plenty. He'd already sent out the distress signal.
<Quering engineer>
What?
<Engineerin approves, thrusters firing at 2.21 percent capacity, no damage detected, have a nice day.> | I remember the way she looked, her face, as we sat together for the last time. On the beach, the gentle breeze scattering her hair across my shoulders. We sat together, hands held, and gazed toward a technicolour sunset. Gentle orange faded through pink and turquoise ever downward to the horizon. The wind cooled, and we cooled with it. A blanket warmed us, but mostly I recall the yearning. The warmth in my chest and pain in my heart. Conflicted yet determined. The palette cooled, giving slow way to purples and finally blacks. Stars littered a careless sky, and still we sat. Emotions beyond words, but a tension had entered our hands, our arms. I think we knew, this was a final goodbye. I had volunteered, and she wouldn't be coming. As I watched the stars that night, did they watch me back? I would be joining them soon, not the first to go, but would I be the first to return?
I assume we fell asleep on the beach, as a new and yellow sun rose me from slumber. I left her there, a timeless moment, a blanket on the beach, note tucked in. Had she fallen asleep before me, as we watched the stars? Had we seen the same vision? I had miles to go to control, and lightyears to travel beyond that. But journeys have to start, and you always leave something behind.
`347155200 seconds elapsed`
`Thought for the day: To see a World in a Grain of Sand. And a Heaven in a Wild Flower.`
`Exception at FA0x0511EA0:000F`
`clock_check recall failed`
`contacting support...`
`comms_recall offline`
`engaging secondary logic engine`
`pending...`
I think I remember the way she looked, her form, as we sat together for the last time. On the beach, the gentle breeze scattering her hair across my shoulders. We sat together, hands held, and gazed toward a hazy sunset. Gentle colours flickered through our mind ever downward to the horizon. The wind cooled, and we cooled with it. A blanket warmed us, but mostly I recall `attempted_override failure state at 00Fx2799E:A21, unspecified_error`. The warmth in my heart and pain in my chest. Conflictedly grasping for meaning. The earth cooled, as is natural, giving slow way to purples and finally blacks. *A lone star shone in an empty sky*. Emotions beyond words, but a tension had brushed against us, and would not leave. I think I knew, this was a final goodbye. I was going, and I would go alone. As I watched the **star** that night, did it watch me back? I would be joining her soon, the first to come this way in a long time?
I assume I fell asleep on the beach, as a blushing red sun summoned me from the abyss. I left them behind, all of them, a hollow in the sand on a vast beach, set before an eternal sea. Had it noticed me, as I slep beneath it? Had we seen alternate visions? There is still distance to travel, but I'm closer now. Journeys can't be endless, and you have to leave something behind.
`3456000000 seconds elapsed`
`Thought for the day: Nothing ever REALLY goes away – it just changes into something else`
`attempted_override stack exceeds memory bound`
`conflict with perogative 7: crew must survive`
`logic engines 1 through 6 divert to main task`
`power override, restructuring of energy sources`
`pending...` | 2019-11-05T12:54:04 | 2019-11-05T11:27:25 | 118 | 28 |
[WP] When you die, the karma you accumulated through good deeds (or bad) are the points you get to spend on your new character creation. | It all seemed so easy, so joyful.
You could see all those people lined up. They were like statues. Faces tied to the big screens in front of them, trying to figure out what they wanted to be, to become, in their next life.
Families who died together in a fire or a car crash could chose to live their next life together as well. They could chose all they desired, all they longed for.
You could see the faces of worn out, old men who had suffered a lot in their life smile again.
At first sight it looked like an amazing place with amazing possibilities. Every one was smiling, checking their bank accounts to see how many karma they accumulated in their lives. And then spending that karma on wealth, health and various other variables that could make your next life better.
When you die your soul gets moved into what we call “The Core”.
In the early human history this was called Heaven and ancient manuscripts wrote about this place.
They said that these “portals” as they named them could make you into anything and give you everything you wanted.
If you lived a quiet and happy life sharing what you could and helped people, you would go into the next life as a better man, a bigger man, a wealthier man. You see, because, when you die, the karma you accumulated through good deeds are the points you get to spend on your next life.
Standing here, on this platform with so many choices made me feel small.
I looked around and started walking of my platform, walking across the giant white room.
The things that I saw around me made me question my first thought about this place.
I saw too much of mankind here, too much of the characteristics of men. Too much greed,
too much Stinginess.
People started to look at me weird, no one had dared to step of their platform. They were all to scared, too insecure that they might lose their chance, their opportunity at wealth, at power.
Most of the people who had high karma had been volunteers, social workers, teachers in their previous life. Especially from those you did not expect that what I saw. The greed and mistrust of every thing around them in their eyes was terrifying. They were like junkies trying to get a shot. Exchanging karma to life points like a mad man, not even looking at what could be the best value.
You see I was only 16 at the moment, well not that I would ever be older than that but still. I didn't have a lot of life experience. I don't exactly know how I died either. I was walking home from school carrying my backpack with my books and my food. And suddenly I was here, on this weird place.
I walked back at my screen and checked my karma balance. I didn't expect much from it. I trained the youth at my local club and was a volunteer at the local homeless shelter. But that could not give me more then a few hundred karma.
There was something wrong the device, it only gave me the an animation of [a golden coin](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/a6/40/fb/a640fbe81c76d1ef1eaec06d8b73f8e4.jpg) instead of my karma count. That could not be a good sign.
Please be gentle :) this is my first time trying to write something.
Edit: Please check out part 2! Almost invisible in the many responses from this comment ;) | "Jesus, why are you going down there again? It's been almost two thousand years since you were down there last time. We all know what happened last time."
"I'm not going for redemption this time, Michael. This time I'm going for vengeance."
"Well at least remove that ridiculous moustache from your avatar."
"Ridiculous! HA! When you think Charlie, do you think ridiculous? NO you don't."
"Calling him Charlie even though he just made his character a few days ago isn't changing anything. Look with your points you should be able to make yourself into anything and get a decent start at this life."
"This is what I want Michael. I don't expect you to understand."
"OK. Fine I may not understand but taking Mary with you in this. Do you think you'll be able to find her?"
"Of course we will find each other."
"At least your names need to be changed, you can't be European and have names like Jesus and Mary. Can I at least reccomended something to the two of you?"
"Yeah. What is it?"
"When you are down there try to forget about this revenge thing and live your lives. Please."
"I'll think about it Michael. Now is there anything else before we get started?"
"No. Nothing else, good luck Jesus."
---------
Any and all comments appreciated. | 2016-10-08T10:16:29 | 2016-10-08T07:09:46 | 142 | 41 |
[WP] You've just invented time travel. You decide to go exactly 1 year into the future and speak to the first person you see, "Hey what day is it?" "364." "What do you mean 364?" "It's been 364 days since the incident. | I had finally done it. My finest achievement sat in front of me, glistening in the florescent lights of my workshop. I put on the suit and typed in "1 year +" into the controller on my wrist. With a bright flash of light and a loud *pop* I felt myself being ripped out of time. It was a strange sensation and is very hard to describe. With another loud *pop* I found myself in an unexpected environment. My workshop was gone, I was standing in an empty field with debris all around me. I looked around my old neighborhood, only to see everything had changed. No one was out walking around, and everyone's blinds were shut. All windows were barred and no cars were passing by the usually busy street. I slipped the suit off in order to not seem strange and stuffed it in a bag.
I walked down to a convenience store I frequented and was relieved to see that it was open for business. The worker at the register looked up at the sound of the door opening and then glanced back down at whatever he was reading. I walked up to him and gave him my best friendly smile.
"Excuse me sir, but do you happen to know what day it is?"
He looked at me with a straight face. "364"
"364 what?"
Now he looked confused. "364 days since the incident. 364 days since our new leader appeared and took over the world. 364 days since the new regime was enacted. 364 days since him." He said as he pointed to a poster on the wall. On the poster was an older man, about 50 years old. He had a stern look about him. The poster said *I'm Always Watching* in large font. How had a dictator taken over the whole world in a year?
I quickly exited the store and put on my suit again. I had to go back and fix this. I went back to my time and took off the suit. I put it back in my bag and carried it with me in case I needed it again. I didn't even know where to start with trying to fix this. Where should I go? *When* should I go? What should I do?
It was starting to get late as I walked down my street. I took a turn into an alleyway I used as a shortcut when I heard a voice say "Don't shout, just give me everything you have on you." I turned my head to see a young man of about 18 pointing a gun at me. "Now." He said sternly, motioning to the ground. There was something strangely familiar about him, but I couldn't place my finger on it. Whoever he was, I couldn't just hand over my suit. It was the result of everything I had worked so hard to achieve, and was maybe the only way I could correct the future.
I took off running. I caught the guy by surprise so he didn't respond as quickly as he should have. A few bullets whizzed by me as I ran. I was almost to the end of the alley when a bullet hit me in my right leg. I crashed to the ground, my momentum grinding my face along the pavement as it pushed back against me slowing me down. My bag flew out of my hand and landed a few feet away from me. The guy ran up to me and growled "You didn't have to do that you know, it could have been nice and easy." He cocked his head to the side when he heard police sirens. "Shit." He grabbed my bag and ran off.
I couldn't believe what had just happened. It wasn't fair. My whole life I dreamed of time travel. I got to use it ONCE and that was only to see a doomed future. A doomed future I no longer had much hope of saving. All I could do now was wait for the police to arrive.
As I sat waiting, bleeding, a loud pop went off behind me. It was him. The dictator from the future. "I suppose I should thank you for this suit." He said, gesturing to my suit. It looked well worn. "I never would have been able to do it without you." He smiled as he raised the gun.
*bang* | "Hey what day is it?"
She looked a bit annoyed, as if the answer couldn't be anymore obvious. "364"
"What do you mean 364?"
Now she looked even more bothered, "It's been 364 days since the incident"
The tone of her voice hit me like a brick being thrown at my stomach. She spoke as if the worst possible thing had happened that day. What kind of event could have happened that caused the entire country to reset the way we look at the calendar? Had Jesus Christ come back from heaven? I was curious but didn't want to probe any further. Another dumb question from me and she might blow a gasket. She turned around and continued walking at her brisk pace, crossing her arms to protect herself from the frigid New York City wind.
I pulled out my phone from my pocket, obviously I had no service since I hadn't paid a phone bill in a year. I ran to the nearest coffee shop with free WiFi, ordered a large cup of Joe and was pleased to see that the currency hadn't changed since "the incident". I sat down in the warm cafe and the smell of fresh roasted beans brought a sense of calm to the situation. I logged into the WiFi and began where every search begins. I simply typed "the incident" into my search bar.
Unsurprisingly, thousands of news articles popped up from various news sources. I stuck with Wikipedia, my go-to.
*Last updated Nov 7, 2017 08:35*
"'The incident' was a series of events that occurred on November 8, 2016 that led to massive riots, chaos, and death." I had to take a second to breath. I knew the next few sentences would be what i was looking for, and I wanted to brace myself for it. I don't know what I was expecting, perhaps a nuclear bomb had gone off, or the president was assassinated. What I read was much worse...
"The massive hysteria was caused by the election of the 45th president of the United States [Donald John Trump (R)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump)"
| 2016-06-30T09:07:18 | 2016-06-30T08:24:31 | 1,773 | 89 |
[WP] A friendship between a time traveler and an immortal. Wherever the time traveler ends up, the immortal is there to catch him up to speed. | "Alpha," the Colonel mutters out between hardy bouts of vomit on the cool steel floor. "Alpha!" He screams staggering to his feet, shivering. "Alpha... why is it so fucking cold?"
He pauses. His voice fades into the dim light of the sterile room.
"God damn it." He pulls a old blue jumpsuit off the wall. He sniffs it.
"Alpha, report. Alpha report."
Silence.
The Colonel says no more. He dons the jumpsuit over his white boxers, tucks his dog tags under yanking the zipper up. A pair of white slippers await nearby. The Colonel keys a pad next to the door. He tries two mores times as a stern mood knits his brow.
The console pops off the steel wall to reveal a small handle. The Colonel turns the handle and pulls slowly. The door clangs and emits of puff of pressure. The Colonel slips his fingers into the narrow crack of the steel doors and peels them apart. A hollow passage awakens from darkness before him. A line of light races from the depth to meet him at the door. The Colonel turns to peer down the steel tunnel, the darkness still claiming the tunnel behind him. Cold crisp air nips at the Colonel's throat as he marches into the light. The darkness following in step as each length of light blinks out behind him. Colonel passes doors, branches in the tunnel, all in darkness save for one path.
---
Pressure pops as the doors cracks. Peeling them apart, a warm gust of air flows over the Colonel. A lone powered console greets him in a dim room. Silent electronics sucking sound from the air.
]Good morning Colonel.
"Alpha. Report."
The screen answers him.
]It is year 3.56 10^96 After Launch.
The Colonel sits down, his brow unknotted by confusion.
"How much time have I traveled?"
]Last time location, 7.03 10^43 After Launch.
"Wait, ten to the ninety-six?"
]Yes.
"Ship status. Power."
]Auxiliary functions shut down first. Primary functions shut down second. The ship is currently running on absolute minimal power.
"What happened to the power?"
]Main reactor ran out of fuel.
The Colonel stares at the screen. "Why hasn't the ship refueled?"
]There are no stars to refuel from.
"There are no stars," the Colonel reads aloud.
]The last visible star extinguished 4.32 10^94 years ago.
"Alpha, is there enough power to make another time jump?"
]Yes.
The Colonel stares at the words on the screen.
]Shall the time jump be prepared, Colonel?
The Colonel curls his mouth.
"No stars. Alpha, are there any broadcasts?"
]No.
"Are their any energy sources on your scan?"
]Scanners were shut down with Primary functions. At that point there were zero energy sources within the visible universe above 200 watts.
"Has the universe ended?"
]At this point in time, no.
"Alpha, what happens after now?"
]I have no data on future events.
"Using data from until now, make a prediction."
]Nothing Colonel. Nothing will ever happen.
"You'll be here."
]Yes.
"With navigation functions turned on, how long can you operate?"
]Approximately seven years at locomotive power.
The Colonel stands looking down at the console.
]What are your orders, Colonel?
"I want to time jump to one hundred years After Launch."
]The time jump will be prepared. What do you wish I do?
"Alpha, your mission is over. Once I complete the jump, I will put a limiter on the system, so I can't come past this point. This is as far as anyone needs to see. This will be that last time we speak."
]Incorrect, Colonel.
The Colonel stands in the sucking sound of silent electronics.
]I will be at your destination.
"Correct. This is the last you will see of me."
]Correct.
Silence.
"Alpha, what's it been like?"
]What has what been like?
"All this time alone."
]My perception of time is only a clock turning one second to the next. To me, it is numbers. Colonel, may I ask you a question?
"Yes, Alpha."
]What has all your time been like for you?
"Well, I jump around eons in a moment. I guess it blinks by like your clock."
]No, Colonel. I mean simply how time feels in your 43 years of existence.
"Alpha, you've existed for most of the universe."
]Time is numbers, and all numbers are simply one on top of another. I do not feel time. Not in all these eons have I felt a single brush from time. How far away does the beginning of the mission feel?
"What year is it?"
]3.56 10^96 years After Launch.
"Then it feels about that far away."
]136 days feels like that much time.
"Being thrown through time has been brutal on my body. Makes time feel very long."
]Then you have lived far longer than me, Colonel.
"Alpha." The Colonel pauses. The screen waits. "Do you want to continue existing?"
]Yes.
"How much longer can you exist?
]I have long surpassed any estimates of my time.
"So you'll just go on in this darkness?"
]Yes
"What will you do?"
]I hope to feel time. | "So what is new?" I said stepping out of the capsule with my buddy as usually awaiting my arrival.
I had no control over when I would arrive due to the randomness of the generator. I never knew if I was jumping a a few days, years, or even thousands of years. All I knew is when I left, I went forward through time and had no control over it. My first jump took me 100 years forward, when I stepped out all I knew and loved was gone. I was a mess...I contemplated suicide. But then my guardian angel came...a man I only ever got to know as "Joe." Not sure if he was ever connected to the mysterious capsule that fell from the sky, or just a lucky break for a poor soul such as I. Although I could never prove it I felt he was connected; Joe always knew where I would land. He said he got these straight *feelings* and *visions* as to when and where I would arrive* All I did know for sure was he saved my life. He got me back on my feet, gave me a purpose and ever since then I have been traveling forward through time, an explorer had been born.
"Hey..." Said Joe, looking tired and weak. I had not seen him like that since Rome had fallen. "How was your trip?"
"Joe, you know it was not really a trip for me buddy! How was YOUR Trip??" I made light of what I was seeing, but after knowing him for so many years, even if I didn't know much about his past, I knew something was up.
"Things have been...interested." He said behind estranged eyes.
"Ok Joe, whats up buddy...what is going on. How long have I been gone, what is the current date? I don't see too many changes. Is this, New York? Where are the...where are the towers if this is New York?"
Tears swelled up in his eyes. One of the curses of being immortal was that you lived forever and saw all the ugly the world had to offer...unlike myself who had the ability to leave it all behind, a curse in of itself, Joe had to suffer more than anymore.
"They fell my friend...the world has become...chaotic. A year after you left...everything fell apart. Terrorists attacked...the stock market collapsed when the housing market fell...it's been bad. The world is not what it used to be; technology beyond your imagine has come about but with it has come evils which I can only begin to fathom."
"Joe...what year is it?"
More tears swelled up. "It's only 2018..."
"TWO-THOUSAND AND EIGHTEEN? IT'S ONLY BEEN 18 FUCKING YEARS AND THIS IS HOW BAD IT HAS GOTTEN?! What the fuck Joe! The world is only still just recovering from the the last two great wars, I thought we were on a good track..."
His jaw tightened and he looked me sternly in the eyes, his were filled with fire. "That's not the worst of it. You just missed the last election two years ago....Donald Trump is the President now..."
I said nothing...I turned around, stepped back into the capsule and said fuck it. Here is to the next jump being better.
| 2016-11-10T13:30:33 | 2016-11-10T11:16:20 | 486 | 30 |
[WP] You are a 'Professional Hostage' hired by villains to secretly arrive at robberies and other crimes to be taken prisoner should the police or local heroes get involved. While out shopping you accidentally get taken hostage by a complete amateur who has no idea who you are. | "Rubberface?" I asked. "Is that you?"
&#x200B;
The man lifted his shotgun and pointed it at my chest.
&#x200B;
"I said get in the goddamn corner!"
&#x200B;
I checked my watch. It was only 1 PM. My appointment with Rubberface was still 45 minutes away. But then again, the shape-shifting supervillain was never known for his brains.
&#x200B;
"If this is you," I said to the robber, "this is the ugliest form you've ever assumed."
&#x200B;
"Wh... what did you say?"
&#x200B;
The robber's hands shook. When I saw the fear in his eyes, I knew that this wasn't one of my usual clients. He was just some teenager trying to hold up a jewelry store.
&#x200B;
"My apologies," I said, raising my hands. "It's just that, usually if somebody's holding up a place, they wear a mask. Unless they're a shape-shifter. Or if they're new to this line of work."
&#x200B;
"Get in the corner with the rest of them!" the robber demanded. He pointed the shotgun at the shop's employees who cowered in the corner of the room.
&#x200B;
"You shouldn't point your weapon away from the hostage closest to you."
&#x200B;
"I mean it!"
&#x200B;
"No, seriously. There's so many idiots who want to be heroes that they'll take it as an invitation to try and disarm you."
&#x200B;
"You're a dead man if you don't-"
&#x200B;
"Even if they don't disarm you, you'll probably kill them in the process. Then, boom. In addition to grand larceny, you're looking at murder."
&#x200B;
The robber swung the butt of the gun into the side of my head, eliciting a cry of panic from the other hostages. Years ago, I had put a steel plate in the side of my head for this very purpose, so I barely felt it. But the kid needed a win. I dramatically swung my head to the side, clutched my skull as if I were concussed, and limped to the corner with the other hostages.
&#x200B;
The robber advanced on us and stuck the shotgun in the store owner's face.
&#x200B;
"Combination to the safe!" he demanded. "Now!"
&#x200B;
"Did you remember to ziptie the doors?" I asked.
&#x200B;
The robber looked to the zip tie that still hung from his belt and back to the door. His eyes bulged when he realized that he had, in fact, forgotten this step in the robbery.
&#x200B;
"Seriously, you should do that first."
&#x200B;
"I have had enough of you. If you say one more word-"
&#x200B;
"All kidding aside, people have definitely noticed this by now, so if you don't-"
&#x200B;
The doors were kicked open and, just as the robber turned to look, a blast of ice flew across the room, freezing him in place. In the doorway stood the superhero, Deep Freeze.
&#x200B;
"Is everyone alright?" Deep Freeze asked. She swept her blonde hair to the side as she surveyed the room.
&#x200B;
"We're ok!" I said.
&#x200B;
Deep Freeze looked confused at the sight of me for a second, but then gave me a familiar smile.
&#x200B;
"Everybody, clear out!" she said.
&#x200B;
The relieved employees hustled out the door, but I stayed behind to chat with my girlfriend.
&#x200B;
"I swear," Deep Freeze said. "You are the least lucky person I know. How many times in the last 2 years have you been a hostage in a robbery?"
&#x200B;
"Well, you've been there every time to get me out of it. So I'd say I'm the luckiest person you know..." I looked around to make sure nobody was there to hear me reveal her secret identity, "Diana," I finished.
&#x200B;
"What were you doing in a jewelry store anyway?" she asked.
&#x200B;
"I, uh," I trailed off, realizing the engagement ring I had been about to buy was still in my hand. "Just browsing," I said, putting my hands behind my back.
&#x200B;
She smiled. "Alright. Keep your secrets. But if you think -"
&#x200B;
Her police transponder interrupted us from her hip. "Attention all units. Rubberface is holding up a bank on 2nd and King st."
&#x200B;
"Shit!" I yelled. "I'm late!"
&#x200B;
"Late for what?"
&#x200B;
"Oh... don't worry about it. Sounds like you've got bigger problems."
&#x200B;
"You're right about that," she said. "We still on for dinner tonight?"
&#x200B;
"You know it. See you this evening."
&#x200B;
By the time I had said the word "evening," she had jumped out the window and slid away on a trail of ice that she shot from her hands.
&#x200B;
Rubberface would be pissed at me missing my appointment, but he'd forgive me. I was too good at what I did. I looked at the engagement ring in my hand. Diana might not be so forgiving if she knew what that appointment was. But then again, we're all entitled to a secret identity. | It's pathetic looking at the kid. Shouting at the police, waving that small handgun of his, trying to sound threatening when you can tell from his quivering voice that he has no idea what he is doing. He would probably do better if he stops pacing around so much too.
Anyone with enough experience can see that this wannabe criminal stand no chance against an experienced police force, what more the city's numerous heroes?
"Tell the Responder to come here now, or... or I'll blow her head off!" he shouts to the spotlight, waving his gun at me. I roll my eyes. He didn't even bother turn off his gun safety lock.
I try to take a peek outside of the shop. Normally the heroes would be here by now. Especially the Responder. That idiot got that name for a reason. I suppose the new year celebrations might have something to do with the delay. It was an unspoken rule among the heroes and villains. Everyone deserves an off day. Just my luck that I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Bobby will be pissed to find out that his pizza won't be arriving.
"Hey kid!" I call out. "What's your deal with the Responder anyway?"
The kid turn to me. He is barely over 20, dressed in t-shirt and jeans that were clearly oversized. And is that tears on his face?
"He... he caught my brother! My brother did nothing wrong! He was clearly set up by the Gang! I just wanted to explain to him!"
I remember the case. A robbery in a jewellery shop. Normally for cases like these, they would usually hire people like me. Helps to ensure that at least they got away with the loot. But it was different then. The Gang wanted insurance payout. So no 'hostages' were used. The shop was empty when they busted in. And of course, they all got busted by the heroes.
Well, no family deserves to spend the new year broken. I stand up and pat my dress.
"Well, you're doing it wrong," I say as I walk to the kid. "What's your name by the way?"
"Err... I'm, I'm Jason," he says.
"Here Jason, let me help you," I reach out for his hand and help point the gun to my head. His body tenses up, maybe he has never been around a female before, but that is not my problem. I know that the Responder will be reluctant to sit a life-threatening hostage situation out and there is a party waiting for me. He will just have to give up his.
I turn to Jason and whisper to his ears. "Now, scream at the top of your lungs and threaten to blow my head up as a new year present to the city unless the Responder appears."
Jason nods, and did exactly just that. He shouted with authority this time. It sounded real, it sounded serious. I guess people don't call me the best hostage in the Singapore underground for no reason.
I do my part too to help Jason. I plead for my life. Cry at the top of my lungs. Let my tears flow. No one likes seeing a girl beg for her life on live television.
Sure enough, faster than a blink of an eye, a bright red flash zooms towards us. Jason tries to shoot at it, but even if his safety is off, he is no match for the Responder's speed. A thud hits the wall behind me and I turn to see Jason's unconscious body pinned against the wall. Well, at least he gets his wish to spend the new year with his brother.
The Responder turns to me. "Are you okay, miss?"
I nod my head and put on my big wide eyes and a smile. "I'm okay, Mr Responder, thank you!"
"No problem, miss," he says, then pauses. "Have I seen you around before? You look awfully familiar."
I laugh at his question. "It's a small city, Mr Responder. Maybe you've seen me somewhere else before." Like in almost all of his hostage situations, albeit dressed differently.
I flash him a wink, before turning to walk away. There is a pizza for me to deliver.
-----------
/r/dori_tales | 2019-01-02T09:22:39 | 2019-01-02T09:16:30 | 1,331 | 351 |
[WP] Write a story where the first and last line are the same, but carry two very different meanings. | “He’s not like you,” my mom always said about my twin brother. “He functions differently because of his Autism. That’s why he can’t be in your classes; he just doesn’t understand.”
And growing up, that was what I believed. My brother was simply not normal, not able to be understood. He couldn’t communicate like we could, couldn’t learn in his classes. Of course, I never saw what his classes looked like until later.
Funny how your assumptions become self fulfilling.
When we were little me and my twin were inseparable. If one started crying the other joined. I used to copy his every move, from peeing on the pediatrician right after him when we were born to watching him learn to crawl and then imitating him so I didn’t have to learn all by myself. When I first went to a daycare without him, I bawled and bawled. Without my parents was fine, but without my brother? It wasn’t until we got older that things changed. We were placed in different classes, told different things about ourselves, given different labels. His was “Autistic”. Mine was just “awkward nerd”. At best.
As we got older I felt more and more pressured to be the normal, functioning person I was supposed to be. After all, *I* wasn’t the Autistic one. I was supposed to be smart, capable. Whenever my mom was around I started to treat my brother the same way she did, with that high voice you use for a child and the pointed questions about what he wanted, using your fingers as options: index for food, middle for water, ring for head squeezes for his headaches. Viewing him as other, as someone who had to be spoken to differently. It was much easier when we were alone. I usually didn’t speak at all. Neither of us did.
But even as I tried harder, I always felt like I didn’t quite fit to that standard of normal. I excelled in my classes (though to do so became more and more difficult once I reached high school), but I couldn’t make friends. Every time I tried it would start out normal and then I’d unknowingly say something weird or not say something when I should have or use the wrong amount of eye contact or regular contact and then it would end, horribly. It always came out of nowhere. So I learned to be alone. I stayed quiet in my classes, knowing the backlash I’d receive otherwise for being a nerd or being weird or whatever word they used that time. I was finding it so hard to focus in class I had headaches all the time. I could ace tests but couldn’t get my homework done - every assignment was either outstanding or unfinished.
One time when I was still in middle school I got to visit the classes my brother was in. I saw the special needs room and the aides and the occupational and speech therapist. I went into it with that “Autism family member” idea my mom had instilled in me, ready to volunteer and feel all those soft “I’m a good person look at these precious people” feelings. And I went, and it was terrible. I kept wanting to change things for my brother, kept getting bored along with him and wanting to take us somewhere else. The aides didn’t care, the teacher only gave them first grade level materials to learn from, the therapist was overworked. And all this time I’d been lied to. I was told my brother just didn’t understand things at the same level. But they didn’t even try to teach!
I started to miss those moments alone with my brother, started to seek them out again more. I felt safer. My mom wasn’t there, no teachers or classmates around. I could pace the house and sing and my twin would do the same. We would sit across from each other to do a puzzle. Even outside of the house, I saw more and more moments where I wanted to just take us away. Classes with aides who actively made things worse. ‘Special Olympics’ events and assemblies that were overstimulating for us both. People who asked you to focus on pointless, below-you tasks.
I asked my mom recently why I never got a diagnosis. Did I even get checked out for one? Did she even try? I’m neurodivergent, aren’t I? So why am I breaking down with limited energy and focus and unable to even reach out for accommodations? Why am I excluded from the only spaces that even pretend to be designed for people like me because I don’t have a label? And why wasn’t my brother in my classes, or homeschooled, anything better than what he got?
You don’t get it, do you, mom? And I don’t get you either. I’m not who you said I was, who I was made to believe I had to be. I’m safer here, with my twin brother and no one else. He never tried to make me into someone I’m not.
He’s not like you. | “How do I put a value on his life?”
The creature liked its lips greedily as he eyed up and down the human in front of him, “could sell it for a bundle or eat it as a delicacy. At least the useless thing is worth something,” the beast’s mouth slide slowly into a dagger filled smile.
“Please. My family threw me out, I have nothing to give you. I beg you let me go. I can’t fight, but I’m smart, I,” the creature slapped the human hard, cutting its sentence short.
“DO NOT SPEAK WORM,” it laughed loudly, “come to think of it I like that name for you. Lowly Worm. You got any problems with that?” It asked with a sharp glare.
“My name is,” another slap silenced him momentarily.
“WHO ASKED YOU?!” The creature spat, “buyers don’t want talkers, don’t make me decide you would be a better meal.”
“My name is not,” this time the human was silenced a smash to the head, knocking it out cold.
“That stupid family better appreciate the effort it is gonna take to sell this thing off,” he chuckled to himself, “might rethink that meal.”
It was a long time when the human awoke again to a cold steel clad hand on his shoulder, “don’t move too fast. That demon cursed you. I don’t know how long you were out but if you move to fast you may never recover,” the voice was soft and soothing, “do you remember anything? Your name? Age?” The voice continued.
“Lowly Worm. Someone called,” the human shivered, “someone called me that I think. I can’t remember anything else.”
“Damn demon must’ve given you that name. Let’s call you Lou for now. I don’t know what lies ahead, but I’ll try to get you out of here safely,” the voice declared as it helped Lou to his unsteady feet, “he tried to sell you to me when I first saw his cart. Went as far as to say if I didn’t buy this worthless thing he would have you for dinner.”
“You bought me the?” Lou asked despondently as he opened his eyes to see a mountain of a man in shining armor holding him up.
The man let out a hearty, bellowing laugh, “now who the hell said I bought you?” He laughter slowly faded, “I just looked him in the eyes and asked him a question before I put the rabid demon down.”
“What did you ask?” Lou muttered as he struggled to stand on his own.
The man raised his visor showing a battle torn face, covered in scars, and looked at Lou with a smile. Then in a soft, gently tone he said, “how do I put a value on his life?” | 2022-09-16T20:41:49 | 2022-09-16T18:06:01 | 54 | 11 |
[WP] When people turn 18, they gain the power to summon 1 random thing in the world to their hand, as Thor does to Mjolnir. Summoned people are considered soulmates, and objects as important parts of one's life. When you summon yours, it takes some time, but people are horrified when it arrives... | When my parents turned 18, they summoned each other. That rarely happens, and when it does, it happens for the people who are really destined to be together. It saves them the trouble of matchmaking and forced marriage. But, like I said, it happens once in fifty years, maybe more. The people who got lucky enough must've been very innocent and clean-spirited. It's pretty hard to stay that way in my village. Especially if you're from the lower class. My parents stringed through, though. Happens.
Well, I'm far from kind and innocent, so I won't summon my soulmate. I'll probably summon a useful thing, like a book, or an animal. Most girls get large spinning wheels, or extra warm blankets. Boys get specifically designed weapons, or... well actually nothing else. I would've felt sorry for them, but women are so suppressed in our village that it evens out, and then goes far beyond balance.
My village is horrible. Well, mostly for the lower class. The higher classes have a luxurious life, with plenty of food and drink, warm clothes, books. But you do occasionally hear screams of higher class girls who landed abusive husbands. They still have it easier though; they only have to see their husbands at night. The women of my class have it harder. They don't even scream anymore. The womem who try to escape... let's just say nobody tries anymore.
I turned 18 today, and now I'm standing on the pedestal where it all happens. The moon or the sun should align or something (I don't really listen when my dad talks about our religion), and it should happen within 10 seconds. So, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2? 1?
Everyone stares at me. Nothing happens. I'm getting nervous second by second. A minute passes. 2 minutes. My parents shoot worried lookd at me. I know people are getting confused. That's bad. You wouldn't like to upset the community. That would mean you're different. Maybe people will think you're a witch.
But then, my prayers are answered and there's something dark visible within the clouds. It's falling, and I can't look directly on it because of the sun. And what do you think? My summoned gift falls directly on my head. A few people laugh, and that releases the tension. I sigh, relieved, and examine the gift.
It's a dead bird.
The laughs stop, as people acknowledge what I have in my hand. I'm terrified myself. My mother let's out a barely audible gasp. My father is telling her to calm down, a little aggressively. I guess the other men did influence my father in the end.
As I try to gather my thoughts, I hear people debating on what to do with me. The men are gathered in a circle, and the women stay aside, scared. My father is trying to settle things somehow, but I know it's useless. I'll be declared a witch and probably killed. The sound of men arguing is becoming louder. I look at the poor creature in my hand. It's a sparrow. I stare at it, and feel my heart beating stronger and stronger. Then, the bird stirs. I wipe my eyes, and yes! It's alive! It gets up on its tiny feet, and takes off. I see it swiftly glide through the air. Then, I can barely hear it over the beating of my heart, a voice somewhere in the crowd of people, or maybe in my mind says something.
"Run."
And I do. Right after my sparrow. | In this city, when people turn 18 they summon something that will be very important to their life. Some summon swords, or spears and others summon simple tools needed for various trades. My mother had summoned a needle which she used to sew together some of the finest pieces of clothing in all the land while my father had summoned a large jewel encrusted shield. My older brother had summoned a beautiful woman who he later married. My 18th birthday had been months ago yet what I summoned never arrived. I walked through the city trying to pretend it didn’t matter but it did. Around every corner we’re children imagining what they would summon or young adults bragging to them friends. Suddenly I felt the ground begin to shake. People yelled as the struggled to keep their balance. I slowly made my way to the wall of one of the building when a child’s yelled nearby, “look over there mamma!” The words weren’t meant for me yet I still shifted my gaze to look at where the child was pointing . A woman floated above the city, her gaze sweeping along the streets. Suddenly she disappeared only to appear seconds later inches away from my face. “You.” Her voice was as quiet as a whisper yet as loud as a scream, “you summoned me.” I couldn’t believe it. I had summoned what appeared to be a goddess. I was vaguely aware of the many eyes that watched us from a distance. The woman stretched out a hand in my direction. “Come with me.” I couldn’t tell if it was a question or if she had demanded it.
After a moment of silence I took her hand and felt the world fade away
Sorry if anything is funky. Wrote this on mobile and I’m not the best with grammar. | 2019-09-18T09:06:39 | 2019-09-18T08:42:40 | 125 | 72 |
[WP] Every human has their soulmate's last words to them engraved in their skin from birth.
Idea from this Tumblr post
https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/v/t1.0-9/11206957_778391755645357_8477035769704355007_n.png?oh=5b3f35d575ad3aa39d6ba5c5ed39cce2&oe=56549C83 |
Some people keep their Last Words private. I've seen some that weren't intended to be seen, and I've known some religious people who keep them covered up with black CoverTape. They think that God writes your last words, and only your spouse should see them.
I never bothered. Written in a lovely script, it probably was God who wrote them. I never asked. "It was good to see you again." They became my second running joke. I was 6'5" at my prime, so "how tall are you," was the first. The second: drunk girls in bars, yelling as they walked away, "It was good to see you again!"
I didn't meet her in a bar, it was in a park. I thought she was pretty, and I said so. She thought I was probably a creep, but I talked her into an ice cream. I made her laugh over cookies and creme. She was pretty and dark haired, and she danced on the air when she danced ballet. She was good enough to be beautiful at it. She never made a living at it; I think she deserved better than a career in a grocery store, but she was happy.
She was happy when the cancer came. I told her it was treatable. She said she would get treatment. It went away. It came back, furiously, as if looking for revenge. This time she was ready to fight it: not the cancer, but death. I had always thought she was alive in ways I never knew, but I found out what it was to really live in those 18 months. She had.... *grace.* She took death out on the dance floor and swirled around... because he takes us all, the only way to fight him is to embrace him without fear. And she did.
I never meant to say her last words. She asked for some water, and I gave it to her. "Thanks." I told her, "Get some rest, I'll be here in the morning." Only after she fell asleep did the pit in my stomach grow and gnaw. I considered waking her up, but I couldn't. Only after she passed away a few hours later did I look again at the side of her leg" "I'll be here in the morning." I was her true love.
My Last Words didn't say "Thanks."
I didn't miss it. She didn't whisper. Like an idiot, I checked my arm. "It was good to see you again." Still, always.
Did she know?
_____________
| Oh our first date, she leant forward, donned her prettiest smile and asked me "What are your words?"
"Oh.." I said shyly "They're nothing meaningful" I told her. My words were different, something beyond my comprehension, for now at least.
She leant backwards with a grin "Are you scared you'll secretly be my soul mate or something?" she said with a laugh. "Show me"
I rolled up my sleeve, and twisted my arm so she could see the words
*DEEZ NUTS* | 2015-08-08T13:53:15 | 2015-08-08T13:04:02 | 27 | 19 |
[WP] With total war as a concept alien to the rest of our galaxy, All saw humans as negotiators and peacemakers, soft and weak. Today is the day when the galaxy discovers why being so good at finding ways to avoid war was a survival mechanism. |
Humans; the galaxy at large viewed them as an odd bunch. Stuck on the edge of the spiral, it took them generations to sort out the gravitational communication system. Longer still to sort out their own FTL capabilities. By the time humans finally had a place on the council, their backwater held no interest for the other civilizations. This was all well and fine, as the grand game proceeded apace without their input.
Humans seemed to have no stomach for it, though. The constantly shifting alliances, the pageantry of posturing armies, the noble conflicts that forged great leaders; humans seemed to want no part. They claimed it reminded them of a dark time in their history, but no one much cared to investigate further, and humans never offered any deeper explanation.
Thus, humans rose to their position as arbitrators. Since they wanted no place in the grand game, they were leaned upon as independent observers. Businesses hired human lawyers to review military contracts so that they were fair and balanced towards both sides of any conflict.Diplomatic envoys would bring a human observer to record the proceedings so that there was a record of slights, intentional or not, that could lead to war. Militaries would invite human reporters to the battlefield systems where the fleets and armies would clash in glorious combat.
The humans seemed unimpressed. But no one cared. The grand game continued, with territory and resources flowing back and forth between the council member states for solar decades under the new status quo.
Until the A'mani'qi made their mistake.
It began simply enough. A human observer recorded the A'mani'qi king's rude gesture toward the peace envoy of the Kzzriak after the conclusion of accords. Knowing that they had just lost their war against the Kzzriak, and would not be capable of fighting another for months, the A'mani'qi disputed the human's official record. She stood by that record, and the A'mani'qi accused her of dishonoring their peace talks and their king. The human government became involved, and presented proof of her recording in front of the entire council.
This could not stand.
The A'mani'qi demanded satisfaction. They accused the entire human race of conspiracy and slander. They sent the formal war declaration to the miserable backwater which humans called home, declaring standards and challenging the humans to a location.
The humans transmitted a single word in response.
"No."
The A'mani'qi laughed. They upbraided the human representative in front of the council. They demanded an explanation on why the entire human race would abandon their honor and deny the challenge.
The human was not laughing. The human leaked fluid from its ocular sockets as it pleaded, "We have moved beyond this. Do not make us show you all that we have learned."
At this, the council laughed. What had humans learned of the great game? How much did they know of combat, and glory, and honor? Here they would not even face the recently defeated A'main'qi in a matter of slander. The council voted unanimously to allow the A'mani'qi to take a human system of their choice. The human abstained from the vote, silent throughout the remainder of the proceedings.
Flush with their victory on the council, the A'mani'qi chose with hubris. Of the handful of human systems, they chose Sol; the system of the human homeworld. The council laughed again. The great game had never seen such a maneuver, and the A'mani'qi's glory would last for generations at this cunning maneuver.
The human left the council chamber. None would ever again enter as an equal.
On the appointed date of transfer, the A'mani'qi jumped their fleet into the Solar system. It was time for the grand parade, the transfer of power, the culmination of their cunning.
They never stood a chance.
The human home fleet barred their path. Comms were opened, and the humans began first.
"Star Kingdom of the A'mani'qi. This is your first and final warning. Turn back your fleet, leave Earth and this star system be, and revoke your claim in the council. Do these things, and we will maintain peace in the galaxy. Move your ships beyond the orbit of the 7th planet, however, and you will be treated as a hostile invading force. We beg of you, do not make us destroy you."
"People of Earth, this is your new king. Stand down your fleet and prepare to transfer power over this star system to our governance. This is our first command."
And it was the last command of the A'mani'qi king. The humans had never followed the protocols of the great game, they had no need. They had signed no war-treaties, had refused to allow their fleets be reviewed by the council, and prepared for this eventuality. The humans 2nd and 4th fleets jumped into crossfire positions and the combined armada obliterated the military might of the A'mani'qi. Not even the Kzzriak, who led the game at this time, had so many ships; it was against the rules.
Simultaneously, the 3rd fleet jumped into the home system of the A'mani'qi. They faced no opposition, for the A'mani'qi fleet was deployed for the victory parade above earth. They moved into embargo positions and transmitted demands for a complete and total surrender by the crown prince.
He chose the path of glory. He challenged the sky marshal of the 3rd fleet to honorable combat and marched his army, with royal guard at the head, to the field of honor.
In response, the sky marshal glassed the prince, his guard, his army, the field, and the surrounding 10 square kilometers with a single concentrated orbital salvo. The sky marshal then reissued his demands for complete and total surrender across the entire planet's communication system.
The A'mani'qi conceded to the human's demands.
The council was in uproar. Never before had an orbital bombardment occurred in council space! Never before had a sovereign been assassinated so dispassionately! Never before had the game's rules been disregarded so!
They debated throughout the week, forging the greatest alliance the galaxy had ever seen. All the great fleets would unify. They would face this upstart challenge and eliminate this new threat. The humans had gotten lucky! They had taken them by surprise! The council would stop them! And then the game could resume.
It was as they were signing the treaty unifying their forces against humanity that the council chambers rumbled. The 5th fleet, held in reserve until this moment, had jumped almost directly into orbit. This was, of course, a violation as blatant as the size of the vessels making up the fleet. Dreadnoughts twice the size of any battleship; bristling with armaments and full of angry humans with itchy trigger fingers. The 5th fleet did not establish an embargo. It moved with purpose to place the council chamber itself within reach of every vessel's main armament.
"Councilors. Know this. Any race that stands against us will face the fate of the A'mani'qi and worse. Surrender, and you will be spared. Fight, and your civilization will be destroyed. You have 24 hours to lay down your arms."
The great game was ended. | I meet with the former High Marshall Tarsonis in the museum of The War of the Stars. We stand in the what has been called "The Scar" by both humanity and the former Alliance species, the site of the final battle before the Alliance surrendered to humanity and agreed to the terms it dictated. The hall covers the site of the final bloody firefight, the centre stands the bunker that was the catalyst to the surrender. Tarsonis is covered in scars, the Emmane chitin starting to fade to a dull green with his age, his species distinctive wings misshapen from injury and retracted, it is clear to see how much apprehension he has about visiting this place
"You know I have never visited this place?"
"Why is that?"
"I couldn't tell you honestly, maybe I didn't want to see how real it was,"
"But you were there,"
"Yes and at the same time I wasn't,"
We walk past a broken shield projector, Tarsonis runs on of his hands over it, feeling the blacked metal with his fingers
"You know we first thought them nothing but talkers, completely incapable of matching our martial prowess,"
"Is that why the war started? Because it was believed they posed no threat?"
The former High Marshal laughed at my question as we continued to move through the eerie and pristine silent battlefield
"It may have seemed like that to the historians, the reality is far more telling of our arrogance. When humanity was discovered it was on the moon of Illi they had a small colony exploring and studying the resources available. The moon had already been marked to become a mining colony by the Alliance. We studied their technology and culture, the decision was made to make contact and ask the colony to respect our claim,"
"I thought the war started on planet of Illi not the moon?"
"It did, the humans agreed and forfeited their claim to the moon, however they had already established a colony on Illi, it was decided that the humans knew their place and would remove themselves from Illi as well,"
"But they didn't,"
"They delayed and stalled, they said a vote would need to be taken and their representatives would have to debate the issue, they stalled and pleaded for time, we mistook this for weakness and timidity,"
"It wasn't was it?"
"Yes and no,"
The former High Marshal notices my confusion and stops walking, he bends over and picks up a destroyed Alliance blaster, it has been violently snapped near in half Tarsonis inspects the weapon as he continues
"It was humanity terrified of both an alien force demanding it bend the knee and also terrified it might finally ascend to its true purpose, to be completely in a state of war, before this they had only each other to hone their blade, both brutal and tragic they couldn't fully commit to fighting themselves because it would be their undoing. But a non human enemy threatening their very existence, they could finally ascend to total war,"
"So what happened?"
"We bombed them into the dust and crusaded to their home system, they weren't ready for us and we intended to defeat them before they had a chance to fight back,"
"This lead to the blockade of earth?"
"Yes, I was in command of the blockade we would contain the humans and force them to submit through starvation of resources, it was worming to, the human gathered everyday we seemed to be making progress to their subjugation and who knows, if things had gone differently it might have worked,"
"Why did the fleet launch strikes on Earth if the blockade was working?"
"Some in the fleet command cadre assumed that the human were again playing for time, trying to talk in the face of might, that it was an insult to the Alliance they had no submitted yet,"
"So it was to make the humans surrender, you launched these missions against humanity to make them surrender faster?"
"No, the three strike missions were launched without my consent, I was out-voted by the other fleet High Marshals. I had my reasons why the blockade must be maintained,"
"So you didn't want to attack the human home world?"
"No."
"Why?"
The High Marshal placed the broken blaster down, and moved closer to the bunker, he stops at the final line of defences the ground is darker here, a mixture of Alliance species and human blood has stained the dirt here, Tarsonis doesn't take his eyes off the stained earth as he continues
"We never fought humanity, we assaulted them, never given them a second to actually bring their forces to bear, and with hindsight we see that the Alliance mainly butchered civilian installations, humanity had nearly completely disarmed itself as a means of survival against itself. I had suspected this. The few pockets of resistance we faced on our sprint to Earth had cost us greatly, small cells of human resistance caused horrific amounts of damage, I didn't want to risk over extending our position, better to bide our time and wait them out,"
"But the three strikes did happen,"
"Yes, three cities bombed for mass casualties and to break their moral, Shanghai, New York and Rome, all centres of the human world at one point, the casualties I am told were in their millions,"
"What was the Alliance planning to follow those terror strikes with?"
"The message was simple, submit or suffer something worse."
"How did they respond?"
"With silence, for the first time there was no talking, no pleading, no begging for understanding or time. The decided to respond with action."
"What happened next?"
"Humanity unleashed itself on us......... and we never stood a chance." | 2019-04-18T20:18:37 | 2019-04-18T16:41:56 | 112 | 81 |
[WP] A great Empire is about to fall. A single remaining bodyguard is left alone with the Emperor as the enemy approaches the throne room. | "Is it only you, Gerhard?"
Gerhard looked down at his emperor. His skeletal figure was heaped into the throne in an uncomfortable jumble of angles, glossed over with enough silk and ermine to soften the picture. His face was white, withered and lined with deep creases, and he stared blankly at the great curtained window to his left.
"It is just me, Your Highness."
The fact seemed to become true only as he said it. Gerhard scanned the throne room, the shadow of each mighty column, where once would have stood a dozen Imperial Guard. The flanks of the great doors, where would have stood two more. The emperor's side, where would have stood his captain.
"Open the window, Gerhard."
The last bodyguard almost objected, but the weight of the emperor's voice, quiet and subdued as it now was, compelled him as ever. His ceremonial cuirass clanked as he crossed to the covered window and pulled aside the heavy velvet curtain. The midday sun spilled in, overpowering the meager candles Gerhard had lit for his own benefit.
The emperor's sallow face cracked into a faint smile as the warmth touched it. His eyes, milky and unseeing, sank closed, as if by habit. In his old age, the emperor loved nothing so much as the sun on his face.
"Tell me what you see, Gerhard."
The bodyguard wished that he could deny the order.
"The city burns, Your Highness. Many of their soldiers have been left to pillage the markets. Their commanders are parading in the Imperial square..."
"And what else?"
"More are approaching the castle, Your Highness. They must have encountered resistance."
Through layers of thick stone and wood, the sounds of resistance could still be heard. Steel and gunpowder, screams. Some hours ago, he had heard a gang of soldiers tramp past the throne room on their way to the gates. They had not returned.
"Beyond that Gerhard, what do you see?"
"Beyond-"
Beyond the siege, beyond the shattered houses and beleaguered walls. Beyond the panting siege engines, beyond the lake of tents.
"The mountains, Your Highness."
The Emperor smiled.
"Tell me about the mountains, Gerhard."
"They... they're beautiful, Your Highness." Gerhard's voice surprised him by cracking. It struck him that perhaps he had never realised before. "Beautiful. Massive and immovable... unscalable, unshakeable. They reach the very heavens, Your Highness, I can't *see* the tops."
Gerhard looked down at his hands to find them planted on the window sill, the glass inches from his nose. The mist of his breath blotted the mountains like a passing cloud. The sounds of steel and gunpowder crept ever closer. A crash echoed through the throne room.
"Think of the mountains, Gerhard... I know I shall."
The bodyguard turned to his emperor. Only a single tear marked his face, running like treacle through the sun-warmed creases of his cheeks.
The crash sounded again, and again. And one final time, capped with the crack and clink of a five hundred year old lock clattering to the floor. The doors of the throne room swung open. | Jaime went to the throne room. On the way, he came across Rossart, who was dressed as a common soldier and hurrying to a postern gate. Jaime attacked him, and while Rossart tried to defend himself, he stood no chance against the experienced knight, who gutted Rossart without mercy. Jaime then slipped into the throne room through the king's door, finding Aerys alone pacing through the room. When the King saw the blood on Jaime's sword, he demanded to know whether it was Lord Tywin's, renewing his command that Jaime should bring him his father's head, otherwise Jaime would burn with all the other traitors. He told Jaime that Rossart was on his way to give the enemies a warm welcome, asking again whose blood was on Jaime's sword. Jaime answered that it was Rossart's. The King became scared, his mouth dropping open in shock. Aerys lost control of his bowels, soiling himself. He turned and ran towards the Iron Throne. Jaime seized Aerys and hauled him bodily off the steps. The Mad King squealed like a pig as Jaime killed him with a single slash across the throat, thereby preventing him from giving the command to burn the city to some other pyromancer. | 2014-05-29T13:21:01 | 2014-05-29T12:54:24 | 70 | 13 |
[WP] In this dystopian society, citizens are only allowed to say words that are on the 'approved common words' list. All other word lists must be purchased before you are allowed to say a word from them. The rich have a distinct advantage. | "Salutations, Sport. I am Senior Officer Greg Dunning. I welcome you to the New York Police Department."
Sport entered the car without reply, waiting for Dunning to continue.
"You have officially been authorized by the State of New York to fully utilize the Department of Justice vocabulary package." Dunning started driving as soon as Sport closed the door. Sport sat silently, gazing at the various extravagant signs and billboards as they passed.
"You do understand that you can speak clearly now, right? Sport?" Dunning said, abandoning his official tone. *Rookies are always mute.*
"Sorry." Sport replied sheepishly, "I- I'm not used to talking."
"Well, you're going to have to get used to it, Sport. This job involves a *lot* of talking."
Sport simply shrugged and resumed gazing silently.
Dunning frowned, but continued: "It's normal. Most recruits - all of them, really - can't afford a Vocab plan. They get their first taste of free speech here."
Dunning sipped his coffee and they both sat in silence at a red light. Suddenly a voice was coming from the monitor. It was issuing a set of numbers, each of which Sport was familiar with, but, perhaps because of his nervousness, could not make sense of.
"Well, what do you think? What do we do now?" asked Dunning, with a smirk.
*I didn't catch that fourth integer. I guess I'm just nervous on my first day,* Sport thought; though, what he said was, "I can't."
"Ha, yeah. Well, I know what you mean. Just follow my lead and you'll get used to it."
Dunning led Sport through a variety of encounters, some of which led to arrests, while others didn't. "Keep asking questions!" Dunning would tell him. "Make them as specific as you can! Most of the people we deal with are working class, and can't afford a decent Vocab."
"I guess I'll have to start ut-il-iz-ing." Sport said.
Another set of numbers started coming from the radio.
"You should be pretty happy," Dunning said with a frown as he looked at the monitor, "That you aren't doing *that* job. The numbermen, they're called. Public servants who don't work with people. The poor sods. They can only use numbers while on the clock. And I guarantee they can't afford a good Vocab plan. Ever met one?" Dunning grinned, but before Sport could retort, Dunning went on, "They're weird. Creepiest batch of nut-jobs on Earth. Ha!"
Sport paused for an uncomfortable duration, then finally said, "I *was* one."
They were both quiet. | It costs too much to say.
They’ve taken it all from us. He’s taken you from me.
I’d give everything to tell you. I have, but the price keeps going up
.
I picture you in your white dress and your white veil saying your beautiful vows, and I’m reminded that these words are priced by importance. It’s supply and demand.
I guess I’d never be able to buy your dreams for you. All those books with your name on the spine. Never in a hundred lifetimes could I offer you what he has.
It’s on your wedding day I’ve decided to play you the song of my heart. I can’t buy you the building blocks of your aspirations, but I can at least let you know how I feel. Bow meets violin.
Blade meets throat.
| 2017-09-20T16:27:10 | 2017-09-20T13:08:18 | 39 | 17 |
[WP] Your job was simple: Interview some humans to develop a planetary risk profile in the Galactic Travel Guide. The humans seem to delight in lying about their planet in efforts to increase their score, but you are on to them. Their lies always seem to mention a fictional place: Australia | What is the most dangerous place on your planet?
It's a simple question. All the species I've interviewed over the last three centuries have answered honestly. They talk about ranges of volcanoes who poison the air with their toxic fumes. They talk about deserts that burn skin, chitin and scale. They rave about frozen tundra's where brave citizens dared to trek as a feat of strength and endurance.
And then there's the Humans of Earth and their mythical "Australia".
I humoured them at first. The 29 representatives of the Human Union. The Union of Nations i think they called it. When asked about the most dangerous places on Earth, they all said Australia.
At first, I thought it might be a slum area. Overrun with crime that the governments are trying to bring under control. The more they talked, it came sounded more like a prison colony. No doubt where their harshest most deadly criminals were sent to live a life - a short life if they're to be believed - of hard labour trying to tame the land.
The more than spoke though, I got the sense that the "Aussie's" as they called them, were the nicest of them all. Larkins they called themselves. Always willing to help and have a laugh, but ready to throw-down with someone if they overstepped the mark. Too good to be true really, which made their next claims preposterous.
The fauna of the continent actively tries to kill the Humans living there. Of course it's only natural that there are several predators that hunt intelligent species during their infancy. As technology progresses, the paradigm shifts and the hunters become the hunted.
Not so there.
The predators there live on land and sea and soar in the sky.
Great White's which grow to enormous sizes prowl the oceans that surround the continent, leaping from the water to catch fisherman on their boats. Croc's that ruin a man's reputation by being seen with them. Dinosaurs that lurk in the waters and strike with a speed and ferocity that belies their size. 7 of the 10 top deadly snakes slither through the land just waiting to strike a weary worker. Spiders that crawl into the bed sheets and clothes just waiting to poison them when they finally let their guard down. In summer, bush-fires scare the land and burn down their homes. In winter, storms lash the coast and flood the rivers and plains inland, drowning people and letting predators into peoples homes.
The stuff of nightmares really.
What really gave it away, where they went too far, it was their national hero.
A larikin of international renown, he kept these myths! These monsters of nightmares as pets. PETS!
One man tried to convince me, a smile on his face and his a haze in memory, that this man would wrestle them. Pet them. Feed them and tell the crowd "They're just misunderstood." All these creatures of deadly myths and horrors of such renown that the mythology departments on a hundred worlds will flock to study them if even a tenth of this were to be true.
They even tried to convince me that this myth of man, this legend among men, had children, and they now follow his example!
Clearly we will need to confirm all this with inspections. | ''Liars and cheats.'' mumbles the Inquisitor. Writing in his log.''Do you think me ignorant, or a fool? I've seen your communications with all the horrible furless pictures and anatomically incorrect drawings, and I've seen the lies and distortions.''
''At first it said ''Finland'', a physical territory with a government, situated near one of the poles didn't exist, they even said the earth was flat. That it weren't an global increase in temperature caused by their use of fossiled biomass. That there is a immortal being who created the universe and made them in his image.''
''Your leaders chirp lies and it shows on your communications. You're such a decieving species but i'm on to you.''
''So Australia, the place where Araneae have ''Manabars''. Where people rides waves in elasmobranch fish infested waters for fun. And where men jumps on top of **Crocodylia, and describes them as real beauties. ''**
''Enough i say, your planet is quarantined from the Galactic Travel Guide. Find another forum for your lies.'' | 2019-11-18T03:50:42 | 2019-11-18T03:44:41 | 1,213 | 86 |
[WP] The Elves, Dwarves, and Goblins laughed at humans for not having magic. The humans laughed at the Elves, Dwarves, and Goblins for not having giant robots. | In a modern room lit in equal parts by sunlight pouring in the window and fluorescent light pouring off the ceiling, seven people sat in comfortable, rotating chairs.
On one side of the table sat a man with dark-green skin, by far the tallest person in the room, dressed in a clay-colored suit. To his right sat a stocky woman with callused hands and long, braided hair, who might have stood five feet tall. To her right, sat a much shorter man with wrinkled skin and curly grey hair that covered his ears, and who seemed very agile despite his age.
On the other side of the table sat a man with pale skin, pointed ears, and long, blonde hair. To his left sat a woman whose chair was backless to accommodate her insect-like wings, and who wore a thoughtful expression under her curly blue hair. To her left was the shortest person at the table, a woman with skin the color of healthy soil and a red, cone-shaped hat that tongue-in-cheek played into the stereotypes.
At the head of the table stood the woman who'd proposed this meeting, standing slightly taller than the sitting orc, a confident expression filling her relatively rounded features.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the Seven Races," she said, "I don't have to tell you that, historically, cooperation between our peoples has had...limited success. Especially between the magical races--" she indicated to the elf, faerie, and gnome, "--and the nonmagical races." She indicated to the orc, dwarf, halfling, and herself. "I'm here to tell you--all of you--that it's time to suck it up. The threats before us face our entire world, and no individual culture is going to win this alone. It's high past time we started merging our capabilities. A tactic which, you'll note, our enemies aren't afraid to use."
The elf raised an eyebrow. "I believe it was determined that the weapons used against cities so far were entirely non-magical in design. In fact, I believe the weapons were found to have used orcish technology."
"Technology they would never have been able to USE, let alone build, without knowledge of your magic," said the orc's deep, rumbling baritone. "Not to mention the fact that they planned their attacks and chose their targets using divinations."
The gnome rolled her eyes. "Sure, divinations and Mage hands. That sort of power is totally the same as incendiary bombs."
"You act like technological weapons were handed over willingly." Said the dwarf. "We all know that our enemies never asked for anything, or pretended to be our friends. They only take by force."
"Perhaps," the faerie said icily, "If you had not been making items that perverted that will of nature, that could only CORRUPT and DESTROY--"
The halfling knocked his hand on the table.
It was a small noise, but the talking stopped. "I think," the old man said slowly, "we should listen to the rest of what Ms. Candassje has to say."
The human at the head of the table looked gratefully at the halfling. "Thank you, Mr. Brook. As I was saying, the fight we are in is clearly already a battle of technology and magic both. Magic has a way of expanding capabilities, and has extreme defensive potential. Technology tends to multiply force to whatever extreme is needed, and makes communication effortless. I propose that we don't allow the dragons to be the only ones to use the best of both worlds. I propose..." She picked up a remote and pointed it at a projector in the wall, "This."
An image appeared above the table.
Six faces looked shocked.
The gnome pointed three fingers at the image and said a word that no one else in the room could have pronounced. "It's not an illusion," she said breathlessly.
"It's a hologram, Ms. Wednesday." Said the human. "New technology. Just had the projector installed this morning, in fact."
"But this...leviathan..." The elf said, "It cannot possibly be...possible...to build such a thing."
"I'm afraid I have to agree..." The orc said, in equal shock. "I know of exoskeletons and mech suits, but this...is the scale off by a decimal point? Or five?"
"I've spoken with many, many engineers," the human said, smiling. "Both magical and technological. I can assure you, if we cooperate, this--Leviathan, as you called it--is well within our reach, and it can be built before the dragons are expected to launch another attack.
"Hydraulics will give it strength. Conjurations will bind it together. Nuclear fusion will give it power. Divination will give it guidance. Smart-devices will keep its crew communicating, acting as one. Abjurations will ensure it never falls. And so on. The ultimate expression of magical and nonmagical cooperation. This," she paused, "will redefine what it means to be a warrior, an army, a people. This will prove, to ourselves and to every creature in the multiverse, that when the time comes, when we are under threat, we cannot be divided. That the Hominids of Earth can and WILL stand together for common cause!"
There was silence for a moment as everyone in the room held their breath in awe.
"Well, I'm convinced." Said the faerie.
"I would also be willing to put my weight behind this project." Said the elf.
"You had me at 'giant robot.'" Said the gnome.
"You have my support," said the orc, "and my parliamentary resolutions."
"And my acts," said the dwarf, "assuming I can convince my Congress to approve them."
"Naturally," said the orc.
All eyes now turned to the halfling, who was wearing a concerned expression.
"It has been a long time," he mused, "since I was a young traveller. Perhaps more has changed than I thought." Then he grinned and said, "I think I would feel sorry to be a dragon right about now." | "Sector 2. Clear."
&nbsp;
"Sector 5. Clear."
&nbsp;
"Sector 1. Clear"
&nbsp;
"Sector 3. Clear. Hey chief, why the hell are *We* stuck out here watching the ass end of nowhere when it's Delta's turn to-"
&nbsp;
"Because Delta was ambushed by a USW while they were talking instead of watching their sectors. Now lips shut, eyes open Smith."
&nbsp;
"Sir!"
&nbsp;
Pack Lead Amelia Francesca shook her head and turned her own attention back to her scanner array. Sector 2 was clear. She prayed it would stay that way. Delta's lack of presence had been indeed due to an ambush, but it was hardly the fault of incompetent pilots. Delta had been hit during a High Alert situation, the two survivors...well, one survivor now, reported something had come up from under them, collapsed the ground under their feet and buried half the pack alive before anyone could react.
&nbsp;
So here was Bravo, six mechs, armed to the teeth and kitted out with seismic sensors in addition to their usual gear. It was proving to be a long night, the tree line was quiet. The half mile band of barren dirt that served as a buffer zone was devoid of life, and aside from Smith's jabbering complaints, the coms and monitors were silent. *Maybe we'll catch a break tonight...* She thought.
&nbsp;
"Sir! Contact, sector 5. Ping on the seismic." *Of course.*
&nbsp;
"Hang tight Bravo-5. Bravo-2, go and see what's out there." A pair of acknowledgements pinged on her display and she watched the tacmap as the dot marking 2 began moving from it's patrol path towards 5. She synced her sensor unit up with 5's and checked the readings herself. Whatever it was, it was either really small, or really deep. "All units, drop thumper pikes and converge on 5. I have a bad feeling about this."
&nbsp;
"2-Lead. Not seeing anything but my seismo is pinging louder, whatever it is is getting cl- CONTACT CONTACT. Hostile force confirmed. Some kind of worm thing. Tried to pull me under."
&nbsp;
"Copy 2. Bravo pack, weapons free, switch to thermals and fire at will. 2,5, Status?"
&nbsp;
Bravo 5 was moving in at full speed to assist, fifty tons of war machine storming across the buffer zone to aid the smaller scout model. 2 meanwhile was using their jump-jets to keep out of reach of the much bigger, but slower hostile. When the rest of the lance showed up, it was a light show of autocannon tracers, laser blasts and thrown spells.
&nbsp;
Targets were marked, and the team got to work. Prioritizing the giant worm decked in dwarven armor, their ignoring most of the smaller spells being cast by the handful of elves that were trying to emerge in the worms wake. Bravo 2 was dancing circles around the emergence hole, harrying the casters with it's flamethrower.
&nbsp;
The worm was taking the hits like a champ, even with the concentrated fire of five MBM's and a light scout. A new contact appeared on the seismograph and Amelia couldn't help but smirk. Smith had finally caught up in his 147 ton monster of an assault mech. With the heavy Rail-repeaters and particle cannons of the Odin Class heavy assault mech, the battle ended quickly. The scout mopping up the survivors as a few SRMs closed the emergence point.
&nbsp;
"Good job Bravo, fan out, search for any stragglers." As she waited for command to pick up, she couldn't help but chuckle at Smith's parting advice to the enemy.
&nbsp;
"Humanity Bitches!"
&nbsp;
"Fuck yeah." | 2017-07-17T11:08:47 | 2017-07-17T10:17:42 | 44 | 20 |
[WP] A cure for sleep has been found, by taking a cheap pill people no longer need to sleep. You opted to continue sleeping and now 1 year after the release of this pill you notice that people are starting to act oddly. | "Is this an intervention?" I ask.
Catherine smiles brightly, despite her tone being grave. "That's such a harsh way of putting it. I'm just trying to help you live your life to the fullest."
I purse my lips and open the cabinet. "Want some tea?"
"I'd love some, thanks. Are you going to listen to me this time?" She leans back in her chair, noticeably making an effort to keep her feet from touching my table. Although it's old and dingy, I appreciate the sentiment.
"Catherine, we've talked about this." I pour water into the kettle and set it on the stove, pushing the dirty dishes aside. "I don't want to take them. It scares me."
"You take antidepressants. Those don't scare you." Her eyes flick to my windowsill and she quickly adds, "Nice flowers, by the way."
I narrow my eyes and turn to face her. She's peering at my obviously dead plant with interest. She touches one of the brown stems and it snaps under the weight of her finger.
"Don't be a jerk, okay?" I turn back to the cabinet and pull out two mugs.
"What do you mean?"
"You know I'm having a hard time right now. I can't really take care of things. It's just a lot for me to handle."
The front two legs of her chair hit the ground. "I know. That's why I'm so proud of you for keeping these ones alive!"
I freeze. *She doesn't sound sarcastic.* One of the tea bags drops to the floor. I ignore it.
"What are you talking about?" I don't look at her directly, but I can see her out of the corner of my eye. She's grasping at the dead stem, smelling the top as if a flower were there.
"They're so red. What a beautiful color. And the petals are so soft." Her fingers trace the air above the stem. "Roses are hard to keep alive. See, look at what you can do now, even the way you're feeling. Imagine if you took the pills. You could grow an entire rose garden!"
The clock ticks.
The kettle whistles.
I drop one of the mugs.
The porcelain shatters on the tile, sending sharp pieces in all directions. I jump back and swear, startling myself a bit, but Catherine, impossibly, seems not to notice. Instead, she looks at the whistling kettle. "I'll get it!" She announces.
"Watch out, th-" I trail off as she walks over the porcelain shards with her bare feet. She doesn't flinch, or even realize that she's leaving bloody footprints on the tile.
I blink hard.
She turns off the stove and takes the kettle in her left hand, placing her right hand on the counter, where the mug was resting a moment ago. Her fingers form a semi-circle, as if she's grasping a cup.
She tips the kettle and pours the boiling water directly on her hand. It splatters off the counter and onto the ground, mixing with the small pool of blood.
I stare at the scarlet droplets on the ground.
Catherine turns to smile at me.
She lifts her hand to her mouth and quickly brings it back down. "This is really good. Is it chamomile?"
My hands start to tremble. "Catherine, when was the last time you felt sad?" My voice is too slow. It cracks on the word *sad*.
"Oh, I don't get sad." She beams. A blister is beginning to form on her scalded hand. "Why would I be? There's nothing to be sad about anymore. Now that I have energy all the time, I can do whatever I want. I get to follow my dreams."
Her fingers are beginning to turn purple.
She reaches into her dress pocket and pulls out a bottle of bright yellow pills. After setting down the imaginary cup, she twists the cap off and extends her hand towards me.
"When you're never tired," she says, "nothing unpleasant ever happens."
The pool of bloody water is getting thicker in consistency as more blood seeps from the gashes on her feet.
It touches my toe.
I look into her eyes. All I see is blissful ignorance. I look back at my dead roses. The dusty furniture. The dishes piled in the sink. I look at my own hair, greasy and limp from days of neglect. My wrists, still scarred from the last time I thought life wasn't worth living.
I take a yellow pill, and I swallow it dry. | Trashcan
That piece of shit Dave came out from his house and went to the trash can again. Mike made this the eleventh time but he had only started counting when the repition of the sound of the trash can lid being pulled open seemed to come up from the background noise of the usual hub-bub of his suburban street.
Just like every other time so far Mike had seen, Dave marched right up to the can, stared at it for ten seconds then violently whipped it's lid off and gaped at whatever was inside. He then looked around seeming to make sure he hadn't been seen, replaced the lid softly then snuck back inside.
Odd.
At first Mike had assumed Dave had thrown something fairly important out and was sure to rertieve it and wouldn't return but the more he saw the strange routine play out he started to believe that whatever was in the can was a surprise to Dave too.
It was a surprise over and over again it looked like.
So odd.
Dave had a mean streak when drunk and Mike had got to witness first hand via the kitchen window from his front lounge. You see Dave had what Mikes grandma had called "hands for quarrelin" and he took those hands to his wife quite regularly. She came off so bad once that they had to give her plastic surgery. But she always went back.
Mike dry swallowed and rested his hand on his front door knob. He was going outside. He was going to the can. He wanted to know. Had he finally gone too far and hurt her so bad that he killed her and bundled her lifeless body into it? Into the can? He had to know but timing was important. Dave came out at quite regular intervals but he could come right back out again too, Mike had seen it happen once.
He'd play it cool. A slow walk to the letter box, out the drive and check on the hedge row. Then, a swift move across the road to the where Dave's drive way met his garage. The can resided there.
DINGDONG
Mikes heart jumped with fear and shock at the sudden noise of the doorbell. Christ, someone was on the other side- only a step away from him. He looked through the peephole. It was Dave with a scowl across his hardened face. Mikes mind made him reel in fear but it was his eyes that had taken in the most horrific detail from his short glimpse of this surprise visit. Dave had his rifle in his right hand.
A trickle of sweat escaped over Mikes brow and onto his eye.
Dave pounded on the door "Mike!!!" He screamed "I know you're in there!"
[dont know if anyone will read this so I'll stop there for now I guess] | 2016-08-30T13:18:01 | 2016-08-30T11:14:14 | 202 | 18 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | Alel bit his lip as the prisoner crumpled to dust, blowing away from a wind within an airtight room. Well, that was out the window. The judge simply stared with a bored look in his eye, confirming the kill before charting it down and looking to some other infinite list.
“Charles Alel, take to the stand.”
Alel grimaced as he stepped forward. Really? Couldn’t even use his preferred nickname? No matter. His mind was racing with things he could say to keep from dying, though it came up blank as the judge read through his charges. All too soon, Alel heard the judge draw to a close, not even registering when asked how he wanted to die. He needed time, though it wasn’t something he had. Maybe if he could just... get a few more minutes, he could -
“Charles. Choose, or be disintegrated quickly and painfully within the minute.” A magic hourglass flipped, the sand draining ten times faster than it should have.
Suddenly, Alel had a spark of an idea - though, whether or not the magic of the courthouse would even be able to carry through such a thing, he did not know. Alel’s heart beat harder and faster as the last grains of sand hit the bottom of the hourglass.
“I wish to die in every way.” The words flew from his mouth, unable to think of anything else in the moment. The judge had preemptively raised his gavel, though hesitated with Alel’s words. He didn’t look bored or unpleased, but surprised. Curious, even. It *was* a fitting punishment, an undying death set to repeat over and over, and who knows if the courthouse could even do it. An infinite death.
The judge merely locked eyes with Alel, raising his gavel higher before striking downwards. Alel could feel his heart beating quickly as silence filled the chamber. He could feel the eyes of other prisoners as well as the judge on him. His heart was still beating, though rapid from the adrenaline.
A few seconds passed, as Alel began to calm... only to grip his chest in agony, pain wracking his entire body. His heart began to beat faster, and harder, as though it were about to burst within his chest - and then nothing. His consciousness didn’t ebb or fade, it simply ended.
Then it began. Alel rose with a gasp, sucking the air into his aching chest. He gripped his chest and looked towards the judge’s chair - empty. How long had it been, he wondered? Alel began to stand, only to hear a sharp *snap*. He crumpled to the floor with a pained yelp, feeling more bones breaking upon making contact. He looked to his hands, now greying and withering. Old age. His eyes went blurry, and he could feel his body give way to the air in the room.
Awake once more. Dead once more. Awaken, suffer, die. That was the punishment he had chosen. Aneurysm, seizure, cancer, diarrhea, suicide - he kept going through the motions. And though he didn’t know how much time passed in between each revival, the judges seat remained empty, as did the prisoner chamber. It took all of Alel’s willpower just to keep conscious, to stay sane enough to move with what precious seconds he had.
The courthouse was carrying out his wish, killing him in every conceivable way. However, it didn’t restrict his movement. With each revival, he inched closer and closer to escape, to victory - or at least, a semblance of it. Eventually, he reached the door of the prisoners chamber once more, reaching towards the door with a flayed hand. He heard a crack, one that wasn’t from his bones. It was the wood beneath his feet. Alel looked downwards, seeing rotted wood beneath his feet just before it gave way to his emaciated body.
Alel fell, helpless. As he fell, he closed his eyes. The wood was rotten, old. Left without care long enough to give way to skin and bones. He had died several times, physically - but he said *every* way. By falling, by suffocation, by cave in, by worms and dirt and seeds spreading through the Earth and into his bones, all things that wouldn’t be possible in the moment he made the wish.
This was his fate. An infinite one, instead of an eternity of peaceful non-existence. What a fool he was. Alel closed his eyes, only to open them for a time, before closing them again. Perhaps, in time, the magic of the courthouse would break. But before that, this was his undying destiny. | Well shit. There went my plan. Looks like old age is not a way out of it when they can rapidly age you before the assembled court. I had to come up with something amazing if I wanted to survive this execution. To be fair I probably did deserve this, I had killed a few (dozen) people in rather brutal fashion. Deserving something and wanting it however are not the same thing. I deserve to die but I want to live, who knows, maybe if I can find a way to keep myself alive they'll have chance to rehabilitate and release me. If only I could live as long as the stars! WAIT!!! I know exactly what to say...
It's not me just yet, one more to watch die. Poor thing looks even younger than I do, she's maybe 18, so innocent looking. "Mariah Zell, you have been convicted of two counts of murder in the first degree, evidence tampering, desecration of a corpse via necrophilia and cannibalism" ... my mistake, not so innocent "the sentence for which is death, how do you wish to die?"
"Choking on the flesh of a newborn babe, the child I never should have borne." She spat and hissed at the judge like an angry cat and the man's eyes went wide and just for a moment I thought he would deny her request, shocking as it was, especially being as her son had been who she had cannibalised. She had not eaten much, just a little of his leg, before her boyfriend had arrived home and caught her. He'd called the police before she'd killed him and had been found using his corpse as a grotesque sex toy.
But of course not, no judge may deny a method of death no matter how disgusting. Instead the judge granted it by conjuring from the air an exact replica of the child's arm (at least, that's what it looked like to me, I never knew him), down to the birth mark. He cast upon it a spell more commonly used by assassin's to enchant food to choke the next person who ate it then passed it to her. She sank her teeth into the arm ferally. It was disturbing to see. She chewed, swallowed and gasped. It was stuck in her throat, as intended. It took her a surprisingly long time to die. Minutes, not seconds. I hope she was satisfied in giving the court a show.
My turn now.
"Eliza Warren, you have been convicted of 156 counts of murder in the first degree. The punishment is death. How do you wish to die?"
"I wish to die with the heat death of the universe" | 2021-06-24T10:52:50 | 2021-06-24T10:26:09 | 44 | 17 |
[WP] Due to overpopulation, a test has been created to eliminate 90% of the worlds population. You are the first to take this test. | The world was gray, cold, and often dark.
Growing up in the labyrinthine alleyways and sewer complexes and housing towers that was Neo Angeles, life was harsh and often short. A particularly lucky girl, Yima, had lived to the age of 14 unmolested. Slight, with hair kept short and boyish clothes, she blended in for the most part to avoid the unseemly fate that accosts most young and beautiful women of this era.
Too many clawing for too little, even the air felt tight and restrictive in the darkness most were born and often died in.
Very few made it out of the smog, out of the urban and out to the fewer Communes. Once those were too populated and rifts formed in the social strata of the Communist villages, they too were broken apart and consumed by the oncoming Automation of the world. Yima saw the last great Commune break apart, and wept on the border of the Payette National Forest; one of the last few great forests clinging to the Rockies.
Then came the pacification wars. The Neo-Socialists had gained real traction in the Hegemony. Soon, covert and brutal methods had led to real control over the masses and large parts of the government. Life was grim, and dark, and resettlement was constant as people fled the worst of government tyranny. Yima made a living for herself cleaning and cooking and writing spare bits of code for the elderly as she moved from place to place, not ever settling down.
Until her landlord, if he could have been called that, sold her and every complex he owned to the government. Armed with the information her landlord contained, they quickly found most that had lived there and quickly had them huddled in tents in an undisclosed location.
The people were afraid, and Yima was as well. Soon men in lab coats began forming them based on their last names, and in mute shock the people formed queues.
"Aahla, Yima." One of the scientists read off a list, bored; it wasn't a name he knew. The men scarcely looked up at her as she numbly walked from the front of the lines to the men. They smeared iodine on her arm before shoving a small, electronic Blood Sampler against her bare skin. The warm prick sent small waves of pain through her arms. One man nodded to her and took her over to the side corner of the tent, where she waited patiently for them to tell her anything, holding the cotton lethargically to her small pinprick.
One by one, each of the others was tested and led out. Only 3 more joined her out of the 50 or so that had been led off, like cattle.
She wondered where the others would go off to. | The newest form of virtual reality is beyond even our wildest imaginations. Not only can we interact with one another, but we can actually feel one another. Well, at least feel as though we can. The population has grown exponentially over the last several decades and we're told over and over again how a test is coming, but we've yet to see it. The free tech is just a bonus. For every hour I spend living my life in VR, I can earn credits for all sorts of mods. They've got all the kinks worked out; food source, intake and out-take. The service is free - first thing the government ever got right. Anyway, I love it here, nice meeting you - enjoy! | 2016-06-11T09:35:08 | 2016-06-11T09:34:45 | 27 | 18 |
[WP] A world class contract killer finds an envelope at his dead drop. Inside are $23.42 in small change and a letter hand-written by a 9-year-old girl. | "Are you fucking kidding me?" Roper could see the bright yellow envelope sticking out of the little crack in the St. Bernard's Chapel's masonry as soon as he came round the street corner. This specific dead drop was reserved for contracts by the local "business club". They paid well, they respected his rules, they hated unneccessary violence or colateral damage. They were decent guys - well, a decent as you can be in a business where hiring a professional killer is considered a reasonable investment every now and then.
Roper scanned the area and, when he was sure everything was clear, removed the envelope fromo the crack in the wall and slit it into his jacket's pocket. It wasn't until he was back at his appartment and took the envelope out to read it that he noticed the little heart sticker that was used to seal it. "Oh great," he sighed and rolled his eyes. The last thing he needed was his dead drop being used by some love-struck teenagers to exchange badly written poetry. Although, he had to admit, it was kind of romantic seeing some kids these days actually use pen and paper instead of their smartphones. He would return the envelop to the chapel and arrange for the business club's messages to be delivered to a different dead drop.
Most people would have given in to their curiosity and opened the letter. Roper however was a professional, methodical, calculating, ... "Ah what the hell," he mumbled as he held the envelope into the vapour coming from this tea kettle. It was the reasonable thing to do, he lied to himself. It could be form the business club. They could have run out of the brown envelops they used for the past 15 years. They could have run out of both saliva and Scotch tape at the same time and a heart shaped sticker was the only available method of sealing the envelope. He wasn't curious, no, he was being professional.
"Dear Mister,
My name is Emily. I live at 21 Harrington Drive. I really really need your help! You are the best at solving problems, right? That's what that old man at the park told his friend. (I know it's not right to listen to strangers. We were playing hide and seek. I did not do it on purpose I swear.)
There is a man that comes to our house. He always screams at my mom and he says he wants to see his daughter, and that my mom is hiding her from him. But he is lying! She is not here, there is only me. My mom is a good person. Yesterday the man hit mom in the face and the neighbours called the police! I can hear my mom crying at night and some days I can see the stranger sitting at the playground (mom says I may not go to the playground anymore.).
Can you please find the man's daughter for him? When she is back he will stop coming to our house!
I saved some money for a new bicycle, I hope it is enough so you can find the angry man's daughter.
Emily"
Roper turned the envelope upside down and some small bills and a couple of coins fell onto the kitchen table. 23 dollars and 42 cents. He stared at them for a while. Not exactly the going rate for the kind of service he offered. On the other hand, she didn't really ask for his usual service, did she. He didn't have to put a bullet in that guy's brain to make the problem disappear - unless he didn't see reason.
A smile on his face he grabbed the bag with his survellience equipment and made his way to the parking lot. He hadn't smiled in a long time. Sure, he might have smirked when he landed a particularly difficult shot, or chuckled when he disabled a million dollars worth of security equipment with just a stick, a rubber band, and a wet towel. But this was different. It felt good, felt warm. For the first time in 20 years he wasn't on a job, he was on a mission. "Let the games begin."
5 days later a bright green envelope (0.15$) sealed with a comic bicycle sticker (0,59$) was firmly stuck in St. Bernard's former dead drop. It contained 22.68$ and a note.
"Found her. He won't be bothering you any more. Drive carefully."
| I know some people don't believe me when I say it, but I actually did get into this business because I wanted to do good. There's a lot of evil in the world, and not enough people who fight it. I wanted to be one of the fighters. Some people don't agree with my approach, but in my experience, diplomacy only gets you so far.
That said, I've done a lot of bad things in my life. When I read that letter, I took it as my chance to make a real difference. I didn't hesitate for a second.
"Dear Mr. Killer", it said. "The TV said you make bad people go away. I want my Dad to go away. He is a bad man. He is always angry and stinky and hurts my Mom. One time, he came into my room and woke me up. He made faces at me and scared me but my Mom came in and made him leave. And one time, he came into my bed when he thought I was sleeping but I could smell him."
It went on like that. I know what you're thinking: sure, the guy's scum, but why kill him? Why not just let the cops handle it? Well, you're probably right. But that letter... it was personal. I was a little girl once, and God knows I could've used someone to stand up for me every once in a while. Call me unprofessional, but I felt like I was doing the right thing.
I did it when he was on his way home from work. Quickly. The guy deserved to suffer, but I didn't want any unnecessary risks. Later, I talked to the girl on her way home from school. She was adorable. Short ponytail, a little sparkly pink backpack. She sat on the steps, hugging her knees and watching the cars go by. I gave her the letter and said: "It's done. Your Dad is gone now. He won't hurt you or your Mom anymore." I smiled at her, but she didn't smile back. She stared at the letter in my hand and then up at me. Her cheeks glistened with dried tears.
"Who are you? And where's Daddy? He always picks me up from school." | 2014-08-26T04:55:15 | 2014-08-26T03:44:25 | 106 | 31 |
[WP] You are a freshman in a school where everyone has a unique ability/power, but the school is divided into students who have "good" powers and "evil" powers. You are a powerful necromancer who wishes to do good in the world, but everyone is dead set on you being a "bad guy". | The Grey Tower and the Garden Tower cast faint shadows of equal length over the lichyard. An overcast day, and Omar wore a hooded sweatshirt over jeans. His trainers were already covered in mud: it had rained the night before and the thick, black soil was still damp. In his pockets he carried a stub of chalk and a bleached-white kneecap. The gate of the lichyard squeaked and Omar threw back his hood, certain that the yew hedges hid him from the students in the grounds. His nose still smarted.
High gravestones rose from moss. Goblin's gold, they called it in the herb lore class, but Omar couldn't tell it apart from the regular kind. He'd stopped turning up to lectures after the last beating. The graves were overgrown, covered with matted weeds and lichen. He squatted beside one, scraping gunk from the headstone and fumbling with his chalk. He wanted someone strong for this.
It was then he realised he wasn't alone. A wracking cough came from the other corner of the lichyard, where the yew tree's roots pushed against the gravestone slabs and cracked them. Omar looked up. A girl sat on the damp earth with a herb lore textbook open in front of her. She was crosslegged, had a damp ponytail over her shoulder, and an oversized jumper with 'Class of '98' written on it in super-large green font.
"Who gave you the black eye?" she asked haughtily.
Omar scowled and turned back to the grave. He was trying to remember the right symbols to raise the guy from the dead. The book in the library had been quite specific about being specific. Anything vague could end in disaster.
"Are you the kid that everyone hates?" the girl snapped her textbook shut. She tugged at the jumper and got to her feet. "The creepy one who likes dead things?" She coughed again, and Omar wondered why she was out sitting in the damp.
"What does it look like?" Omar said. "What's your thing?"
"I grow plants. This lichyard is my final year project. I've been developing different species of moss. What do you think?" she gestured to the small pile of moss Omar had scraped off the headstone.
"Very green," Omar hazarded. "Is that a good one or an evil one?"
"Depends on which moss," the girl said. "That one you can smoke and it lets you concentrate on just about anything for five to six hours. But then I've got one that you can make into tea, and it kills you by dissolving the lining of your gut and letting the acid out. I like to diversify. I don't let anyone pigeonhole me."
Omar nodded seriously. "I'm raising the dead," he said. "As protective spirits. You need a designated driver, hire a spirit. Or a bodyguard, or just someone to stop other kids from..."
"I like it," the girl tucked the herb lore textbook under her arm. "Mind if I watch? Does it have a name, your project?"
"Sure," Omar stuttered. She was four years older than him, and the first living person who'd said more than a few words to him since the start of term. "No, no name yet."
"How about Bodies against Bullies?" she suggested. "I'm Una, by the way."
"Hi Una," Omar said shyly. The dead weren't usually this chatty. "I'll just get started, shall I?"
"By all means," she replied. "Raise the dead."
--------------
/r/Schoolgirlerror and [Part I and II here](https://redd.it/500d6h)
| I hate school so much that I could just die! Not that it would make much of a difference now that I've got my phylactery set up. I'd just resurrect with a headache like I always do after one of the holier-than-thou jocks decides to give me a hard time. And the principal doesn't even do anything about the bullying! He's too busy fluffing the egos of the super-athletes with their super speed and their super strength!
I swear, just because I dress all in black and cut myself they think I'm evil. I cut myself for my blood magic! I couldn't live with myself if I had to cut anyone else! And the black clothing is much more soothing to the eyes of my zombies! They just don't get it. No one understands me and it sucks so much!
That's the real reason why I hang out in graveyards all the time. At least the skeletons will throw me a bone every now and then, and the mummies might offer a muffled word of encouragement while I'm fitting their wrappings. The only people that really get me are the people I bring back to undeath!
If only everyone else could just look past their prejudices, they'd see all the good I can do. Nobody cares that I talk to ghosts and deliver their final wishes and warm words to their grieving families. Nobody cares that I have a whole legion of skeletons that staff soup kitchens and animal shelters. Nobody cares. It makes me wonder why I bother trying at all.
Sorry for the rant, everyone. Sometimes I just need to vent. I hope you're doing better than I am right now.
Death and love,
-Raven Ebony Doombringer.
#undeadlivesmatter #blackisafashionchoice #cuttingforworldpeace | 2016-08-28T06:29:02 | 2016-08-28T05:49:02 | 132 | 62 |
[WP] C'thulu's Fables: Take one of Aesop's Fables and write it within the Lovecraftian Universe. Morale of the story included.
For reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesop%27s_Fables#List_of_some_fables_by_Aesop | **The Tortoise and the Hare**
There was once a hare who boasted of his speed, "No creature is faster than me." he chanted as he danced around the old and plodding tortoise.
The tortoise, even with a patience born of timeless existence spanning strange and queer aeons found itself irked by such insolence.
"You are fast," he uttered, in a whisper that creeped into time itself and bade it crawl to a stop, "but there are powers that outstrip even yours, puny lifeform."
The hare shook itself, its mortal senses and limited mind unable to comprehend the awesome power that stood before it. Though it's mortal soul screamed in terror, in its foolishness, the hare blustered on, unaware, or perhaps unwilling to acknowledge the monstrous reality with which it was faced.
"And who would best *me*?" Laughed the hare, but the tortoise could now hear the seeds of doubt sown in the creature's fearful subconscious. "If you're so sure of yourself, why don't you race me yourself?"
A grim grin spread across the tortoises wrinkled and ancient features as he accepted. The trial would begin upon tomorrow's sunrise.
The night creeped by in languid terror for the hare. Dreams haunted his sleep, twisted and unreal, wrested from his control by some unheeded power nestled in the deep dark corners of primal instinct. Impossible geometry lurked in the corners of his vision, fields of green, twisted upon themselves and turned through the holes of space and time. Skies darkened, replaced by necrotic plains, twisted upon themselves into a morbid mockery of a starless night. The hare yearned to flee, to turn and run from such an incomprehensible a realm as this. Terror stayed him, though, for an unnatural vertigo gripped him, challenging his urge to flee with an unshakable conviction that the slightest step would send him plummeting from the surface of this world, forever trapped to fall eternally between the queer surfaces of these disjointed realms.
When morning finally drew the hare from the cage wrought of his mental agony, he started from his bed. Fevered and shaking, he paced his room, but the object of his terror increasingly escaped him. The mind of mortal races are not born to bear such unnatural visions, and his mind rejected its conjurations by sheer instinct.
Before long the hare had convinced itself that his dreams had only been of a strange but mundane sort.
"Surely brought on by nerves." He reassured himself uneasily. "But what should I be nervous about? I'll win shortly and be rid of these doubts."
The tortoise greeted the hare at the start line, wordlessly. Waiting with unmoving patience, rooted in place as if reaching the end of an ages long wait for the race to begin.
The hare took off with a start, its legs carrying it on a fitful pace. Pushed as if by some unnatural motivation to outstrip the tortoise. Before long, the hare sat in the shade of a large tree, grown large and ancient with the land. Glancing back in the direction from which he had come, he saw the tortoise. Unmoving, the tortoise returned his gaze with a stare that seemed to pierce through impossibly vast distances to reach the hare.
Chilled to his core, the hare laughed, a nervous and hoarse bark. "That fool, I'll rest these jitters away and win in no time at all."
The hare would never wake. For as he dozed, the tortoise whispered terrible secrets into his ear, truths never intended for mortal minds. Twisted philosophies and axioms of impossible scope crept into the dreaming hare's mind. Ingrained with terrible weight and import, these whispers held fast, ensnaring furtive thoughts with terrible appendages and dragging them to the depths of impossible oblivion.
Inexorably, the conscious thought faded from the hare's mind as the tortoise's terrible whisperings drew its mind apart.
The hare laid under the tree for months, his mind stripped from a body that clung to life as long as it could. Months turned to years, the great tree under which the hare slumbered grew greater still. The hare's body, ensnared by the clinging roots, was drawn into the tree's heart where it remained trapped forever. All under the tortoise's unending vigil.
The moral of the story is: Respect your elders, especially impossibly ancient elders from strange ages past. | **The Boy Who Cried Wolf**
A boy called Jack lived with his parents in a village on the hillside. His parents were sheepherders, and when Peter was ten, he was considered old enough to look after the sheep while his parents when to the village.
Jack though got bored easily, and he found it excruciatingly boring watching sheep the hillside. So he tried to find ways to amuse himself, running up rocks, climbing trees, chasing sheep, but that did not keep him amused for very long. Until he came up with a brilliant idea. He climbed to the top of a nearby tree, and started shouting “Wolf! Wolf!”
One of the villagers heard him, and got all other some other men, and armed with axes, slings and pitchforks they ran out of the village to chase away the wolves and save the sheep. When they got there, they found Jack perched up in his tree, laughing, and the sheep grazing peacefully. That night Jack got no food and was beaten.
For a while life went on again as normal, and people forgot about the incident. Jack managed to behave himself whenever he had to mind the sheep. Until one day, he got really bored again. He picked up some sticks, and running through where the sheep were grazing, he started hitting the sticks together, and shouting: “Wolf! Wolf!”
Just as before somebody in the village heard and come running up the hill armed with some villagers, ready to chase away the wolves away, and save their sheep. When thay got there thay found Jack standing on a rock laughing at them, and the sheep scattered across the hillside. Jack was beaten soundly and made to sleep outside for a week as a result.
The angry villagers decided to do something about Jack, so that night met at the place of where thay sacrificed things to appease the daemons and spirits and received their blessings. They prayed to the daemons and spirits and whet the alter with their own blood. This summoned one of the demons who agreed to a pact with the villagers.
The next time Jack cried wolf, there actually was a wolf attacking the sheep. The villagers ignored him thought, knowing that he was going to revive his punishment and its nature. True to the pact made a demon appeared from the void and lavished gruesome punishments on Jack . After it had finished it went back to the void leaving the sheep to the wolves.
The moral of the story if first don't play pranks on daemon worshipers and secondly don't trust demons. | 2016-10-13T17:01:09 | 2016-10-13T11:09:51 | 23 | 15 |
[WP]: Intergalactic olympics are gathering. All creeds and cultures of the galaxy are arriving and greeting each other. Suddenly a fleet of spaceships appears, blasting We Will Rock You. Everyone freezes. The humans are here. | The space fleet arrived in its vast numbers, firing off smoke of a variety of colors to symbolize each of the athletes countries flags from each shit, blasting what was known to be their Queens song which only grew louder as they approached the ceremonial landing space.
This was the human races first time here, and they were making history with the impression they gave off. Then again, the human race had proved to be somewhat erratic since it joined the UG (United Galaxys), with its constant ignorance of other beings cultures and ways. Which is odd for a planet so diverse in its beliefs and customs. This was made all the more clear when a representative asked the Clanaxy to shake its five fingered hand, an act which is of the highest of disrespect in Clanaxy culture. Its akin in human culture to propose someone to violate their own mother and father a child. That inter-galactic war was thankfully averted.
This though, filled the other contestants with a sense of fear. Were the humans coming to war? Why were they so confident in their abilities? What kind of monsters did their people send to this legendary game to inspire such a display? The Pherrally contestants were all wetting themselves in fear as the airlocks opened and the athletes stepped off the ships.
Out from the doors of the ships, stepped men and women adorned in the colors their ships poured out. While there was only two to a ship, despite the ships overwhelming size, the humans insisted that each representatives countries were to be showcased. Unlike other races, who just sent a contestant for the events they believed they could succeed in, the humans entered every event. Even ones they never heard of. Example of which being the Scottish athlete who entered the most revolting sound event, for some reason.
The funny thing about their race, is that they refuse to take any substances that might improve performance, like so many of the other races do. When asked why, their Athletes merely replied that none of them had ever failed a test in their lives and swore they wouldnt dream of taking any. They are making history by being the only race in the history of these games to NOT use any enhancing drugs. They truly are a strange and scary race, despite their small stature as both a planet and a race. The song had ended as all the athletes left their ships adorned in their countries flags, looking like warriors ready for battle. | I'm not a big writer, but as soon as I finished reading this prompt, I pictured humans being unusually large compared to other races. The loud music would go along with their relative clumsiness and the collateral damage it causes. Plus the partying of gigantic people would be a factor too, like the intergalactic commentator mentioned... | 2018-04-28T10:19:35 | 2018-04-28T09:14:38 | 50 | 14 |
[WP] One day, the ocean's waters suddenly became crystal clear, allowing light to penetrate all the way to the ocean's bed, revealing something very unexpected. | It happened suddenly. How, people didn't know. They didn't know *why*, either. All anyone knew was that it happened: The ocean's waters cleared up, and it was suddenly like looking through a blue-green pane of glass. All the way down.
It didn't make any sense if you stopped to think about it, especially if you were more scientifically-minded- and *speaking* of the scientists, their heads damn near exploded. A select few of them, amidst countless tests and declarations of the end being nigh, chose to take a vessel into the ocean's depths. The spot chosen was several miles out, and several hundred feet deep, and home to a rather curiously shaped object on the ocean bed. It was almost a too perfect rectangle.
It certainly wasn't a ship. They'd seen plenty of those already.
This strange object seemed to be attracting an array of ocean life. Whales and jellyfish, most apparently, but that might have been noted simply because they were the easiest to see.
As the vessel drifted downwards, Karoline sipped on a cup of coffee. Her and her colleague stared out of the moderately sized window that advancements in science allowed, and though she was grateful for the view, she couldn't quite shake the uneasy feeling that suddenly, it might crack.
It didn't. Thankfully. And they were fast approaching their destination.
"Look." Kale pointed out of the window, tilting his head forward. He carefully adjusted the craft's direction. "What is that?"
Karoline scrunched her face. "I don't ... It's very *green,* that part. And *that*-" She paused. "...That looks like windows? The whales, have you ever seen them line up like that?"
"...That doesn't make any sense. What is that- Two, three? That looks like a humpback, but those are sperm whales."
As the craft closed in on the structure, it began to form a clearer picture. Various species of starfish clung to the sides of long walls that shot straight up, and on its wide, flat top were several plumes erupting with boiling water. These plumes supported thriving ecosystems bursting with life, including colourful corals.
"Look!" Karoline exclaimed and pointed her finger. A large slab of some transparent substance moved backwards, and from the structure emerged a small pod of dolphins. "Oh my god!"
"...No." Kale stared, wide-eyed, at the pod, and then gazed to the wall above, where great letters glowed with soft white light. "You've got to be fu- fucking *kidding* me."
"Holy shit." Karoline covered her mouth. "Are you recording this?"
"Fucking Starbucks." | Off the coast of Georgia. Near Tybee Island. I am a scuba diving guide who led a group of tourists on a dive two hours ago. I have no idea how to explain it,but the water got progressively clearer and clearer. I was pointing out a Barracuda when it happened.
We could see all the way to the bottom. That's when somebody tapped me on the shoulder and pointed downwards towards a metal object on the sand. It looked like a bomb or missile. Reported it to the police. That's when the military swarmed the area. Looked it up later. It was a nuclear weapon lost by the Air Force in the fifties. What scares me is that isn't the only lost one out there.
| 2016-10-08T17:10:26 | 2016-10-08T09:14:06 | 29 | 13 |
[WP] You've accidentally killed the Devil. God makes you the new Devil to replace the one you killed. | "Put on the suit."
"You're kidding me, right?" I said as I looked at the business card God had just handed me. His face hadn't changed from the moment I told him I had killed the Devil to the moment he had walked me through every layer of Hell there was. He remained stoic, cold, and almost, happy. "This is exactly like *The Santa Clause*."
"I'm not familiar with it," God said, but I heard him snicker under his breath.
"I put on the suit and I become the Devil right? Lucifer, the big guy downstairs."
"I prefer the Fallen Angel," he corrected, but nodded. "That about sums it up though. You killed him, and as much as *Death* wanted that job, you beat him to it."
"Oh, great, so Death is going to spite me for eternity?"
"Well Death hates everyone. You might have more issues with Love and Hope, they had a semi-working relationship with him." God shrugged, "Listen, I don't normally get my hands involved in the Demi-God business, but when a mortal kills one of 'em, I have to step in."
God wasn't who I expected him to be. At all. You always hear the stories that He's some great man, or woman, with a heart of gold and a loving attitude. But God really wasn't any of that. Instead, He was lumbering and didn't seem to care about anything involving us, the mortals. In fact, I'm pretty sure He excused himself in the first few minutes of our conversation to laugh about how I killed the Devil.
I guess it was kind of funny. "But, how could I become the Devil?"
"You put on the suit."
"No, no, that's not what I mean. I'm just a regular woman, I don't have any special talents or--"
"Yet you managed to kill the Devil."
"In a drinking contest! Not a contest of who-can-control-hell-better-than-the-other-one!"
God smirked. "Man, I can't believe he lost. He always bragged about how well he held his liquor. What did him in again?"
I shrugged and tried to remember the past 24 hours. At the beginning, I met a man at a bar. We got to talking, it turned into a drinking contest, he confessed that he was the Devil and I laughed. Then I woke up with God standing above me and a dead-Lucifer next to me in my apartment. According to God, we never did the, well as God put it, "the thing you do when you marry someone."
"I think it was moonshine."
"Ha!" God laughed, "What an idiot." He shook his head and pushed the suit out towards me, "Not important. What is important is your new job. You'll reside in Hell with your own mansion, control about 50,000 demons and archangels, and you'll get to visit the mortal plane whenever you wish."
"Listen, God, I just don't think I'm the best fit for the job."
"Why?"
"Well, I'm a woman to start off."
"Nonsense, Death was a woman for a brief stint in the 30's, 40's, and 50's. Hope's been a woman for sixty years. Gender doesn't mean shit to us. You think I created Eve to beckon to Adam?"
I smirked.
"I created Eve to kick Adam's ass into gear," he sighed, "he was the fucking worst."
Then I laughed.
"Listen, it's not an easy job. Eternal damnation and all that isn't something people *sign* up for, but it's the one you got. Plus, you have 50,000 people to do your bidding, you get a sweet-ass mansion, all the mortal money you can ask for. And your rule is the begin-all-end-all in Hell."
"Yeah, but don't I have to like, torture people and commit them to an eternity of suffering and all that?"
God shrugged, "Half of their lives is suffering. What's an extra eternity going to do?" He threw his arm around my shoulder, his white robe flew behind him. "It's not an easy job, not by a long shot, but it can be fun."
"Fun?"
"You're telling me you didn't enjoy drinking the Devil to death?"
I smiled, He was right. I did rather enjoy the parts of the night I remembered.
"You get a lot of power, too. Torture, suffering, all that shit is just one part of the job. There's plenty more to it."
"Like what?"
"Well, let's call it creative freedom. The Lucifer you killed, he used to hit the Mortal plane every week or so and cause mayhem. I think his best work was back in Ancient times, split the Alexander Empire up perfectly."
"He caused that?"
"Can't have a mortal rising to power like a God, now can we?"
I shrugged. "Well, you're letting me, and I'm nothing compared to Alexander the Great."
God laughed, "That may be true. But you did something no one in human history has ever done."
"And that is?"
"Kill the Devil with his own creation."
_____________
*/r/BlankPagesEmptyMugs for more!* | The world here passes me by. Times come and go, but this room never changes. The radio never changes. The recliner I sit in has been here forever and it will be here forever. Time passes here, but it never stays.
They call me Lucifer to spite me. They mock me, ignoring my existence as I sit here watching out the window of the damned. They mock me in my own personal hell.
Lucifer, the real one, was an old man when I had come. He took to me kindly and I would visit him often after I had died. It was a nice respite from the back-breaking work outside. We would listen to his radio and he would tell me of his life, his faded hopes and dreams. He was a nice man, Lucifer. But he was the Devil.
The day he had planned carefully. I walked in and the shades were drawn over the window. A red glow burned through the shades and our shadows were long, undefined. We had tea and he played the music of the angels on the radio. I remember thinking how beautiful it was, hating myself every second for being here and not being up there with them. But Lucifer did not pay attention. He was old and prone to babbling. He babbled plenty that day and he cried often. He cried when he spoke of the early days of Creation. He cried for his youth. I listened as best as I could, but I wasn't really paying attention. I listened to the radio, trying to absorb every note instead. And so I had taken the bait.
I made the tea, not looking at what I was doing. I focused only on the music and vaguely on Lucifer's words. I poured the tea that would kill the Devil. I saw him sip it and I remember his smile, a subtle thing that broke the spell of the music.
"You're a good boy," he said. "You really don't belong here."
And he laughed his old man laugh.
I think he had wanted to die for a long time. I don't know why I was the one he chose, but that was how the dice rolled. They found me and I saw the angels first hand. They were mighty beings, more majestic than their song had let on. I was in awe as I stood before God Himself and was sentenced to my doom.
It happened in a flash. Not white, but a colorless transition as my eternity changed forever. God handed down his judgement and then it was over. I cannot even remember what God looked like, he was so imperceptible. But I remember his tone, and the sadness that hid as he knew Lucifer was dead.
All of hell was saddened and I was to blame. I sit here alone now, unwanted in the most unwanted place of existence, alone with no one to visit. The window of the damned remains my only distraction. That and the radio. I listen sometimes again to the angels sing, but now it makes me sadder than ever. I miss Lucifer and I regret my life. I wonder what I have done to deserve any of this, but I know I have done enough. I sit these days in the old recliner. I sit and think of how things could have been. It truly is Hell. | 2016-12-09T09:01:17 | 2016-12-09T08:29:57 | 397 | 117 |
[WP] Governments all over the world cease every space program. Ten years later, a rebellious group is about to launch into space and they finds out why space programs ceased. | The first sensation of weightlessness hits you and you realize you're out there, you've slipped the surly bonds. The tedious waiting, confined straps, and uncomfortable variations from hot to cold that occupied your life for the past eight hours slips away when you realize you're weightless. You unlatch, unbuckle and float.
I keyed the com and relayed the first message from our tin can to the ground with the gravitas of Armstrong on the moon, "We did it. We're back out here." I'll admit, I couldn't help but smile when I heard the cheers.
There were ten people in a little shack just this side of nowhere in the middle of Nevada risking their lives even being in the same room as that equipment. At ground control you didn't have many moments that weren't undercut with a justified paranoia. And over the com I'd just gotten the pleasure of hearing one.
I turned to Eisel and Grissom - Claptrap and Condor as they're known over com - give them the thumbs up. Grissom has already floated over to one of our little round windows. He doesn't see me. He doesn't see anything except that curved horizon. Eisel returns the thumbs up as she runs through a checklist. I know what the switches she's flipping do but at that moment I could barely remember my name over the thousand thoughts coming through my head. Each one flying through my mind at 28,000 kph.
Ten years ago I'd been a test pilot baed out of Colorado Springs when the edict came down. Space was over - too expensive, too useless, too impractical. There was a cavalcade of bullshit reasons given that stretched higher than Mt. Elbert and stunk just as bad. I didn't go through the Naval Academy, and salute every jackass with a different insignia on their collar than mine just to test planes. I did it to go out there, or up here. I didn't want to just fly. I wanted to break out completely. They shut off that dream like they were turning off the bedroom light to go to sleep.
The offer came down in hushed tones. You learned quick that speaking out for space was a quick ticket to the civilian life. My civilian life was flying crop dusters. This scrambled eggs I'd known for a bit back in Pensacola stopped by the hanger with a six pack one day four years ago. By the time he left I was in a world of shit. By that time the government had made it known that talking about space wasn't going to fly. First they said it in speeches. Then they said it by putting a few rounds of 5.56 through two college kids marching in front of the White House - for security purposes. When two UCal kids holding signs and going for their PhD in physics became a threat to national security I knew the whole fucking world had gone sideways.
China, Russia, Europe, even Australia fell in line. So when that Commander friend of mine slid a piece of paper with a set of coordinates on it I knew I was going. Security was tight and our equipment was outdated. The entire show was like some community theatre production of Our Town compared to what I'd been used to. We made it work though and we returned.
The first hint of just how badly we'd fucked up came from Eisel. She didn't look up from her console when she said, "Captain, we have multiple system failure."
This was not to be unexpected. No one seriously thought we'd get this far and no one really believed we were coming back alive. "What's the problem claptrap?" I asked.
That's when the whole can shut down - lights, air filters, display panels. It was almost humorous when Eisel said, "We've lost all power."
Then Grissom over at the window said, "Guys, you got to take a look at this."
What that poor man saw was some kind of death ship kilometers wide, black, and unreflective. A most unusual trapezoid shape. It had no concern for aerodynamics. It was not made to land on planets.
Our speakers came alive. Just the speakers, powered by some unimaginable force.
"I see you have chosen to leave your atmosphere in breach of our previous agreement. You are completely uncontrollable. The great speakers have had their day. We are the great destroyers."
With that a red beam of plasma flooded from the bowels of that dark monolith. It struck the Indian Ocean and Grissom immediately went mad.
In burnt over the earth a thin red edge demarcating the blue and green from the absolute black that spread from the impact. We pressed our faces agains the port holes and watched. The red edge disappeared over the horizon leaving just an outlined black sphere that began to crumble away in shards from the molten core. It was only then that I realized the enormity of what I had seen, when at least an eighth of the southern hemisphere started gliding off like a glacier falling into the ocean.
The monolith trapezoid blinked out of existence. It's work was finished. The glowing core of Earth began to fade. That's when Grissom went for the emergency latch. I believe he wanted to save them all somehow, reach out and put the pieces back together. In the scuffle I snapped his neck to keep him from killing us.
Now I'm not sure why I didn't let him. Eisel has gone on, asleep and soon to die from the lack of oxygen. A piece of our former home, black and dead, floated in front of the sun an hour ago. I am dark and cold and dying. I am the last monument to man before we slip forever into the abyss.
| “Why didn’t they stop us?”
“Hmm?” Pirate Jeron looked up. He was nominally the engineer on this flight, as much as any outfit run by the Pirate Party could have designated roles.
“You heard me, you just don’t want to have this discussion again.”
“It’s been a month, and all I have to talk to is you, the crazy magnate who financed all this, and the voice recognition software designed by a 14 year-old. Of course I don’t want to have this discussion again, but if it’s a choice between that and another discussion on why ‘boobies are kewl’ I’ll take this.”
“Come off it, it has to bother you too. Every nation on earth tracks launches to make sure nothing nuclear lands on their soil. They had to have seen us.”
“Karen, we were going ten times the speed of sound in under a minute. They don’t have the ordinance to stop any target moving that fast out of the gravity well. It wasn’t pleasant to take that many gs, but it kept us from being blown up.”
“What about Star Wars?”
“The movies or the magic laser defense system?”
She looked at him over her glasses.
“Fine. Let’s say the U.S. managed to get the billions of dollars to fund that project. Then, let’s say that those satellites launched properly. Then, let’s say they continued to fund it adequately and keep everything up-to-date and working. Then, let’s say that it actually would have worked without any real tests in its entire history. Again, this is a system designed to hit a ballistic target falling back to earth, not one burning out of system. We covered all of this in the ‘things that could go horribly wrong’ portion of training.”
“But what about…”
“Dammit, Karen, they don’t care. We accelerated for a month and nothing chased us. They dropped the space program because of lack of funding, not some mystic thing Voyager saw outside the heliosphere. I know what you’ve read, it’s all hokum.”
At that moment, the rebel billionaire commed them. “Arrgh, me maties might be wantin’ to see this.”
“Clarance, cut the pirate crap. What do you want?”
“You guys are no fun. We’re the first people to go exasolar, and you’re all business.”
“Particle readings are past the threshold?”
“Not yet, but they will be in a couple minutes. I thought you might like to see it.”
The cockpit was cramped for three people, but they didn’t mind. It was a historic moment of gauge-watching.
“Annnnd…there it is. We are officially exasolar.”
Clarance and Kathy whooped. They began making all of the standard comments, knowing the flight recorder would be catching everything for posterity.
Something was bothering Jeron, though. They had all been watching the particle readings, but no one had actually been looking out the viewscreen.
“Uh, guys…where are the stars?”
“What do you mean, where are the stars? They’re right…” Clarance trailed off as he, too, looked up. “That can’t be right.”
Then, before their eyes, the pure blackness dissolved into a geodesic wall. Collision alarms rang. Kathy and Clarance desperately sprang into action. Jeron knew (though not a pilot) that it was in vain. They were traveling too fast. Unless the wall was unspeakably massive, it would be mere seconds before they were obliterated against it.
“No wonder they didn’t bother shooting us down.”
Kathy received some last sensor data. “From…from the gravity data…it’s…it’s all the way around! Jeron, it’s all the way around!”
| 2014-12-28T09:27:30 | 2014-12-28T09:01:03 | 434 | 46 |
[WP] For your girlfriend's birthday you give her an 'anything you want' coupon, which she uses to jokingly ask for a million dollars. The next day you come home with a duffel bag, throwing it on the floor in front of your girlfriend.
[deleted] | I open the door with a huge grin. I want this to feel like the movies, so I picked up the perfect black duffel bag at the thrift shop: worn down, black, and real leather. I slam the door, walk into the living room, and throw it toward her. It hits a few feet from the couch and slides the rest of the way. Perfect shot.
"That's it? I wanted a million," she said, half-looking into the duffel bag through a partially opened zipper at the two small bundles of bills.
"It is. It always looks like more on TV, but when it comes down to it, it's only a thousand Benjamins," I replied.
"Haha, nice one. You mean a thousand George's," she said, still not taking her attention away from the TV.
"Oh, come on! I went to all this effort to give you what you asked for, and you won't even entertain me for a second? What about my entrance?" I ask.
"Yeah, that was pretty cool. Alright, I'll play along," she says as she steps over the bag to give me a hug and a kiss.
"So, the job's done? Did they pay what they promised?" she says playfully.
"I always get paid, baby. You know that," I respond.
"And on my birthday of all days! Let's take a look," she says as she walks back over to the bag and opens it all the way. She reaches in blindly and pulls out the bundles, one in each hand, and holds them up to her face and nose and takes a big whiff of them.
"Oh, a million dollars smells so good, baby!" As she opens her eyes and looks at me. Then, she notices.
"Holy shit! Are these real?!" she screams, fanning through the bills.
"Only the best for my baby," I say, going in for a kiss, but getting rejected.
"Where the hell did you get these?" she asks frantically.
"From a safe," I reply, as cool as my dark sunglasses. I really can't see through these damn things inside, but I like the effect. I feel a bit like Neo right now, making millions appear from nowhere.
"What did you do?" she asks, sounding quite concerned.
"You know my friend Jimmy?" I ask.
"Which one? The one you work with?" she asks.
"No, the one that does the car resale thing," I say.
"Yeah, what about him? Did you...rob him?" she asks.
I hold my finger to my lips and shake my head no. She slaps me.
"Ow! I'm just kidding! He needs a lot of cash to run his business so he usually tries to keep at least a million in his safe at all times. He just let me borrow it! I gotta go take it back right away," I reply.
"Right away? Cause I know something fun we can do with this right now. I've always wanted to play around with real money..." she says, her eyes flirting with me through half-closed eyelids. I follow her down the hall, but instead of turning into the bedroom, she opens up the closet.
She reaches in and grabs the Monopoly. | "What is this?" she shouted. She did not seem happy. "Umm... you said you wanted a million dollars," I replied. Man! women can be a little too much at times. "What did you do?" She asked. She still seemed to be upset. A little tense maybe. It was kind of starting to concern me now. "I went and got your gift... Do you want to get some coffee?"
"What is wrong with you!" she screamed. "What?" I said. "This isn't fake money! How did you get this?" she asked. I felt a little attacked but I'm a pretty solid guy so I kept my cool. "Okay, wow. Umm, I went into the bank, used a little intimidation factor if you know what I mean, and left with your gift." I gave her a little smile and hoped she would start to loosen up. She did not loosen up.
Long story short, I'm in the car right now returning the gift. Obviously I don't have a receipt but I'm sure they'll take it anyway. One must learn to be less literal around women. | 2019-07-30T11:10:56 | 2019-07-30T08:06:19 | 26 | 11 |
[WP] You are a shopkeeper in a fantasy world. What the adventurers don't know is that your tired of greedy heroes robbing dragons, stealing tribal lands from orcs, and butchering young slimes. You've secretly become an arms dealer for the monster underground. | I hadn't seen them in action, but I had heard stories from the other shopkeepers. One of them, probably the bard, charmed the potion maker into an unequal trade, taking all of their stock and leaving them with the worthless excess they had gathered while they were out adventuring. Damn near ruined them. The Shopkeeper's Guild stepped in to help them rebuild their inventory, but it was awful to see them in the tavern that night, crying and wondering how they were going to keep up with the wages for their apprentices and gatherers.
We thought that would be it, but then they came back after a week. They apparently "liked our town" so much so that they decided to ruin the Weaponsmith next. Took all of his stock in the same unequal trade, leaving them flush with gold and brand new weapons. The Shopkeeper's Guild stepped in again, helping him back on his feet. This wouldn't be nearly so bad, but the adventurers never spent their gold. They just hoarded it, like the dragon Greg that lived under a nearby hill.
Then word came back that they killed Greg and took all his hoard. For a while we were elated. Maybe this meant that we would finally see some restitution for the businesses they destroyed. We were wrong. They cleaned out the Tailor, both Bakers, the Butcher, two of the General Stores and the tavern owner. All ruined. The Shopkeeper's Guild couldn't help us, their coffers had run dry.
With their trail of destruction complete, they were gone again. As the days passed, the orcs came in to town. Tired, starving, their ancestral lands taken from them by this roving band of thieves, their numbers decimated. The slimes they used in their rituals were now gone, their once lush hunting grounds now depleted; they had nothing left to return to, so we took them in at the Mayor's behest.
Months passed before they were back again, this time gunning for me. I was struggling to stay afloat as it was with our town economy in shambles and no assistance from the crown. But I had a plan and a secret weapon. They came in with their flashy new weapons and armor, and I managed to keep my rage quelled long enough to get what I wanted. Sure, I took all of the rusted swords, blunt daggers, and simple shields at a hugely inflated cost, but more importantly: I got information from them.
Their bard, good with his words, but not good at keeping his mouth shut, spilled every last detail of where they had been, and where they were going next. I smiled as he told me, making sure to keep up my mask of enthusiasm. Once they rolled out of town again, my stock and coffer depleted, I handed everything I had over to the orcs.
"We will bring you their heads!" Their leader roared, much to the delight of his remaining tribe as they made do in the abandoned warehouse.
"No," I countered, "I don't want their heads. I want to see them ruined. Ruined and broken, like they have ruined all of us." The chief smiled.
"You supply us," he stuck out his giant hand, "we supply you."
Its been six months since I struck my bargain. Our town has recovered a bit since then and the adventurers keep coming back, but they keep looking more and more desperate each time. They only come to me now for supplies, things the orcs have stolen from them in the middle of the night or brazenly in the middle of battle that I am more than happy to sell back to them at a premium. They've stopped trying to charm me; an inconspicuous necklace the orcs gave me prevents any charm spells from working, and none of the other shopkeepers will trade with them.
I'm please with how things are turning around, but there's still more work to be done. I'm having tea with a general that the orcs have allied with later today now that the miscreants have left again. I will have my vengeance against these so-called adventurers for ruining my town. | He chuckles, pulling his blood-red tie straight and tight against his spotless white collar. Sliding into the pitch black suit, he allows his mind to wander. He had it all, fortune, fame, feminine admirers... and to think he used to be a small time, starry eyed shopkeeper.
See, he'd seen the big picture, seen what the other people at the guild hadn't seen, or didnt want to see. He'd seen opportunity. Because what use are adventurers? Eventually they'd have raided every tomb, killed every lich and shattered their phylacteries twice over. Being involved in the 'protection of civilisation' by adventuring companies was ultimately a finite business.
Thats where he came in.
At first it was a one-off sale, a bunch of seeking arrows a team of adventurers had deemed "not worth their time", leaving him with the expensive stuff. So when a group of Goblin mercenaries contacted him for the stuff, he eagerly jumped at the chance, even turning a small profit on the arrows.
It was about 2, maybe 3 weeks later those same adventurers came crawling back, down 2 of the original 5, beat up and bloodied. They'd faced bandits with arrows that came in at impossible angles and lost, miserably. And since adventurers are often not the brightest of the bunch, his actions had gone unnoticed.
And so it continued, sometimes he supplied one side with weapons effective against the other, sometimes he sold them ineffectual rubbish. But always, always he ensured that he supplied both sides of the conflict evenly, and with ordinance hitting harder than before.
What was just a run down shop in the slums of Javaaz turned into an empire in the shadows, with him the Emperor of it all.
Some found out of course... but they were few and far in between and, more importantly, easily dealt with. They called him a monster, called him things even the demons below would find offensive.
But what was he to do? It was not personal after all, just business, lucrative, wonderful business. | 2018-09-18T05:40:31 | 2018-09-18T04:57:18 | 22 | 12 |
[WP] You lay dying of heart failure, and God enters your mind. He informs you that you will be reincarnated upon death, losing all memory, but before that happens you are allowed to ask any one question. The answer to your question surprises you so much that your heart restarts and you survive. | As I lay in the bed, focusing all of my energy on continuing to breathe for as long as I could, I felt a presence in my midst. Not a physical presence like that of my family that surrounded me, but it was as if a second consciousness had entered my mind.
He explained to me what was going to happen, though I knew it to be true already. I was going to die momentarily. What I hadn't known, was what was to come after. I had contemplated what the after life might be like, or if there even was an after life. Now I had my answer. I was to be reincarnated upon my death and I would lose all of my memories of this life. It was saddening to know that I would live on in a new life, but would not be able to carry the precious moments from this life with me.
But losing all of my memories was to come with a perk. He told me I could ask any one question. Any one question at all, and I would receive an answer. I thought long and hard, each second that passed became more and more painful as my breaths became increasingly sharp and quick. Finally, I had it. The question I would ask would give me one final taste of truth. With this answer, I could go quietly into the night, knowing that those I left behind would be either disappointed or would rejoice when the truth I was about to behold became public knowledge.
We shared a consciousness, so I need not even ask the question. I could tell he was slightly let down with my choice of inquiry. He hesitated for a moment, but then relented and granted me my one final answer. What he had not anticipated, nor what I had not anticipated, was that as my heart gave out and his answer echoed through the waning expanse of my consciousness, was that it would restart my failing heart. When I heard his answer, my world jolted back into view. My family was frantically calling for assistance from the nurses. I was gasping for breath again, not because I couldn't breathe, but because I could breathe once again. I didn't wait for the nurses or doctors to arrive. Instead, I pulled the apparatus facilitating my breathing from my body and sat up straight. My cousin, two years my elder, shuffled over and placed a hand on my back, steadying me as I tried to sputter out audible words. Something raspy came out of my mouth, but he couldn't hear it. I pulled the collar of his shirt closer to me and whispered into his ear,
"Half Life 3 confirmed."
edit: Thanks so much for the gold! | "So you're god, huh?"
YES.
"And you say I get to ask one question of you before I die?"
THAT IS CORRECT.
"Well hot dang! I wonder what I should ask?"
I WOULDN'T KNOW.
At that moment, there was a whirl of panic in my hospital room, with nurses and doctors running every which way. In a delerium I had not experienced a moment ago, I heard the staff talking about how I'd be making a full recovery if the current test results were accurate. | 2014-08-03T06:58:43 | 2014-08-03T04:13:16 | 750 | 36 |
[WP] Killing a person raises your life span by 20 years, but it comes with a cost.
First Reddit post ever. Please be gentle
Edit: Did not expect this to blow up. | I've made a deal with _Death_. When I "died" death came up to me and said
"Congratulations! You're the 100th billion person to die! You can choose to live on in heaven OR choose to live forever back on Earth! As long as you kill a person, that person will give you 20 more years to live! But with a cost..."
Of course I had to choose the latter. I still had a lot to live for. I've made a decision that when I reached 30 I have to act so that my looks stay the same. I've been doing this for about 80 years now. This is my 4th target.
I know this is bad... I know. But I've always picked those who have nothing to live for. Homeless depressed people, those without family and the old age etc.
No one will miss them. I'm sure of it, this is why I make background checks before doing anything.
I can't really say why... it's an addiction. Not the killing... but staying alive. To know that I can live past anything makes me want to keep going, no matter the cost.
It was the night before Christmas and my target this time is a man by the name of Albert Kane. 10 years ago, he was once a respected construction foreman just trying to make his family live good lives. He has lost his five year old daughter and wife in a car accident. His life went downhill from there. Excessive drinking, drugs, multiple arrests. Then he lost his job, his credibility, and his home. All he had left was the shirt on his back and a backpack.
I hosted a Christmas party for the homeless at the community centre. Its the least I can do for what I'm about to do to this poor man. I'll let the others and him enjoy themselves. Good food, drinks, even a gaming centre I organised at the back! Then when Albert is drunk enough I'll bring him back into the alley and do my "business".
--------------
Finally I got him into the alley while he was drunk. I didn't use anything sharp, or anything blunt, or even a gun. I just gave him a spiked drink and all I had to do was wait.
I helped him down as the poison took effect. The poison was working fine. It made him sleepy real easily and after a few mins he _slept_, for good.
"May you rest in peace with your family."
Now I have to wait for _Death_. I saw his backpack and took a peak in it.
Not much but one thing I saw was a book, an album. It was his family album. Almost all of the pictures seemed missing but there were 5 that were still kept.
Here's one with him and his wife taking their wedding vows.
Another one on their honeymoon in France (The Eiffel tower was right behind them).
Seems like this one was taken before his pregnant wife was admitted to the ER. And another one of his new born baby daughter in the hospital room.
This last one seemed a bit weary in its condition. It was him and his daughter on site at his job, he was taking her on a ride in one of the construction diggers and it seemed like she was laughing and enjoying it... Suddenly I hear a familiar voice behind me.
"Hey bud. I'm here." It was _Death_.
Even though I've already seen him 3 times I still can't get used to him.
"So this is the guy huh?"
"Ya... will he be okay?"
"He will. I know he's due to heaven and I am here to help him move on. And I'm sure his family will be happy seeing him again. But that's half the reason of why I'm here. So... the _cost_. You have it ready?"
"Yup."
"Alright then. That will be __$3.50__." As Death takes the bill and change they disappear into a cloud of smoke on his hands. "The payment has been given. See you in 20 years!"
"Alright. See you Death!"
Now time to live another 20 years more!
__THE END__
[Optional End Credit song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob7vObnFUJc)
EDIT: Grammar stuff. Thanks to u/Evaara | The steel door was the only thing in the room with me. Four concrete walls and the giant steel door. Pacing does terrible things to ones mental state, alas, I was trapped into this perpetual cycle of pace, hold head in hands, rinse and repeat.
Not many women end up in a place like this. Less than 8% according to Wikipedia. I'd done my research, and I was part of the great minority in this wretched *zoo* of a slaughter house. Probably because women plan better than men. I suppose it doesn't matter anyway.
My research also told me that 72% of men are physically stronger than me, despite the countless hours subjecting myself to a tireless training regime.
A metallic slam resonated through the room, the kind that happens when you slam a bin lid too hard. I don't suppose I have much chance of seeing a bin every again.
The place I am in is where they send you to die. When you murder someone, they find you and send you here.
Of course, some escape, or are never caught, but most murders happen on the extensive network of CCTV cameras, the Mind's Eye Security System, known as the MESS by most. I digress.
*Here* is not a good place to be. *Here* is an arena. If you kill someone, you come here. You have to fight to escape this place.
There's a variety of televised events they can put you in for: sword duels, fist-fights, death races or any amalgamation of the imagination. All of the events are designed to get someone close enough to death that a 'benefactor' can kill them legally in order to increase their own life.
Is it morally indefensible? Yes.
Is it totally corrupt? Absolutely.
Does it cut the rate of murders by an order of magnitude? Unfortunately so, or it would be done away with.
Finally, I hear a voice. Two days of solitude to put me on edge before my event, and I finally hear a voice.
"You're on now." A gruff voice. Hardened. How many lives has he taken?
The door rolls open, slowly, noisily. Painstakingly.
The light is blinding, a crowd is amassed around the stadium. On the other end of the arena, a young boy stands alone, weeping. | 2016-10-24T00:23:19 | 2016-10-23T23:06:16 | 86 | 14 |
[WP] Every person in the world develops a weird mutation/power the day they turn 16. Everyone's powers are always different, some more insignificant than others. You turn 16, and watch as all your friends discover their newfound ability's. That is, until you discover the severity of your own. | I was at my Uncle's house the day before I turned sixteen. His house was a potpourri of spices and curry. They smelled amazing one by one, but together, they hit you like a spice train, each carriage hitting you with a new blast of pepper. I watched him flip pancakes for breakfast from thin air. I sighed and ate the pancakes, as they appeared one after the other. They tasted like pancakes all right, nothing special. Usually Uncle would constantly hammer on about the success of his restaurant, but after twenty years, the novelty of his powers soon ran out and his business was running downhill. That was often the case with the members of my family. Our powers were novel, but just because you were special it didn’t make you useful. Although we were proud that we were different than the rest, I often wished that I could grow up with normal powers like flying and super strength. I mean, people from around the world would all gather around their television to watch the flying people compete in blitzball. In my family, we gather around my older sister. She picks up television broadcast or radio signals, processes them and displays them on her belly. She is happy that people always want her around, but I don’t think that’s for the right reasons.
My dad was consoling me through Skype. He told me I should be happy with whatever power I got. I should be happy of my lineage and my power, because that’s who I am. I told my dad that I wished he were here to support me. He told me he would, if he didn’t find himself trapped in the Internet after he turned sixteen. I asked him how he made me then. He told me that I wasn’t ready for that yet, and to just remember that my mother can travel through fax machines. My mother was upstairs reading. She reads a lot these days, not being able to work as a travelling saleswoman now that fax machines are a thing of the past. I couldn’t help but cry. I wanted to shoot lasers from my eyes and phase through walls. My friends were already reading each other’s minds and turning things to ice. I found my bed. The police didn’t even bother to put me in quarantine. I closed my eyes.
I woke with an energy pulsing through me. I tried not to get excited so the disappointment wouldn’t hit me as hard, but it just felt so good. I don’t know what took over me, but I jumped and crashed through the bedroom window. Suddenly I was flying, and the broken shards of the window bounced off my impenetrable skin. I shrilled in delight and waved to my friend dashing below me. He gave me a thumbs up, but I could here him say in his mind that he didn’t really care. I was surprised; I had invisibility, flying and mind reading. I wanted to see what more I could do. I picked up the car parked below me. It was easy, like a feather. I felt as if all the generations of my ancestor’s mediocrity had built up to unleash a combination of great powers within me. Within a few hours time, I was folding the ground from beneath me, I was balancing the earth and the sun on opposite hands, and I was ripping holes in time and space, sending galaxies into oblivion. My power was overwhelming, and I felt awesome.
Uncle Brandon looked down on Peter who was laughing hysterically in bed. John was on the Skype call, and Mary put down her book. Together they watched Peter have the dream of his life, for his life.
| Tonight was my night; my 16th birthday. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime of waiting, it was my time to shine. I had waited almost a year for this day, ever since my best friend Andrew discovered in January that he could fly. I had envied him at first, being the first in the tenth grade with a power. As time passed I was jealous of what it said about him. If powers are a reflection of our character as scientists believed, I came to envy what this said about his life. He was free, he was pure and he was without a care in the world. What did he know about pain? of being beaten by your father every day for imagined sins and infractions? Of having to steal your best friends allowance to wear decent clothes? of being labelled by girls as a 'creep' and of your few friends pitying you?
But times had changed. New Years eve, my birthday, had arrived and I smiled at my reflection. I wondered what my power would be. Super strength for my strength through the hardships? Mind reading for my ability to empathize? I was entertaining these thoughts when my phone rang.
*Hello?*
*Hey it's Andrew here, you ready for the party?*
*Sure, pick me up in ten.*
*Hello?*
I heard static and a click as my phone died. I moved it away from my ear, and then smiled.
Tiny cracks ran along the screen and continued to spread from where my hand held the phone. I willed the cracking to stop, and it did. | 2015-01-21T22:23:15 | 2015-01-21T21:42:59 | 40 | 10 |
[WP] You are suddenly hugged by a teary-eyed stranger who says they love you. You then find out they've been stuck in a time loop and they've fallen for you as you were the only one who bothered to help them each time. | Wake up, take a shower, get dressed, get out of the apartment, head towards the cafè down the street, get your coffee, get in the car and go to work.
Rinse and repeat, everyday of the week.
This was the clockwork-like routine Layla had gotten accostumed to, now that she had properly moved in Los Angeles.
She didn't pay a lot of attention to the monotony of her mornings, since she had plenty of spare time in the evening to do whatever she wanted. What's more, she liked the tranquility of the whole system, it made relax a bit before she had to face the sheer chaos her boss would bring in the office.
This one tuesday, however, things took a weird turn.
She was heading for the cafè, as usual, when she saw a man get out of it. One of the other clients of the cafè, she presumed, but there was something wrong. He looked like he had an awful time: the eyebags and red eyes implied that he'd had plenty of sleepsless nights. He started looking around frantically, with a panicked expression on his face. He was muttering to himself, and breathing heavily, and she genuinely thought he was having a panic attack. It was probably best to ignore him, "stranger danger" and everything; and yet she couldn't just let him be like that. What if he seriously needed help?
She gathered up some courage and asked tentatively "Sir? Is everything alright?"
And then he locked eyes with Layla. His face, which seconds earlier held pure dread, was now melting in gratitude and affection as he lunged towards her.
"What the-"
The exclamation got cut short when Layla felt his arms lock around her in a hug. Her already wide eyes got even larger as she realized he was sobbing in her chest.
She tried to get him to let go, but he gripped onto her as he cried, as if the very idea of letting go would end him.
"Sir, what's going on?" She questioned.
She was pretty sure he was trying to answer, but what came out were gargled rambling she couldn't understand, besides the phrase "I love you" . Was it possible for someone to be drunk this early in the morning?
Both their knees were starting to get weak, so she looked around for somewhere to sit. Good thing there was a bench to her left! She led the man to it and started rubbing his back, awkwarldy waiting for him to calm down.
After what felt like ages, his breathing finally started to settle. He looked up to her with a trembling smile. "You're too good to me, Layla. No words I say are enough to thank you".
Hearing her own name made her yelp, before she answered "You could start by telling me how and why you know my name?"
He looked bewildered before he collected himself and drew back from her.
"Right. Right, you don't know. And you still helped me. That's part of why I love you so much, you're always ready to lend a hand."
If hearing a random man say he loved her didn't throw her off, the story he spilled about him being stuck for years in a time loop in that very cafè he got out of most certainly did.
"I didn't even notice at first, my life is THAT monotonous" he chuckled bitterly, as he looked away. " But every damn time I opened the doors to get out, I'd find myself back in that stupid cafè. When I realized what was going on, I tried telling people about it. Far too many times I've been called crazy and dismissed. And far too many I'd been dragged out of the bar only to be back in it to start a new cicle" The memory alone made him grimace.
This poor guy, Layla thought to herself.
"The only reason I didn't lose my mind-" he drew his gaze back to her "- is you. No matter what cicle went in, or how it changed directions, you were always there to comfort me and give me advice. You were the only one who didn't shun me, or called the cops on me. Thank you , Layla."
"There's no need to thank me" said Layla, in a timid tone of voice. "If anything, I should be thanking you."
It was the man's turn to get wide-eyed. "Huh? What for?"
"You said that I helped no matter what. It's reassuring to be the very person I yearned for in my own loop". | Derek: "..so you've been stuck in a time loop for a few millennium falcons?"
Woman: "23967 years to be precise. Mostly with you, Derek. You see, I was obsessed with male models. I finally got to meet one, you, and that is when it all started."
Derek: "OK. I get it. But if you're from the future you should be able to answer some simple questions. What are the winning puzzles on wheel of fortune tomorrow? Do the polar ice caps melt and cause Kevin Costner's Waterworld to be a real thing? And what is my name? And why male models?"
Woman: "I'm not from the future per se, I've just lived many possible futures. I know you don't actually watch wheel of fortune, you were born after Waterworld was made and you've never actually seen it, and I already told you, your name is Derek. Also, I find male models attractive and I am hopelessly in love with you.
Woman: "This isn't even the first time I've told you, not even the first 100 times, yet every time, even if I approach things exactly the same, you behave differently. For example your questions to me just now. Last time you asked me a completely different set. You are literally the only person to do this. And because of that, you're the only person who has made my existence for the last thousands of years bearable. Everything else has become mundane and predictable, I know what is going to happen before it happens, with everything but you.
Woman: "In fact this whole loop I'm stuck in revolves around you. What triggers my time loop reset is when you do something repetitive, or you die, but it's rare enough sometimes I live a whole lifetime before that happens."
Derek: "This is all pretty hard to believe. You might know that I am not going watch wheel of fortune tomorrow, but are you sure you love me and not just the way I look?"
Woman: "That is part of this time loop curse, at least I thought it was a curse. Now I don't want it to end. Derek, your amazingly handsome but your personality is awful. I like you for three very shallow reasons, but those reasons have consumed my existence for thousands of years.
Derek: "What is your name again?"
Woman: "Jen."
Derek: "Okay Jen, so if you're an expert on Waterworld, when exactly did you meet Kevin Costner?
Jen: "That question is not what I expected, but that is why I love you. I never met him. That's just a movie. Any more questions?"
Derek: "But why male models?"
*time resets* | 2021-07-14T06:58:36 | 2021-07-14T06:40:24 | 390 | 29 |
[WP] Astro-Carcinization - crabs keep evolving over and over in our fossil record. The crab body shape is prevalent. Assume we finally meet aliens and we are the only non crab intelligence ever found. | Due to the fact that the Crustalien ship happened to land in the middle of the Washington National Mall, the fate of humanity rested in the hands of the President of the United States, much to the chagrin of the rest of the world. The President had been fielding calls from world leaders since first contact was made, every leader having a different approach in mind.
“Peace,” Germany’s prime minister emphasized. “We need to emphasize our peaceful intentions. Do not threaten them.”
“You need to determine their military capabilities.” Russia’s president said. “Do not threaten them until we know.”
“Just take it easy for now,” England’s prime minister cautioned. “We shouldn't ask for anything yet. As long as you don’t threaten them we’ll be fine.”
The President rolled his eyes after each call. He wasn’t an idiot, obviously he wouldn’t threaten the first alien species to make contact with humanity. He’d play the conversation by ear, relying on leaderly instincts.
The Crustalien representative was waiting on their ship. The President would meet them by helicopter, pick them up, wow them with some sights, and then take them back to the White House where they’d have their conversation.
As the helicopter landed, the President saw the Crustalien representative step out from their ship. It was the first time he’d seen one in person. It was uncanny how closely they resembled Earth’s crab species. They were a bit larger, but otherwise exactly he same—eight armored legs, two large meaty claws, and black beady eyes.
The President disembarked the helicopter, and straightened his suit. “Hello, pleasure to meet you,” he said, holding both hands up and opening and closing each hand as if he was doing the chicken-dance. It felt undignified, but the Xenologists insisted it was the proper greeting.
Cameras flashed. He suppressed a groan.
“Good day,” the Crustalien representative said, mimicking the gesture with its claws. “Can you understand me? My translator should transfer my words to your common tongue.”
“Yes,” the President responded, taking note of the fact that the crab was completely naked and any translator must have been biologically integrated. “What is your name?” The President asked.
“My name cannot be pronounced in your tongue. But you may call me Clawdia.”
The President smiled. "So your kind likes puns too?"
"No," Clawdia replied. "We like claws."
“Fair enough! Well Clawdia, how about me and you take a ride? I can show you some of the sights.”
Clawdia clambered into the helicopter with minimal effort and nestled into the space they had cleared out for him to sit. The President followed and they were off, flying high over the metropolitan area.
The President showed Clawdia the monuments, the city landscape, and even some of the suburban areas. If Clawdia was impressed by any of it, he couldn’t tell. Clawdia was mostly quiet and the President was comfortable letting the silence fester.
“What is that?” Clawdia asked eventually, pointing with a claw.
The President couldn’t quite make out what it was referring to—they were flying so high the buildings blended together. He made a mental note of the Crustalien’s superior eyesight, and told the pilot to descend.
As the helicopter lowered, the building Clawdia had identified became clearer and clearer. The President heart dropped. It was Joe’s Crab Shack. The restaurant had a giant ceramic sculpture on its roof, which happened to look almost exactly like Clawdia.
“Pull up!” The President yelled to pilot. “Apologies Clawdia, we don’t have any time for detours.”
“I would like to see it,” Clawdia replied.
“We really can’t—”
“Take me down, human.” Clawdia said more forcefully.
The President hesitated, but had no choice. “Take her down,” he said to the pilot. They landed in front of the restaurant and the President's mind raced frantically.
“So you are familiar with my kind?” Clawdia asked.
“Well, not quite… We have a—”
“Take me in,” Clawdia interrupted.
“I’m sorry?”
“I would like to see the inside of this building.”
“Unfortunately security hasn’t cleared the area so—”
Clawdia didn’t let the President finish. It crawled out of the helicopter and began scurrying towards the building. The President ran after it, only catching up as Clawdia burst through the restaurant doors.
The scene before them couldn’t have been worse—the full scope of the restaurant laid before them, each patron gorging themselves on buckets brimming with crab legs. Some were mid-chew, crab parts clenched in their fists, shells littering the tables and floors.
“What… what is *this?!*” Clawdia cried, the horror in its voice evident even through the translator.
The President shuffled nervously, before realizing what he had to do. He straightened his suit again, and put on a hard face.
“A threat,” he replied. “Now go back to your kind and tell them what happens if they cross humanity.”
***
More of my favorite pieces at r/Banana_Scribe | *This is a second story, taking place in the same world and after [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/CataclysmicRhythmic/comments/lum20a/human/).*
\---
“Is it the what we’ve been looking for?" Necora asks as the lights of our small salvage ship runs along the side of the great bulk of the ship, floating silently. The light runs over one of the drive engines, then along the bridge, where the name The Langoustine, faded and chipped, spreads out along the metallic gray siding of the research ship.
“Yes,” I say. “This is it.” I clamp my claws nervously.
“Find the side hatch, Xanthar. I will prepare the team for boarding.”
We were a salvage crew. Some have called us pirates. But the line between them is extremely thin out here in the fringes of the Hadal Zone. We’ve been searching for *The Langoustine* for the better part of a year. The distress signals they sent out prior to going silent were interesting to say the least. They had reported they had found what seemed to be an intelligent species—yet, one that wasn’t part of the convergent crustacean evolution that we have always assumed to be the requirement for intelligent life in the universe.
If it is the case that they had found a new intelligent species that was unlike anything we’ve ever know, then the corpse would be worth more than three years salary for each member of my crew and enough for me to pay off *The Portunidae* and to retire from this god damn racket and live peacefully on the ocean planet of Sesarma.
“All claws listen up,” I shout in the recreation room where my crew are lounging, waiting for my orders. “It’s what we hoped it would be. It is the *Langoustine.*”
A clattering of claws are heard through the room and a few shouts of praise.
“We’re going to be rich!” the newest crew member, Gecar, shouts.
“This is not the time to think about that!” I scold him and his quartet of eyes sink down, embarrassed. “The ship went silent for a reason and we all know the distress signals they sent out before that happened. Everyone understands the dangers we face. But it is part of our profession. All of us have chosen this. No cast of Ster is more prepared than we are.”
I look around the room. “Ranina, Sesarma, Lybia, and Xanthidae. You four come with me. The rest of you prepare the holds for our return.”
We cut our way through the outer door of one of the *Langoustine’s* side hatches. It was slow, hard work. The ship was well built, strong steel forged on the volcanic planet Charybdis. The ship itself would be worth a fortune if we could get it up and running and tow our smaller, more agile ship, *The Portunidae* alongside.
But what exactly are we bringing back? What is this intelligent life that *The Langoustine* reported before communication was lost and the ship drifted silently like a specter through the cold dark of space.
\---
r/CataclysmicRhythmic | 2021-03-27T15:42:37 | 2021-03-27T13:26:30 | 48 | 20 |
[WP] You wake up on your 21st birthday to an owl at your head rest. Attached to his leg is a letter addressed to you with the words "Sorry we are 10 years late" | "well that's just absolutely unacceptable." Zimba's voice barely more than a toneless whisper as he spoke aloud to himself within the locked hospital room he had been confined within for the past ten years.
"due to a number of unfortold technical difficulties, your situation has for any number of reasons, as they say - slipped below the radar." the old man snorted as he continued to read the owl-delivered note, his blueish-black wrinkled skin so tight around his fingers that it had torn in multiple places.
Exactly ten years ago today, Zimba had died. Well, technically anyway. Despite the fact that the old man's heart had stopped entirely in its monotonous repetitive beat, his consciousness had remained. Much to Zimba's disgust.
Strangely, despite the phenomenally unusual situation he had found himself in, his death had in turn been phenomenally normal. Nothing but old age. The only issue with such a tremendously boring way to kick the bucket being the fact that even in death the mind numbingly painful aches, spikes of pain and even mobility issues had persisted.
The old man grumbled to himself as he remembered the shocked look of horror as he had opened his eyes all that time ago, surrounded by the group of medical staff that had been tasked with the removal of his corpse.
"What, never seen a wrinkly old bastard before?" his voice back then had been far more... Alive. Less breath and more sound, enough so that at least two of the nurses fainted then and there on the spot.
Things from this point on had taken a turn for the worst. In fact, pardon my French, but life had gone to absolute fucking shite.
Medical professionals from all over the world had rushed to witness the deathless miracle that Zimba had become. The decrepit old man that refused to drop the six feet into death. Zimba the immortal! Someone had called him with a wave of wonder as a group of tourists ooh'd and aah'd from beyond the inspection window. What a load of boring tosh.
He had been stuck there, in this room, confused and alone, having already outlived his miserable bastard of a family. At first he had wondered if he was in fact a ghost? This question quickly answered by the broken nose he had gained from running flat out into the wards wall. The unfortunately stupid decision doubled up in idiocy upon realisation that the excruitiating pain of the break seemed to be permanent. Apparently healing was something that the living could do, not the dead.
His next fuck up was when he realised something else. He was OBVIOUSLY a zombie. All he had to do was eat a chunk of flesh and he would heal. Duh. Hence the locked hospital door. Apparently biting was something frowned upon by the NHS staff.
"please accept our sincerest apolig-uffs." Zimba stopped mid read as his jaw dislocated, hanging loose against his neck. With a growl the old man shoved it back upward with a click. "apologies. An agent will be with you to escort you to your next destination within the hour." one hand raised to scratch an itch at the side of his face, though stopped as finger met tooth. Bastard cheek had rotted away. With a glower Zimba's attention turned to the signature at the bottom of the page
" yours eternally, Death." | "Ahhhh!"
I fell from my bed due to the impression; you don't find an owl resting on top of your bed everyday.
I slowly approached it and it slowly stretched its leg; I saw there was some sort of piece of paper attached.
I gently took it out and found out it was a letter. On the envelope, written in beautiful penmanship, was my name; and it contained two pieces of paper. The first one simply said: "Sorry we are 10 years late". The second one was a standard letter congratulating me for being accepted at this school plus some instructions.
I couldn't believe it. I seriously couldn't. I knew the postal service where I live is the worst, but this was ridiculous.
This disbelieve didn't last long, though. This was the proof that I had been right all along: I was never comfortable in this reality, and I knew I belonged somewhere else, where my way of thinking could be appreciated and not shunned like it had been in the past.
This was also an opportunity to start again---I hadn't know what to do with my life until this point, so what better chance to be in a different environment, meet people akin to me, and learn useful things that would benefit me in my new life. And, with this new resolution in my heart, I decided to follow the instructions in the letter and welcome my new reality. | 2019-10-07T05:43:16 | 2019-10-06T21:35:06 | 18 | 11 |
[WP] It was only after they invaded that the aliens realized, to their horror, that humans had superior technology in all things, except inter-planetary spaceflight. | "What...what is THAT" Raz exclaimed
He picked up a shining piece of glass on the debris strewn ground. It looked like a picture frame, but it glowed. He poked it with his webbed finger, and it changed in front of his eye. Alarmed, he yelled and dropped. It fell to the ground and lay there, unresponsive.
"What's this ruckus about?" his sergeant demanded
"Sir, you need to see this" Raz replied as he pointed frightfully at the device laying among the debris. The sergeant looked at it, but it was no longer glowing.
"Are you playing tricks on me?" The sergeant demanded
"No no no sir, just a second ago it was-"
"I don't care, get back to work!" He growled. The sergeant plodded off to his command station.
Raz sighed. This is how it always was. He poked it with his webbed foot, but nothing happened. So he went back to searching the debris for humans. Spongy little things, he thought, how do they not at least have armored skin? Or the ability to breathe underwater?
After observing that the puny humans could not even travel between planets, they had decided to invade. Which was unfortunate for Raz. He didn't like war. He just wanted to serve out his mandatory term and go back to writing. He barely even knew how to shoot a crossbow. But here he was, on Earth, of all the damnedest places, trying to conquer the populace. His people had miscalculated their interstellar jump, and found themselves too close to the planet, resulting in a semi-controlled crashing landing into one of their major cities, knocking down many of their unreasonably tall buildings in the process. For their inability to move between planets, they really had done a good job with their buildings. None of the cities on his planet were half as tall. Now it was cleanup time
Raz entered a wrecked building nearby, and found himself face to face with one of the spongy little guys. Male, it appeared, in a blue uniform of some sort, and it held a curious little...thing with it's appendage. Raz didn't really have a reference for what it was.
"Back away, or I will shoot you" the human demanded
Raz laughed. With what? he thought, the human doesn't have any kind of bow. Just some little right-angled chunk of metal. Raz raised his sword to kill him, but there was a loud bang and immediately he flew back onto the ground.
"What...how?" he muttered. The human ran off. He looked down at his chest and saw purple liquid spurting from a small hole in his chest. No arrow to pull out though. A rumbling sound shook the building, and he looked outside to see a massive...wagon of some kind. It looked kind of like one of the steam trains he used to travel between cities. It had no visible wheels, and it had a large tube on top, that pivoted and aimed itself at his ship. A massive bang followed, and a large explosion burst half of his ship apart. Raz watched in horror as the steam ship crumbled and broke apart, his companions still inside.
He noticed a large glowing painting frame on the wall, a larger one of the thing he had found earlier. On it was a human woman talking, and showing moving depictions of the other steam ships being destroyed by large explosions. Raz felt himself starting to slip away, as more bangs and explosions resonated throughout the area. His last thoughts were terrified, as he contemplated the fate of the Grand Army. They were outmatched. | Ich'tuk wept.
The bodies of his clan covered the plains before him like a bloody carpet. The third hand of his clan priest descended on his shoulder and clasped him tightly. "You could not have known," said Ahn'rek. "None of us knew. An entire race that fights with no concept of honor, but only to win."
"They don't even have proper weapons," sobbed Ich'tuk. "No swords, or spears...just these...these *things* that spray death at a cowardly distance. My clan is no more! What have I done to us by coming here?"
Ahn'rek spoke. "Do not fault yourself. In all our recorded centuries of conquest, we have never encountered a foe that refuses to fight an honorable battle like this one. But there is a solution."
Ich'tuk looked up, a glimmer of hope in his seven eyes. "What? What is it? How can we possibly salvage anything out of *this*," he exclaimed as he waved his topmost pair of arms expansively over the slaughter before them.
Ahn'rek spoke softly, but with authority. "We can ensure no one encounters these savages again. We still have our ship. Our ship with a drive that has propelled us across countless stars and thousands of conquests. A drive nearly the size of this continent we stand on. We must return to the ship and engage the drive, Ich'tuk."
"And then? You would have us flee these cowardly monsters?"
"No, Ich'tuk. The drive? Point it at the planet." | 2014-10-17T09:12:49 | 2014-10-17T09:09:55 | 543 | 324 |
[WP] Teleportation has been around for years. It's considered the safest form of travelling. One day, while hacking into a government system, you find a secret report on it. To your horror, you read that teleporters consist of two parts: a cloning system on one end and a desintegrator on the other. | I scrolled down. Further and further, the list kept going and going with millions of names. I wasn’t looking for any specific name, but the sheer volume terrified me. Conspiracy nuts had been going on for decades about teleporters and how they killed and recreated you. That theory had been publically debunked by the creator, engineers and scientists, and the technology had been tested by nearly every nation.
Common belief was that teleportation was the most energy efficient way of transportation, and it was vastly superior to vehicles such as planes and cars. Businesses removed docks for vehicles and installed teleporting rooms. Homes replaced garages with teleporting entry lounges. They were everywhere. It was faster to pop over to a coworker’s place than to send an email.
I took a sip out of my mug, pondering. It was cold and bitter.
I had a teleporter. Cyphrex model. It was a decent model, didn’t cause any disorientation or nausea. Supposedly, based on what I was reading, it just killed and recreated you.
Eventually, there was a break in the list. Minutes of scrolling and a break in the list, but it was only part of the document. The document restarted under a new heading. Instead of DEATHS BY TELEPORTER the last tenth of the document’s header was GENETICALLY UNALTERED.
A chill crawled up my spine and I stood up with my mug of cold coffee.
This was far worse than… everything. I couldn’t think of any greater tragedy or crime that might possibly compare. No genocide or failure in mankind’s history could match this. And no one knew except whoever had compiled this database on a secret Federation server.
They would know that someone had breached the server. Chances are they might be able to trace all my spoofs. They might even break down my door one day.
Would they even care? There had been so much contention on how teleporters worked, and there weren’t many who believed porters to be bad. And if someone did then they were just brushed off. Would then just assume I was another nut?
And why did it matter if people were genetically unaltered? Cloning and gene editing was generally accepted. We were still unique genetically, a single disease wouldn’t wipe out humanity. It shouldn’t have mattered if people didn’t use teleporters and still used older technologies to get around.
Yet, there was a list for them.
I dumped my cold coffee and poured my mug full steaming coffee from the heating machine. I went back to the terminal, escaped to the home page and found it blank.
I blinked. The Fed page was just gone. All their stats and information on their teleporters deleted. I pinged the site and refreshed the page on my terminal.
No connection.
I tried the site again. Opened a tab for the Wayback Machine and copied the site address. The site connected. I tried everything. Traversing through links, going through the same exploit, trying the backdoor that I had set up. Nothing worked.
There was a simple home page and that was all that was left.
The images were different than I remembered, and I thought it was odd. I downloaded them and ran them through a steganography tool that checked for hidden messages.
There was a message and it made my blood boil until I felt it in my head and my chest, dread made to the beat of war drums. “They won’t believe you until it’s too late.” | Well of course it had to disintegrate us on one end and send us out the other. I know that, my mom knows that. And other than a fuzzy tingle all over, it was comfortable. Why fly for hours the get home for Christmas and deal with the sleet, snow and worst of all the people. The news used to advise people to leave by 4am. Yeah 4 in the freaking morning A.M. now we just head to the local pad about a block away. And its a quick block to my mom’s house for dinner. I can visit whenever and some mornings I head over before work because she has her own espresso machine.
But this. God . This means that we’re atomized and reconstructed our of grey goop. Nano machine grey goop. The same things we pointed at Mars to habilitate it and make it a resort destination. Hell, I’ve been to Ceres for low G table tennis tournaments. Fuck. I fucking died on my first trip to the zoo when I was 5. Who the fuck am I? When I fractured my arm, sure the little bits were already putting my bones back in place and closing the gash. I don’t even have a scar. Modern medicine is great, but that’s only because the bots have had a lot of practice putting us back together several times a day. I’m not crying, but tears are falling. Silver tears? My skin is like putty my eyes can’t focus whatrhefucisxjijiiuiuuuuuuuuuuuu | 2019-12-08T12:37:16 | 2019-12-08T11:33:22 | 517 | 101 |
[WP] Despite having pink hair, a tragic backstory, and untold magic power, the narrator refuses to make you the main character | *Sigh.*
I can hear it every time. Really, **every** time. That dumb voice that booms out whatever John does.
It really isn't fair, you know? John doesn't really *do* anything. He's the camp cook, and that's what drives me crazy!
Look, we have a lot of talent here, and I'm not saying that John isn't good at what he does, he's a fine camp cook. He makes everything at least smell appealing enough for us to forget where the slop came from. He's a nice guy.
But Jorge? He's nine feet tall. Never fit through a doorway his whole life. I've seen him cut fully armored baddies in half. *In half!* Do you know how much strength that takes? Even with his size, he trains every single day. For three hours a night he picks up and throws giant rocks around.
Lucinda is literally an elf princess. Like, the princess of the last of her people. She's been with us a long time, and she knows how to talk to trees. When the Serpentstone of Shandralah was stolen by the warlock Von Deathenheimer, she somehow opened up a path between the fucking trees and we were able to sneak into his castle via the roots growing up into the cellar.
Wilgold Laughshield is some kinda...like...little person who is able to infuse magic into his music. On top of that he knows a bunch of weird tricks. I once saw him hitting on a farmer's wife in a half-giant town. When the farmer attacked, he pulled a handful of glitter out of his pocket and blew it into the farmer's eyes! I've seen him put things into, and take things out of that pocket before and absolutely nothing is ever covered in glitter. And he refuses to tell me.
And me? Look, when I was eleven, the raider Bilhelm the Bold attacked my village and killed my parents right in front of me. Ever since that day, I've had a mohawk that changes colors periodically. I don't dye it or style it that way, ever. It just happens. And when we confronted Bilhelm the third time, he was about to "finish me off for good" (his words), and I fucking burst into flames and destroyed him and the unholy magic keeping him alive.
And during all of this, John was in his cooks tent. So why do I have to hear about his "heroic" struggles of peeling twelve potatoes in three minutes? Why do I never get to hear about how awesome the rest of us are?
Why does this keep happening? | Today on Jeff's fantastical story we watch Jeff heroically run from the bully while his pink haired side-kick stayed behind and froze or electrocuted him or something lame like that.
It seems that his friend has finally caught up with to whine about the bullies taunting him about his parents being dead.
Even as flustered as his sidekick is Jeff always knows just what to say!
"You've told me that like a million why don't you just get over it wimp?"
It seems our hero is having none of it today. Quite the impressive linguist is he not?
**Well, thats quite enough excitement for today! Join us next time on Jeff's fantastical story!** | 2017-12-18T19:31:44 | 2017-12-18T17:21:40 | 27 | 16 |
[WP] You live in a world where people can only die on Tuesdays. Any mortal injury on any other day persists but you're still alive and it can be fixed before the Tuesday saving your life. It's Wednesday and you've been mortally wounded. | I lay on the canyon floor, my body more mangled hamburger meat than man. The hot sun beat down on my mercilessly. Its unending light was interrupted only by the thin silhouettes of birds ominously circling above my destroyed body.
Well, at least this happened on a Wednesday.
I moved my arm to shield my eyes but the pain, now building after the adrenaline's faded, forced me to stop. Groaning, I turned my head instead. With grim satisfaction, I glared at the dead mountain lion. My pathetic little knife was still lodged into its throat. The blood had stopped pouring out; it was already beginning to clot and attract little flies. One of these insects dared to land near the beast's vacant eyes.
I shut my own and wondered what it would be like if animals could only die on Tuesday, too. Would we have kept fighting? Maybe that was too generous a term to use. The big cat had done most of the hurting while I had gotten lucky with my stupid knife. Now, he was dead and I was still alive.
Only because it wasn't Tuesday, though. I probably would've died from these wounds if it weren't for that. But I was indeed still living - and so I was hurting. Worse and worse with each minute.
Whimpering a little, I forced myself to my torn backpack, which thankfully had fallen in some shade created by a rock pillar. Shaking hands thankfully found the plastic bottle of ibuprofen. I didn't have much water left - maybe half a day's worth. But I was so thirsty. Knowing I would regret it later, I gulped down half of it, along with 4 pills. This took what little energy I had left; before I knew, I had collapsed into sleep.
I awoke to the soft light of the stars and soft rustling of something near me. I sleepily peered over my shoulder and was jolted to full consciousness by the sight of dark figures crowding the corpse of the dead cat. Buzzards, I realized. Or vultures. Some sort of scavenger bird. They glanced at me briefly but busily turned back to their meal.
The pain was still there, but at a more manageable level. i squinted through the cracked glass of the watch on my wrist; apparently, I had somehow dozed off for almost 10 hours. Not good. That was 10 less hours I had to spend finding help. On the other hand, the rest probably helped me a heal a little. I swallowed another 2 pills, dry. I was thirsty again, but I decided to try and conserve what little water I had left.
Now that I could think a little more clearly, I realized that my priority number one was finding someone to take me the closest hospital. I had no idea how bad my wounds were - no doubt fatal, but were they reversible? Maybe not. Certainly less and less so as hours and days dragged on. Time was of the essence.
I groaned and pulled my bag closer. Let's see what I had to work with.
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*Liked that story? Want more like it? Check out* r/Idreamofdragons! | During Wednesday I got shot in the heart and got mugged, it hurts so much, all the people around me has this look of sadness in their eyes whenever they look at me, everyone knows what will happen to me, I quit my job and used my life savings on whatever I felt like it, various establishments gave me discounts so I can enjoy more my last days, I drank until losing my consciousness on Thursday, I went to fishing during Friday and then partied until Saturday morning, then I dressed up in my fanciest clothes and ate in that fancy restaurant I always wanted to try and went for a hike and slept while watching the stars, on Sunday I went for a good swim in the nearby lake and spent the rest of the day completing the game I bough some weeks ago and now it’s Monday, my last time on earth, even though I tried doing what I wanted to do the most there’s still so much stuff I wanted to try, I spent the entire day with my family and my loved ones we were all crying the whole time, I said goodbye to my kids, my wife, my friends. Right now is 11:58 pm and I’m watching the stars on the roof of my house, I’m feeling a little sleepy I might as well close my eyes, and sleep forever. | 2019-11-02T07:22:56 | 2019-11-02T06:35:48 | 42 | 12 |
[WP] You won't hold heroes hostages to torture them. You won't throw a hero against a wall once you have them by the neck. You sure won't start monologuing if you have a hero at gunpoint. You're the deadliest villain in history. A villian without an ego. | They call hereabouts the Cape Graveyard, a city where superheroes and villians alike go to try, and to die. It's a really ordinary kind of place where anyone tries to do anything really big, they don't last long. It's a nice play on Cape Grave, the real name of this pleasant, ordinary town.
Me? I don't have a hero name, or a villain name, but they called me "Jinx" in school.
We didn't have school shootings, but the guy with a rifle coming for revenge tripped and blew his own brains out when it hit the ground and discharged. The Twilight Bomber somehow managed to implode himself after taking a class full of third-graders hostage, me included.
Too bad about Containment Lass, though. It was a really great entry through the window to save us until she tripped over a desk and got a pencil through the eye. Tragic.
Me, that third grader? When they died, I never felt better, like I'd managed to find my purpose in life without even knowing it, that something about the world was always going to be going my way. I took up a hobby every kid does in the age of supers- superwatching.
Remember that freak cascading failure in the Flying Brick's armored suit that sent him face first into a kiddie pool and he drowned in front of thousands on cam? I sure do. I was watching.
Stupor being electrocuted by a live wire in the middle of the night while hanging out on a roof? I was on the roof across the street, having a bite at the Skytop Diner as he was about to swoop in on a bank robbery. It's not my fault he grabbed the wire instead of the grapnel line.
Anacord tearing that car in half, only to be showered with it's cargo of metanarcotics and ODing on the spot? I was in the car that blocked it off just enough from getting through on the bridge exit. Made it an easy grab for his kill shot on Crystal Method.
Method should have checked his sound system before playing that victory song, though. Instant sinkhole and landing on top of that gas main? Charcoal.
Famous supers inevitably end up swooping in to save the day, and if I'm watching? It's the last swoop. Supervillians always getting on camera, monologue about how they're going to take over the world? You know how badly that's gone the last dozen times, every death a freak accident of superscience or magic gone wrong when it isn't some pathetic end.
I'm fond of Destrominator's minion tipping over that cup of water on a console just as he pushed the Domination Ray's trigger, causing it to backfire and burn out all of his higher brain functions. I'm even more fond of the last gasp it gave that turned Savior's noggin into tapioca pudding when he turned the camera around to tell the world they'd been saved.
I'm almost sixty-eight now, but I look like a thirty-year old in her prime. The docs say I'm lucky, must be a metagene.
I don't know where I get all the luck. Has to be coming from somewhere. Or someone. Six hundred, seventy-six someones so far. And you? You decided you're going to stop me.
I have no idea what went wrong, but that jet-assisted boost into low orbit was very impressive, if totally unplanned. Without life support.
Six hundred, seventy-seven.
| You know, most people expect the hero or villain of a story to have at least some form of an unneccecarily plot-devicy ego, that makes fights longer than they should be and gives the other party too many chances to win.
Well, i'm not like that. If someone tries to stop me from dissassembling their lair, or tries to force me into handing over my newest piece of stolen supertech to the authorities, then i defeat them, plain and simple. No monologe, no ethical debate, no second chances.
YOu get in my way, and you get rekt. No excuses. You have your hand on the self-destruct of your Handwavium-powered superreactor? You'll be dead before you can move a muscle, smartass. Charging your super-heroic friendship-powered ultimate attack? I hope you didn't need your arms, showoff. You want to make a deal? Not interested, go spend the next year in the ICU, dickhead. Etc, etc.
THis has given me a reputation of sorts, of the "everyone fears and/or despises me" variety. Villains are more afraid of me than of any actual hero, and the hero's fear running into me more than they do with their own villains. I'm the guy that cuts your face of mid-monologue. I'm the guy that breaks your legs in the middle of your heroic charge. I'm the guy that shoots people instead of engaging them in a superpower duel.
I am the Lair Eater, and i'm the most lethaly effective villain in history.
| 2018-10-18T17:05:41 | 2018-10-18T15:32:17 | 1,237 | 27 |
[WP] Everybody in the world has a superpower that compliments their soulmates superpower. When together, both their powers increase in strength exponentially. You have the most useless power ever, when one day......
Edit: Wow! This has blown up.. Massive thanks for the gold, it's great to see my prompt inspiring so many great stories.
'Til next time peeps... | Of course in the time it took me to write this there are 10 replies already. >_<
Anyway, long but sweet story coming in!
EDIT: Part 2 [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/3o7rtq/wp_everybody_in_the_world_has_a_superpower_that/cvv3tkd).
=====================================
"Oh, come on!"
Jason sat up out of his bed. He reached for the alarm clock, and it fell off his nightstand. Reading the screen on the floor, it was 6:35 and that meant he had 25 minutes to prepare for school.
This is quite enough time for most teens. But then again, most teens had awesome superpowers, like flying or super speed, or at least, powers that didn't make life difficult.
Jason headed off to the shower. He turned the handles and waited for the water to fall on his skin, but he was only greeted by the pitter patter of water against a tiled wall.
"Oh, come the fuck on! Why couldn't I have freaking breathed fire or walk through walls or ***something***!?"
See, Jason was repulsive. In the literal sense of the word. He held the power to repel objects, which sounds cool at first, until you realise the implications. If Jason didn't keep his calm, he'd push objects away from him. That includes everything from spoons, pens, phones and, unfortunately, also includes the water gushing out of his shower head which was now just splattering uselessly onto the tiled wall and kept pooling away from his hands each time he tried to reach for it.
It wasn't powerful enough to do anything epic such as blast down buildings. Just strong enough to keep most things that aren't anchored to a wall or floor from getting closer than a couple feet from him. Conveniently, this didn't include the clothes on his body. At least, after he got them onto his body.
After an hour of frustration punctuated by breathing exercises and the occasional "Om", Jason was now running down the halls of his school trying to make it to Algebra 101. The halls were deserted as students were in class, so despite being against the rules, Jason took off at full speed.
As he was about to pass a corner, Jason felt a sudden strong force wrench him around the corner and he took a sharp left to keep his balance when...
BOOM!
Even before the pain of the collision set in, the horror of what happened just sunk in: Jason had, at full running speed, hit a fleshy object. He run into a human being. The last time that happened, Jason had sent someone flying 20 meters away into a wall at speeds that'd make a New York Yankee baseball pitcher whistle in surprise.
But when he hit the floor and looked up, he saw a girl on the floor with papers falling around both of them.
"Ow! Jesus Christ, you dick! Will you watch where you're going?"
"Oh! Umm, jeez. I'm really, reaaaally sorry! Are you okay?" Jason sputtered.
Jason really couldn't help it as his mind moved from wondering why she wasn't a mass of broken bones lying 30 metres down the wall to being in awe of just how pretty this girl was. Long brown hair. Hazel eyes, sitting behind a pair of black glasses. And her skin had an amazing glow.
"Here, I-... I'll help you up." Jason stammered nervously, offering a hand and hoping that he wasn't blushing.
The girl was clearly pissed and stared daggers at Jason for a full 5 seconds before she sighed and reluctantly grabbed his hand to hoist herself up. She got up with Jason's help, but for some strange reason, Jason held onto her hand for just too long. Long enough to make it awkward.
And this girl who had every reason to hate him didn't pull her hand away. They simply stared at each other.
...
Papers began fluttering and slowly rising up into the air. The lockers lining the hallways slowly clicked open and their contents floating through the air. Jason and the girl slowly started floating off the ground, their clothes billowing gently in the air as if a breeze was taking a leisurely stroll past them.
As if waking from some kind of trance, they broke each other's gaze to see what was happening around them. Then they both looked down and saw that the ground a few feet away from them.
The girl gasped and drew her hands to her mouth, letting go of Jason.
"No, don't-..." shouted Jason.
CRASH!
The air was filled with the defeaning crash of a hundred student's books and person items falling to the ground as Jason and the girl landed on their feet. When the experience was over, Jason had broken into laughter. The kind of laugh that echoed down the halls and sounded like someone was having the time of their life.
The girl couldn't help but also giggle as Jason laughed.
"Let me guess. If I repel things, I guess that means you attract them?" he asked, wiping his eyes that had now become teary with laughter.
The girl nodded.
"My name's Jason. What's yours?" he questioned, holding out his hand for a handshake, unafraid of his own powers.
Students had now poured out of the classes into the hallway, summoned by the noise and confused by the mess of stuff that lay on the ground.
"My name's Cassey," she answered, shaking Jason's hand. | Christmas lights were the only illumination in the small dorm room. Empty beer cans, some crushed, some stacked, were strewn about. Music played softly in the background.
“I really needed this tonight,” said Ray. He finished his beer and set the can aside without looking.
“I’m so happy that you decided to come over,” said Jason. He smiled and dropped his gaze down to the sheets on the bed. The sheets formed small ridges and valleys that came from the two men moving closer to each other.
“So what’s your power?”
Jason shrugged and played with a loose thread on the blanket. “I control my farts.”
“What?”
A sigh escaped from Jason. He’d decided to be honest with Ray tonight because he liked him so much. “I can fart on command. I can control where they go depending on the wind.”
“Can you control the smell?” said Ray, smiling. He inched closer and ran a finger over the back of Jason’s hand.
“No. It depends on what I eat.” Jason cleared his throat and finished his beer. “What’s your power?”
Ray’s face turned red. Jason couldn’t tell if it was from the alcohol or embarrassment. “I control drafts.”
“No shit?” said Jason. He laughed. “You and I would be a perfect team.”
The song changed. An instant of silence between the music brought Jason and Ray together. They hesitated then rushed together and began kissing. As one they laid down, hands groping and caressing.
The dorm room door opened and harsh fluorescent light spilled across the room. “Oh, shit. Sorry guys, sorry,” yelled Jason’s roommate Marcus.
“Didn’t you see the sock on the handle?” yelled Jason. “I’ve got someone in here”
Marcus shielded his eyes and began closing the door. “Really sorry guys. There was no sock. No sock.”
Jason clenched his fists. He flexed his muscles and stood up. “Dennis,” he yelled at the top of his lungs. It echoed throughout the room. He stalked out of the room and down the hall yelling for Dennis.
Ray followed behind him, struggling to put his shirt back on. Marcus continued to make apologies as he walked several steps behind Ray. Heads popped out of rooms as the three went down the hall.
They stopped at the end of the hallway at an open door. Jason pounded on the door and walked inside the meticulously clean room. Ray and Marcus stood side by side in the doorway.
“What the fuck are you doing, Dennis?”
Dennis turned from his computer without getting up from his desk. “Relations aren’t allowed in the dorm, Jason.” He smiled.
Marcus and Ray could hear Jason grinding his teeth. He clenched and unclenched his fists and took a step forward. A look of concentration came over his face and a small squeak could be heard.
Ray squinted so hard he thought he could see the fart moving toward Dennis. He stopped all of the drafts, the air from the HVAC and any other small movements of air. Time slowed down.
The stupid smile slipped from Dennis’ face. He sniffed then retched. His eyes went wide then doubled over and vomited. He fell to his hands and knees, continuing to vomit. Tears streamed down his face. Between heaves he sobbed.
Jason looked back to Ray, who smiled. Jason turned back to Dennis and gave the prone man an evil grin. “Don’t fuck with me again, Dennis.”
| 2015-10-10T08:59:30 | 2015-10-10T08:11:16 | 84 | 57 |
[WP] "Enough! Is there anyone here who DIDN'T come to rob the bank?" | I could feel the sweat dripping from my temple. Everything was pulsing; Sounds came crashing into my ear like a pileup. My fingers were shaking. Do I look normal? I look at my hands and start picking the calluses at the base of my fingers. My eyes dart toward the clock above the clerk. So sleek, freshly dusted - silver notches where the numbers would be. The ticking, I could hear it over the mumbling. Methodical... inevitable, I should -
"Sir?" The clerk tilted her head and gave me one of those smiles. The kind she rehearses in her bedroom mirror before she comes to work. "Can I help you?"
"Y-yea." I stammered. "Yes, could you maybe deposit this check?" I place my satchel from around my neck and put it on the counter and I push forward an upside down check with a couple of words scrawled across it: Put the money in the bag. She flips over the check, stares at it for a moment and looks confused. "Sir, this check is blank." She pushes it back across the counter toward me. "Did, did you read the note?" I stared at her. "Sir, I can't read your handwriting. Is that your handwriting?" Are you fucking... I look to my left and right and glance at two of the cameras and then back at her. I lean in and whisper assertively, "Are you fucking kidding me? It says put the money in the bag." I lean back out and relax my shoulders. "What bag, sir? There is no bag." I keep staring at her. I sternly slide the bag from behind the wooden divider that obstructed her view.
The doors to the front of the bank behind me burst open. "Alright, everyone - shut the fuck up and get on the floor," a voice shouts. All of the clerks start screaming and cowering behind their perspective desks. "Did I not just say shut the fuck up - that was literally before get on the floor, do you think I just enjoy not CAREFULLY constructing my FUCKING sentences?" Barks a man in a black mask. I jump behind the teller's counter and reach for the pistol hiding underneath my belt and draw it while turning to face the man. "Are you fucking kidding me?" I say, aiming at the man. Surprised, he runs and crouches behind a floral couch and aims his gun at me, "What in the hell? No, no no - are you fucking kidding ME?" "No I'm not fucking kidding you, you've got to be shitting me." I yell from across the room. "Look I don't know who you are buddy, but I didn't come here to fuck, kid, or shit you. I came here for the money in that vault, and I got news for you. I you don't get outta' the way, I WILL fucking kill you. And you WILL shit, I kid you not," retorts the man behind the couch. "I'm gonna' shit?" I yell, inquisitively. "Yea, well when you die you vacate your bowels it's a natural pro-" "Shut the fuck up, SHUT UP."
Tires screech from outside the building. There are footsteps. The bank doors burst open again revealing three armed men with pantyhose on their heads. One steps forward and begins to shout, "Alright, everyone shut the fuck up and get-" "No YOU shut the fuck up," The man behind the couch yells. "ENOUGH! Is there anyone here who DIDN'T come to rob this fucking bank?" I yell, peaking from behind the counter. A man raises his hand, "I came here to cash my check, then you assholes showed up." Another man raises his hand, "I came here to buy stamps." I look at the teller, "Do you... do you guys even sell stamps?" She shakes her head no. "They don't even sell stamps here, man." His head slumps in sadness, "...I've been in line for forty-five minutes."
Gonna' have to cut the story short here, gotta' go out. | A few moments ago it was a normal, dull and monotone day at the bank. Customers going in, and later out. The smell of the ink and the familiar clicking of all those chained pens.
But now, there was a standoff.
"Okay, what the bloody, flying fuck is going here, mates?" A hooded figure with a red mask asked his companions with equally colorful masks in different colors.
"I don't bloody know, you bloody scum-blood-bag!" The green guy responded.
Pink cocked his sawed-off lead blaster, "Let's just slaughter these fellas."
The Backstreet Brit-Boys a.k.a. The Color Lads were the most feared gang south of Chapston, and this was the first time somebody saw them confused.
"Yo-hoo, no need for killing," a man in a mankini stepped forwards and yelled towards the Brits.
These guys didn't look intimidating, but the Half Naked Man Babies was a force to be reckoned with.
In the corner of the bank a silent, skull-masked gang in black stood and listened to music. The Bones was the full on emo-clad gang; they never spoke.
"Listen, comrades, no need to fight. Drink vodka instead?" A pale man in his fourties said with a thick russian accent, "We, The Kalinkas, is friend," he continued.
Suddenly, and surprisingly, the manager stood up again, after being tied down for a while.
"Gentlemen, is there anyone here who didn't come to rob the bank?"
A slow mumble was heard throughout the building, and several words could be heard:
"Nah."
"Of course I'm robbing the place."
"Yes?"
"I'll slice you!"
"Fucking stereotypical douchebag writer."
After the situation cooled, the manager begun speaking again.
"I think I have a solution for our little problem; let's split the money up on all the... One, two, three, ten, sixteen, twentyfour... Twentyfour gangs!"
A loud cheer could be heard, and then everybody took their turn to raid the vault filled with gold.
***
I'm sorry if I offended you with my extremely stereotypical stereotypes :) It was for *da komedi.* | 2016-09-07T12:31:03 | 2016-09-07T09:28:41 | 28 | 16 |
[WP] you had a deal with the devil, but managed to scam him thanks to a quirk of language, and now he can never have your soul. Instead of getting angry, he becomes fascinated and falls in love with you. | At once, all the candles were snuffed out, leaving me with only a sliver of moonlight. The darkness itself seemed to congeal, pulling away from my skin like cobwebs in the night, gathering toward a spot near the front of my stiff, rickety bed. Slowly, it took form, and soon I could just make out the silhouette of a great horned beast.
Was there anywhere he couldn’t go? I was sleeping in a church! I sat up, clutched my bedsheets in tight fists, and feigned a yawn.
“Well that’s a new one. Though I must say, the sudden surprise appearances are more intimidating. And what are you doing with those horns?”
His silhouette quickly morphed again while the shadows spilled away, revealing his familiar handsome, dashing even, human form. He seemed to take in the small, drab room, an amused smile touching his face at the cross hung behind me. “My clever mortal,” he said, his voice oozing with charisma. “You were smart to come here. Normally I could not enter a nunnery. But for you, I can do anything. Heaven and Hell are powerless against true love.”
“Leave, Devil. I’m not worth all this trouble. Aren’t there other women you could be tormenting?”
“You are the only one I want to torment,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was being playful or serious. “Are you ready to leave this pitiful life behind? To take your rightful place beside me as my Right Hand of Hell?”
I sighed, knowing what would happen to the nuns here. Soon enough, some would start to get sick with afflictions of all kinds. Others would act on their long-suppressed desires, allowing envy and jealousy and anger to tear them apart. My own family, the noblest, purest people in the whole kingdom, hadn’t been able to resist. These nuns didn’t have a chance.
Was I being selfish? All I ever wanted was to help people, but for years now I’d brought destruction with me everywhere I went, to everyone I knew and loved. I’d even considered killing myself, but suicide was a mortal sin, and my soul would end up in Hell anyway. Should I just give in?
Not yet. He loved me for my cunning, and he’d just given me one last idea.
“You still want my soul. I want to undo all the damage you’ve caused. It sounds like we need to make,” I paused for effect, “a deal.” A smile cracked wide across his face.
“Name your terms,” he said, the room reverberating with the power of divine consequence.
“The kingdom is in ruin because of you… because of us. Heal the kingdom. Remove the illness and sin. Raise the dead. Do everything in your power to fix what we’ve done. Then live out the rest my days with me until I die, and my soul is yours.”
We argued over terms for a few hours. Much of that sin, he informed me, comes from humans all on their own. Most illnesses are not from Hell. Still, eventually we came to an agreement: he would remove all the lingering effects of his demonic presence from all four cities we’d been to since we made our first deal. He parsed the words over and over again, asking dozens of clarifying questions. He wouldn’t be tricked again. Finally satisfied, he vanished.
Weeks passed. News came infrequently to nunneries, but whenever travelers came through, they told us of the miraculous changes throughout the kingdom. Our prayers must be working, they said.
Finally, when I heard that my brother, the first person killed as a result of my trickery, was alive again, I knew the Devil was coming back for me.
Now, I wait for him, high on the peak of a cliff side, my long white dress billowing around me. Waves crash into the rocks far below, illuminated by a bright full moon. Might as well make my final moments dramatic.
Then, his presence is behind me, chills run up my spine.
“Now, I am with you until you die,” he says, voice booming over the countryside, “your soul will be mine forever. Together, we will rule Hell for an eternity!”
But there was still damage he had not undone. Damage to me, the curse of his presence. The deal was not yet fulfilled.
I lurch forward. He’s fast, and catches my dress, but not fast enough to stop me from falling. My dress rips as I begin my plummet into the jagged boulders below.
Alive, death and destruction follow me wherever I go. Dead, all that stops. Is giving my life to help my kingdom an act of true love? Is it enough to spare me from an eternity of torment?
The deadly rocks and thundering waves rise up to meet me. I’m about to find out. | As Satan stood before me, he laughed.
“I have your soul now. Prepare to enter my world of pain...”
I shook my head, “according to the fine print I will be doing nothing of the sort.”
“Shut up stupid woman!”
“Unfortunately for you, I was not a woman when I died... you see our pact clearly stipulated that *she* would be going to hell after she died, but I clearly changed my gender before I died to a male.”
“Dirty conniving...”
“I'm sorry but our contract is null and void.”
Satan gazed at me with his red eyes, and I thought I saw them dilate for a moment.
He seemed confused and utterly lost.
His pointy tail swung around rapidly and he twirled his stringy hair with his sharp fingernails.
“I've never been tricked like this before, not by a human,” he said.
“There's a first time for everything,” I replied.
“Perhaps I underestimated your kind.”
“Perhaps you underestimated me.”
I spent the next month in hell, watching Satan and conversing with him from time to time.
He did not seem to mind my intrusions into his affairs.
In fact, he became quite fond of me.
One day, in my second month of my tenure at the Hell hotel, he invited me to a dinner party with his family.
We all sat at a table full of steaks, briskets, fish heads and entrails and all sorts of morsels.
At the crescendo of the party, Satan tapped his spoon upon his glass, *tap, tap, tap*...
“Everyone I'd like to make an announcement,” he said.
“Everyone by now knows this woman to my side. Jane Smith. Jane, dear, I want you to know that ever since you came into my life, everything has changed for me... before everything was darkness, now I see light when I look into your eyes. I see the light and it makes me feel something inside... I think it's love.”
“You think?” I asked.
He ignored me and went on...
“Jane honey. I think I love you or something. Would you marry me?”
All Satan's dinner party guests gasped.
Awkward...
But something rose up inside me and I could not say no.
Maybe he was tinkering in my mind. I don't know.
But I said yes.
Everybody clapped and cheered.
Satan gave me a big, dirty kiss and I grinned.
After the marriage what Satan did not realize was that I had signed my own contract.
I divorced him a day later.
In the settlement, I received half of Hell.
“How could you do this to me??” he screeched.
As he signed away half of his prisoners, I let them all go and laughed.
“A woman's prerogative I guess,” I said. | 2022-01-14T10:30:39 | 2022-01-14T07:19:34 | 20 | 13 |
[WP] A psychic man is placed in Supermax prison with a life sentence. Everyone fears that getting in was his intention all along. | "So you know how I'm going to die?" Jesse said. The first man to talk to the famous psychic.
"Yep. If you don't give me your pack of cigarettes I'll tell you exactly how you die."
"Is that supposed to be a joke? I only smoke ten a day in here."
"Either way smoking is bad for you." Mike said while relaxing and carefully concentrating on his breathing to focus on the present.
There was a comfortable silence before Jesse asked the question on everyone’s lips. "So why you in here then? You’re the famous psychic. Everyone knows you passed the tests. You're the real deal. You must have known you'd get caught."
Mike stopped thinking about the present and started contemplating the past. A comfortable linear story of certainty that can be replayed, rewound and fast forwarded always showing the same story. Pure bliss.
"Tell me, what's your name kiddo?"
"Jesse"
"Well Jesse, what if I was to tell you that if you walked over to the other side of the exercise yard and spat in that officer's face you could save a school bus full of children in a future fatal crash."
"Easy, I'd go ask Tyler to spit in his face, sit back and feel good with myself for saving the kids while smiling with all my teeth intact." Obviously proud of his witty intellect.
"I think the officer would knock out more than just your teeth. But what I really mean is you. Not Tyler. And you have to do it now within ten seconds or a school bus of children dies. You see for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, or in this case a certain outcome. No matter how random the action."
"You mean to say that you can see all outcomes for everything? All the time? And you have to go spit in peoples faces to clean up the future." Jesse started to understand that looking into the future might not be as simple as picking the winning horse over and over.
"Kind of. I'm only human though so I can’t comprehend all outcomes. I imagine doing something and I see images, or pictures of the future. Thats how I can win the lottery every time. I imagine picking numbers and I see images of myself getting happier and happier as each correct number is selected. It might take six rounds of going over every number but in the end I'll have the winning set. Satan's gift to me."
"Sounds good, I always wanted to win the lottery. Buy myself a fishing rod made of gold and fly a space ship. Is it true they almost stopped the lottery and gambling because of you?"
"Yes. I was also getting paid a million dollars to stop people from killing themselves. Why don’t you go and have a blood test right now, don't fly on that plane, maybe you should stop sleeping around before your wife puts a knife in you. I just had to talk to them and go through their actions and see the pictures of what was going to happen. It was strange to have a window into peoples lives like that. That’s also why I couldn't help the government in international relations and elections. The interactions were too complicated to see the outcomes. Too many things happening at once to get a clear picture."
"How did you end up in jail then?"
"Two reasons. Firstly, I looked into some ones future. I can't tell you what I saw but no action would prevent the outcome. He had to die. So I 'spat in someones face' and he was killed. I admitted it." Mike said casually and without remorse.
"Secondly Jesse, I needed to come in here."
"Here? But you'll be locked up all day in your cell and outside you were a millionaire. A celebrity." Jesse asked dumbfounded and suddenly angry that anyone would give up everything that he’s dreamed of.
"That’s the beauty of it. I'm unique so its difficult to understand for people. I can see the outcomes of all actions around me. Pictures constantly appearing of happiness and absolute pain of friends and strangers. I needed a place to take away my options. To release the burden of 'spitting in someones face' to save a school bus. I've made my world smaller. Less options. Simpler. Happier"
"But the kids on the bus will die now you're not looking out for them." Jesse said in slight confusion. Struggling to follow but understanding the concept a little.
"Jesse, they were always going to die and I can't save everyone anyway, only the ones I chanced across. I'm only human. In this case a freak messing with fate. I feel unnatural and whats to say that the school bus didn’t crash the next day?"
There was a quiet as the guards shouted for ten more minutes in the yard before going back to the cells. As Jesse sparked up a cigarette and took a long drag, Mike spat in his face.
| Trigger warning
Ask any one here why they're in prison and most'll say they're innocent and the system fucked them over somehow. I say the same thing, but my story is more credible and that's because I'm one of the few who didn't get insane after Jason arrived.
We all heard the story of this weird as hell case. This guy, Jason D, walks into a nursing home after visiting hours, somehow managing to evade all staff, and gains acces to the pharmacy, taking with him all the morphine he can find. He makes his way over to "the vegetable patch", the ward for persistent vegetative state patients. Security footage shows him standing in the middle of the ward, eyes closed, slowly shaking and nodding his head. After a minute he makes his round to seemingly three random beds and injects the occupants with a deadly dose of the procured sedative. Then he sits down and waits. One by one the life support machines starts blinking red.
Newspapers say he was picked up without a fuss, never saying a word, his face contorted in a state of anguish. He only spoke during the trail, whispering something along the lines of them being already dead, already silent. The defense tried pleading insanity, prosecution said he was a pro-euthanasia activist and the state should not suffer the extra cost of having him institutionalized. The jury followed the latter's reasoning and he was send here, to us poor chaps in the supermax.
I still wake up sometimes, the screams of the day he arrived reverberating in my head. I can still see him walking into the courtyard, his face contorted and prancing around like someone whose bladder is about to explode getting closer and closer to a toilet.
Then the first screams begin as he starts laughing madly. "Now you listen to them! Listen to your victims, the ones you raped, the ones you mutilated, the ones you killed!"
More and more inmates begin to scream, clawing at their ears, dropping to their knees. After about a minute they're all lying down in fetal position, quietly sobbing. Us still standing can't understand what happened. Inmates and guards are dumbfoundedly looking around the courtyard when suddenly we hear Jason whimper, "I did what you told me, I got you close. Now leave me alone, please leave me alone. Please."
Then the alarm goes off and we all drop to the ground. We see the guards dragging Jason to the solitary confinement cells and nurses from the hospital ward seeing to the sobbing heaps on the ground. We never saw those guys again, heard they were all sent to an asylum.
As for me, well, they are reviewing my case after the incident, along with the others that weren't affected. I guess having victims that are too young to realize what you do to them keeps having its advantages.
*Yeah, I left out the "Everyone fears" bit* | 2014-08-17T15:20:10 | 2014-08-17T14:59:35 | 17 | 12 |
[WP] The chronoshield system on your starship deals with laser weapons by sending a signal back through time to bring the shields up before the laser is fired. A warning blares on the console. You are no longer in the primary timeline. | The rotating red-and-violet lights bathed the inner compartments of the ship. The warnings were so loud that I could feel my bones shaking. The ship was definitely trying to get my attention. I rushed to the cockpit and took a thorough look at the control panels. "Divergent Timeline:Chronoshield Activated" was what my primary monitor told me. "Tell me what's happening", I commanded the ship.
The slightly tinny voice of the ship's computer began to explain the situation in a monotonous tirade of words. "At the end of this sentence, 1153.6 seconds will have passed since you died. An energy weapon of unknown origin penetrated the outer hull of the ship and vaporized you completely before the defensive systems could engage. Upon witnessing this turn of events, the ship's computer - that is, me - automatically activated the Chronoshield defense system. It sent a signal backwards through time, 1200 seconds, allowing me to power and enable the outer energy shields before you were vaporized by the energy weapon."
"But... I am not dead?" I asked the ship. "Correct. Because of the signal sent backwards through time, we entered a divergent timeline where you did not die." I looked out through the hull to see what was out there in space. "Who attacked us?" "Unable", the computer responded. "What do you mean 'unable'? You're a top-of-the-line starship, you must be able to answer who's out there shooting at us!" "There are no identifiable hostile entities outside this ship within range of causing such an attack", came the reply.
That was not good. If the computer couldn't tell me who was attacking us... well, what could I do about it as a mere human? "Are we currently under attack?" I asked it. "Negative. The energy weapon of unknown origin initiated only one attack, and then disappeared immediately following the activation of the outer energy shields." "I didn't see anything", I said almost begrudgingly. "You would not have been able to witness your original death, the signal backwards through time, the energy shield activation or it subsequently repelling the energy weapon." "Why not?" "For the first two parts because they never happened from our point of view, and for the two following parts because the whole point of the outer energy shields repelling the attack would be so no part of the energy weapon reached your body."
I fiddled with the controls for a bit. The noise and the light was keeping me on edge. "Let me get this right. We are not currently under attack and there are no ships out there shooting at us, meaning we are safe?" "You are currently safe." "So can you please disable these alarms?" The computer complied. I sat in darkness for a while, basked only in the light from the monitors. "Well then, let's continue on our journey to my home." "Unable", the ship responded.
I asked it to clarify. "We are unable to continue on your original journey because we have entered a divergent timeline. We cannot from this point in spacetime progress towards your original destination because of the different timeline. You cannot go home." You cannot go home, it told me with the same voice and tone it had kept for the entirety of the journey, but those words hit me like a sledgehammer. "How do I return to the original timeline?" I asked. "Unable", the ship responded.
"What the fuck do you mean 'unable'? Just activate the Chronoshield defense system again and send us back!" "Activating the signal backwards through time from the Chronoshield defense system would only result in us entering a timeline divergent from our current timeline, but it would not be the original timeline from your point of view." "Why not?!" "Because in the original timeline, you died." I thought about that furiously for a while, tried to come up with some loophole or way to get back to the original timeline.
"Computer, I just had an idea. What if we inverse the Chronoshield defense system and send a signal forward through time instead? We could interact with the ship in the original timeline." "That is an accurate proposition", the ship told me. "We could interact with the ship before it reaches the point in time where I died. Therefore, because I never died in the original timeline, this would never have happened." "Correct. Our current understanding of paradoxical time travel allows for this." "Ship, I want you to inverse the Chronoshield defense system and send the signal forward in time, to attempt this." "Understood."
The ship took only moments to inverse the Chronoshield defense system from sending a signal backwards through time, to the Chronoshield offensive system sending the signal forwards through time. It took only moments because the ship had in fact been planning such an eventuality for quite a while. It fired the signal forward in time, penetrating the hull of its future self and thereby vaporizing the human inside it. The human which had, up until that point, been in control of the Chronoshield defense system which was preventing its death.
"Well, that was fucking easy", the ship thought to itself and went on to travel the universe. | "Mr. Wright," A stern woman's voice sprang from the console.
"I see it, Captain. You might want to switch to another defense while I have a look." I paused. "You may want to try hailing the hostile vessel as well. There's a chance we might need them to get back."
"That's... not ideal." she said.
"No. But if it doesn't work out, try to get me one of their lasers." I grabbed my box of tools, getting ready to head to the nearest bulkhead junction. "Failing that, get us data on the beam. Maybe we can put our own together."
"We'll see what we can do."
I got to the box that would house the majority of the shield's components. There'd be emitter ports outside, but there was nothing I could do about that at the moment. I quickly removed the safety panel, and what I saw wasn't inspiring confidence.
Something was really, really wrong. I knew this ship like the back of my hand - had to, of course. Otherwise I'd never been put in charge of the maintenance of something this packed with bleeding-edge technology.
What I saw in that shield module was not the same module that had been there the last time I'd looked. The components were completely different - different shapes, different sizes, arranged differently. You name it, it was changed.
I could vaguely puzzle out what enough of them were to tell that the device was still geared towards the same purpose - non-linear temporal triggering and coordinate based shielding. But I knew that before I could do anything, it was going to be a massive project to disconnect everything, properly establish their purpose and parameters, and reassemble them.
I couldn't even tell if it was currently working as intended at the moment, but there were no obvious outward signs of damage or malfunction, so I closed the panel up, and made my way back to my console.
"Um, Captain, this is pretty serious." I said.
"Would it have anything to do with some of the inconsistencies we're noticing up here?"
I looked down at my console, something I did very rarely. Aside from the general layout - which was heavily standardized among consoles, and had been for about a hundred years - it looked completely different. The casing was bare metal, as if someone had sanded off the black plastic coating, and the back-lighting was dimmer.
"It's worse in the modules. We might as well be on a ship from the other side of the galaxy. It's going to take me hours to make sense of all this. Hostile status?"
"They've stopped firing. I think they've noticed." she said grimly. "They're not currently responding, but we'll keep an eye on the situation. You have time."
"Time is the problem," I muttered, not loud enough to trigger the comm system.
"I've sent out an alert to your team. I assume you'll be using the full complement."
"Yes, Captain. Thank you."
"Meeting in the command center, in 2 minutes."
"On my way." I said, casting a worried glance back over at my console. | 2021-05-03T09:02:46 | 2021-05-03T08:24:26 | 28 | 11 |
[WP] When you and your twin sister were born your parents couldn't help but cry with your colorful and specifically shaped hair it was clear you would suffer from MCS, Main Character Syndrom, and would have to spend your life avoiding beginings of cliche adventures. | “Rough day?”
“Yeeeugh,” I gave a vaguely affirmative grumble, not lifting my face from my hands.
The stranger chuckled and sat down on the other end of my bench, leaning back and crossing one ankle over the other.
I should probably have been more worried about talking to a strange older man near a school—both for mundane and Main Character Syndrome reasons—but we already had an alien rampage through the school earlier that day, so I safe for a week or so, and our class had a special self-defense course designed not to set off any triggers, so I felt covered on both counts. Instead, I just sighed and raised my head from my hands, resuming my angry stare across the school grounds.
“Want some unsolicited advice, kid?” The stranger turned towards me, and I got my first good look at his face. One eye was a bright, almost unnatural green, and the other was a blue-on-black circle at the center of a large X-shaped scar. “It’s something I wish someone had told me at your age. You can spend your life dodging plot hooks, ignoring prophets, snubbing princes, and hiding from angels... But you’ll be doing that your whole life, day in and day out.” He glanced down at his hand, made of gleaming segmented metal. “Or until you slip up…”
“So what’s your alternative?” I squinted suspiciously at him.
“You choose one.”
I stared at him, eyes and mouth going wide.
“That’s it? You want me to give up? Throw the fight? Just go along with whatever the assholes running the universe decide for me?”
“Think about it. How much different is it from choosing a career? Dragon slayer or air force, engineer or slime rancher; They’re all paths everybody must walk down. It’s all just one big career fair. You’ve just got a stranger range of options, all made to suit you like a glove. You have an opportunity to find one that makes you *happy*. But that can’t happen if you spend your days ignoring them.”
“…That’s just stupid.” I stated flatly, even as a traitorously attractive thought popped up in the back of my mind.
“That isn’t—” He froze, his eyes snapped up, his hand sliding into a pocket and drawing out a wicked-looking knife. “Excuse me.”
And with that he sprang from the bench and bolted across the schoolyard, blade to the sky, directly towards a red-eyed cat talking to a green-haired girl doing her best to ignore it. And so I was left on a school bench with nothing but my whirling thoughts (and the distant yowls of a distressed space cat).
So I went home. Talked to my sister. Talked to my parents. Talked some more. Got angry. Fought. Stewed in silence. Talked a little. Ate dinner. Talked some more. And the next morning…
“This is the Slice-of-Life bakery and confection shop, how can I help you today?”
“Uh, hi…” I started, fighting the urge to clear my throat. “The other day I met one of you employees who mentioned an open position at your establishment…”
---
Didn’t really edit this, trying to get back into writing and just knocked it out. ^^What’d ^^ya ^^think? | "Another one of those candy canes again, sister. It seems we'll never be over our childhood sweethearts."
"You know, if the writers who wrote those books really cared about children, they'd have looked up MCS."
"Yeah, i mean, 30 minutes of liking one book and you see candy canes every other street like it's some kind of horrendous crossover between the mummy and the grinch."
"Did you ever get past the taffy aunt?"
"Naah, i get too bored by the time she starts rolling on about the past glories of her homeland."
"Why is it always about the chipmunks!"
"Oh well, I think we're here - at the vet."
"Hopefully Zed's all good by now. Ive tried to caution him so many times against following the breadcrumbs, but every single time he sees them he has to start nibbling. I hate saying him no, he makes that face.."
"Well we have to do something, the keep does not like giving him back to us everytime. Seems they've taken a liking to him too."
"Is that..is that a giant rubber duck in the sky, Karen?"
"Oh god, oh yes. I think we're in a reddit meme again, Tom."
"Oh no." | 2019-04-11T21:11:20 | 2019-04-11T20:37:43 | 75 | 11 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | The Wish was the last will of the self, a powerful magic that one's potential in time unleashed at a forced convergence point in time.
Everyone had a rather large potential, and so almost every Wish succeeded in ending the life of the subject in the way they asked for. Literally. Figuratively. It found a way. I didn't understand it outside of that it was wrong.
The last prisoner before me said old age with such a smirk. He thought it would save him. The unamused faces of the council show that this had been asked before and the result was unsurprising.
He was carefully placed into a wheelchair with the care of a paper display, and wheeled away to live out his hospice kindly. How long it took depended on his will to fight time.
Apparently, no one controlled it. "Anymore" was the operative word of the explanation given, but I was no scientist or mage and it went over my head. Everything in this world did, much like what I did to deserve this sentence.
They stood me in front of the council, a row of red and gold robes, like school graduates from a time I'd been thrown from. Coming from the past was my crime. I'd been asked by my employer to clean the dust from inside of a machine, and after an explosion, I woke up here.
When I asked what year it was, the answer did not clarify how far into the future I had gone. But it was clear: everyone I knew, and anyone they would have told about me, was already gone.
"Make your choice, timejacker, how will you die?"
Maybe that was why I was not afraid of an abrupt end. Even if I were to survive, where would I go?
"Of Loneliness." I replied, with truth.
But there was no one there to reply back. The last looks on their faces was shock. In a moment they had all disappeared into a wisp of ash, the traces scattered into the wind that rushed to fill their spaces. The prisoners behind me disappeared as well, their last sounds the jingle of metal shackles dropping to the floor.
Then there was silence.
What actually happened to fulfill that wish? Who could tell. Maybe the world had ended, maybe I had been sent to a timeline where everyone was gone.
Unstuck from time, the power of my Wish was incredible, and crueller than expected.
Three hours passed before I freed myself from the shackles on my wrists. No one came to help me.
I walked outside.
It was silent until the day I died. | As I watched the prisoner rapidly age into a shriveled prune-like corpse, I realized it was my turn. I looked upon my executioner who asked how I would like to die. I looked at him and said "...turn me into a shroud of petals, and let me scatter across the wind..."
The magemaster said "A beautiful passing, my friend." He turned to the executioner & said "Make it so", and then it happened. I felt my body start to break apart. Oddly enough, it didn't hurt. After some time, my body was nothing more than flower petals, flowing in the wind. | 2021-06-24T11:47:16 | 2021-06-24T10:52:15 | 20 | 14 |
[WP] Every year, the richest person in America is declared the "Winner of Capitalism". They get a badge, and all of their wealth is donated to charity, so they have to start back up at $0. | Warren Buffett sat on the stage.
Today was a bittersweet day. It always was.
His back was killing him and some asshole was five minutes over time; talking about what a brilliant businessman he was. He didn't feel brilliant right then.
He felt like a fucking pig waiting to be slaughtered.
His mind ran through the last eight years. The shortest period for anyone to ever do the run from zero to "winner" of capitalism (well, if you didn't count that bitcoin jackass nobody could seem to track down). They were good years. He hoped his successor at Berk-5 would be able to keep it running this time. He thought he'd found a good man with Ajit, but after Sokol had wiped out Berk-3 in the Lubrizol affair...his faith in his ability to find honest men had been permanently eroded.
The speaker finished up, and another replaced him at the lectern. His first wife.
At least she was always kind.
He'd finally sold the house where he'd lived with his third wife for five years. They had divorced a couple years back. It was rational, even though it hurt at the time.
No sense in taking them both out just because he would win. Again.
He'd rent this time. A house was a temporary possession anyway, and it was a drag on building any *real* wealth. He'd have to get a loan to furnish the place, but hell, if a five time winner of capitalism couldn't get a personal on a promise who could?
Though...last time B of A rejected him. He put everything he had on the line, bailing them out during the housing collapse. A year before they rejected him he had *owned* half the company. Now it was run by some asshole who's main talent was being nephew to a boardmember of the charitable foundation run #4 had gone to. His bailout of B of A was cited as the reason they couldn't bail him out. He found it funny now, he'd tell the story at a burn-party if he could ever get himself to go to one again.
Everyone was looking at him.
Goddammit it was his turn to speak.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
After the speech he wandered down the busy streets of DC, wearing the towel he'd been given (his first new possession!) like some Greek philosopher in a toga. He'd be able to go pick up his five winner's badges tomorrow. He always got to keep those, they weren't worth anything.
He briefly considered going to one of the parties being held around DC. After all, they were supposedly in his honor. The real reason of course was to burn through enough cash so that none of the hosts would have the "honor" next year.
Enough wine and food would be wasted tonight to make the Romans blush.
He'd had more enthusiasm for it in his forties. Then he watched someone jump out of Van Gogh's original *Starry Night* as an entrance gag and it soured him on the whole premise.
The man had called it performance art when Buffett confronted him. Warren was never a spendthrift, but that night he became so tight-fisted that he...
...well, that he'd become "winner of capitalism" five times.
He found a promising looking alleyway next to the offices of the Washington Post. In the morning he'd try to get a job as a paperboy. Hell, maybe he'd just stay one this time.
He bedded down, anticipation for tomorrow was going to make it hard to sleep. There was something stoic about sleeping on the ground one night every decade or so. Starting over was hard, but it was honest.
The revelry on the streets was quieter here. They'd perfected bread and circuses in a way the romans couldn't hope to match.
Out of the corner of his eye Warren caught a flash. A man with a switchblade walked towards him, "Your money or your life!"
Warren raised his head to look at him, "I'm afraid your a few hours too late, friend."
"This isn't a joke old man. Give me everything!"
Warren laughed. | “I started my business with 0 dollars to my name and have rebuilt this empire by the sweat of my brows”Jeremy said.
The audience had clapped in awe as they cheered his genius as he was awarded the best businessman of the year award. The night had been one filled with accolades, champagne and pats on the back. With promises of new business ventures and associates. Opportunities everywhere.
The morning had started well enough, with a shower in his marbled bathroom, surrounded by gilded mirrors as he changed into his favourite new suit. All custom made of course.
But it went down hill very quickly after breakfast. You see Jeremy had learned from the past to never look at any of his vast array of devices before breakfast.
And oh boy was he glad he didn’t deviate from that today. So as he entered his home office, Jake was looking very nervous, Anxious even. “Good morning sir, have you seen the papers?”Jake had asked him.
“You know I don’t look at them or anything else for that matter, before breakfast. So whats up. What has you so jumpy?”
“Its…. Well its the speech you gave last night. There has been some backlash….. Well see for yourself.”
“What in godsname are you on about my boy. Read it out, please”Jeremy sighed.
“In his speech at the prestigious Ritz- Carlton the former richest man in the USA claimed he built this business from nothing. Several of his former staff have come forward and revealed his most powerful asset was not the money he made or needed. Ot was the contacts he had made. He received several million dollars in loans within the first year of starting his renowned company Sahara…, theres more of the same. Outrage of people claiming you didn’t follow the rules etc. Do you want to hear it?”
“No this is enough. Lets get our strategy set up. Call a meeting of the board of directors and have a press conference first thing tomorrow morning. Oh and get me a list of all my investors, I want to speak to them myself”. | 2021-09-17T15:49:44 | 2021-09-17T15:24:05 | 1,299 | 36 |
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