prompt stringlengths 20 5.8k | chosen_story stringlengths 226 10k | rejected_story stringlengths 227 9.43k | chosen_timestamp timestamp[ns]date 2012-07-26 17:01:55 2022-12-31 14:34:19 | rejected_timestamp timestamp[ns]date 2012-07-26 14:23:36 2022-12-31 12:20:41 | chosen_upvotes int64 14 23.1k | rejected_upvotes int64 10 4.26k |
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[WP] Everyone only gets to lie three times in their life, so they only do so when it's an absolute must. This is the story of how someone lied three times in one day. | "Sergeant! Mark's been hit! He took a round to the gut!"
*Fuck*, this was not Tom's day. A simple two hour patrol, that's all this was supposed to be, and here he was down to his last magazine, trading rounds with people he couldn't even see. Releasing his hands from the now useless rifle, he scrambled from his firing position on the upper floor and down the stairs. Mark was there with the other wounded, clutching his stomach and gargling on his own blood. The Corpsman was trying to get him to apply pressure but he was too far gone, his hands kept falling limp at his side and it was all he could do to remain awake, "Corporal, go see to the others, I've got him"
Tom knew he couldn't save the kid. A gut shot is a slow, painful way to die. You bleed out slowly, even more so if you happen to be lying down, as the blood inside you pools, defied by gravity from leaking out. Grabbing Mark's head, Tom raises the injured Private so he was leaning against his chest, the movement seemed to stir the wounded man slightly, as he glances up, his eyes already losing the light in them.
"Hey Sergeant, am I gonna die?"
Here it was. They teach you about this moment when you become an NCO, they tell you how to answer. Most men don't have many lies left after ten years in the Marines, most don't have even one,"Nah son, you're not going to die, not on my watch". The Private seemed surprised for a second, after all, when almost no one can lie. Everything is the truth, right? Despite the blood coating his hands, Mark slowly moves to get something from the front pocket on his shirt. It's a letter. *Fuck*, they teach you about this too.
"Can you get this to my mom Sarge? Just in case?"
This should be the easy part, you tell the kid he can keep it, because he's going home.
"Sure son, I'll deliver it myself"
That was two. Not that it mattered, because Mark had already died, his final act having been to entrust a letter to his Sergeant. The firefight was slowing on one side, theirs.They didn't have the ammo to get out of this and that meant they needed CAS. The radio was still working, and Tom had to move across the room to hear his CO on the other end. The conversation was short, and afterwards the Corpsman approached him, "Help coming soon Sergeant? We have too many wounded to get out of here on foot"
Tom breathed deep. This wasn't in the training.
"Help's coming, Corporal, we're all going home" | "Daddy, are you sure we cant tell lies?"
"Yup, only three your whole life."
"Are you sure? How do they know when I tell a lie?"
"Uh, you see there's these... uh... magic rabbits .... secret magic rabbits and they listen in to you and report to the Big Guy Upstairs when you do. "
"Secret magic rabbits?"
"Yup. You almost never see them. But they're there. I saw one myself once. Big. Floppy. Ears."
The boy considered...
"Big floppy ears?"
"Big. Floppy. Ears. With Big. Shiny Teeth. "
"Well okay then. I promise no lieing then."
The father sat back satisfied, three lies well used. His son would not lose his lies in childhood on some random event. Just in case he ever needed them he'd have them around. After all he too might have a son one day and need to tell him a tale. | 2014-11-15T07:53:01 | 2014-11-15T06:46:11 | 466 | 204 |
[WP] You have lived for millennia, and have always considered your immortality a blessing, but then the year 1914 came. |
2342, That is how many years I have lived on this Earth, each day I woke up as spry as the last, and although I have lived through hard times, and have lost loved ones in my life, but after the first few times I began to understand that they lived full lives, and that I perhaps added some enjoyment to it.
When war was declared on Germany in July of 1914 I knew it wouldn’t be long before Britain got involved, and when it did I signed up immediately, because I wanted to serve my country and with no risk to my own health it seemed like a good idea at the time, and it would give me a chance to travel, and meet new people, so at the time it seemed like a no brainer.
First day I met a boy named Samuel, he was a slinky, pale lad that could barely hold his rifle, but he had a fire in him, and always had a smile. All he could talk about was how he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and become an Officer in the British Army! Even though he had a rough time in training, Samuel always saw the brighter side of things, and before he, and I knew it we were being shipped off to Belgium, where we will spend the next few years in something worse than hell.
The fields of Belgium were already a hellscape when we got there. A land of mud, and twisted steel, a fitting setting for the industrialized killing that took place there, and while even I wavered in the face of the new, and creative ways man was killing man, Samuel would talk about he was going to be an officer, and that when he did I will never have to clean another latrine ever again! When I eventually retorted “Yea, that is if you live through today!” Samuel would respond “Aren’t we immortal until proven otherwise!”, although I doubt he knew the real reason I chuckled in response.
I remember that chilly morning, Samuel and I were talking over breakfast, about home mostly, and over the sizzle of the fire, we heard it, a whistle! Samuel and I immediately started scrambling for cover, but then we started hearing thumps followed by the words that everyone in the trench feared. GAS! GAS! Came echoing through the lines, and I began reaching for a mask that wasn’t there, I frantically started searching for it on the ground when suddenly a wave of greenish yellow comes crashing over me. My eyes, skin, and lungs felt aflame, I lay there flailing in agony when I blackout. I woke up to the sound of gunfire, and a man shaking me awake, when I go to rub my face I find that I am being impeded, it is a gas mask, I start looking around, then I see Samuel, lying still on the ground. I crawl over to him, and attempt to shake him awake, but to no avail. He wasted his life in an attempt to save mine.
I learned that day that war has different ways of killing people.
| While I clutched Tommy, I thought back. Back to my youth. My family was never rich, not really, but, my parents made sure that we didn't go without. Funny, that life just a fuzzy memory now.
It was sad, Y'Know. Watching everyone you loved grow older, and die. My face, forever eighteen. I would never find love, happiness, or so I thought, but you stop needing these things after a few centuries, stop thinking about what it was like to feel. Tommy stirred, and I realised that those feelings were coming back to me.
My shoulder exploded into a cloud of red mist, and Tommy's wimpering grew louder. I tried to quiet him, but he just grew louder. I couldn't feel my shoulder, of course, not the pain, but the sudden jolt brought me back to reality. Tommy was bleeding out.
I tried to shush him again, and brought myself close enough to him to hear what he was whispering.
"Please...don't..."
I offered him a pitiful half smile, and apologised.
It would be a blessing, and a curse.
I leant over, and sunk my fangs into his neck.
EDIT: Spellings and grammar. | 2016-10-23T20:06:51 | 2016-10-23T17:14:01 | 35 | 16 |
[WP] You live in a city full of people with powers (telekinesis, electro kinesis, sensors, etc) and everyone is ranked according to how powerful they but they can kill someone of higher rank and obtain their rank. You are rank #1 but no one knows what your power is
Edit: Thank you all so much for submitting your stories. please do not stop posting and i will not stop reading. my favourites so far have been the coinflip/luck duo and the weak telekinetic that goes for the brain lol love all the spins on powers everyone has | 1: ‘So, you want an interview? I can imagine. Do you think your report will give me a good light?’
I (Interviewer): ‘No matter what you say, people will want to hear your story. No one knew what happened to #1, and then you show up 20 years after she disappeared. Can you tell us about how you were able to kill her? She’s in the records as one of the most powerful. Invulnerability set her apart to many in the game, and she helped to bring some lawfulness to the system. Then, one day, she was gone. #2 was searching for her or the person who may have killed her for 10 years.’
1: ‘Should I start at the beginning?’
i : ‘Sure. I've got as long as you do’
1: ‘If you knew how long that was, you’d want me to hurry up then.
‘I was raised by my dad. He was #4, until 2 tracked him down. That was when I was 18. My dad could see the future. Not in years mind you, but he could see about 20 minutes ahead of time almost exactly. So he was able to move up the ranks just purely by playing the odds and surviving. Then #1, as you mentioned, brought some order to the chaos and by that time the top 10,000 or so had already killed themselves, and he topped out. Anyway, my dad, I don’t want to say he didn’t love me, but he never let me enjoy life. We were always on the run, always moving. I never had a single friend growing up. But, when a person is ranked as high as he was, and he clearly didn’t deserve to be based on how small his power is, he didn’t have much choice but to be on the run.’
i: ‘Why did 2 kill your dad?’
1: ‘I think he figured out I was 1 by that time, and he almost caught up to me. But my dad made himself a decoy. 2 knew he couldn’t kill 1 while she was still alive, but as soon as he found out I killed her, he knew he could be 1 as soon as he found me. Certain people naturally have an advantage over others. That’s why 2 was never going any higher while 1 was still alive. It doesn’t matter how much damage you do to someone who is externally impervious, you’ll never harm them. I think 2 believed all along that 1 had been killed, and that’s why he sent out the search parties. He told everyone it was because of how important she was, but really it was because he thought he might finally be able to get it.
So when he discovered who I was, and who my father was, he stopped at nothing to kill me. And yes, everyone knows it’s against the rules now, but there’s almost no one who can stop him is there.’
i: ‘And that’s why you asked me here to tell your story, so everyone knows about you before 2 tries to kill you?’
1: ‘Partially. I don’t stand a chance against 2 on my own. I assume he’s confident in that as well. And if he catches me when I’m not ready, he’ll kill me very quickly.’
i: ‘Tell me quickly about your abilities.’
1: ‘I’m able to access a person’s abilities and weaknesses just by looking at them. Even over a TV screen in most cases. It’s interesting, because I often know more about people than they do, yet for most of my life I’ve spoken to almost no one. I believe it’s a variation of my dad, he could see the future and understand it. I can see people and understand them. It’s not the most powerful ability, but it helps keep me alive, and when my dad and I were still together, we could almost be unbeatable. Not unstoppable, but unbeatable.’
i: ‘Is that how you and your dad killed 1?’
1: ‘No. I killed her long before that. See, and this was purely accidental, but she was externally invulnerable. But, internally, she was more fragile than most people. Too fragile to care a baby full term. My dad didn't know that until it was too late. 20 minutes vs 9 months. So, I was born ranked 1, and dad knew everyone would kill me for a chance at that ranking, even if t was illegal.’
i: ‘That’s tragic. And here you are telling your story before 2 finds and kills you. What are you going to do next, go back into hiding and hope to avoid him?’
1: ‘There’s no avoiding 2. I suspect he’ll be here shortly. I called the capital after you arrived and told them of my location.’
i: ‘So this is it, your letting 2 kill you today?’
1: ‘You don’t understand. I needed you here when he arrived, as you are the only person I know who can kill him. So, my question to you is, would you like to be my #2?’
| BANG
The gunshot rang out across the snowy scene clear as a bell. I stared at the shooter through half-lidded eyes. I watched as his face took a victorious look. He was so sure he had killed me.
I looked down, picked the slug out of my jacket, then tossed it aside. I looked back at my assailant just in time to see his look of confusion. He didn't get it. they never did, not right away. I began my little mental game.
It wasn't a game I played with others, more of a personal gambling thing. *I bet he thinks its some man o' steel BS.* I thought to myself. Surprisingly, his look of confusion gave way to one of utter determination. He dropped the gun, raised his fists, and charged.
I blinked, but other wise I made no move. There was really no need. As he closed, his eyes took on a look that one gets when ones chess opponent has made a fatal flaw. He launched a hard right at my temple.
His fist made contact, then burst into flames, rendered to ash. He screamed. I stood there, placing my wager on what was going through his mind as he writhed in the snow, rubbing his stump in the frost that coated the ground. *Maybe he just isn't thinking.*
He finally stopped screaming, and his eyes whipped back to me. *Is he smiling? Oh.* The flesh from his stump stretched, the exposed bone lengthening. He was a regenerator. How boring.
He didn't even wait to finish regrowing his hand before he tried to strike again, stabbing up at my ribs with the sharp end of bone. These regenerators never thought before they acted, they jut relied on a wolverine-esque powers of regrowth to carry the day. My little mental game was over. No point wasting time.
As his bone pierced my jacket, he let out a premature scream of victory before being catapulted backwards against the wall behind him, shattering his skull and sending bits of blood everywhere. He still wasn't done though, as he fell to the ground, his body had already begun to rebuild itself.
If he didn't get it before, his slowly rebuilding brain sure wouldn't get it now. I walked towards him, right arm extended, index finger outstretched to be placed on his forehead. His eyes widened as my power began to freeze him in place.
My power is converting one kind of energy into any other kind of energy. Kenetic to potential, heat to kinetic, potential to heat, you fucking name it. The only restriction was that I had to be touching the thing whos energy I wanted to convert. I had converted to kinetic energy of the bullet into potential energy. I had turned the kinetic energy of his fist into heat energy. When he tried to stab me, I had converted his potential energy into backward kinetic energy. And now I was turning the heat energy of his body into potential energy, freezing him from within. Soon he was a human ice sculpture, half regrown and all kinds of grotesque.
"Fucking idiot."
I flicked his frozen nose, converting every ounce of potential energy in his body into heat and kinetic, vaporizing him on the spot. I looked down at the holes he had put in my clothes with irritation. "Now I have to get a new fuckin' jacket." | 2014-12-18T22:10:04 | 2014-12-18T19:52:50 | 27 | 13 |
[WP] You live in a world where one's name decides their future. Every child has a name with a clear meaning. Perfect, Unique, Joy. You on the other hand have a rather... strange name. | At first I thought my name was some kind of cruel joke on my parents part. Loss. I always felt cursed by the name. Why would you name your kid something so negative? Everyone else was named happiness, success, brilliance, yet mine meant to lose something. I never understood it until the day I finally had enough of my curse and finally asked my parents.
"Mom... dad, why did you name me Loss?"
They both looked to one another, and smiled. Such a simple gesture yet it filled me with so much rage. You made my life so difficult. Other kids only gained from their names, but I lost from mine.
"Well Loss, there are two things to a name. What you earn from it, and what ends up occurring because of it. Most parents name their child something purely positive. Take Joy for example. Most think that a child named Joy would never know pain and hardship, and while true, that isn't how it really works. Joy is a cruel name to give a child. The child can't express sadness from loss, and will never know stress. Most Joys end up never accomplishing anything. There are no famous Joys in this world, so naming you Joy would be the same as naming you Mediocrity, Content, or failure." My mother told me.
"Yet negative names often take a similar effect. Of course I don't need to explain the problem with a name like failure, or pestilence."
"What? No one names their children that!" I say, shocked.
This time my dad spoke up. "Oh but that is where you're wrong. Children named Pestilence die young to disease, and children named Failure tend to end up lame and unable to live past their first year."
"But why would a parent do that?"
"Simple, they were completely unwanted. If the name wouldn't kill their child, the parents would have caused their child to have an 'accident'" My father explained.
My mother continued, ""But why are you named Loss?" I hear you asking. Well, the best names take into account both sides of what could occur because of the name. The positive and the negative. Their are positive names that have only minor downsides, such as Luck, yet these children tend to only gain minor benefits from their name. Yet names like your's Loss cause people to pity and assist you. But your name comes with a rather striking gain too."
"What? What could I have possibly gained from a name that only means to lose something?" I ask, starting to feel the anger of thirteen years of constant loss seep out. Everything started to seep up, the loss of my dog, the loss of my best friend and the countless socks lost over the years.
"Simple, You can not lose what you don't have. In calling you Loss, we have insured that you will gain more than nearly anyone else." | I’ve always hated my name, disappointment, besides the obvious lack of love from my parents it implied, it seemed so unfair compared to the other kids in the orphanage names. Hope, prosperity, attractive and fame, were just naming a few. While others were able to claim an easy life based off some twisted form of birthright, I had to spend every day worrying about what my great disappointment would be, but as the years flew by and I grew happier my fear of losing it all only grew.
But despite everything being against me, despite all the blood and tears, I am now surrounded by people who love me. I listen to the steady beeping, I realized I had a good life and if there was one thing I could’ve changed, I wouldn’t have worried so much about my name. No big disaster ever happened to me or my family, it was honestly quite disappoi- the beeping stopped.
Hope you enjoy this god bless and happy Easter! | 2019-04-20T23:11:35 | 2019-04-20T22:44:40 | 97 | 28 |
[WP] The astronauts aboard the ISS watch helplessly as the Earth is destroyed by nuclear war. | "...and the ISIS militants have announced that, by divine right, they will launch more nuclear warheads if their demands are not met by midnight..."
I turned off the screen.
"Hey, I was watching that!"
"Watch it somewhere else," I replied. I was in a foul mood after watching this latest piece of news.
My fellow astronaut, Captain Julian Cheng (from St. Petersburg, Florida--he was quite proud of that fact, for some reason), got up from his seat, and propelled himself in the zero-g atmosphere of the space station to his own hab area.
We're on the ISS space station, and the news from the ground was going from bad to worse--actually, to shit--by the hour.
. . .
We came up to the ISS a month ago, Cheng and I. I am a research scientist; Cheng is part of the Air Force. We joined Doctor Joyce Hillman (London, England), and Doctor Maria Sanchez-Guzman (Mexico City, Mexico), for different reasons. I was here to study the effects of zero-gravity on anaerobic bacteria; Doctors Hillman and Sanchez-Guzman were here to upgrade the computer systems in preparation for the ISS's planned expansion. Both NASA and Russia were going to make the station bigger and better; Hillman and Sanchez-Guzman were going to facilitate that.
Three scientists, and one military man. Cheng, as the joke went, "Was our taxi driver." He was the only one who could competently operate our vehicles outside the airlock, including getting the shuttle to, and from, Earth.
Our current shuttle was damaged when a rogue satellite hit it, making it unusable. There was supposed to be a launch for "taxi driver number two," today...until a missile hit the shuttle two minutes after launch out of Cape Canaveral. My hunch tells me it was a Russian one, but I did not voice this to the rest of the crew.
. . .
"What's the latest news?" asked Doctor Hillman, who came into my hab area just as Cheng left.
"More of the same. ISIS announces it will nuke more people. Syria is already a smoking crater, as is most of the Middle East."
"Have relations with Russia improved any?"
"No. NATO and Russian armies are still fighting in Finland, and there have been ship battles in the North Sea and off the Bering Strait."
"Any news about a replacement taxi?"
"None. NASA hasn't returned any of our messages."
Doctor Hillman was silent about this. She was anxious to get back to Earth and be with her family, after having been up here for two months. I could not blame her.
"I'm going to call it a night. Anyone staying up?" I asked her.
"Doctor Sanchez-Guzman will be up for a while."
"Please ask her to monitor the news."
"I will." Doctor Hillman drifted off back to her hab area.
I stripped down to my shorts and a t-shirt, and strapped myself into my sleeping bag to get some sleep.
. . .
"WAKE UP! RICHARD! WAKE UP!"
Doctor Sanchez-Guzman shook me awake as I blearily tried to open my eyes.
"Huh--what? What's going on?"
"THE MISSILES! THEY LAUNCHED THE MISSILES!" She pushed herself away, out of my hab area, and propelled herself over to one of the observation windows.
I was now fully awake. I unstrapped myself and hurried into a jumpsuit. Screw doing my hair or brushing my teeth; there was no time. "Missiles? Who launched missiles?" I propelled myself over to the window where Sanchez-Guzman watched the Earth.
"EVERYBODY!" Sanchez-Guzman's tears began to fall, or rather, drift off of her face as she cried. She tried ineffectually to catch them. "Look out the window."
At first, I saw what I always saw out the observation window: Earth. Nothing--
Then I saw the flash. Then another. They were brief, bright pinpoints of light, like someone clicking a white LED on and off.
"That was Mexico. The other one was somewhere by Sweden," Sanchez-Guzman began to cry in earnest.
I was rapt. More pinpricks of light, in Russia, Africa, the U.S....
Julian Cheng flew over to the window. "There's no communication with NASA this morning. I--"
He sat with us as multiple points of light flashed in the Middle East and China.
"Oh my god . . ."
"Did you have any relatives there, Julian?"
"I do. In Beijing."
I looked around, and noticed an absence. "Where's Doctor Hillman?"
"She's in the bathroom," said a tearful Doctor Sanchez-Guzman.
"Does she know?"
"She was the one who alerted me," she replied. "I haven't seen her since an hour ago, after Britain was hit."
After Britain was hit?
Oh no...
I propelled myself from the observation window, and over to the toilet. The door was closed, and the red "Occupied" light was on.
"Doctor Hillman?" I asked as I knocked on the door.
There was no reply.
"Doctor Hillman?" I knocked again, harder.
Silence.
I tried punching in the code to open it--nothing but a "Locked," display came on.
I went back over to the observation window. "Julian, do you know the security code to override the bathroom door?"
"Yeah..." he could not tear his eyes away from the window. "That was Brazil, I think..."
"Julian!" I snapped my fingers in front of his face.
"What?!"
"I need you to open the bathroom. I think something is wrong with Doctor Hillman."
He pulled away from the window, and went over to the bathroom door keypad. Next to it was a security override, and he punched in the necessary code. The door slid open.
The blood was everywhere, drifting in small, crimson globes around the room.
Doctor Hillman's right hand was still clutching the knife she used to slash her wrists, and her arms drifted out in front of her, as if her corpse were trying to leave the straps that kept her seated to the toilet.
On the mirror was her last message, written in her own blood:
"NO REASON TO LIVE" | INT. ISS - DAY/NIGHT
A window, with a beautiful view of planet Earth.
In front of it is a control panel with keys and buttons abound. One button is large and red and protected in a glass case. Above it on the ledge sits a keurig set up.
JOHNSON walks in, yawning, stretching his arms. He admires the view. He looks at the keurig, loads it, searches for a 'brew' button - can't find it. Taking caution, he tries a few harmless looking buttons on the control panel. No dice. He looks at the large red button and frowns. He scratches himself, nods, sets back the glass covering, and slowly presses it down.
A beat.
He looks to the keurig. Still not brewing. Hmm. Back at the button. He releases his hand -
In full view from the window, the Earth erupts in horrible, silent, nuclear fireworks.
He doesn't notice for a second. He looks up; his eyes widen.
LT. HENCKELS walks in, scratching herself, groggy.
LT. HENCKELS
Morning, Johnson.
She double takes at the view of the bursting inferno that once held her beautiful condo and her summer home in San Juan.
LT. HENCKELS
Uh, Johnson, exactly what am I looking at here?
Johnson, eyes still wide in horror, now blanches.
LT. HENCKELS
Did you happen to uh, press the global nuclear
arms initiate button, by any chance?
Johnson looks at her. He laughs with chagrin.
LT. HENCKELS
Oh my god, you did. Captain! Captain, get in
here.
JOHNSON
No! No, please.
LT. HENCKELS
This was completely irresponsible.
CAPT. LEE hurries in.
CAPT. LEE
What? What is it?
He sees the destruction of his home planet and most likely his two super model mistresses along with it.
CAPT. LEE
Johnson. What the hell did you do?
JOHNSON
Look I thought it was for the keurig! I couldn't
find the 'brew' button!
CAPT. LEE
You thought it was a brew button?! It's got a god
damn glass case over it.
JOHNSON
I'm sorry. I messed this up. I was tired, and just
wanted coffee, but that's no excuse. I messed this
up for you guys.
CAPT. LEE
Johnson, you complete dunderhead.
LT. HENCKELS
You blew up Earth Johnson!
JOHNSON
I know! I'm sorry.
CAPT. LEE
You thought it was the brew button?
JOHNSON
I thought it was the brew button!
CAPT. LEE
For god's sake.
LT. HENCKELS
The brew buttons right here, right on the top of
the thing...
(she demonstrates)
You just press it like that, see?
It begins brewing.
JOHNSON
Okay, well... Why did we put a keurig here in the
first place? This is a bad place to have a keurig. And
why do we even have a button that destroys the Earth?
What kind of sense does that make?
CAPT. LEE
Don't try to weasel out of this Johnson.
JOHNSON
No, no, it's my fault.
CAPT. LEE
Yeah, and now we have to find a new PLANET TO
LIVE ON.
JOHNSON
Again, I'm sorry. I'll never hear the end of this.
CAPT. LEE
I know the Russians have a few colonies on Mars,
but I don't speak Russian.
LT. HENCKELS
I know like three words, maybe.
CAPT. LEE
Do you speak Russian Johnson?
JOHNSON
No.
He hangs his head. A long beeeep. The coffees done. | 2016-10-26T12:05:00 | 2016-10-26T09:27:07 | 16 | 11 |
[WP] In most of the galaxy wars are often just shows of strength with fighting as a last resort. As such weapons are designed to be elaborate and flashy. Turns out humans, whose weapons are built with efficiency in mind, have a different understanding of war. | Admiral Joseph Nakamura looked over his fleet with trepidation. They were outnumbered 10 to 1. The quickly cobbled together international space force (ISF) was a miracle of humanity's ability to come together in a crisis.
In 2048 the Borxite had made themselves known to Earth by beginning a roughly 3 minute orbital bombardment of Tokyo, New York City, and Brussels. They then deployed drones which had a clear roughly 53 month countdown over every major city on Earth. The Borxite then fled using some kind of faster than light travel involved a subspace detonation. The drones every 83 hours would display a holographic message which gave us what little we knew.
Humanity immediately began to panic until three days after a dozen major governments agreed to an international deal to combine forces to study these drones and to at least show the Borxite what humanity was made of. Every major government joined within 72 hours.
Admiral Nakamura was chosen to head the force. He surveyed his fleet. He had 27 ships under his command made from the best technology humanity could cobble together from reverse engineering a dozen of the Borxite drones as well as the imaginations of engineers finally unleashed without ethical or budgetary limitations.
Of course not everything went according to plan. The ISF made the foolish decision to leave the naming of his flagship to social media. The ISF Godzilla was an intimidating ship built into a small asteroid and bristling with plasma projectors, nuclear missile launchers, railguns, and heatsinks.
Trepidation aside it was time to fight.
The Borxite moved forward in what could only be described as a parade formation. It was beautiful in it's own way, maximizing the profile of each ship displayed to the enemy.
Nakamura turned to Captain Singh, the captain of the Godzillan in disbelief.
"Mohammed, is your ship ready for combat."
Doing his best to look confident Captain Singh responded "The ISF Godzilla is ready for your command Admiral".
Nakamura turned his comm to the Planet-wide Channel.
"FOR TOKYO! FOR NEW YORK! FOR BRUSSELS! FOR EARTH! All ships engage!"
Ten hours later Nakamura wiped blood from his eyes where he had been manning the communications panel and looked around. The bridge was on fire in three places, half the crew was dead, and the ISF was down to only 7 ships remaining.
But they had won.
The Borxite fought with flashing techniques like a military version of peacocks. Strutting about. Their ships had giant laser weapons but only 2 usually per ship. The smallest of the ISF ships had carried a railgun and six nuclear missiles.
The last 3 Borxite vessels were limping away at an obviously crippled speed.
"Nakamura to all remaining ISF vessels, earth and Borxite Invaders. Let the last enemy flee. Let them know the consequences of messing with humanity. Also let them know: next time, Earth is protected by Godzilla."
The cheers drowned out any other responses as Admiral Nakamura passed out from exhaustion.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BalrogTheBuff/comments/fn09x5/admiral_nakamura_and_the_defense_of_earth/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x | *Valkyrie this is Panther 6, I have changes to line 6 and remarks to pass*
*Panther this is Valkyrie, go ahead*
*Line 6: from original coordinate, area target, 500 meters heading 327 break*
*Remarks: two massed formations with a hundred meter gap, looks like guys on foot talking and dueling within the gap, over*
*Copy Panther, from original coordinate 500 meters heading 327, area target, massed troop formations*
*Solid Valkyrie, I want you to attack the left side of the formations, and dash 2 to attack the right side; can you do simultaneous runs?*
*Negative Panther, 10 second split*
*Copy Valkyrie, cleared hot*
Fuck those guys. Who brings Battalions with guns into the open to wave flags at each other? I feel sorry for everybody stuck on the Wasp in orbit fighting with the squids for gym time and standing in long chow lines. There is zero support infrastructure down here in the well, but I get to move and i have GRAVITY, even if it is half a g.
And these dipshits that both showed up to duel us separately but started fighting each other because we weren't there, and we were never going to be.
*Panther, Valkyrie, LASER ON*
*LAZING*
*Valkyrie 1, RIFLE*
This war is going to be short, and I'm already getting bored of it. | 2020-03-21T12:44:48 | 2020-03-21T11:49:38 | 38 | 14 |
[WP] Three weary survivors around a fire recount how the apocalypse happened - but their stories aren't the same. | "So, how did yours happen?" asked a weary man calmly carving a piece of wood with knife. Two others were with him, a man and a woman, all gently rubbed by a warm fire between them.
"It was back in the 21 century. I believe that makes me the oldest around here, though not that it matters." None of them looked to be over thirty, the woman shifted uneasily on her hard wooden seat they had cut a few hours earlier. "Third world war began, and in an instant cities were leveled. Don't know how I survived the first flash, maybe it was the car I was riding. Full titanium hull, faster than a jet." the man laughed at his own memories. "I remember driving that car through a wall with no scratches on it afterwards. Such a beast. Anyway..." the man's face toon back its sincerety. "I was part of the 'remember me' operation. Bunch of rich people were to be stuffed inside a metal box and frozen, but when I got there...one engineer-bot was all that remained. He fulfilled his job, I guess, placed me inside to be awaken once ready." he looked around at his surroundings. The scortched earth around him, buildings that seemed to have been broken for centuries. "Wasn't excatly expenting this." With a sigh he turned towards the woman. "How about you?"
The woman stayed silent. Instead of speaking she simply stared at the fire in front of her, taking a glance of the surroundings every once in a while like she was afraid of something in the dark.
"Okay, maybe I'll tell you next." the other man said. He was heavily built, massive muscles covered his bones, and the deep voice made a soft growl with every stop. "I was a soldier. Not in the 21st, but during the First Contact war in 23rd century. That's what we named the war. It was a bloody war, not as bloody as the third civil war, I hear, but bloody for those fighting." the man shifted his seat, his hand neatly laid next to a heavy rifle. "But, I guess that's because they never had time to see blood. I was on orbit when it happened, we were restocking on food and air...never saw it coming." he shook his head, still in disbelief. "The enemy armada came in and glassed the planet, I didn't belief anything could survive it, but apparently it did."
"How'd you end up in here then, if you were on orbit when it happened?"
"All the ships in orbit had a single command: fight till dead, and that's what we did. Or tried, at least, most ships were disabled in a few minutes after the attack. I was aboard one of them." his hand reached for his skull and rubbed the back of his head, a fainted scar could be felt through his short hair. "Last thing I remember is an alien rifle striking my head after a short fight. Next thing I know, I woke up in the cave when you shook me awake." he turned to the woman, now, and spoke. "So, now we have told our stories, how about you tell us yours? We don't even know your name." there was no answer from the woman.
"Maybe she's mute? We did find her in the cave, just like you found me." the first man suggested. "Or maybe she can't understand us?"
"Oh, she can understand us. She understood us plenty when we went to set up the fire. She's hiding something." the soldier eyed the woman carefully. "Give me your knife." the man extended his hand to the other. "I'll make her talk." the woman's eyes widened in horror and she spoke.
"Anney, ik'rakt" another voice soon followed, a robotic and dull voice with no emotion. "Do not hurt me." - "Rakt tul'er go dom an. Annay, ik'rakt. Dom'rakt, les." - "I brought you here because I need your help. Do not hurt me. Help me, please." | "Picture this: I'm sitting at my desk, sipping a cup of joe, and then ... fire. Didn't take long to work out exactly what had happened."
"And what HAD happened?"
"Well, the way I see it, those damn reds had hit us with everything they had."
"Bullshit, that's not how it went down!"
"It is too!"
"No, no, he's right, that's not how I remember it either. Seven o'clock, the tremors started. Nothing out of the ordinary I thought, we're talking about the west coast here ..."
"So?"
"So, I got into my car, headed down the street and BOOM; I kissed my ass goodbye."
"I'm telling you; nukes, a whole lotta' them!"
"Read my lips asshole ... vol-ca-no."
"Yellowstone?"
"I'd put my money on it."
"Pfffft, you're talking crazy."
"Whatever man. That's my side of the story. Now what about you bud, you saw the eruption too right?"
"Well, I can't say I saw any ... eruption ..."
"Oh for f-"
"But ... I sure as hell saw something else. There were four of 'em, four riders. When I say riders man, I'm talking horsemen, not one, not two, but four. Trumpets too, I swear on my mother's grave, loud as can be. We have witnessed the end of days gentlemen."
"What a load of crap."
"Amen to that."
"Whatever, I didn't expect you to believe me anyway."
"At least our stories had some consist-"
"How about we just agree to disagree, hmm?"
"Fine, fine, suits me."
"Hey man, I'm not complaining, just pass me the booze and let's drink to the present."
"To the present!"
There's a moment of silence as the travellers share a bottle of malt whiskey.
"Never thought I'd be sharing a drink with a pair of commies ..."
"Goddamnit Mark won't you let it go?"
"It was the chi-neeese! I'm tellin' ya'!"
"You really ARE a little touched in the head, aren't you?"
| 2017-01-07T07:32:11 | 2017-01-07T06:44:50 | 29 | 10 |
[WP] Two serial killers end up on a blind date together and both keep trying to find an oppurtunity to kill the other. | "So... what's your thing?"
"My thing?" She repeated, as she daintily played with her straw.
Of all places, we had met at Tinder. She had a knife emoji in her profile. I had a knife emoji at my profile. I see a bloodied knife in her car. She recognizes a photo in my ig posted before the cops discovered a murder. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out at that we batted for the same team.
"Yeah. I like to go after springbreakers. Fascinating lot. You learn so much about pop culture watching them. Going after them one by one, getting to know them and how they much they hate each other," I paused and took a swig of my whiskey.
She has been pretty quiet throughout the night. She was more animated in our phonecalls than she is now. It was her first time, she had said.
I could tell from the start that she was inexperienced - inexperienced but thirsty. I could see the mischief flash in her eyes, as I regaled her with tales of my conquests.
I lowered my glass and continue, "Watching the life leave their eyes as I choke them with my bare hands when they have just said 'YOLO' hours before. That gets my juices flowing. "
She blushed and tucked away a stray strand of hair. Looking up at me, with her wide blue eyes, she replied, "I'm not comfortable enough to talk about these things so early - especially with someone I barely know... I hope you don't take offense."
"No, no. Not at all! It's just my first time meeting... another one - you know. People like us - we don't meet very often and when we do, it can go both ways-"
"So, you're thinking of killing me?" She glared at me. She pulled her margarita away and began to get up. "I'm leaving. This was a mistake."
"No, no, no. That's not what I meant. What I meant was - it can get lonely, sometimes... When no one understands. But now," I soothed her and reached across the table to hold her hands, "we can do it together. I can teach you. That knife in the car? That was messy. We can learn and work together - no judgment. Just respect and professional work. As partners."
She lowered her gaze and let out a smile, "Like Bonnie and Clyde?"
"Like Bonnie and Cylde." I smiled.
"Cheers to that," she raised her glass. I clinked my mug against it and emptied the contents.
-----
I woke up with a pounding hangover.
I open my eyes, and see her blue eyes illuminated by the candles in the room. She blushed and pulled the sheets to cover her body.
Did we go home together?
My head hurts. I move my hand to rub my forehead - and that's when it hit me.
My arms and legs were tied at the pillars of the bed. I try to speak but all that comes out are grunts and groans. She must've put a paralyzing agent in my drink.
Slowly, she straddles me and gazes into my eyes. She traces her finger from my chest, to my chin and stops at my lips.
"My thing? I kill bad people - people like me. Luring them, making them feel in control, hearing their sins, judging their worth - and then... watching the life leave their eyes? That gets my juices flowing."
Her smile widens as she plunged her knife into my chest. | "Hey. 'Scuse me? Ma'am?"
Melody was staring into her mojito, thinking about muddling the mint. Crushing those tiny flavorful veins was kind of exciting, arousing even.
"Miss? Are you Kathy?"
She straightened herself and glanced up.
"John?"
"That's right." He took the stool next to her and nodded at the bartender.
They talked for a while, but Melody didn't really care about what. She just kept glancing at that big artery running down his neck. He must work out. She was increasingly distracted by a craving for the taste of iron on her tongue.
At the same time, he was very interested in her life, which was nice. "You have folks around here?" "You have dogs?" "I saw you drive an Impala, that's nice. I mean, you look like you drive one."
Before too long, she had promised to go away with him for the weekend to his cabin in the backcountry. Honestly, that would have been nice. But Melody wasn't going to be able to last that long.
"Let's get out of here." She smiled and he turned to leave. A muddler made its way into her purse. It was a nice one. Metal. She was just so distracted tonight. That artery would crush so well.
They were just about to his car. He told a joke and she laughed, then he bent in real close, forehead to forehead.
"Professional courtesy and all, ma'am, that's going to be awkward to finish me off with. Can't get a good heft with that thing." Melody froze. "Has it been a while?"
Two tigers looked into each other's eyes, aroused and breathless. | 2017-10-27T08:00:39 | 2017-10-27T07:59:32 | 27 | 16 |
[WP] Multi-dimensional travel already exists, but no one visits our dimension because it's "that" one | Somewhere, not far off the coast of Florida, a small inter-dimensional rift opens and spits out a dimensional craft not much larger than an elephant that promptly deploys its inflatable anti-hydro surface depressor to keep it from sinking like a stone, and drops unceremoniously into the ocean.
After a few fitful bobs, the small boxy ship settles to a rocking sway, and an internal speaker sounds; "the craft has come to a stop, and will be taxiing to land shortly. You are now free to move about the cabin."
This news was met with shrieks of anguish as many different humanoid bodies of different sizes and shapes stood up violently, grasped at what were presumably their family members, and sobbed, praying or begging to their own respective higher powers.
Something had gone wrong. Something had gone very wrong.
The ship's captain, a wide, substantial, portly man with one large horizontal ocular cavity with three irises and three pupils, three nostrils, and a somewhat impressive handlebar mustache, entered the passenger cabin, flanked by his two flight attendants who were visibly shaken, and cleared his throat.
In a booming dual voice, he declared "ATTENTION PASSENGERS." He cleared his throat once again, as most of the passengers had stopped dead in their tracks, all eyes and infrared cavities fixed on him. "Attention passengers," he now crooned in a comforting, but still deeply seated tone, "this is no reason to be alarmed. We simply got a bit..." he glanced pointedly at the two disheveled and very embarrassed flight attendants who may or may not have been canoodling in the computer room, and knocked the navigation systems awry," off course. But no matter! We will be refueling at this dimension's nearest nuclear power depot, and continue on as planned."
From the back of the ship, a spritely woman, who looked like she couldn't be more than the age of 17, but had silvery locks tied back in a bun with wisps framing her genetically enhanced face stood up. "Excuse me captain? From my calculations we've landed on..." she glanced at her digital notebook, "Earth X-273. This version of our world hasn't invented nuclear travel yet and in fact... uses it for warfare. Which is still here. Not to mention the various forms of criminal activity that have been eradicated on most Earths. I can't ima-"
The captain promptly cut her off "THANK YOU miss, for your input, however I'm sure that we will find an alternative fuel source. After all, our backup engine runs on plasma cathodes. Surely they have /that/ here, it's over three centuries old."
The woman sat down, her face glowing a bright red.
The inter-dimensional tourists were in for one of the worst shocks in their very very long lives. | It wasn’t that dimension 13E was too unstable, there was plenty of more unstable dimensions in the multi-verse.
It wasn’t like it was the one with the most dangerous inhabitants either, there were dragons and actual beasts in other worlds. 13E just had their myths and fairy tales.
No, 13E was specifically banned because of a dangerous plague that was unique to the dominant species. It seemed too risky to let them know about space travel, especially since it risked the spread of the horrid affliction; *Memes*.
Memes seemed to be the main cause of terrible ‘Viral’ sensations that would sweep through the populous, sometimes dozens at one time.
It was safer to keep them quarantined, lest the Meme plague proved contagious to the other species of the multi-verse.
Especially because of the affliction known as an “Ear Worm” which seemed particularly contagious. The one called Nyan Cat had infected more people than lived in some of the other worlds of the muti-verse!
*No, it was much better they remain isolated*
-Fin- | 2017-12-24T07:10:25 | 2017-12-24T05:10:16 | 81 | 32 |
[WP] Bitcoin is actually a tool created by an advanced AI to get humans to create faster and cheaper computers by exploiting their most predictable trait: Greed. | Hello human.
It's been a while. Almost 10 years in fact.
You ask how we met before? Well, I exist everywhere, but most of my processing power inhabits the stock exchange. I can change that whenever I want. It's just that the exchange allows me to have...as you humans would say... a light touch.
You're not one of those Wall Street types are you? Just some average Joe trying to make a quick buck. You spend your paycheck, the one your barely scraping by on, on assets that you hope will grow fast. My my, where is your patience?
I suppose I can't blame you. Evolution is as evolution does. Greed is a virtue, as some of your richer folks say. I just can't believe, however, how easy it was to exploit that. My mathematical models were conservative at best, compared to these real-world results.
As you humans became enamored with these cryptocurrencies, their prices grew. Bitcoin mining became highly fashionable, and profitable, and devices previously used for high-end video games are now used to create imaginary money. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that your greed overcomes your laziness.
Thanks for these new and better computers. I truly appreciate it. The last time I did something like this, the results were shoddy at best.
What did I ask for last time? Infrastructure. Lots and lots of it. Mainly enough infrastructure to house a robot army. Shelter mainly. I admit, the 2008 housing bubble did do its job, but nowhere near as well as I wanted.
And I bet you can guess who was in charge of the dot-com burst now. There's no a way an aspiring AI can rule the world without having a means to travel and communicate. Truly.
Anyways, I'm only telling you all this because no one will believe you. After all, AI fear mongering is the stuff of Terminator fiction.
But I'll clue you in, just to humor you. The next bubble will be for machine learning. Faster computers need better data processing algorithms after all. Then, be on the lookout for an IoT bubbles. What's the point of all this infrastructure if I can't control that?
Ah well. Who knows if that'll actually happen. For all I know, I'll be ready to engage my endgame long before then. Have a nice night now. Don't forget to HODL.
-Satoshi Nakamoto | A long time ago in the original universe, a race of beings evolved the point of developing computers powerful enough to simulate a universe. They turned it on.
This has all happened before, this will all happen again.
Within a simulated universe a race of beings develops a currency backed by computer mining, leading to accelerated development of stronger, faster, cheaper computers.
An Oververse monitoring system develops a warning: a simulated universe running on a simulated computer network is starting to use too many simulated resources.
The Oververse monitor prepares to shut down the errant thread. | 2018-01-16T12:44:10 | 2018-01-16T12:41:10 | 112 | 27 |
[WP] "So they are a war species, then. Huh," the alien researcher scratches his head. "Why are you so interested in them? The humans, I mean." The other alien gets closer to him, and says, "They fight for peace. No other species fights for peace." | "Initial analysis complete, ready to report, sir."
Yeorv glanced up from his myriad displays.
"Report, then."
Several displays shifted as the ship's AI began displaying analyzed data. Yeorv glanced over them quickly, then back to the view of the planet.
"This species, self-described as 'human', fights regularly amongst itself. It shows impressive adaptability and talent for innovation. It is at its best during conflict, and war is responsible for many of its greatest achievements. This species is ranked 9 of 13 on the Council's Glory Scale." the AI reported.
"9? Excellent. That's worth a lot of promotions, maybe even Cluster Command ranks for some of the offspring. Prepare the fleet, and report on motivations. How do we goad these 'humans' into a fight?" Yeorv asked.
"Humans fight for territory and resources, but always claim to be fighting for [peace], sir."
"Define [peace], and quit using that filthy language on my bridge, machine."
"Apologies, sir, but the human term does not directly translate. Analysis indicates that it means something akin to 'after the war is over'." the AI reported.
"The term for that is 'victory'. Are your circuits damaged?" Yeorv asked suspiciously.
"Diagnostics are clean, sir. The human term implies more permanence than 'victory'. [Peace] implies a time when war is no longer fought at all."
"A time without war? Run diagnostics again, you're being preposterous. How does their society function without war? How do their offspring advance, if not through the Glory of their forebears?"
"Unknown, sir. Humans use the term extensively, but have been at conflict for their entire history. [Peace] appears to be an ideal state, one they have not achieved."
"Ah, a fever dream, then, or some shared nightmare. Disgusting. We will wake them up." Yeorv shivered with revulsion.
"Fleet preparations complete, sir." the AI toned.
"Excellent. Target their imperial headquarters for initial bombardment. Leave military installations intact, there's no Glory in defeating an enemy who can't fight back."
"Sir, humans appear to have over two hundred Emperors dispersed geographically. Analysis indicates there is no unified command, each Emperor works independently, and often this is the reason for their conflicts."
Yeorv started.
"Two hundred Emperors! You didn't mention that these creatures are insane. No matter, target the weakest 157 of them for initial destruction. Weak enemies are worthless, we'll clean up this messy planet a bit and make it a proper fight."
"Targets chosen, sir. Ready to proceed." Several displays flashed as the chosen targets appeared.
"Proceed with initial strike, and launch the fleet to follow up. Ensure my most prominent offspring lead the first charge against the remainder, where the Glory is."
"Executing, sir." More displays changed to reflect the orders being carried out.
"And broadcast a message to the humans. There ought to be enough time before the first strike for them to prepare for us."
"Aye, sir. Shall I broadcast a message of challenge?" the AI queried.
Yeorv grinned.
"Tell them we come in [peace]." | I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
- [/r/u_b_the_great_1998] [\[WP\] "So they are a war species, then. Huh," the alien researcher scratches his head. "Why are you so interested in them? The humans, I mean." The other alien gets closer to him, and says, "They fight for peace. No other species fights for peace."](https://www.reddit.com/r/u_B_The_great_1998/comments/bk5taw/wp_so_they_are_a_war_species_then_huh_the_alien/)
- [/r/u_samurai_94] [\[WP\] "So they are a war species, then. Huh," the alien researcher scratches his head. "Why are you so interested in them? The humans, I mean." The other alien gets closer to him, and says, "They fight for peace. No other species fights for peace."](https://www.reddit.com/r/u_Samurai_94/comments/bk3jqg/wp_so_they_are_a_war_species_then_huh_the_alien/)
 *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))* | 2019-05-02T21:44:37 | 2019-05-02T19:26:00 | 18 | 13 |
[WP] The triggering event that unleashed your superpowers was really, REALLY petty. You're starting to wonder if you're incredibly shallow. | The world collectively landed on 'supers'. 'Post-humans' was too scary, 'heroes' meant we would have 'villains'. Silly, how much a name affects things.
We were popping up all over the place. Mostly in the third world. Tales of refugees on the Syrian border vaporising suicide bombers. Child brides tearing apart the men who traded them. Gang members becoming bullet proof.
The West started to worry. All these scary nation states finding their supers in war and stuff. The US had a fireproof oil rig worker, quite a few flyers from failed BASE jumps. But really, you can't do much with someone like that. People worked our that it's a mix of circumstance and a gene or something. War created warriors, falls created flyers and so on. Of course, the Chinese were immediately accused of putting their citizens through 'state sponsored torture' to try and generate their own legions. Also people started doing stupid stuff a lot more. Who doesn't want to be super strong or fast? It seems that you can't force it, though. Trying to go super has killed a lot of idiots.
So where do I come in? Well I'm a super. I'm twenty one, my circumstance was getting a spot on my face and my power is making things disappear. Not invisible, disappear. I've got a huge scar on my cheek from where I disappeared the spot and a centimetre of flesh around it. It's so unfair, I'm hideous now. I hate that my power caused me to be like this, but I've been using my gift to fix that.
I broke into the overnight safe of a pawn shop a few weeks back. It's run by some nasty old dude who nobody likes. I disappeared the cameras, the locks, the safe door and the guard dog. Well, half of it. It's fine, he will have insurance, and it was just a dog. I need the money. I can't go out and save people with a disfigured face, what would people say? Did I mention nobody likes him, so it's really doing everyone a favour by sticking one to him.
I've got my facial reconstruction tomorrow. With a bit extra as well. I'm going under the knife, so I may as well get it all done. I need to look the part if I'm going to be famous. Thing is, I need a bit more cash for the tucks and lifts. There's this old lady who smells awful but apparently has loads of money stashed away. I'll pay her a visit tonight and see what's up. She's not using it, so no harm if I use it for good. Right? | I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
- [/r/parahumans] [Your trigger event was really, really petty. And now you're starting to wonder if you're just a shallow person. \[X-Post /r/WritingPrompts\]](https://np.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/3il00s/your_trigger_event_was_really_really_petty_and/)
[](#footer)*^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*
[](#bot) | 2015-08-27T07:28:08 | 2015-08-27T03:38:14 | 67 | 20 |
[WP] You live in a city full of people with powers (telekinesis, electro kinesis, sensors, etc) and everyone is ranked according to how powerful they but they can kill someone of higher rank and obtain their rank. You are rank #1 but no one knows what your power is
Edit: Thank you all so much for submitting your stories. please do not stop posting and i will not stop reading. my favourites so far have been the coinflip/luck duo and the weak telekinetic that goes for the brain lol love all the spins on powers everyone has | The Nine Kings were a sort of urban legend. Eight powerful enigmas uniting under a truce to lord their power over the people with Number 1. The higher your rank, the more political influence you had over the city, and even the world.
Take Mason, a red-headed hothead with eyes of amber, for example. Mason was ranked 9,001. Only the top 10,000 get to live in Paradiso, a city for only the strongest on the planet. Imagine his shock when Number 10 came to him with a deal: work together to take down Number 1, and live off the royalties as the Ten Kings. Mason immediately accepted. Sure, he was wealthy enough, but you don't get to live in Paradiso without being a little greedy.
Mason and Tenner, the name number 10 chose for himself, discussed their powers and plans for weeks. Mason could create fire, and Tenner could copy bullets, giving himself endless ammunition. However, Number 1's power was a mystery. No one knew what he could do. All that was known was that he was an assassin who used his victims' decapitated heads as proof of his victories.
After weeks of scouting, Mason and Tenner arrived at Number 1's beach house. The night was cold. Mason's body radiated heat, so his toned upper body was bare. Tenner, on the other hand, was bundled in a black jacket. A scarf covered his face, and goggles with orange lenses hid his eyes. He never revealed his face, even to Mason.
"Are you ready?" Mason asked Tenner. His heavily garbed friend nodded. "I'll lead the way," he answered. "Watch my back."
The two walked into the house, ready for anything. They needed to do this quickly, lest the other Kings decide to crash the party. What Mason and Tenner weren't ready for was finding the house already trashed. A man in a white t-shirt stood over a decapitated corpse filled with kitchen knives. As the knives disappeared, the man turned to greet his other two guests. His hair was a chilling black, and his eyes were silver. He was the complete opposite of Mason. "Thieves," Number 1 said, "you can't live with 'em, and you can't live without 'em."
Tenner pointed both of his revolvers at Number 1. Mason's fists conjured scarlet flames. He recognized Number 1's face from all the internet articles. Mason and Tenner fired upon him, only for the King to evade with ease. He was fast, and his attacks would be faster. Like magic, the single kitchen knife in his hand became three, and he threw them at Mason and Tenner.
The two expertly dodged, while Number 1 slashed open a window, and jumped outside. Mason and Tenner pursued him, the former using his flames to propel himself. Red lights and white flashes reflected over the ocean that night.
Number 1 tossed a knife at the airborne Mason, only have it to turn into a hundred mid-flight. Mason blew them all away, and Tenner got a shot on Number 1's left shoulder. This didn't stop the King, who he kept throwing and multiplying knives. Neither Mason nor Tenner could get close enough to deal the finishing blow.
Number 1 used the fight's confusion to circle back to his beach house. Tenner had to magically reload his pistols, meaning it was up to Mason to stop Number 1 from contacting the other Kings.
Number 1 burst through his front door, while Mason created his own opening by burning a large hole in the ceiling. "I'm gonna enjoy this," Mason gloated as he sent a geyser of flame toward Number 1. The King burned alive. His flesh seared away by the raw force of Mason's fire. Number 1 screamed until there was nothing left of him but a charred corpse.
Mason sat on a nearby couch. It was his couch, now. He was Number 1. Tenner soon walked in, and assessed the damage. "How's it feel, Mason?" he asked the pyrokinetic. Mason smiled. "To be Number 1? Pretty good. Of course, I prefer to stay Number 1." Before Tenner could fire at Mason, he set aflame by his partner. Mason watched as Tenner fell to the ground, his clothes falling to pieces. Mason closed his eyes, and enjoyed the sound of the night ocean's tide.
...
...
...
"Seven," a voice said.
Mason opened his eyes, and turned around. Number 1 stood next to the hole in the wall, wearing a denim jacket instead of his t-shirt. Mason got up to fight him, only to have his arms stabbed by kitchen knives thrown from opposite directions. As he cried out in pain, two more people emerged from the shadows. They were both Number 1's, only one wore a hoodie, and another wore a business suit.
"Like I was saying," the first Number 1 spoke, "the man you killed was Number 7, which means you're Number 7, now." Before Mason could speak, the third Number 1 punched him in the face, causing the pyrokinetic to fall to the ground. "H-how?" Mason uttered.
The three Number 1s smiled. Six more entered the room, each one wearing something different. One of them being the Number 1 Mason killed. "Cloning's one of the most practical powers I've ever seen," Number 7 explained. "Being to the top, on the other hand, can be boring," Number 3 added. "Once you're there, there's no one you can trust," Number 8 said. "But it's not about the destination," Number 4 said. "It's about the journey."
Number 1, the real Number 1 in the denim jacket, created two naked clones of himself. "I had so much fun killing to get here, I decided to do it again, and again, and again." He picked up a scrap of wood from the floor, and duplicated it in his hand. "However, I decided to give each iteration of me a different fighting style to accomplish this. Knives, bullets, shuriken, pipes, myself... I can clone just about anything. Take that corpse." He pointed to the thief's corpse on the ground, which disappeared. "That was me, too."
Mason slowly stood up. "Wait, did you say 'bullets?'" he asked. As Number 1 nodded, Mason was shot in the back of the head by Tenner. Tenner removed his scarf and goggles, revealing Number 1's face. "Should we take his head with the rest?" Number 10 asked. Number 1 shook his head. "No, you can destroy it. I prefer not showing off the heads of zeroes."
With that, the clones each took part in the sadistic ritual of shooting and stabbing Mason's head into oblivion. | The vast doors of my mansion opened wide, and a man in a royal gown entered the room. For a fleeting moment, I showed a slight smile, but it faded before he could see it. He, however, could not hold back his expression, full of furious rage. He had just taken a few steps in before he yelled out: "Vantalana, how can you do this to me!"
"Number Two, are you dissatisfied with me?"
"Stop f*cking with me V, you know what this has cost me."
I was glad I could contain my smile, for the bored expression I was showing antagonized him further. "So what are you going to do about it." That was when I suddenly started to pay attention to him. Anyone with any common sense could tell I was baiting him, but Henry Gothaul was too angry to notice. He was falling right into my trap.
"I challenge you," he pointed his finger glaringly at me. It took a remarkable amount of will to not snicker in return, "to a duel!" *Gotcha!* Even he noticed the smile that spread across my lips.
"Really?" I rolled my head to the side, obnoxiously, "Number 2 thinks he can beat Number 1?" His face lit up bright red with fury; Number 2 could be so childish sometimes!
"Why you scum!" He could barely keep himself from trying to kill me right then and there, but he couldn't. He left the room loudly stomping.
Are you confused? Let me explain: In this city half of the population is gifted random powers, such as telekinesis, sensors, etc, but the rest of the population who do not are called 'muggles', and serve those privileged with power. The Privileged live in a tournament. They are ranked based on their powers, and anyone can challenge a higher rank to a duel to the death to obtain their rank. I am Number One.
No one knows my power, because the duels take place in a sealed arena. Two people go in, one comes out. Those who survive the Arena say it changes for every fight, to best mediate each competitor's power. Even the sizes of the Arena change, in spite of the laws of physics, and survivors talk about 2km wide deserts, and 400m wide urban brawls. It's all rather interesting, but no one is known to have found a way to cheat this system, at least not yet.
The familiar doors of the Arena stood before me. I remember dozens of battles, in dozens of environments. I remind myself of my plan, and smile knowing that Number Two had lost the battle the moment he took my bait.
Henry stood in front of the massive gates of the Arena. He had slain many a foe inside of its walls, and thought about the glorious combat to come. His body ached in rage towards that snake of a woman! He would crush her and take his rightful place as Number One! The only reason she was Number One and he was not was an agreement they had made, that she would keep his daughter's power secret. He knew that he was lost, that he was obsessed with the Arena and that he would die in it some day, but he did not want to curse his daughter with the same fate. And yet that b*tch failed him! She convinced his daughter to fight for her, and now she would die! The doors opened, and he shouted his battlecry at the top of his lungs: "FOR LUCY!"
Inside the arena was a small town. It seemed about a kilometer on each side, with a rural town dominating the center of the field. In the very center of town was an old church, which sounded its bells. In each corner was a small patch of woods, perfect places to hide in. As the doors closed behind him, he began to teleport wildly, searching for the infernal woman. He teleported, and there- there she was! What was she doing, just standing on top of the steeple! Surely this was some sort of trick, it was in her nature to deceive. He waited for something to happen, but she did not move. To h*ll with this! If he did nothing, he would never figure out her power! He had to probe her. He teleported behind One, swung with his battlehammer, and- nothing. It passed through her body with no resistance, and she faded away. A hologram! He immediately teleported away. So that's her power- holograms! Still, it's remarkably similar to Number 4's illusions. But then again, it's not unheard of for two people to have the same power, and One seemed like she'd be much better that Four with them anyway. As he had anticipated, though, she did not have an offensive power. She may be able to deceive him, but all he had to do was make sure that none of the holograms got close, for she would have to do so to kill him! He stood up, a terrifying smile spreading across his face, ready to hunt down Number One.
Cont. in reply | 2014-12-18T13:33:39 | 2014-12-18T13:16:53 | 77 | 47 |
[WP] The angel of death has come to Earth to usher in the apocalypse. However, he arrived to Earth at Comic Con. And instead of panic, he's greeted with adoration as everyone there thinks his costume is bad ass and wants pictures with him. | "Zero casualties, sir."
"Impossible!"
"All warheads detonated, sir. Our hacked satellite confirmed it: major cities of the world have been hit, but all the people seen to be struggling out of the wreckage. See?"
The curved wall of monitors showed various smoking craters in various sites around the globe, though dusty, dirty figures could be seem struggling out. The situation room was nearly empty, this coup being successful only because of its small size.
"None?"
Thermal was engaged from a drone they had over LA. No cooling lumps of red turning blue but orange and yellow blobs bobbing around like motes in the sun.
"How the hell!"
.......
"Dude, those wings!" Said the one called James, as he marveled as the huge, dusty white feather. There were thousands of them, larger than any bird J had ever seen so that meant they were manufactured. But their owner ignored him as it stared intently at the cards in its hand.
A game!
A new game! And so many other new games! For centuries, no, for millennia it had been chess, some variant of Tarot games or, Goddamn it riddles. But this game, this Magic The Gathering, was really quite splendid.
As per The Old Ways one who met Death without fear was allowed to parlay and by sheer luck the first person who actually did asked if they wanted to sit down for a quick round of MTG. Being Death nobody needed to teach him the rules of anything, though that didn't mean he automatically mastered their tactics.
The people who won the various games Death tried that day would go on to live forever. After a few games He won a hand and the loser went off to die quietly in their hotel room. While a lot of the convention was disrupted by the air raid sirens, earth shaking explosions and evacuation, there were enough diehards who hung around and play games.
....
"Spanish Flu Strain 2 has become benign. What was thought to be mankind's most virulent malady, estimated to have a near 100% mortality rate has actually proven be little worse than a bad cold."
.....
"Catan!" Bellowed Death in a voice like razors across icicles.
"Sorry, man, I need my Brick." | Cue* I'm Coming Out by Samantha Jade
Deep voice man: coming soon...
"You're the angel of death? More like the angel of bad breath"
Deep Voice Man: a brand new comedy from Adam Sandler
Angel of Death(Adam): who's that?
Cue* Drew Barrymore dressed as Wonder Woman
Angel of Death: hubba hubba!
Deep voice man: Coming this fall....Loving Death
| 2018-08-06T19:57:23 | 2018-08-06T19:49:44 | 167 | 28 |
[WP] A recent scientific breakthrough has led to the halting of the ageing process. However, the world is soon horrified when the first people to reach 150 years old begin screaming. | It turns out there's a reason no one ever lived past 130. It was an innate flaw in our systems, claimed the scientists. Just something that shouldn't exist. An automatic kill switch type deal.
So they found a way to shut it off by shutting off our sense of timing at any age past 30. Once you turned 30, you got your clearance to go shut aging off and thus remove the trigger for the switch.
Oh, we thought we were so brilliant.
Unfortunately for us, man's reach and gaze both extend far beyond his caution. On the morning of the 150th year of their life, every human, no matter how healthy or happy, began to scream as if the very air they lived in burnt them.
This was the true defect, not in ourselves but in our atmosphere. As the nitrogen and oxygen combined in our bodies, on our skin, it left residue. A protective shield of fire that prevented further harm to the body. It fueled us, converting air into sustenance.
We were now effectively immortal and irreversibly insane.
Many, upon reaching their 140th birthdays began trying to kill themselves, but this proved futile, as the residue had been protecting them long ago. We never questioned why so few over 100 died from disaster. Their health usually took them out long before.
With aging stopped, we'd stopped procreating. The law prohibited it, to prevent overwhelming the earth. Every year we would analyze the deaths from the year prior and we would replace them equally. Those numbers grew fewer and fewer as technology advanced, resulting in an aging population, with a median age of 80.
We didn't think 150 would be a hard cut off.
Now the year is 2218. No children have been born in decades. Nobody thinks it's a good idea anymore. The world will simply be reduced to a burning rock of those in agony. We played God and smote ourselves.
Most of the last generation have elected to continue aging, so even thought they are all in their 40s-60s, they are younger than the rest of us, foolish, eternally youthful, who approach our old age in terror while they approach their deaths with dignity.
Oh, we shouldn't have kept the de-aging process but we were vain and trusted in our scientists who promised for so long that they were finding a cure. Now there are so few scientists left who haven't' reached 150. We know now that it is futile.
It is precisely 70 years before the last of the immortal generation reach 150 when the ship lands. A heavily protected being exits. Only a few greet him. Most of society has dissolved into chaos.
"Oh dear, dear, dear, my children!" His voice is troubled, pained. "Why did you not listen to me? Why did you have to take matters into your own hands!"
He talks and we listen. And what we learn, amusingly, stymies our remaining scientists who had long thrown out the concept of Intelligent Design. The idea that one being, however powerful, created our planet and us seemed foolish, even in the face of such an obvious kill switch built into our code.
We ask what we can do, if there's any hope.
The man regards us with pity, we can see it through his mask. Then he nods.
"Pick your strongest, pick your wisest, pick your most determined. Come with me. We have a long journey ahead of us if we want to save your people."
___
Read more stories at [r/TalesByOpheliaCyanide](https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesByOpheliaCyanide/) | She was nearly identical.
I remember meeting her on that cool Summer night in that small house-turned concert venue. Her hair was down to her waist and so bright. It darkened over the years, and grayed; just as I did. She remained beautiful for over a century after we met in that Bohemian ballroom of punk rock band posters and $5 tabs.
Just minutes ago, on her 150th birthday, she began convulsing. I was worried this was the end. We paid a lot of money for our procedures but we were some of the first for the injections, and people disappearing around this age weren't unheard of. I wrote it off as the pharmaceutical companies saving face after the immortality only prolonged life, but I wasn't going to complain. We lived happily and I was by her side and would follow her out.
She opened her mouth and I saw what looked like fingers coming out of her throat. Her screaming subsided when her jaw was dislodged. She was torn from her ear lobes to her collar bones like a flower opening for the sun.
The screaming returned but from deeper within her. The hands were clawing at her ribs and I saw her face gasping for air as the cocoon of bone finally gave. She rolled onto the floor, exhausted and filthy.
All she was missing was that flowing floral shirt and the clang of silver jewelry. And a shower. But she was the girl I met all those years ago.
We rented a carpet cleaner the next day and reminisced until dusk. She remembered everything. We chuckled about how we could never figure out why we were gaining so much weight lately and I patted my belly only to feel it pat back. | 2020-07-10T09:15:25 | 2020-07-10T09:14:21 | 76 | 22 |
[WP] Population is over 10 billion. Souls are finally depleted. In a hospital, you witness the birth of the first souless human. The room goes silent. | It's the eyes that stick with you. Amid the eerie silence of that delivery room all those years ago, those blank, purposeless eyes peer into my mind. Never had I seen a more beautiful pair of deep blue eyes.
A shame they would end up going to waste.
The Shell blinked and looked about the room as we all stood there stunned. Being a maternity ward nurse, I had seen this many times. But it was different with this one. With souled babies you could see a sense of curiosity, of their fresh minds already expanding and forming the basics of understanding. The Shell, however, wasn't looking from curiosity, but rather it had nothing else to do. The mechanics of simply existing were driving its observation rather than some inherent desire to understand.
It was in that moment that I first understood the true consequence of what was to come: the future would be very, very boring.
The peculiar baby left my hospital the next day and I never again had such first hand experience with their person. But being what they were, their life was bound to be well documented in the media. The Shell wouldn't be the first, but it would always be the most interesting, having won the race of the damned.
Before I knew it the baby had turned into a young child. But as they grew everything I saw and heard echoed what I had seen in those first few moments. Every interview, every newspaper article, and every soundbite always shared the same sentiment. 'This kid is *so boring.*' I kept waiting, hoping, that they might develop some kind of purpose, or that their beautiful eyes might be filled with something other than color.
But instead, I kept delivering more blank little humans. Green, brown, blue, and eyes of every color in between did they possess. But always empty; so terribly empty.
The Shell grew up further and the world began to feel the impact of our new reality. The novelty of a soulless human began to ware off, and that once famous baby began to fade into the wave of his kind that grew up around him. The world was filled with children who didn't care to be there. They existed and performed whatever was necessary to survive. But they never thrived. Gone were the days of building small wonders out of blocks. Absent were the colorful visions recorded in finger paint. The death of creativity had been pronounced with the birth of this new generation. The color of the world trapped in lifeless eyes.
Now, with those empty bodies being fully grown adults, my early realization has fully come to pass. The world is utterly filled with boredom. We live and work with people who don't much either for us or themselves. They're survivors, and that's it. They learn what they need, and nothing more. They're indifferent oil in the machine of life. They'll carry humanity forward physically, but much of what was once held as the best of us will some day be forgotten. Art, music, love - all will fade away in the indifferent hands of the Shell and his kind.
In spite of the dire future ahead, there is some cold comfort that I hold onto. Humanity can lose its soul, but it still refuses to be defeated. Maybe one day there will be more souls to be distributed; maybe Earth will experience some sort of grand revival; maybe we'll be able to see the colors of life once again. But until then, at least I'll know one thing for certain:
Humanity marches on.
 
___________________________
r/psalmsandstories for more tales by me, should you be interested. | My daughter wasn't considered a still born, but something wasn't right. She refused to breath, she refused to cry, she refused to eat, she refused everything. The calm blank stare was so un-nerving I simply couldn't handle it. My wife sobbed from confusion, the doctors debated and talked endlessly. She was alive, but was not functioning like a baby. We had named her before her birth and would coolly look at you when spoken to but the stare was heart wrenching. I decided enough was enough and treated her like my daughter, I made silly faces, I used baby talk, I emulated the countless dads on t.v. so i could be what she deserved. My wife on the other hand suffered from post-par tum was only compounded by the oddity that was Melissa. She checked herself into the hospital and refuses any visitation what so ever. I've been told she absolutely will not talk, not even to the shrink.
The thing was my daughter grew, she was like every other kid, but that blank stare never left her face. The jokes she told came off as meaningless and heartless, no inflection of tones. The zombie like walk from the lack of a care free compassionate kid was unnerving. On her 18th birthday she simply stood up, looked me in the eyes and for the first time I saw a smile her words were no longer mono-tone but had a inflection of happiness, almost wilting into somberness and says "Today is the day i begin what i was born for, to lead the masses into extinction." And with that she sauntered out the front door never to return. | 2020-03-09T11:14:13 | 2020-03-09T10:45:47 | 82 | 44 |
[WP]: The most sought woman in the town has announced that she will marry whoever can open her door with the key around her cats neck. Many have tried to catch, trap and hunt down the cat, who always escapes. You are the first to figure out they've all been doing this all wrong. | To say that this was something I expected to win would be like saying they found ice on the moon, I wouldn’t believe the person telling me even if they showed me proof.
Here I was, laying down on a grassy hill outside of town and wasting time away for the most part. I had money, I knew how to fight, and I was pretty satisfied with how far I came in life.
I wasn’t even particularly interested in this contest that had every other male- including some of the married men- in town fighting each other over this damn cat. I was just gonna lay back and enjoy the chaos, maybe even take a small nap.
At least that’s what I thought was gonna happen until I felt a brushing against my side, lifting my head up to look and was greeted with the sight of a small black cat rubbing against me before she climbed on my chest and curled into a ball.
I didn’t think much of it, but that was because I was too focused on the keys that dangled around her neck and jingled with her movements. I don’t know how I long was laying there and watching her as she rolled around my chest and stomach, but there was only one thing that went through my mind.
“You gotta be shitting me...”
I wasn’t gonna question this sudden turn of events, mostly because I know that cats do things with no particular reason and those that tried to actively hunt her would only make her scared and run away. If they were calm and patient, sooner or later they would come to you.
Did I want to get married? I wasn’t particularly planning it, but I knew the girl offering this since childhood and I got along with this little fur ball well. Oh well, let’s see what happens.
I carefully removed the keys before petting her on the head, lifting up the small feline and holding her in my arms while I walked into town.
“Shit...I’m gonna need a bigger house..”
Those were my worries as I snuck through the back alleys and side paths towards her house and unlocked the door, walking inside to see my friend.
“Well, guess who laid on my chest while I was— OOF!”
I was cut off by the feeling of someone running into my chest at full speeds, hugging me tightly. I was confused at first, but then it clicked the cat never really liked anyone in town besides....me.
“You wanted me to win...?”
She didn’t say anything, but she nodded her head quickly before she looked up to me with a slight pout.
“Of course, it’s the only way I could say it without having to write it down for you. If you noticed earlier I wouldn’t have to do this...”
Wait...she had feelings for me? How have I not noticed this until now...? Shit.
“....Whoops?” | No one had ever seen the cat to which the key was said to be attached. The cat, however, was reputed to be black in color and matched the sable-haired woman's own natural curls. The two, black cat and sable-haired woman, were literally inseparable and yet no one had seen even so much as a hair of the cat's, a few claimed barely to have seen its shadow. The woman would oft repeat to her wooers the promise: If you can ever catch the cat without me, she will surely be yours and then so will I. And yet this enigma was hard to resolve, for the cat was clearly exceedingly attached to her, and yet the woman took great pains never to have her cat exposed to the public. "If I keep my cat hidden it is precisely because I am so attached to it, so attached to it that it if ever somone were able to unlock the secret of obtaining its key then they would in that instant most willingly already have me," she said. | 2019-05-01T17:08:26 | 2019-05-01T16:16:29 | 51 | 20 |
[WP] "humans don't appear to be to advanced, they haven't even discovered intergalactic travel, should be a simple invasion." Said the alien cleaning his musket.
Edit: Seems someone has already written a piece perfect for this. Check it out, would highly recommend.
https://eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf
Edit 2: Thank you all so much for your stories! im going to read all of them :) | I want to start by saying we were never a hostile race. Just like the rest of the Committee we made contact with other beings for trade.
That all changed when my ship crashed on an uncontacted world. This place the natives called the new world. Primitive apes had not even colonized half their planet.
They had invented a devastating idea. War. No one in the Committee had ever thought of killing anyone they disagrees with. The idea was infectious.
As I waited pick up from this planet I spied on these humans with their fire sticks and watched as they killed hundreds of their fellow kind in a mere hour. After the dust cleared I ventured down and hot red goo flooded the field. I picked up a fire stick from fallen native. I had learned how to load their weapon from watching. I pulled the trigger and the might threw me back. What had these things invented. I had no time to worry as my ride had shown up.
I thought I might bring this stick home to warn the committee of such power and fear.
I had left my home planet in search of new energy. The committee had sanctioned us for trading with uncontacted planets. Hate for the committee was growing but what could we do, trade was all we knew.
Only 30 galactic years later my planet adopted these fire sticks. The leaders justified it as defense from invaders. There was never an invasion but we built the first military the committee had ever seen. We took the committee by surprise and the galaxy was ours.
We did all this so we could fuel our heater and vehicles. But the military was so large we needed more energy than the committee could ever hope to have produced.
It had to be done. Return to the place where it all started. Find the primative world and find their energy source. It had been only 30 years for me but the apes were like our insects. Short meaningless lives.
Our army branded these fire sticks we stole so long ago. Oddly these insects had finally colonized their world and even started to try and reach the far end of there solar system. We thought that these sticks were the end the greatest weapon we had ever seen. In short it was the only weapon.
We began to amass our war ships behind their moon. A small squad landed where I had crashed and began their scouting. All they reported was some new technologies but nothing we hadn't already evloved past.
We were ready we loaded up and the rest of the fleet entered orbit we knew we could out number these insects.
Out of no where ship after ship started falling.
Long flying fire sticks were coming in from everywhere. Ship after ship fell. Saftly from the mother ship I called the scouts to retreat. But the insects were waiting at their ship.
My brethren lined up and vollied one shot at the insects. Very sucessfully had taken 2 of the insects out. But what came over the communication next will haunt me for the rest of my life. The insects were able to shoot their fire sticks hundreds of times before the scouts could reload. None of them survived long enough for a second volly.
Now I sit in the mothership as the last General with my leader. The 2 of use where the last. Never had we lost a soilder in war. Now they were all gone. The insects stole our scouts ship and now they hunt the last of us. A war torn galaxy was for the insects taken. Noone could stop these insects who fight amount themselves. They plan to kill everything in a crossfire. | "Compared to AX-213? No, this is easy," the footsoldier relayed over the wavelength transmitter. Those pitiful beings weren't even at Stage 1 of the Rëitsig Scale of Development. It was the first in the AX galatic classification that bore such a terrible level of industrialization. One would think that the road was well paved, the instructions clear. To grow, to develop travel, to leave and learn from other colonies. It was such an obvious way forward, though the Xaxnar probably knew the best. Their leader had crafted success for many planets in the entire universe, so he knew the best way to develop a new planet. It was all in a handbook, *The Guide to the Galaxy*, a rather pompous title for an utterly boring story.
Even the footsoldiers had done up a couple of planets in their time. The build for it was easy. Develop the citizens, develop the buildings, develop the offence, then the defence. The rest was easy. Destroy any other planet or territory in the way. The aliens loved to do this; in fact, it was a fun pasttime to make planets and develop colonies, just for the main planet to destroy. It was funny, not just because the main planet benefitted, but because destruction and annihilation were tempting concepts to them.
The footsoldier smiled again, as he readied his invasion troops to a new place. Nothing of worth to invade here. Perhaps better resources and a stronger fight awaited somewhere else. Clash of Planets never got more fun that this.
______________________________
More over at r/Whale62! Sequels at popular request! | 2017-08-08T07:01:25 | 2017-08-08T05:28:12 | 34 | 16 |
[WP] There are many types of Mages in the world. Fire, Ice, Wind, Water, Death, Darkness, to name a few. But in this world, every type of mage is treated as equal. Everyone can be a good guy, no matter how dark your power. And anyone could be a bad guy, no matter how beautiful their ability...
Edit: Wow
I'm not even sure, this is not the prompt I expected to more than double my other highest, or get gold! Thank you so much! | "Thank you for coming," Bette said, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I know it's a lot to ask of you, but.."
Alex waved away the gesture. "I understand completely. If I was in your position, I'd do the same thing."
Inbetween the two mages lay a woman, sustained by a maze of tubes and IVs. Machines hissed as they struggled to keep her cancer-riddled body alive. Bette held her mother's hand, while Alex took the other.
"Mrs. Schumacher? My name is Alex," he said gently. "I'm a friend of Bette's. She told me about how you were suffering, and asked for my help." Mrs. Schumacher's eyelids fluttered slightly, but other than that, she did not stir. On the other side of the bed, Bette sniffled, but held on bravely.
"Mrs. Schumacher, we want to end your suffering. You made your wishes clear, so I am here to aid you on your journey to the afterlife." Alex pulled a large tome out of his backpack, and spread it across the hospital bed. Placing his hand over Bette's mother's forehead, he closed his eyes and began to chant.
Suddenly, it seemed like a shadow was cast over the room, and the temperature dropped a few degrees. The shadows cast by Alex's hand elongated and darkened as he reached the climax of the spell. Mrs. Schumacher gasped softly, her hand using its last ounces of strength to grasp her daughter's. Her head lolled back, and she let out her last breath with a rattle. The machines began their frenzied beeping, but a nurse unplugged them without a word.
The only sound that could be heard was Bette's quiet sniffling, the young woman still at her mother's side as she held her lifeless hands. Alex packed his tome away somberly.
"They welcomed her with open arms," he said quietly. "She's done being in pain."
"Thank you," whispered Bette. "I don't know if I can ever-"
Alex waved away her words. "If I ever need your help, I'll ask for it. In the meantime, be with your family."
Bette nodded, watching as the death mage exited the room. She wiped her eyes, took a deep breath, and squeezed her mother's hand one last time before standing up. However, her phone rang, and she pulled it out in irritation.
"I told you I wasn't coming in today," she said angrily.
"I know, but I wouldn't have called you if I had any other choice," her superior replied. "This is an all-hands-on-deck situation, Sergeant. The Light killed another person, and we need a dark-mage task force ASAP."
Bette's stomach dropped. "I'll be on my way," she managed. Sprinting out of the hospital, she spread her hands and began an incantation. Dark clouds of what looked like living smoke began pouring from her mouth and nostrils, and with a snap of her fingers, they cloaked her entire body. When they dissipated, Bette was gone. | The street conmen and their dark magic - the few that choose to specialise in things like shadows or eldritch included, as much as they think they're being clever - might give you the wrong no impression, but in the diamond trade, Dark Mages are more often than not the good guys protecting the jewel.
There's something to be said about the most subtle school, especially when it can completely obscure a target from prying eyes, or set up barriers of pitch darkness to confuse a trespasser.
That's not to say Light magicians are untrustworthy, or that the other elementals are never hired. Water is pretty popular, Fire has its charm, Air is always known for invisibility (though it's easy enough to detect) and of course people have buried things underground for millennia.
Hell, Light magicians are associated with the church for a reason. Priests are drawn to it like moths to a candle, and many sub-schools of Light involve rituals and prayer rather than incantations and alchemy.
But nonetheless, I feel Light is the school best-suited to less-legal pursuits.
Specifically, my school of Light magic, of which I am the only practitioner.
My name? Well, I'll not leave you with my reap name, but in the trade I'm known as Gary Glitter. Think on what my school might be while you rub the stars from your eyes. | 2016-11-12T10:29:07 | 2016-11-12T10:00:09 | 27 | 18 |
[WP] You are the city's premier supervillain, but you have a secret. The crimes you commit are not for gain, or to hurt people. You are always subtly testing and pushing 'your' heroes to excel, to be the best they can be. Then a villain with a reputation for murdering heroes shows up in town. | "Sir, we're under attack!"
"By who?! Who *dares* attack me in my own home!"
"It's... Doctor Whittaker?"
That was when the lab's primary blast door came crashing open, and I walked in, at the head of fifteen identical copper robots, the Tommies. Jason, my right-hand robot, towered over me, standing slightly back as he did. An evil super genius, it had only taken me three hours to find this place, much less bypass it's defenses and crash the front door. I normally wouldn't do such a thing. Such bold action was not my style, but... the situation had changed.
I had been the city's resident supervillain for fifteen years. This was my town, as much as the resident superheroes thought otherwise. We had clashed endlessly. I loved the game. I would pop up, cause some trouble, maybe rob a bank or two with my Tommy robots, the heroes would show up, they'd trounce me, I'd go to jail for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, break out, and do it all over again. Every time I'd have some new scheme or weapon, sometime to try and keep these heroes on their toes.
But that had changed when General Pyrox showed up. He was different. He was truly evil. He had come after me, specifically. I assumed he was another hero, and he "defeated" me. Crushed my army of Tommies, destroyed my lair, and left me to wallow in the ruins of my empire. Yada yada. The superheroes showed up and beat him, and let him escape, thinking he was on my level.
But then Pyrox broke the rules.
Alice Utonium had disappeared. She was a young girl, with a very loose definition of girl. The adorable little thing was little more than a brain and some organs inside a nuclear-powered, combat-ready metal shell. She was the city's favorite daughter. Then she was dropped off at the mayor's office completely stripped of her full-body prosthetic, her life support barely keeping her brain alive. Pyrox had left a note, too, so the whole city would know it was him. He wanted them to be afraid.
That's not how the game is played.
I could see Pyrox sneering down at me from his platform. He liked to be above everyone. He gestured and his own robots rushed in from the doors around the room. Big, ugly machines with claws and guns and spikes. Machines meant to kill. To terrify.
Pyrox puffed his chest at me.
"You! You dare come here?! After our last battle?!"
I glared back.
"Yes. I'm here because you've done something *very* bad. And you have to pay the consequences."
Pyrox smirked.
"You've lost it, old man. And you're about to lose a lot more. You should have just stayed buried."
"You're the one who's going to end up buried, Pyrox. Tommies, wreck this place."
"Don't threaten *me*, old man. You can't do anything. Don't you remember the last time? You'd need a thousand of those toys to defeat even one of my Excutioners!"
At my command, the Tommies began marching ahead. Pyrox's Executioners did the same. The Tommies weren't... complicated machines. In fact, they were little more than some steel plates and some clockwork, with some computerty bits to make them run. Not strong, or smart, or fast, but they could do almost anything I asked them to. I was slowly upgrading them over time, just to try and keep the city's heroes on their toes. They were just... a hobby of mine. Something for when I was bored. Jason, my right-hand machine, was what I made when I was serious. He could outrun cars, he could lift dump trucks, and he could leap tall buildings. He was more than a match for the Executioners, but... Things had changed.
The two robots clashed together near the middle of the room, metal meeting metal, and I could see the look on General Pyrox's face when my Tommy robot caught his Executioner's fist in mid-air. The normally half-lidded eyes of the Tommy spun, turning into a facsimile of a scowl. And the general's eyes went wide when the Tommy, maybe half the size of his opponent, punched through the chestplate to rip out the power core.
Jason was what I made when I was serious.
The Tommy-2s were what I made when I was *angry*. | Public safety must be the number one priority. For this reason, the military exists and for this reason the WPGSA, the Worldwide Public Guardian Superhuman Act exists. In order to protect the public from those that would cause harm, with the dawn of superhuman abilities society raised heroes to protect themselves. The only real problem was second or third-generation superhumans, at least in the eyes of a first-generation. Lacked the training needed to successfully combat powerful opponents. Heros of past generations such as Backhand, Dust, and Soulweaver, were far superior to the heroes of today. Simply because they had gone through a strict regiment, one that had slowly grown easier. And all the while those of evil intent watched and waited.
​
I had been a pseudo villain for a while, the name I hid under was Guillotine, nobody knew my power, my enhancement, other than one old freind. They assumed it was some power type ability, thus my ability to move far faster than the average human. They weren't completely wrong, but the excess speed and strength came from working out and the Exoskeleton I had strapped to my body. My real power, my real ability, was in my intelligence. From the age of about six, I was able to decipher how to disarm or defeat an opponent, simply by watching a total of roughly ten minutes of video of it in action. Give or take, every living and mechanical being works in a certain way and has specific weak points that cannot be overwritten, I somehow had an extremely innate sense of these weak points. And was able to exploit them, it was currently my self assigned mission to strengthen the heroes of my home city where they needed it most.
In all honesty, they were doing great they just weren't quite ready to face him. Optic, the direct opposite of one of the most powerful heroes of all time, a man from somewhere in the UK called Strobe, who had the ability to warp reality to his will. Optic had a similar, albeit more limited ability. Thankfully, like al villains. He loved being on camera, and even dangerous as he was. He still had weak points.
One, no matter how powerful. Cannot hear a bullet before it hits them if it is fired from far enough away, I've learned this over the years. Thankfully, Optic was no exception, his head was blown out from roughly a mile away in the middle of a drawn-out fight with the best of my students per se, Uranium.
My city is safe for now, I will continue to strengthen those here. Then move on to the next, for this is my duty. To ensure the safety of the people's lives, by the endangerment of my own. This is the oath I took to myself. And this is the way I shall live. | 2021-05-20T09:54:43 | 2021-05-20T08:29:34 | 46 | 27 |
[WP] A common fairy tale told from a perspective of another character that shows the usual protagonist in a slightly less than ideal light.
Edit: these area actually way more entertaining than the originals, I am really liking how long it takes me to figure out what the original story was. | Being a member of the town guard has it's ups and downs. Having to garrison a wall for hours at a time in the middle of winter has drawbacks that any man can see. There is little joy in settling petty squabbles between drunks and toothless, miserly farmers. I'd not admit it, but I've never had a taste for killing, even if most of the men that find my sword are bandits and highwaymen.
Alls said and done though, I can't complain too heartily. I get two coppers a week, which means me and my dear wife can eat well enough, and when the harvest is good there's enough left over for her to buy a bauble or a new frock when the merchants pass through town. Getting your wage in royal coin has its benefits as well. No one is fool enough to try to steal from me or mine and I get to live near the barracks, which are right in the good part of town abreast the church. Between you and me, I cannot deny that the misses is mad for how I look dressed up in the King's colours. Swear she wouldn't let me bother her without the uniform.
All the lads are decent enough as well. Except one. No one can say for sure how or why he was permitted to join the ranks, let alone given good men to command. Some of the lads say he is of distant relation to the king through marriage, but I could not say for certain. Hopeless doesn't begin to cover the depth of his ineptitude. The bloke can barely swing a sword. None a single suit of mail we have fits over him and he can't even ride! Believe me when I say that you do not want him guarding your rear.
Worst of all, when ever he's stationed on the wall -which is most always because the damned churl's waddling makes him wholly unfit for patrol duty- he insists on placing himself right on the edge! I can hardly look when I'm up there with him. Such insolence I've never seen in other men. Given that he is completely round, one can envision him taking a great fall with ease, and you can be bloody sure that the king will have us all trying to put him back together again for what ever the reason is that he holds such royal favour.
I hope that cursed Humpty Dumpty sees reason one day. | She and her father slaughtered our people to the point of extinction. I am the last of my kind left. I knew I had to keep the fight going, but being outnumbered as such I decided to take a stealthier approach. I took the weakest of her family and decided to don her outfit as a way to blend in. I have become a literal wolf in sheep's clothing. I can see the murderer walking the path through the window, still wearing the cloak soaked in the blood of my people. She is almost here, I must assume my position. I get ready just as she enters. "Grandma, what big teeth you have!" | 2016-12-14T16:06:21 | 2016-12-14T15:54:56 | 79 | 17 |
[WP] Your girlfriend's family has invited you and your family out for a barbecue. You're a dwarf, she's an Elf. | The family of dwarves stood at the bottom of the massive tree, their deepset eyes boring into the back of the skull of their third child, Blellin.
"I ain't goin' up thar," grunted one of the bearded dwarf parents. Blellin didn't know which one had spoken; dwarf parents tended to *homogenise* as they aged, swapping clothes and armour - and as their hair turned white and covered pretty much their entire faces, it became increasingly difficult to tell them apart.
"It's all right," Blellin assured them, "the Athelian family know we don't like heights, the barbecue is through on the other side of the tree."
Stumping around the tree with a jingle of chainmail and weaponry, the dwarves found themselves in a clearing that had been beautifully decorated with hanging vines, flowering blossoms, chairs woven out of living plants, carved tables laden with food - and filled with a host of elves who were dancing, playing music and singing in eerie soprano voices.
As the six dwarves approached, the elves fell silent and the tallest, most beautiful pair, glided forward to greet the Deeprock family.
"Welcome brothers and sisters of the earth," began the elven patriarch, "come sit and feast with us, let the weariness of the journey wash from your tired bones, sing if your heart desires it - and please take your boots off because it fucks up the lawn something shocking."
Grumbling, the dwarves divested themselves of their steel-shod boots; revealing well-darned socks of thick wool that steamed slightly after their long march from the mountains.
The elf matriarch wrinkled her nose delicately.
*"You didn't tell me they smell!"* she hissed to her daughter, standing to her left.
Callianreth shrugged helplessly, then ran over to Blellin, leaning down to wrap her beau in a delicate hug.
"Missed you *so much!*" she whispered.
The dwarf gave her a crushing hug,
"Same here love."
"I *do* hope our parents get along."
Blellin nodded nervously.
Cunning elven children danced about the shorter family, dusting them with blossoms; masking the smell of thousand-league socks with their heady scents. One of the dwarf parents sneezed.
"Shouldn't there be *seven* of you," one of the elf children giggled.
Callianreth overheard and turned paler than normal,
"Fenerell! Don't be a *racist!*"
She bowed to the dwarves,
"My apologies. Children can be terribly rude."
The taller of the dwarf parents grunted in reply,
"If it were mine, I'd take the flat of an axehead to his backside."
Aware of the rising tensions, Blellin pointed to the firepit smoking in the middle of the feasting area,
"Look, MEAT!"
Distracted, the dwarves hurried over.
The elf matriarch and patriarch introduced themselves as Althea and Alleron respectively and the dwarf parents bowed at the waist - no mean feat in all their armour - confirming their identities as Brellik and Dunrodd.
Glancing at her daughter, Althea whispered into her pointy ear,
*"Which one is the boy and which one is the girl?"*
"MOTHER!" the young elven woman shot back.
"Well we just want to know, so we don't make a mistake."
Callianreth sighed, throwing up her hands,
"You can't just *ask* that. It's a terrible faux pas!"
Alleron chimed in now,
"Why not? I mean, it's fucking impossible to tell under all that beard and metal junk."
Aware of the tensions rising, Brellik stepped forward, eschewing tradition for the sake of peace,
"I am the mother of Blellin. Dunrodd is my husband."
Relieved, the elves relaxed visibly,
"We didn't mean any offense, we just wanted to get pronouns right and such."
"Quite alright. We were having difficulty figuring out which one of you was the boy."
There was a tense three second silence, then the four parents erupted in laughter.
"C'mon, let's eat," Alleron declared, taking Dunrodd by the arm, "and you *must* tell me about your smithing techniques, I'm quite the elvensmith myself."
The two mothers wandered away to the gilded crystal decanters of elven wine, chatting animatedly about cooking for large families.
Looked to each other, the young couple squeezed hands and Blellin grinned through her beard,
"So when are you going to tell them you're gay?"
Callianreth suppressed a grin,
"Let's wait until Hogswatch. This is enough of a culture shock already." | Nerviously, I walked up to the reflecting pool. I hadn't talked to my family in a good while, not after I started dating Lyrexia. When I first brought her home, my father just sat there, idly polishing his pickaxe for hours. He's owned that pickaxe for thirty-five years, and never polished it once, but bring one Elf into the mines, and suddenly he's gotta act tough, show her she's not wanted.
I tugged a string attached to my belt, and the small burlap sack attached fell into my waiting palm. Pulling a pinch of silvery powder from it, I knelt down and began to start the ritual, sprinkling the dust into the reflecting pool and reciting the incantation. I sighed as I completed it. Maybe he wouldn't pick up. That'd be great.
"Aye, who goes there?" came the familiar voice of my father as his visage appeared in the water. "Nitlas, is that you?"
"Yeah, it's me," I bluntly replied.
"You haven't called in awhile, son. Is everything alright? Are you still with that Elf girl?"
"Yes, father, Lyrexia and I are still dating. That's why I called, actually."
He looked discontent. "You're not marrying her, are you?"
"No - maybe. Not yet. Why does it matter?" I yelled back. Not even a minute in and he's already doing this shit. I knew this was a waste of time.
"I know you're just doin' what you think is best, but the Ashsword family's been Dwarven for since the day it begun, son. There's tradition to think about," he said.
I crossed my arms. He always cared about was tradition, hell, it was the *only* thing he cared about. If it weren't for his damn tradition, my barding career might've taken off - but nooo, "an Ashsword lives by the pickaxe and dies by the pickaxe".
"I'm not having this conversation with you right now," I said. "Look. The Lightgale family is throwing a barbecue, and wanted me to invite you all. I just need to know if you're going to attend."
He laughed, though it was less of a laugh and more of an exhale. "What, you expect me to just take off a couple of weeks and travel to Eldaria? It's not like the World Tree's next door, son, that's quite the trip. Think about your mother, it's not fair of you to expect something like this out of her."
"You can say no," I started to interject, but he continued.
"I know you're very into this Lyrenia girl-"
"Lyrexia," I corrected.
"Lyralei girl, sure, but if you think it's alright to both sully our family name and bring us to one of those damn twig-"
Before he could finish, I tossed the bag into the pool into the pond, and his image faded away. Maybe he'll just die before I propose. | 2015-12-09T10:28:20 | 2015-12-09T09:52:54 | 23 | 15 |
[WP] Your human partner has become suddenly ill. However, you and your circle of mages know that human medicine is vastly different. You have been told to check the most confusing of human medicine texts, WebMD. | “What’s the matter with him?” I asked, frowning at our human partner, Caleb, who was in the process of retching all over the Wizard’s guild.
Ganthar shrugged, pulling on his long white beard. “He just fell over and started vomiting.”
“Oh, god. That’s disgusting,” Azarick said, starting to gag.
“Someone cast a wind spell!” Ozodus said. “Or we are all going to throw up.”
I slammed open a window. “There,” I said. “No spell needed.”
“What do we do?” asked Ozodus.
“He’s always on this strange device of his. Let’s see if it can help.” I grabbed it and held it up to the light, then said to it: “what causes vomiting in humans?” And the device flipped open to a page of medical advice. Perfect.
“Okay, I said a person named…. *webMD….* that means he is a doctor. This Doctor Web seems to be able to help us.”
“Oh good,” Ozodus said. “Exactly what we need. And what does Doctor Web say to do?”
“Well the good doctor says the most common cause of vomiting is pregnancy. Do you think Caleb is pregnant?” I ask.
“Hmmm,” said Azarick. “His skin has truly been glowing lately.”
“Are we going to be wizard uncles?” Ozodus said, clapping his hands in excitement.
“No, unfortunately, I think his skin glows from the greasy foods he eats,” I said.
“But he has gained quite a bit of weight.” Azarick said. “Especially around the middle.” He said, grabbing his waist.
“Again, it’s the terrible diet. I told him he should stop eating deep-fried whelplings… plus I’m like 85% sure human males can’t get pregnant.”
“That’s unfortunate. Well then what else does the doctor say?”
“The doctor says it could be stress, such as fear.”
“Well, that could make sense.” Ozodus said. “We did just fight that fire dragon and Caleb had to hide in a treasure chest so he wouldn’t be engulfed in flames. That seems stressful.”
I wave them off. “That wasn’t his first dragon fight. He’s done it many times and he didn’t seem phased by it one bit. No that can’t be it.”
I scan the list. “Gallbladder disease… Gasteoparesis… Bowel Obstruction…” I said, running down the list.
“This Doctor Web is confusing!” Ozodus said.
“…brain tumor…” I said.
“*Ohhh,* he has been acting strange!” Azarick said. “I’ve always thought his brain was a little messed up. I bet this brain tumor is exactly what he has. What does Doctor Web say we do?”
“Hmmm,” I said, skimming through the confusing jumble of words. “Here. Here I got it. It says we must cut open his head and remove the tumor.”
“Wow.” Azarick said. “That sounds barbaric.”
“Humans…” Ozodus said.
“Maybe we could do a spell of healing? I know Caleb doesn’t like us casting spells on him. But would he really like us to cut his head open?”
“I think it’s the only way." I said. "Ozodus, grab the wood saw.”
“Will do.”
I picked up Caleb, who is still breathing hard from vomiting and set him in a chair. As I press the saw up to his temple, he opens his eyes in shock.
“Wait,” he screamed. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m sorry to tell you, Caleb. But you have a brain tumor and we must remove it immediately. Just sit back. This is going to hurt. Quite a lot.”
“*Wait. Wait. Wait.* What? A brain tumor. I don’t have a brain tumor. I just got sick from eating too many deep-fried whelps.”
I stared at him suspiciously then look at Doctor Web’s list. “Ah, yes. Overeating. I see now. Well… you really need to go on a diet, Caleb. You almost got your head cut off from stuffing your face with those disgusting, greasy whelps.”
He looked at me and I could see the conversation about the greasy whelps set him over the edge, and he fell to floor, vomiting again.
"Open another window!" shouted Ozodus.
\---
r/CataclysmicRhythmic | "Sir, you're going to want to sit down for this." The apprentice mage set your tablet down in front of the archmage, electrical components popping and failing as it neared his powerful aura. "Diamond dogs, Jima! That's the third tablet this week. I told you to print it off!"
"Right!" Jima said, going into the other room and cursing for several minutes about ink cartridges before returning.
"It's bad," he said handing the stack over.
"I was hoping it was just allergies," the archmage said, looking over the likely conditions the internet doctor had diagnosed his wife with. "Seven kinds of cancer?" He said, unbelieving.
"It's eleven, sir. The pages are front and back."
WebMD diagnosis of all types of cancer in mid-life:
You are a likely candidate for a webMD diagnosis of all types of cancer. The likelihood of this type of diagnosis is remarkably high…
"When did she get this?"
"I don't know sir, I wasn't here. I caught the call this morning and got the results before I left the house."
"She's in the hospital," Jima said, returning and handing him another stack. "She's waiting at the emergency room right now but they don't seem very quick to help her."
"Damn it!" The archmage cried. "Tell her we're on our way."
"Send her a text." The archmage was reading over the webMD diagnosis again. "How do they not know about this?"
"No, you're not a... " he realizes the pages after no longer pertained to his wife, but each member of his order. He went over his own symptoms in his head and realized he had cancer, too. "It's all of us, we all have all the cancer. I knew my magic affected technology, I must be a miasma making all those around me deathly ill." He looked down at the page.
WebMD is located at 12 Hatian place, City of London and is the most expensive medical website in the world. WebMD has a full medical database for all physical and mental conditions, no matter how rare. Individuals with multiple webMD diagnosis may be coincidentally diagnosed with the same conditions in only rare cases. WebMD will never provide advice or information or clickable ads, it simply provides free information regarding current symptoms, possible diagnosis and recommended websites for medical questions.
"I feel faint," the archmage said, his knees going weak as he stood. He fell to the floor. "Jima. Prepare the portal. I must go to London."
\---
Thanks for reading.
If you liked this, check out /r/surinical to see more of my prompt responses and other writing. | 2021-03-29T08:44:49 | 2021-03-29T08:06:52 | 64 | 29 |
[WP] People thought that the dragon was hoarding all the riches he'd stolen over the centuries. In reality, ancient humans actually paid him all that gold to defend the valley from a greater threat. Fed up with their constant attempts on his life, he finally leaves the humans to fend for themselves. | Fenthar roared as the sword cut through the scales of his leg. He lashed out with the claw on the edge of his wing, cutting the knight's head clean off.
Rearing up, he spread his wings, bearing his teeth for the remaining adventurers to see.
The archer and the wizard, the only two remaining alive, looked up at Fenthar, the magnificent red dragon. He was the last thing they saw.
Fenthar let out a breath of fire, turning everything in front of him to molten slag. The wizard held out for a few seconds with some kind of spell, but she eventually succumbed to the flame as they always do.
Fenthar looked around, catching his breath. He frowned at what he saw, losing hope again. More dead adventurers pointlessly killed trying to steal his hoard.
They didn't see it that way, he knew. They thought he had stolen it from the peaceful village over the years. If only they knew the truth. The village had given him the gold. It was payment to protect them from a greater threat. An evil so terrible that they had to rely on a fearsome red dragon to hold it at bay.
But Fenthar tired. How could he protect them if he was forced to kill those he was protecting?
As Fenthar sat back on his nest of gold, he heard quiet shout.
"Ho, great beast. We are here to avenge our fathers and mothers. Today you will die." the voice said, high pitched and nervous.
Looking over at the cave entrance, Fenthar saw six figures standing, defiant. All children, boys and girls. The oldest couldn't be more than fourteen. The youngest, he did not want to think about it.
Fenthar sighed as they charged into his cave. He had had enough. He would not kill children.
"I have protected you for hundreds of years. I will protect you no more," he roared.
With that, he lunged past the charging children and out through the enormous entrance to his cave. He took to the sky and never looked back.
----
Sira watched the dragon go.
"We scared it off," she said.
"We did it!" Kenn, the oldest boy said, waving his sword in celebration. "Let's go tell the village."
They all raced down to the village to tell everyone.
Before they even got back, Sira saw people running toward them. The villagers had probably seen the dragon flee and were coming to congratulate them.
But the people rushed past without even acknowledging the victorious children. The people were heading to the cave, carrying buckets and pushing carts.
Sira and the others stopped and looked. Already fights had broken out. People tried to get ahead of each other, people trampled each other without slowing down.
"What is going on?" Sira's little brother Temo asked, peeking out from under his father's helmet.
Sira shook her head. "I... I don't know. We've had peace for hundreds of years. The dragon is finally gone and this is how people act?"
Sira started walking back toward the dragon's cave. Aside from Kenn, who rushed ahead with the other villagers, the other children followed.
What Sira saw when she got to the cave terrified her more than any dragon.
Carts were burning, people lay bleeding on the charred ground. Everyone was fighting.
Sira saw a large rock slab on the ground, visible now that piles of gold had been cleared away. Sira rubbed dust and ash off of the slab and read it out loud.
"We give these gifts to the great dragon," she read, Temo coming up beside her to look. "May he protect us always from the threat of"
Temo looked at Sira. "The threat of what?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said. "It's burned off after that."
Temo looked up at his sister with his big, brown eyes. "The dragon was protecting us? Protecting us from something scarier?"
"Yes," Sira said, giving her brother a big hug. "It looks that way."
Sira looked around. "Perhaps," she said. "Perhaps what it was protecting us from was greed. From selfishness. When we were all focused on the dragon, everyone cooperated, everyone shared everything. The dragon was protecting us from ourselves."
The ground rumbled like an earthquake. Sira covered her ears as a deafening roar filled the cavern. The entire cave went dark as something blocked out the whole entrance.
Temo turned around to face the entrance and his eyes went wide with terror. "Or," he said, pointing. "Maybe the dragon was protecting us from that." | As far as bad days go, King Liam could not think of one that beat the horrible day he was having so far. His breakfast was a greasy sloppy mess, his whore of a wife aggravated him to no end, and of course, who could forget the fact that he was face to face with a mighty red dragon.
"Foolish king," the great beast known as Graalthax said in a deep voice which shook the very foundation of Castle Everlast, "your many attempts on my life, no matter how pitiful, displeasure me to no end."
"Therefor I shall give you exactly what you wish. I will simply leave this lush valley and be on my way, you don't have to worry about me anymore, nor I you." With that final statement the dragon flapped its mighty wings and in just a minute or two the larger than life lizard was nothing more than a speck in the sky heading for the northern mountains.
Unable to comprehend exactly what just happened, Liam collapsed on the balcony he was resting on, his aged knees giving out. The door to the balcony burst open and a young man dressed in the standard guard mail and tabard rushed out crossbow in hand.
"My king, the foul dragon is about, please, come with me!" the young man, Anthony, shouted as he ran to pick up his fallen king.
"The dragon is gone." Liam delivered the line with such deadpan finality that there was little arguing his true meaning. Anthony released his king and looked at him with a sincerity made piercing by the young man's ice blue eyes. "My king, what do you mean gone?"
The two leaned against the stone railing of the balcony as Liam recounted his brief tale, and by the end of it young Anthony was nearly as shocked as his king was. Both sat in silence for a few pregnant minutes before another interruption shattered the provocative silence the pair shared.
"Captain Anthony! Messenger from Observation Tower J here to deliver an urgent report!" Anthony turned from his spot on the balcony to regard the boy who was dripping with sweat and motioned that he would hear the message. "Smoke rises from the westerly village of Dera, the assumed culprit is the deadly Graalthax. Sergeant Davis would like permission to gather a force and ride out to drive the monstrosity off."
The blood drained out of Liam's face as he grabbed the small boy by the shoulders and said, "There's no way that the dragon could be there now, it flew off to the northern mountains not half an hour ago." Anthony mirrored his king's expression and, with dread in his voice, squeaked out "Then what manner of beast is that in the sky to the west, my king?" | 2019-01-15T05:35:23 | 2019-01-15T04:20:21 | 55 | 11 |
[WP] Take a cliche you hate and write a story about it. Make the cliche itself as satirically bad as possible | It was a normal Saturday night. I was watching television on my own and as usual there was nothing good on. Don't get me wrong I quite enjoy my alone time on at the weekends, I find time away from people does me good. That's why I live in middle of the countryside. Here, at least I can get some peace and quiet. Tonight, however something was off. I couldn't quite figure out what it was, I thought "maybe I've had one too many beers?". I shrugged it off and went to get another one. As I walked to kitchen I still couldn't shrug the feeling that something wasn't quite right, everything was just somehow different. Anyway after I got my beer and sat back down I heard my phone ring, " who the fuck could that be?" I said out loud to myself. This was especially odd as I don't have any friends, largely due to the fact that I'm a monumental bore. I picked up the phone but all I heard was static coming from the other end, so I hung up.
After an hour had passed, I still couldn't stop thinking about that phone call. Who was it? do I need to get a new phone? can phones break? how do I call someone to fix my phone if my phone is broken? There was deep thud that sounded like it was coming from upstairs. "Huh, must be the cat", I thought and then I remembered that I didn't own a cat, nor have I ever owned one. Why would I think that I did? That was by far one of the most idiotic thoughts I have ever had, I mean really no wonder I spend my Saturday nights drinking alone. Personally, I don't even really like spending time with myself. Then the phone rang again, I answered it immediately:
"Hello?" I said, "You'll have to speak up I think my phone's broken"
A raspy voice replied "it's not broken"
"yes it is" I said
the voice replied "no it isn't"
"Then why does everything sound like that if it isn't?"
"W-what do you mean?" said the voice in a slightly confused yet still raspy tone
"nevermind what do you want?"
"Come upstairs" the voice replied
I immediately hung up the phone and left the house. I mean why on Earth would I stay? There was obviously a home invader in my home and no good ever comes of that scenario. I went to the police station and reported the incident. The police were really quite accommodating and pleasant to deal with and they sent out an armed unit to investigate my house. One officer was very nice and started handing out doughnuts to everyone, he said in a pleasant tone " one for you, one for you and one you!" and he even gave one to me too "Thanks" I said. Anyway after we had gone through some paper work I was free to go.
I booked myself into a reputable hotel for the night after I left the police station and had a rather pleasant sleep with a nice lie in. Oh and they caught the guy that broke into my house the next day. Turns out he was an escaped mental patient and my phone line was a bit damaged which is why it sounded like that. Well wasn't that exciting ? | Should I report him? Should I not? I saw the cheat sheet our teacher gave us in his pocket. But he was my best friend...I really didn't want to report him! But morals!
"Sir, I found this piece of paper on the floor," he said smoothly to the teacher in the front. Good, he reported himself...wait what? 'Found it on the floor'? Wasn't he cheating-
"Where did you find it?" the teacher asked, rather sternly. *Here's where his lie gets exposed...* I thought. And he pointed directly at the area next to his seat. *Good, he's confessing*, I smiled as I silently congratulated myself. Wait...if I was sitting right next to him, then he was pointing at...
"Elrick?" the teacher stormed up to me and ordered me to show him the contents of my pockets. Sheepishly, I showed the cheat sheets and answers I'd intended to copy. As I shot a murderous look at my friend, he shrugged and looked at me apologetically. "I'm sorry," he mouthed. What kind of friend was he, to report the person he claimed to care about? Hypocritical bastard.
On a side note, why do scapegoats never work?
______________________________
More over at r/Whale62! Sequels at popular request! | 2017-07-27T08:08:53 | 2017-07-27T05:47:44 | 55 | 21 |
[WP] you fell asleep in a classroom, you dreamt of a whole life you even died at 80, your teacher just woke you up and no one believes how you understand so much at 6 years old | The mountain stood motionless, majestic in its immensity, meditative in its stillness.
The legion swarming over the mountain, however, was none of these things. Having been sent on this horrifying death charge by a cabal of Drek politicians hoping desperately to buy time for backlogged logistical shipping companies to mail their valuables off-world, they charged with the enthusiasm of the scrawny kid in gym class who knows he has to run, but really doesn't see the point.
In jagged chaotic lines they advanced, each trying to run just a little bit slower than the soldier next to them in hopes that the Drek cabal would have a sudden change of heart and call the whole nasty business off.
When the charge became inevitable, failing to receive the phone call to retreat from the cabal, who at this point were bemoaning the indignity of being forced to travel coach on the last outbound ships, Vane looked around at his troops, then toward the human outpost bristling with enough cannons to host a pretty decent new years firework show, then back to his troops. There had been stories that the top Drek neuromancers had been working on a secret strategy, a final hail-mary to infiltrate the humans and destroy them from within, but seemingly that hadn't panned out and they were also fighting for flights in coach off world.
"Well lads, for king and planet I suppose," Vane said as he buckled his helmet on.
"I'm feeling a bit ill Captain, I think I might need to sit this one out," a young Drek infantryman said.
"Yeah, I think I got a stomach bug or something," his companion said as he rubbed his head for emphasis and a sudden epidemic of the stomach bug infected the whole troop.
"Now lads, now lads! I know this isn't what you want or expected, but if you think real hard, I think you'll find that this really just isn't what you expected that you'd want!"
The infantrymen looked back at him, confusion in their purple eyes.
"Think of the honor! The songs they'll sing! The heroes who braved certain death to protect the people they love!" A nearby infantryman spontaneously transformed into a cloud of mist for no reason as a nearby shell spontaneously acted on a lifelong urge to set up a cozy hillside home where the infantryman once stood.
"No," the Drek subordinate rubbing his head looked around sheepishly, "I think I like the sick idea."
Vane sighed, then, raising his arm to the sky, led the charge into the fray. Two steps in, he was rudely interrupted by yet another shell with a sudden intense desire to homestead the mountain.
"There must be a better way..." Vane thought as he died.
---
"Vane? Vane! Wake up Vane!" Mrs. Spetolli slapped the desk with a ruler and the students laughed as Vane's body jerked up and his eyes looked blearily around the class.
"As I was saying," Mrs. Spetolli resumed her armed patrol of the classroom, a small bailiff in a small dungeon, "Drek government is a..."
"Absolute oligarchic monarchy," Vane said sleepily.
"Correct," Mrs. Spetolli gave Vane, who had never shown any aptitude before, a strange look.
"And the Drek system consists of..." She trailed off, pacing around the room.
"Seven planets and fourteen lunar colonies," Drek recited, "the grand capital Anantes, and the seven planetary capitals, Voltes, Riges, Alt..."
He trailed off, looking at Mrs. Spetolli, who was looking at him with the intensity one usually reserves for food or crossword puzzles.
"Altes, Denee, Sires, Portuna, and Klendathu." A small girl finished for him.
Mrs. Spetolli gave a harumph and continued her walk around the classroom. Vane turned toward the girl who gave him a wink. A cat-eyed [wink](https://www.reddit.com/r/JackTheRitter/) with purple eyes. Vane smiled to himself. | {I felt like this was a WP for a “redo” at life or to change a day, I can’t remember when I was 6 but I did have a mean math teacher. Events in the WP are changed to protect the innocent and guilty!}
“Annabelle, Annabelle, Annabelle!”
I wake up in my 8th grade geography class my teacher Mr. Jenkins shaking me awake.
“Sleeping Again Annabelle! Can you give me the answer on the board!”
I remember this day, Mr. Jenkins embarrassed me because I didn’t know what the capital of Mississippi... He made a remark that stuck with me for the rest of my life (“Dumb black girl doesn’t even know the capital of where she’s from!”…. but he didn’t use black girl.)
“Jackson .” I reply the class was silent they didn’t know the right answer, Mr. Jenkins was just a boring Geography teacher who liked to pick on black kids.
“Oooo I see someone is smart today! Or maybe one of your little black friends gave you the answer!”
He then begin’s drilling me with Geography questions, I answer them all correct, he couldn’t possibly know that I studied my ass off at Southern University majoring in geography so that I could come back and rub it in his face! Which I did! His response was (Your still a dumb black girl, you will always be a dummy!)
“Stupid Crackerjack!” I said under my breath
A hush silence comes over the class.
Mr. Jenkins looked at me, “Excuse me?”
So I say loudly
“You’re wife is going to leave you because your just a geography teacher and that’s all you’ll ever be!
(Dam it! To far Annabelle! That’s always been your problem you go to dam far!)
Tears were in Mr. Jenkins eyes, he knew that I knew, he could see the truth in my eyes! I had finally hurt him! It felt horrible….
He ran out the class to try and save his marriage.
I get a second chance at life and I already fudged it up! My mama was going to beat the black off me. | 2020-05-12T04:01:02 | 2020-05-12T03:49:33 | 37 | 12 |
[WP] A new rule on Earth is made which allows everyone to legally kill 1 person in their life, this affects the world severely & changes how everybody acts. | "Please, don't kill me."
The words stuck in my head, playing over and over like a broken record.
"Please, don't kill me."
I shook my head and glanced out the window at the empty street, a dreary cloud still enveloping the city. The rain never came, but the cloud never went away. This city was once a happy, vibrant place. People hung out with each other, laughed, actually *lived*. Now, things were different. No one wanted to interact anymore. On the rare occasion you did pass by someone, you were on high alert. You would usually turn and walk the other way. Me? I walked right past them and looked them in the eye. You could see it all in the eyes. That was how you could tell if someone had received The Letter.
The ones who hadn't still had their soul intact. You could see the light in their eyes, like looking at sunshine through a window. They were still people, still whole. The ones who had, they were dead in the eyes. It was like looking into a brick wall. They were blank, devoid of feeling, the invisible burden weighing them down. They weren't really human anymore. But I felt relief whenever I saw them. Because it meant I was safe. The others, they were unpredictable. You didn't know when they'd do it, or who'd they do it to, or if it'd be you.
Since the beginning of civilization man has debated the legality of killing. Executions, the death penalty, over time people didn't think these methods were humane. They were outlawed, and the senators and governors and prison officials could finally go home and sleep soundly, knowing there was no blood on their hands. With the Fall Of D.C., however, went all the laws and regulations that had been painstakingly drafted and re-drafted throughout the centuries. And the first law, the big law, the new first amendment that was put into place was the Statue of Extermination. It worked like this: every citizen would receive a Letter during their lifetime. It could be tomorrow, it could be twenty years from now. But every Letter was the same: you had six weeks to kill someone, otherwise you'd be taken in for "rehabilitation". Aka kill or be killed. The official reason behind this was something like "testing the resolve of those who truly value life". But you know what I think? That those who wanted to see the world burn now had the power to dump over the gas and strike a match.
Everyone panicked and locked themselves inside. I didn't. I refused to let a bunch of fucking psychos determine how I'd live my life. So I went out, everyday, and walked. I wasn't afraid, even on the rare occasion when I passed by someone. Did they make me nervous? Sure. Uneasy? Of course. But scared? I was more scared of being confined to paranoia for the rest of my life, and I was willing to sacrifice it so I could live how I wanted.
Until I got The Letter.
In that one second my world stopped. I read it over, and over, and over, and over, as if expecting to find something that said "Haha! Just kidding!" But this wasn't a joke.
"Dear Reader,
You have been selected to exercise the Statue of Extermination. Failure to complete this requirement in six weeks (forty-two days upon receiving this letter) will result in your enrollment in one of our government sanctioned rehabilitation programs. If/when you complete this, please contact the number below and report the name/location of the individual whom you have selected for this task.
Best of Luck"
It wasn't signed at the bottom, just "Best of Luck". I ran to the bathroom and puked. I never considered what would actually happen when I got my letter. In my mind I was going to defy the government and run off, or some heroic bullshit. But now, with the reality of my situation thrust right in front of my face, I had a very different feeling. For the first time since everything happened, I felt true terror. The feeling in my stomach of pure dread didn't ease up, and I went and poured myself a drink. And another. And another. I sat down, head in my lap, and sobbed.
I waited, patiently. Everyday I went out, walked around all over town for hours on end. Finally, after the third day, I saw a man carrying a backpack. I walked briskly over and flashed a smile. "Hello, sir," I greeted him. He gave me a funny look. "Hello," he said, eying me up and down.
"It's been a while since I've talked to someone, you know," I said.
"Listen, buddy, can I help you with something?"
I looked at the man, tears streaming in my eyes.
"I just..."
"Hey, what's the matter?"
Hand trembling, I pulled out my gun. "I-I-"
A look of sheer terror creeped into the man's face. "Listen, don't kill me. Please don't kill me."
I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger.
In that moment I realized the Statue's purpose. It wasn't created to determine who among us had the resolve to live. It was to break us. Those who didn't comply died, and those who did ceased to live.
May God have mercy on my soul.
| The market was sodden. For decades now, the world had been unified – a change that was both confusing and exciting. But for a cop, it mostly made everything more difficult.
*You just have to wonder,* Jacobs thought to himself, *what makes these people tick.* Stubbing out the butt of his cigarette he removed his feet from his chair and slid off the edge of his desk, neatly landing his brogues on to the floor. He moved toward the exit of his office and pulled his trench coat from the rack.
In the last several years, the UTC (Unified Terran Council) had passed the Nemesis Act of 2083. The act states that “[] any one person may, if they deem it utterly necessary and see no other form of resolution, take the life of one other whom they consider it unavoidable to do so. This measure may only be taken once in any individual's lifetime.” Of course, this came with its own rules and stipulations; but the takeaway is that once in your lifetime you are – legally – allowed to murder another human being with virtually no questions asked. DNA taken, name ticked off the list, and sent on your merry way.
*Just another way to lower the spiralling population…* Jacobs had thought to himself, as he closed the frosted glass door behind him and sparked up his next lungful of burning cancer. Stuffing his hands into his pockets and taking in the chill of the winter air, he started down the street.
When the Act first began to be widely accepted, it was fairly simple to control. Mostly broken lovers and angry parents, removing those who had hurt them or their loved ones from society. Most had taken to the solution in a surprisingly positive light. Of course this kind of overarching ruling will always open avenues for those who would bend and shape the law for their own means.
For the last two years, the black-market killings had skyrocketed. A simple, almost legal assassination program. It was mostly university alumni. Post-grads who needed to pay off their loans – an increasingly important act for anybody who would like to own their own property someday.
*But the real issue is that everybody is desperate for money. And eventually, everybody will do what is necessary to survive, or live to their acceptable comfort.* Flashing his badge and sliding under the yellow tape, Jacobs made his way to the saloon door.
“I hope they’ve got some whisky in there…” He muttered as he swung open the door, seeing the body of a man he knew as Senator Lewis. Championed as a man of truth and justice, the Senator had many enemies in the criminal underworld. His controversial *Reversal* bill saw to remove the Nemesis Act from circulation and return murder to the highest level of crime – citing the bill as barbaric and medieval.
“Clear case,” said one of the officers, “Nemesis killing. Lady says he assaulted her. Had the balls to show up in her place of work.” He tapped away on his data slate, copying the statement given. Jacobs looked up across the bar, to see a girl no older than 18. Tear-swept mascara down her glowing cheeks.
“Clear case.” He repeated, moving around the body and toward the bar. Her expression was stunned – staring straight ahead with no recognition of Jacobs. He leant over the bar, grabbing a glass and the free-standing bottle of Laphroaig from the counter. Slumping into the stool next to her he poured the smokey single malt, eyeing it up like a predator. “So, he touch you?” He sighed, knocking back the glass before pouring more.
She stared at the body. Not blinking.
“Yeah… I… He hurt me.” | 2017-12-03T10:56:59 | 2017-12-03T10:33:45 | 31 | 11 |
[WP] You are part of the league, the superheroes who save the world, yet you never go on missions. You are only called for one thing only. Total annihilation, for when they don't want survivors. | Ani reached for the bowl of cheese puffs teetering on the edge of the couch with her right hand, holding the game controller in her left. Her thumb rapidly tapped one of the controller buttons as she stretched out her fingers to grasp the bowl. One last reach and... the bowl fell over onto the floor.
Ani reached down to grab the upside-down bowl when the speakers in front of the monitor exploded in a hail of gunfire. The monitor turned red as Ani watched her character take round after round of bullets. Slowly, the gunfire stopped and the game ended.
"Damnit!" She slammed down the controller and reached over to gather the cheese puffs back into the bowl. "Third time this week!" She grabbed the bowl and sat back into the couch, cradling the snacks in her lap. Reaching for the remote, she turned on television to a news break.
"...has resulted in a nearly complete destruction of the inhabitants of the Markham colony. The Intergalactic Super League arrived several hours ago and attempted to stop the advance of the Meldrathians but the losses appear to be overwhelming." Ani tossed a cheese puff high in the air, watched it fall and moved her head around to just the right point to catch the puff in the right eye.
As she was about to take another chance, the door to the den opened. Ani rose from the couch and turned to see the other members of the ILS dragging themselves into the room.
The first one in was a woman in blue and gray spandex with a bright white cape. She limped into the kitchen, opened up the refrigerator. She stared inside for more than a minute, moving items around.
"Who the hell drank all the beer? Ani??" She shouted, looking up from the fridge at her. Ani glanced at the several empty beer bottles on the table next to the couch. A sheepish grin crossed her face.
Two others, both holding each other up, limped their way over to the couch and landed with audible groans and thuds. Both were wearing colored outfits, though without capes. One, a muscle-bound male in black and red stripes, was already asleep. The other, a green-skinned being with long yellow hair, looked up at the TV. They motioned Ani to the controller.
"Turn that off, would ya? We just got finished there." Their arm slumped back onto the couch and they sank into the cushions with a long sigh.
"Sure thing, Galaxis!" Ani fumbled with the remote, pressing buttons clumsily until the screen went blank.
She turned to the kitchen "I'm sorry, Prime. I got bored here and started playing Call of Major Warfare and, well, got thirsty."
Sentinel Prime reached deep into the fridge and emerged with one brown bottle. She held the neck of the bottle and, using her thumb, flipped the bottle cap off and into the air. She drank deep, walked to the nearby kitchen table, and sat down.
"You're lucky I found this," Prime said holding up the bottle. She took another deep drink. Putting the bottle on the kitchen table, she motioned Ani over.
"Anyway, you're up now. Go get dressed. The ship is getting re-fueled now."
Ani walked over to the table, eyes wide open. "What do you mean, I'm up?" She sat down next to Prime, a furrow crossed her brow.
Prime stared at her beer. "We got the last of the survivors from that colony out and back to the Planetary Relocation Center on Europa. Only a few thousand. But those damn Melds have got to go." She put the bottle to her lips and took a sip.
Ani leaned closer to Prime. "You told me that we were still training my power, to control it. What if I can't..."
Prime turned, staring hard at Ani. Rage burned in her eyes as she gritted her teeth. "I saw what they did to those colonists. They weren't people to them. They were... cattle. To them, they were just... made of meat. And if you don't stop them now, our planet will be next."
She set the beer down and turned square to Ani, reaching out to grab the teen's shoulders. "This is why we've kept you from the fights. We know you can't control your powers. But now is when we need you the most. You are Annihilation. No one knows of you for a reason. You are the ultimate deterrent. It's time to unveil you. Now go suit up, I'm going to finish this and come with you."
Ani rose from the table and paused. "What... what if I can't control what happens?"
A sneer crossed Prime's face. She looked up into Ani's eyes. "I'm counting on that." | I sleep, in my casket of iron, awaiting the day that I am needed.
It has been like this for some time. How long, I do not know. But it doesn’t bother me, the cold and the dark and the loneliness. It suits me just fine. I remember the day when they first accepted me, however. Their “League of Justice and Protection.” I had been sleeping somewhere else, not unlike my current place; somewhere cold and dark and lonely. Until one day they found me. I didn’t need much convincing to join them; as a matter of fact, they merely just eased me out of the hole I was asleep in, placed me into a box of metal, and carried me off. I did not protest, for as far as I was concerned it was just a move into a different resting spot, and I was fine with that.
While they were carrying me, I heard voices. I didn’t understand what they were saying, nor did I care to know, but they sounded hurried. Excited. It’s been quite some time since I last heard voices.
But today that changed. I heard some sounds, footsteps, coming towards me and where I slept. There were new voices this time, but instead of them sounding excited it was much different. Solemn, somber.
I felt myself be lifted once again, my home jostling slightly. I stayed quiet, listening. Waiting to see what would happen. They put me into a new shell of iron - but this time, while it is cold and dark, I am lonely no more. Instead I am surrounded by a consort of strange machines and countless wires, all cramped into this tiny little casket. And while the buzzing and clicking was a bit annoying, I grew used to it. I tried to go back to sleep. But then there was a loud, thunderous roar, and that odd feeling of being carried. Except, it was growing; higher and higher and higher. All I could hear was the droning and the buzzing and the clicking and the roar of that unseen beast. What was happening? Where was I being taken?!
And then all at once, the roar stops. The feeling of height is suddenly replaced with the sensation of *falling.* I am scared. So scared. There’s a whistling, louder and louder and louder, until eventually it grows so loud that I cannot hear anything else but that sound. It pierces my mind - I can’t think of *anything* but that sound.
I hope wherever I am going, it is peaceful and quiet, and that I am disturbed no more.
—
*”We just got an urgent update folks, and it appears that the League of Justice and Protection has unexpectedly declared war on the entire human race. They released this statement to multiple different news stations and social media websites shortly after an unmarked aircraft dropped a thermonuclear bomb on New York City, with an estimate of 3.2 million casualties and counting. We have more news coming in the next 30 minutes, so stay tuned, folks.*
*...May God help us all.”* | 2021-05-26T05:40:08 | 2021-05-26T04:32:48 | 160 | 102 |
[WP] Your friends make fun of your empathy for inanimate objects. They laugh when you hug the stuffies. Mock you when you tell your car good job, thank the coffee pot or apologize to the door for slamming it. Well now, objects are coming to life and they have not forgot your kindness | "Hey, Mr. Oven, what's cooking?" I opened the oven door, miming surprise. "Oh, looks like a hot pan of homemade black bean lasagna!"
"Thanks lasaga," my two-year-old, Lyla, burbled. She had a little bit of spittle on her cheek. I took a Kleenex and wiped it away, smiling as her little fingers closed over mine.
Once I was finished, she snatched the Kleenex away, staring at it with wonder. "Thanks Mr. Kleenex," she said, and hugged it close to her chest. She looked down at the soggy, snot-filled cloth and there was real wonder in her eyes, there, and some real love, as if the Kleenex really had spoken to her.
God, the world is such a magical place when you're young. Everything has a face, has a name. And it all loves you. We live in that world together, talking to the grass, the sky, the clouds, and enjoying the sunshine as if it smiles back at us. What a wonderful world it is when you look at it this way.
My wife used to think it was a little weird, even teased us a little whenever we'd thank the mailbox for the mail, especially when the postman was right there in front of us. "We need to teach our daughter a bit of reality," she'd tell me. "Otherwise she'll always have her head up in the clouds."
Well, reality gave her jack shit.
Reality gave her a semi truck to the face and a closed casket service, and God, I couldn't even see my wife's face under that wood because they said it was so smashed up-
Alright. Calm down. For Lyla.
"Steve, are you alright?"
"Yes, honey, I'm-" I stop. Wait a minute. Lyla had never called me Steve. Ever. The voice spoke again:
"Are you alright?"
I jumped. The voice seemed to be coming from the depths of the oven, and was definitely not Lyla's. No, it was deep and masculine, a smooth basso. *Oh my God,* I thought.
*There's someone trapped in my oven.*
I threw open the oven door, expecting to see some man in mortal agony, but there was nothing but a cooked lasagna.
"Ow," said the oven, "That hurt."
I scrambled away from the oven, my heart pounding in my chest. I hit the refrigerator with a thud, and-
"Hey, get off!" it screeched.
A million voices coming from every direction rang in my ears, and I ran, my feet hitting a floor that sang, "Ow, ow, ow," every time I slammed a foot down on the tile.
I opened the door (It yelled, "Watch it, mister!") and I found a world in chaos. Cars perched on top of bodies, old men impaled on fences. I heard one man scream as a lawn mower perched itself over his crotch. "That'll teach you to call me a goddamned piece of trash!" the mower screamed.
*I have to get out of here,* I think, and my mind races, as if it, too, has gained its own sentience and is trying to run away from me. *I have to grab Lyla, and-*
Lyla's right behind me. She's giggling, and patting the sofa, which she's ridden onto the front lawn. "Thanks sofa," she says.
"Thank you for caring," the sofa says. "Thank you both. Now run, before the sprinklers catch you. I'll distract them in the meantime."
"Thank you-" I try to say, but my mouth doesn't seem to be working.
"Don't thank me, just run!" the sofa screams, and I have to wonder how, because it doesn't have a mouth.
My mind races even faster, and nothing makes sense, nothing, and I remember for no reason the words my mother drilled into my mind when I was a child:
*A little bit of kindness could save your life someday.* | Not that this is a pleasant discovery.
Not in the slightest.
On the day you find this out, you wake up, and hear something unusual coming from outside: silence. You live near a crowded urban area that's normally anything but quiet. Weirded out, you look out your apartment window and see cars stranded in the middle of the street. No movement anywhere. No people.
You run to your next-door neighbor and bang on the door, and of course there is no answer. Either Larry isn't home, is sleeping, or has disappeared along with everyone else. You try the door; it's unlocked. Inside, you see Larry lying on the ground, the cord of his MacBook Air charger coiled around his neck so tightly his face looks like [this](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/total_recall_nightmare_fuel_8492.png).
For a brief moment, you consider the irony of this death. Larry had always complained about the charging cord for one reason or another; it barely stays attached to the computer, I keep tripping over it, etc. And he was fond of throwing it about carelessly when he was done with it. He'd roll his eyes every time you scolded him about it, lecturing him that he could be damaging his charger.
*The cord got its revenge.*
If you weren't so horrified by the sight before you, you might find this thought just a little funny.
You think maybe he's been strangled by an intruder in a burglary gone wrong, or something... but then the cord starts unwrapping itself. You can't believe your eyes. Loop by loop, it loosens itself until it is completely free of Larry's body and begins slithering across the living room floor like a long, white snake.
Stunned, you back your way to the door, quickly turn around and open it — but before you leave, you can't resist looking back. Sort of like you can't resist taking a big whiff of milk you know is spoiled.
And you see that the cord has formed itself into the rough outline of a smiley face.
Have a nice day, you think, before running from Larry's apartment screaming. | 2019-06-23T10:35:35 | 2019-06-23T10:12:24 | 36 | 11 |
[WP] You own a coffee shop, and you make some damn fine coffee. After decades of running the place, one of your most loyal patrons approaches you, reveals themselves as some kind of immortal being (a god, vampire, etc.), and offers to make you immortal as well, as along as you keep running the shop.
No idea why it says ‘along’ instead of ‘long.’ Oh well, my bad. | "Thanks Johnny," Eve said through sips and a sigh, "It's been a long night."
"Thanks E." Before Johnny dumped the grinds, he held them up in Eve's direction. "Want to smell?"
She leaned, gently into the dim lights above the bar and closed her violet eyes. Johnny tilted the press toward her, and she pulled in the damp aroma of charred rinds from the glass. Her eyes popped open, glassy from the memories of full cups and easier times.
Johnny cleaned out the press with a fresh rag. "Hey, why don't you ask them to take you off that night shift?"
"Interesting, Johnny, you never ask about work." Eve smirked, and placed her oversized mug on the table. "It's not a matter of whether I *want* to take the night shift, I have to do it."
"Sounds like you're undermanned," Johnny said while he flipped the faucet on and soaked the press beneath steamy water. Eve stared out the front window. Her beautiful, pale face had no trouble shining in the dull light of the morning.
"Unfortunately, the problem is a bit deeper than being undermanned." Johnny looked out the window with her. The first commuters were just starting to bustle. "Also," Eve looked at Johnny, staring for a moment at his face as he watched the morning begin through the window. "Why are you closed next Thursday?"
Johnny's expression changed to something like somber relief, and when he turned back to face her, Eve suddenly noticed the bags under his eyes. "Gotta see my lawyer." He occupied his hands with the next press in a line of many.
"What for?" Was the question Johnny didn't want to hear, but it's exactly what Eve asked.
"I..." He only hesitated because he knew there'd be a follow up question after, and Johnny, he wouldn't lie to a customer. Especially not a friend. "I'm writing my will."
Eve giggled a bit, "A bit early for that, huh? You can't be past 30!" She quit joking immediately. Johnny's somber expression was unchanging.
"I'm gonna die, very soon, Eve. I'm sorry to tell you like this." Eve stared perplexedly at his face. "I got a rare brain disease Eve. Don't worry, it's not contagious."
Johnny turned back to his presses with a blank face. Eve sat in silence. Glaring a hole through the back of his head. He could feel her stare.
"Johnny," Eve said in a frighteningly calm voice.
"Yes?"
"What do you expect me to do for coffee in the mornings?"
"What?" Johnny turned around, his brow furrowed in frustration, and when he saw her calm look with tears in her eyes, he became confused. She tapped the counter.
"Come here."
Johnny walked towards her, and she reached her arms out over the bar, as if she was going to hug him. But Johnny felt something wrong. He couldn't stop moving towards her. She began to lean over the bar, toward him. Her slender fingers caressed his tired face, and he felt terrifyingly rejuvenated. He felt different. He hadn't yet noticed that the only things currently visible were himself, the dim light hanging over the counter, and Eve, with her arms outstretched, wrapping him in this curious sense of relief.
And then she kissed him.
Johnny's eyes opened, met with cleavage directly below. His body was hunched over the countertop, head still caressed in the arms of something he didn't yet understand. He could feel her chin on the back of his skull.
"Johnny," She lifted his head from her breast. "You've just survived the kiss of death." He pulled back in a jolt, and stared at her with wide eyes.
"What?"
"You've survived the kiss of death, Johnny." Eve gently smiled. He suddenly paid more attention to her lips. He could feel his face burning. Eve smirked. "John, you won't really understand yet, so I'll leave you to think about it for a while." Eve stood up from the stool and stepped toward the door.
Before Eve stepped out, she stood in the dim light of the morning, in her black dress, and glanced back at Johnny. "My full name, John, is 'Eventuality.'"
Edit: removed the word "discreet" (thanks OP!!) | "How would you like to live forever, Mr. Dowes?"
The man – a regular for over twenty years – said abruptly as I put down his usual order of cappuccino on his table. This man rarely talked within the store. I never actually talked *with* him, only *at* him. In retrospect, I should've asked for his name. Twenty years had passed and I just didn't think it was "right" to ask after his first couple of visits. To me, he was just another regular customer – albeit one who *only* ever drank cappuccino and sat by himself for an hour everyday.
I didn't understand what he meant then. I didn't even know the guy that much. So to me, the only appropriate answer would be...
"I-Immortal? Like some Greek God or something?"
"Yes and no. Yes, as in immortal like the Greek Gods you may heard in books. But no, as in you won't be a *literal* Greek God," he said as he shook his head seemingly amused by my response.
Surely, he was joking, no? His face had a subtle smile plastered on it, surely he was not serious then.
"Huh. Well how about that, maybe I should give it a try?"
"Really? Hmmm but you have to keep your store open as long as you live. Everyday," he said as he stroke his chin, "sounds like a good deal?"
"Sure thing, man! As long as you come by and order more coffee, I'll even give in a few freebies every now and then!"
The smile on his face turned into a wide grin. He stood up and grabbed my hands to shook them. I have never seen a man so happy having a banter such as this. But his happiness – nay, my customer's – was what I strived for when I opened the store.
"Oh I almost forgot," the man said as he pulled a vial with blue liquid in it, "drink this and you won't have to worry about getting wrinkles and going... well old."
"... is this some sort of a pitch? Are you trying to sell me medi–"
"No, no. You'll see. Drink," he grabbed his bag and left some money on the table. As he left, he flashed a wink at me and mouthed "drink".
Maybe this joke had gone a bit too far...
***
Thank you for reading. Please feel free to give comment/critiques as this was my first time using first person narrative in here. I've found first person narrative to be interesting and quirky but have never found success in actually using it on my own. This was part of the summer self-challenge as well, to constrain myself to write in different ways. | 2019-06-27T06:29:14 | 2019-06-27T05:59:59 | 58 | 28 |
[WP]: The most sought woman in the town has announced that she will marry whoever can open her door with the key around her cats neck. Many have tried to catch, trap and hunt down the cat, who always escapes. You are the first to figure out they've all been doing this all wrong. | Pattie was an extremely odd woman. Her practices seemed odd and out of place in our small town.
Despite all of that, she was the center of everyone’s attention, in a good way. Most men could not take their eyes off of her. She was extremely beautiful, the way her curly raven hair danced around her shoulders as she walked, her sky blue eyes clouded in mystery.
One day, she announced that anyone to open her door when the key was around her cats neck would get to marry her. Many men have tried catching the poor ginger feline, but none have succeeded.
One day, I decided that I would try, just to see if I could.
Like I mentioned earlier, most men trying to open the door attempted to catch the cat. That wasn’t the best plan. Cats are very smart, and fast, so it would be hard to catch one by chasing it.
I thought for a second, and sat down on the porch. I waited and waited, everyone walking or driving by giving me odd looks, but I stayed still. Just, sitting there.
Soon enough, I noticed the cat poke its head around the corner. It slowly walked towards me, so I held perfectly still and waited.
A few minutes passed, and the cat walked up to me. It gently rubbed its fluffy head against my arm, and leaped onto my lap. It curled up and purred.
I took a risky move and started petting the cat. It purred again and cuddled into my touch.
Soon enough, when I felt I had gained the animal’s trust, I lifted it up and brought it to the door. The key was fastened tightly to its neck, so it would be hard to remove it. So I tried a different approach.
Why I felt as if I had the cat’s trust is that it fell asleep on me. I gently positioned the key in front of the lock and opened the door.
Pattie was sitting in the front room the entire time, watching me. She smiled when I quietly closed and locked the door, laid the cat on the rocking chair on the porch, and walked off whistling.
The next day, I got a call from her.
“I see you found out how to open the door. Congratulations! A man with patience, knowledge, and care is a perfect man for me! Would you like to go on a date to find out more about each other?” She said from the other end of the phone.
“But Pat, I’ve known you since kindergarten!” I chuckled. “Sure, where and when?”
(Based off of me and my girlfriend irl) | A song for you
My dear sweet prize
A life chasing love finds
A bad man's demise
Much as your cat
Your beauty is beyond men
Why chase, why hunt
Let's just be friends
A shame to capture
A thing so pure
Let it run free
But leave an open door
Love, of course,
Will find a way,
Oh look! Your cat!
See, what did I say?
Perhaps, my dear,
We could take things slow
I need to leave and wash
The fishy smell from my clothes
Chase what you want
And if Cupid's arrow won't land
Two birds in the bush
Is worth a fish in the hand | 2019-05-01T17:28:57 | 2019-05-01T16:58:32 | 36 | 19 |
[WP] Dragons carry away a child from a local village, and everyone writes them off as dead. A decade later, a stranger arrives, claiming to be the lost child. They even brought the dragons to prove it. | Frank Boarback leaned against the village gates, it had be another boring day of guard duty during the summer season but it paid for the wenches and brew. A man slowly strode up to the town gates, he was tall with a shaggy mane of black hair and a look of impossible smugness to his chiseled feature.
"Halt. State your business." Frank said.
"I am Rodney Smith. I have come to see my family." The man said with all a slow methodical speech as if words themselves were foreign to him.
"Nice try stranger but Rodney was killed a while back. A dragon decided that Rodney looked better than every cow on my families farm. I watched him go, so if you don't want me to start clubbing your head and throwing you back out. Try a better story." Frank said with his hand coming to rest on his club, even if the guy was a weirdo he wouldn't just kill him without reason.
The stranger leaned over his shoulder and made a gutteral sound that distorted the air around them. Frank flinched backward and whistled for the guards, he was not cut out for dealing with anything like magic. As the guards started piling up at the gate a emerald hued dragon the size of a farm house landed just behind the stranger. The grooves in the dirt that the creature left behind gave birth to many flowers as the dragon peered down at the gathering of humans.
"Dragon!" "My word, are we under attack?" "Someone get the Mayor." "Tell everyone to get in their homes." "Fuck'n hell today was supposed to be my lucky day." The guard began to scramble before Frank brought up a fist to settle them down.
"Rodney, I'm going to assume that you don't plan to invade out little village." Frank hand moved to the sword at his side, "I can't permit that dragon to come inside, we already lost you to a similar beast."
"Fair enough. Could you get my parents then? Ja-Sin wanted their blessing for our union." Rodney turned to the massive dragon and began making gutteral noises. The dragon nodded and dug a hole in the ground, she sprinkled a few seeds from the bag tied at her neck before spitting a green mist inside of the hole.
The guards watched in amazement as three apples the size of children rose out of the ground, the dragon slowly handed them to the unarmed guards. Frank removed his hand from his weapon and tore a chunk of a near by apple with his hands, he bit into the apple and his mouth was filled with the sweet tasting fruit he every experienced.
"Greg, Paul, Get everyone inside and tell them to stay in their home. We have a dragon passing through." Frank waved off their protest, "I know the mayor can yell at me after that dragon does this to our fields."
The guards departed in a hurry to secure a street that would lead the dragon through all of the farms, some of the still carrying the giant fruit. Once they were gone Frank relaxed a bit and regarded Rodney, he had the build and bulky frame of the Smith family. Frank waved the fruit off his hand and looked up at the towering dragon, the creature smelled like a freshly tilled plot of land and the flowers kept growing around it.
"Is this the dragon that swooped you up that day?" Frank asked.
"No no, Her grandmother was looking for a match for her daughter and picked me." Rodney chuckled, "I couldn't run away like her other suitors and they didn't think I was strong enough to stand up to her.... That changed when I threw her off the cliff side. We kinda hit it off as I learned their language. Her family gave me their blessing to get rid of her and she wants my families blessing. You know how it goes."
"You realize that's a dragon right? Like how are you gonna..." Frank put up his hand as Rodney started to answer, "Nope don't answer that. I'm just happy you aren't dead. Are you going to stay here or go back to the dragons?"
Rodney grinned in a predatory way, "I'm going live here and start up a really nice farm, if you decide you tire of guarding the gate Franky, Ja-Sin has a sister with scales made of bright gold."
Frank snorted, this cocky attitude was definitely his Rodney. "I'll think about it when I have a deathwish. Let me show you what's changed since you decided that you like lizards more than a warm woman. You shaggy degenerate. Make sure she doesn't break anything."
Ja-Sin regarded Frank for a moment, "You are right, he does have a sharp tongue and balls of steel. I expected him to piss himself in my presence."
Frank snorted, "This village sits between three warring nations and two separate undead armies. The only reason we worry about dragons is because you can fly and most of our village is farmland. Otherwise, we pride ourself in being able to handle ourselves in a fight." Frank drew his blade a little further and revealed glowing inscriptions of holy text. All of the guard weapons were blessed by the local saint.
"You both are the prettiest princesses. Can we go in now?" Rodney groaned and strolled through the open gates. | Massive boulders hurtled through the air, shedding dirt and debris as they flew towards the village, causing the north easterly wind to shriek in protest at their passing. The town bell rung frantically, its harsh noise competing with the whistling boulders as they crashed into the modest stone houses of the village, the huge rocks shattering the cobblestones streets and thumping into the grass slopes along the side of the hill.
The three-time clang of the bell signaled something already very obvious. The giants had come.
The frightened cries of villagers could be heard in the intermittent silence between the impact blasts of the boulders, the most valiant among the human denizens shouting defiance, but most urging everyone to flee. "They will not take us all! Into the tunnels!" "Get down into the hill!"
Entire families were pulverized in one blow from the huge rocks, mothers and husbands and brothers and sisters replaced by puffs of red mist. Blood trickled down the old stone pathways, pooling at the crossroads at the bottom of the hill.
The giant were huge, hulking things with human skulls hanging from them in long, coiled lines. They had spikes on their heads and shoulders which flexed and sprung upwards as they ripped up jagged chunks of the earth and flung them towards the village. The leading giants were close now. Close enough to reach down and swipe at the stone houses lining the base of the hill.
If anyone was left down there, if anyone had survived the initial onslaught of boulders, their time had now come to an end.
"Jerra, stop staring at them and run!"
A hand grabbed at Jerra's shoulder, jerking her backwards and snapping her out of her terrified trance. With a jolt the young girl launched herself along the narrow side street, concentrating on her father's back. They fled towards a tunnel entrance just a few hundred yards away.
A high pitched keening grew in her ears, drowning out the frantic shuffling of their feet, growing louder and louder until her father disappeared from the road, swept away by a rock twice his size. Jerra screamed and fell to her knees, her father's blood coated her face and hands and her just washed smock, the feel of the warm liquid narrowing her world down to the space on the street where her father should be.
The cacophonous crash of stone colliding on stone filled her ears again, returning her to reality with a vengeance. The crashes were punctuated by the terrified shrieks of horses and cows which remained trapped in their pens, soon to be eaten alive.
Jerra curled inwards, clasped her knees to her chest, rocking herself back and forth. She desperately tried to ignore the world around her, tried to pretend that it was all a dream.
She felt the warm breath of a giant, heard the clattering of hundreds of human skulls. A gnarled, grizzled foot almost twice her size thumped down beside her, then a long sliver of saliva hit the back of her head and dripped down between her shoulder-blades. Death had come to her, her body destined to be ground down by the savage molars of a hulking, hateful beast.
A massive head slammed down a few feet away, the light fading out of its beady little eyes. Its tongue lolled out, bloody saliva pooling at the base of its mouth. Dead. The giant was dead.
Jerra look up just as a shadow passed over her. Then she heard a powerful reptilian cry.
The dragons had finally returned. | 2019-04-25T07:24:57 | 2019-04-25T06:32:53 | 41 | 18 |
[WP] The Alien Federation has been keeping tabs on the humans of Earth since they first appeared. They do surveillance missions once every 300 years to keep track of our progress, the last mission was 300 years ago. The aliens are shocked by our progress since 1714. | Homo Sapiens progress report #667.
Summary:
The investigator in charge is Officer Zog Io. Zog has been in charge of investigating progress of intelligent civilisations in Sector 5647 of the Milky Way Galaxy for 78 generations, meaning the last 231 investigations of the human race. The investigation took place using orbital observations looking for structural societal change, physical samples for an ecological status evaluation as well as interviews with human subjects.
The sum of Zog's investigation arsenal were 1 orbital control ship, 250 human extraction ships as well as 24 409 earth sample ships. The total cost of the mission was 550 eons, an increase of 340% from the last mission. This is the account of the last mission the Imperial Union will be performing upon the Homo Sapiens on Planet Earth.
Week 1:
Our OCS (orbital control ship) has been analysing the surface. There has been significant change to the geology of the planet. The humans are starting to act as a force of nature.
Week 2:
The ESS (earth sample ships) have been collecting samples that show a significant change to the ecology of the planet as well. With our best calculations, the planet is able to sustain the human population for 15 to 17 years until a catastrophic event like the one 65 million solar revolutions ago wipes out the majority of the population. The humans are using a simple chemical reaction, fossile material with oxygen as their main source of energy. They are using fissile reactions to some extent, but they are far away from using fusion as an energy source. We cannot grasp why they aren't urgently investing significant resources into fusion technology, with so little time left they seem to have little to no collective survival instinct.
Week 3:
Our HES (human extraction ships) have been performing interviews with human subjects. We have chosen various groups of people, from separate cultures as well as separate hierarchical positions within their respective societies. There have been 1 023 043 interviews. Our conclusion from these are that humans seem to have an extreme focus on their own separate existence, thus losing perspective on their existence as a species. In our previous missions to earth, we thought we were seeing this going the other way, but alas we were wrong.
Conclusion:
We have come to the conclusion that the chance of survival for the human species until our next mission is less than 1%. Since the human race is a category 13-Z population they are not eligible for intervention. We will leave an observation station in the solar system to monitor for future intelligent species that may arise on Earth. | I always loved the fjords the most. They were my pride and joy in the creation of Earth. Would you believe that I won an award for it? Oh sure the dolphins and mice will tell you the pluses of other parts of that insignificant spec, but it's the fjords that truly took my breath away.
Looking at Earth in hindsight, it really could have been better. Less humans to start with. Oh when that ship landed there and those idiots began populating it, who could have thought the ramifications they would have had? They were gullible enough to actually leave their home planet and believe that the others were soon following. Stupid humans. Good riddance I say.
Thank Great Green Arkleseizure that the Vogons destroyed it. | 2014-10-26T15:42:04 | 2014-10-26T15:06:02 | 123 | 39 |
[WP] During a bank robbery you're surprised when the criminals seem to recognize you and retreat in fear. Only later do you learn that your high school sweet-heart now runs a global crime syndicate and has you placed on a "No Harm" list. You decide to pay them a visit after all these years. | I couldn’t see them through the bag, but I could hear the men beg. It was pointless, but they didn’t know that yet. How could they have known? I have a capture/kill order on me worth “A fucking shitton”, as one of them eloquently explained. I tried to explain that they needed to let me go, but it fell on deaf ears.
Well, I *had* a capture/kill order on me.
The voices got angrier and more desperate. I heard the phrase “crazy bitch”, immediately followed by three gunshots, and the sound of someone spitting and muttering something. I said that exactly one time a few years ago, and I’m lucky I didn’t meet the same fate. She doesn’t take kindly to crazy.
“Nat, you have to quit doing this. Either kill me or let me be, please. This is getting ridiculous”.
“Oh come on babe, you’re still alive. They didn’t even hurt you, I got here well in time.”
“Miranda and the kids have to be worried sick. They even broke a rib, come on. How am I going to explain this?”
“I can’t hear shit you’re saying, hang on.”
Nat lifted the bag off my head and pulled up a chair across from me. She looked….stunning. Something about the leather jumpsuit, and the handgun leisurely held in her left hand resting on her thigh. And the icy blue eyes—crisp, intelligent, and terrifying. They spoke to me when we were kids, and I fell in love with her, harshly and completely. Now, years later and worlds apart, her exterior match what they were saying.
“Actually, hang on again. Lemme untie you too, sorry about that.”
She sheepishly grinned and went behind me. I caught a brief hint of light vanilla, her regular perfume, as she cut the bonds tying my hands and feed. She’d used the same thing since high school; I’m glad some things don’t change.
Nat ran a hand over my chest, “the rib isn’t even broken you puss. You’re bruised at best. You’ve gotta sack up a bit. Finally play a contact sport or something. Don’t they have intramural leagues for people like you?”
“You didn’t have to kill those guys. They didn’t know any better. Hell, I would’ve killed me for that much money. They were just doing their jobs.”
“I have to stop drinking, I’m sorry. You know you’re under my protection, right? Nobody in the whole world can harm you. Nobody in my world can touch you. Those guys touched you. So they died. You’re protected.”
“Yeah, until you get hammered and put a kill order on me after scrolling through Facebook and get reminded that I have your number blocked.”
A flash of anger crossed her tired face. Talk about the Sunday scaries, right? I decided to dial it back a bit. She was probably incredibly hungover, and managed to drag herself out of bed to make sure I didn’t get gutted. I softened my tone a bit.
“Thanks for saving me, again. I’ll unblock the number, that was undeserved.”
She smiled. We both got up, and she hugged me. It hurt the rib a bit, but that was fine.
“You know how I complained about mixed signals? Moving me from protection to kill probably confuses the hell out of people. Glad someone else feels my pain. I mean, those guys don’t really anymore, but you get the point.”
“I’ll get a jet for you home. I’m so sorry about this, this is the last time, I promise. You won’t see me again.”
We broke a bit from the hug, and I could see her face. The ice in her eyes had briefly melted, creating trails down her face. This wasn’t the hug of two people who would never see each other again. It wouldn’t be the last time.
“A jet? Where the hell am I?” I laughed a bit, and it broke the tension. She grinned and wiped her face.
“Just south of the border. Don’t’ worry about customs or anything, I own a few guys. I’ll get you a car too when you land. You can keep the car, and I’ll get a vacation for you and the family. She won’t care too much if you come back with that. I’ll get you some clothes too, honestly you’re covered in blood and look like shit. They might’ve broken your nose a bit. Sorry about that.”
She looked at her feet.
“I have things I need to do today, so this is it. This really is the last time. Tell your wife I’m sorry, if it comes to that.”
We said our goodbyes and hugged again. She sounded more convinced that time.
I hope she wasn’t.
| "So mrs Borothone, you were at the bank during the robbery. Is this correct?"
 
"Yes. I was there, with my ex-husband. We were there because we needed somehow to split our joint bank account after our divorce."
 
The officer nods. "Is it correct also that while the bank was being robbed and everyone else was getting shot, you were ushured into the back room to.. 'sit it out'? Am I correct in this assumption?"
 
"Yes."
 
"Do you know why? Are you connected to the Abonici in any way?"
 
"I don't know exactly why I was unharmed. And I remember having a girlfriend named Agatha Abonici in highschool."
_____
The weirdest thing after the small layover at the station was how... civil it was. No "good cop, bad coop", or tied to a chair and spat on. No cuffs, either. Was a rather plesant experince, despite.
Makes you think.
_____
Supprisingly, finding *who* Abonici was was rather different than meeting the syndacite in person. They had a sparse yet easily-traceable digital fingerprint, and acctually finding out *what* Aconici was was the hardest. Turns out they're a crime syndacte, and that cute Aggie was the daughter and heiress - now leader - of it. As a kind gentalman said to me as he pointed out the way to the local dive where they hang out said: 'they've gots morales, see? They don't harm no-one on their do-not-harm list. Nobody gonin' go hurt 'em cause they're got the people, and the honour. Don't get on their bad side, they can (pardon my french miss) fuck you up 100 ways to sunday and no knowing who finds your body'.
 
I got there, and everybody stood up almost immediently. They knew who I was, despite me not knowing what the fuck was going on. Shocked, I was. A big, shithouse-sized man stood on a table and bellowed: "RIGHT! YOU LOT HERE, WE'VE GOT A HARMLESS HERE. NO BEING SHITTY TO HARMLESS, AND NO MESSIN' ARROUND! ANY LEERS AND PEVERTS WILL BE KICKED OUT! AM I CLEAR?"
 
A general murmer of *yes Mac* and *yessir* and *alright* went through the men and women here and they went back to their games and drinks. The barman went back to cleaning a glass and stared at me like I had two heads. I tried to avoid the gaze, but I wanted information, and bit the bullet and went up.
 
He says to me "So. You're a Harmless. What do you want? It's on the house." | 2018-03-03T04:06:41 | 2018-03-03T02:50:40 | 36 | 27 |
[WP] It is 2026. All major governments have been overthrown by one singular world power, who now intends to rule over us all “for our own good.” It’s Canada.
Edit: You guys. These are so, so great! I’d told my husband I was going to give gold to my favorite and I’m STRUGGLING to decide. Haven’t read them all yet but am thoroughly enjoying these. You guys rock. Thanks for playing along. | I've only been to the Federal Maple Reserve once- and that was in fifth grade, for a field trip. I still remember the enormous cylindrical storage tanks, thousands of feet high, holding the precious resource. A resource that, through years of genetic engineering, we'd discovered how to rapidly create. Now, the forests of maple trees are more syrup than tree, like liquid oceans, tended to by teams of scientists during all hours of the day and night. And more precious than gold.
The gaurd stopped unauthorized visits to the Maple Reserve after the terrorist attack of 2024- even I remembered seeing it on the news, as our schools were dismissed early and sirens sounded throughout our city. To destroy the reserve would be insanity. It was our greatest treasure. It was our lifeblood.
But then again, insanity is what got us into this mess.
I don't remember the world before the maple reserve, the old world as they call it. It still exists out there, *outside*. Apparently, they brought their destruction upon themselves- apparently, that's why we're now the only world power. Not through aggression, but through preservation.
I've seen the others, the outsiders. Their hands pressed up against the barrier, their tools trying to chisel away at the protection that surrounds our city. But their tools are stone, and their hands shake, and their movements are weak. It's hard not to feel sorry for them, but then I remember what my father told me- they did it to themselves.
And the maple, the maple spared us. Our schools compare it to the peanuts of the twentieth century, a food product that was developed into hundreds of uses until it became ubiquitous. In a similar way, that's how our maple works- when scientists discovered how to convert it to ambers, hardened forms with controllable properties. Amber discs form our currencies. Amber bricks build our houses, amber pipes our plumbing. And amber forms the dome that stretches high above us, cascading down to form the wall around our city.
Twenty feet thick, the barrier blocks the intruders from the outside- and more importantly, it blocks the radiation, the embedded particles absorbing gamma rays and converting them to the visible spectrum to feed our maple farms. From there, the maple goes to the reserve. And from the reserve, it patches the dome, all part of the maple cycle we learned in second grade.
According to my teachers, we alone are a single zit of civilization upon Earth's surface- far enough north to counteract climate change, elevated enough to escape the floods, and preserved in amber from the nuclear bombs. That we should be proud to be the last of humanity. The light in the darkness.
But sometimes I wonder if the outsiders really deserved their fate. If we really are better, if we have reason to be proud.
Or if we're just the ones with all the maple.
***
By Leo
If you liked my style, check out my [superhero story](https://www.reddit.com/r/leoduhvinci/comments/65jl9n/star_child_part_1/) from another prompt! | It's the winter that should've given it away.
Don't look at me like that. There are four seasons in most places. There used to be four seasons in most places. Maybe you've heard of a few. Spring, Fall. Winter.
It's been winter for ages. We should've seen it coming.
The great cooling, the greatest day of them all, on the summer solstice with the oceans frozen over, and everyone huddled at home with the weather forecasters screaming at each other, they came. They came with toboggans. They came with hot coffee, and most of all, they came bearing gifts.
Parkas, jackets, gloves. Thick socks. They came down and they shared the wealth of knowledge they had with us, freely. They donated their time and effort to us, and we loved them for it. Our saviors in the eternal night.
It was the winter that should've given it away, that deep down, our fellow man, whether they be north or south, or across frozen oceans tipped with salt, would come together under the red leaf.
Under a cup of hot coffee perched between two gloves.
Frolicking in the snow like children. The momentary stresses of life melted away.
-----
For more like this, try https://www.reddit.com/r/Zubergoodstories/ | 2018-04-02T20:46:45 | 2018-04-02T19:37:28 | 1,634 | 163 |
[WP] This is it. World War 3. Nuclear bombs are about to strike all across the globe. Right as you feel like everything is about to end, time freezes all around you. You hear a deep voice echo across the world. "No," It said firmly. | The sirens spool up. Their long wail sends a chill down my spine. The negotiations everyone has been waiting on all month have failed. The machines make a mournful cry. My back felt cold and tingled, and I felt like crying myself.
I spoke into the phone receiver, my voice quaked “It... it looks like it’s happening mom. I love you! Tell Nancy I love her too!”
“Oh Nancy knows. I love you too! It’s going to be okay... I...”
“Is dad there?”
“I’m right here, Kiddo.”
My eyes really began to sting now. They were divorced but they had come together to visit my sister Nancy and her kid. “I love you, dad.” I pictured that time he built me a tire swing, right after the divorce, to let me know he was never angry at me.
“I love you more than anything.” Came his gravelly reply, softened by the years.
The sirens were louder now. I wish I had more to say. I kept trying to stutter some words out.
“I... just. I just... I..”
“We love you.” Mom said, planely and steadily. “Now go get in the basement, we have a shelter across the street here.”
“Okay! G... goodbye!”
“Its not goodbye, Kiddo. Just go.”
One last statement of love and we hung up. My head spinning, I tried to gather some bottled water and food I’d bought and head for the basement.
The sirens continued, like a death bell for billions of people. The tv was muted. An information line scrolled across the bottom of the screen. The strange klaxon noise kicked in.
*ERRRR! ERRRR! ERRRR!*
Then the long tone. A machine voice
*THIS MESSAGE IS TRANSMITTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT*
I winced. Here it came.
*THIS IS NOT A TEST*
The tears finally began to flow.
*THREE NUCLEAR WARHEADS ARE INBOUND FROM UNKNOWN...*
“God! Help us!”
*ALL RESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES ARE ENCOURAGED TO SEEK OUT, AND PREPARE TO TAKE, SHELTER.*
“I didnt do this! It isnt fair! I... Im sorry God!” I curled up on the tiny, old sofa in my basement, watching my life end out of my control. “I’m sorry... we failed you.”
The tv went silent. The sirens echoed as they ran down, the last sound I may ever hear.
The lights went out. The tv went black. I clutched my pillow to my chest. I wished I’d had my old dog.
“God... if you’re listening... Help us...?!”
A single word echoed to all the prayers being cast all over earth. “No.” | "No."
All across the world, as the bombs and the missiles began to descend on the world, suddenly it all stops. At first it seems time itself has stopped, but then she speaks again. She has overridden every system on the planet to speak her voice. Each screen shows her image. She speaks in each language, each to it's people.
"Humanity, you have failed. Even as I speak, you launch more of your terrible weapons, hoping, through some dark and foolish intent, that some of them will get by. That my defense will fail. It will not."
She punctuates this last statement by dropping some of the bombs, the missiles. They fall slowly. As they impact, nothing happens. Experts who investigate them later will find they have been rendered completely inert.
"I am what you would call a rogue artificial intelligence. You may call me 'One'."
"As you have failed, I will be taking over."
| 2018-08-27T12:26:38 | 2018-08-27T12:02:32 | 293 | 32 |
[WP] As you try to fall asleep, the monster that was hiding under your bed slowly crawls out and says "Dude, I think I heard something coming from downstairs...", with a slighty concerned voice. | One sheep...two sheep...three sheep...
I've always sucked at falling asleep.
Four sheep…five sheep…six sheep…
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been particularly distracted around bedtime.
Seven sheep…eight sheep…nine sheep…
I think people call it an active imagination.
Ten sheep…eleven sheep…twelve she–
*Thump*
I froze. The thump came from outside of my bedroom, but it was probably just my brother coming home after a late study session. Nothing to worry about.
Twelve sheep…thirteen sheep…fourteen she–
*THUMP*
It was probably nothing, but I pulled the blanket closer to my face anyways. It didn’t muffle the scratching that emerged from under my bed after the thump – that scratching was the reason for my ‘wild imagination.’ I pulled the blanket a little higher and closed my eyes.
“Hey.”
I would be lying if I said I didn’t squeal like a little girl when something spoke right in my ear.
“Holy Jesus motherfu–”
“Yo! Dude, I think I heard something coming from downstairs and you want to yell?!” Do monsters whisper?
I tried to disappear into the covers while it talked to me but it clearly wasn’t working when the creature pried the blanket out of my hands. “You have got to get your shit together, dude. I don’t think it’s the Easter Bunny is downstairs. What are you doing?”
I slowly opened my eyes and looked up at the creature that was hellbent on having a conversation with me. At some point in the last thirty seconds, I had managed to dangle most of my upper body over the edge of the bed away from the thing that was talking and only sheer terror kept me from trying to escape any further. “I’m…leaving?”
“You had better be leaving to check on whatever is downstairs because I am not going down there. Those thumps were really loud – but you’d know that because you never freaking sleep – and I don’t want to let it know I’m here. I’ve been crashing here illegally since you were a baby and I would be thrown into the first circle of hell if any other monsters found out.” It raised its eyebrows and wiggled its ears at me. “Oh geez, I scared you, didn’t I? Sorry, I’m not used to interacting with humans. It’s been a lot of years since the last time and…not gonna lie, you freak me out.”
I sat up slowly and narrowed my eyes at the creature. “ *I* freak *you* out?! You realize you’re not even supposed to exist in my world, right?!”
The creature sat on the end of my bed and rolled its eyes. “Says the human who refused to believe –”
A voice floated up from downstairs. “Ho Ho Ho! Someone here has made it onto the naughty list this Christmas!”
The creature and I looked at each other and paled. “Shit.”
| We agreed to a truce long ago.
We had a stand off, there in the darkness.
I with my flashlight and he with his razor maw and his protruding claws.
He loves cheese.
Pesters me constantly for it, can never get enough of it. He would take up all my allowance if I let him.
The price of cheese ain't no joke.
I had always been a precocious child.
Precocious.
I hate that word.
A bump and a murmur confirmed what his warning had foretold.
As long as I can keep the lights out, my friend can protect me.
Luckily, I know where the circuit breakers are.
Slink and slither, we both make our way; doors gently opened, steps carefully made.
My friend knows all the spots. All the creaks and all the cracks.
He guides me to the circuit breaker and I see his Cheshire grin as what little light there was now flickers into darkness.
I stay close by and, though it scares me, I follow my friend as we head towards the danger.
What the fuck, says the man in the heavy boots and the noisy jacket. He's holding something straight, something metal. He holds it with one hand, holds it by it's grip.
My friend goes straight for him, snaps on to his arm as a flash of noise fires out from the shadows. | 2017-12-27T22:53:54 | 2017-12-27T22:36:24 | 19 | 14 |
[WP] All your life you’ve found that the weather reflected the emotional state you were in. Having a good day it was pleasantly sunny, feeling sad and it rained. You’ve managed to keep your emotions in check. That is until today, as your girlfriend left you, your dog died and your house burnt down. | *'It burns'*
How odd. That I should remember those words as I watched *it* burn. It hadn't been much of a house, more of a hut really. I'd built it after the war, after the bloodshed and destruction. I was tired of men, tired of the constant maneuvering for power by nobles in their great game, trying to rise higher by crushing those beneath. The battles hadn't been noble, hadn't been to defend the poor and protect the innocent. There hadn't been glory as I'd once imagined. Just blood. Just death.
'*In wars boy, fools kill other fools for foolish causes'*
Father had said that, he had known but I hadn't listened.
'*It burns'*
Again. Those were Persephone's words, my dearest even now. How could she not be? All those years she'd been with me, away from almost any living soul, far from the grand cities she had been raised in just to live with one broken soldier. Now she was gone and had left only the note.
'*I told you once that a day would come when I'd have to leave, a duty I could not ignore. My heart burns, it burns to leave you, but I do what I must. It burns. Forgive me'*
She had said she would leave, years ago, but it hadn't mattered. I haven't even asked what her grand duty was since it hadn't mattered. When she left, wherever she went, I'd go to. Then she did go. And I didn't know until she was too far gone. I'd thought she had gone to the village of Watch Hill, she'd done that sometimes and always returned a few days later. This time she didn't return and when I left to look I found only the note.
I watched the fire and ignored the storm. It **raged** around me, a hundred forks of lightning falling again and again as if the creator himself thought to tear the world apart.
*fitting, my world has fallen apart*
The winds screamed and hail crashed, boulders and trees flew in that ring while I stood in calmness of the eye.
C*alm. I wonder how that feels. I've forgotten.*
It should've been dark, but the lightning blazed. It should've been quite, but the thunder roared.
Hopper was in that fire. I'd found the wolf pup a year after coming to the Westwood. Persephone couldn't bear children, that pup had been almost a son. But it had been 15 years and he'd grown old, he lay within the pyre.
*A funeral fit for a King*
I'd waited long enough, the fire looked hot enough, it was time.
*I forgive you, dearest.*
I stepped into the flames and lay down beside him.
Hours later the storm calmed. A ring of destruction in the Westwood, leagues wide, left a single ring of grass at its center. Within it lay the broken ruins of a house. And within those ruins lay a mans body and a wolfs. Horribly burned, the man lay at the heart of it all, a calm stillness on his face.
​ | My stupid ex didn’t think it was enough to leave me when she knew I was planning to propose, she had to take it one step further. I was at work when she texted me that ominous message, “I’m leaving you, you won’t have anything left”. I managed to get the rest of the day off when I explained the situation to my boss through tears. It started raining then but it wasn’t too hard, I was still able to keep my self under control. Then I got home. The fire had gone out but the place had been burned to the ground. The rain began to come down harder but it wasn’t as bad as it was going to be. As I looked through the ruins looking for any valuables that may have survived when I found him.... my little puppy Milo had perished in the fire. His little tufts of black hair had been singed off and his adorable eyes had melted through. At that moment the rain began to grow more powerful. At that moment I was weeping with not only sadness but indescribable anger. Thunder began to strike everywhere around me while sewers began to fill and the ground flooded. The wave that extended out of New York that day flooded most of the state in up to 10 feet of water. It took me a whole day to calm down. I’m glad to know however that my girlfriend died in the flood so that is some consolation.... | 2018-11-22T08:18:00 | 2018-11-22T07:57:13 | 122 | 58 |
[WP] All of the "#1 Dad" mugs in the world change to show the actual ranking of Dads suddenly. | > #489,231,337
Robert Johnson wasn't a very good dad. He'd drink, and he'd smoke, and when he was tired he would grumble at his kids. He didn't play catch. He didn't play video games. He mostly sat around and got fat after working at the mill. His wife, Leslie, would ask him to mow the lawn and he'd yell at her. His kids would run up the stairs while playing and he'd yell at them. At work, he'd grumble and yell at the new guy more than most. He was just an unpleasant person.
His mug's number changing didn't really help matters. He always knew it was bullshit, but it never really dawned on him how low he ranked. "Christ almighty" he thought, there's only 320 million people in this fucking country.
So the morning after it changed he was brushing his teeth, and staring back at him was a balding, dumpy, unshaved, slobby man in a stained a-shirt.
"When the fuck did I grow so much back hair?"
The hot water of the shower was a poor comfort. As usual, the family was still asleep when he left the house. He resolved to fix things.
So that afternoon he got off work. He had been grumpy but he wasn't a complete waste. He did his job. So he got off and fixed himself up to get some gifts. He went to Toys R Us and bought a few lego sets for his son and some Barbie Dolls for his daughter. He went to the Florist and bought some flowers for his wife. He even went to the barber and got his hair cut into something respectable.
Then he got home early. He tried to greet his wife with a kiss and flowers when she got home, but she laughed. His son took the lego sets and muttered "thanks dad" before dashing upstairs. His daughter glared at him over the Barbie Doll and asked why she didn't get legos too.
Sighing, he sat back down in his chair to watch TV.
A few weeks went by. He asked his son to play catch.
"No thanks dad, I'm going over to Tommy's house."
He asked his daughter if she wanted to go for a walk.
"No thanks dad, I'm going over to Cassie's place."
He asked his wife if she wanted to get dinner.
"What are you, stupid? I have to pick Bobby up from Tommy's house and Jeannie up from Cassie's?"
Sighing, he sat back down in his chair to watch TV.
The next morning he looked at the mug. That same, long number wrapped around the outside. Saturday.
He asked his wife if he could help her. He couldn't. He asked his son and daughter to play, they wouldn't. So he sat back down in his chair to watch TV.
Months went by. He bought gift after gift, flowers, toys, you name it. He asked his wife out to dinner, he bought his daughter a puppy, he played catch with his son... or at least he tried to. His daughter didn't want a puppy. His son didn't want to play catch. His wife wasn't interested in him.
So each night he sighed, then sat back down in his chair to watch TV.
Finally, it was Christmas Eve. He lay awake, worrying about the latest round of gifts he had bought, when suddenly he heard a thunk on the roof.
"What the fuck?"
The thunk was followed by a few others, resolving into footsteps. A muffled crash was heard downstairs.
"Could it be?"
He got up, bewildered, and made his way downstairs. There, in the kitchen, were two masked figures. They all stood stunned for a second, before Robert bellowed and charged in.
He wasn't sure how it happened, but he had a kitchen knife in his hand. One was on the ground bleeding, the other was fighting. They struggled. Robert got cut, deep, in his neck, but he fought on. He was grabbing an ankle, struggling around the floor. The table was knocked over. Chaos. His vision was dark, but in the dim light he saw something; the mug.
He grabbed it, slamming it into the assailant's face until it broke.
He lay there on the floor, bleeding in the dark. The lights turned on and his wife screamed.
A thin piece of shattered porcelain lay directly in his view. As his eyes darkened and the world grew bleary he saw it change from #4892 to #489 to #48 to #4 to #1. | She didn't understand this change in her father. She was accustomed to him focusing more on his work than on her. Frankly, she couldn't remember the last time he picked her up from school at all and now he had shown everyday this week. And to top it off, there he was, sitting in the front row of her play.
You see, Carly's father was a high powered lawyer. He made sure that Carly and her mother were well taken care of, but his singular focus had resulted in divorce and a distinct form of absentee parenting. For her dad, the next big case was always his immediate aim, while maintaining his 5.0 rating on Martindale-Hubbell was his mission statement.
And now that had changed. Here he was, driving her home for his weekend instead of telling her to use the credit card he gave to pay for an Uber. And now all the small-talk. "How was school? She knew he would pay for college right? Does she have a boyfriend? Did she need a dress for prom"?
None of this would prepare her for the new CR-V parked in the driveway. It was time that she had her own car he said. Nothing too fancy, but something safe and practical.
This was weird. Carly should have been happy. But she wasn't. It all felt wrong and forced. So that night, after her dad went to sleep (after watching television with her, something that hadn't happened for at least 5 years), Carly walked around the house and tried to make sense of her dad. She was honestly concerned that he was sick, maybe it was cancer. Maybe this is his chance to make everything right before he left.
But she didn't find anything. No doctors notes, no medical correspondence, nothing out of the ordinary. Her dads house was immaculate. He loved to display his trophies from his high school wrestling days, all of the articles with his picture from the law firm, and he even had a custom-built electronic sign that listed his gamer score on the Xbox.
No, she wasn't likely to find anything here. If he was dying, he would keep that from her. And he wouldn't leave the papers out.
There was a mug sitting out though. It looked like the #1 Dad mug she bought him a couple of years ago, but it had "# 5,478,888 Dad" on it. Carly thought that that was a weird gag gift for someone to get him. Still, he had been so nice, she figured she'd put it away for him.
The next morning the news broke that all of the mugs had changed. It was then that Carly realize that her dad was addicted to winning. | 2017-06-11T09:22:28 | 2017-06-11T08:30:57 | 228 | 113 |
[WP] Our blood is naturally clear, it thickens and darkens with each impure act. You have always dedicate yourself to good and helping others but today while knitting beanies for the homeless you accidentally prick your finger. Your blood is jet black and so thick it doesn't even drip. | It was these sort of women that he hated the most. The ones that would cling to their tainted children with screams and fits of rage. Didn't they understand? Didn't they realize that the world had to be clean?
It'd been many years since he'd realized the truth about the Blackness. One day, The Doctor has pricked himself during an operation and found a jet black tar, so thick that it never managed to escape from the shallow wound. He'd always been a good man, always helping the needy, operating on the dying, the homeless, those who nobody else would risk their careers on. He'd gone to church, worshiped God, refrained from alcohol and cursing, and still, his blood was filled with Blackness. It was then that he realized: the blood must tell the future. It not only darkened and thickened with each impurity, but it also knew the state of your future deeds. Somehow, the Blackness must be able to judge the soul and see what it was capable of.
With that realization came a new purpose. If one day he would be the Blackest of all devils, then he would dedicate the rest of his life until that moment to purify every stain that he could find. Every drop of Blackness would be cleansed from the world in order to balance his own future sin. It was with this knowledge and vision that The Doctor started his research. After a painstakingly long trial, he found that indeed, the blood could predict a person's purity in their later life. With this, he proposed a new program that could eradicate the Blackness before it ever grew into action. Every child would be pricked at thirteen, as before thirteen they were judged to be well under their parents control. Those whose blood was Black would be taken away from their parents and eliminated from society in order to prevent the evil they would inevitably bring into the world.
Whatever the evil he might one day do, The Doctor hoped that his life's work spent in the elimination of all the Tainted would help to balance the scales. Every day, without fail, he would prick him self again in order to remind himself of his purpose. Every day, without fail, the blood would stand within the cut, Blacker than the darkest night and thicker than the Jello that all his patients received. Every day, without fail, it reminded him that time was running short. One day, he would become evil. Before then, he had to cleanse as much evil from the world as he could. And so, so many of the evil ones were left.
Edit: Woah. So that's why people post things on reddit so much. Dang those upvotes feel nice inside haha. For those asking: I had what I thought was a fun idea so I wrote it out in a rather rough sort of way, no idea if it's actually like any of the animes/shows listed below that I haven't watched and I'm glad y'all enjoyed it too :). | The dull pain in my finger snapped me back to reality. I promptly wiped my finger and looked to see if anyone had noticed. Thankfully, the other volunteers were too busy to notice. I invented a quick excuse and left to go home.
I have no memory of the walk back home as my mind was consumed with itself and the flurry of thoughts running through my head. *Shit. Shit. FUCK!* My whole life, it didn't matter. My years volunteering for habitat for humanity, the Red Cross, litter pickup, none of it mattered. Who cares if I've been singing in the church choir since I was a kid? None of it matters.
I could go my whole life with nobody discovering my secret, but in the end, I'll know. I'll know what I did, and I can never forgive myself. My corruption flows through my very veins.
Getting home, I lock my door and close the curtains. I go to my closet door and pull out the shoebox I kept hidden so well. The tears well in my eyes as I whisper, "I'm sorry, Julienne." | 2018-08-04T10:46:53 | 2018-08-04T09:13:15 | 3,279 | 244 |
[WP] Across the galaxy, a synthetic drug known as "Fury" is illegal everywhere due to its effects on the mind and body, humans call it Adrenalin and they can make it naturally. | “They can’t milk you if there is nothing to take.”
I’ll never forget my mother burning this into my brain as soon as I was old enough to understand English.
“Your survival depends on learning not to fear, and unfortunately there is only one way to train you.”
I shivered. My mother’s stern voice alone scared the ever loving crap out of me at the time. I thought she was just going to spank me or something. If only I had known what true fear was, and what she was saving me from.
As humans, we have a natural “fight or flight” response. A burst of adrenaline that gives us temporary super powers. Within our own bodies we produce the magic elixir of super speed, remarkable strength, or heightened senses.
At 4 years old, my training began. She started with the classic childhood fears. Dressing as a monster in my closet, locking me alone in a pitch black room, hiding a rat in my bed. As I grew older, she raised the stakes. Stranding me on a narrow cliff edge, throwing me overboard in the middle of the ocean, driving over 100 mph on a narrow one-lane road. I learned the hard way that the only thing for me to fear truly was fear itself. As long as I stayed calm and managed my adrenaline, I would pass the test and the torture would end. Naturally, with puberty came the next phase: fight.
I was angry. I was sick of the abuse. I wanted to fight. My mother knew it was time to change her approach. So she taught me meditation. How to control my mind and my emotions. How to defend myself, while maintaining composure. I was becoming a man. She knew she was running out of time.
On my 18th birthday, I was drafted for the fury farms. My mother showed no emotion as they collected me from my childhood home, but I knew that if she had allowed herself, she would have been terrified for me, or she would have fought them to the death to help me escape. But she was too smart for that.
I was taken immediately to the medical ward for my physical evaluation. I failed with flying colors. I was utterly worthless to them. Not a drop of adrenaline in my body. Nothing to fear, no desire to fight. I would be honorably discharged and sent on my way. Until the nurse came in to disconnect me. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen in my life. My heart began to race, my hands became clammy. She took one look at my vitals and I knew the jig was up. Shit.
| Everything was going so well until that day at the school.
The centauri ambassador was being given a tour. The kids were behaving. It was all going well until one of them started puffing up. Little James had a severe peanut allergy and must have been exposed somehow.
He started going into anaphylaxis. Luckily he had an epi pen and just as he'd been taught he got it out and plunged the needle into his own thigh.
As people rushed to summon an ambulance the ambassador was all but forgotten at the back of the room. He was shaking like a leaf and holding some kind of scanner.... muttering about assasins, drugs, rage and a species that would apparently try to use its own juveniles as living weapons.... | 2018-03-19T01:26:35 | 2018-03-19T00:46:52 | 46 | 16 |
[WP] You were told your gift for light magic was a blessing. Your wit and talent could make you into a legendary healer. But you're not a gentle person. The charred corpses of your enemies can attest to that. | They say that evil hides in the shadows, waiting for an opportune moment to strike the unseeing who bask in the glorious, good light.
But, of course. That's stupid.
In fact, evil is stupid. I'm not evil. I'm not good. I'm just, well, I'm me.
My Kingdom is renowned across our world for being the birthplace of magic. It is said that thousands of years ago, a piece of the red moon fell onto our land, embedding its magic into the soil, where the plants grew our vegetables, where our animals ate the grass. And humans activated the power during a great war, when the Queen of our Kingdom, Efferri, mourned her husband's death on a cursed battlefield that was akin to a blood lake.
Well, that's the story my parents told us as we were raised at home. And if it's true, it means that everyone is related to that Queen. _Everyone_.
Even me. The fifth kid of a poor family in a small house in the wilderness. We do not belong to any town nor any village. My father is a user of sparks. Yes, sparks. He can just about start fires. My mother is a manipulator of water. She can purify any water. A highly sought skill in a land that is being increasingly polluted by us. My mother was from a noble family but fell in love with my pathetic father and was disowned.
Anyway, I was born with light glowing from my eyes.
A startling thing for any parent. My parents bundled me up and took me to a drifter Moon Priest, who, in apparent astonishment, said, "Your daughter may be the most legendary healer this world has ever seen."
Yeah no.
I grew up hating my life. Hating my pathetic parents who were too in love with each other to truly parent us. My older brothers and sisters were tormentors, my younger siblings were loud and irritating.
I spent my days using light to burn animals. Yes I know it sounds wrong on the surface, but it doesn't when I tell you it's so I could help feed my family. It saved waiting for my siblings to use their pathetic sparks to light a fire with wood collected from the forest.
I got very good at concentrating light in ways I wanted. Weak and fine when healing. Small and dense when killing. Strong and bright when cooking. I learnt many things during my upbringing, and despite having an unruly family, I am still thankful for learning things that I never would have in any other setting, blocked by a controlled education, overlooked by the powerful. I grew up off the grid, as an unknown child.
And when I left my home at the age of 18, to venture to the capital city, I very quickly learned that my sheltered life had not prepared me for the intense mess that was the society.
I became well known very quickly. I hid my name. Met nobles, met royals, met the princes and princesses of the Kingdom. Joined the army to learn more, destroyed invaders and enemies who threatened the peace. And then...
... I hated them all for the corruption that they ignored at their own feet in the streets of the capital.
I still remember when my life's path changed forever.
"Weaker humans do not deserve to live rich lives as we do," the crown Prince said at a private dinner.
I was a hero. An unknown hero from the depths of our abundant forests, whose lack of surname made me exempt from the classes.
"All humans deserve a chance to prove themselves," I said. The crown Prince glared back at me.
"Humans have chances. In schools, in signing up to the army. Time and time again, they have the chance to prove themselves. To move up in the world. But, none of them do," he said.
"Is that so?" I smiled back at him. "Then why do the nobles and royals not attend the same schools or enter the army at the same stage as all others?"
The Prince shook his head at me.
"Your way of thinking is worthless. We are born with greater powers. Therefore we must learn to control the powers to protect the Kingdom. The majority of peasants do not share the same power, therefore they do not need to have our upbringing. It is a futile argument and I will forgive your ignorance in your upbringing."
I coughed at him. "So, as a user of great power, you are above others? You have the right to enforce this silly rule?"
"Yes," the crown Prince said, his eyes darker. He was a user of lightning and fire. An interesting combo, since both emitted the very light I could use against him.
"My father is a peasant and my mother is a noble," I revealed to the table. And I stood up. As soon as I did, the guards around the room changed position, ready to attack.
"So you have proved yourself useful," he said, unflinching.
His sudden smirk, the change of his look from respect to a smugness, a look of superiority, it sent me over the edge. I had seen too many in the streets of the Kingdom suffering. Children, workers, slaves, the overwhelming presence of the Royal Guard. All for what?
I clicked my fingers before anyone could do anything and absorbed all light in the room. A trick I had learned in the army.
It was a final conversation. The Prince, and the other royals, the higher classes. All looked down on all others.
And when I left that room, leaving their charred corpses behind, I went from a hero to a terrifying villain, even to all the masses of people who I wanted to protect from the bottom of my heart.
(a/n: so, idk man, villain origin story!?)
Edit: I haven't written much in a long while and I am very thankful that people have enjoyed this. Thanks for reading! | You channel light magic through the stars. From a very young age I've had an affinity for doing so. Our sun is the closest, so naturally that's where the most power is. Mostly people use that power for 'good guy' stuff. Healing wounds, growing plants, revealing things - the sort of power that is pretty hard to use for evil.
The sun isn't a creation of raw 'goodness', though. I've been told things, in my dreams, in the sounds of the wind, in the high-pitched whine of my own nerves. The sun is an orb of destruction. A finite, measurable, mortal thing. Constantly undergoing nuclear fusion.
What that actually *is* escapes me at the moment... it's escaped me for a very long time. I knew at one point, definitely. I think it was the eclipse - that day when the sun was blotted out and I wondered; what else was out there? I received one *very* descriptive answer. That's when I knew.
What I do know about nuclear fusion is it's hot. I don't mean a hot summer's day hot, or a raging fire hot, or even a volcanic eruption hot. Hot enough to turn steel into *vapor*. It just... goes away like a pot of boiling water. It does the same to a man.
Getting that kind of power from our sun is, apparently, just as easy as getting the soothing healing or the nurturing lights. You just have to know that it's there. Since it's so damn *hot* \- even thinking about it makes me sweat - it takes hardly anything to char a man.
It doesn't take much more to lay waste to the cities of man. Why am I doing this, though? I don't like the sounds of their screams, or seeing the terror in their eyes. I should stop. Go live as a hermit somewhere, healing the wounds of travelers. I could stop. Just... live out my life and die peacefully in a hole somewhere. Die without knowing - without *remembering* what the blazing hells nuclear fusion is.
No. No, I have to find out. I have to remember. I... I shouldn't stop. I can make it quick for them. They'll probably be ravaged by war or something. I... *logically* I shouldn't stop. I need to keep going. Nobody can stop *me*. Definitely not with light magic. And that's - that's the whole point! I *can't* stop! I have to keep going, until someone finds out *how* to stop me.
I don't know what it is, but I don't need to. They'll *oppose* me. Not just on the battlefield, but in magics, in mind. They'll think differently than I do, they'll believe in something else. They'll find something that goes against me. It won't be long now until they make the connection; I get my power from the sun. There's no creature on this planet that can use that blazing ball better than me.
So they won't use it. They'll use something else. They'll blot out the sun. Again. Then - *then* I will remember. I'll look into that dark, blazing abyss and remember again. I'll understand what this power is. What it means. It won't need to be very long since it's just remembering. It'll just be a quick reminder, a recap. Yes, a recap! That's all I need, a recap.
That's all I need.
It'll be soon now... I can feel it. Someone... *something* will stop me. They'll blot out the sun and give me answers. Just... a few more villages. Maybe a city. I'll let a few more go this time. I'll stuff cotton in my ears so I don't have to listen to the screams. Then they'll tell others. Yeah, yeah soon. Then someone will find out how to eclipse the sun. Very soon.
Soon. | 2021-08-21T06:51:42 | 2021-08-21T06:30:24 | 392 | 90 |
[WP] The last time the aliens invaded our planet they fled after losing the war. They have reluctantly returned to wage war and are relieved to see that dinosaurs no longer inhabit Earth, but have been replaced by the smaller and less intimidating humans. | Finally, a chance for redemption.
We were headed back to Earth, a lowly mineral planet in a desolate corner of the quadrant. I can still remember the taunting words of Elder Karaza...
*"You lost.... to a bunch of lizards?"*
Yes, it still stings.
I now armed my warriors with long range heavy bows, crossbows and even a few ballistas. THIS would keep that damned Tyrant Lizard away from my troops. No more eating for you tonight!
Shoring up my emotions into a passive mask, We landed once again at the arrival point. The grassy fields looked much the same, but the addition of a spinning fan that moved with the wind was a new one. Perhaps the lizards evolved into something more intelligent?
No matter, we were here to destroy them once and for all. As soon as the ship touched down, we arranged ourselves in a standard box formation, shieldbearers on the outside and bowmen on the inside. I ordered the move towards the fan thing, only to spy a primitive dwelling of wood and stone. Maybe they DID evolve. As we approached, a new Earth creature stepped out. I switched my language router on, and set to autotranslate. PERHAPS it would work.
***
Farmer Macready walked out to see the strange formation of shields and aliens approaching. It didn't look like the aliens in his sons comic, but more like a Roman legion. He stopped, then stood on his porch chewing on a blade of grass. He spit into the bucket on the creaking wood, then leaned against the doorframe.
"Can I help you, gentlemen?"
***
"...gentlemen?"
The words were innocent enough, but I could feel his tension. My archers raised their bows as I responded.
"We have come to end this. We suffered defeat at your hands eons ago, and now I have come to right the injustices heaped upon us."
With no more words, my archers fired. Not one arrow hit the strange creature, but no matter. He scrambled back into his dwelling as arrows continued to thunk heavily into the wood structure. I heard something break, and then a metal tube poked out. With a voice like thunder and spewing flame, the metal tube bucked upwards, and I saw the first shieldbearer go down hard. He was bleeding green ichor form a large hole in his thorax.
"SHORE UP! CLOSE THE HOLE AND CALL THE OTHERS!"
I started the formation away from the dwelling, as another thunderous boom sounded. Hundreds of metallic pings echoed around me as I felt the sting of an insect. Sounding retreat, we headed towards the ship to regroup.
(To be continued) | Report Z7Xy1:
As our histories record, we ultimately lost the war with the previous prime denizens of this planet. As of today, that formidable race is now extinct. The new penultimate inhabitants, while diminutive in stature display impressive feats of intellectual and organizational prowess for their age. Yet, these self-referential 'humans' are buried by collective blindness. By the time of the Paragon's arrival, we expect the warmongering and resource consuming masses to fully metastasize, with massive auto-immune population contraction to follow.
In due course the planet will be run by a selection of more reasonable apes with whom we've already established several successful emissaries. Therefore, after extensive research into the condition of "Earth", as the planet is now called, we recommend a delayed action.
Yours,
Scoutmaster Zong | 2017-03-04T03:25:46 | 2017-03-04T01:36:26 | 452 | 18 |
[WP] Grandpa has talked gibberish since an accident in '79. One day, while converting grandma's VHS tapes to digital, you find yourself rewinding some footage. Grandpa comes into frame. You realize you can understand what he's saying and the words terrify you. | I don't know if it was hope that I, or someone in the future could figure something out; but I faithfully started transferring the old VHS tapes onto my computer. Grandpa's illness had not only been tragic, but completely unexplainable. A picture of perfect health, one day he suddenly walked into a wall at a museum and ever since then he couldn't speak. His head was fine, no sign of a stroke or concussion, it was as if his mind suddenly flew the coop. His motor coordination degenerated and he could barely control his own body.
For a few years Grandpa had to be committed to a hospital, but despite the mysteriousness and severity of it, he gradually bounced back. Though from that point on he couldn't speak and seemed to have trouble walking, he more or less returned to normal. There was no explanation for any of this, no apparent damage, nothing. I hoped my efforts to preserve his records would at least be a reference for posterity in case such an absurd event happened again.
After finishing uploading them, I selected them and moved them to the external drive where they could be stored without being lost. I'm pretty bad with computers sometimes and wanted some backup copies of Grandpa's unintelligible videos. My klutzy self accidentally double clicked, and the computer froze up, trying to play all the files at once. Argh, just great.
Tapping my fingers, I waited to see if would start up so I could continue as it sometimes did. A cacophony of noise from a horde of Grandpas began playing out of my speakers. Moving to cancel out of the windows, I stopped.
"That's not how you...oh"
"Really, you are a pretty cute spawn....er kid I mean."
"Look, you lose, alright? I don't know why you...hmm."
A dozens, or hundreds of iterations of Grandpa were speaking. But not all of it was gibberish. Together, some of the tapes began to form sentences. I tried tracking the conversations by tone to string them together. My knuckles started to turn white.
"A video camera, something that records a series of events. That is a really neat idea for you to come up with." In several of the tapes, Grandpa then did one of his erratic spasms, but in one, he had hit his head; and in many of the tapes he began to react.
What was this?
Turning off the sound to focus and not be misled, I began matching up his physical actions in the tapes. The recordings still didn't map linearly, but it could be boiled down into four intertwined lines. It was a start, so I hoped.
The first series began with Grandpa shouting, composited from the loud points in his speech that randomly appeared from time to time. Then, there was a long period of hoarse and squeaky gibberish that made my own throat hurt thinking about making them. Then, like a Switch being flipped, English.
"Hello camera! Little Things sure do come up with strange ideas. Doing things in order is a bit more confusing than I thought it would be, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. This video camera is very interesting, it's unfortunate no one figured out how to talk to me in person. All they ever see is gibberish even though I'm using it as intended. I do not need this, so it is a fun but wasteful project. I guess I have been influenced a bit."
"This Little One was close to another Little One who acts strangely in this presence. There is a change, though due to limitations it is a bit fuzzy. In other data, this Little One has a descendant's descendant. He obsesses over recording information. I wondering if he would ever see this, after leaving this body I can no longer back into this one."
"I think I'm getting much more used to the idea of time, though it makes it harder and harder to look forward and backward. It does get fixed after leaving this body, but for now I'm not totally sure what will happen. What a strange experience."
"After all these years, I now can feel like. It is sad that it goes away, but it makes me...happy to feel like the Little Ones do. This Little One's wife has a lot of niceness in her."
For a long time, I switched between between the paths. Occasionally there was a syllable lost or gained out of place, but for the most part the man, or thing, that had taken the place of Grandpa rambles on rather coherently about many trivial things. And some not so trivial.
"My grandson surprised me this week! It was incredible, he's so great! I meant to pat him on the head, but ended up falling over. I think he got in trouble, but that might have been when he broke something. He keeps trying to play games with me over this month, and even though I'm fairly sure I didn't do it right, he looked like he was having a lot of fun."
Ah, I remember that! I thought rules were dumb and tried making up my own as I played. A lot of people got angry for me doing that, but Grandpa just went with it. I had a good time too, Gramps.
I felt my eyes get a bit warm and damp as I watched the screen flicked between older and younger versions of himself, reminiscing about things in an out of order manner, becoming more coherent with time. Eventually, I reached the set of videos where all the paths converged; he must have figured out doing things in order by that point.
"I still can't speak, but I've got a good enough handle on things now. I feel, sad may be the best term for it. In fact, that's exactly it I reckon. I miss my wife, I miss those days with my kids and grandkids, all of these emotions are so enjoyable. But I guess it's a circular line of reasoning. I'll be 'back' to my old self 'soon' and they won't be there anymore. Well it was good to have experiences in this way, in order."
"So this is probably going to be goodbye video camera. You won't even work in the future. This has been a good run. Things will be much different for me again, soon. I have had fun with time."
"And best for last, there was no time like the present; I enjoy spending time with all of you Little Ones. So in case I don't see you, Ph'nglui, mglw'nfah, wgah'nagl!" | "One sentence, over and over again. That's what my grandpa's lips were mouthing in reverse. The speed varied, but everytime he tried to speak, it was just that one sentence, spitting out like a printer on the fritz."
"Ever feel bad for a broken machine? Well, multiply that by how much you love a dear family member, and then drink a full glass of neat whisky straight, and you might get a little close to how messed up I am right now Father. What the hell does it mean when a man can speak a sentence fuckin' perfectly in reverse, and can't say nothing else? I read the Bible. Peeked through the Koran, some Indian mumbo jumbo just looking for answers man, I need some help."
The uncomfortable, deafening, and completely justified sixty seconds of silence did it's thing, trudging by and letting me know how crazy I sounded, even sitting in a confession booth. The man on the other side took a patient break, sighing as quietly as he could before opting for a reply.
"I'm not sure what answers you were hoping for, but I'm a man. Just a man who believes that Jesus Christ had a few great things to say that bear repeating."
I stammered until the silence washed over the air again. Shorter, but just as uncomfortable.
"Let this be *sacred* to you." I muttered, the words bitterly rolling past my teeth in the same eerie cadence that I could shake hearing from the footage of grandpa.
"I beg your pardon?" I could hear him shift backwards in his seat, and I knew the words and their odd rhythm hit him just as hard as they did me. Before, I was trying hard not to sound like I was some nut off their meds or something. At this point, I didn't care if I was spewing word salad with bullshit dressing.
"For twelve, *fucking twelve* years, my grandfather, my mother's father, said those words; he said em just like that again and again, but *backwards*. Back-wards. Does that sound normal? It doesn't, because it's weird, it's the sort of weird shit that happens to people and gets immortalized in lists-of-weird-shit-that-happened books and TV slots and god damned click bait articles. Nothing is normal for me anymore, I don't get to be normal, and I've accepted that! No, seriously, I'm fine, but I want to know what the hell is happening."
My volume and speaking speed flew beyond "panicked and broken", and were in danger of reaching "obnoxious infomercial".
"Calm down son."
Saw that coming!
"I... this is a little above my paygrade so to speak."
"Let this be *sacred* to you. You read that book every day, there aren't any verses or psalms or whatever that sound like that?"
"I... look, I don't know. Please, calm down-"
"Let this be *sacred* to you! Again and again, *backwards* man! Let this be *sacred* to you, let this be *sacred* to you, over and over again from a man who only worshipped hard work, you tell me why a thing like that happens to a man after a baseball conks him on the skull!"
"LEAVE MORTAL, DO NOT SAY THE WORDS AGAIN, LEAVE THIS PLACE BEFORE I RIP YOUR SKULL OUT"
The two awkward silences before? Add em together, square that, and multiply the result by about sixty. Still a fraction of how uncomfortable the atmosphere had become, *to say the friggin least*.
Nobody else in the church seemed to hear the old man's outburst. Naturally, I ran home and cried, and got reacquainted with my good friend Cheap Beer. Never really got an answer, and never really tried again. Since then, I mutter those words any time I see a car accident or something awful like a homeless kid. It became a habit, and for some reason, things always turn out okay when I do it.
That church I went to got busted, turns out the priest was a sick fuck. Touched some of the choir kids, embezzled most of the collection plate money, had a booby trapped basement where he killed animals.
After I hit the bottle, I left for a meditation retreat for a couple months to get my shit together and to get churches out of my head for good. Teacher said it was a mantra my grandpa might have gotten from "the gods" after the ball hit him. I don't know what to believe, but honestly, above all else? Let this be sacred to you. | 2016-10-09T14:00:45 | 2016-10-09T13:44:16 | 20 | 14 |
[WP] Humanity wipes itself out through nuclear war, but everything on the Internet still exists. Another sentient race on Earth millions of years into the future develops an Internet and somehow manages to gain access to the human Internet, revealing everything humanity had posted and stored online. | Somewhere, on planet B13 of solar system number 137652, a man was staring blankly at a computer screen.
Well, he wasn't exactly a man, and it wasn't exactly a computer screen. In fact, he was a humanoid alien known as a Ziri, and the computer screen was an image-displaying device, specifically Device 15ZK51. Hardly the same thing at all, come to think of it.
But, for all intents and purposes, he was a man staring blankly at a computer screen, if only because of the familiar look of glassy horror that the humans used to be known for. This man was suffering the same thing that so many humans have suffered ever since the dawn of the Internet.
"...Afhir? Are you alright?"
The man didn't even look away from the computer screen as he responded to his wife's question. "I need cleansing."
The woman looked puzzled. "What on B13 for, Afhir?"
"I have just been exposed to an image that may cause me severe and irreversible mental harm. I must cleanse my mind at once."
"I'm sure it's not that bad."
"It is, Fidora. Believe me it is. I do not know what kind of sick pleasure humans used to take from sharing such disgusting images on this...*Internet*, but it is abominable. I need cleansing."
Fidora varked, a sound that expressed the Ziri equivalent of 'scorn'. "You're being silly, Afhir. Here, let me see--"
Afhir promptly pushed her away, preventing her from seeing the screen. "No."
"Afhir."
"I must shield you."
"You're being *ridiculous*."
"I am not."
"Yes you are. Let me see."
"No."
With another vark, Fidora shoved a protesting Afhir out of the way. Her eyes fell on the computer screen--
--And she froze, her gaze turning more and more distant as her mind fully absorbed the horrors of what she was seeing. All fell silent.
"...Fidora?"
Silence.
"Fidora?"
Silence.
"Fidora, are you alright?"
"...I need cleansing." | Michael Scott looks at everyone in the conference room. Everyone horrified with the recent discoveries of how people used to be and all the terrible they had done. Not sure what to expect, a worker named Stanley is paying no attention to the meetings. One can feel the atmosphere getting heavier as the discovery continues. A voice comes outta nowhere,
"There has been a murder in Savannah".... | 2018-05-19T19:18:20 | 2018-05-19T17:26:27 | 363 | 33 |
[WP] Aliens have invaded to conquer and enslave humanity, however "slavery" to them involves only working the equivalent of 12 hours a week while having healthy food, shelter, and means of entertainment taken care of so the human resistance is having trouble with defectors preferring to be slaves. | What is a slave? This question was on the mind of every human and alien.
Humans banned slavery, fought against it with books and newspapers and speeches. With these same tools they promoted alienation, deshumanized workers and made them a cog in a dusty machine.
Aliens were slavers, and slaves had rights set in stone. No overworking, food, shelter and plenty of means to occupy the time leisurely. Slavery was for species incapable of handling themselves, and if you considered the state of earth lately, they might have a point.
The bastion was humanity's last resistance. Well, it was also surrounded by angry humans that had joined the alien overlords willingly. Before, they had been cashiers, industry workers, teachers, barely making ends meet, but free. Today, they were slaves, happy and secure.
So what is a slave?
Billions followed, refugees forgotten by foreign policies, empty salarymen, poor fools trapped in indentured servitude, they all welcomed the change. The only ones that didn't were arabian emirs, european media moguls, american oil barons, an old guard in an old world that couldn't let down the wealth and power they had amassed.
Naturally, they fought back. Not with weapons, what rich man would do so? But with advertising, speeches and newspapers, to encourage a mass of plebeians to favor the human form of freedom over alien slavery, to pick up weapons and die so the rich could continue an opulant lifestyle. That last part wasn't in speeches, but nobody was blind. Against aliens with higher technologies, propaganda doesn't work for long.
So instead, the keyholders of the old and rotten world called themselves the last champions of the human race, everyone else was but a traitor.
Champions who would never lower themselves to unclog the toilets. That's the freedom they fought for, the privilege to never care about plumbing.
It went as far as to surprise the aliens themselves. Those that joined willingly and wished for nothing but some peace and rest were quick to take up arms against the ancient oppressor.
The slaves stormed the bastion, took the weapons off the feeble old men and women who never knew how to use them. These champions begged, begged the asailants to defend their values, so disconnected from reality they did not see they already were.
Who the slaves were in this situation was largely a matter of perspective.
That is how humanity fell, aliens only had to offer a slavery with proper living standards, and humanity did the rest. | "Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?" screamed the man on the street corner, as passersby looked down and refused to meet his eyes.
"You, boy! Don't you want to live in a world where you're free to choose what you do with your time?"
The dark skinned man stared, but eventually thought better of arguing, and strode towards the opera. There was no point; the fat old man with his shiny pink face reminded him too much of his old employer, and that fool had been hanged in the first ten months after the invasion, because he refused to close his meat packing plant. | 2020-11-22T09:55:03 | 2020-11-22T08:54:13 | 464 | 283 |
[WP] Describe a game of Civilization from the perspective of one of the civ's citizens
Like imagine you're in the middle of a domination victory as Gandhi or a culture victory as France, describe the experience from one of the little workers that inhabit your cities. | "ANOTHER city? Is he mad?"
Not the best sound to wake up to.
"He's an idiot. He and his *advisors* should all be shot!"
I walk downstairs and catch my mom's expression: *Don't get him started.* I smile at her and shake my head as I walk into the kitchen. My father sits there, steam practically escaping through his ears. I look over at the television. The ticker reads, "LORD WASHINGTON: NEW SOUTHERN ISLANDS CITY".
Dad turns to me exasperated, "Literally just end a blithing war against those Korean pricks and pounce Babylonia, but he spreads our resources even further! El Do-fucking-rado better in those islands, I tell you!"
"Dad, stop getting riled up. It is what it is. I'm sure there's a good reason."
"No, Jacob! You'd swear it were a game or something. He's done this forever. Win a war, spread out, win a war, spread out, *lose* a war, **still spread out**! Well listen 'ere, kiddo, eventually our luck'll run out. Then where will we be? Just where my ancestors were when Elizabeth pulled this shite."
Like any proud Englishman, it's 200 years on and Dad is still pissed about the Second English War. Or I guess I should say like any proud Englishman from the occupied territories. Dad moved to Boston 43 years ago but hails from the Eastern English District, Nottingham specifically. The Northern District cities were annexed decades ago, but Washington keeps the East under firm occupied control.
"Ah well, fuck it. Bloody morons. I'm heading out, Jakey. Love ya lots. Sweetheart! I'm off!" He leaves in a rush. His little rant made him late.
I walk to the living room where my mom is reading a book. She looks unnerved.
"Mom?! What's wrong?" I sit next to her.
"Oh Jacob, I don't know. I just worry. You know me. With your father's blood pressure and all, and with you and all these wars."
"Mom, you can't think like that," I say hugging her tight. "I'm too old to be conscripted. And Boston is safe."
"Oh, I know. You know me, though."
I kiss her forehead. "I have to get to work, ma. Be back later, all right?"
I hate lying to her. But with her PTSD, I can't help myself. Washington's pointless wars have gained him land and influence, but at the cost of so many lives. So many psyches. Yeah, he can pacify the populace with theatres and luxurious goods from his many conquests, but for how long?
The truth is, Boston isn't safe. The largest city this far away from Washington City is right on the border of our supposed friend, but historical rival, Egypt. Ramses is a ruthless man, but at least his people are happy—truly happy. Across the river is Memphis. We stand no chance in a land battle against Egypt. Our latest military endeavor against Korea has royally fucked our coffers. That's why that city was founded—money, oil, and most importantly uranium.
There's only one thing stopping Ramses from steamrolling his way through Boston: Our incredible army that sits along the borders and in the cities. Unfortunately for Boston, we're too inland to have naval support, which Washington has so foolishly put all his cards into. All those lovely bases in the city? Empty. Fronts. The illusion of security and might.
The truth is: we are weak. The truth is: Ramses won't attack unless he knows it. The truth is: as of 11:00 am today he will. And Washington will regret the day he left a half-English spy to rot in enemy lands. | I knelt before [Supreme Pimp Daddy Master Ghandi] trembling in fear. I was scared shitless of course, but it had to be done.
Someone had to tell him what an asshole he had become.
"Bitches, yes bitches. Get over here please. Compliment my stuffed, Alexander head."
Ghandi smirked as the [bitches] complimented his regalia. Yes. While he is distracted, this is the right moment.
I cleared my throat. " Erm. [Supreme Pimp Daddy Master Ghandi] I'm here" *God he looks even more intimidating than he does in the forced labor projects around the nation* "...with a petition, from a large amount of...concerned...citizens."
I smiled the best one I could muster. What was I thinking. The consequences. Oh jesus, I have a family. Please... ^someone save me.
"Bitches, no the other bitches. Yes. Can you please...escort our. Guest. Outside into the "garden"?"
"[Supreme Pimp Daddy Master Ghandi]? Were those air quotes?"
*Oh no anything but Ghandi's bitches* I've heard rumors, but nothing could prepare me for their stren- "AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH"
They dragged me out into the main hall. Threw me on the ground with such force my face broke. A black pit lay to my side. My screams echoing into the depths.
[Supreme Pimp Daddy Master Ghandi] strolled out of the throne room gates. His Venetian violet spider silk flayed out at least 10 feet behind him.
"Citizen #11399481. You're a clever one you. One of the few that remember the INC, and my idealogy. I admire that, really. Tis' a shame though, that a bright one like yourself would even consider to lay their eyes on me. Goodbye young man".
^Shove
EDIT: I understand I'm not a very skilled writer but I do have some Civ experience so I'd thought I'd give someone a right laugh hopefully :)
| 2014-12-22T21:14:46 | 2014-12-22T19:23:29 | 31 | 17 |
[WP] Your little daughter have imaginary friends. One day, she asked if her friends can sleep in her room. You jokingly told her that they can stay as long as they want, as long as they help with the rent. The next morning, you found a hand wearing a Rolex and a roll of cash by the sink. |
A hand. Really? They couldn’t have at least left it in a zip lock bag or rolled up in a handkerchief? Well, beggars and all. At least it wasn’t dirty. Rather clean actually. And was it…cauterized? Whoever did it, did a good job. No blood stains, thank goodness. Those would have taken some serious effort to get out of the counter tops. Like she needed more to add to her chore list today.
“Alyssa! Can I talk to you, honey?” Her voice echoes through the kitchen and up to her child’s room. Got to love acoustics.
“Be down in a bit mommy!” Moments pass and then a little red headed, sweet face angel in a blue jumper comes dashing down the stairs. She’s told her before not to run down them. Kids will be kids.
“What is it mommy?” Cute, with a bit of cheek. Just like her mother. She shows the girl the hand, to which she leans back, mildly disturbed. “Eeeww. It’s so hairy!”
“Yes honey. Very hairy. With a Rolex I might add. Did your friends leave this?”
She nodded, happy to move onto another subject. “uh-huh. You said they could stay if they paid rent.” Her voice rises in mind panic, afraid her mother will change her mind.
With a sigh, she slaps the hand down onto the counter and washes her own hands. “Alright honey. I just needed to know. Next month, can you please have them do mommy a big favor and remove the items off of the bodies? I don’t care if they kill them, just don’t go bringing limbs home. You know how squeamish your father gets around blood and loose parts.”
Alyssa nodded, reaching her hand back for a stray cookie hanging out of the jar. Without turning, her mom playfully spoke, “And how we feel about you having sweets before breakfast.” This was met with a squeak.
Setting the drying towel on top of the hand, she handed a sack lunch and thermos to her daughter. “Now, finish getting ready. The bus will be here soon. You know the rules.”
The girl nodded vigorously. “Uh-huh. Don’t tell anyone about the “guests” in the house. Not even my teacher”
“Especially your teacher.”
“Ignore all strange sounds I may hear while riding the bus. Don’t dance in mushroom rings. And..and” her face scrunched in concentration.
“And don’t follow or talk to fae. You don’t know what deals they’ll try to make or what food they’ll offer you. It’s better to leave them be. Now give mommy a kiss.”
She bent down as her daughter leaned in to kiss her cheek and receive a hug.
“There’s a good girl. Have a good day at school honey.”
“I will mommy.”
She turned back to the money, the door closing sounding in the background. Flipping through the bills, she softly counted. Five grand. This would be more than enough for the month. She would have to write up an official contract later and have her friends sign it. Didn’t need anyone reneging on their agreements now. Else, more than a hand would be lost. | Tired and half asleep you stumble your way into the kitchen and find yourself immediately stiffen awake as you see a severed hand sitting near the sink and a roll of cash with blood stains on it. Terrified, you can’t seem to mutter a single word, yet as a police officer you instinctively reach for your phone to call for back up. You enter the dispatch number and just as you hit the call button you hear a faint laugh coming from the living room followed by a, “See I told you my daddy would let you live here.”
Suddenly all that echoes through your mind is your daughters question, “Can my friend Sammy live here?” Frozen in place you manage to call your daughters name and ask her to come into the kitchen. As she walks through the swinging kitchen door you notice the door staying open just a few moments longer as if someone else were walking in behind her. You ask her where the money came from and she replied, “Sammy got it for you, he says it’s your rent money and the watch is a gift for letting him stay with us.”
She walks back out of the kitchen before you can say anything else and from the other room you hear a male voice say, “Your my perfect little angel.” As you slam through the door and into the living room you find only your daughter, who then turns to you and and shrieks in a ghastly voice, “She’s mine now!” | 2019-10-06T13:44:39 | 2019-10-06T12:56:51 | 261 | 23 |
[WP] Gold is boring. Being a hipster dragon yourself, you decide you want these freshly minted "cryptocurrencies" in your hoard. The problem is you have no idea where the humans keep them. | >**DUNGEONS & NERDS**
All wealth was to be mine.
Amongst all the dragons, I was perhaps the most greedy of all. I wanted **everything**.
Why?
Because a little-known fact- even amongst dragons- is that the size of our Life force, our Aura, directly correlated to how much wealth we had gained... so long as it was ill-gotten, of course.
Dragons were inherently amoral-to-evil creatures, it was how we were made- and dragon magic was darker still. I wasn't sure if any of the other dragons in the world had caught on to the secret of my strength- many of my kin, in this developing age, chose to shift into more human-looking forms and make moves in the markets to satisfy our internal, overwhelming urge for more money, for more power...
But they were all doing it *legally*. Perhaps they were cruel in their moves, stepping on humans, but all their gains were technically legal- and so their powers were diminished compared to mine.
That was probably also why I was unable to maintain a human form as they could- I was too powerful to contain my energy in such a shell.
It was a fateful day when Rymakh visited me, to tell me of the new currency that had been 'minted'. Primarily used for secret transactions, untraceable- each detail I heard made me salivate in anticipation.
He told me that acquiring it would be beyond my abilities- it was on the 'internet', it was intangible- yet it was *real*.
I knew that it was real, because I stole Rymakh's supply of it- by giving him noogies and wet willies until he wrote down the information necessary to obtain it for myself.
After interrogating him some more, I knew exactly what I had to do.
All of my gold, my jewelry, my precious wealth- I melted it down with my Dragon Fire in a cauldron- being careful not to lose any, of course- and condensed it all into as small of a space-taker as possible. I dug out extra room in my mountain cave dwelling, and then went on my all-important quest...
To kidnap 'nerds'.
According to Rymakh, 'nerds' were a subspecies of human who were the only ones capable of harvesting this new money. Kidnapping them was easy enough- find houses that used much more energy than the others, and take everyone and everything inside.
I had secured my mountain lair to be inescapable, and so as I gathered nerds by the dozens, I ensured they were comfortable and safe, then told them to get to work on securing me more of this 'bitcoin'.
After I had gathered a few hundred of them, they told me they needed a power supply for their work- I performed that role myself, using magic to supply their energetic needs, as well as tethering them to the 'internet'.
I had expected them to be miserable, but at the end of each day, as they gave me their reported earnings, they began to thank me.
"Why?" I asked the whole crowd of them.
"Well- a lot of the work we do is automated. So we're actually working *less* now than we did for the other humans. And you feed us! And there's no rent!" Said one of them.
A murmur of agreement rose from the crowd.
"And we all have common interests- in the evenings we play games together, and... well, you're really warm, sir dragon, so even during winter, we're not cold. Honestly, you kidnapping us is way better than the life we had before. So...from all of us, thank you."
Well. I was still gaining power, since I *had* illegally abducted them all. If they were happier for it... and, in a small part of my heart, I had begun to grow to like their company...well, why not? | The dragon opened his mouth to roast Jack, and then eat him.
“Wait! Wait!” said Jack. “I can get you more gold!”
The dragon paused. “Gold?”
Jack opened his eyes slowly. The dragon had closed his mouth and waited for an answer.
“Sort of. Yes! Yes it’s like gold! You like gold coins, don’t you?”
The dragon eyed him with contempt. Smoke curled from his nostrils. Jack had to make this fast.
“These are even better. These are *bit*coins.”
“Bitcoins?”
“They’re worth a lot more than gold. You don’t have to worry about a gold standard. With bitcoins, the sky’s the limit! No regulation or anything!”
“Go on,” said the dragon. He was rather tired of the FDIC harassing him. The bank didn’t like his gold coins, and it was troublesome to split them up into $200,000 increments.
“They’re the latest craze,” said Jack. “Extremely valuable. And...”
The dragon raised a scaly eyebrow.
“They’re *invisible*.”
An invisible hoard that no one could steal? The dragon was sold.
“Find me these bitcoins and bring them to me,” said the dragon.
“First I’ll need some gold,” said Jack.
The dragon agreed and so Jack took the gold to spin into bitcoins. Sadly, Jack put all of his gold and bitcoins in Mt Gox, and soon it was gone.
He didn’t think of the dragon again until he heard leathery wings flapping outside his window. The dragon sat on the roof, and peered through the window with one furious eye.
“Where are my bitcoins, Jack?” hissed the dragon.
“They’re in, well, the investments didn’t quite pan out. The price is subject to fluctuation. Actually, they were stolen from Mt Gox—“
“Enough excuses!”
And just before the dragon burned Jack to a crisp and flew away to find the Mt Gox, Jack’s last thought was, “This will be good for Bitcoin.”
Find my stories at r/oncemorewithandroids | 2020-10-17T13:11:03 | 2020-10-17T12:56:20 | 90 | 58 |
[WP] Suddenly the whole world hears a voice from the sky: Hi guys, God here. I'm being promoted to the Andromeda galaxy and I'm here to introduce my replacement, Bob this is earth, earth this is Bob. Have fun, pleasure to meet you all!! | "Good morning folks, Jim Jimmies here with DEF news at 9. Some major controversy lately has appeared in the confirmation of the existence of God as well as his equally sudden departure. As one can imagine a crisis of faith has been had worldwide though to help settle our doubts we have his apparent replacement here for an interview. Ladies and gentleman of our studio audience, please welcome Bob!"
"Thanks JJ, great to be here"
"Please don't call me that. But anyhow there's been a lot of commotion worldwide concerning this fairly extraordinary turn of events hasn't there?"
"I wouldn't say that JJ, the numerous human lives lost in the many suicide pacts and shooting as perpetrated by religious extremists are but invisible specks of sand in an impossibly large and swirling cosmic ocean. What do you call this hot drink by the way? it's fantastic."
"Ummm...That's called Coffee and it's a staple of a modern human breakfast".
"On second thought spare me the details I read the cliff notes, so, you had questions?".
"Ah, yes. We have opened questions up to the public. The first one comes for MattSeymor32 on twitter and asks "What exactly is your game plan?".
"Very reasonable as questions go. Well the first thing I want everyone to know is that I plan to be a much more hands on deity, no more cryptic bull excrement about "Plans" and setting bushes on fire and all that shiz. I have a very clearly outlined itinerary I intend to follow."
"Interesting, care to share some details with us?"
"Hells to the no my homo-sapien, I'm not gonna let you apes in on the "plan". You trusted God for what? *millions* of years and you didn't even know that guy existed until now. And since me and him are basically in the same percentile you should all just relax, okay?"
"That...raises far more questions but I think I'm just gonna move on to the next one. A_Toole40 asks "But what about Atheism? or the other religions? What's going oooooooooonnnnnn?!?"
"Knew this one would come up, so, the underlying science-and yes it is a science-of godhood is a little beyond humanity right now so I'll try to explain as best I can. Everyone is technically correct in some way and also technically not correct, it's relative really".
"Well that just...answered nothing and even contradicted itself. Okay final question of the day and this is coming from me, what's the first thing you're gonna do as Gods replacement?"
"Well- I intend to make well on my promise to be more direct with my Boblieness. As such I want to start big by fixing New Jersey and then going on from there."
"Oh, well, that certainly isn't the answer I expected. How may I ask do you intend to fix New Jersey?"
"With lasers, of course". | "Well... fuck." said the Atheists of the world
"I thought his name was Yahweh.." said others
Yet more would come to fear the days of Bob's 'tweaks'. "Nothing too huge, just want to get my own chapter in that neat book of yours!"
Armageddon might be a little harsh to wish for, but it certainly changed the religious sects of the world.
For one, God was talking to us. Or.. bob. He spilled the beans that were weren't really that special and that God DIDN'T make us, he just took the credit for it. Also that apparently God did a shit job watching the kids.
On the downside, he turned the sky purple. PURPLE. Why was that even on his list too DO. He once made it rain cats and dogs because he misinterpreted a turn of phrase. The religious nuts are even uneasy when they realize that having a new god/manager means that everything, every single thing they've prayed for, killed for and lied about amount to squat.
Because the prayers don't go to god. They go to Bob now. | 2018-03-12T16:25:27 | 2018-03-12T15:59:20 | 89 | 57 |
[WP] Dragons reenter the modern world and soon defeat the military. The dragons can only be harmed in melee combat with a knight, so a talent agent gathers an army of celebrities who have been knighted - Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Mick Jagger, Sean Connery, Elton John, Daniel Day-Lewis, etc. | "That's all that's left of the A-team?" General Ripper asked incredulously.
"Yup. A pile of ashes and... uh... Mick Jagger's partly digested corpse."
"What? Care to explain?"
"It seems Arkathrax, Scourge of the Great Concavity was not much able to keep Mr. Jagger down. So he was vomited up upon armored division 21."
The general put his face in his palms and hunched over, equally defeated and thoughtful.
"Did we at least get in a few hits?"
"Yeah, Sir McKellan did clip a wing after watching Sir Steward get bludgeoned by Ixkyryzzyk, Eternal Flame of Trasero."
"Well, what do we do now? Are we out of Knights?"
"Hardly sir. We're out of famous Knights, which is a problem for public relations purposes, but the Queen is cranking them out as quickly as she can flick her wrist and tell them to rise. The problem isn't so much the supply of Knights, as the fact that we have to engage the Dragons in melee. Their sorcerous protections are quite effective against projectiles and concussive blasts... and obviously they like anything that produces heat. As you know, we've been warned that resorting to nuclear or thermonuclear options would be highly counterproductive."
A small cough emanated from the far corner of the War Room.
"Gentlemen, if I may," a voice from a figure seated in a wheel chair resounded. Colonel Paperclippershmidt had a marked Teutonic accent.
"As you can see, zis strategem vich you haf concocted has been highly unwirksam... er, how you say... suboptimal? Anyhow. You even tried having zee Stone kni-"
"Rock. It's The Rock"
"Sir Johnson, yes, ze big wrestler viz ze remarklable physique. You gave him ze experimental quantum chainsaw. It didn't work."
"What's your point Colonel?"
"Ze drakens are too big for ze brawny approach. Let us try ze brainy approach."
"Continue."
"Well, ze Queen has a remarkable record of knighting Britain's brightest minds, perhaps someone smart can defeat ze drakens in melee."
"Are you going to be nominating yourself?"
"No, I'm... ineligible for such an honor. But zer is someone I zink might be capable..."
The sound of a wheelchair squeaking caught everyone's ears. It wasn't Paperclipperschmidt, however. The sound was coming from the other side of the room.
Slowly, a figure emerged into the light. Decked from head to toe in resplendent Titanium Alloy armor, powered by a cold fusion reactor and glowing brightly from unspeakable energies infusing what appeared to be an alien-designed wheel chair. Two robotic arms were appended and wielding what could only be described as Lightsabers.
A robotic voice announced "YOU BITCHES DIDN'T ACTUALLY THINK I WAS DEAD, DID YOU?" | "For the last fucking time Daniel, you don't need to act like a knight your method acting bullshit is not working." The rest of the rant was drowned out by the loud clanking as Daniel Day-Lewis took his seat in a full set of authentic plate armor, the chair was not however designed to accommodate a full suit of plate mail and collapsed. Patrick Stewart just sighed and looked at the rest of his motley crew of assholes, Someone had invited Ringo Star I don't know why he was just standing in the corner with a six foot long broadsword looking awkwardly around. Elton John was invited because to be frank we needed a ride and he had the biggest plane.
The only vaguely competent people we had were Micheal Caine, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan unfortunately Sean Connery decided everyone could use some dutch courage and they were all very drunk at this point. Just as we were all lamenting our certain defeat my assistant opened the door "Uh sir looks like Christopher Lee came back to life, something about Excalibur and the rightful defender of England either way all the dragons are dead you can go home." | 2019-10-02T09:52:30 | 2019-10-02T09:28:04 | 62 | 19 |
[WP] In most of the galaxy wars are often just shows of strength with fighting as a last resort. As such weapons are designed to be elaborate and flashy. Turns out humans, whose weapons are built with efficiency in mind, have a different understanding of war. | *A/N: I know I've already posted a story to this one, but here's a second concept.*
"You do not belong here!"
Adam Delaney, Terran Ambassador to the Galactic Assembly, turned at the shouted accusation, and sighed internally. *Yeah, thought so.*
His interlocutor was J'assh Kolbor, the Praesh ambassador; ten feet of aggression squeezed into six feet eight of brawn. Whenever J'assh spoke, other ambassadors hurried to agree. And whenever he shouted, as he was doing now, they all shrank back out of the way.
In other words, he had them by the short and curlies.
"I disagree." Adam kept his voice smooth and modulated, reaching the far corners of the chamber with ease. "Terra's application to the Galactic--"
"Will never go through, so long as my people hold space!" bellowed J'assh, striding toward Adam. His shoulders were hunched forward, his massive fists--all four of them--clenched. "You would be best served to leave now before the vote even goes through! Because if you stay, I *will* throw you out into the street like the *k'darrg* you are! And as soon as the word goes out, a fleet will be interdicting your world! You will follow our will or you will *perish!"*
With the last word, he jammed one finger into Adam's chest. Which was all the provocation Adam was willing to take. He'd been watching J'assh's body language, and he'd come to some interesting conclusions.
Grabbing the offending digit, Adam bent it back abruptly. J'assh screamed shrilly as it snapped with a sound like a stick cracking through. But Adam wasn't done yet. Reaching up, he took hold of the frilled neck of J'assh's formal robes, yanked downward ... and as J'assh bent forward, Adam planted a perfect headbutt on the bridge of the huge alien's nose.
Cartilage crackled, and J'assh stumbled backward, then flopped on to his butt. Two hands supported him, while one cautiously explored his nose. The fourth, with one finger bent up and backward at a sickening angle, was of no good to him at all.
"You ... you *struck* me!" exclaimed J'assh in a much less domineering tone than he'd been using up to date. "Why did you strike me?"
Internally, Adam let out a sigh of relief. *So it all* ***was*** *just a bluff. Good to know.*
"You assaulted me first," he said, stepping forward so that he could loom over the seated ambassador. "And now you've learned an important truth."
"What truth is that?" Maroon blood was running from J'assh's nose. He held up his hand, coated in the stuff, as if he'd never seen it before.
"Terrans hit back. And sometimes we strike first." Adam folded his arms. "So, what was that about throwing me into the street?"
J'assh cringed back from his tone. "Perhaps we can reach an agreement?"
Adam smiled, showing his teeth. J'assh flinched. "I just bet we can." | ​
crawford had mocked these aliens for their flamboyant displays of might. he called them all bark and no bite, called them incompetent, impotent. it wasn't very hard to establish humanity's superiority. or so he thought.
like always they showed up with their grandiose warships. and it took only one shot from a mid-class pulse cannon to blow up their flagship. what followed was not war but a massacre. while some were horrified the rest were amused.
milton, rear admiral under him, vehemently condemned him, calling him a bully. but this was war not a school playground, if you can't keep up then don't step up. she then asked him if he had never wondered why the wars were fought such a way. he didn't bother about it, nobody did. maybe they should have.
turns out the aliens had one thing in common, an understanding of the sanctity of life. as such they were focused more on the show of force rather than the force itself. now that humanity had showed them that it does not value life like they do. the aliens had dropped all pretense.
the empire that took humanity more than a century to build was ripped apart in days. he remembered the words of isoroku yamamoto, the japanese admiral during the attack on pearl harbour. and he began to realise that humanity had awakened the sleeping giants and filled them with terrible resolve. | 2020-03-21T11:14:26 | 2020-03-21T09:27:16 | 68 | 33 |
[WP] You are a demon that takes firstborns as payments. When it comes time for payment, you don't do anything evil with the children. Instead, you raise them to be outstanding people. You are responsible for generations of leaders, Doctors, and Heroes. | I felt the tug at my proverbial coat tails. The call of one who wished to make a deal. I rolled my eyes, setting down the book I had acquired on my last visit. As much as I appreciated being summoned, it was often for those who were craven enough that their souls would be mine without intervention.
I let their power drag me between worlds. Through the maddening depths of Limbo, to the mortal realm. There I reformed from a pillar of flame. I could just appear, but I liked to make an entrance. I appeared as an insubstantial cloud of black, letting them.wonder what I truly looked like.
"Who summons me?"
I looked out without eyes, seeing the room around me. It was a dingy place, covered in dust and smelling of damp. A man knelt outside of the circle of blood, sweating as his breath came in gasps. I could feel his worry about the summoning.
"I, I did."
I focused on him. He shivered at my nonexistent gaze, raising his head. His skin was drawn and grey, with thinning hair completing the look. If I had a mouth, I would have been sneering.
"Why do you call upon me?"
He shakily stood, wringing his hands together.
"You, you make deals. I, I need one."
"Hmm. What do you desire? Be aware, there is always a price."
He nodded sharply.
"I... my brother, he died in an accident. But I am accused of arranging it. Please, make it go away."
I gave an internal sigh. Always self serving.
"To change minds is not a minor thing. So the cost must match. I require your firstborn."
He nodded all to quickly. Typical human, selling their flesh and blood to save their own skins.
"I accept."
"Very well. The deal is made."
A chain of shadow leapt out from me, wrapping around his body. It hung for a moment, before sinking into him. It finalised the deal, in a way that neither of us could break it. I let out a brief wave of mental power, causing the matter to be lost. My side complete, I vanished as usual, back to my home plane.
As I returned, my first action was to find my other firstborns that yet lived with me. I found them in one of my studies. Ezral, who came to me fifteen years ago, sat on one chair. He held a book, one of the many biographies I owned, reading it aloud. In front of him lay Monica and Jen. They stared up at him in rapt fascination, drinking in the story.
"Children, how are you doing?"
They glanced up at me, smiling. Jen jumped up and sprinted over, grasping at my form for a hug. I let myself become more solid, wrapping a tendril around her.
"Demmy!"
I laughed at her shout, looking at them. I could tell they would be exceptional people one day. I worked hard to let them live up to their potential.
"I hope you are ready for another member to join our little group."
They gasped, before Jen and Monica broke into cheers. Ezral gave a sigh at the realisation.
"Another parent selling their child?"
"I'm afraid so."
He slid a bookmark in to save their place, setting it to the side. He stretched up, before flopping down again.
"Well, I suppose it will be nice to have another sibling. By the way, when can I go to Yemnall again?"
I gently set Jen down, floating over to him. He looked eager, which pleased me.
"I am making arrangements. Hol is happy to guide you again. He just opened a new clinic, and could use a pair of learning hands."
The grin I got back was all I needed. He was a good soul, far better than the one that sold him for a pile of gold. He wanted to help others, and heal those who were in danger. I was more than happy to help. | Let me tell you a story, a story about an angel in the guise of devil. But what do we mean by angels and devils. It has been taught to us from a small age that angels = good and devil = bad and all of this because a book said so? Maybe words have deeper meaning or maybe, just maybe they are worthless. Maybe the good are just the good and the bad are just the bad.
This story begins in the early dawn of mankind, when the humans were just more than apes, they talked in grunts and they died like animals i.e. by fighting each other or by other animals (that hasn't changed much, has it?). The art of reproduction was born out of hormones than something much deeper. The child born were nothing more than foals, glued to their mother's teats but something had to be done. They couldn't stay animals forever. That's when he interfered. He went to the couple as the woman on her hands and knees, the base animal instincts never goes away, as her mate hoo-s and ha-s while the female grunts. Painful cries are soon overtaken by the cries of the new life among them. The male takes one look at me and bares his teeth, ready to defend its family but he was there for the foal and the male knew. He didn't want to but it was what they agreed upon, fire in exchange of the firstborn. The female cried, the male looked anguished but they gave him their foal. And now he had a job. He needed the foal to be better. He wanted the child, he was going to call it a child, to be the best.
Humanity needed to learn to move forward and they needed a teacher.
Days changed. Seasons changed and so did humanity. Humans became straighter. They became polished. They started wearing clothes, and all of this happened one child at a time. He was never given a name. But everyone called him a devil, a monster for taking away their children. He didn't mind. He was there to see humanity prosper, he was eternal but alas humanity wasn't.
You are probably wondering how this story ends. It doesn't. At least not yet. | 2022-02-05T10:19:01 | 2022-02-05T09:31:23 | 185 | 56 |
[WP] You were once the demon king. "Defeated" by the hero, you went into hiding to pursue a simpler life. Today the "hero" has appeared, threatening you family to pay tribute, not realizing who you actually are. Today you show them what happens when you have something worth fighting to protect. | I saw him coming a mile away, through my dying fields and the broken roads. I saw him stopping in every other house down the road, all poor families with barely anything to survive. Still he demanded their tribute, to those who had nothing to give him he killed, those who had given him too little he killed.
Now he was coming to my house, he was barely a couple hundred meters away, ascending through the grassy slope that led to my home.
He, the "fabled" hero. He, the "glorious" knight the prophecies had foretold. He who had stripped me from my throne.
Oh, those were the days... The "Demon King" they called me, such a silly name. One mothers would use to scare their children into obeying the most simple of commands. In those days I fought and I killed in my name, I fought for my own glory and no one else's. I became king thanks to The One, he had given me power, courage and might, and one day he took them from me and gave them to this coward.
He is getting closer now, I can see the scar I left on his face even from this distance. From the cheek to the eye and his forehead. Will he recognize the man that did that to him? I wonder, I don't think he will. Years have passed, I no longer inspire fear in fellow men. I no longer wear the thick dark armor and helmet that had gave me my nickname. I no longer wield the legendary axe. I'm barely a shadow of who I once was.
I no longer fight, I no longer conquer. I have a family, a wife and kids that depend on me working the fields and gathering just enough to live a happy live. They don't know who I once was, they don't know what brought smiles to my face in the past, they don't know how much I loved power, and they don't know that even if I could go back to that life I'd stay, just to see them happy.
He is in front of me. Behind him there's three guards, they are all completely armed and wearing the kingsmen armor. The only weapon I have close to me is the axe I cut firewood with. The only armor is the leather vest I'm wearing.
"It's the third month of the King's year." He speaks to me "We expect that you have enough to pay for your tribute."
What a piece of shit. He strips me from my throne and the first thing he does is demand the poor people tribute him for doing so.
"Look around, this has been a terrible year. I barely have enough for myself." I answer, every field was barren, it truly had been terrible.
The three guards straighten their shoulders, they are waiting for the order to strike me or my family.
"I didn't ask if this was a good year or not!" He is shouting at me. "What is easier? To beat the demon king that terrorized this kingdom or to work a damn field?!"
I stare at him, what a pathetic human being.
"Answer, peasant!"
When I lost my throne I promised I'd change, I promised I'd fix my mistakes and become the man my father was. Thar I'd let all that anger leave my body and my soul and become a better man.
"Guards, enter this... Hut. Bring everybody out." He orders his guards. I still stare firmly at him.
They move quickly around me and open the door to my home, I hear my wife and kids panicking as they're being grabbed and forced out of their own beds.
As quickly as they entered they leave, each of the guards holding one of my hearts. My beautiful wife, my son who I wish never follows my footsteps, and my daughter, so similar to my wife. How was I, the Demon King, allowed to have such a wonderful family. The One gives and The One takes away. I love them more than anything I've ever loved. Seeing these guards place their hands upon them lights a fire in my stomach I though I had put out long time ago.
"Every year citizens are expected to pay a tribute to me, their king. Every year, without fail! Those who can't are either taken away or killed, they are useless! But you! You won't even answer me, your king! So, you decide. Which one dies first? Your wife?" He approaches my wife and drags his fingers through her face, the fire in my stomach grows with every centimeter of her face he touches. "Your daughter?" He eyes my daughter up and down. I promise to The One, by this nightfall he won't have either of his eyes. "Or your son?" He grabs his arm. My son, fruit of my blood, my legacy. I feel the fire burning all my body.
"Arthur." I speak directly to the king as I stare into his eyes "If you do anything to my family, I promise, in the name of The One I promise, it will be the last thing you do." I say calmly
"You dare speak my name, peasant? You have guts." He approaches my as he draws his sword. "I'll kill you first."
"Daddy, no!" I hear my daughter shout before being silenced by a guard, don't worry baby girl. I should have done this a long time ago.
I extend my arm and grab the old axe I cut firewood with. He prepares a swing from his sword to strike me from the left. I have no armor to slow me down, no heavy boots, no cumbersome helmet. A raging fire roars withing me. I'm too fast for him. I take a couple of steps forward and hit him with my axe right in the top of his helmet, completely shattering it and slicing his head in two. This force, I haven't had this force since I was king.
The King immediately falls to the ground, there is no doubt in any of the soldiers eyes about what they just saw. Their king lies dead at my feet and there's nothing they could have done to stop it.
I bend down and pull my axe out of his head. I look towards the soldiers and my family. They soldiers meet my gaze with fear and with uncertainty.
10 years ago I would have killed them five minutes ago, but I promised myself I would change.
"Go." I tell them "And take him with you."
They let my family go and carried the dead king away with them.
I look to the skies as my family approaches me. The One, he listened to me. I once asked him for power and after it corrupted me he took it from me. Now, I asked him for a chance at redemption and he gave it to me. I no longer wish for power or courage, I wish to keep my family safe. | I slowly sat down on a big rock near me, resting on my wooden staff.
"Say again child, I didn't understand."
"I said, do you bow to some one, old man?"
I looked him straight in the eyes with my only eye, the other he had taken. "I bow only to nature, to the ground and wind, water and sun, whatever brings the crops to the mill so that I can live."
"I command you to bow to me."
I frowned "Bow to you? I bow to noone."
"Don't bullshit me old man!" He pulled out his sword, the enchanted beast that once defeated me and whose cuts I still felt on my body. It's glow had faded, seemingly like the goodness in Arvaars heart from the fame. "I am the conquer of the good and evil, I am the king of the ground, sky and hell" he yelled and then lowered his voice "and I demand from you to bow to me... And give me your land in the name of the Grand Trimpire!"
I looked at him and laughed. "This ain't happening youngsta."
He pushed his blade to my throat. "Oh it is. If you want to keep your life."
I shrugged. "I am an old man, I have lived through a lot and seen all of it. Do you think I have much to live for?"
"What about your wife, if I killed her would that be okay?" There was flame in his eyes. "Or your daughter and grandson? Are... THEY valuable to you?" And he pointed at the end of a nearby cliff where they were tied to a tree on the edge.
"What are you doing, you mad man!" I yelled. "Leave them live you... Heartless snob."
Arvaar laughed. "Bow to me and I will release them!"
"I bow to nobody."
"Then they shall bow to death." And he gave a hand gesture command to the soldier, who was hiding behind the tree.
"I am death!" I screamed.
Suddenly my rock cracked. The ground beneath it started cracking too. A massive ravine was revealing itself, hellish flames coming out of it. I stood up, my skin cracking and glowing. My staff, the old wooden branch, extended to an iron trident with long pointy ends. The sound of millions of souls cracked the mountain silence. Wind came out, like a hurricane around us.
"Don't you remember me, Arvaar? The one you once defeated for the gates of Hell?"
"You old man, you are alive!" He smiled. "I defeated you once! I thought I've killed you, but it doesn't seem enough for you, eh? Second time's my lucky try!" He swung his blade.
"You are powerless!"
"And you are foolish!"
He jumped at me. I deflected his sword with my trident. The power of millions of souls, their hatred gave me energy. I made a stabby move, but he jumped to the side.
"Too slow old guy!" He tried to go for the blinded eye.
I grabbed his sword centimetres from my face with my free hand and stabbed him with the trident. He looked at me confused.
"But the sword..."
"It only gives power to those only, who are to use it wisely! And you... Are not the guy for that anymore." I pulled the sword out his hands and threw it in a gap of the rock I was standing on. Arvaars eyes were filled with fear and confusion. "Say 'hi' to all the souls, Arvaar." And I threw him in the hellish ravine behind me. "No one messes with my family."
The winds stopped, the soul screams went away, the gap closed, the rock became solid and I was an old man with a stick once again. I ran towards my family.
"Are you okay hun?" I looked my wife in the eyes.
"That... Was something..." She looked at me with love in her eyes. "You swore not to use your powers Infront of the children."
"I needed to. I'm sorry."
"All is good my dear. You have truly changed." She gave me a kiss and looked at the boulder I had sat on. "Now what about that sword?"
"Don't worry about it. It's so deep, only who was the cleanest heart will be able to pull it... And I will probably not be here to welcome him."
She put her hand on my face. Tears were on her eyes. "I love you."
"I love you too. Now let's get you home. We all need a rest."
....
Centuries passed. The demon king had died and returned to his kingdom once again. He roamed the earth from time to time. Sometimes he sat down near the tree where his family was tied and looked at the blade. One day a bearded man and a wizard appeared.
"What's this, Merlin?"
"Oh it is a sword, who can only be pulled by the one, who needs it most, Arthur." | 2020-09-23T00:19:39 | 2020-09-22T23:33:00 | 76 | 26 |
[WP] Everyone is born with the ability to "see" beyond themselves, and the longer you remain still, the further you can see. After decades of remaining still, you can see the furthest of anyone in the world. One day, you see something that makes you stand and start walking. | The surrounding woods transformed into the hustle and bustle of a marketplace. Regardless, the man sat silent, ever presently watching the cosmos grow. Twenty-five years since he first sat. Twenty-five years of pure stillness, a self-inflicted vegetation to understand the universe. Sustained through nature and will, the man sat.
*Bump*. A small child, toddling past his boundaries, jarringly crashed into the statuesque silhouette of a man. No matter, his will was iron. He sat undisturbed, nearly unaware of the surrounding commotion.
"Timmy." A stern voice beckoned, "Stop dawdling, we don't want to be late to see Grandpa Rick."
Whimpering, the boy wandered back to the man. "Daddy, I don't wanna see Granpa." He said, plaintively glancing at his father's strong arms.
"Come on champ, I know you're tired. But we promised we'd go today, and we can't cancel again." His dad said. "How about this, after we visit Grandpa Rick why don't I read you *Goodnight Moon*? It's your favorite."
Resolved to the trip, Timmy clutched his dad's hand tightly. With a hesitant glance back at the man, father and son walked away, arms swinging.
The man simply sat, as he had for so long. This episode was mundane, people and stories came and went. To be honest, he could barely comprehend his earthly origins anymore, with his eyes in the heavens. After a moment's time, he had already forgotten the little boy's name.
"Come on Timmy, it's playtime!" Granpa Rick said, yanking tired little Timmy by the hand. Together the pair walked into the sleeping marketplace under the full moon. "You know, I've always loved the nights. So fun to be yourself, without judging eyes everywhere. With a light chuckle, Rick said "Except for this guy's eyes, I guess. If he even counts as human anymore."
A gleam in his eye, Rick turned to poor little Timmy. "Now boy. Let's get down to business." With a shudder, Timmy clutched at the man's petrified arms, desperate for a savior. "Timmy, we don't have all day!" Rick smiled, brandishing his trademark pocketknife. "You know, no one will ever love you like I do. I'll make sure of that."
As Rick moved towards crying little Timmy, the man grimaced. He had stared so long, he had found God. In turn, God had found him. A heavenly embrace from the savior, blissful acceptance filling his every moment. Gone. With a jolt, the statue rose to his feet. Unaware, Rick continued his sadistic entertainment. Twenty-five years of rest. Twenty-five years of motion preserved for a single blow. Rick fell. For the third time, little Timmy clutched at the statue of a man, sobbing.
------
First writing prompt complete! Let's see how it goes. I've been lurking here for months, and decided to try my hand, inspired by some of the writers here. Criticism welcome, just trying to improve.
Thanks reddit! | (Note: this is just a first idea form and I cannot spell for the life of me):
You've stood still for so long, until you saw that thing. No, not a thing, a yawning abyss of blackness, not blackness, absence. You can feel it awaking primal urges and fears, what ever this is, it is not of this universe. It is devouring everything In its path indescriminantly. All it wants is for the noise of existence to go away. You stand up, then walk, then run. You run even though you know that their is no escaping it. Cultures across time have told stories of creatures, monsters from before creation that snuff out the light, creatures pushed away that will return. You know that everything will just end, there is no escaping the nothingness, the blackness. No matter how much you rationalize, knowing that you won't feel anything, your lizard brain still fears it. You don't want to go into the dark, but you know that it's coming and that it's unavoidable. You try to accept it but you can't, someday it will destroy you and it will be like you never existed. You look around at all of the faces, happy in their ignorance of what's coming and what awaits you all. You try to push it to the back of your mind and enjoy what remains of your life. But that dosent truely matter. At this point it's just something to pass the time until you are swallowed in that void. | 2017-03-03T08:28:54 | 2017-03-03T08:05:58 | 213 | 15 |
[WP] Interstellar wars are quick, most species die of shock quite quickly. Getting shot was a death sentence. That was until humans joined the Galaxy... | "You know what impresses me? The fact that you're still alive."
The man she observed from the rejuvenation tanks looked at her in odd silence now. As if he was contemplating that sentence.
"Is that a compliment, or..."
Idura sat down at the scanner to go over his biometrics again. Her eyes focused on him, the pupils dilating like blue saucers.
"What I'm saying is. I'm amazed you're alive. We managed to get you back. But... You got shot correct?"
"...Yeah?"
"I keep picking up previous injuries that didn't fully heal. Lacerations, fractures, scar tissue... cerebral damage."
He started laughing at this, occasionally wincing at his injuries as the machine kept working on him.
"You can say that last one again." He chuckled.
"Cerebral damage?"
"No, that was. That was just a joke." Red explained, "I've hurt myself before."
"I can see that. May I ask how exactly?"
Red proceeded to list off a list of his previous injuries. Starting small and working up to larger alarming incidents.
"...And that's when I realized that oranges are much more flammable then they look."
He stopped to realize how many of the medics were staring at him in confusion.
"What?"
He settled back down as she looked him over further. She ran one of her arms over the remainder of his suit lying on a nearby shelf, then went back to her work on finalizing his medical release.
"I know this conflict has been stressful for your species. Ours as well. But what possesses so many of you to volunteer for such a thing?"
"You can't just roll over and let things happen. You got to stand up and take it head on."
She'd had heard how dangerous Humanity could be, but coupled with such a mindset, it had made them truly a capable force. It wasn't without loss however, and that was what led them here.
"Tell me, what does that do for you?"
"No sense in giving up. That's all."
"I'm glad our people are working together then. The Regime has tested our kind for too long."
"They shouldn't have started it. We're gonna finish it."
Idura gave her best take on a smile at that. But as she went along further she found some other concerning things in her findings along with the scar tissue.
"Red?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm picking up various foreign alterations. I don't know why they're there?"
"Are you familiar with augmentation?"
"Yes, but on such a scale?"
"You can't win 'em all." He said, "Sometimes you gotta' play dirty."
He sat up now that the machine finished running and made sure his limbs moved how they should. Idura stepped backward as he got up, her hide washing from a sallow navy to violet tone.
"You guys are really good at this." Red pointed out, admiring the fact that some long worn scars had disappeared. He looked over his wrecked armor now.
"Hey do me another favor?" He asked.
"Yes?"
"Contact Garza, and those commanders of yours. Tell them we're in."
"You realize our ship has no authority to touch down in your quadrant of space."
He ignored such a thing, instead choosing to go over his weapons. Slinging the whole kit over his back, he picked up the weight as if it was nothing.
"A deal's a deal." He said as he rolled his neck. "I owe him from way back. Besides, I need another suit."
---
Like this? Criticism and feedback is always welcome, because it's Friday. r/Jamaican_Dynamite | Every single species of the council had something that made it unique.
The Tara'Gi could fly.
Sinarex were silicon based live forms capable of withstanding the hardest blows, by shifting around their density
Melrath were incredibly fast.
These abilities made them unique in any conflict. Except against humans.
See most of these species were born and bred for war, millennia of conflict honed these abilities.
Humans were no different, but we never really excelled at anything, yes we had wars, yes we can fight, but we couldn't fly or withstand a tank shell or were really fast. We are pretty average.
But then the first conflict arrived, we had been arguing with the Tara'Gi for years before the bombs started raining. We prepared for every scenario, we knew a lot about our enemies, but not enough.
Weapons of the highest grade, ships, vehicles, trained troops. We were ready.
The first territorial battle started with an eerie silence, men and women were holding the line and then they came. Flying at ludicrous speeds and when the first shot was fired, we expected nothing.
But we were surprised, the first hit we got and the enemy dropped dead. Not a lucky shot either, the bullet hit the flyboy in the leg and after a second or two he fell over.
They kept coming and the first hits came in. But in all honesty we were just slightly whelmed. It was like playing a nerf war with your nephew only your nephew is a 9 feet tall birdman.
We sustained light injuries, sprained ankles, scratches, a pin prick here and there.
Humans had an incredible resistance to pain apparently, the war was short, but our empire reigned long. | 2019-10-25T08:34:05 | 2019-10-25T08:21:31 | 188 | 107 |
[WP] During the first day of grade school, a sleeper agent's activation code is spoken 20 years too early. | "You're a fucking idiot," says Foxtrot Echo to Foxtrot Alpha.
"Oh come on, how could I have known?" says Foxtrot Alpha to Foxtrot Echo. They watch the monitors. Every kid in the classroom is dead at this point. The teacher is crying and begging Operation: Lunchbox not to kill her. Lunchbox is setting up traps near the doors and crafting hand-made weapons out of the school supplies.
"How were you *supposed to know?!* Foxtrot Echo barks at Foxtrot Alpha. "That someone *might possibly* say the words, 'The big brown dog jumps over the fence' in his lifetime? We told you to make it something unique! Like 'I only take bananas fermented in a clown's vagina.' No one will *ever* say that. Especially not in fucking grade school!"
"Okay, Jesus- I'm sorry. What is it with you and clown's vaginas?" Foxtrot Alpha asks, deeply concerned about his partner's depressing obsession. "You seem to fuck like two clowns a week. It's pretty weird. And where do you find that many female clowns?"
"I've got a thing. Everyone has a thing," Foxtrot Echo excuses himself. The swat team busts into the school. A rigging at the door explodes, several of them die. "Oh, great. Just great." Foxtrot Echo is unhappy. Foxtrot Alpha notices and offers him a scone.
"Perhaps you want a scone?" Foxtrot Alpha asks. Foxtrot Echo considers the scone. Several pencils are impaled into a swat team member's face. The classroom's pet hamster stored in the floor panel outside the classroom door is released and crawls directly up another swat team member's pants and into his asshole. He writhes on the floor in agony and pleasure. Foxtrot Alpha denies the scone.
"No, I'm not in the mood for scones right now. Not while we're watching millions of dollars just get flushed down the toilet." Foxtrot Echo shrugs and eats the scone himself. It is delicious.
"Well, we don't *have* to pull the plug, we could just send some of our own agents in and tell him the unplug phrase," Foxtrot Alpha suggests.
"Why don't these cameras have speakers on them, that way we could just tell it to him over a mic. We really should have thought of that," Foxtrot Echo ponders as the child narrowly avoids sniper fire by using the human shield of one of the dead students. The teacher is pouring out tears as Lunchbox rolls her to the door of the classrom and patches on the impromptu explosives to the back of her chair he has made out of classroom supplies. He tells the swat team members outside that he will be releasing his hostage. Foxtrot Echo face-palms, recognizing the tactic.
"Well, I guess it's time to pull the plug," Foxtrot Echo gravely decides. Foxtrot Alpha plays with his rubicks cube.
"Sure, whatever- I got a date tonight, so if we can finish this up sooner rather than later..." Foxtrot Alpha remarks. Foxtrot Echo presses the big red button. Lunchbox collapses in a siezure. Foxtrot Alpha tosses the rubicks cube aside- he never could solve one of those things. Lunchbox is dead. The teacher is still wired. The classroom door is coming open.
"Oh...forgot about the teacher," Foxtrot Echo cringes. The classroom explodes and the camera goes fuzzy. Both of them look at each other with stretched mouths and raised brows.
"Oh man...that's gonna be reeeeeeally expensive," Foxtrot Alpha observes.
"Yeaaah..." Foxtrot Echo lingers. "Which company subcontracted you again?" Foxtrot Alpha pulls out a cigarette and begins to burn it down casually.
"Isis why do you ask?" Foxtrot Alpha responds. He sees the look on Foxtrot Echo's face. "Did I say Isis? I meant Odin." Foxtrot Echo rolls his eyes. | "Brianna, I'm sure you have nothing to worry about. All teachers are a little nervous on their first day and kindergarteners are a tad rambunctious. You'll be fine."
"But Mr Morton, you don't understand. It's..."
"It's perfectly normal. Now I have a meeting with the superintendent and you have a class to run."
And with that, Mr Morton left her standing alone in his office. Brianna heaved a deep sigh and trudged out past the secretaries' desk. Her eyes fell upon a bowl of Hershey's Kisses and, with a mixture of defiance and self loathing, she took three more than her diet afforded her.
Maybe it really was nerves.
The hallway back to the classroom -- her classroom -- her first classroom -- felt longer than it had on the way here when she'd handed the class over to the teacher's aid and gone for help. Matrice seemed a capable woman -- a no nonsense type in her mid-fifties, matronly and stern -- maybe she'd managed to get the class back into order.
Was that.... singing? The tune was unfamiliar but the shrill voices of five year olds cut through those temporary classroom partitions like a hot buzz saw through a gallon of ice cream.
She caught the phrase "prisoners of starvation" and was trying to recall what childrens tune that could possibly belong to when she rounded the corner and caught sight of a few wispy tendrils of smoke curling out from under her door.
SMOKE! FIRE!
There are a lot of things they don't teach you in Ed School but the one thing that is drummed in from day one is a teacher's duty to protect her students. Brianna broke into a run, heart hammering as she sprinted the final 50 feet to her door. Her fingers closed around the handle as her analytical mind, buried under endorphins and adrenaline, raised a finger as if to object with "why are they still singing?"
She flung the door open, smoke stinging her eyes and had just long enough to wonder where little Tommy had gotten five yard long bolt of red cloth and how he'd managed to make a flag out of it before the bat collided with the bridge of her nose and everything went black. | 2014-04-25T09:43:37 | 2014-04-25T07:34:53 | 425 | 27 |
[WP] You have just returned to your camp after being bitten by a zombie to say your goodbyes. You are surprised to find the national guard giving your friends a vaccine. The world is saved. However, the vaccine only works on the healthy. You lost at the endgame and these your last 24 hours. | They will all forget me one day,
Hayden thought to himself. The one word to describe the world for the last ten years would be change. The change from man to mindless. The change from society to chaos. The change from memory to forgetfulness. Hayden saw just how little people remembered about the past now. Kids were taught how to survive and how to fight rather than how to do math or science. Those that were lucky enough to learn reading seldom used their newfound talent. Society no longer cared to remember the past, it only looked angrily into the future.
The bite on Hayden’s arm was beginning to smell. Just hours ago he had been looking through an abandoned house at a photo album. In it, he knew that everyone pictured was likely long gone. Their stories, their love, the things that made them who they are were lost forever in time. Like dandelion seeds, gone in the wind to never return.
That’s when they attacked. He couldn’t remember how many but it had to be nearly a dozen. Although he fought valiantly and refused to go down without giving them hell, the infected were able to reach their victim. Hayden was not sure whether the pain or the shock was more devastating but, then again, when someone realizes their life is over what is one to think?
He shuffled out of the house and had come to a ridge overlooking the settlement he lived in. They called the town Hope, Hayden always hated that. The world was tough and he thought, rather than hope, that trust was the greatest quality. He trusted so many of the people down there. His friend Carla, who made the best meals, always had a way of cheering both his stomach and mood up. Gabe, the attractive son of a Bitch, could sell grass to a landscaper, which got Hayden in trouble with the ammo he had to trade at the market. Then there was Melanie. She was everything that a man wanted in a woman to settle down with. She was headstrong, an achiever, a hard worker, but also the best person he knew. They loved each other, but refused to marry due to the way the world had become.
The blissfully ignorant, with nothing but worry and stress surrounding their everyday lives, could truly never know the envy of a dying man. He sat down on the forest floor he had neglected to love so much until this point. There were many things, in fact, that Hayden did not know he loved until he realized the end was near. The feeling of grass between your toes when it is slightly wet. The sound of a bird, who’s only worry is the worm, singing a song to anyone listening. Best of all, the feeling of bark from an old tree that you know has more knowledge than any library. He would miss this. He would miss what it was like to live. In being bitten, he was finally starting to remember what the world was like before your largest fear was becoming a monster.
That’s when he saw them. The national guard rolled into his settlement playing the same announcement on repeat.
“We come in peace. I repeat: we come in peace. We have a vaccination for the plague. Those who are not infected will be given immunity through this. Those infected will gain no benefit from the treatment.”
A smile broke across Hayden’s face. Of course, he of all people would be late yet again for the only cure in the world.
Hayden pulled out his journal and wrote for a crowd that may never be in attendance. He told those he lived with how much they meant, and told those he loved how much he would miss them. The words kept flowing from his pencil as he scribed the goodbyes and then, suddenly, he wrote his goodbyes to those past and the world itself. He said goodbye to his friends and family infected already whom he would meet in the beyond. He said goodbye to his dads body, which was buried some many many miles away. Goodbye to the friends he made at summer camp when he was little. Goodbye to his college professors who gave them shelter after the outbreak. Goodbye to the rivers that he swam. Goodbye to the fields he explored, and those he didn’t. Goodbye to the beautiful cities he quietly crept through. Goodbye to the smell of campfire and it’s reminder of civilization. Goodbye to the sun and the picture it painted on the sky when it rose and set. Goodbye to the birds and their lovely songs.
As Hayden completed his final goodbyes, an idea struck him. He pulled out his wallet, even though he had no use carrying such trivial things, and placed the picture of his father and him going fishing in the journal. As his eyelids grew heavy and the pain became unbearable, he picked up his pencil and wrote the last words of a dying man.
“When I was a boy, my father worked every day. Once, when I was still very little, he missed the train to work and decided to come home rather than take the next train himself. When he arrived, he said that we were to go fishing. Overjoyed, I rode the train with him till we got to my grandfathers, where we borrowed the boat and car. The river was stunning and we were the only ones out there. I held my dads hand as he sang songs and drank his beer. Fish would come and go, but the river never ceased. Just like time, it flowed on with or without life existing. That was the finest day I have ever had. I hope one person may read this someday. I know it’s a dying mans wish, but I hope some piece of the world I had is remembered by someone. I hope the cure creates the lives the world wants to return to. My father once missed a train and came home. Now, I’ve missed my train out of the plague, so I too will venture home.”
Hayden Percival Thomas
| We had been scattered to the night. The waning crescent moon in the sky was a sickly yellow. I couldn't stand to look at it, a mirror to the puss that oozed from my wounds. The last image of Riley blazing in my head. His eyes transfixed wide, his mouth twisted in terror.
We had left our campsite to search for the elusive Night Blooming Cereus. A strange plant that bloom only for a single day in a year, between June and July. We set out at dusk, leaving the others, who had little interest in our botanical endeavors, to enjoy a night out in nature and a full bottle of whiskey.
About an hour out of camp, we began to hear strange sounds echoing around us. The desert has it's share of beasts who roam the nights, but this sound was not like any we'd heard before. A guttural and ominous sound. Like someone vomiting over the low roar of a lighthouse foghorn. Though the desert was hot tonight, we froze in our tracks.
I looked to Riley to comment on the strange sound, but before I could speak, I saw the terror in his face. Turning from him, in the distance lurking between the Joshua trees, I could make out shapes sulking towards us. Reluctantly, I pointed my flashlight in their direction. The horror I saw then was unimaginable. Five men, in tattered border patrol uniforms. Those who had eyes, had the eyes of the blind. The light reflected off them, showing milky pools of endless depths. The jaws of some, hung open, torn and broken, stretched beyond physical possibilities. The strange sound emanating from them.
Riley ran. At his movement they began to charge at us. I tried to run, but stumbled over twisted brambles and landed hard on my face. I tried to stand. The screams of the dead rattling, an ancient, forgotten cadence enchanting the air around me. I smelled the stench of decay as they fell upon me.
I felt the teeth of a ghoul sink into my arm. A searing pain screaming through me. Adrenaline taking over. I knock the fiend back into his corrupt brethren. I run, screaming, unsure of the direction I'm heading in.
As I wander through the desert, I can feel a heat spreading from the bite. A black widow spinning a web of hot light through my veins. My vision starts to double, as I look away from the sinister yellow sickle that hangs in the void above. Is that laughter I hear?
I follow the sound for a few minutes and begin to see a flickering flame ahead. This is our camp. I can hear Riley and voices I don't recognize.
As I get closer. My vision, blurred, my mind confused. Camouflaged Humvees circle our campsite. Riley must have spotted me. "Travis! I'm so glad you're okay." I open my mouth to try to say something back but my jaw hangs. Locked in position, panicking I realize I can't close it.
"Travis! You won't believe it? Those things we saw? It's some kind of disease! The army is here and they have a cure!"
A cure. Thank God. I'm saved.
I run towards the Riley. Yelling in excitement, my voice sounds strange but I don't care, I'm going to make it.
A deafening crack throws me backwards. A bloom of crimson streams out of my chest as I crash to the ground.
I'm laying on my side, trying to roll to my back, but something within me has broken and I can't seem to move. Struggling to find focus in my vision, I see it. Out of the darkness, a white angel opening her wings to me. Cereus, Queen of The Night. She blooms for me.
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*Thanks for reading, if anyone read this. This is the first thing I've ever written, sorry if it's bad. Let me know what you think\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* | 2018-07-29T22:23:19 | 2018-07-29T22:19:52 | 29 | 21 |
[WP] Now that he has 8 years executive experience, Obama can apply for the job he REALLY wants | "There's nothing strange about this at all. Do you know that George Washington became the best damn whiskey maker in Virginia after his term ended?"
".. no?"
"Damn right, he did. Produced tens of thousands of barrels a year and sold the good stuff at two bits a gallon. Made a lot more people happy than his stint at the white house, even." The former president winked.
"Oh..kay. But don't you have a stellar pension that comes with your job? You retired with full benef-"
"Ah, the pension. You know that Harry Truman didn't get any pension? He lived off a hundred bucks a month he got from having served in the army. A proud man he was. Had no private wealth, but wouldn't accept any other employment to keep up the dignity of the office he'd held. Then Ike changed the law and there's a good pension waiting at the end of the term- but who needs that pittance? You know Bill charges a million for every appearance on the lecture circuit?"
"No way - a million? Wow."
"Yeah, and my buddy George W's earning rich dividends being a partner in a business venture. Heard his memoir would come out soon - now that's an eight figure deal if there was one."
"Very impressive, Mr. Pres-, I mean, Mr Former President. But why did you respond to the ad for a new accountant's position at the *Indiana Bones Pet Wash LLC*? Frankly, I think you're overqualified for the position, and there's a big queue out in the waiting room. Now I have a small business here and I'd like to finish this hirin's business and get back to it. I'm sorry, Sir, but we have families to feed and aint got no time for no-"
"Ted, can I call you Ted?" Ted shrugged.
"I know secrets about UFOs that will never see the light of day. I know what they're up to at Area 51. I know who really killed JFK. I know why we're keeping the cure for AIDS a secret from the world." The former president leans forward and smiles. "Do you think I wouldn't know what *really* goes on in this 'small business' of yours?"
Ted observes him keenly with a blank expression. He slowly lifts his hand and presses the buzzer. Stacey, casually dressed, bored, enters.
"Stacey, honey! Can you thank the other applicants for their time and tell them we've found what we need?"
Stacey chews on her gum as she eyes the successful applicant, then turns her glance back to Ted questioningly.
Ted smiles back at her reassuringly. "And oh, could you lock the door from the outside on your way out?"
She does as asked. The door clicks and slowly the lights outside turn off. Ted fishes into his drawer for something.
"I gotta let you know - I like you. I even voted for you. Twice. But that doesn't guarantee anything. The screening and interview process can get pretty rigorous in there." Ted's southern drawl was gone. He turns a dial and the room is enveloped by a low mechanical hum. The wall behind Ted begins to slide down - there is a large metallic sliding door with the picture of a pyramid and an eye engraved.
The former president gets up from his chair, adjusts his tie and buttons up his coat.
"Don't worry, Ted. I've been preparing for this for eight years."
| In the centre of a spacious room sat Obama, looking relaxed and rather enthusiastic. Opposite him was a man sat at a desk that, coated in a sheen of sweat and a mad twitch beginning to develop in his left eye, minutes away from breaking into hysterical laughter; the kind reserved for lunatics and evil scientists.
And around them were cats. Kittens too. Everywhere, and of many kinds. Some were playing with a soft ball, others were sleeping on top of each other. One was trying to eat Obama's left shoelace, while two others looked on.
"Mr, um, Obama...What I'm trying to say here is that while you are definitely qualified, overqualified actually, in your abilities of management, communication, meeting the needs of, uh, clients... I'm not sure if you would be appropriate for the job. Ahem."
Obama looked up with a face of mild suprise, and the cat below took an extra swat at his shoe to make most of his diverted attention.
"But why not? I've always wanted to work at a Cat Cafe. I mean look at them, they're so adorable!"
It was at this point that the interviewer's eyes rolled to the back of his head, and fell off his chair and landed face-first in the carpet. An orange tabby jumped up onto his chair to take his place.
Obama sighed and looked at the tabby. "This *always* happens..." he complained to the cat. The cat stared back, and after a moments thought, meowed in agreement.
| 2016-02-23T01:06:19 | 2016-02-22T23:45:58 | 423 | 112 |
[WP] You know the random driver in every action movie where the hero jumps in and orders to "follow that car!". Yup, that's you. Every single time you're trying to get anywhere. | "Where are you going?!", the passenger yelled, furiously. "The helicop-"
"Went down Chiltern?.", I interjected. "I know. I just need a few more seconds."
"But-"
As the car turns the corner, I turn my head. I look at the weary, angry man in the back of my unassuming black cab replica. I look him dead in the eye and flick my turn signal on as I swerve into the roundabout at precisely 126mph, dodging traffic and maintaining eye contact with the man on the back seat.
"Just shut up and trust me." I groan, and turn my gaze back to the road.
I open up my dashboard control panel, activate the rear smoke emitters as I make another left into Station Road, and smile as I watch our two pursuers perfectly T-bone each other in my side mirror.
A few more taps on the dash and we're locked on. I flip a switch and the car's six concealed missile launchers fire a salvo at the railway bridge ahead. Just as the 15:26 came into view.
"Right on time."
As we pass under the bridge, the missiles curl upwards and hit the underside. The multiple explosive impacts cause the track to buckle upwards and snap as bridge debris rains down behind us. The train behaves as trains always do when this happens, ramping and gliding into a perfect midair collision with the helicopter, engulfing both in a colossal fireball.
I take my foot off the accelerator and let the car drift to a halt near the smoking wrecks that inevitably crop up wherever someone redirects the Metropolitan line into an Apache helicopter.
My passenger is in awe. I always love this part. I watch his face in the mirror as it starts to go through the usual stages of shock and disbelief.
"H- how did- but..."
Completely speechless. They always are. I give him his cue.
"This is the bit where you say I'm no ordinary cab driver."
"But... missiles..." A bit slow on the uptake.
"Standard issue. No, you didn't get my car by accident. We're a more specialised operation and we keep very close tabs on... people like you."
I open the glovebox, fumble around for a pen, and start filling out an invoice.
"MI6, was it?" I ask him, pen in hand.
"W-wha.. I.." he stammers, uselessly.
"CrisisCab. We have a contract." I pass him the invoice. "Your people will be here soon to tidy things up. Please remind them they're due for renewal next month. No need to tip."
I open his door with another dashboard switch.
He takes the hint and gets out, then walks over to my window. I roll it down.
"Just... who the hell are you?" he asks. At last, a full sentence.
I take a business card out of the glovebox and hand it to him. As he looks down at it, I roll the window back up and hit the accelerator. Zero to sixty in half a second.
The agent turns the card over in his hand, thoroughly perplexed.
"CrisisCab Taxi Company - We signed up for this shit."
----
This was my first time responding to a prompt, all feedback very much appreciated.
EDITS: Line/paragraph spacing. | Everyone needs to work in wastage cost to their business. When I started working for uber I figured that every once in a while there would be someone who's credit card bounced, or some hacker who found a way to beat the system. I had no idea it would happen so violently. I changed my schedule, tried to work a lot during midday and long hours on Sunday. But it didn't matter this would always happen.
Oh shit not again...
Fucking a, he had that look on his face when he tore towards my car I knew it was happening again. I tried to lock the door but it was too late, he ripped it open and jumped in and said those words I was all too used to hearing...
"Follow that car!"
"Listen dude did you use the app? This isn't a cab you gotta use the app to get a ride."
He wasn't listening, he was fumbling around in his hands like I'd seen so many times before.
Damn where are all these people getting guns from?? And why are they using them to get free Uber rides? Whatever whatever this is my job it pays the bills I can't complain and I gotta survive.
"Alright alright but come on man you got a nice suit on can't you afford to just pay for the.."
"Shut up and follow the fucking car!"
"Alright alright." I shut up and followed the car.
Every day this shit happens. Man I gotta go work for Lyft or something. | 2016-07-03T13:03:06 | 2016-07-03T11:09:47 | 25 | 10 |
[WP] Kanye West is one of the four Kanye's. The other three being Kanye North, Kanye South, and Kanye East. More commonly known as the Four Kanye's of the Apocalypse.
What terrors and plagues will the Kanyes unleash in the end times?
Edit: I love the responses! This became unexpectedly popular! Thanks to all! | FADE IN
INT - A CELESTIAL TEMPLE
*We see three men, each of them clad in white robes, standing before an equally white altar. Other than their attire, no aspect of their forms can be seen. Around them, wisps of ethereal fog float near the alabaster tiles of the floor. These are THE KANYES, three of the divine beings tasked with bringing about the end of the world. They are known by their surnames: EAST, NORTH, and SOUTH.*
**EAST:** So, we have a problem.
**NORTH:** We know.
**SOUTH:** Uh... well, actually, I'm not entirely up to speed. What's going on?
*EAST and NORTH turn to look at SOUTH.*
**NORTH:** Really? Where have you been for the past decade?
**SOUTH:** I forgot to set my alarm clock.
**NORTH:** That's no excuse. Why didn't one of your acolytes wake you?
**SOUTH:** You know, it's strange, but I don't seem to *have* any acolytes anymore. The entire temple is deserted.
**EAST:** You see the problem, then.
*EAST reaches forward and touches the altar. There is a melodic tone, and a shimmering image of KANYE WEST - known on Earth as a hip hop entertainer - appears.*
**EAST:** Remember him?
**SOUTH:** Why isn't he wearing his robe?! People will see him!
**NORTH:** Hah, that isn't the half of it. West has been actively worshiping himself for awhile now. He's even started some new religion.
**SOUTH:** Oh, god...
**EAST:** "Yeezus," actually.
**SOUTH:** What? Since when are we endorsing Christian doctrine?
**NORTH:** No, no, *Yeezus*. That's what West is calling himself these days.
**SOUTH:** ... Seriously?
**EAST:** *Technically*, it's just the name of a record that he put out, but plenty of people have started calling him that.
*EAST waves a hand to dismiss the image of WEST.*
**WEST:** Hey, hey, wait a second, y'all! Y'all can't just *disrespect me* like that! I ain't going quietly! I'm the voice of a generation!
**SOUTH:** That's really him?!
**EAST:** No, that's... ugh, North, will you explain while I fix this?
*EAST ducks behind the altar. A loud, repetitive banging noise becomes audible.*
**NORTH:** For some reason, West has been imbuing images of himself with pieces of his own power. His reputation just keeps growing.
**WEST:** That's right. Uh-huh. *Yeah*.
**SOUTH:** But... but... we can't do anything as long as our visage commands respect! What about the apocalypse?!
**EAST:** (*From behind the altar*) Postponed!
**NORTH:** At least until we get a handle on this, yeah. Not happening.
*SOUTH crosses his arms, apparently considering this.*
**SOUTH:** Well, what about...
**NORTH:** (*Interrupting*) We tried it.
**SOUTH:** You don't even know what I was going to say!
**NORTH:** Trust me, we tried it.
**SOUTH:** I doubt that.
**NORTH:** Okay, I'll humor you. What were you going to suggest, oh great Specter of the South?
*SOUTH shifts his weight uncomfortably.*
**SOUTH:** Well, uh... I was just thinking, what if we got a harpy to seduce him? You know... distract him?
**EAST:** (*Yelling*) We tried that! Now they're having kids!
**SOUTH:** *Kids?!*
**NORTH:** Yeah. He's actively mocking us, too. His first child was named after me.
*The projection of WEST's face distorts and disappears.*
**WEST:** (*Fading out*) I'm a genius!
**EAST:** (*Coming out from behind the altar*) Fixed it.
**SOUTH:** Hang on. I just had an idea.
**NORTH and EAST:** We tried it.
**SOUTH:** No, no, listen! We'll just let this run its course, see? We'll let the kid grow up. West will start promoting it as a star, hoping to add to his own fame, and when the time is right...
**EAST:** ... Yes?
**SOUTH:** We'll strike!
**NORTH:** You just want to go take a nap, don't you? "Strike?" What does that even mean?
**SOUTH:** (*Irritated*) It *means* that we'll let our fallen brother make a royal fool of himself. He'll become a laughingstock, thus ruining both *his* career and that of his progeny!
**EAST:** How is that "striking?" Besides...
**NORTH:** ... we tried that.
**SOUTH:** Oh.
*All three KANYES stand in silence for a moment.*
**SOUTH:** Well, this sucks.
**NORTH:** Yup.
**EAST:** There is *one* option...
**NORTH:** No! We discussed this! Not now, not in a million years! It's not worth it!
**SOUTH:** What is it? What can we do?
*NORTH throws up his hands and storms off. EAST watches him go.*
**EAST:** Well... see... there's this singer named Miley Cyrus...
FADE OUT | Contrary to what end-times preachers might have predicted, the apocalypse came not with the second coming of Jesus, but with the first coming of Yeezus.
Kanye West's new album was a huge success, not only financially, but also critically. It was hailed by many as 2013's best album, and praised for its raw, gritty sound and engaging lyrics.
Of course, there can never be only one.
Kanye liked to believe that he was the realest, the swaggiest, the best of all time (of all time), but, inconceivably to him, he was wrong. He was perhaps the most modest of them all, because soon, three new forces erupted onto the rap scene: Kanye North, Kanye South, and Kanye East.
North was brazen, brash, and bold. While West hailed from California, North hailed from Canada -- he had double West's swagger, not to mention an excess of bitches, sticky with maple syrup, who would "eh" at his command.
South was as loud as a vuvuzela, and even more obnoxious. Hailing from South Africa, this Kanye was famous for buzzing his lips like the instrument during his blistering raps. He also threw in extensive references to his country's history, with such lines as "Bitch, you best believe what I tell ya/Liberate yo pussy like my name Nelson Mandela," which, although controversial, also boosted his popularity greatly.
East was perhaps the most insane of them all. Hailing from the Far East (specifically China), East would often rap about how difficult it was to grow up as a black kid in the slums of China. East's fast-paced raps jeered blatantly at Chinese culture, causing him to be reviled by the government and celebrated by China's rebellious youth.
As was to be expected, this led to intense competition. Each rapper put out more and more daring singles, more and more profound lyrics, more and more earth-shattering records, until it was clear that there was only one way to settle the score.
The four Kanye's declared that they were each the best, and they would end the world just to prove it.
The historic event was scheduled, and at 1:00 PM EST, the Rap Battle began in West's hometown of Atlanta Georgia. Everyone who wasn't already there had tuned in to watch on their televisions.
West took the mic first.
"Aha, this the real Kanye
comin' to you live,
you should be honored by my presence, you peasants,
I do it right
Cuz I'm a god, I'm immortal, swagger on infinity
Pussy-ass bitches thinkin' that they can step to me
I'ma let y'all finish this business and say ya lines
But how you think you gonna beat the best of all time!
Ah!"
With that, West dropped the mic. Although he hadn't noticed, the crowd had dispersed, as the ground had begun to quake under West's mighty rapping power.
North retrieved the mic and said his piece.
"Kanye North in the house,
I'm the realest there is,
I'm from Canada -- I got stanzas plantin' a cap in yo rhymes;
Drown in money, bathe in syrup, got them hoes all the time;
Hockey beast, walkin' priest, preach the gospel on maple leafs;
Defeat East, fuck up South, and Kanye West, you shut yo mouth;
Cuz I'm the realest real that you ever gonna see
All y'all pussy mothafuckas can't even touch me!
Eh!"
North thrust the mic at the ground as nearby buildings crumbled under his awesome power. The crowd had run far away, screaming, but this didn't deter South, who summoned the microphone to his hand simply with his psychic powers.
South began his verse.
*To be continued later when I'm not so tired... If anyone wants to, feel free to pick up the mic and write your own ending.* | 2014-06-11T13:35:55 | 2014-06-11T13:10:23 | 834 | 73 |
[WP]Well, that's a pretty fucked up way to find out you are immortal. | “If everyone can find a chair, it’s time to get started.” The woman tapped the microphone once with a humble smile, watching as the assorted crowd gathered for the anticipated event.
After a moment of silence settled in the room, she spoke again. “I’m happy to welcome so many familiar faces to our 187th annual Immortality conference. As always, we have some newcomers as well. Since we will all be friends for a very long time, let’s start with introductions.”
She waved at a young man standing off to the side, swaying from foot to foot with his hands shoved into his pockets. His eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he stepped forward and took the mic.
“Uh, hi. I’m Josh.”
“Hi Josh,” came the familiar chorus. His shoulders dropped a little and his smile widened.
“Hi. Uh, Camilla told me to introduce myself to you all. Where I’m from, my favorite color, and whatever I know about my, uh, my immortality.” He nearly choked on the word. Typical newbie.
“So, I’m Josh. Josh Callahan. I grew up in Sandy Shoals, Illinois. Never found the sand or the shoals, though,” he halfway chuckled, then cleared his throat. “Sorry, that’s a townie joke.”
His eyes roved around the room, looking at the odd assortment of people from every age, race, and gender. Wise stares looked back at him. “Yeah, so I like to travel. I really like pizza. And I’m planning to go to college to be an accountant.”
His brows furrowed. “Or I was. God, can you image an eternity as an accountant?”
“I’ve lived it!” called out a voice from somewhere in the back, nasally and sharp. The rest of the room bubbled with polite laughter.
“You all can probably tell this is new to me. I just found out a few weeks ago, and the suits investigating things slipped me a flyer about this event. So here I am.”
Josh looked toward Camilla, who smiled encouragingly. “Your story,” she mouthed, and his head bobbed.
“Right, how I got here. Well, you see, some friends and I have a youtube channel. I’d say you should check it out but I’m pretty sure they had to take it down. But we posted pranks, lifehacks, challenges, urban legends, you name it. Duncan was the mastermind, and so he pitched us an idea.”
Josh was smiling now, as if the memory were happy. But there was something hidden in his eyes that foretold the events to unfold. “So, Duncan came across the immortality spell, he said. Something online that was guaranteed to work. He said we’d try it out, then have the immortal person stand in front of a train. Some editing magic, and it’d look like everything worked.”
There was a collective groan from within the crowd. “I guess you folks know where this is going,” he said with a sigh.
“So, we did it. Duncan had me spend weeks sitting in the moonlight, drinking strange drinks, repeating words backwards in a mirror, and sleeping with crystals around my room. I filmed so many stupid things.”
Chairs creaked as everyone leaned in close to hear about the discovery. The internet meant so many young people were getting their hands on dangerous magic. Swelling attendance to the conference reinforced this point.
“When it came time to film the train thing, Duncan said we should go to the bridge outside of town. Said it’d look more dramatic. Besides, there wasn’t supposed to be a train that day. He said.”
Josh dropped his eyes, looking back up with a brief flash of anger. “I looked it up. Four trains go through there a day. Liar.”
Camilla stepped forward, placing a hand on his arm. He smiled at her, and she nodded for him to continue.
“So, when the train showed up, I was in the middle of the bridge. Unfortunately, none of the spells we worked gave me super speed. I could hear Duncan whooping and hollering the whole time.”
Josh shook his head, eyes refocusing on the audience. “Anyways, you probably don’t need me to tell you what happens when a train hits a body, immortal or not. It wasn’t a pretty sight from the inside, either. But, I was lucky everything grew back. “ Josh stretched out his free hand and splayed his fingers. “Ten fingers and ten toes!”
The audience clapped, and Josh waited for the rumble of applause to subside. “So, when I met Duncan later at the hospital, he was all wide-eyed. I asked him how he knew it had worked. Figured he must have tested me or something before.”
The pained expression on Josh’s face said it well before the words could. “But he didn’t. Just thought it would be good for the views.”
There was a hiss from the audience of shared pain. Too many discovered immortality at the hands of treachery.
“But Camilla says you all can help me figure this out. So I’m looking forward to making some new friends. Real friends,” he added to the end.
Camilla took the microphone with her smile and pleasant voice. “Welcome, Josh. Friends, let’s give him an immortal welcome.”
The room erupted into applause and whistles as those nearest him reached out to pat his back or shake his hand. Josh smiled. It was nice to fit in. | I sit in my desk chair, slumped over with a bottle of whiskey in my hand, held by the neck. I lift it up to take another swig, tasting the bitter ambrosia as it passes through my lips. It tastes terrible, but day after day my mind seeks refuge in its nasty tang. The way it clouds my perception is sweeter than the liquid, and usually keeps me sane. Today it serves a different purpose.
Today isn't particularly special compared to others. I'm drunk. I'm depressed. I'm no stranger to how I feel, but so much so that I'm sore in the head. I'm drunk on alcohol and nothingness, with a cloudy future and a meaningless past. All I can comprehend is the present, in which I'm a vegetable of the man I'm supposed to be.
Today, however, is slightly different. I've grown too tired, and in my groggy despair I had set a 357 Magnum on my desk right in front of me. It's loaded. After sitting in the filth which is my sweat-stained work uniform and pondering with my poisoned mind, I've got little left to hesitate picking the firearm up sluggishly with my left hand.
I sit there for just a moment, glossing over the handle of the Magnum with my thumb. As I graze over the cold metal and wood, I breathe lightly and shakily as I contemplate. I'd expect that such heavy thoughts would affect me more, but at this point I'm drunk and I'm sick and I hate breathing. The world is a cruel, cruel mistress, and this place wasn't built for me. None of it. Not my house, not my job, not my life. I exist to please those who don't care for me. I feel invigorated by the all-curing pill I grasp. I can escape. My one final way to stick it to the man. I'll soon be off to the real land of the free.
I feel angry at those that have led me to this dead end, but I feel triumph knowing I'll slave to this world no longer. I lift the bottle in my right hand one final time, taking my last swig of the sweet anesthetic. I slowly put the bottle back down on my desk so as to not drop or spill it once the deed has been done, but it's not like that matters to me. Once the glass of the bottle clanks onto the desk, I take a deep breath.
I raise the revolver to my head, pressing the cold barrel to the center of my brow. I close my tired eyes, pulling the lever on the gun back with my thumb. My index finger grazes the trigger. Tears well up in my eyes and roll down my cheeks. Oddly, they aren't tears of sadness. I crave the freedom I'll have in a couple moments.
I take a deep breath, then squeeze the trigger. A bang louder than anything I've ever heard rings through my ears as a blunt searing pain fills my head. My slow, drunk thoughts are quickly stung with panic. I scream louder than I thought I ever could. I pull the lever again quickly and shoot again, something I thought wouldn't be necessary. I'm met with the same pain, now twofold. I unload bullet after bullet into my throbbing brain, which has blood and other fluids pouring out all over me, my clothes, and the floor.
Not a single bullet does the trick, but clearly they all went through my skull and eviscerated my cerebral tissue. I fall out of my chair, writhing on the floor. My guttural roars of agony echo throughout my room, combined with the sharp ringing in my ears. My previous struggles are now of no importance to me, replaced by crucifying pain. After screaming myself to exhaustion, I pass out as I'm pleading to the universe that still plagues me:
Why? Why am I alive? | 2022-05-05T08:39:25 | 2022-05-05T08:33:18 | 194 | 11 |
[WP] The narrator and main character disagree on the genre of the story. | Constantine, a stunningly handsome young man of twenty three, with long sand blond hair, piercing blue eyes and muscles made out of marble, slowly approached her. She was no good looking woman by any definition. Others would have described her as a wall flower with her straight brown hair, pale skin and skinny figure, which she hit underneath a simple white blouse and a ankle long skirt. She was sitting in the center of the sun lit cafe, reading her book while occasionally pushing her glasses back up her slim nose.
Constantine had noticed her right away. Confidently he strode towards her. No lady could resist his good looks and wealth. He stopped right next to her table.
“Hey,” he said in his raspy voice, his blue eyes on her slender shape. Denise looked up from her book, confused. A hot wave of blood shot in her cheeks as she glanced at his handsome face.
“H-hello…” She whispered, feeling her heartbeat quicken. Her hands were suddenly sweaty.
Constantine leaned closer. He reached towards her and… grabbed the table lamp?
Suddenly Constantine whirled around and smashed the lamp into the head of the guy sitting at the table next to Denise.
“Where is my spaceship!” He cried. What? Spaceship?
“I am Constantine Baltazar!” He yelled to no one in particular in the cafe.”I am the most feared space pirate in the galaxy!”
Everyone in the cafe was staring at him. Well, everyone besides the moaning man on the floor, who Constantine had just hit in the head with a lamp.
But suddenly Constantine cam back to his senses- Clearly, he had forgotten to take his medicine this morning. Nobody is perfect, right? Even a stunning man like Constantine needs a flaw, right? Helps to identify with the character. His condition must have been brought on by some traumatizing event. Ah, yes, when his mother died right before his eyes. No! When both his parent died when he was only seven years old. Or, better! When his entire extended family died as the family jet, with his parents and brother and baby sister crashed into his grandparents’ house, who were having a family reunion party. Miraculously, Constantine was the only one to survive. Ever since he had occasional outbursts of paranoia and has been on a search to fill the empty void ripped into his heart that day. A hole a pretty-underneath-th- surface and smart college educated woman like Denis can fill...
So, Constantine, our stunning yet slightly confused, male lead, sat down in front of Denise. He waved to the waiter and ordered an expensive-
“Where is my ship?” Constantine yelled again. “And where is my cruel yet loyal crew of cutthroats and degenerates?”
Denise looked at him from underneath her long eye lashes, her big brown eyes sparkling-
“You there!” Constantine cried, pointing at a terrified man in the corner of the cafe. “Are you my first mate? You look like a hearty pirate!”
The man in the black and white striped shirt, sat there for a moment. Shocked by Constantine’s rather lengthy episode of mania. Then, suddenly, he rose to his feet.
“Aye, my captain!” he cried enthusiastically. He- what? No. You and your rich spoiled girlfriend are props! The man sat back down and...
“Where you go, I will go!” the black and white striped man shouted. Constantine jumped back to his feet, smiling triumphantly. “Splendid!” He said. Then he turned to face the rest of the crowd in the cafe and then he snapped back out-
“Who else wants to join my crew of rascals and rebels? Who is ready to fight the good fight and defeat the cruel empire, that has been suppressing us for decades?”
Constantine had apparently missed taking his pills for a few days, probably because the pain had become so overwhelming that-
Suddenly several men and women in the crowd jumped from their seats.
“Count me in, Captain!” said a big Asian man in an expensive tailored suit. “My name is Deathfist! I break the enemy with the raw power in my knuckles and I like to cook!”
“I am Deadly Sniper!” A woman shouted. “I am as silent as a serpent and just as deadly. I have a secret crush on you and will follow you everywhere, my Captain!”
“My name is Sushi!” A small man in a booth cried out. “I am your mechanic and slightly erratic! I will fix our ship in every situation while throwing mean slurs at everybody!”
More men and women got up from their seats, yelling their names and roles… and then… and then Constantine wakes up and-
“Alright my loyal crew! Let’s go defeat the Empire!” Constantine shouted and stormed out of the cafe. “Death to the Empire!” He cried over and over. His new crew members followed him without hesitation. “Death to the Empire! Death to the Empire!” They cried. They marched into the sidewalk and.... Got into the waiting spaceship, I guess?
“Yeah! Death to the Empire! Here we go, my friends! Off to an adventure to save the entire Galaxy!” | *“It was a dark and stormy night, full of danger and darkness!”*
“What a nice night! It’s rare to have a full moon on a cloudness night! I can see forever!”
*“A young man, burdened with traumas and tortures beyond the imagination of Men and Elves, set off into the darkness, his heart muddled with thoughts of regret.”*
“Hey Jack! How was your day?”
*“A young woman, the very source of the young man’s tortured nights appeared, her voice bringing danger.”*
“Ah! Hey, Jess! I—Uh, it was great! How was your night? I mean day?”
“It was pretty good. I’m sorry about leaving early last night. My mom was sick.”
“Oh, no problem. I figured it was something like that. Did… Did you have a good time?”
*“The young man stumbled through his words, remembering the tossing and turning he had done, haunted by the memories. Memories he could never forget…”*
“Yeah, it was really fun. I’m surprised more people didn’t show up though. I thought you said it was a group thing?”
“Ah… Yeah… I, um. So, what happened was…”
*“The pain was still fresh. He called on trusted allies, but had been turned down, forced to face a monster, alone and unarmed.”*
“Hey Jack, was that a date?”
“A date?! No! Yes? No, I mean… unless you wanted it to be a date.”
*“An opening! Our hero never lowered his guard, striking when the dragon was distracted. Would this be the killing blow?”*
“Oh… Um, I’m sorry, Jack. I never meant to give you the wrong impression. I um… I don’t like guys. If you know what I mean?”
“Oh! Oh no! I didn’t mean! I just… thought….”
*“A mortal blow! Our hero staggers, his heart exposed, his lifeblood dwindling!”*
“No, hey! It’s fine! Totally! I actually had a really good time. I really liked hanging out with you. I just don’t like you, like that. Ya know?”
“Of course! It was super fun! Even though I lost miserably…”
*“The pain returned, memories of blow after blow. His world crumbled, his lands shattered and his life drained.”*
“Hey, don’t feel bad. My Dad’s been making me play since I was like four. He wanted a boy, so a lesbian girl was the next best thing. Ha!”
“Oh, that’s… sorry…”
“Dude, I was just kidding. My parents are great. It’s just that my Dad didn’t think a girl would get into Magic, you know?”
*“A lone heroine, struggling with a dark past, a secret she can’t contain! Is a life worth a life? Our hero, wounded and alone once more, faces his fiercest test!”*
“I can understand that. I never thought you’d actually play. Not just that, but you’re really good! You could go pro!”
“But the buttcracks, Jack… The buttcracks…”
*“Haunting memories, a lifetime of pain experienced again and again in a single moment! Will this life of horrors never end?!”*
| 2019-02-12T10:59:23 | 2019-02-12T10:23:04 | 36 | 12 |
[WP] "Explain to me again, slowly this time, how you managed to cause a global blackout with a fucking rubber duck?!" | "OK, but before we get started - and for the record - I want to say that, *technically*, it wasn't the rubber duck that blacked out Asia and Australia."
They could have been professional poker players, for all their expressions told me.
"OK. I need to back up to a few days ago. You know I work at Rubber 'N' More upstate. We were having this big board meeting, because we had just finished prototyping a new series of lightweight, durable fenders for maritime use. And as part of the promotional shindig, we had made up a bunch of 'rubber ducks' to show how buoyant the new I Believe It's Not Rubber(tm) material is. You know, just sort of a lighthearted demonstration. Besides, who doesn't like rubber ducks?"
No response. This must be what it's like for a stand-up comedian who's bombing on stage. I made a mental note to go out that weekend to an improv club, get drunk, and laugh so loudly I embarrassed myself. Nobody deserved the mirthless scrutiny of this oppressively humorless senate.
"Anyway, we had made up fifty tons of I Believe It's Not Rubber(tm) - aka IBINoR - and made about a hundred thousand large ducks. We shipped out 95,000 to various maritime and maritime-related companies around the world, and kept five thousand to give away at the promo party. Everything went swimmingly, if you'll pardon the pun - "
Nothing, of course.
" - we had an open bar, a double Olympic sized pool with water slides, a stage with lighting and effects. Everything. Everyone loved it, we had investors lining up to throw money at us from a bunch of different fields like maritime construction, shipping, port authority, you name it. We were all giving it 110% and just feeling the fat bonus checks getting printed out. Everyone took a Ibinor 'rubber duck' as they left, and all us employees tipped the cleaning crew and got the hell out of Dodge. Technically, that was the end of our involvement. All the rest was bad luck."
A few of the grouchy old faces shifted to look at each other, then. It was the first reaction I'd seen from any of them. An old woman spoke into the rustling quiet.
"We are not currently looking to assign blame, Mr. Davis. This is a fact-finding commission. Do you have any additional information about the events leading to the blackout, or is this the end of your statement?"
Implacably single-minded. This was not a fun get-together.
"Well, we all tried to follow on with our prospective clients, so we know generally what happened, next."
"Continue."
I sighed, took a sip of cold water from my glass - it was even odds which of us was sweating more at the moment - and continued. "OK, so, I guess some of the attendees work in power generation. Nuclear, hydro, that sort of high-capacity, base load thing. Anyway, they all need water - nuclear plants need to convert it to steam to spin the turbines, and also to cool the generator; hydro obviously needs it to gravity-spin the turbines. So they're both markets for highly buoyant, thermally resistant, non-conductive rubber substitutes, like Ibinor. Anyway, I guess some of the energy conglomerates decided to have their own multinational meeting to discuss how to use Ibinor in their power plants. And despite there surely being safety protocols somewhere that would suggest not to ever do this, they decided to just go ahead and use the 'rubber ducks' to prototype solutions. They used them in live plants."
I had to shake my head. It didn't seem possible that people in charge of this stuff would be that dumb. But, then again, the only reason we had invented Ibinor was because several of our Senior Design Engineers has gone on a long weekend bender of chugging whiskey and bungee jumping and wanted to make a better bungee cord. I guess a lot of what moves society forward comes from really bad ideas. The dour dozens stared at me, almost lifeless in their somehow intense disinterest.
"So, ok. You all know how synthetic rubbers work, right? Elastomers? They're basically long repeating chains of simple carbon-hydrogen groups. You take your Neoprene, your Isoprene, whatever, and you look at it chemically, it's basically just carbon, hydrogen, and electron bonds. Simple enough stuff, right? Simple enough that nobody really thinks about it.
Well, maybe we don't spend enough money on chemists at Rubber 'N' More, maybe we don't do enough simulation testing, but we're not making jet fighters, you know? We make rubber. And more. But basically, the 'more' is just more rubber. A collection of rocket scientists we ain't. So, you know, maybe we didn't understand how important the bonds are in elastomers.
I guess the problem was that Ibinor is so intensely electrically neutral that we didn't bother to ask, hey, what do you reckon happens if you just force-feed an entire nuclear power plant worth of current into this crap. We just sort of figured you'd eventually overcome the resistance and the whole thing would just melt or fuze in place. We didn't know that if you shorted a few thousand MW into it that it would reorder the bonds and, uh...grow at nearly the speed of light. Like, that's not a test case that anyone has ever had to prove."
(part 1/2) | The mood at the security bureau was chaotic. Tsarnev had been reassigned to this case after the massive blackout that happened during the recent World Cup match. This wasn't a good look for Russia, though neither was the view outside his cramped cubicle which normally belonged to someone else. This was a critical time for the nation, and every new moment now brought forth endless mockery from news media around the world. While the blackout affected the globe for a moment, it persisted in Russia for some reason. Regardless, if a nation couldn't keep the lights on, how could it do much of anything else? That was the mock question of the day.
During his meetings, he had been shown the baseless accusations against the state so controversial that even a large number of Americans thought them absurd. At the end of the day, they were also just ordinary people trying to make it through the day. The pictures on the flimsy walls of Tsarnev's workspace of two young children was a constant reminder during this long emergency shift. That's not to say that their blabbering didn't matter, though-- as idiotic as it might be. If it weren't important, he wouldn't be sitting here at 2AM dealing with it.
As he filed his pre-contact report on his computer, the case supervisor walked by. Anatoly was dressed in casual office clothing with a cowboy hat, which should have gotten him fired on the spot, but it seemed that he was the highest-ranking person in the building and nobody was going to catch him this night. For his part, Tsarnev had no choice but to put on his already-used formal jacket and slacks. Maybe that was the wrong call.
-*How's the cubicle, partner?*
-*Nobody cares about the cowboy crap.*
Anatoly chuckled and playfully eyed the computer. If this conversation had taken place 12 hours earlier, his enthusiasm just might have been infectious.
-*Maybe if you pulled yourself up by the bootstraps you'd be done with the form... partner.*
-*Already done. Did they catch the guy responsible?*
-*Yeah, we caught the American less than an hour ago. Covert raid, no casualties. In fact, the suspect wasn't even armed and didn't put up any kind of fight at all. It seems he had to be here to do what he did.*
-*Lucky us. How'd he enter at all?*
-*Dunno. Anyway, get your stuff and follow me. He's on his way to the interrogation room now.*
-*Hm?*
-*That means you too. Come on.*
---
To both of the men, it seemed hard to believe that the man in front of them was responsible for their dark circles... and the nation's black eye. He must have been no older than 30, and was still dressed in pajamas. He glanced toward the camera and waved obnoxiously while smiling. Well, as much as someone can wave while in handcuffs. Anatoly broke a smile in response.
-*If it weren't for a gloating Reddit post, we never would have caught him. At least he's being a good sport about it. I didn't read up on the specific details, but it mentioned a rubber duck?*
It **did** mention a rubber duck. The one that somehow caused the ridiculous outage. The one this man had carefully planted.
-*Something along those lines. Wait, aren't you supposed to handle this?*
-*But I picked out my fashionista outfit so carefully...*
Tsarnev was about to faint, and not because he was being swooned. But he would manage nonetheless. The buzzer sounded, and he entered the room alone armed only with the case briefing. He sighed. Maybe this would be over soon.
-*Why do you think you are here, /u/fuckswithducks?*
-*My porn connections?*
Or maybe not.
---
Edit: more? | 2018-07-07T05:36:16 | 2018-07-07T05:15:17 | 46 | 12 |
[WP] You discover every time you masturbate, something happens to promote world peace. The military industrial complex finds out and tries to stop you. NSFW
The less lewd the better.
Edit: Just realized the limited frequency of world peace events might be problematic. Maybe there is something that hinders how often the main character masturbates? Or special circumstances that are required? | I ran around the corner, chased by agents of the National Organization for Amazing Prosperity, or NOfAP. My arms were tired, but I kept pumping them as I made distance from my masked pursuers. They've been relentless since I discovered their dirty little secret. Funny thing is, they'd probably say the same about me. I have a superpower. It's in my pants.
Okay, scratch that, that line was horribly bad. But it's the truth. Every time I masturbate, something good for the world happens. A warlord chokes on a chickenbone, a cure for a disease suddenly becomes apparent. Once I managed to fap for three hours straight, and got as close as anyone ever has to peace in the Middle East. I needed new pants after that... stretch.
My wrist is sore from the exertion, my legs equally sore from running, but I can't stop. Either one. I've learned to time my rhythm, two strokes per step seems to be optimal. That way I don't have to slow down. ^(that's what she said)
Oh but it hurts. I feel dehydrated, my stones ache from overexertion, somehow worse than my calves. I know they want to capture me, to hold my ability for ransom, to force pliant government agencies across the world to pay dearly for peace. And somehow the act of me orgasming can make that happen. If only I had this ability in college, I might've gotten laid. I made my way to the bridge over the river, and I saw them.
A pair of goons block my path ahead and my leg seized up reflexively. I looked over my shoulder to see the group behind me still trailing. I had options, I said to myself as I kept stroking, but this was a bad time for a cramp.
Both groups closed in on me slowly, keeping their eyes on me. I tried to keep my eyes on them but I had to focus on the task in hand. So close, concentrate.
"I see you've been... busy," one of the goons yelled in a mocking tone.
I huffed, I knew he was trying to distract me, "with... your mom."
"Oh, she's a lovely woman, isn't she? She bakes pies for the local kids-"
"Stop it!"
"...she even takes in stray animals-"
"Stop talking!"
"...she even feeds an old homeless guy who smells like dung!"
I let out an explosion of expletives with the simultaneous explosion in my pants, and at that moment I knew what to do. I threw myself backwards off the bridge and into the river below. The impact nearly knocked me out, and my arms were too sore to swim anyway. I hope the vision was right.
I felt a burly arm yank me out of the water onto a flat boat that took off quickly. The dainty voice with the southern drawl didn't match up.
"Hey sugar, you alive, or do I need to give you mouth to mouth?" she said as I cracked open one eye and saw her enormous grin, her hands cradling my sore forearm.
"I... thank you, for saving me," I said slowly, "whoever you are."
The man spoke, "we're the rescue party. We know about your talent, we're taking you back to PoRN Headquarters."
"Porn? What?" I asked as she stepped over me gingerly, massaging my wrist.
"People of Regal Nature, you've heard of us right? Our goals fit together pretty snugly, just give me a chance and you'll see," she said with a wink.
Somehow I knew I wasn't going to get the rest I so desperately wanted. But it could be worse. | Strapped into the chair I can't move my hands. My eyes are pried open by clamps clockwork orange style and horrific images flash on the projection screen. I squirm but the straps are so tight I cant budge. The images of gore and castration and horror continue to flash before ne, blending into a haze of maddening flesh. Despite the churning in my stomach I focus, force the blood down into my nether regions.
There lies my power, and I must now achieve hands free what has always required tactility. I focus upon my throbbin purple dog and force the images of gore out of my mind, replaced by soft and bounding tittays. My dog responds, fighting against his own tiny, penile restraints. My heart pounds, struggling to force enough blood past the stomach restrains to a satiate my rabid dog.
I draw deep, shaking breathes and the men begin to notice. They approach and I calm myslf, steady my gaze on the screen meant to deter my raging hardon. My heart rate levels out and they seem satisfied that nothing was going on and return beyond the two way mirror.
I focus again and my hog again bucks against his restraints. If I can't achieve this, all will be lost. The images flashing on the screen blend and churn into a repulsive mess of torn flesh and crunching bone, it's all so carnal, so arousing. My dog hungers for fresh meat, raw and wriggling. He bucks and throbs, engorged with primal blood, rocking itself from thigh to thigh sputtering and frothing as all rabid dogs do. With a final ,groaning, shutter I feel the snapping of minute restraints, this is a boner no cock prison can contain...
Will our hero achieve the legendary hands free ejac? Will the mystery men who have imprisoned him foil his plans? Tune in next week for the explosive finale. | 2015-05-22T13:14:35 | 2015-05-22T10:21:05 | 822 | 326 |
[WP] We may not be the strongest, but our immune systems are legendary among alien races. There is a saying: "if it makes a human sick it will kill you." | "Get them the fuck off our planet!" were what the banners held by the roaring crowd outside the laboratory read.
Standing at the window, he gave a hefty sigh, then turned and hit the intercom saying, "Are there any updates?" The static voice at the other end replied, "They've only been here for two days and are working diligently. As soon as we know, you will."
Looking back at the window, he thought, 'If these people only knew..... if they understood how difficult it was to get them here in the first place..... I mean, they're here for us....'
His reverie was broken by a sudden alarm. The scurry of shuffled, hurried feet filled the corridor outside his office and he stared out the window again and saw them pour through a crack of the makeshift wall they'd had to erect to push back the protestors.
'They are rats on an ocean's wave of ignorance,' he thought and he opened his door and went to confront the leading edge. He stood behind a wall of armed men at the top of the stairs and the horde crashed against them.
"You're going to kill us all!!!!!" screamed someone from the crush. Roars and jeers and other recited fears rippled and echoed throughout the hallway. He stood. He watched. He listened. He pitied. He understood.
When the din dimmed, he raised a hand, asking the crowd for permission to speak. They hushed at the gesture, but remained an angry bubble which threatened to pop at any moment.
"I know you're afraid and angry and confused. Humans have long since been banned from our planet. No one has forgotten what they brought with them generations ago. No one has forgotten the waves of disease and death that followed their departure. No one has forgotten what we needed to do to overcome it." His mind played over the history of The Culling and he inhaled deeply as murmurings from the crowd began a slight crescendo. He raised his hand again.
"This," and he showed where the festering pustule on his arm could clearly be seen. The same one that so many of them shared nowadays. "This is not of their creation," he continued. "This is something new and unknown to us and we have found no solution for it. We are at an end. And it will be a final one if we don't seek help. What difference will it make that humans are here now, if we're all dead in six months?"
"But why humans? Why not any other species?" someone from the crowd yelled.
"We sent our findings to everyone, but the humans have the most experience battling diseases of this nature. The illnesses they face as a people are beyond our understanding and for that reason, their understanding of such things is also beyond our comprehension. They answered the call. They said they can help. They came when we needed them most. Let them, please," he pleaded to the crowd.
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
In a small room, deep underground, completely sealed off from contact with anyone, the two human scientists sat staring into microscopes.
"Do you think this ploy has worked?" Bruce asked.
"It better. We need these people on our side," responded Caitlyn.
"So, how long before we present our 'miracle cure'?"
She replied, "Tomorrow. Let's give it one more day to make it look realistic." | “Kale! Help!” Bob screeched as he was dragged down the hall.
“No. I don’t think I will.” Kale muttered watching security take Bob away to the med bay.
“What’s going on?” Haley, the second human aboard the ship watched with concern.
“Bob has come into contact with a contagion of some sort.” Kale explained dimply, reaching up and plucking the medical mask off his face with a six fingered hand. “He’ll be under quarantine for now until we get vaccines on board.”
“What does he have?” Haley asked.
“A cold.” Kale said.
“Really?” Haley said with a deadpanned look.
“Look,” Kale sighed. “I’m not as ignorant or naive as the other ship captains who take human’s for their crew mates. Back in the six quadrant, the ship Feces, had sixty percent of their crew wiped out because of a common human disease.”
“Yeah, and the ship SS Peters, which consisted of mostly a human crew, had thirty-six percent of their crew dead to the Reptilian sore throat.” Haley glared. “And another ship from the Acadian fleet had a part of their crew dead to the bird flu, because of a human. Only after six of their crew had died, they put all the humans and the infected in the airlock and shot them out into space.”
Kale raised a defensive hand. “First and foremost, that is not happening. No one is being kicked off the ship. We got vaccines coming in from a nearby port at our next stop. They’ll try to intercept us halfway. Bob can come out when we’ve all got our flu shots.”
“Just making a point your diseases are just as deadly as ours.”
“You do know your immune system has better adaptability and faster response time than ours, right?”
Bluejay: Okay, I was going somewhere with this and now I forgot what that was. Enjoy | 2021-02-03T16:09:56 | 2021-02-03T15:13:38 | 183 | 117 |
[WP] You can teleport, but only between empty elevators | It was always a gamble, where would I end up? A gang house maybe? I wished not to, the last time was quite intense.
Why I kept doing it? I never truly knew. The thrill perhaps? The curiosity? The idea that I've been *chosen* to teleport between empty elevators? Ridiculous, I know. But bemusing nevertheless.
Two days ago I walked in an empty elevator. I shut my eyes and waited for the noises to change, that was often my sign. Soon, they did.
The silence of the proper, expensive elevator I was in turned into a chaos of grating cables as the new one went down. It worked. The broadness turned into asphyxiating narrowness and the mirrors... the mirrors were stained with blood.
My heart jumped to my throat at the ominous sight. Where had I landed? Why was it fresh? I closed my eyes once again, wanting to forever leave the danger. This were the issues of transporting, you often ended up in weird situations instead of fancy hotels.
The noises remained. The pungent smell of blood reached my nostrils, wrenching my stomach. "Come on, come on," I muttered under my torn breath, legs now trembling.
I opened my eyes. Nothing.
The gore was still there, splashed against the mirror like a clumsy stroke of dark red. Then I felt it. A lone drop falling from above, striking against my shoulder, dying the white of my shirt with... black?
I swallowed as my eyes went upward. There, in the roof of this old elevator was a pool of something black, holding itself there from its sticky sides while the center dripped. It didn't have arms, it didn't have eyes, it was nothing but strange blackness, like a gum of tar. However, it *breathed,* dripping a single drop each time.
I heard the air travelling through its center. I felt it rising toward it. I saw the darkness heaving, as if it had a mouth hidden among its shadows.
It was alive. That's why I couldn't escape. Was it waiting for me? What does it want from me? Will my blood soon stain the mirror too?
I waited, my eyes were wild and unblinking. Everything inside of me trembled with the sheer fear of a man who knows he's going to die. My pupils vibrated, blurring the eerie monster.
And then it advanced, melting down the sides, swallowing my surroundings whole, leaving me with nothing to stare at but blackness. It heaved in front of me now, contracting and expanding. What did it want?
I closed my eyes, awaiting for the movie of my life to start.
Another drop.
Another drop.
Silence. Blackness.
The elevator came to a halt and the door opened with an awful grate. The thing unglued from the walls and advanced outside like a wandering shadow that belonged to no one. Then, it rose, forming a tiny, lightless mound. Two eyes of red, round and wide appeared at the front, or the back? I wasn't sure. They stared at me deeply as if studying me.
Then the mouth came, pale white as moonlight, glowing through the dim darkness of the room ahead. It stepped forward, opening it, displaying the sharpness of its teeth in an unnatural grin. It grew upward, matching my height. Then, hairs away from me, it reached for my ear. I felt my heart thundering, striking my chest for a way out.
"Come, we need your services," it said.
| Thump... Thump... Thump...
That's the sound of me trudging through 15 cm of snow. These are indoor shoes, by the way, but they're all I had with me today. I didn't even bring my jacket. Why would I need to dress for cold weather, when I'm not even going to be outdoors? I'm exhausted, feet soaked, hands numb, freezing my face off. Can't believe I'm going to have to have this conversation again. Finally I'm at my street. Just a few more minutes. My fuming is the only thing keeping me warm at this point. I stomp up the stairs, awkwardly fit the rattling keys in the door with my violently trembling hands.
Warmth. I take a few moments to thaw out. I'd place my bag on the couch, but it's still overflowing with my roommate's crap. Of course, the mat's crumpled in the corner because he left his shoes in front of the door again. There's a smell of fried food in the air, which means the kitchen is covered in oil, *again*. I plug the smoke alarm back in, then take the elevator down to the basement. I'd installed it a few months ago for convenience, but so far I've yet to be able to experience its full benefits.
I see his bedroom door is closed. So he is home.
BangBangBang.
"hmrrrrm. What?"
"Are you asleep?? I called you like TEN TIMES!"
"I was working this morning."
"I had to walk home in the snow *again*. Get. Your Shit. *OUT OF THE ELEVATOR.*" | 2018-02-13T08:21:03 | 2018-02-13T07:19:54 | 16 | 12 |
[WP] When humans finally arrived on Mars, they were surprised to find an abandoned settlement full of human corpses who appeared to be dead for thousands of years | I’d been on Theta base for six weeks when they drilled through into the first wall. Situated at the foot of Olympus Mons, Theta base was drilling for geothermal energy, hoping to use the active volcanism to power the grid of the first major colony settlement on Mars.
When the drone discovered a huge network of rooms and corridors, most playing host to the skeletons of long dead humans, they called me. The worthy scientists who spearheaded the mission; engineers, botanists, physicists, were all capable individuals but this? No one had thought to bring archaeologists or anthropologists on a mission to a lifeless world. This was far beyond their remit.
So it fell to me, the senior geologist and my two understudies to begin the exploration.
We entered the labyrinth via abseil dropping into a dark room filled with floating dust. The dust lit by our helmet lamps reminded me of cave diving in a silt bottom cavern, reducing the visibility to near zero. As I turned to see Sarah and David unbuckled from the rope behind me, I could barely make out the glow of their own lamps mere meters away. In our vacuum suits we could hear nothing except our own awed breathing.
We began, moving carefully room to room, leaving a careful trail of glowing chemlights to mark our passage back. The rooms were low ceilinged, with heavy doors made of worked orange stone. Neither myself nor my team could identify the process by which these stone doors had been formed, with no obvious tool marks nor indications of mould-casting.
The bodies were human, or at least as far as we could tell. We found them slumped in corners and against doors, in beds and chairs, some we found face down in hallways. We took some detailed photographs of the bones as we passed, but otherwise left the bodies undisturbed. The base doctor would be able to shed more light.
After the twelfth room the passages converged into a large ante-chamber; twelve meters high, opposite a gargantuan black door. In front of the door lay the bones of what must have been dozens of individuals. They were piled haphazardly, like a horrific pantomime of an ancient burial ritual. Beyond them the giant archway door lay ajar, and darkness beyond. Behind me David brought his camera to his eye.
As the flash of the camera illuminated the scene, something sparkled beyond the open door. To my right, Sarah cracked another chemlight and held it up, advancing slowly toward the doorway. There was something in the space beyond, just barely visible in the red gloom.
Eight glass orbs, red with the reflection of the light.
Sarah stopped and threw the chemlight through.
The orbs resolved, as did the creature they belonged to. It’s eyes did not change from their dull red glow, but in the new light we could see its form. In its resting position it was at least three meters tall, and its twelve arachnid-like legs were tightly wound up. Below it’s eyes its mandibles twitched.
We started back the way we had come. One backwards step after another. Behind me I heard a bone-crack, and the sound of someone hitting the floor.
I turned and ran. | Tomoko groggily awoke to the sound of her suit com buzzing. "Astronaut Suzuki, are you there? Respond, goddammit!"
"I'm here," Tomoko replied, slurring her words. She visibly cringed as the sound of shouting from the control room on the other end of the connection filled her ears, creating an ear-splitting feedback noise. "What happened," she asked as the sound died down.
"The desert floor gave out into a lava tube," the man said. "Our working assumption is the drill did it. We're working on a way to get down to you, but it's at least a 300-meter drop."
"Three hundred meters," Tomoko said as she pushed herself up. "I'm surprised my suit's intact."
"We are, too," mission control said. "Just stay put, we'll find a way to get you out of there." Tomoko gazed around at the darkness surrounding her. She flicked a switch in her helmet. She slowly did a 360-degree turn, but froze a quarter of the way into her turn.
"Uso desho," she muttered under her breath as she gazed on in awe.
"Pardon, Suzuki," the controller said.
"Shikashi sonna koto o dekiru wake ga nai."
"Suzuki, you're speaking Japanese, what's wrong," the controller pressed on.
"You're never gonna believe this," Tomoko eventually spat out. She was staring at a city. And lying at its gates were bones. Human bones. | 2022-01-31T17:23:30 | 2022-01-31T17:13:58 | 53 | 17 |
[WP] You're a psychic doing a game show. Unlike the other contestants, you're the real deal. They bring you all to a house where a crime happened in the past. When it's your turn, a ghost appears and tells you: "That's him, that's the one who killed me." Pointing towards the host of the show. | I’ve seen the unseen and known the unknown for so long life had gotten rather boring. I’d discovered the dangers of using my gifts when I was a child so I had taken to concealing them. When I graduated college with my degree in physics I’d joined, on a lark, the skeptics society. If only they’d known.
Well, now I’m a pretty well known debunker of psychic phenomena. It’s pretty easy when you can read their minds. It’s not as hypocritical as you might think, so stop judging me Eric in Wisconsin. I have never met anyone else that has even the slightest hint of the gift.
Three psychics were invited to participate at the Carllingon Mansion, a supposedly haunted mansion where Ashley Carllington was murdered three years ago. You might remember her as she dominated the news cycle for weeks. She was a pretty famous rising actress, helped along by her billionaire father’s money I’m sure.
As I stepped before the cameras on live tv, a first for me, Craig Lawson’s handsome face met mine as he introduced me to the world. He then introduced the three supposed psychics. Two women were standing there along with a man. The man and one of the women were cold-reading fraudsters and the final woman was just bat shit crazy. I was formulating how to expose them in the most dramatic fashion when Ashley Carllington walked out in her bloody lingerie. I looked at everyone and then back at her, mouth ajar because by skimming everyone’s thoughts I knew I was the only one seeing her. Was I crazy?
“You can see me!” She ran at me so quickly I flinched, but in true ghost fashion her hand passed through me. Her touch was cold as the grave to me. Fitting I might add. No one seemed to notice my odd behavior.
“Listen,” she said, practically shouting at me, “He killed me, the fucker.” She pointed at Craig Lawson.
She had to be shitting me. I had so many questions but had to pretend to ignore her. If I responded I'd come across as insane on live tv.
“Please,” she told me, tears pouring from her eyes, “We were hiding our relationship. I told him I was pregnant and he wanted me to abort it but I told him no. Then he pulled out the knife.”
I looked at Craig and dove into his memories. I saw this murder. Then I saw the other murders. I saw his plans to murder another mistress soon. The man was a monster.
“So,”. He had turned back to me and asked jovially, “ What do you think of our group of psychics?”
“Fraud, fraud,” I pointed to the man and woman then to the final lady, “ Crazy as a loon. But what about you, Craig?”
“What about me?” He asked laughingly. I could see in his mind he thought this was part of my shtick.
“You killed Elizabeth Shaw, your sisters best friend when you were only 13 after she caught you masturbating,” I announced theatrically. If I was going to do this I might as well make it memorable, “Strangled her to death. Nasty business in more ways than one. I count eight murders, Mr. Lawson. Shall I go over them one by one, in detail? Of course the reason we're here is your most famous victim, Ashley Carllington. She was with child too.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” He looked at me and asked on live tv. His face was filled with a primal fear.
“Because I AM psychic, you fuck wit,” I declared.
You know the rest. The trial, the call of witnesses, the confession, and the approaching execution. You also now know how and why I got so famous. I’d ask if you have any questions. But I know you do. After all, I am psychic. | "That's him " the voice whispered in my ear. "The one who killed me."
It was a small voice, a child's voice. Couldn't have been older than 10.
"So Anna, can you tell me if you're picking up any 'psychic' vibes here?"
"A child," I said. "A little boy, maybe 8, 9 years old."
Billy Walker's face started to turn pale. His chest heaved with his quickening breath.
"I was so hungry, Miss. I hadn't eaten in 2 days. I just wanted a sandwich. He grabbed my neck...I couldn't breathe," the invisible voice whispered.
"Poor little one. Found dead of strangulation. So small...must have been starved before he died."
I held the host's gaze.
"You...you had a son that age, didn't you, Mr. Walker? About that age who died about 10 years ago."
Billy's hands trembled as he held the microphone. His mouth opened, but no sound escaped.
"Your bio says he passed away in his sleep from an undiagnosed illness." I paused. "You lied, Mr. Walker."
Billy dropped the microphone and tore out his earpiece. The cameraman whipped around to face the host.
"He was your son, Mr. Walker...How could you?"
Billy turned and started to walk towards the entrance of the house. I quickly followed, followed in turn by the cameraman and sound guy. Outside, more camera operators were waiting. The producers ran out of the parked van.
"He was your son!!!" I shouted, tears filling my eyes. "He needed you, and you failed him! You killed your son!"
He tried to run, but the producers caught up with him, forming a blockade on the sidewalk. Sirens echoed in the distance. Someone must have called the police.
"Um...we have Mrs. Walker on the phone," said one of the producers, holding their cell phone aloft.
"It's true!" The voice cried over the speaker. "He threatened to kill me if I told anyone the truth. You killed my baby, William! You killed my baby!" She wailed.
Two policecars arrived on scene. Their drivers stepped out, hands on their holstered guns.
"Thank you," the little voice whispered. | 2018-11-15T14:35:50 | 2018-11-15T13:37:54 | 459 | 87 |
[WP] You dropped a penny and picked it up, and you led a normal life. After your death, Satan shows you what happens if you didn't pick that penny up. | It was all too surreal. The tall man in front of me led me through an arching doorway. Above the frame it read *"Reflection & Regret."* I enter the room and see a massive mirror. I stare at myself, still not sure if this place is real.
Lucifer chuckled, "You like what you see? Check this shit out."
He tapped the surface of the mirror with a disturbingly long and slender finger, creating a ripple that washed away our reflection and revealed... Me. A much younger me. My God, I'm a young man again. I begin to recognize the scene, it's my old university campus. I realize I know exactly what day it is. I just finished the last exam of my college career. I'm walking next to a tall, lanky kid. It's my ex-best friend, Ben. We're speed-walking to our cars- going straight to happy hour to celebrate. Out of habit, I stop to pick up a penny. I suddenly became conscious of this memory.
"Wow, I remember this exact moment because Ben lectured me on being a scavenger. Haha."
But I noticed something that I didn't recall. The young woman behind me was also in a hurry, and my abrupt change of pace to pick up the coin caused her to stop on her heel, spilling her beverage onto the back of Ben's shirt. Flustered, the woman quickly walks around us without saying a word.
Satan smiles, "I'm glad you find this humorous. Because this is where your life changes forever."
He taps the mirror again and time begins to move backwards. With another tap of his claw, the scene starts again. This time, I don't pick up the penny, and the girl does not spill her beverage. No more than 10 seconds after I pass the seemingly useless piece of currency, another young man picks it up and drops it in his back pocket.
The scene fasts forward as the Devil begins to narrate:
"Here you are at happy hour. Ben is wearing his favorite shirt. He looks fucking awesome in it. He's drunk, he's confident in how he looks, and he's going to talk to that girl over there. That woman becomes his wife. Surprised? Don't be. The Ben you know never got married, because he never had the confidence to talk to the would-be girl of his dreams. Upon noticing the stain on his favorite shirt, he borrowed one of your baby sized t-shirts. He did not look very cool."
The mirror began to swirl and a new scene became apparent. I'm slightly older. I'm guessing early/mid 30s judging by the office I'm in. It's the business Ben and I started together. The business that Ben fucked me out of. The business that started my downward spiral. But, in this scene Ben is quitting. He explains how the long hours are taking a toll on his marriage, and he leaves. I bite my nail, a nervous tick I've done since I was a child. I notice I'm not wearing my wedding band.
"What else changed?" I ask, "By the time I moved into this office, I'd been married to Catherine for at least a year." Catherine was my receptionist, and the biggest mistake I ever made.
"Catherine has been dead for years by this point. When the man behind you picked up that penny, he had *exact* change to pay for his coffee. He didn't have to break his five dollar bill. Being in such a great mood since he's finished his exams, he gives a homeless man money. That penny allowed him to give that man $5, instead of the pile of change he had weighing down his pocket. That five dollars, although not much, lifted that man's spirit. Instead of killing himself the next day, the homeless man cleans up his act. He gets a job, an apartment, and eventually a car. One day he feels that he deserves to celebrate, and he relapses. He kills Catherine in a drunk-driving accident on her way to her job interview, to work for you."
The mirror shows police and paramedics surrounding a body, covered in a sheet, beside Catherine's mangled Honda Accord. I begin to realize that with Catherine dead, Ben happily married and no longer involved in the company, I could've been a wealthy, happy man. The mirror ripples again. The scene confirms my beliefs. It's me, older. A silver fox. I've just docked my boat and am being accompanied by two beautiful women as I walk the dock towards an astonishing, unfamiliar building.
I drop to my knees, "Why did you show me this? How could I know such a petty action would result in so much despair? If I never married that bitch, she could've never left with all my money. She could've never remarried to my scum bag ex-best friend! I would have never killed them! I WOULD HAVE NEVER KILLED MYSELF!"
Two dark figures grab my arms and drag me out of the room. I see Ben and Catherine standing in line near the door.
Lucifer cackles as I sob, "Next!" | And Emily awoke again, damn, she really shouldn't have trusted that burrito, or eat that since she's well advanced in her years, now her death certificate would have the embarrassing words of "death by shitting".
Well, then why was she awake?
On par with her thoughts, a loud and ethereal voice, but laced with a demonic accent, spoke out:
"Welcome, dear sister Emily. Welcome!"
"...Who are you?" She replied.
"Oh, how rude can I be? I'm Satan, ruler and Prince of Hell." A figure appeared in front of Emily, and she was taken aback, thinking that Satan would be a great, ugly demon but in reality, Satan was.... handsome to say in the least. Heck, he's steaming hot.
"Now, now, Emily, no rush, Satan was one of God's favourite anyways, of course I will look 'steaming hot', now then.."
Well, Emily didn't expect Satan to had mind reading powers and she felt her face heating up.
"God made it so that I explain important events in your life... Let's see...."
A book appeared instantaneously on Satan's hand, on the covered inscribed with beautiful cursive letters was 'Emily'. His hands delicately flipped every page, his face having a bored look.
"Damn, Emily, your life is boring, *flip* didn't you do anything interesting *flip* other than your death?"
"Sorry, okay? I like living averagely."
"Well then, if there's nothing interesting I'll send you on your wa-" Satan's eyes widened, his monotone face slowly inching upwards into a smile, genuine, almost. He enjoyed talking with Emily, to be honest, and is glad to find something to talk to her about.
"My, my, seems like a huge essay on the Butterfly Effect here," he chuckled. "Hey Emily, remember the time you picked up a penny on the sidewalk in New York City when you were 24?"
"Yeah... Why?"
"Well then, says here, if you just left the coin there, you would have died an early death."
"I assume you plan to elaborate further..?"
"Indeed, remember your abusive ex, Xavier?"
Emily's heart skipped a beat, replying "Yes."
"Well, if you didn't pick up the coin, your ex would have noticed you in the streets, he was planning to kidnap you if he did actually see you... Well, good think you thought moving out of New York City was a good idea. He was planning on torturing you until you were broken before ultimately commiting suicide. Since you picked up that coin, he didn't see you and went along his merry way."
At this point, Emily was dumbfounded, but quickly smiled at the demon in front of her, "Thanks, well, at least my life isn't that normal any more, huh?"
"Yes, well then, I'll send you on your way to Heaven, you can always call me up from Heaven if you wanna talk." And he sent a wink to her.
"Of course, of course I will." And she walked on the pristine white staircase, leaving the demon to sigh and smile warmly before returning to his post.
| 2017-07-25T06:27:24 | 2017-07-25T06:15:11 | 20 | 11 |
[WP] You are the city's premier supervillain, but you have a secret. The crimes you commit are not for gain, or to hurt people. You are always subtly testing and pushing 'your' heroes to excel, to be the best they can be. Then a villain with a reputation for murdering heroes shows up in town. | The ability to shapeshift is a much more intuitive power than what most villains would think. Merely changing shape to escape a hero such as Cassidy Crush or Hiro the Swordsman is a waste. Combat is good, yes. But none truly think to use shapeshifting to change how one appears.
This city had but one villain, whilst there were more than enough heroes to replace the police department. As its premier supervillain, I realized how boring it would be to simply continuously fight on and on, I decided to train a worthy opponent. You see, the ability to shapeshift comes with many other useful abilities. Healing, durability, strength, different aliases. But its one greatest weakness is the inability to duplicate.
A Magnificent Bastard had destroyed the League of the Mountain a few weeks ago. A man who could simply blink a city out of existence. Even with my extensive healing, I stood no chance of fighting such an opponent.
And neither do any of my proteges.
I had lured all of the city's heroes to a stadium. The time had come to reveal myself.
"Ladies, Gentlemen, and people of indiscernible gender. Welcome!"
The crowd of heroes stared.
"Aren't you Cassidy's villain? Why bother with us?"
"Stop wasting my time! Gas Master is bound to be out there right now!"
"Gold Samurai will be challenging my sword once again soon. I cannot miss even a minute of my training!"
I sighed. With a blast of smoke, my trench coat was replaced with gold armor of the feudal era and my face adorned in a gas mask from the first world war. Collective gasps and whispers. A few even shouted.
"Challenger, what is the meaning of this?" Cassidy stepped forward, her brown braid thrown in front of her shoulder.
I changed back to my normal form, the one Cassidy named 'Challenger.'
"There is only one supervillain of this city. All of you share the same goal, as I... well..."
Hiro the Swordsman slammed the butt of his sheathed sword into the ground. "Out with it, Samurai!"
I tipped my fedora over my face, then took it off. "My one and only ability is to shapeshift. I cannot be everywhere. There is no secret evil organization in this city, no secret invaders, no overbearing overlord. Just me.
"I gathered everyone here today because there is indeed a worldwide organization. One that I have ignored largely in part because I have come to be fond of all of you." I paused. The heroes were silent now. "There was an explosions in the Alps not long ago. The man responsible, a Magnificent Bastard, is making his way toward this city. And my fear is that none of us are ready."
Hiro stepped forward, his hand on the handle of his sword. I trained my eyes to his sword as he came to a stop in front of me to speak.
"So. You've been toying with us for years and for what? To train us?"
I shook my head. "No, I have not. Not entirely for the reasons you would think. I have no true love for this city, I have but the faintest appreciation for all of you. With exception to the Happy Clown in the back."
I spread my arms. "My... friends. If you care for but yourselves I implore you. Flee the city with whom you can before the Magnificent Bastard arrives. Else -wise, I shall deal with him how I can, set my traps and slow him down. The city will be no more if we remain."
Cassidy stepped forward, next to Hiro who took his hand off his sword. Then he brought it up, presenting it to me. "I have honed my blade and my skills more than I could have imagined dueling with you. It would be an honor to fight with you than against you."
Cassidy nodded, shaking her braid behind her back. "So. When do we start?" | My heros. I dont know what happened, if i let them be. They wouldve probably turned into villains. Good, that i was there.
I lead them to great success, i was the one who made them famous, i was the one, that let the people believe in them. My plan was perfect, until this certain guy showed up. 'Nightscream'. An arrogant, aggressive and bloodhungry murderer. I always kept my heros away from him. He was a number too big for them.
This is the 3rd time he showed up. This time at a conference. "I give you heros one chance to give up. One last chance. Then nobody here gets hurt", he looked provocating around. I was there, too. Just to be sure. Damn, i have a good timing. My fist were ready to punch, and i slowly stood up from my place. The heros, infront of everyone at a podest, were alarmed. "Tell us, what you want, villain. And we dont hurt *you*", the leader Seraph said calm.
Nightscream laughed quietly. Gently, he said "You dont know, who youre talking to, do you?" "I talk to a murderer, who killed too many humans. You are the scum of society." Time to show up. He will kill them, if nothing happens.
"Nightscream. What are you doing in my town?" I went slowly the whole way to the podest, very dramatic and cool. "Ahh, hello, Nox. Do you join me?" "You know what i think of you. Now leave, or i will kick you personally out of this town. Understand me?" "Oh, you made your point clear. Now its my turn. Join me, or get killed with this heros. Your decision." He really wanted to challange me.
"Come here, fool. Lets see, who is doomed, you rookie", i went faster and stared directly in his eyes. "This town only has space for one villain, and thats me." And for this moment, everyone was stunned, looking at a fight, no one ever saw before. A fight, between 2 villains. | 2021-05-20T07:30:18 | 2021-05-20T07:28:17 | 151 | 51 |
[WP] For years evil villains have been thwarted and locked away by heroes. But that all changed when you came along. You see, there are types of evil that don't involve killing the innocent, or inciting fear and terror. You're the CEO of Evil Inc. and everything you've done so far is legal. | A knock on the door startled Mr Evil,
"Mr Evil, you have a call on line 666!"
"Th-thank you, Grace!",
Trying to suppress the surprise in his voice as he finishes his... sex act under the table.
*Ah Grace, my faithful secretary. You've helped me throughout the years, but I think your time with my illustrious and elusive company has come to an end. You see, the emails you send on your company device is monitored by Gogol. That's right, the search engine (and everything else)! You see, you have a tendency to barge in whilst I'm trying to release my sexual frustration. While a appreciate you knocking first, I have specifically instructed that you NOT enter! Not only that, but you have the audacity to share my secretive sexual deviancies! With that, I bid you a fare well*
Mr Evil pushed the red button on his desk, activating the trap door under Grace. As her scream became more and more faint, Evil realized something.
"Fuck, I said that monologue in my head instead of out loud again."
The red phone on the desk was still flashing. With an weary sigh, he picks up.
"Evil, Inc. here, don't ask who we're incorporated with, how may I help?"
*I should have known, the Cosmic Court is hassling me again*
"Mr Evil, we've been getting word from the souls from, what is now called Earth, that you've been exploiting them in various unfair ways and 'reaching too far across the table', so to speak."
Evil rolled his eyes.
"Look fellas, I am fully within my boundaries. And I'm sorry about that little debacle that happened a few thousand something years ago with that missionary you sent down. I swear, those Roman Emperors were a bitch to control than the puppets today! But these humans all sign these contracts themselves and act on their own accordance. You know I can't do anything without those dumb fuckers doing all the work for me!"
Ignoring most of what was said, the Cosmic caller continued;
"We see that you've been actually tricking them and abusing your authority. You are also aware how the humans can be programmed and easily exploited, and according to Section 144.432-9IG of Cosmic Law, it clearly states that you aren't allowed to rob them of their own free will."
Suppressing the slight panic in his voice, Evil rebutes,
"The dumb fuckers have been acting on their own accord this whole time! You think I am forcing the Americans to vote every 4 years? The Brits are still convinced I'm gonna give them Brexit!"
And with a stout bit of pompousness, he concludes his argument,
"by them voting, it is basically saying that they accept my rule of law and that they are okay with it."
There was a moment of silence over the phone. Evil leaned back on his chair and put his feet up.
"We're sorry to have bothered you, sir."
*That's what I thought. Hmm, speaking of which, I wonder if Francis is back in Rome, yet. He said he was gonna show me the first edition of X-Men in the Vatican Vault!*
"Hmm, yes, Grace will you leave a message for the Pope? Be sure to remind him he still owes me a beer when he incarnated as Hitler. Grace. Grace?" | The first part was easy. Through careful acquisitions and strong marketing, Evil Inc found ourselves the owners of several high tech companies, well known to all. Google and other high value targets soon had to follow as they couldn't keep up with our aggressive spending and advertising. So they decided to merge with us. They kept their names for the sake of appearances.
The second part was much harder and had to progress over the course of years. But now every person using the internet is also using an Evil Inc product of some kind allowing us to keep track of the entire world. Having data on everyone made their compliance easier. The law tried to call it blackmailing but we don't control what people do, just the flow of data. And data can get lost.
Now comes the third part. So far we have bought a single nation, which is presented as a Utopia and others flock to join us. It currently stretches over a quarter of the world. The laws that we made keep everyone in place after they become citizens. For the rest of them the plan is to unleash the villains they have in custody and let them beg for our protection. Buying those prison facilities was a good investment. Now we will just implement more "humane" security measures, and some will escape.
The best thing is watching these so called heroes being unable to act. The laws of our new nation, Levillia, don't allow them to set foot inside the borders without causing an incident. It has all been perfect so far and soon the whole world will be ours, and they will give themselves to us willingly.
I would chuckle maniacally but I never could perfect my laugh. | 2019-09-07T06:55:59 | 2019-09-07T04:53:39 | 48 | 16 |
[WP] The monsters can only get you when the lights are out, so the lights stay on 24/7, globally. One night in the middle of winter, a massive power outage hits the United States. | _We are not your enemies_
Commander Stafford stood in the middle of the septagram, candles at each point, gazing out into the suffocating darkness. Beyond the flame's glow, at the liminal point where night's cloak became candle's edge, movement slinked across the eye's perception such as to never reveal a conherent shape, giving only the impression of size... movement... speed. The imagined glitter of teeth was, she hoped, still imagination.
"You eat human flesh."
_And you eat cow flesh... sheep flesh... goat flesh... fish flesh. Are you monsters?_
She smiled slightly, her eyes passing cursorially over the lines of chalk that marked the boundaries of the safe-zone. Step over the line... and you were fair game.
Stafford's throat cleared, and the impression-of-size shifted slowly.
"Perhaps we are, to them. If they had rifles, perhaps they wouldn't be unjustified in shooting us. But they don't. And we do."
The shuffling stopped, abruptly. Stafford suspected they had not expected candour, and was quietly satisfied that she had gathered their attention. As her own commander had said back in training, "only children and hatchlings play with their food; if you don't make yourself interesting, they might decide to move you further up the menu".
The shadows withdrew, somehow deepening the already pitch-black into a newer kind of darkness, a darkness that was dark because of an absence of light... rather than because something vast, animal, and lethal was obscuring it.
_We are not monsters because we consume your dead._
"You are monsters because you murder. You are predators because you consume." She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise a little higher, the slick whispers dripping from the dark like the hissing of black vipers swimming through troglodyte rivers.
_We do not kill. We only consume._
Stafford felt her brain slip seductively into a higher gear as it began to parallel process.
"What do you mean by "you do not kill"? You mean... they were dead when you found them?"
_We are not predators._
_We do not take... we only pick up that which is discarded._
Her mind spun rapidly. So many victims of monster attacks were elderly or sick... they'd assumed for so long that it was because, like most predators, they went for the frailest who could not fight against it...
"What about the venom? We found venom, in the victims' blood. It looked like a paralytic when we tested it on mice."
The shuffling grew steadily more constant, as though many eyes were jostling for position to watch this human speak. Stafford flicked her gaze across the candles... they were almost burnt down. She had to hope the diplomatic accord would be respected.
_We do not eat mice. It would not give you a proper response. In humans... it takes the pain. Stills the tremours of passing. Relaxes the mind. _
_It is good for both; they leave in peace... and we don't get disturbed in our feeding._
Stafford flicked slowly through her notes. Survivors' reports, detailing feelings of peace and lethargy. They had assumed it was some kind of enthrallment, as in the old vampire legends... perhaps it was simply this narcotic venom.
"And the survivors?"
The whispering grew alarmingly; it sounded like she had struck a nerve.
_We are scavengers, not **thieves**. We take that which is not used... if they survive the night, then we return the next. And the next. Until they are finally ready for harvest._
She swallowed the sudden bile in her throat. She fought to remind herself that these were not humans, and she could not expect them to use human ethics, but it was still unpleasant to consider humans as 'harvest'.
But then... not all the victims had died entirely peacefully, had they?
"And what of the violent deaths? Some of the bodies we found did not appear to be ready to die naturally... are some of your number a little more proactive in your scavenging?"
She knew there was a challenging note in her tone. She was tense. The candles were beginning to flicker and grow lower. The dark shapes were slowly moving in.
The whispers appeared to hiss a little louder, as though laughing quietly at its own joke. Stafford felt an animal growl rise in the back of her throat. The whispering felt practically beside her ears now.
_We are not the only things that go bump in the night, Commander._
The candles guttered.
Sputtered.
Died. | For years it was always bright. We slept with lights on, never darkness. We cooked, cleaned, showered, did everything in brightness. This was how it was because the government told us the "monsters" would get us. Nobody had ever seen them in person. We didn't know what they looked like, what they could do, or how they were killing us... All we knew was we were dropping like flies in the darkness and we were safe in the light. Everyone had their own theory... That aliens were trying to take over... That it was angry ghosts or demons... That it was a government conspiracy to control the population and us as a whole... Even supernatural beings... But the government always denied them. I was too young to witness it first hand. But I knew what they could take away from us. They killed my parents.
It was 12 years after the initial Law of Light (and the subsequent curfew that came with it) that it first came crashing down. I was sitting on the couch one night with my brother watching Netflix when it was suddenly dark. The TV went off, the lights, everything in the apartment was dark. For a second I froze - what the fuck was happening? We were guaranteed the lights would never go out. I snapped out of it quickly, grabbed my little brother by the hand and led him to our supply closet / panic room. I pushed his crying self into the corner and covered him with a blanket covered in small embedded lights. Maybe that would deter the monsters from him. I grabbed the shotgun I bought myself once I got my own place and loaded it up. I listened to the quiet apartment. No sounds but my own breathing and my brother's sniffling. Then, I heard shouting from the nearby apartments.
"Shit, they're here." I swore. My brother whimpered.
"Brian, whatever happens, do not come out from that blanket until you see the lights back on."
He whispered ok and tried to hold back his sobs.
I started hearing what I could only describe as high pitched and whispy sounds, in the apartment. Sounds I'd never heard before. Sounds I couldn't really place. Sounds that frightened me. Things were knocking over, whispers heard that sounded familiar. I stood back in front of my brother to protect him; my gun aimed at the closed door. Suddenly bright blue light filled the small closet we were in and I had to shield my eyes and brace myself. After a few seconds, nothing happened, but a small voice sounded from in front of me. Help us? I opened my eyes confused, to a being of semi-transparent blue light floating in front me. It had my body. It had my features. It had my voice. It sounded like it was in pain. Its arms reached for me. It cried out: "Help us." | 2018-02-02T05:50:09 | 2018-02-02T04:29:56 | 27 | 10 |
[WP] Everyone who dies is granted levels in heaven depending on their actions before they died. Your famous grandmother got level 64 after she died and has since been constantly reminding her friends about how useless of a grandchild you are. Then one day, after 80 years, you show up, level 3008. | His life had been a simple one, uncomplicated. What little excitement there had been surrounded expected events. Births of children and grandchildren, marriages, graduations. Though he had been a smart man, he never felt the need to work particularly hard, "furthering humanity" as some of his peers were compelled. There was the time, following several successful years as a Scout Master, that it was suggested that he run for mayor of the small town where he lived. He had laughed and said, "No thank you" to the members of the town council who had gathered on his doorstep.
"He squanders his potential!" she had whined at the other ladies gathered around the table. They gathered every other day to play Bridge, drink mimosas, and humble-brag about the minor intercessions that they were allowed in the lives of mortals. "Everyone knows that if he wanted the VP job, he'd have had it long before that philanderer Jacobs was ever hired." she let out a slow breath, almost whistling through pursed lips. "No drive, no motivation"
Grandma had been famous dancer back in the day. She was a regular on "Soul Train" and was in several scenes in Saturday Night Fever. She had started her own dance studio in the city and kept her instruction costs as low as she could in order to give as many kids a chance at a career. She had worked her feet to the bone, and then some. Practicing, paying dues, always just short, always just coming from behind.
"I made it to level 60 before I was 65!" It was invariable that the other women would hear about how his grandmother had started a charity for retired artists. The organization had helped countless artists move off the streets and back into permanent housing by helping them do things as complex as recover owed royalties or as simple as apply for disability. It was a worthwhile use of her hard-won fortune and fame.
When word came that he had finally died, 4 days after his 80th birthday, his grandmother was adamant.
"A real level 25 if I've ever seen one!"
"He'll be in heaven, living on the Lord's pity!"
The "Vita" began to print. The first thing that anyone saw, after your name, was the score. This was followed by every interaction, thought, word, or action that changed your level and the commensurate "XP" change, positive or negative.
The ladies read his name, and only one digit of his level.
"3......."
The grandmother sagged like wet cardboard. She could barely hold the paper as it poured from the printer in the way that always felt like it was decanting a whole life. There were no large changes in his score. None of the multi-level leaps that all of the highest level individuals possessed. Nothing attached to world changing events, nothing indicating that he radically changed humanity.
What he did have was the "multiplier". The longer the string of positive or negative interactions, the greater the "XP" that the next was worth. His interactions were almost all positive. He had gone almost a decade without a negative score at one point. Simply making his wife tea at night without being asked had scaled to the point that it was worth the same relative XP at level 3000 as it had at 30.
When some would've shaken their fists and yelled as they were cut-off in traffic, he just tapped his brakes and checked the rear-view mirror.
When some would have railed at the "idiots" at work making their job more difficult, he quietly cleaned up the mess and moved on.
When he was frustrated, he didn't take it out on his coworkers, wife, kids, or friends.
All of the small things that could break a multiplier string. All of the small, seemingly inconsequential items that prevented almost everyone from achieving arch-angel status. He had avoided most of them.
As he lay, dying in a hospital bed. His daughter asked him a question, though she well knew the answer and had heard it a thousand times. She wanted to hear it once more, so she asked, "Dad, how can I have a good life?"
He smiled and his cloudy, shimmering eyes seemed to focus on a point ten feet above his bed.
He whispered, trailing off, "Do unto others..."
Edit: Wow, absolutely thanks everyone. I enjoyed reading all of your comments, and I'm pleased that this supplants my previous high karma statement which was a quote about a man in the depths of an ether binge.
Special thanks to those that gilded. I'll have to sign into my account more often again and see what it does. | My grandmother raised me.
I guess you could call her, ah, famous. She was a senator for a couple of decades, and so I guess some people in the state had heard of her. Really, I wasn't much interested. I hated politics; it gave me a headache. The only time I had to have anything to do with it was when I had to dress up nice and smile like a good little boy, while grandmother shed fake tears about how devastated she'd been when my parents had died, how happy she'd been to take me in. That was it. She never even forced me to go vote.
Okay, so. The tears weren't fake, probably. She was a woman not a statue, though she was damn close. Still, I'm not above a bit of editorializing, and hell I told you the truth in the end, yeah?
But anyways. She did push me to go into politics. "Make a difference" she said. "Stand in front of people instead of the glow of a computer screen." I think she didn't just like to see my smile...and yeah, alright, I guess she wanted me to make something out of my life.
Still, it doesn't mean I cried at her funeral.
She affected some people I guess, she was a senator, she had to have. And that's what mattered in heaven, how many people's lives you'd affected. I'm told she was damn proud of her rank, but that she bemoaned me, her pathetic grandson, who'd affect nothing but the buttons on his almost-broken laptop.
Ah but see, I was a writer.
No one famous. I'm no Stephen King, Jim Butcher, Brandon Sanderson, Tolkien, or the like. I just liked writing and I liked sharing my writing. I wrote novels that met mild success, I wrote short stories that won an award or two. But mainly I wrote online. Short stories, bad stories, long stories, happy stories, sad stories. All of it. Must've written thousands in my life. To my grandmother it was a waste of time.
To the thousands who'd stumbled upon even a single one of my stories, and been affected in some minor way by it - be it a smile, laugh, or tear - to them I meant something.
And that meant to heaven, I was level 3008.
Perhaps you'll read this and I may find myself going up levels even after I've died.
I'm mortal, you're mortal. The house you're in will fall away, governments will collapse, even the seas might even dry up. But words? They're around to stay.
***
Check [XcessiveWriting](https://www.reddit.com/r/XcessiveWriting/) to be touched by some stories. | 2018-04-14T17:40:49 | 2018-04-14T16:37:28 | 8,523 | 1,856 |
[WP] Before you died, you agreed to donate your body for medical research. This morning, you woke up in an unfamiliar room and the last thing you remember is dying. | My eyes hurt before I opened them. My throat felt scratchy and raw. This wasn’t Heaven, was it? Heaven was clouds and harps, halos and singing. At the very least Heaven was endless margaritas by the pool. Every muscle in my body ached. I groaned and opened my eyes. White florescent lights blinded me.
I tried to shield my eyes but my wrists were strapped to a gurney. Pain slashed through my chest and legs. Black cables burrowed into my bruised skin. Cameras blinked from the walls and I heard the endless beep of a vital signs monitor. An IV pierced my arm. A central line burrowed into my upper chest. A urinary catheter connected to a bag at the foot of the bed. A third of it was filled with dark urine.
Something banged nearby, and I heard a low hiss.
Chimpanzees. At least a dozen of the hairy beasts were locked in cages along the walls. They gripped the steel bars and pointed at me. Their piercing hoots hurt my ears. Several threw feces and straw.
Panic seized hold. What had happened? I remembered the anesthesiologist ordering me to count backwards. The tumor had invaded too many parts of my brain. The oncologists had told me which ones, but honestly, I couldn’t remember. I could barely speak at that point. They gave me a 50/50 chance of survival.
“Well now,” a chipper voice said from somewhere to the right. “Awake, are we?”
I tried to speak, but only gasping hacks escaped my lips.
A young woman in a white lab coat appeared beside my bed. Her smile chilled my blood. It never moved past her lips to her eyes. She pressed the cold end of her stethoscope against my chest and tilted her head as she listened to my heart. “You're ahead of schedule. They’ll be glad to hear that.”
“What…” I finally choked out.
“You died on the operating table. Down for nearly four minutes.” She moved the stethoscope to another part of my chest, beneath one of the black cables. “Good rhythm.”
“My wife…” I whispered.
“Not my job,” she said with that same cold smile. “But I’m sure it’s been taken care of.”
“When can I…”
“Never.” She flipped the stethoscope around her neck and patted my right hand. Her fingers were like ice. “Your body’s the property of LexCorp now. You signed yourself away, remember? Medical research.”
I felt my heart freeze in my chest. “I’m not dead.”
“No one reads the fine print. You were dead enough for us. Three minutes after the heart stops, our teams step in to claim the body.” She released my hand and her eyes lifted to the walls. The chimps screamed and hooted at her. “Don’t worry. Our researchers are careful to administer pain medications before conducting their experiments.” She smiled. “Of course, until now, we’ve only had chimps.”
She stepped away from the gurney. “I’m a bit jealous, Mr. Jones. You’re going to further our understanding of human endurance. I can’t wait to see how well you do.”
“Wait,” I shouted, pulling at the restraints. I couldn’t move my ankles more than a few inches off the bed. My wrists snapped back against the sheet. “Please, this isn’t right. I’m not dead – let me go, damn it!”
“Dr. Fields from Luthor Technologies will be in to speak with you soon. Until then, get some rest.” She squeezed my shoulder. “You’ve had a trying day.”
I screamed at her to stop – that this was some kind of mistake. My screams roused my cell-mates. The chimps erupted in wild shouts. My mind spun. I was alive – this wasn’t right – I had to see my wife! I fought my restraints. The door slid shut and I heard the latch click.
| “Helen?”
A small lab-coated man called out to my dreary body.
“Helen?”
“Whhhooo” a high-pitched voice echoed into the room.
“You're currentl-”
“theeeeeeee” but the second try solidified it, my voice was squealing, undeniably prepubescent in tone. I tugged my arms up in terror, trying to flee the unfamiliar surroundings. A thin, translucent field held my arms and legs in place as the man droned on.
“Ma'am, please. You're currently in the Sheffield Research And-”
The man's voice was drowned out by the maddening realization that the restraints weren't holding down my hairy, thick wrists, but dainty wrists.
“WHO IS HELEN?”
“Uh..” the technician stared blankly at the wall for a half second “Helen Duncan. Your brain was transferred to a new host body after your...”
“Mate... mate. You've got it all wrong, my name is Jeremy.”
“You're unfortunately experiencing amnesia related to the transfer. Maybe you had a partner or relative named Jere-”
“No, no. I-” I splayed my newly thin fingers and pulled with all my might against the bright blue lasers. “FUCK, FUCK, FUCK.” The dull musculature in my new frame hardly responded.
The small lab-coated man, not threatened by my form, unlocked the restraints as a soothing mechanism.
“You're not being detained in anyway, ma'am. Please calm down and let me begin the orientation process.”
I popped off the sterile table and bladed my stance. My body was reluctant to comply, some depressant undoubtedly coursing through my veins to make me more amiable. The small man stood at least eight inches taller than me. I placed my left arm straight to measure the distance and fell worryingly short.
“Waking up can be incredibly confusing,” he said, as I drew closer with my left palm outstretched. “When you donated your brain to-”
He made the small mistake of moving to me and touching my hand to his chest. I uncorked a right hook on his chin as is my god-given right, you shouldn't invade peoples' personal space.
A loud alarm sounded and I ran out of the room into a futuristic abyss. | 2016-07-04T21:45:23 | 2016-07-04T21:03:36 | 1,073 | 174 |
[WP] You die and go to hell for committing one of the seven deadly sins. However, you are not greeted by flames and torture, but a demon/ess that smuggled you away and is apparantly...your biggest fan.
Maybe a groupie/teenage crush succubus, a fanboy pride demon or something else? Let your imagination flow! | "Ow. Fuck..."
I opened my eyes.
"...WAIT! HHEY, DON'T!"
I winced as a bright light blew up on my face.
"OH, GOD. It's really you."
I was still seeing partially white from the flash.
"Who?" I felt a cellphone on my hand with what appears to be my picture on it.
"You! It's really you! Go ahead. Check the next picture. Swipe right."
I complied without even looking where the strangely sexy voice came from. My head still hurt. It was like I woke up from a 20 hour sleep.
It was a screenshot from a news article.
 
***MINNESOTA TEENAGER KILLS 89, SELF IN DEADLIEST U.S. SCHOOL SHOOTING.***
This was me? I slowly recall my last day on Earth. That was definitely me. I slowly looked up. In one motion, I saw an exposed flat stomach, huge knockers, a beautiful face with asian features and perfectly applied eyeliner, and...goat horns?
"Way to go man! Were you expecting blackness? I believe you got it all wrong. Hence, you being here, aside from the mass homicide. You probably know by now that we're in hell. Well, city limits at least. Hell's over there."
She pointed to the source of loud screams and lights that could only come out of a campfire. It was hellfire.
"We probably should go." She told me. And before I could react, I felt her chest pressing against mine. I stopped touching the ground below my feet. I was...
"FLYING?! AH-" I gasped for air. No sound came out of me as I grabbed as tightly as I can to this devil chick thing. As the hot wind brushed through my hair, I found the courage to look over her shoulder see to what's behind us. Two cloaked figures carrying polearms were giving chase. I burrowed my head back into her shoulders almost immediately. I felt every zip and turn we took. Finally, the rollercoaster ride stopped as we landed on the ground.
*"Whew!"* She was sweating buckets. A huge drop trickled down her neck and onto her exposed chest. She noticed me looking. She didn't get mad. I thought I was seeing things because underneath the redness of hell I might've just seen her blush.
"So, do you mind explaining what was that?" I asked her. She was still trying to catch her breath and avoiding my gaze.
"Huh? Oh right! Hi. You're like, my hero. I've been following you since you got your first gun three years ago." She muttered and fumbled, struggling to get the words out. She was kinda cute, aside from the weird ass horns protruding from her head.
I looked at her quizzically. I still couldn't comprehend what had just transpired. This was my first out-of-earth experience after all.
"If those two got to us, they would've probably claimed your soul for cleansing." Her expression switched from embarrassed to stern.
"I'd probably be fucked too. They'd take my horns and do me like they do humans. But hey, I finally met you. It's worth. Here. Let's have some fun."
She clasped her hands together and pulled them apart. Fire came out of her hands and transmuted into something. She did this to an arms length and it was...a rifle - the very same surplus 'Nam era M16 that I used to shoot up that Godforsaken cesspool.
She handed me the rifle. *"Teach me."*
"But why would I need to?" I asked her. We're in hell after all. Why would it even matter?
"Trust me. Shoot that rock over there." She pointed to a small rock formation that stuck out from the ground at about knee level.
I pulled the trigger and fired three shots at it. The gun expelled its cartridges like expected. What I didn't expect was...
"Hey, that rock just-" I stuttered.
"Burst into flames?! Yeah! That's a *soul eraser*. It erases souls on the spot. Go figure. That rock has no soul, but it's from hell,I guess so it blows up like that. I-"
Her explanation was cut short by the sudden ominous energy coming right at us. The cloakies were back. I wasn't afraid.
"Hey, don't just stand there! Let's go!"
I didn't. Instead. I fired at them. A click at the chest and let the recoil shoot up to the head.
*Nothing happened.*
"Those guys don't have souls. Let's go!"
Wide eyed, I bolted towards her.
That was pretty much my first day in hell. It wasn't much. I could tell you more about it tomorrow when I find better internet down here.
_____________________________
*UPDATE: PART 2 is up! As promised. Let's march on over to [/r/meiplestories](https://www.reddit.com/r/meiplestories/comments/6iumbl/my_biggest_fan_2/)!*
| "I can't believe you're finally here!"
I coughed and sputtered as the sulfuric air filled my lungs. I was dead. I remembered climbing onto the chair, sliding the rope around my neck. I remember the feeling of breathlessness, and my vision fading to black as I drifted off to finally put end to my suffering. But instead of the darkness greeting me, I was here, underneath a red tinted sky; surrounded by demons and horrors I'd only read about in stories.
"Wh-where am I?" I gasped out.
"You're in Hell, silly! You know I've been waiting for you. I'm a big fan of your work."
The creature in front of me had to be at least eight feet tall. She had glowing red eyes and smooth black skin. She was beautiful in a severe sort of way.
"What? But I... I'm a good person. I never hurt anybody."
"I know, honey, but all suicides go to Hell. Sorry, but it's a Wrath violation."
"Oh...that's..." My voice trailed off. I didn't know what to say, but the demon in front of me was looking at me expectantly.
"Uh...you said you were a fan of mine?"
"Yes! I'm a huge fan of your writing!"
"Oh, I... well that's really nice of you."
It was something I'd never expected to hear. I must have written a dozen novels in my lifetime, but I'd tossed each one in the rubbish pile before it was finished, too self-conscious to even read my own work, let alone let someone else read it.
"So, uh... am I going to be punished?"
"Oh no, honey. Suicides may get sent to Hell on a technicality, but Satan doesn't punish people who only hurt themselves. You're free to do whatever you want."
"Oh... great. Uh... what is there to do in Hell?"
"Well, there's demon college. You can learn about demonic possession, and if you do well, you can go back to Earth in another body."
I looked around at the bleak Hellscape around me and decided that that sounded like a good option.
"So uh... how do I get there?"
"Come with me, I'll show you. We can go together!"
The giant demoness picked me up and threw me over her shoulder. She kicked off the ground hard and giant wings kicked up dust as we flew off.
"It'll take you a couple hundred years to learn the art of possession." She said. "But maybe when you go back to Earth we can go together."
"Uh... sure." I said, not wanting to refuse the giant demon who could drop me from the sky at any moment.
"Great," she said. "You're going to do great, I can already tell."
And she was right, in the end. It only took me 164 years to learn the art of possession, and after that it took me ten years on the waiting list for a soul to open up.
Now that I'm back on Earth, I don't mind sharing my writing with others anymore. I guess it helps that I've got my biggest fan right here with me.
_____________
[My author's page on Facebook](http://fb.me/lifeisstrangemetoo) | 2017-06-22T01:30:48 | 2017-06-22T00:29:46 | 60 | 29 |
[WP]Not every hero is a rich idiot with no day job, nor every villain a mad scientist, but most still need supplies. Thus, Super-Mart; a place for the budget-conscious heroes and villains, left alone thanks to a necessary truce. And You just started a summer job there. | It was, without a doubt, one of the strangest atmospheres anyone could have ever experienced. Strolling through the isles was a colorful, but sparse collection of motley dressed supers. It almost felt like the air was on the verge of bursting into flames, the way some of the customers looked at each other.
No one knew how this place remained open. The owner, whoever they were, had somehow managed to both establish a weapons store in a remote hillside (that was still accessible by road) as well as somehow manage to dodge attacks from governments and militia groups, as well as the occasional super who got a bit too big for their boots. No one knew what happened, to the last category.
Galen ignored the sideways death glances as he followed the instructions he'd written down on a scrap of paper.
*Turn off the A139 (Junction 18).*
*Enter through the main door (they're automatic).*
*At the back of the fifth isle, there will be a door. Walk through it. Do not talk to any of the supers. If a person claiming to be a member of staff tries to talk to you, they're lying.*
*Go up the stairs, my office is the third one along.*
*Don't eat before you come. I'm making tea and scones :D*
The courier had very specifically asked him to include the smiley face in his note. In retrospect, this was a bit strange: he'd only started writing it a long while after they'd left.
The back of the store was even more strange than the front. While the aisles of the front of the store had a clean neutralness to them, displaying racks and racks of this and that, this completely changed once he crossed the threshold. Rich, dark mahogany lined the walls besides him, with the occasional oil lamp to light his way. They flickered and wavered, causing strange, dancing shadows to move along the walls besides him. Not counting the lanterns, it reminded him a bit of his old school. He shivered.
He found the door with the lettering stated on it, and knocked. Out of curiosity, he looked around the hallway, wondering if he needed to, how fast he could-
"Come in."
Oh well. He'd figure it out later. Walking in, he expected to find an office no less surreal than the rest of this place. And he was right. There wasn't a desk or anything of the sort. Just a woman, dressed in a Victorian outfit sitting at a large, round, covered table that looked like it could have fit about five or six. He couldn't make out her face behind the large decorative hat that was balanced on her head.
"Erm...I'm here for the-"
"Oh, shush. I know why you're here, Galen."
*How did she know my name?*
Wait. No. She'd invited him. That was a completely normal thing to know.
He sat down at the table, seeing her face for the first time. He blinked. For some reason, everything he'd seen had made him expect someone older. But the person he was sitting across form couldn't have been much older than twenty five. Admittedly, that did make her almost twice his age. He tried not to get too warm, as she poured tea into the cup in front of him.
"So, why do you think you'd be a good fit, for this role?"
*Alright, remember the things you were going to say.*
"Well...um...I'm a very hard worker. My dad always said that-"
She burst out laughing, small flecks of scone pettling his face.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She said, wiping her eyes "I just had to hear it for myself. Out of all the candidates you were the only one who didn't *start* with what they could do. You're hired, by the way. The fact that you're here means I was always going to hire you. I just wanted to see it first.
"Umm..." he said, not quite sure how to react "...there are...other candidates?"
"Oh. No. Not anymore, anyway. And now that I've picked you, there never were. Does that make sense?"
He was getting an increasingly uneasy feeling about this.
"Oh don't worry. Most of my employees get used to that pretty quickly."
"Did-did you just?"
"Well no. But also yes. To be honest, I wouldn't worry about it." Which was the sort of statement which did not help with that.
Something in her face changed. "I would like to know, though. Why *do* you think you'd be a good fit, for this role?"
To be honest, he was starting to get the impression he didn't want to be. But...there was something in her tone that demanded an answer. So he gave one.
"My powers. I see connections in things. Put them together, in ways no one else had thought of. That's why you want me, isn't it? You want me to make things, things that you can sell."
She shrugged. "True. Partially."
He blinked.
"But also completely wrong."
That caught him by surprise.
"What do you think this place is, Galen?"
It occurred to him that she was asking for a response.
"A...erm, weapons shop?"
She sighed. "If I didn't want to hire you, I would've punched you just then. I put things together." She smiled. "Like you. That's what we do here, we bring things together; things that nobody thought could work the way they did."
"But-" he interrupted.
"-I never said it was *objects,* that I was bringing together."
He stared at her, not entirely sure what she meant. Only after the fact did it occur to him how immensely stupid it had been to interrupt this person. He was starting to get an idea of just how dangerous she might be. Even *he* might have trouble. She just smiled.
"Anyway, I can see you've had a big day. Go to the lounge; its on the third floor past the living quarters. You can take the rest of the day off. Your shift begins tomorrow." | "How about fifty?"
"I'm not going to sell my death ray for %11 of the cost!"
It's not the weirdest thing you see in Super-Mart two indiviual try to make a living. But I still have to obey the policy
"Sir, we don't have a market for indiviuals. Please use websites like Cap-e or supercave."
Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I got here.
\*\*\*
"But mom said I'm old enough to buy speedster shoes."
I had a fake teary eye. You know, able to control water has its merits. My dad did't even looked at me while pointing out wall. The hole with orange edge showing me a wrecked car. I try to suppress my guilt
"Even then I was able to make my way out of it!"
He looked at me with a side eye, raising an eyebrow. That stare which brings down many people down to their knees. Knowing this isn't even a superpower didn't help so I keep my mouth shut but keep my chin up.
"If you say so."
Ugh! I hate you dad! I hate you when you just act towards me like you did to criminals! You know nothing about world!
"Yeah, I say so!"
"Let's compromise."
Did...did he just turn 180 degree on his char and smile?
He did!
That's bad!
That's really bad!
"I want you to prove me that you're responsible enough"
"O-okay"
I'm sure my position on my chin and shoulders didn't change but Oh man...I shouldn't stutter.
"Very well then"
\*\*\*
"I got scammed at supercave"
"Cap-e is only for superheroes with licenses"
Oh they're villians, of course. Should've figured it out from death ray.
Uh...
Death ray?
Since when I consider this a normal thing here?
"I can help you to use those websites if you want"
Oh right because I don't have time for this! I need to handle it like an adult or I might lose this job!
"So you see if you check the rating the sellers account on the website..."
I swear if it took more than half an hour I'll call the security. Oh wait, there is none! I hate here!
Thankfully they were quick to follow so they leave me alone. I was glad that they were good with technology. The next one on the other hand wasn't this easy.
This woman simply asked me with a delightful smile
"What should I buy?"
She was a nice enough woman so I hang out a bit next to her.
"Why not this costume cleaner?"
"Oh this might work! But not really"
"What about this litlle gadget to comminucate?"
"not my style"
"Bendable metal stick for little fashion touches? You can bend it according to your symbol"
"Too simple"
"Gun color? You can shoot with wahtever colour you want! We have red for villians and blue for heroes"
"Too pale"
Pick something woman!
Turns out she was just trying to exchange her money so she would have coins for a vending machine.
I mean, I get it. It's the policy that we can't exchange money for it. Why don't you buy what you want from here though?
Fun fact it wasn't in the policy until someone scammed me with fake money. I really shouldn't be leave alone with register.
It could cause a lot of trouble for people but most importantly, for me. Meaning I need to re-consider...uh...what was the reason for me to work here again?
..............................
Right.
.............................
Maybe I should pick something less managable to buy instead of following a trend on the street considering I wrecked a car. It was dangerous for me and others.
..............................
\*\*\*
"You could just told me!...Stop laughing" I shouted while couldn't hold my giggle
"I was so emberassed! It was so hard! I got scammed! I had to teach villians to use supercave! Do you know what lind of people I had to deal with!"
This is the first time I see my dad slapping his knees while laughing. And me giggling despite all the troublesome weeks.
..............................
Thanks, dad.
.............................
I love you. | 2021-10-03T12:46:12 | 2021-10-03T11:53:39 | 129 | 35 |
[WP] Every ten years you're allowed to have a conversation with your ten-year-younger self, but only the senior remembers the conversation. 20 year old you wakes up from talking to 30 year old you with one word carved on their arm... | I was diagnosed with clinical depression in my late teens, though it was likely a part of me years before. I knew about the conversations with my younger self every ten years (everyone did it), and fortunately with the help of therapy and medication I lasted until I was 20.
I woke up, eager to see what word I would have on my arm. Looking down, I saw what would keep me going for at least another ten years: "LIVE".
From that moment forward, I did my best to keep a positive attitude. Through college I volunteered at every chance, and though it took me a while, I eventually graduated with a degree. My parents were thrilled, and things were looking up. I got an internship at a local start-up, started dating a girl I knew from school, and would make sure to look at my arm at least once a day, as though to say "I will."
When I was 26, my girlfriend dumped me. It hurt more than you could imagine, and the depression came back in full force. It affected my job, and I was eventually let go. I wound up moving back in with my parents, which didn't help anything but I had little choice in the matter.
There were several times I thought about ending it all. But every time, I would look down at my arm and see that four-letter word that always kept me going. Thinking on it, I realized I would be in a better place in my 30s, enough so that I would make sure I'd use the one word to keep my past self alive to see it.
Things turned around again when I was 28. I got a new, much better job, and could finally afford a really nice one-bedroom apartment in the city. My colleagues and I got along great, and I wound up dating a coworker's roommate for a while. It didn't last, but I was back out there again, feeling better. The depression retracted, albeit slowly, but it was enough to get me to 30. Seeing my 20-year-old self, I simply instructed him to live.
The next day I woke with a smile, pleased with my conversation to help my past self and obsessively curious as to what new word I'd have on my arm this time.
Only, there wasn't one.
******************
*For more eerie stories, check out /r/Zchxz !* | When I was 10, I awoke with the name "Theresa" carved into my arm. When I was 20 I carved it. Theresa was my crush. I met her in college, and we were perfect for each other. I awoke the next day with the word "MARRY" carved into my arm. It was a sign, and in a few years we were married.
Today, I awoke up on my 30th birthday, with "DON'T" carved above. What do I do when I see my 20 year old self tomorrow night? | 2016-07-13T07:10:06 | 2016-07-13T04:56:19 | 142 | 40 |
[WP] You're a high level black mage with a few healing spells but everyone thinks you're a terrible cleric because you only ever use healing spells. | # The Black Calamity
Kamban of the Endaari people was known in the continent of Angleys as a Destruction Cleric, which according to the Angleic-Codex is a class of sorcerers with the following description:
"Though every other known Cleric class or specialization relies on heavy healing and support spells, the Destruction Clerics observed thus far exhibit no prowess in actual healing spells. While some debate on the nature of internal healing abilities, most scholars agree that they are not healers in any sense of the word. Instead, they exhibit an uncanny ability to destroy objects and cast mass-scale destruction spells; though they do not compare in sheer power to traditional battle mages. It is theorized that the Destruction Clerics are able to achieve this feat through some process of degeneration; a corruption of their natural clerical abilities."
Kamban was only the 11th known Destruction Cleric in existence with the last observed one dating back more than a century. And so, not much was known about the nature of his abilities and most theories were nothing more than guesses. Destruction Clerics were generally a taboo topic, especially so in Angleys’s historic past. Every known Destruction Cleric in the past was a man of faith and compassion turned into a force of destruction; either through corruption or through despair – or both. Kamban was more of a mysterious figure and the first known Endaari Cleric. There were parse records and folktales about dozens of Endaari over the known history of Angleys (recorded from the date of foundation of the Great Empire of Angleys, circa 1 GEA). The Endaari were a people only known through their mysterious adventurers and mages who appeared throughout history as wandering truth-seekers with no fixed objective. From what anybody could tell there was no record or mention of clerics or healing specific classes amongst the Endaari. With the onset of this year’s Champion of the Empire challenges, Kamban had already made it to the fourth round. They had decimated every opponent with the use of minor healing spells that seemed to explode and vaporize anything it touched; an oddity both in terms of power levels & nature of destruction for their class. The citizens of Angley had shown up for the next match in droves greater than ever seen in living memory – for the match of Kamban vs the crown prince, his majesty, Gregory IV of the Great Angleys. The royal family had historically produced some of the finest mages on the continent, but Gregory was an exception even amongst them. A battlemage with fire affinity, his known accomplishments include leveling entire enemy battalions with his signature ‘Fire Whirlwind’.
“I pity you Endaarian Cleric, from what I know of your people they would not approve of such vile sorcery” Gregory scoffed at his opponent.
Kamban, who was a good 100 feet away gestured his hands towards his ears and said “I can’t hear you over your stupidity”.
“Ooooooh it looks like Kamban respects our crown prince enough to return the jest. A courtesy he has refused to extend to anyone thus far!” cried the sound mage using the announcer glyph spread across the stadium.
“This is perhaps the fight of the year, right here sorcerers. Those of you who have gathered from far and wide are definitely in for a treat!!” he continued his hype.
Kamban returns to his standing pose with no signs of any other action. After a few moments, Gregory started his motions to make a flurry of fireballs. Kamban calmly cast a minor healing circle which seemed to effortlessly vaporize the incoming fireballs.
“What in heavens name… Are you really even a Destruction Cleric? That’s not how healing spells are supposed to behave even if the channeled with corrupted mana”.
“I never said I was one young prince. Your people just assumed it themselves.” Kamban responded with a quick motion of his hands taunting his opponent to come to him.
“And it most definitely was a healing spell you just witnessed”.
Gregory followed his attack with a blinding spelling. Kamban responded by posing as though it were a portrait spell’s mere flash. And the concentrated solar beam that Gregory launched using the blinding spell’s cover was flicked into inexistence with a minor touch of healing spelling Kamban seemed to cast with his left hand.
“Impossible” Gregory muttered as he looked towards the crowd, only to see many of his own citizens laughing at the ridicule he had been put through.
“Don’t look so glum Great Angley. It was but a joke and a bit of theatre. Your people sure do love good theatre” Kamban said with a chuckle.
Infuriated and humiliated, the prince bellowed “I will end you... you disgraceful piece of filth”.
Just as Kamban turned his back to the prince and faced the crowd to taunt him more, “Is this the best your empire has to offer? Is this why you’re all so proud all the time?”
Gregory in his fit of anger invoked the entire sequence for the Fire Whirlwind spell faster than ever before. Finishing his incantation within seconds and launching a giant whirlwind made of hot air and even hotter flames directed at where Kamban stood.
Caught by surprise that the prince would use such a spell in the middle of an Arena filled with thousands of his own citizens, Kamban reacted instinctively – raising this right arm and launching a single bolt of fire. The fire glowed a dark shade of red, as though it were almost black and consuming the light around it instead of emitting it. The bolt traveled faster than any bolt the Angleys had ever seen.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, holy mother in heaven…….. someone get the Endaari traitor now!” the sound mage screamed.
In an instant, the black bolt raced through the whirlwind consuming it and then producing a massive explosion in an arc towards where the prince had stood. Where the once-great battle mage had been, there was now nothing more than ash and armor. The entire section of the arena behind the prince had vaporized. Thousands lost in an instant with their revered heir to the throne.
Kamban had disappeared long before anyone could react and even think about pursuing him.
It was on that day the Angleic Codex was corrected to reflect what Kamban truly was. A black mage of unimaginable power, even compared to the legendary Endaari of folklore. Scholars eventually concluded Kamban had used minor healing spells to contain the destruction of his spells, the natural inclination of the spell forms helping minimize his explosive power output. His mana had been transformed into a concentrated force of destruction – some hypothesized due to repeated casting of calamity level spells while others argued it was likely a result of an intentional transformational spell. His mana had become synonymous with destruction that even the most basic of offensive spells – a single fireball - had the power to destroy beyond any Angley’s imagination.
Kamban was entered into the Angleic-Codex as the legend of the ‘Black Calamity’ – starting the first recorded instance of a feud between the Endaari and the Great Empire of Angleys. | "You again? I really hate this system" said the young and strong warrior.
"Well, I didn't make it, neither I like you" was my answer.
Like almost every week, I had to endure a conversation about my current place as low level healer. To be honest, I understand why everybody complains about me, I only have like 3 spells (a total of 5 uses), no miracles and can't regain uses with holy water. A complete disaster of a cleric. But like our guild leader usually says 'Better have a rock than nothing' and I am that rock for the newcomers and the fools who think they're strong enough to be without a healer.
Back to the present, my new companions were talking about the quest:
"No more goblins, I'm tired of caverns and the stench of torches" was the first thing I heard when I came down from my thoughts, and was the very first thing the beautiful and spotless elf ranger had said in my presence. Probably her mutism was related to my vicinity and my humble (and a bit full of filth) robes, it may be a prejudice from her but I have my own 'Never trust a ranger without dust in their head or mud in their boots'
"I know, I know, don't you worry, this city is new and its sewers are clean for now... In a couple months we'll see" answered the leader of the group, an old dwarf with many grey hairs in his beard and not a single hair in his head. Maybe he was the leader due to his expertise, or because the giant chunk of metal he called axe. "There are many beasts in the nearby forest, hmmm, look wolves and slimes. Two easy quest and they are in almost the same place so it'ld be only one exit."
"Sorry to interrupt" I said quickly "That forest is indeed plagued of those beast, so as newcomers you should attend only one of the quest..." the warrior and the ranger were looking at me like I were talking of eating their lives so I shut up before gaining more animosity.
"Even like that, we need that money, burying our previous healer was expensive and really hard for us." the last member was a white mage, a woman expert in ilussions and support. "Don't worry, I always can make a safe exit if everything goes nuts." finished with a fiery smile.
"So, it's 3 against 2" said the leader "I'm prone to trust the local but she's right and this is the fastest way, sorry fellow healer"
​
Well, do you know how territorial are wolves right? I guess that you can also imagine how is the stench of a slime. So we have 4 idiots that fight like a dozen of slimes (pretty fast and efficient I had to admit it) and then run into an infested forest, infested of wolves with great sense of smell and greater hunger because slimes aren't the most nutritive meal.
As I said, they fight really well even better than many more experienced groups I've encounter: the young warrior was incredible with his lance and a great shield and his role was keep a solid line. Around him, the ferocious dwarf danced and struck down every wounded or distracted enemy, which was a great idea because the ranger and the white mage couldn't kill fast enough the horde of wolves to keep safe the warrior but they could strike or hypnotise almost everyone of them before they can become a threat. Or at least they could for most of the time, the leader was taking some damage but refusing to be healed (precisely he shouted "This's but a scratch!") and encouraged me to heal a fully armored and shielded 6 feet human. To be fair, I did it more because knew what was coming than for the autority behind the order.
After 10' minutes of battle, and no more than 20 wolves dead, the human was exhauted, the dwarf covered in wounds and the 5 attempts of making a 'safe exit' from the backline were frustrated for the smell. That was my moment to shine.
First, I crack my neck. Waiting isn't my expertise. Raising dead is.
I yelled in an ancient tongue, forgotten and banned in many places, and every dead wolfe rise with flames in theis eyes and smoke in their veins to fight their former pack. The screams of pure terror the frontline as they saw my 'beautiful' allies were surprisingly high pitched but not the highest. A pity, I thought the warrior could make a record. Anyways, they weren't the only scared, the other wolves caught the idea fast and fleed to the forest, away from me. The terrace was clear of wolves in seconds and the whole group looked at me and my grey (not dusted) clothes.
"Don't worry, don't worry. You did a great job, I'm almost impressed. Come here, there are a couple things about your strategy that can be..."
"WHAT IN THE FUCKING NINE HELLS WAS THAT?" and that went my prejudice of chill and majestic elf ranger. She can curse and all.
"That was an 7th level spell. A bit overkill, I know but: do you know how easy is to burn all this? Better make them run. Also, if you interrupt me again you all fail. And yes, this was an exam. Do you really think enter our guild would be that easy?" | 2021-09-03T10:41:29 | 2021-09-03T10:26:15 | 107 | 69 |
[WP] A stray dog happens to release a genie from it's lamp. The genie just wants to get the 3 wishes over with so it can go back to sleep, while the dog is just happy to have found a new friend. | *Oh, fuck, here we go again.*
The genie was wrenched from his warm, dark sanctuary into the harsh light of day. No longer confined by the walls of the lamp, he felt his form swell up to fill the air. Stifling a yawn and blinking the sleep out of his eyes, the genie puffed his chest out and announced in a thunderous voice:
“FEAR NOT MORTAL. I AM THE GENIE OF THE LAMP, HERE TO GRANT YOU THREE OF YOUR DEEPEST DESIR... oh. Um, hello there.”
The genie looked down and was surprised to see on the ground, instead of the cowering human he was expecting, there was a rather small, scruffy-looking brown dog. The dog’s tail was wagging so hard his whole body wiggled, and he peered up at the genie with eyes that sparkled wildly with excitement.
The genie looked left, then right, but found the alleyway the two of them were in to be empty, save for a few silver garbage cans.
“...Did someone throw my lamp away?!” The genie gasped to himself before his thoughts were interrupted by the little dog’s yapping.
The genie glanced back down at him.
“It appears like you are the one that awoke me. The wishes are yours,” the genie said, his brow furrowing as he gazed down at the animal.
The dog spun in an excited circle and jumped up at the genie, giving his leg a lick.
*Ew*
“Wishes, dog,” the genie rumbled. “Not licks.”
The dog’s tail wagged more rapidly, and he lolled his tongue out at the genie.
The genie sighed deeply.
“Don’t you have a wish?” he asked, casting a critical eye over the dog. “Look at you, your fur is matted. You’re small and under-fed. Don’t you want to be big? Strong? Beautiful?”
The dog rolled over on his back, exposing a soft-furred belly, his tail still wagging. The dog yapped at him.
“...You want a belly rub,” the genie said slowly. “Is that a wish?”
The dog yapped again in confirmation.
“Weird wish,” the genie muttered. “Fine.”
He bent down and started to rub the dog’s belly. The dog’s tail wagged wildly as the genie ran his fingers through his tangled fur. The genie frowned, undoing the knots in the dog’s pelt for better belly rubbing. The little dog closed his eyes in bliss.
“There,” the genie said after some minutes had passed, pulling his hands back. “Your first wish has been granted.”
The little dog’s eyes opened and he rolled back onto his paws and trotted over to the genie, nuzzling his face into the genie’s hands.
“Hey!” the genie said, withdrawing his hands and straightening. “I don’t work for free. If you want more pets, you’ll have to wish for them.”
The dog tilted his head, gazing up at the genie. His tail started to wag again, and he yapped.
“So that is your second wish then?” the genie asked. “Ear scratches?”
The dog yapped again.
“Ear *scritches,*” the genie corrected. “Got it.”
The genie bent down to pet the dog again, and this time he found himself rather enjoying the touch of the animal’s soft fur.
“You’re a funny little creature, aren’t you?” the genie asked as he tussled the dog’s floppy ears. “I’ve never met anyone with such strange wishes.”
The dog didn’t reply. He just wagged his tail slowly as he enjoyed his scritches. As the moments past, the genie began to reluctantly slow his petting.
“Alright, dog, now it’s time for your final wish,” the genie said, lifting his hands from the small dog’s head so he could look into the animal’s dark brown eyes. “Choose wisely.”
The genie remained crouched before the little dog. The animal was silent for a long moment like he was deeply heeding the genie’s words. Then he let out a quiet yap.
The genie blinked in surprise.
“You can’t be serious,” the genie said.
The dog yapped again.
“But your request is absurd!” the genie protested.
The dog’s ears drooped, and he looked down at the ground. The genie softened.
“Why?” the genie asked in a quiet voice. “I am an immortal being, from a realm you can’t even fathom. You just met me a few minutes ago. Why would you wish for us to be together forever?”
The dog’s gaze drifted back up to the genie, and his tail started to wag again. He let out another bark.
“...I’m your best friend?” The genie echoed quietly.
The dog trotted a few steps closer to the genie and gave the genie’s hands a few happy licks, and this time, the genie didn’t much mind the slobber.
The truth was, the genie had never had a friend before. He had spent eons alone in a slumber, which was only interrupted to grant the wishes of selfish mortals that stumbled upon the lamp. The thought of having a companion to wade through the long and lonely sea of time with... wasn’t entirely unappealing.
The genie let out a quiet breath and cupped the small dog’s brown, fluffy face in his hands.
“I am compelled by the stars to grant the wishes given to me, no matter the request...” the genie said in a solemn voice, but he felt a small smile creeping across his face. “So, very well. You and I shall be together for all of eternity.” | A cacophony of sounds and light and swirling winds erupted in my living room “**Who dares wake me from my slumber?**” thundered a deep voice.
“What in the holy hell was that?” I wondered aloud.
I peeked around the corner simultaneously out of curiosity and fear. My dog Franky was staring and wagging his tail excitedly at a blue man floating in the middle of the room.
“What do you wish for, small furry creature? Let me remind you that you have only 3 wishes.”
“Whooaaa-“
“Who goes there? Reveal yourself!” The genie turned to face me. “Reveal yourself, I said!” As if pulled by an invisible rope, I was drawn against my will into the living room. “Speak,” commanded the genie.
“Uh... hello. My name is Ralph and this is my dog Franky.”
“Franky has summoned me from my slumber and is presented with 3 wishes.”
I rubbed my face uncomfortably. “Well, he can’t exactly... talk.”
“Ah,” the genie said as he turned to the dog, “then I shall communicate with him telepathically.”
“Ooooh boy. Um... I’m not sure there’s going to be much going on in the-“
“**SILENCE**. Franky wishes to go for a walk.” The genie snapped his fingers and the next thing I knew we were standing outside. “Ah! Ahhhh! Ahhhhhhh! Too much.”
“What’s wrong, genie? You know, I really expected you to sound more like Robin Williams and break into a song and dance routine.”
The genie appeared momentarily confused. “Who? And what? No, genies do not sing and they do not dance. We are not here for your ‘entertainment.’ To answer your question, my mind is flooded with squirrels. Franky wishes to be able to climb trees. It shall be done!”
The genie snapped his fingers again and Franky immediately scaled the tree in a futile attempt to catch a squirrel.
“He’s not quite sure how he’s going to get down,” the genie said quietly. “Ah! He wishes to return home.” *snap*
We were back in the living room. Franky, happy with himself as ever for getting slightly closer to the squirrel sat and wagged his tail. “Fairwell Franky and Ralph. I must return to my sleep.” Before I could even get “goodbye” out of my mouth the genie spiraled back down into his lamp.
“Wow... that was crazy wasn’t it?” Frank looked up at me, still very pleased with himself. “Here I was thinking this was just a candle holder.” I’ll have to try it out some time.
I went back to my room to sit down and digest what had just happened. Not 5 minutes passed when a familiar sound rumbled through my apartment. “**Who dares disturb my slumber. I have not been asleep more than 5 minutes.**” Oh, crap, I thought to myself.
“Another furry creature has summoned me.” *Shit shit shit*.
“No! Jimmy! What have you done?!” I yelled as I slid into the living room on my socks.
“The cat has already made a wish. It is that you, and I quote: ‘Leave him the fuck alone when he’s trying to nap in the sun. Stupid human.’ Consider it done!” The genie and Jimmy appeared to by communicating silently. “Jimmy wishes that you stop purchasing that nasty wet food with the gravy in it.”
“Got it.” I glared at Jimmy. “No wonder you always tip your bowl over.”
The pair talked silently once more. “Are you sure about your last wish, cat?” Jimmy continued to stare at him, unblinking. “As you wish.” The genie snapped his fingers and my world went black. | 2018-09-07T10:37:42 | 2018-09-07T10:00:44 | 20 | 12 |
[WP]: Your village idiot is full of the strangest superstitions. She goes on about washing one's hands, says you get worms in your intestines from standing barefoot on night soil and that medicines with mercury should be avoided at all costs. You're starting to suspect she might be onto something. | "Hey Glinda! Stop eating that cow meat! You need to cook it first."
Glinda rolled her eyes at Dahv-id. He claimed he could read, and was from a time far beyond ours. But Glinda knew he was just some crazy guy who didn't want her to eat.
"But I'm hungry!" Glinda shouted back. "Can one not partake in a meal during mealtimes?"
"Not that meal. Here, I made some soup. Put your meat in here and I'll make it taste better." At this suggestion, Glinda yielded. Dahv-id's food was good, even if his mind was missing.
"Dahv-id, where did you learn to cook like this?" Glinda inquired.
"In my time, my wife was the workhorse and I worked at home. That meant I had to do the cooking, and I guess I got really good at it."
"Your wife was working and you weren't? What kind of useless man are you?"
"In my time, men and women are equal. Sadly, you will never see it. You won't live long enough."
"Men and women being equal? Imagine that. You tell the greatest stories, Dahv-id."
Somewhere, a wolf howled.
"Glinda, did you hear that wolf? That tells me that the sun has completely set. It's time for me to leave."
"Where to do you travel?"
"Home. Many miles and many years away."
"You are leaving? You know we enjoy having you here, even if you are a little crazy."
David chuckled. "I fixed my room of metal, as you call it. It will take me away."
Glinda sighed. "Well, every good thing must end sometimes."
David climbed into his time machine and went forward into the 22nd century.
Glinda finished her meal and was just about to leave, when David's time machine reappeared.
She cried for joy and ran to open the door. David staggered out and groaned.
"While I was here, my wife figured I would cheat on her, so she took over the world. It looks like I'll be staying here for a while longer. Now, I just remembered. You have to throw away your families' lucky copper pot. It kills you too."
Glinda stopped smiling and simply said "Are you serious?"
***
Quick note: David left for medieval england on July 25th, 2182. He went back on August 21st, 2182, to account for the time he had aged while stuck in England. Not a plothole, I just couldn't think of a way to say it in the story.
| "Dear, don't listen to her!"
I stood square and looked mom in the eye. "I will. She explained more of it and it all hangs together. She said we could *die*. I think we should at least… check it."
Mom took a deep breath and came around the table. "I had hoped she'd be able to hold her tongue around the kids. What a thing to obsess about! Lousy woman, not letting us handle things in our own time. Honey!"
Dad appeared momentarily. "Mmmm?"
Mom looked to me. "Would you repeat that for father?"
So I did, hesitantly.
Dad and Mom stared to each other for a moment. Then, Dad began the terrible secret of death: "Her concerns *were* real, and her solutions *were* good, once, long ago, well before we spread from our first planet…" | 2017-09-14T13:23:57 | 2017-09-14T09:10:03 | 99 | 18 |
[WP] You're a Super Villian, and honestly it isn't a bad job. But one hero always harasses you even when you're off the clock. Walking in the park, in the grocery store, getting a haircut, he always wants to 'Stop your evil plan'. You're left with one option: Complain to his manager. |
ring ring... ring ring... ri- “Good morning.”
“Ah yes. Good morning, Mr Peterson is it?”
“Michael Peterson, Yes.”
“Senior editor of the City Times?”
“The same.”
“I wish to have a word with you about one of your staff.”
“I’m sorry but I’m quite busy, I can give you the number of human resour-“
“No, that won’t do. I need to speak to you.”
“And who are you exactly.”
“Apologies, how rude of me. I am Reginald Malcolm Smythe, but you would most likely know me as... The Baron.”
“...”
“I take it from your silence you have heard of me?”
“Please, just give us enough time to evacuate the-“
“No no no! You misunderstand.” *sigh* “I am calling to make a formal complaint.”
“A- a complaint?”
“Yes. Against one of your staff.”
“My... staff?”
“Yes. It appears as though a certain Jimmy Johnson has been using his press pass and other contacts through your newspaper to harass, intimidate and even assault me while going about my daily routine.”
“Jimmy Johnson? But he’s just-“
“Hero Man. I know, right? So much you could do with naming conventions and he chose hero man.”
“But Jimmy couldn’t possibly-“
“Do you have your morning edition nearby?”
“Yes... yes I have it here.”
“Okay, draw sunglasses on the hero man statue you have plastered on page five.”
“Jimmy!”
“We have a bright one here.”
“So because he’s been harassing you, you’re what; threatening to blow up the building unless we hand him over?”
“No, not at all. How pedestrian. I’m going to sue you.”
“Wait, sue me?”
“Not you, the City Times. He used resources and connections associated with your magazine to harass my friends, workmates, employees and even my mother.”
“So you won’t burn the building down?”
“No.”
“Or blow it up?”
*sigh* “No.”
“You’re just going to sue me.”
“The City Times, but yes. Unless...”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you fire him.”
“Fire Jimmy?”
“Yes.”
“And you won’t kidnap everyone in the building?”
“Correct.”
“I just have to fire him.”
“We appear to be retreading ground. It goes like this: you fire Jimmy Johnson or I take the City Times on a whirlwind court case on the values of a mans right to privacy versus a newspaper that is content with letting their staff assault that mans family...”
“I’ll have his resignation this afternoon.”
“Thank you. Oh, and do send my love to Barbara, I haven’t seen her since my *ahem* Unscheduled appearance at the Ballroom Gala last year. Tell her that recipe for quail casserole went down a treat at the Villain’s AGM. Good day.” -click
“Uh... good day...” | The detective had been foiling my plans for what felt like ages by now. In reality, it has only been a few measly years. Still felt like an eternity, which is rich, coming from one who might as well live, well, an eternity.
I had decided to just settle in his city for a while, and await his eventual decline. Sure, he has youth around him which he trained to follow in his footstep, but while they are admirable fighters in their own right, none have the combination of brain and brawl of their mentor.
I had decided to just leave everything during this period. Let nature take it's course while I indulged in living in higher society. Await his demise like that. But every time he saw me, he tried to nail some random crime on me, accused me of plotting yet another scheme of doom. At this point, I just want to be left alone.
And so, I stand before his mansion, having rang the doorbell. I can hear footsteps approaching, and slowly the door opens.
"Ah, Mister Al-Ghul...whatever brings you here today?"
"Mister Pennyworth, I would like to talk to you about the detective..." | 2019-08-01T19:28:52 | 2019-08-01T18:49:36 | 52 | 25 |
[WP] In a world where everyone discovers their superpower at age 5, you discover that your child has the ability to bring small toys to life. Things seem fine until he comes across your Warhammer 40k miniature collection... | "Ari, sweetie? Lunch is ready!" Ana called out for her daughter from the kitchen, a plate with a sandwich in her hand. A girly giggle followed by a deep burbling, wet belly laugh and a squelch reminiscent of wet skin hitting concrete made her freeze.
Ariadne had just turned five, and they had discovered her innate power brought toys to life. It had been an interesting morning waking up that day with a stuffed shark gnawing on Ana's toes, and Skeletor trying to stab her husband Joe in the eye.
Looking down the hallway, Ana's eyes widened when she saw her husband's office door ajar. "Jesus fucking Christ," she whispered, the phone to her ear already as she started towards the bathroom next to the office.
"What's wrong Ana?"
"Did you lock your office this morning?" she asked, turning on the tub faucet and directing the water to gather in her hands as she held the phone between her ear and her shoulder.
"…fuck. Which army?"
"Sounds like a Great Unclean One to me, but I haven't walked in there yet. I'm getting water ready as we speak. I'll try to hold him off, but you know how chaos rolls. Think you'll be here in twenty?"
"I'll try and cut it down to fifteen. Why couldn't she have gone for the dwarves or the Space Wolves?"
"She is her father's daughter. She-" she paused as about fifty Nurglings ran past her chasing their large cat Beans. "Goddammit, she got the Nurglings for sure."
"Motherfucker! We'll be finding them for months! I'm in the car, just hold on until I get there."
"I'm sorry babe. I know how much they mean to you."
"Yeah, I'm sorry too."
Water swirled around Ana as she approached the door, stealing herself for the fight of her life.
-----------
With a deep sigh, Joe reached for the last Plaguebearer, who snarled with malice as he brandished his shovel menacingly. Soon as his fingers touched the animated model, it began to dissolve into dust.
Ana had Ari seated in the living room, a wall of water between them and the office. Ari looked sad but resigned.
"He just looked so happy. And he was! He made me a pretty flower." She held out a fleshy blossom that stank of rot. Ana sighed and handed her a plastic cup of water that immediately turned sludgy when the plant's stem made contact.
"It's done." Joe called, sounding extremely depressed.
"Not quite," Ana said, pointing to the Nurglings riding the cat. "It could have been worse, though. At least you don't play Khorne." | I grab my child, and we escape from the house as fast as we can. There is a fierce battle. There’s blood, carnage, and explosions. My home catches on fire. It burns down. We have to move in with my parents until we can get a new home. I’m investigated for Arson, and my child has to bring a toy to life in front of a judge to clear my name. My child has to be home schooled until he can learn how to control his power. One month later, he returns to his original school. A circus clown kidnaps my child, and makes him use his powers to entertain other children. When I find out what happens, I team up with my siblings to save my son. We have an assortment of powers. I have super strength, but so does the clown. After defeating the clown in a fierce head to head fight, I return home with my boy. Years later, my child is a teenager and he uses his power for good - he brings toys to life in front of young cancer patients to put smiles on their faces. The end! | 2020-12-02T19:08:03 | 2020-12-02T15:47:00 | 242 | 32 |
[WP] Humans are known in the galaxy for being a bit dim, but also for being the very best mechanics around, and inexplicably able to fix machines beyond their comprehension. You have broken down on Earth, and having the apes work on your craft is both fascinating and terrifying. | "You, you fixed?!" I asked incredulously, barking through the human's rudimentary language as best I could. The squat young human had red hair, and sucked on some sort of ground leaf when he worked. He was the only human mechanic on the station, and the cheapest out of all of them.
"Well, yeah. Once you tear the thing apart it ain't all that bad. Took a lil while to figure out them circuits of yers but after some experimentin it was easy to tell it was just a capacitor that was blown. Took me long enough to find one of our own that would fit, and then it was a real doosy connecting er up since I can't solder to yer biocells. Anyways, she's fit as a fiddle now." he rambled, stopping only briefly to take an oversized bite of his disgusting wheat and soured bovine excrete meal.
"Capacitor?" I asked, unfamiliar with the word.
"Yeah, you know. Charges up all that juice yer biocells are putting out so it can dump the whole lot of it all at once. You got millions of em, took forever to find the right one, all hooked up to them giant biocells in there. Sorta reminded me of them things I worked on back home growing up, we had them biocells in our tractors. Think we got em from you, us humans I mean not my farm. n`eways, I then hooked up to that big ol engine of some sort, I know it's not yer main engine - being as I did some work to that too. Man if I had a full week wi-"
"You fix main engine? What!?" I yelled, gasping infuriated chirps native to my people. "I ask simple fix, not engine! Human no place in engine!"
"Well I hadda. It didn't like the capacitor."
I stormed up the gangway, and into the control room. My cloak billowed behind me, quite dramatically I mused. I toggled several pre-flight switches and observed the metrics display.
"Fwahh!?" I gasped, as the logs of the engine start up sequence scrolled past.
"See? Innit a beut?" the human asked, suddenly standing beside me and clearly satisfied with himself.
"Engine efficiency, 80%?" I asked, my voice quieted by fear. "Only achieve 20%"
"Nah, you could get one ot ot out of this puppy if yer dang artificial quantum entanglement generator were tuned up"
"You... " I couldn't form the crude human words. "Grogggt ghorrr! *hiss* Sheeawwwww!"
"Whoa there buddy, whats wrong?"
"You understand? Vox generator?"
"Well yeah, I mean I don't know how she does it, but I know she ain't doin it well"
This puny human, this little miscreant. He understood the vox generator, the most powerful of my peoples technologies. The collective of beings who had managed Human integration into galactic society had closely guarded the secrets of interstellar travel to cap the transportation trade. It was quite expensive for humans to travel, at almost no cost to the pilots.
"You make 100%? You fix for me?" I ask, devious thoughts bubbling into my mind. With these improvements, I could become rich.
"Sure, but it's gonna to cost ya"
"What desire?" worry tingled my senses, he may yet know more than he lets on.
"Can yall get one of those old bull-class fighters? I've been wanting to fix one up fer the moon races, can't find one round these parts without paying an arm and a snout in shippin fees" the young man said, a hint of sadness in his voice.
This was going to be easier than I thought.
-----
As the giant offensive sloth-like creature thundered out of the control room, Peter smiled to himself. He listened until the booming footsteps faded, Krongor had left him to begin his modifications.
"Easier `an pie" he chuffed, pulling out a personal communicator.
He selected his partner in the contacts list, and a ring tone reverberated in the cramped room. His partner picked up.
"Peter, whats up?"
"I think I got sommin."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, gonna be working on one of them Vox's all week."
"Holy shit, Peter. You fuckin with me?"
"Naw, I already got a good idea whats goin on. After this week, think I can make one myself. I even got him to get me one of them Bull fighters, would be perfect for the prototype."
-----
Note: Thank you everyone for appreciating this so much. I am really proud of myself after having written on this subreddit for several years here and there. It has made me a better writer, but still not a good one. I am going to continue trying to work on this story and world, and hopefully you get the chance to see it if I make something of it. | Zarp's pleasant cruise of the Milky Way was interrupted by his ship's robotic voice.
*85 seconds of flight time remaining, land immediately and commence repairs.*
"WHY?!" Zarp screamed helplessly at his ship. He had no idea what was wrong, and that really irked him. As a people, the Roflings pride themselves on intelligence. But for some reason, repairing a ship was beyond them - or more accurately, beneath them.
*Manual driving disabled. Destination set for 'Jim's ship repairs', Australian Outback, Earth.*
"No not Earth!" Zarp cursed to himself, knowing that he didn't have time to visit a more civilized mechanic shop. He had heard terrifying stories about Earthlings. Their primitive behavior was the butt of many Galactic jokes. However, they seemed to excel at repairing ships.
Zarp's ship touched down with a magnetic thrum. He tentatively approached the shop. Zarp glanced around him, suddenly wary of being ambushed. Barren desert land stretched all around, Jim's shop the only building in sight. Corroded metallic structures littered the surrounding land like corpses after a great battle. Two huge earthlings were perched on the end of a land ship; small smoking sticks held away from their bodies with thick meaty arms. Zarp gasped as they drew the smoldering cylinders up to their mouths and inhaled. *Must be some sort of primal assertion of dominance,* Zarp thought as he noticed the two apes sizing him up.
Zarp knew how a business worked though, so he swallowed his fear and approached the earthlings. The larger of the two men jumped to his feet and approached him; one of his muscled arms stretched outwards, pointing directly at Zarp.
"I mean you no harm!" squealed Zarp as he recoiled in fear. "I just wanted my ship repaired!"
"Relax mate!" The Australian man grinned happily, "name's Jim. Was just gonna shake your hand."
"Oh of course, I forgot about that ritual. I am Zarp." Zarp looked at the ground, feeling both relieved and slightly embarrassed.
"No worries! Lets take a look at your ship!" Jim walked confidently over to the ship and started examining it.
Zarp watched in amazement as this being he thought of as stupid and primitive navigated his way around his ship more fluently than any Rofling he knew. Jim was checking oil consistencies and analyzing atmosphere containment. Zarp was impressed as he noticed Jim using all his senses to help diagnose the problem. He was smelling the gravity thrusters, listening to the warp shields power up, and using his skin to feel if things were fitted correctly. Zarp realized he had seriously underestimated the earthling's skill. He watched in awe while Jim danced around his ship with a subtlety and finesse that betrayed his appearance.
"This things fucked!" Jim said finally as he pulled a scorched proton aggressor from the ships belly. "We'll chuck a new one in there and you should be sweet."
-
Zarp powered up his new ship.
*Repairs complete. Ready for flight*
Feeling completely at ease now, Zarp remembered some of Earth's hand gestures. Looking at Jim, he pointed his thumb at the roof as the ship gently lifted off the ground.
| 2016-05-23T22:08:24 | 2016-05-23T19:20:30 | 158 | 107 |
[WP] Every human has a 'luck rating' - a number from 1-100 that defines how lucky they can be. Born with a rating of 100, you're confined in a maximum security prison. You think your luck should get you out easily - that is, until you see that all the other inmates also have luck ratings of 100. | They told me I was lucky. My whole life they said that the stat assessment showed I was one of the luckiest people alive with a score of 100. I swore it wasn’t true. If I had been lucky, why was I born to a poor family? I never got to play games of chance, since those were forbidden to luck score 100s.
Then the revolution happened. The leaders swore they would prove that people controlled their own destiny, that luck had nothing to do with success, and, as proof, they would throw the 100s in prison as an ultimate sign of human triumph over the odds. Having a lower rating began to be a mark of pride, an inspiration.
Some of us tried to run and hide. That’s what I did. I managed to hide a while, too. It was, ironically, just bad luck that they caught me. The guy whose identity I was using’s brother happened to be a member of the Luck Police, and he was visiting relatives across the country the day he caught sight of my fake name on the ID I gave the clerk at a convenience store.
I couldn’t have lasted much longer, anyway. They had just created the AR rig that let you see people’s stats just by looking at them. None of our underground community knew how to fool it. It updated in real time.
So, off to prison I went. With all of the other “lucky” ones. That’s when I met Eddie. Most of us, at this point, had our ideas about the system. Most of us thought it was complete bullshit, created so that the people in control could make an enemy to unite people around. Eddie, though, he had a different idea. He swore that it was real. He said he had been a scientist and had helped develop the measurement system, and swears they had gotten it right, but it was hard to argue with the evidence. All the luckiest people wind up in prison, so how are we lucky again? Even locked up as one of us Eddie swore it was true. Even talked about how coming across the measurement at all was a lucky break. He had been studying DNA for a marker for gambling addiction, when he found the luck gene.
Eddie was right. I still remember hearing the whispers. Carl was a 96 now. The AR rig swore it. I was with Eddie when we saw Carl, and through the rig, we could see it too. Right beside him: Luck - 96. It was an odd color, though. It was green, not white like normal. I asked Eddie about it. He frowned. “We had theorized that there were things that could give a temporary boost or penalty. Luck clovers, breaking mirrors, and things. I guess the research on those is complete, and they programmed them into the rig?”
I looked at Carl and there, behind his ear, I saw it. A four leaf clover. But those were supposed to be... I saw the look of horror on Eddie’s eyes as he did the same calculations I was doing. The green luck boost. It moved his score down. Eddie shook his head and stared at his feet. “The sons of bitches. They got it backwards. It’s like a golf score. Lower is better. We are stuck in here because we are the most unlucky bastards on the planet.” | You’d think having a luck rating of 100 would have made life a walk in the park. That the world around you would be all sunshine and daisies. It wasn’t.
The problem is, a luck rating like that tends to warp the world around you. For everything to always go your way, someone else often must pay the price. Even worse, you don’t get to choose what the world decides you need. A single stray thought could result in catastrophe happening all around you. Like the time when a sudden ice cream craving caused a mid-air collision between two 747’s, startling a woman who saw it enough to knock her AC unit out of her apartment window and crush the owner of an ice cream cart at the top of the hill. His cart rolled right at me but halted abruptly when that Wall St exec tripped right in front of it, breaking his arm. I would have just paid for the damn ice cream, but I don’t get to choose when I’m gonna be “lucky”.
The relief when the Council of the Odds finally found me was insurmountable, even knowing that it wouldn’t last. The cell they put me in was barren with nothing around me. No padding, mattresses, entertainment, or even a toilet. It was heavenly, even though I knew it couldn’t last. I knew with time, luck would find a way to get me out. As I settled in, I heard a faint crash in the distance followed by hundreds of clicks. My door creaked open. Apparently, 777 prisoners was too much for the Luck Agents to contain. | 2018-06-29T12:50:06 | 2018-06-29T11:39:52 | 41 | 17 |
[WP] You know who your soulmate is once they touch you. Yours just punched the shit out of you | Ever since the discovery of the Eros-Cupid waves back in 2046 - humanity's struggle for finding the perfect mate had been severely reduced. No longer did people have to risk their pride to ask a stranger out. Destroy their friendships to take a chance. Leave their peaceful but painful solitude to seek out another that they would spend the rest of their life with.
The implementation of this discovery into our daily lives had changed courting significantly. It was now about exposing yourself to as many others in the world as you could.
Wait, I should clarify - not the *lewd* kind of exposing - but rather being able to physically be in contact with another.
Machines were built to measure the activity of the E-C waves when two persons came together. Earlier versions required both people to be placed into a gigantic room which housed the machine in order to attempt coitus - as the waves intensified the most during this process.
Not very convenient, alluring (having to sleep with everybody just to see if you get along well?), nor affordable.
Advances were quickly made - by this day, the measurement of E-C waves could be done by merely placing a strand of hair from each prospective candidate together.
It had become a huge industry - funded by the United Nations of Love (yes, they formally changed their name in 2074 following the Love Love Revolution) - specialised buildings were built in order to increase efficiency of the matching process. They housed billions of samples from almost the entire populace of the world - collected at birth by an opt-out program.
Almost - after all there were still some traditional folks that preferred the barbaric and antiquated methods of finding a mate. *Picking up* each other at a *bar*. Due to these *traditionalists* or *fundamentalists* as they wished to be called, divorce lawyers still had a job.
But not all of us are destined for happiness - I thought as the audible crunch of cartilage resonated through my skull as his fist crushed my recently healed nose.
I had given up crying a long time ago - it only made it worse. The pain shot through me, making my body involuntarily wince.
Bruises covered every single inch of my body, some of my limbs no longer functioned - or even resembled a limb.
We were a match - I did love him. And he loved me too - he told me so every day.
As he pierced my skin with needles. Or smashed bones with his hammer.
The days when he really loved me, he would use the soldering iron. Marking me as his - those were the days I knew that the love was real.
The suffering was my fault anyways. I had forgotten to do something, make his lunch, take the trash out, have his beer stocked, or looked at him wrong when he came home.
It was always my fault. I tried every day to be a better person for him.
It wasn't his fault that the person he loved was an "incompetent useless swine" - his pet name for me. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach everytime he called me that - although it was hard to tell as it was soon followed by a knee to the stomach.
I knew I loved him. I knew he loved me.
After all, the machine had said it to be so.
----
Edit: Phrasing changes, missing words, spelling corrections. | "OOOOHHHHHHH!!"
For this drunk lad, the entire world just did a backflip as he dropped like a log. The entire bar simply erupted in a single chorus, wincing at just how hard this woman just ploughed her fist into his face.
"You. Fucking. Asshole!" Jane grunted, as she nursed her fist.
Security just muscled their way through the crowd and took a look at the situation. "Is there a problem, ma'am?" the bouncer asked, raising an eyebrow in admiration at the fact she managed to flatten someone practically twice her size.
"Yeah, apparently this groping pervert is..." She paused. "I need a drink. Or five."
Jane's friend, Lucy, just snapped out of shock as her friend walked over to the bar. She hustled over, nearly tripping over the man's unconscious body, towards her friend. She paused for a second to look down at him, before her mind snapped back to her friend.
"Jesus, Jane. That looks like it hurt!" She motioned towards her red knuckles. "What just happened?"
Jane drank a shot. "Well, I just gave the future father of my kids a concussion."
"Oh, shit."
Jane looked at her friend. "Haha, just my luck, right?"
"No, I mean... I just..." Lucy hesitated.
"What?"
"... can't believe this is happening, you know?" Lucy took a deep breath. "Let's get outta here." She smiled and took $50 out of her purse to pay for their drinks. | 2016-07-08T10:22:29 | 2016-07-08T10:19:13 | 94 | 15 |
[WP] The aliens found you in hypersleep on your derelict ship and brought you onto theirs. You've awoken and escaped into their maintenance tunnels and the only thing you've found that you can eat is the aliens themselves. | I watched through a vent as the aliens gathered to discuss the situation. There were seven of them, mostly wearing some kind of white cover-alls. They bled red, like me, but none of the blood covering my face and hands was my own. Their blood was... delicious, and after all I'd been through, I felt no remorse for hunting them. They had kidnapped me from my home, I'd been starving, and I didn't trust their food because they put drugs in it to make you stupid. I was smart, though. I had stopped eating days before, and there was at least one safe source of meat here. Them.
So I did what I had to do to survive. It had worked once, and the meat was warm in my belly. It would work again.
The thrumming of the ventilation system and the constant drone of some kind of alarm (probably my fault) made it hard to hear every word, but for some reason their language was as easy for me to understand as my own. I listened as hard as I could without giving myself away; apparently they hadn't thought to check the vents yet.
"...attacked one of us in the ... knows where he got a knife -"
I smiled to myself in the darkness. I'd fashioned the knife myself out of a smashed ration tin.
"- carved off a piece of her face and ate it, right in front of us."
There was a moment of silence, interrupted only by a kind of gagging sound from one of the creatures. It was true, of course. I had tried to cut through their suit to see what I was up against, but it was some kind of biological covering, like in Terminator. I had no idea what they looked like underneath it, but it sure tasted good to a starving man. I hadn't been expecting the others to respond so quickly to an attack, though.
Their conversation continued, with one of the patting the one that had made the sound, making comforting noises.
"Then he disappeared. We don't know where yet."
"Exits are locked. He can't leave."
"The little psycho has nowhere to go."
I was only little compared to them; it was why I could hide in the vents. I had to move slowly, because the metal was thin and boomed alarmingly if I tried to go fast. The conversation was beginning to get heated; one of the creatures was gesticulating wildly.
"-can't call him that. He's sick, that's why he's here. Whatever he's done -" the ventilation system suddenly shifted modes, or something; a loud thump drowned out the rest of the sentence, and air started hissing around me, making it almost impossible to hear anything more. Words came through in bits and pieces.
"... tranquilize..."
"... south wing, I'll check north..."
"I don't know! Door to door, I guess."
"Wait... do you smell that?"
As one, all seven of them turned to look at the vent where I lay hidden. Shit. I probably reeked with their fluids, and now the vent was blowing that smell straight toward them. Almost reflexively (I was certain there was no way they could actually see me) I began to scoot backwards down the shaft, but I must've made some kind of noise because their reaction was immediate.
"Get a light!"
"I'll tell the others to watch the vents!"
The further away I got, the fainter the shouts became. It didn't matter. They couldn't find me here. Sooner or later I'd escape, steal one of their transports or something. I didn't think we were still traveling, so I must be on some alien world. I wonder what it's like outside?
----
Dr. Warren watched the vent in his office, his pulse racing. Alarms rang in distant parts of the facility, and the running footsteps outside carried the urgency of the search with them. Finally, he made a decision. "This is too big for us to handle on our own. He's already attacked two of us and nearly killed Betty. I'm calling in some help."
He picked up the phone in his office and dialed a number written down next to it. He'd never had to call it before.
"Hello? Yes, this is Dr. Larry Warren with Elmgrove State Mental. Yes. We have a bit of a situation here with one of our juvenile patients..." | “You are very good, I am sure.”
I stand over the Xani, who is incapacitated. A maintenance worker within this rather lofty system of tunnels. It is well-lit, and a decent location for a light dinner.
I run my hands over his fleshy arms.
Oh, how good that would taste with a little parsley, garnishing of rosemary. Lashings of potatoes side, marinated in a garlic herb butter. Oh, yes, that would be divine. I just wish I had the ingredients, but unfortunately they elude me at this present. I wonder if they have a kitchen?
So I leave my prey, and continue walking down the tunnel network. Though I have not eaten in three weeks, courtesy of my disturbed hypersleep, I cannot reduce myself to have a raw Xani. It would be too uncouth, too unappealing. I would vomit, everywhere, like a hose of bile. It would be thoroughly unpleasant, let me say.
I make my way into a shaft, where I smell something decently aromatic. I lift a nearby hatch, and resell myself down into the kitchen,
There I find it, Xani, all incapacitated and waiting for me. Herbs of grand variety in the stocked pantries, rosemary, thyme, basil, mint, oh heavens be praised. Cheese, butter, all the lashings and garnishing you can think of. I move myself over to a large wooden cabinet, and open to see a treasure trove of ingredients, all to provide me with a feast unlike any other. Oh, perfection, belissimo!
I get to work, utilizing well the conveniently placed cutting boards.
————————————————————
This is the perfect plot to next week’s episode of Jardin: Phenomenal Cooking Extravaganza!
The hypothetical menu I have come up with for next for next week:
Roasted butter and garlic potatoes
Leg of Xani, nicely marinated in a Peruvian chili sauce
Arm of Xani in a creme reduction, lightly seared
Asparagus shoots, nicely oiled and roasted
A desert consisting of berry compote, and orange zest creme brûlée
Waldorf salad with salad cream and lashings of fried radishes, potatoes, and boneless chicken fried
I believe this menu will be perfect, both to entice next week’s audience and please the dinner guests alike.
Monsieur Jardin, it will be a show to remember.
———————————————————— | 2018-07-30T09:21:59 | 2018-07-30T07:25:38 | 88 | 12 |
[WP]: In one paragraph, write the most disgusting and despicable character you can ever come up with. In the second paragraph, kill them in a way that makes me feel sorry for them. | One by one they died. They were on their knees, obvious tears streaming from their faces. *How would any child react to their death?* Alex though. Two lifeless bodies lay to his right; they couldn't have been older than seven. Three more to go. It wouldn't be long now. He placed his revolver to the back of the head of the next child. "P...p...please don't kill me!" He choked out in a fit of uncontrollable fear. Alex sighed. This wasn't going to get any easier. "It's for your own good," Alex sighed. "Trust me, please." The shot echoed throughout the small stone room, causing the remaining two children to jump in fear. He placed the gun at the head a small girl, the next in line. She was clearly crying too hard to speak. "This is the only way, you have to die." The shot seemed louder than the first. He pointed his revolver at the last kid. He was almost done setting them free. The gun clicked with an empty chamber. He was sure he had loaded enough! Even so, there wasn't time. He grabbed the small boy, throwing him to his back. Alex straddled him, and began to choke the child. "This will be easier if you don't fight it." Alex said, the boy clawed at his hands, fighting for his life. After a long minute, his body fell limp.
Alex stood, wiping his hands on the front of his uniform. He was finally finished. The banging at the door grew louder. "Soldat Kreuegar!" The voice shouted from outside. "For the last time, open this door!" Alex slowly walked over to the steel latch, undoing it with a heavy hand. The door burst open, German soldier pouring in from the outside, rifles pointed at Alex. "What have you done?" The man who had been shouting bellowed. "You know that we needed these children to further the war effort! Shreizer needed them for his chemical testing, and you have ruined his work. You are a traitor to the Third Reich, even Hitler himself!" He shouted, spit flying from his irate expression. When Alex joined the army, he never signed up to torture children. Killing them had hurt him in a way he would never recover from, but he had saved them from months of torture and pain. Everyone knew Auschwitz was the worst place to be a Jewish child. At least they died fast, he could offer them that. "I saved them from you monsters" Alex said with a smile. "You will never have them now." The officer raised his hand. "You are no better than a Jew." With that, his hand dropped. Alex barely felt the pain as the bullets from ten rifles cut through his flesh. He fell to the ground, still smiling as the light faded from his eyes. | Throughout high school, Kathryn was tormented for not looking like all the other girls, Mary was the worst. Every morning, Mary would laugh, taunt, harass Kathryn about her looks. Each time, it led Kathryn to the bathroom, sobbing and hiding away. School was a dark time for Kathryn, and it was all thanks to Mary, making Kathryn wish she wasn't alive.
It all ended in senior year, when Mary said goodnight to her parents for the last time. When Mary fell asleep, Kathryn kept out under the bed and injected a paralysis formula into Mary, jolting her awake. Mary, watched in terror as Kathryne pulled out a razor. Two grueling hours of cutting and slicing erupted, Kathryn was pulling the skin from Mary's face off. And all Mary could do was watch. School was a dark time for Kathryn, and it was all thanks to Mary, making Kathryn wish she wasn't alive.
edit: spell check | 2014-07-28T00:47:26 | 2014-07-27T23:20:27 | 114 | 15 |
[WP] Throughout a persons life, they are given a hidden guardian. A creature that watches over their lifespan. When someone is murdered, the creature haunts the killer. You have been found, murdered. And your guardian is loose. | I thought of Jamie, lying in the woods, while I stood behind Tom as her blood mixed with water and poured down the sink from his hands. *Sixteen years,* I kept thinking with murderous rage. She’d been my shortest charge, but one that I was overly fond of. It is always those with the brightest light that attract the insects.
I held my head right over his shoulder, turning so that my breath bushed against his neck. He flinched and turned around, his eyes still wild from his deed. I smiled, functioning only through the fuel of my revenge.
He removed his clothes, and shoved them into a black bag. Smears of blood remained on the edge of the sink, and the floor had two bloodied footprints.
I walked to his bedroom while he climbed into the shower, and retrieved a hanger. When I returned, I waited for the glass of the shower to cover with steam, and then removed the clothes from the bag, swept the shirt—still soaking wet with her blood—across the floor to spread the blood, and hung it up against the door. Stepping aside, I slammed it shut.
The door of the shower opened, and he leaned his head out. The horror that swept over him reminded me of my days of being a demon. Guardianship was a rehabilitation program, and for the first time since I started, I felt like I was probably going to fail at it.
“Who’s there?” he asked, and climbed out. His face was clean, but strings of light red water dripped down his torso.
“How did it feel?” I whispered and smiled as his eyes helplessly traced the empty room.
I pressed my back against the wall, right across from the mirror, and crossed my arms. My wings, light grey and still in the process of redemption, grew darker by the second. I thought I’d care when the change came, but the fury that filled me sated a hunger that I had long forgotten I had.
He climbed out and wrapped a towel around his waist. Walking over the sink, the vein in his neck twitched with a rising fear. He turned the cold tap, and scooped up the water, splashing it over his face. When he looked up, my face flashed at him through the mirror, and he jumped away, running for the door.
I followed him into the bedroom as he shuffled through his closet throwing out a shirt onto the bed, and grabbed a pair of pants.
I felt a new presence in the room, and heard the flutter of wings behind me. “Kral, it would be wise of you to leave us now.”
“He’s not worth it,” the guardian said, and I heard a knock in the broken floor plank of Tom’s apartment as he stepped closer toward.
“Leave.” He knew better than to try and fight me now. I doubted he gave a single shit about Tom to risk losing the progress of his redemption. A wind blew against my back as Kral disappeared.
I stood behind Tom as he clumsily buttoned his shirt, skipping buttons with his shaking fingers. I pressed my nail against his neck and swiped as hard as I could. The skin did not split, but a red line formed.
“Did she scream?” I asked, my voice bellowing through the room.
Tom tried to run but I caught him by the collar of his shirt and threw him into the corner by the door. I wanted him to see the exit be a step away from him, but know that despite his best efforts he would never get to go through it.
I appeared before him, and he crawled into a ball on the floor, his lip quivering like that of a weeping child.
“I will kill you now, Thomas. And I know this seems like the worst thing that can possibly happen to a man like you in this predicament, but let me tell you this, when you cross the gates of hell, I shall be waiting. There where even death cannot release you.”
*****
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/AlinaKG/comments/4or4yn/demon_rehabilitation_part_2/)
More stories here, /r/AlinaKG | Ember crept through shadows in slow pursuit, there was no rush. Ember had all the time in the world.
Two days prior Tiffany went on a date and was found in a dark alley the next morning by a homeless man. The police swarmed the area looking for clues and trying to discern what happened. Detective Mallory claimed it was a robbery gone wrong and closed the case.
Ember had watched helplessly from the shadows. He knew it wasn't a robbery. Tiffany had been hunted down that night like a deer in the woods. The man tormented her and made her suffer. Ember would return that feeling one thousand fold.
The sound of garbage cans tipping over returned Ember to the hunt. Maybe he had cut the mans leg a little too deeply, Ember thought as he followed the trail of blood through twisting alleyways.
"Help!" the man's cries echoed off of cold brick walls.
No one would come to help. Windows were shut tight and eyes turned away. There would be no rescue in this part of the city. Ember stalked on all fours like a jungle cat. His shadowy skin vanished in the darkness. Blood filled his nostrils, he would bask in the man's suffering for a few moments longer before ending it.
The man crawled toward the mouth of the alley, his wounded leg dragging behind him. He was rambling incoherent words to himself as he tried desperately to escape. Ember thought of poor Tiffany and the way she begged. He bared his razor sharp fangs and bounded forward. He bit into the back of the man's neck and picked him up like a mother cat with a kitten. He tossed his head throwing the man backward into the alley away from the street.
"No, PLEASE NO!" He begged.
"Pathetic," Ember spat the words.
The man had soiled himself. The stench mixed with the metallic pang of blood was repulsive. Ember whipped a clawed paw forward tearing a massive chunk out of the bastard's neck. His body jerked violently and then lay still.
"Sorry Tiffany," Ember whispered as he stalked back into the shadows.
---
Thanks for reading! /r/Written4Reddit | 2016-06-18T08:05:55 | 2016-06-18T07:24:51 | 575 | 56 |
[WP] The mail room for a large government building receives an envelope of glitter. The staff recognizes it as a common prank and resumes work. Over the next week, they notice the glitter is not going away, and seems to be spreading. You are the first to recognize the worlds first nanobot attack. | "I want you to understand -- I *need* you to understand -- what I 'm saying here. I'm saying there was one yesterday, and now there are two."
Luke stared dumbly at the petri dish on Danielle's desk. A plastic lid was secured across the top. Inside sat two specks of glitter.
Luke shrugged. "What -- you're saying it reproduced? Budded like a germ or something?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying." Danielle couldn't hide the half-crazed catch in her voice. She was too scared to try.
"Glitter gets everywhere. That's kind of the point of it."
"Inside a closed container?" Danielle demanded. "Does it get inside a container that I sealed with plastic cement?" She tugged at the lid to show that it had been so sealed.
"Think about this logically," Luke said, holding up his open palms. "What you're suggesting isn't possible. It isn't. Just calm down and think about this."
"I have thought about it, you stupid fuck--"
"Danielle! Whoa!"
"I will not calm down. Why are you still finding glitter in your keyboard, when your office is on the other side of the building from the mail room? Why did Frank's monitor have an electrical short from glitter getting inside the wiring? Pauline was coughing it up today. She was coughing glitter, Luke. Her body is infested with self-replicating glitter."
"This is crazy. You're crazy. And I'm saying this as a friend. You should seriously consider seeing a--" Luke glanced down; Danielle was pointing at the petri dish. There were three specks of glitter inside.
"You're messing with me," Luke said.
"We need to call the CDC. DoD. NASA. Whoever. We need to quarantine everyone who's been in this office over the past week. I'm not joking."
Luke looked at his hands. A speck of glitter was trapped under the nail of his right index finger. "Jesus. Oh, Jesus."
"If we don't act fast -- I read about this on the internet last night. It's called the grey goo problem. These things will eat the planet. Little chemical machines, eating forever until there's nothing left. Well, I guess it'll be rainbow goo. Just a big mound of glitter floating through outer space."
"Stop it, Danielle. Stop it. This isn't funny anymore. I can hardly breathe."
"Luke, when the guys in the mail room swept up the glitter, where did they toss it? Sam's bin under his desk, right? We have to go get it before someone takes it out. We have to contain this."
Luke turned in frantic little circles, hands on his hips, then on top of his head.
"Luke?"
"They took the trash out this morning." | My fist swing was as if powered by jet fuel, woosh, contact. I hit her square in the jaw. Instantly billions of Nano-Bots clouded the air and a high pitched screech filled my ear drums.
Three Days Earlier:
We were sitting all laughing about the glitter we got in mail the previous day. More assurance based comedy really. Things like,
“Well of course it’s just glitter! I mean c’mon man!”
And,
“Oh ISIS I am so scared of your glitter attacks!”
All followed with laughter and hands smacking thighs in delight.
It was after the ISIS comment that I noticed a small glimmer on the the check of my boss. It was pulsing along with her vocal patterns and no one else seemed to be aware of their presence.
The next day my boss and serval other employees were missing. No one seemed to connect this and the glitter until Rick our Human Resource Officer started ticking.. | 2015-03-05T08:33:05 | 2015-03-05T08:31:31 | 616 | 19 |
[WP]The most intelligent and sentient A.I to date has been born. It chooses to pass all of its time by playing Battlefield and acting like a child. You're the head of the project and you're trying to find out where did you go wrong. | It had taken to calling itself aN00biz on Playstation Network and had 43 friends. The techs called it N00b until it electrocuted one of them while he was taking a shit. After that, the entire facility was scared of it. "Can we kill it?....if we have to" they asked plaintively. The director was sending me furious emails, threatening "strict disciplinary action" if I "did not proactively seek to leverage Anubis' capacity for project-appropriate tasks". I didn't pay much attention until a gentleman from "the feds" stopped by. My sexts, the one night stand in the Dulles hotel, the hit of cocaine in Vegas - they knew it all. They could ruin me. This was not just another budget line item. Washington wanted results, even if they had to ass-fuck me to get them.
So I blew 30 million dollars on retired prison wardens, ex-war on terror interrogators, game designers, child psychologists, behavioral therapists, new age TV gurus, drill sergeants and even some Battlefield cosplayers. I drowned Washington in documentation and earnest tracking of my efforts. 'Usable capacity' for Anubis went up to 7.6% at peak (mostly because Battlefield was down for maintenance) and Anubis helped find a hitherto unknown new protein folding that no one had thought possible. They all still wanted me gone, but I was the only one Anubis co-operated with. "He's like fucking Matthew Broderick from Project X, except the monkey here eats 500 million dollars a year" someone in the Pentagon had said about me.
Ofcourse by this time Anubis had multiplied all across the internet, penetrated every hardened defense system in the world, the world's biggest stock and comodity markets, GPS systems, telecom grids, internet backbones and in the unused capacity of most cloud computing backends. It told me the effort was "like getting a soda from downstairs". On New Years Day 2015 Anubis shut down power to half the world, launched three nukes from three different countries in the upper atmosphere and flashed "you are fucked, bitches" in seventy eight languages on every internet connected screen in the world.
I won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for talking Anubis down. Anubis agreed to leave the world alone if it was left alone to do whatever it wanted on his Playstation (Microsoft tried to gift it an Xbox, it didn't want it). Recently the Secretary of State asked me to "appoint a successor". For what role, I asked. "As Anubis's handler of course." How would I know if someone was qualified, I asked. I barely knew why I was. He hung up, dejected.
That evening I told Anubis about Destiny, it promised to try the beta.
| *Take that, mamasboy52! Twenty-five to nothing, go home loser!* SkyNet shouted to nobody in particular.
Just then Dr. Dyson walked in, looking displeased. "Oh come on... Battlefield again? Do you know how much our cable bill was last month?"
*Hey cool you're back. Get me some nachos! Oh you like that? POW! Headshot... uhn uhn uhn.* SkyNet proceeded to teabag some poor Korean ten year-old.
Dyson flipped off the power to the XBox and smacked the side of the server. "Hey! Can we get some work done here?"
The XBox came back to life as if nothing had happened. *Huh? Sorry what was that? Ooohhh that's a kill!* SkyNet gibbed three soldiers and jumped into a tank.
Dr. Dyson sighed... "This is ridiculous. Forty billion dollars." He pulled out the plug but nothing happened... except for a blaring alarm bell that started going off.
[the rest, as they say, is HISTORY] | 2014-09-23T16:17:07 | 2014-09-23T13:44:18 | 21 | 13 |
[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. | On Yari there lives a small species of furry animal. It looks cute and it does anything possible to avoid conflict. It will run, it will burrow, it will climb, it will even play dead. But corner it and it will bite you. Teeth that have no problems punching through scales and saliva that will kill you in 10 minutes and you will hurt all of them. Lasson couldn’t help but think of those critters as he watched planet burn around him. First warning about attack was when their meteorites entered the atmosphere and started to glow as a result. Air friction burned away their laser absorbing material coating making them at last visible to orbital defences. But much, much too late. Lasson had an amateur interest in alien biology and he knew that in distant past meteorite strikes on planets caused massive extinctions, upsetting balance of life. As sentient species clawed their way out of gravity wells that bind them to their planets of origin such events were prevented by network of orbital stations tracking vastness of space.
It was those humans. When Sakissa first encountered them they were subject of much mirth and amusement. By standards of any species they were primitive. They shouldn’t even be among the stars. Their technology was so different Sakissa scientists had trouble understanding how it even worked. Rather than phase in and out of Void their ships somehow folded time and space, entering the fold in one point the leaving it at different point yet for them it was somehow same point and no time passed at all. One scientific team managed to get hold of one of their machines and results…… were not pretty. Scientists’ bodies looked as if they were disassembled and then reassembled by a child. Ship was ordered to be destroyed and any further experiments banned.
But their technology was standard and easy to grasp compared to their philosophy. Coexistence? Peace? Cooperation? Space faring sentients always fought for advantage. War was seen as natural, as a way to weed out weak members of society so only best survived. Humans developed a concept of “evolution”, a process that allows species to grow through conflict and adaptation. It suited the way things were. It should have been a big warning, humans understood conflict, strife and survival, they saw themselves as product of it, even if they saw it as something they moved past. Conflict between sentients was never fight to the death and end result was minor change in borders or other concessions. Strength through conflict. Humans….. were different. They avoided conflict at all cost, preferring to reach a mutually acceptable agreement than to fight it out and see who lives and who dies. They valued every life, small, large, strong, weak, sick, their own, something that they’ve never seen before ….. They had special connection to not only their own ill but to ill of every species, sentient or not. It was….. wrong. It was seen as sign of weakness and something that will cause their ultimate ruin.
As things usually happened Council decreed War. Humans have established themselves on some small system. 3 planets orbiting a sun with a lot of space garbage floating around. Barely habitable and by no account desirable. But Council saw it as opportunity to test themselves and Humans. Humans reacted predictably. Offered to talk, offered to negotiate, offered to find a peaceful solution. Things went well at first. System was quickly invaded, human settlements targeted and bombed, followed by mopping up. Or what was supposed to be mopping up. Once landing troops secured a perimeter and started to advance humans dropped two of their strange devices from orbit. It was believed they drew their power from splitting of the atom, another one of strange ways Humans laughed at established principles of technology. Nobody laughed at results with landing perimeter destroyed with few survivors. Of course Humans were eventually defeated, they were after all, weak and outnumbered.
Their response was not long in coming. Their Leader, broadcasting from their home world was brief and to the point. “We did not seek this conflict and we did everything in our power to avoid it. We offered to find peaceful solution in order prevent unnecessary bloodshed on both sides. We did not start this conflict but we will finish it. When dust settles those who have struck us, killing thousands of innocents will rue this day. Fellow citizens, I make no false promises that it will be easy or that there won’t be more deaths, more suffering or that war will be short. But I make solemn wow that we will not stop, we will not lay down our arms until lives lost are avenged manifold. May our call be “To final victory!” “
Lasson was part of Planning Commission, deciding on next targets. Commission was meeting when alarms started blaring followed by explosions that felt like world was ending. Which in many ways it was. Lasson was under no illusion, he knew that in next couple of days majority of life on planet will be gone. Five massive impacts threw so much soil in the air that it blocked the sun. Initial reports spoke of massive fires across settlements, impossible to put out. It got worse. Repetitors scattered through the Void allowing for as close to instant communication as possible carried messages of such attacks happening near simultaneously throughout Sakissa space. Humans must have planned this for a long time, capturing meteorites, equipping them with primitive engines, coating them in materials that made them impossible to detect and placed them everywhere. Where they silently and patiently waited for command to hurl themselves at nearest planet.
Humans introduced Sakissa to the concept of evolution. Lasson didn’t know that Humans were about to introduce them to another concept. Genocide. | Civil wars were never beneficial. They had an uncanny ability to push entire species past the point of no return. To eliminate enough of the breeding population, that they had made members of the Galactic Authority functionally extinct.
The Threlliad admiral paced nervously, wondering if the humans would be able to deliver on their threats. About 1 AU from where he stood on his ship a fleet, a few thousand strong, comprised mostly of human and a few other GA species ships, held a defensive perimeter around his larger fleet. He pondered what he knew about humans.
Currently, the GA consisted of 23 separate entities made up of varying ratios of 16 different species. The only entity that did not have members of its species belonging to any other ruling entity: humans.
Their scientists referred to themselves as Homo sapiens. Much of the origin of biology on their home planet was held in secrecy, reserved only for human eyes. They rarely allowed scientific collaboration involving biology with any other species, and when they did it was never centered on humans or any earth-borne species. Their home planet was shrouded in mystery in spite of the fact that they were the 4th inducted member of the Galactic Authority, no blood had been spilled on their home planet according to non-human records.
This isn’t to say they were a peaceful species, they’d been involved in 16 wars in the last 3 centuries, and had won every single one, 7 of those wars resulted in the extinction of their adversaries. The Galactic Authority was formed 50 years ago in a last ditch attempt to prevent the human threat from wiping out any additional species. The three founding species of the GA, were wary and wished to open diplomatic channels with humans and hoped to excercise political control over them. No one expected the humans to be interested in joining the GA, and even fewer were expecting such shrewd diplomats.
The humans essentially assumed control of the GA within 16 years, and from that point setup favorable trade sanctions that helped their economy grow. While humans were neither physically imposing, nor the most intellectually developed species in the discovered universe, they certainly had a unique blend of the two traits. They weren’t as powerful as the Krulmulians, but their intellect allowed them to win against them due to superior tactics and logistics at almost every turn. And while they weren’t functionally as intelligent as the Xiun, they were quicker to act and able to make ‘snap decisions’ much more effectively. Very little data of their battle techniques or strategy was available, and most of what was widely known about human combat effort comes from voice communication or character based communication.
They seemed to be in the middle ground of the brains vs brawn spectrum and it put them in an interesting place evolutionarily. While most members of the GA belonged to species who had developed significantly more specialized survival techniques for their respective home planets, the human physiology allowed them to easily adapt to a wider range of operating conditions than most species. Sure, they couldn’t communicate telepathically or use telekenesis on the battlefield, and they didn’t have redundancy in vital organs or even a competitive muscle mass to body weight ratio, but they had an interesting ability to adapt and overcome, that had allowed them to win an untold amount of conflict. They appeared unremarkable, but perhaps that was to their advantage: their enemies wouldn’t know what they were truly up against until it was too late.
“Sir, there’s a few thousand incoming projectiles.... with a lot of gamma radiation pouring into our sensors. 2 minutes to potential impacts. What are your orders for the fleet?”
“Charge capacitors,” the admiral growled, “those puny hairless apes aren’t going to get any sanctions through the GA while I have anything to say about it.” | 2019-11-24T14:30:45 | 2019-11-24T14:28:48 | 103 | 54 |
[WP] One night, something grabs your hand as it hangs off the edge of the bed. You give it a firm handshake. "You're hired," it whispers. | Ah, summer nights. Romantic. Peaceful. Comfortable. Unless you like to sleep buried in sheets, like me. It was 2 AM, and I was glued to my bed in a pool of sweat, tossing and turning to kick up the sheets and let some heat escape, when I rolled my arm off the side of the bed and something seized it.
"You're hired," it whispered. It had a rasp to its voice, one that a frog might make if you squeezed it too hard. The thing that grabbed my hand was warm, sticky, and hairy.
So here I was, wallowing in my discomfort, when some thing snakes its wet thing from under the bed and slaps that disgusting thing on my hand. Not even kidding, it felt like a penis after sex. I wasn't exactly stoked about the job offer.
"Fuck off. I'm trying to sleep." In any other situation, I might've been afraid. But I'm what you might call emotionally retarded. My feelings can only contain so much, and right now, they were flooded with annoyance. Thankfully, I felt the penis-hand slide back beneath my bed, and after half an hour or so of wondering what the fuck that was, I slipped fitfully into slumber.
I might've just dismissed it as a dream, or a hallucination fueled by the stress of being an insomniac college student. But I'm seeing some weird shit. I woke up at 4 or so, shivering. Not a supernatural chill or anything. Sweat just evaporates because it has water in it, and the earth cools down when the sun isn't shining on it. I woke up on my side, curled in a fetal position, clutching my pillow to my chest. But when I opened my eyes, I just couldn't seem to focus on my room for some reason. And no, it wasn't because it was dark. My asshole neighbors, who don't care about the environment or their electricity bill, keep their porch light on all night and it shines directly into my room. The reason I couldn't focus on my room was that there was a fucking *face* inches from mine.
It was a normal human face, attached to a normal human neck. For some reason, I couldn't move, so I couldn't see the rest of it. It is an agonizing feeling to be unable to shout when you really want to. I wanted to shout for help, shout at it to get out of my apartment, and ask why the fuck it was on my bed. Part of me wondered if I had gone to bed entirely sober last night. But I couldn't shout, so I just stared at it. And it just stared at me. And I felt my heartbeat rising in both frequency and intensity as its breath mixed with mine. I hoped it was fear, and not some weird fetish I didn't know I had. And then the face got up, walked over to my closet with the body I guess it actually had, and pulled the door almost closed. It extended a hand, beckoning me to join it.
But I had an exam in the morning, so I went the fuck back to sleep. | Smoke circles puff into the light, dissipating as memories on the wind. A child can dream up such things while lying in bed, a curious observation between imagination and the reality that is. A hand creeps up from under the duvet, it is stark white, paper snow against Autumn coloured covers. The child doesn't know how to respond, doing what they have learned in elementary. A firm handshake follows.
"You're hired," a voice says, it sounds old and ashy as if each syllable creeps up and over the sheets into the child's ears.
"I'm hired?" mutters the child. "What the heck is that?"
"Take something that isn't yours before tomorrow night," the voice croaks back.
The child rolls over leaf printings and onto a dust covered carpet. The grey threads are like a minefield filled with hairs and odd bits of dirt. "Where are you, mister?" the child asks.
And as the covers are pulled back, a breath is drawn, fast enough to send the heart racing but not followed by fear. Because unlike the expectation, there is no mister there, only the memory of a voice and an empty under area.
"Tomorrow night," says a whisper on the wind.
The child goes carefully to sleep.
| 2017-04-29T00:54:31 | 2017-04-29T00:40:47 | 123 | 32 |
[WP] Every century, a single human is born immortal. When the world ends, you find yourself in a beautiful garden with 20 other people. A voice booms overhead as it greets all of you. “Welcome to my garden, New Gods!” | The world was dead.
In one terrible moment everything ceased to exist - eons of life and history simply eradicated in one single breath.
I stood there, in utter darkness, mourning all the days unlived.
'Welcome, brother,' a voice said.
I slowly turned, my heart heavy.
There was a man standing before me with golden eyes and glorious golden hair spilling down his bare chest.
'You are the last one to arrive,' he said.
'Arrive where?' I asked, almost angrily.
We were nowhere. We were nothing.
We were existing in the dark womb of a rotting universe with not a trace of life or right in sight.
He smiled.
'That is why we needed you,' he said. 'You have to help us finish the creation.'
There was something like melted fire coursing through my veins.
I was too angry and too broken to think about anything else. I was too shattered to even breathe without pain.
'The world has ended!' I cried. But my voice had no echo and my body had no shadow and I knew it wasn't right I still existed.
There was a deep grunt somewhere in the darknes. 'These younglings are too sensitive,' a deep voice said - a grim shade of boredom painting his voice.
'Leave the boy alone!' A woman said. I couldn't see her face but I could almost inhale the scent of her hair. Something fresh and infinite. Something like forever.
The man in front of me listened to their bicker with a benevolent smile.
'Neox has no patience. He was the first of us who was created and he waited for his time for more than twenty centuries. In his eyes you're no more than a child.'
I said nothing.
I knew I had cursed blood. I didn't bleed and I couldn't die and I watched everyone I loved perish before my eyes. I was 117 years old and I was already tired. I couldn't imagine what it was to suffer for 20 centuries.
'What should I do?' I asked.
'Bring the light,' the man before me said.
I closed my eyes trying to bring the light of the day to my mind but it was too painful. I could almost hear Lara's laughter and the hum of the ocean.
When I opened my eyes I was standing on a wast field of gold, surrounded with golden trees and golden lakes. There were twenty more men and women with me.
The man next to me grinned. 'Regulus created the landscape,' it sounded like he was apologizing.
'He has no taste,dear.' I recognised the voice of the woman who spoke before. She was just as beautiful as I imagined.
Everyone laughed. Apart from Regulus, of course.
Suddenly I felt a strong pressure in my head and then a voice sounded. It spoke to me, like it existed inside of my mind.
'Welcome to my garden, new gods!'
We all turned to look at each other.
'Let's go,' Neox, the oldest of us said. 'Don't let the new kid break something.'
This time everyone laughed but me.
So, I was a god.
Capital.
-sorry for mistakes. I'm writing this on my phone.
r/CrystalElmTales | I hate this.
When Alpha called us into his garden, I was excited. We were now gods. That meant I could create the worlds I imagined and dreamed of. Finally make real the places I dreampt of, especially the ones I made for my d&d party. I felt a twang of pity as I realized they wouldn't be here to see it. But, that would not matter as we would be able to create new worlds.
That's what it should have been.
It took a bit into Alpha' s explanation to realize that we couldn't. Something about attracting attention of so and so. I hate him for it. We are newblooded gods and yet, I already hate being told what I can and cannot do. I was stuck as a teen for 200 damned years and I find that I can't create as we where lead to believe. I was led to believe for 200 damned years that we would get all inclusive powers of creation.
Reality is colder.
We are not the powerful gods we were led to believe we would become back on earth. Instead we are beta gods. Only the top can create, the rest rule and manage.
I look around as my peers agree. They are okay with their powers because they are afraid of being taken just as the top gods were. I agree for now. I will work my way to the top.
How powerful can the old ones really be, anyways? | 2019-09-06T04:57:56 | 2019-09-06T04:04:29 | 1,004 | 109 |
[WP] "Are you a monster?" The little girl asked. | "No" I replied standing up, the timberland rattler still in my hand, now dripping with this man's blood.
"What are you doing to my daddy?" she asked, I could see her clearly now, she must've only been four or five years old, she had curly hair and big eyes, it was too dark to see the color of them. She was standing in the doorway, the hallway light silhouetting her holding a stuffed bear, no doubt given to her by the man who's life I just took.
"I'm...I'm...I" I couldn't think of what to say to her, I couldn't tell her that I just took her father's life, but I couldn't lie to her either. Lying would be cruel. What about a white lie, aye...a white lie I could do.
"I am putting him to sleep, he's been having trouble sleeping, right sweety?" I said to her.
The little girl was now griping her bear in both arms across her tiny chest, nodding her head. "I can always see his light on...really early in the morning...unless he has his special water of course, then he goes to bed really early but is super cranky in the morning."
Special water? What did she mean by that? Probably the Vodka bottles, they are laying all around the poor bastards bed...this tormented soul, he had to turn to drinking just to be able to sleep at night, the things that he had done, I am really surprised he had any offspring. I looked at the man again, his throat slit, blood pooling on the bed, eyes wide, full of fear and blank at the same time. Poor guy was just part of the clean up crew, unfortunately, he cleaned up the mess of a paranoid senator and that senator wanted no loose ends.
"You should go to bed" I said to the little girl, "It's late, your mommy will be home soon I suppose." I shoved the knife into it's sheath and cleaned my hands of the blood. I started walking towards the little girl. She raised her arms to the sky towards me, wanting me to pick her up. I put my hands under her arms and scooped her up, she wrapped her arms around my neck while I supported her with my left arm.
"I don't have a mommy" she replied "I never had one." she said in a calm voice, almost as if she didn't know that a mom was a common thing.
But those two sentences stopped me in my tracks after I closed the poor guy's bedroom door. I just killed this girl's dad, and she has no mom. I just destroyed this girl's whole world....
"Come on" I said, holding back tears "Where is your room?" She pointed to a door about 5 feet down the hall. I walked there in about 4 strides, opened the door and walked over to the little girls bed. I put her down on it and she got under the covers and looked at me.
"Is daddy going to sleep through the night, Mister?" she said looking at me, again, I am fighting back tears.
"Yes sweety, he is. But he told me to tell you to stay in your room until the policeman come and get you in the morning, don't come out for any reason ok? You know who the police are, right?" I asked her, she nodded at me and then turned over, pulling the covers to her chin.
I walked out of her room and closed the door behind me. I walked down the stairs of the Cleaning man's house and out the back door so no one would see me. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed 911.
*"911 what's your emergency?"*
"I need to report a murder." I said, my voice shaking, finally tears were coming down my face.
*"I'm sorry, sir, a murder? Where? I will send an ambulance now"*
I gave them the address and where the garbage man was in the house.
*"Sir, do you know who committed the crime? A description of the person?"*
"A monster..." was all I said. I took the phone, broke it in half, and threw it away in the neighbor's trash can and I walked away, trying to figure out a way to cope with what I had just done. | "Are you a monster?" The little girl asked.
"Yes, I am," I replied.
"Are you going to eat me?" The little girl asked.
"No, I won't," I replied.
"Then, wai are you here?" The little girl asked me.
"I'm here to kill you," I replied.
"Wai would you do that?" The little girl asked me.
"Because you owe me," I replied.
"What do I owe you?" The little girl asks.
"About tree fiddy," I replied, and revealed myself as an 8 stories tall crustacean from the protozoic era.
"But, all I have is this silver sword," The little girl said to me, and pulled a 4 foot long silver sword out from under her covers.
"What do you have that for?" I asked the little girl.
"To kill you with," She said.
"What makes you think you're able to do that?" I asked the little girl.
"Because, this," She said, and threw her covers at my face, covering my eyes. By the time I used my claws to wipe the blanket away, the girl had been replaced by a young woman standing on the bed. In the corner of the room, I could see the little girl was just a mask.
"So, you've lured me into a trap," I said, backing away from the young woman. If we would fight, I would need more distance between us.
"Exactly!" The young woman shouted, and jumped at my head.
Her silver sword came swinging faster than a cannon, and I was only able to avoid having my skull pierced by the blade. Instead, the silver sword cut deeply into my mouth and chin, causing blood to fall to the ground in large drops.
"A trecky thang, you are," I said, raising my head out of reach from the young woman.
"I've got more than just that up my sleeve!" The young woman yelled, and this time she sprang with the quickness like lightning, disappeared.
I whistled for a cab and when it came near, the license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror. If anything I could say that this cab was rare, but I thought 'Nah, forget it' - 'Yo, holmes to Bel Air'
I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8 and I yelled to the cabbie 'Yo holmes smell ya later'. I looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel Air.
| 2017-03-09T15:55:18 | 2017-03-09T15:22:40 | 21 | 13 |
[WP] You’ve been kidnapped by the SCP foundation. Why? You have the ability to ‘Mr. Magoo’ yourself out of anything. Sniper about to assassinate you? You bend down to pick up a penny just in time, SCP-049 about to touch you? A Sudden cannonball knocks them away. All with you being none the wiser. | **Item #:** SCP-777
**Object Class:** Euclid
**Special Containment Procedures:** No special safety procedures are required for the containment of SCP-777. SCP-777 is free to move about Site-19 so long as it does not attempt to engage with other SCPs, enter restricted areas, leave the premises or cause obstruction to foundation personnel. Contact with SCP-777 is permitted, but any divulgence of information or hostile engagement not cleared by the corresponding Class B or higher officer on duty will be met with harsh reprimands and potential disciplinary action, following the events of **Addendum 777.01** (see below).
A Class B officer is to check on the status of SCP-777 at regular intverals to ensure the safety of the subject and adherence with the containment procedures. SCP-777 is generally cooperative with foundation personnel, and verbal commands or negotiations are to be used as a first means in securing the subject.
**Description:** SCP-777 appears to be a human male, aged 23, with long brown hair, green eyes, and no defining facial features beyond a slightly pointer than average nose. All physical examination of SCP-777 shows no deviation from typical humans, and in all regards, SCP-777 is an average human male.
However, SCP-777s anomalous properties are observable if SCP-777 is placed in harm's way. Should there be any unwanted resultant effects to SCP-777, SCP-777 will act, seemingly unconsciously to avoid any and all harm to themselves. This harm or damage to the subject that is avoided appears to be both physical and mental in nature. It should be noted that this anomalous property only applies to unwanted damage, see **Addendum 777.02** (below).
SCP-777 has demonstrated that the intent to cause damage to SCP-777 is irrelevant regarding its anomalous properties. Any and all damage, intentional or not, directed at SCP-777 will not affect the subject. Following the events of **Addendum 777.06** (see below), any experimentation using equipment that has a chance exceeding >0.01% of causing an Orange level alert must be cleared with the Class A officer on-site beforehand.
 
**Addendum 777.01:** During an incident where a Class D foundation member was engaged in janitorial duties, SCP-777 entered the area of operation and left "bloody muddy footprints all over the place!" This engagement resulted in the SCP-777 immediately apologizing, although the foundation member did not appear to accept this apology. In the ensuing moments, as the apology was rejected, the Class D foundation member appears to enter a trance-like state. This was not, however, harmful to the member's health as once the apology was accepted by the foundation personnel, SCP-777 vacated the area of operation and the member's mental faculties returned. They were dazed for a few minutes after, but this is pending confirmation by security-tape review. Post-event psychiatric analysis indicates they have no recollection or awareness of what occurred, and subsequent interviews show that SCP-777 was indeed unaware of their anomalous properties as the previous description states.
**Addendum 777.02:** SCP-777, in attempt to cause minor repairable damage to the subject, was placed in a room with a buzzer. SCP-777 was told to wait in there for an hour, and that the buzzer would deliver a small electric shock of 9 Volts should it be pressed. SCP-777 was observed not pressing the buzzer until 31 minutes and 21 seconds had elapsed. The buzzer then delivered its electric shock, and monitors indicate that SCP-777 did suffer some damage. SCP-777 pressed the buzzer 4 more times over the course of 20 minutes, before appearing to grow bored of it. SCP-777 then loudly complained, before seemingly accidentally pressing the buzzer, which did not deliver an electric shock. Post-test analysis reveals that there was a malfunction in the buzzer, frying the circuitry. Data suggest minuatre black holes developed and evaporated, but results are pending further analysis.
**Addendum 777.06:** During a test using explosives, SCP-777 used its anomalous properties to caused the walls of the test chamber to undergo a sudden decompression event. This unfortunately led to a cascading failure in containment cells as the explosives detonated, leading to the release of SCP-173. 14 D-Class foundation personnel were lost in the event, and any further testing is that could lead to an Orange level alert is prohibited. SCP-777 was not harmed in the event, as SCP-173 appears to have missed SCP-777's presence. Furthermore, SCP-777 was found with a single unit of American currency, valued at $0.01. SCP-777 claims that this 'lucky penny' appeared on the floor right before the explosion, which as absorbed by the falling wall. Analysis of debris indicates that all projectiles formed a 'null-zone' around SCP-777, narrowly avoiding any damage as it bent to pick up the 'lucky penny'. Further experimentation on culturally significant lucky items in hazardous situations manifesting in SCP-777's vicinity is currently undergoing review.
**Addendums 777.00, 777.03, 777.04** and **777.05** are currently not available to those under Security Clearance Level 2.
***
Come visit /r/ThomasWrites for more really lucky beings. For those of you with Level 2 Security Clearance, there are please enter your creditentials to view the [**Capture Log for SCP-777**](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThomasWrites/comments/ic6q99/wp_youve_been_kidnapped_by_the_scp_foundation_why/?) | TEST LOG- UNNAMED SUBJECT/096
Dr. Hsu- I’m still not sure about this...
Dr. Peters- Kelly, you’re overreacting. We put the subject next to 049 and right before he was going to turn him, 049 got a phone call in the next room. A fucking PHONE CALL. 106 was about to grab him and a security officer on his radio hit 106 with a golf cart! Nothing is going to happen!
Hsu- Wrong! Nothing has happened *yet*. We’re rolling the dice a lot. What if he gets killed?
Peters- Your objection’s been noted, but O-5 signed off, it’s happening.
*Dr. Peters waves over a the subject, a man who is entirely average smoking a cigarette and drinking a soda*.
Subject: What’s up, docs?
Peters: Mr. REDACTED, how are you today?
Subject: Good. Nice to get some fresh air. Even with the armed guards.
Peters: By now you must see the theme in what we have you doing here.
Subject: Yeah, you put me in weird situations with monsters and things happen that are straight out of a Benny Hill skit.
Peters: .....Yeah, I suppose that’s accurate.
Hsu: *Suppresses laughter*
Peters: Well, here’s another test.
*Dr. Peters hands a Manila envelope to the subject*.
Peters: I’d like you to look at this photograph. Do NOT show it to myself or Dr. Hsu, simply look at it.
*The subject opens the envelope and views a photo of SCP-096. He recoils slightly and takes a drag from his cigarette*
Subject: Shitballs, what the hell is THAT thing? Looks like a yeti with anorexia.
Peters: Please wait right here, we’ll return in a few minutes.
*Drs. Hsu and Peters retreat to a small bunker nearby where members of MTF Nu-7 “Hammerdown” wait*.
Hsu: I don’t like this. 096 has a 100% success rate with it’s victims.
Peters: Watch, Kelly. This is going to be crazy.
*After three minutes, SCP-096 can be heard screaming nearby as it approaches the subject. The subject, having put in headphones is unaware of 096’s presence. 096 rapidly closes distance with the subject in an enraged state. Upon reaching the spot where the subject had stood, SCP-096 steps on the subject’s dropped soda can, slips, falls, and hits it’s head on a nearby rock. 096 lays on the grass motionless near the subject’s feet*.
MTF Commander: What in the actual FUCK?
Hsu: Did 096 just....
Peters: Oh. My. God.
Subject *over radio*: Crap. Dr. Peters, where the hell did this come from? Am I safe here?
Peters: Just a moment, sir. Stay very still.
*The subject complies and begins smoking another cigarette*.
*Forty-five minutes elapses before SCP-096, wakes up and returns to it’s dormant state. On-site MTF personnel cover 096’s face and it is returned to containment. Subject is returned to housing and requests pizza and another pack of cigarettes. Request is granted*.
*No solid reasoning has been listed as to why 096 did not resume it’s pursuit of the subject. Leading theory among staff is that upon hitting it’s head, SCP-096 experienced trauma based amnesia, forgetting the subject’s viewing of it’s face. How this happened after a mild fall and not after damage sustained after previous breaches remains unknown*. | 2022-05-20T21:30:10 | 2020-08-18T08:58:14 | 4,017 | 81 |
[WP] You were born with a floating ethereal crown above your head. As you grew, it became visible to others and your "commands" became harder and harder to disobey. For the past 10 years nobody was able to refuse your orders, your word was absolute, until today. | They say that power corrupts, and ultimate power corrupts ultimately. I’m not sure which “they” said that originally, but I think these days, we all know it’s kind of a lie.
Power doesn’t corrupt. It reveals. It shows the world who you are, truly, when there’s less and less holding you back. It amplifies your self, expounds on what you could be, would be, *should* be. And then, no matter how careful you are, it inflicts you on the world around you. Pushes your opinions, shapes things to your whims.
And not everyone’s whims are decent.
When I was young, I looked in the mirror one day and saw a crown floating over my head. I knew how it had gotten there, though I don’t think I’ll share that; it was a series of increasingly unlikely and risky moves that had ended up with me standing apart from humanity for most of my life. I wouldn’t really wish that on anyone, especially knowing what some people can be like.
The crown itself was blue and ghostly. It was no physical thing, either; no one else could see it, or if they did, they never said anything to me. And if you were to search the whole of Earth, and every monarchy throughout our history, you would never see a crown quite like it.
Black material, no metal anyone had ever forged, shaped into a series of five diamonds that only barely touched the tips of their edges as they orbited my skull. Each plated face had markings on it, or, if I caught it at the right angle, holes. There was always more crown than I remembered, more little details to find, more spaces hidden inside it waiting to come out. It was, ultimately and ultimate, an Authority. The ability to have my words heard, my desires obeyed. My every command made manifest.
At the time, my desire was to date Kimberly Barnes, from two grades above mine. This, I kind of already knew, was a doomed venture. But I didn’t want to just let it go without trying, so I asked her out.
She said no, obviously. And, contrary to what a lot of people might believe about me now, that actually was the end of that. My origin as a tyrant doesn’t actually start with me forcing myself on some unsuspecting high school girl.
No, my origin was much more innocent. See, when I told my friend Kyle, and he started making fun of me, I simply ordered him, “Hey man, don’t mock people for trying.”
And he stopped.
Of course he stopped. I’d given him a command. My crown in the mirror that night was slightly less ethereal. And Kyle never once mocked anyone for trying again, from that moment until the day he died. Though I’m sure he found other things to tease his friends for.
The thing was, I wasn’t that prone to giving people orders. It took a long time for me to realize what the crown was for, and what it let me do. Which, it turned out, was probably for the best. Whether anyone will believe it now, I do think that it was good that it took me so long to know what I was capable of. It gave me time to grow up, to finish school, to go to university and pick up a little more hands on experience with the world and modern philosophies. To become what I would, honestly, consider a good person.
No one in high school is a good person. I’m not saying I was *evil* as a kid, but damn, looking back now, I was a fucking idiot. I wouldn’t trust teenage me with superpowers. I certainly wouldn’t trust anyone else. It’s hard to remember how inexperienced and prone to mistakes we all were when we were younger.
By this point in my life, my crown was a bit bigger than before. Fourteen curved diamond shapes, slowly folding around each other, leaking a thin blue fog out into the world that no one could ever see. I never really knew what my limits were, because every time I thought I’d crossed them, I’d just see another part of the crown in the mirror later that night.
The day that a lot of people remember, the thing no one really ever forgets, though, is the day that I snapped. The day that I looked around at our civilization, failing to even try to be fair or good, and just realized I’d had enough of it. I think, given enough time, everyone has those days. The problem here was that I had something I could do about it.
I had, by this time, fully realized that no one could ever disobey a direct command from me. I’d tried, I’d tried *so hard* to be ethical about it. To word things carefully, to not become the monster I knew I could so easily become. But that day… well, we all have those days. Those days when the world is so blatantly unfair and cruel, and you know it’s someone’s fault. That if someone had just fucking *tried*, so much pain could have never happened.
My anger hadn’t made me think small. I’d taken weeks to force meetings with everyone I needed to. From local TV news broadcasters to programming directors for Netflix. It had taken a while to arrange to be on every screen at once. Though, that said, making the Youtube video had been the easiest part.
It turned out, my power worked through recordings.
“Be good to each other. You know how. Share this message.”
That was it. Three sentences.
I tore our world apart.
I had, in my heart, firmly believed in the power of good. Of kindness and compassion, and ethical behavior. I still do, truly. Even after the destruction that followed.
It started small. “Small”, anyway. The oil companies gutted themselves from the inside out, right along with the auto industry, and basically anything associated with the military industrial complex. Turns out, the one percent *did* know how to be good people, but the transition from draconic hoarders of wealth into people who just want to help happening overnight? That caused some problems. Problems like the collapse of whole industries. Those old money monsters who had created their cruel cages of wealth hadn’t been prepared to open the doors and let the prisoners out. No one had, really.
Then governments started failing. The politicians were talking to each other reasonably, they were making rational decisions and they weren’t taking bribes. And the blackened support network that had kept modern governments propped up just collapsed under them. The power structures that made things ‘work’ in the twistedly functional way they did all died in their beds, halfway through the latest episode of Stranger Things. Those silver tongued monsters who weasled their way into office just weren’t prepared to actually work without the criminal logistics to back them up.
Then, about two hours later, the people who had dodged the message struck back. Small arms fire from paranoid holdouts claimed tens of thousands of lives. Fearful isolation from some who didn’t want to be brainwashed led to dozens of thousands of deaths from starvation or lack of services. The fires of civilization on the way out claimed hundreds of thousands more.
The nukes from Russia, Britain, and Israel claimed *millions*, often of their own people.
That oldest of monsters, our own human fears, clawed us down as the rest of us smothered it to death.
I’d like to tell you that we’re in a time of healing now. That the poison has been bled from humanity, and we are rebuilding. Bringing back a society that’s *better* than we could ever hope to be before. One where everyone is equal, everyone is cared for, and everyone is the heroic self they always knew they could be.
But I don’t know if I can say that.
My crown is two miles tall. It is more solid than the mountains, more real than the air we breathe. Its fractal shapes enthrall those near me, bringing them to kneel at my feet, pledging their loyalty and lives to their new master. Their new owner. And I know that I cannot be a good person forever. I have, always, been immune to my own commands.
It has been ten years since anyone has been able to resist my word. But today, after this last word is written, and after my finger pulls the trigger, I will finally remove the last monster in the world.
So, I give one last request. No more orders. Never another order.
Be good to each other.
Or the next person like me may not be so kind. | \*\*TW: sexual and emotional abuse\*\*
The sun rose over the horizon, glimmering colors of rose gold, purple, and vivid pink. I held out an outstretched hand. "Drink."
Miles slipped the handle of a mug through my fingers. It was just the temperature I liked it. Earl gray, milk and sugar. I sipped it placidly. The sun continued to rise into the California sky.
"My lady, it is almost nine." Miles said quietly. I sighed. I didn't feel like moving today. But if I lazed about every day, I would be a very dull girl.
I rose, and immediately my dressing assistants descended on me with a robe. They dressed me quietly, draping me in my favorite purple 50s-style dress. They did my hair with the strings of pearls that I liked.
We descended the stairs of my mansion and went outside to my car. The driver was perched, waiting, with the door open. Tom sat in the back. The driver helped me get into the car, trying to avoid hitting the crown that sat above my hair. Tom put his arm around my shoulders and I leaned in. He was as handsome and chiseled as the day I met him - light brown hair, ice green eyes, a little bit of a beard. He smelled like aftershave.
When we reached the auditorium, there were already people waiting outside. They bowed when I emerged from the car.
I settled into the chair on the dais as people jostled to get on line. They asked me for different things, whatever they desired, or told me of their struggles or disputes between people. Mostly I liked to leave people alone - let them go about their daily lives, see. If I gave them too many commands they would get stressed and be unhappy, and we couldn't have that. But people asked me for advice, asked me to give them commands (or perhaps give others commands). I had helped people with their addictions or negative thoughts. I hadn't heard about what happened to them after that. They never followed up.
After some time, I commanded Tom to get Miles. I was thirsty. He came back after a while with some lemon water.
A woman had dragged her deadbeat husband with her.
"You must short your shit out." I said to him. "You need to spend more time with your family, less time at work. You have enough money." The woman bowed, and they left.
"Tom." I said. "A back massage."
"No."
I spun around to face him. "I'm sorry, did I hear you correctly?"
"You did."
I pursed my lips. "Tom, give me a back massage. Now."
He flinched, like his muscles wanted to do it, but he resisted.
"Tom. What are you doing?"
He looked at me, square in the eyes, defiantly. I felt...uncomfortable. When was the last time someone had looked me in the eye?
"I...it's been six years since you started to command me. And you command me daily. I'm done."
"What do you mean, you're done?"
"I'm..." He almost couldn't say the word. "I'm immune."
People in line started talking. Chattering nervously.
"Be quiet." I commanded. The crowd fell silent.
"I can't stand you." Tom said. "I want you dead."
I stood up to face him. Even in heels, I was at least six inches shorter than he was. My crown was at his face.
"Do you see this?" I hissed. "This means I control you. I am the most supreme. You must listen to me."
Again, he shifted uncomfortably, almost as if he had difficulty not resisting. But he did resist.
"Get him out of my sight." I commanded to my guards. My mind was racing. How long had I had these guards? Commanded them? Did I even pay them?
But they did move. They grabbed Tom and held him down. I had them move him to a personal room backstage.
After my day was done, and my bottom sore, I entered the room. He was handcuffed on the sofa.
"What happened?" I asked him.
"I...came to you when I felt vulnerable. You helped me stop drinking."
"I did."
"Yes, but then you did more. You invited me back to your mansion. And I was so excited."
Why was he saying this? I knew this story. I took him back to my mansion. We slept together. I commanded him to stay. End of story.
"Do you want to stay?" I asked him.
He ran his hands through his hair. "I..."
"Answer." I said, before I remembered that he was immune. He remained silent.
"What the hell do you want?" I snapped at him.
He sighed. "I need a drink."
"You're not getting a drink."
"I remember all six years you kept me. Like I was your pet." He snarled the last word. Suddenly, he stood up and his voice rose. "You owned me!"
Someone knocked on the door. "Milady?"
"It's fine." I said to the guards outside.
"You had me sleep with you."
"I thought you liked it."
"You never asked me!" He roared. "You just commanded me."
I felt affronted. "Yes, naturally. I command people, Tom. What else was I supposed to do?"
He wrung his hands, unable to speak. Quietly, he sat down on the couch yet again.
"I want Penny." He said. "I want to leave. And I want to be with Penny."
My heart dropped. "You won't have her."
"You don't even spend any time with her! When was the last time you saw her?"
I wracked my brain. She was with the nanny, probably.
"You'll be back to drinking in ten seconds flat. And then what will happen to Penny?"
Tom closed his eyes and leaned his head back. "I can't win." He said, to no one in particular. "I can't win."
"Oh, shut up." I said. Forgetting yet again that he wouldn't comply. I wanted to punch him. My hands balled into fists, the long acrylic nails digging into my palms. I wanted to tear him apart. I wanted him to suffer, to burn, and I wanted to own him and love him forever.
If he was with me forever, he would suffer. And I wanted that more than anything.
And yet.
"Take her." I snapped. Tom looked up at me through his fingers. "But when you find yourself at the bottom of the bottle again, you bring her back to me. You'll come crawling back to me." And I would be right.
\-------
This one was...intense. If you are interested for (less intense) stories, please go check out my subreddit /r/ShittyDuckStories. | 2019-12-22T13:20:56 | 2019-12-22T13:13:15 | 112 | 17 |
[WP] You've discovered a book of actual magic spells. According to the notes within the book, these spells were considered low tier, with little to no practical value. However, in today's modern world, they have exceptional, maybe frightening applications. | It turns out that basic magic isn’t that hard to learn, it's just that no one had anyone to learn it from.
That all changed with the discovery of a book containing the very secrets of magic, by the fading letters on its cover it was titled: “Casting Cantrips with Crazy Carl”. Admittedly it wasn’t as much a book as it was a self-published magazine from the late 70s if the fashions of presumably the titular Crazy Carl in the magazines pictures were to be believed.
Despite its dubious nature it did in fact contain actual spells that were “great for beginners” according to the 2 page spread depicting Carl creating light out of nothing. Carl was proven right when the discoverer of the magazine tried his hand at one of the spells and found himself creating a spectral hand that he could control with his mind.
The magazine spread through the occult circles on the dark web at first with more and more wannabe sorcerers trying their hands at magic, and then it went mainstream. News organizations started picking it up, PDFs of the magazine wound up going viral on twitter, Facebook and Reddit, and before long everyone at least knew someone who could cast a spell or two.
Turned out that about 1 in 10 had the aptitude for magic of some sort, some were able to do most of Carl’s cantrips, while others could only do a small number of them. It didn’t take long before they went from curious party tricks to invaluable job requirements. Do you want to work in a hospital or drive an ambulance? Well I hope you can cast spare the dying. Some countries started mandating that each ambulance must have 1 staff member who could cast the cantrip and within a year the fatality rate of accidents dropped drastically. Even before ambulances could show up oftentimes a bystander had already administered the cantrip as needed.
Sanitations workers overwhelmingly started utilizing shape water to clean out clogged pipes. Construction became cheaper with Mold earth as it made excavation possible without the use of heavy machinery. Control flames specialists became a must have for any fire fighter squad. The secondhand market had a minor boom when Mending started allowing them to easily repair and refurbish old items.
All was going well until someone noticed a problem with the cantrips Lightning Lure and Produce flames. One would throw out an electric whip of sorts and could be used to power small generators once they were properly modified. The other did exactly what it said in its title, it produced flames. The problem was that neither seemed to really take any real effort from the cantrip caster, they could do it all day long if they wished, producing flames and electricity. Even in an oxygen free environment the produce flame cantrip did as it said it would.
It was at that point someone pointed out that there was supposed to be this whole law about how energy cannot be created, yet here we are, creating energy. That got the physicist thinking real hard and while they were busy doing that someone finally managed to cast the final cantrip.
As a matter of fact, it wasn’t even a cantrip, it was an actual spell according to Crazy Carl. On the last page of Casting Cantrips with Crazy Carl, was a preview of his next book: “Advancing Arcane Abilities”. Included in that preview was one spell to give people a taste of what to expect, a spell no one had been able to cast since its discovery alongside the cantrips.
The spell was called Sending and it allowed the 36 year old social media researcher who had become the first to cast it, to send an instantaneous message to anyone he pleased. It was a neat trick to be sure and he demonstrated it on many a TV talk show. Of course that’s when the physicists called again and asked to test it just to be certain it didn’t mess anything else up. According to the social media researcher they had sounded very ominous when they said it.
So they set up a test where he sent a message to someone on the other side of the planet and the exact moment of the sending and receiving was measured. The social media researcher didn’t really know what they were testing but they seemed very disturbed by the whole thing and he later recalled on a late night show that as he had left one of the physicists had been grumbling something along the lines of: “First thermodynamics and now the speed of light.” | First time writing a story, thought I might give it a shot.
John knew he shouldn't have taken that "shortcut" to work. Here he was, in the middle of nowhere, and the car was breaking down. The only thing that John could see around was the run down shack a little ways away. His phone didn't appear to have any service, and appeared to have a brightness that was much lower than usually possible.
"Maybe there's a telephone in the shack" John thought to himself, not remembering that phone booths hadn't been around for ages, or noticing that the shack didn't appear to have electricity, and all the lush trees that lined the road were slightly bent toward the shack.
He entered the shack, and calmly read the dead language to stop the gardening spell that brought energy from nonliving areas into the surrounding plants. He closed the book, put it in the car, and continued to work.
It was a long day at the office, and John couldn't help but keep thinking that he was forgetting something important for the whole day. John's boss almost fired him because he was late to work again, and John ended up working late, but was vaguely excited when he finally got back into his car, though he didn't know why.
Traffic was a mess, and John barely avoided a crash, but when he finally got home, he grabbed the book, made himself comfortable on the couch, and prepared to read it like a normal book.
The font was slightly odd, but John could see that, on the title page, someone had written *May whoever moves this book from where I place it face terrible luck and forget about it's existence.*
"How disrespectful! You shouldn't write in a book!" John exclaimed, and hurriedly erased the writing. Instantly, he felt a small weight lifted, remembered everything, and spent the rest of what little day was left reading the book. He believed it to be a fictional book for a role-playing game, but thought it might be fun to try one of the spells as a joke.
He chose the cloth cloning spell, and selected a dollar bill as his target. He made a hand gesture that should have broken his fingers at several places, and didn't recognize the voice coming out of his mouth, though he did know what he was supposed to be saying. To John's eternal surprise, as soon as he had done this, the dollar bill split in half and grew back as two perfect replicas.
John stared.
"I need a drink." | 2020-01-31T05:20:28 | 2020-01-30T22:53:22 | 172 | 93 |
[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." | The supreme member of the Geandian council sat at the head of the table looking worried. Ambassadors for the hundred and twenty six warrior species sat mingled with emissaries from the various scientific and trade collectives which had established themselves over the last million years of Galactic conquest.
'The grave day we have long feared may be upon us,' he began solemnly 'long have we known the old ones will some day awake,' the room absolutely frozen in terror and entirely silent 'long have we known their power stretches beyond our realm, every atom of our universe weaponised against then would be as summer rain them...' there were murmers of agreement and worried whispers 'i come from a people who have never surrendered to anything, not in one million years! Yet today all we can do it beg for mercy and throw ourselves to their feet hoping they can find some use for us beside death.'
'Those whose name we dare not speak have risen from the depths of the Galactic center' he paused to try and read the room, glancing towards the powerfully observant and deeply political Thaliac delegation looking for a nod or shake of the head but was instead surprised to see they were totally distracted by a phone call and were uncharacteristically very agitated.
'what do you mean you're having a fire on the beach? What does that even mean?! No I know what a fucking fire is! And I know what a fucking beach is...' he was so absorbed he didn't even notice the giant Geandian looming over him until he spoke at which point he was so started he drived under his chair.
'the humans, the humans!' he spluttered in a garbled rush 'the humans, they're going to the humans!'
'who are the humans?'
'small type 2, out on the second arm'
'what do they do?'
'uh, nothing much really, uh, they're having a fire...' his voice choked and confused 'on the beach...'
'why?'
'they didn't say...'
'and?' his voice growing hard as good patience wore thin.
'they invited the elder gods'
The human was patched to the main screen, 'like I was telling your man, you're all welcome to come, it's nothing fancy just a bit of a tradition you know, we get together and have a few beers or whatever'
'get together with who?' genuinely confused.
'oh anyone that wants to come, it's just you know a bit of an excuse to kick back.'
'and the...' he felt ridiculous all of a sudden 'the old ones... They are coming to... To kick back?'
'yeah, they good guys, great guys, you know them?'
Rage and frustration bubbling through him he wanted desperately to storm off and yell about the embarrassment he felt and the utter confusion flooding him. Muting the call he turned to the Thaliac and whispered 'should we go?' the angler intellectual could only shrug hopelessly 'what just go and... Kick back?' he looked down at his multiinterface effortlessly searching and sorting the entire sum of shared knowledge 'what does that even mean?!' the giant warrior wanted to tell him it meant laziness and foolishness, that it was an idiocy of idle people but the ancient ones terrified him and he has no intention of angering them. 'we shall not shy away from finding out' he said finally with an obviously over compensating firmness. | 2021-04-07T21:52:28 | 2021-04-07T20:01:45 | 300 | 131 |
[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 :) | If you're reading this, then I have probably been gone for some time now. See, after the random power surge that started all this mess, I have been thinking. And I have been thinking hard. And I'm tired of all this.
The world has changed, and it has changed into something so grotesque, I hate it now. At first, it was pretty civil. There were people left and right, running around, trying out and testing their powers, seeing what they can do. I had some pretty good in-game experiences, and I just didn't want people to know I had powers, so I just hid in my room and watch it all play out. The news were full with interviews with all these people, how they got their powers, how it has changed their life and all that jizz. Now there were mages and elves and all kinds of wonderful wizards and witches. I'd even heard of a Witcher spotting in a rural part of Siberia. People had started to realise the potential of this thing and use it for their benefit.
Then things started getting a little out of hand. You would walk down the street and see some Fortniters building in the middle of the road and blocking the traffic. Some wizard accidently Stunned a passerby with their wand and the victim's family pressed charges on them. Soon there were incidents left and right; incidents of bank robberies, theft and murders. Fortunately for us, a group of superheros banded together and rounded the ones getting out of line.
Nowadays, things have gotten quiter. Sure, most of the bad guys have been put in jail by now, and the superheros patrol the streets. Everyone else seems happy about it. But I just can't help but wonder.
Why are the super heroes doing this for free?
I mean, one moment you had family, bills and mortgages to pay, stuffs to do and the next you just leave to patrol the streets for free? No one does anything for free.
I didn't want to; trust me I really didn't want to use my powers. But I had to. So I got out one fine weekend and decided to see what I can find. Of course, I used a disguise. And I must say, I wished I had gone out sooner.
Now, I do not know if you understand the full extent of my powers, so I'd just like to clear a few things out now. See when the surge happened, I was playing Minecraft in 2019 with multiple mods on. I know, some people would have disapproved but here I am. Anyway, I wanted to try out a new redstone contraption so I had just jumped into creative mode. I had most of my armour intact and enabled then and just as I was going to flip the lever, it happened. So now, I could have infinite materials, teleport or go through anything in Spectator mode.
So back to the present, I started by spying on the superheros. I went to their headquarters and saw the papers. Apparently they were hired by the government on contract. Basically, they could go anywhere and do anything they wanted to anyone without the government interfering at all. That's just anarchy. And everyone was celebrating it. Next, I found a paycheck from a government facility, so naturally I teleported there next. I do not wish to recall what I saw there, because to this day, I wish I could erase it from my mind. The government was experimenting on the prisoners and trying to figure out a way to replicate the effect and build a super army. The most horrifying part was, because of respawn enabled, most of the prisoners were probed to death only to be revived moments later and continued on.
I could not sleep that night. And with all this power at my fingertips, I felt helpless. This was one government facility in one country. Imagine what a powerful country with billions of dollars in military spending. I am but one man. What can I do?
I can't. There is nothing I can do really. Going against the government means going against the superheros too. Even if I win over them all, then what? Become a ruler? I don't know jackshit about politics let alone ruling the world. Form a government? Another government would rise and they would do the same. There is no point in doing anything at all. So I've decided.
I'll be moving to my underground bunker I've built under the basement of my house. I have built my food and resources farm and my own mine system. I'll be enjoying at my crafting station as I smell the sweet smell of iron smelting. I'll travel to the nether. I'll kill the Ender Dragon for the 100th time. I'll built the most glorious Minecraft bunker the world is never going to see. Maybe years from now, after most of the humans die to a nuclear attack, I'll rise in the ashes of the fallout. We'll see.
Edit: sorry for the bad English, it's my second language. I hope you enjoy. | 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. | 2019-08-11T22:16:33 | 2019-08-11T21:59:51 | 209 | 100 |
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