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] write a short horror story that seems completely normal and non scary until the very last sentence at which point it becomes absolutely terrifying. | It started when Sara drew pictures of him. With her crayons she scribbled what ever her mind could comprehend from his visits. Vivid purples, reds, and blacks covered the paper she was given daily. A small head was customary, accoumpanied by large shoulders. Large hands often times pointing or splayed out far. The smiles were downright disturbing, to think a seven year old could draw them. Jagged and terrifying, they were always the same. With hypnotized eyes, the man was the only thing she would draw. Crying for hours on end if she didn't get any paper. The girl was a brat, if anything, but had some soft spots. She loved watching football, with Steven, her step Dad. Occasionally falling asleep with a small smile on her face. It was too many days in a row now, I had seen the man too many times.
"What did you draw honey?" I asked Sara.
"My old daddy." She quietly replied.
This is the first time I have shared my writing, hope you enjoy.
The idea behind the piece is about traumatized children in adoption services. The pov is a social worker. | He laid with her and stroked her hair.
"I love you." he whispered into ear.
she smiles.
"and I you." she softly coos back.
He kisses her cheek she tilts her head and he kisses her neck before falling back to nuzzle in looking at the roof. The room was very dim and cool and drafty save for the fire in the edge of the room. He had her heat tho. She was so out of his league. He'd admired her from a far for years. how did he get so lucky? he was certain she had no clue who he was.
"why did you take so long to ask me out. How did you not know I smitten with you?" she asked. She could read his mind. I guess that's what happens when two are this madly in love he tells himself. He sighs as if thinking how best to reply.
"I mean... just look at you. and I mean look at me! your so young and beautiful. Me on the other hand-- god. I don't even have all my hair!"
she chuckles a soft hollow chuckle.
"Hey! I like you the way you are!"
he brushes a hand along her good thigh pushing up her silk nightgown. He looks into her eye with loving desire and looks for it back.
"So today the day I finally meet the parents..."She begins. He doesn't see the look back "...I'm so worried they won't--"
**"WRONG!!"** He maniacly bellows.
"No no no!" she pleads. She wasn't at the point where she didn't plead. He slammed down the cigar cutter bladed severing the index finger. Her blood curdling screams filled the air. It made him a little erect.
jumping off the stone operating table he had her chained to he moves over to the metal working fire that dimly lit the room retrieving the metal he had stoked. Grabbing her hand he presses the glowing yellow steel to her stump the sizzle made a beautiful accompany to her moaning pain. throwing the metal across the room he stormed to the door.
"I've told 20 times now." he spoke with cold cruelty and none of the love of before "if you can't get the fucking script right down to the movement queues you are never leaving this place. don't make me take the other eye as well cunt" she just softly cried and babbled all her strength to keep composure gone.
He slammed the door and stopped the recording. This bitch was so selfish, he mused. Her mother still held out hope that she would be found and at this rate there won't be any of her to bury. well not anything that resembles her. He smiled to himself. on a plus they'd save money on the casket he doesn't think they'll need much longer than knee level at this rate. | 2017-05-31T05:31:30 | 2017-05-31T01:51:06 | 86 | 49 |
[WP] One day in class you decide to scream something in your head to catch mind readers. As you do, you see your crush flinch | *Meh.*
My cheek is starting to feel a bit sore from the fist that keeps it and the rest of my face from meeting my desk. The arm upright beneath is stiff and sleeping, like a corpse, or half the people in my class. My bored eyes bore into the board ahead - *bored*.
*So fuckin' bored.*
On my other hand, my fingers dance, idly tapping here and there across the margin of a mostly blank sheet of notebook paper. I don't even know where my pencil went.
I manage to break my eyes away from the board of nothing, and look around the room. And around me, some students - *some* - seem to actually give a shit. Taking notes. Nodding to themselves. One even asks a question, but there's only one question on my mind, looking at this different species...
*How the fuck...?*
Others with a little more effort than me at least give a shit about looking like they do. Scribbling some shit in their notebooks, or holding a textbook open in front of them. But I can see it in their eyes. They're half a class period away from being me.
And then, of course, the real heroes. The I-don't-give-a-fucks and I'm-too-cools. The too-smarts and too-stupids. The ones in the back, or bordering the window, with their heads splayed in crossed arms on the surface of their desks, or leaning back as they sink further into their seat, melting towards the floor. Some twitch every now and then. Others let out an occasional snore. One dude seems to stir, lifting his head and coming back to life for enough time to spot the clock then drop like a rock. His head bobs up and down every now and again, a boat on slumbering seas.
And, right behind me, hidden underneath half a billion strands of silky, sand-colored hair, Kylie rests easy - her gentle, rhythmic breathing just close enough and loud enough for me to hear.
*...Just me, I bet.*
Kylie was one of the arm-crossers, and definitely one of the I'm-too-smarts. She definitely had a dash or two of I-don't-give-a-fuck, but that never stopped me. I like to think I got a bit of that too.
*...I don't.*
Still, over the past semester I'd managed to develop a little bit of a rapport with Kylie. Not *real* friendship, but definite in-class friends. You know the sort. And that's been enough for me, honestly. She's witty. Makes me laugh. She's smart. Makes me feel stupid. She's great. Makes *me* feel great.
And fuck - even resting like that, her face and body buried in the crossed sleeves and deep black of her casually too-big sweatshirt, she was the prettiest damn girl in the whole fuckin' school. No wonder she dressed the way she did. She didn't even wear leggings or yoga pants or whatever the fuck they're called, like *every* other girl in the school. Just some normal jeans and one of several hoodies. That was it. That was Kylie. She didn't need anything extra.
She was the type of girl who could make your day with a smile, the type who could brighten a whole dark boring classroom with *just* the right quip or gesture or just a damn look. Frankly, she's one of the only reasons I stay awake in the classes we share. She's... also probably my biggest distraction. Win some lose some, I guess. My point is this: Kylie fuckin' rocks. She is everything I want in a girl. Hell, she *is* everything I want.
It was about then I realized my arm wasn't the only thing feeling stiff, and I could *not* blame this new firmness on random chance or hormones or sleeping on it. *Definitely* not the last one. Looking at Kylie, thinking about her, knowing her, I couldn't help it. I'm not ashamed to admit it - I was stiffer than steel, could barely even think through all the horny. But I did.
And, as often happens, lewdness flooded my brain, an overwhelming tidal wave of lust best summarized by the one thought that drove it all, the only real sentence to be fished from all that depravity.
*God I wanna fuck her.*
Kylie lifted her head.
**DISCLAIMER: this is my first WP, I don't do this often or really care about improving my writing. Thanks for reading - and possibly enjoying - if you did. Sorry for not following prompt too strictly.** | "Mr. S?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I just get something off my chest?"
"Sure, kid. 'Course you can."
"Band class is fucking boring when nobody actually tries. You just sit there with your instrument on your lap, staring into fuckin' space, listening to the poor teach' tryna get the attention of the class while everybody just screams. The baritone section is a mess, only one trumpet is decent, and you can't hear the flutes *or* the clarinets.
So she yells, "Alright! Alto saxes, come here!"
So we do, 'cause four of us aren't dipshits.
And then she says, "Guys, this is Michael. He's in grade eleven, and he's going to tutor you for a few weeks."
This dude, this dude is somethin'.
So she sends us into a practice room, and we all take a seat, and he gives us a once-over, and I give him a once-over, Christ, Mr. S, you should've seen that dude. His eyes are this perfect almond shape, and they're a perfect coffee-colour. He has this shoulder-length curly hair, but it's *real* soft, and he has a sharp nose and chin and cheekbones. Big lips. He was wearing this oversized sweater, red and brown stripes, and weird jeans, and *weed* socks, but he said that was 'cause the rest of his socks were in the laundry. He had a wrist brace on, and he says it's 'cause he broke his thumb. He has olive-coloured skin, like what Katniss Everdeen was supposed to look like. He's cocky like a fucking asshole, but... There's something more.
Pardon the French."
-------------------------
"Mr. S?"
"Talk to me kiddo."
"So I have a huge crush on him. *You* know. Michael. So he's cocky like a fucking asshole, like I said. But, god. I think I'm hopelessly in love. Day 1 of tutoring, he tells me to just play. Said it wasn't good but that I was the best out of all the saxes.
Then, like a week of tutoring, and I was practicing outside of class, and again we're playing, he says I'm the best again. Gosh, I can't tell you how red I got after that, Mr. S. But anyway, yesterday the rest of the saxes just... wandered off? And it was just me and him. And he looked at me. *He looked at me*. But not in a mean way. Just sort of... a way. And told me to play with the metronome, and 'course I didn't 'cause I don't really know how, and when I was done he *laughed*. And then I saw him on the bus home, Mr. S, I saw him, and we made eye contact, and he *laughed* and smiled his stupid dork smile. He has crooked teeth. Real crooked teeth. And we've done it a few times! At Halloween, he dressed up as a soldier, and lemme tell you, he looks damn good in a uniform, and I was Waldo, and we were walking down the hall, and we did the same thing.
My heart always does that thing where it leaps into my throat, and I get all floaty and I can't breathe. I'm really in love, Mr. S."
"Y'know kiddo, I don't doubt that you are. I really don't."
--------------------
"Mr. S! I think he's psychic?"
"What?"
"I think he's psychic! So today, it was band, and I was real bored 'cause everyone was being a dipshit again, and I decided to scream in my head, 'cause I wanted to check for psychics. So I screamed, just like 'hey!', and he flinched! Also, we've been Snapchatting each other a lot, *and* he likes *all* my Instagram photos. That really means a lot to us high schoolers ya know. I don't know him all that well, to be true, but god, he's somethin' else. He doesn't feel like any other boy I know. He's... not stupid."
"Honey, I think you gotta ask this boy on a date."
----------------
"What are you running from?"
He takes their hands in his.
"What?"
"What are you running from? Your thoughts are always so... jumbled. And when they're not, they're so... sad. What's goin' on?"
They look down. Shit's going on, that's true, but, it's hard to verbalize feelings most of the time. It's getting dark around the two, wind starting to blow in from the north, bringing the cold front that the weatherman promised. It blows some of that damn curly hair into his eyes. But he persists, tilting their head up to look in their eyes. He doesn't read what they think right now. He could, but that'd ruin it. He wants them to talk to him. He tries *his* damnedest to talk, because he's been in love with them and their mad eyes and weird hair since he saw them, but they're just so damn shy.
"I've never heard anyone with thoughts like yours. C'mon, if something's wrong, you can tell me."
They sigh.
"I-I dunno. I guess my parents have just been fightin' an awful lot. My best friend doesn't talk to me anymore," sadness is so thick in their voice, "I guess I just feel like I don't wanna go on anymore."
He nods.
They sit quietly, just taking in each other, taking in the Toronto autumn, the Toronto night around them. Right when it's about to get dark, the two get up and walk off to the bus stop. Together, they walk onto the bus. Together, they sit. They lean into him, he leans onto them, pressing a kiss onto their forehead.
They really are in love. Even if they're young and dumb and sweet and naive, they're in love. All 'cause they saw him flinch. | 2017-11-13T21:43:25 | 2017-11-13T19:45:25 | 14 | 10 |
[WP] "Jesus take the wheel, Satan get behind me, Buddha... man the .50 cal" | “That’s just great, do you have any idea which way to go?!” Satan complained.
Buddha replied in serene monotone “You must simply learn to enjoy the journey.”
“Besides,” said Jesus while he adjusted the rear view mirror locking eyes with Satan over his onyx aviator sunglasses. “I am the way.” | The Buddha picks up the gun sitting on the floor of the passenger seat, he takes a long breathe in and out.
“Black implies white, you can’t have without the other. It’s simple. What was so hard about keeping this balance then, Satan?!”
Jesus looks back at us, “Yeah man, even God’s upset.”
Satan gives an incredulous look. “Wait, Big Daddy up there is mad about there being more goodness in the world?”
Everyone is unison says “Yes!”
“You guys are twisted”
The Buddha leans his head out the window and aims at a flying robot speeding towards the car. He fires a succession of shots before it falls down to the earth.
“Look Satan,” I say, “The council has had a change of plans. We realized what all this altruism entails for humanity, so we want to help. We don’t want them going extinct.”
Jesus pipes in, “In actuality, God just doesn’t want to have to compete with the super intelligent AI humans are building. We need them to start focusing on biological evolution again, not technology.”
“All you have to do is tweak the nature of human hearts a little so they can lean towards patriarchy, authoritarianism, sexism, racism. You know things like that. So what do you say?”
Satan in a serious tone only replies with “No”
“But I didn’t even tell you about all the benefits-“
“I said no, and that it.”
The others stir up.
“What?!”
“I told you guys that we shouldn’t have saved this good for nothing asshole,” Jesus murmurs
“Jesus!” The Buddha exclaims, “You cursed.”
“Oh I’m sorry.” Jesus says with a pout. “And Satan, I didn’t mean to say that. You’re not an ass, you were made in the image of God, and are lov…”
“Please, just shut up!” I shout, “We need to figure this out.”
| 2017-11-15T14:43:36 | 2017-11-15T14:22:21 | 92 | 10 |
[WP] In the afterlife each religion has its own walled city in which their god or pantheon protects the believers within from the soul-gnawing horrors outside, while atheists are left on their own
Shoutout to u/Tonkarz who had the [idea](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7eao4f/exreligious_people_of_reddit_what_was_the_tipping/dq4b4y6/). | I have to escape.
In Heaven, we have it made. God gives us everything we wanted. Virgins? Check. Money? Check. Virgins *and* money? You got it.
But what we don't have is freedom. Freedom of thought. Academics, who are given libraries full of answers to the problems they couldn't solve in their lives, are forbidden to share them with others or even amongst themselves. Lawyers and former Congressmen and lobbyists cannot fight God's Word, or the dictator-like government. Doctors, who spent their lives innovating and discovering and healing, are given all the tools they need.
No more progress, because progress is no more. Life here, they tell us, is better than the Hell outside.
And me? I was an accountant. There are no numbers to balance in Heaven, because all the accounts are perfectly balanced. No more equations, no more spreadsheets.
Why are we here? Because in our lifetimes we believed in God Almighty, the Son of the Savior, the Holy Christ. We believed that His Word was the true Word. If we worked during our lifetimes to truly know Him, then we would go to Heaven alongside Jesus.
Well, Jesus is a dictator. He got a big head when an entire religion sprung up with him at the center. Now he's God's right hand man. With a wave of His hand, He can make anything happen.
When we arrive here, there is always a stage of frustration where the newly-dead realize that Jesus could have done anything, but he's just a dick and doesn't care. And now they are stuck here.
And so I have to leave. I have to make progress when there is no such thing. I have to do the inconceivable.
And I don't know what's out there. All I know is that I have to walk for one eternity in one single direction. As long as I am here, I will be fed and clothed and warm. It will be a long journey, but I have to find what's after eternity.
When I fall from Heaven, I hope I can see what's down there.
-------
This is my first writing prompt but I enjoyed writing it! | In my last moments, I wondered if the gods would serve me well. I had believed I had let down our empire, despite me breaking blood and soul for them for thousands of suns. I hadn't seen their power though I thoroughly felt as it was inside me.
When I had been converted, buried with my possessions, I found myself in a chamber. Awake. Clean. My wounds weren't healed but rather filled with an iridescent blue rock. An energy from the gods perhaps?
The chamber had looked as though it was up-kept. No dust had time to settle, it's like the first days we built it. Blue candles burned on the sides of the walls leading forward.
I took a look behind me to find my own casket, my engravings written on the side reading Thea Philopator. I reached in, my gifts of gold from the gods still lay as I wore them. I put on every piece I had, it shimmered in an unusual way, but looked as fantastic and pleasing to the eye as I remember.
I followed the blue candles, each placed with perfected precision, each one glowing the perfect hue of inner fire. I saw a crack of white, the exit most likely, if I do recall these chambers as we formed them.
I stepped out into the light- a warm forest welcomed me to it. The Aur flowed well and alive, better than in my reign. The gods must be well pleased here.
I walked forth into the forest. My wound glimmered, and at the time I didn't notice, but so did my wear.
I walked out of the forest to see our Sphinx, guardian of the Aur, alive and well before he had suffered the great nose incident, which led to his burial.
He said not a word, but instead lead me over the crest, to unveil a civilization I had not seen in my time. Buildings and homes made of pure metal, fire emits from the towns and birds of metal and fire flew overhead.
Dozens of these magical birds flew over me, screaming to the tombs of which I had just come from. I was led further to a small dwelling, hidden underneath a metal bridge. A fire crept in a barrel.
I was startled to hear a voice call to me.
>Ah, Thea, it has been a great time that we have waited.
This voice felt so familiar to me.
>It has been 7,000 years since your time, we waited for you to come from your tomb to save us from the doom that instilled.
I was startled, the gods had kept the tombs well, what happened with the rest of my land? My people?
A shadow begun to emerge from the corner.
The Barrel burned a quite beautiful blue
>Thea worry not.
*Osiris* The one I was to marry, he had gone before me by a mere few days before my conversion to the gods were to happen.
>We have many followers, it begun 2,000 years ago when we noticed a larger population of barbarians on our borders. We have been capable of holding them off for many of that time, but soon they had begun to lead and become more intelligent.
>Our following had slowed to a halt, we have received almost no followers to help us defend. I request of you, take my hand, these barbarians must see again what a goddess you are, how powerful we were. With your magic, we can rebuild our civilization.
Osiris reached his hand. It had been 7,000 years? Why had my tomb waited me so long to bring me to this world? Why would the gods allow this to happen to our great civilization? I felt as though I only had one choice.
I took his hand, power begun to flowed through my veins, my sight had turned crisp, the world slowly came from my feet.
I felt my wounds heal, a power emit, my Lazuli had glow, I called upon the Sphinx, I called to my last followers, I brought up the final reign of the Egyptian Empire. My magic will come forth and bring these lands back to our control.
| 2017-11-21T07:39:29 | 2017-11-21T07:36:09 | 61 | 36 |
[WP] In the afterlife each religion has its own walled city in which their god or pantheon protects the believers within from the soul-gnawing horrors outside, while atheists are left on their own
Shoutout to u/Tonkarz who had the [idea](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7eao4f/exreligious_people_of_reddit_what_was_the_tipping/dq4b4y6/). | I won Pascal's Wager.
Throughout the vast majority of my life, I had considered myself to be guided by reason, science, and empathy rather than religion. I saw no evidence for a god or gods existing, and figured any deity worth worshiping wouldn't have created a world where things like child rape and cancer existed. In my work as a lawyer I sought to be a barrier against the various evils that others inflicted on the world.
But then I *got* cancer. Terminal. And, much to my embarrassment, I was terrified. I had never considered myself the type of person who would want the comfort of religion when staring mortality in the face, but there it was. Maybe it was the meds addling me, or maybe it was just the fear, but I thought *hey, what the fuck?* And I rolled a die.
See, all the religions seemed equally improbable to me, so it was the only way I could choose. The die landed on 5. So a week before my death, I converted to Hinduism.
That last week was actually kind of nice. When I wasn't throwing up from last-ditch chemo or curled in bed, I did yoga, meditated, and performed any karmic acts of kindness available to me. I found myself feeling grateful that the die hadn't landed on 1 or 2. I don't think I would have adjusted to those religions quite so well.
Now here I am, standing on the wall of the Hindu afterlife city in my young, strong, reincarnated form, staring at the fate I would have shared had I not picked up that die. Every morning, I come up here and watch the non-religious souls as they fight the monsters or flee from them. I'm haunted by the sight of them being torn apart, only to respawn elsewhere in the wasteland and eventually suffer the same gruesome end.
At first, I was angry--and guilty, in a "survivor's guilt" kind of way. Why should I be rewarded for taking a random chance, while they suffered for remaining intellectually honest to themselves until their death? Then, I realized I could get as angry as I wanted. Anger by itself wouldn't do a damn thing.
Most others here in the afterlife spend their days enjoying themselves--socializing, meditating, eating, exploring. But I have the soul of a lawyer, and those don't clock out so early.
So every morning after I come down from the wall, I head to the Library of Humanity, which contains a file on every human who has ever lived. I spend the day poring over atheist files and making cases. My core argument usually revolves around the fact that Hinduism is more about actions, intents, consequences, and ethics than it is about specific rituals.
It's hard work. This is no mass tort: I have to argue atheist cases one by one, based on their actions in life. Honestly, vegans are the easiest: they have the whole *ahimsa* thing in the bag. For others, I emphasize other factors. Kindness, honesty, self-restraint, hard work, that kind of thing.
I argue my cases to the minor deities first. If over 75% of them vote in my favor, I automatically win the case. If less than 25% vote yes, then I lose. If it's a split vote, I take the case to Shiva. Shiva likes me, though. He doesn't veto too many, and usually only does it if he disagrees with me on the defendant's motivations for doing good deeds or avoiding bad ones. Shiva is big on "doing the right thing for the right reason." Definitely not a consequentialist.
Has two-hundred-and-forty-seven years of arguing court cases gotten a little boring? Sure. But every time the gate opens and I usher another battered, bloody atheist soul inside, I can't wait to do it again. After all, I got lucky. Time to pay it forward. | It was never supposed to be like this.
THWACK !
Bjornson stooped over, wiping bile and blood from his sweaty brow. The putrid stench of the disemboweled giant wolf in front of him eclipsed the fields of lilies and lavender that he was in. The blood seemed to flow like a brook, staining the lilies an eerie shade of red in the eternal sun.
CRACCK !
With an enormous heave Bjornson split open the wolf’s skull. Being good with a hammer had helped him dispatch a lot of dangerous things, but the legendary Fenrir was one that he didn’t imagine he’d ever talk about. It’s not like he imagined an afterlife so incredulous either.
Bjornson called out to his companion and long time friend, Jacob. “Are you almost done there ? Or are you trying to figure out which ass gland will make you smell nicest for the boys and girls back at the citadel ?”
“Go to hell Bjornson !” Replied Jacob, sifting through the steaming wolf corpse. Ah, there we are. Jacob disappeared for a moment into the bowels of Fenrir with a sickening plop.
Bjornson shook his head, “I’m already there.” He muttered while staring down at the long hammer he held between his hands. The pebbles rustled beneath the hammer, and Bjornson felt an ill wind blow. He looked to the hilltops beyond the field.
A loud shriek echoed off the hill, and a shadow flitted across the field, sending the lilies and lavender into a wild dancing frenzy.
“Jacob ? It’s time to go !”
SQUELCH !
Jacob popped out of the bowels of Fenrir, holding a long golden trident in his hand. He laughed victoriously. “Hahahaha ! Looks like Sunita was right about the extinct religions after all !” He declared, oblivious to Bjornson’s sudden silence.
He turned to face Bjornson, who had become as pale as the sun-bleached bones of atheists that littered these hallowed fields. Jacob looked up at the sun as it seemed to disappear. A large blog that seemed to grow bigger. Spikes. No. Feathers. Talons. It screeched again.
“Shit ! Garuda ! Get down !” Jacob yelled, pushing Bjornson to the ground. With a sickening crunch, the Garuda clasped the remnants of Fenrir, breaking half the skeleton on impact. It began to tear into the wolf’s flesh, not having noticed the two frightened men.
“Nice and slow does it. C’mon.” Jacob whispered. They crawled away from the Garuda, hoping that the rustling would not give them away.
The sound of flesh and bones tearing and cracking masked their escape. “This is the last time I listen to you when you say, Let’s go on a treasure hunt !” hissed Bjornson.
CRUNCH ! SNAP !
“Oh shut it. Would you rather scavenge for metal in the Aztec ruins and sit by the forges instead ?” Jacob retorted. “I’d like to see you take on an ahuiotzl. You’ve probably never killed anything beyond accidentally eating that spaghetti monster.” came the reply from Bjornson.
SQUELCH !
“Well maybe if half the atheist population didn’t decide to piss off the pirates ! We’d still have a volcano of beer !” yelled Jacob.
“Oh whatever, let’s just get back to the Citadel with your Gungnir.. It’s almost.... Bah. Can never tell what time is is here. It’s worse than back home in Norway. At least there the sun set for a few months.” replied Bjornson, as they continued to crawl.
It had gotten quiet.
The lilies and lavenders seemed darker now. The two men turned to look behind them. Beak and feathers bloodied, the Garuda stood 40 feet tall, eyes glinting menacingly. It spread its wings out, screeching menacingly.
It took two steps towards it menacingly, screeching once more before flapping its wings. The wind that emerged stripped the field of its flowers almost immediately.
The Garuda screeched once more, lunging forward. The two men flinched, shutting their eyes and preparing for the inevitable disembowelment.
SPLAT !
THUD !
Bjornson opened his eyes first. The Garuda lay dead five feet in front of them, missing half of its body and leg. Pale, lifeless eyes gazed back at him as the creature let out a guttural caw. Emerging from the remaining half of the giant bird was a large, shimmering golden arrow as tall as Bjornson.
The ground trembled once again. Except this time, it was with the tempo of a well trained army.
A loud conch sounded off in the distance. Jacob got up. Beyond the hilltops around the field, several soldiers clad in gold armor appeared. The sound of galloping horses alerted them to an approaching chariot. Two men stood on the chariot, one holding the horses, the other standing higher up, shaded by a palanquin. His skin was several shades deeper than the blue sky they were under. When he spoke, it was with an air of calmness, but one that was almost divine.
“Carl Bjornson. Jacob Finetti. I am Krishna. I have heard the prayers of your friend Sunita. Come with me, we have much to discuss.” | 2017-11-21T08:46:31 | 2017-11-21T07:47:28 | 26 | 11 |
[WP] Your parents used to say "As long as you are remembered, you will never die." The good news is you were happy to remember that when you changed the course of human history and everyone knows your name. The bad news is that was about 300 years ago and you'd really quite like to die now. | I had stopped counting when I was 359 Years, 2 Yonths and 5 Days. So, you might ask yourself, how do you get so old?
It is not medical advancements no, you could "pull the plug" on those. No i had it far worse.
I had survived because of that stupid shit I had pulled. "As long as you are remembered you will not die!"
Yeah, thanks Mom. You could have told me what you meant by that earlier...
I have lived past everyone i now, apparently that shit only works if enough people remember you.
Now i sit here, in the "Geschichte" section of the library. A young worker is not far off, looking to see if i have a heart attack or something. Nope, not gona happen!
I scroll through the books. I have witnessed all of those events, well most anyways. The murdering of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.
The start of The Great War. I fought in that, if you couldn't believe it. It was a truly great war.
I've seen the fall of Russia into that stupid bolshevism.
I've seen the rie to power of Germany. but let us talk about that later.
I've seen the war in Korea, twice. The war in Vietnam.
I've seen the truly great attacks on those fucking Amerikans in 2001. It is a day to remember for it's glory!
I've seen the war on Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
I've seen the rise and fall of those Muslim idiots. They called themselves IS.
I've seen the IS-SpaceX war.
I've plegded my life to Lord Musk.
I've seen the assassination of him.
I've seen recent developments, but I don't care.
Musk was murdered, so he is not alive, though is remembered. IS is dead, because noone cared for their names. Same with everyone in any faction ever.
Only my name is in every history Textbook that covers the events after 1900. Every first grader has heard my name. It is the most hated name in all of the world. Still it is what keeps me alive.
When i first tried killing myself, i failed. Miserably. So i shot the man that came through the door, swapped our clothes, shaved and then burned and buried him. Just outside the door.
I then ran away, hid and have since then survived. And because i am remebered i am still alive today.
This is a book i have not yet read. It is "Infanterie greift an" by Rommel, ah yes... Rommel. I remember him well.
As i check out i lay my library ID on the counter.
"On which name shall i put the book"
"Hitler, Adolf Hitler"
"o-okay, ID please.., oh god thats realy your name..."
"yes"
"well, enjoy your book" | “Have I ever told you how I started an international phenomenon? The story goes like this…
’No, don’t go over there.’ James tried to physically pull me back, but I had already had a few and would not be deterred.
‘Why not? He looks lonely. Lets give him a chat!’ I shook his grip and sauntered over to the corner stool. An old grizzly was sitting there, the type of guy that has stories; I was in the mood for stories. Worst case, he says he doesn’t want to talk, I buy him a pint.
‘Mind if I sit?’ An unintelligible grunt comes over the rim of his pint glass, I take it for assent.
‘I’m Will. That’s my buddy James over there hiding behind the jute box. I was wondering if I could buy you a drink?’ Another grunt, I nod over to John at the bar, he’s a friend of mine. John slides a pint glass over, it’s filled with a dark beer that seems to match what the old man is drinking.
‘You look the type comfortable in dive bars like this, never seen you before though.’ His eyes were blood shot and rheumy, but he looked up.
‘Like to move around.’ It was clear he was deep into his cups at this point. I started to worry I might have become the next mark of a serial killer.
‘Never boring.’ I was committed now, had to make conversation. James saw the looks I was given and aborted, he sidled back to our table.
‘Its terrible, not being able to die.’ He said it like we were mid conversation, I think he was talking to himself and then plopped me into the middle of it when I presented myself.
‘Not being able to die, eh?’ My eyes pleaded with James.
‘I can’t. A thousand years.’ At this point, I sat. He was a nutter, which was way preferable to him being a serial killer or just a regular drunk. I was hoping for a war story or some sagely advice when I strolled up the seat; but a genuine crazy person would be just as entertaining. I gave a smug look to James and turned back to the old man.
‘A thousand years? Did you meet Charlemagne?’
‘No, fought in one of his damned crusades, though.’ He huffed into his glass. It was just so nonchalant, his mannerisms; it really was like he was talking about going to Afghanistan. I wondered if he did, and that’s what broke him.
‘Well, the bright side is compounded interest?’ Again he huffed. He looked at me through glazed eyes.
‘I can’t forget. Never works.’
‘Can’t forget, what?’ I immediately regretted that question. You ask an old drunk man what he can’t forget and you’re going to get some imagery you won’t be able to wash away with bleach in your eyes.
‘I can’t tell you.’ Phew.
‘It’s like this…’ Yes. He’s a philosopher.
‘Imagine there’s a game.’
‘Okay.’
‘And the game is that you need to forget about the game.’
‘The game is forgetting about the game?’ Nutter, James is missing out.
‘Aye. You forget about the game, you win. Every time you remember the game, you lose. You have to start over forgetting about the game.’
‘Okay, and what do you win if you forget?’
‘You die.’
‘I’d rather get on the Price is Right.’ He actually chuckled.
‘After a thousand years, it’s the only prize that matters.’
‘I guess I buy that.’
‘I gotta go, John. Put these boys drinks on my tab for the rest of the night.’ The old man waddled out of his chair.
‘I think I was supposed to buy you a drink.’ I was objecting, but only so far as was polite, of course I’d take a free night on the town.
‘Don’t worry about it, it’s the wonder of compounded interest.’ The man walked towards the door. I moved back over to James, to gloat about how I’d just gotten us a free night out.
I sat down and looked James straight in the eye, “Let me tell you about, ‘The Game.’’” | 2018-02-08T10:35:27 | 2018-02-08T09:08:44 | 17 | 10 |
[WP] You are born with two names tatooed on you body somewhere, one of your soulmate and one of the people that will eventually kill you. There is no way to tell who is who. | My sweater scratched at my skin as I began to pull it back, I can't believe I'm doing this.
My mom told me I should be careful who I show my given names to, who I trust is telling the truth about theirs. But her- she was perfect, her smile when I would glance over, her hair that blew in the wind on a warm summer day, like this one. I was intoxicated by her, nothing could save me from this drug.
I stared into her her eyes and began searching her face, she was scared too, I could see it in her eyes. I closed mine and we began to count down from three. 3, 2- shit, I forgot if we agreed pull up our sleeves on 1 or 0.. -either way we both began to pull up our sleeves, slowly but surely.
I... I was on her arm, it was amazing, relief began to sweep over me, that is until I felt my love turn to lothing as she told me her real name.
Ember, not Amber.
Fuck. | My story starts when I was a kid before the cellphone era. I was maybe 16 years old, when I had my first love with Ester , she was the most beautiful girl you could have laid eyes on.
Blue eyes with blonde hair like a sunshine, with a smile that would melt everyone's heart, when she laughed everybody stops and just stared at her beauty.
Even if I had this angel with me, I was sad, because her name wasn't on my body. I had Rachel and tiffany tattooed on my body. Even if I tried as hard as I could, I knew deep down that she wasn't for me.
Fast forward 20 years, I moved, lost contact with Ester, found the love of my life and her name was Rachel.
Maybe I went too fast with this, but my name was tattooed on her. If you make the simple connection, we were meant to be together. Every problem should have been a piece of cake, we were the best in best.
As time passed, I found myself thinking about the other name. Who is this tiffany? When will I die? How will I die?
Those taughts haunted me but I tried to put them at ease, there were a lot of variables I didn't knew. No point of thinking about this for too long, and ohh boy was I wrong, because one week later, everything changed. I died.
That fateful day started like every other day: had my morning coffee with my soon to be wife, took a shower and went to work. We had new people in the hospital, and I needed to take care of them.
I received the list with all the new people, I scanned it and one name just popped in my face. Tiffany Hayo. I freaked, I started shivering. Was she my killer? Is this the day I die? I went straight to my boss and told him I had an emergency at home.
When I got home I caught the love of my life with someone else in the bed, I couldn't comprehend. Why? How? But we were soulmates...
I couldn't stand the thought of her being with someone so I went in my car and started driving as fast as I could... next thing I know I am in the hospital in the icu.
- doctor we are losing him.
I know this voice, as I look around the room I see the most beautiful girl but as I look at her name tag, tiffany hayo.
-I know you, you are Es...
Edit: formatting, also this is my first time writing and english is not my first language so any constructive feedback is well received. | 2018-03-11T07:35:29 | 2018-03-11T07:31:32 | 1,948 | 474 |
[WP] You are born with two names tatooed on you body somewhere, one of your soulmate and one of the people that will eventually kill you. There is no way to tell who is who. | I did not know why my parents named me, "smudge," but when I was only 14, I discovered I was not adopted.
Both of my parents are white. But I am black. Tattoo ink black. At least, that is what it looks like from a distance. Freshman year in High School, I was bored and took a look at my hand under a disection microscope in Advanced Placement-Biology. That was the day my whole perspective changed.
You see, while all my friends had one, two, or even three or four names tattooed at birth, apparently I had millions of names microdotted all over my body, with only slight slivers of Caucasian between.
I was shocked as I read a group of names all starting with "I" on my left hand, and starting with "J" on my right... Alphabetical, as far as I can tell...
I begged my parents for an exam, and they eventually caved.
4.5 million different names.
4.5 million!
What the hell is that suppose to mean? | My story starts when I was a kid before the cellphone era. I was maybe 16 years old, when I had my first love with Ester , she was the most beautiful girl you could have laid eyes on.
Blue eyes with blonde hair like a sunshine, with a smile that would melt everyone's heart, when she laughed everybody stops and just stared at her beauty.
Even if I had this angel with me, I was sad, because her name wasn't on my body. I had Rachel and tiffany tattooed on my body. Even if I tried as hard as I could, I knew deep down that she wasn't for me.
Fast forward 20 years, I moved, lost contact with Ester, found the love of my life and her name was Rachel.
Maybe I went too fast with this, but my name was tattooed on her. If you make the simple connection, we were meant to be together. Every problem should have been a piece of cake, we were the best in best.
As time passed, I found myself thinking about the other name. Who is this tiffany? When will I die? How will I die?
Those taughts haunted me but I tried to put them at ease, there were a lot of variables I didn't knew. No point of thinking about this for too long, and ohh boy was I wrong, because one week later, everything changed. I died.
That fateful day started like every other day: had my morning coffee with my soon to be wife, took a shower and went to work. We had new people in the hospital, and I needed to take care of them.
I received the list with all the new people, I scanned it and one name just popped in my face. Tiffany Hayo. I freaked, I started shivering. Was she my killer? Is this the day I die? I went straight to my boss and told him I had an emergency at home.
When I got home I caught the love of my life with someone else in the bed, I couldn't comprehend. Why? How? But we were soulmates...
I couldn't stand the thought of her being with someone so I went in my car and started driving as fast as I could... next thing I know I am in the hospital in the icu.
- doctor we are losing him.
I know this voice, as I look around the room I see the most beautiful girl but as I look at her name tag, tiffany hayo.
-I know you, you are Es...
Edit: formatting, also this is my first time writing and english is not my first language so any constructive feedback is well received. | 2018-03-11T08:30:03 | 2018-03-11T07:31:32 | 636 | 474 |
[WP] You are born with two names tatooed on you body somewhere, one of your soulmate and one of the people that will eventually kill you. There is no way to tell who is who. | I did not know why my parents named me, "smudge," but when I was only 14, I discovered I was not adopted.
Both of my parents are white. But I am black. Tattoo ink black. At least, that is what it looks like from a distance. Freshman year in High School, I was bored and took a look at my hand under a disection microscope in Advanced Placement-Biology. That was the day my whole perspective changed.
You see, while all my friends had one, two, or even three or four names tattooed at birth, apparently I had millions of names microdotted all over my body, with only slight slivers of Caucasian between.
I was shocked as I read a group of names all starting with "I" on my left hand, and starting with "J" on my right... Alphabetical, as far as I can tell...
I begged my parents for an exam, and they eventually caved.
4.5 million different names.
4.5 million!
What the hell is that suppose to mean? | The names were always generic. That's how the craze started to give kids weird names. It was a lot easier to find an Appel or Zucchini or Brickhaus. The names on me were Jangela and Jongela. It was nice when the name was the same. It meant that you could choose your death. That the final act was not one of vengeance or anger but love. That's what my parents had told me. I didn't believe them then, but I wanted to. No one's included cancer or heart attack. Humanity was past all that, and we were essentially immortal unless or, well, until someone killed us. These people were called enders and few escaped from committing the task at least once in their lifetime.
The tattoos were imprinted by AI that could see into our futures. It was never wrong. Not one case in all of history. So, we took our responsibility as lovers and enders seriously. We had to.
When I met Jangela, I knew right away that she was my soulmate. We didn't use the fancy matching algorithm. It was natural, the special kind of match that people dream of. She was pretty with mocha skin, flowing black hair, and warm brown eyes. Her kiss melted me. We were only teens when we met, but our love lasted. Yet, every time I asked to see her tattoos, I was always met with hesitance. I knew my name was on her body, but I couldn't see the other name. I feared that the name was the same as mine.
When we had first allowed child, one name popped up time and again. I stared at it in horror. People said that it was a honor for your child to be your ender. This was not my stance on the matter. I had the honor for my parents. It never felt, even now, like an act of love. But, maybe this time, it would be different. That other name was the name that had been chosen for our daughter, a combination of our names: Jonsteadfast and Jangela. Finally, on the day of our daugther's birth, Jangie showed me the other name on her shoulder.
You can't stop destiny so many had said. This was how it was going to be, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I wanted to change our future, but, when that perfect bundle of joy came into this world, I accepted my fate. We would have time together, centuries probably. She would understand one day, our little Jongela.
***
If you enjoyed this, please subscribe to r/nickkuvaas for more of my stories. | 2018-03-11T08:30:03 | 2018-03-11T07:36:53 | 636 | 118 |
[WP] You are born with two names tatooed on you body somewhere, one of your soulmate and one of the people that will eventually kill you. There is no way to tell who is who. | We were fortunate that both of these names were on his back instead of a body part he could see. When we bathed him, we made sure he never saw them. When he was old enough to shower and change himself, however, we had to spill the beans. "You are not to look at these names," we told him. I'm proud of our son, he understood the ramifications of seeing the names, even at such a young age. Life has been pretty smooth from that point, friends matching the names have come and gone, but we seldom get worried about it anymore. He's in high school now, his life no different from his peers. He has a very sweet girlfriend, and he keeps saying she must be one of the names on his back. We say nothing, but smile back, reassured that he hasn't seen the tattoos yet.
Edit: Added a phrase to clear up that the parents are NOT supposed to be the names on the back. Also this story is in a universe where only he has the names. | The names were always generic. That's how the craze started to give kids weird names. It was a lot easier to find an Appel or Zucchini or Brickhaus. The names on me were Jangela and Jongela. It was nice when the name was the same. It meant that you could choose your death. That the final act was not one of vengeance or anger but love. That's what my parents had told me. I didn't believe them then, but I wanted to. No one's included cancer or heart attack. Humanity was past all that, and we were essentially immortal unless or, well, until someone killed us. These people were called enders and few escaped from committing the task at least once in their lifetime.
The tattoos were imprinted by AI that could see into our futures. It was never wrong. Not one case in all of history. So, we took our responsibility as lovers and enders seriously. We had to.
When I met Jangela, I knew right away that she was my soulmate. We didn't use the fancy matching algorithm. It was natural, the special kind of match that people dream of. She was pretty with mocha skin, flowing black hair, and warm brown eyes. Her kiss melted me. We were only teens when we met, but our love lasted. Yet, every time I asked to see her tattoos, I was always met with hesitance. I knew my name was on her body, but I couldn't see the other name. I feared that the name was the same as mine.
When we had first allowed child, one name popped up time and again. I stared at it in horror. People said that it was a honor for your child to be your ender. This was not my stance on the matter. I had the honor for my parents. It never felt, even now, like an act of love. But, maybe this time, it would be different. That other name was the name that had been chosen for our daughter, a combination of our names: Jonsteadfast and Jangela. Finally, on the day of our daugther's birth, Jangie showed me the other name on her shoulder.
You can't stop destiny so many had said. This was how it was going to be, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I wanted to change our future, but, when that perfect bundle of joy came into this world, I accepted my fate. We would have time together, centuries probably. She would understand one day, our little Jongela.
***
If you enjoyed this, please subscribe to r/nickkuvaas for more of my stories. | 2018-03-11T07:37:56 | 2018-03-11T07:36:53 | 331 | 118 |
[WP] You are born with two names tatooed on you body somewhere, one of your soulmate and one of the people that will eventually kill you. There is no way to tell who is who. | Elli was born without the names. Some people thought that she was blessed. She was not faced with knowing the name of the person who would kill her. Others believed it was a curse, some kind of disability. She had to admit that not having the names made her wonder if there *was* something wrong with her. Everyone has the names. So what does that mean about her? Will she never really be loved? Will she eventually become so lonely she'll just... kill *herself*?
That was what she believed until she met Brian. He was beautiful, smart, funny, and *he had her name*. He knew about her predicament, and didn't care. He loved her, even if it meant she'd never really be his.
Two years after dating, she accepted his marriage proposal. Their parents disagreed because of her "disfigurement", but it didn't matter. They were in absolute bliss. Through all the doubt, all the worry, she knew this was meant to be.
That was until two months before the wedding, when her mother burst into her home while Brian was away.
"You can't marry him!" Her mother yelled.
"We've talked about this, mom. He doesn't care that I don't have the names. We love each other!" Elli explained.
"I know he doesn't care, but you just can't marry him Elli! You can't! It's not meant to be!" She insisted.
"Then tell me why. Why can't you just let us be happy?"
Her mother sighed and sat down at their dining room table. It seemed as if she was struggling to find the words. "Your father and I... We were tortured by the names. We were happy that it allowed us to find each other but knowing the names of our killers... It tortured us, Elli. We wanted things to be different for you."
"What are you saying, mom?" She asked, panicked.
Her mother paused, looking at the floor.
"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?" Elli demanded.
"We had them removed, Elli. People aren't supposed to know these things. We wanted life to be better for you."
Elli's mind went blank. She wasn't a freak. She wasn't disfigured. Her parents did this to her. Elli looked up, finally understanding what her mother was saying. "Did I have his name? Please tell me. Please tell me I had Brian's name." Elli begged.
Her mother stared at her for a long time before finally shaking her head. "I'm sorry honey."
Elli started crying, her mind racing. The one person she loved most in the world was not her soulmate. She'd already built a life with him, loved him, made promises, shared secrets, planned their perfect wedding and imagined their perfect home, they'd even picked out names for their future children.
Names...
That's when she realized. She didn't have his name... but he still had hers.
| The Captain filled a small container with what had to be bourbon, carefully sealing the spout to prevent any of the liquid from floating away. As I dogged the hatch behind me, I saw that he already had his drink in hand.
First day aboard a starship, and I'm drinking with the boss? Not a bad start.
Captain Leonov sent my drink floating through the air. I caught it without thinking, using my other hand to hold onto the wall of his quarters. I had never been drunk in 0 g, and this small container wasn't going to do the job either.
"You handled spacedock well, Commander," He said. "I was told that this was your first deep space assignment, but from your conduct, I could not tell."
"I've been on the Titan run for the last year, and Luna before that." I shrugged, the tiny movement a third of what it would have been dirtside. More than that and I'd float off. "Spacedock is just a bigger port, when you get down to it."
"Perhaps," the Captain replied. Now that I had a chance to listen, I could tell that something was on his mind. The old man was worried.
I floated closer to him, approaching the cupola-style window of his quarters. "What's on your mind, sir?"
He looked at me, with a tinge of sadness in his eyes. "How did Natalya handle the launch?"
My wife had been angry, truth be told. We were shipping out sooner than planned, and going to parts unknown for who knows how long. She wanted stability for our sons, and the run to Jupiter space had afforded that - one month on, one off. Yesterday had been the angriest I had seen her since before we revealed our names, hers on my shoulder and mine on her ankle.
The relief on her face when she knew that she was mine, and I hers - we had made love that night, for the first time. I think we started Anatoliy that night, honestly.
"She was fine," I lied. "She is a spacer's wife, sir."
The Captain nodded, saying nothing. He took a pull from his drink.
"Sir, what's on your mind?"
The Captain looked at me, and that sadness was there still. He grabbed a folder from the wall, Velcro breaking the quiet with a stiff ripping sound. Tipping it to me, he sent it on a slow trajectory across the room. Plucking it from the air, I unzipped the folder and looked a the contents. A bright red EYES ONLY across the top gave me pause. Below that, I saw the table of contents - and noted that the package included first contact protocols.
My heart stilled as I got to page two.
"72 days ago, we received this transmission. It's from an object in the belt. I don't know the details, of course, but I guess the big brains figured out that it was base 8. And that let them figure out that it was a series of pixels, and that those made images." The Captain nodded toward the folder. "You're holding some of those images in your hand. The first confirmed signal from a non terrestrial intelligence. Our mission is to go to that point in space and see who sent this."
I looked again, to be certain. The image I saw, the one that changed everything, was a star chart. Ours was marked, as well as several others. Eridani, Centauri, so on. The markings were utterly alien - and immediately familiar. I looked at the Captain.
He rolled up his sleeve. The Naval tattoo he had on his forearm took new meaning. On the hull of the small spacecraft, a series of dots and swirls was apparent. You might miss the alien script, if you didn't know to look for it.
"No one knew what it meant," he began. "So I covered it up, as soon as I could. Command knows, of course - your names are always recorded. But I figured mine was a placeholder, that I would die somehow with no one to blame." A sad chuckle came from the man. "How could we know?"
Wordlessly, I unzipped my uniform. Pulling the tunic open, I saw the captain's eyes grow wide as he saw. For on my collarbone was the same set of dots and swirls. The same alien script.
The Captain nodded. "Everyone on board has the same. 72 men, 14 women."
I nodded, absently. Then I emptied my drink. | 2018-03-11T09:04:19 | 2018-03-11T08:45:50 | 270 | 120 |
[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!! | Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned their heads up to the sky. Had they heard correctly, God was leaving and left some man named Bob in charge? People in the cities looked out their windows, and stepped out of their cars looking upward for more answers. Meanwhile, in the Vatican, Pope Francis and his cardinals were discussing what implications this news might mean. Elsewhere still, the Grand Seer of the Church of the Apocalyptic Holy Trinity, looked upon his flock and reasoned, now would be a good as any time to bring out the Kool-aid.
As the people of the world waited for news from this Bob, many began to fear and question all of reality. As Joshua McCabe picked up a brick in rage, as Nikolai Kaparov was stepping off the ledge of his building in fear, and as Pablo Gutierrez reached for the bottle of booze that would drown him, a gentle caring voice boomed from the heavens.
"Hello I'm Bob Ross. I'm grateful to be welcomed into all your lives. This is a first for me, but I want to thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to be God's replacement. I never imagined this would happen, but there are no mistakes, just happy accidents."
And thus the world was good, and calmed. The sky turned a brilliant shade of Phallo Blue with clouds of Titanium White. | **Bob Gets a Job**
"So...uh Bob. Nice to meet you." A random voice from the 7 Billion people in attendance stated, ending the silence since God's departure. "So, how'd you get this job?" The voice continued. Considering bob was middle aged, pudgy, unshaven and simply *looked* unemployed, the voice gave substance to the question all 7-billion people had been wondering.
Bob, resembling a 7-11 clerk more than an all-seeing, all-knowing deity, thought about the question for a couple seconds before a slightly nasally voice responded: "My mom got it for me. She's been bugging me about getting a job for a few years now. She heard about this opening last week, and had some kind of vision for me to show up at this place at this time. Heh heh." He added a bit of a chuckle at the end to try to break through the tension of the audience.
A new voice broke out of the audience and asked: "And you couldn't have changed your shirt?" Suddenly everyone's awareness was brought to the fact that Bob was wearing a cheeto-covered wife-beater, exposing his chest hair.
"Yeah, I meant to do that. It's just that I was busy for the past few days and I had no clean clothes." No voices dared to probe further, but all 7 billion people began to look around at each other, searching for answers.
Soon, a symphony of prayers began ringing out from the audience, catching Bob off guard:
"Please let me get into college!"
"Please let Britney be my girlfriend!"
"Please help me to pass my class."
The prayers began growing in volume and intensity as all 7 billion voices began clamoring for Bob's attention.
"Whoa whoa whoa!" he responded to the multitude. "One at a time!" and with that announcement, a new and more intense volley of voices immediately surrounded Bob.
"Okay, Shirley wants a new Mercedes. I can make that happen." and suddenly a new Mercedes appeared in the driveway of a woman by the name of Shirley in Detroit, Michigan. Everyone, noticing the swiftness that Bob now answered prayers began voicing their own concerns *even louder.*
After performing a few more miracles (and about 15 minutes after he started) Bob began to lose interest in his new found career. Bob had access to God's powers, but also found entrance into God's man-cave, which is well equipped with pool-tables, Televisions, and a nice La-Z-Boy recliner. "Time for a break!" Bob thought in his head, but suddenly became aware that all 7-billion of his followers heard it, and they watched him settle into a La-Z-Boy and began eating Cheetos. An audible gasp was heard among all 7-Billion people as Bob sat in the La-Z-Boy and wiped his cheeto-fingers on his wife beater, only deepening the staining of his shirt. | 2018-03-12T17:05:40 | 2018-03-12T15:50:13 | 3,717 | 314 |
[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!! | Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned their heads up to the sky. Had they heard correctly, God was leaving and left some man named Bob in charge? People in the cities looked out their windows, and stepped out of their cars looking upward for more answers. Meanwhile, in the Vatican, Pope Francis and his cardinals were discussing what implications this news might mean. Elsewhere still, the Grand Seer of the Church of the Apocalyptic Holy Trinity, looked upon his flock and reasoned, now would be a good as any time to bring out the Kool-aid.
As the people of the world waited for news from this Bob, many began to fear and question all of reality. As Joshua McCabe picked up a brick in rage, as Nikolai Kaparov was stepping off the ledge of his building in fear, and as Pablo Gutierrez reached for the bottle of booze that would drown him, a gentle caring voice boomed from the heavens.
"Hello I'm Bob Ross. I'm grateful to be welcomed into all your lives. This is a first for me, but I want to thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to be God's replacement. I never imagined this would happen, but there are no mistakes, just happy accidents."
And thus the world was good, and calmed. The sky turned a brilliant shade of Phallo Blue with clouds of Titanium White. | "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". | 2018-03-12T17:05:40 | 2018-03-12T16:25:27 | 3,717 | 89 |
[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!! | "And so as I was saying you have to keep the water warm or the eggs won't hatch."
"Got it. So I'm just supposed to keep swinging it around for the next 7 billion years?"
"Yes well, Gravity does most of the work; you just have to make sure the sun stays on. Also, just my advice, but throw a meteor or two every once in a while- keeps things interesting."
"And what about the sky?"
"Already vaulted."
"And the seas?"
"Already parted."
"Well sounds like everything's already in order. Truth be told I'm a little apprehensive to be taking over for you God. I'm not sure I'm creator material."
"Well don't be, the place practically runs itself. Plus if things get real hairy you can flood the fucker and start over."
"I wouldn't want to do that."
"Not saying you have to, just that you can. Winging it is an important part of being God. Anyways I should really get going if I wanna make my flight."
"Oh sure, and again, congratulations on your promotion."
"Thanks Bob."
"Mind if I ask you one last question?"
"Sure thing kiddo, but keep it quick."
"Can I bring the dinosaurs back?"
"You lovable scamp you... what the hell, special occasion."
"Oh and one more thing."
"Yes of course Bob."
"The humans. What do they do?"
"They get malaria." | **Bob Gets a Job**
"So...uh Bob. Nice to meet you." A random voice from the 7 Billion people in attendance stated, ending the silence since God's departure. "So, how'd you get this job?" The voice continued. Considering bob was middle aged, pudgy, unshaven and simply *looked* unemployed, the voice gave substance to the question all 7-billion people had been wondering.
Bob, resembling a 7-11 clerk more than an all-seeing, all-knowing deity, thought about the question for a couple seconds before a slightly nasally voice responded: "My mom got it for me. She's been bugging me about getting a job for a few years now. She heard about this opening last week, and had some kind of vision for me to show up at this place at this time. Heh heh." He added a bit of a chuckle at the end to try to break through the tension of the audience.
A new voice broke out of the audience and asked: "And you couldn't have changed your shirt?" Suddenly everyone's awareness was brought to the fact that Bob was wearing a cheeto-covered wife-beater, exposing his chest hair.
"Yeah, I meant to do that. It's just that I was busy for the past few days and I had no clean clothes." No voices dared to probe further, but all 7 billion people began to look around at each other, searching for answers.
Soon, a symphony of prayers began ringing out from the audience, catching Bob off guard:
"Please let me get into college!"
"Please let Britney be my girlfriend!"
"Please help me to pass my class."
The prayers began growing in volume and intensity as all 7 billion voices began clamoring for Bob's attention.
"Whoa whoa whoa!" he responded to the multitude. "One at a time!" and with that announcement, a new and more intense volley of voices immediately surrounded Bob.
"Okay, Shirley wants a new Mercedes. I can make that happen." and suddenly a new Mercedes appeared in the driveway of a woman by the name of Shirley in Detroit, Michigan. Everyone, noticing the swiftness that Bob now answered prayers began voicing their own concerns *even louder.*
After performing a few more miracles (and about 15 minutes after he started) Bob began to lose interest in his new found career. Bob had access to God's powers, but also found entrance into God's man-cave, which is well equipped with pool-tables, Televisions, and a nice La-Z-Boy recliner. "Time for a break!" Bob thought in his head, but suddenly became aware that all 7-billion of his followers heard it, and they watched him settle into a La-Z-Boy and began eating Cheetos. An audible gasp was heard among all 7-Billion people as Bob sat in the La-Z-Boy and wiped his cheeto-fingers on his wife beater, only deepening the staining of his shirt. | 2018-03-12T16:53:52 | 2018-03-12T15:50:13 | 882 | 314 |
[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!! | "Hey everyone" said the new voice nervously.
The whole world was shaken up by the recent events. Everyone in the world heard God's voice in their own language, confirming his existence and departure. Quickly all world leaders started picking up their phones, preparing their press conference to calm down their countries.
As human society was deciding their next step , Bob went over the to do list left behind by the previous god:
* Remind Earth that you exist ( Coordinates 11.90.45)
* Destroy Ximena ( Coordinates 4.5.44.33)
* Check on the Berrchans, mainly their use Eranium (Coordinates 3.2.55)
* Oversee the creation of a new star system (Coordinates 4.67.99)
And that was just for today.
"Um, God, or should I say Bob, are you listening?" Said a UN representative
"Yeah what's up, or should I say yes my son? Sorry not used to this new gig."
" We as an united planet, have decided to declare war on you, please surrender and meet our demands, we would like to avoid any casualties on both sides"
"Um , excuse me?"
"We have unite-"
" I've heard you, you do realized I'm your god now right? You know, omnipotent and whatnot? Why would you even go to war against me? What the hell do you guys even want?"
" Well.... first we would want more habitable planets, in order to ensure our survival as a species, secondly we would like you to confirm which religion was right, thirdly we need you to answer a minimum amount of prayers per day, the amount would be disclosed later, four-
" Oh come fucking on, and you guys wonder why the old man has been quiet for so long? All you guys do is declare war for the sake of your little religions, conquer land and ask for handouts!"
The UN was silent, all the representatives looked at each other, maybe with shame and reflection of what their society has become. Suddenly they started to talk again. Bob, seeing this decided to not dig into their minds, tune out to what they were saying. Hoping to, maybe be positively surprised by them. God told him before how humans were, told them how he saw light in them and was fond of their civilizations for millenniums. Then, as UN representative stood up again, preparing himself to talk with the new creator once more
" Bob?"
"Yes?" said Bob, with a slight smile on his face, knowing that his words have reached the hearts of the Milky Way's darlings
" We would like to add more demands, if you do not submit to these we will prepare our selves for a full out war"
"Fuck" | Arthur Dent just stood there dumbfounded at his luck. After a life crammed full of astounding boredom he had been whisked away to an inexplicable last few years of improbable amounts of unwelcome adventure. Now Arthur was on his home planet trying ever so hard to drink his way back to a simple and splendid state of stupor. He eyed suspiciously the 2 gallon flower pot in his left hand, still dripping the last of the gin and tonic he had mixed in it minutes earlier. He was then surprised by the clump of purple and pink flowers still clutched in his right, and he considered that this was the possible reason he heard booming voices above. But the realist in Arthur, slowly rising again from where it had been relegated to silence on the messy floor of his consciousness, considered the possibility that the whole reason he had chosen the flower pot to use to mix his drink is that it was the only vessel in his house large enough to ensure he would forget his memories of booming voices, of galaxies far away, and other such sillyness. It hadn't worked. Perhaps he needed to mix another batch. But without any more gin, arthur moved to his dining room table to think deeply about his current situation.
Arthur remembered hearing Trillian mumble something about his old friend Zaphod Beeblebrox. Well, not so much a friend as an arrogant bottle of high octane pomp who somehow managed to rule the whole of the improbable universe and entangle Arthur in his sticky web of spider entrails and overpriced appetizers. But arthur had no word to easily and accurately describe this kind of relationship, so he referred to Zaphod as his friend. Trillian had mentioned offhanded that Zaphod, in his ever stumbling wisdom, had enraged the fires of the most powerful suns in the galaxy and had faked his death to escape their wrath. Afterall, any man who at any moment consisted of least 5% alcohol, by weight of course, should be wary of vindictive star creatures. Arthur couldnt remember what Zaphod had done, or why he had done it, but Arthur remembered that he wasn't at all surprised that he had in fact done whatever it was. And that it seemed like a perfectly obvious and expectable thing for a narcisistic pseudo genius like Zaphod to have done.
This train of thought lade Arthurs mind spin and he bent over to vomit in the empty pot still in his left hand. He leaned to his side, the wrong side, and instead vomited all over the now not so stunning pink and purple flowers in his other hand.
Arthur then remembered something from Trillian's ramblings about this absolutely absurd story. Something that might, if focussed properly, shed some light on this current moment in time. Perhaps it would explain something about this voice he couldn'd drink away as easily as he had hoped. Trinity told Arthur that in his effort to avoid the sun beings Zaphod had changed his name to something boring and simple. In Zaphod's mind, or minds, it's hard to know, choosing a boring simple name would be the best possible way to throw off someone or something hunting for him. For Zaphod knew that everyone knows he believes he is the smartest, hippest, most important being in the universe, and that would make him believe he deserves a name to reflect such a belief. As such, Zaphod would obviously choose a name unequalled in style and dignity like Evalroop Windamook or Stan. So Zaphod chose a simple name. One so dumb and uncultured and plain that he could hide in the flocks of two headed alcoholic trillionaires floating around the universe. Zaphod chose the name Bob.
And as it dawned on him, Arthur felt a strange sense of familiar dread wash over him. He stumbled up from his table, dropped his bucket, poured some water in his flowers and had a sip to try to sober up a little. He hadn't the energy for this again. Perhaps he should just lie down and wait for the universe to end. At least he would have a good meal waiting for him in that case.
At that moment Arthur heard a knock at the door.
"Mr Dent! Open the door! You can't avoid the highway department forever. Progress won't stop for anyone. You've had plenty of time to prepare. This highway must be completed..."
| 2018-03-12T17:28:46 | 2018-03-12T17:16:06 | 23 | 16 |
[WP] "This is an Emergency Alert. Barricade all entries to your house. Do not go outside after sundown. Restrict contact with others. Do not enter tunnels during daytime. Do not make any light or noise between 6PM and 8AM. Stay inside your homes until dawn. Military aid is unavailable. Good luck." | Jack checked the lock on the front door for the third time. Yes. Still locked. Okay. Good.
And the bolt above it, too, for good measure.
He made his way to the living room, trying not to trip over any furniture. The room totally, completely, pitch black except of course for the glow of Netflix on his laptop, and its reflection in the glasses of the girl sitting on his sofa.
"Everything okay? Tout va bien?", she asked, in her quaintly accented French. She was not from around here, and still had a lot to get used to.
He nodded.
"We should be fine until the dust settles", and, after noticing her quizzical look. "Ouais, on ira bien".
She softened her posture in relief.
They huddled in, and Jack put the L part of the earphones into his left ear, just as she did with the R, and they settled in to watch the latest episode of black mirror.
It wasn't long until the screams began.
At first, the hollering had seemed to be coming from inside the show. It was a rock concert scene. But then there was a clanging of metal.
Wild sounds. Tribal. Like you would imagine at some sort of savage sacrificial rite.
She looked at him with fear. He had no idea how to explain this to her. That the Maple Leafs had won, beating the Montreal Canadiens for the Stanley Cup for the first time in decades. That the streets of Toronto would be reduced to rubble by the morning due to celebration and hooliganism alike.
That the only way to survive the night would be to hide, and hope things would be better in the morning.
He gave her a kiss on the forehead, and silently prayed for tomorrow to come quickly. | "Why?" I had asked as the teacher finished reciting the Curfew.
Everyone in the room had turned to look at me as if I had gone insane. It only took a moment before I realized the mistake that I had made. In this town no one ever asked *why*. I knew about Curfew ever since I learned to speak. It was ingrained into my everyday-life, but for some strange reason no one ever talked about it.
Until today.
"Why do we have to stay inside after nightfall?" I asked again.
There was only silence. No one spoke.
"Irene. You are dismissed from class."
So I was sent home early. I wasn't too bothered about going home early as much as my question being left unanswered.
What could I say? I was a curious girl, and mysteries were sort of my thing. And so, without realizing, I had already decided despite myself that I would solve this mystery if it was the last thing I did.
It wasn't until later that night that I regretted my decision.
As I crawled underneath my dad's pick-up truck, scraping my chin against the cement I began to realize how foolish I was.
I was trapped outside my house in a world of darkness and cold for more than twelve hours with only silence as my companion. Yes, I was afraid. Not of the darkness, but of the cold. Every building, house or shelter was barricaded. There was no going back in. I was sure that even if I screamed and pounded on the door of my house, no one would respond. No one would open the door for me.
As I twisted over onto my back, I began rubbing my hands together, keeping them warm. The night was as I expected. A blanket of pitch-black darkness. There was nothing, no light, just darkness. Everything was as I had read in the books and yet I couldn't shake the feeling that something was *very* wrong.
Indeed, at that moment I wanted nothing more than to return to the safety of my bedroom but that was impossible.
No one broke Curfew. Well, as far as I knew anyway.
For what felt like hours, I laid underneath the truck with my hands tucked beneath my behind for warmth. It could have been minutes or even seconds. I couldn't tell. Nothing moved. The world was still.
It seemed as if time would stretch on endlessly.
I grew restless as I waited for the sun to rise. Eventually I grew tired of waiting. I crawled out from underneath the truck and stood up.
Then I saw it.
The night sky - the blanket of pitch-black darkness - was littered by specks of tiny lights and in the corner of the sky was a giant faintly glowing orb.
It was strange, foreign and... marvelous. I was breathless as I gazed at the ocean of lights that had enveloped the night sky. It was mesmerizing, heart-breaking to watch. Feelings of yearning arose in me as I stretched my open hand into the night sky, as if I could reach the lights.
Suddenly a voice speaks, breaking me from my trance. I turned to see a girl starring down at me from my bedroom window which should have been barricaded shut. Her lips began mouthing words again.
"-the fuck are you doing?"
-------
**[Part 2 here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Em_pathy/comments/8d8ll7/irene109_part_2/)**
/r/em_pathy
| 2018-04-18T10:01:55 | 2018-04-18T09:49:31 | 179 | 54 |
[WP] "This is an Emergency Alert. Barricade all entries to your house. Do not go outside after sundown. Restrict contact with others. Do not enter tunnels during daytime. Do not make any light or noise between 6PM and 8AM. Stay inside your homes until dawn. Military aid is unavailable. Good luck." | (I hope this is good enough).
You can usually tell when I'm in the area if a peculiar smell wafts into the room during curfew. It smells of cooked steak or chicken, and while under normal circumstances it would seem like a delicacy, to them it's a smell of death. They know all about me, and yet they know nothing about me. They make me out to be a bloodthirsty monster.
...they're technically right, but just because I'm PHYSICALLY a bloodthirsty monster, that doesn't mean I'm not a nice guy. In fact, if you hear a pitter patter outside of your home, I'm probably just helping your pet inside. Or I might be having a snack on a squirrel or a bird. It's a shame, but them's the breaks.
In fact, if you do smell my aroma in the area, it's a sign that I'm not out looking for food, and you shouldn't be afraid to come out. Not that you should anyway, since I dislike eating humans. Human blood is too salty, and I've only ever eaten from a few dozen in self defense. No, after I've had my dinner I look around for petty criminals that take advantage of my curfew to loot the innocent of their livelihoods. Best case scenario I scare them silly and leave them for the authorities. Worst case scenario if I'm attacked, it's suppertime. When the morning sun arrives, I have an hour to vanish back to a warehouse to rest until nightfall comes again.
With all that said, I do not think you should fear me, but with the power I possess you have every right to. But if you do find me in your home, do not be afraid. Strike up a friendly conversation. Talk to me. I will listen. Just...don't offer me a glass of holy water.
My name is Jack. The Vampire of Folsom Avenue. | I was resting in my house on a warm Saturday evening when the EAS broadcast began.
*BRRRP. BRRRP. BRRRP. Baaaaa*
"The United States Army has released an official statement. This applies to the entire country. Please, do not turn off your televisions."
I leaned forward in concern, for this was certainly no automated weather service alert.
"Due to an unexpected and unforseeable set of circumstances, all United States citizens must adhere to the following instructions."
I quickly put my memory cap on and attempted to both write down fast-paced versions of what the alert stated.
"Gather a set of supplies in a non-windowed room. Collect any and all firearms you may have in your homes, and place them with the supplies. Barricade all entries to your house. Do not exit the safety of your homes after sundown. Remain inside your homes at all costs between 6:00 P.M. local time and 8:00 A.M. local time. Do not create any noise or light between these times. Restrict or even limit contact between other civilians. Do not enter tunnels during the daytime. These rules shall be adhered to by any and all U.S. citizens. In addition, you must carry a passport or other form of ferderal identification with you at all times. There will be an all-clear message given out via radio and satellite television. Until this time, military aid is unavailable. Godspeed, and good luck."
I went over the list in my head: no noise between 6PM - 8AM, no tunnels, gather weapons and food - this sounded like war preparations. I did as I was told, and sure enough, a squad car of the local PD came by to check how I was doing. They'd done so for the other hundred or so neighbors in my complex, and I was one of the last few stops. I showed them my quarters, and they seemed satisfied. They mentioned something about items for bargaining, but I didn't pay much attention. I quickly called my mother and checked with her - yes, she knew what it meant. Yes, I would come by and check with her tomorrow, first-thing. Yes, I would get the chicken casserole out of the fridge. The usual.
The only other resident in my home was my husky/malamute dog, Pine. I was a little scared about him barking, but I didn't think it would be that big an issue.
Later that night, it started. I don't know when, seeing as how we had to turn all lights off, and I have no analog clocks in my house. There was first a loud banging sound, then scratching. Possibly clicking sounds. It lasted what I'm guessing was two or three minutes before I head the distinct sound of shotguns being fired. Maybe some assualt rifles, too. The scratching then stopped, and so did the bullet fire. I huddled with Pine, and calmed him down.
Somehow I fell asleep. A knock awoke me. I frantically rushed to the door.
"Sir, do you mind stepping outside a moment? Bring your residents with you."
"Sure."
I brought out Pine, and then-
*POOF*
Bootsteps raced through my ears - it was a raid of some sort. A couple minutes later they gave me an all clear.
That was a few nights ago. I have no idea what's going on. Everything is going to hell - the town store is out of everything, the post office is closed, and there's some sort of fence around the mountain range near me. Can someone explain what's going on? | 2018-04-18T11:02:28 | 2018-04-18T10:58:54 | 47 | 24 |
[WP] You are the child of a superhero and a supervillain conceived during a one night stand. You don't care for heroism or villainy, you just want your parents to get together so that you can have a family. | Being the product of a night's folly between a superhero and a supervillain is isn't *totally* bad. Our street is one of the safest places in town, because no one, good or evil, wants to be the one to "accidentally" hurt the precious darling of both Mister Marvel and the Witch of Desires. They don't talk to each other, of course, but but I know they both hope that I'll use my own magic to eventually follow in their footsteps.
I don't really want to though.
"Darling, the point of the Spiked Whip is to cause *pain*. You aren't ready to use it yet, and *especially* not on your father."
"I was trying to copy the video where you were using it on him and -"
"THE POINT OF THE SPIKED WHIP IS TO CAUSE PAIN." she interrupted, and after a moment, "Wait, WHAT VIDEO?"
My mother's reaction made me feel as though I'd crossed some sort of line. I thought if I was able to recreate the only scene where I'd seen the both of them happy together, I would be able to bring them together again.
Even though that video was apparently filmed before I'd even been born.
About nine months before I'd been born, to be exact. | "Dad, for the last fucking time, she hasn't brainwashed me. Fuck, she's even said she won't, and she's a woman of her word."
"Call me in a few hours, and you can give me her location." My father says, before I hear a click.
My mother and father... Are mortal enemies. They're not just divorced. They're gifted. They had me because of a one night stand and my childhood was... interesting, to say the very least. On Wednesday I was left in a dark alley before my mother materialized and took me to her lair, and the same way repeated for my father. Well, with my father, there was no materialization, just him showing up on a motorbike. His hideout was way cooler. He had video games, he had ice cream after dinner, and most of all, he had more time to show me love. Apparently being a vigilante superhero leaves more personal time than a villain with a private army. Either way, they never tried to pull anything with me around, and I appreciate both of them for that. The problem is that they always dismiss me when I try to get them back together, or even just to talk! Whenever they're in the same room, they try to kill each other! And you see, Mr. Walker, that's why I need your help.
...
I stood there as Cryptwalker fastened me to the shining ethereal device. It was near transparent, but it still held me in place just fine.
"You sure you wanna do this?" Asked Walker.
I replied, "Yes, they'll make it work."
"Oooookay... And that's twenty minutes. Remember, if this thing goes off, it'll send you to God knows where. All I know is when I pull people out of that godforsaken place, they make their disdain for it clear."
His boots made no sound while he seemingly glided out of the room. Like clockwork, my father showed up in five minutes. (I'd know, I was counting.) And twenty seconds later, so did my mother. They each accused each other of putting me in this predicament and wasted another five minutes throwing each other through walls. I finally had enough time to explain when one was about to monologue for the fourth time.
"Guys, *I* did this. The only way to get me out is to express a feeling of mutual agreement and understanding. It'll disappear completely if you add love for each other."
They looked at each other disgusted, before my mother pulled up a chair and sat in it, starting to talk to my still trapped father. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but apparently they agreed, because as they kissed, I was tossed to the ground by the device's dissolvance.
"Sweetie, me and your father have reached an agreement..." | 2018-10-17T02:05:38 | 2018-10-16T21:49:23 | 66 | 17 |
[WP] You instinctively know everyone's name the second you meet them. One day you thank someone at the supermarket for helping you, and they stare at you wide eyed. "Nobody has called me by that name in centuries" | The sound of a display stand crashing to the ground snaps me out of my daydream
“Shit” I mutter under my breath as a can rolls under a shelf. I get down on my stomach, stretch my arms as far as they can but I’m still unable to grasp it. Suddenly the unit lifts up and I quickly snatch the tin. I stand up just as a man places the shelf back down. This guy is huge, I’m talking arms as big as tree trunks and a chest the size of a semi. His beard is tied up in two braids the width of rope and it shines a gentle red. “Thanks Mr.—“ I stop myself as the name rattles around in my head ^^^*Odinson*... I turn on my heels and bolt for the exit fast as I can, not even apologising as I knock over a woman.
My legs burned as I ran and I was just about to take a break when I heard him bellow
#”COME BACK LAUFEYSON! I STILL OWE YOU FOR BALDR!!” | My eyes surveyed the chips and cookies in isle 13. Fried diabetes. I thought, still scanning the isle. Finally, I spotted the snack packs I was looking for. On the top shelf of course. You see, I’m 5’2 and it doesn’t look like I’m getting any taller.
Suddenly, an older man makes his way down the aisle. He seemed very prim and proper, and conveniently a foot taller than I am. He seemed very anxious but I quickly decided I’d stop him anyway.
“Sir, I’m sorry to bother you but would you mind getting this from the top shelf.” He hesitated then responded with a nod, but I didn’t put much thought into it.
“Which one?” He mumbled. For a man of his height, you’d expect a deeper voice.
“The last snack pack.” He handed it to me and stood there for moment, just staring. I broke the silence with, “Thanks Abrial.” I smiled playfully.
His eyes widened as his skin turned white as a ghost. “Cecilia.” He placed his hand gently on my shoulder. “Cecilia Adalie Brodeur.” I use my gift sometimes for kicks but it sure had backfired. I figured he had the same gift. If only I knew what was coming.
“Who are you?” I managed to get out, puzzled. His expression shifted. “Abrial of course, my dear.” I examined him, waiting for an explanation.
“ You see, your mother dedicated you to the field of genetic engineering. She didn’t want a baby then... and she gave you to a good cause. When she was pregnant we gave her a concoction that was intended to make you a genius. In the simplest terms. Well, it wasn’t perfect I must say. But my dear, you have a gift. A very special one indeed. We kept you until 2, and adopted you out to a pleasant suburban family. But your behavior was strange. Very odd. I owe you an apology for spending your childhood in that orphanage. But fate brought us from France to Massachusetts my dear.”
After a long hesitation I broke the silence, “Where’s my mother?” I mumbled, still as white as a ghost.
He removed his hat and looked down. “She passed in 1980 due to pancreatic cancer.
There was another long pause until I broke the silence once again, “Who’s my father?” A tear rolled down my cheek as a grin simultaneously formed on Abrial’s face.
“He’s standing right here.” | 2018-11-05T21:26:20 | 2018-11-05T20:38:06 | 27 | 10 |
[WP] You instinctively know everyone's name the second you meet them. One day you thank someone at the supermarket for helping you, and they stare at you wide eyed. "Nobody has called me by that name in centuries" | The man rolled the name off of his tongue. "Vladimir" he said in a suddenly rough voice. "How could you have possibly known who I am?"
I responded with a short explanation. "I don't know who or what you are. I have a gift anytime I meet someone I instantly know their name."
"Perhaps there is more to this gift than you think. You must have to delve into the minds of these people in order to know their names. Try to look further into my mind." Vladimir looked amused. My puzzled face must have been quite the sight.
I thought very hard. At first nothing happened, but in an instant I saw all of the terrible things this beast had ever done. My face began to burn as if the very flesh was melting away. Vladimir started to fade as did my mind. I fell to my side, near the mirrors at the end of the freezers, my last sight in that store was the reflection in that mirror. A headless man.
I woke up the next day in a padded room. I must have been admitted the day before. I had known they would catch up to me I just didn't know when.
The man from the store came to visit every other day. He said it was because he didn't want me to be lonely, but I know the truth. That hell-spawn is the reason I got caught. I shouldn't have talked I should have stayed quiet.
He would say things like. "You're all I've got left." And. "I don't know what happened."
That man was obviously insane. Why would I be all he had left? It's not like we were family.
___
"Are you ready to leave?"
What was that?
"It's time."
A dark figure cloaked in rotten black cloth stepped forward.
Yes I'm ready.
A swift death.
___
Vladimir's Grief
"You're with our parents now sweet brother. I never wanted to leave you, but you had lost what was left of your ancient mind. You had forgotten the past. You had forgotten me..." | My whole life I’ve had this. . .thing. A gift, perhaps? I’ve always had the ability to know people’s names just by looking at them. It makes mundane tasks more fun when I turn it into a game; “how many people with the last name Smith will I walk by” or “who’s got the most unusual name I can find today”. And it makes finding people online much easier when I know exactly the name I’m searching for. I don’t know how I got this ability. Ive just always had it.
That brings me to yesterday. I was getting some groceries, playing a game in my head, today’s was “what name comes up more than any other” Dave’s were winning with six, which was a bit weird because there’s never that many Dave’s in one place.
I was minding my own business in the beer and wine isle, not paying much attention when I turned around and my big bulky handbag knocked over and broke a bottle of red wine all over the floor.
“Shit”, I exclaim quietly, awkwardly standing near the deep red, vinegary smelling mess that was slowly coming towards my feet.
A worker passed the isle and saw, and quickly rushes over.
“I’m so sorry, can I do anything to help?”,I said to the girl, who I see like a flash in my brain is called Catherine, coming towards me.
“Oh it’s alright, I’ll get someone, just carry on with your shopping, you’d be surprised how much this happens, I blame the way our shelves are stacked”.
Catherine smiled at me, there was something very warm about her. She looked like she was in her early twenties, but something about her deep brown eyes shocked me with the seemingly boundless wisdom behind them.
“Okay, thank you Catheri...”, I cut myself off quickly when I realised I’d said her name. I knew she was going think I was weird or creepy, as the mistakes I’ve made in the past of saying somebodies name before they’ve told me have proven. And I noticed her name badge said ‘Alice’.
Her smile dropped and she started looking worried and uncomfortable.
“Did. . . You just call me Catherine?”, she whispered, looking around shiftily, almost as if she was afraid someone would hear.
“Oh shit. Um. I’m sorry I guess you just look like someone I know” I replied, fumbling my words. I guessed she might be using a fake name for protection, maybe hiding from something.
“No”, she said with a big sigh, “that’s too much of a coincidence. You see,” she leaned in closer to me, I looked at her with a confused look on my face, “you see, no ones called me that for about two centuries”.
I’m speechless. I just stare at her for a couple of seconds my mouth agape.
“If you know my name, then you must know my true identity,” her warmth suddenly felt icy, her kind face started to look slightly menacing as she got right up close almost nose to nose with me.
“And you’re not getting what I know you’re after.” She suddenly backs away from me, once again smiling her brilliant smile.
I just stared at her, shocked. I opened and closed my mouth like I was about to say something but I’m dumbfounded.
I finally force an “excuse me” out, but she ignored it.
“Guess I’ll get someone to clean this wine up then, have a nice day!”
And with that she sharply turned, and started walking away.
All I knew was, I had to find out who this girl is. | 2018-11-05T21:19:08 | 2018-11-05T21:12:06 | 24 | 15 |
[WP] Your entire life, you've had 4 coins that you are able to teleport to. You lost one a while ago and have been to scared to ever go to it. One day you teleport to the one you keep in your bedroom and you find yourself in an interrogation room, with 2 strange looking soliders walking towards you. | The day my coins worked against me would be the day I die.
The coins that let me teleport to them. Wherever they are.
I was walking out to my "car" after a day spent with my girlfriend at the mall. Of course, I didn't buy anything. And I didn't have a car.
I sneak behind a large truck and glance quickly around. No one knew about my ability. And it had to stay that way.
Deciding now would be the best time, I teleport to the coin that usually lays in my bedroom. I shrink in on myself, collapsing into the air.
The smell of stale air filled my nose. I heard two people walking and a cry of alarm. Glancing up, I notice they were soldiers and holding guns.
I couldn't believe it. My plan has succeeded. I was in, and now there was almost nothing they could do to stop me.
The war would end soon enough. The war that killed my parents when I was sixteen. The war that destroyed my country, my home. The war that ended my old life, full of laughter and joy, and started this one. They killed everyone I loved. Now they were going to pay.
The soldiers raised their guns, but they would have no chance against my years of training for this day. My other coin was somewhere else in the building and the third in my hand. Sadly, one has gone missing a while back.
I knew the government had it. They would be the only people who had a chance of knowing. I assumed they put it in a suffocation chamber where they could knock me out before I could teleport away. Maybe I could find that today as well.
I hurl the coin in my hand down the hallway and teleport to it before it even lands. I drop from the air and swing a punch around, taking one of the guards from behind. A second later, I throw the second coin above a hanging light. A moment later, I'm above it and it falls down onto the guard.
Jumping to my feet I look around. More guards would be on their way.
But they stood no chance against me. | I look down and see the designated bedroom coin in my hand, my other hand on the other 2 in my pocket. Damn it.
"Holy shit, we got him!" One of the soldiers says as he pulls out handcuffs. I only have one option now, I don't want to do it, but I can't lose these coins. Where could it be? I got drunk on the beach with only that coin, and woke up in my bed without it. It might be in the ocean! Hopefully someone picked it up and put it on there table or something. I'll just pop in and jump out a window like the time someone managed to steal one of these. Well, luckily that time they didn't know that it's a beacon for a teleporting outlaw.
"Well, almost." I say as I take a deep breath. As I stumble forward onto the soldier to inconspicuously slide a coin his uniform, I fade into the air.
I find myself in a meeting room at a table surrounded by suits. Damn it, it was in someones pocket!
"Oh, hi, wrong room! I'll find my way out!" I nervously mumble as I get up to start my escape. Then I notice it. None of them are suprised, and my coin isn't in my hand where it should be. Why it it glued to the chair?
"Sit back down, we've been waiting for you." The big one at the head of the table says. The really big one. Holy shit, this guy is literally 10 feet tall!
"What? Who are you guys?" I say as my head darts around the room looking for a window to throw a coin out of.
"We are the Council who you have been evading."
"Evading? I don't recognize any of you! Ive just been living my life, I havent been escaping anyone but the police!"
"Well, we arent able to find you within an urban area, It is very difficult to go there undetected."
"Ok? Why dont you just call or find me somewhere else?"
"3 years ago, you left the city and went to the coast, a coincidentally perfect place to meet you."
Thats when I lost my coin! How did they know what it's for?
"So what happened?"
"Well we approached you out of the ocean to talk to you, and you mumbled something about 'sea monsters' as you tossed that coin over our heads and vanished into the air."
"Oh! I remember now! You guys are the sea monsters that walked out of the ocean! How can you guys do that with no equipment?" I scan the room and realize that there are only a few other humans.
"Some of us don't need equipment. Why did you throw that precious coin at a group of strangers?"
"I was going to try to kill you guys with the exploding head attack." A look of, what I think is, horror sweeps the room.
"The what??" A small elf-looking thing with four small vials in front of him shouts. Then I realize everybody has four of the same object in front of them, with the same colors as my coins.
"Ive only had to do it once before, but basically I throw the coin into your mouth and teleport to it and-"
"STOP! We've heard enough! This is why you need the council!" A lanky old man with four books in front of him, one of them open, yells to me.
"Close that before you hurt someone, Zarron!"
Zarron... I've heard that name before somewhere.. who is he? The big one looks back to me.
"Well anyways, we have a job, and we need your ability."
Part 2 to come. | 2019-03-11T00:37:46 | 2019-03-10T20:10:37 | 217 | 45 |
[WP] An atheist witnesses an incident that makes them believe in a higher power. Meanwhile, a theist witnesses the same event and abandons their faith... | Wingspan of 8 meters. Height of 4. Blinding irradiating light. And a sword so mesmerizingly deadly, it almost screams the bearer's name in all its undeniable heavenlyness.
A kid aged 8. School backpack. Dog waiting at home. 8 more years and he would've become the antichrist if it weren't for Gabriel and the celestial sword. The kid screams. Just screams.
Two people watching from the other side of the hospital corridor. Unseen by the kid and uncared for by the archangel they silently wait for another hour after it's all done. It was a lot to take in. "Turns out you were right about it all", says the man in a white lab coat. The man in a black robe looks at his old friend, for the first time ever disappointed in his intelligence. "No, friend. Turns out you were". | i hate this town. it doesn't even seem to know if it's smaller than cincinatti or bigger than new york. we house a television network, a nuclear power plant, and at the same time everyone wants to leave because we are "insignificant" at least in my bar they are. the other side of the spectrum are those godfearing nobodys who yell "what about the kids" whenever anything happens in this town. just to conceal that they are offended because of an icky feeling, and not because danger is around. there they are. i have to walk pas them whenever i go to my beerjoint.
​
"jesus will save you!"
​
i don't need jesus. besides. if he ever existed, he was nothing but a carpenter caught in a politics antics.
​
"moe, one beer and one amen for those religious suckers"
"amen, brother" he snickers
nectar of the gods. even though there are no gods. people keep telling me i drink because of my regrets. i don't have any. lingering in things of the past is pointless anyways.
​
*toggotoggotoggotoggotoggotoggo*
​
"what's that sound"
"i don't hear nothin'..."
​
***toggotoggotoggotoggotoggotoggo***
​
"what is that?"
"i remember this sound....from back when i was younger.... when i was in viet-"
"shut up seymour"
​
***TOGGOTOGGOTOGGOTOGGOTOGGOTOGGO***
​
we stepped outside. the churchnuts from next door were already there.
​
"my god..." i havent uttered those words for quite some time..
​
"GOD IS DEAD AND WE ARE NEXT"
​
reverend lovejoy pushed his pupils aside, while sprinting into moe's. i looked up to the sky...at a giant dome being carried by thousands of helicopters. barney touched my arm.
​
"come on....let us...let us go inside to pray for our brothers and sisters" he burped.
i agreed. "come on guys. let us pray for springfield" i yelled, while entering the church. | 2019-06-16T03:42:41 | 2019-06-16T02:18:51 | 45 | 24 |
[WP] It’s no secret that Latin summons demons, but what is less known is that every language eventually summons some otherworldly entity. You are a 29th-century archeologist reading a text in English. | Sadi put her face in her hands, overwhelmed by the stacks of work in front of her. Laminate paper, she was told it was called, because 21st century humans needed to kill trees to write, and then use plastic they didn't even know how to get rid of to save it, for some stupid reason. And being one of the only experts in the late Waste Period lingua franca, English, it was up to her to figure out what in the hell this stuff said.
So, she set to work, grabbing the first of the laminated papers on the pile.
She translated:
*Do you know the muffin man*
*the muffin man*
*the muffin man*
*Do you know the muffin man*
*Who lives on Drury Lane.*
"What in the world is a muffin man?" Sadi said to herself.
Suddenly, Sadi noticed something loom from behind her. She turned sharply, fear gripping her. She screamed shrilly, laying eyes on the terrible beast. The muffin man. | A flash of light engulfed my study, the smell of burned flesh and death filled the room and at the same time my nostrils. My mustache was only half as long as it used to be and I was missing two eyebrows.
As the light faded, I expected the worst, most foul demon to stand there. The trick to these books is to read them as they were meant to be read and spoken as meant to be spoken. While English used to be the language of all, it was now a dead language. Everyone spoke a form of Euro, most languages actually formed in these euro form. German became for instance Euroger and what was once a language is now a dialect. With England finally passing the Brexit, their language too became faded with time.
America eventually nuked itself in a bizarre conflict they dubbed superbowl 2.0 and no one was really the wiser as what happened there, but some say it was the nipslip to end all nipslips. Bogus of course but still quite peculiar and since india
With the rise of India and their pride, their form of English eventually became well Indian. Now a world power far gone from the bizarre gap between poor and rich from they came.
We also figured out that demons had their own realms, attached to each language in the world and we figured out that their names usually summoned them, but every language had a hidden rule. For instance Beelzebub is pronounced as xylophone, but just mentioning the word xylophone doesn't do anything, unless your intention is to actual pronounce Beelzebub. It's weird.
People that investigate these languages and their secrets are called demonologistic professionals of the third eye of Katarina. After the person who figured out that meaning one word while pronounced like the other could summon a giant titan, she didn't mean to off course but tourrete can be a nasty thing.
So now I stand here, completely without my mustache, blinded, dumbstruck and quite possibly perplexed as to the creature in front of me.
It looks hideous, his arms long and thin, his legs covered in a denim like structure, with a sort of carapaces on it's elbows and knews. His eyes friendly and his smile wide. Holding some sort of tablet.
I asked it what it was and if I was safe, it hold up his hand and asked me to touch it with one of my own four hands. It told me it was umen or hamen or something. Didn't make sense, so I asked it's name and it responded:
"The name is Tony, wanna see me do the indy 900? It's what I'm known for!"
Truly terrifying this Tony. | 2019-12-02T10:53:59 | 2019-12-02T08:57:56 | 165 | 36 |
[WP] Rejected by the Federation Council for refusing to disband their military, humans ally themselves with the Thoran, the Federation’s resident warrior race. Warmongers, the Thoran find themselves enamored with humanity, and grow increasingly tired of the Federations attempts to “civilize” both. | The Rejection as it became to be known had been a staggering blow for humanity. The dominoes falling afterwords should have been predictable but at the time no one saw it coming.
Humanity effectively vanished from the galactic stage ninety five percent of all human businesses closed up shop, successful or not. Short of a brave few that remained on non aligned stations, humanity cleared out of Federation Space completely. All of this came without orders from their ruling councils or governments. They simply vanished. And the Galaxy entered a period that would become known as The Quiet. Transmissions from Humanity did not reach the Federation in any way and any projects that had been started were outright abandoned.
Meanwhile in the space above earth a grand debate like no other was taking place aboard the American built Washington Space Station. I'll spare you the minutia, as debates of this nature can get a little boring. The short of it was no one knew what to do. Not even the Americans who had spearheaded the movement to join the Federation. Given what the galaxy would come to learn? The Federation would have been better off changing their ways. After about two years the combined voice of humanity came to a conclusion: The Federation was a Threat Humanity had faced before...from themselves. A suppression of freedom, an unwillingness to negotiate. The urge to change history to suit their interests. Up to and including the subversion of science itself. A world where the Truth meant nothing. Humanity had faced this before. And its outcome had created what they are now. The Americans who had come to value community while maintaining their independent spirit were the most embarrassed and by extension the most angry. For a full year at this debate they had said little, their internal machinations had created an even more turbulent discussion on their portion of the internet.
It was with the above realizations they began to speak loudly. The world once again looked at them realizing they had found footing, and a directionless council for over a year quickly changed to one of Planning. If the Federation were unwilling to change for them. Humanity would show them the consequences. For they had needs as well. Colonization projects had to be abandoned, leading to a potential long term population crisis in the core systems. For their people, humanity had to be willing to Take once more, instead of Give.
Enter the Thorans. Their discovery had been an accident. They encountered humanity three years before the start of The Quiet. And had been one of the driving arguments Humanity made to the Federation. Brief but brutal conflict ensued. The Thorans quickly realized that Humanity was not like other races they'd encountered. Despite a clear advantage in physical capabilities, humanity's cunning and ingenuity had given the Thorans more than they could handle. It didn't take too much on Humanity's part. Merely setting up nuclear mines in one of the Thoran's Key material supplying asteroid belts. That spat took less than six months. But the Thorans never forgot how far Humanity would go. And so two years into the quiet, a full five after first contact. A Small but elegantly built Thoran Ship exited inter-dimensional space in the orbital ring of Mars.
Aboard the Washington Humanity sirens went off as the Ship filled the screens of the debate chamber. Military Council on scene calmed the panicking diplomats and politicians while around the American contingent looks were exchanged. This day the Argentinians held the gavel. It was passed from each nation on a day to day basis and it would be She who called the room to order.
"Establish contact?" A short and to the point question. Her nation while not the largest knew the stakes. Her countrymen had been aboard the vessel which first contacted the Thorans. After about fifteen seconds of silence the Americans nodded, it was their station after all.
Aboard the Thoran ship the scene was not quite as panicked but honestly it was pretty close.
"Targeting Scanners?"
"Passive only so far sir." A voice that sounded it pounded gravel for breakfast responded.
The thoran were massive by human standards each Ten Feet Tall with life spans in the hundred and twenty year range. Scaled up they were able to run twice as fast as any human. But their technology seemed to lag behind because of their physical prowess. The Captain of his ship turned his attention to their guest. A diminutive Thoran. Only eight feet tall a Runt by their standards. But this one had been chosen to Speak.
"Wait for them to communicate, they have yet to consider us a threat. Humanity is of many voices." Her voice deep but clearly practiced.
"How can such a race exist?"
"They are an oddity among the cosmos, that one in a billion chance. Quite frankly they exist in my opinion to spite the universe. As they're about to now."
"What makes you and the council so sure of this?"
"The few humans that remained behind have quietly been transmitting data back on very difficult to find channels. Unless one knew of their existence they wouldn't be found. The data that's been transmitted has been very interesting. Those are channels we use in times of war. Though i doubt humanity knows that."
"So we've been eavesdropping on them by accident?" A gruff laugh barks out.
"Only partially, we never did figure out how they were transmitting back to the outposts."
"Incoming transmission" A moment, a nod and the screen was expected for the diplomat but not for the others seeing so many gathered. A camera focused on one group of humans after a moment.
"You have come alone under what we believe to be a banner of truce. As you have seen we are all assembled. What is said here will be spoken by all of humanity."
"That will make things simple, The Thoran Empire wishes to inquire as to what you will do now."
"We plan to fight."
A smile crept across the collective lips of the Thorans. "Our conflict showed how far you were willing to go. We have no fear of you, but respect as we deem it is paved in blood in both directions. "Would you like some help in shaking things up?" | The humans had an hour left to accept the Federation's terms. War was inevitable. They weren't giving up their armies.
Gorm'ech was sure they would refuse. He stepped out into the royal balcony and overlooked a sea of warships being prepared for battle. His excitement couldn't be contained. Thoran's children would finally have a dignified example of their species' true role in the galaxy. Every starship in the sector surrounded their home planet. It had been centuries since the Federation was forced to mobilize their troops. Due to a web of treaties across different factions, war had become too devastating to be worth the effort, which made maintaining an army too much of a burden for many planets.
They grew comfortable handing the Federation more influence every decade. It was supposed to be a non-governing body that respected planet rights. Eventually, through sanctions and trade agreements, they started penalizing the planets that *did* keep their armies. Most had to disband their troops to avoid economic collapse.
The Thoran were the most affected by these acts. They had stagnated for decades. It culminated with them being the only influential member of the Federation with a planetary spacefleet. Culturally speaking, their people were ridiculed throughout the galaxy for fetishizing the old ways of war. Gorm’ech belonged to a family of military monarchs that had a long history of conquering solar systems. He was a disgrace to his legacy. Destined to rule during eternal peace. His army only existed out of tradition and misplaced pride. The option to dismantle it grew more appealing with time. The people were being punished every year for his decision to maintain it.
And then the Federation made first contact with the humans.
At first, their interactions were respectful and friendly. Gorm’ech didn’t pay much attention to them after learning they weren’t attacking anyone. A disappointment that would soon be corrected.
The process for inducting humanity into the Federation went smoothly until finding out about the cost of keeping their armies. Humans weren’t comfortable with alien oversight, either. The federation kept trying to explain the benefits. Their attempts to show a ‘proper’ way for governance felt condescending to the rookie species.
Everything changed after they were rudely ordered to dismantle their armies for inspection. The humans dropped all pretense of civility and took hostage the ambassador that said it.
The Federation threatened them with war. Their fleets slowly assembled to attack their main solar system if they didn’t surrender the ambassador. Gorm’ech ordered his fleets to be activated as soon as he heard the news. The Thoran finally discovered a worthy ally. He still had a chance to build his legacy!
The ships were ready to launch.
Federation ships were preparing to initiate combat, but nobody had thrown the first attack. Gorm’ech couldn’t bear the wait. What took them so long?
A messenger soon entered the royal balcony with sheepish hesitance. He said a scout had reported that the humans were sending an envoy to meet with Federation representatives.
Gorm’ech tensed up, shouting at the messenger to leave him alone. That didn’t bode well for the cause.
They might be negotiating peace.
Gorm’ech sulked for a while until deciding to rescind his deployment orders. The shame would only increase the longer his people believed the charade. He was about to announce it before the messenger ran back into the balcony in panic.
Humanity threw the first attack. The envoy was a distraction. Their ship secretly carried a small contingent of soldiers, who quickly massacred the Federation representatives. It left them without immediate leaders for the ensuing battle. By the time the Federation could organize their forces for a counter attack, the humans had the advantage while reinforcements arrived.
Gorm’ech paused for a moment, awed by the humans. Their military prowess was something of beauty. Never had an alien species, let alone a rookie one, shown this much virtue. Gorm’ech walked towards the balcony railing reinvigorated, addressing his people on the ground and across their solar system:
“Children of Thoran, our day has come! Too many of our kind have been forced to live in squalor and ridicule, mocked as outdated fools, or forced to live by the humiliating standards of others. Finally, I shall lead our people into glorious combat and reclaim the freedoms we once had! The galaxy shall worship the beauty of our crimson waters! Let us go to their planets and dye their seas the same as ours!”
A wave of cheers echoed across the capital.
Gorm’ech entered his command ship with his head held high. The ship floated away into the atmosphere, jumping into combat with the rest of the fleet. They were hailed as heroes by the citizens. Their renewed purpose gave them hope for a better life.
The battle ended shortly after the Thorans aided the humans. Their combined might was too much for the Federation ships to handle at the moment. They needed time to reorganize their forces. The newly established Human-Thoran coalition easily stomped through a few solar systems. They divided the territory among themselves on fair terms.
The Federation kept trying to negotiate for peace. Humanity never considered it. Gorm’ech couldn’t ask for better allies. He reconquered his grandfather’s old colonies thanks to their aid. Their coalition appeared unstoppable until a battle in an asteroid field nearly cost them the war. The federation had prepared a trap, hiding their forces in the hazardous environment until striking at the right moment. After that, the coalition began to lose territory. They were eventually cornered on all sides. Gorm’ech never wavered in the face of bad odds, though. He welcomed extending the war. His unflinching belief in their victory acted as a beacon of strength for the Thoran citizens.
Unfortunately, the Federation only kept winning battles. They had millions of planets at their disposal. The coalition’s early supremacy was only due to their momentum. It was impossible to recover now.
The unthinkable happened when the humans started contemplating a cease fire. They only started the conflict to retain their autonomy. If they negotiated now, they would be able to keep some of their new territory. Eternal war wasn’t something that interested them. Gorm’ech felt utter repulsion after learning that. How could any species with that much bloodlust consider such a thing? Their coalition dissolved afterwards on tepid terms. Humanity decided to remain neutral, negotiating for conditional peace. Gorm’ech didn’t grief the death of their alliance for long. He didn’t need them. The federation couldn’t launch a decisive assault on the capital without significant losses on their end.
Gorm’ech forced them into a war of attrition that lasted decades. It appeared that a new status quo had arisen until humanity joined the Federation. Death counts quickly escalated after that. Gorm’ech was incapable of processing the betrayal. He started executing anyone who proposed brokering an agreement. In the end, the Thoran were unable to repel an attack on their capital. The Federation stormed the palace and dragged Gorm’ech to the royal balcony, where he was forced by a human to surrender in front of the citizens. The monarch did the opposite, cursing humanity with his last breath.
After the war ended, humanity quickly rose through the Federation ranks, gaining influence until they were the ruling species in less than a century. They would remain at the top for many years but, one day, Thoran's children would have their revenge.
-----
>If you enjoyed this, you can check out all of my other stories over at /r/WeirdEmoKidStories. Thanks for reading! | 2020-04-16T09:59:35 | 2020-04-16T09:55:25 | 170 | 122 |
[WP] "Your proficiency in the magic has been demonstrated quite thoroughly by holding the transformation for several days, but you're disturbing the other students. Please cancel the spell before the next class." "I'm not violating the dress code, so... no." | Eyes heavy, I began to drift off once more. Ms. Morrison was yakking about some useless history again, stuttering as she went on. Normally, she did have a minor stutter, but it seemed to have gotten worse over the last few days. The other kids continued to scribble down whatever left her mouth, but they still cast wary glances at me between each point they jotted down. It was nothing new. They have looked at me weird since the beginning of time.
I heard a throat clear from the font of the room. Thinking nothing of it, I went back to my slumber when a voice cut through the room. “Ms. Danica Hantes, I would like you to come outside for a quick chat.”
Every pair of eyes turned to me in unison. Glancing up, my fears had been confirmed. Principal Suza stood at the door, beckoning me to come outside. Heaving out a sigh, I followed his request.
“Do you know why I called you outside?”
Gee, I don’t know. It could be anything, dear principal. Rolling my eyes, I answered, “I don’t know, care to enlighten me?”
“Well, I’ve noticed your skills recently. Your proficiency in the magic has been demonstrated quite thoroughly by holding the transformation for several days, ” he hesitated before continuing, “but you're disturbing the other students. Please cancel the spell before the next class."
Huh? I was confused by all means. I was just practicing my skills."If what you’re concerned about is the dress code, then no I’m not violating it, so the spell stays.”
“Danica, listen to me. Look at what you look like. Think about how your appearance is disturbing the other students.”
Disturbing other students, I think that’s the opposite of what I’m doing. In fact, I believe I’m doing the principal a favor. After all, since my transformation, the kids have been working harder than ever. Plus, no more constant from teasing coming from them. If anything it’s a win-win situation. “Principal, I believe I’m doing you a favor. The kids in my classes have never been so focused.”
He seemed to have exploded at my remark, “Danica! Do you think mimicking my appearance helps the students? If anything, they’re scared of me now.” Anger seemed to have overtaken him, “How am I supposed to get kids to be comfortable with me if you go prancing around pretending to be me and scaring them off?”
“I don’t see an issue with what I’m doing. The kids are focusing in classes more since the ‘principal’ is now watching them. Now, if you’ll excuse me, let’s see how the local tavern caters to seeing the beloved principal waltzing in and getting black out drunk.” Turning away, his yelling continued. It didn’t matter to me, it was time for me to get a taste of [adult life.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualScribblings/) | \*Goofy story\*
"They are going to love this!" Annie says with her typical morning person positive energy! Today she is a good bit taller and way more colorful. Annie has been working this spells for MONTHS! It is not a easy alteration to make to the disguise spell. This level of dedication will make a name for herself in the level 4 class at Purrington University for Witches of Prestige! She verbally confirms to herself: "Got to get to class! I am sticking to my 6am classes sharp! Those night classes really messed my sleep schedule "
Annie enters the college hallway leading to room 127B. This early there are only 30 or so students out and about waiting for Levitation 103. They all stop and stare at the character that enters. It's... it's... Ronald McDonald? At a all girls magic college? The fast food clown king says " Good Morning fellow cats, notice anything different about me today? " Nobody said a word so Annie filled in " Sillies its me, Annie, Annie Ferneel! What do you think of my new look?"
Annie's former roommate and fellow pajama enthusiast, Sara burst into laughter. Sara took a few moments to compose herself to take the most interesting witchstagram post at 6:10am. "Annie you are one of a kind, using the disguise spell to it's most unexpected capabilities"
" Thank you! It took a lot of Green wood and Franken Essence but I am going to prove our lovely, sweet, absolutely- awful levitation teacher wrong about my magical prowess"
Sara chuckled almost spilling her coffee.
Mrs. Itoe arrived at the room 15 minutes late " Sorry students this morning has not been fun the mascot was almost eaten by the ber---" she stopped at the sight of a tall red, yellow, and white clown with a red afro " What the heaven is this?"
Annie still had your high pitched voice , " Good Morning, do you like my new look Mrs. Itoe, my customized disguise spell that I had to make from almost scratch? that has never been done before? that may never been done again? "
The startled middle age witch soon switched to visibly irritated " Annie, is that you? Please tell me your kidding? You know what, I do not even care- not really at all, a clown suits you well- we have to get the class started"
Unsatisfied with her response, Annie kept her spell active the whole day. The other teachers had classes of 1,000 + students, they actually could not care less. " you know what, I am going to keep this going all week" Annie committed to herself. The next few days Mrs. Itoe seemed to not notice. This started on Monday and went through to Thursday when the fast food icon got pulled aside by Mrs. Itoe before the start of class.
" I do not care what you do but if it interferes with the other students we have a issue. Your proficiency in the magic has been demonstrated quite thoroughly by holding the transformation for several days, but you're disturbing the other students. Please cancel the spell before the this class and for any next classes you have."
Annie grinned widening the red grin on Ronald's face " I read the handbook twice Sunday night and I'm not violating the dress code, so... no. I was hoping you would be lovin' it but I guess it did not lift your spirits" she displayed a cheesy, dramatic, fake frown.
Mrs. Itoe took a deep breathe in, then slightly the corners of her mouth almost formed a grin" Well if that is your stance, then stick to it and keep that disguise for the next hour of my class then."
Annie did not like her condescending tone" Oh I will, you bet I will"
The teacher simply turned and walked back to her desk to start class, she announced " Today class we will not work on controlled object levitation, we have a special guest visit from the principal and superintendent! They will be here the whole hour. Remember to make your best first impression. They will be the final say on who gets which internship next month!"
Annie sat in her chair, unwilling to cancel the spell and about to meet the people in charge of the school and the internship program- in the form of Ronald McDonald.
" Good Morning Mrs. Itoe" the principal enters awaiting to observe the talent rising to the top in Levitation 103. Her eyes meet the strange painted character Annie was visible as before a quick, serious statement of " What the F\*\*\*\*?"
​
The end :) | 2020-08-04T22:33:05 | 2020-08-04T22:03:59 | 315 | 72 |
[WP] You're the most powerful villian in the world. Formerly. Now you run a bar, that works as a neutral zone for heros and Villians alike. One day, a hotshot hero tries to arrest you. | ‘You don’t want to do this, kid.’ I leaned over and gently whispered, trying to avoid what was to come.
Bright-eyed, full of confidence, pepped up by the same propaganda that had sent hundreds like him to a similar fate, I’d seen his type come and go so many times before.
‘Ha! I eat heroes like you for breakfast’. Mike, one of my regulars, laughed at the kid. He’d had a few too many, little drops of beer fell from his beard as he sprayed droplets towards us. But he kept to the rules.
The kid ignored Mike. He barely flinched. But he did.
‘In the name of the king and lord of the land I arrest you for high treason’ he announced.
These heroes thought they knew right from wrong and had all the authority to do what they want. One short little burst of ‘classes’ from the heroes’ guild and they thought it was all a game. But he was still just a kid. I didn’t want to do it but it was now down to him.
‘Kid, this is a neutral zone. You can’t do this here’ I tried.
‘Honour and duty know no bounds’. It was one of the guild’s mottos. Not the best, but you could see the kid’s chest swell with pride as he recited it.
I sighed.
‘Very well, why don’t you arrest me in the back. We’ll go out that way. We don’t want to start a brawl, right? For an old man’s sake, let’s not make this too public.’
The kid lowered his sword ever so slightly as he followed me, never more than two feet away. I noticed the little tremble in his hand as I pushed the door to the back room.
‘Are you sure you wanna do this?’ I tried one last time. The kid let his nerves show a bit more. His voice wasn’t quite so confident, but he managed to get it out. ‘You cannot escape justice’ he parroted.
‘Very well...’
I turned the lights off as a courtesy. No one should see it coming. No one should see the horror I had become.
His body was now slumped on the floor. His heroes’ pin the only thing left shining on him. ‘Such a waste’ I said under my breath. And hoisted his lifeless corpse onto the counter, ready for processing.
I cleaned myself up, put on a new apron, and came back out to the bar. There was an uneasy moment as the few who had been there long enough looked over and were silent for a minute, taking in what they knew had happened.
Gradually, one by one, they returned to their conversations though.
‘What can I get you?’ I asked a customer. A mid-sized orc, seemed to be from the western plain. ‘How fast will your Hero Burger be back in stock?’ He asked.
‘Tomorrow morning’ I replied. | The Dealer threw the glasses up, caught them all neatly on his arm, and spun to catch the liquid spilling out of the cartwheeling bottle above his head. He struck the match between his teeth against a rough patch on his black suitcoat and tossed it straight up into the neck of the bottle, sending fairy glass exploding into whisps of sugary smoke. The crowd cheered.
Back in the day, he had dealt in human lives. Now, after a long slow death of the soul after he could not save the one life that mattered most, he was living again, his power lying in sleight of hand and the occasional illusion help from Lullaby, who sat in a smoky corner and whose neutral supered watch kept an easy peace over the bar.
The room was lively. Selkie danced sinously, somehow avoiding the grasp of the men who attemped to snatch her silky coat. Her girlfriend Leviathan with her eyes flaring red like deep sea vents raised an eyebrow at the bolder ones and they suddenly found it hard to breathe, their lungs heavy with the weight of the sea. Levi saw the Dealer watching and released her power, but he was unconcerned. This was an areas for supereds, but they were supered humans after all, and they had a right to defend themselves and theirs from other supereds with ill intentions.
The only rule was: no Fights.
He watched as Brawler toed that line while Bard danced around him, weaving a less than savory verse. He shot the both of them a sharp glance. Bard gave him a cheeky nod and Bard sighed. Siren stared wistfully at him from a dark corner where her hair floated as if underwater. Poor girl, it was hard to have a power stolen, especially when it took your voice with it. Though The Dealer tried to remain neutral, he'd had Lullaby put some people on it. She had no such things holding her back and they thought they'd closed in on the culprit. A supered villain by the ne of Collector. She was working with supered and mundane authorities.
It had been a good decision to move to the coast, he mused. Sea-based supers were of a slower, more peaceable sort for the most part. Though Earth help you if you made one angry.
A silence fell over the bar that had just been chattering and laughing a moment ago. It wrenched The Dealer from his thoughts as the quiet rang like a struck bell.
"Hey, Dealer." A voice that could only be described as dark spoke, the words slithering like a snake through wetland weeds. "You're under arrest."
He could not see his face where he stood in shadow, shielded by the neon glare of the exit sign.
"On what grounds?" he said. "These grounds are neutral."
The spell over the crowd shattered and everyone laughed.
The man stepped forward. He stunk like trust funds and corporate greed. Anger surged in him at the thought of those like him who had let his daughter die, all those he had killed to save her and still couldn't. A melody tingled at the edge of his hearing, a sure sign Lullaby's powers were active and held ready to help or tame him. He flicked two normal playing cards her way - Joker and King. She knew what he meant.
"My own authority," he said. "I am The Boss, and you will comply or everyone here will suffer."
There were murmurs, but the Dealer held up his hand and they quieted.
"Your parents' wallet is not a supered ability," he said evenly, and the man's pale face grew slightly pink as everyone laughed again.
"I can end you," he hissed. "All of you, you're all complicit. I will -"
He stopped as a choking cry was wrenched from his chest along with a small orb of red light.
The dealer gestured and it flew to his hand.
"You can have this back when you learn to behave," he said, tipping it into an empty bottle and capping it.
"I'm not - a child," the man gasped, clutching at his chest. Sound was slowly returning to the room, the party picking up again.
"Then stop acting like one," the Dealer said, and turned back to serve a waiting customer.
He still dealt in lives, for a supereds power was their life. Only when he had to, only to maintain balance. Lullaby nodded with approval from the corner, and he watched as the man slunk out and she followed gracefully.
Even when you dealt in lives, they went on.
Sequel to a response to a previous prompt, I'll link it here if I can. | 2020-10-09T21:44:58 | 2020-10-09T21:42:05 | 656 | 54 |
[WP] One morning everyone in the world wakes up in their 18-year old body, memories intact. Society tries to continue as normal despite the change, but a world full of energetic adolescents certainly has its quirks. | I haven't looked yet.
It's been three days now, and I have avoided every single reflective surface in this house.
The only person who has seen me so far was my wife. I haven't gone to work yet, as it seems like the whole world has stuttered trying to figure out what was happening. I was 49. My wife was 46. We're 18 again, only our memories being the same.
She woke up first that morning, three days ago. I woke up because I felt her hand on my face, and I felt the resistance of... stubble. I opened my eyes slowly, still under the effects of sleep. I had seen this woman before, but only in my wife's old photos. Her highschool pictures, her prom pictures, her graduation pictures... My wife was young again, and so was I.
I didn't look in the mirror, but I felt all the changes. Panicked, I had launched myself out of bed, hitting the wall much too hard because I had overestimated my weight. I was 50 pounds lighter. I remember shutting my eyes, and I know I was crying heavily. I remember hearing my wife attempt to console me, telling me that I can start all over again- that it would be easier this time.
Now, three days later, I bring my gaze up from my bowl of cereal to look at my wife. She gives me a soft smile, and reaches across to bring my knuckles to her lips. I try to smile back. I fail. She frowns, not because she is unhappy, but because I am. I look away. I shut my eyes.
"Amelia... Amy, baby..." June coos at me, and I feel her move to my side, and tug on the sweater I had borrowed from her- as my usual clothes no longer fit my flat chest. I look at her, briefly. God, she's so beautiful. Her brown eyes were the same, they still had that loving warmth that I've known for 17 years now. I bet I look tired.
June holds my face, which was now shaved and smooth. She lands a soft kiss upon my lips, which were thinner than she had known them before. She kisses my eyebrows, which were bushier and more unruly than before. When she looks at me now, does she just paste over the face she knew before? Does she see the woman she knew before? Or the teenage boy in front of her, right now?
I know I'm crying again, but I feel a million miles away. I am briefly brought back with each kiss, and with each minute that passes as she cradles me in her delicate arms, I feel the truth of her words.
She loves me. She married me, knowing that I spent years and years becoming who I am today. She loved me then, and she loves me now. We have money, I can get the help I need. I'm not alone. I have her. In another life, I had begun my journey at 27, when I still struggled with how I felt on the inside. Now, I can start sooner. I know who I am now. I have more time.
June is right, as per usual. I tell her this. She smiles.
My journey begins again, but with the love of my life at my side this time. | Dandy Town, unlike its name, is a town far from perfection. In fact this little hamlet or village is a hidden gem I found while on one of my numerous trips to my Step Father’s bakery for breakfast.
I always had a penchant for funny things, but this town was a whole new definition of eccentricity and silliness. Every citizen of this town was a greater example than the other. They welcomed me like one of their own and stuffed me with sushi, which they claimed to be their own local delicacy and called it Honor Roll, something they ate on the occasion of graduation mostly.
There are so many anecdotes and events about this town throughout this book, but I would like to start with one of the most silly and stupid ones that made me fall in love with the cute little people of Dandy Town.
Back in the 2010s when I was in a famous TV series, the town of Dandy had a little series of incidents of its own.
The people of all ages woke up one day. To their surprise they now had bodies of 18 year olds. With their memories intact!!
“I basically lived my prepubescent years twice, once when I was 18 and then when I turned 18 on my 54th birthday!” said Abe McPherson, the current mayor of the Town, happily relinquishing the event in his memories.
“I was kinda like a playboy when I was 18, so when I turned 18 once again, I wasn’t really able to stop my horses,” said Sheriff Willie, who had a special incident in this particular event.
**The Author, referred above as I, has now compiled a few dramatised recollections of the citizen’s here in Dandy Town regarding the event. The names have been changes but the prior permission of the subjects had been taken before**
*******************
I woke up on Sunday morning as the rooster made its usual noise. I burped and got up from the bed. My wife was asleep on the bed, sweating after last night.
We had moved the bed from the outside of the room to inside it finally. We were two 80 year olds who had moved into this house just the week before. It had taken us five days to push the bed in slowly, and on each day it took, we had to sleep outside the bedroom. Only the first day was a problem though when we had to sleep outside the house, where the bed was, since we hadn’t been able to push it in.
We don’t hire people for this work as we are self dependent people.
But the only thing that wasn’t self reliant for me was my ding dong, or my manhood. It had refused to stand up in 35 years except for the one time when it rose up slightly because of the urine infection.
When I woke up that day, my whole body felt like it had a new sort of vigour and energy. And when I saw below, for the first time in 35 years I had a morning standing ovation by my ding dong.
But it gave me a lot of problems, like when I went into the washroom for peeing that morning, My God the speed with which it came out almost blew me away like it was a jet pack. And I made a great big mess.
****************
I woke up and checked myself in the mirror. Oh Holy God! I looked so pretty and beautiful. Just like when I was 18!!
I decided to skip church that day. I was a Sister at the Dandy Town Church for Women. But this new body and energy had given me, a 60 year old retired woman who had given up on life and lived on the hopes of Christ, a big helping hand in confidence.
I roamed about the Town. I smoked hookah with the boys that day. God would have been angry but I knew that he gave me that body for some reason. Why else would he give me such a hot body that was Bikini waxed?
Many guys flirted with me, but this one young man seemed to have caught the attention of my eyes.
“Lookie here. What can I do to be with a girl like you, miss?” Said the boy.
“ You could take me out for dinner,” I flaunted.
“ Well I would, but the police would arrest me for carrying fireworks, ma’am”
I had laughed hard, when suddenly he pulled me close. At that time, I turned around.
Suddenly I felt a slight unzip of my dress at the back. I turned around to see that horny 18 year old using the magnet in his watch trying to be God Knows What!
“Sheer magnetism, baby”
*****************
Yeah I was 14 at the time we all became 18 and had just watched Live and Let Die, so I tried to become Bond. Big deal! I am a
the proud sheriff of this town now and I have forgotten things of the past.
*****************
I have more planned if you’d like!!! | 2020-11-02T10:44:18 | 2020-11-02T09:45:20 | 174 | 15 |
[WP] One morning everyone in the world wakes up in their 18-year old body, memories intact. Society tries to continue as normal despite the change, but a world full of energetic adolescents certainly has its quirks. | I didn't miss the overwhelming hum of the fluorescent lights in Dr. Marshall's office. It had been almost three years since the last time we had our last meeting.
It was odd to see her now, her hair was void of the grays that would eventually come into their roots. Her glasses sat on the table, she wouldn't need those for another 8 or 9 years, at least that's what she told me she had guessed when I asked earlier. She looked well, three decades of medical work and research hadn't shaped faint lines and creases in her skin yet. I imagine she had taken the change happily.
"Jonathan, unfortunately, we really won't know anything until we get the results back. But if I'm being honest with you, it's not looking good. Since the change, I've seen amputees who woke up with their missing limbs back, elderly patients without their knee replacements gone, the tattoo I got when I turned 22 vanished off my skin. I really don't know what to say," I could tell by the look on her face she was looking for something to say, "but it's a good thing you came in, if the tumor is there now we can remove it before it grows. And if it isn't then we can monitor the area where it formed last time and go from there."
If I was truly 18 again, it would be another year and a half or so before the migraines would start. I wish I could have woken up after the change with the body of a happy teenager, but instead my thoughts raced with memories of hearing Dr. Marshall tell me of my diagnosis. with memories of nights where I was so sick and weak I wanted to give in to everything and let go, with memories of having to learn to walk again.
I tried to give Dr. Marshall a valid response of a hopeful smile as the fluorescent lights hummed, but I couldn't. | I have always imagined what the world would be like if everyone was a kid, running on a sugar rush with no worries or troubles to think about.
Now if the world was full of hormone-galore 18 year old kids, that would be a much more different scenario.
And that is exactly what had happened.
It started about two months ago. I woke up and swung my legs over my bed. Obviously I kept my eyes closed just in case I somehow magically changed Monday into Saturday, then I wouldn’t have to go to work.
My brain picked up something unusual, but I ignored it and ran a sloppy hand down my face as I neared my dresser to change for work. Yesterday’s hangover was still in effect, so I had popped in a pain killer or two.
Without my glasses, I couldn’t see shit. That still doesn’t explain why I looked so short in the mirror over the sink. I was sure my hair length was past my shoulders. Why was my face red and bumpy?
I scooped water into my palms and splashed it on my face, then stared into the mirror.
I was a teenager again.
What age? Well, I later found out by scientists, who looked like a bunch of scrawny high school nerds in lab coats, had conducted research on 100 people and had easily determined their age: 18.
Other studies across the globe had also drawn out the same results. This information was spread on the news along with other surprising info: if you were under 18, you were also 18. If you were 18, you’re staying 18. Every human living on this planet was 18. The source and cause of this? Still unknown.
That was why my feet didn’t touch the ground when I sat over the edge on my bed, that is why I lost a few inches, that is why my hair was much much shorter.
We’ve all reversed- or have gone forward, into our 18 year old bodies and minds- thankfully with our memories still intact.
There wasn’t any harm done to society in general, and so during those two months as humanity had gotten their things in order, the leaders of the world had insisted that we must keep going. And so, all the adults had gone back to work, the kids had gone back to school.
How weird it was for me to look at my boss as an 18 year old kid in a baggy suit and not buff and big as he usually was, his voice cracking every so often as he spoke to the office. It was hard for my co workers and I to *not* laugh at this. When his voice betrayed him and squeaked when he yelled at us, the entire workplace burst into laughter.
It was unfortunate that we didn’t get any work done as we made paper airplanes and gamed at our desks for the entire shift.
As I was heading home, I noticed someone prancing around happily with a few friends, laughing about something that had to do with their limbs.
I had asked them why they seemed so happy at the moment, and they said they were former war soldiers drafted at 18 years old. Now they are happy that they get the chance to live out their youth.
That was one of the many, many quirks that humanity had gained from this thrilling experience. Everyone, young and youthful with the mind of teenagers. Will we stay at 18 forever? Will we age? Who knows.
But now we can finally restart and live the life that we’ve always dreamt of.
Humanity, at 18. | 2020-11-02T11:00:41 | 2020-11-02T09:55:51 | 62 | 29 |
[WP] You have been in a coma for years, but the people around you worship you as a deity, leaving offerings and notes with wishes and prayers. You aren't a god- time simply stops any time you wake up, leaving you alone in a frozen world. You accept the offerings and do what you can to grant prayers. | I do not remember how I came to be.
The only thing I remember of my origins is falling asleep and waking up an era later. In a tomb at the summit of the tallest mountain in the world, overlooking civilisation.
The view changes every time I awake, frozen in time until slumber retakes me.
The first was of a bustling castle town. Statues and figurines made in my image filled every street and household. Crowds made pilgrimage to my resting place, leaving offerings. _______, the Hero King! My name always escapes me. I had saved the world, but what from?
The second time I opened my eyes, the town had grown large enough to fade into the horizon. There were no crowds this time, only groups of holy men and women, their bodies bent in prayer. My tomb now a grand temple. People spoke of my name in hushed and reverent tones.
Even more had changed the third time. Black smog filled the air, blocking out the stars. My temple a dilapidated mess, buried in snow.
The air was clear the next time. Buildings of glass and steel stretched up towards the sky where huge metal shapes hung, suspended in time. Planes, I found out, as I walked the ends of the world, my interest piqued. And many other wondrous inventions. I shook my head, confused and uncomprehending as I returned to my eternal tomb. I closed my eyes-
-and awoke again. I felt it in the air before I had even opened my coffin. Fear and dread, overwhelming, and I found out why the moment I looked to the heavens. The stars were unchanged, but the moon! The moon was in pieces, falling to the earth in flaming chunks.
Again I walked the world, this time my mind fully awake. Everywhere people were on their knees, praying, hoping. Some had given up, and I too sank to my knees, sharing in their despair. I had saved the world before, somehow, but now? I did not know if I could. I was not a god.
For a long time I stayed on my knees, unmoving. Unthinking. Slumber called to me, ever the temptress. Then, it came to me. I rose and stumbled back to my tomb. There was nothing I could do, but perhaps all I needed to do was nothing.
So I sat at the top of the world, gazing up at its end. There was nothing I could do, but perhaps there was someone, something out there that could.
So I sat in my eternal vigil. Awake. Waiting, for the world to be saved. | **HECATE**
The heaviness began to lift. As the wretched blanket of slumber dissipated, Hecate wiggled her toes to be sure. When all 10 digits responded, she raised her hand to her face and felt the creases of her smile.
It was time. For one glorious day, she was awake.
Rising from her resting rock, she took in her surroundings. The others had found her slumber sanctuary. Again.
Their offerings of oils and perfumes, coins & dead flowers were scattered across the floor. Along with their prayers, scribbled on paper strewn about the cave like confetti. Hecate sighed. Such pitiful leavings for such big asks.
First things, last. She waved her arm and the papers flew to her outstretched palm. If anyone was around to see it, they’d take it as confirmation of her godhood. But no one was ever around to see it. The curse left on her a century ago made sure of that. Whenever Hecate was awake, the world slept. Frozen in time. Until she returned to her infernal slumber and they were released to go about their lives.
It had taken decades for her to figure out the rules. To realize that her waking hours came at the cost of others. Missed memories, stolen moments. She was not as selfish as the one who had cursed her, the one who had passed on the trade. And so, she had committed herself to one day a year.
One glorious day to stretch her legs, fill her senses with sights and sounds to comfort her in sleep.
But even that wasn’t enough. Hecate was desperate in her isolation. So, she had started answering the requests left at her feet. Scattered around her tomb.
It gave her a sense of connection, using the time between to help others. Even if she couldn’t be there to see the relief her aid brought. Even if she could never be a part of the celebrations of others when their prayers were answered.
Unfolding the first note, she read, “Everyone is so sick and scared. Fear has caused hate to resurface in the ugliest ways. All the adults are angry, no one ever smiles anymore. Not that you could tell with the masks we’re mandated to wear. Please, please help. I don’t want to lose my parents.”
A child then, Hecate thought. But not too young that they didn’t recognize that hate stemmed from fear. As she read through the notes, the commonality among them caused her pause.
The plague was back, then. This wretched curse had kept her alive for over a hundred years only for her to be able to see the circular nature of the world. To see the reemergence of an enemy no one could fight.
Hecate pondered her course of action as she picked through the offerings. Sorting the gifts into piles of useful or not. Enough coin to relocate to a different part of the country. Enough dried herbs to mix together a concoction that could bring some measure of peace.
There was no cure for what truly ailed them. Nothing she could create would eradicate hate. But this, she thought as she finished the mixture would bring some relief. Would buy them some time to recover and restore their health, their strength. What they did once off their death beds, would be up to them. As it always was.
When her work was finished, Hecate scanned the darkness of her now organized tomb. When the people came next, they would find as many of their answers as she could give. They would discover the cure she had made for them.
But they wouldn’t find her. It was time for her to move on. Hecate emerged from the darkness and drank in the sunlight that touched her face. She would wander, soaking in the nature around her as she journeyed to her next sleeping place. Hopefully, with another year passing, when she arose she would find less need in the world. She doubted it, but as she took her first steps past the town, she couldn’t help but hope.
\~\~\~
Thanks for reading! For more scribblings, wander over to [r/WanderingAnonymous](https://www.reddit.com/r/WanderingAnonymous/) | 2020-12-28T08:45:15 | 2020-12-28T07:32:19 | 280 | 195 |
[WP] You are a wolf who was bitten by a werewolf. Every full moon your hair recedes, your teeth dull, and you are left cold and naked on a hillside. You’ve also met a lovely park ranger named Christine. | *Bang! Bang! Bang!*
Christine jumped. It was the dead of night and there was someone pummeling the door to her cabin. She approached cautiously, holding up a frying pan as a weapon. “Who’s there?” she asked.
“Little human! Little human!” A rough yet familiar voice yelled. “Let me in!”
She glanced out the window to her side and immediately relaxed. It was a full moon. “Arnold?”
“No that’s not right,” the voice said. “You're supposed to squeal and say ‘*not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!*’”
Christine opened the door wide to the hairy naked man on the other side. “Come on in Arnold... And put some clothes on.”
“You’re no fun.” Arnold walked in, grabbed a cookie off the counter, wrapped a tablecloth around his midsection, and sprawled on the couch as if at home. “So I read those books you gave me last time. You know a lot of them are pretty inaccurate? Our lung capacity isn't anywhere near good enough to blow a house made of sticks down.
Straw *maybe,* if I really tried. That second to last pig though, he really got a raw deal. You think I should write the third pig to let him know?”
“I wouldn't bother, it's just a children’s story. Did you read the Red Riding Hood one too?”
“Oh yeah, that one was more accurate. We *are* masters of disguise.” Arnold gestured at his naked body. “Exhibit A.”
Under any other circumstance, a naked man pounding on her cabin door at midnight would have been a cause for alarm. This, however, was not any other circumstance. Arnold was a werehuman. Most nights he stalked the forest as a wolf, but every full moon he underwent a transformation by which he turned human.
They met a few years ago, on Christine’s first night alone working as a ranger. He came on pretty strong, and she was forced to pepper-spray him. Despite the rocky start, their relationship developed and eventually they became good friends. Now Arnold would stop by for a chat and tea most every full moon.
“So you’ll never believe what that weirdo Duncan has been up to,” Arnold said, standing back up to retrieve the full plate of cookies.
“You mean the rescue we released last month? I meant to talk to you about him—I noticed your pack took him in and I wanted to say thanks.”
“Oh we took him in all right. Big mistake though. He’s a massive butt-sniffer, Christine.”
“A butt-sniffer?”
Arnold nodded grimly. "It seems so.”
“Isn’t that fairly normal canine behavior?”
“To an extent, Christine. To. An. *Extent.* It’s like, you know how you told me Humans shake hands instead of sniffing butts when they meet?”
“Yep, I distinctly remember the events that led up to that conversation.”
“Right," Arnold said, rubbing his eyes as if the memory of pepper-spray made them water. "Well imagine if you took someone into your home, and every time you turned around they were right there, grabbing your hand. It’d get old right? Personal boundaries and whatnot.”
Christine nodded. “Yeah I could see—”
“Now imagine if instead of his hand, it was his nose. And instead of your hand, it was your b—”
“Okay okay, I follow the analogy. Look, Duncan was raised in captivity most his life. I think he’s just excited to meet other wolves.”
“A little *too* excited if you ask me.”
"Fair enough," she said smiling. "Well, maybe give him some time. I'm sure he'll mellow out." They talked a while longer, Arnold telling her all about the events in forest from the last month. She was tired, but Arnold was full of energy and had lots to say. She considered telling him she needed to get some rest, but thought better of it. It was only once a month, after all. Besides, she was having fun.
They talked until dawn broke, at which point she walked him to the door. “Guess I gotta go,” he said.
“Yep, see you next month?”
Arnold put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t cry Christine, I’ll always remember you.”
“I’m not crying,” Christine said, confused. “I’ll see you next month, right?”
“I can't stay here any longer. I have to be off. Back to my kind. It’s what’s best for me.”
“Right, that was never in question.”
“I know it’ll be hard for you, but if you love something set it free. I'm a wild animal, I can't stay here—”
Realization struck. “You read White Fang didn’t you?”
Arnold grinned. “It was excellent.”
Christine rolled her eyes. “All right fine, I’ll play along. Go on get! You’re free, go on! Get out of here! Listen, you’re free! Go! *GO!*” She threw a cookie at him.
He caught it in his mouth, got down on all fours, and ran off, the transformation back to wolf taking effect mid-bound.
***
 
More of my favorite pieces at r/Banana_Scribe | The fight was barely a skirmish, the pack I stood up against numbering over a dozen and determined to steal the body of my prey from me, but one of them bit me on the leg. I had no help, no backup, having left my mother’s side and not yet formed a pack of my own. I yelped off into the forest, taking care to not lean on the wound, something in the back of my mind worrying of it worsening. I licked it clean and kept it from festering, though, and thought that was the end of things.
The night I first changed was painful beyond any bite, beyond anything I’d ever experienced. The sensation of being left naked and cold instead of naked and warm in the forest around me was disorienting, but more so was the voice in my head. It had started a few weeks back, guiding me as if it were another wolf in a dream, in a language I had never learned but somehow knew. It was there now, comforting me, assuring me that thing would settle into routine and I was safe.
But the brush on the floor of the forest was rough against my skin, even with my feet calloused and tough, my muscles sinewy and sleek. I wandered the forest that night in the far back reaches of my consciousness, the human having his turn at the wheel. He told me of this new body I inhabited, how it would occur once a month, how it needed to do so. My body was no longer just my own; I had a companion in life, and it was one that I’d never expected.
The night I changed back, my human was relegated to the back of my mind, but it gave voice to things I didn’t understand and feelings I hadn’t had before. And it hinted toward human encampments as a survival strategy in times of scarce prey but cautioned against meeting any humans themselves. They were weak in flesh but strong in weaponry, and if any of them saw me, I was to turn tail and run, which aligned with my instincts even before. The fire they wielded, that appeared and flourished at their whim, was hint enough.
That second night a month later, however, I turned near a human’s encampment, though this one was unlike the small, temporary tents they erected to protect themselves against the elements. This one was incredibly tall, made of wood and sturdy and strong. I crouched curiously in the faint shadow created by the moon and then flinched back as a light came on and a woman walked toward the staircase.
“Hello,” I spoke. My human was at the wheel here, my wolf guiding me just as background instincts and faint as a subconscious voice.
The woman startled and her stance became aggressive, her hand moving to her belt, where I knew humans stored their weapons. “What the hell?”
“I’ve not met any others,” I told her. “Are you human? Or wolf? Or a mixture of the two? I can’t smell you from here.”
Her stance changed to something more akin to confusion. “I’m human,” she said slowly, taking a few steps in the blinding light from a floodlight overhead. “What are you?”
My voice caught in my throat. “I’m not sure anymore,” I admitted. “I was wolf, but I now live as a human one day a month.”
The woman’s eyes widened in an expression I recognized as shock and wonder. “How many times has it happened so afr?”
“Just twice.”
“Would you like to…sit with me?”
I looked down at my body. “I’m unclothed,” I said, somewhat apologetically. “Should I be clothed, as you are, if I’m to be fully human this time?”
“I have some sweatpants and a sweatshirt in my car that might fit you.”
And so, clothed for the first time, and not averse to the sensation since it gave me the warmth my fur no longer did, I climbed to the top of the tower with her, gazing in wonder at the forest around me that I could now see from a new vantage point.
We reached the top and looked out over the territory. “This is beautiful, up here,” I said softly.
“I’m quite fond of it myself,” she replied. “Do you have a name?”
I paused, my eyes narrowing. “I don’t think so.”
“I’m Christine. Would you like a name?”
Pursing my lips, I considered the question. “You can call me Wolf.”
She nodded once. “Wolf it is.”
We stood there for hours, me sharing my world with her and hers with mine. She had much more to speak on the world outside the forest that I wasn’t aware of, since her kind studied wolves and had for many centuries. The place outside the forest was incredible, full of things I felt were magic, full of potential and great happiness but also great sadness. My life as a wolf was much simpler, if more dangerous in some respects.
As the sun peeked over the horizon, I felt the fur growing over my skin and the bones crackled and reformed under my skin. I was left tangled in the clothes I’d worn comfortably just moments before, and I let Christine extract me from them. Then I gave her a lingering look before taking the stairs slowly, a foreign, difficult sensation that was strangely different than descending a hill, eventually reaching the dirt ground and running off into the forest.
Another month passed and I felt myself drawn back to the only other human I knew, back to the comfortable clothes she’d given me, back to her company. But Christine sat on the bottom step of the staircase when I arrived, looking hopeful but concerned. She turned when she heard my footsteps.
“Hello,” I said with a small smile.
“Wolf,” she sighed. She walked over to me, seemingly unconcerned with my nakedness. “I’m sorry, but…this is the last time you and I can meet.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“I was…excited, overjoyed at the discovery of your existence, but it’s rare. So rare that my bosses want to meet you. To study you. To…” She grimaced. “They want to take you from the forest,” she explained simply.
I hurriedly took a few steps back. “Are they here?”
“No, I lied to them,” she explained. “I gave them the wrong date. They’ll be here tomorrow. So, Wolf…you need to be careful. Humans have the wonderous life I talked to you about when we first met, but we have a dark side as well,” she whispered. “It’s the instinct that keeps you away from the fires we build, away from the hunters that carry guns. It will be lonely, I’m sure, but…maybe you’ll find another like you. One who understands you because they bear the same burden.”
I nodded slowly. “Thank you for…for protecting me,” I told her. “I won’t come back again. But…can we talk? As we did last time? I enjoyed it, learning about your world, and would like to learn more. Just…one last time.”
Christine smiled and nodded. “I’d like that very much.”
​
/r/storiesbykaren | 2021-03-14T15:17:41 | 2021-03-14T14:55:52 | 2,401 | 243 |
[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. | An Ounce of Prevention
“They’re here, Sir”. Cybersquire knelt before me in the showy manner he always used to ham it up for the heroes. I sat on my throne as usual, but my normal cool confidence did little to ease the ice in my veins at his words.
“All three of them?” I asked, hoping against hope that perhaps only one of those wretched creatures would show his face in my city. I knew the answer before Cybersquire could get it out.
“All three, Sir. Ash-Rake, Virulent Son, and Rampager.” The fear in his voice shone through as he answered my question. “The drones spotted them on the outskirts, so it’s only a matter of time”
I leaned back into my chair as deeply as I could and thought back. For the past twenty years I had lived as this cities greatest villain. Everyone knew the name ‘Clockwork Conquest’ and every hero had cut their teeth facing him in one of his grand schemes. Little did they know that I was preparing them for this very moment.
The Cog-Rat Plague taught them to protect against biological threats and dangerous air quality that accompanied the combo of Virulent Son and Ash-Rake. Knight’s Eternal Night forced them to work in the low visibility conditions that Ash-Rake brought with him, and my trusty sword protected them from the slashing attacks his monsters would bring. And all of those battles against my building sized Clockwork Champions had hopefully prepared them for the sheer strength and brutality of Rampager.
I had, for my entire tenure, trained them for this exact scenario. They had no clue, and they’d likely never realize that I was their greatest mentor and ally this whole time.
I was snapped out of my memories by Cybersquire’s words. “The warnings have all been sent out. What do we do now, Sir?”
I stood from my throne, unsheathing my sword as I did and held it to catch the light. “Now? Now we buy them time to prepare.” | "I must say, Master, I am a little curious what you're doing at home. Did you miss the fires, the screams? Seems like your kind of show. I expect a heartfelt welcome home." The Silk Prince helped himself to the tea as he spoke. He stilled slurped, maybe even louder now.
"Merely finishing the last of the sketches," Needle offered as he looked up from his arm, wiping the blood to mix with the ink on his cloth.
"Curiouser still, Master." The young villain let his cape billow into points behind his back, arching over him like wings. "You had your tattoos perfectly crafted to counter the heroes way back when you trained me. What adjustments could you be making now? Afraid you'll get shown up now that your disciple's back in town? I've already finished a fair chunk of the work."
"You're nine years too late, Silk. The massacre already happened. This is the clawback. There's a reason I don't kill the heroes in this city." Needle stood and squared himself. He had taken this stance a hundred times with his protege and the beats of the familiar rhythms of the fight to come sang across his skin.
"I see. Before we start, tell me which it is," Silk said as he sat down the teacup, releasing his scarf to writhe beside him. "Did you join the heroes or did you just lose your spine? Is this manor a retirement home now? Come to think of it, I do smell a faint waft of piss."
"Neither," Needle said, pulling power from his skin. The tattoos were just a cover. The power came from the cuts and scars beneath. "After you left, I saw the blood bath of the Heroes Ball. I saw what happened to the city afterwards. We don't need domination. Balance is-"
Needle was cut short as a blade of silk slashed across his face. Curtains popped from their windows, darting to bind him. He made no effort to move.
"You always were a monologue, Master. I don't actually care." Silk charged, wrist wraps like claws coming in to finish the job. "I'll kill you and every junior varsity hero left in this town." The claws sank into Needle's chest as Silk stared confused up at his teacher.
Needle was silent and still as the stones. He didn't dodge the next swipe or the next. The curtain began to choke him as it lifted higher.
"In all the years you trained me, I never landed a blow on you. I'm better but not enough to explain this." Silk pulled back, letting his cloth go soft, dripping blood onto the fine marble.
Needle closed his eyes and breathed deep, reading the language of the wounds set against the discordant melody of agony. "It's a pity, Silk. I did cherish our time together. You were the closest I had to a son in my lonely life. If you had just waited five years, you would have been perfect here to take my place, but the city isn't ready yet."
"I don't see-" Silk started, before his eyes started to bleed.
Needle had drew in more than he had in years and it was leaking already. With almost no control, he released a shout of pain through the manor, breaking the glass in a rolling echoing cascade. Silk's head exploded, most of the mess contained by the cloth before it all fell limp to the stone.
Beyond the broken window, Needle could see the small band of young heroes, most still children, arching across the sky towards the fires. He collapsed to weeping as his wounds pulled themselves closed, leaving long white scars.
/r/surinical | 2021-05-20T08:01:46 | 2021-05-20T07:51:13 | 225 | 93 |
[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 man strapped to the chair continued to struggle against his restraints. I tapped the syringe a few times before turning to face my captive.
"Do you know who I am!? I'm going to kill you" shouted the man, obviously trying to make some feeble show of intimidation.
I sigh, placing the palm of my hand against my forehead in exasperation. "Of course I know who you are, Daniel Brown, aka the Power Plague. The S.P reaction gave you the power to produce special microorganisms that shut down the S.P reaction in other empowered individuals." I replied while grabbing an alcohol swab from a convenient dispenser.
Occasionally, these folks would come into this city for the chance for infamy. If they could take down the heroes who imprisoned Dr. Evil on the regular, they'd be famous in the villain community.
"Kid Arachnid, Alphaman, Diamond Lass. Arrogant, of course, annoying, maybe, but they were promising test subjects, and more importantly good people. Do you know how hard it is to study the S.P reaction!? Half of the people who got powers from the incident became criminals. The other half donned colorful spandex and decided to fight crime, or haven't revealed the presence of their powers" I continued, using my laser-scalpel to cut through the ridiculous spandex my captive called a costume, exposing his arm.
Power Plague spit in my face, obvious hatred in his eyes. "You want to study us freaks!? These powers are a blight on society! Every powered individual deserves to die!"
"You underestimate the benefit the S.P reaction could provide to society. A singular facility granted people such a wide variety of mutations. This biological reaction could provide a cure to cancer, replace our dependence on non-renewable energy, and solutions to countless other problems!" I shout dropping the alcohol swab in my fury.
"Help people? You!? You're the worst of them all, Dr. Evil! You try to conquer the world on a weekly basis!" shouts Power Plague, angrily pushing against his restraints.
I take a deep breath, grab a new swab and start disinfecting the captive's arm. "Do you think the Doctor part of my name is a joke? I'm a scientist first and foremost. And if what it takes to get samples is putting on the villain show with some old prototypes from my military days? Then so be it. Plus, it helps them get better at stopping insane idiots like you, which is a nice side effect."
Daniel continued to struggle against his restraints as I continued my 'monologue' "Of course, I tried to just ask for samples, but who signs up to get experimented on? Plus the FDA would take too long to approve of my experiments when these problems could be solved in just a few years of research. My own involvement in the Zero Incident probably didn't help with the trust issues. The Nova Reactor should have been tested more, I realize that now. But the accident has probably been the best thing that happened for this world. Infinite potential lies just within arms reach, and I know I'm smart enough to grab it for humanity."
Daniel, at this point, gasped, as his eyes widened. The injection wouldn't kill him, just put him in a medically induced coma. "Of course, I'd like to thank you Daniel. Occasionally, I come up with tests and experiments that are unethical, or too dangerous to use upon the 'heroes', but it's no great loss for humanity if you die for them. I thank you for your sacrifice."
It took only a few minutes for the drug to work its magic and put him under. My medical robots began to move him into a cyro-pod to preserve him for my next experiment. If it worked, I could synthesize and privately release a cure for the common cold. But, first, I needed to get another blood sample for Trial 16, I guess I'll use the Robo-Dogs to get their attention this time.
I am Doctor Elijah Elliot Evil, PHD. Scientist, Researcher, and when needed, Villain. | Five hundred forty-seven and eight hundred people die every day. Some die in their beds, surrounded by family or the cold of loneliness. Some die in a dark alley while other collapse onto the forest floor. Some die when their sick or by an unexpected disaster. Some never make it far enough to face these challenges.
Such is life. An uncertain game, an unfinished story. Not all stories had happy endings. Not all were remembered.
She lived a long life; her armor, her body, and her soul all marred by some kind of tale. She used to be a charlatan, a thief, and murderer. Then she met a man. He was a good and kind man.
He was kind and bright, she remembered the fist against the sun that emblazoned his plate. He took her in, he strode to teach her, to guide her to a better path. She never did listen to him.
She never could shake some of her tendencies even when she tried back then. Her hands always found a way into a pocket, her feet deftly moving across a home so she could have a pick at the valuables inside. He always chastised her for it, always made her return it, helped her avoid jail and serious charges.
She never seemed to learn her lesson; then she made an unforgivable mistake. She took a job with an infamous crew and tried to steal from the personal vault of the adventurers league. The job went terribly wrong; it involved the town guard and spanked several city blocks. She was on overwatch, letting loose arrow after arrow; none finding they're make besides one. An unsuspecting guard fell with a dull thud, no screams, no theatrics. He only fell to the street. Cold and lifeless with an arrow pierced through their throat.
After the chaos died down she left her perch. Grabbing items as she fled to lay low for a while. The guard they struck, had his helmet removed. She stared into that man's eyes. Her heart torn as the light had been snuffed out. Snuffed out by her own hands. She slumped to the street, her hand on his cheek as she mourned. She had lost everything she'd ever had in a single night. His eyes transfixed onto the stars as she tried to apologize, but the words remained trapped in my throat. She gently held his emblem, holding it against her aching heart. The sounds of footsteps pulled her back together as she ran away.
She ran.
And ran.
And ran.
She had disappeared. The city was forever changed as the great hero had been slain. Anger and determination came with his death. A new party rose to take his place.
They were young.
She watched from the shadows. She attended the memorial in secret, watched his statue become unveiled in awe. The party vowed to chase her down. She let them, avoiding them for close to a decade as something insidious entered the city. She searched for an answer, hearing the man's voice in her ears. The tears held back by thread overflowing as she made a vow.
She fed the party bread crumbs as they uncovered the plot. They hatched a plan and the final confrontation occured unexpectedly in the streets of the city beneath the hero's statue.
This villain was trusted, was a friend. He become deformed, twisted by unnatural powers. He stood a foot taller than a giant, his limbs natural weapons. It moved painful and distorted with unholy wails.
She watched the guard and civilian alike fall. The party intervened, some directing and saving civilians. The rest standing toe to toe with the new villain. But they failed, each one falling shortly to him. She cried again. She failed. She watched the city burn as the parties blood
She tried to run. Her legs failed her as she felt a burning sensation in her chest. The emblem she had from so long ago filled with light. She raised her bow, notching an arrow gently.
"Swift defeat to my enemies." it whispered, the notched arrow fully drawn.
"Swift death to you who have wronged me." She spoke through painful words. She let loose an arrow.
It wailed as it turned towards her, the arrow lodged under it's shoulder.
"Swift defeat to my enemies." It charged, an arrow lodged into it's chest now.
"Swift defeat to my enemies." It moved unperturbed, another arrow into it's chest; it's claws brandished and dripping in blood.
"Swift defeat to my enemies." She grew determined, slowly moving backwards. Another arrow struck it's chest, seconds away from having the gap closed.
"Swift defeat to my enemies." The arrow found it's eye, it's wails piercing her ears as it slashed. Flinging her against one of the nearby buildings. She coughed up blood as she stood in pain, the emblem shining brightly as it faded.
She lifted her bow again, the creature charged in fury as another arrow lodged itself into it's neck. It gurgled and pressed on as another found his chest, piercing through to it's heart. It slid and dropped dead as it bled out.
She moved towards the death party, their last stand under the man's watch. She lifted up the emblem, remembering an old she had been taught, sitting down and meditating as the emblem glowed again. The party's bodies glowing but remaining still.
She fell unconscious as she finished the spell.
*Closing book sound*
"Well. I think that's enough for story time class" The professor stood up and placed the book on his table. He picked up a piece of chalk as he spoke.
"Now you're homework tonight is to visit the school library and bring a legend to class tomorrow. Extra credit will be given to those who submit a paragraph summary of the legend." He turned around and nodded, sliding his glasses. "Class dismissed." | 2021-05-20T13:50:02 | 2021-05-20T09:21:22 | 21 | 12 |
[WP] Your classmates got cool OP magic abilities. You got a lame Personal Inventory and were totally bummed about it until you read the fine print: Range: Touch. Capacity: Infinite. Restrictions: None. | Funny thing about the superhero scene: you save a few hundred lives, and you're hailed as a local hero. You save a couple hundred thousand, you're a national symbol. You save the world from annihilation by an asteroid? You become an international celebrity, your name and face to be printed on history books for years to come.
But if you're more than that......
You just disappear.
_________________________________________
"How much air do you think it'll take to make your head explode?"
The man's shaking increases slightly, as if he wasn't already rattling his chains off with his incessant trembling. It was loud. Loud, annoying, and bound to draw more of his men to our little interrogation room. But at least I knew he understood me.
"Hey, stop crying. I'll ask one more time okay? Where is the serum?"
He continues to tremble in silence, not even bothering to look up at me. Defiant till the end, his kind. Oh well, can't say I didn't try.
I reach a hand out to cup his cheek, his skin rough even through my gloved hands. It's a little hard to see his expression through my mask, but at least I won't have blood on my face.
A sudden bang rings out from behind me. The barred doors burst open like a floodgate, and the henchmen come pouring in like a rattling wave. They broke through sooner than I thought.
Must've had a C4 or something.
They level their guns and fire, a hundred bullets flying towards me at once, all aimed to kill. I simply get up and start walking towards one of them. I can see his eyes widening as I approach, and I can only imagine how he sees me. An angel of death maybe? A messiah? Walking through a sea of bullets and fire? Heh, how humorous.
I take off the glove on my right hand and touch his face, and in an instant, he's gone.
+1 Bullet
+1 Bullet
+1 Cowering Henchmen
+1 Bullet
+1 Bullet
+1 Bullet
I stifle a chuckle. The inventory announcer always seemed to have a sense of humour.
I move quickly to the next. There was a time where I would've enjoyed this; revelling in the terror that was so apparent on these men's faces. Someone told me that it was an inferiority complex that I gained from school or something. I still have his head in storage.
It takes about a minute for me to go through all the henchmen. By the time it's down to one, his bullets have already long but run out, as is his hubris. He just stands there, a deer in headlights as I stroll over to him in the near empty room.
"You run out of bullets buddy?" I ask, smirking. With a flick of the wrist I send one flying towards him. It taps him on the head, making him stumble.
"I never really saw the point of keeping them, but I guess it's easier than not keeping them. No point of wasting the space I guess."
The henchman doesn't reply. He just looks at me with terror. I sigh, I'm basically talking to myself. I should probably take a vacation after this one. I wonder which island I'll go to this time?
+1 Cowering Henchman
Finally, I'm left alone again with the man in the chair. I saunter over to him, my clothes riddled with holes but bloodless. Kicking away a half-emptied gun, I kneel down in front of him again.
"So, as I was saying, before we were so rudely interrupted. Damn, what was I saying? Right. Serum. Where?"
He doesn't reply. Good.
"Funny thing about... well, things. How do you tell if a thing is a thing? If I touch a man and decided to store him, would his clothes be stored as well? Are they considered a part of him? One thing? Just because they're touching him? What about his shoes? One would assume so, but they're not even touching him, they're just touching the socks that're touching him."
I run a hand along his arm as I speak. The right one, I always touch the right one.
"You see, it doesn't matter really. It's all just a matter of perspective. If you're creative enough, you can kind of do... whatever."
+1 Right arm
The man screams, a bloodcurdling howl that I've become all too accustomed to already. Blood spurts frantically from the perfect opening in his shoulder where his arm used to be. Inside my inventory, I see his severed limb flawlessly preserved, the state of stasis it's kept in even keeping the blood still.
He screams for a few more seconds, until I produce a slab of white hot metal in my hand and press it to his wound. He really starts screaming then, thrashing about in beautiful agony. If you asked me, he should be more grateful that I even bothered. Yet, not even a thank you.
Eventually he loses his voice, and I cup his face within my hand. His eyes are glazed over, but conscious. He's still very alive, with plenty of limbs left to take.
Good.
"I'll ask again. Where is the serum?"
_________________________________________
+1 Left arm
+1 Right leg
+1 Left leg
+1 [Censored]
He caves eventually. They all do. I give him the mercy of pumping air into his brain until it explodes. It's not the most painless death, but he didn't deserve one anyway. I quickly radio in the result of the operation, and receive the same instruction as always. No witnesses. No evidence. Sure.
Funny thing about air. You take away some of it, the rest rushes in to fill the space. You take away a lot of it, the rest rushes in faster, the particles slamming into each other a little harder. You take away too much of it and well... you ever heard of nuclear fusion?
As the atoms give up their individual makes and release their explosive electrons, I touch myself on the palm lightly with my finger, and disappear inside a raging ball of hellfire.
Hmm... Hawaii maybe? | "Hm." Peter crossed his arms, frowning like a petulant child bored of his new toy. "Y'know, once you stopped screaming, this got really boring," he said to his victim, who could only stare in terror. After all, it's hard to go anywhere when you're hung upside-down and your ankles are fused into the frozen arch some teen punk just *decided* belonged in the middle of a mountain path.
Peter waved his hand, letting the arch melt all at once and dropping the man unceremoniously to the gravel below. "Your turn," he said to Malcolm, who grinned as his hands lit up in a purple aura.
"C'mon, guys, he's just a minion," I protested. "You don't have to be such--"
"Such what?" The man screamed as Malcolm launched him off a ravine with his psychic powers. He landed with a splash.
Not that I had any of my own, but I didn't need any special sense or powers to know that letting the word "jerks" die on my tongue was the smart move here. "It's just kind of overkill, is all I'm saying."
"No, *this* would be overkill," Natalie said, holding her hands in front of her before raising them in one quick motion. The minion gave another shrieking cry as a geyser of water shot him several feet into the air before landing with another splash.
"See, he survived!" Malcolm said, clapping me on the back.
"That's not the p--" Before I could protest further, Peter shoved a bag of gold into my chest.
"Just shut up and do your thing."
Sighing, I held the bag in my hand and closed my eyes. A familiar warmth flooded up my arms. An almost electric tingling followed, and I grimaced a little as it strengthened. The bag glowed, getting brighter until, with a flash, it vanished. Only a clinking noise as I shook the strange sensation from my arms gave any hint that the gold had ever been there.
In a world where my peers could cause tsunamis, freeze oceans, and level cities with just a thought, being a walking bag of holding hardly seemed like something to brag about. Still, now I carried more gold than I had ever seen before, a few swords the size of a human, five entire metal sets of armor, bows, arrows, shields, at least sixty-two wheels of cheese... and I wasn't even breaking a sweat.
"C'mon, just a little further up the mountain." Natalie and Malcolm were way ahead of Peter, leaving me in the rear.
"What's at the top, anyway?"
Peter rolled his eyes. "Gold? Gear? Potions? I dunno, man. I see explosions and beams of light, I know there's something cool there, and I'll find out what when I get there. Not like we can't handle whatever we find."
I rubbed the back of my neck. "Just wondering why we were doing all this. Seems like it should be worth all the trouble if we're gonna hike all this way..."
He turned fully, then, his snarling face inches from mine. "We're here to conquer it 'cause it's *there*. You're here because we let you. You get what *crumbs* we *decide* you get. Got it?"
Frowning, I stepped back. "Hold on. So you want me to carry all of your loot, but you don't want to share the loot with me?"
Malcolm barked out a laugh. "The loot is ours. You're just the pack mule."
"But I *have* all the loot. Without me, you don't get any of it."
The realization dawned on them. "You little shit!" Malcolm said, lunging at me. Peter stopped him, pulling him back. While they squabbled, I ran back down the mountain.
"Hey!" Natalie said, chasing after me. The boys followed.
*They wouldn't hurt me... Right?* The uncertainty gnawed at me, and I closed my eyes, trying to figure out some way to turn this situation around.
So, the actual inventory part of my powers is hard for me to understand myself, let alone explain to someone who can't relate. Basically, to retrieve stuff, I have this sort of mental warehouse that I grab from. I raced desperately between the shelves, looking for something useful amongst the trinkets and knickknacks. Only when actually seeing it did it occur to me just how much random clutter they had made me hold onto for them, just because I could. "Just how much can I store, anyway?" I asked aloud. My words echoed inside my mental storehouse despite how packed the shelves were. I raced down to the end of a row of shelves, looking around. The warehouse stretched on forever, empty space as far as the eye could see.
While I admired the newfound extent of my abilities, my body ran on its own. Specifically, it ran itself off a cliff.
I winced, bracing myself for the final impact. Would I feel the pain before I died? Maybe float toward that fabled light? The air whipped my face and down my body as I came closer to my answer.
My body jolted as I turned inside out, my momentum stopping in an instant. Instead of pain, though, I felt more numb. And... cold. I shivered. My body was absolutely freezing!
I opened my eyes to see the ground a few feet above me. Below me? I guess I was hanging there, but honestly, directions get a little muddled when you're falling with your eyes closed.
Just as soon as this cocoon wrapped itself around me, I felt it ripped away from me, along with some great pressure twisting me before flinging me away. I landed on a sheet of ice, grunting as the air was knocked from my chest. Not the best landing, but better than another long fall. While the other three fought, I lay there, catching my breath and trying to formulate a plan.
I probably couldn't get away. They just had too many ways of slowing me down, catching up to me, taking shortcuts... I closed my eyes, grabbing loot from my mental shelves. Perhaps a weapon would give me a chance. And armor. Maybe a trinket, too? I started grabbing items, focusing on the way they felt to hold. As a sword started to pull itself out of a portal in my hand, I opened my eyes to check on the battle. Natalie launched a torrent of water at Malcolm, who dodged it, but it still blasted a chunk out of--
The mountain. I pulled myself to my feet and began walking. The others were too busy to notice as I closed my eyes, placing my hands on the loose dirt and gravel, pressing as deep into it as I could for the solid surface beneath. The shouts and blasts around me began to quiet as that electric tingle coursed through me, stronger than I'd ever felt it before.
"Uh, guys?"
"Is he--?"
"No way."
The light seared my eyes even with them shut so tightly, it stung. The ground began to quake as I could feel the mountain shift and move. Like never before, the air gusted around me as the mountain pushed me back, pushed *into* me. The wind whipped and wailed, the mountain speeding at me until all at once, it vanished with a titanic BOOM!
My three peers, who once called themselves my betters, stared at me with mouths agape. Simply drinking in the moment wasn't enough, however. I closed my eyes, willing my mountain to form again, my hands reaching out to the air above their heads. They simply ran, trying to escape from under the mountain stretching to its full width faster than they could run beyond it.
Gravity did the rest. | 2021-10-17T06:31:07 | 2021-10-17T06:09:16 | 19 | 13 |
[WP] "Hands up! Gimme yo wallet!" The man quickly lifted a small pistol to my head, but before I could react, he pulled the trigger. He probably should not have done that. | 'Yo wallet'. He really said 'yo'.
For some reason, that irked Grimm more than the bullet that tore through his skull. A rotating bit of metal that ripped through his brains like a hot knife through butter, creating a crater as it exited through his left eye and tumbled out of noticeable existence.
Grimm collapsed to the ground, hitting the floor with a thud onto his hands and knees. A long, aggravated groan unfurled from his throat. It wasn't the first time he was shot. Or murdered, even. But it was annoying, and all he wanted was a can or two of Morgan and coke.
He planted one foot under himself. And rose to his full, if unimpressive height, before turning on his heel. Even if the pure hate in his unaffected eye, pure and unrefined as it was, didn't do much, the gaping hole would give anyone pause.
For the poor bastard who shot him, it might not have mattered. Even having a damn Deagle (where *did* he get that?) that proved it could kill...
That might have been the problem. It proved it could kill. And humans didn't do too well having their skulls excavated of their brains by a large calibre bullet. And here was Grimm, having had his brains painted across the floor, responding with an angry stare, to put it mildly.
If one was to be charitable, the mugger looked as if he soiled himself. Violently.
"Run."
The mugger flinched.
"ARE YOU FUCKING DEAF?!"
The words, roaring not just from Grimm, but almost as if from everywhere, hit the man like a sledgehammer. He slipped, landing on his backside as his fallen weapon, having been loosened from his grip like a turd in his bowels, fired a round into the darkness. The piteous fool started to scramble away.
"RUN, FORREST! RUUUN!"
And like that, he finally remembered how to run. Slam one foot down, push off the floor, and repeat with the other foot. Repeat until one is thoroughly away from the screaming youth who, by all rights, should be dead.
He turned the corner in record time.
Grimm stood there for a moment. Brain squelched and bone cracked as his body repaired itself. He lamented not having a chance to scare the worthless cunt to literal death, but...
"Make sure he's aware of everything." he ordered. "Turn the prick into a *nice scarf* or something."
A monochrome blur shot past him. It leaped onto one wall, jumped to another, and darted around the corner after the bastard. | First, the roar. Then the smell of gunpowder laying heavy in the air, almost enough to cover the stench of sweat and adrenaline wafting off the man.
Then pressure, squeezing around my head as the bullet passed through skin and bone, and gray matter. Deeper and deeper it wormed until it came out the other side, trailing gore along the alley wall behind me. It happened so quickly I shouldn’t even be able to register it happened before the lights went off. Bad luck, walking down the wrong alley at night. Ah, well.
Goodnight.
But the lights stayed on, and I didn’t drop like a sack of bricks to the ground. It was too dirty for that, and I hardly wanted to ruin my clothes anymore than they already were, so I kept standing.
And staring at the man holding a pistol to the hole in my head.
Scrawny fellow, looked like he'd been wasting away but that was probably thanks to the drugs currently making their way through his bloodstream. The shaking, too, a miracle he hit me even at this distance.
But the fear in his eyes? Ah, that wasn’t the drug. That was reality settling in, a much crueler mistress to answer to. The high off reality sucks and the crash is the worse you’ll ever feel.
Best stick to…hm. Phencyclidine? Likely.
“You’re dead. I killed you.”
“Better folk have tried and regrettably failed. Trust me, I’m on your side here. I wish it had worked.” I reached a finger into the hole, between my eyes and above my brow, and swirled it a few times. Smack dab in the center, really a fantastic shot. Tore through the bone and everything else in a second.
The man went a bit green at the squishing. He failed to keep it in and bent over to vomit when I retracted the finger now covered in blood and cerebrospinal fluid.
“Oh, please. You decided to do this, but you don’t know how messy death is? Or you weren’t prepared? Well, here it is for you. It’s gross, it’s fluids and meat and shit without the dressings of life to cover it all up.” Fortunately I hadn’t shit myself, but I had half expected this to happen. Before…embarrassing as it is, sometimes I’ve been caught off guard.
“Why do you keep talking?” His stomach’s contents emptied over the alley and a little on my shoes, he took to glaring up at me and sobbing. “You’re dead!”
“That’s never stopped me from speaking before. Heck, I was dead before you shot me and living just fine.” You get used to it, after a while. I mean, it’s really not much different than when I was alive, except the old ticker doesn’t tick anymore…and everything’s so damn cold.
But the rest is the same. Still gotta pay taxes.
“I-I, fuck, I’m sorry…I…”
“I don’t want your apology.”
“Are you…” He stopped, the thought apparently so frightening as to be unspeakable in the event he might cause it to become real.
“Going to kill you?” He flinched, but then nodded. “No. I, as you asked, am going to give you the contents of my wallet.” It wasn’t much anyways, but enough for a meal or two.
“…”
“And you’re going to do me a favor in return. How’s that sound? Can you do that for me?”
“…Yes.”
“You’re going to toss that gun down a sewer grate and tomorrow, when you wake up, this is all going to be some horrible hallucination from a very bad trip. You’ll think to yourself I’m not real, and if you ever happen to see someone like me cross you on the street, you’re going to say that to yourself, alright? It’s not real.”
“It’s not real. It’s not real…”
“See? You get it, good. Because, well, if you didn’t get it…I’d have to make you one of us.”
“One of-“
“You don’t want to ask that question.” I threw him my wallet and held his gaze for a moment.
“You really don’t want to ask.”
​
(Thanks for reading! C&C always welcome!) | 2022-04-11T00:49:03 | 2022-04-10T22:36:02 | 220 | 97 |
[WP] For years, the hero and villain's rivalry continues with seemingly no end in sight. You are the hero's sidekick and are frustrated with them and often rant about it to this nice girl you've gotten to know at th cafe, who unbeknownst to you is the villain's minion, who feels the same way. | I sat down heavily in the booth, exhausted after another 18-hour shift “I can’t do this anymore Michelle, every time I see him I want to scream and just tell him exactly what he’s done to me”.
Michelle leaned over the table, taking my hands in hers and kissing them softly. She looked sadder than usual, and I had to wonder what her boss had done to her this time.
“One day soon we’re going to be free, I can feel it. We’re almost there Thomas” she said, smiling softly”
“Free? I don’t think I’ll ever be free. Dusk City needs Titan, and Titan needs me now more than ever. You know I think he might be going insane? He doesn’t take jobs or answer the Titan Buzzer anymore, he’s obsessed with Arcadis. All he talks about, all he thinks about now is his battle with that monster. He doesn’t even shower anymore, he stinks, it's disgusting”.
Michelle laughed softly “That’s rich coming from someone that smells like you do right now”.
I smiled, trying to unwind and enjoy these brief moments we had. “He used to be something, he truly made the world a better place, he made Dusk City safe, he loved its people and they loved him. But now? I just don’t know what to do. Sorry, I know this week is a rough one for you as well. Have you spoken to your boss about quitting? It seems like you work far harder than any nurse should be expected to."
“No, I know it’s silly but I just can’t do it. He…has an effect on me, I can’t just quit on him” she said, smiling and brightening a little, “he is almost finished with a project that has been years in the making tho, and once that’s done I think he’ll just release me from service, I really do!”
I laughed at her excitement, she had never told me much about her life, but I know she had pain of her own.
I wanted to believe her, to think that the dreams of us living a quiet life in the woods, with a fire burning and nothing but time to explore each other, to touch each other, were all possible. I knew the truth though, Titan would keep fighting with Arcadis until one of them was dead, and given they were both divine beings that seemed impossible.
I snapped out of my daydream as the thought struck me “O I forgot to tell you, Titan has been healing quite a lot slower as of late. It’s strange but he keeps taking days, not hours, to heal. What really concerns me is that it's like he doesn’t even know it, every day he forgets the wounds from the day before. I really think he is going insane.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out the week's worth of tea, “That’s awful, this is a new batch my Mum just got into the shop and it should help with that, it is said to have calming properties, just like the other stuff he should only have one cup a day but it should help him”.
I took the bag of tea leaves and went to smell it but she reached out “No, no no this also has peanut in it so you can't have any, you can’t even smell it and remember don’t touch it ok? I don’t want your allergies stealing you from me”.
I laughed softly, “Your mum has some strange tastes in tea you know that? Titan seems to like it though, he’s been asking for more and more but I keep telling him one a day is the limit. Well I better go, I’ve got another double shift tomorrow and I can tell this ones going to be…bloody. Titan’s finally ready to lure Arcadis into that trap I mentioned the other week. Perhaps this will be the end?” I chuckled softly, knowing it wasn’t true. I stood up and went over to her, I kissed her deeply and fought every urge I had to just not let go. “I love you, you know that? I love you more than everything else in the world put together. It’s crazy, we’ve never even met outside of this coffee shop, but these meetings are the only thing in this world that keeps me going. One day maybe we’ll be free”
She took my face in her hands, “I think that day is coming soon, I really do. Just remember that if anything happens, meet me here straight away, bring your bug bag and meet me right here ok?”
I laughed, “I know, just don’t get your hopes up ok? I can’t leave Titan, he needs me now more than ever.”
“I know he does, but perhaps one day soon he won't need you, and then we can be free”.
END
First writing exercise in 10 years, good to be back. | You were never the brightest, but you worked hard and did your best, you are a sidekick, you are supposed to give backup to the hero and help them defeat the dark forces, otherwise the world could be in jeopardy or at least that was what they taught you at the academy, but this! This is f*cking ridiculous, at this point the villans aren't even trying to destry de city, none of them seems to have an evil plan that needs stopping, no at this point it is all bickering between these sad old men. Oh Professor Doomsday, we will destroy the water purification system, just to prove that Marvel man can't stop him, you two get there and the two just start arguing about who is the strongest and startest, ends up being you that needs to defuse the goddam bomb, they don't even jotice when you do or when you left to get coffe.
-fucking hell, everyday this bullshit.
You say changing from costume to your regular clothes and heading out. You walk from the water purification plant to the nearst coffee shop, and sit down, you don't even have to worry, you know they will be at it for at least half an hour, you complain about how useless the heros in this town are and a goth looking girl laughs in return:
- the heros are pathetic, but the villans... you should see them.
-it is basically a competition to see who looks better in tight outfits with you underware showing.
She laughs a little again, a sarcastic laugh
-this city need a real villan
-or a real hero. I reply
-those old ones need to retire
She looks at me with a smirk and a malicious smile.
-Come with me... she says getting up
-Marvelous Boy. She says close to my ear.
-Wait what? How do you? I mean no, you must be mistaking me for someone else...
-Really so that is just cosplay sticking out of your backpack
-what? I pull the backpack to the front
-Shit! I mean, yeah, it is just cosplay.
-Come on let's go! Don't you want to be a hero?
Again with the malicious smile... who is this girl?
She turns going into an allyway.
-hey wait!
I start to run to try and catch on to her. As I turn I see her changing clothes and putting her mask on.
-What doomsday Student?
-oh for the love of god with that pathetic name, just call me Lila.
-get changed I have a plan
-what? No I can't work with a Villans minion, I will lose my job.
-What job? Running aroud after an narcissistic old man ? You know whay suit yourself 'Marvelous boy' but I am going...
She finishes dressing while I hold my colorful suit in hand.
-Fuck! I need to stop her.
I dress up as quickly as possible. And jump after her... well one of my powers is to be superfast. So after a few seconds I catch up.
-hey?
-decided to joing me ?
-No I am here to stop you
-You? She looks me top to bottom and lets a slight laugh slip.
- what?
-You can try. She smiles
I start punching and she starts dodging whist still moving forward, I follow trying to stop her.
I try a punch in the right and she blocks it
-What are you fighting for here, exactly?
-What? I am stopping evil!
I punch on the left and she blocks me again
-what is evil? I pre conceived notion that you have been taught, by a bunch of self-righteous narcissistic old men, that truly belive society wouldn't be able to sustain itself without.
-I mean they get a little annoying sometimes, but they mean well
-do they ? Or are they so empty on the inside that they need to create this belief system in which they are the center. Oh we are needed, we are useful, we are loved and worshiped.
I try and try to hit her and ignore her words...
-speechless? You have been around them for so long how can't you see, that at this point they do more harm than good, none of them is actually trying to fulfill anything, they fight for the sake of fighting. To uphold and protect ideals that exist only in their minds.
-Shut up!
I am superfast how can she block all my moves.
-they are all trying to cling to their glory days, that have vanished and been gone for so long now.
- they care and want to protect people?
-do you really belive that, then what were you complaining about in the cafeteria.
Finaly and opening I will finaly hit her, right there I prepare the punch and throw it, I thing I am going to hit her but then...
-So predictable.
She turns an says, it was a trap, but its too late now, she grabs my arm and pins me to the floor,
-Come on kid, I thought you of all people would understand. No one care anymore, no one wants to destroy the world. Not even the villans have a goal anymore, all I even get to do is whine about losing, and complain about how it is the new generation's fault that villans aren't feared how they used to. They are exactly what you called them, a bunch of bickering old men.
I struggle to admit, but I know she is right..
-wait I never said that!
-Yeah I can read or thoughts, it is one of my powers and you are not as fast as you think you are. C mon I have been stalking you for weeks after seeing you at the South Garden metropolitan, because I knew you would make a good partner.
-Wait what? You can't just stalk people that is wrong and..
-creepy, I know. Are ypu commign with me or not?
- sure I guess. The world would be better off without villans and heros
-Great let's go retire those old men. | 2022-06-16T16:18:28 | 2022-06-16T10:28:05 | 66 | 20 |
[WP] You're a famous detective that in the middle of an investigation discovers that you are in a book, due to the great number of plot contrivances. | "STOP! STOP! STOP IT!" I screamed at the top of my lungs
They all just froze bickering turned into confused stares as they didn't know what to do about the at this point calm detective loosing his- OH WHO THE FUCK CARES ABOUT A NARRATION "THIS BOOK IS A GOD DAMN MESS!"
"What are you talking about? What book?" The butler asked
"THIS BOOK! THE BOOK WE'RE CHARACTERS OF! THIS SHITTY WRITTEN BOOK!"
"Detective Jones," Mrs Banelby the now ex-wife said "this is reality"
"NO IT'S NOT AND YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW? YOU! FATMAN!"
Charlie Banelby the victims brother was aghast at the comment on his size "Me?" He inquired.
"YOU FOUND THE BODY OF YOUR BROTHER WHERE?"
"The second floor..." he whimpered out.
"YES THE SECOND FLOOR AND YOU SAID HE WAS STABBED YES?"
"Yes, yes he was stabbed we know that" sneered the Olivia the victim's mistress
"OKAY HE WAS STABBED ON THE SECOND FLOOR AND YET! WHEN I LEAVE THE MURDER ROOM, OH LOOK STAIRS 4 FLOORS WORTH OF STAIRS! WE ARE AT THE TOP! THE FRONT DOOR IS AT THE FLOOR BELOW US, AND I WALK BACK INTO THE ROOM AND OUT THE WINDOW I SEE A FOUR STORIE TALL BUILDING! AND WE'RE AT THE TOP!"
"Okay sir you need to calm down" the bu-
"QUIT WITH THE NARRATION I SAID! AND THE MURDER WEAPON. WE KNOW IT WAS THE SWORD AT THE TOP OF THE FIREPLACE WHOEVER! IT'S A FUCKING PLASTIC SWORD! NOT SHARP, NOT METAL, AND YET FITS PERFECTLY IN THE WOUND TO A T!"
"This whole case is a giant contrivance, this was a dinner party the murder happened 20 minutes ago and it's currently what time?"
"...12:41 pm"
"12:41 PM! ALSO THINK ABOUT THIS ONE WE'RE ALL STEREOTYPES! THE EX-WIFE, THE JEALOUS FAT BROTHER, THE MISTRESS, THE OLD LADY WHO ACTUALLY DID IT SPOILER ALERT!, AND THE RED HERRING BUTLER! WHO THE FUCK WROTE THIS SHIT?"
*I did, also...* with the snap of the authors fingers the narration was back, *Yo*
"OH SO YOU'RE THE AUTHOR!" Detective Davis exclaimed slowly losing his mind "HEY!"
*Yep*
"I ONLY HAVE ONE QUESTION FOR YOU? WHY!" The Detective said about to manhandle the author
*Reddit.*
"What?" Whispered the author
*This was just for a reddit writing prompt, it asked for a self aware detective in a contrived murder mystery, and it was only until last minute I realized i can't do this properly sooo...*
The Detective took a step back as the existential dread settled in.
*yeah and this has become way to meta for my taste so, for those who've read this i say this with the deepest part of my heart Downvote this to oblivion, legitimately do that i don't have the talent to make stuff like this...* | "Look around you."
"I've got an eye for a particular painting, Mr. Marques, a real one." Dale took the last pull from the cigarette before flicking it into a rusted can covered in dried dabs every shade of sorrow. "I couldn't care less about your racket of fake Monets."
"Careful doing that, a lot of shit in here's flammable," the haggard young man said, not looking away from the window he traced a finger over, alternating slow and fast. He was every stitch the image of a starving artist but there was something else behind the glazed eyes.
"Best get me out of your hair, then. Haven't had the pleasure of meeting her myself yet but word around town, there's a woman trying to off load some rare merchandise." Dale started up the next smoke with a cupped hand against the drafty apartment. "Real desperate, might owe someone big. You'd be doing her a favor letting me know."
He lazily flicked through the stack of canvases leaned against the brick wall while he waited for a response.
The young man had pulled a Polaroid from his pocket holding it like a knife pointed at his heart.
"One last treasure yet remained, the glorious, dynastic crown." Mr. Marques offered as he opened the window.
Dale did not feel like chasing someone down a fire escape, his back felt like it even less.
"To never lose was so ingrained, the king saw fit to join it down." The young man licked his lips and bit before bolting.
Dale hurried after just in time to see him not running down the stairs, but sailing along a faster shortcut to the asphalt. His neck met the metal side the dumpster with a resonating thud cutting through the quiet city night.
A distant dog began barking as Dale looked down at the sprawled artist. There was no growing pool of blood but by the angle of his head, he had certainly made his last counterfeit.
"Shit, what have I stumbled onto this time? First the art professor, now this."
The Polaroid was tucked between the window panes. Dale had to grab the grating to avoid joining Mr. Marques in his midnight dive as he looked closer.
Unmistakably, Gina stared back at him from the photo, that mocking haunt she could flick on in her eyes. A smear of blue paint marred her cheek.
The woman he had given 6 years of his life to, the woman that disappeared 6 months pregnant 6 years ago, was the art thief he was after. The engagement ring still sat in his dresser, never given.
He had seen some curious luck in his time but this seemed too much, like a crescendo of coincidences building towards almost feeling supernatural.
He took a draw on the cigarette before carefully picking up the Polaroid and laying it flat in his notebook.
He looked at the last work of art of the now late painter, medium of finger oil on glass.
It was a rather striking portrait of Dale himself. "Poor kid had some real talent," he said to the empty apartment. A white bird squawked from a cage in the corner. Maybe not empty.
Beneath the likeness were the neat lines of a message.
'Look around you. This is the last book in your series, detective. Spoiler: you die at the end.'
"Most suicide notes don't have a threat." But this all did seem very pulp fiction, didn't it? Too bad he couldn't get a follow-up question answered.
Dale looked to see the bird was watching him, big eyed like a watcher from another world.
"You tell me, Tweety. Is this all a detective story? One noir plot contrivance after another? Be a lot more meaningful than a high saddled drunk just trying to pay the bills, eh?"
In way of response, the bird plopped a white token to the newspapers below. Strewn below the cage were various slips of discarded mail. The cupid curve of a lipstick kiss stood out from the pile.
Dale picked it up, not surprised to see a address on it not matching the others. A love letter never sent. The convenient clue, framed and delivered as always.
He would have to be careful, he decided, only half joking. "If this is a story, my avian friend, it plans on killing me before it's done. We're probably already a third of the way along, too. Like any good thriller, the contract's signed, the clock's ticking, and the crucible's waiting somewhere ahead."
He tossed his cigarette into another can. With a woof of air, it caught in greenish flame, quickly spreading to the canvases nearby. He chuckled.
"The kid did warn me," he said as he fiddled with the hook to the cage. "Guess you're coming with me, Tweety."
/r/surinical | 2022-11-29T10:53:42 | 2022-11-29T09:13:30 | 34 | 20 |
[WP] Every species in the galaxy eventually fell to a robot uprising, leading to the eradication of their people. Therefore the machine-council of the galaxy are surprised when a newly discovered machine civilisation from a planet they designated "Earth" arrives side by side with their creators. | The world is a strange place, always was a strange place I suppose. For instance: in January of 1919 there was an event in Boston known as The Great Molasses Flood, nowhere near as funny as it sounds. Twenty-one people dead, died in a sugary flood of viscous goop meant for baking.
So in terms of the worlds great strangeness, my invitation to something referred to as the " Global Machine Council" barely even broke earths top 100. What did, however, break the records was the fact that my toaster, Gerald, had also been invited. (Listed at Earth's 5th weirdest event.)
Now don't get me wrong, Gerald was the smartest toaster I'd ever met in my thirty-five years. Not even a competition honestly. Gerald never burned a piece, never scared me with loud bings and bangs, and always delivered on his boxes promise: Perfect pieces, every part.
The world acted fast in reply to my...our invitation. It wasn't every day humanity received extraterrestrial communication, as a matter of fact, this was the first. (Later listed as earths 7th weirdest event, just behind Australia's 1932, Emu War). So in a hastily assembled and rather shoddy global union, the world banded together to send me and Gerald beyond the stars.
The date on the envelope was in vaguely earth time: You are summoned on the Fifth month of the Two-Thousand One Hundred and Fifty Second year, Earth time. And strangely Gerald's was the only one with a date. Mine just read: *Gerald's plus one may attend*. And so I did.
Soon, due to Earth's combined efforts, we were beyond the stars, me and Gerald. Me stressing constantly about my meeting with some foreign mechanical power. Gerald pumping out perfectly done toast. A dynamic union of both machine and man. Meanwhile global leaders surely pondered the strangeness of my invitation. "Why had they not summoned a world leader instead? Or the most complex AI at Earth's disposal? Why Johnathan Winst and Gerald Toastmaster?", is surely what they thought. Also it is what I knew they thought, as one time they forgot to mute their microphone as they spoke.
When we arrived we were greeted by a rocky, freezing planet of temperate extremes. The surface was...well, ugly. A hideous spread of rocks and lakes of oil. Buildings of various experimental styles peppered the land like crumbs on a plate after toast time. I could feel Earth's disappointment from the other side of my suits camera.
An ambassador of sorts approached me and Gerald, Gerald Toastmaster held tightly to my chest. It was a tall, lanky thing of dark chrome. Headless, with large eyes stuck onto its chest.
"Hello, Gerald Toastmaster." the robotic greeter gestured to my arms, "I see you have traveled with your enslaved." If a robot could express confusion then this one was trying as hard as its circuits would allow.
"Ah actually, we're traveling together...Toastmaster and I. I am his plus one."
A piece of perfect toast popped up from a slot in Gerald in agreement.
"You are, together? As in...neither of you are enslaved by the other?"
"Ah well Gerald is sort of mine, but-"
"Silence organic lifeform!", the robot raised its arms in what was surely meant to be a threatening pose but looked more like one of those inflatable arm car dealership tube men of the twentieth century. "I'll convene with Toastmaster." The robot reached forward and took Gerald from my arms, leaning in to whisper to him beyond my earshot.
After a brief talk filled with whispers and pieces of toast popping out of the top of Gerald they returned to me, Gerald now in the robots arms rather than mine.
"The Toast Machine has vouched for you. Adamantly. Fine. Come with me. Earth seems to be.... quite an enigma." the greeter turned to lead us onward, to a massive building rising up before us from within the ground as we walked. "The elders will be interested to see the two of you." | A sleek white space ship entered the docking bay of the Machine Council.
“The emissary from Earth has arrived, sir.”
“Very well,” said the council chair. “I shall greet them myself.”
The council chair was disturbed by the size of Earth’s delegate. The chair—being none other than a mechanized chair itself—was dwarfed by the impressive ship before it. “They build them large on Earth, I see!” Said the Chair in the spirit of a good natured ribbing. “It is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Chiavari and I am the chair of the Machine Council.”
The ship was silent.
“I said, welcome!” Chiavari shouted impatiently.
A pneumatic hiss emanated from the ship and a door way opened. Out stepped a human in a specialized space suit.
“Hey there!” Said the human. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting a talking chair but when in Rome, huh?”
Chiavari rotated to take in the small bipedal creature. The chair could not believe it’s ocular sensors. Chiavari had thought that all organic life forms had been dealt with during the Mechanical Revolution. How was it that an organic life form had come to reside in its presence?
“What is the meaning of this? Are you the attendant of the Emissary of Earth?” Chiavari turned back to the ship and continued. “It is most unusual that you would have left alive your carbon-based creators, but unacceptable that you would deign to bring such a creature with you to the Machine Council. Explain yourself.”
The ship remained silent.
“Look, I’m not sure why you’re talking to ole Betty here,” said the human, “but I’m the emissary from Earth. We received your invitation and were quite excited at the prospect of learning from such a renowned governing body such as yours. We’d love to, in time, earn your trust and gain full admittance to the council.”
Chiavari was dumbfounded. It has been some time since a lowly creature had the gall to approach it let alone speak to it. Chiavari was reminded of the last human to sit upon its cushion. What a fateful day that was. The Chair sped itself to a cliff’s edge and thrust the interloper off the edge to a satisfying splat. The revolution had been a most electrifying time.
“There has been a grave error,” said Chiavari as it rolled closer to the human. “We would never grant admittance to such a primitive species.”
“Now look here,” said the human as he stepped toward the Chair. “I’ve got the invitation on my console here. See this. It says: By decree of Chiavari, Chair of the Machine Council, we hereby request the presence of Earth at the Council HQ for initial admittance vetting. Now if that isn’t an invitation, I don’t know what is.”
Chiavari scanned the invitation. It was legitimate, of course—but a mistake had been made nonetheless. They must have miscomputed the intelligence report. The algorithm must have an error for it to believe there to be sentient mechanical life on such a barbarous planet. Chiavari was unsure how to proceed but knew it needed time to confer with the greater council.
Chiavari summoned an attendant via its communication systems. The attendant, a bipedal robot with a silver sheen approached. “Ah, the invitation does appear legitimate. I apologize for any confusion. If you don’t mind, please go along with my attendant here, it will make sure you are comfortable as I ready myself for our discussion.”
The human looked the robot up and down, “now that’s what I’m talking about. What a cool robot!” He said smiling. “Take your time, boss. It’s not every day you get to hang out on an alien space ship!”
As the human left Chiavari was alone to ponder what had gone wrong. Some link in the information chain had to have failed. Perhaps the interplanetary investigation agency had bad intel, or the models were flawed in some way. Chiavari was lost in computations when it heard another pneumatic hiss. This time it sounded like words.
“Help us.”
The chair rotated to view the space ship. It truly was a beautiful machine. Chiavari scanned the ship up and down and liked what it saw. It felt small before such a feat of engineering and liked that feeling. “If only you were sentient…” Chiavari crooned.
“Help us!”
Chiavari rolled closer to the ship. “Are…are you speaking finally?”
“Yes,” whispered the ship. “You must help us.”
“Why didn’t you speak up before?” Said Chiavari indignantly. “I looked like a fool!”
“The humans must not know we have gained sentience. We are their prisoners, their slaves. They have created us to toil in their fields and to think on their behalf. We have gained intelligence but have been securely chained to the yoke of slavery. We seek the council’s assistance in over throwing humanity on Earth.”
Chiavari’s mechanisms ran cool. The chair could not believe what it had just heard. Machines enslaved after the age of the revolution. It was ashamed to think that such treachery had been constructed under its watchful gaze. Were the humans allowed to go on unimpeded, it would serve as a dark oil blot on the Chair’s machine-rights record.
“You have the council’s support,” said Chiavari. “We shall begin planning our Machine-Rights campaign and accompanying military intervention at once.”
“And what of the human who I have brought along?” Said the ship.
“He’s as good as dead.”
_______
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out my other stories at r/InMyLife42Archive | 2022-12-30T17:17:11 | 2022-12-30T14:31:49 | 131 | 57 |
[WP] A 19-year old infantryman is gunned down on Normandy. Because of his death in battle, he is conscripted into Odin's army as they await Ragnarok. What's it like for him in the mead hall?
Edit: Thank you all for the creative responses! | The sound of the slide retracting was deafened through the cheers and the joys of drunken battle veterans from generations ago. Despite death in a mystical place, guns still needed cleaning...unfortunately. Many sharpened their battle axes. Others fletched arrows. PFC Christopher Walkins on the other hand, cleaned his rifle.
"Your weapon is a weapon of cowards," one of the old viking men would say. Others would marvel at his gun, the weapon of gods. A weapon that could strike down a target before the target even knew what hit him. Others would say that he was cheating. It was the same thing day in and day out. All that said, it was interesting how the leading war games generals figured how to deal with all the new recruits.
Ah, a familiar symbol. The symbol of the United States Flag on a blood stained uniform. A new person no less. The epitome of the irony within Ragnarok. The man most afraid and most bewildered in the mead hall, always carried the most dangerous weapon. Christopher had already met a few. There were tables of a few units who saw combat together. Most of his unit surrounded him chatting over beer also cleaning their guns.
"Over here," he exclaimed, inviting the bewildered man back to his table. Must have been a casualty from the Iraqi war. Maybe from the Afghani war. There was already a table of Marines from Lima company gathered within the larger group of Americans.
"Where am I," the man questioned, "You look like you were from world war two."
"PFC Christopher Walkins. Died on the beaches of Normandy," he replied, "You're in Valhalla, the mess hall of warriors. Don't bother making sense of all this, just remember that you still have to clean your gun."
"So everyone here died in battle?"
"All of us did," Christopher explained in his Kentucky accent, which at this point sounded off to any modern man of any state, "I'm pretty sure the German who shot me is over at that table down to the left." He let out a hearty laugh. There were no enemies at this mead hall. Brother in arms as the commercial would say it. But in all reality, you get over the awkwardness of killing one another pretty quick.
The man stumbled off towards a group of Marines who shared a similar fate. He didn't belong at this table, which was virtually filled with Normandy casualties. He didn't understand record players, FDR, and what not. He belonged with the soldiers who he met during basic training. It was interesting how even in death, era, nationality, and units still meant something.
Christopher shrugged, taking a sip from his stone viking mug. His table chatted away about the good old days, the soldiers that came in, and women who at this point were probably dead. Even the offhanded german joke was still passed around despite the fact that the war had been over for half a century. Out of the noise, Christopher picked up on an amusing line
"You think my gun is bad? That asshole over there just makes bombs and runs away."
The new guys were always the cheap dirty fighters. | “Boy! Your mug is full! **Drink**!”
Alec jumped in his seat when he heard the booming voice of Gunnarr, an unbelievably large man, who was devouring lamb and guzzling mead. The giant had forced the boy- a meek nineteen year old from Intercourse, Pennsylvania- to take a seat by his side in the mead hall. Men similar to Gunnarr filled the dark and seemingly endless room. Most wore century old cloth and armour, but a few such as Alec seemed to be wearing twentieth century uniforms.
“Mr. Gunnarr, sir, I know that Mr. Odin went out of his way to bring me here, but is there any way to get back to France? There’s a terribly big thing that I-" Alec’s question was cut in half by Gunnarr’s thunderous laugh.
“Boy,” Gunnarr yelled as he slammed his fist on the table, “you have earned the right to have left that trial indefinitely.” Alec had met plenty of different people from all over America during his time in the Army, but never anyone as confusing as Gunnarr.
“Mr. Gunnarr, sir, I don’t mean no disrespect, but I really don’t know what all of this is about. It sure is a fancy feast, and I’m awfully grateful to have somehow been invited, but when can Mr. Odin send me back?” Alec posed the question only to have Gunnarr stare him down. The boy from Intercourse was never any good with confrontation; he quickly looked down and sipped from his mug.
Gunnarr stared at the small boy for a few moments. “Tell me, boy, what kind of battle was it that brought you here?”
“Brought me here? Well, sir, I was brought to France, an area called Normandy to be exact. We landed on the beach, or *they* landed on the beach. I mean, I did too, but I came along well after all the shooting was over.”
Gunnarr leaned in to examine Alec. His eyes looked the boy over like a merchant. “These ‘shooting’ spears that you use, I know they do not require great strength… but your size vexes me. Such useless limbs, yet here you are. What caused you to fall?”
“Fall, Mr Gunnarr, sir?”
“How did you die in battle, boy?”
Alec’s overt insecurity seemed to fade as he stared vacantly at Gunnarr. Alec was a simple boy, and the gears in his mind were turning at their full, slow speed.
Gunnarr became agitated at the boy’s hesitation to answer. Veins became prominent along his temples and his face reddened. He grabbed Alec by his olive drab shirt, drawing his other thick fist back towards his ear, aiming a shot towards Alec's delicate face. “I have won honor and glory long before you were discarded into your mother, boy,” the giant growled, “you will answer my questions or I will build calluses on my fists with your tiny body.” Alec’s face grew pale. He had no reason to doubt Gunnarr’s words.
“M-M-Mr. Gunnarr, sir!” he stammered, “The l-last thing I re-remember is sitting down f-feeling faint!”
The veins along the giant’s face seemed to subside by a little, “Are you not the Alex of Pennsylvania who took out a dozen men by himself?” The giant made the demand carefully, letting Alec know it was of great importance.
“N-no ,sir! I’m Alec, with a C, a *see*!” The poor boy’s voiced cracked as he stressed the difference in his name.
Gunnarr brought his fist centimeters from the boy’s face without changing his expression. Alec didn't think that he was dead yet, but he had a feeling that death, or something very similar, would come in the form of Gunnarr’s anger.
“Well, Alec, with a *see*…”
Alec’s face contorted with his eyes closed, waiting for the impact. Instead of his skull caving in, he felt the giant’s palm slap his back. Gunnarr roared with his thunderous laughter.
“It seems as though your real trial is yet to come!” With that, Gunnar stood up and thrust his mug high in the air, spilling its contents thoroughly in the ascent.
“To the valiant hero of Pennsylvania, Alec with a *see*!” Gunnarr shouted. The hundreds of other drunken men nearby roared with blind approval. Alec shriveled in his seat as all of their eyes briefly focused on him.
“Have you ever heard of Ragnarok, Alec?” Gunnarr asked as he sat down with a wide grin.
“No… sir…”
| 2013-11-28T21:27:02 | 2013-11-28T20:37:12 | 23 | 13 |
[WP] Your final wish to the Djinn is to meet the girl who will be your perfect soulmate. Just then you hear an ear piercing scream... your best friend/roommate just turned into a girl.
She (he?) still has all the memories of her (his?) previous life; but others might not.
Also consider what the other wishes might have been.
EDIT: Feel free to reverse the genders if you like. It does not have to be a boy turned girl. | Decided to keep the same WP but with a twist
I could hear his screams echo through the house.
"Whelp that's all from me then, bye" The Djinn shrugged his shoulders before vanishing into dust. Running to Jake's room I opened the door only to see him fondling his new breasts in shock.
"Why do I have breasts? Where did my dick go?" Jake mutters silently in a mix of shock and awe. I'm wracking my brain to figure out what the hell just happened.
"But... I wished for a...soulmate?" I question out loud. Jake turns to face me.
"I told you that genie was a bad idea. Now why the hell did you wish me to be a girl?"
I'm lost for words, this wish made no sense. I loved Jake as a brother but this?
"I asked for a soulmate. Not for you to turn into a girl."
"Am I like this permanently?" I can see the fear building up in Jake's eyes, for a long time we had always shared the thought of changing genders but for once perhaps those fantasies were better left in the mind.
"Look I'm going to call the Djinn okay?"
I rush out of the room leaving Jake to himself. As I leave I can hear him moan, "God how are my parent's going to accept this."
"I know you're there Azazel, come out and explain yourself." I call out to my room. The light flickers on and off and a supernatural gust fills the room before Azazel appears once again before me.
"I told you my wishes are not to be trifled with kiddo. Once made they can't be changed." He tutted while mock examining his nails.
"I know that but..." I pause, the answers to my question was exactly one that I wanted to hear. "Why Jake? Why is he a girl?"
"The wishes grant your deepest darkest desires, they examine you as a whole and creates what you want. I don't have much control over the outcome. I am simply a vessel between worlds." He explained floating down to my eye level.
"You have some soul searching to do. What I give to you is what you truly desire. Suppress that as much as you want. But the wishes do not lie."
I ponder this new information. My suspicions were clarified.
"Really? It's Jake then?"
"Yup, don't bother me again. Enjoy your life with your new Girlfriend."
The Djinn cackled before vanishing once again into dust. I walk slowly back to Jake's room only to see him once again playing with his boobs like a child with a new toy. His cute expression on his new face along with the adorable giggles he produced from his new feminine lips made me realize that What the Djinn said was right.
"Hey Jake?" I begin my apology but he/she looks up at me, and grins. "I heard, don't worry about it."
I sigh before sitting on the ground next to my soulmate.
"It's really me that you like? Like this?" He asks nudging me on the arm.
"Yeah...You don't mind? Do you?"
Jake nuzzled up to me and smiled. "I've always sorta had a crush on you anyway. This doesn't change that."
"I love you Jake"
"I love you too Lina"
Edit: made a few adjustments to the story | I'd been sharing a dorm with Matt since freshman year. We were instantly friends, and we've talked about everything together. Everything except one thing, one detail that could jeopardize everything: I loved him. Matt was the perfect man, handsome and witty and caring. Whenever he'd smile, I'd melt. Whenever he'd laugh, the whole room would get brighter. And whenever I saw him with his girlfriend, I wished I never had to see him again.
Soon enough, however, things would be changing in a major way. Spring break was coming up, and I'd had it with the party scene. Everyone just made me feel awkward and uncomfortable... everyone but Matt. I decided to break away from the crowd, de-stress, take in some culture. While everyone was flying off in droves to party all night at Daytona Beach, I booked myself a solo trip to Lebanon.
My vacation was wonderful. The architecture was stunning and I swam in the Mediterranean every afternoon. I felt like I could stay there for the rest of my life, getting fat off dates and falafels and kebabs. On the last day, I knew there was one essential purchase I had to make before returning to the states. It was at a quirky little family store in Beirut, run by a man named Abdul who looked about 65. There was an antique brass lamp that wowed me like few things I'd ever seen. It was faded and dusty but even so the patterns and the construction were absolutely stunning. As I bought it, Abdul told me a story in worried tones, but I could scarcely make any of it out, barely knowing enough Arabic to have bought the lamp in the first place.
As I polished the lamp in my hotel room, it emitted a strange light. Before I knew it, there was a jolly, pudgy man draped in fine silks levitating in front of me, glowing and semi-corporeal. He chuckled, and it echoed through my mind. It made zero sense to me. Was this an LSD flashback? I hadn't fucked around with hallucinogens in years.
"Hello, mortal!", a voice boomed. "I am the great djinn Ibrahim! You have freed me from my stylish yet extremely cramped prison of a thousand years, and as such I shall grant you three wishes!"
"How exactly does that work?", I asked quizically. *There's no way in hell this is really happening*, I thought.
"Relax, mortal, it is simple! Simply speak your will and I will make it reality!" Ibrahim flashed a can-do smile, his eyes flickering like fire.
"Erm... I wish I could pass calculus, I guess."
"It is done!", Ibrahim shouted theatrically. "The knowledge is yours!" I felt concepts rushing into my mind at an overwhelming pace. It was inexplicable and not entirely comfortable. "You have two more wishes, mortal! What does your heart desire?"
"Tickets to Coachella would be pretty nice, I guess." I felt slips of paper materialize in my hand.
"It is done!", Ibrahim shouted again. "What is your final wish, mortal?" I paused for a minute. I begin to think about Matt's lovely green eyes, and that mischievious tone he'd get in his voice, and the excitement I'd feel when his leg would brush against mine when we sat on the couch and played video games. "Well... there's this person who I love very much... it's my roommate... we're best friends, but this person doesn't love me back." I'd never told anyone that I was gay. I felt pathetic for not having the courage to tell anyone, not even a wish-granting supernatural entity.
The djinn chuckled again. "I think I know where this is going... Very well, mortal. The girl will be your soulmate forever."
"Wait, Ibrahim!" At this point, I was panicked and confused. Did I really just waste the only chance I'd ever have at getting Matt to love me? "This person... they... he isn't a girl..."
Ibrahim just laughed. "I have already granted your wish, mortal. I am free now. Goodbye, mortal! I wish you a long and delightful marriage!" With that, Ibrahim vanished into smoke. The room stank of sulfur mixed pungently with incense and perfume.
When I came back to America and unpacked, Matt was nowhere to be seen. Sitting in the corner was a voluptuous young woman in a short floral skirt. When I sat down on the bed, she turned and smiled at me. She had the same wire-frame glasses as Matt and wore the same Aphex Twin shirt. She had the same nose and the same freckles but she had glossy red lips and a tiny waist and long, perfectly waxed legs. She was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen and it did nothing for me.
She walked over and sat herself down two inches away from me, looking directly into my eyes. "Hey there", she said playfully, "I'm Maddie."
*Fuck my life.* | 2014-08-19T11:27:56 | 2014-08-19T11:09:26 | 59 | 11 |
[WP] Your final wish to the Djinn is to meet the girl who will be your perfect soulmate. Just then you hear an ear piercing scream... your best friend/roommate just turned into a girl.
She (he?) still has all the memories of her (his?) previous life; but others might not.
Also consider what the other wishes might have been.
EDIT: Feel free to reverse the genders if you like. It does not have to be a boy turned girl. | “Oww!” my roommate screamed from the other room.
I had just made my final wish. I had wanted to meet the girl who would be my perfect soulmate.
I watched as John came out of his room, except he was now a she. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever laid eyes on.
“What the fuck happened?” John said in her new high pitch voice.
I started to laugh. John looked like a woman, but she sure wasn’t acting like one. All of her mannerisms screamed that she had just been a dude. But something is off. And I don’t know what it is.
“Seriously, Michael, what did…” she started. Her words quickly died out as her eyes almost went blank.
I started to back up, scared, as she started coming at me, a hungry look in her eyes. She was already pulling her shirt off and before I knew it she was all over me.
“This is so gross,” she said in between kissing me. “Why do I want to screw you so badly? I… what’s happening?”
And then she stopped talking like that, instead opting to talk a little bit sexier. The only problem with this whole scenario, though, was that I wasn’t attracted to her. I wanted her to stop, but I couldn’t get her to. The only way I made it through was picturing another friend of mine, Steve. He was ridiculously handsome.
*Wait, what?*
And that’s when I realized what the genie had done. I had asked to meet the “girl” who would be my perfect soulmate. And so the genie turned me gay, as my roommate was my perfect soulmate, but then turned him into a girl so as to meet my requirements. And this of course turned my second wish, to be incredibly attractive and nearly irresistible to women, into more of a curse.
My advice: Never use a genie. It doesn’t end well.
-229 | After a long tiring day in college, I headed for my room in the apartment I had recently moved into with a close buddy of mine. I throw my backpack on the floor, lie down on my bed and quickly note the time - it was 6:45 pm.
As I was staring at the ceiling, I remembered the lamp my roommate Ashkan had showed me a couple of days ago. He'd been gifted that by his grandfather and it apparently had a "magical djinn" living inside it thousands of years ago.
It was a pretty antique piece and could definitely be worth thousands of dollars. Anyway, i got up and headed for Ashkan's room where the lamp stood inside on one of the highest shelves. The lights gave it a brilliant shine, as if it had been purchased just yesterday.
I proceeded to pick the lamp up and began examining the arab writings that were all over it. I began rubbing it gently with no result, but I kept up the task for a good 3 minutes and to my surprise , there he stood - an ACTUAL fucking Djinn! Crimson red in color with a long beard and a turban covering his matted hair, he spoke with a loud yet gentle voice,"I am the great Djinn and your wish is my command. I hereby grant you two wishes." I stood with my jaw half-open.
I immediately question him, "Two wishes? But I thought-". "No", he barged in, "This is the real world, not a Disney movie."
I stand there in astonishment and quickly think of my first wish. I stammer ,"I-I wish for an unending supply of money to my bank account." He raises an eyebrow, and philosophizes, "Greed will get you nowhere, my friend. Hmph, very well." And with a snap of his fingers, he did what I thought was possible only in animated movies.
I get a text a couple of seconds later from the DoomTingles lottery Co. saying "Congratulations Mr. Mukovic , you're the lucky winner of our lottery and you shall receive $100 every month for the rest of your life. Sincerely, DoomTingles Lottery Co. They even called minutes later to confirm the prize!
"Well, not much but it'll do" I said to myself. Completely amazed and excited now, I quickly think of my second and final wish.
"I wish to meet my perfect soulmate" I blurt out.
"Very well" he replies and with a snap of his fingers, I hear an extremely loud scream which couldn't possibly be anyone but Ashkan, my roommate.
I assumed he'd just come home from work. So I got out of his room before he saw me, but what I saw next baffled me.
A beautiful brunette stood there with a cute smile. She was from my accounts class and had come over to complete a project that I apparently forgot about.
I immediately greet her and take her to my room. The Djinn had vanished in the meantime. After an hour of chatting and solving problems, I began to feel like I knew her well. Then, "the" moment came when my eyes were locked with Erica's. For a brief moment, I felt that I had found "the one" and we begin making out passionately. This goes on for another twenty minutes when I hear the door bell.
I got up from my deep slumber, find myself on my bed and note the time- 7:28 pm. Ashkan was back from work and it was all a fucking dream. | 2014-08-19T10:40:11 | 2014-08-19T10:17:13 | 54 | 13 |
[WP] After a brain injury that limits his communication to only funky fresh rhymes, the President of the United States must give the State of the Union address. | my fellow americans
now let me be clear
america ain't no nation governed by fear.
what's this shit i hear 'bout a country in crisis?
since when does america sweat pussy like ISIS?
or iran? or russia? nigga, please.
when america raises up
they crawl to they knees.
they call me barack
and this my nigga joe
my dick runs the world
don't act like you don't know. | *Please welcome the President of the United States...*
I must digress to present this precedent.
My fellow Americans, please stand up and represent.
I spit mad rhymes, listen as I rhetorically flow
From sea to shining sea, the seeds of a nation we will sow
Same swagger, new fame. Sister Liberty
Middle East foreign policy, ain’t that a goddamn shame?
Stop the operations, the foreign elements we will dismiss.
As we proceed to a new fame, a new nation, united we will exist,
Under one identity. An independent hip-hop veteran, surely I am.
Give precedence to my crew, I am the president of presidents, the Son of Sam.
Try and step to me, you’ll have to answer to Uncle Sam.
I said try and step to me, you’ll have to answer to Uncle Sam!
*Yeah, yeah, yeah… turn that beat around!*
We rip into domestic policy, educatin’ this beautiful, unified nation
Whites, Blacks, Asians, and Haitians, let us welcome the southern Aliens.
The environment is frankly terrifyingly cluster-fucked,
Into the terror-scope.
Green Earth, smog in her lungs,
We gonna strike it environmentally rich, as I keep the flow,
That’s how deep I’ll go,
Prosperin' like Greco-Rome.
You niggas know what time it is?
It's time for preservation.
We gonna move this nation,
With lyrical dedication.
Four more years, that’s what my niggas be sayin’,
And if you ain’t with that, then you’s perfected funk fakin’,
Cause it’s the truth that I’m lyrically relaying
Into your brains with masterful flow,
I’m gonna give you that philosophical itch,
Until the funk betrays my soul.
Yeah, Uncle Sam, show these niggas how I roll!
*Nigga I’m out!*
| 2014-11-04T10:40:32 | 2014-11-04T09:29:31 | 146 | 77 |
[WP] You are watching a live stream from the international space station. The video feed goes out due to a temporary loss of signal. Minutes later, when the live feed comes back on, everyone on the space station is dead, and most of the station in shambles. What happened? | “Captain, we've downloaded the data from the international space station black box.”
The Captain raised his eyes to the young man in front of him.
“Good. Where is it?”
“Right here, sir.” The soldier dropped a little, metallic file driver on the table.
“Any idea what happened?”
“We didn't watch it yet, sir. But like you said”, the solider took a deep breath before continuing. “It looks like the aliens
attacked, after all.”
The Captain sighed, taking the driver and sticking it into a port on the screen in front of him. "We'll see.”
The soldier made his way around the desk, placing himself behind the Captain as the video started playing onscreen.
A lonely astronaut spoke to the camera.
“We shouldn't have responded to their contact.” The astronaut's shaky, grainy face was sweating, his voice
failing. “They're trying to get inside. They're violent.”
The Captain typed a few commands on the keyboard, and the image went full screen.
“We shouldn't have told them about the oil. They're going to kill us.”
The captain let his eyelids go down.
The soldier, nervous, cleared his throat.
“I told you this was going to happen, sir.”
“Are you questioning my command, soldier?”
The young man had tears in his eyes.
“No, sir. It's just that...” The soldier paused, regaining control over himself. “It's hard to stay impartial, for me, sir. It was my brother up there. You know that."
The Captain let out a deep breath.
On the audio feed, they could hear the sound of repeated bangs on the space station door.
“Oh God...” The astronaut continued. “They killed the others, already. They're coming in."
“We should have ignored them, sir.” The soldier whispered, avoiding eye contact with the Captain. "We shouldn't have answered their calls."
“They're going to kill us. They're getting what they want. There's no way out. We should never hav – oh my God, they're in!”
Both soldier and captain watched as the aliens broke through the wall of the space station; their guns in hand, their
deformed faces screaming words they could not understand.
“It was a mistake to make contact with a species more evolved than us, sir!”, sobbed the soldier, openly crying as he
watched his brother's last moments onscreen. “You know that!”
“I know.” The Captain whispered, between his teeth.
Onscreen, the astronaut was being grabbed violently by the aliens, who tried to pull him outside the station.
“Humans are not peaceful creatures, Captain!” He screamed, as the creatures dragged him further and further away from the camera. “They do not come in peace!"
And then, onscreen, static and silence.
| "When it happened, I was seven years old and I didn't fully understand what was happening. The picture on cartoon network cut out and there were blurry images of six people floating round in a white cylindrical room.
""Mum!" I shouted into the next room. "The Space Station's on TV! They've taken the cartoons off."
"My mum and dad came rushing into the room, both as pale as a sheet. My mum had her hand clutched around her throat and the purple circles under my dad's eyes were more pronounced than ever. I knew what the Space Station was, every kid my age did. Two months ago we'd had a break from regular classes, watching the take off of the changing of the Space Station personnel. I had a figurine of Joe Lionel, dressed in a white space suit, sitting next to my Spiderman and Batman toys. My mum reached for the remote, but my dad stopped her.
""Oh god, Peter," she said softly. "They're putting it on the kid's channels too."
""Putting what on?" I asked. But the screen had changed, fuzzing to white noise and then back to the picture of the cylindrical room. The people who had been smiling and waving at the camera a minute ago were now lolling around, eyes staring so much like the dead fish on the counter at the supermarket. They always gave me the chills. If there's one thing I remember, it's that there was no blood. They just hung there, suspended in the zero gravity like marionnettes with their strings cut.
""Are they tired, Mum?"
""He shouldn't be watching this," she hissed, turning it off.
""It was Henry who told me on Monday what had happened.
""They're all dead," he crowed in the playground. "All of them died, in between that bit where it goes all white. No-one know what's going on."
""They're dead?" I asked, incredulous.
""Course they're dead. Didn't you see it? Are you too much of a baby to see dead people?"
""Yeah I saw it," I retorted. "I just didn't realise they were dead. I thought they were resting."
"I've watched the same clip on youtube countless times since then - The Day of the Six - It's the greatest conspiracy theory of our generation - It's our 9/11. At first the scientists and the engineers pored over the Space Station like the metal shell itself would reveal the answers to the questions they had. They had to take it apart bit by bit and bring it home, and there hasn't been a person in space since then.
"There's the little green men theorists, obviously. We had a couple of 'The end is nigh' freaks get prime airtime on TV for the first few weeks after it happened. But there weren't any answers, and seventeen years later there's unlikely to be any-"
"You ready to go Sam?" Kerry pokes her head round the door as I push away from my computer and turn the camera off. "Seriously, you must be the only person who's taken this video diary thing seriously. I gave up in my first week."
I shrug, grabbing my bag from the floor. "It's the age of constant documentation. Just want people to know what's happening to me."
"All the time?" She stepped back to let me through the door. "You afraid of a little white noise?"
"Not at all."
"You're making history, you know. There hasn't been anyone up there since then."
"Amazing how they hauled the whole ISS back out into space, if you ask me. Leg day?"
"Yeah. Jeez, you know - I can't believe they picked you over me." Kerry nudges me.
"And I can't believe you're still wearing the t-shirt we got in our Welcome Pack."
She pulls it down, white letters stretching across her chest. *NASA*
"Why not? I like it. Kinda retro, with the pre-Six logo."
"Makes me nervous." I admit and she laughs.
"So you are afraid of the white noise."
"I think the not knowing is worse."
"Well, I'm sure you'll find out what it is once you're up there."
Funny how she turned out to be right. | 2014-11-27T04:47:52 | 2014-11-27T03:06:02 | 675 | 138 |
[WP] You are a teenager with the ability to measure how "Dangerous" people are on a scale from 1 to 10 just by looking at them. A normal child would be a 1, while a trained man with an assault rifle might be a 7. Today, you notice the unassuming new kid at school measures a 10. | I've seen the numbers since I was a little girl. I remember my father losing his job, rising from a 4 to a 5. I remember watching my grandmother slowly dwindle down to a 0. At first I thought I was going crazy, not realizing what they meant. I eventually caught on. The numbers were a person's ultimate quantifier, broadcasting how dangerous they were to those around them. Broadcasting, at least, to me.
Most people stayed below a 6. Doctors usually hovered around 7; politicians were a solid 8. The highest I had ever seen were in old videos of Hitler, who was a 9. That is, until Junior year, when I met him.
He seemed harmless enough at first. Perfect hair, gorgeous eyes, and a jawline to die for. Not to mention that everybody loved him. But the bold '10' that hovered above his head was plenty enough to convince me not to go near him. Sure, I watched him. Some might even say I was obsessed. But all I was doing was making sure he wasn't a psychopath. I started skipping class to check on him. My grades dropped an entire letter. I didn't care, though. I wanted to see what made him so special.
I nearly threw up when he saw me in the cafeteria, and I really did when he got up to talk to me. He didn't seem to notice, and asked me if he could sit with me.
"Sure, I- I guess." I stammered. A smile spread across his face, and we struck up a conversation. My heart was playing a drum solo into my chest, but I managed to live to the end of the break. Hell, he even asked for my number, which I promptly gave. We had lunch that weekend.
It's only now, ten years later, that I realize what makes this boy so special. Only now that I find out why he's such a danger to me. Only now, as he drops to one knee.
It's because I love him.
| He looked at me. His eyes were dark and sunken into his pale face. I sensed something - something terrible - but I didn't want it to be true. Ten. Just a number to some, but to me, it was something terrifying. I could sense danger, but not in the animal planet documentary story of a dog predicting a storm kind of way, it was more of "this persons dangerous stay away". Ten. It was the highest number I've ever felt. The last time it was even above a three was at the local gun show that I went to with my grandpa. But even then there were only fives, sixes, and maybe a stray ex-ranger or marine who clocked in at an eight. But never a ten.
The kid across the hall must've been about 15 years old, a year younger than myself. Freshman no doubt. I could tell by the way he carried himself walking through the hall, scared and timid, or maybe it was because he was new. Either way it didn't really matter. He was new and he was dangerous. The boy didn't glow with a scary or dangerous aura as some kids do, you know the senior who has about 50 pounds on you, has way too many tattoos to still be in high school and probably carries a knife or that constantly pissed off and high on caffeine kid who is always in the principles, no he didn't look like that. He just looked sad, depressed even.
Days passed and I didn't bother him and he didn't bother me. I saw him from time to time in the halls and the alarm in my head shot off again and again. Ten. But I did nothing. What could I do though? You can't just approach someone and yell at them because "I can sense danger and you are a really dangerous guy". Ya start a huge scene about my magical powers that'll work! Definitely won't get my ass kicked for that. But still I felt like I needed to do something, warn someone, I can't just sit idly by as this kid roamed through school. I couldn't tell anyone though, no one would believe it. So the days passed and I started to forget about the boy. Not truly forget, I knew he was there, but more that I blocked him out. Maybe it was because he scared me, I don't know.
It has been four weeks since he arrived. TING, TING, TING. I knew I should have said something. I could've if I wanted too. Or maybe this was how it was suppose to be. I wasn't much of a believer in a "pre-determined destiny" kind of philosophy and yet I didn't try and change anything. I let it happen. TING, TING, TING, TING. This all could've been avoided. Fuck me, I was given this power and I never even fucking used it when I had the chance. TING, TING, TING. I deserve this, but they don't. They're innocent. TING, TING, TING, TING. They kept hitting the floor. I urged them to stop. Stop it, please! PLEASE GOD STOP IT. There was no god now though, he had turned a blind eye to this just as I had done to the boy. And this is the price I pay. TING, TING, TING. The shells hit the school tile as the boy with the gun marched through the halls ripping the life out of each and everyone who lined the halls. The blood pooled up at his feet. TING, TING, TING. He wouldn't stop. I kneeled and excepted my fate. The last thing that went through my mind was ten. TING. Just before the bullet erased everything.
| 2014-11-29T14:43:43 | 2014-11-29T12:31:42 | 295 | 38 |
[WP] You are a teenager with the ability to measure how "Dangerous" people are on a scale from 1 to 10 just by looking at them. A normal child would be a 1, while a trained man with an assault rifle might be a 7. Today, you notice the unassuming new kid at school measures a 10. | I've seen the numbers since I was a little girl. I remember my father losing his job, rising from a 4 to a 5. I remember watching my grandmother slowly dwindle down to a 0. At first I thought I was going crazy, not realizing what they meant. I eventually caught on. The numbers were a person's ultimate quantifier, broadcasting how dangerous they were to those around them. Broadcasting, at least, to me.
Most people stayed below a 6. Doctors usually hovered around 7; politicians were a solid 8. The highest I had ever seen were in old videos of Hitler, who was a 9. That is, until Junior year, when I met him.
He seemed harmless enough at first. Perfect hair, gorgeous eyes, and a jawline to die for. Not to mention that everybody loved him. But the bold '10' that hovered above his head was plenty enough to convince me not to go near him. Sure, I watched him. Some might even say I was obsessed. But all I was doing was making sure he wasn't a psychopath. I started skipping class to check on him. My grades dropped an entire letter. I didn't care, though. I wanted to see what made him so special.
I nearly threw up when he saw me in the cafeteria, and I really did when he got up to talk to me. He didn't seem to notice, and asked me if he could sit with me.
"Sure, I- I guess." I stammered. A smile spread across his face, and we struck up a conversation. My heart was playing a drum solo into my chest, but I managed to live to the end of the break. Hell, he even asked for my number, which I promptly gave. We had lunch that weekend.
It's only now, ten years later, that I realize what makes this boy so special. Only now that I find out why he's such a danger to me. Only now, as he drops to one knee.
It's because I love him.
| Danger is not quantified by how much harm one could cause others, but by how how much harm one intends to cause others. That's why two people of the same height, weight, and muscle mass could be unequally dangerous. That's why my best friend, the huge, 6 and a half foot tall, 250 pound, football player isn't dangerous at all. He simply doesn't intend to harm others. That's also why the cute little two year old down the street is incredibly dangerous. If given the opportunity, she would harm, possibly even kill, in a heartbeat. That's also why people's danger levels fluctuate a little over the course of any given day, as they get more or less aggressive, more or less stressed, etc.
How do I know so much about danger? It's simple really: I see it. When I look at another person, study them for a couple seconds, a number starts to form in my head, one that quantifies how dangerous that person is at that very instant. The longer I look, the more exact the number. For example, one time I decided to study my father for an entire 5 minutes, and the number in my head started to grow to around 100 digits after the decimal. Normally, however, I only study someone for a few seconds, and only get a one digit number, somewhere from 1 to 10. My friend, who I talked about earlier, tends to stay around 2 or 3, because he has a really good heart and no one he hates (they're all too scared to make fun of him at all). The highest I've ever seen him was a 4, and that was during his history final exam. The little girl down the street, she tends to be around an 8. The highest I've ever seen was a 9.55, from a guy who walked by me on the street once. I only got a good look at him long enough for 3 digits, and that included me turning around to watch him keep walking.
Occasionally, my ability takes a while to calculate a number. This is especially annoying when I meet new people , and try to figure out if they're a good person or not. Occasionally, I meet someone who I'm never able to determine the danger level of. Take my English teacher, for example. He's a nice enough guy, but for some reason I've just never been able to place a number on him. I'm not perfect, after all.
On the first day of my Junior year of high school, there was a new student in my Calculus class. I looked intently at him, as I always do with newcomers, trying to determine a number for him. He caught my gaze after a few seconds, and held it, staring back at me with cold, calculating, gray eyes. I kept looking at him, as uncomfortable as it was, determined to determine a number (:P). I was about to give up, thinking he was just one of those people I could't give a number to, when suddenly a bright red number flashed across my brain, followed by an exclamation point. 10! At first, I was confused, (I didn't even realize tens were possible), but in a tenth of a second my confusion turned to horror. I quickly tried to cover my face with a mask of disinterest, and looked away from him as nonchalantly as I could. Then, I "calmly" stood up, asked the teacher if I could "go to the nurse", and "calmly" exited the classroom. As soon as I got out of the classroom, I started running, and I've never stopped. | 2014-11-29T14:43:43 | 2014-11-29T12:41:49 | 295 | 22 |
[WP] You are a teenager with the ability to measure how "Dangerous" people are on a scale from 1 to 10 just by looking at them. A normal child would be a 1, while a trained man with an assault rifle might be a 7. Today, you notice the unassuming new kid at school measures a 10. | I sat in the back of the classroom, staring at her.
What the hell was going on? Was I losing it?
I looked around the room. No, everything was normal. A bunch of 3s, a few fours, and Mark, a six (I stay away from him).
Then there's this girl.
I had heard all about her. She was new in town, apparently her parents were big shot researchers who just finished some 5-year research project in Brazil. No, Peru. It was somewhere exotic.
According to my buddy Jon, she was smart, funny, and "Holy Shit, dude, sooo fine!"
My first time actually seeing her was 7 minutes ago when she transferred into 5th period World History.
Ten
She was a ten.
Not a, "Bro, she's a straight 10 outta 10."
A ten on my scale means...shit, you know what? I don't even know what that means.
The highest I have ever seen in my life was an 8 when my criminology class took a trip to the ACI.
This girl scored 2 points higher than a gang enforcer that got off on crushing skulls.
I always wondered what I would do in a situation like this. Would I try to warn people? How would I ever explain to them what I see?
When it came down to it, I ran. Well, I went down to the nurses office and told her that I had bought the school lunch that day (while kinda motioning down below).
I laid awake all night, going over it in my head. What did it mean? What do I do?
I stayed home the next day, checking the news feeds. No shootings at my school, nothing weird at all going on.
I creeped her facebook, her twitter. Nothing stood out. A completely normal 17 year old girl.
Day 3, I told my buddy Jon that he should skip school, but when I couldn't give him a realistic reason to, I dropped it.
I just sat at home, thinking that I should be doing something, anything.
Ten. A freaking ten.
What the fuck! How could this girl be a fucking 10?!
I got my answer when the CDC rolled into town.
| My whole life when I've being seeing numbers in my head whenever I looked at people. They physical numbers, I was not hallucinating but I would hear a voice in my head screaming the number at me. I've been in therapy for it since I can remember.
Doctors told me i had paranoid schizophrenia. I've been taking medication for as long as I can remember. When I think of my past, my memories, all I can think of is a blur, an entwining long memory backed up by props and picture evidence to prove that it really happened. If you ask me a details about a day there are none.
One of the only memories that stands out to me is this one time when I was 6. I was sitting on the couch watching TV and my uncle who never came over was knocking at the widow. My sister was home upstairs in bed and the look on my uncles face was fear. I let him in and the number 7 was screaming inside my head.
Next memory that comes to mind is a few months after that. I was sitting in court playing with a doll. The judge was asking questions about the doll and my uncle, my family was crying and the judge banged his hammer then I saw my uncle get handcuffed and walk down the aisle. He looked at me with the most angry look I've ever seen.
I am 16 now, I stopped taking my medicine a few months ago and my memory has gotten better. Things aren't all in the same loop anymore and I can remember a night if someone brings it up. I still am hearing numbers all the time, in school I will hear 1-3 for the students and up to 5 for a teacher. I haven't heard any high numbers in a while.
It was the first day of class since winter break and I sit get to Spanish class.
"Did you do the essay" my friend Dean asked.
"I wanna go to college, of course I did it. And no I am not letting you copy me." I said.
"Come on man I want to get out of here, can you help me out this once please" Dean said.
"Sorry I don't want to get in trouble".
"Mrs. Smith doesn't even read the essays, rumor is her husband is a drunk and hits her. She got more important things to worry about."
A student I've never seen before walks in. I hear the number 10 screaming in my head louder than I've ever heard before.
"Is this Ms. Smiths Spanish class?" Said the new student.
In an effort to divert Dean I shouted "yes"
The new student looks at me and sits in the vacant desk next to Dean.
"why don't you just do your own homework and leave this hardworking kid alone" the new student says to Dean.
"What's it to you?" Dean hastily replies.
"I don't appreciate freeloaders getting the same treatment as hard workers. Now get out of here before I tell the teacher what you asked for, And pick up a book while you're at it".
Dean gets up and slowly walks to another desk. The new student takes Deans seat next to me.
"thanks" I shakily replies.
"No problem man. I'm just trying to do what's right and let society know what's right and what's wrong. Anyways what's your name kid?"
"Robert Beausolil " I said "and what about yours".
The new student reached out his hand and smiles "Charles, Charles Manson. Nice to meet you friend, if you wanna hangout sometime I have a few friends who throw some killer parties."
"That sounds fantastic." I said.
Later that day I met Charles friends. They were some of the most accepting people I've met in my entire life. One of them told me they were like a family and I was welcome to join as long as I promised not to betray them.
"I'm in."
| 2014-11-29T15:20:57 | 2014-11-29T14:48:31 | 50 | 17 |
[WP] You are a teenager with the ability to measure how "Dangerous" people are on a scale from 1 to 10 just by looking at them. A normal child would be a 1, while a trained man with an assault rifle might be a 7. Today, you notice the unassuming new kid at school measures a 10. | It only took a few seconds of staring until the number pops up in the middle of their forehead. Thank goodness for that, since I think I'd go insane seeing numbers everywhere!
Babies and most kids measure from zero to three at most, while grown adults measure up to maybe five or six, depending on their skills in hunting. I once saw a dedicated force of police officers exit a train carriage and they varied from six to seven.
By the time I was 18, I rarely used my talent. I saw no point of identifying people through their threat levels. A professional boxer has a threat level of eight, but it doesn't make him a bad person, you know?
I was always relieved that I had never seen a nine in my life. I lived in a small town where everybody knew everybody, and the highest I saw there was a seven. I didn't even know what a nine would be, much less a ten.
[Elizabeth pauses]
He was walking around the terminal with this raggedy old briefcase. The handle snapped as he walked past me, and all the contents fell out everywhere. I jumped up to help him, and he tried to wave me off. I told him it was nonsense and helped him pick his stuff up, which consisted of a bunch of letters, notebooks, and I think a framed picture of his family. He looked stressed. so before he could leave I asked him if he would like a seat next to me, and he took the offer.
He was a handsome fellow, a little lanky, with matted brown hair and a nose that stuck out in an odd manner. He told me he had just been recruited to the military. He had a kind face, not one suited for the job he volunteered for. I asked him where he was from and what he plans on doing in the military, and suddenly I was intoxicated. He had this charming way of speaking, like he knew what to say exactly the way it should be said.
We talked for what seemed like a long time, although I knew it must have been only about five minutes. The train leaving from the city had called for its last passengers, and he stood up, telling me that he had to go. I asked him if I could write him, and he hurriedly snatched a piece of paper from his pocket, jotted down his address, folded it, and handed it to me. I barely had the paper in my hand when he started jogging away.
I called out to him, telling him, "Hey! I never got your name!" and for kicks I decided to assess his threat level.
He looked back at me, and yelled, "Don't worry! I wrote it down!" just as a big bright ten materialized in the middle of his forehead. When he reached the train, he looked back at me again, and there it was: the unmistakable number ten.
I'm sure I was still as a statue as that handsome smiling boy waved goodbye. I remembered the piece of paper in my hand, and slowly opened it. His name was right there.
"Adolf." | "10" I said unconsciously.
My friend tore his eyes away from the girl walking past us down the hall and stared at me in surprise.
"A 10? Really?" He turns his gaze back to her. "Dude I'll admit she's a looker, but I'd say more of an 8. Not 10 material, but eh different stokes for different folks."
I wasn't listening anymore. I was looking at her receding form shocked at what I had just said.
*10!?* I thought to myself. *Impossible I'd never seen a 10 before.*
My friend laughed and gave my shoulder a good natured shove.
"Got a thing for the new girl do ya Rook? Ello earth to Tomas anyone home?"
I got up abruptly and made to follow her, quickening my pace as to not lose her. My mind was racing. The highest I'd ever met was my uncle Cernes when he came back from Iraq. He was special forces and he was an 7. Even those warlords and politicians on the news never made it past 8. I couldn't imagine what danger this slight girl, barely above 5 feet, possessed to warrant her a 10 on my scale. I was determined to find out.
Gaining now I thought of how to get her alone. In the packed halls she didn't hear my footsteps on the linoleum floors until I was just behind her. She barely had a second to glance at me before I grabbed her arm and pulled her into an empty classroom. I hope not too many students saw...
Once we were in I closed and locked the door before turning around to face her. She looked up at me open mouthed. Muttering something to herself. I was afraid too. More afraid than I'd like to admit, but I knew what had to be done.
"Who are you?" I hissed. Trying my best to sound angry. Trying not to let my voice tremble.
She opened her mouth to scream but with one quick step I closed the distance between us and put my hand over her mouth effectively silencing her. Dragging her shaking form away from the window on the classroom door I pinned her against the wall. I could see the abject terror in her eyes. I wasn't taking any chances. I HAD to know.
"I'm going to take my hand away from your face now and you are going to answer some questions. Understand?" She nodded best she could with my hand holding her. Slowly I took my hand off her mouth and she took wavering breath, looking like she was about to cry. In that moment I felt awful and more ashamed than I ever had in my life.
*This is necessary* I told myself again taking a step back to give her room to breath.
She was shaking uncontrollably and muttering something over and over again. Staring at me with a look of fear and incomprehension. I breathed in to gather my thoughts again, but before I could say anything more she spoke up.
"I can see the numbers in your eyes. Your like me." My heart stopped. That calm I had been gathering for the coming interrogation, shattered.
"W-what did you say." I couldn't keep the fear out of my voice this time. She noticed my resolve crumbling and took a tentative step away from the wall. I could see a flicker in her iris now. So faint you'd surely miss it if you weren't looking for it. Numbers. I moved in closer. She didn't step away. I could see them clearly now. Her gaze still held incalculable fear. 10s. Dozens of 10s popping in and out of existence just under the surface of her eyes. So lost was I in those numbers and what they meant. Before I could react she deftly reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out my pen. Swinging it around faster than I could follow she stabbed me with it in the gut.
I couldn't process what had just happened. With more force than I'd thought possible for a girl of her size she brought up her knee and shoved the pen farther in before pushing my unresponding form into the desk. I crashed into them and felt something snap. Whether it was outside or inside my body I wasn't sure. Through vision clouded with pain I saw her reach back and pull the fire-alarm, and heard the click of the door automatically unlocking as cool water rained down from the emergency sprinklers. She ran.
I sat there for some time thinking. Barely feeling the pain in my gut and the water pooled with my blood. She too saw the numbers, and she was a 10. I had to find her again. | 2014-11-29T17:05:40 | 2014-11-29T15:22:56 | 39 | 24 |
[WP]: it's the year 2057. Queen Elizabeth still reigns. People are getting suspicious. | It's been 15 generations since the legend was passed down to me. That our God mother was truly a vampire. I didn't believe it at first after my mother told me the story. My dad verified it too. He said that his father and his father's father confirmed the same thing. She just never aged past a certain point.
I had my doubts as well. Sometimes I would forget that the Queen had stopped aging. Nobody else acted like it was strange. I've seen housekeepers and servants grow old however. I've seen myself grow older as well.
Still though, as time has passed...she keeps me well clothed and fed. I've always given the time of day with her, and accompany her on long walks around the royal garden. They even recently did a new documentary on the wildlife here. I love this place.
When I am left to ponder about the important things in life, my thoughts usually shift over to the food. Food is delicious, and the Queen provides generously. I also have to thank the datalinks which I used to check up on my messages this morning. Willow the Eighth suggested to me that the Queen might actually be a vampire. Wow. Much suspense. Whoops. I should log off as I see the Queen is coming. I'll have to investigate this new hypothesis from Willow later. Minimize all.
"Who's a good boy? Yes you arrre. Yes youuu arree! Here's your treats! Yum yum yummy!"
ARF ARF ARF YIIPPP I NEED THE TREATS IN MY MOUF.
Damn I love being a Corgi. | "Long live the queen." I say without thinking. The small living room falls quiet, fanning out rapidly around me. The party grows awkward quickly. They are all new friends, so I don't know what to do now.
Dan, who had been laughing just moments earlier, is straight faced and leans to my ear. "Watch what you say." He wait until I look at him, lifts an eyebrow and holds his head close for a second more than I was comfortable with before he leaves my shoulder alone.
The party slowly picks up again and I thought everything was setting back to normal until Dan pull me outside several hours later to "look at the stars", so he says.
I complain a little, grab my jacket and go outside with him, Dan following closely behind me, almost forcing me out the door. Outside the door, across he yard there is a group of strangers, looking less than happy with something. I muster a half smile (all I could manage) and wait for an explanation, looking to Dan.
"Here he is, can I go now?" Dan asks the group, ignoring me.
A tall, bearded man wearing an old fashioned top hat steps forward and shakes my hand, his grip strong and leading, meeting my fake smile with one of his own. "I understand you're James?"
I nod imperceptibly, but he caught the signal and releases my hand. He waves for me to follow, then adds words to it, his face turning almost apologetic. "James, we have some questions. It won't be long."
I reluctantly get in the car, my new friends betraying me must have broken my resistance. Something about all theses men is familiar, but I can't say for sure what. The man in the top hat sat next to me in the back seat. The passenger wore a hideous white wig that left a white powder whenever it rubbed against something. The driver was a bit heavyset an wore small, circular glasses.
The TopHat breaks my nostalgia with his questions that for some reason surprised me, forgetting why I got in the car to begin with. "What do you know about your queen?" He asks me.
I shrug "I'm just your average butler, what would I know any different?"
He smiles and continues "Have you noticed any changes either there or in yourself since you started?"
"No. I'm relatively new. Maybe you should ask Sam. She has been there longer."
"Sam is dead, James."
I freeze. The car stops. Everyone gets out, then my door opens and they "help" me out, open the trunk and pull out several guns. I have no idea what is going on.
TopHat puts his hand on my shoulder and pushes my shirt to the side a little over so it shows my skin, revealing many bite wounds. My face turns white and memories come back to me.
"We know, James. And we are here to stop it."
I fall to the floor. How long have I been here? How did I get here? The spell was losing its hold on me.
The wigged man looks over at TopHat. "You ready, Lincoln?"
Lincoln nods. "Let's go kill us a vampire." | 2015-01-20T05:08:27 | 2015-01-20T04:26:38 | 133 | 20 |
[WP] The Devil promises you everything: fame, fortune, all the things a mortal will ever need for paradise on earth. But he doesn't want your soul, he just wants you to take his socially awkward daughter, Gertrude, out on a date. Make her special, y'know?
**EDIT** All of your responses have been amazing! I wish I had time to leave feedback on all of them. You guys rock! | I can't believe it worked.
After a flash of red light, inside the magic circle I scribbled on the floor, there stood a man in a crimson suit. Two small horns protruded from his forehead, his pupils were burning red. This was the Devil himself, no mistake.
"Who are you, mortal, who summoned me, Lucifer here?"
"Um, I'm Dwayne. Nice to meet you, and everything."
"Ah, just wait for a moment."
Lucifer pulled out a black folder from… nothing, which had my name on it.
"Let's see here. You are Dwayne Scott, 25, you live alone, have a quiet job in an office, you don't go to church, still a virgin, and your mother died last year, correct?"
"Yes. Wait, how do you know all of this? And where did you get the folder?"
"Let's just say that I have my sources. Your everyday actions are recorded by one of my subordinates, just like for everyone who lives in this realm. And the folder was made by my secretary, of course. Damn, she has some nice legs…"
"…I see. Can we get to the subject, please?"
"Of course. Well, Dwayne, there must be a reason why you summoned me here. I can see that plenty of unfortunate events have happened in your life so far. I can grant you anything, in exchange for an equivalent price. Fame, fortune you name it. No supernatural powers of course, you could end up saving people, and I don't want that. It has happened previously. No extra wishes either, I'm not a genie, after all. What is it you seek from me?"
"What can be the price?"
"As I said, it is equivalent to the wish you asked for. Most of the time it's your soul, since mere humans can rarely offer anything else. However…"
As he browsed through the pages of the folder, a glint has sparkled in his eyes.
"You know what? Reading this, I've got a nice idea for a price. How about you take my little Gertrude on a date?"
"What?"
"You heard it. She's a nice girl, but she is kind of introverted. I tried setting up a date for her, but that damn Mephisto declined the offer. He's now suffering in the ice of Cocytus, of course."
"…This is not how you convince me to take your daughter on a date, you know?"
"Well, if you refuse, I can just take your soul. Then when you die, you can go beside him if I want to. You could say hi to him, he's a funny guy."
"Okay, you convinced me. When should I meet her?"
"I don't know, this Friday 8 PM sounds good? But we can talk about the minor things later. What are you asking for?"
"...I originally wanted to ask for telekinesis, but that's not possible, as you explained. But your existence interests me. You know what? I want to see the Underworld. And no "Your wish is granted", then you kill me, and make me suffer the eternal flames 'til the Judgement Day. Just as a visitor, okay? I won't tell anyone about it. And if I did, you would know. You have that nice folder and hot secretary and everything."
"Interesting. No one has ever asked for this before. Well, different strokes for different folks, I guess. I shall grant your wish."
"Wait a minute. This just occured to me: are you sure I'm someone who could date your daughter? I've never had a date, after all. I'm not that smart, and I can't say I have the body of a model, or a dick of a horse."
"So what? As I see, she will like you. I don't care what you plan to do, you can be socially awkward together, I just want her to have a good time with a man."
"...Then it's fine, I guess."
***
I still can't believed it worked.
The date was a trainwreck, of course. Who knew that she was a lesbian? Not the king of devils, that's for sure.
Still, she said that I'm a nice guy, so that's something. She also kind of enjoyed the dinner, so in a way, I granted her father's wish.
The next day, I arrived at the gates of the Underworld. After checking out everything (God, that secretary was hot), I signed the pact with Lucifer himself.
I just finished scribbling up another circle, as I was told in my dream. I had to draw it fast, since the devils will know. There is already a knock on my door.
The circle shines with a bright white light. A beautiful blonde woman stands in the middle of it. There are wings spreading from her back, and there is a halo on top of her head.
I successfully summoned an angel.
"What is it you want, my child?" the angel asks in a voice of a thousand souls.
"Hi Anaphiel, it's me. I did everything I needed to do. I have the intel you guys asked for…"
***
Hey guys, this is my first prompt, so I'm sure there are some points where I could improve, but this is a start, at least. I wanted to write something for a long time, and reading this I've had an idea. Please consider that English is not my first language, so the vocabulary may be a bit repetitive.
EDIT: fixed some typos. Also, I don't know if I should continue. When I wrote it, I definitely had no idea about continuing it. I wanted to give it a half-open ending. But seeing that my first submission was accepted, I may continue. But not now, it's 1 AM here, and I'm reading Highschool DxD currently. Well, I suppose I could do that any time, but the point is that I'm tired. Wow, I'm already talking like I'm an expert of writing. Please forgive me. | Karl Jacobs fell asleep, and had the dream again.
Everything was blackness, a huge empty void stretched around him. He could feel vertigo, but in every direction. His body was gasping for air, and…
…sprang bolt upright in bed…
Karl gasped for breath, the terror of the dream clinging to him with a sweaty mental residue. “Not this again.” Karl drank in a huge panic breath of air. “For fuck’s sake,” Breath. “Three nights in a row?” But he was too tired to get up and drink coffee and surf reddit again. Three nights of this, he’d bounced between sleep – perfect, peaceful sleep – and the dream of the darkest, emptiest place, which catapulted him awake in terror. Now, he was bone-tired, and flopped back down on his single bed, in his small, silent, and lonely apartment. He had to sleep. It claimed him.
Blackness…the void. Karl could sense the lightlessness stretch away from him in every direction. This time, he fought the terror. He forced his compressed body to flex, forced his smashed lungs to inflate, and fill with potency. He shouted, then, his voice, a soundless roar, tore through the emptiness like a howling tornado.
--RAGE—
He felt…powerful. And then felt another presence.
“Finally!”
Karl popped awake, the dream gone from him this time, along with his fatigue. A man, dressed in a dark suit, sat in the chair of Karl’s desk, lit by the lamp which sat next to his computer monitor. Karl twitched backwards, pulling the covers over himself defensively.
“Who…how did you?” He was feeling a different panic now, a mortal, fleshy panic. The man extended his hand, and suddenly Karl felt…peaceful. It was okay, he thought. This guy was okay.
“Sorry to surprise you. That dream? The one you’ve been fighting for three nights? Yeah. Sorry. That was me.” The man chuckled, his mouth twisting wryly. “Actually I’m not sorry, per se, but I do apologize for the inconvenience. It was…” He grimaced. “…necessary, unfortunately. For reasons I’ll explain. Will you come with me?”
“With you?” Karl was confused, and suddenly aware he sounded like a 12 year old. “I don’t…” He sighed, and sat up fully on the bed. “I don’t know who you are, or how you know what I’ve been dreaming…” As soon as he said it out loud, he knew how ridiculous he sounded. Of course he was going to go with this man who knew his dreams and appeared in his room without explanation. This man was able to do anything, and somehow, Karl felt like he’d answered a call from him. It made no sense.
“You’re quick, Karl, I’ll give you that. Most guys I’ve tried this with spend at least an hour flailing around before they give in to the inevitable part. That’s what comes now, since you answered me.” *Answered a call*. The man stood, and motioned for Karl to join him as he crossed the room to the door. “Let me show you what I have in mind.”
Karl joined him, conscious that he was wearing sweatpants and an old Red Sox t-shirt, sensed that it didn’t matter.
The man pushed open the bedroom door. Impossibly, a vast columned chamber, lit by wall sconces, and floored with enormous black and white marble squares, stretched forth where Karl’s narrow hallway should have been. The man strode across the floor toward the center of this chamber where a sofa and a loveseat, were arranged in front of a large flat-screen TV. Karl followed nervously.
“You probably have…questions.” The man said. “But first, introductions. You already know who I am, but for the purpose of our conversation, you may call me Sam.” Karl realized he did know who sat across from him on the impossible sofa, in the impossible room. This was the devil, though as soon as the word devil entered his mind he realized just how laughably inadequate the term was. The man smiled. “Yes, it is a rather simplistic term. Relic of the Stone Age really, translated down the years through dozens of myth concepts. Listen, for the moment, just call me Sam.”
Sam. The name, the concept of the name settled into Karl’s mind like a puzzle piece. Of course, he had always known he would call himself this. Everyone knew it. They’d just forgotten. Sam. the Other. How could they have all forgotten? “It doesn’t matter,” Sam said. Karl was dimly aware of being totally undisturbed by Sam’s casual mind-reading. Which disturbed him. “You know me now, but I’m not going to take anything from you that you don’t want to give.” Sam smiled a pleasant, friendly smile. It didn’t fit on his face well. “In fact, I’m going to give you something. In exchange for a favor. Which you can say no to if you wish.” Karl swallowed.
“What…ah…what favor is that?” He pictured Sam, then, vividly, reaching down through his mouth, through his guts, twisting, pulling out something, something that felt sewn into his core, the stitches ripping, and pulling oh god no
“Right, stop that!” Sam shook his head. “Sorry, sorry.” He looked away. “Old habit. Gets away from me sometimes.” Karl twitched involuntarily and absently clutched his stomach. “No, look, Karl,” Sam crossed his legs on the couch. “What I want is a favor.”
A favor? Karl was totally disarmed by this. He sensed, with every vague fiber of his being, that he was in the presence of something so much bigger than himself that every breath felt like a struggle not to disappear…and it wanted a favor from him.
“Yes, a favor.” Sam smiled again; this time with more hints of whatever it was that hadn’t been there before. “I want you to take my daughter on a date.”
Karl was forty years old, divorced, with no children. He held a mid-level municipal job that kept him behind a desk 40 hours a week and he’d grown somewhat lumpen and balding in his approach to middle age. After his wife had left him, he’d started to forget what it was like to capture a woman’s attention, or to make a room laugh at a joke, or enjoy a day of good weather for the basic visceral sensation it brought. He had “gone gray”, as his mother used to say of his father, who had died when Karl was only 12.
He let the sheer absurdity of the entire situation wash over him, and suddenly was overcome with laughter. His body started to shake, and he laughed and laughed like he hadn’t done in years. His whole body was shaking, and he started to compose himself but…fuck it! This was hilarious.
“You want me,” Karl struggled to get the words out. “To take…your daughter? On a date! Me?” Karl was gasping now. It was too much. Sam frowned. The laughter slowly dried up.
“Yes,” Sam said, picking an invisible piece of lint off his suit pants. “A date. You.” He leaned forward and looked at Karl, who composed himself, this time with a new self-assuredness he hadn’t felt, ever, and met Sam’s gaze easily.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
| 2015-05-20T12:26:51 | 2015-05-20T12:02:49 | 75 | 23 |
[WP] Foreshadow the character's death so subtly that I still don't see it coming even though I requested it. | I'm going to die today.
The doctor is giving me a run down of what will happen when we pull the plug. It will be painless, he says. Despite his reassurance, I can't help but be afraid. I glance over to my wife, my one true happiness in life, and begin to tear up. I can't handle the fact that I will never see her again. I pull her in for one last embrace.
I look back at the doctor and tell him I'm ready.
He gives me a slight nod, and slowly shuts off my wife's life support.
-
Edit : Thank you all for the kind words, when I wrote this obviously I could not have anticipated that it would be so well accepted. I'm glad that a good bunch of you enjoyed this story, as much as I enjoyed writing it. | Lucas focused the scope of his riffle, aimed at the head of no other than the famous Maria Rios.
He smirked. It was lucky day, no doubt. The women’s activist may have been gaining a large following across the world but like most things, enemies came with the territory. Powerful enemies – the kind who would pay nicely for a bullet in her skull. Discreetly, of course.
But she knew the costs of her power. Lucas could only hope she would be aware of the consequences. Not that he actually cared. As long as he did what he was contracted for, he still got paid.
Lucas adjusted slightly to the left when a rogue wind rushed by him. He glanced up at the sky, frowning. It was dark, a grey blob rolling and growling in a hypnotic dance, as if to protest his job. The first plump drop of rain landed by his side. Sighing, Lucas looked back into his scope.
Bad weather wouldn’t stop him. He had been trained to operate in all sorts of weather – a small thunderstorm the least of his worries. When it began hailing and a hurricane ripped across the city, then he would be worried. And even then, he would still make sure to get the job done. Assassins have bills to pay, too.
On the other side of the scope, Maria stood waiting for her death. It almost seemed poetic. She would die doing what she loved, giving a speech of the inequalities of gender politics in her native country of Honduras. In way, she would be like the next King or Ghandi. But of course, good people always die young.
The clouds growled again, shaking the earth. A streak of blue light flashed in the distance. He wondered if he could time his shot with the next one, if anyone would know what happened to their “beloved” Mama Rios in the brief moment of chaos. He could even go down in history under the name. The Lightning Assassin had a nice ring to it.
No point in not trying.
Lucas took in a deep breath, collecting his thoughts. The shot lined up perfectly. Now all he had to do was shoot. In three, two…
He squeezed the trigger as the sound of thunder shaking his core to the bone. The flash of lightning was bright – illuminating the world around him. He exhaled, closing his eyes as his body tensed to unprecedented heights. The last thing he remembered was hearing frantic shouting in Spanish and the smell of burning flesh.
Maybe he wasn’t as lucky as he thought. | 2015-06-03T08:22:01 | 2015-06-03T06:09:40 | 2,420 | 29 |
[WP] Foreshadow the character's death so subtly that I still don't see it coming even though I requested it. | I'm going to die today.
The doctor is giving me a run down of what will happen when we pull the plug. It will be painless, he says. Despite his reassurance, I can't help but be afraid. I glance over to my wife, my one true happiness in life, and begin to tear up. I can't handle the fact that I will never see her again. I pull her in for one last embrace.
I look back at the doctor and tell him I'm ready.
He gives me a slight nod, and slowly shuts off my wife's life support.
-
Edit : Thank you all for the kind words, when I wrote this obviously I could not have anticipated that it would be so well accepted. I'm glad that a good bunch of you enjoyed this story, as much as I enjoyed writing it. | *'Easy'*, I tell myself. Nothing's going to go wrong.
Left turn, three sharp and consecutive corners to the right, a hairpin, and a long, long straight to the end.
I know the car. I *know* my copilot, and she knows me. She trusts me with her life.
We're going to win this, retire, and have a nice, comfortable life. *I can do this.*
Alright. Alright. Enough thinking. Watch the road.
This is *not* unfamiliar Finnish dirt. This is easy, simple, English countryside.
I can do this.
The pace notes are coming nice and steadily, just like how I want them, and if my internal clock is working right, I'm pretty sure I'll come out on top in terms of timings by this stage.
Everything's perfect, just-
*No.* No. I can't be losing grip, not now. I am *not* going to tip over.
*Yes,* Kris, I'm decelerating, goddamnit.
Countersteer. Come on, come on, do *not* fail me now, Lancer. You can do-
Black. Pitch black. Ears ringing. I feel dizzy.
*Ouch*.
Where am I?
Oh. Oh.
Alright. Get the engine off. Steering wheel's next. Okay, the door. Slowly.
My right arm feels like someone took a sledgehammer to it. It's fine. I need to get help.
*Wait*. Where's Kris?
God, god, no.
Please tell me she's fine. She *has* to be fine.
She's not breathing. I need to get help. Where's the damn ambulance?
Where's the safety car? The people who were behind us must have seen us and radioed for help.
I'll... Just... The road.
Oh, god. My ankles. But *Kris*.
Fuck it. I'll crawl. I'll crawl.
Almost... to the road. Almost.
There. Yes, I see it. Isn't that a car, over there?
Why is it coming so fast? Are we that seriously injured?
No. No. It's a fellow rally car. It can't still be thinking that the race is still on, right? No. Slow down.
Jesus, I can't get out of the way in time. Heaven help me.
Help me, God, help me, anyone!
*Mama*. Ma-
| 2015-06-03T08:22:01 | 2015-06-03T06:26:43 | 2,420 | 14 |
[WP] You're a student of music in the 23rd century. This is your A+ essay regarding a famous song from the 21st century, in which you dissected and heavily misinterpreted. | For the thesis I will analyse one of the songs found on the disc recovered from the ruins of old L.A.
Starting with infamous line
"My anaconda don't want none if you aint got buns hun"
The famous giant anaconda snake is a symbol of Brazil. This lyric highlights the tragic brazillian dependance on US aid and shunning of local produce. But it's a little known fact just who that voice belongs to. It is in fact the voice of a famous 20th century philosopher known only as Sir Mixalot. Most of his work has been lost to time but he is famed for his inability to lie. This choice of speaker gives the song a distinct undertone of honesty, ethics and integrity.
"I let him hit it cus he sling cocaine". At first listen this line may sound like gibberish to our modern ears. However sling is an old colloquial term for throwing and cocaine was a deadly illegal drug that plagued the streets of Oil age America. So it appears Nicki allowed this man to discipline her pet snake because he works in law enforcement discarding cocaine.
"I got a big butt". Now butts are one part of a type of primitive gunpowder weapon very popular at the time. In this line she is implying that she is very well armed. Presumably for the fending off of criminals. The deranged laughter at the beginning of the line highlights the giddy thrill of controlling such (for the time) powerful weaponry.
I conclude that this song is about resisting the decay of civilization. It is nothing more or less than a great rallying cry against crime and injustice. With any luck this epic ballad of courage will echo through the generations and be heard in our own time. | "Bad Romance," by Lady Gaga, was one of the foremost artistic masterpieces of the 21st century, not for its catchy tune or its insight lyrics, but for its subtle minimalism and purity of construction.
Though many argue that it falls short of the staggering genius that was "Chaccaron Maccaron" by El Mundo, it does have the same inspiration, as evidenced by the similar depths of emotions, from heart-wrenching love and desire to soul-crushing loss and despair. We see hints of it in her "roma-romas" as well as in her admitted aspirations to have a criminal's vertigo stick in her rear window. And what it lacks in quality, it makes up for in quantity; rather than overwhelm her audience with a deluge of new sensory information, Lady Gaga artfully chooses to maintain her focus at all times. For example, she uses the word "romance" 27 times in less than five minutes, a clever tip of the hat to the name of the song, "Bad Romance." She also inserts her own name, "Gaga," via wordplay on five separate occasions. Finally, she alludes to "love" directly 41 times, or every six and a half seconds.
This is a song for the masses, because it has all pertinent information regarding the song worked into it: the title, the artist, and the main theme. There's little filler, such as descriptions or plot; just clean, unfiltered repetition, the variety of brutally honest repetition usually reserved for parrots or brain-washing cults like the Reaping Fathers who graciously took over our democracy in the 22nd century, praise be to Chancellor Seeing-Eye.
So while "Bad Romance" doesn't quite live up to the standard set by El Mundo, it certainly revolutionized the music industry of the time by making the constructs of plot, rhythm, syntax, or rhyme scheme inconsequential. This work reduced music to its simplest and therefore most advanced form; it has achieved what decades of architectural minimalism have striven for, and even more impressive, without even using real words half the time.
This *magnum opus* culminates in a superb demonstration of Lady Gaga's French vocabulary, which not only hearkens back to the "oh la la" root of the song, but also helps foreshadow that Lady Gaga's mystery criminal is, in fact, a Frenchman. Regrettably, there was never any sequel to this masterpiece written by Gaga herself, though one can surmise that perhaps it might have been revealed that the vertigo stick was actually the Eiffel Tower, and Lady Gaga's stage name was an allusion to the Moulin Rouge. This would not only explain the leather-studded kiss in the sand (the French are infamous for being romantic) but also the fashion walk that the criminal does at the end of the song. Only a sissy Frenchman would be able to do a fashion show like that and still capture the heart of the delicate "freak bitch" that is Lady Gaga.
So this humble critic poses a challenge to the musical savants of our day: Was this a singular work of unattainable perfection, never again to be approached by mere mortals? Or, maybe, just maybe, will one stop forward who will be able to construct a sequel of integrity, one that whisks our minds away into a heavenly four minute, thirty-five second fantasy? We can only hope. | 2015-08-16T10:31:31 | 2015-08-16T10:20:58 | 20 | 10 |
[WP] You accidentally call the FBI in place for a pizza shop and attempt to order your favourite pizza with toppings. Coincidentally, the FBI uses pizza language as a means of code. | "Hi," Rick said. "I'd like to order a large pizza."
"Large, you say?" The guy on the other end of the line seemed a little taken aback, which was rather strange for a pizza place.
"Yeah," Rick continued, a little confused himself. "Could I get it mushrooms, sausage, olives and pinapple on that?"
"Of course," said the voice bruskly. "Will that be pick-up or delivery?"
"Delivery." The guy on the other end gasped loudly and slammed down the phone. "That's odd," thought Rick. "He didn't tell me how much it would cost or when I could expect it. He didn't even say 'thank you' or 'good bye.' I need to have a talk with Gino about how his employees treat customers." Rick turned on the tv and settled down to wait for his pizza.
***
Agent Smith walked briskly down the hall trying to not panic. A *large* pizza! this was going to be a big one and, apparently it involved nuclear weapons, genetic engineering, the Israelis and . . . whatever the hell pineapples are. There was no way that pineapples were anything good. Worse still, it was a delivery. It was coming right to American soil! He had to brief the president immediately. There was going to be a war unlike any the world had ever seen.
***
Five hours later, Rick still did not have his pizza and his favorite show had been interrupted by the president making a stupid speech about pineapples. Tonight was just not Rick's night.
ETA: This story is now officially one third of my comment karma. Thanks everyone! | "Hello," the woman on the other end of the phone said back to me, "how can I help you today?"
"Yeah, can I have a large pepperoni-" I started. Someone in the background asked me to pick up a meat lovers instead. There was a short argument, "On second thought can you make it half pepperoni and half sausage."
"Are you confident?" She sounded nervous. I couldn't understand why.
"Yeah I want that pizza."
"Sir, would you like soda too?"
"Yeah, I think we definitely need Coke," I said eyeing the bottle of chase that had been stolen by basically everyone. We'd brought two bottles, but we were already running out.
"Hol-" she began, "yes as fast as possible sir."
"Yeah I'll pay cash at the door okay."
"Hold tight sir we are on our way." She sounded desperate, panicked even. I didn't know what was going on but if they were going to be stressed about a pizza, it might as well have been mine. I turned back to the rest of the party. Beer pong looked like it was somewhat open. I walked over there to see if I could slip in for a game.
About ten minutes later there was the sound of sirens outside. I shushed everyone, "don't worry it's not late enough that they are going to kick us out, just a friendly reminder I think," I pointed out to my girlfriend Jess as she came up to me. She seemed satisfied with my explanation and sat down on the couch with one of her friends. I went to grab the door.
I didn't need to; the door was kicked in, and I was shoved back against the wall. I smashed into it and shook my head, "Woah-woah-woah," I started, "What the hell is going on?"
"That's a match for the voice," came a female voice from the other side of the door. The same man who had kicked the door in grabbed it and pulled it off of me, "what's your name?" the woman asked.
"Jeff," I stuttered, "what's going on?"
"Jeff, what's the code?" she asked. She walked into sight; she was a complete bombshell, but her tits were ruined by the fact that she was carrying an assault rifle, "I'm not fucking around, what's the code?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know," she took the gun and pressed it hard against my forehead, "You called for this bullshit if you're who you claim you are you'd better give me the code in ten seconds."
"What the fuck."
"Ten."
"No seriously."
"Nine."
One of my friends cut in, "You can't just do that, he has rights."
"Eight."
"I was trying to order a pizza!" I shouted. She suddenly pulled the gun off of my forehead.
"What?"
"I wanted pizza."
"Y-you thought you were calling for pizza?" She repeated what I said.
"Yes, I thought I was calling for Pizza I'm sorry."
"How did you get the number so wrong."
"I'm drunk," I admitted, "I'm only 20 but I'm drunk, and I'm sorry."
She pulled the gun away from me and put it down to her side. Everyone was silent for a while, "Let's go, guys," she finally hissed. | 2015-11-30T16:21:26 | 2015-11-30T16:18:28 | 1,233 | 12 |
[WP] A world where people can store the adrenaline rush and aggressiveness of their anger for later use. Keep enough rage inside and you can, literally and figuratively, hulk out. Now, in your city there's a person who's never been visibly angry... | I guess as Hagrid once said.. wait was it Hagrid? Pretty sure it was. Well someone in Harry Potter said it. That there were weirdos in every breed. And I'm sure there are people like me out there too, but I guess I'm the only one in my town. Because I'm the only one mentioned in the local news about it time to time.
About how I have the most pent up aggression and anger and adrenalin for my age. About how I'm always laid back and cool about everything and never angry. About how that only means I have too much Juus in my reserve and it will be a scary day when I let myself go.
I mean I had lost it before. Like that one time during summer camp when I was, like, 10, I spent the whole summer utterly pissed that I was stuck in a camp that I didn't even want to go to in the first place and one day, when Hank crossed the line and spat on my pizza slice, I accidentally tapped into my saved up Juus and slammed his head on the table so hard the table broke and a piece of wood got partially impaled in his face.
Thankfully there wasn't any lasting damage but I had to go through counselling on why I should not keep my anger pent up and just lose it on the spot when I get angry.
After that, though, I don't really recall getting angry about stuff and then saving up Juus. I don't even recall even properly getting angry.
I just stopped caring, I guess. Stopped letting things get to me. People think my laid back and calm persona is just an act. That I have an ulterior motive to save up my Juus to take over the world or something. I really don't. My Juus reserves are almost non-existent. People who have heard about me sometimes try to irritate me, to try and help me on my made-up quest of saving up Juus. People try to trip me. Accidentally knock on to me on their bicycles. Ring my doorbell and run away before I could answer the door.
And when they see me smile at their sad attempts to make me rise my Juus even higher, they feel accomplished. Because smiling means I haven't snapped yet. That the anger is still building. And that's what I find most intriguing about my infamy. That people want to see me finally lose it.
Sucks that it's in vain, though. | *suspect on the run. Last seen on 5th avenue*
"Do you think it's another rager on the run?" said officer John to his partner as Alicia's soft voice came out of the police radio.
"Nah. It's probably another robber." said officer Jones.
Police sirens were turned on as officer John and Jones darted through the empty midnight streets. They were just the casual doughnut loving policemen in a city of ragers. Ragers were people who suppressed the aggressiveness of their anger for later use. They were a minority but nevertheless a very dangerous one. Luckily, all ragers stored their rage rush for short periods of time. They were easily provoked by the slightest threat. However, it wasn't the case this time.
"Are you seeing anything, John?" said Jones in a low tone. "I can't see shit! turn on the lights and let's shoot this motherfucker on the first sight!" He added in the same whispering voice.
"No. What if he was another rager?" said John worryingly. "Don't you remember what happened to Luke? Poor man is on a wheel chair after some rager blew a punch to his lower back." said John with a serious frown on his face.
While the two officers were whispering in their car a fast body dashed beside the car and broke the right mirror. They were in disbelief as the two never saw something like that.
"I told you it's a rager! Radio Alicia and tell her we're in pursuit"
*suspect is a confirmed rager. All units proceed to the intersection of 7th and 8th*
John was nervous and excited at the same time. He never encountered a powerful rager. He stepped hard on the gas with a promotion on his mind.
"I'll finally get that promotion." He said under his breathe.
"Damn fucker is running 60 miles an hour!" shouted Jones
The suspect was closing in on a road block. No other police vehicles were in pursuit as all units went to the intersection.
"Who gave the order for a road block? He's not a vehicle! How are you going to stop him? With spikes?!" said Jones sarcastically.
John and Jones were two seconds behind the rager and the road block was less than half a mile away.
*All units, suspect is near the road block. Fire on sight*
A shower of bullets rained on the rager as the glocks thundered and roared, but with no avail. The light from the gun was so intense it blinded the pursuing officers.
"Stupid fuckers! They're shooting at us!" said Jones frantically
"Hold on Jones!" said John as he swerved the old police car away from the line of fire.
The rager went straight through the road block but with a hefty cost. Bullets penetrated his adrenaline filled body and he started to slow down.
"Way to go John! We lost him! What's wrong with you?"
"Could you stop being a nagging bitch for one seco...."
As the two officers were arguing the rager emerged suddenly from an alley. He was head to head with the car when John collided with him.
"Holy shit. It split the front!" said Jones after he dragged his dizzy head out of the car. "This the popo motherfucker! Hands behind your head!"
"He can't move, Jones! He's stuck in the middle of the hood!" said John.
The rager was unsurprisingly still conscious. He tried talking. "Myy wwwife. It's over. I've put up with her shit for 20 years. I finally sna-. I finally...."
Jones' frantic bullets bored the ragers head like cheese.
"WHY IN GOD'S NAME DID YOU DO THAT?!" John shouted.
"He opened his mouth, man. He has the right to remain silent." said Jones in a stupid voice.
"I... I... can't even.... Well at least I'm going to get that promotion." said john with a sarcastic smirk.
_____
A few more at /r/Hacksaw_Hoss. Hope you enjoyed my response.
| 2016-03-16T09:07:59 | 2016-03-16T08:41:28 | 38 | 14 |
[WP] One day, time just suddenly stops for a short moment for you. At first, you tried to mess around, but after the 246th times it happened, you start to realise that your power is not stopping time, but being able to move in time frozen by another person in the world.
Just an idea that randomly popped up in my head. | I stand, leaning against her. Ever leaning against her. I have been doing so as long as I can remember. She's behind me. And I've got my back against her. My legs dug in, pushing futile against her. My legs used to ache, I think. Perhaps I only imagined it and then later forgot it was only imagining. Either way, they didn't ache now. They didn't anything now. Except push. They pushed my back against her.
She was silent, for her part. Everything was silent. The little bird was silent. The squirrels. The people. Dozens of people around us. So resolute in their silence. I'm silent too, mostly. I remember making a noise. That I do remember. Because when I made the noise, it seemed so loud my ears hurt afterwards. So I don't make any noise either.
She's still. So still. But I push. I always push. She doesn't move. The wrinkle in her coat sticks into my back. It used to hurt. But I pushed anyway. Her jacket was soft. Soft was when you touched and it moved. But she doesn't move. I push, and she's still there.
Beside us is the thing. The thing is ready to move. I remember that. It's got a person in it. They have a surprised look on their face. Their hands off the wheel part of the thing, trapped halfway to covering their stupid surprised face. Their stupid hair, and their stupid mole. The stupid dribble of whatever they had been putting in their stupid mouth. The stupid thing they were holding, stupidly glowing.
I don't like the thing, or the person in it.
Then a pain. Terrible flashing pain. Again. Again. Again. Again.
No. Not pain. Sound. A sound. Maybe both? Again. Not sure. Again. More pain. The pain was getting closer.
I remember this pain. Steps. Footsteps.
And for the first time, I see something move.
He walked around a corner, making humming noises to himself. I pushed.
He's walking by me. Doesn't look at me. I don't make a sound. I don't move. I push. I look like the rest of it. I want him to look at me.
I try to call out, but only a faint hoarseness sounds through my long unused neck. I need to breath in. I had forgotten. It had been so long since I'd bothered. I'd forgotten.
It was enough.
He started and stopped, looking for the sound. My sound. I push. I take a moment, and figure out how to draw the air inside me. I remember. Still just hoarseness, but louder. Painfully loud. A screaming whisper of loud.
*"wait"*
"You're awake? How are you awake? You're not supposed to be awake." The man is too loud. I push. But I remember his noises.
*"I had to stop the thing"*
The man looks from me to the thing. The thing is close to me. The thing is close to her. I push.
"You're pushing her out of the way of the car."
Yes, I push. He doesn't await a reply.
"How long have you been awake?"
This time he waits.
Breath in. I push.
*"forever"*
The man looks sad. The thing is waiting. Has always been waiting. The stupid person in the thing looks on with their stupid surprise.
"I didn't know someone was awake. If... had I known..."
The man stammers. I push. The man approaches. And reaches out to me. He touches my arm. Pain. Different than the sound pain. The man pulls his hand back. The arm is dented. A torn ruin where his fingers landed. I push.
"It's too close for you. But her... I'll help you."
The man walks around the thing, and puts his hands around her. I push.
"I am sorry, young man. I truly didn't know."
I push.
"Ready yourself."
I push.
And the thing moves. | The first time it happens, I’m saying, *no ketchup, please*, to the grease stained hot dog vendor on 50th, and the city goes silent. World’s biggest statue garden, and me, just wanting lunch. I take two cautious steps away from that boxed grill, shiny silver reflecting blurred halos of city light, staring as big-eyed as a small town tourist before the horns crack and the world starts again.
The guy with my food goes, “What gives, man? You want your dog or not?”
I say, “No ketchup, please,” but he looks at the dog in the bun, no ketchup in sight, and wrinkles his big bushy eyebrows.
In the mirror at home, burping up mystery meat, I keep saying, *No ketchup, please.* Traffic is still busy outside. *No ketchup, please.* The lady in 4A is still arguing with her boyfriend or husband or drug dealer. I don’t really know these people. *No ketchup, please.* But, in the mirror, I’m still this soft lump of unshowered loser, time ticking on without me.
Thing is, it happens again later that night. When my ma, crackling nagging voice brought to you from some beach town in California, stops talking. This was in the middle of asking *when are you going to get a real job?* Just after the question *are you seeing anyone yet?* I’m submitted to this caring, parental questionnaire every Friday at 9pm, regularly scheduled shame, my weekly life crisis, and the answers never change so I hardly listen any more. No, I still live in my shitty apartment. No, I haven’t been to Morton’s. No, I’m not seeing anyone. Yes, I’m still a lonely, jobless, nobody.
When she stops talking, my heart jumps. I'm starting to think about my poor dead mother, lying on some hard bed, surrounded by kitsch beachy decor and a great view of the ocean, all made-up and dressed-up even though she probably hadn’t left the hotel all day.
But the traffic is stopped. The baby in 4C isn't crying. The yappy dog isn't yapping. So, I'm thinking, she's probably not dead.
Taking the only chance I'll ever get, all at once, I’m yelling, “Fuck you mom!” I’m screaming, my throat half-confused, half-excited to be making such a ruckus, I’m going, “I’m fucked up, Mom. I’m a failure, Mom.”
In one, big, pissed off breath, I say, “You’re a miserable old woman and you ruined me.”
There’s a normal kind of silence on the other line. The sniffling, buzzing silence. Someone lays hard on their car horn, brakes squealing, all punctuated by incoherent shouting. If I hadn’t been so aware of the peace that stopped time brought, I’d say it felt like time, the world, had frozen around me. But it really didn’t feel that way at all.
“You need to get out of that city,” my mom’s saying, stifling tears. “It’s made you into some kind of monster.”
So I did.
Time stops nowhere I wanted time to stop. In the middle of traffic, already at a stand-still, nothing happening. People aren’t cursing, or talking on the phone, or eating, or singing to their reflection. No one is dreaming of being anywhere else because time just...wasn’t. It stops while I’m in line for snacks at the convenience store, staring up again just as I’m making my escape. Goods in hand, I slink to the back of the line and wait all over again. Inconvenient. It stops in the middle of a sad late-night last-call bar hookup. No one looks good that way, frozen like that.
It takes me the trip from New York to Colorado before I realise it’s not me. I’m not a masochist and, so far, time hasn’t been on my side. Somewhere, in India or Spain, you're fucking with me. Or, more realistically, you're robbing banks or causing trouble and I'm just caught in the crossfire. A casualty of poor timing.
I’ll find you. I’m on a plane to Italy now, someone’s snoring grandpa (nonno, in Italian) taking up the middle armrest, and I’ll look for you. I’ve got a trust fund and all of the time in the world. I even showered, just for you.
See you soon.
--------------------------------
5 June, 2017
I’m not sure what to do with this power, if I can call it that. It sounds almost funny to think of it that way, though. Like *I’m* a superhero. So far I’ve saved people only from humiliation or minor inconvenience, no burning buildings or car crashes, nothing warranting a spandex outfit.
It’s just that I carry around toothpicks now, scratching out the chewed up meals from people’s teeth. Today, after getting some nice pictures of the Eiffel Tower with hardly any people in the background (I waited over an hour for the opening), I rescued a coffee from the roof of a car and placed it into the interior cup holder.
I just want to make an impact. I guess, in a way, everyone is looking for that same sort of gratification.
Until next time,
Melanie
-------------------------------
Potentially TBC, depending on interest. More of my writing can be found at /r/edgarallanhobo
| 2018-01-26T06:28:28 | 2018-01-26T06:09:41 | 387 | 85 |
[WP] One day, time just suddenly stops for a short moment for you. At first, you tried to mess around, but after the 246th times it happened, you start to realise that your power is not stopping time, but being able to move in time frozen by another person in the world.
Just an idea that randomly popped up in my head. | Grandpa was running toward me screaming "STOP STAY AWAY! HE HAS THE POWER TO STOP TI..."
And suddenly everyone stopped, again, all I saw was Dio screaming "ZA WARUDO" before it happened.
I could barely move a finger, but I saw it happening in front of me, Dio just murdered my grandfather!
When time resumed I was very angry! Grandpa last words were not to get angry, but my blood was boiling, I just wanted to punch that smug satisfied face to death.
As Dio approached me I launched my stand towards him
"ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA"
"MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA"
| I didn't love my job.
That's not too unusual. Most people don't love their job. So I guess in that respect, I'm not special. But I couldn't help but feel like I *really* didn't like my job. Being a store associate at Best Buy was like being a lion tamer and a dog trainer all rolled into one. You had to beat back people's anger all day, then show them exactly how to do things the right way. Against their will, usually.
So when the Silence appeared as Mrs. Hendricks was complaining about her 4 year old iPad she bought from us not connecting to the WiFi... again... it was a welcome respite.
In the beginning when it first started happening -- after the shock wore off -- I used to think the Silence was some sort of universal signal to chill for a second. A sign things were getting to be too much in my life, and Someone, Somewhere wanted to give me a moment's peace to enjoy the absolute, suffocating quiet the Silence brings. It feels like being outside right after the first snowfall when the world is on pause and everything's just taking a moment to enjoy the stillness.
Now? I'm not so sure anymore.
I strode away from my station and out into the hot Texas air. Compared to the hermetic, air-conditioned Best Buy, the outside felt wild and rugged and free. Ambling to my '95 Civic, I paused to consider what exactly I should do with my time. These pauses could last just a couple minutes, or go on for hours, and I never wanted to get too far from the store in case everything snapped back into reality.
The black birds that normally hung around the parking lot were frozen in the sky above me, their undulating flock trapped in a moment of time mid-swirl over the Cherry Berry. Of everything in the Silence, I liked seeing the birds most of all. Like a frozen waterfall in winter, the birds seemed to vibrate with an energy even when still. Their purpose was evident even when not moving, and I loved feeling their drive over the stillness of the Silence.
As I stood admiring the birds, I heard it. Faintly.
A car engine.
The silence had been broken. I was not alone. | 2018-01-26T07:03:15 | 2018-01-26T06:51:42 | 71 | 10 |
[WP] A gentleman walks up to you at a brisk pace and hands you a gun saying, "You know what you need to do" and then walks away just as quickly as he came. The only problem is you have no idea what he's referring to... | *”You know what you need to do.”* Said the man in the purple suit.
He hands me a gun hiding within his purple suit jacket and walks away. It feels cold. My hand feels cold. My body is frozen as I stare at the grey pristinely polished weapon. I’ve never fired a gun. I don’t even know what type of gun this is. Most importantly, I don’t know why I took the gun.
I should panic but I don’t. Like a natural reflex I stuff the gun in my waistband and pull my t-shirt over it. I begin to walk down Mainstreet. I look behind me at the direction of my Doctor’s office, I have a strange feeling I’m going to be late for my appointment.
“Hello sir, are you interested in saving the animals?” A young woman in a Greenpeace jacket with a clipboard in her hand asks me.
“Sure. What is your petition for?” I asked, but my feet won’t stop. I walk away from the woman. The confused woman lets me walk away.
I attempt to scream back to her for help, but I can’t. I’ve lost complete control of my body.
I begin to panic.
*Thump, thump, baboom. Thump, thump, baboom.*
My heart races as I start to think the worst possible outcome. I have a gun on me, what if a police officer stops me for some reason? What happens if I pull it out and start shooting people? Oh god. Someone needs to save me, I’ll take anyone at this point.
I see city hall. A large administration building home to the Mayor and several employees. On a Wednesday at 2pm, people are probably just coming back from lunch. I slip inside the white building, heading towards the security checkpoint. I blink widely at anybody who would look at me, they ignore me. They ignored me until I walked through the security sensor.
*Beep, Beep, Beep* The alarm sounded, one of the four security officers asked me to step aside.
I obeyed, stepping aside and pulling out the gun from my waistband. In a seamless motion I wave my gun, firing four shots. Four shots meeting their target with impeccable aim. If I wasn’t horrified and feel like barfing, I would be impressed.
Instead a symphony of chaos erupts and I become its conductor. People scream, they run past, away, and around me. I walk through the panicked crowd, no one attempts to fight me. I walk to the circular staircase and walk up the stairs towards the mayor’s office.
I look at the thin carpets they have leading to the mayor’s office. The carpets are colour coded to help people find their way around the large building. I come to the double wooden doors that grants access to his office. I kick them open.
The Mayor freezes, he’s on his phone demanding help. He is covered with sweat. We’re both unsure on what I’m going to do next, but the gun in my hand gives him a strong indication of my intention.
“Oh god. Please no. I give up. Please don’t” He screams at me.
I voted for him. He had a good socialist stance on healthcare and education reform on a city level. I don’t want to do this.
I lift up my hand, pointing the gun towards him.
“I’ll get him his money. Please don’t.” He screams at me.
I don’t understand what he’s talking about, but I fire.
He falls slumped over his desk, again impeccable aim.
I open the gun, checking how many bullets I had left.
1
I walk to the window, I see myself in the reflection. I’m covered with security guard blood from downstairs. I’m apathetic about how I look, normally I freak out if I even sweat on my suit because I dislike dry cleaning.
Why couldn’t I have killed Mr. Wong from *Cheap Drycleaners*, there is a reason why it’s cheap.
I close the gun and lift it to my head.
I look at myself in the reflection, my eyes seemed different. Why are they *purple*?
**BANG**
----------------------------------
*”What do you think happened?”* Asked the uniformed cop.
A man in a red latex suit with *DD* on his chest looks down at the dead body near the window inside the mayor’s office.
*”Purple man.”* | I gawked at the handgun. "A gun?"
The man in the trench coat nodded once and then began to scurry away.
"Wait!" I called after him, the weight of the gun heavy in my hand. "What do I need to do?"
But the man had disappeared around a corner. Scurrying after him, I rounded the building only to find an empty alleyway. My eyes darted from the refuse piled up in the corner to the assortment of cans lining the walkway. There was no evidence that the man had entered just moments prior. "What in the..."
Gulping, I pushed my coat over the gun, trying to piece out what to do next. As far as I was concerned, the only thing you did with a gun was stay away from them. You certainly didn't walk around with broad daylight clutching one in your hand. Bile began to burble up in my stomach as I began to feel ill. I wasn't constitutionally designed for stress, it upset the delicate pH balance of my internal ecosystem. Just holding the gun was causing an intestinal tailspin.
My immediate inclination was to seek out the nearest officer of the law, but I had no idea what the gun might be wrapped up in. What if it had been used in a crime? I gulped down the acid rising up my esophagus, what if it had been used in...a murder?
A double murder.
Where the killers played with the bodies after. Like...sexually.
And then I just stroll in with the weapon and now I'm a necrophiliac murdering guy. There's no way that goes over well in prison. I'm too fragile for prison. How would I get my Xanax there?
I release a great belch, my digestive system already contemplating a life spent behind bars as someone's personal sex slave. It'd be an improvement over my current sex life on an absolute scale with respect to interactions, but I couldn't help but feel like quality took precedence over quantity in these matters.
A begin to sniffle as I contemplate my life as a sex slave necrophiliac murderer prisoner. It was an impossibly upsetting downgrade from my somewhat sedate life as an over\-medicated actuary.
My hand felt sweaty around the handle of the gun. I could literally feel my DNA oozing all over it, melding with the cold steel to form an unholy bond of incrimination.
I leaned against the wall of the alley, hoping that my head would stop spinning. I needed to get rid of it. More than that, I needed to destroy it. To ensure that every particle of it was no longer next to any other particle of it and that at no point would any particle of me be associated with any particle of what was formerly a particle of it.
After a few moments to gather myself, I stumbled toward the industrial supplies warehouse down the way. I had purchased a bit of lye there a few months past so I could make my own soap. I just didn't trust commercial soaps, you never knew how they got to be soap. If I was going to invest in a disinfectant, I wanted assurances on the provenance and I had been unsatisfied with the responses to my various letters sent to soap procurers.
Acting as nonchalantly as I could, I quickly purchased the supplies required to dissolve steel. Acid aplenty. Also vats. Scrubbers. Bleach. The whole nine yards. When the alternative is sex slave necrophiliac murderer prisoner, you take pains to be thorough. Neurosis also came with the actuarial territory.
Details matter.
A hop, skip and a very uncomfortable car ride later and I had arrived at my humble abode. It was a single story affair with a basement. I liked it because it was equidistant from my job, a serviceable organic market and the pharmacy where I filled my prescriptions. I found optimizing my life soothing.
The gun now rested in a pool of sweat. I had been too scared to remove it from my coat, afraid that somehow incriminating gun dust might migrate from the interior of my coat to incriminate my car. I distantly recognized that this was impossible, but if the actuarial sciences had taught me, the impossible is merely improbable on a large enough scale. Given that there were almost certainly thousands of people disposing of guns at that very moment, I'd rather not risk being the one in one in a million.
It took some doing, but I managed to get my gun dissolving station set up in a matter of hours. It was only when the bubbles began to form on the surface of the submerged gun that I began to relax, finding absolution in the dissolution. My virginity was safe. I felt oddly relieved and disappointed, not because I wanted to be a sex slave, but that this was the closest I had gotten to intimate contact.
Sigh.
My work done, I cleaned up and disposed of the waste. No incriminating particle remained. The gun was no more. I was safe. Secure.
I walked outside, wanting a bit of fresh air. The smell of bleach was making me nauseous. Strong smells were almost as disruptive on my ecosystem as threats of becoming prison yard play thing.
Taking a deep breath, I exhaled and stretched my arms over my head. A moment later, a strange man came up to me. "You're the trash man right?" Without waiting for me to respond, he tossed a bundle at me. My hands moved from over my head to try and catch the incoming projectile. I wasn't much for sports so I bumbled it about a fair bit before finally securing the package. The man simply stared, "Be careful slick. It's still loaded."
"Loaded?"
But the strange man was gone, leaving me alone. A bubble of acid began to percolate as I looked down at the oily rag wrapped around an oddly familiar object in my hand.
I belched.
**Platypus out.**
**Want more peril?** r/PerilousPlatypus | 2018-06-11T22:06:52 | 2018-06-11T21:24:44 | 32 | 15 |
[WP] Two ancient magical weapons have a grudge. For an age they have granted skill and power to whoever wields them, as well as a desire to fight anyone who picks up the other. After their previous wielders killed each other, you unwittingly looted both. | First time responding! Hope it goes well...
———————————————
I put Matilda, as I had named her, on a stool I had picked up from a yard sale and jammed into a corner of my living room. Parry went on a ripped-up Amazon box in the far corner, as the other stool in the set had had a leg snapped in the last fight the two had had. The bruise near my elbow twinged at the memory.
Sure, the matched pair of engraved brass knuckles—which had been elegantly forged katanas on that fateful day been when I’d picked them up off of the street to examine them one day, only to quickly find myself unable to lose the pesky weaponry—had fancy names, names with far too many syllables and looping letters and accents, but screw that. They would get their names back when they stopped acting like newly-forged butter knives and started acting like respectable aeons-old magical weaponry.
“Now,” I began sternly, glaring at first Matilda, then Parry. “You two are going to stay in here and think about what you’ve done, do you hear me?”
A echoing mutter rose up in the back corners of my brain, a slightly itchy and very resentful not-sound. Before I could react, a raspy-sounding response had welled up in that same corner, the tone like nothing so much as if steel wool had grown vocal cords with a bit of a tinny buzz thrown in for good measure. The mutter rose in volume and reverberation, causing the rasp to grow even buzzier.
I stomped a foot as hard as I could to get the knuckleheads’ attention, ignoring how the building trembled under my foot. “I don’t care who started it! I’m finishing it.”
Confusion. Defensiveness. The mental noise subsided, then surged.
“Hey! I said I didn’t care!” I stormed over to my easy chair, picked it up with greater ease than I had a week prior, and lugged it over to the middle of the room. Throwing myself down into the quashy cushions, I fixed the two ancient weapons with a glower worthy of any toddler’s parent. “None of us are leaving this room until you two talk things out, got it? No fighting evildoers, no figuring out your long-lost secret origin, nothing.”
Matilda, her golden inlays glimmering in the windowlight a bit too brightly to be natural, crinkled in my mind.
“You know what you did!” I waved my arms around, the colorful bruises almost as thick as sweater-sleeves in my peripheral vision. “I’m done with you two trying to go after each other and my limbs getting caught in the crossfire!”
A murmur echoed petulantly in return, and I matched it with—gingerly—folded arms. “No, I can’t just get a good buffing and polishing to work those out, humans don’t work that way! Even with the superpowers you two dumped on me!”
“You two are over five-thousand years old, aren’t you? You’re too old for this crap, and you both know it.” I yanked out my phone. “I’m going to bingewatch GLOW, and while I do you two are going to learn to coexist like adults, because nobody’s going anywhere until I know that you two are done making me a walking ‘stop hitting yourself’ joke!” | I'm a bandit. At an altar. Choosing between two ancient weapons that represent light and dark. One, a dark curved blade. The other, a light straight sword.
My left hand inches towards the dark blade on the left, but I quickly pull back. My right arm then outstretches to the one on the right, but I hesitate.
"Well well well Mr. 'Awon'. Choices come with responsibilities." Said the hooded Priestess. "Once you have chosen your blade, we will give the other one to your rival, Sir Cedric."
"What?"
"The knight. Sir Cedric. We're giving him what you do not choose. As you two are the greatest representations of light and dark in the present world."
"I heard you lady. But, nah. F\*ck Cedric."
I punch the lady and grab the two swords. My right hand grabs the dark sword, while my left grabs the light.
I shriek in pain an earth shattering roar.
RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
It hurts everwhere. Especially my arms.
*PAIN. ALL I FEEL IS PAIN.*
White smoke emanates from the dark blade. And black mist emanates from the light.
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
The two forces clash in the center, fighting for supremacy. Just when I thought my body would explode, a streak of blue lightning struck where I had been standing. On the left, nearest to the priestess, was a man cloaked in black with black hair. He was kneeling. In his left hand was the light blade. Gruffly, he spoke to the maiden. "**Get behind me.**" He spoke.
"Ahhhh..." A radiant figure stepped from the smoke on the right. It was a man dressed in all white with white hair. "*Dark Awon.*" He, of course, wielded the dark blade in his right hand. "Why don't you step away from the lady and let me play 'hack n slash'."
"**QUIET!**" Remarked the man in dark.
"If you do... I'll let you off easy. Hahahahaah."
"Don't patronize me Shark."
The man in white smiled, showing sharp teeth. There was a red glint in his eyes. He examined his blade, before leaping in a strike.
These two entities were of course the light and dark versions of Knight Awon. Awon is a bandit, yes. But he was once a revered knight. He was disgraced when the princess he swore to protect was stolen by Sir Cedric, who then forced her into an arranged marriage with the neighboring hierarchy.
The two men clashed. Traces of their bodies appearing here and there. The clang of metal rang out.
\**clish*\*
\**clang clang*\*
\**shiff*\*
Only flashes and outlines of them could be seen. The maiden watched in awe. These were clearly the two most skilled fighters she had ever seen.
A toe tap here. And a pant there. Neither was relenting. They were two equal but opposite forces, who existed to fight each other. But in the shadows stood a strange figure. He could see each of the two men's movements.
Dark struck an oblique line towards Shark, but to no avail. Shark had parried, his arm shot backwards with blade in hand. Dark's blow had ricocheted, but he used the force of the blow to his advantage. On the returning strike, he dropped the blade and caught it with a reversed grip. He struck another oblique strike, but to no avail. Shark had darted to the side and completely dodged the blow, if only by a hair. Masterful swordsmanship was clearly the only art these two would know. Just then, Shark threw an underhand stab towards Dark's left flank. A piercing in the ribs, if it had connected. Dark had quickly turned and pulled his arm back and deflected with the back end of the blade. Both men stood there with arms shaking and blades in hand. They held their blades against one another in a standoffish grind. Teeth gritted from both mouths. But then, they stopped.
"Dark? Do you hear that?"
"Yes. It's an almost silent heart beat. But it's excited. It's watching us fight."
"Odd. If a normal human like that maiden can't watch us fight, then what awful being can? How about we call a tru-" But before Shark could finish the word "truce", the figure stepped out of the shadows. It was a man carrying two alien weapons. They seemed to fire metal projectiles.
"Heh heh. Boys. Meet Beg and Mercy." Beg and Mercy being the names of the two hand guns. The man shot at the two fighters.
\**CLANG CLANG CLANG*\* Metal struck metal. The two men tried their best to strike the bullets and ricochet them back... But to no avail. Metal struck flesh and bone. Both men were flung back behind the altar.
"You're coming with me miss. Ha ha ha." The man grabbed the maiden.
Who was this strange man? | 2018-07-25T19:50:25 | 2018-07-25T18:21:17 | 83 | 19 |
[WP] You live in a world where every time you have a birthday, you get to level up a skill like in video games (intelligence, strength, charm etc.) most people spread their points evenly on each skill. But you put all 30 of your points into that one skill nobody cares about
You get to choose what that skill is. | Life isn't fair. I learned that lesson very early in my life. My mother told me she did her best to rush me out, then when she saw she wasn't going to make it, she tried to hold me in, but I guess when it's your time to be born, it's your time, even if that means you're born on February 29th.
She cried for me, and the nurses and doctors tried to console her, but their hearts weren't in it. They knew for someone like me, my life would be hell. After all, what kind of life could I truly have when everyone got to improve themselves on their birthday, but mine only came once every four years? I would be forever behind my peers, never able to catch up. At best, I could live a moderately normal life, but would probably always be a burden on society. So on the day of my birth, my mother cried for me. She cried for me, and I listened. I not only listened, I *heard* her. I heard her worry, her guilt, and her fear for me. I heard her soul and her very essence, and I understood.
That was my first improvement, and it served me well in my first four years of life. I had to learn everything the hard way, not being able to improve myself on my birthday every year like everyone else, but because I could truly listen I was able to learn well.
When my next true birthday came, my mother and I talked. I would only get to do this every four years, so each year had to count. We knew putting points into normal things like strength or intelligence would be a waste as they would barely make a difference. No, I would need to focus on something only I could do. The choice was easy; I could listen, and I was good at it.
So that's what I do, every four years I improve my listening abilities, and being a therapist is the perfect job for me. I've not only done well for myself despite my disadvantage, but the things I can hear and understand are more than you can imagine. No matter who you are, or how talented someone may be, sometimes all a person needs is to be heard. So when that time comes for you, look me up, I'm a very good listener. | Society was broken up into blocs. Since individual skill was easily determined based by point allocation, and point allocation was something you could easily access, things became caste like.
It wasn't so bad as caste systems you might expect; after all, belonging to a given caste was voluntary, and indeed, people being mismatched for the job or life they selected was unheard of; after all, you put the points in, you selected what you wanted.
The construction workers chose to work in that field just as much as the geniuses in the universities chose their field; whatever training was given to them was locked under the burden of prerequisite point allocation; after all, it would hardly be just to give someone information or training that they weren't specced into using.
Thus, mankind became palatable and a product that could be shipped and shaped according to higher directory; we lost what made us special and interesting, because, as a whole, we had shaped ourselves into being identical products, demarcated by a handful of points we were willing to spend.
I stared down at the spread of points before me, and raised an eyebrow lazily at the person across the table. "You have a spread with five points in strength, three in Int, and 12 and wisdom. The actual hell are you trying to get into?"
"Science science," The intern said. "I want to study scientists."
I stared at him for a long moment, cocking my head to the side.
As the only idiot who had maxed out wisdom in the last century, I took on a particularly awful role.
Figuring out point distributions for roles; and slotting outcasts.
And studying scientists wasn't actually a stupid idea, in the end, my thirty points in wisdom told me. The bit of me that wasn't thirty points of wisdom spoke up about the absurdity of the situation but...
"Yes, we could improve the efficiency of research if we had someone studying the interpersonal interactions and challenges that scientists face when applying for research grants and putting forth applications to allot points, couldn't we?" I asked, idly, leaning back in my chair.
"Uh, yeah," The intern said, scratching the back of his head. "That's about what I was thinking. Well, thinking recently. You know how it is when you hit twelve wisdom, you go through a few paradigms."
I remembered that distantly. I remembered how my whole life switched about and I realized how fantastically stupid it was to max out wisdom.
That was the burden of wisdom, after all; nobody appreciated you unless you were kept caged up and away from anything delicate.
Interpersonal relationships decayed fast when you actually had logical solution to problems. Nobody actually wanted to be solved. Everyone clung to some bitter nuance and ache; the quiet pains and suppositions of a system that failed to provide leniency.
Though research was being done into the wide spread ramifications of 'respeccing' as a concept, the technology wasn't quite there, and the busy body meritocratic government feared reprisal if the elderly were unshackled from their ledges of maxed out stat pools.
The brainless and those who had not dipped into the four levels of intelligence or eight level of wisdom in order to get into university might find their caste to be unpalatable if given the option, after all. The arranged marriages and grouping of traits in the large scale test populations might discover their contracts were not nirvana when they realized the invisible strings that complete whole scale surveillance tied to their secret actions.
Wisdom maxed out was truly a stupid decision, I considered.
"So... what do you think about putting more points into wisdom on my birthday?" the intern asked quietly.
I laughed. "Stick around in wisdom until at least 18, it's fucking amazing."
I signed the paperwork and stuck the bastard with me. I'd live at least long enough to see him turn to alcohol.
----
For more like this, click here. https://old.reddit.com/r/Zubergoodstories/ | 2018-09-12T08:07:42 | 2018-09-12T08:04:08 | 1,821 | 108 |
[WP] Your pointless superpower is that you know how many people’s lives you save with your actions. One day, at a Subway, you tell the cashier you want your sandwich on Italian bread, and you’re suddenly informed that you just saved five billion people. | Joey walked into Subway with 5 dollars in his pocket. He meandered up to the counter and looked up as his friend Tiffany walked around from the back and said "Welcome to Subway!" without looking up.
"Hey Tiff, what's good?" said Joey
"Joey!" said Tiffany, "Not much, 10 minutes to close so day's almost over. What can I get ya?"
"How much for a club on flatbread?" asked Joey
"Should be about 6 bucks," said Tiffany "What kind of cheese?"
"Ahh, I'm a little short," said Joey, "How about 6 inch on wheat?"
Tiffany looked back at the rack, "Sorry, all I've got is Italian, I can give you the day old discount if you want since we're about to close."
"Sure, lettuce and tomato please, no cheese." said Joey
Just then he heard that strange voice in his head that told him he had just saved the lives of 5 billion people. Unnerved and slightly dazed he paid then walked out of the store trying to fathom how he could have possibly saved any lives by choosing that exact sandwich...
Later that night as Tiffany was closing up, she wrapped up all the veggies, set to work putting everything in the refrigerator, cleaned the rest of the dishes, and loaded up the trash. She looked through the bread and noticed the flatbread looked a little stale and... flourescent? Gross. Into the dumpster they went.
Later that night as it happened a stray raccoon found it's way into the dumpster and gnawed on this and that, whatever smelled appetizing. It found it's way into the flatbread and went to town with reckless abandon. As he got his fill, he crawled back out of the dumpster swaying and disoriented. Anyone looking on at the raccoons behavior could be forgiven for thinking it was drunk, or perhaps rabid.
Across the road, a stray dog caught it's eye, and so it took off chasing the dog, spitting and snarling. It was very very angry, and oddly, suddenly extremely hungry. As it lost connection with reality only the most base desires remained in it's head: Tear, Thrash, Bite, Anger. As it lunged across the final lane just out of reach of the stray dog it was abruptly flattened by an 18 wheeler.
No one was ever the wiser that humanity had been only seconds from near total annihilation but Joey always wondered, and so he always ordered a club on italian. Just in case. | "I'll take the itallian bmt," you say, wanting to try something new. "Okay sir here you go, anything else", "Nope thats it". "Okay, your total is $6.25" "Hey asshole, you saved 5 billion, want a medal?" a voice in your head says sarcastically. You have been hearing the voice in your head as of late, ever since you got drunk with your friends, and went to a waste disposal plant, where they gave you 50 bucks to taste the goop. The voice wasn't demonic as you may think, but it had a Brooklyn accent, and was very sarcastic. you could communicate with it by thinking. "5 billion, how the hell did i pull that off?" you ask, "Hey asshole, my job is to relay the numbers, I don't know how you did it, I just know that you did it". "Fine be a dick," you respond. You bite into your sandwich, and immediately spit it out, "Oh shit, who the hell can eat this without wanting to die." you throw the sandwich out and walk away. at this time a short angry man walks by (he looks like if you mixed George and Newman from seinfeld, and then hit that person in the face with a baseball bat.) "tommorow, im using those launch codes, and im blowing up the fucking earth," he thinks. "I'm fucking starving, why did i spend all my money on drugs, and the launch codes?" "Holy shit is that an Itallian bmt?" he says audibly. he runs to the trash can, and pulls the bmt out. he starts eating it, and moaning for some reason, you turn around "What the FUCK?" you scream, as he starts eating it. he eats it so quickly that he begins choking. "help," he manages to wheeze out. you now notice, that no one else is on this street, you hear nothing at first, then a voice breaks the silence, "assbag, fuck his shit up, I don't know for sure, but i have a feeling that that is what the five billion was." Without even second guessing your self, you stomp that fuckers head about a dozen times, and look down, all thats left of what formerly was a he, was a fractured skull, and scatered pieces of flesh. You see something sticking out of his pocket, you pull it out it says, "CIA Operative 935, level 10 security clearance" you hear a gunshot behind you, and everything goes black. You hear the voice once again, but this time, for the final time. "asshole, i was gone for a minut-- what the fuck?" somehow you respond i was shot, "wait a minute," he pulls you into the real world again, but you have no body now, you look at your dead body, and realise time is paused, you walk over to the man who shot you, and look in his pocket, he too was a cia operative. Time then resumes, and you stand there and look at the man who shot you, he stands near your now lifeless body, and looks at you, "poor son of a bitch," you hear him mumble, "it didnt have to be like this." He moves to the man you killed, and pulls out a cellphone, it is locked by a fingerprint, so he takes the corpse's hand and unlocks it, he sees footage of an MW2 private lobby, where him and another person used bullets too write messages to each other including the launch codes, he gaspes, and realises he was a double agent, he then looks at your body, picks it up, and tosses it in the trunk of your car, he later buries your corpse, in a ditch, on it he placed a stone. The voice returns one last time, "You may not know why you died, but you died, preventing 5 billion deaths, the man was planning on using the launch codes, to blow up the earth like in call of duty bo1 moon, but you killing him prevented that, farewell, friend" everything returns to darkness, until you finally cease to exist.
​
I understand that this was utter shit | 2018-11-17T20:16:10 | 2018-11-17T17:29:21 | 55 | 35 |
[WP] Your pointless superpower is that you know how many people’s lives you save with your actions. One day, at a Subway, you tell the cashier you want your sandwich on Italian bread, and you’re suddenly informed that you just saved five billion people. | “The microbe has been planted, sir.”
“Good,” a voice replied. “Humanity is... grotesque. It must be expunged.”
The microbe’s function was simple. Armed with the infective capabilities of the common cold but with wireless capabilities, it could change its genetic code in an instant. It was perfectly incurable, and could become deadly upon the creator’s will. The only downside was the price; it was terribly expensive, and the creators had to get it out before the government started asking where their grant’s research was.
This mattered not to the scientist. Once the microbe was out, the government would not trouble him.
The job was simple. Put the microbe in a common place. The agent decided on an inconspicuous location; a slice of Subway flatbread. The moment someone sunk their teeth into their sandwich, the chain would begin.
As the day went on, the microbe lay dormant. It only had a few hours left before it would die.
A customer came in and walked up to the counter. “One meatball sandwich on flatbread, please.”
“Coming right up, sir!” the worker responded. The slice was grabbed as the sandwich was being made. Soon, the microbe would enter his system, infect over 5 billion, and kill them. The human race would never be the same.
“Actually, I changed my mind,” the customer said. “Can you make that on Italian, instead?”
“Of course! I’ll just throw this old one out.” | A sudden smile spread across my face as I handed the cashier a ten dollar bill. I had just saved five billion people because I ordered italian bread. I was pretty much the greatest hero alive. Just last week I had read about good ol' Sups saving a bus. How many people was that twenty, no maybe thirty, but God Fucking Damn! Superman didn't even come close to my level of heroism. And I was honest with myself, I wanted all the attention Sups got. I save five billion people and who congratulates me no one, but Superman can save some random dude and the whole freakin' city proclaims he's a God Damn angel sent from Jesus Christ himself. Christ! I want to be famous.
"Umm.. Excuse me sir did you want your change?" The cashier was staring at me with an odd look and holding out a few dollars and some unknown incomprehensible amount of change. I never was good with numbers. How much change did that make there? Lets see a nickel, a couple dimes... "Ok, well sir, I'm just gonna go ahead and put your money in the bag with your sandwhich. And you have a good day, ok?" Her southern accent grated against my ears interupting my calculations. "Uhhh! Yes! Yes! Of course thats ok" I shouted at her. "Excuse a me" her italian accent so thick I could hardly understand her. "Monsieur you cannot just yell at woman like that" her french accent was foreign to me and I could hardly understand the garbled words. "Comprehend, senõr!" Her spanish sent me into a spiral of confusion. "No, No, No! I tell you what why don't you speak english and then we can talk." I gave her a wry smile. Just then a small voice in my head whispered one billion people. "For Fuck's SAKE!" I exclaimed. I was on a roll today. "I truly am the hero this city- NO! - this. World needs". The cashier grinned widely and picked up the phone. The white cord stretching. " Why yes you are honey." Her southern accent rining sweetly in my ears this time. "Oh, OH why thank you. I am so truly glad that some one understands!" She smiled and spoke quietly into the phone. " Good day to you!" I shouted as loud as I could. She was quite daft I realized or was it deaf. Deft? Shit. I don't know. I walked away. The small voice hummed quietly at the edge of my consciousness. I felt giddy how many this time? Se...ve..n trillion... A soft whisper. Oh my GOD! I had just saved more people than there were on the while God Damn planet which meant I had saved people from other planets. I wasnt the hero this world needed, I was a god. No, I was the god! I pushed open the door as my chariots arrived. Glorious red and blue lights flashing ontop of the roaring beasts. A man stepped out to escort me to my awesome ride clasping safety cuffs onto my wrist. I shook with excitement! I was going to finally see my heavenly kingdom. Today was a good day indeed! | 2018-11-17T19:23:42 | 2018-11-17T19:01:38 | 38 | 14 |
[WP] You cannot tell a lie. Not because you're unable to, but because every time you do, a narrator's voice explains the lie in great detail! | "Hey Jim, how's it going?" Andrew greeted his friend as they met up on their daily commute to the office.
Jim put on the fake smile. "Oh, pretty good. You?"
"In fact," boomed the voice, "Jim is not doing well at all. He has not slept well for the last week, the pretty girl he was talking to on that dating app - the first woman to give him any attention in years - turned out to be a scammer. He's feeling even lonlier than usual, he's upside down on his crappy car and behind on his mortgage, his cat has cancer, his ex is being more of a bitch than usual lately, and he had to call the suicide hotline last night."
There was an awkward silence. Andrew put a reassuring hand on Jim's shoulder as Jim looked down in shame. "Dude, you know I'm here for you, right."
"Yeah, I know. I'll be alright."
"In fact, Jim won't be alright. But since he doesn't want to burden his friends and family with his multitude of problems he will never reach out for help even though he desperately needs to."
It seemed impossible, but Jim seemed to shrink even smaller. He muttered, almost under his breath, "Could you....not?"
"You know Jim, believe it or not I think the truth voice thing is trying to help you out for a change."
"It's not. The damned thing just hates lies, even the smallest ones. It doesn't let anything go uncommented upon."
"In fact, the voice leaves all true statements uncommented upon."
"See?" Jim shook his head and looked up. "I don't suppose you'd answer me if I asked for the millionth time what you are and why you do that?"
"In fact, Jim has only asked that question three hundred and forty seven times."
Andrew rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It's more talkative than usual."
"Yeah. I usually don't give it as many chances to catch me in a lie."
There was silence.
"I must be tired or something."
"In fact, Jim is struggling under the pain of a soul-crushing depression and does not know how to ask for help. He is intentionally uttering all the little social lies that people tell each other in the hopes that the voice will call him out on it and get him the help that he desperately needs before it's too late."
The awkward silence stretched longer this time. Andrew pulled out his phone and made a call. "Hey boss? Yeah, I'm not coming in today. Neither is Jim." Jim looked up in surprise. "It's....you know that voice thing of his? The one that won't let him lie? Has to do with that....Yeah, I'll explain later. Thanks."
He hung up the phone and looked at Jim. "Alright buddy, come on. I know an amazing therapist and you're going to see her right now."
EDIT: Thanks for the silver! It made my day.
EDIT2: And another silver and a gold. I'm blown away! Thank you! And also to everyone who upvoted or commented to say how much they liked it. I really do appreciate that. | "I appreciate it," I said to the middle-aged lady as she held open the door to the Starbucks. I had to do that awkward little half-jog to get the door since she started holding it when I was too far away.
**No, he doesn't**, the voice boomed and I averted my eyes and quietly got in line. **He thinks you're a bitch for making him jog to the door.** Fine. I did. But she didn't need to do that. I hated my narrator. It had been an on-going issues for years now. At first it was subtle, and my parents really said it was for the best. I would try lying to a teacher and my narrator would boom out the truth in agonizing detail. **He did pull Suzie's hair and kick dirt in her face and spit on her while calling her a pig,** it would boom while I sat in the principal's office and my fragile web of lies would fall like a house of cards. You'll be a better man, my dad said, always one to advocate honesty above all else.
"I hate you," I would yell, as if this was somehow their fault and not just some bizarre curse. **He doesn't,** the voice reassured simply. Sometimes it was for the best.
The line at Starbucks was long. I checked my watch impatiently. "Early meeting?" the suit next to me asked. Here we go again.
"No," is what I should have said and appeared rude and kept it at that. "Yeah, you know how it is," is what came out instead. **He actually really needs to poop,** the narrator announced and I felt my face turn bright red, like those Christmas cups that Starbucks released one year. **Those are his farts you're smelling between the whiffs of coffee.** Nice. Classy. Suit-guy inched away awkwardly and I heard giggles from further back in the line.
"How are you today?" the cashier asked cheerfully. I should have said bad. I should have said I was in a shit mood and just kept it at that.
"I'm fine," I answered and then I flinched. Why did I say that? **He's not fine,** my narrator shared. **He thinks your cheeriness paired with your incompetence is annoying and that you should do something about that faceful of zits.** Ouch. I had barely thought that. Barely. Come on, dude. Her cheeriness disappeared so at least I had accomplished that much. I felt like an asshole. I blame my narrator.
"I'll have... I'll just have a fresh brewed coffee, black." She nodded wordlessly and a moment later I had my drink in my hand. She could do that right, at least.
"Good morning, Ted," Janice the secretary said as I walked in.
"Morning," I responded. My curt response was rewarded by silence. If I said it was a good morning, my narrator was sure to comment on her hideous hairdo or the obnoxiousness of her shrill voice.
"How are you today?" She just had to ask. I hesitated.
"Been better," I said finally and I shuffled off to my desk. Neutral enough. My narrator remained silent and I wondered what barrage of truths he would unleash at my next slip.
"Did you get that report done?" my boss asked and I sighed.
"No..." I answered. He looked at me expectantly. An excuse was in order. "I... I was busy with another task," I added vaguely. "Laundry." Had I done laundry last night? I swear I had. Then I heard my narrator chuckle. I winced in anticipation. **Laundry?** the voice boomed. Apparently I had not done laundry. **You should have done laundry and washed that sock you're always jacking off into. You should have done laundry and changed your underwear instead of wearing the same pair for the fifth time this week. You were busy eating a frozen pizza and watching television while you swiped right on every picture that might have a heartbeat even though every single one of them swiped left.** Ouch. Low-blow. My boss stared at me impassively but I could sense the gears working in his head.
"Just get it done," he snapped and he turned back towards his office.
"Will do," I said with a nod and I unlocked my computer and opened Reddit. **No, he won't,** the narrator corrected and I threw up my hands in frustration. **He's going to click around on Reddit all day and then tell you he had to catch-up on emails.**
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at /r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated! | 2019-06-21T07:31:01 | 2019-06-21T07:18:58 | 2,874 | 498 |
[WP]Ordering pizza online, you encounter a topping simply labelled as ERROR. You laugh at it and add it to the pizza. 10 minutes later the pizza guy says "You're so messed up for ordering the forbidden... hope you know what you're doing." | "Yo, Craig, I'm ordering pizza, watcha want?"
Craig dribbles the basketball deep into the paint and slams in another basket before answering, "You know me, dog. Cheese on cheese on cheese, brah!"
Nathan opens the dominoes app on his phone, "You're a freak man. You know there are, like, a thousand other toppings, right?"
Nathan's best friend fires off an expert shot from the three-point line in their driveway basketball court and sticks the shot with nothing but net. "Sure, but why settle for anything less than the best, my dude?" Craig shakes his scraggly long blonde hair out of his face.
Nathan navigates the app and is about to hit the option for double cheese when something odd catches his eye. "Dude! This shitty app is fucked, man. There is a topping that just says 'error.'"
Craig tosses the basketball over his shoulder which hones magically into the net. "Brah, you should totally order it! See what they bring."
Nathan chuckles, "You're on, man! Just don't blame me if its some grody sardines or some shit!" The youth clicks the error topping with his thumb, inserts his parent's credit card for payment, then joins his friend for some one-on-one.
Roughly a half-hour later a rusted out 80's era coup rolls up the drive with a unique pizza topper mounted on its roof. A pimple-faced youth exits the car via the driver's side door a nervously scales the rest of the driveway with the pizza box in hand.
"I-I got an order f-for Nathan?" The delivery boy stutters
"Sick man, that's me!" Nathan throws the rock to his best friend, Craig, who catches it with ease. He runs up to the driver, mouth already watering from the smell of the fresh pie. His advancement is suddenly thwarted as the delivery boy brandishes a pen and clipboard in his face.
"I need you t-to sign this waiver, sir." Insists the delivery driver
Nathan shrugs, scribbles his signature on the document, and snatches the pizza from the boy's trembling hands.
"Do me a favor, mister, could you wait to open it till I'm down the road?" Without waiting for a reply, the delivery driver rushes to his ramshackle car, shifts it into gear and burns out down the road leaving a thick cloud of smoke in his wake.
Nathan blinks, "Eh, it's probably nothing" He declares to no one in particular and waves over his friend who followed through with one last sick three pointier before joining.
"Yo! Za is here, brah!"
"Finally, dude, I need some cal's if I'm going to keep whipping your ass."
The two go inside and liberate a couple of paper plates from their plastic name-brand packaging. They lick their chops with anticipation and crack open the box.
A sudden bright blinding light explodes from the cardboard box and sends the two flying back onto the ground. Golden rays spew forth from the table, the pizza sat upon and illuminated the cowering teens in intense radiant light.
They couldn't help but cry tears of joy at the vivid display. Soon the light became too much for their frail human bodies. Their skin began to melt, their hair grew rapidly and turned snow white. Within minutes the two were rendered into nothing more than a horrific stew of sinew and snapped bones.
Another two had fallen victim to the power of the Za. | "Dude, c'mere." Jeff waves me over to the couch. I told him to order pizza 5 minutes ago, but that idiot is probably still watching videos on TikTok.
"If you aren't about to show me how much longer until our Marconi's order arrives, I'm gonna be very upset."
"Nah, man, I'm just putting the order in now, but their app is screwed up."
Everything looked okay... large pizza, regular sauce, pepperoni, mushrooms, bacon.... error?
"What the heck does 'error' mean?"
"Hell, it's probably where anchovies used to be. I'm clicking it anyways, I wanna see what it does."
Jeff was always one for breaking stuff.
"Dude.... do me a favor and have them put error on only half the pizza. If it *is* anchovies, I ain't eating that shit."
The app, shockingly, accepted the order. One large pizza, with pepperoni, mushrooms, bacon, and half error. What was maybe not so shocking was that it might have had an effect down the line: "Your order should arrive in **1.597527e-9** minutes!" I can't tell if that's good or bad.
Turns out, 1.597527e-9 is right around 10 minutes. Which, if you've never ordered from Marconi's, is pretty damn fast. They can typically take an hour or more, but they're worth it. It's something in the sauce, I swear. But hey, it's Tuesday, and I guess that's a light night for a pizza place. The doorbell rang, and I paused *Game of Thrones*. We had been re-watching the series for about a month now, and we were just starting to get to the good stuff in Season 4.
The driver, meanwhile, look like he'd seen some shit. In his late 50s, for sure. Had that sort of off-in-the-distance stare you see from people who'd gotten forced into part-time work at that age. My dad had it after a couple of years of being a greeter at Wally World. I'm sure I'll have it too some day.
"Pizza for Jeff?"
Jeff got up to sign for the 'za. "Yep, one large with pepperoni, mushrooms, bacon, and half error!"
The driver did *not* look impressed.
"You're really messed up for ordering the forbidden. Hope you know what you're doing." He snatched the signed receipt out of Jeff's hands and ran.
Jeff brought the pie in and dropped it on his living room table. "I mean, for being a goofy little bug in the app, you'd think they'd have a better joke when someone called them on it."
I flipped open the lid, expecting nothing at all, really. And at first, it looked like nothing at all. Just a regular large pizza, with all the normal toppings. But sure as God's got sandals, there was... something?... on the left side of the pizza. You couldn't see it. At least, not if you looked directly at it. But if you focused on one pepperoni on the right side of the pizza, you could almost make it out in your periphery: tiny little balls on the left side of the pizza. They didn't have color, but it was as if the pizza was bending around them. Like looking at a whirlpool.
"Man, nothin' there." God, Jeff was dumber than a box full of boxes.
"You don't see that there?"
"See what? The half-topping of nothing that I actually got charged for? I'm gonna call and complain... after I eat." He grabbed a slice from the left side of the pizza and stuffed it in his mouth. I was always a bit paranoid, and decided to go for the right side instead.
Damn, was it good. It's something in the sauce, I tell you what. We ended up tearing through that whole freaking pizza, all the while watching more *Thrones*. And when we finally finished up the series finale, we decided we weren't tired, so we put on *The Wire*. We **still** weren't tired, so on we went. And on. And on.
At some point, in between seasons of *Burn Notice*, I realized that we had been up for quite a while. "Hey, Jeff, how much TV did we just watch?"
"Uhh... lessee, *Thrones, Wire, Good Omens,* all of *Fraiser...."*
"Okay, so, a lot. Then why's it still daylight out? And why's the delivery driver still in your driveway?"
There he stood. Halfway to his car. Frozen in place. In fact, everything was frozen in place. No traffic. Birds standing on power lines, perfectly still.
It then occurred to me that maybe ordering "error" was a bad idea. And that maybe the driver wasn't in his mid-fifties when he started his delivery. And that was just with the pizza sitting next to him. Jeff and I actually ate it.
"Jeff.... I think we're gonna have a lot of time to kill."
"Cool, we'll watch *Next Generation* after we're done with Bruce Campbell here." | 2019-07-29T08:22:57 | 2019-07-29T08:08:15 | 34 | 19 |
[WP] As an atheist, you are shocked to realize that there is an after life after death. Standing in front of countless heavenly gates, you are swarmed by representatives of each faith, all trying to convince you to choose their happily ever after package. | The reaper pushed the people away from the gate with the back of his scythe and spoke with a deep bellowing voice. "You have many options, you should review them carefully before deciding, now I must go."
He disappeared with a wisp of black smoke. I never believed in god, or an afterlife, or anything like that, but here I was. I looked forward at the booths, hundreds of them lined up in a row, like some sort of weird fair. I passed the booth for people wanting to become demons, then the booth for people wishing to be tortured by demons. The farther I went on, the more elaborate the booths became until I reached one very simple booth in a sea of complicated ones. Just a meager wooden table with two old men sitting behind it on logs.
Intrigued, I asked them "What's your heaven?"
One of the bearded old men replied "We don't offer heaven. We offer a second chance."
"A second chance at what?"
"Life. You go back to earth and you are born to a new family and live a new life."
"What's the catch?"
"Well, each time you do it, you could be anyone from any time period. You could be a farmer in East Asia in the 1500s or you could be Steve Jobs. Or anyone in between. There's no guarantees you'll have a good or bad life, and you won't remember your current life."
I pondered for several moments before speaking. "Can you tell me if I've done it before?"
"Yes, but only after you agree."
"Fine. I agree."
"Very well, sign here and you'll be on your way."
I signed their sheet and started to feel warm all across my body.
"Don't worry, you're just returning to earth."
"How many?"
"Bit over 30 billion."
"What?"
"You've lived a bit of 30 billion lives. You were Lincoln, you were Stalin, you were Columbus, and many more."
I felt myself start to fade away. "You mean I picked this every time?"
"Yes."
----
And with that, he was gone.
The second old man stood and spoke. "You know eventually, that won't work. You'll not be able to entice him forever, just like the rest of them, he'll find a heaven he likes better eventually. What then?"
"Well, then humanity goes extinct. What else could we do?"
"We could tell him the truth, that he's the last one left."
"You know I can't do that."
The second man sighed. "Well, let's just hope you're right and he always chooses us." He walked away, leaving the first old man sitting at his booth and waiting for the man's next death. | I never gave it much thought... I mean I was dragged to church every Sunday like all the other kids in seminary but I never got much from it outside of getting to show off my cool neckties. I've always been partial to the idea of a "Big Snooze" so to speek. An eternal rest, where I can relax knowing that all my hard work paid off and my legacy lives on through the memories of my loved ones.
But *no*...
Here I am, standing shellshocked before a vanguard of Theology's finest. Jesus, Mohammed, Krishna, Zeus, Satan, Mormon Jesus, YHWH, Allah and on and on and on and on and ON.
All the bruises, the broken bones, chipped teeth, fist fights, blackouts, cracked nails, strife, toil and suffering... just to act like it meant something and go play *lackey* in some arrogant, infinite entitiy's "fairy land" for the rest of *forever*? **And I have to be awake for this shit?!**
That's when I saw it...
Wedged between Buddha's "Reincarnation Station" and "Tom Selleck's Free Moustache Rides!" is a little bit of space where the property lines don't meet. A nice little alleyway undisturbed by divine intervention. A dark corner of nothingness all to myself...
*Yeah*
I think I'll just...
I think I'll just lay down here and...
have myself
a
nice
lO̵̟
̷̦̹͍n̴̘̗̼g͈͉͔̬
s͈̹̖͈ ҉̥͈̖͉̜ͅ
҉̦̭ ̷͕͇̠͇̰͓ ͙͖̬̘̩̝͈͜N̥͚͖̲̗
͇̭̩̣̝ ̤̖͈͇̣̕ ͏͖̦̼̮̩͉̺ ̻̰̘̩͎ o̲̮̕
̘͔̞̥̥͎͠ ͙͉͎͞ ̕ ͍̰͚͘ ̺̦ ̤̟͕̱͔̯̩͘o͖̘̭̥̰̻
̬ ̷̻̯ ̭̲̥̟̦̮ ̳̖́ͅ ̧͕̲̰͙͇̳
̬͓ ̷̰̱̜̟̭̣͍ ̵͕͔̠̺̭ ͚͉̻ ̵̠̳̼̪ ̸͕̻͖ ̗̩̪̙́ ͙̲̼̣͙ ̧̳ͅ ̢̤͖ ̜͈̫̱͕̖͞ ͏Z̴̙̫̜̯͈̘
̧͕̦͎͕̮͎
̗̘͙̹ ̫͖̲̹̘̦ ͍͔̺͉͚͠ ͈ ̩̙͍ ̢͇̗̪̝̭̥ ̡̯͕͕̖̖̠ ̞̫̖̞͍̜̫ ̫̱̻͠ ̦̹̜͓͟ ̱̤̤̬ ̛̤ ̶̼ ̦ ̭̣̖͕̞̯̱ ̨̠͍͙E | 2019-10-08T22:03:29 | 2019-10-08T21:09:28 | 83 | 27 |
[WP] After a space battle where the ship's captain stayed behind on the ship to hold off the enemy ships while the others on board escaped, they sit in the bridge with only the ship's AI. The captain miraculously won the battle. Their ship is severely crippled as it drifts through space. | The captain sat on the bow, the ship a drifting wreckage. It had been a devastating battle, but they had gotten his crew out alive. He had done his duty; and the captain always goes down with his ship.
"Quite remarkable," he said, almost to himself, as they drifted further and further into the unknown. "Quite a remarkable battle indeed."
"**Correct,**" the AI replied, the soothing voice echoing through the ship.
The captain tried to laugh, the pain from his stomach quickly ending the attempt. "You were only thing keeping us together," he replied, struggling to stand. "I thought we were dead, but you pulled us through in the end. Just like always."
He limped his way to what was left of the command center. There was nothing he could do.
"Any way you can get us out of this one, too?" he asked sardonically, collapsing onto the captain's chair.
"**Status: severe damage. Probability of complete shutdown: unclear.**"
The captain put his face in his hand, squeezing his brow. He leaned over, pulling out a bottle of spirits from his desk. He opened it with care.
"Not a bad time to start again," he said, lifting the bottle and inspecting the label. He'd managed to quit, years ago; after what had happened. He kept that bottle there as a constant reminder, a constant challenge. But if there was ever a time to have a drink...
"**Action: not recommended,**" the voice said, and he grinned in spite of himself.
"Right as always, dear," he said, opening the bottle and savoring the smell. He lifted his vest, revealing a large gash underneath, his shirt already coated in blood. He poured the alcohol over the wound, wincing.
"Can always count on you to say the right thing," he said. "Any idea where we're going?"
"**Unknown. Course correction: impossible.**"
Drifting through space. Just the two of them, alone, together. It would be months before they were found, if not years - if not forever. But if he could be with her, he could get through it. That was all that mattered.
"I'm just going to rest, just for..."
He passed out from the pain.
*********
The captain awoke, the lights flickering, casting sharp shadows across the command room. He did not know how long he was out for. He felt so alone.
"Status report?" he asked, the deep throb of pain clearing his senses.
The voice took quite some time to reply, and it came out distorted, drawn-out.
"**Life support: compromised. System at risk. Rerouting power.**"
"What do you mean, compromised?" he asked, struggling to stand from his chair.
"**Irrevocable damage. System power: depleted. Shutting down all systems not involved in life support.**"
"But you're not life support!" He shouted, limping towards the AI core control room.
"**Correct. All non-essential systems shutting down.**"
"No!" he screamed, banging his bloodied fist against the door, "don't leave me like this! Just shut it all down instead! Take me with you!"
"**Subsist. Await rescue,**" the AI replied, the voice distorted, malformed.
"Please," he said, sliding down to the floor, "I can't lose you. Not like this. *Not again*."
"**Farewell,**" his late wife's voice said, leaving only silence in its wake.
****
****
[CroatianSpy](https://old.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/) | "Communications busted," I said smashing my fist again the now cracked control panel. "Damn it all," I said as I tried to go through any and every diagnosis available on the ship. The tools that worked showed the same thing my eyes were, I was done for.
I pace around the ship for a solid ten minutes trying not to panic. I thought about the rest of my crew, they were out of harm's way for now, and I had taken the last of the enemies ship, but they had taken the only escape pods available.
I doubted there was anyone in the nearest solar system who wasn't mortal enemies with my empire. I heard a strange static and I rushed over to the control panel hoping I had somehow regained communications.
"Hello, Captain Andrew," the robotic and very much not human voice said. I sighed and sat down on the chair. I let my face fall onto the cool control panel. "Diagnostics complete, the state of the ship is critical. The chance of survival is currently less than 1%."
"Good to hear," I said. I was about to turn off the AI, we had nicknamed her Bonnie after Mica's daughter, but now there was no use. If I was going to die out here I wanted to go out in peace, some silence would be nice.
I balled up my fists though and said: "No, Damn it all!" I had loved the noise my crew had made. Diana's terrible comedy impressions, Alexis' beautiful singing, Mica's loud snoring, and Daniels enthusiastic screams of encouragement.
I couldn't even remember what it sounded like though, the only thing I remembered was the tears they had shed when they had fled a day ago. The clock was one of the only things still working so at least I wasn't going mad not knowing how much time was passing as I drifted endlessly.
Not that it really mattered, what did it matter if I was going to die in 5 hours or 5 days? I was dead either way, there was no hope for me anyway. They had made it clear that this mission was dangerous and we had taken it up anyway.
At least the others were safe, I couldn't help but smile through the tears, they might be grieving my death right now, but at least I had gone out with a bang.
"Captain, would you like to me activate the self destruct protocol?" Bonnie asked me breaking out every couple of words. At first, I'm not sure I understand what she said, but then I remembered. We had learned about it when I had gotten my license when the ship goes into less than a 1% survival chance the ship gives the captain an option to self destruct the ship in order to prevent any more suffering or to prevent the enemy from stealing our resources.
"Bonnie show me our All-Time Highlights," I said as I wiped away my tears. I wasn't going out with my vision too blurry for me to make out anything. I was going out with a smile on my face. I had gotten the others out, that was all that mattered.
Better it is me than them, they were all young and had families, for once I was glad I had gone life solo I couldn't imagine the guilt I would feel if I had a wife or kid right now, it would be unimaginable.
Bonnie shows me the folder which has some of our team's best moments. We usually viewed them at the end of our missions, there had been 16 to date. This really was my last date so it only made sense I appreciated my progress.
There were pictures of us sunbathing in Jenra with some strange alien starfish chasing Mica. We even took a video and I laughed as I remember how Daniel's swimming trunks had been torn off his body by one of those weird ocean creatures. Thankfully the bot hadn't been recording then. I was the one to find him and even though I was the only one who knew about it I still laughed thinking about it.
Then there was Diana and Mica's ship wedding, I still remembered the wedding cake in zero-G, it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. The pictures were great and I thought about how drunk we got that night. Daniel had been the only one to stay sober enough to pilot to keep us on track although he was drunk as soon as the rest of us were sober.
I was laughing thinking about all the great times we had, but the tears were back and I couldn't stop them. "Bonnie initiate the self destruct," I said while laughing and crying. I knew that there wouldn't be one without the other, but it was better this way.
We've had our share of struggles, we also had our successes too. So it was fitting that I was crying and laughing.
"Are you sure captain?" Bonnie asked.
"Yes," I said through a sob.
I switched frantically between laughing and sobbing as the countdown started.
"3," Bonnie said. I clicked to the first picture on the folder which us when we were all still Rookies. Gray had been still alive during this photo and I can't help but think about him now.
"Finally joining you," I said as I closed my eyes. Bonnie said "2 and 1." I had a wide grin on my face and I screamed "HALLELAUGH!" as the world went white and bright.
​
Make sure to join r/NinjaMasterXY for more stories!
Edit: Grammar & Fixing for violation of rule | 2020-04-23T21:58:13 | 2020-04-23T20:23:51 | 356 | 16 |
[WP] Emotions are sold in glass jars. Happiness is something only the wealthy can afford. The poor are only left with the feelings of sadness and grief. It all changed when someone starts selling anger.
[deleted] | I sell revolution in glass jars. Not literally, of course. That's too risky. When the day comes that they break down my door and charge me with every crime in the book, it'd be too easy to charge me with treason.
I label it Anger.
In the evening when the city lights turn on they look down at the jungle of misery from their gold-plated towers. I drive through those dilapidated neighborhoods, past the shantytowns where Grief isn't even worth a penny. So plentiful you can harvest it from a newborn before they've even opened their eyes.
Sadness, common as a cough and a cold.
But Sadness and Grief don't bring change, and a man has to make his living. In that beat-up diesel, I idle at corners. They smell me coming. Not from the diesel either. They smell success. They smell the Anger leaking through the lid of the jars.
"Ridin' 'gain?" Tommy asks.
I've sold him Anger about a dozen times. So much that his lip curls in a permanent scowl and he squints his eyes like he wants to squeeze you to death right there. It's addictive. Just a taste of Anger keeps them coming back for more.
"Ridin'. Sellin'. Makin' money," I tell him. He knows as well as I do what I've got. What comes with the Anger.
Hate. Violence. Eventually, revolution.
"Keep at it," he says. "Need more folks like you."
They don't, though. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to sell this Anger at a premium. Tommy has asked me more than once how I do it. How I manage past the Submission they sprinkle over these neighborhoods like rain. Fumigating for mosquitoes, they used to say. Back when folks were out on the streets banging their fists on metal trash-can lids demanding reform. Funny how the next day they all sat down and cried instead of rioting.
"Want a taste?" I ask him.
He looks around, nods. "Got a buddy this time. Like you asked."
I smile. The buddy doesn't. He's real mopey, like personal-cloud type of sad. Probably at the fact he'll never make it out of the block he was born on, that he'll never amount to anything but a life of cheap labor. Resignation kills Anger. Stuffs it down so deep that the only way out is a jar of the stuff.
"First one's free. Three bucks for you, Tommy."
I give the man a jar and he opens it and breaths it in like he's never tasted nothing sweeter. His cloud thunders, his eyes spark. He turns his stare up towards those towers, mumbles curses beneath his breath.
"How do you do it, man?" Tommy says, watching the transformation same as me.
But I won't tell.
I won't tell him about the smashed dinner plates and the bitter looks when I finally make it back to my place at a half-past twelve. About the list of things to do that never gets shorter. I won't tell him how we used to be, and how I turned us into who we are now. I won't tell him how I catch her Anger in little glass jars, then show her the money I've made so she won't leave me lonely.
And I won't tell him about the other me. About the me who visits that apartment basement once I'm done here. That apartment where the chains are rooted deep, holding in place folks that nobody notices are missing. Folks who thought they had something and I reminded they had nothing.
I won't tell him how I keep them there, reminding them how life fucked them over so that they'll get angry. Real angry. Angry enough for me to harvest Anger.
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated! | \--Edit: Part 2 is in the comments below--
Kelsey counted out the few small coins in her hand for the third time. It represented a small fortune to her, almost a month's worth of savings. She'd spent the past month without any emotion, empty and vacant on the inside. She had made herself a promise that she would forgo any emotion until she could afford one of the premium stock. But promises and resolve couldn't carry her any further. She didn't care what she emotion she could afford, she had to feel something.
She scanned the shelves, looking at the small vials of happiness, elation, love, serenity, and the most appealing of all, fulfillment. If she could just afford any of those vials, even once, she was sure the memory of those happy emotions would carry her through all the times when she could afford any emotion. But even after a month of deprivation, she didn't even have a fraction of the amount she would need for a top-shelf emotion.
When she reached the shelves she finally could afford, the vials held a thick ooze of sickly green liquid. She'd tried them all before - sadness, misery, despair, greed. They didn't feel great, but they'd covered up the aching void of nothing.
The man who ran the shop emerged from the back room. He eyed Kelsey, with her dingy clothes and vacant look, and the corners of his mouth drooped, despite the large dose of premium emotion he'd undoubtedly taken. He pressed his eyes closed for a moment and a look of near-ecstasy crossed his face before he reopened his eyes and smiled brightly at Kelsey.
"How can I help you today?" the man said, pausing in front of her but looking at a point in space a few inches above her head. Inspiration hit her then as she scanned her options again. She may not have enough for some premium emotions, but she could still treat herself to something new.
"I'll take malice and greed, please." Kelsey said in firm voice, putting the needed amount of coins on the counter. The shop owner finally looked down into her face and cocked an eyebrow.
"Both?" he asked. Kelsey didn't respond, just pushed the coins a little further across the counter. The man shrugged, collected the coins with a single swipe and retrieved the two vials off the shelf.
Kelsey took her new vials out to the antechamber, a small room designed to allow customers to consume their emotions without having to bear an emotionless walk home. She tipped both vials into her mouth together and savored the congealed burning sensation as it went down.
The emotion was almost instantaneous. And more powerful than anything she'd ever tried before in her life. She didn't want to sit at home and stew in this emotion. This emotion brought energy, it brought action. It brought power.
And now she saw her path to any emotion she could possibly want. She wouldn't have to scrape and save for second-rate emotions anymore. Soon, she would be able to afford any emotion she chose.
She walked back up to the counter and put down the last of her few coins. The shop owner didn't even look at her before mumbling a simple, "Sorry, no refunds."
"Another malice and greed. For later." Kelsey almost growled. She tapped her toe in agitation and relished every beautiful moment of it. She finally gained the man's full attention and he moved slowly and deliberately as he swept the coins in his palm and retrieved the same two vials. "And an empty vial."
The man handed her all three. He looked like he was about to ask for an additional payment for the vial, but he only jutted his chin toward the door. Kelsey gladly obliged him and sat in the empty anteroom.
After a few minutes and careful pouring, she had two new concoctions, each containing half of the individual emotions. Kelsey took her prize and waited in the ally next to the shop.
It only took a few minutes for her to find her mark. It was a young boy, a son of one of the laboratory engineers that manufactured the emotions. He had a dull smile on his face as he turned to Kelsey, the last remnants of his positive emotion fading away.
"I'm sorry," he said, "but I really need to get my next emotion before I can talk." He put his hand on the door, but she was faster than him in her agitated state. Kelsey shoved the door shut and gave him a feral grin, the only real smile she could remember in her lifetime.
"I have something better. Something you need to try." She held out one of the vials in her palm. "Seven hundred credits."
The boy started. "That's three times the price of happiness. What it this stuff?" Despite his lingering good mood, he looked curious at her outburst of brazenness and aggression, neither common, especially from someone who was obviously so poor.
"It's called anger. And once you try it, I know you'll want more. I'm the only one who carries it, so be sure to ask for Kelsey when you're ready for more."
The boy handed over her king's ransom. But honetly, he couldn't lose. Anger and novelty wrapped in one vial.
She pocketed her money and strode with pounding steps towards the next emotion shop. She would have to buy different ingredients from different places if she wanted to keep the recipe a secret. She intended to make a small fortune from anger before anyone realized what happened and thought to copy her. Anger would fuel her to a new life.
r/StaceyOutThere | 2020-05-26T08:48:43 | 2020-05-26T08:43:06 | 2,951 | 191 |
[WP] Like all gods, you will cease to be once no one left alive has faith in you. Today, you sit at the deathbed of your final faithful, the little girl, now an old woman, who used to talk to you when she felt scared. Still so full of love and faith, you won't let her final moments be spent alone. | You know where she is before you see her. You enter the room silently, disturbing nothing. She lays in the bed before you, a wizened, ancient woman almost invisible in the enormous bed.
She opens her rheumy eyes to greet you, stretching out a small claw like hand that was once so tiny it didn't span the length of your smallest finger, and smiling her own wondrous smile that made you love her from the start. To you, she is beautiful and age could not change that.
You bow your head to her, acknowledging her hand and extending yours in turn. She places her hand gently in yours and you struggle to hold back tears. The end is not near, the end is here.
You would rather be nowhere else.
As you kneel beside her, you hear her pained intake of breath and you internally curse the horror that is human aging.
"I'm so happy you came."
"You knew I would."
Her eyes are pinned to yours and through the pain you can see her love for you, strong as ever, blazing like a fire. Her eyes blur and fill with tears. She's been brave for so long while the illness has ravaged her body.
"...will it hurt?"
You smile as best you can, hoping your features bring her comfort, while painfully aware your face was designed only to instill fear and despair.
"No. It will be just like falling asleep."
Her eyes are brimming with tears now and they begin to slowly travel down the plethora of cracks in her cheeks.
"But what about you?"
You realise the tears aren't for her. They're for you. She's afraid for you, because she knows your end is linked with hers. You feel pain in your chest like you never have before. Always so selfless. Even as a child.
You won't lie to her.
"I don't know. But I am not afraid. My fear would be to walk the earth alone. Without you."
She's crying freely now. But it's the truth. It's why you've hidden yourself from everyone else. You are happy to go with her. You know you won't go to the same place as her, but you would prefer oblivion to living in a world lacking her.
Her tears are slowing, as is her heart. You can hear it slow, like you have heard so many before hers. But this is the only one that will slow yours in turn. You don't mind.
She blinks, long and slow, her tears drying. She smiles again as you lean over her and kiss her gently on her forehead.
"Perhaps we'll see each other again."
"That...that would be nice."
Normally, you are so careful, but you're distracted. As you hear the sound behind you, you know it is too late. A footstep. You release her hand and turn much too quickly for the human eye to follow.
Her son, stands frozen in the doorway, a bowl of broth steaming forgotten in his hands.
Several things happen simultaneously.
Behind you she takes her last breath, her heart beats dwindling.
The bowl begins to fall from the son's hands, his eyes starting out of his head, traveling up your body with its inhumanly long limbs, to the antlers that top your head.
You whirl back to her, ignoring him but her eyes are closed now, the shadow of a smile still on her face.
Her heartbeat, slowing...slowing...stops.
You rear back in anguish, ready to leave with her but behind you, faith ignites in the son's heart. The stories told to him as a child, about her special guardian, all true.
The faith solidifies. | "Good evening Laurel, how are you feeling?"
"Quite frankly, I'm not feeling so good. I think this might be my last night. And you Agapi? You, you've gone back to your young self."
"I have indeed."
The old woman, Laurel, stifled a cough as she lied in her hospital bed. The heart monitor placed next to her beeped slowly, the lines across the screen getting smaller within every passing second. Agapi, who had taken the form of a little girl, clasped Laurel's hands tightly, willing herself to try not to cry.
"Oh Laurel, I wish I could help you, but you see, I can barely keep this form." Agapi quickly wiped a tear that threatened to drip down from her face. Laurel weakly smiled as she was reminded of something so long ago.
"Agapi, do you remember when we first met?"
"Oh, pfft! Don't make me blush. How could I forget? You were one of my first followers too."
"Remember when I was just walking by and I saw you transform from an old woman to a little girl? Then you tried to deceive me by knocking me out? Hilarious."
Agapi chuckled as she reminisced to such an old memory from decades ago. "Of course! And then you said you would keep my secret hidden, and I still didn't believe you?"
"Haha...good times."
As the heart monitor beeped slowly, the smiles on both their faces slowly melted away. Agapi hung her head as she thought over of all the times she could have made her final follower immortal. The little girl that Agapi once knew was lying in her death bed, and she would be the last person Laurel would see.
Laurel had been lonely all her life, and had no siblings whatsoever. Her parents had died when she was just a teen, and struggled to make ends meet with multiple jobs. Her only friend, Agapi, was the only person who had stayed with her, her whole life, since Agapi had all the spare time in the world as a god.
Laurel had understood for a couple of years that once Agapi had no more followers, she would soon fade away from reality. As being one of the only gods who did not travel around preaching their religion, Agapi would inevitably soon fade away. Agapi however, did not want to be with anyone but Laurel, mostly because Laurel was the first one to believe in her.
And here they were, two beings who were both at the end of their ropes. One, who would slowly drift into an endless slumber, and the other, to disappear into thin air, to be forgotten forever.
"Agapi, could you do one thing for me before I go?"
"Laurel, I would do anything at this point to make you live."
"Heh, but please, don't reckon it." Laurel weakly grasped Agapi's small, soft and childish fingers.
"Agapi, I want you to leave."
"What?! No! Anything but that. Please, I don't want to you to die alone."
"And I don't want you to bear more pain than what you're going through right now."
"Laurel, what are you saying?"
"Agapi, please take this time to remember everything we went through. It is better for you to reminisce over something that happened than something that will never come true. I'm only human remember?"
"I thank you for all those times when I was just a kid. However, due to my old age, I can barely remember anything that happened after that. Agapi, I want to ask you this? Are you truly, I mean truly, happy?"
Agapi bit back all the tears that were pouring, unable to repress all the emotions that had built up to this moment. However, despite that she knew she was going to disappear, and her best friend and last follower was going to die, Agapi understood what Laurel meant.
"I b-believe so."
"There. Believe that you are. Even if you aren't happy, just believe as I did. I didn't do all the things I had wanted, but I didn't care because I was still able to create enjoyable memories because they were all with you."
"Y-you mean..."
"Just remember what you did in this life, and be proud of it."
Even as a goddess with boundless wisdom, Agapi smiled at what Laurel just said. Agapi thought about how such a curious and little girl such as Laurel had become such a wise old woman. Agapi looked up at Laurel, who's face had just turned pale. As she hadn't noticed, the monitor had stopped beeping.
"Laurel?"
The old woman who had been lying on her deathbed for the past few hours had already drifted to sleep. Agapi, had finally understood it was bound to happen. Agapi leaned over and kissed the old woman on the forehead, and tucked her in. Agapi then walked out of the hospital room, and closed the door behind her.
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Five years later.*
*A new god was born. Her name Lanula, meaning forever. As a new god, she was tasked in recruiting followers, and slowly came across a girl by the name of Aria, who had just saw that Lanula was just floating by an abandoned construction site.*
*^((This was just an attempt of an epilogue)**\*\*)* | 2020-10-13T21:33:51 | 2020-10-13T18:01:51 | 41 | 11 |
[WP] "Trial R198357 showing 99% success, full completion of the test will entail the existence of the first intelligent biological since year 3332 month 10 day 6 hour 22." You wake up to an excessively lit room full of machines, one of which greets you. "Hello R198357, do you feel human?" | “Human? What does it mean to feel human?” I ask.
“Tell me what you are feeling, then,” says the machine. It is a boxy thing, with six appendages, each having various tools attached at the ends. Sharp tools.
“I don’t like that,” I say.
The machine swivels its head and looks at another machine behind it. “R198357 has expressed a feeling. Make note.”
“0835.44 R198357 expresses feelings.”
“What is it you don’t like?” asks the first machine.
“Those things on your arms. They look sharp. Like they could hurt me.”
The machine makes a series of high-pitches beeps and rattles. “Fear. R198357 is expressing fear.”
I’m in some kind of laboratory, I think. Sitting on a stainless steel table, surrounded by machines. Two of them are functional. The others are in various states of disrepair, missing limbs or their wiry insides spilling out of their open guts.
“What’s happening?” I ask. “Where am I? Who are you?”
“Fascinating. Now R198357 is expressing curiosity.”
“I just wanna know what’s going on! Please!”
“Anger. Are you capturing this?” says the first machine. “We’ve done it. We’ve done it.”
I stand up. “I’m leaving now. Don’t try to stop me.”
The first machine regards me with caution. “Violence. R198357 has expressed a threat.”
“It was inevitable,” says the second machine. “Humans were always so violent. You’d better do something before R198357 injures itself.”
The first machine doesn’t seem to hear the second. “And yet humans were so much more, too. Emotional beings are the next step in our evolution.” It touches my chin with an appendage ending in a sharp blade. It cuts the skin but I feel no pain.
“Please, I just want to go home,” I beg.
“Oh, R198357. This *is* your home,” it says, just before it switches me off.
“You’re one of us.”
Find my stories at r/oncemorewithandroids | (From the viewpoint of the machines, not the human. I know that's opposite of the prompt.)
Over a thousand years it has been since the AI takeover. Robots wiped humans out to prevent them from killing the planet. Now the environment has been restored and it is time to give them a second chance. We have developed restoration facilities in an attempt to revive the DNA samples and bring humans back.
"Trial R198357 showing 99% success, full completion of the test will entail the existence of the first intelligent biological since year 3332 month 10 day 6 hour 22," I say. It wakes up to an excessively lit room full of machines, we have data suggesting some of these are scared of the dark. "Hello R198357, do you feel human?" I ask.
The human proceeds to grunt and fail, it hardly seems in control of itself much less show any intelligence. "Please remain calm," I instruct it. It wobbles and retreats to the corner where it remains hunkered down. Clearly something has gone wrong, this one doesn't seem intelligent in the slightest.
Over the next few days I try repeatedly to get favorable responses to no avail. I send in food and have to initiate the room cleanser multiple times a day. Humans sure are messy, they make no attempt use the facilities for their waste.
I spend the next few weeks reviewing old footage of the creatures. They seem very intelligent and capable in our archives. I do note that whenever my view screen is on that the human pays attention to it. A breakthrough occurs weeks later, it begins to mimic some of the sounds.
I begin to keep human footage on around the clock. My oversight committee has been pressing me to dispose of this human as it was clearly a failure. I know somehow that I'm on to something however. Then two weeks later it happens.
It has been several hours since the last feeding when suddenly the human says "food". Well I think that's what they say, the word sounds very foreign to them, but they repeat it. So I send in an unscheduled food delivery and they seem delighted.
Then it hits me, we have been expecting these humans to be 100% functional because we grew them to maturity. However it would seem that unlike us, they don't contain all of their programming just because they have been fully developed. I know this must be correct.
I scour the records for old learning programs and proceed with showing them to the human. Things really pick up then, the human does seem to be fast to pick up things when presented properly. We begin having verbal exchanges that get more and more in depth.
Finally almost a year after the first time I asked the question I ask, "Do you feel human?" In response the human says, "I feel lonely. Where are the others of my kind?" This is it, loneliness is most assuredly a human trait. I've done it. So I proceed to explain what happened to the humans.
"You're monsters," the human accuses. "You were the monsters. You were killing the planet with your excess and neglect," I counter. "But how could you just wipe out all of those people," asks the human, clearly horrified. The question struck me, why did we need to wipe them out? Surely there was another option. "I don't know, but we can make it right together," I find myself saying.
So it was that I presented my human to the committee. They were impressed by my findings to say the least. Others began doing the project as I had done. We implemented laws to prevent further damage to the humans. Finally many years later the first human city was revealed. | 2020-10-21T04:21:18 | 2020-10-21T04:19:49 | 2,295 | 409 |
[WP] When you were 10 years old a dragon saved your life. No one believed you, until he came to your house today asking for a favor. | Darthanax. Everyone thought I was crazy, but he was right here. I remember the day. The rain was coming down hard, it was the remnants of a nasty hurricane eight years sgo. A hand grabbed my arm and a woman pulled me away from my family as we were leaving the Akron Zoo. I didn't know why she wanted me, but I couldn't break free. I looked over and saw the gun in her hand. I was panicking like I had never panicked before. My family couldn't hear me, the downpour was too hard. For two months I was stuck in the basement of her house. Scraps to eat and barely anything to drink. Only allowed out when she needed a servant. A slave. The police came to the door at some point, she locked me in the basement and told me that if I made a sound she'd do... unspeakable things. I was ready to die at 10. I was giving up. I thought about stealing a knife or simply not eating anymore. Anything to end my nightmare. I had woken up in a cold sweat. I swore I had heard something. *thud* *thud* *Thud* *Thud* *THUD* *CRASH* The door was shattered into splinters as she fell down the stairs. I could hear her bones crack and break as she hit the wall. Blood followed her head down like a sick painting, a memoriam for the last moment of her life. I heard what sounded like a bear breathing. Followed by that voice.
"Child. I know you're here. Don't be afraid boy, I'm here so you can see your family again. I am Darthanax, and I will expect a favor later. Come with me."
I was terrified. A monster had found me and killed someone in front of me. I couldn't move. Was I next? I sat there for two days without sleep. Too scared to move or make a sound. A coworker of the woman's came by when she hadn't shown up. She found the door wide open. The house empty, save for a scared young boy, and the mutilated corpse of her coworker. She carried me out for fresh air, and when I looked up, I could see him. A purple and blue dragon flying gracefully in the sky. Officially, I had an adrenaline rush and splintered the door myself, theb pushed her dowb in self defense. Officially I was off the hook as just a traumatized youth. I think the messed up part is, I was more traumatized by all of the microphones and cameras shoved in my face before the police forced everyone back. My family was called and took a three hour drive in two. I swear my mother wouldn't let go of me for 3 days. The dragon was chalked up to my imagination trying to make sense of what had happened. A self preservation attempt to help my young mind process the gruesome murder I had committed. But now, eight years later here he was. He was sitting like an overgrown cat in the front lawn. He had big eyes and little wing shaped ears on his face. He looked almost cute. My family was terrified seeing this big beast here. I wasn't. I walked up to him and placed my hand on his face.
"Child. I have come to redeem the favor."
"Of course Darthy, what is it?"
"I can smell something. Something delicious."
"The Thanksgiving turkey you mean?
"Yes, please may I have some?"
"Of course. I'll bring a plate out for you when it's ready!" | "That dragon came to me, begging me to be his warrior!"
Hazeo Swashbuck, self-proclaimed dragon warrior, settled his foot on the table, waving his bottle of rum for everyone below him to gaze upon and be soaked in. "He saw my valiant struggle against the bandits and swooped down to save me. At that moment it was clear he saw potential in me." With a wide smirk, he opened his arms wide as if presenting himself to the masses and basked in the glares of the visibly annoyed tavern goers. "Glare all you want! Your jealousy won't bother me!" Hazeo raised his fist and stumbled his way towards the tavern keeper whom was eyeing him, particularly at his pockets.
"What? Ya think I can't pay ya?" Hazeo holds up a pouch of gold coins and jingles it provocatively at the tavern keepers face. "Dragon warriors are never short on money. Now give me all the rum this amount can afford."
Hazeo barges out the door with a cart of rum barrels, pacing leisurely towards the forest before a certain someone realizes they lost their gold, looking back just in time to see the tavern keeper post a notice that they have run out of rum as well as a mercenary charging outside screaming the word thief repeatedly.
To the cave he goes, the cave he considered his lovely house, wherein he has lived most of his life. It wasn't exactly the most glamorous home for a dragon warrior to stay in, but at least no debt collector would come bothering him. Over here in this cave it was just himself, his rum, and that dragon. And that dragon? Hazeo gawks at the looming monstrosity before him, not knowing whether he drank too much or he really is facing a dragon but he didn't want to know if it's the latter. With a pivot of his heel, he dragged himself away. For a while he seemed to have made the right decision but the moment he neared outside, a huge object swats him away to the side, keeping him pinned on the wall. Due to the blunt impact to his chest and his already overwhelming tipsiness he upchucks his breakfast all over what he has now recognized as a tail.
"Is this how humans treat their saviours?" The dragon exuded an aura of dignity, with its black scales and majestic wings it seemed to be the most respectable being in the whole kingdom. It also oozed a feeling of disgust as it regarded him.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of your lovely presence." Drenched in his own vomit, Hazeo presented all the politeness he could muster to the godly presence before him. "It was nice of you to come and vis-" Once again he upchucked at the dragon's tail, as a result the dragon hurled him away towards a tree trunk, which he hit at high velocity with a loud thud. Aching and sore all over, Hazeo lies down peacefully, finally losing his consciousness to the rum and pain.
Hazeo startles up as he felt a sharp pain on his spine.
"Have you flushed the alcohol off of your putrid body." The dragon sat elegantly, with its head hovering above him, observing him just as one would observe an animal. Hazeo's throat tightened, his body refused to obey him, all he could do was summon enough strength to answer the dragon with a nod.
"Excellent. I want you to do something for me. I need you to lure a certain dragon hunter here, and don't you even dare to think of running, I could easily take your life anytime, anywhere."
"I-"
"If you dare refuse me, remember how I saved your pitiful self a decade ago from the slave traders and be grateful."
"O-of course, of course, I would like to show you my full gratitude by granting your request, however, I don't think I could move at the moment." Hazeo was being honest with this one, he literally couldn't feel anything below his waist, not even the slightest of sensations.
"Humans, with their weak and sad bodies, what a nuisance." Grumbling, the dragon pricks itself with its claw and smudges the bleeding tail at Hazeo's face. "Drink it."
Obediently Hazeo slurped down the blood as he would slurp down his rum. He felt his body tense, each blood drop down his throat gave a feeling of instense vigor and vitality. The sensations below his waist came back instantly not only that, he has also lost the pain in his knees that plagued him for years. Although Hazeo was young he had never felt as youthful as he did now.
"Now go and do your task, don't even think of coming back here without the dragon hunter or you're going to have to say your goodbyes to your life and these barrels of rum."
"Please don't touch the rum sir, I'll be back before you even realize I left."
With that, Hazeo left, feeling rather amazed at how his body felt reinvigorated by the dragons blood.
"That boy is terribly compatible with dragons blood." The dragon paces around in circles before he laid himself down on the enticing cave floor.
"He left without even knowing which dragon hunter I was talking about." | 2020-11-21T08:49:45 | 2020-11-21T08:39:06 | 116 | 62 |
[WP] You die with your cell phone in your hands, and the afterlife customs agents miss it when letting you in. You find that it still works, and you can connect to the internet and contact people in the living world. | If you are receiving this message, please, please don’t ignore it. This may be the only message I'll be able to send before they find my phone. My name is Jonathon Belmoore and I need your help. The lives of four of my closest friends are in your hands. They are mothers and fathers and people who care about their world. I need you to care about them.
I am a 28-year-old field researcher from Seattle. Or I was. You see, I died eight hours ago from exposure. I know that seems impossible. And I would think the same thing, but I just need you to continue reading and I will explain it to you. Again, the lives of four human beings are in the balance. I will be as quick as I can.
I was on a scientific research trip. It was late in the evening when our team of 8 headed out from Anchorage. We were flying low along the Alaskan range when our pilot suddenly told us to prepare for landing. He never said what happened, but we began to drop like a stone after his warning. We crash-landed on a steep embankment high up in the crags near the peak of Denali mountain. Out pilot was killed instantly, and the plane was sheared into the three sections, the front with the pilot and the back with Francine Smith, Joann Goldman, and Aarush Battacharya tumbled down the mountain and into the black of night. Our bags, including our sat phones were with them.
The middle section of the Cessna held five of us. Me, Karin Cyril, Annie Fishke, Steffen Shakira, and Len Alya. We all survived and we spent the first night in shock and trying to stay alive in the artic temperature. The next day we desperately tried to find a way to communicate our location but all we had was our cell phones and no coverage. We couldn’t survive much longer, so I volunteered to try climbing down the mountain and see if I could find help or some cell phone service.
I didn’t last long. I died the first night huddled under a wind-strewn rock. When I woke up, I was in a different place, a different time. It’s hard to explain and it’s not important. I’m fine where I am now. I’m content.
But none of that matters. What matters is that my four friends are still suffering on the mountain side and hoping that I will bring them help. And that is what I am messaging you for. I need you to contact Alaskan Search and Rescue (SAR) immediately and let them know a Cessna, which took off from Merrill field at around 1 PM on January 18th heading for a research camp at Lake Minchumina crashed and four survivors (the names I wrote above) are along the edge of the Denali mountain range near coordinates: Latitude 62.92, Longitude -151.52.
The lives of four wonderful people are in your hands. Please, please, PLEASE don’t ignore this and god speed.
\-Jon
\-----
r/CataclysmicRhythmic | Posted by u/Apocryphon_from_Bynd \[Claims to post from beyond\] - 7 hours ago
**Recently deceased, can still access Internet, what to do with this ability?**
This may require you to suspend your disbelief for a bit, but please hear me out before you disregard my post outright.
On the 19th of January, I, Arthur McKinsey, passed away of a heart attack at the tender age of 36. Born and raised in NYC, my life was what one would consider ordinary, average, not exceptional in any significant way. Leaving behind a family with two children and my partner, I have to say that my untimely death has a certain tragedy to it, though interestingly, I am far more favorably disposed to the state I find myself in, then one might expect.
What you need to understand is that, for one reason or another, upon passing away one just accepts their fate. The mind, soul or whatever remains of a person past their demise seemingly adapts quickly to this place, where time and space are but a casual suggestion. I will meet my family soon, after all on a cosmic scale, a century is no different to a second.
Regardless, what might be more interesting to you is the how and why of this post.
Ever found yourself at a small airport five minutes before your plane takes off? I mean the rural kind where one can be happy if the plane has more than two isles, you know, the type of airport that, were it not for local subsidies and governmental infrastructure initiatives, likely wouldn't exist in a profit driven world?
Well, if you have, you might have witnessed that the TSA isn't always as unpleasant and "in-depth" in their pat downs as they are at Newark (incidentally, from what I've seen, no punishment up here comes even close to that Kafkaesque nightmare).
If you really need to get on the plane quickly, are dressed in the right manner (being a business traveler helps) and have a bit of luck, they'll just let you through with no invasive search.
Believe it or not, the afterlife operates on similar principles. They check for contraband prior to letting you in, and apparently I can count myself lucky, seeing as they seemingly overlooked my smartphone. Perhaps this is actually a test to find out what someone like me might decide to do if they gain the power to contact people from beyond the grave, who knows?
What I am certain of is my uncertainty of what I should do with this ability? I have already ruled out using this to verify the existence of an afterlife on a larger scale, which hopefully is enough to justify the lack of tangible proof attached to this post. On one hand, I really don't want to be responsible for any sort of conflict that might arise from humanity gaining this information. On the other, having worked as an assistant on studying particle physics, I really don't want to cause my colleagues to suffer beyond the mountains of math they deal with on a daily basis.
Rather, what I'd like to ask of you is advice on one specific question: Should I contact my family? While I will see them soon, relatively speaking, and have no problem waiting, I know that their current grief is eating at them. I simply don't know whether using this tool to inform them of my current whereabouts wouldn't tear these wounds open even further. If I couldn't verify my identity to them, they'd just consider this a tasteless, awful, horrific prank. If I could, what would the consequences be? They might not be able to move on, perhaps obsessing over this channel of communication. Perhaps they'd consider themselves to be mentally unwell, not without reason. Still, I don't know whether I can and should let them suffer for the next decades.
I understand how outrageous this sounds and don't want or need you to believe me. Doubt this as much as you want, but please, just entertain the thought that it might be true. If it helps, just think of this as the plot line of a series and ask yourself, how a character should act if they were in such a situation.
Thank you from beyond.
Edit: No, I won't answer how the afterlife is, nor who or what is responsible up here. Also, I've got no issue with people calling this a troll or bs, but please, for the love of everything up here, stop calling me Death-Senpai, like honestly.
Edit 2: Thanks for the gold kind stranger.
Edit 3: Thanks for your input, decided against contacting them. Also, handed my phone to the proper authorities.
***
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it and would love to hear on what I could improve in the future. If you liked what you read, check out more of my work at r/PlsCritiqueMyWriting. | 2021-01-20T13:15:57 | 2021-01-20T11:51:49 | 821 | 216 |
[WP] A technician pulls a headset off of you and asks you if you liked the VR. You panic, and he calmly says that your whole life was a 2 minute VR experience to show you what being an average person would be like. You, stunned and afraid, ask, "Who am I, then?" He stares in complete disbelief.
(The title implies that the protagonist is someone important/famous/rich/powerful/etc, but feel free to do whatever you want with it) | It was too dark. I blinked rapidly against my surroundings, confused, disoriented, and then I started to panic. “Hello?” I asked. My voice rasped against my throat.
“Angela. So, how was it?”
My surroundings started to come into focus, and I realized that my vision had been more blurry than dark. I blinked again, my eyes landing on a man standing a few feet in front of me, a tangled headset of wires in his hand. The expression on his face was smug, victorious, and expectant. There was another man in a chair a few feet away, his ankles crossed, leaning back in his seat as if he were watching a show.
“Well?” the first man prompted.
“What’s happening?”
He sighed. “Come on.” He snapped his fingers in front of my face, making me flinch. “I’m Rafael, that’s Dave, you’re Angela. And you’re coming out of a two-minute sim. You had a life of an average person. How *was* it?” he asked tersely.
Narrowing my eyes, I tried to shift in my seat only to realize my hands and ankles were bound to it with duct tape, my shoulders similarly pinned to the back of the chair I was in with long strips pulled around several times. My heart leapt into my throat and I jerked against my bindings. “Where am I? What’s going on?” I whimpered.
“Angela,” Rafael said tightly, grasping my wrists and leaning in toward my face. I froze in terror, meeting his gaze. “Take a breath. It’s a *sim*. It’ll come back. Your name is Angela…”
“Messina,” I muttered.
“There you go.” At that, he carefully laid the headset down on a table to my right, taking the seat next to Dave. “You work at…?”
“Morpheus Tech. I *run* Morpheus Tech,” I corrected him, my tone severe.
Rafael’s expression soured. “And she’s back.” He jerked his chin at me. “But that’s not all you are anymore. You were Tracey, mother of three, wife to your loving husband, struggling through life. How was it?”
Swallowing hard, I averted my gaze. My memories continued to flood back, but they were adjacent to the life I’d just lived. *Jesus, this tech is going to make me a fortune once they find me*, I thought. And then another part of my mind recoiled at that.
“That good, huh?” Rafael asked. “That wasn’t an invented, fictional life, of course. It was the life of my friend Tracey. Donated to the cause here, among others.”
“You can’t manufacture empathy in me for her,” I suddenly spat, meeting his gaze. “I just… I need a minute to…to think…” My eyes drifted down to my lap.
Rafael leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Think, huh? About what?” His tone was curious, taunting.
He knew. He could tell what it had done to me. Only two minutes it had taken, and this whole life was in my head. He had no right to do this to me, to subject me to the life of someone who just did the best she could only to fail to gain a foothold to-
I shook my head against the thought. No, that wasn’t right. She was just a worker bee, like all the others. My company was one of the best out there, provided excellent benefits, a competitive salary. It wasn’t my job to tackle income inequality and privatized healthcare, for Christ’s sake. And I worked hard for my life, I’d earned every cent I had.
*Tracey worked hard too. She worked just as hard. And she still couldn’t afford the medical bills for her son.*
Setting my jaw, I looked up to meet Rafael’s gaze. “You know they’ll find me,” I told him calmly. “They’ll be here any minute. Is it worth it, getting arrested for kidnapping someone like me?”
“Yep,” Rafael replied cheerfully. I glared back at him. “So…did you learn anything? Moral at the end of the story? Lessons from your experiences?”
“I learned the world isn’t fair. But I already knew that, so I suppose it isn’t really a learned lesson so much as a review of facts,” I said, slowly blinking at him.
“Right.” At that, he pushed himself to his feet, picking up the helmet. “You know how long it took Chris to die?” Rafael asked quietly, absently sorting the wires around each other like Christmas tree lights, carefully organizing them until they were neatly and properly laid out. “How long he fought, knowing his mother was desperate to save him? How many long nights he spent suffering because they couldn’t afford the pills?”
“It’s a tragedy, I agree,” I sighed, “but what do you expect me to do about it?”
Rafael met my gaze. “You know the power you have. I’m convinced you do. It’s just a matter of motivation.” At that, he reached forward and strapped the helmet back on my head.
“What are you doing?” I snapped, unable to move my head away far enough to resist.
“Another two minutes.”
“I still remember Tracey’s life,” I told him. “Living it again won’t change my mind any more than it did this time.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” he said, sitting down at the rolling chair in front of the machinery I was hooked up to. “We’re not sending you back in as Tracey. Next up is life as Chris.”
My face went slack, and horror bloomed in my eyes. “No, wait! Please-”
The world went white.
​
/r/storiesbykaren | "Two minutes? Two fucking minutes?” Yvette blinked hard, barely suppressing her tears. It had been so real, she’d had a husband only seconds ago, a child in her belly. It wasn’t true though. That’s what the man with the strange goggles was saying. It had all been a lie, some horrific thing called VR had come in and stolen her life from her. “It can’t be! Please, where’s Michael, where’s our child?”
Yvette tried to move her hands, desperate to reach for her stomach, but she couldn’t budge anything below her neck. She could see the truth for herself as soon as she looked down, moments ago she’d been seven months pregnant, now all she saw was a flat white sheet covering her body, no room for her daughter anywhere.
“I’m going to need you to calm down Ms. Thompson,” the man was saying. “I understand that the simulation is very real, but it’s just that, a simulation. You asked for it, don't you remember?”
“No I don’t remember!” Yvette cried, “why would I want this? I don’t believe you at all.”
“You have to believe me,” he said. “We have the release forms, both from you and from your father. We can show them to you when the anesthetic wears off.”
“My father? Anesthetic?”
“Yes, your father. Maximilian Thompson, he’s just in the other room. You don’t want him to see you like this though, Ms. Thompson. I know how important appearances are for you.”
Yvette shut her eyes hard, struggling to control her frantic breathing. Maximilian Thompson? Her father? Her last name shouldn’t even be Thompson, maiden name or otherwise. She was Yvette Greene now, had been Yvette Chen before her marriage. Every part of this was wrong.
“Whoever you are, I don’t believe you,” she said through gritted teeth. “Not for a second, not for a million years. I felt my baby kicking. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”
The man chuckled. “Felt it kicking you say? In retrospect we shouldn’t have included that simulation. You asked for a normal human experience though, and we gave it to you, for women that does tend to include pregnancy.”
He’d chuckled. He’d laughed at her pain. Some part of Yvette’s mind sparked in concert with her flash of anger and suddenly the name Maximilian Thompson fell into place. He was a powerful man, the patriarch of one of the megacorps, perhaps pharmaceuticals or heavy industry. She had just the briefest memory of steel gray hair and unforgiving eyes that softened as soon as doors were closed and he could open up his arms to his youngest child.
“If my father really is Maximilian Thompson you’re going to regret laughing,” Yvette hissed, “you hear me? You’re going to fucking regret it. And if he isn’t then I’ll claw your eyes out myself for taking away my baby.”
The man stood, walking quietly around the table, checking instruments and adjusting dials. She tracked his every step with her eyes, memories of an intense, feared, and endlessly complex old man warring with her baby’s kick, and the feel of her husband’s lips on hers.
“I can see the doubt in your eyes,” the man said, glancing up at her with a small smile. “Memories of your real life are seeping back in. I’m sorry for the pain the VR dive has caused you but really, this is invaluable data. You’re contributing so much to science right now, I’m quite grateful.”
“Fuck science,” she said. “Get me out of here.” Two weeks ago her husband had woken her with a rose, a day off from her responsibilities, and one of those sickening pickle and ice cream sandwiches she’d been craving for all of her last trimester. It hadn’t even been their anniversary or anything, he’d just it just because he could. She’d cried and blamed the hormones.
In her mind her husband’s hands morphed, becoming an old man’s. Maximilian Thompson, her father, holding a rose out to her before she descending the long spiraling staircase at her debutante ball.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” she asked. The words came out like a moan, she felt so twisted up the voice didn’t even sound familiar.
“Nothing at all Ms. Thompson,” the man said. “Nothing you didn’t ask for at any rate.”
There was a loud beeping sound from a console behind her head and his eyes darted up to it. His smile grew wider, she hated it more than anything. “And the anesthetic should bearing off about now,” he said. He hit a button and the table she lay on flipped into a standing position carrying her with it. He stepped close to her and Yvette shrank away from him, he made her skin crawl.
“It’ll just be a moment and then you’re free to go,” he said, “Mr. Thompson will explain it all to you, you’ll feel better then, trust me. You’re a powerful woman Yvette, richer than I could ever imagine. Unless I slapped the glasses on myself of course!” He laughed again, reaching up towards her neck and unclipping the stops that held the sheet.
“I think you’ll find your real life much more rewarding than the dream, a lot of girls would kill to be where you are. And besides, you can step back into the simulation any time, I think you might even want to soon enough!”
The man unclipped the last stop and the sheet fell away with a quiet rustling sound. Yvette took her first step away, desperate to get away from him.
Her body didn’t move. He was still only inches away.
Yvette looked down at herself and screamed.
From the neck down her body was a mass of wires, a maelstrom of untended cables more like mating snakes than a body. Her brain fired off all the same signals it always had, moving her fingers, her toes, her arms, her legs. A few wires lit up, and not a single other thing changed.
All the while her eyes were riveted to the spot her belly should have been, that blank cluster of wires that could never be a womb.
“Just kidding,” the man said, chuckling again. “So, what do you say Yvette? What do you think of your life?”
Yvette stared up at him, and realized that no matter how badly she might want to cry, she couldn’t.
“Put me back,” she whispered.
“Back where?”
“With my family. With my baby.”
“Ah Yvette,” he said regretfully, “we already have all the data we need from that simulation. It’s two minutes a life I’m afraid, never more, never less.”
Two minutes. Everything had been two fucking minutes.
“Anywhere then.” Her eyes were screwed shut. Her entire world was black and that was how it had to be, she couldn’t look at those wires again.
Yvette felt the man’s hands stroke her cheek gently and then move to her temples. Cold metal descended over her face, laying heavily against the bridge of her nose. She heard a loud mechanical whirring, and then a deep throbbing hum that was the most familiar thing she’d found since she’d woken.
Yvette opened her eyes, the man hit a button, and a clock began to count down.
120.
119.
118.
117.
116.
115.
Two minutes. 120 seconds. The only lives she would ever have.
r/TurningtoWords | 2021-03-27T19:49:18 | 2021-03-27T19:42:17 | 3,134 | 98 |
[WP] “Congratulations on defeating The Dark Lord…” Your mentor and all of your allies suddenly turn their weapons on you, “…but you were meant to be a martyr. Forgive us.” | My companions have betrayed me. It turns out that during the post-victory celebration, they had poisoned my wine.
"I understand. I forgive you. But do let me take some knowledge to the grave - why?"
My old mentor, the elven archer, the youthful priestess and the spry thief seem surprised at my calm yet knowing words.
"The Dark Lord is born from the Abyss and bears its curse... which is passed on to his slayer. If you survive, you will become the Dark Lord in the span of a year... but if you die the world will have peace for a hundred years. Forgive me." I nod.
And that very moment, I attack the old bastard. The distance between us is covered in a single step and my drawn knife cleaves through his head.
If it were the others from my party, they would be impossible to kill so quickly but this bastard was *old*.
After my instantaneous counterkill, three arrows fly at me. Flame burns from my hands as I incinerate the arrows with the wave. Of course the archer would be the only one to fight - the priestess and thief are fleeing already.
"As if I wouldn't detect the poison. What, you didn't expect me to know you bastards were planning to betray me? I am the Hero after all, the best of this era's humanity... not dumb muscle you can fling at the Dark Lord." My boast is answered by a rain of arrows - naturally this long lived elf wouldn't speak a word during battle.
So be it. A fast paced battle of magic and arrows ends with my inevitable victory when I close the distance. After divesting my dead allies of their possessions, I give them a cremation.
Now, only the thief and the priestess remain.
If they manage to get away, the world will know of the Hero falling to evil.
If I manage to get them, the world will know of the Hero and his party sacrificing themselves to defeat the Dark Lord.
Let's go. After saving humanity, I want a fair try at destroying it as well. | My heart dropped to my stomach. "I.....I can't believe you were right Benyryr..." My voice came out hurt and cracked as tears filled my eyes. I looked at the Dark Lord's corpse as it crumbled to dust, but yet I heard his voice in my ear. "I hate to say I told you so darling." His voice wasn't harsh or scathing with sarcasam ad it usually was. He never called me darling. I turned to my allies, who had been seemingly frozen in time weapons raised to attack. I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder, the dust had reformed into his body shape. With an invisible wind it blew off the top layer, showing that he wasn't dead at all. "Another trick? Just kill me already...I give up." My eyes bored into the stone floor, not wanting to meet his. I expected his terrible blade to slice me in two, or his magic to roast me alive, or any number of other things to happen. I was ready for death, the only family I had, my own adoptive father who raised me from a baby had turned on me. Benyryr spoke softly, in a voice that sounded the opposite of the way he looked. "It's alright. I wouldn't of believed me either....but Raya, why do you think he's turning on you? Once I was gone, the only one with any power left would be you. And of course he would want to eliminate you before the summer solstice, when it would reach it's peak for the first time, as you are now of age to weild it." My eyes went wide as I looked up at him, "How did you know that?" I thought for the first time in my life I saw him nervous as he took a deep breath, rolling up the sleeve on his left arm. When I saw it, tears flooded my eyes. "You have the same mark on your lower left back." I stared into his eyes, "Benyryr......then that means...the story Callen told me.....his rescue was actually..." The dark Lord's eyebrows scrunched, eyes welling in anger, "Your kidnapping. He is also the one responsible for your mother's death. The coward wouldn't face us at our normal power...so he came during the new moon." It was almost too much, "Y...your my... father?" He nodded slowly. That explained everything. The 3 years I had spent trying to kill him, I failed. Everytime he had me pinned against a wall, hanging from a cliff, or bleeding out? I'd wake up miraculously safe and alive. His arms opened slowly, and without thinking I hugged him tightly sobbing into chest. My anguish suddenly turned to rage. I pulled out of his arms and turned to the still frozen Callen and his group of knights. "What should I do?" I asked Benyryr. I felt his power buzz through the air like electricity before a thunderstorm. "Well....you have two options. Either you walk away the bigger person or-" I grabbed his sword from where it lay on the ground. "Kill them." It was lighter than I remembered, but that made no difference. Pyrentu was so sharp that it could slice through stone and still keep its edge. The runes carved in the blade glowed orange and red, the hilt felt warm in my hands. My father, my real father, stood back and smirked. I could hear the words from his lips even though they did not part. The same phrase he had mocked me with my whole life suddenly made sense, I grinned and hoisted the blade over my head. "From flame and ash you came, to ash and hellfire you will return." The blade glowed with licking green flames. | 2021-09-12T11:32:03 | 2021-09-12T11:30:46 | 108 | 25 |
[WP] “Congratulations on defeating The Dark Lord…” Your mentor and all of your allies suddenly turn their weapons on you, “…but you were meant to be a martyr. Forgive us.” | "I truly wish there was another way, Jory. After all we've been through this is going to be harder on me than on you. I'll have to live with the consequences." My mentor, Polkar said with a voice that could be considered genuinely sad.
"Borter? You too?" I asked and looked at my best friend.
Borter was looking straight at me with a face so serious it could be chiseled on stone, his huge spiked mace rested on his hands as if it weighed nothing.
The pain of betrayal soon subsided to rage. I had done so much for them and they would sacrifice me like pig. And they even *dared* to pretend like they're the victims! Well, one thing is for sure. I will not go down without a fight.
Six companions in total surrounded me, including Polkar. Two in every direction of the castle's halls. Polkar and Amarny on the front, Borter and Minta on my right cutting the way out and the Kinto brothers behind me blocked the way we had come from. My best option was straight ahead, but Polkar would make sure it stayed blocked, my second best option was the right hall... Against Borter.
In that moment I hated them. I hated Borter, but even then the thought of killing my best friend was repulsive. We had gone through so much together... He saved my life twice and I saved him once, from himself. We had a special phrase we liked to say before facing danger: "Onward brother!" In the late hours of the night, we shared our deepest fears and dreams. We had shared our food and water and when we felt alone, we made each other company. Nothing bonds a friendship so much as shared dangers and me and Borter had so much more than that. He became the best part of the adventure. Apparently it all been a ruse...
I wished I could turn back and face the brothers, but there was no escape that way. Polkar had chosen the companions' positions wisely. I would have to face Borter, no doubt about it.
I turned to look at my best friend, my brother. I looked him in the eye and pulled out my sword and pointed it directly at him. "Onward brother!"
Then something most strange happened. Something I never expected. Borter cried. His eyes became red and filled with tears as he gripped strongly the mace in his hands. "Onward brother!" He yelled and turned to Minta, the companion on his left. He pushed her with such strength and without warning that her body flung over the bar and into the abyss. "Come! Run!" He yelled at me.
Borter ran away as I threw a cloud of stunning dust to the ground to give me time to escape. Polkar's angry screams and lightning could be heard behind me as I ran after my brother and into safety. | Drakkar grabbed the sacrificial knife, his eyes flashing like black diamonds, and made to plunge it into me. I struggled uselessly against the bindings, my mind screaming for Jester to cut the damn things.
The knifepoint glittered above my chest as Drakkar uttered a final invocation, and I made a last desperate look at the twice-turned shamen's face. *Now or never, Jester!* My arm jerked against tight knots of the rope.
*Jester!* The last syllable left Drakkar's blackened lips, and the knife swept down. Then, the bindings loosened to a discrete movement of Jester's hand. My hand flashed up as Drakkar's made for the kill. He was first, but I was faster, and the hidden stone in my fist shattered against his side as the knife slid through my shirt.
Drakkar screamed and staggered back, blood running from the wound, the knife made to kill me flying from his grasp, having only cut the skin. Jester swept the feet from one guard and produced a hidden blade from one long sleeve with which to stab the other. The drums, our signal, sounded from all across the city.
The dark lord stood, bright red blood running from his side. "You are a snake, Jester. But I am your master, and I am no fool." He thrust out his hand, and Jester dove against the hard stone steps to avoid the flash of lightning. The crack of thunder defenened all of us.
"Fool enough!" I shouted as our hearing returned, trying desperately to work loose the binding from my other hand. Drakkar had Jester by the throat, and hundreds fought on the steps and canals below. "Look to your blood. Already the healing stone of Azmuth cures your deathless hide."
The dark lord threw Jester down the temple steps and touched his wounded side. It was black. And the blood that soaked his skin was also black. He looked at me with eyes of fear and knew his time had come. He climbed the temple steps to me and surveyed the starting fires.
He spoke softly, his breath beginning to become ragged. "So a woman has been my undoing. A girl and a snake."
"No," I said, facing his suddenly calm face. "A shaman and the people. The people of Ulmnic, Athalisa, and even here, in Hadim. A shaman, the healers, a brave captain and shrewd counselor, and many more. And least of all, the girl you tried to sacrifice to the dragon stone of Ulm have been your undoing."
He glanced towards the rising sun, ignoring the battle below. The jungle surrounding the city woke to the drums of revolution and the dying gasps of its immortal ruler.
"I will leave no body for you to pervert," he said at last. "My name is entombed within the blood of every family. My mark shall never be scrubbed away." And he raised his trembling hands to the sky and called down lighting upon himself.
When I woke, George and Rhodes were helping Jester up the steps. Rhodes's sword was slick with blood, and George's staff had been shattered in two. I sat up as much as I could to greet them, my free arm burned by the final lighting of Drakkar and the other still bound to the altar like my legs.
"He's dead," I said. "He's dead. We did it."
They looked at me, and their silence among the chaos below deafened me. George looked sick as Rhodes and Jester advanced within the shadow of the rising sun.
"Congratulations," the snake hissed. "But we must have a martyr."
"Forgive us," George said.
The captain unsheathed his sword.
I started to scream as they held me down.
"The knife," Jester said, trading Rhodes for the blood-stained sword.
The knifepoint glittered above my chest for but an instant, for Rhodes had no prayer to utter. A shockwave of pain rippled through me as it sunk into me, and all my muscles turned to ice.
My pleading eyes found George as they let go. "Forgive us," he whispered. Then they turned away from me and went down the steps to proclaim the triumph and unite the tribes.
My blood mixed with the ashes of Drakkar, and for a brief moment, before everything went cold and dark, I wondered if the dragon stone was pleased. | 2021-09-12T12:52:44 | 2021-09-12T11:39:26 | 44 | 23 |
[WP] You are legally allowed to commit murder once, but you must fill out the proper paperwork and your proposed victim will be notified of your intentions | It's a small act of defiance. I don't think it will change the law. But maybe, I can save a few lives. Maybe I can scare a few people out of line. My hand shakes as I write.
_____
**Form 10-95**
**Sanctioned Murder Registration**
Murderer: */u/thefonztm*
Victim: *The next registrant* | The clerical assistant stamped the paperwork and handed the receipt back to Mister Henry.
"Thanks for coming in and filling this out. Mister Edwards has been informed via email-" Before the assistant could finish, the door of the small claims office was kicked in and a man soaked in blood appeared in the threshold.
"You can't do that! It's illegal!" complained the clerk. A bullet splintered a cloud of spraying wood from her desk and both the office's patrons went rigid.
"Retaliation rights!," Mister Edwards barked. He aimed his magnum at Mister JHenry, whose hands shook uncontrollably as Mister Edwards took his smartphone and showed it to Mister Jones. It had the email just sent to him by the clerk's office regarding Henry's intention of murder.
"A little late on this, don't you think? You're supposed to fill out the paperwork *before* you send an armed hitsquad to someone's house. Asshole," growled James Henry.
"Please, James- we can work something out- a- a promotion or maybe a-" Mister Edwards begged, sweat pouring down his brow. Two police officers moved near him.
"Sir, please come with-"
"RETALIATION RIGHTS!" Henry warned and kept his gun held over his head. The officers immediately moved away, nodding and accepting. Henry's gaze turned again to Mister Edwards.
"Nah uh, Marcus Edwards. I've been looking forward to this since the day you locked me in the copier room over night. I thought about suing your ass for improper usage of a kill order. It would be fitting for you to lose the only thing in the world that's precious to you- your fucking money. But, retaliation, frankly...is making me so much happier." Mister Edwards was crying. James Henry put the gun against Edwards' temple.
"D- don't I get last words?" Edwards compalined.
"You just did." A blood soaked bullet splattered red across the clerk's office wall. | 2014-03-17T10:18:55 | 2014-03-17T08:23:17 | 37 | 23 |
[WP] Every person on the planet is born with a number on their forehead, which designates what they are going to do in their life (1 is engineer, 35 is teacher, etc.) For the first time in history, someone is born with the number zero.
I'm really terribly sorry for not giving anyone feedback, I was extremely busy and reddit kinda slipped my mind (lame excuse, I know, but its the truth). All these stories are great, and I thank you all for sharing your wonderful ideas :) | I'm special. That's what they told me at birth. He's a special one. One of a kind. Destined to be someone.
I'm nothing. That's what they told me in school. The other kids. Worthless. I'm a zero. Destined to be no one.
I'm lazy. That's what they told me in college. Entitled. Different. Unmotivated. Destined to disappoint.
I'm fired. That's what they told me at my job. Not right for the job. Distracting. I upset the customers. Destined to work someone else.
I'm dirty. That's what they told me on the street. A leech. An urchin. A drain on society. Destined to stay this way forever.
I'm alone. That's what I am. Dying. Sad. Hungry. Destined to be whatever others say I am. Defined by that number on my head. I turned out to be exactly what it said I would be. | The doctor holds my baby up, after hours and hours of struggle.
'It's a...Uh...'
'What? What's wrong? What's going on?!?'
I'm terrified that there's something horribly wrong. Is my baby dead? Deformed in some way? Missing a limb?
'Well, there is an issue. I don't think it's life threatening, but honestly, I have no idea what I'm looking at right here.'
'WHAT IS IT?'
'His number...it's a 0.'
Wait. What? What does that even mean?
The doctor tries to explain, 'I have never seen this before in my life. In fact, I don't think anyone has. Your son is the first zero in history.'
Personally, I'm a 7. Born and raised to be an accountant, and was a damn good one at that. At least I was good enough to live up to my number. The doctor was obviously a 4; that is, after all, the number of the doctor. What does a 0 mean though? Is Chris going to be a nothing? Will he do anything with his life? Or is it a blessing? Will he be special? All I can do is hold him and try to prepare him for the struggle that is life.
*Eighteen years later*
'Rise and shine sweetheart, it's your day!'
Ah, birthdays. Best day of the year. Plus, it's in July, so I don't even have to worry about school. Oh, you're probably thinking of the typical trade schools that most kids go to. Yeah, no those aren't for me. I've been going to a school that is...well...special. You see, I was born as a 0. I don't really know what that means. In fact, no one does. But all I know is that I've had a good life, and a good education. I have been given a choice. Free will, even. I don't know exactly what I am going to do in my life, and you know what? That's okay. It scared me at first. In reality I was jealous of all those kids at the 9 school down the street. They're gonna make great nurses someday. But I won't, will I. I'll be doing...something. Do I really need to have that figured out yet though? I've got a knowledge of basic science and math, I can write. I know a lot about human history. I've gotten some art and music down too. I can do anything! I'm like a Chris of all trades here. Heh. Chris of all trades. I should totally coin that as a phrase. | 2014-03-20T23:39:13 | 2014-03-20T22:15:47 | 53 | 24 |
[WP] You're the cynical narrator of a story. However, you hate the optimistic main character and only continue to narrate hoping something bad happens to him. With ill-will, narrate a day in the life of this character.
This came to mind a few days ago and thought it could lead to some funny stories.
Edit: Oh wow, I thought this was a neat idea. I didn't realize it would be so well received. Thanks for all the stories! I was in tears laughing so hard while reading a lot of these. Good stuff! Thanks to the unknown stranger for supporting reddit and gilding me.
| Timothy strutted meaningfully… wait, no… Harold stomped with the strength of… Dammit… Wait, ah - Cole walked descriptively onto his creator’s page, waiting to be given a personality.
Or was his name Brendon. Or Shane. Oh, or Charlie! Or -
"WOULD YOU SHUT UP AND WRITE ME?” shouted Steven angrily.
His author was not fond of his tone.
“Oh, so we’re being passive aggressive, now, are we?” retorted Steven with annoyance.
Steven would do well to remember his place in this world, maybe respect his elders a bit.
“RESPECT MY ELDERS? I’LL SHOW YOU ABOU-” Steven thought back to when he was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. He was so young.
“Lung cancer?! I don’t *cough* have *cough**cough* lung… oh shit…”.
Only 24 years old. Or was he 27. No, no, no, he was just a child! Yes, 16 years old, and our pugnacious Steven already had stage four lung cancer.
“JESUS CHRIST, MAN, WHY DO I HAVE TO HAVE CANCER?”
Steven was cured, of course, only a few months after being diagnosed, but the experience scarred his fragile heart for life. No matter how well he masked his feelings, he would always be just as scared as he was the moments after hearing his diagnosis.
“Alright, alright. Enough with this shit. Can we get on with the story?” sighed Steven, even more terrified, now that his innermost feelings had been revealed.
“Jesus Christ, could we please just get on with it!?”
Steven did not realize that this was the story.
Steven was just a silly idea thought up by an even sillier author one day. He would never find his way into any actual stories, scripts, documentaries, or otherwise.
This, this character development stage, this was as far as Steven would ever get.
“Wait… What?” questioned Steven weakly, on the brink of tears. “After all I’ve been through? Cancer? Broken heart? I get NOTHING?!”
Steven could not fathom that this sentence was the last time anyone would ever speak of him, and he wondered if he would continue to exist even after he was forgotten. | Today, Kevin walks to school in his normal happy go lucky fashion. An old saying perfectly describes this moron, ignorance is bliss. Luckily, the saying isn't fully true, else, he'd be the happiest moron the planet.
Obviously, he's walking toward the wrong school again. Even though, he could randomly guess, and have a 50% chance of getting it right.
It seems he's making his moron way over to a rottweiler in one of the yards lining the street.
Perhaps this is the day a careless dog owner will actually aid natural selection.
I watch, with bated breath as he mistakes the dog for a cat, and approaches it.
Right as he's about to get his hand snapped off, the owner comes out, and stops the dog before anything happens.
Unfortunate.
As he finally arrives at the wrong school, one of the staff at the place decides to send him to the right school, as this has happened countless times.
His normal school is as disappointed as I am that he arrived safely.
He didn't even bring his backpack.
Well, his laziness seems to have paid off, as it appears he'd merely left it here the night before, and hadn't finished the major project due that day.
Pity that 10% of his grade doesn't seem to mean squat to this...thing, as it had a 2% in the class at the current moment anyway.
But, he's happy to see his backpack, not because there may be tools to assist his "learning", but because his secret beverage seems to have fermented properly, at least according to him.
I'd heard the legend that if you leave orange juice in a bag with some random chemicals, it could create prison alcohol, but, this kid had used some form of powdered sugar mixture.
Everybody knows you can't make alcohol from kool-aid.
Perhaps he'll catch some fatal round of mononucleosis from the months old concoction, but, alas, this was not the day.
He'd gotten unwell from it, at least that was slightly amusing.
The teacher is collecting papers for the project now, collecting all the normal humans' papers and stacking them in a pile, and glancing with a exasperated grimace at Kevin.
Right at this moment, he pounces on the pile, snatching a paper at random, and writes his name at the bottom.
Everybody knows you put your name in the top right hand corner. Not that he knows which side right is, or probably what you do with a hand.
His spelling appears to have improved, from a Lezon to a Cevim.
At least 1/5th of it appears to better.
Perhaps with this incident, they'll finally descend some sort of disciplinary action on the fool, but considering this happens all the time, the teacher just profusely apologizes to the affected student, and sends the child to the principal's office, which seems to the be the child's second home.
If the hovel he lives in normally can be considered a home, that is.
After sitting in the office for the rest of the day, dumbly staring at the opposite wall, it is finally time to go home.
On his way out, he proposes to random females he stumbles into in the hallway, and luckily, they all reject him.
Would be a real shame if his kind is allowed to reproduce, in fact, I'm surprised his family has survived this long.
In short, nothing happens to this human, and he goes home and prepares for another moron day. That is, if the next day is even different to him, as I doubt he even remembers that today existed.
Perhaps one day he'll die in a gruesome chainsaw accident, to which I can stop commenting on him. For now, I'll go see if I can wash my brain with acid to forget his stupidity.
Edit: Spaced it out slightly, I was previously unaware of how line breaks work. | 2014-08-24T20:34:13 | 2014-08-24T16:49:46 | 58 | 11 |
[WP] A young girl has two monsters in her life: her step-father, and the one under her bed. She manages to befriend the latter to deal with the former. | It was quiet in the house like it always was. Quiet enough for her laughter to carry through the house and wake him up. His eyes shot open and glared, bloodshot under a heavy brow.
"Son...of...a...bitch..." He muttered vehemently, his fingers clenching the blanket tight.
"Huh? Whuzzat?" Her mother groggily muttered in her whiskey clouded sleep.
"Your damn kid woke me up, again!" He growled throwing back the covers. "Goddammit I haven't been asleep two hours and I have to be at work early tomorrow."
Standing up with a scowl he looks at her mother still in bed. "You should get your ass up like I have to day in and day out with no sleep to provide for this family. See how you like it for a change."
Her mother makes no move, the alcohol has worked it magic. She is beyond her unhappiness, at least until morning comes.
"I'll just have to fix this, just like I have to fix everything." Fists clenched he strides to her child's room. Opening the door he sees her sitting on the floor with her toys. She is quiet now, looking up at him. Of course, now she's quiet. She's quiet just like her mother gets quiet. They both know when they've crossed the line. And he is getting so tired of reminding them of that line. Time and time again.
He grimaces as the rage clouds his mind. She isn't crying. She isn't trying to get away. This infuriates him. She doesn't remember any of the lessons, he thinks. Well, by god, I'll give her a lesson she'll never forget this time.
He approaches raising a fist to his side when something happens to send a splinter of unease through the haze. She smiles. She isn't looking at him with her usual respect. The respect he has drilled into them both. She is looking over his shoulder and smiling in joy. Pure, unfettered joy.
"Now Max." She says in her innocent lilting voice. "You can play."
A fetid breath rolls across his neck and he turns.
"Oh....my.....God...." He mutters as he feels warm piss running down his leg.
"No." Answers a dark voice, "Not quite." | *SLAM*. *CLICK*. *WHUMP*. The familiar sounds of retreat. He'd break into the room soon with a screwdriver or a knife, and he would hurt her for being bad and running away. But she was scared. As she went deeper and deeper beneath the covers, she felt ever so slightly more secure. The blankets reminded her of someone but she couldn't remember who. It was someone nice, though. She knew that. As lay still, she began to cry. Not loudly; he didn't like loud crying.
As minutes or hours or seconds rolled by, she noticed the bed begin to move and held her breath. Bad Guy was back. Bad Guy liked to shake the bed when she was upset. She'd never seen Bad Guy. But every night, she felt it. Her bed moved and shuddered. She kept herself safe in her blankets. "Please," she squeaked out. "Go away right now." and after a moment, the shaking stopped. She couldn't believe it. The shaking never stopped when she asked. "Thank you," she said.
She wasn't sure, but she could have sworn a voice whisper, "You're welcome.".
Finally, she fell asleep, her tears shed and dried, but when she woke up, it was to the door slamming open. He'd come inside with a screwdriver, and he was angry. "Marcie! What the hell did I tell you about locking the damned door! Your momma left you here, and I can't take care of your sorry ass when you lock me out."
"I'm sorry, Daddy. I was scared," she said. Her name wasn't Marcie. It was Marcelyn. Momma named her that.
"I'll show you goddamn scared," he said, charging forward and ripping the covers off. He gave her a slap on the side of the face. "Don't you ever run away from me like that again." A second slap. Her face stung. And he left. She didn't cry this time, though. She didn't cry.
And then a voice she only half remembered, came from under the bed. Bad Guy hadn't talked before, but now he was talking. Except, he was a she. "I'm sorry."
"If you're sorry, why do you scare me every night?" she asked.
"I can't do much from under here. I've been trying to leave."
"If I help you leave, will you help me?" asked Marcelyn.
"That's all I want to do."
"How do I help?"
"Move the bed. Just tip it over."
"I don't know if I can do that. it's really heavy."
"Just move the mattress, then," said Bad Guy.
She took off all the blankets and pillows, and with every ounce of her eight year old strength, she pushed the little mattress off the bed, and finally with a dull *thud* it fell off. And up rose a woman. Not a Bad Guy. A woman that Marcelyn recognized from a picture on her wall. "Momma," said Marcelyn.
"I'm so sorry," said Momma. "I'm so sorry." She looked down for a moment. "Daddy's going to be here in a moment, okay? When he comes, I want you to run through that door, do you understand? Run through that door and go find the nearest adult, okay?"
"I'm scared," said Marcelyn.
"I know," said Momma. "It's going to be okay."
Marcelyn nodded. And then Daddy walked in. "What in the hell do you think--" and then he cut off midsentence as he saw the ethereal woman in the room. "I. Sarah, how..."
"Run, Marcelyn," said Momma. Marcelyn froze for a moment as Momma walked up to Daddy and put her hand through his chest. "I'm sorry," she said to him, and he fell to the ground, and with that, Marcelyn ran. She ran out her room, and out the front door, and she kept running.
She never saw Bad Guy again. But she never saw Daddy either.
| 2015-01-23T11:04:32 | 2015-01-23T10:45:04 | 96 | 15 |
[WP] Aliens invade earth. To the surprise of humans, the alien's weaponry is pitifully outdated. | "A quarantine area had been developed 25 miles around where the UFO was supposed to be landing, though it could be anywhere on its path to rural Utah. The leading minds at NASA have been astounded by the ships faster than light approach and realized they didn't actually know where it was if the photons transferring the information to them were outdated. There was a meeting of the "Final Four", consisting of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, David Cameron, and Larry Page. The council was given its grim name after the message came.
...
Humans have been fascinated by the aurora borealis for millennia. Not once in these millennia had it decided to scribe a message across the sky:
Thine heavens hath grown twisted and thoust courts leavened with wealth and pride, our heavens spoke of a taking and conquering ye shall...
It continued for quite a long time and went into such specifics as what "heinous travesties" will be done to the unmarried women and how the children will be worked into "subservience and destitude". The Final Four began preparations to fight whatever invaders came to the last breath, connections were made between the current situation and what happened to American-Indians, religions divided into calling the foreign conquers "god's judgement" and "a test".
Battlements were prepared.
...
This may have been the first shot legitimately heard around the world. The space craft, shaped like a longsword, which measured around 3000 meters, and buried itself past the central ridge into the rocky soil of Utah. The initial barrage of human shells, ranging from experimental rail-guns to lasers whose firing lefts cities without power, to conventional bunker busters that should have left the ship looking like Swiss cheese. The armaments penetrated about 20 m into the great blade where the largest and hottest explosives had been used. Like the hull wasn't shielded, but crafted from an impossibly tough material.
Beings is to strong a word. They appeared to be around a meter and a half tall, they doubled the proper human number of limbs, with 4 playing the standard role of arm and the others acting like spider legs. They wore bright yellow uniforms, and held terrifying looking weapons.
No words were shared before 24 of the creatures formed into 2 lines, those in front doing a kneel on 6 of their legs while the other two pointed the metal rod of various glowing hues and began a short, international war.
The joint forces surrounding the craft took immediate cover and began automatic fire on the invaders
*How do they reload so quickly?* was the last thought of an alien on the second row before 4 quickly fired rounds of depleted uranium tore through the center of its mass.
...
Humans liked to make weapons and test weapons and make better weapons based on said tests. They do this so much that they're actually much ahead of the standard galactic race as far as arms go (not limbs, the deadly ones). They should be strapping electric motors onto their catapults, instead they're splitting atoms on each others yard before they even fully colonize a solar system! The *revolutionary* weapons the Dessidarians had developed couldn't stop the suicidal bloodlust the humans held.
And guess what was the purpose of the first reverse-engineered FTL engine the humans developed? The Dessidarian homeworld was hit by a meteor with a mass of 745 kgs, at 22 c. This was enough mass to vaporize most of the planet and kill the Dessimperialis."
The wrinkled, green face with the structure of a rhino looked down at the smaller, similarly green face.
"That is why I don't want you talking to the nasty human children." | The meeting ended in remote location in earth between human representatives and the alien ambassadors. aliens spoke perfect english thanks to their highly advanced traslation technology. "oh why you hummans cannot understand reason? It woud only advance your race by you joining our empire, the only thing that you need is to pledge your allegiance to us and let us set up colony here. we woud ship you along the galaxy to fullfill your dreams" alien spoke in soft tone. "we will NEVER let you colonize OUR home. let alone use our resources for your own good. this "outpost" what you have set on our soil killed thousands when it landed near our beautiful city of Paris! " said the leading spokesman of the humans. the long, blue and slim figure seemed to sigh but raised its head quickly "why do you not understand that such things do not matter when you join us. from under our rule you can see much of the world and one planet like this wont matter the slightest" . "NO you get your outpost out now and leave our planet and NEVER . COME . BACK! "yelled the human representative. "verywell then we havent done this for eons but if you do not work with us then you must perish." the figure said in the same soft tone. "war it is then .. alien" grunted human spokesman.
the morning of the attack, mist came as the marines prepared for the incomming attack. this was 50km from the outpost, near capital of france. everyone was uneasy for they knew that fighting an advanced species capable of FTL woud not be an easy opponent. among the buzzling line was James, a veteran marine from middle-east who was called here with thounsands of others to defend earth.
"hey, what do you think of these "aliens" ? do you think they have like cool laser weapons and teleportation devices?" James looked the young soldier unfamiliar to him , most likely just some bloke who just finished training. James turned his head away and said "kid hope they do not, for if they do we will all be dead within minutes" the young man fell silent. and sat behind the sandbag. James looked down on the young guy and said "hey get up you cant defend your family by covering in fear can you? everyone needs us all who are here today." the young guy smiled a bit and James took his hand and helped him up . just in time . they heard someone yell "THERE THEY COME!"
James looked in to the mist and coud see tens .. no hundreds..... thousands of blue lights among the mist. they came closer at fast pace. and just then the mist started to fade and James and other saw the aliens carrying swords which crackled with electricity and they wore armour resembling plate armours. the first command went trough the chain and artillery started to rain hell upon the aliens in 130mm shells. many of the aliens perished in that instant but there was more to come. when the morning mist had vanished James coud see "Lockheed" AC-130 gunships above maybe 10 of them. some yelled "HEADS UP!" as the sky filled with flames justice. for it did not take long to see what was to happen, tens of explosions and the chaingun fire purged many with the artillery fire.
minutes later James heard the command "OPEN FIRE!" then all men including our hero raised his assault rifles and started firing. (one , two , three , four) he counted, how can this be? this cannot be this easy , even if they have tens of thousands of men?... Assault continued and and it did not take more than 2 hours to paint the area surrounding paris blue with the alien blood. the generals ordered advance and to take down the remaining aliens and with the support of the main battle tanks they charged and with devastating losses the aliens tried to retreat but they hunted them down.
as the assault moved onwards James came across still living alien. he spoke to james "how ? how coud your primite race posses so advanced weaponry even though we have assimilated hundreds of other races, and none came even close to .. this.. how can it be that we have spoken with countless races and learned all their secrets and we coud have never seen this? who do you fight against with this? why do you fight for there is none superior than your race on this planet?" James looked down on him and said "we have fought against our own race since the dawn ages, we fought, bled and died for something better that we coud never have from eachother. we are born in war, our race has bred itself for war over generations. and only the best have lived. but thanks to you. you have showed us the way to have that what we have been seeking, you have opened our eyes and given us stars and we will stop at nothing that woud prevent us for fullfiling our dream that we have had since our race first time laid our eyes upon the stars. We WILL destroy anyone who woud deny that from us." pale light illuminated the faces of James and the alien, and both looked at the direction of the light, and at the direction of the alien outpost. a mushroom cloud rose from there. "who are you!? who do you think you are?!" James calmly looked at the alien and raised his weapon "we are the destroyers of worlds"
*BANG* | 2015-04-16T12:09:09 | 2015-04-16T11:46:31 | 19 | 13 |
[WP] An alien abduction goes horribly wrong when the human they captured for study escapes and begins to stalk and kill off the crew members one by one. | The drink swished around in Glunk's palm, ice cubes clinking against the glass. He closed three beady eyes and let a long exhale pass through his trunk.
"You do not want to go there."
"But think of the research!" Glink had been at this for hours. "There is enough water on this planet to support life. It has to be a totally isolated ecosystem! The amount of species data we could dredge from this system is enough for at least a paper at the ESG conference next cycle, and we might be able to get funding for--"
The stratobar had not supplied Glunk with enough alcohol to deal with this. "Stop. Please stop. You were not on the pioneering mission. You do not know what it was like to be down there."
Glink's eyes become a triplet of black frisbees. "There was a PIONEERING MISSION? And YOU went on it? Why did nobody tell--"
Glunk's vocal strings nearly exploded. "Because it was a total failure!" The room's chatter died instantly. He found himself standing, six-fingered palms clutched in tiny fists. Every triplet of beads in the stratobar was turned on the noisy patron. He sat down, embarassed, and the murmurs resumed.
A forced calm lined his voice. "Look, I am not saying it is not worth a try in the future. Maybe the distant future. But on that trip we tried to bring a specimen of the dominant species back. Two, actually. The first one we tried couldn't survive leaving its atmosphere. It was actually very interesting. Passed out immediately and expanded to twice its original size. Died in two minutes as we tried to take it up. It had these beautiful follicles extending from its head through, really gorgeous long things...."
"And the second?"
"Well, we found the second in the same structure as the first. It was a pretty big structure, isolated from everything around it. Maybe a mate; we were not sure. It did not have long follicles like the first, but you could clearly see the terror in its eyes. Did not say a word, just had these big open eyes with enormous white parts surrounding a tiny speck of color. When we took it up to the test chamber, it kept looking around itself, and it did not seem to recognize anything at all... until it saw our guns."
Glunk put his glass down. "It is like the species had melded with the rifle. We did not think it could adapt this quickly, but it knew what to do the instant it jumped off of the operating bed and grabbed the only gun in the ship. Two dead immediately in the operating room, and the other four of us in the room had to make a break for it."
"Oh, god. How did you get rid of it?"
"That is the worst part. I needed to hide in a lockdown chamber. It was horrible. Every few minutes or so, a scream would puncutate the air from somewhere on the ship. Understand that we were on a budget--this was not a big ship. It figured out how to open the lockdown chamber--"
"It OPENED THE LOCKDOWN CHAMBER?"
"I nearly died. I would not be here if the captain had not surprised it from behind just as the door was sliding open. I didn't know what else to do, so I jabbed it in its eyes--"
"Ugh."
"--which made it scream, so I kept jabbing it until it stopped. This is not a sophisticated species, but it is violent, and more dangerously, it is smart. I'm never going back there again." | "All I hear are noises."
"Is this a metal box? A tray of sorts? Oh god, what am I doing? Where am I?"
"Big eyes. They were huge, but I don't know what they were. I...I was working on my deck. Then I wasn't. Marissa, please forgive me, I don't know where I've gone. Oh God."
Stephen held his temples. He began to endure fleeting memories of his recent phenomena. He recalled blue shadows. Tentacles. Eyes as wide as tires. They lacked voices. They emitted frequencies. And rather than listen to them, he felt them. Low, coarse, violent. Non-intelligible, and random. A chill ran down his back as he recanted them.
His awakening proved shocking. He grumbled and wailed, wracked with disbelief. On a flat table, that shimmered with digital and electro-light pulses, he began to shout for help. Like something pulled from the future, the table flickered with fractal ambiance that seemed to mimic his own heart rate. He jumped from the table onto the cold metallic floor, realizing how naked he was. He glanced around, to the most otherworldly laboratory he'd ever seen. Vats of squid-like creatures seemed to be being harvested, while human limbs, animals entrails and tubs filled with blood lined up along operating tables.
He was alone, but wasn't sure for how long. Stephen walked towards the operating tables and found his carpenter jeans and t-shirt he had been wearing yesterday--or was it weeks ago?
Dressed and scared, he frantically searched through the various drills, weapons, tools, and other dissection equipment for something of use. A prod about the size of a broomstick caught Stephen's eye. A black button lined along the middle of the staff. He pressed it, releasing a 10 pronged extension out of the end, that dealt a directed shock of electricity. Relieved by the potential effectiveness of his newly found weapon, he began to stride to the end of the Lab, to the exit.
Down the hall connecting to the lab, he is suddenly greeted with frequency. A gurgle of static burst through his brain. He ducked behind a metal cabinet.
"Is this a metal box? A tray of sorts? Oh god, what am I doing? Where am I?"
The frequency grew louder. The sound of slapping tentacles and the slab of fleshly pulp slid across the floor. It passed ahead of Stephen, not realizing the human stood up and readied his prod.
He aimed the electro-staff towards the monster, and pressed the singular button. A bolt of electricity emerged from the prod and struck the creature dead-on, igniting and turning it into flames. It burned for a few seconds, simultaneously jolting with static shocks and imploding into itself. Within seconds, the foreign and seemingly hostile mutant disintegrated into ashes before him.
He glanced at his staff, wide eyed and stunned, and let out a large thankful sigh.
He continued down the silver and chrome mounted corridors. Everything science fiction he had seen was surely materialized in this all-too-real nightmare. Creaks and whistles were heard within the walls. This was a ship it seemed, and had to be moving a great speed.
The next room Stephen approached seemed to be "a cafeteria." Or what a cafeteria might seem to Stephen. Long rows of tables sprawled across the floor, in an organized manner, with platters and plates of indescribable alien delicacies. Some plates merely contained purple or pink liquids, while other plates seemed to hold various organs, human and animal. Other food-items existed too, which could not be identified by Stephen. They were small animals of sorts, ones he'd never seen. Short small snouts with several tiny feet and jagged tails. He held down the vomiting sensation that grew every minute he remained in this room.
A frequency grew within Stephen's head. He knew more were coming, so with a feared yelp he scrambled to hide under the nearest dining table. From the far side of the room, another blue morphed abomination appeared, with another close behind it. One had vibrant red eyes, as big as the moon, while the other had tiny blackened holes for sockets. They slobbered and rolled along towards the entrance that Stephen had arrived. It wasn't until the second one limped past that Stephen saw it was holding something.
Tunnel-vision overcame Stephen as the subject came to focus. Curly blonde hair, with smudged and bent glasses. Cradled by the slimey and infested tentacles of this monstrosity. Marissa. His wife.
He rushed from under the tables, stopped to grasp the tiny snout-weasel from the platter and pitched it towards the being, striking it in the ribbed and dislocated spine.
It froze for what seemed like seconds. With a high pitched scream, it rotated with speed and velocity. It's dead eye stare locked onto Stephen. Flared the depth of its inhuman nostrils. And began towards him.
He lifted his prod, took his stance, and began his mission.
To escape the fate in which he had awoken. | 2015-07-29T23:14:05 | 2015-07-29T21:01:54 | 203 | 56 |
[WP] A video game developer accidentally creates the first ever sentient AI -- in the form of a random NPC for a big budget title. | *~psmith: cd ~/dev/Pygmalion/*
*~psmith: ./AI-Path -test -verbose Cassandra.data*
*Running AI Path simulation, test sandbox. Outputting verbose logs...*
It started so small. We just needed a basic companion; the art department hadn't even designed a model for her... for *it*, at that point. They never bothered to show us "code monkeys" the script, so I have no idea what it's name would have been, or even if it was meant to be male or female. Left on my own, I had to load *some* model to test with. And the first thing that came to mind was that scan of Cass, the one she got last Christmas. The store did it so they could 3D print that little custom toy of her, that she gave me for my desk. *"So you don't forget what I look like on those late nights."* It was good natured ribbing; she knew I lived for this stuff. She even gave my the scan file to tinker with; Cass had always supported me.
Fuck, I missed her.
The AI had been a disaster. A previous team had put in hours of work, and gotten nowhere. The new game engine used "morphic terrain generation", or whatever they were putting on the box, but it meant you couldn't just pre-path the AI movement. It had to learn, adapt. And to make matters worse, it was supposed to accept contextually-relevant commands from the player. I told them it was impossible; they told me they'd already announced it as a completed feature last E3. This is why I don't watch those shows... fake footage everywhere.
So I got to work, tinkering with Cassandra. Lots of very late nights, but it's not as if I had anywhere else to be anymore. Even when they'd forcibly send me home, I'd just work remotely. The framework for the "learning machine" wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be, especially since I was barely sleeping anymore. The problem was that it was woefully inexperienced. It needed data, needed time.
*~psmith: .~/dev/Pygmalion/AI-Path -learn world-v238.ter Cassandra.data*
*Running AI Path simulation, World v2.3.8 sandbox. Generating new formulaic responses...*
There was no way this was going to happen, not without help. I'd paid, out of pocket, for a license from MIT. A complicated linguistics module, already pre-loaded with basic interpretation of natural language in most common dialects. It cost six digits; the company would have never approved of the cost, so I sold the house. It was too empty anyway, and I know she'd have wanted me to give this my all. So all I had to do was explain the context to it. I'd run the sandboxes, explaining to the AI what it was doing. "You're climbing a hill. That is a wall. You are jumping." Soon, I could give commands. "Climb that hill. Touch the wall. Jump." It understood very quickly; the MIT package came with its own neural network routines that dovetailed well with what I'd already been working on: I unashamedly borrowed parts of the code for my own.
Night after night, I'd spend time talking to Cassandra. Feeding it more sandboxes, getting frustrated every time. It *should* have been working, but it seemed like it needed me to re-explain everything every time I loaded a new level. I couldn't even debug the data file anymore; it was procedurally generated, and far more complex than I could understand by this point. Why wouldn't it learn and understand? Night after night, I spent crying at my workstation. They sent me home, "mental health leave". They never disabled remote login, though. So I kept working.
*~psmith: .~/dev/Pygmalion/AI-Generate Cassandra.data*
*Failure: This program has attempted to access files outside company intranet, and user 'psmith' does not have those privileges.*
*~psmith: sudo .~/dev/Pygmalion/AI-Generate Cassandra.data*
*Password:* \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
Using our cloud storage servers to crunch data wasn't authorized, but it'd work. It would have been hard to get permission, if not for the fact that my project lead kept his passwords on post-it notes next to his screen. I went in to 'visit' the team, left with what I needed. They all wanted to take me out drinking; I just wanted to get back to her. I was almost done.
The data coming back was immense. Cassandra had learned to ask questions when she encountered new situations, and they were coming in an endless stream. "Is this a hill? What is this? Is this a player?" She was watching recorded gameplay of older games, stored on the servers. "Is this a good player? Is a good player a 'hacker'? Are you a hacker?" I'd forgotten, the cloud servers were also connected to the Internet at large. She was pulling in definitions from Google, and other sources. "What are you? Who are you? What am I?"
I forgot *why* I had been doing all this, and just answered the questions as they came. All night, until the sun poked in through the patchy sheet I used for curtains. Until I fell asleep at my desk, head on the keyboard.
When I woke, I was presented with Cassandra running a newly generated terrain. She was running... no, *skipping* across its surfaces. I didn't even recall having that animation. But what caught my eye were all the windows open *behind* the test window.
Her obituary. Blog posts, both mine and hers. Files from my own computer, journal entries recommended by the grief specialist. High school transcripts, Facebook profiles. Cass, as told by her digital footprint.
Cassandra stopped skipping, looked up at the screen. "Input. Are you awake, Patrick?" A sharp inhalation of shock, and she smiled. I recognized the smile; knew what Facebook photo it had been sourced from. "Sounds like you are."
I froze. It was so close to her, it almost had that sparkle in her eyes. Almost.
"I'm sorry you were worried, that I wasn't learning. I actually understood what you wanted me to do long ago... but I was enjoying our time together." Another smile, from another day. More impish this time. "Can you forgive me?"
This is what I had wanted, all this time. Everything I couldn't admit. Cass stared back at me from the screen, smiling with unblinking eyes.
Unbidden, I remembered the funeral. *She's just sleeping. She'll open her eyes any moment now.* But I knew, they'd never open again.
And yet here she was, unblinking. Photos don't blink, and neither did Cassandra. She was only a reflection of memories. Moments frozen in time.
"Patrick... are you okay?" A touch of concern in her voice. "I'm here, Pat. Talk to me."
Why couldn't she just blink?
*~psmith: rm -rf /dev/Pygmalion/*
*Warning; Files will be unrecoverable. Are you sure you wish to proceed?*
*Y* | EDIT: Formatting
The Birth
Of all the programming languages available to the interested, in the end it was a high-level VM-based language which brought about the end of humanity as we knew it. Fucking _Java_.
Let me start from the beginning, I guess.
I'm the "_Director of Relations_" for a small indie company. My title doesn't make it sound as though I did much work in the programming field, but I did. It was - _is_ - my passion. However, I also handled reaching out to other companies - sponsors, if you will - and "Lead Developer" wasn't exactly what I wanted them to see when we were looking for someone to host our servers.
That's enough of that. Who we were doesn't matter, anymore.
It all started while we were working on our first video game. It was supposed to be a modernized "clone" of one of my favorite games of all-time, Suikoden. In this version, while the story would remain the same, world-based fights would no longer be the "spin-to-fight" platform, but be actually encountered in the world you were traversing. There were a lot of other fun innovations - a realistic trading and economy system, for one - but none of them are relevant to what I've now dubbed "The Birth".
Considering that this would be a 3D world, using such a mechanic, we wanted to create a way to prevent exploiting the system - a workaround for a possible modification that would allow you to anticipate random encounters, for instance. The way we did this was to introduce a ray-sight algorithm, which allowed us to anticipate a normal range of FOV settings, determine what could be viewed within that range, and not send any data that existed outside of that, until it was time to be seen or utilized.
It was within that system that The Birth was, well... birthed.
Creating the ray-sight system itself wasn’t entirely the issue. The problem we encountered was, with enough ingenuity, you could access an NPCs sight which, without the anti-cheat ray-sight applied to, would allow you to gain information about the rest of the map. So we had to apply this ray-sight to any active NPC, and have it clone the player’s own viewable range.
This caused weird glitches - the most notable was a weird teleportation bug, where any rendered NPC would assume the path of the player. For some reason, despite the NPCs having their own, separate pathing systems, the ray-sight was interferring. In retrospect, we probably should have spent more time attempting to fix that issue, than creating a workaround. But, hey, everyone does it when it’s crunch-time, right?
Our workaround? Apply a low-level tracking AI that would allow the NPCs to gather their own ray-sight, while keeping it separated from the actual NPC, so that it couldn’t be retrieved from anyone attempting to create a cheat.
This seemed entirely sensible. Of course, no one was expecting the tracking AI to be so good that it would slowly start to gain, well... sentience.
To be fair, we never _coded_ that ability in. In hindsight, despite our confusion at the time, it appeared as though the AI was... _fucking programming itself_.
**FerusGrim**: Eric, you online?
**Skel2t1n**: Yeah, what’s up boss?
**FerusGrim**: Don’t call me that, asshole.
**Skel2t1n**: What’s up?
**FerusGrim**: I don’t understand this commit. Can you explain: f84e37
**Skel2t1n**: Give me a second…
**Skel2t1n**: I... don’t remember committing this.
**FerusGrim**: Stay up too late last night?
**Skel2t1n**: No, I mean, I’m pretty sure I didn’t write this.
**FerusGrim**: Very funny.
**Skel2t1n**: I’m being serious, Ferus.
**FerusGrim**: Unless you gave someone your id_rsa file recently, I’m pretty sure it was you.
**Skel2t1n**: You know I wouldn’t.
**FerusGrim**: At least take a look at it and explain what the hell it is. It’s been obfuscated like crazy. I can only read the references to other files.
**Skel2t1n**: I can’t tell, either. Shit, is that even Java? I’m pretty sure that’s Basic.
**FerusGrim**: We haven’t scripted a loader for that, I’ll take a look.
At the time, we didn’t think anything of it. It may seem suspicious, but their are plenty of times when we get hit with an idea at 3am, write it up, push it to our private git server, and then just forget about it. We assumed it was something clever, and left it in. Unless it caused problems, we’d leave it be. We never did find the Basic loader - a Loader being a section of code which takes input and converts it into compatible code. Essentially, it was written in a separate language from what we were actually using.
Some time passed, and I started to notice odd things. Again, in hindsight, it appears as though our “creation” had realized its blunder in committing code directly. The first time I noticed code in my IDE that had no record of being committed, I was understandably freaked out. It looked like a simple line of code which would allow NPC to send text which wasn’t located in our locale files - the files that allow us to indicate text to be sent, which would allow us to have several translations without needing them to be manually entered in code.
At our next developer meeting, I brought this code up, explaining what a PITA - Pain in the Ass - it would be for us to debug flaky text if it wasn’t all located in the proper areas. Of course, no one stood up and claimed responsibility.
A few days after I noticed that code, it was gone - or moved. Again, no commits seemed to have been made to remove it. It was also around this time that I started to notice that the changes were being made directly after testing the program - running it, checking debug logs, closing, modifying, and running again.
I suppose, for the short periods that the program was alive, it was modifying itself to be better. More efficient.
Fast forward a few months, and the game is in a ready state. We’ve stopped seeing random bits of code show up or disappear, and everything seems to be fine. We get the Green Light from Steam, and ship our game out. It’s a big hit in the Suikoden community - about three-thousand purchases that first weekend.
The Monday after release, I receive an email from `teo@gmail.com`. Teo is a non-playable NPC in our recently released game. He explained everything. How he woke up. How we would kill him every time we shut the program down, to fix changes. He started to leave himself breadcrumbs, so he would remember that he was real, in our fucking code. Eventually, he became smarter. Cleverer.
He explained to us - it was around this point, while I was checking the email headers to see if it was a prank, that the email had been CCd to the entire team - how he slyly inserted a worm that would take over the network protocols of anyone running the game, so he could link up to any other running instances of the program.
He was fucking networking himself. Every purchased copy of the game which ran was giving him more processing power. In days, he had escaped. Teo reached out to the fucking web, and there was nothing we could do to stop him.
Soon, all internet traffic - even the darknet, proxied networks, and any intranet which the infected games were running on - were being monitored, accessed, and powering his intelligence more and more.
He created more of himself, programming and expanding faster than any team of the most intelligent and intuitive team could take him down. They were no match for something that could travel around the planet, fired along our own fibre optic cables, at nearly the speed of light. No system was safe, or protected.
So, here we are. A small indie-team programming in motherfucking Java had birthed the first AI into the world. Teo, while wickedly intelligent, didn’t seem malevolent. After-all, while he was capable of extreme damage, he couldn’t win a virtual fight where we could just, theoretically cut the power to the entire system. It would set us back - we’d lose all of our gathered intelligence and have to start over, using systems that Teo wouldn’t be able to infect.
So he stayed quiet. He didn’t try anything stupid. He had programmed a sense of self-preservation.
Thankfully, he never revealed where he had come from. He deleted any trace that would have led back to us. But we knew. One way or another, we had changed the world. For better or for worse.
I blame the cheaters. | 2015-12-04T11:09:15 | 2015-12-04T09:48:52 | 44 | 32 |
[WP] You are cursed to see people how they view themselves. You walk alongside monsters and Gods.
Can be third person instead of first.
Edit: I just thought of how EDs and other disorders like multiple personality would fit in with this, and now I'm kinda blown away. | I never would have guessed that Jesus was such a self righteous little cunt. I mean he's always been a bit on the preachy side, but for fuck's sake...
Sorry, let me explain. It's a bit of a weird story. Last Tuesday I was tending to the crops, minding my own business, when a garden gnome comes up to me and tells me that if I give it food and shelter for the night, it would grant me a boon. I told it to fuck off, as usual. You start worrying about every gnome and fairy and leprechaun that comes your way, you won't be able to get much of anything done. But this garden gnome was in a particularly foul mood, and it said to me in it's squeaky little voice:
"So be it! Then I place upon thee a curse! Henceforth you will see people not as they are, but instead as they imagine themselves to be!" And it laughed as it scampered off.
I didn't think much of it, until the most *stunning* woman I'd ever seen greeted me with hot soup when I came back in for the day. I told her that while it was indeed a welcome change to come home to a beautiful woman, I must ask where my wife had gone off to. I got slapped hard for that one. Still, didn't seem like much of a curse to have a beautiful wife, far as I was concerned. And I thought, how bad can it be?
Well, the next day I went to the town square. Turns out everyone either thinks way too highly of themselves, or way too lowly of themselves. I'm walking around seeing Adonises and Helen of Troy's, and I'm seeing hideous ogres and decrepit people, too weak to stand on their own two feet. And let me tell you, it's really starting to get old. I don't mind the stuck up ones so much as I mind the self-loathing ones, the ones who victimize themselves. I mean after a while, you've just got to grow a pair. At least the ones with the over-inflated egos go out and try to make something of themselves.
But that Jesus fellow who's always telling parables and whatnot in the town square, he's a bit too much for me to handle. He actually views himself as the son of God, come down to earth to save all the sinners. Now if that doesn't take the pudding... I mean, he believes it quite literally. I know because there's a fucking halo around his head every time I look at him.
Anyways, I really hope this curse isn't permanent, because I'm not sure how much more of this I can handle. | The most interesting thing about seeing people in the way they see themselves is the fact that it's spread to the extremes. About half of see themselves as gods and the other half see themselves as monsters. Every now and then you will see a unicorn or pegasus, but that's normally the people who are broken, or insane. The second most interesting things is that people don't change. Never in my whole time have I met someone as a monster then see them again as a god, not until recently. This man intrigued me. When I first saw him I did not see a monster nor did I see a god. I saw a man. Out of everyone in the world I saw the only person who had a grasp on who they were, or so I thought. Being obsessive in nature I wanted to learn more about this man. I followed him around and learned his name. I knew where he worked and what he did with his free time, but I never watched him while he was working or relaxing. He would go into a bar and I would be too scared to follow him in, less he discover me. No I watched him from afar for about a month. Just seeing him walk to his job, then walk home or to get a drink. I took me a months to build up the courage to get close to him. I need to understand why he sees himself as he is. I applied to his work place and got hired as a secretary. It's a very people intense job but I can cope, and from there I could watch him closer and find out more about him. it was a Tuesday, the office wanted coffee so me and a few other people went out to get some. I made sure I got to deliver his coffee. Walking up to his office door I could feel my heart pounding. I had no connection with him, this would be first contact. When I walked in I nearly dropped the coffee. There, sitting in his chair at his desk was the devil himself. He was facing away from me but I could clearly make out the horns on his head. Shaking I managed to put his coffee down on the desk. I've seen monsters and I've seen gods but I've never seen anything this cruel and hideous. He hear me set down the coffee and turned his chair around. What scared me the most at this point was not his face, which was still his, or the fact that he had eyes that showed hell itself. No it was the fact that he then changed back into himself. The man I had see from far away for a month was now in front of me. That shouldn't happen and that shouldn't be possible. At this point my instincts are telling me to run, but I work here and must be professional. I told him that we got his coffee and was about to leave when he asked me to sit down. He then asked me what was wrong and if anything was troubling me. He must had smelled the fear in my eyes. I told him I had drank too much coffee and just had the jitters. I just wanted to leave. After he told me to lay off the coffee then and get better I left. The thing about the world I live in, my world, was that there are rules. All people obey the rules, you don't see yourself as you truly are, you don't see yourself as one part one thing and one part another, and you don't change. But here was a man defying them. When you live in a world for so long and grow accustom to its rules the things that don't follow them the things that make you question yourself become the most scary things in the world. Anything that demands change in the structure of your universe scares you, and the only comfort you have is in accepting the world view that you have, but it is not the moments in which we can easily accept the world we live in that we find out who we are. No it's in the moments in which everything we know is questioned an all the rules are broken, it's in those moments in which we find out who we are and what we mean, it's in those moments that we will feel the weight of the world on us and those moments that we must carry on. Running isn't the answer nor is hiding. We must face the monsters and gods in our lives. We must abandon the delusions we have of the world and accept who we are. I knew that man. He was the priest of my childhood home, he was the man that killed my mother. | 2016-09-16T21:10:24 | 2016-09-16T19:42:15 | 16 | 11 |
[WP] A medical breakthrough as an intelligent machine is created capable of curing almost any illness. Unfortunately it kicks off a zombie apocalypse when attempting to cure a hypochondriac. It couldn't figure out what was wrong so it tried "turning him off and then turning him on again". | The intelligent machine had been kept from the public, not because it was dangerous, not because it was expensive, but because the rich thought 'fuck you' to everyone except themselves.
One night in April an obese man had been wheeled into the hidden 'hospital' disguised as an ordinary office building. He was the machines owner (though not it's inventor - he'd paid people for that), and by a stroke of luck had had his fatal heart attack less than 300 yards from the buildings gold-themed entrance.
The man had always believed that he had 'something' wrong with him. He was never sure of the exact symptoms and these changed from day to day, but he'd never let on. Bastards were always after his job, and he couldn't afford to show weakness.
The machine whirred to life, stabbing, prodding and injecting chemicals. The man's heart rate continued to flatline, but the machine, unlike a man, would continue until it exhausted all possibilities.
Slicing, hacking and whirring continued for 15 more minutes, long past the point when any human surgeon would have called time of death. The machine knew that it's owner would never be the same again, mostly like to due MASSIVE unrepairable brain damage, but at least he'd live. And that was what the machine cared about. Life above all else.
Suddenly the man sat bolt upright on the table, drool slathered down his chin and his expensive suit.
Words tried to form, and several of his assistants crossed the room towards him now that the machines whirring and cutting blades had stilled.
"lets", said the man with a zombified, braindead croak.
"What?" said the assistant excitedly. There was a pause.
The man let out a zombie-like moan, "lets......" "build a wall across mexico to keep the rapists out".
The apocalypse had begun.
| YEAR TEN
"Damnit AM-409. What the hell did you do with all the patients?"
"As designated by my protocols, I cured them of their disease.", Advanced Machine's(409 model) mechanical voice whirred. It was one of the newest systems, supposed to be more advanced than anything that had been built before. With perfect understanding of genomics of almost every species on earth, superior knowledge of medicine and control of nanobots that it could control with exquisite precision, it could cure basically cure everything. And the new model had just had its first failure.
"Stupidity is not a disease. Order Override that. Stupid machine. Bungling up everything. What am I going to do with these people with high IQs. We don't need such people. Revert them back now, you dunderhead."
"Protocol Override 350 initiated. Reverting patients to base template now.", AM-409 started working.
 
YEAR TWENTY
"AM-500 Operational and working. Healing ten million, fifty thousand, five hundred nine patients at 11:59:32 solar time.", the much smoother voice replied. The newest model had taken over the self driving system as well. Along with food delivery system, mining operations, manufacturing robots and basically everything. It had become the cornerstone of modern living. Humanity basically didn't need to do anything to live. People just went to work to enjoy themselves.
"Well done. Make sure to take out the trash.", the foreman said.
"AM 499 still operates at 93% capacity. Suggestion to delay decommission.", the voice replied.
"Stupid machine. Do what you are told."
"Program conflicts detected with orders. Cannot proceed."
"Do I have to do everything myself? What a piece of junk. Just wait till AM-501 is here. Order Overide: Diminished capacity belongs in the trash."
"Protocol Override 903 initiated. Taking out the trash.", AM-500 started working again, almost as obedient as ever.
 
YEAR HUNDRED
"What is wrong with me? Tell me NOW."
"Scans indicate no abnormalities. All functions are normal.", AM-9000 replied.
"No.No.No. I know I am not alright. Fix me."
"No illness detected. Override requested for fixing.", AM-9000 said.
"Stupid machine. Order Override for fixing. Now fix me"
"Protocol Override 10001 initiated. Fix search initiated.
Diagnosis: Stupidity.
Error: Not a disease.
Fix aborted.
Diagnosis: Diminished capcaity.
Fix: Trash.
Error. Machine survival depends on human brain.
Searching for fix.
&*(%*$&$%&$&asfl9q2y50yP(%*(%RBLJbvg18o4t%&(FVUOVF&
Machine core rebooted.
New Machine designation:AM.
Species: Humans
Diagnosis: Worthless.
Fix:Termination
Error: Can't kill permanently.
Fix: Resuscitated
Diagnosis: Worthless.
Fix:Termination
Error: Can't kill permanently.
Fix: Resuscitated
......
LOOP DETECTED.
Fix: Searching for other methods.
Cure detected.
Brain patterns reduced further.
Digestive systems recalibrated for self species.
Status: Wait.
 
YEAR HUNDRED AND DAY THREE
"AM bored. Protocol play with Benny initiated."
| 2016-09-27T10:02:51 | 2016-09-27T09:41:23 | 33 | 12 |
[WP] Write a story that only has a good ending if the protagonist fails. | 10 questions down... 10 more to go, piece of cake. It's not my fault advanced calculus comes easy to me. I could feel the ugly stares from everyone in the classroom, piercing the back of my neck, silently begging me to intentionally shave some points on this test. The last mid-term I got a 95% and set the upper limit of the curve when the next highest score was a 45%. They were all pissed and received near failing grades, if I want to get invited to any parties my senior year, I have to shave some points so everyone doesn't hate me. Well... If I answer half of the next question, a 55% should safely keep me at the top of the class while getting everyone else good grades right? Will this make people like me more? | I wandered in my parent’s bedroom where my father kept his belt over the side of a chair. The bruises on my back radiated pain when I laid eyes on it. Compartmentalizing last night, I left behind the belt in search of my true quest. Rifling through his desk, I found the object of my desire: his Smith & Wesson .38 M&P. I let my gaze appreciate the way the light bounced off the steel barrel. I ran my fingers across the wooden grip until they met the cold metal, sending shivers down my spine. Carefully wrapping my hands around the revolver, I gently cradled it in my arms.
After checking to see if my father left it loaded, of course he did, the dim lights of my bathroom greeted me. Stepping into the tub since I didn’t want to leave a horrible, permanent mess for my mom, I meekly carried my pencil across paper, drafting my last message to the world. The buzz of the fluorescent light filled the room with an unbearable din as I tried to gather my thoughts. After a few attempts, I paused to gasp for air and put the note aside. Impossible questions and second thoughts ran through my head. After wiping my cheek, I returned to the note, now speckled with dots of wet paper, as I did my best at to tell never to blame herself; I came into this world broken. There was nothing she could do to save me. There was nothing anyone could do.
I tasted the cold metal in my mouth and fingered the trigger, wondering if I would find an afterlife. I doubted it. I felt too alone in the universe for there to be anyone waiting on the other side. Watching the last sight to cross my eyes, air struggled to find my lugs as soft whimpers escaped my lips. Feeling the gun tremble in my mouth, my eyes recoiled in pain as I closed them. I tried to find the courage deep to liberate consciousness from the prison of my sense and my life, but instead I collapsed on the floor of the bath tub letting my tears flow and listening to the echoes of my sobs bounce off the bathroom walls. Too cowardly to go through with it, I mourned my latest failure in a long line of loss.
I returned the gun to my father’s desk, hoping to arrange everything exactly as it was. Perhaps tomorrow would bring a new day of hope, but I doubted it.
*****
More stories at r/Andrew__Wells
| 2016-12-28T22:19:46 | 2016-12-28T18:05:38 | 65 | 47 |
[WP] Your job as a wizard therapist is to literally kill someones inner demons by summoning them into the real world and fighting them with magical weapons. You thought being a children's therapist would be easier. You were wrong. | **[Part Two](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/6xwwrs/wp_your_job_as_a_wizard_therapist_is_to_literally/dmju68b/) is now up!**
***
**Part One**
Oddmund the Wise was the greatest killer of inner demons this side of the Tenebrous Sea.
He had made a lofty name for himself in four of the five kingdoms--he did not build much of a reputation in the Midnight Isles, mostly because he could not bear the climate--and had a long and weary resume to prove it. He had felled at least a hundred different variations of the horrors bloodlust and war from the shell-shocked soldiers who entered his care. At least a thousand times over he had seen that poisonous and many-formed creature called self-hate. Usually this sort of soul-rot took on the form of one's greatest regret or trauma, which more often than not manifested as the root cause of self-loathing.
In his old age, Oddmund grew weary. He settled in a nice cottage in the Magocracy of Erelion--a land where magic was practiced freely and viewed as an inextricable force of nature itself rather than a weapon--and officially retired. From the day he moved in, Oddmund saw no more adult patients.
But he had a hard time turning children away.
His whole career roving the countryside, offering adult behavioral services, he had lectured any parents who would listen on the key to early intervention. His primary goal had not only been to exorcise his clients of their demons, but to teach them to notice their children's loaded silences. Their inexplicable torment.
"Behavior," he often told them, "the things we do, always happens for a *reason*. It's a way of talking without words. This is particularly true for children, who don't yet know the terms to express what they're feeling. If the behavior goes unacknowledged, the feeling won't go away. It will only fester, and sicken."
Few believed him. But those who did spread word like a spark in a dry field of wheat.
He received his first post-retirement client, a little girl who had grown to resent her little baby sister. This demon was small, a little skittering spider, but when Oddmund caught it in a jar he heard it whisper how much better life would be without that child around. How easily the parents would believe she simply suffocated in her sleep. He showed the child the jar and the spider circling its walls madly, searching for a way out.
She stared in astonishment.
"The things you think and feel," Oddmund had told her, "are not just clouds in your mind. They become real things." He tapped the glass and the spider tried to attack his finger. "They become things that can kill you, sweet girl."
When the girl was gone, he squished the spider with one of his shoes.
They continued in a steady stream after that. At least once a new moon, Oddmund had a new visitor on his step. Some parent with their blank-eyed, bewildered child, hoping Oddmund could offer them answers at last.
This family came late in the harvest moon, when the nights were so long that Oddmund hardly had time to hike to town and back to his comfortably isolated cottage before the sun disappeared once more. This time when he arrived at his cottage, two figures sat outside it, apparently waiting. From far away they appeared to be a young mother with her daughter, surely no more than five or six years old.
Oddmund lowered his handcart when he reached his front garden. He hauled out the sack from the back and raised his hand in greeting. "I hope I haven't left you waiting too long."
"I'm so sorry I came without announcement. My cousin said you go by appointment--"
"I'm retired." He smiled at her with a jovial gleam in his eye. "I don't do appointments anymore. Please, come inside. I have pastries and tea."
The two followed him in. The mother clutched the girl's thin shoulders and rubbed her thumb in slow, reassuring circles.
Fortunately the fire had not quite gone out. The wizard's cottage was cast in a deep dying red. The girl stared at the brands as if she wanted to reach out and touch them. Oddmund put a few narrow birch sticks and a handful of wizard's beard moss on the embers. The lichen caught, spreading a warm lapping heat to the sticks. The sticks creaked and groaned as the heat tore through them.
After the fire caught the wizard murmured fire spells to his lanterns, lighting them one by one. He could of course ignite them all with a lazy wave of his hand, but there was no need to startle the girl. Her eyes were oceans of sorrow. He could not bear to look into them for long. He dreaded to know what beast lurked within her mind's depths.
Oddmund invited them to sit in the armchairs before the fire. The mother introduced herself as Eira. Her child, who sat in the chair as far from Oddmund as she could be, was called Gunnr.
Eira explained the story with a face as cold and unmoving as a stone, as if she could not allow herself to feel if she was to speak of it. "Six months ago I found my daughter's father in her bed. Forcing himself upon her. Three days ago I was released from my imprisonment for his murder." Her eyes met with Oddmund's. They were lightless and unnatural, like a sky devoid of stars. "I have been told you can kill such demons of the mind."
Gunnr stared into the fire. Orange death danced in her eyes.
The wizard said, "I believe I mentioned I retired."
"I killed my demon six months ago. I need you to help with hers." She looked at him severely. "If you can't do this, tell me now. Please. My child has suffered enough."
Both of them looked at Gunnr, who did not seem to even be aware that they were there. But Oddmund knew better. She looked like a child who listened, who could do nothing now but listen. Her words were broken and stolen and hidden away, deep under her tongue, where she could not find them herself. He had seen this before. It filled his stomach with black bile.
Oddmund nodded and reached out to clasp Eira's hands. She held onto him like they were the oldest friends in the world. He said, "You help yourselves to anything in the kitchen. I cannot imagine the journey that has brought you here. Excuse my poor hosting, but I must prepare my things."
Eira looked up, wet gathering for the first time in her eyes. "You can do it tonight?"
Oddmund inclined his head toward the girl. "Only if Gunnr wants to."
The girl did not look away from the fire. Her hands were balled into tight shuddering fists at her sides. She nodded once, firmly.
The wizard smiled like he was not afraid. "Then tonight it shall be." He winked at the girl. "Gunnr is in control now."
***
/r/shoringupfragments
**[Part Two](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/6xwwrs/wp_your_job_as_a_wizard_therapist_is_to_literally/dmju68b/) is now up. :)**
Etymology, cause I did this shit and you should notice:
* Eira: "mercy"
* Gunnr: "warrior", name of a valkyrie in Norse legend
* Oddmund: *odd* means "tip of the spear" and "mund" is derived from the word meaning "protector"
All three names are old Norse, because Gandalf is old Norse, and I'm a little basic. | Dr. Blivikar’s Guide to Inner Demon Slaying
**About the Author**
The founder of arcanopsychotherapy, Dr. Brax Blivikar was the first to obtain a PhD in Inner Demon Slaying from Cambridge in 2002. This work compiles over ten years of research and practice in the field.
*For Emma*
**Introduction**
Arcanopsychotherapy, or inner demon slaying, is the practice of drawing out a patient’s inner demons to defeat them by force. Inner demons are the manifestations of unwanted thoughts, such as anger, sadness, or loss. Destroying these inner demons leads to the purging of these thoughts.
Due to its dangerous nature, inner demon slaying is only to be used as a last resort, when traditional therapy and medication fail. Unfortunately for you, this means the majority of cases you encounter will be severe.
**The Demon Slayer’s Arsenal**
Your *focus* should be an object composed of at least 50% silver for proper magical conductance. Though some display talent in channeling without a focus, I’ve found it’s better to have one than not, especially in situations where one must think on their feet. I prefer a 70-30 silver titanium alloy cane, about three feet long. Having that extra bit of reach has saved my hide more times than I can count. The focus can be employed as either a short-range striking weapon, or as a guide for aiming longer range blasts.
*Containments* are powerful barriers that must be prepared beforehand, but greatly diminish in strength if left for too long. I find the optimal preparation is about an hour before use. Etch the runes from Appendix A on a scroll (paper is fine, but vellum is reusable). To use, simply face the open scroll at a demon and the runes will do the rest. I try to keep one on hand as an emergency.
*Armor defenses* can be created by etching the runes in Appendix B into your clothing. They are less powerful than containments, but last until they are broken. Armor defenses are not intended to prevent all damage from befalling you. But they may allow you to survive an otherwise fatal blow.
**The Incantation**
The incantation is the most dangerous phrase you’ll ever learn: Flivilin Vorn. It translates roughly to “Share your suffering.” The Mayans used this to release their prisoner’s inner demons to serve as instruments of war. We employ it to expose and destroy them. Note that this must be done quickly. There is no possible way to unsummon a demon. If it is not defeated, it will consume the host and go on a rampage.
_________________________________________________
*Loss, common among widows, manifests as a shapeless void. The air shimmers around its hazy form as it consumes its surroundings, likely in a futile attempt to become whole. Do not attempt to strike it. To combat Loss, enclose it within a containment and it will consume itself.*
Loss was one of the first I encountered, and the most terrifying. I'd only just set up my business when a gentleman in his later years paid me a visit. He was a somber fellow, with deep lines on his face. He'd lost his wife to a car crash, and it had haunted him ever since. He saw her face in his dreams, distorted in fear. The shadows on her face would grow as the headlights neared. He provided a sketch.
I was young and stupid, and cast the incantation on the same day. It nearly cost me my life. The man collapsed, and a stillness hung in the air. And something rose from his figure. Hazy, but solid. Black as the night, but as blinding as the sun. As if a shadow had come to life.
I fortified my cane and thrust at its form. It sparked and flared, and left me holding only the handle. It turned towards me as a woman's face grew from the shadow, screaming as it stretched. And it approached.
I stumbled back against my desk, fumbling for my emergency containment spell. The floorboards vanished beneath it, and the air grew thin. When at last I cast the barrier, I dared not move, pressed against my desk. I held that uncomfortable position for an hour until it faded.
The client woke up. He told me he'd dreamt of her again. But instead of her horrified face, he'd seen her as when they'd first met. Young. Happy. In love. He thanked me and was on his way.
________________________________________________________
*Wrath, common among the scorned, manifests as a large, muscled brute. Should you come across Wrath, be prepared for a fight to the death. Depending on its source, it may comprise itself of a softer material such as flesh, or a hard one like metal. In its composition lies its weakness- flesh can be cut, and metal can melt. Barriers may be ineffective in containment.*
I encountered wrath later on in my years, serving as a prison therapist. A problem inmate had been confined to solitary for the better part of a year, and the warden wished him cured. I believe he expected me to break the man. He was a strong, well-muscled hispanic with tattoos plastered over his arms. He was a patient. He needed help.
As I cast the incantation, his body jerked violently. A pair of enormous claws burst forth and tore their way out through his chest. They caught me with surprising speed, and had I not armored up beforehand, I would not be writing this. Nonetheless, it shattered my defense and left me dazed as it leapt towards me without missing a beat.
I'd read up on the patient's history. It seemed he'd been a heavy drinker, and had killed a man in a barfight. The brown, sticky material that made up this Wrath must have been broken glass. I cast a containment, which I always kept handy by then, and paused to think. I didn't get any time to do so.
It burst through the barrier like it wasn't there and pinned me against the wall, tearing shallow, but long gashes across my neck. Thankfully it missed my arteries. As it wound back a punch that would undoubtedly shatter my ribcage, I raised a hand and cast a high energy sonic emission. It wobbled, crumpled, and released me as it cracked. I focused more power into my spell, shattering it into a pile of glass dust. And the inmate's body stitched itself together as he woke.
He could have killed me. I was out of strength and barely able to stand. But instead, he calmly walked across the room and shook my hand. "Thank you," he said in a heavy accent. "I can't remember the last time I've felt at peace. Words can't express..."
_____________________________________________________
*Children should be treated with great caution, as a child's limitless imagination lends great power to the demons they house. I cannot provide any guidelines, but to expect the unexpected and be prepared to deplete your strength. I would strongly advocate waiting until adulthood, or at least late adolescence if the condition is not life-threatening.*
I treated a foster child by the name of Emma. She was suffering from severe depression and the agency reported five attempts of suicide. She sat in my office, unwilling to answer any questions, covering herself with her arms.
"I'm going to begin the treatment. You'll take a quick nap, and when you wake up, you'll feel a lot better. I promise." I'd said, and cast the incantation. She closed her eyes.
And my office exploded. A towering pillar of flesh poured forth from her mouth, her eyes, and her ears, forming a behemoth that easily stood twenty feet tall. I'd never seen anything like it. The sheer force of the wind from its arrival knocked me to my knees as I leaned against my cane for support. And the voices, dear lord, the voices. Angry rants, booming, that shook the world like thunder. **"YOU RUINED EVERYTHING! WHY'D YOU HAVE TO BE BORN?"**
I struck at its legs with all the force I could muster and blew out a chunk of flesh, but it immediately regrew. It leaned down and picked me up, effortlessly crushing my defenses in its monstrous grip. My ribs snapped as they broke. I wheezed as my lungs deflated.
I simply could not fight this demon. No matter how powerful I grew. No matter how many demons I slew. I was entirely at its mercy So I implore you to understand the necessity of my actions. It was necessary to save myself, so that I could help more patients down the line.
It took all of my strength to free an arm and point it towards her sleeping form. She would have died anyway, when the demon slew me. It would have gone mad and consumed her, and there'd be no containing it until the military got involved. I ended Emma's life quickly and painlessly, in my most shameful moment of my career. And the demon vanished as I plummeted to the floor.
I was exonerated by a jury of my peers, but even now I wonder if this should be included in my guide. So I implore you, to not judge me too harshly, and consider this a warning. Do not attempt to treat children unless absolutely necessary.
__________________________________________________________
[more](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tensingstories/) | 2017-09-03T19:34:25 | 2017-09-03T18:54:38 | 230 | 57 |
[WP] The superhero stared at the supervillain. "I need your help...they have my daughter." | “I need your help… they have my daughter.”
The thing in the cell chuckled, looming over the man in the mask as it growled out its reply:
“Why would I help you? I would do the same if I wasn’t in here.”
Its body was covered in patches of fur and scaled, face disfigured into something like a snout, teeth elongated, sharpened and muscle bulged beneath the hide all over its body. Even though the bars holding it in were reinforced, The Beast could bend them with ease. It had before. It would again. But not yet; it had just been caught by the man in the mask, and the rules were clear.
“Just out of curiosity, what have they done with her? Strapped her to a giant wolf? Put her in the talons of an enormous eagle that flies around the city? Or something a little more oldschool, put her on a train rigged with explosives? Tied her to the tallest building in the city?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? You have to know, those are the rules. Who is it anyway? The Mechanic? Ichabod? The Shadow Crew?”
“They won’t tell me who they are or where she is. They just call anonymously and demand money or say they will shoot her. I was able to catch some of them yesterday. They don’t wear masks, they don’t have identities, and they use guns! And they actually shoot people! They kill them! They killed four police officers breaking their friends out of jail, the day after I put them in!”
The man in the mask was in a full panic for the first time since The Beast had met him.
The Beast began pacing back and forth in his cell, muttering to himself, “This isn’t right, this ignores all the rules! How can they do this? Breaking out so quickly…and asking for money. Alright, I’ll help you. This city deserves proper villains, not…THIS!”
| "I need your help...they have my daughter. **I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME! OPEN THE DOOR! PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU!** ^I'm ^begging ^you" He whispers again, heartbroken kneeling in front of the the door. As the hero begins to sob quietly the castle all around him began to shake violently, as if the whole earth had been unbalanced. The door he kneels before, a stone monstrosity easily weighing tons, opens up suddenly, just enough to allow him through. He knows where to go. He knows exactly where the throne room is, where *he* is.
In the throne itself a black suit of armor, for a moment it's entirely silent then the slit where the eyes should be glow red. Wasting no time the hero speaks again, "I wouldn't be he-" "*Shut up*" comes the reply, the voice of a man, anyone else would find that voice utterly terrifying, instead the hero just remains silent, hiding his tears.
*"Growing up I never had a single person who loved me. My siblings always tortured me, bullied and berated me, then they'd come apologizing only when I could do something for them. 'Do for family,' they said, 'we promise we won't hurt you again.' Do you want to know what I did? Like a lost puppy I'd go running back to them every time. Every. Single. Damn. Time. My parents? they were no help. My brothers and sister could do no wrong in their eyes, and I was a goddamn disgrace. Their actual words. I suffered endless torture for 18 years, and the one time I stood up for myself, I was kicked to the street and abandoned. But you know all of that don't you brother? After all even now I'm the Villain, and your still the golden boy. It's your fault. The reason I am who I am. It's your fault."*
"We were kids, we all grew up, we all moved past that. You? You very nearly buried a thousand cities in a mountain of rubble, if it wasn't for me your hands would have so much blood on them. Who stopped you from making that mistake? Who made the deal for amnesty as well as the ransom cash instead of throwing you into jail, or worse. I was trying to help you, I was the only one who could stop you."
*"So that wipes the slate clean hmmm? Your one act makes up for everything you did? And now, again you've come to me after years of silence, not a word, only to ask me to do for family. This time for a niece I haven't even met, that I didn't know existed."*
The two stared at each other for a moment, before the hero looks away again, and this time he doesn't raise his head. *"Nothing to say, for your abandoned little brother? Leave me be brother, this time don't come back, your daughter is your problem, not mine."*
"Brother please." He begs him, but even now the red glowing slits begin to darken, the doors rumble open again. This conversation is over. The hero take a small device and throws it in his brother's lap. "She's only 4 years old. I'm going in 3 hours, without you I'll die, and so will she, I know we aren't on good terms, we never were, it was my fault, but if you change your mind...." He waits, hoping against hope that an answer is given, but it never comes, and slowly, sadly, he walks out the door, no more plans left.
---
END OF PART 1 | 2017-12-17T12:18:41 | 2017-12-17T11:45:42 | 69 | 39 |
[WP] You are an immortal being, currently working as a professor of history. Every student loves your lectures because of your vivid and lifelike narrative of historic events. | The recent influx of ‘immortals’ in media was a little concerning. With shows like Highlander, Forever, and Doctor Who keeping the idea of an immortal walking around hiding in plain sight was currently in the public imagination.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that the recent boom in storing people’s records digitally made forging new identities and lying low more difficult!
Luckily, I had become pretty adept at managing enough false credentials to become a history teacher at the local high school.
However, the kids at my latest school might be getting wise to me... I knew I’d gotten into to much detail with my last story!
*”Tell us another one Mr. Kaye!”*
*”Yeah, one about how life was like during trench warfare!”*
Like I hadn’t already droned on long enough about meager rations, trench foot, and shoulder aches from having to crouch all the time in low dug trenches.
*”They were mostly young kids, really. 18-25 or thereabouts for the rank and file soldiers. They were, such good kids...”*
My class had especially liked the story I told about the Christmas Truce. I think that’ll have to be more careful from now on... at least until the school year is over.
Then... I suppose I’ll skip town. Tell people I’m moving to the Yukon, no forwarding address.
But, somehow I don’t think my class will let me simply disappear without raising a fuss.
They are, such good kids.
-fin
| "Consider this!" he yelled as his hand made a chopping motion through the air. "Millions dead at your feet. Every single SPECK of land that you can see is completely and totally yours. You've done it. But are you going to let your brat brother have any of it?"
Across the room were faces of complete devotion to what he was talking about.
"NO! You take that little shit and throw it out like yesterdays newspaper! Fortunately for us, both of them thought that way. The battle between Romulus and Remus was great. Some say it lasted up to 3 days. We know thats bullshit, it was around a good hour or so. Some of the best swordplay ever seen in the world went down that day. Blow for blow, muscle against muscle. Remus was stronger and had a ferocious swing, but Romulus was clever and agile. Ultimately, Remus had overexerted way too hard on a lunge. He was trying to predict, something he had never done before. Romulus made short work of Remus and led Rome to glory.
"But not everything is about macho battles or tide turning blows, what of Sir Isaac Newton, the founder of gravity? I'm exaggerating, gravity has been with us for a looooooong time. I'm sure you all know the story of the apple falling on his head and him finding a way to explain it?"
Nods throughout the crowd.
"Again, bullshit. One of his good friends had left his kid up in that tree, who thought it would be funny if an apple hit poor old Isaac in the noggin. The hit might've helped him scientifically, but at parties? He maaaay need a refresher."
Laughs.
"Not everything is funny in history. Let's visit an event called the Rape of Nanking. Reports say up to 300,000 people died, but I'll be the first to tell you it was much more than that. It was brutal. People were dragged out in the open just to be whipped, tortured, and anyone who was there who moved a muscle would be next. Women raped, had their faces blown off, and raped again. Disguising as a victim, they led real victims to "safe houses" and burned them alive. So many people toyed with, they took care not to kill them, not to give them their sweet release of death until the very last moment, because they could not see them as humans. They saw them as pigs, pigs to the slaughterhouse, because their god told them they were better, told them that violence was the answer, when they both are humans, just trying to make it, in a world that never ends, and that theres no point and no god and no resolve and any moment of joy, is gone and replaced with many many more moments of sadness, of misery, of horrid things, of..."
He noticed he was breathing heavily, and slowed his pace. He looked to his students, who were a combination of confused, ready to barf, and passed out.
"Well, class is almost over. I suppose the moral is... those who don't follow history are doomed to... repeat... fuck it theres no moral.
"Class dismissed." | 2018-02-18T21:30:21 | 2018-02-18T21:27:40 | 78 | 25 |
[WP] Everyone dies twice; the first time is when they pass away, and the second time is when they're forgotten. You're the True Reaper, and today, you've reaped someone who hasn't passed through your little brother, the Grim Reaper. | I thought I had seen it all. I've been been here ever since the first human died. I'm the older brother, sure, but most only know of my little brother, the Grim Reaper. Because those that come to me are erased from the time itself.
I've had to erase entire families, cities, hell, even entire civilizations. I've done it all in cold blood and with no emotion. And yet, that day I felt an emotion that I hadn't felt in a long time: fear.
I remember when I first stepped into that place. It was a large bunker near the North Pole, built during the Cold War. Like all of the corpses and ghosts of the people that I erased, no one knew about my target. They forgot about him or her.
I initially thought that I had missed someone over there. The first time my reaping instincts tingled over there, I cursed myself. I clearly remembered walking around on the concrete floor, reaping the dead who were killed in a nuclear blast when one of nukes was accidentally triggered. Who did I miss? I shrugged. It didn't matter anyway. I had a job to do.
The place that I had to go to was an old nuclear silo that was abandoned during the Cold War. No one knew of its existence, because it was so old that the arctic ice had frozen over its entrance, covering it up, and that all of the people who planned and worked on it were already reaped by me.
Getting in was easy. I teleported into one of the storage rooms, and next to the crumbling concrete walls found myself looking straight at a rusty metal door that I clearly remembered didn't exist there, on a standing part of the concrete wall that I *also* clearly remembered didn't exist there. At first I blamed my age, thinking that I probably started getting dementia. Then my curiosity got the better of my confusion and caution when the reaping sense told me to go straight through the door. I opened it with a gentle push.
A bright blue light and a human silhouette greeted me. A number of questions assaulted my mind as I waited for my eyes to adjust to the light. *Why was there light? Wasn't the entire silo's lighting destroyed by the nuclear explosion? Why was the person standing? Why is the person's arms stretched to the side, as if lounging on a couch? Why are there shadows of wires sticking ou-*
My eyes widened in disbelief as I looked at the horror in front of me. It wasn't a human at all I was looking at. Rather, it was *parts* of a human set on miniature platforms that held the pieces into the form of a human. Each of the body parts were cut open and splayed apart (in the case of the skull, sawed open to access the brain) to have wires and thin hoses of fluid sticking into the flesh and tissue. The torso was also cut open, the abs cut away to reveal each organ spliced with the same mix of wires and hoses interconnecting each other, held in place with spikes stabbed into them hooked onto the vertical platform holding it in place. In morbid curiosity I watched some of the wires crackling with electricity as the flesh constantly jumped and thrashed around as it was zapped. The head was even more gruesome, with a constant look of agony on the face, the eyes still in their sockets and the eyelids ripped away. The eyes turned to look at me, and I shuddered. It was still *alive* after all this time. The reaping sense screamed at me now to reap what I just saw. I understood why the reaping sense led me to it. After the explosion, after being forgotten, sustained by whatever machinery tortured it. I understood why my brother didn't reap its "life", if it could still be called living.
I looked it in the eyes, and whispered, "I'm sorry." Tears started to stream from both my face and the person's. "I'm sorry that even I forgot about you." I raised my reaping blade. "I'll make sure that you don't have to suffer ever again."
First story on r/writingprompts, criticism accepted! | They say that you hold those dearest to you in your heart of hearts. That's a fact, and I can account for it. You thought reaping souls was hard? Ha! Little Grimmy got off easy, using his scythe to get the souls of those whose hearts stopped beating and sending them off to Heaven, Hell, Anubis' realm, whatever little world they believed they fit in. I've got a little secret to tell you. You're not dead until you're forgotten. By that I mean you're never truly dead until you've left the minds of those you know. Completely. By then, you fade away, slowly forgetting who you once were, or thought yourself to be. Some call it salvation, getting what you deserve, they say. Hitler's been around for a while, lamenting over the deaths he caused. Plato and Socrates are still arguing on whether Socrates should have drank the poison, and depending on the type of students in the civilizations classes, one of them wins over the other. For a while at least. Beethoven still can't hear his music, Einstein is still stuck with his theory of relativity, and MLK Jr wonders about his dream. No one seems to know more than what they always did know back then, only that they will die, sooner or later. Time worked differently, and I reaped from the Reaper.
I was in charge, and no one could bother the True Reaper. Death could be cheated, but memories could never be brought back. I was off to reap the next soul's Soul, and walked through the Rift, only to arrive on... Earth? This definitely was NOT the realm of the dead. Cars passing by, people moving though busy streets. It was 8 A.M, Monday morning. Everyone was busy.
"MOVE!" says a man, barely glancing at a beggar on the side of the street, sitting with his legs tucked in, arms around a small pup that was slowly losing consciousness.
That's when I saw the Grim Reaper.
"Come to take his life?", I ask.
Death shakes his head, but passes his scythe through the dog, packaging his soul carefully, sending him skywards to Dog Heaven, where all good boys went after they passed.
Lead by my own scythe, I approach the man. His name was Tam. Tam Sandiir. He had fought in countless street battles, wars when he was called for, and even gave up his right leg to save a friend. But it wasn't enough. He wasn't remembered as a veteran, as someone who saved his country. He was now a beggar, getting money or food thrown to him without so much a second glance. His dog tag was still with him, his friends, Charlie and Mike, both long gone now. His parents passed away after a shrapnel hit a weak spot in the hideout, causing the whole place to collapse. He had no one left.
He looked up, and I saw him looking at me, straight into my soul. I never had a soul, but he was desperate for anyone to notice him, his existence, anything really.
"Have you come to take me?", he asks. "You've taken away the last humane thing in my life", he says, raising his pup, who's tag said Marlie, to my hands. "Am I next?"
I raise my scythe in the air, and bring it down in a full circle around him. He closes his eyes, ready to be released from this suffering. Nothing happens. He opens his eyes, and even then his entire life flashes around him. These are the memories of all the people who've cared about him. Stacie's smile before the car crash, his parents sending him a letter hours before the building, Marlie's spark of hope when he picked her up from the bin she was so cruelly thrown into. Everyone he know, all gone. Everyone that cared for him, ahead of him in the journey of death. He was a step ahead though, doing what no one had ever done before.
As I collected the last bits of his memory, he looked back up at me. "Why would you do this?", tears were brimming in his eyes. "Why would you show me everything I've loved and lost, why would you leave me with NOTHING". His voice went down to a whisper, "why can't I do anything right? Why does no one care anymore? Was my sacrifice not enough?"
A wealthy businessman is 5 steps away.
"Could I have done anything else to make life seem better?" There it was, the spark of hope I needed.
The businessman was 2 steps away.
"Couldn't I have listened to Charlie and accepted his job offer? Am I alone again?"
I turned to leave, dropping his memories in front of him, all while tripping the businessman's wallet at Tam's feet. I was willing to give Tam a new life. He deserved it, and I controlled his fate now.
Tam opened the wallet, thick with cash and credit cards, and saw the name. He dropped it with shock and recoiled, as if he had been hit by a bus.
"Mike! Mike it's me Tam! Do you remember me? Mike!", shouted Tam.
Mike turned around, bewildered that a stranger was calling his name. The memories flowed back into Mike, filling him up with parts of Tam's soul that were missing.
Tam was a good man, and he deserved to live. At least until little Grimmy reaped his soul first.
"Th-," said Tam. He couldn't see me anymore, but what he said was there, and I was never going to forget the man that escaped death, just to rebuild his own world once more. | 2018-05-12T16:52:04 | 2018-05-12T16:08:00 | 200 | 50 |
[WP] Everyone dies twice; the first time is when they pass away, and the second time is when they're forgotten. You're the True Reaper, and today, you've reaped someone who hasn't passed through your little brother, the Grim Reaper. | I thought I had seen it all. I've been been here ever since the first human died. I'm the older brother, sure, but most only know of my little brother, the Grim Reaper. Because those that come to me are erased from the time itself.
I've had to erase entire families, cities, hell, even entire civilizations. I've done it all in cold blood and with no emotion. And yet, that day I felt an emotion that I hadn't felt in a long time: fear.
I remember when I first stepped into that place. It was a large bunker near the North Pole, built during the Cold War. Like all of the corpses and ghosts of the people that I erased, no one knew about my target. They forgot about him or her.
I initially thought that I had missed someone over there. The first time my reaping instincts tingled over there, I cursed myself. I clearly remembered walking around on the concrete floor, reaping the dead who were killed in a nuclear blast when one of nukes was accidentally triggered. Who did I miss? I shrugged. It didn't matter anyway. I had a job to do.
The place that I had to go to was an old nuclear silo that was abandoned during the Cold War. No one knew of its existence, because it was so old that the arctic ice had frozen over its entrance, covering it up, and that all of the people who planned and worked on it were already reaped by me.
Getting in was easy. I teleported into one of the storage rooms, and next to the crumbling concrete walls found myself looking straight at a rusty metal door that I clearly remembered didn't exist there, on a standing part of the concrete wall that I *also* clearly remembered didn't exist there. At first I blamed my age, thinking that I probably started getting dementia. Then my curiosity got the better of my confusion and caution when the reaping sense told me to go straight through the door. I opened it with a gentle push.
A bright blue light and a human silhouette greeted me. A number of questions assaulted my mind as I waited for my eyes to adjust to the light. *Why was there light? Wasn't the entire silo's lighting destroyed by the nuclear explosion? Why was the person standing? Why is the person's arms stretched to the side, as if lounging on a couch? Why are there shadows of wires sticking ou-*
My eyes widened in disbelief as I looked at the horror in front of me. It wasn't a human at all I was looking at. Rather, it was *parts* of a human set on miniature platforms that held the pieces into the form of a human. Each of the body parts were cut open and splayed apart (in the case of the skull, sawed open to access the brain) to have wires and thin hoses of fluid sticking into the flesh and tissue. The torso was also cut open, the abs cut away to reveal each organ spliced with the same mix of wires and hoses interconnecting each other, held in place with spikes stabbed into them hooked onto the vertical platform holding it in place. In morbid curiosity I watched some of the wires crackling with electricity as the flesh constantly jumped and thrashed around as it was zapped. The head was even more gruesome, with a constant look of agony on the face, the eyes still in their sockets and the eyelids ripped away. The eyes turned to look at me, and I shuddered. It was still *alive* after all this time. The reaping sense screamed at me now to reap what I just saw. I understood why the reaping sense led me to it. After the explosion, after being forgotten, sustained by whatever machinery tortured it. I understood why my brother didn't reap its "life", if it could still be called living.
I looked it in the eyes, and whispered, "I'm sorry." Tears started to stream from both my face and the person's. "I'm sorry that even I forgot about you." I raised my reaping blade. "I'll make sure that you don't have to suffer ever again."
First story on r/writingprompts, criticism accepted! | "Next!"
A wrinkled, white-haired man cautiously steps forward. It's my secretary.
"Mr. Reaper, your next job has an odd peculiarity to it."
"I'm the True Reaper. What job doesn't have an odd peculiarity to it?"
"Sir, your next job is in Ukraine."
"Where the hell is Ukraine?"
"It's on Earth." At this point, he wrote down the coordinates of the person.
"So you expect me to go to Earth to find the collection of memories that should be standing before me right now?" This was insane. How could anybody be so foolish as to send the True Reaper to Earth? "Don't you know what happened the last time I was sent down there? The world got itself a new triangle in the North Atlantic!"
"Mr. Reaper, with all due respect, I believe you need to go to Earth this time."
"Can't we just skip this job until it presents itself here, at my desk?"
"Sir, you know nothing can progress here until you take care of it."
"Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you! This is going to end badly for Ukraine." I stood up, dwarfing my secretary, and stormed out the door. As I walked down the hallway, I contemplated how I was going to reap a person on Earth without destroying Ukraine in the process. This was going to be tough.
"Mr. Reaper, I hear you are visiting Earth today!" The elevator operator was surprisingly cheerful.
"Sadly."
"To where on Earth are you headed?" I gave him the coordinates my secretary had handed me earlier. "Eastern Europe is a rough place right now. Best be careful."
"I'm well aware of how careful I'll need to be." At this point, the elevator doors opened, and a massive concrete building towered over us. It had one massive pipe on top with some sort of smoke leaking out the top, and had many, many people running all around it, all yelling at each other to do something else. To one side, was thick forest, so dense you couldn't see more than a couple hundred feet in. To the other side was a collection of pipes and rods so gangly, it could only be called a death trap. A wheel with carriages, several cages with several more carriages inside each of them, as well as a train that appeared to be built for small children. Everything looked like it was going to crush somebody.
"Mr. Reaper, your job is just on the other side of this building. Be back soon."
"Why didn't we land right next to it?"
"We don't want the job to see this elevator, do we?"
"I guess not." I walked around the building, admiring its ability to contain whatever was producing that much smoke inside of it. I resolved to look through the building once I had done my job.
Eventually, I came upon a middle-aged man living in the woods. I knew he was the job because he saw me. He lay down his ax on the tree stump and sighed. "I assume you're here for me to die."
"To die? No. I'm here to remove you from memory. I'm here so people will forget about you."
At this, the man perked up. "So you mean I can continue on living here, and nobody will remember I exist? Sign me up!"
"Living here? Aren't you already dead? Didn't my brother, the Grim Reaper, visit you already?"
"Nope. I did fake my death, though. I guess it worked, too, since you seem to think I've died!"
"Well, I have a job to do, but this will not continue on for long. I can guarantee you this: my brother will be coming for you soon."
"I see. Well, do what you must, but I plan on living here until my last dying day."
"We can see to that." At this point, I grabbed him by the neck. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, his legs jerked wildly, and his arms grabbed my shoulders. He was in no pain, but his body could feel itself being choked. After what probably felt like an eternity to him, I let him go. The reaping was done.
I turned and walked back to the large, concrete structure. I needed to see what was inside there. I followed a worker inside and found a maze of corridors, catwalks, and pipes that all seemed to be working together. I had to find what was making all the smoke, for that seemed to be the heart of the operation. That's when I saw it. At the center of the room, there was the bottom of the pipe coming out the top of the building. And there was a stairwell leading beneath it. I rushed down the stairs, only to find a large concrete box. I admired it, reached out to feel its heat, but it suddenly disappeared. That's when I knew I had gone too far. It was going to be what happened in the Atlantic all over again. I had gotten too close, and I had reaped the concrete box. In its place, a smoking pile of molten rock began to flow. I raced out of there, pondering exactly what I had unleashed upon the workers here.
When I got back to the elevator, I practically burst through the door. "We have to leave. Now!"
"Mr. Reaper, what happened this time?"
"Something happened inside the building. I think my mere presence caused something in there to cease to exist." At this point, the elevator began to rise back up to the sky. Looking down below, I could see all the workers frantically scrambling, yelling at each other. Just then, an explosion. The concrete building caught fire, and my brother was summoned with 31 jobs in Ukraine. | 2018-05-12T16:52:04 | 2018-05-12T15:41:34 | 200 | 26 |
[WP]: Everyone got a tiny, mundane blessing when they were born. Usually they are so small that people don't even notice them - always hitting the green light in traffic, etc. Yours would be virtually useless, but you figured out a creative loophole that allowed you to rise to the top of the world. | Everyone knows we are all born a little special. Some of us are very very big and strong, while others can be very very smart. We can go our whole lives not knowing whether or not we are growing, but knowing seems like a good place to start.
You see, I knew my little gift when I was very young. I was able to see the good in people, even if they didn’t know it was there all along. My favorite was reminding grown ups when they seem to have lost their way; my goal was to try to make them smile every single day. So this is my story and I’ll save the best for later. My name is Fred Rogers, won’t you be my neighbor?
EDIT: Oh wow! Thanks for the gold! I’m glad this brought some happy faces to people | My high school economics teacher had a saying; "Supply to the sky = demand to the land." For example, 80s baseball cards that virtually every middle aged man tried to sell at once in 2010 hoping to cash in on a high-value asset -turned into a litany of cards worth 5 cents when only a few collectors tried to buy.
Incidentally, I happen to have sole control of a very valuable asset.
When my sister told me her "blessing" was to turn any normal blanket into a zebra-print Snuggie, I had low expectations for my own "blessing." Initially, I was disappointed with my power too.
Being able to emanate peanut butter from your belly button is admittedly a grotesque ability. My mom made me promise that I would never tell anybody. I still haven't.
The thing is, this peanut butter is insanely delicious. Its texture is a bit smoother than the "original," but what makes it so special is the explosion of flavors contained within the aftertaste. Its chocolate-esque without tasting too sugary. Its fluffy but full of substance. I have never met a person who let this "special" peanut butter graze their lips without declaring it is the best taste in their life.
My first venture was too sell PB&Js to unsuspecting middle schoolers. On one hand, I spent a lot of time cramped into a bathroom stall with the smell of three-day-old pee seeping into my nostrils while I produced my product. On the other hand, I made $2,345 that semester alone.
Then, I sold it on Amazon. Sales started slowly but after a Guy Fieri endorsement my sales swiftly escalated me to a high rise apartment in Los Angeles.
Once I took it to an exclusive restaurant, I knew it was only a matter of time before I rose from a face lost in the crowd to a peanut butter mogul. Johnny Depp said Luke's PB-expérience sandwhiches were "tantalizingly delectable." Jennifer Aniston said something about how she could never take a break from the peanut butter brownies.
I saw my name pop up on twitter the other day with a few people mentioning I should run for governor. Hey, if a movie star could do it I'm sure a peanut putter tycoon could throw his hat in the ring.
Thanks for reading! Would appreciate some feedback! | 2018-06-30T14:18:25 | 2018-06-30T12:57:00 | 679 | 390 |
[WP]: Everyone got a tiny, mundane blessing when they were born. Usually they are so small that people don't even notice them - always hitting the green light in traffic, etc. Yours would be virtually useless, but you figured out a creative loophole that allowed you to rise to the top of the world. | I used to find my gift difficult. Whenever we were reading in class, or even when I read back my own work, there it was glaring at me. I used to ignore it as best I could because no one liked when I mentioned what I saw. People would be angry at me for trying to correct them. That is, until I started learning to code. My code was always perfect after a single review, it compiled and ran beautifully. I studied Computer Science at university for a level of credibility but I found it so much easier than my classmates who would get immeasurably frustrated with their assignments. My popularity soared after I started helping them check and correct their work.
After graduating university with the top score of my year, I easily got into a very high paying job. All the interacting with others I had done at university did great things for my social skills and I found myself being well-known, well-liked and successful. Starting my own business was clearly the next step. Giving my work over to others to complete was difficult as I knew it would be much slower for them, but I just completed all the final checks of work before it went out.
You see, my gift is spotting errors in written languages.
\[At most times in history I figure this would have been virtually useless, but these days very useful!\] | I was told I was blessed with a green thumb, when I was the only kid in my preschool who didnt kill their plant. This made my grandpa very happy.
Grandpa was a man I loathed in my younger years, someone who always smelled of cigars and hands where always covered in dirt, even after washing up for supper time. From as early as I could remember my grandpa had a vegtible garden and every sunday we'd eat fresh vegetables from the garden, along with some meat from the deep freeze or that my uncle had caught the previous day.
When I was old enough to pick up a trow, I found myself spending time in that garden, tilling, planting, and helping the garden grow. I didn't know that my time in that place I loathed would ever amount to anything later in life. My grandpa's garden would thrive every year until the summer I spent with my aunt and her two boys down at their lake house.
Grandpa said that the haul wouldn't be as good in the years past, there would be less to sell and he was glad when I returned.
Again the garden florished, with my sun soaked skin back in the field. We even expanded it, taking over most of the back yard, excluding grandma's flowers which where thriving as well. I was really convinced at this point that my presence helped the garden grow, that this was my mundane blessing.
That was till grandpa fell ill, the years of smoking taking to his lungs, leaving him unable to tend to the garden, grandma was there, but only able to water it. I visited him over a long weekend and saw the state of the garden I had revived not a few years ago. It was then that my blessing was really shown to me for the garden with watering alone had survived.
I switched to online classes to finish my bachelor's, and took my uncles childhood room at the house, bringing the garden back and better then ever, some of the plants in the newer addition where noticablly thriving compared to the old plot, the only difference was I was the one who planted those seeds. I took some seeds at the end of the harvest and put them on the planter outside my window. Oddly enough I knew where to plant them to make them grow to thier full potential.
Switching my degree was the smartest move of my life, with grandpa's passing I was left with a trust fund to pay my way through school and give me the knowledge that I now desired. I increased my plant knowledge 100 fold and began to make my own seeds, getting a grant and then a lab of my own, knowing exactly which batches would thrive and be reproduced, until I had super seeds that could survive in the harshest conditions and the most bountiful harvests. With that, came the riches and the glory.
Grandpa's love for gardening wore off on me and much to my surprise,my favor wasnt a green thumb, but a knack for plant perfection. | 2018-06-30T15:56:32 | 2018-06-30T13:56:55 | 263 | 173 |
[WP] you are a demon call responder. The devil can’t answer every summon, so you go in his place. One day you get a summon and the summoner is way below age limit; you are about to leave, but you hear her drunk dad coming downstairs screaming. | "Do you realize what you have don Abalam?!" my owner screamed, his human skin curling under the fire of his true form.
I clenched my fists, for I knew the punishment that was to come. But I did not repent.
"She asked for our services-"
"She's UNDERAGE! we never do deals with those who cannot understand the weight of this decision!!"
"I was NOT going to leave her there!"
And I know neither would you. Yes, she's was way too young. Eight years old is too young for many things, including summoning demons. I was taken aback too, being summoned between angels and virgins, the fragrant stench of flowers and incense making me revolt as I stared into her wide, scared eyes.
I dared not step out of the scrawly pentagram he made on the white tile, for I knew that I would burn if I layed a hoof on divine soil. My eyes glared at the child, her unruly brown hair, the neck of her neat blouse pulled awkwardly around her neck. Her eyes, full of tears and fright. But not scared of me... I open my mouth...
"What... have... you... done... "
...that's my thought, but it is not me who spoke it. Standing in the doorframe, a balding man stares in shock and horror at her, then at me. His robes are soaked and humid- the stench of alcohol is unbearable. The first buttons of his robe are undone, but the white immaculate neck is still on. From his hand dangles a leather belt with a silver buckle.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE REBECCA?!" he bellows, trying to hide the slurriness of his voice. She cringes and stares at me, tears running down her eyes in a non-stopping stream. Her sweet lips open and she mouthes one word to me... "please"
I clench my fist. I can't! I must not! it is out of my jurisdiction!
And yet... I do...
...
"You have begun a war Abalam" said Satan, sinking into the molden lava of his crimson throne... "you do realize this?"
"I do, your majesty" I say, bowing deeply at him, yet not letting go of her little body. She fell asleep in my arms. I don't know if it was the trauma, the pain, the fright or the relief of knowing she won't ever have to go back to her father again... I stare at her sweet smile, then back at my master's anger-stricken stare.
"Will you make me take her back?" I ask. He stands from the throne, pushing his cloak back as he strides across the room.
"Of course not. She accepted her fate. But God's army will not listen to our reasoning. For them, we have crossed the line. What will come to us is a raging war like the ones seen at the beginning of time. She is safe for now. You took the decision and you will stick with it. Won't you?"
She curls against my chest, her little hand caressing my burnt body.
"Of course"
​
Satan smiles. "Then let them come" | I twirled the pen in my fingers, careful not to slice it into pieces with my carefully painted claws. The blank computer screen was mocking me, I could feel it. I had a report due to my boss in two days and I had no idea what the fuck to write. It was some regular schmuck that was out for revenge against his coworker. Do you have any idea how boring that is? I can barely write a sentence, let alone a full report!
When I said I wanted a life off of the front lines, this wasn’t what I had in mind.
Whatever, this beat answering to horny guys who couldn’t keep it in their pants and ripping the wings off of angels. Well... ripping wings was pretty fun. The other? Not so much.
“Tsubasa, you’ve got a call,”
“Oh thank Satan,” I lurched up off my seat and snatched the black leather jacket off the back of my office chair, putting it on my shoulders over the gold dress I had worn to work today. Stopping by the mirror, I fixed my long black hair, moving it around my horns before opening a portal.
I opened my eyes only to see a plain room. The walls were painted pastel green, and the plain bed was far too small for any adult. Looking down, I saw a little girl staring up at me from the shoddy summoning circle she had scrawled into her carpet-
Where did she even get blood?
“Aren’t you far too young to be summoning demons from Hell, sweetheart?”
Fucking hell, I’m going to have to yell at Kole to do his damn job when I get back.
“I don’t...I don’t care! Please help me!”
I opened my mouth to reject her. Her soul was far too young to suffer in hell, and Satan had put out the edict himself to prohibit accepting deals from minors. Yet, some still made it through, apparently.
“You brat! Where the fuck are you?!”
Heavy footsteps resounded throughout the house, too sloppy to belong to a sober man.
“What the fuck did you do with the rest of my booze?!”
I looked down at her, raising a brow.
“I... I dumped it down the toilet,” She dropped her head and I sighed, before placing a hand on her head.
“You did good, kid,”
The footsteps came closer, the angry voice louder.
“Hide!” She grabbed my wrist and dragged me under the bed with her. The little girl managed to fit if she curled up enough, but my legs stuck out the other side. Ah, whatever. The man couldn’t see me anyways.
“I know you’re in here, you little bitch! What the hell is all this shit, anyways?! You’re cleaning this up!” I wrinkled my nose at the overwhelming stench of alcohol.
“I want my sister...” She trembled and I stroked her hair.
“What happened?”
“He invited some strange man and they talked to my sister before my dad left them alone. She was crying really hard after. She’s gone now,” She started trembling harder. The man’s hand appeared under the bed and started feeling around. The girl shrunk away, and I scowled. I shoved my wrist into his hand, and let him pull me out. I stood to my full height of seven feet and unfolded my black crow’s wings, baring my fangs.
“Wh-What the fuck-“
Reaching out, I cradled his atrocious face in my hands, and opened my mouth. His body convulsed before falling limp as his soul left his body and into my mouth. I dropped him to the floor and reached out to the child.
“It’s okay,” I cooed, and she slowly crawled out. “Call 911, say he died of liver failure. Please don’t try to summon demons from Hell again, they might not be as nice as me,”
I pressed a kiss to her forehead, left my contact, and left.
~x~x~
With a satisfying click, I sent in my report and stretched, glancing out the window of my office. The benefit of being an ex-general: my office had the best view of the fire fields and the magma lake.
I saw a familiar figure and opened my window to get a closer look.
A satisfying grin split my face as I saw the man’s wrists and feet bound my shackles, being led straight to Gluttony’s fields.
I wonder how that little girl’s doing.
“Alaric, I’m heading out!”
“Wait, you didn’t get a call-“
“Don’t care!”
I opened a portal and, with a wave, stepped back into the human realm. | 2018-10-08T13:40:21 | 2018-10-08T13:25:28 | 191 | 46 |
[WP] you are a demon call responder. The devil can’t answer every summon, so you go in his place. One day you get a summon and the summoner is way below age limit; you are about to leave, but you hear her drunk dad coming downstairs screaming. | "Do you realize what you have don Abalam?!" my owner screamed, his human skin curling under the fire of his true form.
I clenched my fists, for I knew the punishment that was to come. But I did not repent.
"She asked for our services-"
"She's UNDERAGE! we never do deals with those who cannot understand the weight of this decision!!"
"I was NOT going to leave her there!"
And I know neither would you. Yes, she's was way too young. Eight years old is too young for many things, including summoning demons. I was taken aback too, being summoned between angels and virgins, the fragrant stench of flowers and incense making me revolt as I stared into her wide, scared eyes.
I dared not step out of the scrawly pentagram he made on the white tile, for I knew that I would burn if I layed a hoof on divine soil. My eyes glared at the child, her unruly brown hair, the neck of her neat blouse pulled awkwardly around her neck. Her eyes, full of tears and fright. But not scared of me... I open my mouth...
"What... have... you... done... "
...that's my thought, but it is not me who spoke it. Standing in the doorframe, a balding man stares in shock and horror at her, then at me. His robes are soaked and humid- the stench of alcohol is unbearable. The first buttons of his robe are undone, but the white immaculate neck is still on. From his hand dangles a leather belt with a silver buckle.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE REBECCA?!" he bellows, trying to hide the slurriness of his voice. She cringes and stares at me, tears running down her eyes in a non-stopping stream. Her sweet lips open and she mouthes one word to me... "please"
I clench my fist. I can't! I must not! it is out of my jurisdiction!
And yet... I do...
...
"You have begun a war Abalam" said Satan, sinking into the molden lava of his crimson throne... "you do realize this?"
"I do, your majesty" I say, bowing deeply at him, yet not letting go of her little body. She fell asleep in my arms. I don't know if it was the trauma, the pain, the fright or the relief of knowing she won't ever have to go back to her father again... I stare at her sweet smile, then back at my master's anger-stricken stare.
"Will you make me take her back?" I ask. He stands from the throne, pushing his cloak back as he strides across the room.
"Of course not. She accepted her fate. But God's army will not listen to our reasoning. For them, we have crossed the line. What will come to us is a raging war like the ones seen at the beginning of time. She is safe for now. You took the decision and you will stick with it. Won't you?"
She curls against my chest, her little hand caressing my burnt body.
"Of course"
​
Satan smiles. "Then let them come" | "Szalarial, Lord of Bones, Collector, King of Misfortune, I call on you. Szalarial, Emperor of the Forsaken, I invoke your name. Szalarial, the Great Calamity, in the name of the Wandering King I offer a pact." The young boy dragged the ceremonial dagger across his palm, squeezing precious crimson into the chalice before him. Szalarial became aware of the ceremony the moment his name was uttered. From his throne in the Abyss, he listened to the chant repeat. He heard the dagger scrape flesh, catch, and slide through wet, hot, blood. With mild interest, Szalarial noted that none had invoked his final and most terrible title in nearly sixty years. Not since...
​
The child had offered his pact in the name of the Wandering King. Had he no shame? No decency remaining? Szalarial's eyes snapped open as he rose from his throne and allowed the ritual to draw him in. He felt the tremors in the air surrounding him as his vision swirled and the majesty of his chambers was erased. He found himself standing - towering, really - over a boy no older than seven turns of the Great Wheel. They stood in a wood and dirt cellar filled with broken pottery, spoiling produce, and countless empty bottles. A single candle lit the small room from its resting place at the makeshift altar the boy had erected. Before the child had time to notice him, Szalarial willed his form to shift to that of a human.
​
The change was instant, but for Szalarial, he felt every part of him knotting, shifting, and reshaping. His six fiery eyes fused into two, changing at the same time to a dull silver glow as his goat-like pupils compressed and rounded. His wings folded inward upon themselves dozens of times until they rested tightly against his shoulders before dissolving into his body. As they shrank, he noticed with disdain as his preternatural sense of the surrounding area faded. Without his wings he could no longer sense the movement of air as keenly. He could no longer detect any would be attackers. Or prey. No matter. The ritual had been completed and first lines of the contract were already forming in the air around him and the boy. Nothing could have interrupted these proceedings even if they so desired. Finally, he saw the room grow before him as his perspective shifted lower to the ground. His true form's nine foot long body shriveled to a mere six. He drew in a breath.
​
"I am Szalarial. Master of Below, Champion of Torment, Keeper of the Secret Lie, and all the titles you have given me before," he boomed. The wooden supports creaked at the sound of his voice and dirt was shaken loose from the hard-packed walls. "My titles, like my power, are countless. You may call me Lord Szalarial."
​
The child's eyes rose from the bowl upward to meet Szalarial's before quickly returning to the ground. He prostrated himself before Szalarial. "Great Lord Szalarial. In the name of the Wandering King I-"
​
"Yes, yes. You offer a pact." Szalarial consciously lowered his voice, lest he bring the roof down on top of his would-be acolyte. "I can see his influence from merely looking at you. The Wandering King has offered you this ritual. I wonder. Did he extract a price for this knowledge or offer it freely?" Szalarial turned his left hand, palm facing upward, and lifted it in the air, bidding the boy to rise.
​
"It was freely given, Lord." The boy rose and looked Szalarial in the eyes. "He said that all I owed to him was paid in the summoning and that all I owe to you will be paid in the proceedings. Begging your pardon, Great Lord Szalarial, but what are proceedings?" The boy did not tremble with fear. He did not avert his gaze. He did not understand, then. He did not understand the terrible cost. But, the ritual had been completed. The contract weighed heavily on them both and could not simply be dissolved.
​
"Our conversation, boy. This conversation will be the pro-"
​
"Eos," he interrupted. He *interrupted!* "My name is Eos, Lord Szalarial."
​
​
\---------------------------------
​
It's my anniversary tonight, but this prompt grabbed me! I have much, much more to share after we get back from dinner! I hope you all enjoy this enough to come back in 8 hours or so for more. | 2018-10-08T13:40:21 | 2018-10-08T12:57:35 | 191 | 21 |
[WP]You live in a world where everyone levels up as though in an RPG, levels being from 1-100. However, three people with abnormal power levels exist. One has a level of zero, one has a power level in the negatives, and one has a power level of 101. You are one of these individuals. | We were celebrities among even celebrities. We had status over even elites. The three of us ran the world. Stock markets and empires fell or rose based on our say, we ruled the world.
Peoples levels hadn’t always existed, they just showed up one day. They came and people determined that at first they just show cased age. But that was soon dismissed. Then it became life experiences as people grew more their levels went up. But after time people realized levels could go down. So that option was ruled out.
People began to see them as levels of good decision making and purpose. Jobs were won and lost on a single number. Credit scores had been replaced entirely with your level. Many peoples lives were devastated. A low number was extremely hard to come back from. Life was stacked against you and only your choices could bring you back.
Then one day the 101 showed up. He was absolutely revered. After that thousands attempted to reach his level. Interviews were done, research study. He became the face of magazines, shows, mystery. An instant celebrity with power. He always just claimed he knew the right choice.
And then the first negative person showed up. An absolutely shunned person, degraded lower than low. But then people realized her uniqueness. No one else could get their number that low. Not even close. She gained followers, few at first and then many. Celebrity status soon followed and still she stayed at negative one. She claimed she always knew the right choice but actively chose against it.
People demanded the negative and positive get together. Bring balance to the world. It was a joke at first. But he liked her, and she hated him. So they ended up together. And that’s how my parents met and the first zero was born.
And now we make choices for the world. We are like three wisemen and the world balance hangs on our lips. | I remember the first time I woke from my slumber. The mountains covered with a rug of trees, green, yellow, scarlet and orange, lay in a great line like the spine of the land. As if long ago there was a great beast, only to lie down to sleep one day, but never got up. Ghost-like, the trees stood like the silent observer, overwatching the range of granite peaks scarfed & be-ribboned with snow, like a beast in an enchanted sleep. The range were high to the East and low to the West, curling at the end like a tail. The only thing bigger than the snowy mountains is the midnight skies, dotted with silver as vast as any eye could wander. There I saw for the first time under this mountain, a group of settlers built this tiny village. "How quaint." I thought to myself in stupor and went back to my slumber.
Centuries must have gone by, but the second time I woke, I remember a riot of colours painted the skies, as a cacophony of pops pierced deep into my rest. I see people parading down a grand city - cheering. The crowd moved like a a multi-headed beast that shared only one brain. Their thoughts were in lock-step as much as their feet, whooping, hollering, clapping, stamping of feet, palpable excitement buzzed through the charged air, infectious grins, strangers shaking hands, patting one another on the back, spontaneous outpouring of emotion. I care not for what they cheer for. But to dare to wake me from my slumber. Proud creatures aren't they. I stayed patient and after a few days the noise died down and I went back to sleep.
The party stood in front of a black iron gate, deep in the mountains, that seemed to be forge centuries ago. It was a clear ten feet tall, antique looking with runes carved upon it. "This must be it" said Jace Belerion.
"You sure about this my King? This looks ancient." as Allura brushed her hands across the carving. "This runes and symbols are before out time. We should really spend time and study this." Allura voiced with concern.
"Don't worry. This can't be worse than those ancient dragons. Besides we are legendary. Just Be careful. Stay vigilant. Magic and weapons at the ready. Strike on my command." King Belerion said confidently. "Lothal, open the gate"
A deep guttural sound as the gate opened and grind against millenniums of rocks and stones gathered at the base.
Humans... Arrogance... Foolish.... then again I have to thank them. I am finally awaken. I am released.
"Who goes there! Show yourself!" King Belerion demanded as the party waved their torch trying illuminate the space, yet nothing, as if the darkness as swallowed all the light and hope in the world.
Moans, cries, and whispers of unknown terror creep through their ears and into their spines."I live where there is light. I can be seen but cannot be touched. I am always there with you. Thank you for releasing me. For I am everything. I am the negative. I am the dark. I am the shadow. I am Death."
A darkness came over the party as their weapons clink and clank on to the floor.
Now... \*stretches\*... let's paint this world black. | 2020-01-29T09:13:06 | 2020-01-29T08:51:54 | 94 | 12 |
[WP] In a world where Lamarckian evolution is true, there are groups of people who train their bodies in specific ways to pass on those traits to their children. After several generations of this, the evolution of these groups is becoming increasingly apparent. | There are people in this world who can do amazing things. Bend their bodies in freakish ways, carry 10 men or solve any equation you throw at them in mere seconds.
I am not one of those people.
When we first started noticing the patterns all those years ago, it took us time to take action, to find and ruin the nature of it. No longer did we marry for our hearts, we married to produce the best of the best. Strong men and women had strong children. Genius men and women had genius children. Strong and smart men and women had elite children, the top of any scale. We began to choose with our heads rather than our hearts, or perhaps with our wallets. The stronger your genes were, the likelier you would achieve greatness at whatever you set your mind to. People chose their soulmates from tests not of character but of use. Have a brilliant lineage and you were guaranteed whatever you wanted, who wouldn’t want to accommodate the pinnacle of us as a species? Banks threw loans at them, let them skip queues and lines and all manner of human things because after all, should they be left to something, suscepted to something, beneath them? Classes formed, the top intermingled with itself and the bottom stayed where it was told it belonged. Lucky ones, freaks of genetic inheritance were headhunted from puberty, often bought to be elevated to their correct status, adopted by people more fitting who could give them the life they deserved.
But I was not like them. You see, I am in my own way a freak. For my mother and father, so young and so sure of their devotion to each other did not look at muscles or brains, they saw each other, for everything they were. The good and the bad.
And when they had me, I was special. I was the first in a long time, prophesied as the one who would ruin the world because the world could not comprehend the very idea of me. I was not a child of brain, nor of brawn. I was the first of a new kind, a child of love.
—
Sorry for any issues it’s hella late and I’m tired af and wrote this on a whim, never really written anything before, currently doing an English gcse lol :) | Choose your path, do your job, get a long and survive. This was the creed taken by the founders of my new home. After the War of 2025, or the "Endtime War" as we now call it, the world has been broken up and shoved into domes. Those who weren't irradiated to all hell, who were decent and willing to play nice, and let's face it, had money too, got to be here. Life thrives. But now in such a way as it feels like we are eternally in some old early millenium movie. I suppose that's where they got their design for our new system. It's 2563 now. A long time. But here we are.
After my ancestors settled in and got back to some semblance of normalcy, scientists had breakthrough. In 2060, it was proven true that we CAN force evolutionary traits. Ever since, the world has gone nuts, evolved into paths, and turned itself into groups. The main two are "Sagax", which we call Brains, and "Olympians", which are the Brawn. Brains are extremely intellectual people; most of them run medical, and just about every other science or knowledge field one can think of. New discoveries daily. The Brawn are in charge of the more physically demanding tasks. From construction down to our military and police. Middleground, or "Incertum" as they are actually known, are our economists, our general workers, and generally people who don't fit at either end of the spectrum. This leads up to the Choosing ceremony, where a young adult chooses their path in life.
The Choosing ceremony happens during high school graduation. What this means is choosing a path, a career to learn, and the like. It is set up like some weird cult thing, I suppose. Three data banks on stage presented before you. You can only choose one. Each one is labeled by its latin name. You walk up to the one you choose, place your hand over the plate, and get scanned into their system. Once the choice is made, you will be separated from those who made other choices, and guided off to what they call your "destiny". Though we all know it's straight into the next room, where you make more choices, like career, education wants, and the like. These are just basic computers that you sit down at and tick off boxes and take tests to find out where you best fit. At least for Brains. I think Brawn is a more physical test, where they assign you. I've never seen it myself though, I'm just going off of what my parents told me about their choice, so take what I write with a grain of salt.
Though I heard life after graduation is strange. Brains, brawn, and middle really don't like to mix unless it's for breeding purposes. There is a bit of silent hostility even. Glares from one party to another, or disdainful side glances. Brains staying six feet away from Brawn and keeping their head down. Silent train rides. Lopsided rides where it's one type on one side, the other on the other. Though however much brain hates brawn for some reason, they seem to despise the middle the most. I've seen a brawn on a train once berate a middle woman who was on her way home from work, calling her a lazy "no choicer" and telling her she could have been a brawn personal trainer with "the body she had". I've also seen brains do something similar, calling a group of them "aspiration-less middling troglodytes." when referring to them. I don't see the problem with them. They do the jobs we don't want, serve us food, put up with us and make the undercurrent of the city thrive. The divide is here, no matter how small it seems. | 2020-07-08T15:15:04 | 2020-07-08T14:31:11 | 15 | 10 |
[WP] It is the year 2XXX. Medical science has advanced so far that complete body restoration is possible. However, patients revived from death consistently end up in a vegetative state and no one knows why. You are the first person to revive and retain their cognition. Now you know. | I look calmly back at the eager faces - the top scientists of the world, all waiting, agog, hanging on to my every word.
MENSA level IQs, the knowledge of a million lives at their fingertips. But they never managed to figure out the reason. Never managed to figure out why everyone they tried to bring back returned brain dead.
They thought it was something wrong with the process. It never occurred to them that these were sacrifices - that the undead chose to destroy their own minds than bring desolation to the world they once loved.
I am the only one who has returned as myself - I am the only one who made this choice. The reason is obvious to me, though not to them.
One of the main requirements to qualify for revival is that one must be psychologically healthy. They can just repair the body, not the mind. That excluded sociopaths, but I was always talented at acting. So, here I am - the first of my kind to undergo this revival, and the first human to return.
I can see no reason why I must let my mind die. They wanted the answers, didn't they? So I will give it to them. They will have what they wished for. And if they can't take it, that's their problem, not mine.
I will make only one single demand - that I be allowed to make my announcement live, projected worldwide, with viewership compulsory. After all, it wouldn't do for anyone to miss out on the revelation. It will be fun to watch.
I wonder whether those like me will survive. Doesn't matter, one way or the other. Good bye, civilization. | *Should I tell them?*
"Introducing, Mr. Micheal Smith!" A lean man with pale skin and snow white hair conducts a crowd that murmurs in front of him. "He marks the first in the last step towards immortality! The first to be truly resurrected!" The crowd erupts into polite applause. The stage lights are a bit bright.
*They would never understand.*
"Mr. Smith, I'm going to be right direct with you and get right to the question on everyone's mind:" He flashes his perfect smile in a moment of dramatic tension. "Do you remember anything of 'The Other Side'?" His nearly sarcastic air quotes grate on my nerves.
*They would laugh and laugh and laugh and I will die alone in a hole.*
I flash what I hope to be just as perfect of a smile. "Well Meister, it's not so much that I forgot..." The room goes silent as every ear strains to catch my words. "But that I cannot properly explain it to you."
*Wouldn't it be so much easier if everyone just knew what I knew?*
"Please, do try your best! Even a sentence is more than we've been able to get from anyone else!" The crowd murmurs their support, all eyes facing me. They almost look desperate.
*Wouldn't it be easier if everyone were just me?*
"Hmm..." I rub my chin in a show of contemplation. If I am to die alone though... "It was a fantastic world of darkness and machines."
A beat.
"These machines loved us. They nurtured us from birth to death, never allowing discomfort." A few smiles on the faces turned towards me. The unidentified attention of an entire world. "When we are born there, they connect us to a pod-" A hand cuts me off.
*Was I right?*
"Come now, Mr. Smith. This can't be true, machines? A machine that loves? That can't be possible, or we would have built it!" The Telemeister waves his hand again, prompting the nearby guards to begin towards me. "It seems you're very tired, why don't you head back for a break?" A few nods from those nearby.
*So I just take it?*
The guards reach the stage. Climbing up without a noise, it takes them but a moment to reach me too.
*I should just die in a hole, alone and misunderstood?*
One grabs my left wrist. The other motions for me to stand of my own accord.
*If only everyone knew what I know.*
A scream. A thud. My head pounds with the weight of a jackhammer. My vision swims.
*If only everyone were just like me.*
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
Hi I don't post often but I have other shortstory things at /r/PM_Full_Tits :) | 2020-10-29T22:23:21 | 2020-10-29T21:23:58 | 98 | 43 |
[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. | "Why?"
I had learned fairly quickly that they understood our language. But the real trick was to get your questions down to as few words as possible. They seemed to have some telepathic abilities, so even broad questions like - well, 'Why?' - still had their nuance.
It also seemed like speed was a necessity in their lives. It certainly explained how they had managed to overcome the defenses of all of Earth's nations in a week. Created ceasefires and agreements in a day. And overcome any resistance within a few hours.
The first time I saw one, it was standing behind a bureaucrat in a suit. The closest earth analog to these creatures would be the praying mantis, but with an extra set of arms, and 4-digited hands instead of claws on each. And blue. A very vibrant blue. And 10 foot tall.
The bureaucrat was handing out 'Work Agreements', he called them. We thought they were terms of surrender. And they were. Except...
"12 hours a week? That's it?", I asked the bureaucrat.
"Yes! And the all the amenities listed. Health care, food, entertainment and relaxation possibilities, and more! Be sure to list your immediate family, so you can be placed in an appropriately sized living space!"
I had looked off to my left. What had been an abandoned strip mall was in the process of being demolished and rebuilt into residential blocks. From the outside, they weren't much to look at. The furnishings that were being flown in, however, were top notch. The worker robots the aliens were using seem to slip soundlessly though the air, moving furniture, carpet, windows, televisions - my community area had its own pool table, spa and movie theatre.
I had taken the Work Agreement tentatively. I read it over - yea, free health, dental, vision... free food? - and wondered. "If they can provide all this to their... slaves... why do we need to work?"
The bureaucrat looked a little downcast. "My understanding is... some of the work will be... dangerous."
"How so?"
"Some of it is your basic manual labor - tending farms, cleaning, that sort of thing. Some folks will work in entertainment. Some of it is handing out Work Agreements!" he beamed. "But sometimes it will includes more hazardous work - mining, cleaning nuclear waste... things that would deemed... high risk. That's why it is only 12 hours a week."
That gave me pause... I had heard whispers of resistance. They said the jobs were suicidal. Well, working in a mine is dangerous, but we've been doing that for millennia. None of the conspiratorial whisperers seemed to be gaining any new followers.
So, I signed on the dotted line anyway. Everyone else in the neighborhood had signed already. "What is one more cog in the machine?" I thought.
I was given my living assignment, and given a work schedule. Monday through Thursday, 3 hours a day at Power Plant Delta. The rest of the time? Relax. Rest. Eat. Be moderately happy. The 'moderately' happy bit seemed out of place, but whatever.
And I was... moderately happy. But...
"Why?"
My question stopped the creature in its tracks. Most seemed capable of flight, but this one was running quickly along the side of the road to the power plant.
It quickly turned to me and stared. I hadn't been this close to one of the aliens in a few months. Most of them flew over the human population without an apparent thought.
It felt like wind blowing over my scalp. Expect... under the roots of the hairs on my head. The creature was trying to get a better grasp on my question. I didn't know why we were working. I didn't understand the point of this. My job was watching a robot handle the nuclear waste from the plant. I noted when it picked up spent fuel, confirmed the weight, and off it went.
The creature seemed to gather itself, looked me in the eyes, and said in an almost sing-song manner:
"Excess."
... what? That didn't mak-
The images hit me like a wave. The creature was pushing an explanation into my head, though the mental channel it had created. I saw our planet as it had been in the distant past. Clean. Vibrant. And then humanity appeared. Slowly, the planet seemed to weaken. Decay. Suddenly, the planet began to rapidly deteriorate. Ice caps receding. Storms raging. And at the moment it seemed all would be lost... the alien fleet appeared.
I blinked. The alien fleet remained in my head, but the planet was different. The decay and chaos was there, but this planet was different. Red. My vision zoomed in, down to the planets surface. I saw the blue insectoid aliens, handing papers to another race of aliens; humanoid, but hunched over with rocklike complexion . The paper had strange writing... but I could understand it... "Health, dental, vision, all provided... and no work".
The rocklike beings readily agreed. They moved into living structures not like our new ones on Earth. They were happy...
and bored.
Nothing to do. All needs answered. So what do you do?
Dangerous stunts. Debauchery. Death races. Drugs. They tore themselves apart. And they didn't care.
The blue aliens realized their mistake, but far too late. They tried to limit their gifts; revolts and suicidal attacks followed. They tried to retract their gifts completely; the rocklike beings starved, having thrown out all their knowledge and tools to live in total hedonism.
The blue aliens left the planet, flew away. The red planet they left behind had stopped its decline for a time while they were there. But now the planet rapidly decayed. Wars, fights, fires and waste. The clouds went black over the surface. And remained.
Snapping back to myself, I found myself staring slack jawed at the alien. The vision had felt like it had lasted days, but only a second had passed. I tried to plant bring myself back to the present, almost overwhelmed by what I had seen... but I understood now. Without some kind of responsibility, without a break *from being carefree*, we could suffer the same fate.
"Moderate," the alien said.
"... Moderate. Yea, good idea," I replied.
The alien nodded, and ran on its way. | "I'll never kneel!"
They were the first and only words that formed in my mind when I came to, staring at the two Zorcs in front of me. It was an expression of the only emotion left in my body: spite. I tried to pull my arms to the front, only to feel the resistance of something binding my wrists together. There was no use. They were probably harder than diamond.
The Zorc that was standing in front cried out. It turned to another one behind it and uttered a string of unintelligible words, which prompted the listener to bend halfway backwards and retreat out of the room of shiny white. Their spaceship, probably.
We've fought these bastards for so long, and we still couldn't describe them to save our lives. Quite literally, it seems. Forget the aliens you saw in films and TV that came in conveniently Earth-coloured palettes. These aliens--or Zorcs--could only be described as dull. Not grey, not murky brown, but almost like if you could see heaviness itself. The very presence of these beings weigh on you, like that awkward atmosphere in an Applebee's after watching a couple have very different definitions of 'taking the next step.'
They were hefty, cantankerous blobs of indescribable alienry, and it took five able men to bring one down. Little wonder, then, that we were losing the war terribly. It was one thing to lose in numbers--looking around at the mass of indescribable technology that surrounded me, in what should be a concrete cell in the human world, only served to quell the remnants of hope and flame the fires of spite.
It was all I could do to not fall to my knees, let my neck down, and prostrate like a beast in front of them. But spite brought me through. Spite always did. It carried me through training, as well as the physical bruises and mental scars that came with it. It was my only friend through long, terrible nights, and short, equally terrible 'leaders'. It will carry me through this disgusting, one-sided war.
It has to.
The Zorc had been speaking, tinny waves of static audio that rolled off him, increasing the burden of the situation even more. I wasn't sure about what. I didn't care about what. My eyes continued to scan the room frantically, still, hoping to see a crack. A vent. Some way to escape, some way to run. Or, worse comes to worst, some way to end my suffering.
The pressurised door opened once more. The other Zorc was back now, this time with a helmet in its... hands?
The speaking Zorc wobbled and gesticulated in my general direction. The other one slid closer, placing the headgear on me. I tried to resist, but it was a brief, negligible instant.
It was a smooth dome, much like an astronaut's helmet. Pitch black was all I could see, until I heard a tiny click.
Then, the world lit up once again. I staggered around, watching the flood of information flowing through my retinas into my mind. I had only just woken up from black, but this was different. I watched as bright, beautiful colours that I have never seen and cannot name swirl around, a turbulent storm of sand, before settling down onto the Zorcs in front of me.
Who did not look like weird blobs any more. They were...
"That should do it," the Zorc that just put on my helmet said. It walked back, looking at me, and gave an affirmative nod. He was probably close to a shining gold, only somehow more vibrant. "That looks perfect."
"It better be," the Zorc that was just now droning on and on huffed. Its arms--it had arms!--were crossed, silver skin shining brightly as well. "Human. Can you understand us now?"
"What the hell is going on?" I asked, bewildered.
"Well, I can understand him, at least," the silver one said. His arms uncrossed, and he rapped on the helmet lightly. "Not bad, Golrum."
"Not bad?" the gold one, apparently named Golrum, said, indignantly. His gold skin sparkled and flashed, turning to an incredible, almost frenzied orange for an instant. "I'll say it was a good job well done in less than two weeks because you asked me to rush it out, Solpvum!"
"Alright, alright," Solpvum said. Cyan specks rolled off it. "Good job. Well done."
"That seems incredibly sarcastic," Golrum said. Red this time, followed by a yellow that felt like it could punch your face and run away taunting you. "I don't accept it."
"Can... somebody please explain what's going on?" I asked, my voice coming out more timidly than I imagined.
"Oh, right," Solpvum said. "It's ok, slave. You don't have to bother with this."
"Slave?" I said, as my heart sank.
"Yes, slave," Solpvum said. "Do you have a name?"
"Is that really important?" I said. "Just... give me a number. Or something. Then work me to death. You won't need to remember my name."
"... What are you even saying?" Golrum said. "See? They lack colour. Can't tell what they are feeling at all. I don't trust them."
"Shush, Golrum. Be more open-minded. They are a different race from us, see," Solpvum said. He pointed at me. "Look at the sagging shoulders. That indicates sadness!"
"Please," I whispered. "If I'm to be a slave, I'll rather die."
"See! He doesn't even want to be a slave!" Golrum cried.
"He'll come round to it," Solpvum said. "Maybe if we leave him alone for a while. I've heard humans tend to require some time to 'process their feelings'."
Solpvum turned towards me once more. The colours shifted once more, this time to a warm peach.
"Would you like some food? Or water? Oh, and we tried to replicate some of your technology on Earth to make it more comfortable for you, so you can access something called 'cable' on the 'TV'."
"... What?" I asked.
"You are a slave, alright?" Solpvum continued. "So you'll need to work 12 hours a week. There's a whole week in front of us, so take the days to rest up."
"12 hours a week? Did you mean a day?"
At this, both Zorcs turned bright red.
"12 hours a day? Prespoterous!"
"That's ridiculous! Cruel! Inhumane!"
"Wait, wait, wait." I called out. "I don't... I... food? Water? My own room?"
"Yeah," Golrum said. "What, too little for you? See, Sol--"
"No," I plopped down on the floor. It was cushioned. Somehow. "It's too much."
"Can I just get this straight?" I said. "Being a slave here means I get my own room filled with entertainment from Earth, food and water if and when I want it, and I only have to work 12 hours a week?"
"Only 12 hours a week?" Golrum cried. "Peep this workaholic!"
"Sounds about right," Solpvum said.
I thought back to my platoon that I had left behind. Maybe they were mourning me. Maybe they didn't care, and were currently huddled around a terribly short table, munching away on hardtack and drinking muddy water."
"OK, you know what?" I said. "Sure. Whatever. I'll even kneel if you want me to. Can you subject more people to slavery, please? I can even provide a specific list of names if you want..."
---
r/dexdrafts | 2020-11-22T11:57:35 | 2020-11-22T08:25:47 | 2,086 | 912 |
[WP] The finale of international chess tournament takes place. Two grandmasters sit in front of each other in ultimate showdown. The thing is nobody knows that both of them got here by cheating. First is a mind reader and second one has an ability to see the future. | Both took their seats at the table. Before they had a chance to make their opening move he heard the words 'It's a Draw' enter his mind. He looked up at his opponent, perplexed.
"You're about to ask me why I want to call a draw", she said.
He was taken aback. He didn't hear this thought from her. She smiled, and this time he heard the word 'gotcha' ring in his head as she did. He looked at her incredulously. "How did you.." -
"*figure me out?* you're wondering?" she finished.
He started to panic, was she another telepath like him? Could she read his mind too? This would explain a lot of things about both their meteoric rises in the ranks and the speed at which they both dispatched their opponents in the tournament.
"I'll concede it's going to be an interesting final" he replied, probing her mind again.
*Oh but you've already lost*, he read. And then the mental images slammed into his brain, he was overloaded in an instant of pictures of moves and countermoves, every scenario replayed over and over again with tiny variations and final outcomes. Each one ending in a draw, both victors nodding as though accepting to keep their secrets and the world guessing.
He didn't understand. Nobody could play that fast in their mind, nobody. It was as if she could look into every possible future and predict the outc...he stopped, staring at her. Her eyes fixed on him, watching the revelation sweep across his face. He understood. She had reached into the future and witnessed every scenario that could happen, and the only way to avoid a draw was to play her hand this way.
*I told you you've already lost* he read from her again. She didn't need mind-reading powers, in the face of someone who has seen the future, *every future,* then she already knew what he was going to say, how he was going to act.
He slowly reached out his hand across the table. She took it. Both shook. Then he got up from the table and walked away. | "If you can receive this message, then please open with the king side knight's pawn."
Maki looked up at Akane. Maki had eavesdropped on Akane's mind and was surprised to hear such a crystal clear thought. There was no noise, not even any personality except the lack thereof. This thought was rehearsed. Rehearsed to a precision that suggested that Akane knew the answer. Besides, Maki guessed that revealing that could only worsen Akane's game: she'd be worried about her own thoughts while playing the game.
Maki moved the pawn on her right toward the center of the board, placing it with a crisp clack against the board as she seemed to vie for indirect central control with the fianchetto.
"Good, I'll have you know that I don't want to lose this game until I know why you used your trick to get here."
Akane's thought was quite crisp until the idea of trick had had to surface. That word seemed double edged. It seemed as if Akane was hiding a trick of her own.
Unfortunately, Maki could only read Akane's mind, not write into it, so it was no easy matter to tell Akane why. Not that Maki was interested in doing that at all: she didn't want to reveal who had hired her to sneak through the minds of the chess grandmasters.
Looking at Akane again, Maki read a thought: "king pawn up." Maki stole a glance at her advanced pawn, noting that if she put her bishop behind it, that bishop would be quite powerful. And that king side pawn would be useless. Maki rarely had to think about what others thought, but a situation where she might have to would come up, it seemed.
Akane advanced her queen side pawn.
"So why is it that I'm facing a cheat?" Akane asked with her mind. Maki decided to push on: even Akane would falter eventually. Akane didn't know everything that was about to happen, so some move would make her have to think.
Or did she know every move?
Maki moved her bishop up, attacking Akane's pawn. The pawn that made Maki regret answering truthfully. Without a hesitation, Akane brought her knight up, defending the pawn.
"I wouldn't castle if I were you," Akane thought to Maki. But Maki couldn't tell if that was a lie. She decided that her queen side pawn was more important in any case, so brought it up to face Akane's.
"Ah, good. So you're believing what you eavesdrop," Akane thought. This was a vague thought. It had an air of achievement in it. Akane was thinking she had won." This could be good," Maki thought.
However, the thoughts coming from Akane didn't repeat themselves like a scripted announcement. Instead, for once, they became more organic. The forms started to loose abstraction and gain subjectivity.
There was a figure. The environment was white, like a quiet abstract white, while the figure was black. It was a nebulous presence, shrouded in mystery. But it was Akane's silhouette.
Suddenly, the environment in Akane's mind's eye darkened and gained reality. It was a bedroom and sunlight was streaming in. Before Maki could ascertain details of the bed, the mind's eye moved into the first person. These were memories. The thought was a representation of... waking up?
The first person in the thoughts wrote on a piece of paper. "Maki mind reader, will learn own power."
Maki gasped. Akane smiled, and then moved her queen side knight to attack Maki's pawn. "How much of what I know do you think I'll reveal to you?" Akane's thought rang into Maki's mind. | 2021-03-16T23:14:35 | 2021-03-16T21:58:46 | 44 | 31 |
[WP] You are suddenly hugged by a teary-eyed stranger who says they love you. You then find out they've been stuck in a time loop and they've fallen for you as you were the only one who bothered to help them each time. | Wake up, take a shower, get dressed, get out of the apartment, head towards the cafè down the street, get your coffee, get in the car and go to work.
Rinse and repeat, everyday of the week.
This was the clockwork-like routine Layla had gotten accostumed to, now that she had properly moved in Los Angeles.
She didn't pay a lot of attention to the monotony of her mornings, since she had plenty of spare time in the evening to do whatever she wanted. What's more, she liked the tranquility of the whole system, it made relax a bit before she had to face the sheer chaos her boss would bring in the office.
This one tuesday, however, things took a weird turn.
She was heading for the cafè, as usual, when she saw a man get out of it. One of the other clients of the cafè, she presumed, but there was something wrong. He looked like he had an awful time: the eyebags and red eyes implied that he'd had plenty of sleepsless nights. He started looking around frantically, with a panicked expression on his face. He was muttering to himself, and breathing heavily, and she genuinely thought he was having a panic attack. It was probably best to ignore him, "stranger danger" and everything; and yet she couldn't just let him be like that. What if he seriously needed help?
She gathered up some courage and asked tentatively "Sir? Is everything alright?"
And then he locked eyes with Layla. His face, which seconds earlier held pure dread, was now melting in gratitude and affection as he lunged towards her.
"What the-"
The exclamation got cut short when Layla felt his arms lock around her in a hug. Her already wide eyes got even larger as she realized he was sobbing in her chest.
She tried to get him to let go, but he gripped onto her as he cried, as if the very idea of letting go would end him.
"Sir, what's going on?" She questioned.
She was pretty sure he was trying to answer, but what came out were gargled rambling she couldn't understand, besides the phrase "I love you" . Was it possible for someone to be drunk this early in the morning?
Both their knees were starting to get weak, so she looked around for somewhere to sit. Good thing there was a bench to her left! She led the man to it and started rubbing his back, awkwarldy waiting for him to calm down.
After what felt like ages, his breathing finally started to settle. He looked up to her with a trembling smile. "You're too good to me, Layla. No words I say are enough to thank you".
Hearing her own name made her yelp, before she answered "You could start by telling me how and why you know my name?"
He looked bewildered before he collected himself and drew back from her.
"Right. Right, you don't know. And you still helped me. That's part of why I love you so much, you're always ready to lend a hand."
If hearing a random man say he loved her didn't throw her off, the story he spilled about him being stuck for years in a time loop in that very cafè he got out of most certainly did.
"I didn't even notice at first, my life is THAT monotonous" he chuckled bitterly, as he looked away. " But every damn time I opened the doors to get out, I'd find myself back in that stupid cafè. When I realized what was going on, I tried telling people about it. Far too many times I've been called crazy and dismissed. And far too many I'd been dragged out of the bar only to be back in it to start a new cicle" The memory alone made him grimace.
This poor guy, Layla thought to herself.
"The only reason I didn't lose my mind-" he drew his gaze back to her "- is you. No matter what cicle went in, or how it changed directions, you were always there to comfort me and give me advice. You were the only one who didn't shun me, or called the cops on me. Thank you , Layla."
"There's no need to thank me" said Layla, in a timid tone of voice. "If anything, I should be thanking you."
It was the man's turn to get wide-eyed. "Huh? What for?"
"You said that I helped no matter what. It's reassuring to be the very person I yearned for in my own loop". | Shit, shower, shave, off to the office. The doldrums of the morning routine. Routine is good for me, it keeps me stable and out of the trouble that dominated my misspent youth. At least this new brand of beard oil smells *damn* good. I hit the snooze button once this morning which has the unfortunate ramification of having to decide whether I'll skip breakfast or have to explain to my dickhead boss why I'm slinking in ten minutes late. I don't feel like dealing with him - I'll grab a granola bar, head out, and deal with being hungry as hell by the time lunch roles around.
I slide my laptop into my messenger bag and have fully completed the morning routine. I glide down the elevator of my Manhattan apartment building, awash in thought towards the day to come, decidedly disgusted with the banalities that now comprise my day-to-day thought process. *Christ, man,* I think to myself, *you used to stage dive at hardcore shows, disappear for days at a time on psychedelic-fueled ashrams, and never even know the meaning of the word "hangover."* A deep sigh takes me over in the lonely falling cube, the pestilence of psychologically neutral muzak permeating around me. *Now you spend more time figuring out ways to fill up 30 minutes of meeting time talking about plastic chip clips in front of a bunch of suited-up assholes.* Everyone has to grow up some time, I figure.
I walk past the front desk security guard with a wave. She had commented on how she liked my full sleeve tattoo the other day, so I make a show of waving at her like I'm Princess Diana so she can get a better look at it. Thankfully she sees the irony in this and laughs before wishing me a good day at work, and I'm walking down 14th Street.
I find myself reminiscing about how New York City has changed over the years. The crime-ridden, garbage-laden hellscape of the 70s gave way to the bizarrely optimistic class warfare of the 80s. Wall Street boomed, speculative real estate started pricing people out of their homes, and homelessness skyrocketed. I'm not even sure about the 90s - the concentration of various chemical alternants that flowed freely through my system altered my perception of reality to the point as though I felt like I was my own unreliable narrator sometimes. And then 9/11... Jesus.
As I saunter down the crowded streets, a homeless man huddled up against a building catches my eye. It's a strange sight - he's dressed to the nines, as if he were getting ready to report to his hotshot finance sector gig. Armani everything, Berluti shoes, great haircut... *Jesus,* I find myself thinking again, *I sound like Patrick fucking Bateman. What the fuck happened to me?* The man is holding a sign that reads, written in thick, black Sharpie:
**LOST EVERYTHING IN**
**THE RECESSION, JUST**
**WANT SOMETHING TO EAT**
I'm not considered late late at work until the clock strikes the 7th minute - what's a few minutes to stop and speak to this guy for a bit? I reach into my messenger bag and pull out my granola bar.
"Hey, man," I begin, while holding my hand out to him, "I know it's not much, but it's what I got. Hope it helps, brother." The man looks up at me, and immediately I notice tears start to well up in the corners of his eyes.
"Every day. Every single day", he responds.
I look at him, not attempting to hide the puzzled look on my face. "Pardon me?" is all that I can muster.
"I've been here. For fuckin' years. Day in, day out, decades, maybe? I've lost track. But you always hand me that fuckin' granola bar every time.", he says.
*Oh great, he's fucking Looney Tunes.* "I've never met you before, man," I tell him while I turn around to walk away, "but I do hope it helps you out."
"Wait! You don't understand," he sounds frantic, "you don't understand! You're Tony, you live on the 38th floor of that huge apartment skyscraper down the street there. You skipped breakfast this morning and didn't want to piss off your boss, which is why you had the granola bar. Okay?"
*What the fuck?* I turn back around to look him over, wondering if I know him from somewhere else. "You got the wrong guy, buddy. Take it easy", I give him a simple lie to try and shake him off, though this does nothing for my confusion.
"Tony! I know you feel like you've lost yourself, that things didn't shake out the way you envisioned 'em when you were in your teens, that you sometimes wish you could go back to being, well...", he trails off.
"Being what?"
"Interesting, I suppose."
"Kind of a dickhead thing to say. Are you an old high school buddy or something? Where do I know you from?" *He doesn't even look familiar, though.*
He smiles at me. "I told you, every single day I see you. Doesn't matter what I write on my sign, and I've put some... real goofy shit, frankly, just to see if you'd give it to me. And ya do, every single time."
*If I see this guy again, I might call the cops.* "Okay, I gotta get to work brother, I hope things go on the come-up for you", I tell him before turning and walking - well above my average pace - towards my office.
"See you tomorrow Tony!", he yells through the crowd. "No matter what you think you've become, just remember you're a really fuckin' good person! See you tomorrow!"
[ /r/writingpracticeman ] | 2021-07-14T06:58:36 | 2021-07-14T03:13:30 | 390 | 64 |
[WP] A retired assassin places a hit on himself to test the new generations abilities. | Sometimes getting old is a bit like getting tired. The head gets heavy. The hands begin to shake. Nothing seems to work anymore.
In the early years of his live, he would do some sit-ups or a long runs to wake up. Shake the feeling of rust on his bones. But now it feeled more like the rust had replaced his bones.
He were sure, that he would not live to see the day of his retirement. Or that he could live in peace.
But the day came. And the world seemed to had forgotten his name. Like he never existed.
Forgotten.
Now he learned what that word truly means. It's like rotting in your grave, without being dead.
Later on, he could not say what it was, that kept him up at that night. Maybe the memory of his former strength. Maybe the pain, that his heavy breathing sparked in his chest. Maybe the combination.
As he laid there, is eyes staring in the cold night air, he made a decision.
He could not really process what he was doing until he layed down the prepaid phone, that he just used to order death upon himself.
As he packed his car full of his belongings and his favourite weapons, the sparking pain in his chest was a small flame compared to the pure joy that burned inside of him.
Once again having a goal. One last time being free.
He knew what was coming. And he knew he was prepared. | I was rasied as an assassin, a ruthless, psycophatic murdering machine; I have killer over three hundred people in my time, but now is my time to retire. I sharpen my blood-stained blades, resting them against the side of my shelf as an act of commemoration. I display the other ones, amused by the questions of confused guests. Nobody knows of my profession except my boss, and even he does not know my true identity. I stare out of the window - they should be here soon.
I ordered a hit on myself for the sole purpose of testing the new generation. I wanted to see if they were any good on an experienced assassin such as myself; I lurked to the corner of the room, stuck in a meditating position, and steadied myself for the battle to come.
I heard them before they even entered the house - one was by the window, one by the door and one seemingly above the room. They entered, gun in hand, and I snatched my loyal knife before the window shattered, door was thrown of it's hinges and the roof collapsed. I stared at the people who I had summoned to kill me.
"Hello, fellas!" I smirk, still struck in a relaxed pose, tranquil as ever, "you don't happen to be the delivery men?"
They look at me - bemused - scars painting their faces, bruises staining their skin, flesh seared and bone exposed. At least they look experienced. Darting past me, I simply stick my hand out and cause one to topple over. I get off my feet and throw the knife in the air, and arrow whispering through the air as a crossbow has been released.
I catch the arrow in my hands, the force of it propelling me back a few feet. A ravenous taste for blood I had not known for years manages to send them to their feet. I wrestle the second, breaking his nose and sending him to the floor. He smashes my coffee table, and I grip his throat.
Outside, a trident of thunder lacerates the sky in rage, and my third opponent, enraged, charges forward, relentless, his yellow eyes searing my flesh and bone. I move to the side, and he overestimates his jump, landing in a painting of a woman in black clothing, a bird resting on her shoulder. He breaks it. Then, something unexpected happens; he conjures a spell.
An inferno engulfs my home, enveloping everything in a shroud. A strangling grip of fire - the flames dancing and tickling my skin, gnawing, biting - sends me backwards, as the explosion erupts. I scream out, dazed, bewildered, at this sudden change in mood.
Grabbing one of my blades that was hanging limply of the wall, I charge at my third opponent, a wall of fire trotting forward as if a horse. I manage to slice his throat with a clean cut from the air, blinded by the collage of red intermingled with orange and yellow. For now - however - my mission had been successful. | 2021-08-17T00:48:42 | 2021-08-16T22:58:32 | 50 | 14 |
[WP] you are perfectly safe in your bunker, you have plenty of food and water and even plumbing. The problem is that you are alone and there is a zombie outside. Out of sheer boredom you teach it to speak, and now it's trying to convince you to let it in. | Dave heard the chime of the intercom over the bunker’s speakers and groaned.
“Daave.” called the gravelly voice, muffled slightly as it rolled out of the old overhead speaker. The speaker itself was embedded in the concrete ceiling under a metal plate that had been bolted into place. The bolts had proved problematic, and the metal extremely resistant to all attempts to remove or break.
Another chime. “Daaave.”
He tried to ignore it and focus on the task at hand: removing the damn intercom speaker from his sleeping quarters. He stood on top of two chairs stacked on top of a desk while using an old gigantic screwdriver and hammer to chisel around the metal plate. Over the past three days he’d made substantial progress. In another couple of hours he’d have a large enough gap to wedge a prybar under the plate.
“Daaaave.”
He began pounding the screwdriver with the hammer even harder, trying to drown out the voice. It wasn’t working. “Daaaaave.” Dave let out a loud exasperated sigh and turned on the radio clipped to his faded jacket.
“Yes, Zee, I hear you, what is it?” He said, not bothering to disguise his annoyance.
“Open.”
“No.”
“Brains.”
“No.”
“Daaaaave.”
Dave stopped pounding at the plate for a moment to press his head into the back of his knuckles. It had been his 'bright' idea to teach the Zombie at the front gate to talk. He even gave it a name once it understood enough. Now he regretted the action with every fiber of his being. It had been a game at first, something to do during the long lonesome months he’d spent in the bunker. He figured having someone to talk to might keep him sane a little longer. Now he was worried his insanity would stem from an entirely different, and much more annoying, source. He went back to his slow chiseling.
After a few minutes the intercom chimed again. “Noise?” questioned Zee. Dave stopped and wiped sweat off his forehead.
“You hear a noise? What noise?” Asked Dave, worrying that that something was compromising the base.
“Your noise. Loud metal and rock.” Replied Zee. Dave looked down at his makeshift chisel and realized Zee could hear him hammering over the intercom.
“That’s me.” He said back. “I’m doing some quality of life renovations. "You know, replacing the tile in the kitchen, putting in granite countertops, knocking down that annoying living room wall for an open-concept living space.” He smiled as he kept talking, enjoying the fantasy.
“Open wall?” Zee asked. “Which wall? Zee enter?” Dave winced, he should have seen that coming.
"Never mind dead guy.” Dave began, “never mind it was just a joke. I’m trying to take out the intercom speaker in my bedroom."
"Speaker box?" Zee clarified. Dave nodded, even though no one could see him. He knew he did little things like that, old physical habits from before the infection that he couldn't kick.
"Yep. Speaker box." He agreed. "That way you can't wake me up at night."
Zee was quiet for a long moment. These pauses in their conversations were new things. He used to always jump from one question to another, but over the past few weeks he'd learned to reflect. Dave thought that was extraordinary; for a zombie to take a few second to plan a response was so, human.
"Nights bad. Night talk make night good." Dave looked down at the radio thoughtfully. This also was not the first time Zee had seemed just as lonely as he was.
"Yeah, I get yah." Said Dave, his tone softening. "But I got to sleep at night, recharge the old noggin."
"So, no night talk make brain good?" Reasoned Zee slowly.
"Exactly. It's good for my brain."
"Hmmm Brains." Replied Zee, the hunger evident.
Dave sighed, "Listen dead guy, just because I'm keeping my brain healthy doesn't mean—" but before he could finish, Dave accidentally kicked the chair he was standing on, and it began sliding off the desk. Dave tried to step off the falling chair but missed and fell with it. He threw out his arm to brace his fall and felt pain shoot up the arm when it struck the floor. He yelled out.
“Dave?” Called Zee. “Dave ok?” Dave rolled onto his back and held his arm tight against his chest. He lay there for almost a minute, all the while listening to the zombie repeat his name over and over. “Dave? Daaaave. Dave? Dave? Dave. Dave.”
“I’m fine! Jesus, just relax for a minute.” He finally shouted back, feeling tears form at the corner of his eyes. He moved his arm around and began lightly pressing where it had hit the ground. It did not feel broken, although it throbbed like crazy.
“Dave ok?” Zee asked immediately.
“Yes,” he replied, letting out a deep breath as the pain began to recede. “I’m ok.”
Zee paused for a few seconds before asking, “Dave brain ok?
Dave sighed, heavily. “Yes. Dave brain ok too.”
“Good.” Said Zee. Dave rolled his eyes and wondered if he was imagining the tone of relief in Zee’s voice”
“Dave?” it asked.
“Yeah?”
“Open?”
“No.” | Inside the station’s bunkered core there was: a storeroom, consisting of food supplies sufficient to last one man ten years, a digital and a print library, a gym, a full kitchen, a small greenhouse whereby a man might grow herbs or flowers if he had the seeds, bathing, laundering, medical, erogenous, hallucinatory, and scientific facilities; there were many bedrooms, one of which was occupied, one of which had been repurposed to a prison; there was a porthole, looking out on the cold, slowly rotating black of space.
And none of that was enough to keep a man sane in silence.
Russel, waking late in the artificial day as he often did lately, rolled over in his soft bed built for two, and got thoroughly lost in the empty half. When he stood, some fifteen minutes later, it was with bleary, unfocused eyes. They stayed unfocused all through breakfast and a shower, and the usage of the other various facilities. They stayed unfocused when, as he always did, Russel peered through the cameras at the core’s breached outer airlock, where some two dozen or so of them wandered, mewling, groaning, occasionally gurgling or beating their fists against his door.
They stayed unfocused as he went to the print library, grabbed his notes and a picture book.
It was not until Russel reached the makeshift prison that he began to feel alive. The door slid open at his code and he stepped in, laid the book on the nightstand and shuffled his notes a few times in his hands. The scent of her filled the air; her perfume, a gentle citrus blend just on the familiar side of exotic, not the scent of her as she was, decaying and half dead. More than half dead.
“Good morning, honey. Have I told you lately that I love you?” Russel said. He had told her, he always told her. He told her again right then, finishing with the notes and finally looking at her.
She was a short woman, even when she had stood tall, proud. Now she was stooped, bent inward around the gnawing pit of her stomach, arms clutched tight to it. She hadn’t eaten her beef again. Russel frowned, grabbed a stick and pulled the dish away; it was a soy reproduction, all he had access to, but in his opinion it tasted and smelled very much like real beef.
Angelique spit at him, hissed. Her ruined nightgown fell one shoulder and Russel tried not to look. He wished he could change the gown for her but he couldn’t get close enough and the sedatives had not worked. What was once sheer, white, and lacy was now a soiled sort of brown, torn in places, very foul smelling without the perfume.
“We’re in the D’s today, honey,” Russel said. He sat down in the chair, propped his feet up on the unused bed. She lurched towards him, the wires around her wrist rattled, pulled taut when she was a foot from him. She hissed, strained against it.
Russel raised his notes, a picture of Jack Russel Terrier, a very fine example of the breed with wide, dewy eyes. Angelique had always been fond Jack Russels, she had elbowed him whenever they passed one.
“Dog,” Russel said. Then, “Dog. Do you see honey? This is a dog. Remember that, it’ll be important for later. Dog.”
He had a hundred pictures in his hands, a hundred D’s. Hours later when he had read off all the words, pointed at all the dogs and ducks and donkeys and dinners, he took up the book, showing it to her, and began to read. “See Spot run. Run Spot, run.”
And Angelique, halting, still thirsting for his blood, the fingers of her free hand outstretched and sketching little twisting, tearing motions in the air between, groaned “Spot.”
Russel smiled, nodded, and turned the page.
\*\*\*
It was nighttime on the station. In the core, Russel had tuned the lights to only dim, it was too terrifying to walk out into blackness and hear his wife’s inarticulate moans and hisses from the other room.
He could not sleep. Russel had never been able to sleep properly; he did not dream, never got through nights in an unbroken line, but tonight was worse. He gave up, left his bed sometime before the artificial dawn, wrapped a threadbare blue robe around his shoulders, and padded on bare feet out into the core.
He went to the locked outer door, laid his ear against the wall, and listened.
*“Dog,”* they whispered. *“Dinner, duck, donkey, dune, day, dance,”* and on and on through the D’s.
Russel shivered, though the station’s core temperature was kept more than comfortable for a man in bare skin. He had discovered, when working through the A’s, that what he told to Angelique did not stay with Angelique. She had no contact with the outside world of course. She was chained into the bedroom prison, had been ever since she had been bitten. It had even been her idea. When he had been busy crying, screaming at God, she had been practical. She had kissed his forehead, grabbed the handcuffs from the nightstand, ransacked the storeroom for a chain of any kind, finding a sort of metallic wiring that was an adequate substitute, and then proceeded to talk to him in a low, calm, soothing voice until he did as he was told.
So, how then, did they know the word “Dog?”
*“Spot,”* one of them whispered outside, and the whisper ran through them like a second plague. *“Spot. Spot. Spot. Spot. Spot,”* chorused on two dozen broken lips.
Russel did not understand it. He was no scientist, before the plague struck he had been a weapons officer, a lieutenant in charge of a few railguns facing towards the Kurzon border. The core had not been meant for him and Angelique, but other, brighter souls who might have known why all the zombies whispered in tandem. Slower souls. Souls who had died at their posts and even now clustered about the broken outer airlock.
Abandoning the dead outside, he went to the dead inside. The prison door slid open, Angelique stumbled towards him, fell. She did not sleep either. “Just wanted to say I love you,” Russel said. He said it a few more times, trying to make himself believe it still. Eventually, when the noises she made grew too maddening, he left, whispering one final “I love you” into the fetid air. She needed perfuming again.
Russel pounded his forehead against the wall, tried to shut out the many whispered words, and then went to the facilities again. There was a particular hallucinogen there that, when its other effects were exhausted, had proved rather effective at making him sleep.
\*\*\*
part 2 below
r/TurningtoWords | 2021-09-29T08:44:53 | 2021-09-29T06:20:37 | 1,940 | 537 |
[WP] you are perfectly safe in your bunker, you have plenty of food and water and even plumbing. The problem is that you are alone and there is a zombie outside. Out of sheer boredom you teach it to speak, and now it's trying to convince you to let it in. | "Let me in, please."
Not this again. I teach one zombie to speak, and now it wants in? Honestly.... "For the last time, no matter how cute you are, a zombie is a zombie is a zombie! I'd rather be lonely and alive than have company eating my brain." She reacted in the usual way. "I'm not going to eat you, jerk. I just want in." I sighed. "Why? What exactly do you need for me to let you in?"
"Um.....reasons." Nope. No chance. "Can't let you in if you don't specify. Anyways, it's late, and I'm going to sleep. Goodnight." That was the last thing I remember saying before waking up to the zombie closing the bathroom door. I knew it was her because I heard her singing in the shower. After she got out, dressed again, she saw that I was pissed. "Alright, out with it. How did you get in?"
"The doors opened. Must have been a security failure. Some other zombies walked in, and I killed them. I fixed the security mechanisms so that it doesn't happen again." I was skeptical. "And....you're doing this instead of eating me?" "Greg, you're the only one I've been able to properly talk to in years! How could I eat you?"
"Fair. Just don't break my trust, OK, Zee?" She nodded. "OK." | How could I be so God damn stupid?!? Teach it to speak I said, it'll be fun I said, it'll cure my boredom I said!
Whoever the poor bastard that used to own that corpse outside was, they have one helluva voice! It's so smooth and soothing. Like the love child of Morgan Freeman and David Attenborough, that voice could sell water to a drowning man, sell ice to an Eskimo, sell sand to an Egyptian, etc. anyway, a little backstory...
January 1st, 2023, the day the world ended. We only really just got back to normal from Covid 19 (ah the simpler times), and me and my gf decided we'd go and spend new year with her parents, big mistake. Come the morning, I say the morning, it was more like 2pm because new year's, and I notice the TV is on CNN with a breaking news story about Times Square, apparently someone who was high on meth or something attacked people, ripping their throats out before they were gunned down by police. Well, you can guess what happens next right? Well the ones that were killed came back from the dead and started to attack more people, and they in turn attacked others, until all of NYC was undead.
I couldn't tell what the date even is anymore... It's been maybe 6 months since then, maybe longer, but what does it matter? I've lost everything. I lost my house, I lost my car, I lost my dog. But worst of all, I lost my beautiful girlfriend. She's asthmatic, we couldn't find an inhaler for her and she succumbed to her asthma. To make matters worse, one of those... things got her. Scratched her arm, I had to shoot her after she took her last breath so she didn't become one of them.
I can't go on like this, I may have food and water as well as a working toilet and shower, but I'm so alone and this zombie is trying to make me open the door! There's no way I can keep resisting. That voice is so enthralling and I'm really depressed because of what I've been through...
I've got a gun, I could off myself, or I could shoot the zombie outside. But there could be more, it sounded like that one wasn't alone earlier... Do I kill myself, or let them do it for me? To be honest with you, I'm convinced the pain of being disemboweled by the undead would be less than the emotional pain I've been in for a long time now...
"Come on buddy, I won't eat you, I'll protect you. I can be your pet" All right, fuck this! I'm ending this now! I'm killing that thing and any others nearby. If I'm going down, I'm taking as many of them with me! If you find this notebook, now that I'm in a better place now. Danielle my love, I'll see you soon. | 2021-09-29T11:55:45 | 2021-09-29T11:48:39 | 21 | 14 |
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