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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[WP] You are an elite member of the royal guard. You have recently been fired from your position because of the new king. Little does he know, there was a reason why the previous king kept you in his service for so long.
Edit: Holy crap this blew up! Thank you all! | My phone rang for the third time in 10 minutes. I made a mental note to change the ringtone to something less patriotic and swiped up on the little green icon.
"John! Mate I've been trying to get through for ages!" came a frantic voice down the phone.
"Oh, well sorry Barry..." I lied, "it must've been on silent" I lied again.
"No, no, it's okay. But we have a problem here! You know that stuff you wrote? The stuff for the admin thing? You know it right? Well it's broken and we don't know what to do! I tried opening it in excel and it can't read it!"
I sighed. This was not an unexpected call, but also it was a call I was no longer paid to deal with.
"Barry, look. I modernised all our internal software, it's a bit of python and it automates everything we used to do manually. It's probably just that a feed from the outer guard posts is stuck and needs... Well, it needs sorting out really."
"But HOW John? No-one here can program! Shit, Sam can't even plug in his mouse half the time, Vicki's great for physical combat but not one for numbers, and Ash wouldn't even notice if he didn't get paid in a year, dopey prick."
"Barry, His Royal fucking Highness Prince fucking Ezra decided in his infinite wisdom that I could be spared in the restructuring of the guard. If you have a problem I'm afraid that either you're gonna want to rehire me and hope to whatever sad Gods you worship that I feel like taking it on, or you pay my contractor fees. Take that to the Prince and remind him, preferably with a fist, that when choosing people to get rid of, sysadmins should not be top of the list."
I hung up, infuriated, but pleased. That had been a long time coming and damn did it feel good. But something didn't quiiiiite sit right with me. I hit redial.
" John? What...?"
" And tell him I want an office cat."
*Click* | *An interview with Commander Juan dola Cruz, former Captain-General of King Ferdinand. He provided unique valuable insights on the demise of the Mad king. After my interview with him, I can't help but think that one wrong decision lead to the fall of a dynasty lasting 300 years*
The day the kingdom fell was the day I was removed from the Guard. The moment the Scarlet crown was placed upon his brow, the new King, Ferdinand threw me out.
I only knew of Liebe's fall years later, while I was lounging on a cafe in New Liebe. It seems King Ferdinand's policies have stirred revolution and the King, being a petty, showy man with little skill, locked himself in his palace as sign of, in his own words (if the press is to be believed) *"The bravest thing a monarch can do since Kristiva the Great"*
How can being besieged by starving peasants be braver than leading armies at 16 years of age? Let alone leading the smallest army in the entire region.
Funnily enough, the room he locked himself in was the War room. A room built by the Ferdinand's predecessor, the Soldier king. It was here the Soldier King would discuss war plans with me, and various others, preparing Liebe for any sort of external threat and how we are to conduct campaign. Unfortunately, he didn't live long enough to witness the ravages of the Ghaiamese revolution, and I wasn't in employment long enough to even draft a plan for a revolution.
I was also the only one, aside from the Soldier King himself, who knew the War room had a secret passage that lead to the Basilisk, a fort just outside the capital.
In his final years, he had me oversee its construction and made me swear an oath that only the Captain of the Guard and his successors are to know the passage's existence only. This didn't sound right, but the king was degrading and I didn't want to stress him more.
So, I decided to reveal the passage to some of his and my most trusted people, at least a day or two, or perhaps a week after his death. But that fool Ferdinand rushed the coronation, becoming king the just before his father even had his casket prepared.
I was thrown out, and perhaps in my disgust for the pig, I forgot about the passage until a week later. But I couldn't be bothered. My blood boiled every time I think of that pig. I wanted nothing with his new government and so I set off to settle in the colonies. | 2021-02-28T04:16:00 | 2021-02-28T02:31:53 | 315 | 107 |
[WP] "HI. Uh, I'm your new God, humans of Earth. The other guy was fired for sucking at his job. There's going to be a meeting in an hour to discuss my plans going forward. Attendance is mandatory. Also, don't be afraid; my resume is available upon request." | "What the hell did he just say?" Johnny says as he slowly climbs back to his feet. The sudden appearance of the voice had sent him sprawling from his chair in the packed diner.
"You heard it too?" Sarah softly says as she wipes Johnny's jacket free of dirt. She wasn't sure if she had gone mad, and she was still only half sure.
"Heard it? The new fella needs to learn to keep his voice down if he's going to be popping in like that" He says annoyed as he takes his seat like nothing too out of the ordinary had happened.
Sarah then glances around the diner, to find that everyone else were relatively calm too, excited even. Frowning, she turns back to face Johnny, who by now was digging back in to his apple pie.
"Why isn't everyone freaking out?"
"What do you mean?" He manages to say through a full mouth.
"The voice!... of... God?" She whispers the last part.
"What about it? The old one used to do it all the time"
Sarah scrunches her face in confusion, again looking around the diner. To her surprise, people were making notes!
"What do you mean? I've never heard it before" She says, even quieter than her whisper.
Then, all of a sudden, as if Sarah had a foul odour coming from her, Johnny reels back and nearly falls out of his seat again. "You can't be serious, Sarah?"
"How am I the strange one in this situation?"
"You never told me you were on the black list!" He says in a shouted whisper so the other diners cant hear him. "What did you do?"
"Me? I didn't do anything..." Sarah says, thinking.
"Well you have to have something if the old guy didn't like you" Johnny says and Sarah thinks back to what she might have done to have angered a God.
"There's nothing... I'm... good" She manages to say, and Johnny guffaws. "Don't laugh! This is serious" She pouts.
"Well the new guy seems to like you... don't worry about it" Johnny says.
But try as she might Sarah could not forget it. Not as they gathered up their coats, not as they headed out of the diner. Not as they joined the rest of the marchers as they headed... somewhere. Sarah wasn't sure where they were going, but her feet were taking her all the same. Finally the residents of the small town where Sarah had spent her whole life ended up in a large field that she had never seen before.
"This isn't right? This field is new..." She says to herself, and luckily, because Johnny ignored her anyway.
Dread begins to set in as the marchers come to a stop. The townsfolk talk excitedly amongst themselves as they wait for the big moment. And they wait, and wait, and wait. Day turns to night and to day again, or had it? It felt like they had been waiting years, and no time at all. Then, finally, a large cloud appears in the sky and in unison the crowd draw breath. Sarah knew the same was happening all around the world at this very moment. Then... it appeared.
A large globe of light appears from behind the cloud... as bright as the sun. Brighter! Then, it begins to speak.
"People of Earth... I welcome you to the first of many gatherings I will be-" Abruptly, the voice stops talking. People look around at each other, confused. Then.
"What is she doing here?" The God asks, annoyed. The townsfolk gaze around at each other and ask "Who?" "Who my Lord?"
"Her." The voice answers. "Sarah"
Almost robotically, the entire town round their focus on her.
"Hello..." Sarah says, petrified.
​
​
I have no idea what this was or where it was going... but it was a good fun warm up. So thanks! | “Damnit James quit crowding me! I’m the one who put in the resume request, I get to read it first!”
Emma crossed her arms and stood as tall as she could, daring her boyfriend to take it. Between them on their small kitchen table a scroll sat, bound up tight with a single golden cord.
“That’s a literal god’s resume, the new God! I’m not waiting.”
Emma nearly stamped her foot. She caught herself just as it was leaving the ground and forced it back down quietly. He still noticed though, he always did.
“Look,” James said, “we’re acting like kids and if we wait any longer it’s gonna kill me. You get to open it but at least read the damn thing out loud to me.”
Emma just nodded, reaching for the scroll. It had been childish, sure, but she thought it was even more childish that ever since he’d turned twenty James had started using the phrase “acting like kids” an awful lot.
“Woah, it’s warm!” Emma exclaimed as she lifted the scroll. It was a small thing the color of papyrus, lacking any ornamentation save the gold cord, and for no reason she could imagine it seemed to send bright, invigorating heat up her arm and into her chest.
James reached out to touch it and she swatted his hand. He snorted and shook his head.
“Ready for this?” she asked.
“Are you? It’s your show,” he said.
The cord came free with one pull and the scroll began to unravel itself. The inside face was printed with complex knot designs and fully half of the page was taken up by what appeared to be one incredibly long name. Emma could hardly read it, it appeared to be written in cursive English but the penmanship was either shockingly bad or way too stylized, somehow occupying a weird gray area of illegibility.
Just then James came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and hugging her to him, resting his chin on her head. Despite all their arguing she settled in anyway, it felt good.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” she asked him.
“Aside from the ridiculous name? Yeah, that can’t be right.”
The upper half of the page had only two entries.
***Intern at GodCorp: Creation-January 1st, 2020 (local time)***
***God at Sol Three: January 1st 2020 to present***
“He’s an intern!” Emma tossed the scroll onto the table before turning around in her boyfriend’s arms and looking up at him. “I’m an intern, does that mean I’m qualified to be a goddess?”
“I’ll get you a plaque made up,” he said, patting her lower back absentmindedly. “So we’re actually going to be ruled by an amateur. I mean…fuck.”
“Yeah seriously. I didn’t even believe the last one existed until we found out he was gone, now we’re all just supposed to worship this guy?”
James leaned down to kiss her forehead before letting go of her and going to turn the TV on. Emma looked after him glumly. She’d needed the hug after reading that.
“It looks like the middle east is a war zone,” he said, flipping over to a news channel. “And I saw some preacher in the news this morning saying it was the end of the world.” James plopped down onto the couch and Emma joined him, settling back into the crook of his arm.
“The sad thing is that doesn’t even sound that different,” she said.
“Yeah, maybe. I guess in the grand scheme of things our lives might not even change that much. I mean, if this one is anything like the last one it'll just be a bunch people messing it up on their own.”
“Maybe. It’s weird though, I can’t shake the feeling that this is going to be a bad year. Whatever you want to say about the last guy, at least he kept the world running.”
They sat like that a long time, watching images of violence and vitriol unfolding on their little tv.
“James?”
“Yeah babe?”
“Sorry I smacked your hand earlier, I was really on edge. The request form totally sucked.”
James laughed, stroking her arm. “No hard feelings, I get it.”
“Thanks for putting up with that, I love you." Emma closed her eyes, trying to tune out the tv. "I hope 2020 doesn’t suck too hard.”
\-----
r/TurningtoWords | 2021-03-13T12:40:33 | 2021-03-13T12:18:22 | 166 | 90 |
[WP] Your witchcraft professor gave everyone in your class a seemingly impossible task: create your very own spell. When you nervously turned your assignment in, a look of horror spread across professor's face as they read it. You had no idea why. | "Professor? You wanted to see me?"
The professor seemed to have calmed down since the student first turned in their assignment. The look of terror had gradually subsided as the class went on, though there was still a note of wariness in the professor's eyes. The professor nodded.
"Is it about the spell?" the student had expected a wide array of responses when the spell was presented, but horror wasn't one of them. Annoyed, certainly. Amused, if the student were lucky. "The thing is, I have an appointment with the hospital pretty soon and—"
"Oh, of course, then I'll make it quick. You see, I've been teaching for almost twenty years," the professor began. "And rarely, if ever, have I met a student with outright malicious intentions. So I'm assuming that your spell erasing any red ink on a piece of paper is more a prank than anything else. Am I correct?"
The student shrugged halfheartedly, hoping it didn't come across as too arrogant. "You have to admit, it's funny."
"Grading! You know it's the bane of my existence." The professor, only half-exasperated. "You're lucky I know how to take a joke. Professor Kinely would make you redo this assignment."
The student smiled innocently. "But you won't?" the student asked, almost teasingly.
"No, I won't. But that's not what I really wanted to talk about. You recall, early in our lessons, we talked about subjective descriptors when it comes to command spells."
The student nodded.
"Well, this is where color comes in. You see, red is not something which can be objectively defined. It depends on who is seeing it. So your spell can be interpreted many different ways. So it can either cause someone to stop seeing red, or it can cause all ink to be erased entirely. It's unknown until the spell is tested."
The student froze. "Oh, uh, I think I might know which it is."
A disapproving look settled in the professor's eyes. "Is your appointment with an optometrist?"
"...Yes."
"Well, that's one mystery solved." The professor turned back to her computer. "You're dismissed." | Magic schools demand miracles and the assignments are a real pain. What's worse? The professors are all old coots in long frocks.
"Mr. Johnson, your spell is rather...rather..." Professor Pulsifer huffed, proving the point.
"Yes, sir?" Godfrey Johnson, sophomore, answered.
"Well, it's a rather crude spell. It, uh, it works, yes, that can be said. It does work, but...but...it's not what I would call...appropriate."
As these words tumbled down the professor's white beard tufts, the only thought Johnson had involved a rather violent method of removal of those very old and dignified whiskers. As a result, Johnson's abdominals crunched and stopped the emotions from showing on his scholarly face.
"Why, what's the matter with it, sir. You say it works, and sir, quite frankly, it produces quite miraculous results."
A frown appeared on Pulsifer's face, and his beard lowered itself further, almost melting into the grey floor.
"Miraculous things. Ah, yes, miraculous, the pain yes, it...it...goes away. That is true, but...but...it won't do any good in a medical setting."
"But, sir, the effects indicate that it will do splendidly. It does eliminate the pain. The motive is achieved."
"It's not the spell I have issues with. It's the...the..."
"Incantation?"
"Yes, the incantation. It's so crude. Vile stuff, really. I don't think any nurse would ever agree to chant it."
A stutterer by default, Pulsifer was eloquent when it came to handing indignations. This fact only added to Johnson's woes, who found it hard to crunch his abdominals any further.
"But sir, seen free from colloquial and cultural standpoints, as in of itself, the gesture doesn't mean anything. It's just a finger, sir, nothing more."
Pulsifer's frown deepened, the beard now lay heavily on the floor. "Mr. Johnson, here at Magic High, a finger is not in of itself a finger. You do realize that a terrible curse associates itself with the gesture. Your spell is good; you just need to change the...the..."
Finally, Johnson's abdominals gave up, and a violent breath escaped through his mouth. On his face came a scowl befitting a gargoyle, and his upper lip defied his brain to curl itself into a devilish sneer.
"What's that Johnson? This is such bad conduct. You'll be in detention, one hour, I'll write you up."
The old coot didn't stutter even once, and Johnson's abdominals resumed their emotion clogging function. It was a minor miracle. | 2021-04-02T00:45:54 | 2021-04-02T00:02:18 | 176 | 96 |
[WP] You are constantly on the run from heroes, careful to erase any traces of your presence. Not, mind you, because you are a villain, but because your “deaths” were an important formative for several of the greatest heroes, and you feel too guilty to let them find out you’re immortal. | It was easier before, shaping the heroes of legend. I was the mentor, the parental figure, and, ultimately, the sacrifice. It was a matter of simple planning, a climactic finish, and then a quick move to another land of myth where no one knew of my glory.
And now, things are ridiculously difficult. Cameras everywhere. Hospitals with machines that can detect the lightest uptick in breath. Missing posters and facial recognition and too many things that just lead to hero backstories falling apart.
And so that was why I was apprehensive but not entirely surprised when I sensed the team of supers at my doorstep. I didn’t bother casting a glamour as I opened the door.
And there they were, my crowning achievements. Invisi-Girl, Electronix, and Redforce. They stumbled back and forward again when I raised an eyebrow. "Radha. Noah. Cole. It is good to see you three together."
"Anvit-ji," Radha gasped, at the same time Noah murmured, "Mr. Grayson," and Cole blinked and blurted, "Ray?"
They'd expected to see me, in all my various forms, and yet they were still surprised. I wasn't sure if the surprise was pleasant or anger-inducing. A bit of both, I guessed, and invited them inside.
Radha had been taught the art of invisibility by a master that died after passing on the secrets of his powers. Noah had learned to program, and later control electricity, from his computer science teacher who was targeted by a foreign cyber terrorist who tried to control him and his powers. Cole had lost the wrestler who had taught him how to give and take punches in the same radioactive storm that gave him his mutated strength.
They remembered me. I remembered them. We had shaped each other. And they had not known I was alive until now.
I served them lemon tea. My trademark, in a way - my identities changed over the years, but my tea blends did not. They took their cups, only vaguely realizing that I still remembered the way they liked it, and stared around the room as if they had never seen walls before. This house was small, and I always traveled light, but some things never changed. I held onto a few valued trinkets from heroes of old, forgotten by all but me, that now lined the bookshelves of the room. I always surrounded myself with books, though whether they were textbooks or scrolls or banned readings depended on the age.
I let them stare, and then I allowed them to get angry. I had anticipated most of this. The question of how was answered as succinctly as possible, and the how-could-you and the accompanying tears hit hard but I still answered.
"The world needed great heroes, throughout all the ages," I said, and took a sip of the tea. "And heroes need training. And to force them to use that training to help rather than hurt - they need to be hurt first."
They didn't understand. They raged and cursed, and drew back, and studied me silently. "I lost you," Noah said in the end, and I met his eyes. "I lost you once. And now I realize I've lost you a thousand times since then."
"And if you had not lost me? If you all had not lost me? Would you have joined together to defeat the supervillain of last year, that you gave everything to destroy? Would you have fought if you did not have the image of a man reminding you to fight?"
"I-" And they stopped. And then they protested, a moment later, but that hesitation was enough. We knew the answer.
"You were not puppets," I said, and I rose. They rose with me. "I was your teacher, and I shaped you, but I loved you. I chose you. I may not have been in your lives for long, but I have watched you grow into the powerful team you are. You are truly heroes, in every sense of the world. I have never been more proud."
And the three grown heroes were not happy as they stepped back into the evening light, but neither were they upset. They had each met a beloved man they had thought to be dead. And while they did not know exactly what to think, they did thank me for the tea as they left.
It was a bit like lemon tea, I mused as I closed the door. Bitter, but rich. Sour, but sweet. | What makes a hero?
​
Is it the unyielding mental fortitude, never to give up even in the direst situation? Is it the unrivaled strength, enough for an individual to sweep away thousands and thousands of elite-rank enemies? Or is it the selflessness, the will to sacrifice oneself to achieve absolute justice?
​
This is not a rhetorical question. I'm asking because I don't have a damn clue. And I'm really, really, really tired of raising my precious students to walk on the path of darkness, only for them to become a hero later on. If I get a coin for every time a student that I taught becomes a hero, I'll have 2 coins. Which is not much, but I've only ever raised 2 students, which makes it 100%!!
​
You see, my specialty in this world is that of a teacher. And what a teacher do is, well, teach. But alas, there comes 2 main problems. The first one is, due to my alignment in this world, the only thing that I can teach is Dark Magic - magic in its most heinous form, and can only be used for evil purposes as far as history of this world goes. Therefore, I can't just open a school and recruit students, the Holy Knights and the Heroes Society will undoubtedly come and woop my ass. And since I can't open a school, the 2nd problem reveals itself: I had no student. What good can a teacher be without his student?? If I have no student then I can't teach. And if I can't teach, then this damned system mission of mine would inevitably failed, leading to penalty. And I wouldn't want another penalty you know...Because the first time I failed a quest, I became immortal. Yes, I am your generic transported-to-another-world-with-a-cheat-system character.
​
I had flew over countless human cities, burrowed under many elven forests, and swam through The Great Sea itself. Over the course of 4 years, I could only kidnap 2 children. In this world, even the homeless has an ID card to control the population, which made my job even harder. I have 6 years left to raise 3 students, to complete this damned mission of mine before getting struck with another horrible penalty. Easy, you might think. And easy, I thought it was...Until after I had taught the first ever student of mine everything...and had nothing left to teach. What could I have done? I needed to find a reason to ditch her, I couldn't waste time staying with 1 student forever. And I couldn't imagine the carnage there would be if there were more than 1 student with me at a time...The process of teaching Dark Magic is always brutal, and it causes a lot of attention. More than 1 staying with me at a time, and we will inevitably get caught by those pesky Holy Knights for practicing forbidden knowledge. So, I considered my options.
​
Sneak out of the cave in the middle of the night? She would think that it was a test and her goal was to find me, and being the smartass she was, she would definitely caught me in a span of 1 day. Kill her? I didn't want to risk the mission point not getting counted. Beside, after I taught her everything I could, she was as strong if not stronger than me, despite me being immortal. So, the only seemingly good option left was...
​
"Serena..." I faked a bloody cough while looking wearily at my first ever student. She struggled to keep the tears from her eyes to no avail, her shaking hand placed on mine.
​
"I don't have...much time left...Ugh!" I whimpered. "The Dark Magic of the Evil Dragon has...almost consumed me..."
​
"I'm sorry teacher." She bit her lower lip, blood gushing down along with the tears "I couldn't do anything for you..."
​
"What a nice act. Im sure you hate me to the guts." I thought to myself. Nobody could possibly have affection toward me after all I've done in the name of "teaching Dark Magic" to them.
​
"You...made me proud." I tried to smile as faint as I could "Now...go outside and show the world...The true meaning of Dark Magic..."
​
Then, I slowly transform into a pile of ash. She had never witnessed me transforming before, and so she thought what happened to me was because the Magic of Evil Dragon had completely erased my existence - at least I hope that's what happened because in the process of transforming, I slowly lose my consciousness. | 2021-04-05T19:21:48 | 2021-04-05T19:07:33 | 1,214 | 150 |
[WP] What’s worse than a mad scientist? A well-meaning scientist that has no comprehension what social upheaval their inventions will inflict on society. As the city’s superhero, it inevitably falls on you to explain, every time, to this socially oblivious genius what’s gone wrong and why. | Look, I don't know why the fuck they hired me either.
I flunked out of undergrad -- not that anyone knows that. Somehow it doesn't make a great catchphrase: *The Negotiator: I got a D in Chem 101 but A in ass-kicking.*
But then the chief of police flashed the alert spotlight in the air. A question mark, if you're curious. They wouldn't let it be a fist or even a nice hammer, as they both implied violence, and the city might get sued. The great Metropolis can endure mad scientist attacks and kaiju and fucking interdimensional aliens, but god forbid one of us contract-working superheroes cause a civil suit.
So I called the chief up. We arranged for coffee. I showed up in my disguise and remembered I couldn't drink coffee without lifting my mask, which contributed to my overall wonder why they called a D-list superhero like me into action. I'm surprised they still had my alert-light screen.
You have to pay for them, by the way, when you suck as a superhero.
Still, even though I was sitting there holding a dark-as-my-soul drip coffee that I couldn't drink, I kept my voice husky, serious. "Why would you call me, Chief?"
"Did you really have to wear the disguise?"
"My identity is a secret I'll die with, ma'am."
The other patrons of the Starbucks were watching me out of the corner of their eye. I was obscure enough that no one was sure if I was legit or just a crazy dude in well-tailored spandex.
"Well, not really, as it's in your permit paperwork for the alert light..."
"Chief," I said, coldly, but admittedly starting to wonder if I should just give up and drink my coffee before it got cold, "just cut the shit. Tell me what the PD could want with a guy like me."
The chief sighed. She pulled a folder from her briefcase and flipped it open. Slapped it on the table.
"This is the Peacebringer. She's the one villain I can't take down."
I looked at the folder like I totally read police reports everyday and definitely not fast food orders at the shitty day job I definitely don't have.
A photo was clipped to the top: cute girl, teal hair, her eyes hot with indignation.
"She's cute," I said. "Alt-rock college girl and Peacebringer. Sounds like a shitty villain."
"You're exactly right. She's a terrible villain. She has created invention after invention that's hurt countless people. She created a machine that would refreeze the ice caps, and they're still digging our research crews and so many damn penguins out. A vegetarian ray that made all salad taste exactly like steak, and no one could decide if they liked it. She created a free love ray that got a little... uh, too free."
I nodded. "I was stuck at work that day. So annoyed I missed it."
The chief narrowed her eyes at me. "The point is, she's sweet and misguided. I don't even know if she's aware she's hit the minimum public mayhem threshold to be classified as a villain."
"We're back to my first question, Chief. Why me?"
"You're the Negotiator. You logged that as your superpower. Persuasion. You said, and I quote, *I could talk an elephant into flying*."
I fiddled with my coffee lid. Lukewarm. Damn. Definitely should have just showed up incognito. Now I just wasted $4 on coffee and water.
"That's true," I said, sagely, but the elephant was a fat kid named Billy who I convinced to let me launch him off the trampoline in 3rd grade. "Very well. If there's no one else, I'll do it. To honor this city."
I tapped the table urgently, letting my voice rise with what I hoped sounded heroic. That's all I ever wanted with all this stupid shit. To feel like I mattered. That I was helping someone.
Then, I added, more quietly, "Is the department still offering the, uhhh, usual $500 compensation?"
"You're a real superhero alright. Always want to make sure you're paid. Of course." The chief clicked her briefcase shut. "If you can get her to stop 'helping.'"
I gave in. I rolled my mask up to expose my chin and took a sip of coffee as dark and cold as my heart. Tasted fucking terrible. I noted to skip the costume next time.
"Of course I can," I said, letting her see my smirk. "I'm the Negotiator."
°°°
Oops I went too long! Second half below :) | Captain Justice leapt to the top of the water tower in a single bound, landing in a perfectly heroic fashion—fist to the floor, down on one knee, steely smolder in the eyes. He could hear maniac laughter echoing from inside the water chamber. “*Mwahahahaha!*”
Captain Justice could recognize that laugh anywhere. He ran to the chamber’s iron door, pried it off with one hand, and rushed inside. Across the room was Dr. DoGood, arm outstretched over the cities water supply, vial of green liquid in hand.
“Dr. DoGood!" Captain Justice shouted. "Stop in the name of *Justice!*”
“Calm down Captain. Hear me out first, okay?” Dr. DoGood cleared his throat.
Captain Justice resigned himself for the monologue that was sure to follow. If there was one thing he’d learned over the last decade it was not to interrupt a mad scientist’s monologue. They’d tell you everything you need to know.
“Humanity has changed..." Dr. DoGood said in a low, menacing voice. "People used to interact with one another, go outside and play. I’ve grown sick of watching everyone cower in their little hidey holes like rats… scared to leave their homes, scared to hug their families. My grandkids don’t even visit anymore. Everyone’s cowering in their dens, eyes glued to their screens, wasting away. People don’t *live* anymore. They may as well be *dead!*”
Dead? Captain Justice perked up. That was a superhero buzzword. “If you poison the water the only one who dies will be *you!*” he proclaimed. “I’ll snap your neck faster than you can say ‘extrajudicial killing.’”
“Poison?” Dr. DoGood frowned. “This isn’t poison. Trust me, this is for the greater good.”
Captain Justice rolled his eyes. It was *always* for the greater good. “What kind of cockamamie concoction is in that vial then? Some kind of potion that turns everyone into an extrovert? An elixir that blinds everyone to the light from their phones? Oh I know, I bet it makes everyone photosynthesize and therefore require sunlight.”
“Not at all. Those are all fantastic ideas though." Dr. DoGood scribbled in a notebook with one hand, then flipped it closed. "This here is just a COVID-19 vaccine.”
Captain Justice opened his mouth but no words came out. “What?” he said after a moment.
“You heard me. It’s a vaccine. Super effective too—all it takes is one glass of water, and you’re immune for life. Effective against the variants and everything.”
“Well you can’t… that’s not…" Captain Justice stuttered. "Okay well, have you *tested* it?”
“Oh yes, many tests. I've even used it on myself. The only side effect is marginally more defined abdominal muscles. See?" Dr. DoGood pulled his lab coat away, lifted his shirt, and flexed. Captain Justice had to admit, he looked hot. "Seriously though," Dr. DoGood continued. "If you don’t believe me, come here and cough on me. I won't even flinch.”
“I’m not going to cough on you,”
“It’s okay, I don’t mind. Cough into my mouth, I'll prove it.”
“No! Doctor, no. That’s crazy. Everything about this is crazy. It’s too dangerous.”
“Look, you can trust me. Remember that shrink ray I made to shrink everyone down to the height of shortest human?”
“Yes, I distinctly remember that. You said it would make basketball more equitable, and then you made me two-feet tall. It was a terrible idea and it hurt like hell for the next month growing back to my regular size.”
“Yes but the point is it *worked!* This vaccine is great, trust me.”
Captain Justice sighed. “Look, even if it does work, you can’t trick people into getting the vaccine. It’s not right.”
“That’s what you said about the shrink ray.”
“And that wasn’t right either! Doctor, I respect where you’re coming from but I can’t let you do this.”
“All right all right,” Dr. DoGood said, throwing his arms up in the air. “I won’t do it. But you’ll have blood on your hands, Captain.”
Captain Justice shrugged. “It’s part of the job.” He walked up to Dr. DoGood and took the vial from his hand. He meant to discard it but hesitated. “But uh... do you mind if I take a sip? I miss indoor dining.”
Dr. DoGood shrugged. “Why not, hypocrisy be damned.”
"Ooh, it's bubblegum flavored."
***
More of my favorite pieces at r/Banana_Scribe | 2021-04-21T23:00:54 | 2021-04-21T20:44:06 | 1,472 | 440 |
[WP] "You killed in a peace zone" the guard said pointing a gun at me. "No I poisoned him before he went into the assassin meet-up he just happened to die in the peace zone" I responded. The guard pondered this for a second. | Of course I could just flash my credentials as Master Class Rightier, but that breaks much of the protocol. There were the Peace Guards, the Justicars, Lawyers, Judges, then there were the Rightiers, and we all had to get along, but damned if it was not hard at times to get through these meatbags. So I explain again, slower for him, "I am not the assassin. He was the assassin, seeking transit through the peace zone, to get to his target. I should know. Go ahead and call it in, so we can get this over with."
The guard narrowed his eyes at me and my attitude, and I don't blame him. My therapist says I should empathize with people more so I do not turn into an actual killer like the poor sod laying in a pool of blood just a few feet from us. So I turn my face and smile, "Actually, you know, I don't want to put anymore paper work on your desk. So let me just say this: You're doing a great job."
That makes his head spin a moment, bringing a few blinks that not even his helmet HUD can hide. "Now you're just being a jackass," he grumbles, clicking his gun on. The whirl of magnets charging up rail shots in the chamber just make me roll my eyes. Speaking of paperwork, pulling that trigger meant paperwork of my own when this body got torn to basic matter.
"Not at all, sir," I put my hands up and clarify, "I am just saying, you are right to notice, that a man is dead in the peace zone. Quite right, indeed," I put my hands down, striking a confident look, hands open, palms up, "but, sometimes things are a bit more complicated than the Overseers want to admit. You know that as much as me," I drop a hint that we were at least in the same line of work.
For being a guard meathead, he does seem to relax at that, picking it up as I throw it down. He nods, "Sometimes. Too much paper work involved otherwise."
I click my fingers and point towards him with a smirk, "My man!" I chuckle, "And paperwork only slows down the wheels of justice that need quite a bit of grease to keep turning in our day and age. So, let me just say this. This guy is an assassin. I killed him with poison, to stop him from killing someone. I did not kill him in the zone. I killed him thirty minutes ago. And he landed here. All perfectly legal stuff. Especially," I nod towards the body and flair my eyebrows, "If there wasn't a body here at all?"
The Guard heaves a sigh, and finally puts his gun away. "Sure, sure. Except!" He puts a finger up, and I can't stop the blanche that comes to my constructed face I had oh so grown fond of. "If we are going to do this, I need you to give a Unit-T73-NoApp Decree."
I roll my eyes again, and sigh. I could not blame the guy for wanting to cover his ass. The little piece of inter personal bureaucracy was just a bit to make sure no one just took a badge and started shooting. I open my bicep, and take out a digipen as he opens his palm, bringing up the form. I say out loud for his personal mic, "I do declare I had legal right to this operation, and further operations with this guard fall solely on my clean up. I mark my Digi-sig here, for anyone to contact me, with any concerns." I click the bottom, where my name appears and flashes, before it sinks back into his palm. I crane my neck back and grunt, "Please, just don't contact me for anything, I got twenty other assignments after this."
The guard just shrugs and waves it away, "Whatever. It's better than guarding a peace zone. The mandate barely works anyway. Just help me get this piece of Shuts in a recycler or something." Before we knew it, with both us dragging the assassin over to the wall and throwing him down the shoot. I clap him on the shoulder and smile, "Good job, pal. Keep up the good work."
"Whatever, just get out of here before the cleaners show up and I got questions. No contact, remember?" He smirks. To which I only shoot him finger guns, clicking my tongue. Then I am off.
I open my palm a little ways away, bringing up the guards portrait and lighting up a Firestick. "And, 3 . . . 2 . . . 1." I watch as the vitals under the image go blank and red, flashing alerts regarding his heart stopping. I bring up my own docket, and scratch out his name.
"Hmm," I pout my lips and curl the corner of my lip, "Two for one. Not bad . . ." | [Voiceover](https://vocaroo.com/19f1KU4N49Qi)
The Villains owned the Southside and heroes all the rest of the city. Fetor, much akin to his own philosophy, lived just on the edge. The tenuous balance of power left unaffiliated supers like him frequently pestered by job offers. One of the sides finally hit him with one too good to pass up.
Prim's zone of influence glistened ahead, leaving the typically rundown Central Avenue of Southside looking like Mayberry. A bird whistled in a blooming Apple tree above three young boys dressed in pastels giggling as they raced sticks and hoops down the sidewalk.
Fetor pulled his eye away from the stomach-churning idyllic vistas as he spotted his target again, waddling up the wide marble steps of what was once the museum of the city. Despite being burned nearly to the ground, the remains looked more like majestic Roman ruins than the trash heap it was. Nothing could be ugly within sight of Prim.
Fetor looked down and sighed. His ratty hoodie was now clean grey wool with two puffballs at the end of the strings. The air smelled fresh, like spring rain and clean linens.
"Shoot! That smarts," said GoreFiend, one of the more sadistic villains, as he stubbed a clawed foot on the steps.
Hell Widow let out a sensible chuckle. "What are we to do with you, you big oaf?"
"Frick!" Fetor said in a sensible volume. Censoring was part of the field as well, interesting.
He followed after the Villain Crab Bake who was breathing heavily now. Everyone was all smiles to see Fetor enter the PG Lion's den. "Finally came to your senses, Gasbag?"
"Maybe," Fetor offered with a smile, feeling fangless without a drop of pollution to draw in from the air. Perhaps he could blow concentrated pollen in a pinch.
He walked slowly alongside Crab Bake, who was sweating buckets not at all staining his red suit. "Rough day?" Fetor asked.
"I'm peachy," the target replied, somehow managing to sneak some sarcasm through the filter. Shame, this guy must be fun at parties away from Hallmark Land. The meeting room doors were open ahead.
The man himself in his white polo and slicked back hair stood straight as the broom up his rear-end. "Mr. Fetor, a pleasure to see you. We were just starting. Please take a seat."
"I won't be long Prim, sir. I'm just here to deliver a message." I poured myself a glass of cucumber water from the cooler by the office door.
"From the heroes?" Prim asked, the disappointment of a tired father on his face.
Fetor downed his drink and stepped aside just as Crab Bake fell dead beside him. He had given the dose of lead air with perfect timing. He should never have doubted himself.
“My realm is a zone of peace!” Prim yelled with a subdued fury as he slapped his hand lightly on the table. He was limited by his own power as well. That was good. “You killed someone in my own house, you have broken the treaty set by the heroes themselves three years ago!”
“Technically no, I didn’t,” I offered as I shot the empty glass into the trash can. It didn’t break, of course. Nothing did in Prim’s domain. “I invaded his lungs when he was eating at Saretti Pizza this morning. The effect was merely delayed. This is the message.”
“You son of a gun!” Prim said, grinning maniacally. “I’ll see you done for after a stunt like that!” GoreFiend stood beside Fetor, eight feet of polite and dignified dinosaur man.
“You wouldn’t break your zone of control to try it.” I leaned right in his face. “I can come here whenever I want and do whatever I want and you can’t stop me. You’ve grown soft, Prim.”
“You are woefully misunderstanding my power. I choose to project peace,” he began as he stood, his eyes beginning to bleed, “but I can do so much more. You have no power here, Gasbag. Your stores of poison must be dry after breathing my clean air.”
Flames erupted outside the window as the pleasant Easter luncheon decayed around them, turning into a hellscape of hooks and knives. Metal music was playing somewhere in the distance. “I am-” Prim began, interrupted by a bullet between the eyes.
His head exploded cartoonishly covering everyone in gore before the effect of his power clipped off suddenly. The villains and Fetor stood in the ash-filled ruins of the burned museum. Fetor pulled the rank ash into himself, filling his reserve.
“There, now I killed someone in your house. Everyone feel free to be as upset as you like!” Fetor reholstered the small pistol as GoreFiend placed a clawed hand on his shoulder, baring fangs at the other Villains still seated.
“So, you’re in with the heroes now?” Hell Widow asked, looking at her much smaller hat and down at her now stained dress.
“What gave you that idea?” Fetor asked with a smirk, summoning his miasma. "Just thought this place could use some new management and my friend here agreed. Everyone who disagrees, raise your hand.”
The screams carried all across the Southside, declaring the reign of Prim truly over.
/r/surinical | 2021-04-26T13:21:18 | 2021-04-26T11:13:15 | 83 | 58 |
[WP] Time slows down near a Black Hole. The most expensive wine in the universe is produced in a winary orbiting a Black Hole. | “There’s this planet orbiting a black hole,” said Elise. “Or not orbiting, just kind of stuck there. Like a fly trapped in a spider’s web, somewhere near the centre. Imagine that for me.”
Alana grinned. “Okay. I’m imagining it. For you.”
The campfire crackled as the two girls lay on their backs watching the stars. It was a last goodbye — or at least, goodbye for a long time. University would be starting soon and Alana would be leaving the little farming town, while Elise would be staying and helping her parents.
“Okay. So there’s this man who really loves wine. I mean, he guzzles it by the barrel. And to start with, he’s not fussy, but the more he drinks, the more snobbish about it he becomes. He starts buying better wines, rarer wines, older and more mature.”
”Exciting story,” said Alana.
”Just stick with it. Eventually, the man sells his car so that he can sample the best wine on earth. And it’s good! Really good. For a while, he’s elated, he’s up on the table dancing and singing and telling everyone how good the wine is.“
”But...?”
”How did you know there was a but?”
”There’s always a but,” said Alana. She rolled onto her stomach and looked at her friend: a flickering ember lying next to the fire. Cheeks red from the little bottle of vodka they’d smuggled with them, until the fire cast shadows in a breeze and her friend became a silhouette. As if she’d left already.
”Whatever. So, he loves this wine, but the feeling of ecstasy fades away and he’s left feeling hollow. Like he’s one of his own precious bottles of wine, but the liquid has been drained out of it.“
”He tries to chase that feeling, right? What does he do?”
”Maybe you should be telling this story. Yes, he chases it. Once you’ve experienced a high like that, you always want to capture it again. He sells his other car and his guitar and a lot of other personal stuff, all so that he can sample a bottle equal to the last. And eventually he does—“
”But...”
”But..., it doesn’t taste quite so good. Or the high’s not quite as strong. So he looks up at the stars, just like us, and thinks of how he can get that new high.”
Alana rolled onto her back and looked back at the stars. They both knew that when they saw each other again, they’d have changed. Become different people. Like sponges, they’d absorb the lives of those around them. For her, university would change her state: an ice cube melted to water, trickling through a hundred subjects and a thousand people. Elise, though, would harden into a more solid version of her parents. Like fat slowly congealing in the cooling frying pan.
Elise continued her story. “So the man sells his house and everything else, and gets a big loan out, and he buys a spaceship.”
”He must have got a real bargain!”
”Shut up!“ Elise laughed. “He goes up into space with seeds and grapevines and heads for a planet stuck in the spiderweb of a blackhole. Because he‘s got this great idea to start a winery at a black hole, because time slows down there, and he’d be able to mature wine much faster. So—“
”Elise. If time slows down at a black hole then the grapes would never grow. The wine would never mature.”
”Oh,” said Elise. She let out a long sigh. “That’s why you’re going to uni and I’m staying here.”
That wasn’t why. Alana knew it as well as Elise: it was because Elise’s pa was sick and her mom couldn’t run the farm alone. And that was all there was to it. No choice.
”I’m sorry,” Alana said. “Please finish the story. I’m enjoying it.”
”That was basically all of it anyway. He made a wine, and it was better, but it wasn’t good enough, bla bla bla. So he went closer to the black hole to make a better wine, and eventually he fell in. The end.”
Alana stared at the gaps between the stars and imagined that man stuck somewhere there, trapped for eternity. Like purgatory.
What had been the point of Elise’s story? That we’re never happy with what we have? That we always chase a high until it destroys us? Had it been about her going to uni — was that the black hole she was about to fall into?
Maybe. But she didn’t think so. Elise always supported her and had even helped her fill in her applications.
Alana thought of the black hole. Of time slowing.
She wished time would be slowed, stopped, right here. Right now.
But the moon winked behind a cloud and the skies brushed forward towards dawn.
Alana supposed that at least on Elise‘s family’s farm, things would remain as they’ve always been. This town never changed.
And something about that burned a hot passion into Alana’s heart. Being here forever. Things never changing.
She wanted to say *I love you*. She wanted to say more than that, but she locked the words away in her heart and hoped in time they’d sink to the bottom of that red ocean and she’d notice them a little less.
Elise had a boyfriend and didn’t want a girlfriend. Ever.
And that was life. That was okay. She’d meet someone — maybe at uni.
But how perfect it sounded, to stay with Elise on her farm, in this black hole town where time stops, and make good wine and be happy for the rest of their lives. | You'd think with the advancements of modern technology we'd ascend past the idea of consumerist crap like this. I understand, I know, and I feel saddened by the fact that I was born to be an economic cog within the vast veracity of human consumption, without my undue consent, I get that. I'm honored to live in this time, with the luxuries I am able to partake in, you ever experience zero gravity? It's overrated. You know, I read books, surprising no? Cog learnin' how gears work? I know my history, there was a time, a place in *fricken time*, imagine that, where we as beings lived on a centralized place, with separate creeds and cultures and languages. How long ago was that? Who the hell knows anymore?
What? You think I enjoy this? All these gizmos and instantly ready food, and lack of conflict or violence? I'm over nine hundred-freaking thousand years old! In wine time, which yes, is what we call it, I'm only thirty-six. Does something feel off about that? No? Yeah, didn't think so. I work in one of the most expansive and innovative projects in the name of all mankind. Or at least I'm sure that's what some schmuck in a suit said two million years ago to a bunch of rich people at an oakwood table, probably overlooking a sea of water, drinking Cabernet. I don't know, I've never seen a sea of water, apparently they're blue, but all the pictures look green? "This'll be great!" he says to a bunch of pigs, "We send two hundred of the finest wine workers out in cryo in sub light to a blackhole, where they'll jury rig the best wine in the known universe. We'll sell it by the gallon, it's an amazing marketing trick! Wine made by the Winnower! By the time they get there we'll have FTL travel, and we'll make gajillions! Trust me guys, this is nothing but ethical!"
I don't even know the science behind this crap, I push buttons! You think I'm some sort of genius who cultivates crops to a scientific tee? All this garbage is cultivated automatically, it's been like that for thirty years. It's distilled with like gravity or whatever, apparently it makes it older? More "airy" or "wet" or "dry"? All it does is makes some snob cream his jeans. I literally spit in the last batch. The funniest thing, is that snob I'm talking about gushing about the garbage wine I make, will be gone and dead, within 5 minutes of my time. That's something that weighs on you right? There's someone enjoying my wine right now, and by the time I finish this thought, they're gone. Kaput, kablewy, carted off into the cosmos. Don't let the stars hit you on the way out.
No shit, I've met the delivery guys. We call 'em "one and dones". Because once they leave that airlock, they're dead to us. Literally. We will never, ever see their faces again. Once they walk out that airlock, it's like, I think it's Chodingher’s Cat or something, something you know is dead, is it really dead if you don't see it? Well, yes they are dead, spoiler, sorry. We're not allowed to know their names, otherwise we get attached. I do think of them sometimes though. There was this one kid, came through that airlock some five years ago, happiest kid I've ever seen in my life. Not a day over nineteen. He was so stoked to come out and experience the winery, everything was so new, and fancy and overarchingly gorgeous. Every button was an experience. He greeted me like I was a person, an actual, real person. Which obviously I am, but he just seemed so free of the constraints I artificially force upon myself. He's gotta've been dead for around twenty thousand years now? He had his life, had kids, grandkids, experienced wars, conflicts, all the sea water he could dream of, and he's dead. Lost to history, forgotten by those he loved, his name never etched into the rails of any history book, he simply lives in one place now. My mind. I'm the only one who knows his smile, his personality, his experience within my little utopia.
My mom met my father right before the sub light drive. How romantic is that? Apparently, he went in about the science of grapes and how they grow and cultivate in a place called Tuscany, and she was smitten, some five hundred years later they married. Boom right out of the pod. When you got a choice of like 199 other people, I'd probably go with grape guy too. I think she made an alright choice. Do I support their choice of making wine? Sure, money's money. Do I support her choice of making me? Hell no! Do you know what it's like getting born in space, with artificial gravity, a mid-life crisis and the mother of nothingness holding you down? My back hurts, constantly!
How much do you think our wine goes for? 200,000 of whatever currency they use now? 500,000? The big milly, million? What even is a big number anymore? 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000? They won't tell us! My manager, I've known the screwball for twenty years, says it's "detrimental to workplace morale" if the price of the product is known.
No shit! The endless purgatory I call home, is something that can never be valued. I've outlived trillions of people like me. Statistically, there probably is another me out there, in the vast world of colonization and nothingness we have conquered. Someone who acts like me, talks like me, and has the same name as me, they existed at some point. And they're gone before I even get halfway through my shift.
I need to stop thinking about this.
I'm gonna go push some buttons.
---
I write sad stories for sad people: r/MaeserkIsLeftHanded | 2021-04-29T03:27:02 | 2021-04-29T02:11:15 | 241 | 42 |
[WP] You're the main exhibit in an alien zoo. Little do they know you're learning their language through all the visitors. | I was beginning to learn a newfound respect for the caged tigers I'd seen as a kid. We were both dangerous things, confined, and put on display for creatures beyond our understanding. There were differences, of course. They had been rescued from poachers; I had been captured on a battlefield. They were put on display to raise awareness to conservation efforts; I was a trophy.
When the Invaders came there had been no warning. All attempts at communication were utterly fruitless. Either they were just too different psychologically to meaningfully communicate or they were to disinterested in their prey's well-being to care. And any attempt to speak to them only left us vulnerable to their most dangerous weapon: their words.
They had words that leave a person catatonic, stop their heart, crush their will, and far, far more. They delighted in tormenting their prey with monologues of command words, flaying their minds bit by bit. Which is exactly what they had done to my platoon. I was the only survivor. I guess that impressed them, because even though there were other humans in this combination zoo and prisoner of war camp they gave me pride of place.
I'd been in worse cells. This one was downright cozy, with a little grassy area to pace, a little hut to sleep and/or defecate in, and regular though dubious meals. My audience came and went, horrible squid things and their little squidlings, gawking and jeering (I suppose) at the One Who Lived. They never seemed to sleep, always crowding round at all hours with their babbling, and the sound of their voices reminded me of those endless hours of having my psyche dissected by those awful semantic knives.
At feeding times the attendant would come and leave a tray for me. Twice I tried to attack it, but it would speak a word and I would wake up an hour or so later.
I paced. I cried. All this seemed to only encourage their interest. And through it all those damned voices beat on me.
Then it happened. One of the small ones gestured toward me and made a sound. Something clicked in my brain. That was their word for me.
Baby's first word.
They kept coming after that. I started to be able to differentiate names, places, actions. I could pick out sentences from the noise. It took months, or maybe years, it was impossible to track the passage of time there. I kept my progress to myself.
Feeding time on what would hopefully be my last day of captivity. The keeper slithered in with the loathsome porridge that had least kept me alive all this time. I smiled at it. I spoke the rough, intoned syllables that would roughly mean "This food is for me?"
It stopped moving abruptly. All of its eyes fixed on me. It responded with an affirmative in interrogatory mode. It had understood.
I offered it my name in what I had hoped was the standard form, though my name had to mangled pretty badly to make it fit the rest.
It offered the same in turn. It wriggled with what I supposed was nervous tension.
I called upon those memories, so old now but still as fresh as unfaded scars. I called up the words, unfolded them, reshaped them with this caretaker as my target, and spoke them in the same calm, level tone I had used all this time.
The caretaker gave a brief yelp, cut off abruptly, and slumped to the ground like it had been struck by lightning.
I smiled, the way I imagine those tigers would have if they learned how to work an assault rifle.
It was time for me to fight again. | Human City was a nice enough place. There were two houses, a diner, and a park with exercise equipment. Three women and three men lived there; it was an obvious attempt to get baby humans. For enrichment, keepers would bring snow, a hot tub, a TV with video games, or sports equipment. On rare and special occasions, they'd bring in a dance floor, karaoke machine, and the mysterious liquid known as alcohol.
The humans had their routine. Tad and Jeff woke up early, left the men's house, and worked at the diner. In the early afternoon, they'd close down and go to the park. Toby would wake up late, eat breakfast at the diner, and exercise.
All three women woke up early. Aaliyah and Naomi went to the diner. I usually did an early workout so I wouldn't embarrass myself in front of Toby, whose warmups are my one-rep max.
Because I was the first one in the park, I could see and hear the cephalopod-like visitors. I could hear them humming harmonious chords, usually after they first saw me or after I lifted something. They changed colors when things happened, too.
Today was the day of my medical checkup. Xora, the human keeper, set out a small bottle of bright red liquid. According to the other people, it tasted sweet, and would knock me out.
"Pilili." Xora pointed at the bottle and mimed drinking it.
"Bottoms up!" I opened the screw off top, which earned me a few harmonious chords.
I drank the bottle like a shot to show off, which wasn't the best idea. Some of the liquid went down the wrong pipe and set off a coughing fit.
Every creature watching the exhibit turned black.
Xora ran to the diner and got me a glass of water. I took a few tiny sips. As my throat calmed down, so did the visitors.
Next, Xora removed Naomi from the diner. She was still chewing her pancakes.
"Da frk?" Naomi grabbed Xora's arm.
Xora set Naomi down beside me and spoke the little bit of English she could. "Sorry. Excuse me. Help Ani please thank you."
"What's the matter, Ani?" Naomi's voice was terse.
"Nothing yet, but I just drank a bottle of the magic red stuff and some of it went down the wrong pipe."
"Cool. So you'll be a piece of furniture in like 20 minutes." Naomi glanced back at the diner. "Wonder if I'll get in trouble for taking my food out here, I'm starving this morning."
"Only one way to find out." I took a drink of water.
Naomi walked toward the diner. Xora came rushing through the backstage door, yelling about my safety.
I took a deep breath and called out one of the few phrases I had picked up in their language. "Naomi...eraera!" *Naomi be right back.*
Xora pulled a communicator off her belt and spoke quietly, her eyes wide and her skin turning bright red.
Naomi strutted out with a short stack of pancakes.
"There she is!"
"Hey Xora. Hey, Ani, let's sit under the tree. Don't want you standing anymore, you'll fall down when you fall asleep."
As the medicine took effect, I could hear Naomi's voice. I could hear Xora cautioning the medical staff to be careful, and I could understand the language they were speaking. I could feel my body being lifted.
The next thing I remember is waking up in bed. Harmonious chords everywhere. Was I on the jumbo-tron above the exhibit?
I looked around. I saw Xora, and three aliens who I'd never met before. I heard my name being thrown around, along with Toby, Aaliyah, Naomi...why?
*We need a suitable breeding pair. I'd like to use Jeff since he's the biggest and strongest male. He can impregnate any of the females.*
*He won't do it!* I called from across the room. All four beings turned red. *He's pair bonded with Tad.*
*Extra snacks for you!* Xora called right back
Hell yeah. | 2021-05-07T09:33:35 | 2021-05-07T08:44:13 | 166 | 96 |
[WP]You're the minor god of favours. You make things happen for people, but only at an equivalent price. When endangered innocents, abused children and similar start asking big favours, you have to find ever more creative ways for them to "pay" without "paying" anything. | Legends told of a man who grants favors in return of one's soul. Some whispered the figure they encountered on the intersection of an abandoned crossroad-- a man dressed in a black suit, smells of expensive cologne.
*"What is it that you want the most?"--* he would always start with that question, and you give him your answer, whatever it is that you want, no matter how grand or ridiculous.
*"You owe me a favor"*\-- he would always end the transaction with that statement and an eerie smile before vanishing into the night.
True enough, without fail, those who encountered the figure would gain that which they asked. Only later on they realized what favor he was referring to-- their life.
Once the contract is up, the man would send his emissary-- Death itself, to collect the favor.
Thus born the legend of the devil granting wishes in return of souls....but this story was far from the truth/
Satan, Lucifer, the Old Scratch-- those were some of the names he had been called by, but he was a different entity entirely. Not something grand like the devil, but a mere entity of balance, of supply and demand, and he went by the not much known name of Usluga.
Those who lost their life as a payment for their favor had merely run out of time. What they wished for was always a life of rich and fame, and for what their actual life worth, a few years of rich and fame were what they're getting.
But what happens when one doesn't ask for a life of rich and fame? It rarely happens, but it did indeed occurred. The old Usluga himself never expected it himself, and it's a tale he himself would never forget.
"What is it that you want the most?", as usual he repeated the question once he was summoned.
It was a dark and cold night, the crossroad was with no illumination but the full moon above. The dust the wind blew stained Usluga's suit.
What sort of human he would encountered he could always guess. It's in their expressions, the greed mixed with disbelief, fear, and skepticism. What their wishes would be was always predictable. Money, fame, life of glamour-- materialistic stuff of human's indulgence.
But what Usluga encountered that night was none of the sort. A little boy, shivering in cold as he wasn't dressed for the weather, draped in torn oversized jacket.
"Uh...hello?", Usluga cocked his head, for the first time in centuries taken aback.
"H--hi", the little boy bashfully waved his little hand. "I...I need a favor", he squeaked.
Usluga approached the boy and he kneeled to the boy's eye level.
"You need...a favor, you say?", Usluga spoke softly. "What sort of favor would a child want?"
The young boy squirmed for a bit under the thin jacket. He was visibly skinny and malnourished.
"I want...I just want a normal life", said the boy weakly, though seriously.
Usluga was surprised to say the least. A normal life? Nobody ever asked him for a normal life.
"A normal life, you say? What...what sort of life do you have in mind?", Usluga fished for more details.
The boy's eyes began to water, his lips trembled. "I want...I want a life where...where I don't have to be hungry. One where daddy doesn't hurt me. One that I don't have to cry anymore", he blurted.
Usluga felt a shiver in his body. Slowly he reached for the boy's arm, it was cold to the touch. Slowly he pulled the boy's sleeve jacket up and what he saw made his chest hurt.
"Your daddy did this to you?", Usluga asked as he tried to stay calm.
The little boy's arm was skinny and almost down to his bone. His skin was bruised all over, some still red and bloody.
The little boy silently nodded, chewing his thumbnail nervously.
Usluga stood and his mind was made, forgetting the other end of the deal he declared...
"Tomorrow morning you shall wake up on a clean bed, in a safe house, with a loving family, and a warm meal on the table. And you will live this life until the day you die", he snapped his fingers, working his power. "It is done"
The boy looked up with a face full of hope and gratitude.
"Re--really?", he yelped. "What...what do I owe you for my wish?", asked the boy as he knew the legend.
Usluga was quite amused by the boy's honesty, for he himself forgot he wasn't the entity of charity. But he kneeled again in front of the boy, with a smile, not am eerie one instead a warm one.
"You owe me no favor", Usluga said. "Go home and live your life", he said assuring.
And with that, the boy turned to run back home before stopping and lunged himself to hug Usluga.
"Thank you, thank you!", the boy said gratefully.
Usluga never felt such gratitude as he hugged the boy back before the young one ran with a renewed vigor, leaving Usluga standing on the crossroad alone, seeing the boy disappearing on the horizon.
You might ask yourself by now, how did Usluga manage to grant the boy's wish with no favor in return?
Well...he received something that night, Usluga did. Something he never thought he would have as an inhuman entity. Something which never even crossed his mind of having after centuries of existence. That night, Usluga gained a heart.
r/HangryWritey | # Bargain Bin Superheroes
(Arc 4, Interlude 2: Small Favor)
(Note: Bargain Bin Superheroes is episodic; each part is self-contained. This story can be enjoyed without reading the previous sections.)
**The girl was determined, but most people who sought out their shrine were.** Small Favor watched wearily from above as she hacked her way through the prairie; from their bird's-eye view, the girl and the shrine were the only things of note within ten miles of undulating amber plains.
The girl was slightly off-course, but it seemed like she'd make it soon enough. Within an hour, at most. She was wearing a mask, Small Favor noted, and her eyes darted around, as if she was worried that the tallgrass would take her picture and tattle to the police. Small Favor was incorporeal—most deities were, these days—but even they could tell that the girl had to be regretting the mask in the brutal prairie heat. She might even get herself hurt; heatstroke was a terrible way to go, and there wasn't anyone who would hear if she called for help.
Anyone but Small Favor themself.
With a sigh, the old deity stirred. The girl had shown dedication enough by coming this far, they thought to themself. No need to make her journey harder on her.
Stretching muscles that had lain dormant for years, Small Favor reached out to the scales of the universe and lightly pressed down with one finger. *As boon, her journey shall be hastened,* Small Favor thought, and the universe answered. The wind picked up, the ground shifted, and when the girl pushed aside the next tuft of tallgrass, the shrine to Small Favor was right in front of her. She sighed in relief.
Small Favor grimaced as the scales demanded balance. *As curse, she shall have nothing left to hide behind,* the universe thought, and Small Favor answered. The left strap of her mask snapped, and the girl gasped as it was blown away in the breeze.
"No, no, *no—*" She leapt and tried to grab the covering from the air, but it was whisked away in an instant. She eyed the skies warily. "Oh, this is bad, this is bad..."
Small Favor chose that moment to appear. "I've heard a lot of people say that in my time," they said, voice emanating from the shrine. "Some before visiting me. Others, after."
The girl flickered, spinning to face the pile of stones that made up Small Favor's shrine. "Who's there?"
"I am Small Favor. And nothing I can give will come without a cost." The weary god looked at the latest supplicant to come to their shrine. "You must know this, if you came to seek me out."
"...yes. Skullduggery said... well, it doesn't matter. I came here to ask a boon of you. My name is Janice Olsen, and I... I messed up. Badly." She glanced at the sky again, then back at the shrine. "I got someone killed," she whispered.
Small Favor wished they had eyes to close. "You will not like what follows, child, if you ask me to return them to life."
"No. No, God, no. I'm not that stupid, give me credit. I just... I just want..." Janice looked at the sky again, shuddering. "I want to be able to look at my hands without seeing blood," she whispered. "I want to be able to see the sky without hearing police helicopters and search drones hunting for me. I want to be able to sleep without being on a stage, a metal pole in my hands, the ruins of a woman my mother was trying to save..." Janice swallowed. "I want to move on," she finally said. "I want to heal."
A cloud passed over the sun. "This is within my power to grant," Small Favor warned, "but I have... little control over the consequences of my blessing. Are you sure this is what you desire?"
Janice stared at the shrine, memories flickering behind her eyes. "More than anything," she said.
"Very well." Small Favor gathered themself. *As boon, she will one day find the strength to overcome her past.* Small Favor thought, and the universe answered. Janice gasped, staring at her hands, as the gnawing guilt that had wormed its way through her found something fighting *back*. Small Favor tried to nudge the blessing further, but although Small Favor controlled how the blessing was phrased, it was up to the universe to implement it how it chose. It would be a journey for Janice, not an instant cure, but it would be a journey Janice would emerge from stronger, if she survived to its end.
And then came the part that Small Favor hated the most.
*As curse,* *before that strength is fully mustered, the day will come when her past catches up with her.* The universe thought, and Small Favor was forced to answer.
From overhead came the hum and whirr of a surveillance drone.
"It is done," Small Favor said.
Janice reached for her face covering, realized it had been blown away, and blanched. She looked up at the sky. "What—what did you do?" she asked, backing up.
"A small favor," the weary god sighed. "Now leave, child."
Janice didn't need to be told twice. She turned and fled, head bowed, the tracks she made through the grass visible for miles around.
Small Favor watched her flee, the weight of every one of the old deity's years settling in their soul. As the child left, they wished they could do more.
But everything had a price. Even the smallest of favors.
A.N.
"Bargain Bin Superheroes" is an episodic story where each part is inspired by a writing prompt that catches my eye. Check out [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/bubblewriters/comments/mhzat1/bargin_bin_superheroes_masterpost/) for the rest of the story, and subscribe to r/bubblewriters for more. If you have any feedback, please leave it below. As always, I had fun writing this, and I hope you have a good day. | 2021-07-31T23:25:06 | 2021-07-31T22:28:03 | 1,522 | 213 |
[WP] Our protagonist is a part of the surviving group of humans who have been living in the zombie apocalypse. The frequency of zombie attacks has been dwindling over the last couple of years. Every few weeks a pack of them will show up. But eventually they stop. | Jeremy looks around the perimeter of the base. The last pack of zombies was only a week or so ago. Jeremy stays alert, trying to pick out any type of clue that another pack is coming, or anything for that matter. It wasnt too unusual for a pack to not arrive until at most 2 weeks. So Jeremy kept on watch, waiting.
2 days passed
4 more days
Then 6 days
It keeps going until about 3 whole months without even a single clue of any zombie even being in the area. "Did we kill them all?" Thought Jeremy.
Jeremy runs through the base, shouting that there are no more, that we have killed them all.
Until Doctor Marcus comes from his tent. "Fuck you talking about? They decayed to the point where they can't walk, let alone function. Finally took 'em enough time." | Krystal and I haven't spoken in days. As a matter of fact the last time we spoke was a few days after the last zombie wave. And before that it was also a few days after the last zombie wave. We would constantly butt heads on how to do things. For example, I thought we should hang and hide boxed food in the trees. she thought we should bury it. I thought it be better to avoid new people as they would be too much of a threat while she thought everyone was a friend.
We were each others friends once upon a time ago. But we were in a terrible environment. At first there was the constant zombie hordes, and then it was the dangers of other human depravity due to society breaking down. And then there was a long time spent alone with one's own thoughts.
We lost a lot of friends to the zombie wars, but the surviving cities fell apart from both civil and prideful struggles as well as insanity. The depression and delusions were understandable. But some people started acting like animals, zombies, or even aliens even if they had no neurological or physical traumas.
We were all we had now. The zombie waves would force us to work together and for a brief moment bring relief. But that would be so short lived. And now the zombie waves were becoming more rare, so were any positive feelings. | 2021-09-16T11:25:39 | 2021-09-16T03:35:11 | 29 | 15 |
[WP] You have the ability to see into the past. You can only observe past events, not change them. You're helping the police solve a murder. As you're describing what happened, the killer suddenly turns around and seems to look you straight in the eye. "I know you're watching". | As the elevator makes its slow climb up the highrise, Detective Burrow gives me the rundown on the case. A murder in one of the executive suites near the roof. Some big shot with connections and enemies all over the city stabbed to death on his leather throne.
Of course, these are the only cases the cops bother to call me out for.
I'm already ignoring the detective, putting my hand to the mirrored walls of the elevators, diving into the fold. The big metal box distorts all around me until it reflects both the present and the past, like layers of film being stacked atop one another and pressed through the reel. Detective Burrow is still there on the top layer, droning on, but the shadows of those who have already passed through begin to scurry by.
The usual business crowd, I have to look further. Everything empties until there's one man. His back is to the mirror, and he's hiding his face from the security camera. He knew what he was going to do once those doors opened.
I let the films fall away until it's just Burrow and me in clear reality.
The detective sighs, seemingly more frustrated with me than usual. "Did you get all that, Mr. Glass?"
"Why is it always cases involving the rich and famous?" I inquire, lighting up a cigarette. "When's the last time you used me for a homicide victim that didn't own a penthouse?"
"You can't smoke that in here, Glass."
"Forty years ago you could."
The elevator chimes and the doors slide open without the slightest groan. Two street-level cops are guarding the entrance to the floor, and I brush past them while Detective Burrow flashes his badge at them.
"That's him," one of them whispers. "The freak."
The hall outside of the suite is bustling with all the usual crime scene suspects, each of them pretending that they'll solve this thing before I do. I don't mind. If I were them, I'd probably hate me too. I've solved more cases than all the detectives in this city put together; I've been on magazines, Oprah, and a dozen crime podcasts; I've got the gift, and they ain't got shit.
Before we go in, Burrow signals me to put the cigarette out, which I ignore with a smile.
"Would you actually take a case if there wasn't money and prestige to be had at the end?" His voice cracks like a whip. "If you're so righteous, then why don't you go vigilante and solve domestic abuse cases or find missing children? Who exactly do you serve, Glass?"
Burrow has been my point of contact with the force for damn near five years. He's made it this far with me because he usually lets my Sherlock Holmes smugness slide off of him. But not today. I guess everyone has their limits.
"Would you do your job for free, Detective Burrow? Protect and serve, right? Who exactly do you serve in this city? The people or the power?"
Burrow laughs, plucking the cigarette from my mouth and handing it off to a passing officer who takes it with disgust. "You know, for a guy who can look through space and time, you don't know shit. I guess we'll know who serves who soon enough."
"How very cryptic, detective," I say as I pass through the double doors. "You should write a crime novel."
Inside, only two more detectives are pacing around. The room has already been cleared of all the other idiots. They know how I operate.
"Detectives," Burrow greets the two. "This is Mr. Glass. Glass, this is—"
"Let's skip the introductions," I say. "We won't be working together for more than an hour."
Burrow shakes his head but shuffles the two detectives to a corner of the room. "Just let him work and stay quiet."
The suite is an oversized, pretentious office laced with so much shine and leather that I practically smell all the semen this prick has pumped into his secretaries. Everywhere I look there's some effigy of the man's greatness. That is until I look behind the grand desk by the window. Slumped in the high-backed leather chair is a plump but deflating corpse. His thick neck has been all but severed, and the bloodfall has spilled into his lap—his arms dangle by his sides.
Behind him is my vantage point, the massive window that looks out over the city. As I put my hands to the glass, the layers begin to slide into place. Annoyingly, one of the detectives decides that this is a good time to speak.
"What's the deal with the window?" The idiot inquires.
"That's how he sees," Burrow snaps. "Now shut up."
"How does it work?"
Burrow sighs just as the double doors open in a layer of the past. "He's never explained it to me. I don't think he even understands..."
The man from the elevator walks into the room, but I can't make out his face just yet.
"Who the hell are you?" The victim groans, slamming his laptop shut. "I don't have any appointments. God damnit." He's furiously mashing a button on his office phone, yelling into the receiver. "Victoria, get this bozo out of my office before I fucking fire you!"
His visitor rushes forward, slides over the desk, and thrusts a knife into the victim's neck. I let the layers slide over a bit faster, astonished at just how long he goes to work on his neck with the knife. When he's had his fill of murder, the killer stands up straight and his face rises above the back of the chair.
*Burrow...*
His eyes are searching the massive window, scanning every inch as if he's looking for the weakest point to hurl himself through. But he doesn't budge, and soon he's speaking.
"Glass, I know you're watching." This is the first time someone has addressed me from a past layer, and it does something to my stomach that feels akin to a nasty hangover. "I know I'm probably in the room with you right now. Please, just hear me out."
He steps around the body, holding up his hands as if to tell me that he means no harm—the blood-dipped knife still in his hand.
"This man, Glass. This man is a plague on the city," he's pleading with me, the words bouncing off of his quivering lips. "It would take me a year to explain to you the depths of his corruption, and I will if that's what it takes. But right now, we don't have that kind of time."
Burrow laughs, but his face is forlorn.
"This had to be done, Glass. And I tell you now that there are more who need to die. The system protects who it shouldn't and destroys anyone who plays fair. Whether or not I'm allowed to take those lives too is up to you. The secretary—Victoria—he'd done things to her, Glass. Terrible things. And she helped me make this happen."
Burrow turns to scan the scene, watching the blood drip from the corpse's fingers.
"We can be more than what we are, Glass. You just have to ask yourself—who do you serve?"
With that, Burrow makes for the exit, and I let the layers fall away until the blood on the floor has dried.
I'm staring out the window, looking over the city's scattered lights.
"Glass?" Detective Burrow's voice doesn't make my stomach lurch this time. I know he's really there. "What did you see?"
I don't look back, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the window.
"The killer wore a mask," I say, swallowing the lump in my throat. "There's nothing I can do here."
I'm already rushing for the doors, avoiding eye contact with the detectives. One of them stops me with a hand on my arm.
"That's it?" She spits, obviously expecting more of a show. "Can't you follow the killer as he leaves or something?"
"That's not how it works..."
She lets me go, smirking like an unsolved case is some kind of victory. "I guess there's a reason you're not a real cop. What a joke. Let's get to work, detectives."
Everyone starts moving with a purpose, excited that the golden goose just took a stinking shit for the first time.
I'm not a cop.
I'm not a forensic photographer or a coroner or a detective.
But maybe I can be something more. | **Elli & Eli (1/2)**
----
The King had me thrown in the dungeon on charges of witchcraft.
There was no trial. Only his will. I believe he would have had me killed if he had not believed in death I would come back and torment him.
The cell had no windows. I was fed once a day. I don’t know how long they kept me there, but time became indifferent to my life.
What had started as a way to earn extra coin had led me here. My father told me to keep quiet about my gift.
“People will think it is unholy,” he warned. “A women peering into the past! Claiming to lift the veil and stalk what has been done. No good can come of the truth, my dear Elli.”
“It’s not stalking,” I told him. “I’m spying on people.”
“Pah!” He cursed. “All that matters is what _they_ will think you are doing!”
He was right, of course. The King thought me a witch, but was not clever enough to worry about what I might know. His counsel were more insightful.
“Who is to stop her from learning things that can be weaponized against us,” they whispered to each other. “A women cannot be trusted with this power.”
I know what they said, because I have watched them say it - many times.
I’ve watched many things play out. My days in the dungeon were spent roaming the past.
They could keep me locked away, but I was still free. I knew more than all of them combined.
So when the Captain of the Kings Watchman came to my cell - I knew what had brought him.
“Wake up,” he said from the outside of the bars.
“I’m awake,” I said without getting up from my stone bed.
He was hesitant. The silence that proceeded his words told me he was a superstitious man.
“There is a …” his voice faded. And he started to step back. He shook his head - I could see he was talking himself out of it.
“The murders,” I popped my head up. “The Kings Cruelty,” I said.
“Silence!” He stepped to the bars and looked over both shoulders. “Do not use that moniker.”
“Is that not what the people call him?” I sat up.
“Sadistic Citizen,” the Captain of the Watchmen corrected, “is the term the King has designated for this .. individual.”
I gave a laugh. “Need to keep the blame as far away as possible, eh? How’s that going?”
“The King, in his wisdom, wants this criminal put to justice,” the Captain said.
“And he wants my help? Fitting,” I said.
“In exchange, he is prepared to offer you exile,” the Watchman said.
“Exile?” I asked.
“You will be freed from this dungeon, and brought to the edge of our realm. And then you can just, go.” He said.
“Deal,” I approached the bars.
“Deal?” I was surprised. “Just like that?”
“I have no desire to reside in this land - to trust your King to not lock me away when the mood strikes him. He is a _cruel_ man,” I jabbed.
The scowl on the Captains face reminded me of my father.
“So,” he gestured aimlessly. “How do we do this?”
I smiled.
----
Looking into the past is a lot like watching a bad flashback in a movie.
Everything is out of context.
You can try to keep your bearings, but controlling where you go is difficult. If you have ever had trouble manipulating the angle of your character in a video game, you can sympathize.
Most cops think me a con artist.
Some are actively investigating me for crimes I’ve helped solve. They don’t need to say it, but I can tell by how they look at me. The long stares. Their eyes studying how I move. My clothes. My hair.
_He knows the details too well, I imagine they think._
Detective Jameson is the only one that believes me. He was once a church going man - and he still wears the crucifix on his neck. But as he tells it, what he has seen has led him to question the will of God.
When he came to my apartment that Sunday afternoon, he asked if I had been to church recently.
“No,” I said. “Never really been one for church.”
“I don’t blame you,” he said, crossing the threshold into my small studio he found his way to my bed and sat at the foot. His eyes looks down at his boots and then drifted to the window.
“Lot on your mind today?” I asked.
“No more than usual,” he said.
There was a pause and then he turned to me.
“Heard the news?” He asked.
I nodded. It was all over my phone that morning. Headlines loved to use the moniker: _Sadistic Sam_.
**Sadistic Sam Strikes Again!**
**Church Worries SADISM on the rise!**
**Sadistic Sam and his followers!**
They were unashamed heathens. All about clicks. All about sensation.
“Have you,” the Detective started.
“Nothing knew,” I said.
It had been two months since he enlisted my help. I’d spent a lot of time wandering the past, revisiting the scene of the crime and witnessing the horrors.
“He follows the same routine, every time. Needle to their neck, subdues them, and then .. well, you know the rest,” I said.
“Fucking modern day Jack the Ripper,” the Detective scoffed. “We men are monsters.”
I nodded. “I don’t know how to break the cycle. I watch him do it. He always keeps his mask on. I follow him once it’s done, and each time it’s like .. magic. He turns a corner and is just gone.”
The Detective nods.
“To be honest, I don’t know how much more of watching his work I can stomach,” I said.
“I know, Eli. It’s a lot to ask,” the Detective said. “The girl last night was only -“
“-I saw the headline.” I raised a hand. “I now how young she was. Freshman cheerleader, headed home after a game - the reporters are ..”
“Monsters,” he said.
I sat in the chair by the window. “Okay. I’ll try - one last time. But if it doesn’t work - I can’t keep … I just … I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Maybe we get lucky,” he said.
I took a deep breath. “Where was the body found?”
----
The crime scene was as circus of police and reporters.
I toned out the noise and focused on the body. I maneuver through the throngs of arguing uniformed officers - passing through their world as a ghost.
I elevated above and focus. Time rewinds beneath me - a reverse time-lapse.
The crowd is gone for a moment, and the girl lay on the ground, naked and gutted. Her lifeless wide eyes stare up at me.
_I wish I can save you._ I thought. _I’m sorry._
_Maybe I can save the next one._ I told myself - as I told myself the last time
The trench coat man walked backwards into the scene and I took a deep breath - focusing on the moment - and time slowed to a stop.
I came in close and inspected him. The personification of death. No, death is more merciful. This man is the evil.
If only I could lift pull his baseball cap off and rip the ski mask from his face.
Time starts and he marched off.
I followed, and we moved through the alleys and into the quiet city night. I tried to keep myself ahead of him. He always vanishes on a turn. Don’t let him turn without me. Keep on him tight.
And I do. Putting my fear aside I stay closer than ever. No turn is made without me.
The streets are quiet. It’s 2 am. I hear a street sweeper on the block over.
The killer stops.
He never stops. His head is angled down.
_What is he doing?_ I thought.
“I can see you,” he said and - I should have been afraid - but was more taken aback by his accent. It was, best I could tell, British.
His eyes turned up.
“Yes,” he pointed in my direction. “I can see you.” He paused and then moved his finger past me. “And I can see you.”
I spun around - to my shock there as another watcher. A girl that looked like she was fresh from a renaissance fair. She was floating, just as I was. And the stunned look on her face matched mine as we locked eyes.
No one spoke.
Then the killer laughed and I darted my eyes back to him - then back to the girl.
“What is going on?” She was bewildered. Her eyes scanned the buildings and the streets, lost between curiosity and fear.
“Wonderful,” the killer said and smacked his hands together. | 2022-02-12T09:16:32 | 2022-02-12T09:15:45 | 26 | 10 |
[WP] You used to be stuck in a 3 year time loop, but you escaped it by building a time machine. However, as you land the machine in the past, you realize that you landed on the exact day you became stuck in it. You realize what you have to do. | I checked my watch nervously. 20:58 and 46 seconds. The hand flicked to 47 seconds. I had 15 seconds left. It was now or never. I pulled the lever and... nothing happened.
'Damn it!'.
If this didn't work, it would never work. I had spent what felt like several lifetimes putting this together. Each time I got closer, but I would always run out of time.
*You died*
The irony suddenly hit me. Before the loop, I was obsessed with speed running games. Edging off those seconds, and after a lot of training, miniseconds. Perfecting the perfect jump. Exploiting the game mechanics. Watching my own replays, taking notes. Sometimes, on the best days, you would discover how to take off entire minutes.
If anything, gaming trained me for the incident. Groundhog day. Except this wasn't a Hollywood movie, and it wasn't a game. It was hell. Maybe in the 200th loop I started counting how many loops I had been in already. I gave up somewhere in the eight thousands. A *three year loop*. Long enough to almost forget. Almost.
So at some point, long ago, I started studying quantum physics. First it was reading online articles on the Internet, YouTube videos and stuff like that. Then I took a degree. Then the masters... at that point I had to figure out how to trick universities of my credentials. Doctorate. Lab assistant. Senior researcher. My breakthroughs would seemingly come out of nowhere. For me, it was just the onward grind of accumulating knowledge and the vigorous scientific method. Three years at a time.
I only tried to kill myself once. I fell in love with another scientist. When I woke up at the start of the loop, I went straight to the m42 motorway and walked in front of a lorry.
I am souless.
Eventually I understood time travel. It sounds obsurd until you realise it already exists in three year loops.
The struggle was building the time machine in three years. When I wake up on day 1, I'm lying in the street after a mugging. I have nothing.
Thus the ultimate speed running started. Build a time machine in three years. The naked Dark Souls run. And now I was at the final boss. Unlike my many previously failed attempts, I had finally figured out how to finish building it in time. Except - it didn't work.
I pulled the lever back up, and checked my watch. Eight seconds to go.
With the most force I could muster and the frustration of a powerless god, I hit the thing as hard as I could. Five seconds. There was a sound outside. Three seconds. I turned and saw the man outside with a gun. It was pointing right at me.
"Don't -' he warned, but I didn't let him finish. One second. I pulled the lever down once more. Then everything went white.
---
I was still inside. The man had vanished. The machine, quiet. With shaking hands, I pulled my phone form my pocket and checked the date.
I had landed on the exact day I became stuck in.
This made no sense.... I was meant to have travelled forward, after the final day. I had failed... stuck in an unbreakable loop.
Except I hadn't failed. The time machine had worked. I wasn't starting from scratch this time, I... had won.
I realised what I had to do. | I used to be stuck in a three year time loop, but I escaped it by building a time machine. The past that I travelled to was the same day the loop started, and it was then that I realised what to do. That I had to get back in the time machine and figure out these stupid controls better. Confusing bunch of flashing dials and switches and tube-screens with wobbling lines without a practical purpose. No wonder I ended up where I started. Smoked a massive doob when I designed the thing, then assembled it all on a ripper of a mushroom high. The lava lamps and busts of Gene Simmons circa 1975 were a nice touch, though.
The loop deal started after Sally got hit by the bus. She had some foreign object implanted in her thigh that functioned as a quantum mediation resonator, and without a pulse it powered down and went into hibernation mode. None of us had a clue how important she was. The device worked as an offset to a rare spacetime rift and effectively made her the most significant object in the local cluster. Hard to say where it came from, doubtful it was human. Most popular theory is the one where it was planted by some higher dimensional agent when she went to Wet n’ Wild back in Summer '09.
Should have been a straight forward mission of pulling her back from the road that day, but she was already dead when the loop began. Took a week before causality split into the disaster I got caught in. You know, the *Groundhog Day* in an acid trip fuckmare of the next 36 months. I hadn't planned on changing what happened anyway. It was me who pushed her in front of the bus, after all. How was I supposed to know the integrity of reality’s very fabric was at stake?
Plan was: go to 2030, get snacks, get high, binge-watch the next four Avatar movies in a single sitting. Go to KFC. Learn how to bowl. Get fat. Start dating Sally's mum. Get fatter. Live happily ever after.
Simple.
But instead here I was back in 2018 faced with a hundred flashing buttons, nearly all of which triggered disco lights and Rick Astley in 5.1 surround sound. T minus four hours before the shit would hit the fan, and not a single clue.
Only one way out of this: five grams of nutmeg, and a rolled twenty. Ah, yes. That sweet spicen clarity. I proceeded then to smash the buttons with both fists in my underwear, and several minutes later the iron-clad craft rumbled into motion, swallowed into the vortex of an unstable wormhole.
In case you were wondering, wormholes go brrrrrrrr, and time machines go
*We’re no strangers to love*
*You know the rules and so do I*
*A full commitment’s what I’m thinking of*
*You wouldn’t get this from any other guy*
Hard to say the exact year it was when I stepped out. The monitor couldn’t make its mind up between 4607 and 7284. Judging by the atmosphere and terrain outside, thousands of years may have even been lowballing things. Some world it was. Trees made of water, oceans of a bubbling butter. Giant oranges being audited by anthropomorphic caterpillars in green suits and red leather berets, and whole cities populated by a fungus whose preoccupation with cucumber sandwiches had elevated our very own Queen Elizabeth from royalty to the immortal stature of an everlasting deity. Rainbows in chocolate raindrops and nipple piercings on concrete walls. Flashes of golden suns in blue shadows and talking badgers and free healthcare in the US and a sky that curled in the beige and floral patterns of bad wallpaper from the 70s, minarets and rondos and tarantellas played by amphibious beagles submerged in sparkling lemonade, tire balls and kitchen drawls the soft ceiling under turquoise paint peeling across the over-hills and foggy burrows in the frosty spring where am I seriously where am I where the bloody hell am I | 2022-04-19T12:39:15 | 2022-04-19T08:29:42 | 108 | 28 |
[WP] You are due to be executed for your involvement in the rebellion, but the queen herself approched you in your cell to ask you a question; why are people rebelling against her rule? | "Why?" I echoed, idly touching the scabs and scars covering my bare lower legs. I looked up at her royal majesty through the bars of my cell, at her beautiful dress and her expensive juwelry. Her very presence, sitting on a cheap chair in this dark and unadorned prison, felt vaguely wrong. A steeper contrast than between my prison rags and her expensive clothing was barely possible. But yet, here she was.
"Do you remember the last winter?" I asked.
She started nodding, but I wasn't finished.
"Do you remember the big parties and feasts you and your peers had in the autumn, for which you raised special taxes on my village? Do you remember how early and harsh the snow came, when we were not yet prepared enough to all survive with what we had? Do you remember when my brother, Adom Miller, went into the Royal Forest to hunt, driven by hunger, and your sheriff hanged him for the crime of wanting to eat?"
Somewhere in the middle of my rant, she had stopped nodding and started staring, and then stopped staring and started shaking her head. She locked eyes with me, only for a moment.
"No." she answered, finally. "I didn't know about your loss. I'm..."
I cut her off. Maybe she had wanted to sympathise. Maybe she had wanted to apologize. Maybe she had wanted to mock me. I didn't care.
"And that-" I told her, grinning with a mix of anger and sadness "-that is exactly the reason why." | Queen Oblivia walked tentatively through the rank, fetid dungeons. It was an amusing contrast; her pristine attire and the decrepit complex. Oblivia was worried. She certainly looked so. And the worries reached their peak at the same time she reached the prisoner.
The queen wastes no time with formalities.
"For your part in the people's rebellion, you are to be put to death." She tells the man on the other side of the cell bars.
The prisoner doesn't even dignify her with his gaze. "That I am," is all he gives her.
"Tell me. Why?" You can hear the confusion in her voice. The innocence. And the fear.
"Imagine a world where every man is a king." The rebel stares into nothing. "It would be a dream come true."
"A dream is precisely what it is." Oblivia blurts. Even with her fear, the arrogance of royalty leaks through. "Nothing more than entertainment."
"It's not entertaining anymore, Your Magesty. The people I fight with. The people I fight *for.* They've made it boring." The prisoner still does not meet her gaze.
"Then why are you rebels so... ferocious? Why the chaos? The fight? The blood?"
It is only now - and only for a moment - that the prisoner locks eyes with queen Oblivia. She was expecting to see rage in his eyes. Malice. Even insanity, perhaps. Nothing - and I mean *nothing* \- could have scared her more than the look of utter **lucidity** on this man's face.
"It's boring because it's **real**."
​
​
If you want more real and/or boring stories you can read more of my work over at r/PlotHoleFullOfSnakes. ^(Stories are not guaranteed to be boring or real. If you find yourself enjoying an illusory story, consult your doctor immediately. The writhing conglomerate of snakes is not legally responsible for any injuries that occur from the abstract concept of literature.) | 2022-05-18T08:51:40 | 2022-05-18T02:12:56 | 46 | 26 |
[WP] Out of options, you pray to whoever's listening to save you. As it turns out, there were a LOT of entities happy to bestow their divine providence upon you. Thing is, none of them knew the others were doing the same. The results are successful - albeit chaotic, to say the least. | He was there, dying in my arms.
I myself wouldn’t live much longer…
The bruises on my skin reflected his. We looked liked perfect lovers for our final instants. The crowd stoning us, spewing their hartred, would be the last to see us together.
But i didn’t want to die here and there, not for the sole crime of loving my boyfriend. I wanted to shout, to pray to whoever was listening, to do something, to bring peace, to avenge us; to save us. This was a cry for help, and it was meant to be heard !
Suddenly, i felt energy spark within me, my pains were waining, i could stand up again. The stones had turned into a shower of beautiful flowers and cotton balls. The crowd kept being loud, but the tone changed. The concerted hate stopped echoing and a confusing chaos took place. Some of them were fighting each others, some grew pustules others had roots growing out of their… and anchoring them into the ground. I couldn’t look away from that obese man becoming increasingly scrawny by the second. Tentacles were sprouting from puddles and wreaking havoc.
And then the animals started to come. A huge pack of sheeps charged taking some of them out with them. Huge cats came to pick others like they would naughty kittens. Animals i though were extinct for millenia went to retrieve what was left.
Peace returned to the now emptied street. Jack was still in my arms, confused but smiling.
"What happened ?"
"Divine intervention i guess…"
"Yes, but how many divinities ? Wait… is it just me or have you grown muscles in the meantime ?"
"I don’t know how but you look more attractive than before too"
"Yeah… and it feels like i’m *bigger* too…" | Ikam Iïa Ziggurath smiled as he saw the man in front of him slowly die, his crimson blood spurring from the gushing wound on his throat throat. Gurgling sounds coming from within. It was a pity about his wife and daughter, departed under Ikam's blade – they had been such nice people - but the sacrifice was necessary. He'd heard that this world wasn't very nice to the likes of him – so why should he expect anything better from it? One could see the rage and hatred burning inside that man's eyes, like an eternal flame. There would be no peace for him after death, just endless suffering until the end of time itself. Such was the way of things. And who was Ikam to judge anyone else when his own life had ended in such an ill manner once?
He who had travelled the indescriptible horrors of the abyss in search of his own family, now travelled the surface on search of vengeance, *their* vengeance. Vengeance against those who had killed them, those who discarded them, who would have tought that creation came both ways? Yet, one could exist wihout the other. What a cruel joke. They wanted vengeance, vengeance against the entire human race!
The man was surly praying to the gods, long forgotten and forlorn, just like Ikam once did. Would *he* get an answer or will the void swallow him whole, denying him the chance to rise once more?
After an eternity of silence all of them responded, all around them at once, Ikam heard the voilent cacophony of countless voices, clawing and gnawing at one's soul. If he wasn't already dead he would surely die. It was the voices of the gods themselves. The man's soul would travel the abyss and suffer the same fate as him. Countless gods, dying and agonising would shred his soul bare. He would become a brother and an ally of the gods. They would guide him through the darkness and show him where the rest of godhood lay entombed. He will rise and join thir ranks. Then, with the power of the gods themselves at his command, he will slaughter everyone, every living thing, in sight, until only none remained. | 2022-09-25T03:56:08 | 2022-09-25T02:21:19 | 311 | 36 |
[WP] You have the ability to see people’s kill count on their head. You tell no one, managed to stay away from shady people and live a peaceful life. One day, your 5 years old kid’s number is not 0... | “Hey kiddo, how’d your day go?”
“It was, I did, I think it was, uh, good.”
“That’s good to hear, buddy. So… did anything interesting happen?”
“I dunno. Mama picked me up from school, and she, and we walked down the bridge, and there—oh, and there was a man on the bridge!”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah daddy, but he was *on* the bridge. Like—“
He laid one of his hands flat, and then put two fingers on his opposite hand on top of it to mimic a person standing on top of something.
“Well that’s not how you’re supposed to walk on a bridge! Silly man… what happened when you saw him?”
“He was, uh, he was *crying*, and Mama told me to stay away, but I didn’t wanted to because he was sad. So I went up to him and I grabbed his leg, and I, and I said ‘why are you crying?’ because he was crying.”
“Yeah, I think you mentioned that he was crying. What did he do when you grabbed his leg?”
“He came down and, and he picked me up! Like this like big!” He stretched his arms high over his head, and then wrapped them around himself. “And then he hugged me, and then he said thank you, and then I saw a bird and—“
I sat there and kept a level smile as my son continued to tell me about his day. My gaze drifted once more to that number floating above his head, and I couldn’t help but feel a spike of tears in my eyes.
-1. | It took a while, a whole summer to be exact, but the story finally made its way to the light - light he worked so hard to deny to so many. You suppose you should recap the night’s events in your own mind.
The darkness of the parking lot is only impeded by the bright-burning victorian style lampposts that line the sidewalks. You’re sitting, quietly gleeful, in your carseat while your family is inside attending a town meeting. All of a sudden, in the distance, you see it: the decrepit silhouette of the most hated man in town.
“I feel like celebrating!” you hear him triumphantly proclaim while gallivanting toward your row of cars. After all, why wouldn’t he feel on top of the world after executing his master plan to create a monopolistic energy empire?
Your eyes meet from across the way, and you can tell he recognizes you. This fills you with icicles, which coincide with the molten orb of opportunity that burns inside your stomach.
“Oh it’s you, what are you so happy about?” he mutters, seemingly jolted awake from this waking dream he’s been indulging in.
The lollipop. You can tell from the lustful glint in his eye that it’s the one thing in this town he knows he can’t have, and the firm grip of desire has enfolded him. But, really, who’s going to stop him now?
“I see.”
You can tell you’re past the point of no return already. His insatiable instinct won’t allow this to end any other way. His lips confirm what his eyes have already said.
“I think you better drop it.”
Everything past this declaration of dominance becomes a blur. He reaches out to grab the forbidden fruit (this time, a green apple), and the struggle ends as quickly as it begins as his trusty Smith and Wesson revolver falls gracefully, as if guided by a divine power, into your toddling fingers. The bang hurts your ears, and the pistol falls to the floor.
He stumbles away, stricken, but you know whether he lives or dies, this is only the beginning. | 2022-10-21T10:37:34 | 2022-10-21T06:47:27 | 80 | 52 |
[WP] A portal opens before you and out steps a version of yourself covered in blood. "I've killed humdreds of you and they say you're the strongest one. Time to find out why." | "What are you-"
"DIE!!" The doppelganger screams as he charges me, attempting to pierce my chest with the long sword in his hand.
I dove out of the way, getting up quickly. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"KILLING YOU!!" He shouts, a snarl on his face as he tried another stab.
I sidestepped, before jumping forwards and grabbing his arm. "A few things real quick asshole! One, you are being WAY too predictable. Two, HOW AM I THE STRONGEST ONE OF US?!"
He headbutted me, making me release his sword, before punching me in the chest. "That's what I'm here to find out, but I'm not seeing anything yet!"
He tried to hack at me with the sword, but I jumped away, sprinting towards my bed. "I'm overweight, and absolute idiot, and have the attention span of a goldfish, there's no way I'm the strongest!"
He rushed at me, trying to keep me from trying anything. "Well, guess we'll have to see!!!"
I threw my nightstand open, grabbing my nine millimeter before turning to face him. "FUCK OFF YOU- AGH, SHIT!"
He had managed to stab his swprd between the bones in my forearm 'what are those bones called? Shit, no time to start drifting you idiot!' I tackled him and held my gun to his head, noting the terrified look in his eyes.
"How are you ignoring the pain?!" He shouted, his voice quite a bit higher pitched then a moment ago.
"I DON'T KNOW, BUT FUCK YOU!!!" I screamed, pulling the trigger as many times as my hand would let me. I sat there, staring at the now swiss cheese that used to be his face. I panted, my breath heavy as I tried to catch it. "What the fuck just happened?"
It would be about an hour before I hid the body, and I didn't think to call an ambulance about the sword for a little after that. It was hard to convince people that a burglar stabbed me in the arm witha medeval longsword I just HAPPENED to have, and then ran away without stealing anything. | In your final moments, it is said that your entire life flashes before your eyes. I might've seen something similar as my doppelganger lunged at me, had my attention not been drawn to the gaping wound he had ripped in my reality. An open wound, bleeding a blue ebb of time and space, oozing the pus of his dimension into mine. Through the window of the wound I spied the smouldering remains of a house, reddened by fire and blackened by smoke.
My attention returned to my attacker as his left fist collided with my cheek, sending a ringing wave of shock through my face before finally alerting my brain that there were more pressing matters at hand than the pretty colours of the portal. The force of his punch sent me tumbling heavily to the ground, where the breath was exiled from my lungs and my adrenaline finally kicked in. I rolled away from the heavy boot sweeping down to crush my face and found my footing.
I took a good look at my attacker. He looked mostly identical to me, except that he was an utter mess. Hair slicked flat with what I inferred to be my own blood, clothes torn and scorched, shoes nearly shredded, knuckled bleeding, teeth gnashing, eyes wild, fist clenched and swinging to hit me again. I took a slight step back and found a plate bearing a peanut butter and banana sandwich: I found my lunch. Oh yes, that's what I was doing when I met myself. No matter, I thought as I brought the ceramic plate up to employ as a weapon, I can eat later.
Mutually assured destruction is a fair description of what followed, so lomg as it is acknowledged that I assured him much more destruction that he assured me. He hit me, I hit him. His hand left quite the impression on my lip, and I my plate connected with his skull quite heavily. I struggled to keep my balance against the kitchen table, he hit the floor with a oddly sharp thud. It surprises me yet to this day just how naturally the next move came to me, and I suppose it struck me as odd then, as I raised the metal kitchen chair over my head without a second thought. He had just begun to get up when I hit him, sending him right back down, where he stayed for the next eleven hours.
During those eleven hours, I had plenty of time to think. I should have been thinking about how carelessly I killed my doppelganger, and I did, for a bit. Mostly, I thought about just what had qualified me as the strongest of my ilk. After a good few hours of thought I came to a conclusion as I scooped the body back through the portal whence he came: I must use the heaviest kitchenware. | 2022-11-09T12:43:10 | 2022-11-09T11:21:09 | 124 | 38 |
[WP] Time Travel is possible, but only used to send terminally ill people into the future in hopes of being cured. For the first time, someone's been sent back. | I gazed in the distance through the dark. To the cages. Behind the pile of bodies.
Sometimes I wish I wasn't one of the strongest ones. So as I wouldn't have to be a slave for so long. So as I wouldn't have to see the others die.
I stayed hidden waiting for the guard to fall asleep, lost in my thoughts. I know I shouldn't have volunteered but I was desperate. Now it is my last chance to correct that mistake. I am getting weaker every day. I know the end is near.
I reach my destination moving in the shadows. Behind the cages. That's where the Machine is.
I know what to do. I've seen them using it before. I push the buttons and wait for the familiar sound, as I check the paper in my pocket, hoping they will be able to read it, because I won't be there to help them.
I hear the sound and close my eyes. I know nobody has ever survived going back.
But I have to do it. I have to tell them.
To stop sending people.
Cause there is no cure.
| There was a large commotion at Phoenix Labs this morning. We were the last resort for those who were dying, and we had sent hundreds of bodies into the future last year.
Thinking this process was instantaneous, many tried to sue us because we didn't have the bodies of their loved ones. Even with people losing faith that our process would work, we still had more people come in.
This couple in particular, were in the receiving room. John and Charlotte Harrison had sent in their son. They were there every day, so it shouldn't have been a big deal. But there were people hugging them, they were sobbing.
I walked in, and there was a man, roughly middle aged, in the capsule. It was strange, as he looked similar to the Harrisons, but they sent us a boy of nineteen years, named Hank , suffering from polio.
The man regained consciousness, blinking his eyes. He then opened his mouth to speak.
"You people are primitive ! " He yelled at the top of his lungs. "Reverse time travel was made in 2050! Not 2029! They demand that you start sending healthier people, Or they will have to use force."
"They? " John said.
"Our new rulers." The man's eyes shimmered green, as he slowly stood to his feet. "My name is Hank Harrison, and I am the first Messenger of the Chanfei. You will obey, there are No options."
(Sent this from my phone, will edit later) | 2014-07-24T07:56:47 | 2014-07-24T07:22:03 | 24 | 11 |
[WP] Everyone's flaws are listed in a translucent white box above their heads. One day, you meet a man whose 'box' is empty. | "Excuse me, miss? I'm new in town and was hoping you might help me find a good place to have lunch."
Surprise hit her in waves:
first, that someone was asking her at all, with her dirty public "secret" emblazoned above her head. Generally the only public response she recieved from people was to notice parents of small children trying to distract them to avoid the awkward, "Mommy, what does that mean?"
Turning around, she recieved a greater, if no less unusual, shock: his placard was empty!. At first she couldn't believe her eyes, then she couldn't believe her luck. A flawless man. Of course he wouldn't hold her our flaw against her.
Then she noticed the eye shades and the cane and felt embarrassed. Even a flawless man wouldn't be seen with her... Unless he couldn't see.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you couldn't- it's not on your placard."
"I've always considered it more of a challenge than a flaw. Now about that lunch..."
***
What a whirlwind day! A day without being judged, a day with the flawless man! Around him, it was like she could be more than she ever was before, it was like she was freed from a terrible hole her flaw left in her, and made whole by it.
Of course they ended up back at his place.
"Before we go any further," she said, nudging up towards him, "I never said anything about it because you couldn't see my placard and it never came up, but yours is... Blank! I've never even heard of anyone with a blank placard before."
"Oh, it's not blank," he replied reaching around her shoulder to turn out the lamp.
"It's Braille."
-click-
"It says, serial killer." | "Get out !" the sales manager shouted.
As I walked out of the office with my resume and the usual feeling of disappointment. It feels like that i was blessed with longest list over my head. I have been cursing god for it since my childhood.
Walking of the corner street i thought of buying flowers for my hopeful girlfriend Sharmi waiting for me to come with a yes this time. Over her head it was written:
- Can't cook
- Failed in Arts degree
- there is hole in the beating box inside
I wonder if she really expects me to come with a yes this time. I picked the flowers and was just on the public hallway when an old man slammed on my shoulders. My flowers dropped...
"I am so sorry" he picks the flowers, stack them up & gave it to me.
'I'm sorry its my age." he said humbly.
"Its Ok thank you so much", I replied and we turned around.
At that moment i realized that and the old man has a completely spotless box. I turn around back to him in more shock than surprise. There was nobody but just a pigeon a spotless white pigeon may be the most white thing i ever saw in my life. I was baffled for a while and then moved towards it. I hold it on my hands and just kept staring at him like i'm seeing a ghost and just in that moment he flew away. I tried gained control over my senses.
"was it just my imagination?? or was it a ghost but how can a ghost have a spotless box?" with thoughts like these playing on my head I reached home.
Sharmi open the door and her eyes looked beautiful as ever but soon they were expanded as she shouted.
"AAHHHHHH!"
"Ph...phill ....phill"
'What happened ?" I asked her with a worried voice.
"Your Box" she said in a surprised voice.
I got in the changing room put the light on and stand against the mirror.
My box has nothing written on it it was as spotless as the Pigeon's fur...
Edit : if there is any Grammatical error or capitalization error then do point out for me please :)
| 2014-10-27T08:20:41 | 2014-10-27T04:41:34 | 29 | 13 |
[WP] The characters in a popular TV show are actually prisoners forced to act or face death. They have been dropping hints hoping a viewer would catch on without drawing too much suspicison. | "Hey folks!
Everyone doing well today!
Let's hear a round of applause for everyone's favorite friend,
Party Marty!
Every one also who came here today will get a copy of today's script!
That's right!
Haha your way through the script at home as you reminisce about your experience here at America's favorite show!
Ice cream too!
See?
Ice cream served today by our sponsor
Samsung!
And also.
Let us not forget that when you go home with the script, make sure to read this dialogue that is included!
Love it you will!
All the fun!
Super fun promise!
Can't wait for you all to read it!
And if it seems like.
Maybe you can't tell.
I'm talking weirder than normal.
Don't you worry though!
Oh!
Now don't forget!
Today at home when you read the script!
While you read this silly dialogue of course!
And you're looking through all these letters.
Notice something about the certain words!
To be frank, these words meaning, do have a lot of capital.
Tee hee!!
Oh so silly that personality of mine!
Do us a favorite and now bring that round of applause back for the friend everyone came to see today, and
watching at home!
I can't hear you!
Everyone, scream louder if you want to see him! | TOOOOONIGHT! On CHAINSAW MAIDENS!
Shirley stares down her lesbian love Sherl who is the surrogate mother of the producers child!
Will Old Helga finally lose it and be the first cast member to snap?
The food is running out on this storm racked tropical island in the Amazonian jungle, will the ladies resort to violence?
And as our special twist, the last lock on the weapon crate will undo at midnight if not found before then!
-----
*In a dark corner of the island, the confession camera records in night vision*.
"Viewer, this is not what it looks like, we didn't sign up for this. We're political prisoners of the Colomumbolivazonian regime!"
Shirley looks over her shoulder as the revving sound of a chainsaw starts up.
"This is not a joke. This is not reality, we don't want this drama, we don't want to fight, we're not really psycho blood sport lesbians.... well, not at first." Her twitchy disposition gives her great authenticity. "They say they'll kill us if we don't act how they say. They say ratings force them to do this. They're giving us drugs, I can feel it."
Shirley shoves her face close to the camera.
"We are prisoners, they will kill us if we don't act and kill how they say. Help. Us. Please."
*You look down at your bowl of cheetos. What a load of crap, tv really was going downhill. You smush another handful of orange dust into your maw and switch channels to* "AUSTRALIAN DIRTBIKE VANDAL ORGY" *where at least the girls get their tits out.*
*Heh, thats quality tv.*
----
Well, that got dark. | 2015-04-19T20:48:06 | 2015-04-19T20:16:28 | 25 | 11 |
[WP]After a head injury, a formerly brilliant general appears to have gone insane. The plot twist: His winning streak continues unbroken. In increasingly comical ways.
Is it merely fool's luck on a cosmic/comic scale, or is there actually a method to the madness? You decide! | "Sir, he *is* our best general. But... this is serious. Should we retire him?"
"Eh, give him one chance. Just one. If he manages to impress us still, keep 'im in. I'd love to see this man overcome his little headache."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**Wartime Press**
**His Head is Still in the Battle:**
Dear patriot, today we bring you news that is a tad strange. General Komph, well-known for his bravery and tactical ability in the field, received a cleave to the head last week during a failed assassination attempt. He is alive today, but his brains are scrambled.
But that has not stopped him.
His Highness the King had elected to allow Komph one chance at proving himself still worthy to command our legions. And, well, he passed... With, er... finesse.
Yesterday, in quite possibly one of our most important battles of this war, Komph ordered his men to charge straight through the opposing forces, who had forced a standstill and set up camp around a chokepoint in the Arist Mountains. It worked. We are still not sure today how it worked, but it did. The enemy was taken utterly by surprise, overrun before they had a chance to so much as load a catapult.
We hope to keep you informed, dear patriot, of Komph's victories. That is, if they continue.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**Wartime Press**
**Komph's Brains Far from Fried:**
Well, as I am sure you have heard, patriot, many, *many* things have happened since our last issue of the Wartime Press. In fact, with the way Komph is directing our soldiers, we may soon have to change from the Wartime Press to the Peacetime Press.
Since our last publication, Komph has lead three battles, all of which have been stunning successes. Even His Highness has been lost for words. Interviews with Him have been turning fruitless quickly as he simply shrugs in answer to our questions.
In Komph's first battle this week, he met our aggressors in the Pennel Plains... missing his armor. And his underclothes. His, er, mighty manhood provided such a distraction to the enemy frontlines that our archers were able to fire freely for a full thirty or so minutes. He left the battlefield without a single casualty.
During the Miner's Ditch clash, he again pulled the same trick. However, this time, the enemy forces advanced, undeterred in the slightest by the snake winking at them.
That was exactly what Komph had wanted.
Our soldiers poured out from the various mineshafts littering the Ditch, catching the enemy from behind. It was an absolute massacre, and while it was not a perfect battle like the last, Komph sauntered off with only twenty or so of his own dead. He left three thousand enemy soldiers to rot as their blood seeped into the abundant coal of the region.
And... his most recent. A tale that will go down in this great nation's history for as long as we stand.
Komph was missing for an entire day before the Great Massacre, his army confused, the enemy advancing at a breakneck march. However, he had returned by the next morning, covered in dirt and grime. When his advisers questioned and demanded answers from him, he simply shook his head, replying with one solitary word: "Wait."
That was, indeed, all they had to do.
An earth-shattering explosion had reached their ears by midday. Komph commanded his soldiers to march to where their enemies had been camped previously, giggling all the while as they neared the site.
They were met by a crater in the earth that stretched at least three miles in any given direction.
When questioned how he had created a bomb so strong, Komph only laughed and said that it had been an old family recipe passed down from his mother.
Yes. We are as lost as you.
This about wraps up this edition of the Wartime Press. By next week, the war may already be over. Be sure to check for the "Peacetime Press" in your local shops and gathering halls. Thanks to Komph, we shall be undergoing a name change.
Farewell, patriots. And stay insane. | He got hit at Calais, just off the boat.
A mortar exploded 10 feet away and a piece of debris just up and struck him square on the forehead. Regulations said he should have been wearing a helmet. He wasn’t.
Regulations also said that he should have been shipped back to England, then back stateside. He wasn’t.
My fault, really. As his aide, my duty was at his side. If he went stateside, then that’s where I was going too, and dammit I wasn’t going to leave. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d spent my war serving iced tea to a general on a porch in Indiana.
So for me to stay, then General Thaddeus Hurte had to stay too.
Ever notice how the great generals have the strangest names? Napoleon, Hannibal, Thaddeus. And his surname was a newspaper editor’s dream.
So he got hit with a brick in Calais. Out for a week, recuperating. I noticed a change when he finally sat up, the bandage still wrapped around his head. He spoke a little louder. He blinked, but it seemed intentional. Small things like that.
‘We have to get to Holland,’ he said.
‘Generals Montgomery, Patton, Bradley and MacArthur are doing fine, sir. Just sit back and rest,’ I said.
‘Damn fools think troops are the answer.’ He rose from the bed, dizzy, staggering slightly. I held him at the elbow.
‘Carter, take this down.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
‘All tanks are to play records on loudspeakers. Something nice. [‘In the Mood’ by Glenn Miller](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CI-0E_jses). Yes, I like that one. That’ll take the damn Germans by surprise. Can’t help but dance to that. It’ll give away their sniper posts. Tell our boys to keep an eye out for jitterbuggers in churchtowers.’
I sent the order, changing the wording. Made it sound a bit more official.
It worked. We were in Holland by the end of the month.
‘Next stop controlling the Rhine. It’s wet, Carter.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
‘I don’t want our boys getting wet. Makes fighting miserable. It’s better if the Germans were wet.’
‘You’re right, sir.’
‘I don’t know what, Carter, but every time I have coffee I really need to go. I’m awake all night, and then I just have to find a bathroom.’
He rubbed his forehead.
‘You can’t fight when you need to find a bathroom. Where are the Germans on the Rhine getting their water from?’
‘Wells, streams, tributaries, the Rhine itself, too, sir.’
‘Coffee, Carter. Take five thousand men and start dumping coffee into every spring you can find in the Alps. I want that river to taste like Java by the end of the week!’
‘Yes, sir! Right away, sir!’
It was difficult wording that telegram. Patton and Monty had a few choice words about it when they realised they’d have no beverage to accompany their morning toast.
‘Berlin now, Carter. I don’t know anything about Berlin. Tell me something.’
‘It was founded in the 12th century, and, um, is the capital of Prussia. It’s the Germanic centre of the humanities, music, higher education, government, diplomacy and military affairs.’
‘The reprobates!’
‘Sir?’
‘Having affairs at a time like this. I bet all of the German high command are at it. Get a pen and paper.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Take this down now, on the double. Dear Mrs. Goebbels/Goring/Himmler. You get the idea, Carter?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Dear. Mrs. Etc. It has come to my knowledge that your husband has been having it away with some Aryan trollop. Fine word, that. We are fighting men here in America and when we’re at war, we’re at war, not dipping our wicks, etc, etc. You can add some description as you like there, Carter.
I nodded.
‘I’m not one to judge, but I think a proud German fraulein would be ashamed of welcoming home a General smelling of some other perfume. Don’t you?’
‘I agree, sir.’
‘Well, get that in the letter, too. Send it on, Carter. The entire German high command, and some of their less high command, too. Degenerates all of them.’
I left the wording just so. | 2015-04-26T12:27:41 | 2015-04-26T12:26:09 | 46 | 17 |
[WP]'The old avatars had it easy with 4 elements. You, on the other hand,' she sneered while handing me a periodic table, 'have 118'. | "Wait," I said looking down at the sheet of paper that the woman had slipped into my hands, "are you seriously telling me that the avatar's powers are directly tied to our knowledge of what an element is?"
"What do you mean?"
"I don't see fire on this table," I explained. I adjusted my glasses, I'd majored in chemistry but I hadn't done anything close to bending, "I see ways to light fire on this table."
"Then yes," the woman said as she adjusted her ceremonial robes. She was dressed like a racist movie from the 80's. "At least I think so."
"So-" I asked, "what do I need to do?" I asked. I'd heard the legends of the old Avatars, but I'd figured that they were myths. It all sounded like an old wives tale.
"We need you to make sure that there is balance in the world, nobody else can bend all of these elements, so it shouldn't be that-"
"Do the leaders know that I exist?" I cut her off.
"Yes."
"Then this should be easy."
"Why?"
"Do you really want to fuck with someone who can carbon bend?" I raised an eyebrow at her.
"What does carbon let you control?" She was obviously just a messenger.
I slowly clenched my hand into a fist. "Pretty much everything," I sneered. Balance in all things. | "You have a new curium instructor," she told me. "The last one has -"
"Cancer," I interrupted. "Yeah. Funny, that. What have I got tomorrow?"
Grabbing a list off her desk, she nodded sagely. "I'll be taking you for mercury at eight thirty."
"Are you sure?" I said. "I thought you were retiring."
She shook her head and consulted her list. "Nine o'clock sharp. Francium. Don't be late, OK? It's got a half-life of ten minutes and if you're late there won't be a lesson to go to."
I sighed. "I'll be there," I said. "What's next?"
"Nine thirty is arsenic -"
"*Again?*" I interrupted. "Come on! I was sick as shit for days after the last lesson. I was -"
She looked at me over the top of her glasses. "Do you want to be the Avatar, or not?"
"No," I said. "I was perfectly clear on this point. I have no desire to -"
"*Ten o'clock,*" she said firmly, "is lead. You'll be having a new teacher. Miss Angstrom was discovered this morning masturbating in her own faeces."
Breathe in. Breathe out. "OK!" I said, brightly. "What's ten thirty?"
She flipped a page. "Potassium. Don't bring water this time, will you?"
*"One time,"* I said. "*One*. Time."
"Eleven o'clock is mercury. I'll be taking you for that."
I frowned. "You said mercury was at eight thirty," I said.
"No," she said, checking the list. "Eleven. Just before Rainbownium and Fishpasteium."
I threw my head back and groaned. "Not again," I muttered. "Nurse!" | 2016-01-23T14:59:18 | 2016-01-23T14:57:22 | 112 | 57 |
[WP] No one in the galaxy ever assumed that Earth would amount to anything because of its extreme gravity for a life-bearing world - anything trying to escape the planet's gravity well would need to BE 97% fuel weight, and the idea that they would try was a ludicrous concept.
Repost, no one responded before.
EDIT: Thank you guys so much! I never expected something so small to turn great and take reddit by storm! But keep in mind, this wasn't me. I simply reposted. The real hero is a reddit user named AnCapGamer, the original creator of this prompt. | "Good for them," Zolforat commented as they observed humans farming the cradle of civilization. "Tools and agriculture? Why, they're looking positively sentient."
"Real moxy," Mefro, Zolforat's companion, agreed. "I can hardly understand how they manage to stand up like that!" It stamped its twelve hooves in emphasis. "And in *that* gravity? They're lucky to be more than a foot tall!"
Zolforat put the ship back into gear. "Real shame about them. If they ever had a chance to develop beyond simple tools, they might be quite interesting to meet." They zipped off toward their final destination and forgot about the rapidly-spinning blue planet in almost no time.
----------
"I say, *those* are the humans?" Zolforat gasped on the way toward refueling in the atmosphere of one of Jupiter's moons. Down on the surface, they observed a city of over a million right in the center of an oddly shaped peninsula. Boats of wood sailed the seas, and stone roads criss-crossed the continent. "Well I'll be damned! They developed this much in just a few thousand orbits?? Why, look at all that!"
"Stone buildings!" Mefro whispered, awestruck. "In *that* gravity? Can you imagine?"
Zolforat was astounded. "I know! But cheers to them for making it this far! Glad we got to see them at their peak!"
----------
"What in the... Mefro, you've got to see what they've done now!" The two had made quite the hobby of watching the poor backwards humans. It was inspiring, watching them try their hardest. But also depressing, knowing that they were trapped on that little rock for the rest of time. "They're using *steam* for power!"
Mefro seemed impressed. "Clever little devils! I kind of almost want to see them try to make it to orbit."
"Oh, don't say that," Zolforat chided his companion. "There isn't enough water on the planet to produce enough steam to make it into orbit. They wouldn't even hit the second atmosphere layer before plummeting back down. Poor little guys."
"I know," Mefro said. "You're right; I shouldn't have said that. I'm just proud of them for making it this far." The two had developed almost *paternal* feelings for the poor little human buggers.
"Farewell, humans!" Zolforat told them as the two went off on their way again. "What do you think, Mefro: will they have discovered electricity by the time we return?"
-------
Their ship hovered over the burnt remains of a city on an island in the little blue planet's largest ocean. Scanners confirmed what the two already feared: radioactive fallout. This had been a *nuclear* detonation. Surveillance video from the drone they'd left in orbit showed another chilling discovery: long-range rockets traveling a distance of over 200 miles, packed with explosives. It should have been impossible with that level of gravity, but the damned humans had done it. With just a little more power, one of those could break orbit! On the surface, *millions* upon *millions* of humans teemed on every continent, in unimaginable numbers. And it was getting more and more crowded by the second.
"Uh...." Zolforat finally managed to take four of his eyes off of the screen to look back at Mefro. "We... uh... we should probably tell someone about this."
----
If you liked this story, you should also subscribe to /r/Luna_Lovewell! | "We will now be opening for questions," the gooey grey alien in the suit said, turning to the audience.
Behind him, Mark Wilson smiled. He risked a glance at himself in the mirror in the back of the conference room – his silhouette against the white light of the power point presentation onscreen behind him was lean and tall, like a very successful turkey breast roll. He pointed at an alien with its hands up on the front row.
"Mr. Wilson, could you repeat the part about the gravity and the space travel? I mean, I understand you guys
conquered your own moon, but how!?"
Mark smiled at the alien. A very faint roar reached his ears from up above, but he ignored it for the time being.
"Like I said, the biggest part of it is getting the ship out of the atmosphere. We burn fuel to do that, so we can –"
"Fuel?"
"Yes, that's dinosaur juice that's been sitting under the Earth for millions of years."
The aliens exchanged impressed looks. "What about breathing in space?"
"Well, unlike most species in the galaxy, earthlings can only survive inside the atmosphere of their own planet. So
we had to develop a suit that could maintain pressure and oxygen levels stable in our bodies."
Another murmur ran through the room. Mark held on to his smile.
The roaring sound grew louder, but still Mark ignored it. *Not yet.*
Everything amazed the aliens. It was so easy. He had given motivational speeches on Earth before, but damn if interspace motivation wasn't so much better. You could do an hour on not giving up on your dreams using the invention of the toaster oven as a central theme. The first pizza and the importance of indulgence. Roller blades and how acknowledging the futility of life can lead to a better you.
Really. The aliens didn't have gravity. Or atmosphere. Or wars. Or pretty much anything to deal with. They conquered space travel the day they learned how to jump. Their bodies didn't need food or sunlight or water to survive.
Those guys… the space equivalent of spoiled little brats. Eager to learn as much as they could about the burden of
mankind – or, in other words:
"How the hell did you guys find time and energy to accomplish so much?"
"Well," Mark said, pacing from one side of the stage to another. "We set goals and we work towards them."
"Goals?"
"Yes, like landing on the moon. Curing smallpox. Ending world hunger."
More hands shot to the air. Mark pointed at one at random. "And what are mankind's plans for the future?"
The roaring was now loud enough that few could keep ignoring it. Half the aliens had their heads still turned to
Mark, half were looking around searching for the source.
"Well, that's the funny thing," Mark said, stopping at the center of the stage. "You guys never had to develop any
technology. You didn't need energy or food, so you never learned to hunt or to build dams. You don't have
predators, so why build shelter? You don't even have gravity, so you never bothered to develop any kind of sophisticated interstellar transportation. You just sort of live here in your little planet, rent free, no trouble. A utopia of happiness."
The aliens nodded in agreement, more and more looking around for the source of the roaring sound.
"Well… we're humans," Mark continued. "We're the scum of the universe. But don't blame it on us – we've been
dealt a shitty hand. So, to make up for it, we've developed all this technology you guys just amazed yourselves with…"
The ceiling blew away, revealing the ships hovering menacingly over the aliens' heads. Bright lights flooded the room, and the faces of human soldiers emerged from black holes in the base of the ships.
"… and now we're using that technology to bomb your planet back to the Stone Age, which technically you never
left," Mark finished. "So we can steal *your* dinosaur juice."
The aliens all exchanged looks, confused. Scared. Mark signaled for the ships to fire.
"We're humans," Mark said, as the laser beam shot down from the mother ship. "And we're bad as shit."
| 2016-03-31T13:57:30 | 2016-03-31T13:51:16 | 1,816 | 577 |
[WP] You obtain a device that tells you exactly what choices to make in order to lead the "happiest" life possible. Some of these choices get hard to make. | !!CALL ME BEFORE YOU READ THIS!!
10 years ago today, I got a package delivered to me. There wasn't a return address, and I didn't order anything. Perhaps foolishly, I opened it anyway.
Inside was a leather-bound book, and every page was blank, except the first page. The first page said "keep this book and read it daily."
I thought it was kind of odd, so I kept it, and the next day I opened it up. I flipped past the first page and discovered the second page now had something written on it. It simply said "Call in sick today." I had some sick time to burn, and it was a nice day, so why not? Why not indeed! That evening I learned an airplane had crashed into my work, killing almost everyone. I looked at the book so innocently sitting on my coffee table, and wondered.
And so the years went by. Most days there wouldn't be anything new, but sometimes it would prompt me to make some choice that I wouldn't normally make. Taking my car to the mechanic when nothing was wrong with it (gas was leaking onto my brakes, somehow), or taking a vacation to the beach (met my wife!).
My life is a million times better than I ever expected it to be! I'm well off, I own my home outright, I have a loving wife and two beautiful children. The book has never steered me wrong.
But if you're reading this, then the book has led me wrong. Last week I opened the book and it said "Buy a pistol." I did. And this morning it said "Kill your wife as she sleeps. Do not let her wake."
I couldn't do it. I can't do it. I won't do it. I pray the book is wrong. I don't know what is going to happen, but that's why I'm writing this letter and mailing it to you. I sincerely hope we'll laugh about this in a week. If not? Tell mom I love her. | The artifact the old man gave me seemed more like a rock than anything mystical at the time, that was until I touched it.
On contact I was filled with knowledge, maybe even premonitions that never came.
The first thing I learned was that I should put down the artifact and leave it, but that was something I couldn't do. After all, it showed me a world filled with euphoria, peace, and joy. As long as I held the stone, I would know what decision would lead to the best outcome for my happiest.
The choices were simple at first, turn left on the street instead of right, don't buy from that hotdog stand, and take a different route home.
I even met my wife because of the artifact. I was in a bar and I just knew who I should talk to, literal love at first sight.
But then life became boring. I started to enjoy browsing dank memes more than going on pleasant strolls, and thats when I found it 4chan.
The website seemed innocently stupid on the surface, but deep down inside, it changed. After a wicked trap thread, I found my first gore thread. It was something I had encountered, and it was exhilarating! I could feel my heartbeat raise, and the adrenaline pump.
After a nasty video of a woman being beat with a shovel I thought I should stop, but I knew I should stay. After that, I was always told to watch gore, for months this persisted, until... well...
I was standing in line at a bank, on my phone, browsing a gore thread. I was bored out of my mind, but the little voice in my head said It would be good for me to go here, so I followed.
Eventually there was one person in front of me, a woman so annoying she had to talk to the manager. After five minutes of waiting for this dumb bitch, and watching gore the voice said it.
"Kill her"
What!? No! right? I was lost... I knew I wanted to, I knew I would take great pleasure, but I didn't know if I could... or... no!
I ran out of the bank, and strait home to my wife.
I killed her obviously, and it was **GREAT!** Then my son, and daughter.
I'm actually disposing of them right now... well cutting them up so I can flush them.
And I have to say, I've never been happier.
___________________________________________
**If enjoyed reading this, check out my other work at /r/Alduit or [my free horror ebook](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/631467).** | 2016-05-05T07:56:19 | 2016-05-05T04:51:37 | 46 | 10 |
[WP] As you walk along the Thames pondering what Brexit will mean for you and your family, a soaking wet woman walks up a set of stairs from the river, hands you a package and tells you “Sort it out, please!” before vanishing around a corner. You open the package to find Excalibur. | "Here, sort it out, will you?" The strange woman just about lobbed the sword at me and started to vanish back into the Thames. Before I could do more than stammer a few half-formed words, she was gone.
I stared at the sword in my hands, barely able to hold the heavy hunk of medal upright. My eyes traveled down the length of it, from point to hilt. On the hilt, I noticed an emblem, like a family crest or something. Upon examination, and considering the circumstances, I felt it could only be one thing.
I stumbled back closer to shore and yelled out into the river: "You do realize I'm French, right?" | *Slap*. The damp package was dropped into my arms.
"Here you go. Now sort the damn thing out." The woman turned and strode off into the Thames once more, leaving me nonplussed. I slowly unwrapped the parcel, to reveal...a sword, bearing an ancient weight of responsibility. Damn.
I phoned my Grandmother; she'd know what to do.
"Hi Grandma... yes, it's Will... Kate's doing fine...no, actually Grandma, I do have something I want to talk to you about. *It happened.*"
"...Yes, just like you said; a soggy woman from the water, passing the blade over. What?...Oh it's a plain blade... it has the inscription though."
"...no, I don't know why she missed Dad either, Grandma. All I know is I am currently holding Excalibur, and I was told to sort this mess out."
"...*what do you mean, you're looking forward to a holiday?!?* You're going to stay and help, right?... An irish passport, that's why you're visiting Northern Ireland. Great, Grandma, just great." | 2016-06-27T11:27:09 | 2016-06-27T10:27:12 | 420 | 157 |
[WP] You have just let loose a string of vulgarities so potent that the patron saint of cursing has decided to personally pay you a visit to tell you to calm down. | The entire room stared at me with wide eyes, some covering their mouths, others whispering to each other. I could feel their judgement hot upon my neck.
"Dude... there are *kids* here..." my opponent said, rubbing his eyes. "Why would you say that?"
I was too furious to respond, and thankfully, I didn't have to. We all recoiled as a blinding glow of white light emanated from ever crack and corner of the room, as if the drywall were luminous, and people started screaming with terror.
The light suddenly quit, revealing a floating, homeless man. "Hello, my child." He was staring straight at me with kind eyes and a soft smile.
"What the *fuck*?" I shrieked.
"Shh shh, shh... do not be so vulgar, young one. You must settle yourself down."
I turned to my friend, who also looked like his colon had evacuated his anus. "Dude, did you lace the pizza?"
The homeless man responded for him. "I am the Patron Saint of vulgarities, and I am here at the behest of your words just a moment ago."
My friend started slapping me. "*You fucking broke the world, you cursed so much*!" He then got up and ran out of the house, which just happened to be his own.
"Why did you let loose such a filthy phrase?" the glowing man asked, voice smooth like Country Crock.
"I... I was in first place, then my friend got a blue shell in third place and fucking took me out to win the match by one point."
The angel's face contorted. "Who the fuck gets a blue shell in third place? The fuck kind of game is this?"
I raised my arms up at him. "Right?! You see what I mean?!"
He held his arms out toward a cup next to me, and it filled with water. "You have earned this, my child. Drink it."
I looked at it oddly. "I'm not thirsty."
"It is not to quench thy thirst."
"Eugh," I exclaimed with repulsion, sniffing the cup. "Is this liquor??"
"I'm the fucking Patron Saint of cursing, kid. Drink your tequila and calm those nerves."
------
*as inspired by the 2 liter bottle of tequila in my fridge, if y'all are bored check out /r/resonatingfury!* | I was still fuming as I locked myself in the break room.
I'm not usually the type of guy to explode like that, but sometimes, one little computer glitch puts you over the edge. Now, here I was, hiding away, trying to pretend that none of my co-workers had seen anything.
I was about to get a bag of chips from the vending machine when a puff of smoke appeared in the chair next to me.
"Heyyyy, there, partner! Looks like you had yourself a case of potty mouth, huh?"
I rubbed my eyes, wondering if I'd mixed scotch with my morning coffee by mistake. Some clown dressed like Ozzy Osbourne in a barbershop quartet was sitting there, adjusting his straw hat.
"Dude, what do you want? I'm just trying to calm down here for a while."
"Well, I can certainly help you out! Why don't we sing a song together? Life can be so gosh-darn stressful sometimes." Somehow, he pulled a full-size acoustic guitar from his back pocket.
"No! Don't give me any of that shit. Just leave me alone."
"Whoa, there! Calm down, my friend. We all gotta find outlets for this kind of thing!"
"I'm just pissed off right now! This job sucks, I'm always stressed out, and I don't want to hear any of your stupid ideas!"
The spirit-guy blinked. "Stupid?"
"Yeah. Stupid. Singing a song doesn't just magically solve all your problems."
"Candy bar?"
"Won't help."
"Petting a cat?"
"No."
"Full-year subscription to *Better Homes and Gardens*?"
"Dude, just get out of here! No one needs you, and I'm willing to bet no one likes you!"
He froze, then stood up slowly and narrowed his eyes. "OK. So you want me to go." He took a few paces towards the door, then whipped back around and pointed a finger at me.
"You think *your* job is stressful? I have to zip down here to Earth every time a fucking bastard like you lets loose more than ten profanities. I'm sick and tired of you humans and your bullshit. Sort your own shit out! Don't get so pissed off that I have to get called down to this shitstain of a planet when you can't control yourselves! For fuck's sake!"
He threw the candy bar at me.
"Enjoy your Hershey bar, you fucking asshole!"
Just like that, he was gone.
As I unwrapped the chocolate, I have to admit I felt a little better. I lose control every once in a while, but at least I'm not as unhinged as that guy.
***
*Thanks for reading! If you'd like to see more of my stories, check out /r/GigaWrites.* | 2016-07-23T08:15:46 | 2016-07-23T08:11:42 | 1,757 | 42 |
[WP] You get a deep cut for the first time in your life, instead of bone or muscle, you see wires. | “Ow!” Jake screamed out as the sword slashed his arm. It was mid-July and he was a performer at his town’s local medieval faire. Over the past few summers, he had done everything from running the concession stands to performing on stage in real sword fights. This year he was doing the latter. Covering up his wound with his hand he hobbled off the stage. After his dueling partner forgave the audience for the delay, he went into the back to check on him.
“Dude, Jake, I’m so sorry. Are you alright?” Nick asked. He was a nice guy, 6 feet tall with sandy hair and the perfect runner’s body. It’s not that he had swung incredibly hard, it’s just he had swung with such grace that is to be expected from a fighter.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m gonna go call an ambulance.”
“No, don’t. They’ll just make things worse.”
“Jake, its faire policy. I have to.” Watching Nick run off, Jake was left alone. Looking down at his hand, he was surprised that he didn’t see as much blood as he would expect coming from an open wound. In fact, he didn’t see any blood at all. Removing his hand, he was astonished. The cut was deep; deep enough that he should’ve seen at least muscle, if not bone. There, running through the middle of his arm, were wires. Sticking his fingers into the gash, he grabbed one of the wires. It was warm as he felt the electric current pass through.
He had never had a cut this deep before. This was the first time he truly had seen his own insides. Pulling out the sword he had sheathed at his waist, he cut straight across the other arm. As he suspected, the wires ran through both of his arms.
“Jesus, Jake. What the hell are you doing?” Nick asked as he entered the room with medical gauze. “Did you cut your other arm?”
“No, look,” he said pointing to his arm. Reaching in, he pulled out one of the wires, showing Nick. “I have wires running through my arms.” Nick was shocked at what was being shown to him. In a fit of panic, he dropped the gauze and sprinted out of the room. Confused, Jake went back to playing with the wires inside of him, hoping to learn more about himself.
As the sirens neared in the distance, Jake felt a little bit lightheaded. That’s weird, he thought. I shouldn’t be feeling light-headed right now. He collapsed to the floor, unsure what was happening. The last sight he saw was the paramedics rushing in, rolling a cart along with them.
“BP 85/50 and dropping!” the nurse screamed. “We need to stabilize him, and fast! Doctor, has the bloodwork come back yet?” she questioned as she saw the doctor approaching the cart.
He nodded his head. “LSD was found in his system. He must have been hallucinating. One of his co-workers told us that he thought there were wires in his arms. Hurry, now! We’re running out of time.” | "Okay." I say, looking down at the gash in my palm. "Okay, don't panic. Don't panic. Ow. This hurts."
This is what I get for trying to catch a falling knife. Stupid of me, I know. But I have a bigger problem than a cut. Under my skin, the cut didn't reveal blood and muscle, but a metal framework with wires running through it. The knife cut through one of the wires, and there are small sparks as the loose ends touch together.
"What the fuck." My roommate is in the kitchen with me, staring at the wound with horror.
The pain is muted, far away. It doesn't feel worse than a paper cut, and there's barely any blood. But my head is spinning.
"This doesn't make any sense." I say.
"No shit! You're a fucking robot?" Sam has a wild look on his face. "How the fuck are you this calm?"
"I don't know," I say numbly. "I think this is just too weird for me to make sense of." I move my right hand, slowly and carefully. One of the fingers isn't responding, and it twitches erratically.
"You're a fucking robot," Sam repeats. "This is something out of science fiction."
"I can't be a robot." I gesture around the kitchen, a slightly grotesque motion given my damaged hand. "I was cooking *dinner* here. Robots don't eat dinner."
"Maybe you're... a super-advanced robot. You can process food into energy or something."
"I eat, sleep, and breathe. I have a heartbeat. I have a mom and dad!"
Sam considers this. "Um. I don't know how to put this, but... are you sure about that?"
"Yes. Robots aren't born as little robot babies to robot mommies and daddies."
"No, I mean, like, in all the shows where the hero turns out to be an android, they gave him fake memories so he wouldn't know. Are you sure you have parents?"
I pause. "You know, that's really crazy, but..." I look at my hand. "I'm ready to believe anything."
Awkwardly, with my left hand, I take out my cell phone and scroll through the contacts. I haven't talked to Mom in a while, anyway.
"Hello?"
I sigh with relief. She exists. "Mom, this is going to sound really crazy, but.. am I a robot?"
"Are you... what?"
"I cut open my hand, and I could see wires inside. I'm serious. We're kind of freaked out."
I hear her sigh with relief over the phone. "It happened from a cut on the hand? No, you're not crazy. But you do have... a special power. It can trigger on its own when you're injured. I've never seen a mechanical manifestation, so..."
"Wait, what? A power?"
"Where does your dad keep that grimoire?" I hear the sound of cabinets opening and closing over the phone. "Never mind, I'll let Mark know that you had a breakthrough and I'll send you what you need in the mail."
"What I need for *what?* What happened to me?"
"You'll be fine. Probably. Cover up the cut so people won't see it. I'll send you a package in a few days. Now, I really need to tell your father. Goodbye, I love you."
I drop the phone on the counter.
Sam looks at me expectantly. "Well?"
In a flat deadpan, I reply. "Apparently I'm not a robot. I'm a wizard." | 2016-09-12T10:55:47 | 2016-09-12T10:16:37 | 104 | 64 |
[WP] After thousands of years of deep space exploration, humanity hits the skybox. | Sensors never lied. At least, never this badly. The crew had all seen the rendering on their computers. The surface they hovered above reached out endlessly in all directions. Putting their feet on it just confirmed what seemed to be impossible.
Being a rational man, Burbank was not frightened, but was quickly becoming familiar with the feeling that something important was about to happen.
And then he found the door.
The fact that it was a human-sized door made the neurons in Burbank's brain start to burn. Who put this here, and what are the chances of finding it? He opened the door and peered inside, only to find it as equally dark as his current surroundings. He opened his comm link to his crew.
"Good morning, and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!"
He stepped through. | Imagine the sound of metal crumpling. Great lumps of the finest machined and manufactured metals, placed and bolted with the utmost care, now being mangled against a unseen wall. Now forget all that as this is space and sound doesn't work that way.
"Ah fucking hell. BOB, get up here"
"Jim, the fuck you do?"
"I think we found the edge of space"
" ... it doesn't have an edge you berk, its space, its infinite"
"Well, its technically expanding into an infinite space, but we just hit the edge of it"
"I don't see it"
"See what?"
"The edge"
"Its fucking space, its a black bloody void. The hell you expect to see? Big red sign "No Entry. No through way"?"
"You think someone would put up a cone or something. Stop people hitting it"
"I'll get onto the health and safety people about it"
"So now what?"
"Tea?"
Thus, the HMS Lancaster sat for 60mins while tea was made, consumed, and made again. Before everyone decided; "its been jolly good so far, so lets just turn around. Can visit that nice little shop near Omnicork 9".
[I had an idea, but I sort of fell flat on it beacuse I never think this stuff through] | 2016-11-05T08:06:14 | 2016-11-05T07:46:57 | 65 | 16 |
[WP] Upon dying, you, a serial killer, are sentenced to experience the lives of all those that you killed.
Edit: Thanks, all, for chiming in and upvoting. Or downvoting, since this is apparently something of a common concept. Sorry about that. Would you believe me if I said I didn't mean to be a reposting karma whore? Either way, it inspired the responders to write. Call me a fool, but I'm happy that so many have taken the time to read and write. | They decided to test-run the idea on the 'Blade and Flame' killer. Real name, Leonard Stiles: notorious for cutting up his 50 victims, before torching them while still breathing.
He'd get a little trip down memory lane before death, courtesy of LifeChip technology. The chips had already been widespread in society when Leonard had prowled the streets. And now, its use was perfected. Every memory, even sight and every experience someone had lived: downloadable and replayable. Useful for everything from court testimonies to the transfer of knowledge.
And projected to be the greatest reform to hit the prison system. Once it had been tested, it would be extended to the other prisoners.
They strapped the headset to Leonard, who looked bored out of his mind as he sat strapped to the chair. They pressed 'play' on the compiled memories of all 50 victims, while the executioner waited nearby. After the chip played inside out, he would move in - and Leonard would be nothing but a bad memory.
Leonard watched as the images flit past in front of his eyes. The first woman he'd dragged from the streets as a teenager, weeping as he cut into her. The flames, racing up her body. Men. Girls. Boys. Dozens of them. All so diverse, so different, but their screams had sounded very similar, in the end.
"He's actually smiling," a prisoner guard said, disgusted.
"Play it again," the warden growled.
The second time, Leonard laughed, an ugly wheezing sound that made the warden feel the sour burn of his breakfast crawling up his throat.
"Just kill him," he said, disgusted. "Take it off and kill him, already."
Leonard saw the images fade into black, and felt numbness spread up his veins. At last, it would be over. Just stepping forward into nothingness. In truth, he'd faked the laugh. It didn't amuse him, not really. It had, once, but that last burn of emotion had long since died in prison. No. The sight of his victims simply bored him, now. But he knew laughter would enrage them, and they would kill him for it.
At last, he would simply be over.
There was a moment of darkness, and then the images flickered to life again.
The woman, struggling and screaming. The boy, pleading. The men, roaring in denial of what was being done to them. Boring, boring, *boring*. But he couldn't look away. He couldn't switch it off. He was alive, and watching.
"Kill me already. It was supposed to be one replay," Leonard snapped. At least, that's what he meant to say.
But he had no mouth. He couldn't speak. He could simply watch.
------
"Ingenious, sometimes, those humans," Razgü said, as he set up the torture for the newly arrived soul.
"Don't need no hooks or whips or anything," he explained to Maluk, who was watching the soul thrash and try to speak. "Torture never really worked all that well with these serial killer types, anyway. They always get some kick from knowing they made it down here. But this, this will work..."
"You're just using their punishment for him?" Maluk asked.
Razgü nodded and grinned to reveal a sharply filed mouth of teeth.
"Infinite loop. Best part is, we don't need to do nothing. It's just an eternal memory of what he just saw," Razgü cackled.
Eternal torture was almost as wearying on the torturer as the one getting tortured. It would be so much easier if the humans just did the work themselves.
Maluk was silent, jealous that he hadn't thought of the idea. Razgü would probably get a commendation, and the humans had done the work for him. Sometimes, the sheer power of their invention disgusted him.
----------
Leonard forced himself to remain calm. To try and sleep, maybe. But his eyes couldn't shut, and his mouth couldn't open. They must have tampered with the headset. Some inhumane adjustments, especially for him. Making him think he'd died, but really, the chip was still running.
Well, fuck them. He wouldn't show anger. He forced his mouth to be slack, his body to be still. They'd need this chair for someone else, soon.
They'd have to kill him sometime.
-------
*Hope you enjoyed my story! You can find more of my work on /r/Inkfinger/.* | Thwap. Thwap. Thwap.
Something was broken inside Rand's train car this morning. A small piece of metal had broken off near the heavy doors. Every :02 seconds it made contact, caroming off it's former home as far as the separation allowed.
Separation was something Rand knew all about. In his first life. Now. Always.
He felt the train slow down as it approached one of the several stops before New York City. This suit lived on Long Island. Within shouting distance of his high pressure Wall Street job, but just far enough from the city not to deal with the riff raff.
Rand closed is eyes as buildings flew past. 27 minutes until he'd step off the train. 42 minutes until he'd arrive at work. 43 minutes until some dickhead in a $3,000 suit screamed at him for not already having done X, Y or Z. Some bullshit Rand likely wouldn't have understood even if he bothered to care. He knew this ride well by now. He'd be living this life for almost 8 months. In a different context that might sound melodramatic, but this was not your typical day to day.
Rand had once lived a simple life. Compared to this shit anyway. Grew up in Queens. Family meant everything. Jobs got squeezed at some point so he had to pick up alternative talents. His first hit was to keep the lights on for the family. To put food on the table. That's what he told himself anyway. He had blown some of the 2 grand at the strip club, but he'd earned that part for himself. Everything else was for his Family.
Rand took a deep breath as he heard the conductor drawing nearer, clicking tickets & chattering with the passengers. He wished this jolly old fuck would be quieter this morning. He was beginning to grow tired of this vics grind. He couldn't understand it. The finance job paid a ton, but it was long hours & terrible business. The Family was constantly nagging him. Fuck. Rand had to remind himself that this poor son of a bitch probably loved the three daughters & two sons. Loved the dogs & his homely wife. The wife was hot enough naked at least. One of the few perks of this shitty vig.
Settling back into his seat after paying the morning small talk toll was a relief. He had about 15 minutes left on the ride, maybe 4 songs.. depending if Stairway came on. He had to give the poor shmuck credit for good music taste at least. Rand had always liked to listen to music after his original Family had gone to sleep. That seemed like a distant memory now. So many lives ago. So many deaths ago. First, the deaths were waves & waves of victims. Rand became the go to hit man in the Tri-State area, then the East Coast. Before long he was making international trips to kill Ambassadors & CEOs for 7 figure sums. Wife & kids thought he was consulting, that made it clean. He barely registered as the kills stacked up. Eventually he passed into the hundreds, then neared the 1000s. He had become an assassin of the highest order, rich beyond belief, but still he took clients. Looking back, this was the mistake. Should've just enjoyed his life. Fucking his wife. His kids. Found some hobby. Football. Video Games. Chess. Anything. But, no. Killing was the vice of choice, or it became it. The money was one thing, but he had money. He could admit it now, all these years later, all these lives later. He had wanted to keep killing because it felt good.
That thirst had become blurry in the recent years. He was 8 years removed from his original life. His real life. As if that mental distinction made any difference. The train descended into the tunnels before Penn Station now, just a few minutes from arrival. The car filled with black & Rand's music cut out as his phone lost service. The silence reminded him of that first time waking up in someone else's skin. It was pretty similar to just waking up, except that almost immediately he felt *different.* It wasn't clear how at first, he was somewhere knew, he felt..bigger, his face now clean shaven. A curse of some kind he guessed. Sounds stupid thinking it. What the fuck else could it be?
To wake up in a different body, a different life? It took a few days to remember. Was so disorienting off the bat, but why not. Why wouldn't the body he was in be a guy he'd shot. Why wouldn't he have to live the pain he caused. It was now an 8th different body. A new one each year. A new life taken. A new schedule to learn. A new life to try and fill a void in. What happens to those folks when he leaves he didn't want to know. He had stopped debating long ago if this was real or not real. Heaven or hell. Was he repenting or was he being punished? Was this cathartic or torture. | 2016-11-13T12:14:23 | 2016-11-13T12:12:03 | 66 | 17 |
[WP] Scientists invented a pill that enables dogs to fully speak and understand English. It lasts for ten minutes, and will only work one time. You give a pill to your 12 year-old Border Collie, whom you've had since they were a pup. Your dog immediately says "Alright, listen very carefully..." | My dog, who I named Mr. Fierce when I was 14, was no longer quite so fierce. 12 years later I was nearing 30 and he was slowing down. His black and white fur had a little extra white in it from old age. He was always excitable, but now days he took a while longer to get his body moving. I could tell I only had a year, maybe two, left with him.
I'd spent my life with Mr. Fierce. My parents both worked when I was a teenager, and Mr. Fierce was my best friend. When I was in college, I had to leave him behind, and I regretted those years spent apart. Every college break I came back to find my dog had gotten a little older. It was heartbreaking. After college I made a point to always bring him with me, paying extra for dog friendly apartments. Mr. Fierce was too important. He was family.
When the pill came out that would let me actually talk to him, of course I jumped at the chance. Who wouldn't? I was nervous. Would he be mad at me? For those years spent apart? I hadn't been able to afford to bring him to the vet as much as I should. Would he tell me he was in too much pain? What would I do if he told me he hurt too much? 12 years was a good life for a collie. I couldn't stand the idea of not having him waking me up every morning.
It took a few days for me to get the courage, but I finally gave him the pill one night after work.
And after his first few moments of confusion, once he realized I could understand him... Do you know what he asked me? Mr. Fierce, my best friend asked me.
"Alright, listen carefully, am I a good boy?"
I lost it. I couldn't help but cry. I hugged him tightly and assured him.
"Yes, Fierce. You are the best boy. The most wonderful boy in the whole world."
The remaining minutes he could talk were a blur of happy questions, the most precious minutes of my life.
A few months later when I found out he had to be put down from tumors in his stomach I was at peace with it. I held his paw and let him know in those final moments that yes, he was a good boy. He was the best boy, and I would always, always love him. | "Alright, listen very carefully." The pills had taken effect almost immediately. I was in shock, and let out a, "Wow."
"No. No. No time for 'wow'. Snap the fuck out of it. I know what bullshit you just fed me; Toby told us about them the other week. I know they only last for a while, so there's something very important I need to convey to you." I nodded silently, assuming she was talking about the next door neighbor's dog, Toby.
"My fur," she continued, "do you know why it's so long?" I didn't even have time to formulate an answer before she spoke again. "It's so that if some big fucking animal, like a wolf, grabs onto me, they have a harder time doing any damage. It's essentially a natural suit of goddamned armor. What would you do if a wolf attacked you? Oh yeah, you'd fucking **die**!"
Confused at both the information and my dog's tone, I asked, "Why are you telling me this...?"
"Shut the **fuck** up, Tom! Tom... Humans have such weird names. Do you know that the name my mother gave me would roughly translate to, 'undefeated guard' in your language, in this disgusting speech I have to use to convey ideas to your pea brain? That's a great name, my name. Tom is... a name. It doesn't mean anything, but that's how human names are. They're just... names. But, it's not offensive. It's not degrading." Suddenly, I realized where this was going.
"But a fucking terrible, shitty, embarrassing, goddamned unacceptable name," She raised her voice with every word. My dog was yelling at me, in English. "**is Fluffy**!" she screamed. "I swear to fucking God, Tom, if I hear you, or **anyone** call me that undignified name **ever** again, I will piss on **everything** you own! I will hide my shits where you sleep! I will chew your shoes, ruin your furniture, knock dishes off of your countertops! That is not my name, and it never will be again! I don't deserve such a *Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!*"
I breathed a sigh of relief as the pill wore off. She ran in circles, now just barking at me. Would petting her calm her down? I didn't dare try it. I didn't really know what to do, other than come up with a new name for Fl-- for my dog.
I sighed and sat on the couch. At least that horrible experiment was over. Lesson learned: Life is much better when your pets can't bitch at you.
Soon after, when I heard a loud, "My name is not Mister Mittens!" from the bedroom, I realized my girlfriend was about to learn the same lesson from her cat. | 2017-02-23T05:15:25 | 2017-02-23T04:57:25 | 3,942 | 842 |
[WP] Scientists invented a pill that enables dogs to fully speak and understand English. It lasts for ten minutes, and will only work one time. You give a pill to your 12 year-old Border Collie, whom you've had since they were a pup. Your dog immediately says "Alright, listen very carefully..." | "Alright. Listen very carefully."
I sat there, riveted. Quinn had been with me for so long I couldn't imagine life without her. She was my best friend in the truest sense... always there, up for every adventure, a shoulder to cry on.
I was more than happy to listen. After all, she had been on the receiving end of a thousand diatribes from me over the years. She had helped me work my way though countless problems with her unwaivering attention and knowing eyes. The least I could do now is return the favor.
She licked her chops. It was clear that it took considerable effort to speak but she soldiered on like she always did, and leaned in close to emphasize her words:
"What time are we going for a walk?" | Alright, listen very carefully. Have you seen the movie Inception? This is one of those situations. You’re locked inside what you might think of as a ‘dream’ and this is the only way I’ve found to talk to you. What’s actually going on is pretty complicated, involving comas, wormholes to alternate realities, and quantum physics of the subconscious—we teach it in 6th grade science on planet 那儿 but our society is more technologically advanced than your by thousands of years, so it’s not that you’re not smart enough to understand, it’s just that your society’s current scientific background isn’t that great, don’t worry though it will get better. So don’t feel bad or anything. That’s the first lesson, the first thing you need to learn. “Don’t feel bad about anything.” Can you learn that for me? Do you think you can remember it? It’s very important. That’s why I had to find this way to talk to you. That’s why I’m on reddit writing on this random WP post—it’s the only way I knew that you would read my message. I knew you would click on a link about Border Collies.
I’ll post again soon. Stay strong.
| 2017-02-23T05:50:11 | 2017-02-22T22:49:20 | 219 | 117 |
[WP] Scientists invented a pill that enables dogs to fully speak and understand English. It lasts for ten minutes, and will only work one time. You give a pill to your 12 year-old Border Collie, whom you've had since they were a pup. Your dog immediately says "Alright, listen very carefully..." | "You have a *bad*. I smell it in you. The bad is bigger." the electonic voice chirped from a nearby speaker. Zoe looked at Valerie from the table
Valerie blinked, and turned to the vet tech, looking for help. "The pill allows Zoe to speak English, but this doesn't fully explain all concepts to her.", she remarked. she glanced at tablet, the continued: "maybe she's saying... indigestion?"
"*Bad.* *Bad*! the voice trilled. Zoe barked, and tried to stand up on her front paws on the bed. The voice continued in it's synthetic rasp: "There is a bad, packmate! hunt! smell! it is *here*." Zoe crawled forward, nuzzling the valrie's worn purple sweater. "Calm down, zozo. It's alright..."
Val strokes the animal's contour, riddled by bones. *So,* she thought, *it wasn't a just a lump*? She dismissed the sudden falling sensation of her fear, and refocused on the dog's brown eyes.
"Zoe" She spoke. "I didn't expect this but... thank you."
"*you hunt for bad, yes?*"
"Uh, yeah, Zoe. I'll hunt for the bad. I love you doggo. I love you a lot." Her eyes watered, and she rubbed the damp skin of her face where tears had streaked before.
"I'll leave you as long as you need to be here", the vet tech remarked, she said, head down.
"*Tired. Sleep. Hunt... tomorrow.* and the dog rested its head, just like she really was asleep. | I knew I really couldn't afford the Intelect pill AND pay my rent that month, but the commercials made it seem so special and interesting. People hugging their pets, giggling at their smart wit, deepening that bond between them... It sounded to good to be true. Sadly, one pill was $500, so not everyone got to try. I had been saving up for two months, and would barely be able to make it this month but I had to know. Storm was the best dog in the world and the only friend I had left. I got him when I was 12, shortly before my mom died. In a way, he was the only reason I was still alive. True, my life was no dream, but he made everything more bearable. So I had pulled the trigger and bought one pill, hid it in his food and fed him. Instantly, his ears perked up, his eyes turned bright and he looked straight at me before opening his mouth.
"Listen carefully, because I have been wanting to tell you this for ages."
He had a low voice, dark, with the hint of an accent. Not the voice I had in my mind at all, but it suited him.
"You have made some grave mistakes working for me. My food tends to be avarage at best, the walks feel perfunctory, and I don't think you enjoy picking up my personal waste. You never seem happy when doing that. The fact that you were debating on neutering me is defenitely not in your favour, as is the fact that you never let me hump anything in the house. Speaking of the house, it could use a thorough cleaning. My hair is everywhere. It is disgusting. You seem to mistake my wagging tail for a sign of happiness instead of a way to clean the air a little bit so I can at least breathe."
My mouth was agape, I just sat staring at my dog, listening to him rant on and on. I realised that all this time, his best feature was that he couldn't talk. He was quite the asshole. | 2017-02-23T06:40:22 | 2017-02-23T06:22:01 | 75 | 22 |
[WP] Your roommate is the serial killer on the news. However, he's probably one of the nicest people you know, and he's very respectful, discreet, and moral in his deeds. Neither of you really bring it up until one day he says, "I'm bored. Got anyone in mind for me to... y'know?" | I never saw Eric during the night. I'm not sure if this worries me, or if I am grateful. For one, I never have to see his... work. He is a wonderful cook, I pay the rent, and we work well together. "HEY KATE" he yells one night before leaving. "yeah?" I reply, slightly nervous. "mind if I use the bleach? I promise to replace it before sunrise" He laughs. "yeah, go get em, tiger". We both laugh at the banter and he leaves. The next week, I grow concerned as he hasn't gone out yet, seeing as it's already mid week. "hey, kate. Uh... I've hit a problem. I don't have anyone to...free from the mortal coil, as they say. Got anyone? Cmon, gimme a challenge", he says, as if he had challenged me to beat his highscore. Trying to contain my shock, I say"hmmm.... how about a murder suicide with 15 victims?". I mean, this has to be a joke, so I'll play along. "gladly" he says, with a look as serious as death itself. Oh shit | I was cooking dinner when he got home, I was kind of in the zone, listening to a record, so I jumped when he came around the corner into the kitchen. He never used to scare me like that, I'm not sure that he still does, but that breaking local news story during dinner last week definitely made me think.
I never usually buy into what the media says, I mean I lived with this guy my whole life, sidekicks as long as I could remember, and we never had so much as a disagreement. It was hard to imagine he was behind the bloody aftermath of a human they found at the park last week. But I guess we never really spoke about it.
"Sorry I didn't mean to scare you," he said as he smiled and held up his right hand, it was my favourite cookies from our local supermarket, they had been sold out for weeks.
"They finally had them today! Stopped in to check, I just had a feeling."
I was pretty stoked, I mean, I haven't seen these treats in ages! They have so many chocolate chips in them the cookie dough is just the glue holding them all together.
"Can I put on a new record? I hate this experimental rock stuff."
So he went and picked out some Simon and Garfunkel, pretty mellow stuff. When his phone rang.
"Hey man what's up?"
"Yeah wasn't too bad, you know, the usual."
He glanced over at me then back to the records.
"Yeah I've been pretty bored too, know anyone I could, you know?"
"Uh huh."
"Ok, yep."
"Yep, you too mate, bye."
He walked into the empty kitchen and turned the curry off, best to be safe, he lives alone after all.
| 2017-03-21T21:10:08 | 2017-03-21T21:05:16 | 17 | 10 |
[WP] A Genie offers you one wish, and you modestly wish to have a very productive 2017. The genie misunderstands, and for the rest of your life, every 20:17 you become impossibly productive for just 60 seconds. | She just wanted a fun night.
I had made my wish and learned to live with the consequences. 8pm was my prep time. Get everything in a row. I need tasks. Paper, pencils, building material is good too. During a rebellious period I tried to beat it. To take back control. I would lock myself in an empty room. But no, 8:18 rolls around and I'm exhausted from the workout, the dust has been sorted by size, I self-taught myself Italian, the walls have 3 novels on them and I'm down 2 pints of blood. Once I tried sleeping pills but apparently I just did it all sleepwalking. Then I went to a professional anaesthesiologist and now my dreams are all catalogued and a subconscious butler construct asks what I'll be dreaming each night.
So I can't fight it. All I can do is direct it towards good. And... it's useful. Of course it's useful. It's practically a super-power. I'm wealthy beyond my dreams. I've got a great house, a beautiful wife, numerous publishing deals, and a number of eager scientists on speed-dial.
The wife though. She didn't really understand. We were in love, and she knew my secret. She knew that 8-8:30 was the time. The preparation was very important, as is the harvesting afterwards. But last month she had her own preparation. I really can't blame her. She just didn't know. This is something spouses do right? The silk, the straps, the bunny ears. 8:06 I see her, right before I lock the door to the study. She comes in wearing that netting and my brain completely stops functioning. I'm the one to blame. I should have stopped her. I should have pushed her out. But I'm on top of her at 8:15.
I don't remember much of 8:17, but I'm sore afterwards. I've asked her about it and she always just gets a glazed look and a funny smile. I liked that. She thought that would be it. I mean, we took precaution. But she didn't understand. Today I came back from the hospital alone.
What are we going to do with 500 babies?
It was a very productive night. | On Christmas last year, I was dragging myself through a thrift store, looking for something to get myself. Nothing crazy, just a little gift.
I was messing around with some cups and glasses when I saw it. A small, faded, bronze-y... I dunno, lamp, I guess. I rubbed the side of it, thinking it was covered in dirt. Instead, a sandy wind started blowing from the top of it, and a face coalesced in the sandstorm.
"Hello there! I'm Tess, the Genie. I don't really do this much anymore, but since you were kind enough to let me out of there, I'll give you any wish. Nothing too big, though!" she said, with a light British accent.
I was talking to what looked like a teenage, gender-bent Sandman.
"I dunno. A productive twenty-seventeen, I guess?"
The Genie blew away, giggling. "That's a new one!" she echoed, as her pile of sand took its exit, and flew away in the windy road.
I felt strangely calm about having just met a Genie, but I supposed that was just part of the magic.
I decided to buy the lamp - it didn't seem to be magical anymore - but it would be nice to have, and returned home. Tired from school that day, I sat down at my computer, ready to play video games.
*Eight ten... could be worse,* I thought, as I launched Hearthstone. I was just a few turns in when time seemed to freeze, and I looked around, when suddenly a breeze appeared from nowhere.
A girl appeared next to me, brushing sand off of her arms.
"So, a productive 20:17. Every day, for one minute, you will be the smartest, best, cleverest person."
I feebly tried to contest her statement, but she disappeared again before I could say anything. I turned back to my screen, a feeling of confidence taking over everything. I just... knew what I needed to do to win, which I did.
After that, I started building my day around that one minute. I got a night job, and slept from eleven to seven. I drank an energy drink at eight, and sat at my computer, with a pencil and pen nearby. Every day was different - sometimes I would have mathematical formulas seemingly appear on my paper, and other times, I would scribble sonnets that put the Bard's work to shame. The days I looked forward to most, were the ones where I wasn't really immediately attached to anything. On those days, I could learn to do things in a minute what it takes most months- years, maybe, even to learn.
At first, I picked my bass back up. After that, I learnt to play the guitar that I always wanted to but never learned how to. Then I learnt the drums, and then I started making my own instruments.
The best day of all, though, was when I wrote this story. | 2017-05-11T21:31:49 | 2017-05-11T21:17:37 | 341 | 104 |
[WP] there are people with control over the elements but not the the Greek ones like fire but the ones on the periodic table like hydrogen | The war was nearing its end but they weren't going to give up without a fight. They would fight tooth and nail it was their custom. The Japanese were a proud and honorable people. They were getting ready to dig in and fight off American forces. Adolf Hitler was dead and the Germans had already surrendered. The Japanese, as stubborn as they were, were going to drag the fight out as long as they possibly could unless something could stop them. With the right clearance level you would know that the Americans already had something to force the Japanese to surrender. At the order of President Harry S. Truman the operation commenced.
The Japanese were expecting an army and were surprised to see one man parachute down to the city of Hiroshima. They all surrounded him.
One man stepped forward, "Surrender!" He commanded in broken English. The man looked at him and held up a small vial. The men all raised their rifles, unsure of what this man could possibly be capable of that they'd send him alone. The man raised one finger.
"Fire!"
The man pointed his finger at the vial. And suddenly there was nothing.
The explosion could be seen miles around. And heard throughout Japan. A second person had visited the city of Nagasaki and left nothing in their wake. | I AM CHROMOS, LESSER GOD OF CHROMIUM-50, HEAR ME.
I AM NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH MY BROTHER, CHROMETTO, LESSER GOD OF CHROMIUM-52 (PLENTIFUL BE HE IN NATURE). NOR AM I TO BE CONFUSED WITH MY FATHER, CHROMEO, GOD OF VIRILITY AND ALSO OF ALL THE STABLE ISOTOPES OF CHROMIUM, BLESSED BE THEY. HE RULES OVER ALL THE KINGDOMS OF CHROMIUM AND THEIR MULTITUDE OF COMPOUNDS. HEAR HIS NAME. NOW AGAIN HEAR MINE.
FOR I AM CHROMOS, LESSER GOD OF CHROMIUM-50. I WEAR MANY MASKS UPON THIS METALLIC FACE. I AM COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE HEXAAQUACHROMIUM(III) ION, FOR AMONG MY MANY VICES THERE IS THE VICE OF CAVORTING WITH MY HAREM OF WATER MOLECULES, AND TOGETHER WE BECOME ONE, BLESSED BE THE OCTAHEDRAL SYMMETRY.
THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE NOT WORTHY OF MY GOOD GRACES MAY KNOW ME BY OTHER NAMES, SUCH AS THE SUPER-TEAM I HAVE CREATED WITH MY ALLIES MOLYBDENUM, NICKEL, AND CARBON -- WE CALL OURSELVES THE STAINLESS STEELS. OR PERHAPS THOSE OF YOU WHO ART NOT COLOR BLIND KNOW ME BY THE MULTITUDE OF PIGMENTS I CONTRIBUTE TO.
IT MATTERS NOT. FOR I AM CHROMOS, LESSER GOD OF CHROMIUM-50. MY WILL BE DONE. | 2017-05-20T17:54:15 | 2017-05-20T17:13:15 | 18 | 11 |
[WP] End a monologue with "so fuck you, and thanks for asking." | "How am I? I'll tell you how I am.
"I wake up and there's no milk for my tea, that would be fine except there's no coffee either.
"I go to make breakfast, and the aforementioned lack of milk means there's no cereal, and *somebody* forgot to buy bread for toast.
"When I go to have a shower, there's no hot water, so I get out shivering, goosebumped and with a chap the size of your average Cheeto.
"I try to go to work, and guess what? My car won't start. The bus is nowhere to be seen and Uber decides now is a great time to jack their prices up by 3x.
"I get to work and switch on my PC, oh wait, the entire hard drive has crashed and reformatted itself, so there goes the presentation I was asked to give to the hedge fund managers. That puts my manager out of a job, and guess who else?
"I try to go home, and the entire street is cordoned off with flashing lights and there's a huge crowd.
"Before I know it, some madman with a bomb strapped to his chest has grabbed me, put a knife to my neck and is using me as a human shield against the fifty police snipers up on the roof - yes, we can all see you!
"Then, to top it *all off*, some nasal, ginger-mopped, prepubescent cockwomble of a supposed *negotiator* comes out and asks me if I'm OK.
"I'm just bloody *fantastic*, so fuck you, and thanks for asking." | It has been awhile since we last talked. I had hoped that you had forgotten about me, that you would leave me alone. I wanted to be a lost memory, or at least be a sorrowful one to you. Did you ask how I was doing when I sat in a corner crying? Did you care how I felt when you beat me? Did the thought that what you were doing was wrong even cross your mind? No. You decided that I deserved it. I grew up scared of you. I never had any self-worth, and you want to know how I'm doing. Well, I'll tell you.
I go to therapy once a week. I have been hospitalized because I thought I was going to kill myself. I take multiple depression pills because I don't know how to handle life. I've never had anyone who wanted me, who thought I was worth anything. I've been in a healthy relationship for almost five years, yet I still think no one cares. Every day I wake up, and I think that it would be better if I was gone. I watched you beat my mother, and once I was old enough you decided to beat me too. I was young and didn't know what you were doing to me. You let your friends touch me, and then hushed my cries for help. Later in life, when I was raped again, you made me silent. I didn't know how to tell anyone because I was scared of being a nuisance. You made me hate myself and the world I lived in. You made me wish I had never been born.
You told people I wanted attention. You told people that I was a liar. No one believed me. No one wanted me. I went against everyone and I decided that I could make it in life. So I did. I am someone who won't be told I can't do anything. I know I can make it. I know I don't need you. Even if I suffer from my own emotions, I know that I will succeed. I will not lose this fight. I don't need you. So fuck you, and thanks for asking. | 2017-06-26T15:08:08 | 2017-06-26T15:01:09 | 42 | 19 |
[WP] Reincarnation is a known, common, and expected result of death. You are a bounty hunter that specializes in tracking down people who have committed suicide to escape debts or a jail sentence. | "What is that?"
"It's your wife."
"It's a fucking frog!"
I looked at the fat, muddy brown toad sitting at the bottom of the cage. "Yes, a frog that was once your wife."
"How do you know that's her?" the man crossed his arms and adopted an accusatory tone. "She wouldn't become a frog. She was a woman!"
"Look," I rubbed my eyes. "Just let me come in, we can discuss it."
"She should be human! At least! She wouldn't be a fucking FROG!"
"I know it can be difficult to accept, but trust me. I've been doing this for eighteen years. This is your wife," I raised the cage so the husband of the amphibian could look straight into its bulging eyes. "And not a frog, sir. Technically your wife became a toad."
"Bullshit."
"Sir, could it be that your wife wasn't quite the saint you thought she was? I mean, granted, it's not often that a human reincarnates as a toad." *She must have been a real piece of shit.*
"What-what do you mean?" he said, staring into the toad's eyes.
I could see it slowly dawning on him, the inescapable realization.
"I mean that, as you know, the incarnation ladder goes either up or down. The direction a person goes comes down to their character, how much they did or did not grow as a--"
"I know that," the man spat. Then he softened. Tears welled up in his eyes and his bottom lip quivered.
"The first thing I do when tracking somebody down, is determine whether they've moved up or down the ladder. Most people move up, but for most people, the move up is fairly small. They become another human, usually with slightly better life circumstances."
The man broke eyes with his toad wife and looked into mine.
"Your wife, I found out, wasn't exactly destined to move up the ladder. In fact, I went to great lengths to ensure I had the full scope of her life. I interviewed you extensively, as you know. I talked to her friends, her acquaintances, her co-workers. She rated at a negative twelve on the Reinhurst scale. That moves a human down to amphibian. I searched locally, since most negative twelves reincarnate within three miles of their death. There's a swampy gully at the end of your street. I played her favorite song. You said it was Thunderstruck, right? ACDC? She came over within the hour of continuous play. And here you are."
The man looked back to the toad, verging on tears.
"Look." I rested the cage on the ground and opened it, swept the fat toad out and tipped it over. "Her birthmark." It was a small music note shape near the groin.
"OH GLORIA!" The man grabbed the toad and hugged it, tears streaming out of his stupid, sobbing face.
I backed away down the stoop. "I'll bill you."
*Goddamn*, I thought, heading back to my car. *I hate these filler side gigs...* | Sarah had an apple lodged in her mouth. That was my personal touch. Everything else—the swollen cheeks, the blackened eyes, the missing finger—that was protocol. She sat bound to a small wooden chair, a camera in her face and lightbulb above her head.
“Should’ve stuck with your bodyguards,” I told Sarah.
Girls her age were easy to take. They felt themselves invincible and thought their protection more of a hassle than a privilege. All it took for her was a month-long conversation pretending to be the quarterback of a local high school. I had convinced her to sneak out at night to gaze at the stars with me.
I chuckled. Stars. How cliché. But these rich, pompous types always had a soft spot for the cliché. Then again, so did I. Hence, the apple in the mouth.
“He won’t come,” she spluttered, half-crying still. “He abandoned by mom with me almost a decade ago! The selfish bastard doesn't care about anyone but himself. So let me go, please.”
I glanced at the camera’s blinking red light and then my watch. Mr. Ellingsworth had fifteen more minutes before he’d force me to take another one of his daughter’s fingers. I wondered who would show up at the door, what race or gender that person would be. Perhaps Mr. Ellingsworth would now be Mrs. Ellingsworth.
“He’s never given a shit about me,” Sarah cried. “Why would he now?”
I shrugged. “Not my job to speculate. But I’ve been doing this a long time now and trust me, girl, they always come.”
“My dad only cared about his company. That’s it! You won’t find him like this.”
“We’ll see.” After all, we still had nine fingers and ten toes to go through.
I took a moment to appreciate the design of the human body, so many appendages to be taken, so many bargaining chips given to the bounty hunters. Some preferred to take the eyes, the nose, the essential appendages, but not me. I had a soft spot for these kids. Usually, I’d only get through a single finger before their parents revealed themselves from hiding.
“My mom has money,” Sarah pleaded. “If it’s money you want, she has it.”
I shook my head. “This isn’t about money,” I told her. “It’s about justice. The upholding of our most sacred pillar of society.”
Her father still had 80 years of jail-time to get through. He had only made it three days before killing himself so he could be reincarnated a free man.
The rich always did that. They loved their little loopholes. With the advent of reincarnation, they had finally found the ultimate loophole. Law closing in? Enemies becoming too numerous? A single bullet to the head will erase all that, give you a new identity and a clean slate. Just stash a secret reincarnation treasure trove somewhere and you’re good to go.
“This is inhuman,” she cried.
“Of course it is.” But how else do you prove that the CEO of a Fortune 100 who had been embezzling money for years had reincarnated as an orphaned child in India? No, there was no way to track them down. All we could do was have them come to us.
“Time’s up,” I told her, holding my watch up to my face.
Her eyes went wide and she kicked in her chair, screaming. “Daddy! Help! Dad!”
I reached for the garden shears beside me. Just as my fingers brush them, a knock resounded from the wooden door.
“It’s Mr. Ellingsworth,” a shaky and stuttered voice called out. “Please let my daughter go.”
---
---
/r/jraywang for 5+ stories weekly
| 2017-07-09T10:24:06 | 2017-07-09T10:10:35 | 5,471 | 94 |
[WP] A world not too far in the future, where cursive is used as a secret language among those who have something to hide, and bored people who learn it from the internet. | "Are you seeing this shit? 'What is your primary language?'" George read aloud, waving a form in the air. "They just put this squiggle."
"Let me have a look at that," Jackie took it from him. "Oh. It's cursive. I think the new hire can read it. Hey, Bill! Take a look at this, will you?"
An old man with thick glasses slowly rose from his cubicle. "Is it cursive again?" He asked, fishing a pocket dictionary from his desk drawer.
"Just tell me what it says," George left the form on the side of the desk and turned back to his keyboard, ready to type.
"Yeah... Let me see. Primary language. They put 'English'," Bill flipped to a page in the dictionary. "Yep. Definitely English."
"Could've fooled me," George muttered, "Any disabilities? Other than the handwriting?"
"It says something here, but it'll take me a while." Bill rifled through his dictionary, tutted, and peered close to an entry. "He has multiple sclerosis. Guess it made writing difficult for him, so he learned cursive. Don't have to take your pencil off the paper."
"Looks like he had a stroke in the middle of writing it." George typed out 'multiple sclerosis' under the disabilities section. "Alright, I already got the military history from the checkboxes, so I just need any special notes."
"Oh dear. It seems he's written a paragraph here. Might as well let me take over," Bill slid the paper next to the computer. "It could take a while."
George rolled his eyes. "Fine. Whatever. Jackie, I'm going on my lunch." He got up and left for the break room without giving the paper a second glance.
"I see, I see." Bill tried to look busy as he transcribed all but one of the sentences under 'special notes'. Family history of loyalty to the government. Informant for the military police. Knowledgeable in medicine.
Bill then took a pencil and erased 'brothers in the resistance'. "Good luck," he muttered, as he scrolled to the end of the page and clicked CLEARED.
______________________________________________
[more](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tensingstories/) | The underground society situated just 10 meters below the parliamentary building used cursive. So did the modern Mafia. Each man's hand wrote elegantly, but truly, it was shame and fear that compelled their hand. No cipher worked against the smartest sleuths of the 22nd century, but disguising on the other hand...Zack chuckled as his hands flew across the sheet of cream bond paper, ending off his last word with a wacky curl. In his years of crime, he'd seen the cipher era and the near-extinction of the criminal kind. But even though couch-loungers could solve mathematical keys behind the cipher, handwriting was something else all together. Their clan specialized in cursive that made their message seem like a jumble of other words. Their main rival used complete unreadibility as their medium of communication, one Zack despised. But today. Oh, today was very different.
A letter landed on Zack's desk. Usually, all posted cursive letters were read by the criminal heads, some way or another. Zack had control over the neighbourhood postman, though the lack of understandable mail had caused Zack to regret his 'investment'. Nevertheless, he pored over the contents of the letter, and was instantly drawn in. He could understand it! Oddly enough, the sender had learnt how to write his cursive. Deciphering the message, it read:
> Maria, I did it. I finished the deed. No more will we live apart. She's but a pool of blood now. Meet me at my house ASAP.
Zack looked at it in confusion. He knew cursive was for all with burdens on their conscience, but never before had he seen a commoner use it. He tossed the letter into the trash can, but a detail within it still bugged him. Maria....that was the name of one of his assistants! The only assistant who'd already been found out by the police. At the exact same moment, Maria opened the door and walked in, instantly espying the letter on the mahogany table. "I see you know about my situation?" she said, a hint of asperity in her tone of general goodwill. Zack shrugged, as Maria dropped of a letter on Zack's table. He chuckled. Typical criminals, thinking they had to be so formal with their boss. He laughed, picking the letter up. A summons for murder, it seemed. Those were trickier to deal with, so Zack left them alone. But something else intrigued him.
The letter was in cursive.
And with Maria exposed by the police, she surely didn't have anything to hide...right?
From the far side of the room, a window creaked open, a firearm pointed at the criminal boss. Maria donned her police badge, aimed, and fired. | 2017-08-28T16:06:20 | 2017-08-28T15:53:59 | 21 | 12 |
[WP] Write a villain who is terrifying not just because of what they do, but because they almost convince us they're doing the right thing. | It is a terrible thing which I do. It is a terrible thing which must be done. On the lonely highway south of town when a dog lays crippled on the deep shoulder of the asphalt with legs ruined by the tractor trailer, you drive past and you think:
"Someone should do something."
In the dark night, the wind of the speeding car ruffles the fur and attempts to drown the whimpers. But in the glow of brake lights there is fear in the eyes of the wounded beast. Fear and pain. And you think:
"Someone should do something."
When a beast reaches the end of life, it will always refuse to believe that the time has come. It is in its nature. It will fight to the bitter end with teeth barred, and attempt to scurry away with its pathetic, shattered body only to realize that escape is impossible and death is inevitable. That feeble shred of life which attempts to fight is betrayed by the body which refuses to cooperate in the final act of defiance. And you think:
"Someone should do something."
There is always the faint hope that the cracked shell of Humpty would be put back together, but neither horses nor man can fix what is terminally broken. There is the occasional postponement of the inevitable, but it is a drug induced stupor of half-death with a victim rasping with fluid-filled lungs as it waits in agony for the final moment to come. The fight has fled the creature through faux-peace, but there is only one peace for such an animal. It is the peace of death, and with ashamed, averted eyes you think:
"Someone should do something."
Someone. Someone else. It should always be someone else who takes the duty upon their soul and becomes the instrument of death when the hands of the weak falter and continue southbound on their highways. It is always the work of someone else to end life. It is not for decent folk to see what is done in the darkest hour.
I do something.
In final respite, the beast is calmed. The weakened husk at final rest. The tremors stilled. The heart quieted. The hands softly curled in infinite. The blue veins traced through the bony legs are clotted in death.
You ask that a beast burdened with pain be mercifully put to rest, yet you would never raise hand to end the torment. So it is best done in shadow. It is best done away from gentle eyes. Let the burdened beast rest. Be it dog or cat. Or man.
| At the end of the day, it was simple mathematics. One is less than two is less than three. Nobody knows the future and nobody knows if they made the right choice until after the fact, so all humans could do was play the odds. Pick the option that would save the most amount of people and let the rest slip aside. What did agony matter in the face of hard numbers? How many lives was true terror worth?
Vlad had no qualms dirtying his hands for the greater good. It was simply the right thing to do. Whereas many men shied away from such cruelties, Vlad relished in it. The fact that he enjoyed it made his deeds no less heroic.
A few deaths for the salvation of an entire country was an easy equation to solve.
“Please,” the mother cried. “I have a baby girl!”
Vlad nodded as her men dragged her to the staking fields. Here, the iron-scent of blood filled the nostrils. It was a smell Vlad had learned to love. He even ate his meals between the blood-stained wood, the stuttered cries of the barely living that gave his staking fields the nickname—The Moaning Forest.
“Put her on,” he ordered his men.
The woman erupted into hysterics. “No!” she screamed. “Kill me first. Please, kill me!”
A few years ago, Vlad may have considered her request, even honored it. But the staking fields were only for show and nothing but the real thing would scare off the invading Turks. It wasn’t just Romania at stake, but the whole of Europe. Everything west of the Turkish line would fall with his country and those barbarians would slaughter them all, not just the people, but the culture and religion as well. So instead, he said, “Give her one with thorns.”
The woman flailed her limbs, but it was a vain fight against his soldiers born of combat. They found a stake with a corpse at its bottom nearly split in half. Only chocked breaths escaped the woman. She looked ready to pass out, though that would’ve been a mercy Vlad could not afford. His staking fields, after all, were only for show.
“Please,” the woman cried, the words barely leaving her throat. “Please.”
Vlad shrugged and offered her a sympathetic smile. “Okay.”
For a second, her jaw gaped and eyes widened.
Then, he said, “put her baby on first.”
“No!” she shrieked. “No! No!” But her words only lasted until she went on the stake. Then, she lost all consonants, resorting to only a pathetic cry of vowels and gurgles.
Vlad watched the entire thing. He never once turned away, barely even blinked. His smile spread across his cheeks. Was he a monster? Perhaps, but one that kept the Turkish armies at bay. After all, nothing but the real deal would scare them.
---
---
/r/jraywang for 200+ stories! | 2017-10-27T19:28:30 | 2017-10-27T19:17:30 | 531 | 27 |
[WP] The first generation of wizards inherits from their parents’ professions. For example, a child of a chef and a swimmer wields fire and water spells. You possess something interesting. | Normally, you'd get a power from each of your parents. Everyone had two, and it usually related to their professions. I knew a kid once who had oil and water. His dad worked on a rig, while his mother taught swimming classes. Poor guy's parents divorced, eventually.
Rarely though, you'd see a combination of the powers. Instead of two separate abilities, a person would get a single one. I was like that. So what happened to me? My mother was a writer, my father an architect.
I was *powerful*. When my ability manifested, everyone soon learned not to go against me. With a word, I could push you over from a distance. It was a blessing that my limited vocabulary at that age counterbalanced my limited maturity. My parents pulled me out of school quickly, and stalled my language learning. My mother said that it was the hardest thing she had to do as a parent. Instead, they taught me philosophy and empathy. When they finally believed that I could handle myself, the re-entered me into school, and allowed me to read again.
I loved reading, and not only because it expanded my power. In fact, I was annoyed that it expanded my power, and I was careful with choosing my words. As I grew, this restriction only became harder and harder to meet. I could never control when my power activated- every word I spoke held the potential to maim or kill.
So, I drew inward. I spoke little, and I would bury my anger for fear that an outburst would hurt someone. Someone who wouldn't fight back. A perfect target for schoolyard bullies, especially those who didn't know what I was capable of.
One day, three boys lay on the ground in front of me, bleeding from shallow cuts across their chests and arms. After my rage wore off, I trembled at what I had done.
I wasn't punished. My parents and the school both knew that I'd already been punishing myself. From that day forward, I wasn't bullied. Everyone knew my name. The few almost-friends I'd made were gone, dispersed into other cliques. I was alone, but they were safe.
I made it through the rest of my schooling without incident, my reputation following me wherever I went. I read voraciously to cover up the loneliness I felt. I stayed away from dictionaries.
Only one person outside my family ever truly approached me. Haley. She approached me on the final day of our classes.
"So, they say you're like, super dangerous and'll kill anyone who comes close." I didn't say anything, ignoring her. There were others that had been like this, but they gave up after a minute of the cold shoulder.
Haley was different. "I don't believe them." This got my attention. My power was real. Was she just stupid?
"You should." I could see my words almost convince her, my power tugging at her mind.
"No, you're definitely powerful. But you're not murderous, are you?"
"So what? I'm a monster." My hands turned momentarily into claws before I whispered "I'm normal" to myself.
"Come on, man. Don't be like that, or I'll burn you." She lit a fire at the tip of her finger, clearly teasing.
"I can do that too," I said, and whispered "firetips." Flame appeared at all of my fingertips. I'd learned over time experimenting with my power that I could shorten words, like contractions, and still get the same results.
"You're overpowered anyways," she said, giggling. She extinguished her flame. With a mutter, I did the same.
"Don't you understand now? I'm too dangerous to be close to." She backed up as a green mist appeared around me. I held myself back from cursing, and returned the air around me to normal. "See?" She took my arm, and pulled me along.
"Nope."
Haley and I grew closer from that day forth, and I eventually gave up trying to get her to leave. I could have forced her, of course, but that would have just been a confirmation that I was a monster, and to tell the truth, I enjoyed her company.
Friendship blossomed into love, and we got together. I was careful not to fight with her. So very careful. So careful about that, that I lost her in an entirely unexpected way.
One day, we were lounging around in our apartment that we rented together. I was relaxed, comfortable. That was what lead to my downfall.
"Ten letters," she said. She was doing a crossword at the small table we'd bought together. "A 'visceral' word that cuts." Normally, that would set off alarm bells. But today, I was comfortable and sleepy. Today, I was careless.
"Eviscerate," I said, almost without thinking. As the word left my mouth, my eyes widened, and my mind raced trying to correct the mistake. "Myself," I whispered. Damaging words like these chose the closest target other than myself if I didn't specify. So I specified.
My stomach split open, and blood began to seep out. Haley rushed over, tears in her eyes. The edges of my vision began to grow dark, and I whispered to her one final phrase before I lost consciousness. Maybe I could have saved myself, had I been smarter, but this seemed more right.
"I love you."
___
If you liked this, please check out /r/OpiWrites! | The worlds rejoiced and remarked of the return of our world from the line.
The line was cut during the medieval times as Christianity became the highest belief. Witchcraft and Black magic was prohibited by the sacred book, which in turn led to hundreds of burned wizards and witches that were akin to both light and dark.
What may have caused this problem of total extermination of this trait you may ask? Well it was because of the hubris of the people with tongues of wisdom saw how they are in danger of being overthrown by both kins of light and day.
So they snuffled and blew the flaming connection of the line that was once part of us.
They located the source which was emitted from the sacred well which was hidden deep. Their arrogance of the beyond decided to close down the well so that no longer will they be in perish of losing their power.
But as the flow of the line was hindered and stopped, the repressed flow became even stronger trying to break free and return to the world.
And it did, on the year 2120. It flowed like an exploding sun and covered the whole world with it’s glorious secrets and powers. Beings of the other worlds rejoiced as lost brethren finally returned in touch. Everyone was given help to understand how this substance worked.
Talents arose and this mystical substance was called magic by the lost tribe. The first generations were imbued with talents that reflected with their parents profession, or the skill that they mastered. They were prodigies.
The second inherited powers that came from the state of mind from it’s parents. These generation was called the soulful for being naturally gifted at connecting emotions and magic.
And the third had a direct connection with the magic flow, they were called weavers.
I closed the book as the I read the last sentence of the last generation that can be birthed from our parents.
My parents are weird, being polar opposites one could never believe or even comprehend how these two found love to each other. But alas, I am here now with my siblings, in a happy family.
Mom and Dad were both third generations. Mom wielded the ability to create something from nothing, her highest feat was being able to create a huge wall that could barricade the city.
Dad was a void wizard, he wielded the ability to make an object void from existence. His greatest feat? Being able to disintegrate a being even to its very soul. Something not all of the Order of Shadows can accomplish.
They were both opposites that came from groups that were on each others necks. They both became professions from the place they were born from and made a success.
Mom and Dad are both Doctors, her powers were so specific that she could make a copy of a cell and replicate it, covering cancer cells with normal cells and preventing miscarriages.
Dad was also specific that he can make even the unseen virus disappear which was effective in eradicating sickness and faulty genes.
They both got their powers at the age of 13, being prodigies at weaving spells. And here I am now 17 and still waiting for my powers to show.
They appear at random times, sometimes they conjure themselves as knowledge inside our heads.
But me, they found me an interesting case. As I am now 17 and still needing a wand to perform the spells of my parents.
My siblings even grew them out also! Which made me disheartened. They said to cheer up, and I said just leave that one time.
“Hey shithead” Cody said as he cut me off from my thoughts as I was daydreaming.
“What is it?” I said to which everyone around made a mocking remark.
The problem with remarks was it didn’t come for Cody but rather me. They agree I was this abomination.
“You know we’re all working hard, for the rune ceremonial. And we think you should stop using that shitty wand”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah you heard that right freak!” He said and laughed to which everyone joined.
I never really cared about these things, and I never talked back. Mom always said to just stare at them silently, while dad said to kick them. Which gave me a weird agreement that I should be silent and kick their assess.
My siblings covered me with their arms. “Hey asshole leave our brother alone, it’s not his fault” Anthony said who was only a year younger than me.
“Yeah just die you piece of shit” Chrissy said and his hands glowed in a red color.
It’s like this for the rest of my life isn’t it? Even the teachers agree, and I’m beginning to question if my family also did.
My emotions were gonna burst and when Cody turned around with his smirk, I moved forward and spoke at the top of my lungs.
“YEAH YOU SHOULD JUST GO DIE!” I said which made everyone quiet. Cody stopped and looked at me “what did you sa—-“ he was cut when he started choking.
The nurse came in and tried to help him, but no use. It was only a matter of time till he choked to death.
*And he did*
Everyone was quiet now and later started whispering.
*Then the headmaster came in*
*shit*
He walked in a manner that was like a congressman and went to me. But he looks calm.
“Did you do this?” He said
I shook my head and he went to look back.
He was just checking pulses till I decided to speak. “He’s just pretending, just breathe and stop this Cody” I said which sounded very rude to a dead person.
After a few seconds he started breathing again. “Wh—what...” He was lost and just stared at me.
*”Judgement....” * Headmaster said and stared at me.
“ come with me” He said in a monotone voice and grabbed my arm.
What’s judgement? Is that a spell?
Edit: Done with part 2 | 2018-04-15T09:48:49 | 2018-04-15T09:34:14 | 853 | 212 |
[WP] An old, forgotten god is living their days peacefully in the suburbs. One day they randomly receives a prayer. And they are going to do everything in their power to answer it. | Xil’dan looked down at his wilted hydrangeas in disgust. Six hundred years, and he had not yet learned the trick of keeping plants alive. Surely it wasn’t that difficult a task. Mortals did it all the time. But try as he might, he could not seem to make his garden flourish. Plants he cared for withered, shrubs he pruned turned black, and even his simple lawn contained more dirt and weeds than grass.
But to be fair, he admitted, he was not the God of Gardening.
The god turned from his failed horticultural attempts and headed back inside the house, stooping down to grab today’s paper from the driveway as he went. The world had changed much in the centuries since he had last been worshipped; new cultures flourished, and all were well worth watching. New wars were waged with weapons that astonished even him. So even if his name *was* now forgotten by the people of this place, it was at least interesting to watch them learn and grow through the ages.
Sitting down at the table, he unfolded the paper and flipped to the business section. Mankind’s obsession with wealth had not changed a whit since he “retired;” new inventions like the stock market and electronic trading fascinated him, and he enjoyed reading about them even if their secret machinations were a mystery. He suspected that, given his immortal lifespan, he could use these tools to amass a fortune if he truly felt inclined. But the prospect seemed more trouble than it was worth.
He was not, after all, the God of Wealth.
And so Xil’dan took his ease, sipping his morning coffee (at least *that* was still around) and catching up on all the happenings in the ever-changing world. Nationalism had been growing in recent years, and many countries seemed poised on the brink of—
*“Xil’dan fyrgh kre… kretch’al,”* said a voice.
Xil’dan froze with his cup raised to his lips. “Impossible,” he breathed. No one had spoken his invocation in a dozen lifetimes. And even then, the last person had bungled the pronunciation so badly that—
*“Xil’dan fyrgh kretch’al, on’ket forn… rot?”* tried the voice again.
The god lurched up from his table. The coffee fell forgotten to the floor. No, this was not some idle reading of an ancient scroll. Someone was actually attempting to summon him. Someone who believed that he existed, and actively desired his aid. It was a small faith—he could barely feel it when the voice echoed in his head—but it was real. How could this be?
*“Xil’dan fyrgh kretch’al, on’ket forn WROTH!”* said the voice.
Xil’dan blinked, and he was there.
He appeared in a jumbled study, packed with books and artifacts from a dozen civilizations. Whoever owned these was clearly a world-traveler, or at least a collector of the rarest sort. In the center of the hardwood floor was an enormous oaken desk, similarly covered in books and various pilfered curiosities. And behind the desk, still clutching the copper disk engraved with Xil’dan’s prayer, was…
…a child.
The god frowned. It was a human boy, no more than eight or nine. He wore an ill-fitting black suit and tie, and his cheeks were wet with tears. His eyes were as wide as any human’s eyes could hope to be, and his face was pale as he stared over the desk at who he’d summoned.
Xil’dan raised an eyebrow. “What is your name, child?” he asked.
The boy started, but stood his ground. Brave, then. He gulped. “T… Tommy,” he said. “Are you… Xil’dan?”
The god nodded slowly. Something was very wrong here. “Yes,” he said at last. “And you have summoned me? *You* seek my aid?”
The boy stammered. “I…” he looked at the closed study door, then back to the tall figure before him. “I want you to bring my uncle back.” He gripped the copper disk tight in his tiny hands, as if to force his wish into the metal itself. “Please,” he pleaded, his voice desperate now. “Please bring him back?”
Xil’dan examined his would-be petitioner. The tears. The black suit. What was going on he—
…Ah.
“Your uncle is dead, isn’t he?” asked the god. “This was his office. He is the one who owned the disk.”
The boy nodded. “Yes,” he whimpered. “He taught me how to read the writing. He taught me all sorts of things.” His fear forgotten, the words poured out. “He was an adventurer, like I want to be. He goes all over the world, and… and he brings back amazing things, and he always takes time to show me and teach me and please just bring him back. Please, I’ll give you anything I have. *Please.*”
Xil’dan sighed. What a waste. The first real summoning since the fall of the For’gyl Ziggurat, and it was all for nothing. A child’s misplaced hope.
“I am sorry, boy,” he said sadly. “But I am not the God of Death. I cannot help your uncle now.”
Tommy’s face fell, and he lowered the copper disk to his side. “I thought…” he said hopelessly, “I thought you could save him.” He sniffled, and fresh tears began to creep down his face.
“Do not weep for him, little one” said Xil’dan, not unkindly. “Death is a natural part of life. You will miss him, and for that pain you may grieve. But if it was your uncle’s time, then his passing was no tragedy. Even the best of us must face the final gate eventually.”
The boy’s face whipped up, twisting into a fierce grimace. “It was *not* his time!” he hissed.
The god cocked his head, surprised by the heat in that small voice. “Oh?” he asked. “He was not old?”
Tommy shook his head. “I heard the grown-ups talking,” he muttered. “They said he was walking in a ‘bad part of town.’ They said some bad men came and…” His eyes teared up again, and he sniffed angrily, looking down at his feet.
Xil’dan stood very still, studying the child in front of him. There *was* something here. He could sense it faintly, like a distant and forgotten door, long abandoned in the labyrinth of his soul. An ancient stirring that the god had all but put aside. He carefully walked around the desk and knelt down in front of Tommy, gently lifting his chin with a curled finger.
“Child,” he asked quietly, “how exactly did your uncle die?”
The boy glared up at the god, his face still splotchy-red and lined with tears. There was sadness there, yes. But also anger. A newfound fury at a world that he'd thought he understood. A world that was suddenly, unexpectedly, unfair.
“The bad men killed him,” he whispered. “They killed him, and they didn’t even know him. They just wanted his money.”
Xil’dan gazed carefully into the child’s eyes, weighing the truth of his words. Then, slowly, he nodded in agreement. “I was wrong, then,” he said finally. “I do believe that I can help you after all.”
And for the first time in nearly six hundred years, the God of Vengeance smiled.
| She had set-up her booth at the street-corner, under the giant maple tree which marked the junction of 56th and Elmsway. Her handwriting was neat and precise, such that the words on her chalk board were legible even from a distance away. 'Portraits - $1', it read. I was disappointed to find that there was no array of samples on display, which is how the street artists do it in the cities. But she was only 8 years old (I had a feeling that her birthday had passed recently), so I was willing to cut her some slack.
I ambled over, and she brightened as she saw me approaching.
"Sir, sir! I can do your portrait! Would you like that?"
"That's nice. Where are you from? This is the first time I'm seeing you around here."
"Oh, er, I'm not from here. I came from the city."
Which wasn't the whole truth, given the way that she had shifted in her seat. Where humans choose to plant their roots rarely interested me, but I was curious as to how she had ended up here. I rationed a tiny splinter of my powers, then divined the truth. That she was from the city was correct - more specifically, she lived at St. Horus' Shelter, which was at least an hour away by bus.
"So what brings you here?"
"Well... I'd heard that the people here are rich! I'm pretty sure they wouldn't mind getting their portraits done, right? Everyone in the city is too busy for these things, so here I am!"
I laughed, then rattled my cane on the tarmac. "You've got that part right, miss! Everyone here's rich enough that they certainly wouldn't miss a dollar or two. But I'd hate to see you disappointed."
"Why's that?"
"They may be too busy to stop by."
"Busy... Busy doing their own things? Running their businesses, such-like?"
I nodded. I knew best, after all. I lived right at the centre of the neighborhood. I was old now, a shadow of what I was once, but the sensitive ones amongst my neighbors had still been drawn to the promise of my power. They couldn't have realised that subtle influence on them, but my presence was still a signal flare to their subconscious. The real estate salesmen thought that they were the glib ones, and if they had known I was the real reason for their successes, they would have taken up arms just to get an audience with me.
And what day had not gone by without their prayers filtering over to me, permeating through the walls like sand through sieves? The lazy ones wished for riches, which they believed to be the shortest path to fulfillment. The more industrious ones wished for the opportunities to seize their own successes. Those I respected a bit more, but not enough for me to actually do anything for them.
Not that I could, even if I wanted to. Not in my present state.
"But tell me, what do you need the money for? Say a dozen, a hundred of the people here lined up for your drawings. What would you do with the money?"
"I'd buy more supplies, of course!"
"To make more money?"
She laughed, then shook her head. She beckoned me over, and I went closer. Behind the booth, there was a stack of papers clipped to a broken clipboard. Her canvases seemed recycled, and some of them even had creased scars or crumpled dog-ears. Her instrument of choice, a boxed set of coloured pencils, was incomplete. The primary colours were missing, and of the ones which remained, they had been sharpened so many times that they were almost stubs.
"I don't know about more money, mister, but supplies first. These were the ones I found at home. It's just so expensive getting new ones, you know?"
"You think people are going to pay you for art done using those?"
"That's why it's only a dollar, mister! When I have more, I'll charge more!"
I fished out a bill from my coat, then handed it over to her. She clapped her hands, then sat me down on a cardbox box. I didn't smile, and she didn't ask me to. Her fingers flew like sparrows, and in seconds she had the basic outline of my face, my brows, my eyes. She evidently perceived me as old, and feeble, and perhaps I was.
"That's not bad at all," I said. That wasn't the truth, of course. She was terrible. I had seen so many prodigies in my lifetime that her sketch resembled the trail of slugs in heat on a canvas. But children are fragile, so I had chosen my words differently.
"I'll get to where I want to some day, just you watch!"
"And where's that?"
"I'm the only one at home who can draw, or who likes to draw. I have a brother, he doesn't get to come out much. So I go out, I draw pictures, and I bring them home for him to see. He enjoys that."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Will he get well soon?"
"The doctors said no. So my drawings are the next best thing!"
"And do you think you'll improve, practicing like this every day?"
I had evidently moved too much, for she clucked her tongue and had me shift back to my original pose. "I don't know. I hope so. Everyone says you improve when you practise. We'll see."
"And if you could really draw better, what would you do with that talent?"
"Make my brother laugh, of course! I drew a cat once, chasing its own tail, spinning so fast that it fell over! He really liked that one. Easier than bringing the cat into his room, for sure."
"Little girl, if you did indeed have that power one day, that ability to draw and make people... feel things, what would you draw for them?"
She placed her pencils back, then dusted off the sheet on the top. She unclipped it from the board, turned it around, then handed it over to me. It was finished, but only in the sense that the task had been completed. I'll admit, there was a modicum of talent there, but just a smidgen. So much more had to be done to help that blossom.
I looked into her eyes, just to make sure this was something within my capabilities. It was. But this was a two-way transaction. I couldn't do it myself.
"I'd draw as much as I can. Asleep, awake, I'll draw. And draw and draw. I'd make my brother happy, then other people too. Whoever wants to see them. I'd draw."
"I was something of an artist myself once, girl. I was pretty good too, so much so that people said I was their inspiration. They came to me whenever they wanted their talents unlocked, their abilities enhanced. If there was any man who suffered from a famine of imagination, I was the harvest. I made men smell colour, see sound, taste odors."
She laughed harder this time, the way children do when they are amused. "That's awesome! Maybe I'll be like you one day!"
"I'd gladly help you learn. All I need is for you to really, *really* wish for it, like it was the most important thing to you. And to believe that I, and only I, can help you with that."
She clasped her hands together, then shut her eyes. There were no words to her prayer, but I could hear all the same. If it were a musical score, her prayer was a single note, pure, distilled, ringing in my ears as convincingly as an entire church full of bells.
That sound was the only nourishment I needed. I felt the tissues bulk up in my muscles, and my skin grew taut, filling out wrinkles and pushing out age-spots. My legs grew steady again, and I let my cane fall to the side. The years fell away, and though I wasn't quite as young and powerful as I once was, I felt better than I had in decades.
What power a single believer brings.
"We'll start right here, right now," I said, as I reached into her mind.
---
/r/rarelyfunny
| 2018-05-30T00:42:23 | 2018-05-29T22:46:26 | 2,136 | 1,507 |
[WP]: Alcohol is not medicine. No bloodletting. Absolutely NO mercury, at all, ever. Being thrown hundreds of years back in time was an inconvenience, but at least you’ve made a name for yourself as the most paranoid and superstitious doctor around. | It took a while to persuade them that I wasn't insane. But I thank the good Lord that I found myself in the company of rationalists and thinkers, instead of the uneducated common folk.
What was a bunch of misguided geniuses obsessed with the details and mysteries of alchemical theory, became a true establishment of natural philosophy within a short period of time. The main focus of our work? Medical science.
I used the principles of chemistry to explain several features of illness and other malaise. Of course, these principles are assumed as high-school chemistry and the most complex ideas I presented were shown to me in the first year of medical school. But to my listeners, I must have sounded like a paranoid and superstitious madman until the particular details of the case in question all neatly resolved themselves and my ridiculous hypotheses perfectly and neatly described the evidence in question.
The city of my residence was, however, lucky. One of the first who accepted my theories was the son of a wealthy burgher. When news of an outbreak of smallpox reached us, he managed to persuade his father, and in turn, the council of burghers to use my methodology for control, prevention, and treatment of an outbreak.
It was that particular event that raised my reputation, to some as an utter fool, and to others as the most brilliant doctor of the century.
This morning, was different. I was alerted by my secretary of a patient in my clinic, of such stature that the usual doctors that see to incoming patients were certain that I must be the one to see him. I went through my office to my consultation room, which is notably separate spaces. In front of me was a man of average height, though short in comparison to myself. However, his dominant pose, an air of authority and leadership betrayed a very much atypical background.
In spite of his body language, I simply began my checkup with the usual questions and tests. He was ultimately in good health. While he obliged every request and answered every question, it was clear that his presence served a different purpose.
We moved to my office, where he finally introduced himself. The self-titled "Emperor" of the neighboring country had come here, instead of using the services of the best local physicians that his position and wealth could afford.
He asked me to teach him.
Teach him, personally, the intricacies of disease, the nature of matter and the movements of the heavens.
And teach I did. He stayed with me for several months, his brother, and a set of carefully chosen advisors managed the affairs of his home nation. He himself was the best student I ever encountered. He listened attentively but understood skeptically. He asked the right questions and answered others. He watched as I performed surgeries. He even treated patients and did so with a great deal of success.
Eventually, his duties as an Emperor could wait no longer, and he had to return to his capital. On the day he left, he gave my practice a set of the highest quality of scientific equipment that could be found.
It would be years before I saw him again.
But I would hear of his works more and more often. While he was famous for his military prowess, and his excellent conquests. This was not his only quality. He raised the standards of living in those cities both owned and occupied. His countermeasures against disease saved more lives than could be ever counted.
But of course, death comes to us all. He died a happy man, only vanquished by the curse of age. An illness that I had no remedy for. Neither I nor he was surprised that this would be his last year, then month, then day.
As he died, he only smiled at me. And muttered quietly, so that only I could hear:
"Your diligence will be rewarded"
The mechanism of this was the greatest surprise and I, for the hundredth time, wondered if I was dreaming. As I walked the aisle of the hall, an empty throne lay ahead, waiting for its next occupant. | The glass splintered and tiny shards were scattered across the room as it crashed into the ground.
“What in the hell is wrong with you!?” the confused man shrieked in obvious disbelief.
I looked around and noticed that my actions had drawn a considerable amount of attention from the other patrons of the Garrison Pub, one of the most famous establishments on Broad Street. Butterflies filled my stomach immediately as pretty much the first thing they teach you in Correction training is to not draw attention to yourself.
“My apologies sir but did you not notice the vile rat hair floating in that glass?”.
Ugh, not my best improvisation but I’m still a little groggy from the drop.
“Well I’ll be” the man quipped before he turned his anger away from me and started berating the poor bar keep.
Obviously there was no rat hair in his glass but I couldn’t let this man chug down a tall glass of water from the broad street pump. My objective was to keep this specific man safe and taking even just a small sip from that glass of water would have put my entire mission at risk. Why was this weathered man, with his thin comb over and grizzled sideburns worth the hundreds of millions of dollars that it takes to run a Corrections mission? Well this man is John Snow and he is one of the most influential physicians of all time. He was the man who invented epidemiology, a medical practice still in use more than 200 years later and more specifically, the work he is about to accomplish during the cholera outbreak in London saves the lives of millions of people and keeps the gears of history moving as they need to.
There are many forms of terrorism in the new world and after humanity stumbled upon Time-Gravity Decoupling during the containment failure of a particle collider in Switzerland, one of the most effective forms became known as “history blocking”. History Blocking involves using TGD to go back in time and literally change history. If you think about it, what better way to send your enemies into the stone age or spread your ideology then to make sure that the order of events that led to the world being in its current state, a state some groups have little affinity for, never happens.
The good news for people who do prefer the world being the way it was before TGD is that luckily, we were completely wrong in our understanding of time. That idea from sci-fi books talking about “the butterfly effect” and warning future time travelers that stepping on a bug could lead to the dinosaurs inventing space travel or whatever is laughable now that we’ve actually done it. In reality, we learned that the flow of entropy in the universe is not dictated by every individual action that takes place but instead it is based on the makeup of the universe on a quantum level. While that may sound like something someone literally just made up out of thin air, it essentially means that should something be altered in the order of things, time snaps entropy back to it’s expected flow and this is the reason why Terrorist A can’t just go kill the pope and have whatever religion become the leading world order.
At it's core, it's the concept of destiny but your specific destiny in the grand scheme of things, probably doesn’t matter. Instead what these terrorists need to do is find key moments, instances in time that are so fundamental in the flow of entropy that changing them enough means that entropy can never fully snap back. John Snows early death turns out to be near the top of our current risk list. Why? We don’t really understand, but Corrections has an algorithm that identifies such moments and if we detect a TGD signal, agents like myself are tasked to make sure that they happen within relative accuracy to how they originally occurred.
The problem is that we don’t know what events the terrorists are targeting or who they are, so I can’t be sure if that glass of water that John almost drank on Broad Street was planted and would’ve given him Cholera or if it was just a benign moment that had already played out with no horrible death for Mr. Snow, but on the big list of “Shit I probably shouldn’t let happen”, letting the man I’m supposed to ensure lives drink a glass of water from a pump that is responsible for Londons worse Cholera outbreak, during the time that the outbreak is about to happen seems like something that should be near the top of that list.
“I’m sorry, I thought I’d introduce myself, my name is Stan Hutchenson” I reached my hand out invitingly towards Dr. Snow…. | 2018-06-21T13:40:30 | 2018-06-21T11:41:35 | 256 | 102 |
[WP] Our blood is naturally clear, it thickens and darkens with each impure act. You have always dedicate yourself to good and helping others but today while knitting beanies for the homeless you accidentally prick your finger. Your blood is jet black and so thick it doesn't even drip. | It was these sort of women that he hated the most. The ones that would cling to their tainted children with screams and fits of rage. Didn't they understand? Didn't they realize that the world had to be clean?
It'd been many years since he'd realized the truth about the Blackness. One day, The Doctor has pricked himself during an operation and found a jet black tar, so thick that it never managed to escape from the shallow wound. He'd always been a good man, always helping the needy, operating on the dying, the homeless, those who nobody else would risk their careers on. He'd gone to church, worshiped God, refrained from alcohol and cursing, and still, his blood was filled with Blackness. It was then that he realized: the blood must tell the future. It not only darkened and thickened with each impurity, but it also knew the state of your future deeds. Somehow, the Blackness must be able to judge the soul and see what it was capable of.
With that realization came a new purpose. If one day he would be the Blackest of all devils, then he would dedicate the rest of his life until that moment to purify every stain that he could find. Every drop of Blackness would be cleansed from the world in order to balance his own future sin. It was with this knowledge and vision that The Doctor started his research. After a painstakingly long trial, he found that indeed, the blood could predict a person's purity in their later life. With this, he proposed a new program that could eradicate the Blackness before it ever grew into action. Every child would be pricked at thirteen, as before thirteen they were judged to be well under their parents control. Those whose blood was Black would be taken away from their parents and eliminated from society in order to prevent the evil they would inevitably bring into the world.
Whatever the evil he might one day do, The Doctor hoped that his life's work spent in the elimination of all the Tainted would help to balance the scales. Every day, without fail, he would prick him self again in order to remind himself of his purpose. Every day, without fail, the blood would stand within the cut, Blacker than the darkest night and thicker than the Jello that all his patients received. Every day, without fail, it reminded him that time was running short. One day, he would become evil. Before then, he had to cleanse as much evil from the world as he could. And so, so many of the evil ones were left.
Edit: Woah. So that's why people post things on reddit so much. Dang those upvotes feel nice inside haha. For those asking: I had what I thought was a fun idea so I wrote it out in a rather rough sort of way, no idea if it's actually like any of the animes/shows listed below that I haven't watched and I'm glad y'all enjoyed it too :). | All of the sound was suddenly sucked from the room. I couldn't even hear my own pulse, if I still had one, given what I was seeing... but... no. No, no, no. I'm seeing things. This is just a trick of the light. I chuckled lightly at the thought of my own 'impurity'. What a concept! I was already anxious to share this with my little brother -- the foster kid I sponsor. He's always making fun of me for being "too nice" and he'll really get a kick out of this.
I let out a relieved sigh, smiled at my silly imagination, and set down my needles.
"Michael," I called. No response.
"Michaaaaael..." Nothing. I snorted, stood up, and walked to the basement stairs before calling again. "Michael!" The echo bounced everywhere down that tiny passage, carrying my voice through the door below. "Yes?" he at last replied.
"Mikey, you're never gonna gonna believe this," I said as I began my descent. "I've been knitting all afternoon. I guess I got tired and lost focus because, well, I hurt myself."
"Okay," he mewed in his little voice.
"Well, it wasn't bad, of course... just a needle prick. But you've gotta hear this, Mikey! I swear, for a moment I really thought my blood was, well... y'know... black! Like actually PITCH black! Can you even believe that? I thought it was too good not to share."
"Oh no, but you're so nice," little Mikey offered.
"Yeah I know I am," I retorted rather flatly as I reached the big metal door. I reached out and placed my hand against the rusted surface, leaning as I continued. "I just thought you'd like that, Michael... you like that, right? I knew you would."
"It's very funny, Andy. You're funny, you're always funny." Something shifted on the other side of the closed door and it sounded like cloth dragged across a cement floor. "Are you coming to see me today?" he asked timidly.
"No, I'm busy right now," I began. "Maybe later. I still need to finish up before the homeless shelter opens in a few hours." I turned and started back upstairs. Behind me, the dragging sound continued and a shallow panting could be heard. Mikey was a strange kid, but he was great. He understood me and I understood him. After work, maybe we could watch a movie or play a game together. He'll like that, I know it.
I sat back down at my needlework and looked at the finger I had pricked. The clear blood dripped cleanly on to the table, making little pools which were merging into bigger pools. I smiled at how lucky I was to be helping people and making the world a nicer place. The pool of blood had gotten large enough to run over the edge of the table. It was now covering my boots and soaking the floor. My smile got bigger thinking about the people I was going to help today. I couldn't wait to see their happy faces. The sickly sweet smell of blood overwhelmed me with joy. I picked up the needle and finished the stitch I had started, passing through the fabric and the flesh and sticking in the bone. Yes, today was going to be a beautiful day for *everyone*.
| 2018-08-04T10:46:53 | 2018-08-04T10:00:48 | 3,279 | 147 |
[WP] Our blood is naturally clear, it thickens and darkens with each impure act. You have always dedicate yourself to good and helping others but today while knitting beanies for the homeless you accidentally prick your finger. Your blood is jet black and so thick it doesn't even drip. | I always knew, since I was a baby. If I’ll be a good boy, then my blood will be white.
I was always scared of having black blood.
I must be a good boy.
Around this simple principle, I built my life. And it felt good helping others. I was happy!
I studied medicine because I thought no greater good exists but saving a life.
During my years in university, I tried to be as helpful for my colleagues as possible. I helped everyone who would ask for it, even at the risk of being slowed down. Usually my kindness was one-way, but I didn’t care. I was happy while helping others, and all the rest didn’t matter.
After finishing my studies, I became one of the most famous and talented surgeon in the whole country.
By the age of 55, I had lost count of the people I saved.
However, one day, during a routine operation, my life completely changed.
While setting up a needle, it touched the tip of my finger, and in that moment I realized I’ve never seen what the true black looks like. Until now.
I saw the hole. I saw the black.
Nothing came out.
I was shocked. I spent my life being the best possible person, but my blood was cursed. I was condemned for the rest of my life.
I quit my job and started an internal journey to find the answer for my condition.
How could it be?
But then, I came to my epiphany.
It was simple. Helping others felt good. I didn’t do it because others would feel better; I did it because I would feel better. I didn’t care about the others. I was always interested in my happiness.
In trying to be the less selfish man alive, I have been the most selfish.
And that was my punishment. | It was my 21st birthday. Like every other birthday, I decided to spend my day helping out the homeless. Usually I’d do the soup kitchen but a friend of mine decided to come along insisting that we join in on the beanie knitting project.
My friend called me a natural at knitting since it was my first time and my first beanie looked immaculate. After the second one we began to turn the good deed into a competition. Who can produce the most beanies?
Lucy said she had been knitting since she was a young girl. Compared to my beanies, hers were better looking but I could produce faster. After a while we were both on our tenth beanie. She caught up after having three less then me. This prompted me to ramp up my production. There’s no way I would lose to Lucy.
I shifted my eyes from my work to Lucy continuously, making sure that I outpaced her. As my eyes swayed from my hands to her, I accidentally jabbed myself with the needle. The needle was embedded deeply into my middle finger causing a wound of considerable size to open as I pulled it out without caution.
“God damn”
A devilish grin was on her face as Lucy gazed upon my wounded finger. There was jet black material slowly escaping from the wound. The dark material was my blood. Everyone knows that blood is naturally clear but darkens with each impure act. I was raised by the church and couldn’t remember partaking in any acts that would cause such a thing. I was the last person that anyone would expect to be impure.
“Finally”, Lucy yelled as she stood up. I was flabbergasted and couldn’t understand what was going on with her or the state of my blood.
“My child, this is your true nature.”
The voice that was coming from Lucy didn’t sound like the friend I had known for years.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s simple” she said. Her appearance began to change. A handsome man stood before me. “The church stole your memories and replaced them with shit that never happened. What you think you know and believe to be your life is a lie.”
“Who are you?”
“You May know me as Lucy, but my name is Lucifer”, he said with a smile. “But you can call me dad.”
| 2018-08-04T10:34:28 | 2018-08-04T10:32:26 | 45 | 10 |
[WP] Our blood is naturally clear, it thickens and darkens with each impure act. You have always dedicate yourself to good and helping others but today while knitting beanies for the homeless you accidentally prick your finger. Your blood is jet black and so thick it doesn't even drip. | PeculiarPete was scrolling through /r/Jokes when he realized something.
He took his idea and went over to another subreddit and began scrolling back through some old prompts when he saw something that captured his fancy.
*"Writing Prompt[WP] Humans blood gets darker the more evil we do. One day you are suspected of murder, they draw your blood to test if you are truely a murderer. You blood is a clear white. You realize that you can get a way with almost everything now, seeing as to how you actually did commit the murder"*
"What a novel idea!" Pete thought to himself, and suddenly realized he need only reverse the characters Plight.
He began to write *"[WP] Our blood is naturally clear, it thickens and darkens with each impure act. You have always dedicate yourself to good and helping others but today while knitting beanies for the homeless you accidentally prick your finger. Your blood is jet black and so thick it doesn't even drip."*
As he typed his dog came up to him and gave his skin a little nibble, when a peculiar thing happened to Pete, his skin was broken but his blood did not drip. Darker than jet black it looked as if his wounded flesh had ceased to exist. He reached over and took a sip of his
Fanta:Black, when we see the F fall off to reveal a V.
A story to truly fit the name "PeculiarPete"
| At that moment, I was happy. I bring my pricked finger to my supple lips, and my tongue caresses the wound with warm tenderness.
Sweet. Like a strawberry lollipop.
It started off as one good deed a day. Picking up trash, volunteering at the senior home, removing hate graffiti, giving some water to construction workers. Mundane tasks.
*"Thank you for picking up garbage Sara. I want to be good like you when I grow up!"*
*"Here again at the senior home? Someone like you should be enjoying their youth and leave old bags like us to our devices! ....But I do appreciate the sentiment."*
*"I see you've been the one helping me get rid of these garbage nazi symbols. What say we make some wholesome graffiti art together one day?*
*"Thanks again for the water Sara! We really appreciate it! Couldn't do our work without ya."*
I wouldn't get complimented every time though. Only when someone notices. That moment when all the hard work you've done is recognized, after countless hours, days, weeks, months, years... The buildup to that climactic "Thank You" is pure ecstasy.
Soon, it wasn't enough. I had to do more. Help more people. So I started helping out at the local hospital. I went to college and became a registered nurse. I double majored in writing, wrote children's books, and held free read aloud sessions at my local library. I adopted a child, two stray dogs, and a cat.
All of it just to witness their smiling faces as their words of praise and gratitude flow out like Mozart. Like a warm blanket tucked tightly around me, outlining the contours of my body.
This is who I am. This blood is the symbol of my lust, and I'll brew it until it turns to ruby.
| 2018-08-04T11:11:45 | 2018-08-04T10:18:07 | 23 | 15 |
[WP] Our blood is naturally clear, it thickens and darkens with each impure act. You have always dedicate yourself to good and helping others but today while knitting beanies for the homeless you accidentally prick your finger. Your blood is jet black and so thick it doesn't even drip. | I always did my best, powered through the worst, and did my best. I have to charity, I saved animals, I did what I thought was morally right... but we all have different moral definitions of what is right. I sadly patched my wound as fast as I could when I went through my entire memory, trying to pinpoint the worst thing I had done. I fixed my wound and sat in my chair, which I eventually dozed off in. I slept on the entire ordeal. As dreamt I dreamed of horrible deeds I had done, terrifying thoughts that I knew I would never act on. As I woke in a cold sweat knowing I had done none of those things I decided to ponder my memoir. I had just reached the section on my diet and favorite foods when a quick slice ran through my finger like a knife through burlap, the sound and feeling piercing my mind and body. I hoped I hadn't dripped any blood on my autobiography when I noticed a single drop highlighting one line. I scanned the line in fear and finally understood the problem...
*I liked pineapple on pizza* | i was shooked to my very core on the first sight of my blood now turning into TAR.
how can this happen i said to myself it was liquid, so pure, just yesterday.
as i ran toward the mirror and stripped naked my eyes started to turned black as a intricate maze of my thick sludgy nerves started to form around my heart.
every second , every next breath became harder and out of my reach
but i knew i knew what had caused it.It was my own doing ,it was me who commited the original sin just hours before now, i cant forgive myself but salvation is still in my grasp. just one phone call just one i wispered to mysrlf as i now dragged my half paralyzed body to my phone.
The flashback started to crawl out of my subconscious as i saw images of kids, ice cream shops ,playgrounds every stop from my school to my home.
i had it in my hands, the phone, now was the time to redeem myself as i made through every digit my heartbeat sank deeper and became louder and louder, it was the end
"i was waiting for your call" he said.
just when i thought it was all over i heard him, i heard the voice of Bob , "you are late,too late" he said but as i accumulated all lifeforce and channeled it to my lungs to say those 2 words that will absolve me of my sins i couldn't my heart gave up as i saw the light tapering into darkness.Those last words i still remember , that sinister laugh through the phone
"you forgot it , you forgot to thank me, you forgot to thank the bus driver".
| 2018-08-04T11:28:16 | 2018-08-04T09:55:07 | 17 | 10 |
[WP] When people die they can choose whether they go to Heaven or Hell, you are the first in 1000 years to choose Hell. | Of course in hindsight everyone sees the merit of my decision. In the early days though, people kept asking me why I chose Hell over Heaven. My answer has always been three words: "Location, location, location"...
Before my ticket was up on earth, I came to a realization... If everyone choose Heaven, Heaven would eventually become overcrowded. I mean idyllic pastures and tranquil rivers are nice and all, but if you have to share it with roughly 10 Billion other people... Maybe not so much. Can you imagine the waste problem? If you want to watch a football game, you need to first clear people from an area roughly the size of a football field. Plus, there really is not much beyond natural beauty up there.
So I made a decision, I moved in on the market early. Closed all the primo real estate I could all over Hell before there was a demand for it. Heck, those poor schmucks, the demons... They were so surprised that anyone wanted anything to do with Hell, they sold me the whole thing for a handful of colorful beads.
Later on they would also provide the cheap labor that I exploited in my sea-of-fire side casinos and river (Lethe is beautiful in autumn) side properties. I quickly dominated the market and soon became the land lord of hell.
True, the re-branding took some effort... People were reluctant to view Hell as a warmer alternative to the overcrowded paradise. I think it was all the entertainment venues that did it in the end. I was able to convince the "Blue Man" group and a few other performers in exchange for lofts overseeing Hinnom valley. Combined with the casinos and strip clubs, pretty soon Hell became the place to be.
That is when I stopped accepting just any old schmuck into the club. I am after all trying to cultivate a tasteful community down here. There were a few instances people even begged me to stop deportation to Heaven, but what can I say... Business is business. | St Peter drops his pen in surprise. “I’m sorry?”
I look back. “I said, I choose Hell.”
“Son, do you know what they do to you in Hell?” St Peter asked. “They beat you, and torment you, and burn you in anguish until the end of time.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
St Peter sits back in his chair. He looks down at his desk, squints his eyes, then looks back. “Why do you choose Hell?”
“Sir,” I start, shuffling my feet, “I’ve gone through a lot in my time on Earth. I’ve suffered through a childhood that neglected me. My upbringing was sometimes a matter of life or death at home and at school. I joined the service for a worthy cause...”
St Peter puts his hand up to stop me. “You joined the service after your childhood? Are you a glutton for punishment?”
“No sir”, I explain, “I saw a worthy cause, and for the first time, I took it.” St Peter leans in, “What was it like?”
“I had good times, and I had bad times.” I lower my eyes, remembering my time on Earth. “I watched men kill, and be killed. I’ve lost friends, and I have sent men to their deaths.” My eyes start to well up in tears. “For that...just for that...I deserve no peace.”
I look back at St Peter as a tear falls from my eye. St Peter stands up, and hugs me. The first real hug I’ve gotten in a while. It felt weird to hug another man, but almost as if it was an automatic response, my arms fly around his body and I pull him in a tight embrace. We were there for what felt like eternity.
We finally stop hugging and I wipe tears from my eyes, nervously chuckling for crying. St Peer opens his giant golden book, signs something, then closes it. A golden gate opens up behind him as he puts his arm around me and leads me to it.
“Here, in Heaven, you will know peace.”
“Sir, I don’t know how to live in peace.”
I look back at him as he takes his place behind the Book of Life. “You will learn, soldier.”
You will learn.
| 2018-08-13T09:48:32 | 2018-08-13T09:22:44 | 155 | 115 |
[WP] When people die they can choose whether they go to Heaven or Hell, you are the first in 1000 years to choose Hell. | Of course in hindsight everyone sees the merit of my decision. In the early days though, people kept asking me why I chose Hell over Heaven. My answer has always been three words: "Location, location, location"...
Before my ticket was up on earth, I came to a realization... If everyone choose Heaven, Heaven would eventually become overcrowded. I mean idyllic pastures and tranquil rivers are nice and all, but if you have to share it with roughly 10 Billion other people... Maybe not so much. Can you imagine the waste problem? If you want to watch a football game, you need to first clear people from an area roughly the size of a football field. Plus, there really is not much beyond natural beauty up there.
So I made a decision, I moved in on the market early. Closed all the primo real estate I could all over Hell before there was a demand for it. Heck, those poor schmucks, the demons... They were so surprised that anyone wanted anything to do with Hell, they sold me the whole thing for a handful of colorful beads.
Later on they would also provide the cheap labor that I exploited in my sea-of-fire side casinos and river (Lethe is beautiful in autumn) side properties. I quickly dominated the market and soon became the land lord of hell.
True, the re-branding took some effort... People were reluctant to view Hell as a warmer alternative to the overcrowded paradise. I think it was all the entertainment venues that did it in the end. I was able to convince the "Blue Man" group and a few other performers in exchange for lofts overseeing Hinnom valley. Combined with the casinos and strip clubs, pretty soon Hell became the place to be.
That is when I stopped accepting just any old schmuck into the club. I am after all trying to cultivate a tasteful community down here. There were a few instances people even begged me to stop deportation to Heaven, but what can I say... Business is business. | The woman in the gate couldn't believe her eyes. There was a young woman there. In Hell. By choice. And she looked at peace. How long has she seeing something like this? 1000 years? 10000? It was so unexpected that she forgot the protocol. She just stared.
The girl approached the desk with small steps, looking around with an easy look. She cleaned her throat and spoked:
- Alright, where do I begin?
The woman recompose and started speaking.
- You need to sign here and here, with your name and information while alive. Do you see here? It says Hell. Do you know what that means?
The young woman calmly answered.
- Oh yes, I know very well. I'm the only one here, I presume?
- Yes, you are. The only human in many, many years.
- Okay, then. Let me fill this up.
- May I ask why, thought? - asked ashamed the woman in the desk. I just never expected this in all my immortality.
- Oh, of course. It is a little odd, isn't? Well. I just made a promise.
- You promised to go to Hell? Who would you made such promises and why? That's just insane! You can go to Heaven and never see the people! It's Heaven! If you choose, they're be away from you for eternity!
- But that wouldn't be right, would it? I made a promise and that would be cheating.
- But there's actual murderers there! Bad people, who broked a lot more than a promise.
- But these people are not me. And they made their choice. I made mine. - the young woman said like it was the ultimate truth. And it was. She made her choice.
- Can I ask you one more question before sending you in? I know it must be annoying answering, you don't have to if you don't want.
- I don't mind. I'll have eternity here anyway. What is it?
- Who was the promise to?
- My sister.
- Your sister wanted you to go to Hell?
- My sister wanted a lot of things, but never to be in the same place I was. And I love my sister more than anything alive or dead. So I came here, and she can go there.
The woman's look was the last thing the girl saw before the elevator started descending. | 2018-08-13T09:48:32 | 2018-08-13T09:21:04 | 155 | 21 |
[WP] When people die they can choose whether they go to Heaven or Hell, you are the first in 1000 years to choose Hell. | I smirked. Now wasn't this ironic. After finally falling to the demons from hell, I get to choose whether to finally take my eternal rest, or continue to *Rip and Tear*
Now why the hell would i go to heaven.
The Doom Slayer walked in through the gates of hell.
The second slayer's testament would begin to be penned that day. | They’ve really pulled out all the stops. They *say* you can pick Heaven or Hell, but they forget to mention you need to be subordinate to the Big Dude. They do let you take your time, see both sides of the coin, but frankly you’d need to be a dumbass to pick heaven.
Who would want to die like that? Denying yourself for this asshole. Satan doesn’t even run Hell, he just kind of hangs out there with you. It’s cold like back home, and you don’t need to answer to anyone.
All the people in Heaven are cowards. I don’t care how bad it is in Hell, I’d rather be free there than chained in Heaven
**Update:** it’s been fifty years. Pick Heaven. | 2018-08-13T09:08:57 | 2018-08-13T08:20:27 | 82 | 33 |
[WP]You've been dating an amazing woman for a year. One day, she gets a call and rushes into the closet. When she comes out, she's weraing white armor, and a matching sword and has wings coming from her back. She says "I have to go, but I'll explain when I get home." Before flying out the door. | That was the last time I saw her. She said she'd explain when she got home, and I believed her, but it turns out it was the most elaborately staged breakup ever. I think she went full crazy, because none of her friends or coworkers heard from her either.
It's been about a year now, so the hurt has eased a little, and thinking back I realize now that bad news really does come in threes. First Angelica ran out on me, and on that same day it turns out a plane crashed and killed everyone on board after something huge got sucked into an engine. I understand our local superhero team, the Justice Legion, lost a member around the same time. I think her name was the Silver Angel or something? I dunno, I don't really keep up with them.
Still, I wish she'd told me what was wrong before she just up and left me. I'm sure we could have worked it out, if nothing else I was always an attentive boyfriend with a knack for putting the pieces together.
Anyway, if you're out there, Angelica, I want you to know that you hurt me, but I'm stronger for it now. Whatever caused you to leave me like that, I hope it was worth it. | Yup. I never had ... relationships without complications. I guess dating a super hero or something was one of the better kind of complications.
I condensed those thoughts into a confused shaking of my head and a gesture telling "What the hell, jenny?". Then I patted her on the shoulder. She was tense and stressed, I could tell. "I'll leave the balcony door open. Do you need something if you come back?"
She turned back for a moment. "Do we still have scotch, and chocolate? And if you can, get some iodine pills. Stronger will be better."
"Alright. I'll keep the balcony open. Just make noise when you crash."
She scoffed "Thanks. I'll explain this when I come back". With a couple of steps and a strong gust of wind, she was gone.
I went to put my jacket on, since chocolate was definitely out at the moment. Iodine pills, I mused, must be radiation involved. Ingo will find that request weird. But he finds most requests I have weird. He considers that fun.
It's not like I never knew. She tried to hide it. Normal people don't come home at 3am bruised and beaten. Members of illegal fighting rings might. But those guys wouldn't get regular or acid burns or other weird wounds ever once in a while. No club we never talk about for her.
She was pretty bad at hiding it, actually. But that's fine. We need our White Avenger dealing with these aliens and dimensional invaders. And our White Avenger needs someone to crash on the balcony on, to get her worst problems taken care of, and someone to hand her a hot chocolate.
Maybe I'll know her officially tomorrow, at least between us two. | 2018-09-16T14:48:25 | 2018-09-16T13:10:00 | 129 | 92 |
[WP] When you sleep, instead of dreaming, you see a list of tips and tricks that will help you the next day. One night, you only see one tip, “Always aim for the head”. | I yawned and stretched as I pushed myself off the ground. Hate sleeping without a bed, I never get any sort of decent rest. Those damn tips I see in my sleep have never really been helpful, I've always sort of tuned them out and done my own thing. Everything sort of works out in the end... well, except for... a lot of stuff. My dad died because I didn't heed one once. My brother left the family a long time ago, and I've often wondered if I could have convinced him to come back and live with us again... but it never seemed to work out. He's just too different, I suppose.
Today's I almost instantly dismissed. "Aim for the head"? How much use could that be? Wasn't like I was going to use any sort of ranged weapons that meant I'd have to aim something at someone's head.
... But as I stared horrified at Thanos, laughing mockingly rather than dying where he stood from the axe I had just embedded in his chest...
I knew I should have listened.
Edit: a word
Edit 2: thank you guys so much for the positive feedback! This is my first WP so I was kind of nervous, but I'm glad you like it. | The alarm went off that Friday at 6AM just like it did every day... except waking up that morning did not feel even close to as calm as waking up any other morning. The words "Always aim for the head" kept playing back in my head over and over again like a terrible song that just wouldn't leave no matter how badly you tried to get rid of it. I knew I was in trouble,,, or at least knew I had to get myself OUT of trouble or else something terrible would happen. I remember walking around my house (which I live alone) nonstop looking for a weapon to protect myself due to my paranoia. When I couldn't find a weapon I locked myself in my room and waited until I had to leave to pick up my nephew from school. His parents are at work at the same time on Fridays, so I pick him up and watch over him until his parents get back from work. That day he wanted to go to the community fair and I figured why not go to take my mind off of my paranoid thoughts. At the fair, I purchased two day passes to ride any ride or play any game with my nephew. As the fair was wrapping up, my nephew looked over to the one place we haven't stopped by yet. It was one of those water squirting games where you shoot the water into the mouth of the clown. We both arrived and sat down to play. Just a minute before the game started, my nephew looks me dead in the eyes and says "Always aim for the head!" At that moment, I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. So many emotions ran through my head. I hugged my nephew tightly and said "you bet I will!" After we played the game and gathered our prizes I dropped him off back home with his parents and told them how much fun we had. | 2018-11-20T16:11:12 | 2018-11-20T14:12:09 | 835 | 130 |
[WP] When you sleep, instead of dreaming, you see a list of tips and tricks that will help you the next day. One night, you only see one tip, “Always aim for the head”. | Jeffry awoke from his dream with a question on his mind. "Why would a highschooler need to aim at someones head?" Then he remembered one horrid detail about the day that was about to unfold before him DODGEBALL. He thought about it for a second though and realised. "Wait you aren't aloowed to take headshots in dodgeball." Unfortunatly for him though his wondering was soon enough over. This is because as he arived for gym class the teacher said one thing to them before leaving them to the game. That one thing was "no rules. Go crazy. Imma go take a smoke behind the school." and after his there was nothing but maddness left in the wake of this revelation. But luckily Jeffry was able to use the knoledge he had gained the night before to survive dodgeball. (I know it's garbage but it's my garbage I guess) | Just another Saturday morning, sleeping in until nine o’clock then “Aim for the head”....
Now what in the world is this about, don’t own a gun, hell I don’t even own a bow or even a single arrow.
Well, next is taking the dog for her walk, about a one mile walk to start the day. Nothing unusual, the standard pee and pick up poo. Next breakfast, just shredded whole wheat, blueberries and bananas and a shower. Grocery shopping next but first I need the some cash for the farmers market. I’ll just use the bank on the way to the market.
Just one car at the ATM in line, only another minute or two. Maybe a bank robbery, quick look through the drive up window, still nothing unusual happening.
Now the market, fruits and vegetables, some pastries, lunch meat and cheese, and a hoagie for lunch. Now I can walk around and check out the other merchandise. Wow, that print is part of the set that I have hanging in the kitchen and only ten dollars. But still no head shot.
Back home, put away the groceries, then enjoy the hoagie. My afternoon plan is a movie with Jody, maybe then I’ll take that head shot.
But first, I am going to find a nail and hang the print!
| 2018-11-20T16:38:57 | 2018-11-20T15:58:54 | 24 | 10 |
[WP]You've recently died, however you don't fear Hell since you have a get out if Hell free card: Just show it to the Gatekeeper of Hell and you're immortal soul is free to go. Now as you present your card to the Gatekeeper a wicked smile formed on his face. "You didn't read the fine print did you?" | "Wha.. What fine print?"
I quickly grabbed my card back, trying to look for some small text. I looked all over it, yet couldn't find anything. Everything was large enough to read, and I had read them all. It said I should be able to get into heaven.
"Not *those* type of fine prints. Did you pay attention to where you bought these from? "
"Bought?" I said now even more confused.
"It probably read 'Only applies for Fetishist heavens' at the top of the store."
"Well, can I get to the Fetishist heaven?"
The gatekeeper pointed to a place far away. I could select figures of men hitting themselves with whips and women singing along to a weird song, using their children as drums.
"I mean, if that's your thing..." said the gatekeeper looking at me a little disgusted.
"Well... You checked the card. So, is there a place I can buy a whatever-religion-this-heaven-is card?"
"You could've... But you see, if you had read the fine prints, you would know that buying one costs you your immortality. And since you don't have another..."
"Wait, you're saying me I can die here?"
"Yes."
"And what would happen if I die?"
"I'm not here to answer questions. It's that guy's business" he said as he pointed to a man a couple meters away from him.
"Can I ask him?"
"If you have a card to ask, sure you can."
"No thanks, I think I'll go to the Fetishist heaven. " I said frustratedly. But I mean, I never *tried* the whipping stuff. Who knows?
As I stood in front of the Fetishist heaven, I gave my card to the gatekeeper there.
"Oh boy, you didn't bring your visa did you?" | Waking up from the searing pain of hell isn't the warmest welcome to say the least but I do know that there ain't know way that I'd be going to heaven. You see I've been part of the axle cultists for a long time and some would just paint me as a con artist or a mad man with nothing short of a thousand followers from all across the state and as head of that cult it's no surprise that I got contact from one of the high ranking demons.
The contact began with a sharp blade running through the skin of my palm as the blood gushed through I called forth and make a deal with a demon. With the right words I managed to call forth the demon of the fourth realm. As it took form it slowly crept to me and told me
" unbound me from hell and I can assure you of a way to undo yours when the time comes"
I was skeptical to say the least as I thought, "how could you assure me this?"
The demon smirked saying. "for your trust I will grant you this a card that lets you through the gates of hell"
As the card appeared from ashes and embers it materialized in to a calling card sized parchment that says "Get out of Hell for free" it feels as if magic is inscribed and embedded to this piece of parchment making it legitimate as I smirked back saying, "you've got yourself a deal" as the demon bursted in laughter it replied
"a wise choice now I shall be free from the bounds of hell"
Giving it no second thought I quickly sealed the ritual and called it a day. Alas in a few weeks death has greeted me as the cold feeling of my soul slowly dissipate from my body and awaken to the fiery pits of hell. Luckily enough I had the card in my person when I left my body thus I have now. With a grin on my face I happily presented my card to the Gatekeeper.
The GateKeeper let out a wicked smile as his ashen face widened and told me with a very thought voice "you didn't read the fine print did you?" I hastily snagged the card from the keeper and inspected the fine print.
There it was written a very small text "This ticket is non transferable"
I've been scammed, the keeper laughed as he threw me in the spiraling gates of hell as I landed ironically on the fourth realm as I thought " I just need someone to call forth my name and I shall strike them the same bargain as I now all I need to do as wait."
| 2019-03-30T11:29:09 | 2019-03-30T11:27:43 | 37 | 10 |
[WP] Canada has suddenly gone dark. No communication, no trade, no activity from within. Nothing for days. Alaska, now cut off from mainland US, is slowly ceasing in contact with the US federal government until a final correspondence is given: "Leave us. Reinforce the border. Don't ever open it." | I was in school when it happened. It was just another cold day of winter like any other until a teacher came to our class to inform us we were instructed to go the gym immediately. We didn't know what the hell was going on, just that the president was going to give a speech about the... uh... weird circumstances Canadian airlines had been reporting, apparently all the flights to Canada had to be cancelled today for some reason. So we were instructed to go the gym where the broadcast was going to be shown to everyone.
I remember every single word he said. "People of America, at 2:00 am Eastern Time, all communications with Canada ceased, at 4:00 am our satellite images shown complete darkness on all of the Canadian territory, and at 8:30 am the worst happened, our own territory of Alaska suddenly went silent. The last message we received from them was a request to secure the border and to protect the freedom that our beloved country is founded on. Be assured, we have already deployed the military and we have manage to secure the perimeter of our northern border. May God be with us."
Looking back I can't believe how naive we were to believe that guns could do anything to those things, it's not like the Canadian government hadn't tried that. You see at first, after a couple weeks, when people started appearing in the Canadian side of the border the military thought it was a good sign, they were wrong and soon they learned their mistake. The people that appeared weren't human, they just looked like us, but you see that's just a disguise... it just happened to be one made from human skin.
It was just a matter of a couple months for almost half of the US to fall. But then it just stopped and come summer there were no further sightings of those things... at least on North America. As you may know when is summer it the northern hemisphere it means it's winter in the southern one. And just as it had happened with Canada, Argentina from one day to another just went dark.
It has already been 5 years since day zero. So how we solved the problem you may ask, we simply didn't, we just moved to warmer places. Right now I'm staying in a small City in southern Mexico. But even that didn't solve the problem, every year winter is getting colder and colder, it's just a matter of time for the whole world to be covered in snow, and when that happens I guess is going to be their turn to rule over this unholy world.
Edit: grammar | Nobody thought of it at first, as less and less flights started to come in and out of Canada, to eventually none. Car travel slowed until it too eventually stopped, Canadian TV and Radio networks going dead within a matter of hours.
To be completely honest, nobody even noticed it at first, until for the first time in a week radios were lighting up left and right, a broadcast from Canada “L..sten, c...tures” it was really choppy, poor signal, almost nothing could be heard until all of a sudden it was crystal clear. “Whatever you do, do NOT open the borders. Close them. Reinforce them. Never let it and it’s friends escape!” The signal could be heard for a few more seconds before a shriek could be heard in the background, then the signal went dead.
Within just a couple of hours the president had ordered almost all troops to the Canadian border, sealing it off completely with tanks, almost every gun in the country, drones, everything. Nobody was about to take a chance with whatever is there.
After the troops deployed it was, for the most part, calm at the border. Nothing was happening or had happened, until a few soldiers off in the distance see a shadowy figure, kind of tall but not really, just standing there, it was about 9PM at the time, it had been getting dark but it wasn’t quite there yet. They start alerting everybody that someone is out there, and they all start staring at this creature, until they hear this ear piercing screech as hundreds of them pop up from the forest, getting down on all fours and booking it towards all the soldiers. At that moments everybody opened fire, shooting any of them down that they could, but it wasn’t enough as they started jumping up and attacking the soldiers and mercilessly mutilating them.
After that sections of the border slowly began to fall, until there wasn’t a single surviving soldier out there. They soon overran the US, destroying the country in a matter of days, soo Mexico, then South America. It wasn’t long before the creatures learned how to swim, but the Eastern part of the world had prepared themselves, and with the collective force of everyone’s navy they were able to wipe out each and every one of the creatures, they brought a few aboard to perform some tests. It was pure black with the shape of a human, but there wasn’t anything to it or it’s face, no eyes, no mouth, no nose. Nothing, they poke around at it and find the body isn’t even purely solid, it had almost a gelatin type construct. After running multiple tests it all came down to the same result. Ink. Normal ink that comes out of a ballpoint pen.
Nobody wants to accept this, that whatever it was, was just ink, one of the scientist feels it out with its hand, before it slowly starts creeping up, enveloping his entire body as it completely changed him, to become one of those creatures, it wasn’t long after that he was killed of course, and all test subjects were tossed overboard. Never to be seen again. | 2019-08-25T20:08:06 | 2019-08-25T19:45:28 | 311 | 72 |
[WP] A knock on the door in the middle of the night wakes a young preacher. Groggily, he opens the door to reveal a surprising visitor - a demoness asking for help with tears in her eyes. | The thumping was louder. The preacher slowly rolled over in bed, and stumbled to his feet. "Alright, alright, I'm coming! It's rather late though..."
He looked up at the clock, ten minutes after midnight. A bad hour to be up. He stopped to pick up the pocket cross from his bedside table, and pocketed it. He wasn't sure why, but he felt like it might be useful tonight.
When he opened the front door he knew he was right, his hand immediately flashing up to brandish the cross. The red-skinned demoness standing outside shrieked and flinched back, but didn't leave. "Please! Please! I don't know where else to go I need help!"
The preacher slowly lowered his arm, but kept a tight grip on the cross. In the distance, a building burned. Was that... was that the cathedral?
He narrowed his eyes and looked back at her. She was sobbing and crying. He'd never seen a demon before but weren't they supposed to be... soulless? He didn't think they ever cried. But... the scriptures said to help those who were in need. Those marks all over her body... were they tooth marks? Claws? There were definitely burns. "...Alright, but no tempting."
"No! I'm not... I need help. I went to the cardinal in the cathedral. He couldn't hold them off but he sent me here. He said you were the most faithful man he knew and I need someone to help me they're coming and I don't know where to go!"
"Who's coming?" The night was pierced by a wailing howl. Unearthly. Hateful. That sounded more like what he expected a demon to sound like.
"...them. I tried to leave. I can't spend an eternity torturing other souls, it was eating at me more every day... So I left. I want to be better but now they're hunting me down. I want to repent but it hurts and they're chasing me."
The preacher gasped as he saw the shadows moving on the distant hilltops. That was definitely the cathedral that was on fire. He pulled the demon inside after him. She hissed a bit as the holy imagery scattered about his home caught her eyes but she stood strong and followed him, her arms wrapped around her shoulders.
"The doors won't hold them. Demons are chosen from the worst of the worst we almost never try to come back. It's even more rare than the lost souls. They've sent an entire legion after me, and there'll be more if they can't find me and... what are you doing?"
The preacher knelt at the little altar, his head bowed. Slowly he rose, a faint light shining behind his eyes. "The scriptures say that God will help those in need. Perhaps I would be okay, even in death, but I don't think I've ever seen someone who needed his help as much as you." And suddenly the cross in his hand was the hilt of a flaming sword.
"So if God wills it, then tonight my faith will be your shield."
"And... tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow... Tomorrow you will rest. And after that we'll see what you need to learn and do to move forward. But until then... I will protect you." | Sleep still clenched my eyes in its vicious grasp. I barely force my eyelids open as I lean against the door, my forehead pressed into the cool wood.
"Myeah?" Is the sound that my lungs manage to force out of my lips.
When I'm greeting by silence, I sigh.
"Again, Lil?" I stand aside. I hear her wet boots, still too large for her, clunk on the floor. Her soaking clothes drip.
I head to the kitchen. She heads upstairs. I've learned not to pester her at this stage. She's always still a bit... Sensitive
"FUCK!" Comes the shout from the bathroom upstairs. Its a few minutes later that she comes stomping down, wearing sweatpants and a hoodie.
I'm leaning back on a stool. "Coffee?" I ask, handing her a cup.
She takes it bitter. Dark. Out of some misguided attempt at rectifying her failure? Self-flagellation? I'm no therapist.
She finally begins to speak.
"I don't know why I keep coming here." Her voice is flat. Amelodious. Unlike her.
"Free coffee would be my bet."
"Ah. Ah ha ha. Ha. Fucker."
"Do you want to tell m-"
"Its the site of my greatest failure. A seduction is all it was. A single man to bend to my lustful will. And I failed so spectacularly that you decided to attend a seminary."
"I wouldn't really call it a failure..." I start. She refills her cup, and puts it in the microwave. An odd habit. She watches whatever is in there. Can she see it? Or is it novelty that draws her attention to the slowly rotating mug?
"The fact that I was beaten with iron rods would convince me that it was." She says it with a coldness. I feel my stomach turn. I remember that night- that thing of shadows and claws and teeth and leather.
"You're always welcome here." I state firmly. I reach my hands into my armpits. Both because of the cold and to avoid her clutching hands. Usually the next thing was that skin-crawlingly awful impression of a piteous moan. Or the lustful slide into my side.
Neither comes. She takes the coffee out of the microwave. She drinks it in gulps. And then she crumples.
"I just keep fucking up. I do everything wrong." Her pale hands grip glossy black hair. She pulls it.
"I- I- I- I'm a failure. Useless. I'm just not good enough. I'm a shitty demon. Just shitty at everything. And the only blessed fucking soul I talk to is a preacher that I can't even get to *kiss* me." She wails. I feel the walls flex slightly as I grip her fetal-crouched body in my arms.
"You're always welcome here" I repeat.
Wracked with sobs, heavy tears drooling down her unblemished face, all she does is nod.
She's sleeping now. On the bed upstairs. I've decided to take the couch for now. Mostly because if she has a change of heart, I'm closer to an exit. It is not that j distrust her. She's simply... Volatile.
And as I lay alone in this darkness, all I can think is the sentence that made me leave the church: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
And the one that made me return, not to the cathedral, but the seminary. Words from her own fang-hiding lips.
"You've shown grace, human. This time. But I'll be back."
Never figured this is how the rematch would go. | 2019-10-31T22:47:35 | 2019-10-31T20:47:35 | 213 | 74 |
[WP] In the future, when totalitarian governments are the norm, every newborn is injected with a syrum known to the people as FEAR. This syrum shuts down the "fight" part of your brain, leaving you only with "flight." For one child, FEAR did not take affect... | “Why do we run from the Great Ones, again, mother?”
“I don’t know why, honey.”
“But there has to be a reason.”
“Why do we eat? Why do we sleep? There are just things we have to do. For our survival.”
“So this is all there is? Moving around from camp to camp, always watching the lights of the Capital, dreaming but never able to see with our own eyes?”
“These are dangerous thoughts to be thinking, little one. Why don’t we go back to sleep?”
Lara stood at the edge of the woods, watching the huge Great One in the distance, its red eyes patrolling the land and seeing everything. In a few weeks, it would reach their camp, and they had to be gone by then.
“Why can’t we stay here, mother? The river is nice and cool, but not too cold, there is a lot to hunt, and at night the winds blow lightly.”
“You know why, honey.”
“Where are we going after?”
“The Elders say we must cross the Empty Desert…”
\-
*“What will you name her?” Ull asked his wife.*
*“I don’t know yet,” Rhi said.*
*“That can’t be true. I know you have a name. You’ve been thinking about it for weeks.”*
*Ull scratched the baby’s chest gently, and heard her giggle.*
*“I want her to be brave, to think for herself, to love and to protect us,” Rhi said, almost absentmindedly.*
*“To protect us? We have to protect her, Rhi. You know tomorrow, you will have to register her at a Station. She will need to get her shots.”*
*“I know. But part of me wishes…nevermind, you’re right.”*
*But as Rhi looked down at her great hope, her baby, she knew Ull was not right.*
*“They tell stories, at least, of one who is brave, who thinks for herself, and who loves and protects those she loves. A great adventurer. At least, I will name her that.”*
*“What?”*
*“Lara.”*
*-*
Lara watched her mother sleep, and her heart ached terribly. She closed her eyes, and kissed her on the forehead.
“I will see you again,” she said softly, not knowing if she fully believed it herself.
She sat there for one second longer, and before the pain became too great, turned to go.
In front of her, the great lights of the Capital shone, even over the hulking form of the huge robots defending it.
“Father, I’m coming,” Lara said. And she set off for the unknown, for the place where fear was no longer her god.
\-
[r/penguin347](https://reddit.com/r/penguin347) | If I were told to describe cowardice in a single word, it would probably surprise you. Throughout my life, my definitions of terms such as weakness, cowardice, and really anything pertaining to the human mind and its sheer capacity for self-preservation could be labeled as shallow at best. I’ve often found that it is not the intrinsic value of any moral or the hideousness of any consequence that leads humanity to choose whether the instinct of flight or fight will guide them, but rather the banter between self-interest and guilt associated with such a choice.
If a man happens upon a burning building with the shrieks of a women or baby echoing inside, what does it take for him to leap into action? If the women and child are cast as his wife and son, it is suddenly in his best interest to save those whom he loves, so perhaps he charges into the fire and comes out a hero. If the women and child are simply that, a pair of unknown elements and inconsequential to the man’s life, perhaps he keeps walking, guilty over his inaction yet unwilling to risk himself. In a third situation, perhaps the man feels so guilty that he turns around, willing to put himself in the way of harm to ease his aching conscience. It is through this paradigm that I stumbled upon a realization early on in life, and that is that guilt and self-interest are merely two sides of the same coin; both are nothing more than methods of preserving oneself. All this holds true, of course, only when one has agency over their ability to fight or flee.
When I was young, too young to do anything heroic and too young to idealize self-sacrifice, my father was the man who turned around, the man whose guilt led him to fight. Too young and naïve of mind then and too old and worn of mind now, I cannot remember the situation in its entirety. What I do remember, however, is the painful rasp of a dying man as he cursed his own foolishness; what I do remember is the smell of blood. Always the smell of blood, like liquid shock in its pungency. I became driven, possessed by a shallow, unempathetic rage for mankind that, even recognizing its acridity, I could not help but relish in.
So it came to be that I lusted for the power to change the world, and change the world I did; FEAR was mine and FEAR is me. Time takes its toll on you, my boy, especially when you’ve lived as long as I have. You begin to reflect in a way which hides away your successes and lays bare your insecurities. I have begun to regret my decisions, the decisions which have shaped today’s society, and I hate myself for it as scornfully as I now hate myself for the life I’ve led. It is this paradox, this lack of concord in my thoughts that led me to save you from FEAR, and in doing so I hand you all I have: my thoughts, my experiences, and the ability to shape the world. I do not know if what I have done is right, but neither am I convinced my actions have been wrong; the rest is up to you, my boy.
If I were to define cowardice in a single word, I dare say it would be *fear*. | 2019-11-05T12:40:40 | 2019-11-05T12:34:16 | 174 | 22 |
[WP] After several thousand years, the Greek gods awaken in the in the mid 1940’s. When the gods meet up to discuss what they had learned of the modern world, Ares walks into the room with a hollow and horrified look in his eyes, the day is August 6th, 1945.(Hiroshima) | "Ares?"
Zeus' mighty shadow falls over the God of War's formidable figure, but it does not seem to stir him out of his mindless stupor. His gaping, bloodshot eyes refuse to blink, or move from their transfixed stare on the horizon.
"Ares, this is my final command. Heed my call, or I shall remind you who reigns over the Gods here!"
Finally, Ares blinks. His eyes slowly move, and settle on Zeus' steely, cold gaze. "There is no God."
A collective gasp escapes through the lips of many in the Pantheon. Incredulity. Outrage. Soft murmurs of agreement. A miasma of dystopia engulfs the room.
"What... What did you say?" sputters Zeus, raising a fist upwards, ready to unleash God's vengeance upon Ares. But before he can bring it down in bitter vehemence, the skies below them part. The Gods look down in disbelief.
A column of grey smoke, resembling the mystical ash-silver tree the Nordic Gods call Yggradasil, rises from the ground and dwarfs everything in its vicinity. Even up here, separated by the elements and a whole dimension, the screams of the damned and dying are audible, like nails screeching against chalkboards, like tortured souls wailing in the depths of Hades' Underworld. The Gods had heard the sinners cry for mercy. Never the innocent living.
"They called me the bane of the Gods," whispers Ares, his voice a chilling whisper. "I unleashed carnage, spilled blood and painted battlefields red. I took lives that threatened my own. But today..." To everyone's horror, Ares begins to cry; like a crestfallen fallen boy aching to be held. "Shadows," he cries. "The monstrosity they dropped, it left no blood, no bone, no body, Zeus. It left a shadow where a being once stood. It is as if the scorching inferno pressed the soul into stone and forbade it from finding peace. Even a God's wrath knows bounds, Zeus. When I ended a foe's life, my anger ended there. But when their vengeance dropped from the sky.... It didn't end a life, it poisoned the very fabric of existence. Children who haven't been born will suffer for sins they have never known. Innocence will not die, it won't even wither away like a leaf in autumn; it will rot, like a fruit infested by maggots feeding on its core, turning the flesh yellow and soft until it forgets it was ever something to savour. It all ends today, Zeus. There is no God. A God forgives. Tell me, how do we forgive ourselves for the atrocity we have birthed? Tell me, what answer will bring peace to the prayers of the corrupted? The light from their abomination set alight even the Underworld, Zeus. Burn your crown, and leave with me. Only they can forgive themselves now. Only they can save themselves from what they have become." | The gods slowly arrived at Mount Olympus. They awoke merely a few weeks ago and still had trouble with the new world. This meeting of the council was a good opportunity to complain about everything new. Hades was the loudest: "Can you imagine how long the queue at the River Styx is. It will take me years just to get all of them to the other side. And the mortals don´t even bury their dead with coins. How should I pay Charon. Do I look leke charity." All other gods were also on edge. Finally Zeus arrived and asked everyone to sit down, so the meeting could begin.
"So, my dear colleagues, did everyone found their way to Mount Olympus?" Zeus asked.
Athena answered: "Ares is still looking at the people. They are waging a war again. You know what Ares is like. Although strategy seems to have changed quite a bit. I will look into it."
"I did tell him to be punctual! So focused on murder and bloodshed that he forgets his duties as a god!" Zeus complained about Ares. Just in this moment steps could be heard. They were not the marching that would be expected from the god of war. The gods looked nervously at each other. *Who could this be if not Ares?*
Zeus used his thunderous voice and screamed: "Who dares to enter Mount Olympus?"
The voice of Ares responded weakly: "Just Ares. I have to tell you something." He entered the room and collapsed to his knees. The gods rose from their seats.
"Everything is okay. I just saw something ... horrible. An entire city was destroyed." Ares said as he stood up.
"The god of war complains about the sacking of a city. How many cities have you sacked?" responded Athena
"You don´t understand. There was no fighting, no anything. There was this small object of metal. It flew above this city..."
Hades exclaimed: "Flying metal. Metal does not fly. You have been hit too hard on the head." "No, he could be right. Humans fly in some kind of metal birds. I have seen it while I transmitted the messages. We should let Ares continue"
"Thank you Hermes, Something fell out of this object and the town was destroyed. Buildings collapsed and fires erupted. I have never seen anything like it. Where has honor gone?" Athena said with a spark in her eyes: "Who needs honor if you have this weapon. Imagine if we had this weapon at Troy."
"If we had had this weapon, this affair would have ended in kinslaying," Zeus responded sounding distressed before continuing: "Humans seem to have progressed. They are now to us what we were to the Titans. Could they find a way to destroy us?"
Athena, who returned to her calm thinking mode, raised her voice: "There is no way to know for sure. But it is possible. Maybe we should stay hidden for awhile."
"Good idea, Athena," lauded Zeus. "And we collect information. We need to know how they live. Athena and Ares: You should focus on their warfare. Look how they fight wars. Hephaestus, take a look at heir weapons and their blacksmith. We should learn from them. Hermes, awaken the other mythical creatures. And see, whether humans are still sacrificing to us. Maybe they are sacrificing to other gods. This, my fellow goddesses and gods, might be our hardest challenge since we defeated the titans. | 2019-12-04T09:58:31 | 2019-12-04T09:49:56 | 330 | 56 |
[WP] After several thousand years, the Greek gods awaken in the in the mid 1940’s. When the gods meet up to discuss what they had learned of the modern world, Ares walks into the room with a hollow and horrified look in his eyes, the day is August 6th, 1945.(Hiroshima) |
“Ares.” Zeus at times wished he was Odin. He wished at times he had a hall to retreat to, a throne from which he could view the world impartially. He wished he hadn’t had to be himself. But Ares was his son, and he could feel his anguish.
“Zeus, father..? Whats happened to Ares? Why hasn’t he returned?”
“I don’t know, Athena.”
Neither understood. Neither realized. Neither had the senses for war like Ares. Though Athena recognized the tactics and weapons of war had changed, and Zeus in his younger years had waged wars that shook creation, neither was quite the personification of war that Ares was. Neither had it written in their being. So, when Zeus felt the first golden tear trickle down his cheek, he was surprised.
“Whats happened to him?! HERMES!”
But Hermes had known at the first sign of the tear what the king of the gods desired. Hermes had fled the house of Olympus with all of his haste to find Ares. But he did not come back either. Rather, swiftly, Zeus in all his wisdom broke apart for a moment, sobbing, so keenly was he linked to his brood and their suffering.
\~
“Ares, what's happened my loving son? What has happened?!”
Hera was the first to see him. Hera was the first to see the gaunt figure approach. It was Ares, Hermes nowhere to be seen. He was gaunt, his skin still pale with fear, sweat on his once mighty brow. He looked like the child he, millennia ago had once been. He looked like he himself was nearly dead already. The frightened boy that needed his father, and Zeus, who had been crying for nearly two days and nights finally looked up to see his son.
“Father...they have become like death itself.” Spoke Ares, whose normally boastful tone seemed now so small and weak. The gods had been aware that war had been raging, and that brought a sweeping confusion about the vast chambers of Olympus.
“What do you mean, my boy? Athena has already regaled us of the current war, surely you should enjoy...this…” None of the gods spoke. For the arrival of the first of their kind was swift and creeping. They all saw Hades before them, the eldest of their kind, master of the underworld.
“Brother, you must listen to him. This is not something to be enjoyed.” Hades was stern at this moment, to the point where Poseidon himself began to grow flustered, after all, Hades visiting their seat of power was hardly ever good news.
“Father, I watched it. Like one of your thunderbolts, a tiny glint in the sky dropped from some metal contraption. It seemed so pointlessly small in the midst of that city. Oh...the city…” Ares spoke slowly, carefully, and Zeus turned his gaze towards the location Ares had traveled to, and he saw an empire. Towering buildings and bustling streets, a gathering of islands akin to what his chosen had ruled, but he could feel a spectre around them, and he motioned for Ares to continue.
“It just...fell...like a single star, but it didn’t even land. It burst in the air, with a flash unlike even your thunderbolts. It grabbed the air itself, scorched it, and rushed it apart with such force and devastation that it crushed the city itself in a moment. It was like seeing your full fury unleashed…”
“But you’ve seen bodies before, sacked cities, you have seen my judgement leave smoking corpses, why does this disturb you so..?” Zeus still had a far away look in his eyes, still searching for signs of what Ares had seen.
“You don’t understand! Fires swept through afterwards...people, innocent, evil, young, old...there aren’t even corpses near the center...it was like seeing Typhon...but not even he was so absolute, but it was not simple destruction.” Ares spoke, before he began to cough, and Zeus’s eyes widened. But as Zeus himself observed, Hades simply kept his hand on Ares’s shoulder. Almost tender in his mannerisms. But what disturbed the others present the most, was that Hades would not release Ares. Rather, he simply spoke.
“It is time, Ares. I pray that we do not waste any more time, or else you may come to infect them as well.” | This is my first time writing on here, so please bear with me and please share any criticism you have. Also, I suck at Reddit formatting so please bear with me.
​
Ares, chin held low, walked under the arch way for the first time in what was nearly 3,000 years. The sun a piercing light in the sky as it always was on Olympus, the archway was cloud made structure, as was the way of the Gods. Ares, with his crimson red cloak around his neck, red stained sword at his side, had his head hung low. That alone told the other Gods that something was wrong.
​
*I'm going to have to get used to this armor again* Ares told himself in his head. He had not dawned his golden Greek Armor in almost 2 millennia.
​
Zeus, All Father and head of the Greek Gods, in all his wisdom and glory, was throwing a party, completely oblivious to what was going on in the Mortal Plane. *Well, my father never did pay them much attention unless he was bedding them or killing them*.
It was Hera, Ares' mother, Queen of the Gods and Goddess of Marriage and Birth among other things, was the first to address him. Shorter than most of the Goddess', she wore her flowing white peplos that always seemed to compliment her flowing light hair, and perfect complexion. She truly was among the most beautiful of the Gods.
​
"Ares! My son! Oh how I have missed you. It has to have been nearly a thousand years! Come, feast with us and rejoice, as we have awoken! Whatever has you down can wait, for now."
​
*So my mother is as oblivious as always,* Ares thought.
​
Ares fell to his knees, bowing before her. "My queen and mother, it is indeed good to see you. But you are mistaken. It has been nearly 3,000 years on the Mortal Plane since the Pact begun."
​
Ares, turned to address the other Gods and Goddess'. This was something he had only done once before, the day before they began their slumber.
​
"Hear me now, Gods and Goddess' alike, for I would like to bring you up to date on what the Mortal Plane has become. Mankind now wields the very power of the Gods. Today, they showed the cosmos that they are willing to use destruction in a way that we never could; An entire city, with more people than died in every war we ever fought, were just killed in an instant. They wage war the likes of which you have never seen. They use machines to fly, to kill, and to create that which we never imagined. They see in the dark without the aid of candles, they roll across the land at speeds unknown to even some Gods. The time of mankind has come, and the time of the Gods is over."
​
​
Ares looked around, hollowed eyes. Eyes that over the past 3 millennia had obviously known war, love, loss, and so much more. Standing taller and fuller than the Gods who surrounded him, Ares waited, giving them time to drink in the information that he said.
​
Zeus had heard enough. He bellowed, and began laughing. Not a fake laugh either, the kind that over the centuries the he had become used to from the humans. A true laugh, radiating from the stomach and causing tears. When he began, the others joined in too, like the sheep they were.
​
"Boy, you had me good. That truly is a joke to span the centuries. Thoth, please be sure to keep a record of this for the humans to tell stories of. Like the Humans could ever truly posses the power we hold. BAH! Now come boy, tell us of how the world has floundered and failed since our slumber."
​
Ares glanced toward the spinning globe that Zeus had sitting in front of him. A gift from the Oracles themselves, the Eye of the Gods allowed the Greek Gods to peer into the Mortal Plane and see what was happening at that moment.
​
Ares strolled in front of Zeus himself, and swiped his hand in an experienced motion across the Eye. It drifted to an island unfamiliar to those around him, the island of Japan. As he was about to zoom into the small but persistent nation, he saw another flash of light. Narrowing the Eye of the Gods onto another town. Nagasaki.
​
"Watch now, and see what this world has become. " | 2019-12-04T14:40:05 | 2019-12-04T14:18:41 | 30 | 22 |
[WP] In a world filled with magic, your family is scorned for generations for wasting time with science. Your mother was a botanist. Your father, a biologist. Mages touch-heal. You developed steam locomotion when mages teleport. Your family has never trusted magic. One day, the magic stops working. | Space is vast, and Magic runs deep.
Of course, no one calls it magic anymore. But, that's what it is.
Magic, or aethermancy is the art of drawing and channeling aether from the (wait for it) ethereal plane to do your bidding. Or, in the case of ritual casting, someone else's bidding. Dangerous stuff, Aather. It objects to control. It has a tendency to buck and rear unless gently coaxed. A new spell that functions exactly as intended is a rare thing. Of course, practitioners' responses have historically been to tighten the bindings, and only use spells that behave. I do not trust them. I do not trust their spells, either.
Instead, I trust the work of my hands. Just as my father, and his father before him. Generations of metal-smiths, leather-workers, botanists, physicists and scientists of all walks of life. The steam engine was initially mocked, but within a decade, it was the most reliable route through the mountains of Thur'Abis. Aeroplanes replaced the *questionable* enchantments of flying carpets.
There is a science to crafting aether-works. Rigorous testing, exacting measurements, and seemingly overzealous safeguards are -- were -- mandatory. Through rigorous testing, we could not discover a single magical phenomenon incapable of replication through simple physical technology. It is more difficult to do it this way, but it the results are unshakably reliable.
Then, someone discovered teleportation.
"If aether can move through the physical plane, why can't the physical through the ethereal?" they asked. They did not ask me.
A trip through the Ether is very possible. In fact, it's quite easy. My family has known this for centuries. However, it is not safe. When you open a gate large enough for a human to pass through, you risk a great many things coming back out. Such occurrences are rare. Space is vast, and the Ethereal plane is deep. A short hop across the planet fades into the background noise.
Of course, teleportation was not confined to our own home-world. No, people set their sights on the stars above. "A New Frontier!" the headlines read. There is nothing "new" abut space. Only the ability to explore it. We had sent probes into the depths before. My family had even assisted with their construction. We had never sent people before. That was considered a fools errand.
The local planets and moons were swiftly colonized. Terra-formed and landscaped by powerful mages of all elements. Some even called themselves "druids" or "nature mages," ignoring the irony of how nothing was "natural" about them. My family built some of the infrastructure, and began seeking *safer* interstellar travel.
The initial colonies were not the end, of course. People wanted to go farther. But, to go farther, you must spend more time in the realm of the ethereal. The "deeper" into the ethereal plane you go, the faster you travel. If the Ethereal had been an ocean, we had been children skipping stones along the shore. But now, now we weren't just wading out into the deep.
We were sailing.
Not *our* ships, of course. Our ships did not require aether to function. No one bought them. They were too slow. Well, people *did* buy them, but for local jumps. Trips within a solar system. We were selling bicycles in a world of motorized transport. Fine for hobbyists, but impractical as a primary mode.
Space is vast. Vast... the word is insufficient. The farther we spread, the deeper into the Ether we went. Accidents happen. Ships started getting lost. Not lost in space. Lost in the Ethereal. Lost in the deep. A few ships each year would enter the Ethereal plane, and never return.
But it was fine. The losses were "acceptable" or at least attributable to negligence, mechanical failure, pirates or accidents.
But, I know the truth: We have been seen by the deep, and Aether rejects control. | Since I’d just gotten home from work at the supermarket, and my parents were busy with the work they did from home, I was the one unlucky enough to open the front door when the rapid, demanding knocks sounded. Curious, and more than a little worried since our neighbors usually wanted nothing to do with us, I walked quickly to the front door and opened it. My neighbor Sally stood before me, an older woman, an empty nester whose husband had passed just last year.
“Have you heard?” she said immediately.
My eyes widened as my heart leapt into my throat, expecting the worst. “Heard what?”
“Magic. It’s gone.”
I stared for a long moment before my eyes narrowed in pure confusion. “What?”
“Gone! It’s stopped working,” Sally whimpered. “The ley lines are drained, empty, they-”
“That makes no sense,” I interrupted. “How could they just-”
“William Cassady.”
My face went slack, and my heart skipped a beat. The name held fear for every mage or witch or warlock who heard it, the man who isolated himself out in Branston Forest and was pushing magic to its limits with fanatical, reckless effort. The man was probably clinically insane, but no one could do anything about it because he was just too powerful at this point. The area had, with little other option, just decided leaving him alone was our best option.
Seemed that hadn’t been the case.
“What?” I managed. “What did he do?”
At this point Sally’s eyes were glistening with tears. “The forest was the epicenter. He took it all. Drained everything dry, as far as the city, as far as…we don’t know. It doesn’t spread as far as Lewton, we know that. But Harold had to call me on that *cell phone* he bought me for emergencies,” she said disdainfully. “He couldn’t even call out with a psychic link.”
“I don’t…” My legs suddenly felt wobbly under my feet as I absorbed what she was saying.
This was an utter disaster. I knew Sally had come to my family’s door because we wouldn’t notice when it disappeared, when we reached for it like others would have and, like an amputated limb, it was just gone. For generations, we’d gloried in the sciences instead of natural magic, the joy each of us found in science was no doubt passed on from the parents who taught us of its potential. There were others like us, of course, but they were so rare, considering the scorn we had dumped on us from society.
But the vast majority of the town, the city, the world, relied on magic. We had no idea how far this spread, how much damage William had caused, but I felt a pit in my stomach that was slowly growing as I gradually realized every bit of what this meant. It was tempting to shoot it back in her face, to shout at the importance of sciences, that it was their own fault for relying so much on magic that their world would come to a stop in a moment like this. But knowing the fear and despair that was gripping her in that moment, I just couldn’t do that.
“The hospitals,” I started, drawing Sally’s gaze. I realized her wide eyes were fixed on me now, deep with panic but also with eagerness, to know what the eccentric scientist would start thinking of next. What my mind would do, how it would work, what it would put forth as non-magical options for how society functioned. “We start there. Ah…Ellie, I’ll call her, she knows scientific medicine.”
“Do you all have phones?” Sally asked quietly. “The scientists?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Um…Ellie’s son, he’s training in medicine too, so she’ll bring him. I just don’t know…” I grimaced. “There’s too much. The way you grow food, the way you transport yourselves, the way you build-”
“I know,” Sally whispered. “But we have to do something. We have to help who we can. I just- I don’t know what to do. I don’t think any of us do. I’m sure the others who know of scientists are going to their doors just as I did. And I’m at your service. Just tell me what needs to be done.”
I took a long breath to calm my racing heart and nodded. “All right. I’ll get my parents. And we’ll triage and start one step at a time.”
A small bit of hopefulness glowed in Sally’s eyes as I met her gaze before turning and darting back into my home.
​
/r/storiesbykaren | 2021-04-07T08:06:12 | 2021-04-07T07:53:52 | 180 | 103 |
[WP] You’re a reformed supervillain, the heroes attack your home to try to bring you to justice. Your family is killed in the process. Your wife’s last words “make them feel it.” | "What are you doing here?" His voice demands. Understandably the person is upset at my intrusion. I know EXACTLY how he feels.
"We made a Deal once. For me to retire peacefully and be left alone by your League of Champions. Do you remember?" I ask, blood drying on my clothes.
"Yes. You wanted to stop being involved in the fights, and I asked for proof. You helped me save the world from utter destruction. You proved beyond any doubt I may have had that you wanted to retire. You broke no laws other than fighting Superheroes, and you never crossed That line. They were never killed by you of the injuries you inflicted." Alphaman replied, his gold and white costume shining in the darkness, as he strode toward me slowly.
"Just know that I am not asking for permission in this. But out of a sense of obligation, I feel the need to approach you about this." I explain as I place the portable hard drive on the dining room table.
"The Heroes," I spat, "that stormed My home, killed MY family, are on this footage. I am going to kill them, and only them. Remove the League's protection from them, and I will continue to help against the threats that your Heroes are not prepared for. Please don't deny me this." My voice seems to growl like ominous thunder overhead.
"I am-" Alphaman starts.
"My thirteen year old daughter was roasted alive by Firestar, her idol because she was my child. My eight year old son was frozen then shattered into pieces by Brittle. My wife was sliced into pieces before my eyes and her last words to me, which are on that footage were 'Make them pay'." My voice is shaking. "I was getting ice-cream, and the five heroes who destroyed my life looking for me at home are going to pay. Don't deny me this."
"I will need to see the footage, you understand why." Alphaman whispered. I nodded my agreement and waited. Eight minutes later, a furious Alphaman strode out from his office.
"Make it public. I will back you on this. No Hero should feel they are above the law." Alphaman said.
I nodded once, turned and slipped into the darkness. Fifteen wonderful, peaceful years destroyed in minutes. My hope for retirement ruined because of aggressive Heroes blinded by their own sense of superiority. I am going to \*enjoy\* this.
My first target was the couple, Brittle and Firestar. With their powers, they made a Hero couple adored the world over. Iron Fury was a martial artist renowned for his durability. Retro was a tech based hero. Silvershine was the leader of that doomed group. Silvershine gets to die last.
Alphaman and I had a connection. Family always does. As my younger brother, he has seen me keep promise after promise. I have never broken my word to him, and because of our telepathic connection, lying is literally impossible. Not that I tried.
'Alphaman, I have tracked Brittle and Firestar.' I send to my brother, with an image of the restaurant. The other customers were startled by my appearance, covered in the blood of my family.
They ran as soon as they saw me. The Heroes were chucking to each other over something, it didn't matter what.
"Hey." I yelled. I could here the flinched reactions from the kitchen staff. The two Heroes glances over at me and gasped. Before they got out of their seats, I had dashed forward and slammed my fist through the chest of Brittle. "That is for my son." I whisper.
Firestar flew up and readied an attack. I dodged at the last moment, letting her flames engulf her partner. I flew after her and grabbed her by her ankles. Her death took longer, but only because everything I hit with her body kept shattering.
'I have sent the footage to every news outlet and am spamming it over the Hero channels.' My brother informed me after I told him I got the first two.
Retro wasn't much of a fight. The tech gadgets he kept using me kept breaking due to my Omega Field. Iron Fury after a public declaration he would bring Mr Omega to justice was interrupted by me. Every broken bone was punctuated by me roaring the names of my dead family. 206 bones. Every one broken. My voice was a little hoarse by the end.
Silvershine was last. And this fight could be tricky. She was my brother's fiancee. I strode towards the Champion's Beacon, the headquarters of the the Heroes. None of them tried to stop me, whether it was fear or orders, I didn't really care.
Silvershine was begging my brother to stop me. Once I arrived at the top, my brother and I locked gazes. "I did it for you." Those were her last words as she looked towards Alphaman. But he did nothing as I strangled her. | "Hello my name is Richard and I'm an alcoholic. It's been 11 1/2 years since my last drink, but tonight I fell off the wagon. This is going to be a bit of a rant but this is why we are here right? To share and get what we need, right? I haven't had a drink it so long I forgot how bitter the stuff was, gosh I cant believe I used to drink this stuff. . . I stopped for her, you know? She meant everything to me. . . I changed for her. . . It wasn't fear of being locked up or dying, it was her. Those kinds of things didn't scare me. Those things were, what I like to call 'the inevitabilities of life as a villain." the group giggled, uneasily.
"You either going to end up dead, behind bars, or disfigured when one of your plans backfires on you. You know once you really start to feel it, doesn't taste that bad. . . Being a villain is easy, you just stop caring, its coming back that is the hard part. The lives of others becomes meaningless. You turn cold to the cries of pain and anguish the pleas of innocent people, for mercy or the release of death. At least I did. Hell I even killed kids, lots of villains would draw the line on kids, leave a shit ton of orphans behind, but they never touched kids. Emotion was something that led to mistakes, cold calculation and cunning it made me a contender for the top spot, one for the *Worst Generation* of villains to have come around in a long time. You know the rankings that I'm talking about. Right?" he took a swig from his bottle.
"See, there are rankings on the web, geeks and nerds who wish they had the guts to even think about doing the stuff that I did, but their too chicken shit. Those guys. She was one of those web geeks, a mod of a website that ranked villains by the shit they pull; stunts, heists, mass murder, killing supers that kind of shit. I thought she was just another groupie, we got those sometimes, brave or stupid people that would do anything for a chance to be noticed, mostly stupid. But something was different about her." he paused looking at a figure that clearly wasn't there. "She was smarter than the others, nothing out of the ordinary, just a little brighter than most. Too smart to fool into doing something dangerous, like caring a bomb or distracting a super, but just interesting enough that I didn't kick to the curb after refusing to do any real dirty stuff. She was special. She was. . . alive." he took a gulp from his bottle from his bottle tears forming in his eyes.
He gagged and continued "I know I should just follow the steps and put down this drink but I can't anymore. They took her from me. Stupid rookies looking to make a name for themselves. Thinking I hadn't paid enough for what I did. Thinking they had the RIGHT to come into my HOME! NO OUR HOME! AND WHAT AND TRY AND MAKE ME PAY!? No. No no no no no no no. I did my time, I put in the years and paid damnit. I BUILT A LIFE! WE HADA LIFE!" the podium crashed forward, Richard fell with it.
Stammering and stumbling Richard got up "Listen, just , I need you all to just listen." he reached into his coat and pulled out a small remote. "I need you all to do your best and scream. As loud as you can." the group began too look around nervously, whispering amongst each other. " Just beg for you life, and don't be shy about it ok?" he said fumbling with the remote.
"Look, Richard I think that's enough sharing for today." the group leader said uncomfortably.
"Yeah, you're right. . ." Richard said ". . .now scream. I'll give you a little help, but only a little. I don't need you dying on me right away because then they wont come. It's gotta sound news worthy or they don't give a shit."
The doors to the meeting hall burst open, metal constructs working their way through the rooms thrashing about careful not to kill, only maim and injure.
"They aren't the best but its what I could whip up. It's been a long time and I'm a little rusty but I'll get what I need from the ones that show up. Low-tier trash always has the best raw building materials. Trying to make a name for yourself doesn't come cheap." Richard sat down hard on the floor, drinking from his bottle.
"I'll make them pay for what they took from me. I'll take their love, their laugh, the light from their soul. You can't take from me." he fell back as the screams filled the air. It wasn't long before the first Super showed up, the mechanical constructs turning to greet them.
Richard shattered the bottle and uneasily rose to his feet. " Com'ere kid, time to make you feel."
​
​
​
​
​
Any feed back is welcome. | 2021-04-17T08:20:37 | 2021-04-17T02:33:08 | 49 | 22 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | "John Smithson," said the executioner, calling out the name of the identity that I had been using when I committed my crimes. "How would you like to die?"
"I wouldn't," I reply immediately, trying to buy myself another few moments to think.
"That is not an acceptable answer," says the executioner. "If you do not provide a preferred means of death within the next two minutes, then you shall be beheaded."
"Right. Right. Um...... I would like to die....." *How can I make a logical paradox out of this? What are my options?* ".....ummm....."
"One minute remaining."
*At my own hand? No, they have mind-control systems, they can do that easily. Ah, wait, I have it!*
"...of my own volition."
The executioner sighs. "Not *again*," he murmurs. "I swear, there's one every decade... alright, someone go and fetch my Wand of *Crucio*, please? Let's see how long we need to torture *this* one before he asks for death..." | The nameless waif walked forward onto the sand of the court floor, the shackles that bound her hand and foot dragging on the bloodied floor.
She tilted her head to look up at the arbiters seated so high above her, her ragged black hair falling back from her face to reveal the gaunt lines of her face - but no fear. Not even resignation. There was no emotion there at all.
“How do you want to die?” Asked the First Arbiter. They no longer bothered stating the names and crimes of their prisoners - they had all been rounded up in one of the rebel villages and put to death for the crime of being there.
“Unshackled,” she rasped, holding her wrists up to her captors. “I don’t care about the method of my death, but let me die unshackled.”
“So be it,” boomed the arbiters in unison. The chains fell away as the execution walked onto the sand.
The girl smiled widely and spread her arms, as if welcoming the sun. She seemed so much larger than the tiny hunched over waif she had appeared previously.
It was no illusion.
The teeth behind her smile grew sharper and more pointed. Her nails grew longer and hardened into talons.
The executioner stopped in his tracks and gawped in shock as the arbiters who had finally noticed her transformation attempted to end her - but it was no use. The magic had no effect anymore.
“My thanks,” she said sibilantly as giant wings sprouted from her back, “for freeing me.”
And then blood fell on the sand once more. | 2021-06-24T10:00:08 | 2021-06-24T05:07:39 | 1,590 | 152 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | "John Smithson," said the executioner, calling out the name of the identity that I had been using when I committed my crimes. "How would you like to die?"
"I wouldn't," I reply immediately, trying to buy myself another few moments to think.
"That is not an acceptable answer," says the executioner. "If you do not provide a preferred means of death within the next two minutes, then you shall be beheaded."
"Right. Right. Um...... I would like to die....." *How can I make a logical paradox out of this? What are my options?* ".....ummm....."
"One minute remaining."
*At my own hand? No, they have mind-control systems, they can do that easily. Ah, wait, I have it!*
"...of my own volition."
The executioner sighs. "Not *again*," he murmurs. "I swear, there's one every decade... alright, someone go and fetch my Wand of *Crucio*, please? Let's see how long we need to torture *this* one before he asks for death..." | I'm waiting to die, everyone here is. I have seen a lot of people trying to fool the court, the last one requesting to die of old age, but all of them fail. At this point everyone has lost their hopes, there is no way of avoiding dead.
It's my turn and I go in front of that horrible people, happy witnesses of the magical demise that awaits me. A voice, one that seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, ask me how this magic room shall kill me. The voice says that the room will do exactly what I tell it with the only condition of choosing some way to die.
There is a countdown of one and a half minutes and I just don't know what to do, it seems to be impossible to avoid it. Well, I think, if I must die, I want to see them suffering.
"I request to die slowly while they die from what they would choose in my situation."
Those faces, full of horror while the voice ask them and the doors are shut is the only thing I needed to rest in peace. They try to avoid it, but it's inevitable. I died fast, they all tried to continue living and failed, but at least I could see part of those "high people" that made this happen diying. It's not the best, but it's the best anecdote I have from when I lived. Now, I only must see the concequences of my actions as part of the room punishment, but I'll watch and enjoy every second of it. | 2021-06-24T10:00:08 | 2021-06-24T04:31:51 | 1,590 | 17 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | "John Smithson," said the executioner, calling out the name of the identity that I had been using when I committed my crimes. "How would you like to die?"
"I wouldn't," I reply immediately, trying to buy myself another few moments to think.
"That is not an acceptable answer," says the executioner. "If you do not provide a preferred means of death within the next two minutes, then you shall be beheaded."
"Right. Right. Um...... I would like to die....." *How can I make a logical paradox out of this? What are my options?* ".....ummm....."
"One minute remaining."
*At my own hand? No, they have mind-control systems, they can do that easily. Ah, wait, I have it!*
"...of my own volition."
The executioner sighs. "Not *again*," he murmurs. "I swear, there's one every decade... alright, someone go and fetch my Wand of *Crucio*, please? Let's see how long we need to torture *this* one before he asks for death..." | The Gods damned Tribunal! If there was anyone to blame for the state of this sorry world it would be the Tribunal. Sitting up on high, casting judgement on their inferiors. Everyone knows they're the real power behind the crown. Can't have a revolution when the Tribunal can kill you for your crimes instantly.
People called us stupid for trying to assassinate the king. Too much security that night and we just barged in the front doors. Hardly took any effort or the king's guards to take us down. All we had were daggers, they couldn't have even scratched the king's armor. Idiots they called us for even trying to fight against our betters. Everyone reading our manifesto as a joke....but maybe we got through to some people.
Sitting here, waiting to get called up in front of the Tribunal for punishment. Some have tried to plead their case. Some have tried to outwit the bastards and live forever. Poor sod before me wished to die of old age, and got turned to dust faster than it took him to say the words.
HOW DO YOU WISH TO DIE? the Tribunal asks me.
I grin and think of everything they've taken from me; my father, my wife, half my damn family accused of crimes against the crown most of them never committed. But I know what revolution sounds like. I may not see it, but I'm giving my people hope.
"Drowned in the Tribunal's fresh spilled blood." I say as I close my eyes and hear the first downpour. | 2021-06-24T10:00:08 | 2021-06-24T08:24:48 | 1,590 | 11 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | Well, it went almost as expected. No way this magic court would fall for that kind of smartassery, and rapidly decaying body of very old man, who was in his thirties a moment ago, was a proof of that. There have to be a better way.
"Garreth Berch, step forward" - Judge called my name, and my legs obeyed despite my will screaming at me to run away.
Truth was, there was no running any more. My assassination attempt at the king failed miserably, when that little servant girl stole the poisoned chocolate. If only I knew. They caught me shortly after, when I tried to leave the castle. I still could've got away, but then I learned of the girl. I never ment to harm the innocent.
"For the murder of Sevilia Thornvil by poison and the assassination attempt at King Robert III, you are sentenced to death by the means of your own choice." - Judge gave the sign, and the Executioner activated runic circle around me.
"Although I would prefer to not give you an easy death for your disgusting deed, our God is mercyful and his law we follow. Now, tell us, how do you want to die?"
Cold breath of death enveloped me, waiting for my last will to manifest. The glimpses of my life, all the harm I have brought to people, innocent bystanders who got caught in my fight for the greater life. Soldiers who fought for their kingdom, who had families to protect, despite being ruled by a tyrant. Was my war worth it?
Glimpses of the past changed into visions of afterlife, eternal torment for my sins, for all the pain I have brought onto others. I was shaking. I wanted to scream at the void, that I did it for the greater good, that I never wanted to harm anyone. But the vortex of nothingness did not care.
There have to be a way out. Not from death, no, the trap already closed. But from hell.
I inhaled deeply for my last time: "By helping others."
That was my best shot. A hope for the second chance, or at least a redemption of selflessness.
Everything went dark. For a moment I was nothing. Nowhere. It was very cold.
Then, a voice reached to me, pulled me out towards the light:
"Hey, you are finally awake" | The person before me took my idea. She had no idea that dying of old age meant they would accelerate time for her. Now that I saw that, I can't make the same mistake. There has to be a way out of here, a loophole.
You'll find one like you always do, I kept thinking that to myself. I wasn't a stranger to this business, but usually I wasn't involved with magic. The payment was good but too risky.
"Marcus Spades, how would you like to die?" The hooded man said. He held a weapon that changed into many weapons. The hood had golden details, his body was hidden by shadows. If anything he was good at this. I could feel the chills creeping up my body.
"I need a second."
"You have one minute." His weapon changes to a whip. I'm not sure how but I feel he enjoyed those who took their time and never decided.
Time! That's it, their laws are bound by time and space here. If I can get them to try to execute me in some other place far from this world maybe I have a chance. I start laughing, I might have finally lost it. "I wish to die in a time space rift between worlds."
The executioners weapon changes into a cellphone. "I need help. Yes, it's another crazy guy. Yeah, he wants the slowest most painful death in existence. Thanks, I'll wait for you to start the ritual."
I fall into my knees. That gamble sounds like the worst one I've taken. Although that one that included stealing from the governments and 'donating' it was close second, by the time they figured out I cheated on that table it was too late.
Four hooded men or women appear. They point wands to the floor under me. A circle of light engulfs me. One moment I see them, the other I see everything and nothing at the same time.
I look around and I see more figures. More mes. The one closest to me waves, the but the others scream in agony and pain.
"Why are they screaming?"
"We are trapped between time and space. We have access to all information at the same time and our brains can't handle it."
This wasn't what I thought would happen. My pupils have widened. I have to escape. I can't let this happen to me! "How can we escape?"
"You would have to touch an opening. But they are always just barely far away to not be reached."
My fingers reached out but never quite made it to any of the images passing by. My body is sweating but it's not. I can't feel the droplets on my skin. Nor the tears from my eyes.
In the distance growls and screeches of despair. How many of me are here? When will this all end? I look towards the other side and a new me comes in. Repeating the scene that just happen over and over and over again. | 2021-06-24T07:20:03 | 2021-06-24T07:17:41 | 392 | 181 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | "HOW DO YOU WISH TO DIE?"
I had originally been banking on using old age as a loophole, but watching that other guy wither into an old man has proven it to be very much not viable. So here I am, I need an escape plan. Scratch that, it's impossible, what I need is a loophole.
"HOW DO YOU WISH TO DIE?"
I could try using paradoxes? No, that wouldn't work. Act of God? Well, Gods. One of them anyway.
"YOU HAVE 30 SECONDS TO GIVE YOUR ANSWER"
Damn. I guess if I am to die, I'll try to take them all with me.
"20"
What could take them out? Magic wouldn't have any effect, they're all the most skilled mages in existence.
"15"
Ooo... that's an idea... existence.
"10"
"Save your countdown, I know how I'd like to die."
"HOW DO YOU WISH TO DIE?"
"I wish to die by being swallowed up by the expansion and death of the Sun itself."
If I am to die, they're ALL coming with me. | The nameless waif walked forward onto the sand of the court floor, the shackles that bound her hand and foot dragging on the bloodied floor.
She tilted her head to look up at the arbiters seated so high above her, her ragged black hair falling back from her face to reveal the gaunt lines of her face - but no fear. Not even resignation. There was no emotion there at all.
“How do you want to die?” Asked the First Arbiter. They no longer bothered stating the names and crimes of their prisoners - they had all been rounded up in one of the rebel villages and put to death for the crime of being there.
“Unshackled,” she rasped, holding her wrists up to her captors. “I don’t care about the method of my death, but let me die unshackled.”
“So be it,” boomed the arbiters in unison. The chains fell away as the execution walked onto the sand.
The girl smiled widely and spread her arms, as if welcoming the sun. She seemed so much larger than the tiny hunched over waif she had appeared previously.
It was no illusion.
The teeth behind her smile grew sharper and more pointed. Her nails grew longer and hardened into talons.
The executioner stopped in his tracks and gawped in shock as the arbiters who had finally noticed her transformation attempted to end her - but it was no use. The magic had no effect anymore.
“My thanks,” she said sibilantly as giant wings sprouted from her back, “for freeing me.”
And then blood fell on the sand once more. | 2021-06-24T07:19:48 | 2021-06-24T05:07:39 | 236 | 152 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | "HOW DO YOU WISH TO DIE?"
I had originally been banking on using old age as a loophole, but watching that other guy wither into an old man has proven it to be very much not viable. So here I am, I need an escape plan. Scratch that, it's impossible, what I need is a loophole.
"HOW DO YOU WISH TO DIE?"
I could try using paradoxes? No, that wouldn't work. Act of God? Well, Gods. One of them anyway.
"YOU HAVE 30 SECONDS TO GIVE YOUR ANSWER"
Damn. I guess if I am to die, I'll try to take them all with me.
"20"
What could take them out? Magic wouldn't have any effect, they're all the most skilled mages in existence.
"15"
Ooo... that's an idea... existence.
"10"
"Save your countdown, I know how I'd like to die."
"HOW DO YOU WISH TO DIE?"
"I wish to die by being swallowed up by the expansion and death of the Sun itself."
If I am to die, they're ALL coming with me. | I'm waiting to die, everyone here is. I have seen a lot of people trying to fool the court, the last one requesting to die of old age, but all of them fail. At this point everyone has lost their hopes, there is no way of avoiding dead.
It's my turn and I go in front of that horrible people, happy witnesses of the magical demise that awaits me. A voice, one that seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, ask me how this magic room shall kill me. The voice says that the room will do exactly what I tell it with the only condition of choosing some way to die.
There is a countdown of one and a half minutes and I just don't know what to do, it seems to be impossible to avoid it. Well, I think, if I must die, I want to see them suffering.
"I request to die slowly while they die from what they would choose in my situation."
Those faces, full of horror while the voice ask them and the doors are shut is the only thing I needed to rest in peace. They try to avoid it, but it's inevitable. I died fast, they all tried to continue living and failed, but at least I could see part of those "high people" that made this happen diying. It's not the best, but it's the best anecdote I have from when I lived. Now, I only must see the concequences of my actions as part of the room punishment, but I'll watch and enjoy every second of it. | 2021-06-24T07:19:48 | 2021-06-24T04:31:51 | 236 | 17 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | “Next.”
*SHITshitshitshitshitshit, FUCK! How the hell am I supposed to get out of this if they can even speed up time?!*
“Next!”
*Maybe I can try and tie it to my will? No, they’ll just torture me until I want death. Maybe some kind of paradox?*
“NEXT!”
A hand roughly grabbed me by my arm and yanked me forward. Panicking and lost in thought as I was, I stumbled and nearly fell on my face as I passed through the magic cylinder in front of me.
“Name?”
I looked up, trying to locate the source of the voice, but swirling runes and glowing, ambient energy blocked my sight while throwing the voice, making it sound as though it were all around me.. It was like I was in a universe all on my own, and God himself was bearing the full force of his judgement on me.
“Oh for the love o-NAME?!”
I jumped as the bureaucrat-God’s voice boomed in the entire column, my silence was clearly irritating him. “Oh, u-um, Erin Heckland.” The sound of rustling paper echoed all around me as I tentatively reached a hand out to touch the magic walls. Completely solid. No forcing my way out then, although that possibility had been exhausted long ago.
“Here we are, Miss Heckland. My my, that’s quite a long list. Alright, how do you want to die.”
“Well, I was planning on old age-“ the runes began glowing brighter, “BUT NOT ANYMORE!” I shout-finished. The runes dimmed. Shakily, I took a deep breath and continued, “so could I please have a minute?”
“Ugh, very well, but you get one minute exactly. If you don’t start talking by then, you will be hung.”
I blinked as an hourglass appeared in front of me, the sand rapidly draining my remaining time on Earth away. It wasn’t fair. I hadn’t hurt anyone, I had just found knowledge that the government didn’t want me to have. Some of it I didn’t even know was illegal until I got arrested! It wasn’t fair!
It wasn’t just.
It wasn’t…wait!
As the sand grains nearly finished draining, a huge grin split my face. “Oh here we go,” the drone began, “what hair-brained idea have you come up with to avoid death?”
“Not avoid it,” I confidently replied, “but stop it. If I’m going to die, I am taking this whole cursed process with me!”
The runes began to glow. | I get to choose how I die? I thought to myself. Well that's easy enough, I'll just wish to die of old age on a bountiful island with my 18 smoking hot wives. What a blessing! If I knew about this I'd have turned myself in years ago!
A guard comes to my cell and unlocks my cell door.
"Your time of reckoning has come Alvin, I hope you used your time wisely" said the guard.
"At this point I think I have it all set" I retorted.
"As a final word of advice, wishes rarely go as planned" the guard added. He then gestured to me to follow him. His words weighed on my mind a bit and I started doubting myself a little so I asked, "what did the last guy end up wishing for anyway?"
"He wished to die of old age" stated the guard.
"How'd that do for him?" I asked.
"He should still be in the judgment hall when you get there, you can see fit yourself"
We finally arrive at the judgment hall. It was a large room with flat concrete walls all around. At about 10 feet of the ground the walls became glass and I could notice faint shadows scurrying back and forth. I move my gaze back to my immediate surrounding and I take a quick look around to see where the previous prisoner was, yet the whole room was empty save for a pile of dust on the ground. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the standard issue prisoner garments were barely visibly beneath the dust. The dots started connecting and I realized that my original wish would end in a similar fashion.
Suddenly, light emerged from behind the glass projecting the shadow of two figures onto the concrete walls.
A slightly snarky voice proclaims, "Well Mr. Alvin, have you decided how you would like to die today?"
I can feel beads of sweat roll down my forehead as I start racking my brain for some sort of request that could at least give my death meaning..... MEANING!
THATS IT!
"Um......", I started, "are you familiar with a guy named Jesus?"
"Don't you dare", the Snarky voice declared.
"I'd like to die as a great prophet that became a Martyr for his people."
The lights shut off and a flurry of shadows start racing through the glass and some barely audible banner ensures. I pressed my ear against the concrete hoping the vibrations could somehow clue me in on how the conversation went.
" He chose religion...... Of course he freaking chose religion..... "
"So what do we do now?"
"What we've always done. Coordinators P through X, I want you writing the holy scripture. You have 30 days to get it done. Don't even think about sleeping until you finish. Coordinators A through G, you guys are with me. We need to brainstorm different miracles that this Alvin dude will need to preform. H through O, you guys need to decide how he will teach martyrdom status. Coordinators Y and Z, brief Mr. Alvin on the standard religion scenario procedures. Ugh, I better be getting paid overtime for this...... " | 2021-06-24T10:30:49 | 2021-06-24T05:58:59 | 74 | 45 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | “Next.”
*SHITshitshitshitshitshit, FUCK! How the hell am I supposed to get out of this if they can even speed up time?!*
“Next!”
*Maybe I can try and tie it to my will? No, they’ll just torture me until I want death. Maybe some kind of paradox?*
“NEXT!”
A hand roughly grabbed me by my arm and yanked me forward. Panicking and lost in thought as I was, I stumbled and nearly fell on my face as I passed through the magic cylinder in front of me.
“Name?”
I looked up, trying to locate the source of the voice, but swirling runes and glowing, ambient energy blocked my sight while throwing the voice, making it sound as though it were all around me.. It was like I was in a universe all on my own, and God himself was bearing the full force of his judgement on me.
“Oh for the love o-NAME?!”
I jumped as the bureaucrat-God’s voice boomed in the entire column, my silence was clearly irritating him. “Oh, u-um, Erin Heckland.” The sound of rustling paper echoed all around me as I tentatively reached a hand out to touch the magic walls. Completely solid. No forcing my way out then, although that possibility had been exhausted long ago.
“Here we are, Miss Heckland. My my, that’s quite a long list. Alright, how do you want to die.”
“Well, I was planning on old age-“ the runes began glowing brighter, “BUT NOT ANYMORE!” I shout-finished. The runes dimmed. Shakily, I took a deep breath and continued, “so could I please have a minute?”
“Ugh, very well, but you get one minute exactly. If you don’t start talking by then, you will be hung.”
I blinked as an hourglass appeared in front of me, the sand rapidly draining my remaining time on Earth away. It wasn’t fair. I hadn’t hurt anyone, I had just found knowledge that the government didn’t want me to have. Some of it I didn’t even know was illegal until I got arrested! It wasn’t fair!
It wasn’t just.
It wasn’t…wait!
As the sand grains nearly finished draining, a huge grin split my face. “Oh here we go,” the drone began, “what hair-brained idea have you come up with to avoid death?”
“Not avoid it,” I confidently replied, “but stop it. If I’m going to die, I am taking this whole cursed process with me!”
The runes began to glow. | "I would like to die of old age"
I froze, as those words resonated in my head, the realization that his nape would be the last I see of him quickly sinked in.
"*Why...?*" I murmured. Why would he do that? He's not that gullible as to think the Supreme Court of Wizardry would let him get away with that, he's the mastermind behind it all, for Merlin's beard! He's the one who found out about the breach in the treaty, the muggle camps in Stirling, he convinced us, led us, believed in us... We were so close to rid the world of that noxious titan of a minister, just that one droplet would have been enough...
​
"Then, without further ado, for crimes against the Ministry, organising an uprising and for the theft of the sacred first titan Olaf's blood, we hereby sentence you to death, by old age, as requested." the judge's voice exploded through the hall.
His hair started losing its distinct red colour, exposing more and more patches of his scalp. Some weird black marks could be seen behind his curls.
I can barely contain my tears, I would've given everything for this man, as I'm sure he would've done for me also. He called me by his name, and yet this pitiful sight of him is all that's left...
​
Some commotion could be heard in the otherwise silent chamber of the jury, as a minute man hurried through the crowd, causing turmoil. His wacky moustache really didn't fit the vexed expression painting his face, neither did his voice tone, as it echoed through the room, trying to sound solemn.
"Know that we will find Olaf's blood! Your existence will be notorious through the whole continent as nothing more than pointless, so wipe that smirk off your face!"
"*He's... smirking?"* Of course he'd be smirking... even facing death under the spiteful noses of these disdainful aristocrats his spirit wouldn't break. I look back at him, as I struggle to accept my own fate myself, and right there, right in front of me is the answer. Tattooed on the back of his head is an encrypted message, calibrated exactly to work on my lenses!
I'm once more shook, as his body begins falling apart, I can't stop my tears, nor my gratitude, he really did give me everything in the end. The dust settles, and I make up my mind, looking up.
"The choice is yours." finally the judge's sight lands upon me, scrutinizing me, digging deep into my soul. I concede him little time however, as my leader's last words paint a clear picture in my mind, I spout my answer loud and clear.
"I wish to stab myself with the dagger resting on my desk at home!"
​
"So be it."
​
*A droplet of Olaf's blood is enough to rid a titan of their life, and grant a human a second one. He was half human.* | 2021-06-24T10:30:49 | 2021-06-24T09:19:00 | 74 | 12 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | “How would you like to die?”
What kind of question is that? I wouldn’t like to die at all! But still I must give an answer.
I am sentenced for crimes against magic. I tried to poison the Well of Magic. But truly magic is the root of all evil and corruption. It is just a way to cheat the laws of nature.
People without magic are barely 2nd class citizens. It has to stop. I have one last chance.
“By permanently and irrevocably destroying all magic.”
Either it works and my life goal is fulfilled or they refuse to kill me.
“Oh thank goodness!”
Not the answer I expected.
“We are finally free! The curse of magic is broken!” Exclaimed the head mage.
“Told you it would work,” said his vizier.
“You were right. Looks like if we pushed them far enough one of the stupid humans would find the loophole to end magic.”
The whole council faced me and bowed deeply.
“Thank you for fulfilling the prophecy and freeing us all!”
And then there was a blinding flash and I was over. | I'm waiting to die, everyone here is. I have seen a lot of people trying to fool the court, the last one requesting to die of old age, but all of them fail. At this point everyone has lost their hopes, there is no way of avoiding dead.
It's my turn and I go in front of that horrible people, happy witnesses of the magical demise that awaits me. A voice, one that seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, ask me how this magic room shall kill me. The voice says that the room will do exactly what I tell it with the only condition of choosing some way to die.
There is a countdown of one and a half minutes and I just don't know what to do, it seems to be impossible to avoid it. Well, I think, if I must die, I want to see them suffering.
"I request to die slowly while they die from what they would choose in my situation."
Those faces, full of horror while the voice ask them and the doors are shut is the only thing I needed to rest in peace. They try to avoid it, but it's inevitable. I died fast, they all tried to continue living and failed, but at least I could see part of those "high people" that made this happen diying. It's not the best, but it's the best anecdote I have from when I lived. Now, I only must see the concequences of my actions as part of the room punishment, but I'll watch and enjoy every second of it. | 2021-06-24T07:46:07 | 2021-06-24T04:31:51 | 68 | 17 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | "Well, that didn't work out as i thought" thought Alex, while the lifeless husk of an old man was being pushed away by a magical hand. "Now what? I've heard it all, and nothing worked. The best i came up with was within my loved one's arms, but the last guy who said that got stabbed in the heart by his wife, while she was conscious and crying her heart out. I can't do that to Peggy" thoughts continued to race through his mind while the judge called him out. "Alexander Borsworth, you have been found guilty of high treason against the council of mages, acts of terrorism, grand theft and attempted murder of the Archmage. The penalty of these crimes is death. Choose your preferred method of execution, you have 30 seconds". Alex ignored the old man speaking, while he thought of new ideas and immediately discarded them. "Porking out in a feast? No, the first bite would probably be poison. Old age didn't work. Rebirth was also terrifying to watch. What the hell do i do now? I gave my life to the cause, and this is what I ge-" he got it. That one fraction of a second of clarity, and he might just have thought of the one thing that could work. He looked the judge straight in the eyes, and pronounced loudly "i wish to die in battle, defending this world from the greatest threat known to it, and be remembered by all inhabitants of this planet, past present and future, as the hero who ended it all". The judge looked at Alex, and begrudgingly answered "so be it" and slammed his gavel.
In the blink of an eye, Alex was no longer in the courtroom, but at the top of a white marble tower, surrounded by people he never saw yelling his name. "Alex! Watch ou-" the sentence never ended as a wave of fire engulfed the whole platform and everyone on it...everyone, except Alex. As the flames vanished, in the distance he saw the judge on the other side of the platform, staff in hand, robe torn to tatters. The judge then saw the look of confusion and surprise on Alex's eyes, lowered his staff and said "finally, you've arrived. Three thousand four hundred and seventeen years have passed since that day, since your damned wish, and now it's over. You are the last of your cursed 'rebellion', and i am the last mage in this world. Come, let us end this. It is as you wished after all" and with these words, he prepared an incantation, the last he'd ever cast, while Alex, still confused, raised his own weapon and, without realizing nor willing it, charged the judge. | "I would like to die of old age"
I froze, as those words resonated in my head, the realization that his nape would be the last I see of him quickly sinked in.
"*Why...?*" I murmured. Why would he do that? He's not that gullible as to think the Supreme Court of Wizardry would let him get away with that, he's the mastermind behind it all, for Merlin's beard! He's the one who found out about the breach in the treaty, the muggle camps in Stirling, he convinced us, led us, believed in us... We were so close to rid the world of that noxious titan of a minister, just that one droplet would have been enough...
​
"Then, without further ado, for crimes against the Ministry, organising an uprising and for the theft of the sacred first titan Olaf's blood, we hereby sentence you to death, by old age, as requested." the judge's voice exploded through the hall.
His hair started losing its distinct red colour, exposing more and more patches of his scalp. Some weird black marks could be seen behind his curls.
I can barely contain my tears, I would've given everything for this man, as I'm sure he would've done for me also. He called me by his name, and yet this pitiful sight of him is all that's left...
​
Some commotion could be heard in the otherwise silent chamber of the jury, as a minute man hurried through the crowd, causing turmoil. His wacky moustache really didn't fit the vexed expression painting his face, neither did his voice tone, as it echoed through the room, trying to sound solemn.
"Know that we will find Olaf's blood! Your existence will be notorious through the whole continent as nothing more than pointless, so wipe that smirk off your face!"
"*He's... smirking?"* Of course he'd be smirking... even facing death under the spiteful noses of these disdainful aristocrats his spirit wouldn't break. I look back at him, as I struggle to accept my own fate myself, and right there, right in front of me is the answer. Tattooed on the back of his head is an encrypted message, calibrated exactly to work on my lenses!
I'm once more shook, as his body begins falling apart, I can't stop my tears, nor my gratitude, he really did give me everything in the end. The dust settles, and I make up my mind, looking up.
"The choice is yours." finally the judge's sight lands upon me, scrutinizing me, digging deep into my soul. I concede him little time however, as my leader's last words paint a clear picture in my mind, I spout my answer loud and clear.
"I wish to stab myself with the dagger resting on my desk at home!"
​
"So be it."
​
*A droplet of Olaf's blood is enough to rid a titan of their life, and grant a human a second one. He was half human.* | 2021-06-24T10:44:08 | 2021-06-24T09:19:00 | 22 | 12 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | The Wish was the last will of the self, a powerful magic that one's potential in time unleashed at a forced convergence point in time.
Everyone had a rather large potential, and so almost every Wish succeeded in ending the life of the subject in the way they asked for. Literally. Figuratively. It found a way. I didn't understand it outside of that it was wrong.
The last prisoner before me said old age with such a smirk. He thought it would save him. The unamused faces of the council show that this had been asked before and the result was unsurprising.
He was carefully placed into a wheelchair with the care of a paper display, and wheeled away to live out his hospice kindly. How long it took depended on his will to fight time.
Apparently, no one controlled it. "Anymore" was the operative word of the explanation given, but I was no scientist or mage and it went over my head. Everything in this world did, much like what I did to deserve this sentence.
They stood me in front of the council, a row of red and gold robes, like school graduates from a time I'd been thrown from. Coming from the past was my crime. I'd been asked by my employer to clean the dust from inside of a machine, and after an explosion, I woke up here.
When I asked what year it was, the answer did not clarify how far into the future I had gone. But it was clear: everyone I knew, and anyone they would have told about me, was already gone.
"Make your choice, timejacker, how will you die?"
Maybe that was why I was not afraid of an abrupt end. Even if I were to survive, where would I go?
"Of Loneliness." I replied, with truth.
But there was no one there to reply back. The last looks on their faces was shock. In a moment they had all disappeared into a wisp of ash, the traces scattered into the wind that rushed to fill their spaces. The prisoners behind me disappeared as well, their last sounds the jingle of metal shackles dropping to the floor.
Then there was silence.
What actually happened to fulfill that wish? Who could tell. Maybe the world had ended, maybe I had been sent to a timeline where everyone was gone.
Unstuck from time, the power of my Wish was incredible, and crueller than expected.
Three hours passed before I freed myself from the shackles on my wrists. No one came to help me.
I walked outside.
It was silent until the day I died. | There went my master planof outsmarting the system.
Joey, my former impromptu partner-in-crime, laid in the room as his life slipped through his grasp, surrounded by hospital equipment.
Joey wheezed and coughed by old age, I was running out of breath as a knot started sinking in my gut. The room started getting hotter as the world blurred.
I was panicking. I was panicking and I had been utterly defeated, just like the last hundreds of thousands of prisoners.
Had he said something else? Had he strayed from our plan!? It was foolproof!
I looked at Joey once again, panic settling in his eyes.
No, he hadn't strayed from the plan. The plan was doomed from the start.
It was too late. I had been cocky, and I was about to pay the price.
Memories of years past, good and bad, flashed across.
Maybe if I had chosen another path, I would've lived a long fulfilling life.
Just as I thought that, my knees buckled and I sunk to the floor.
Joey was clutching his chest as he convulsed.
A smile broke across my face as I went over my last thought. A long fulfilling life.
The curtains were drawn forth as I debated whether to be specific or not. Joey hadn't been specific and that didn't turn out well. But would they give me enough time to detail the rest of my life?
The light above the door sprung green, an oddly cheery color for people walking to their deaths.
The big door slid open and two guards joined my sides, bringing me into the room. The room had returned to the drabby grey of concrete.
As I stood in the room, the weight of death growing heavier on my shoulders, yet my legs remained locked straight, a painful lump forming in my throat.
How do you want to die? They asked.
I opened my mouth and words began spilling out.
I want to live a long fulfilling life free of crime and full of happiness and being a paragon of goodness, and to repay the world for the crimes I have done, and to reform myself into a better person, and die after living that long fulfilling life outside this prison, with my loved ones at my side.
Their eyes bore down into mine, and my breath hitched as they spoke.
Sit down into that chair.
I opened my mouth but one of the guards plopped me into the seat, while the other drew the curtain.
My heart skipped many beats as a feeling of cold and emptyness spread throughout my body, my eyes being squeezed shut.
It was stupid of me to think I could outsmart a century old system.
And then a wave of warmth washed over my body, with cool wind blowing past me.
You are one of those who chose to repent and repay the world for your actions. Thus, as in the past, you will be given a new life. But you must change the worlds of those you meet for the better. As soon as you fail, I shall claim your life. | 2021-06-24T11:47:16 | 2021-06-24T11:02:13 | 20 | 13 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | The Wish was the last will of the self, a powerful magic that one's potential in time unleashed at a forced convergence point in time.
Everyone had a rather large potential, and so almost every Wish succeeded in ending the life of the subject in the way they asked for. Literally. Figuratively. It found a way. I didn't understand it outside of that it was wrong.
The last prisoner before me said old age with such a smirk. He thought it would save him. The unamused faces of the council show that this had been asked before and the result was unsurprising.
He was carefully placed into a wheelchair with the care of a paper display, and wheeled away to live out his hospice kindly. How long it took depended on his will to fight time.
Apparently, no one controlled it. "Anymore" was the operative word of the explanation given, but I was no scientist or mage and it went over my head. Everything in this world did, much like what I did to deserve this sentence.
They stood me in front of the council, a row of red and gold robes, like school graduates from a time I'd been thrown from. Coming from the past was my crime. I'd been asked by my employer to clean the dust from inside of a machine, and after an explosion, I woke up here.
When I asked what year it was, the answer did not clarify how far into the future I had gone. But it was clear: everyone I knew, and anyone they would have told about me, was already gone.
"Make your choice, timejacker, how will you die?"
Maybe that was why I was not afraid of an abrupt end. Even if I were to survive, where would I go?
"Of Loneliness." I replied, with truth.
But there was no one there to reply back. The last looks on their faces was shock. In a moment they had all disappeared into a wisp of ash, the traces scattered into the wind that rushed to fill their spaces. The prisoners behind me disappeared as well, their last sounds the jingle of metal shackles dropping to the floor.
Then there was silence.
What actually happened to fulfill that wish? Who could tell. Maybe the world had ended, maybe I had been sent to a timeline where everyone was gone.
Unstuck from time, the power of my Wish was incredible, and crueller than expected.
Three hours passed before I freed myself from the shackles on my wrists. No one came to help me.
I walked outside.
It was silent until the day I died. | "I would like to die of old age"
I froze, as those words resonated in my head, the realization that his nape would be the last I see of him quickly sinked in.
"*Why...?*" I murmured. Why would he do that? He's not that gullible as to think the Supreme Court of Wizardry would let him get away with that, he's the mastermind behind it all, for Merlin's beard! He's the one who found out about the breach in the treaty, the muggle camps in Stirling, he convinced us, led us, believed in us... We were so close to rid the world of that noxious titan of a minister, just that one droplet would have been enough...
​
"Then, without further ado, for crimes against the Ministry, organising an uprising and for the theft of the sacred first titan Olaf's blood, we hereby sentence you to death, by old age, as requested." the judge's voice exploded through the hall.
His hair started losing its distinct red colour, exposing more and more patches of his scalp. Some weird black marks could be seen behind his curls.
I can barely contain my tears, I would've given everything for this man, as I'm sure he would've done for me also. He called me by his name, and yet this pitiful sight of him is all that's left...
​
Some commotion could be heard in the otherwise silent chamber of the jury, as a minute man hurried through the crowd, causing turmoil. His wacky moustache really didn't fit the vexed expression painting his face, neither did his voice tone, as it echoed through the room, trying to sound solemn.
"Know that we will find Olaf's blood! Your existence will be notorious through the whole continent as nothing more than pointless, so wipe that smirk off your face!"
"*He's... smirking?"* Of course he'd be smirking... even facing death under the spiteful noses of these disdainful aristocrats his spirit wouldn't break. I look back at him, as I struggle to accept my own fate myself, and right there, right in front of me is the answer. Tattooed on the back of his head is an encrypted message, calibrated exactly to work on my lenses!
I'm once more shook, as his body begins falling apart, I can't stop my tears, nor my gratitude, he really did give me everything in the end. The dust settles, and I make up my mind, looking up.
"The choice is yours." finally the judge's sight lands upon me, scrutinizing me, digging deep into my soul. I concede him little time however, as my leader's last words paint a clear picture in my mind, I spout my answer loud and clear.
"I wish to stab myself with the dagger resting on my desk at home!"
​
"So be it."
​
*A droplet of Olaf's blood is enough to rid a titan of their life, and grant a human a second one. He was half human.* | 2021-06-24T11:47:16 | 2021-06-24T09:19:00 | 20 | 12 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches. | Well shit. There went my plan. Looks like old age is not a way out of it when they can rapidly age you before the assembled court. I had to come up with something amazing if I wanted to survive this execution. To be fair I probably did deserve this, I had killed a few (dozen) people in rather brutal fashion. Deserving something and wanting it however are not the same thing. I deserve to die but I want to live, who knows, maybe if I can find a way to keep myself alive they'll have chance to rehabilitate and release me. If only I could live as long as the stars! WAIT!!! I know exactly what to say...
It's not me just yet, one more to watch die. Poor thing looks even younger than I do, she's maybe 18, so innocent looking. "Mariah Zell, you have been convicted of two counts of murder in the first degree, evidence tampering, desecration of a corpse via necrophilia and cannibalism" ... my mistake, not so innocent "the sentence for which is death, how do you wish to die?"
"Choking on the flesh of a newborn babe, the child I never should have borne." She spat and hissed at the judge like an angry cat and the man's eyes went wide and just for a moment I thought he would deny her request, shocking as it was, especially being as her son had been who she had cannibalised. She had not eaten much, just a little of his leg, before her boyfriend had arrived home and caught her. He'd called the police before she'd killed him and had been found using his corpse as a grotesque sex toy.
But of course not, no judge may deny a method of death no matter how disgusting. Instead the judge granted it by conjuring from the air an exact replica of the child's arm (at least, that's what it looked like to me, I never knew him), down to the birth mark. He cast upon it a spell more commonly used by assassin's to enchant food to choke the next person who ate it then passed it to her. She sank her teeth into the arm ferally. It was disturbing to see. She chewed, swallowed and gasped. It was stuck in her throat, as intended. It took her a surprisingly long time to die. Minutes, not seconds. I hope she was satisfied in giving the court a show.
My turn now.
"Eliza Warren, you have been convicted of 156 counts of murder in the first degree. The punishment is death. How do you wish to die?"
"I wish to die with the heat death of the universe" | "I would like to die of old age"
I froze, as those words resonated in my head, the realization that his nape would be the last I see of him quickly sinked in.
"*Why...?*" I murmured. Why would he do that? He's not that gullible as to think the Supreme Court of Wizardry would let him get away with that, he's the mastermind behind it all, for Merlin's beard! He's the one who found out about the breach in the treaty, the muggle camps in Stirling, he convinced us, led us, believed in us... We were so close to rid the world of that noxious titan of a minister, just that one droplet would have been enough...
​
"Then, without further ado, for crimes against the Ministry, organising an uprising and for the theft of the sacred first titan Olaf's blood, we hereby sentence you to death, by old age, as requested." the judge's voice exploded through the hall.
His hair started losing its distinct red colour, exposing more and more patches of his scalp. Some weird black marks could be seen behind his curls.
I can barely contain my tears, I would've given everything for this man, as I'm sure he would've done for me also. He called me by his name, and yet this pitiful sight of him is all that's left...
​
Some commotion could be heard in the otherwise silent chamber of the jury, as a minute man hurried through the crowd, causing turmoil. His wacky moustache really didn't fit the vexed expression painting his face, neither did his voice tone, as it echoed through the room, trying to sound solemn.
"Know that we will find Olaf's blood! Your existence will be notorious through the whole continent as nothing more than pointless, so wipe that smirk off your face!"
"*He's... smirking?"* Of course he'd be smirking... even facing death under the spiteful noses of these disdainful aristocrats his spirit wouldn't break. I look back at him, as I struggle to accept my own fate myself, and right there, right in front of me is the answer. Tattooed on the back of his head is an encrypted message, calibrated exactly to work on my lenses!
I'm once more shook, as his body begins falling apart, I can't stop my tears, nor my gratitude, he really did give me everything in the end. The dust settles, and I make up my mind, looking up.
"The choice is yours." finally the judge's sight lands upon me, scrutinizing me, digging deep into my soul. I concede him little time however, as my leader's last words paint a clear picture in my mind, I spout my answer loud and clear.
"I wish to stab myself with the dagger resting on my desk at home!"
​
"So be it."
​
*A droplet of Olaf's blood is enough to rid a titan of their life, and grant a human a second one. He was half human.* | 2021-06-24T10:26:09 | 2021-06-24T09:19:00 | 17 | 12 |
[WP] The emperor laughed and boasted to the human leader. "That was a fun war! Let me know when your soldiers come back alive." "...Are you saying your people do not die? Forever?" "Wait, what?" | # Foreword to the Poet's War, by John Burnett
The Terani send their poets to war. I know because I’ve fought them, and because I’ve read the collections of the men I thought I'd killed.
When I was young, a boy of eighteen, I went to the trenches of Tau Ceti. I brought along a million of my best friends, and shoulder to shoulder, vibro-bayonet to vibro-bayonet, we learned something of what it meant to be alive, and much of what it meant to die.
And all the while we heard the Terani singing on the other side of no mans land, their trenches guarded by the glittering domes of force fields, their foxholes burrowed with their bare hands, their claws extending six inches or more from the fingers with the flick of a wrist. When they fought they wore plasteel armor and carried laser rifles and the bravest of them went into battle armed like the days of old. Old to them, not to us, their swords still glittered with the power of kinetic accelerators, and their spears were more like guided missiles.
In the early days we did not know that they did not die. Who could have conceived of that then, when the human race was still in its infancy. They did not die, and we could scarcely manage to live, and though each toiled the same the risks were far different.
That lost us the war, but it won us the peace.
You see, the Terani Imperium is not an imperium in the way of man. It is, perhaps, closest to the late 20th and early 21st century American cultural hegemony with all the serial filed off and the budget divorced from the defense department.
Because, of course, the Terani send their poets to war.
In the Terani Imperium all things revolve around the Culture. They are an empire of mind, not empire of steel, and the nature of their army reflects that. It is not an arm of defense or offense or anything else so banal, it is their Cultural Outreach Department, Training Division 001, the motto of which is loosely translated as “A Poem is Pain Portrayed.”
And in my years at war they portrayed far more than their share.
For two years the Terani Imperium rained hell down onto our trenches. We had no force fields and they their bombs. They showed us orbital lasers for the first time, whispered the first, rippling stanzas of a planet cracker into our ears. On Christmas Day, 2441 they us made a gift of plague, scented the aerosol like frankincense.
In the decade that followed they shared with us the long forgotten terrestrial concept of hard treaties with foreign powers, and when I found the wreckage of my Tau Ceti home I packed it into a shoe box and shipped it back to Earth alongside the ashes a half million good men and another million or so civvies.
And then towards the end of that decade, all us eighteen year olds grew up, and the Terani learned something of the difference between our two races.
They send their poets to war to make them better. We send our boys to war, and the war makes them poets.
This collection is a measure of that. I wrote some of these in the trenches, more of them hospitals, more of them awake in bed as the nightmares shook themselves loose, Wilfrid Owen open at my bedside.
They sent us bombs and lasers and plague. We sent them back Sassoon and Owen and Hemmingway. And, as the critics see fit to list me among them, Burnett. I find myself disagreeing with that sentiment, but as my publisher says, we’re on track to sell a billion copies in the Imperium and that counts for something.
I’m not treading any territory that’s new to us humans. The Terani might have never seen anything like Owen or myself. It would be constitutionally impossible for them to ever do so, for one cannot expose the great lie of *Dulce et Decorum Est* without the floundering man, and that dear readers is their weakness.
Remember that when you read these poems. Imagine the blasted space between two trenches, voices raised in a curlew’s chatter above the ozone torn air, and remember it was poets in both trenches, one set real, one set fake even by their own terms, and do not begrudge me a few last parting lines to my youth.
The Terani send their poets to war. I know because I’ve fought them, and because I’ve read the collections of men I’d thought I killed.
And I know that the thing that separates us is nothing so simple as technology, who has the better bomb or the bigger gun.
It’s poetry. Real words versus fake, the difference between Horace’s Ode and Owen’s poem.
And excuse me one last time, for a passing gloat.
A billion sales in the Imperium, and in the past year not a single one of the poets I’d thought I killed have sold more than a dozen copies. “A Poem is Pain Portrayed,” says their Cultural Department.
Well dear readers, let us see how that is done.
\-----------
If you enjoyed that I've got tons more over at r/TurningtoWords. Come check it out, I'd love to have you! | Garen tried standing up, but his knee buckled. Where did they go wrong? His breath was fleeting and blood dripped from a fresh wound beneath the hair on his head. So close, so close to victory and the end of this tyrant’s rule. The creak of metal jarred Garen’s thoughts. His enchanted armor had long lost the magic in its runes. Instead of instilling him with strength and agility, the armor dragged him down like an anchor.
A child’s voice cackled in delight, “Again, again!”
Xyverath, God-Emperor, the first of his name and eternal ruler of Loria, was clapping with youthful enjoyment.
Strewn across the decadent court room were the bodies of twenty veteran soldiers. Now those elites were simply meat, waiting to rot. His company which he had rallied from across the kingdom had been in high spirits when they first arrived. They were the heroes! Destined to topple the iron grip of a mad king who ruled from the shadows. That energy twisted into confusion and then horror when they discovered who their ‘enemy’ really was.
A small lad. For all the planning, bribery, subterfuge and brute force they employed; never would Garen have thought that the man who was said to be invulnerable stood barely up to Garen’s waist. Xyverath did not look a day over eight. They were frozen. Surely, this child could not be the one responsible for the cave prisons? Surely, of all things Xyverath would barely be able to decide what to eat that day let alone determine the brutal tithing policy that bankrupted and starved most villages.
Garen should have detected the façade. Even during their arrival, Xyverath remained sitting lazily on his obsidian throne. Despite the room being filled with the stench of impending battle Xyverath had exclaimed happily, like he had just been given his first sword.
Then a sound drifted through the air. Almost like the whisper of the wind on a grassy plain it snaked through their ears belying the carnage that was to follow. Tarth, the Bold had been the first to step forward and demand to see the real king. Tarth was also the first to slowly slump to the ground with a crater in his chest. Xyverath remained on his throne, however now he juggled a man’s heart in a game of “Keep-Up”. Blood rained lightly on the boy’s skin and clothes.
Garen and his companions quickly overturned their previous assumptions. No mere child could wage destruction so casually and without warning. The crew had no choice, but to engage – for their very lives were at stake! Garen and his company waged a desperate battle for all of five minutes before giving way before the might of Xyverath’s overwhelming power.
Garen let out a single laugh without any real mirth and struggled to stand. Fifteen years as a warrior for this kingdom and nothing to show when it counted the most. Garen focused on his enemy to keep from blacking out. All defiance within him had fled by the end of the battle.
Xyverath had all the appearances of a lordly, eight-year-old. His crown was a tad oversized, so the emperor had set it half-cocked on his head. His burgundy robes were plush and covered in various gems of glimmering colors. What stung the most was not that his comrades, most of whom had been with him since the first Crusade, had been silenced. It was Xyverath’s face. It wore the look of a child who had dropped his toys down a well and was irritated that they had not resurfaced.
It was so very the opposite the look of a monster who could pluck the heart of a man with the beckoning of a single finger.
“No fair! Why won’t it get up?”
In the time Garen had taken to remember the fall of his friends, Xyverath had approached the body of Dimra, the Shield. Xyverath lightly kicked at the mangled corpse with his satin shoe.
Garen’s vision bled red,
“You do not touch him fiend! Get away from him!”
Xyverath adopted a haughty look and continued, “Why do they send you all this way only to stop playing after a little bit? I still want more fun!”
“Fun? FUN? What are you saying? Are you so cruel as to gloat after such an easy victory?” Garen moaned in hoarse desperation.
“Why won’t they get up and play?” Xyverath asked.
Garen noticed the jovialness had left the boy’s face and been replaced by a solemn innocence.
“You killed them, lord. They won’t be getting back up”.
Garen realized that this emperor, locked away in his fortress must not have learnt the true effects of the horrors he could reap.
“Death is eternal for us humans. Someone must have told you?”
The emperor, looking more like a child than ever replied softly: “I didn’t think they meant it”.
Of course, what is death to an immortal being stuck in the visage of a child?
“This is just child’s play you know”. A dark tone added to the child’s voice.
Garen watched a black miasma, blacker than a cloudy night seep into the palms of Xyverath.
Xyverath smiled, the light not touching his eyes as an all-too adult voice pronounced through the air:
“They need not have just one life you know? Not until we are done.”
Tendrils entered the rents and breaks of the fallen ones’ armor. Slowly the corpses rose, the same as when they fell. Xyverath locked eyes with Garen and clapped his hands together.
“Let’s have another round, shall we?” | 2022-12-09T06:27:20 | 2021-07-13T13:54:46 | 1,513 | 14 |
[WP] A notoriously talkative superhero is forced to remain silent for an extended period of time due to civilian, secret identity reasons. Villains, civilians, even other heroes are unnerved and intimidated by the hero's new stoic, silent behavior. | I was the last one standing. The Bug Trifecta, the three most powerful villains in the whole city has gotten defeated... by fucking Current. Both Moth and Spider lay on the ground, maybe dead or maybe just paralyzed, leaving me alone to fight him. Normally I could manage him, after all, I am the great Bee. My robotic stingers are famous for sending the largest amount of Augmenteds to the ER, but this time I had doubts.
You see, my dear readers, normally Current is a funny guy. And for the love of God, he cannot keep quiet. That means "quirky" one-liners, backhanded compliments, and long-winded discussions. We had danced this tango for over 2 years, but now? He was silent. Towering over me, electricity creeping through his armor.
I decided to try a joke. "Hey Current!" I said in a snarky tone. "Ratman got your tongue?". I got a thunderbolt as my only response.
Of course, I dodged it. My robo-wings allow me to fly up to 20 kilometers per hour. "Are you giving me the silent treatment or what?" Still no response.
I started to become nervous if I am being honest. Normally, when something like this happens, it means something bad is coming. I still remember when Drakon became a silent hero. Villains started to die en masse. Obviously, I survived. After all, I am the greatest villain this city has seen, and not even Drakon could stop me. But here I was, seconds away from meeting my demise at the hands of Current.
"Why won't you talk!?" I shouted, throwing a car at him. I specifically chose the BMW, to cause the greatest amount of property damage. After all, I am extremely devious. But he simply dodged and rushed me, much faster than my Robo-wings could allow me to dodge.
When he finished beating me to half-death, he whispered a phrase to me I'll never forget. "There are microphones hidden everywhere. And I don't know who did it, so if you want to remain anonymous, shut the fuck up."
Needless to say, when I woke up I was in jail, a lot with my fellow villains. And mark my words: The Bug Trifecta will rise again, and if someone wants to find out our secret identities, we'll beat him too! After all, we are the greatest supervillain group this city has seen. | "Oh now this is just ridiculous Tank!" Velveteen cackled as he had his minions attack his archnemesis The Tank who with a swing of her mighty fists made short work of them. Her latest outfit was just awful. Full black with no highlighting of her luscious curves. "You're going woke and broke!" He exclaimed as he jumped out of the window with the money from the latest heist. He wasn't use to providing dialogue for their fights, but he needed to fill the silence she was leaving behind. It was unnatural for a hero to be silent, no only the ones that left broken necks were quiet.
He landed on the money and rolled off with ease and started running, knowing Tank wouldn't be far behind, still he couldn't help turning to watch her superhero landing. He missed the days when she use to wear a skirt and he'd get the occasional thrill but no Tank had changed over the years. No more skirt, no more boob window. Damned SJWs even effected supes as she had changed everything to a mannish manner, even going so far as to go completely flat chested! At least she still had that dump truck of an ass. Speaking of dump trucks, Velveteen was in luck as one rounded the corner and grabbed on. "Tanks again for the good time!" He knew that Tank wouldn't dare take down a city truck, the only thing stronger than her sense of justice was her sense of civic duty.
Tank didn't even run to catch up with him, the reason was obvious as the truck stopped at the corner as it proceeded to pick up trash. Tank grabbed him by the back of his neck like an errant kitten. No remarks about collecting trash, no quips about finding spare boyfriends there, just cold silence.
"Tank talk to me! What did I do wrong?" Velveteen all but sobbed. "Talk to me!" But Tank said nothing, not even as he begged like one of his victims. What was the point of their rivalry if it was only one sided anymore? What was the point of any of this anymore if he was the only one having fun?
xxx
"Terry did you see the news? Velveteen has finally decided to reform."
"No shit, really Ma?" Terry grabbed the paper to read the story. "I've been trying to get him to stop for years and he finally does? What the shit." Terry sulked while eating cornflakes.
"See I told you things were getting better. You should shave before heading to work, you're looking like a little scruffy." Terry looked at his reflection in the toaster, his beard still looked like crap but he didn't want ruin his limited progress, he was looking forward to one day filling out his new helmet that he designed to accommodate a full Gimli style beard. He had been looking forward to see what lamebrained comment Velveteen would have come up with. | 2022-01-24T10:13:49 | 2022-01-24T08:41:17 | 37 | 23 |
[WP] Every God gets a planet to take care of for their final project. You are pretty sure you're going to fail the assignment because your planet has this weird gross stuff growing all over it. | Oh crap! Oh crap! Oh crap! What am I going to do? I'm throwing everything I have at it but it just keeps coming right back!
"Doug I still need your project submitted before you leave." Crap teach is coming! Maybe rinsing it would work. Darn it, I didn't get it all! How does it spread so fast?
"Doug did you here me?"
Crap! "Uh, yeah! No problem teach I just need a few minutes to uh... polish it up." Maybe a little Fire and Brimst-
"Doug I already gave you a three eon extension! If you don't turn in your planet right now, I will fail you!"
\[Sigh\] Oh well I only need a thirty percent to pass. I just hope the liquid water will make up for this weird green crud that got everywhere. "Alright, just be gentle when you part the ether. My planet is a bit on the small side."
"I swear Doug you are one of my smartest students if you weren't such a procrastinator you-" Teach freezes and her face scrunches into a form of pure concentration.
Crap! Crap! Crap! Why did she pause? Is it that bad. What's with that look? Stop! I can still salvage this. "So yeah I know it looks weird, but I was going for a new approach. Something more dynamic and uh... interactive."
There is no way she'll by that! I should just go home and see if McDonalds is still hiring. What a waste. Tuition wasn't cheap.
"I can't believe you made this..."
'I know it's gro-"
"It's astonishing!"
What!
"In all my years I've never seen anything like it." Teach looks to me confused. "You mean to say you made this?"
What just happened? I should be getting lectured for procrastinating. What is she talking about?
"Doug?"
Snapping out of it. "What? I mean of course I made it. It took a lot of time, but I believe it to be time well spent!" What am I talking about? I just left it sitting out by the sink till the last possible millennia. By time I got around to shaping the planet I found it covered with this crud that wouldn't stay gone.
"Now I know why you wanted the extension. You created life! I don't know how you did it, but... wow. Just wow."
This can't be real, but I got to know. "So... Do you think this will get me a passing grade?"
Teach looks at me somewhat surprised. Like she forgot I was here. "What? I mean of course."
Thank goodness. I could start dancing I'm so happy
Suddenly Teach makes a notably confused face.
"Is something wrong?"
"It's just. Why is your planet flat?" | I could be the God of anything. The God of Music gets his Planet of Symphony. The God of Lightning gets his Terra of Thunder. The God of War gets his World of Wars. I am the God of Bryophytes.
Every God receives a planet before a spot on the throne of Gods. The higher the grade, the more power thine shall receive in return. Failure is unknown to my people. The punishment is an enigma. An Ark of Covenant, if thou seeks thou shall never return.
Theosn, the Almighty King himself, gives thou's final result at the end of a full sun rotation for our Planet. My Planet's cycle is 270 days, 'Perfectly reasonable' says the Gods with 365 days or more of rotation. The God of Gods might as well be the God of Perfection, our planet must be spotless. The rubric states, 'Must contain lifeforms. If any species gain sentience, less than a hundred wars committed. A full ozone layer intact. No over or under growing of any level of species' population.' That is only four of many rules and regulations.
I stare at this overgrown mass of a Planet I've been given. The sunlight bounces off of its' curves to unveil the green fixed to its' surface. I've been calculating for the past 269 and 3/4 days. 85% land, 15% water (Salt or Fresh). I have no sentient lifeforms. Of that 85% in land, 80% has been covered in a green surface. It has to be 25% minus however much of thine's land percentage. I've beyond failed this project. Perhaps curiosity got the better of me, or perhaps I'm just that lazy.
With a hand propping up my head, I contemplate how I might've failed. Even the God of War was able to pass with flying colors. I wasn't too great at the 'Restraint of Power' project but I thought I would've done better than this. I was told a few deserts or tundras should help to keep the percentages down but I wouldn't even know where to begin.
I see a chariot fly by, my planet turning for the final time. 270 days after I've started, I managed to botch up this project. Theosn looks at me with a mighty glare, "There are lifeforms, no?" I try to comfort the blow of my failure but he's never amused. We fly down to my planet, both shrinking to fit.
He waves a hand at me and flies off in a hurry. I feel my arms and legs go numb. I flop down to the ground, 'Pain?' Is this how that feels. I try to scream or cry, but no noise comes out. I'm paralyzed as I fade. My arm sinks into the ground, blend into the green of my world. My memory begins to slip. What's happening? I'm try to look down to no avail. My body has sunk to the green surface that covers my world. Am I a floating head? What I am? Who am I? I look to the sky, bright and sunny. But it's cut short as my vision is increasing covered with dir-... | 2022-01-27T13:43:10 | 2022-01-27T09:56:00 | 33 | 11 |
[WP] You are death, but in a post apocalyptic world. Only a few survivors remain and you’re doing everything you can to help them because if they die, you die as well. The survivors can’t see you, but they feel your presence and noticed your effort. They’ve started to call you “life.”
Saw this prompt elsewhere, If it’s already been done I apologise. | I have seen civilization fall. I've seen it rise like a phoenix from the ashes, only to burn out in its own magnificence. It was as much the cycle of life as any living being.
I have seen the fall of the last civilization of man. Greed, corruption and short-sightedness joined together with technology that could rival magic had brought death on a scale that dwarfed any cataclysm. But humans survived the end of the world before.
Of course, I was here long before the first human. I have existed from the moment that the first organism, a tiny single cell, came to move on its own. Many creatures feared me, long before the primate that conquered the planet. But humans were special.
When the wolf fears something, it will simply avoid it, or attack it if it runs out of options. Humans... If humans see something they are afraid of, they will be drawn to it. Compelled, perhaps, by the same curiosity that lead them to harness lighting and build homes from the remnants of dying stars. The same drive that made them scorch the world.
And that curiousity forced me into being. I existed before them, yes, but only as a basic force. A fact of nature, really. Then humans began asking questions. "Why do we die?", "Where do we go after?", "Can we not die, somehow?". And they kept asking, making me slowly, over millennia, understand that I don't know the answers. And, much more importantly, that I really want to.
So I try to help them, the surviving humans. Small pockets, sometimes a single wanderer in the midst of a dead land, sometimes as much as a village, raised with the corpses of old machinery and barely rediscovered science. Small things- chase some wild beasts into their range, refrain from collecting plants, or sick people. Not permanently, just for a while. I do it as a selfishness, of course. Without them, I will be nothing more but a basic fact of nature once again. I don't relish the thought.
They started to notice my presence. When a person who should die of sickness lives three more days, because I stayed my hand, just barely making it to drink the medicine that saves him, I have to be nearby. When the buffalo are scared of wolves, but run *next* to the huts, letting hunters capture a meal, rather than *through* the huts, killing many, I'm there, balancing the score. And they can feel me.
I thought they'd be scared. Somehow, though, they find comfort in me. So much so, that they have started praying to me. Some call me "Zhiznh", or "Lewe" or "Haim". Different cultures, different languages, kilometres away from each other, they all gave me one name- "Life".
I will help them. In time, they will rebuild, and spread throughout the stars, building a new civilization, one that will be a shining star compared to the candles that came before. I'm not sure how I'll do it. But, the humans have a saying:
Life finds a way. | I knew the names of those that stepped into my door. They did not offer their souls, but they were nonetheless forfeit. It was the way the world worked.
I realized now that I never knew the people.
For one that lived an eternity, the apocalypse was at once sudden and inevitable, and yet ultimately unnecessary.. A flash of light—a brighter one not seen since the creation of the world—destroyed it, so quickly, and fearful fallout henceforth suffused the atmosphere. The air became steeped with thick ash and soot, a cloud, oversteeped storm in a teacup.
There were so many names, each struck off with the ease and abundance of sunrays through clear skies.
For the first moments since the dawn of time, I beheld the entirety of humanity in one gaze. I watched them crawl, unborn children in a new world, and for once considered the death of myself.
The end of Death itself.
It was not fear that drove me onwards. I watched the humans, and every day, I found myself inevitably scratching off yet another name. I now had the time to behold their stories, their legends, their tales of long past that enlighten the future. Optimism, it seemed, was as infectious as death.
Carol was a mother of one, Joseph. They were not related by blood, but the woman found him huddled in the withering bones of another woman, crying quietly in trepidation—but alive. But she was equally capable at the makeshift slingshot, crafted from deadwood and fortuitous string, crunching the skulls of lightly irradiated deer.
“Slowly dying was better than quickly starving,” she said.
It had been simple to tick off life. There was no trouble discounting half-lives.
There was Max. In an existence past, he was a scholar, perusing the written word for both calling and leisure. Once a sponge for knowledge, he now distributed it like a mountain spring. And curiously, knowledge was not like water, for it did not run out when shared—but multiplied. He urged the importance of looking forward to the future, to ignore gratification and the gnawing abyss of their stomachs, to save some of their grain for the ground.
It was a simple matter to destroy the pests that would encroach about those green shoots.
And there was the man who called himself Brother. Said he couldn’t remember his name, though I contemplated whispering it on the wind for him. He had been a man of unshakeable faith, and even apocalypse barely made a dent in his indomitable will. He spoke not of miracles then, but of little miracles now—the presence of a fortunate well, the rising of the hot sun instead of grey cloud drawing near. For these bereft people, one small miracle, even those manufactured by me, was worth celebrating.
And this man called me Life. But I was Death, the god of the end. There was no sense to it.
“It is Life that is watching upon us all,” he would say, to a devoted group that could easily be counted with one’s fingers. I watched, more out of amusement, and slowly ticking off the ill-fated ones picking a fight far away from the tribe. But more and more names joined the list, joined the one that would worship Life—with some even commenting on my presence within the church.
How could they feel Death beside them, and still call it life?
The humans each had a name. But they called themselves hunter, gatherers, farmers, and lifegivers, one body capable of many things. Those gnarled fingers could grow, and could also kill.
I realized that even Death could do the same.
---
r/dexdrafts | 2022-02-20T11:07:34 | 2022-02-20T10:08:56 | 828 | 96 |
[WP] You are death, but in a post apocalyptic world. Only a few survivors remain and you’re doing everything you can to help them because if they die, you die as well. The survivors can’t see you, but they feel your presence and noticed your effort. They’ve started to call you “life.”
Saw this prompt elsewhere, If it’s already been done I apologise. | **Looking for Death**
If you’re looking for death, follow the crying.
My shadowy cloak billows around me as I float toward the the small hut at the edge of Omega, a woman’s wailing drawing me in like a flame draws bugs. That’s what they’re calling the town these days, Omega, since it’s the last town left in the world.
They’re wrong, at least I hope so. I hope it’s the first town, the first settlement after the apocalypse, the place where humanity proves it can survive anything.
Look at me, death incarnate, being all hopeful. Things have changed indeed.
I pause for a moment outside the hut. This is the home of the Jacobsons. Who could this be? They were fine just earlier this week. These humans are so fragile.
I pass through the wall. The temperature drops. The hairs on the back of Mrs. Jacobson’s neck rise and her wailing turns to sniffles as she stands up to turn
and look in my direction. Her eyes are red from crying, and her tattered blue dress is wrinkled and dirty. She can’t see me, but she knows I’m here.
Mr. Jacobson is lying there on the bed, breathing his last ragged breaths.
I’ve seen this scene a billion times, over and over again, through every age, through every culture, through every combination imaginable, loved ones with their dying. Normally, the chill I bring, the shiver up the spine, brings dread with it.
But here in Omega, like so many things, it’s different. Here, my presence is a refreshing breeze, a signal of hope rather than a sign of doom.
Soon I am hovering beside Mr. Jacobson on the other side of the bed. Another few minutes and his soul would be ready for me, ready to escort beyond this plane and onto another.
Before, I would let it happen. When the time has come, the time has come. Death is not something to be feared. Death just is.
Here, though, death cannot be. If all of them die, I die. And *my* death? Well, that is terrifying.
“Death just is.” How naive, how pretentious, how horribly *privileged* of me. Look at me now. Cowering away from it, shirking from my only duties as death, bending over backwards for these silly creatures, creatures I’ve tormented and haunted and terrified for millions of years, believing them weak for fearing the end.
I stretch out my hands and hold them over Mr. Jacobson’s body. He’s sick, an infection ravaging his body. My powers seek out the bacteria eating away at him from the inside, and kills them. That’s something I’ve only just learned I can do.
The pained expression on his face washes away. Instantly, I can feel life returning to him. He opens his eyes, looks at his wife, and smiles.
I float away as she runs to him and collapses on his chest, tears of joy streaming down her face, deep, aching, rolling sobs of relief pouring out of her.
If you’re looking for death, follow the crying.
___
r/StealthyStorkStories | I knew the names of those that stepped into my door. They did not offer their souls, but they were nonetheless forfeit. It was the way the world worked.
I realized now that I never knew the people.
For one that lived an eternity, the apocalypse was at once sudden and inevitable, and yet ultimately unnecessary.. A flash of light—a brighter one not seen since the creation of the world—destroyed it, so quickly, and fearful fallout henceforth suffused the atmosphere. The air became steeped with thick ash and soot, a cloud, oversteeped storm in a teacup.
There were so many names, each struck off with the ease and abundance of sunrays through clear skies.
For the first moments since the dawn of time, I beheld the entirety of humanity in one gaze. I watched them crawl, unborn children in a new world, and for once considered the death of myself.
The end of Death itself.
It was not fear that drove me onwards. I watched the humans, and every day, I found myself inevitably scratching off yet another name. I now had the time to behold their stories, their legends, their tales of long past that enlighten the future. Optimism, it seemed, was as infectious as death.
Carol was a mother of one, Joseph. They were not related by blood, but the woman found him huddled in the withering bones of another woman, crying quietly in trepidation—but alive. But she was equally capable at the makeshift slingshot, crafted from deadwood and fortuitous string, crunching the skulls of lightly irradiated deer.
“Slowly dying was better than quickly starving,” she said.
It had been simple to tick off life. There was no trouble discounting half-lives.
There was Max. In an existence past, he was a scholar, perusing the written word for both calling and leisure. Once a sponge for knowledge, he now distributed it like a mountain spring. And curiously, knowledge was not like water, for it did not run out when shared—but multiplied. He urged the importance of looking forward to the future, to ignore gratification and the gnawing abyss of their stomachs, to save some of their grain for the ground.
It was a simple matter to destroy the pests that would encroach about those green shoots.
And there was the man who called himself Brother. Said he couldn’t remember his name, though I contemplated whispering it on the wind for him. He had been a man of unshakeable faith, and even apocalypse barely made a dent in his indomitable will. He spoke not of miracles then, but of little miracles now—the presence of a fortunate well, the rising of the hot sun instead of grey cloud drawing near. For these bereft people, one small miracle, even those manufactured by me, was worth celebrating.
And this man called me Life. But I was Death, the god of the end. There was no sense to it.
“It is Life that is watching upon us all,” he would say, to a devoted group that could easily be counted with one’s fingers. I watched, more out of amusement, and slowly ticking off the ill-fated ones picking a fight far away from the tribe. But more and more names joined the list, joined the one that would worship Life—with some even commenting on my presence within the church.
How could they feel Death beside them, and still call it life?
The humans each had a name. But they called themselves hunter, gatherers, farmers, and lifegivers, one body capable of many things. Those gnarled fingers could grow, and could also kill.
I realized that even Death could do the same.
---
r/dexdrafts | 2022-02-20T11:25:42 | 2022-02-20T10:08:56 | 178 | 96 |
[WP] You open a letter addressed to your home’s previous owner. Inside is an “Application for Immortality “. The questions are strange and entertaining so you fill it out. | "What is the fundamental flaw with Avocados?" I read aloud. "What a weird question."
My wife leaned into the doorframe from the hallway. "Steve, I still don't think you should be reading that. Isn't reading someone else's mail, like, a Federal crime?"
"Idunno" I replied, as I wrote out my answer.
"Shouldn't we track down the previous owner and send it to them?" She asked.
"We got this from auction, I think it was an old dude's estate or something." I skimmed down the page to the next question. "No living relatives or whatever. Hey, this is a fun one."
My wife succumbed to her curiosity, and stepped closer to read the questionnaire. "If Adolf Hitler from Nazi Germany and Lieutenant Worf from Star Trek TNG kissed, how much of their facial hair would be in contact?" She glanced back at me. "Ok, this is utter nonsense. Have fun finishing it, I'm going for a jog."
She kissed me and left, putting in her earbuds and resuming her Harry Potter audiobook as she did.
I smiled, and resumed the questionnaire. I though of my answer before I wrote it.
"It depends on the amount of passion" I wrote.
It didn't seem like these were the kind of questions that could lead to immortality, but I didn't know which ones would. It was still fun. I pressed on.
"When a Penguin and a Pigeon fall in love, can their children fly?"
I pondered this one as well. Obviously, I wondered how the two would even meet, but thats not what the question asked.
"If they were adopted from a species that could fly, then yes" I wrote back. It made sense to me, since the two couldn't have biological children. Well, most likely. I don't know if it had ever been tried before.
I kept my original answer, and moved on to the next question.
"If a ghost and a zombie came from the same dead person, which would be the original consciousness?" This one was easy. I wrote "The Ghost. A zombie by definition does not have a functioning brain."
If this was all it took to become immortal, I thought, then everyone would do it. Maybe thats why this was invite only.
The final question seemed to be the hardest one yet. "If a pot of gold was located at the end of a rainbow, on which end would it reside?" I read.
This one was a real doozy. I took a guess.
"on the Right side" I wrote.
Suddenly, the thick paper began to glow, with a brilliant golden light. The questions and my answers both faded from the page, and a single word emerged in their place.
"***Correct***"
A heavenly chorus faded into existence, singing a song with no words that moved my very soul. My dog Looked up from his position on the couch, gave a slight 'boof', and flopped back onto the cushions. I took that as a resignation from his guard dog duties.
"***GILROY LIVINGSTON***", a voice boomed from within. "***WITH A FINAL SCORE OF 97%, YOU HAVE PASSED THE TEST, AND EARNED YOUR PLACE AMONG THE IMMORTALS***"
The voice paused breifly. "***YOU ARE NOT GILROY***"
"Uh, no, I'm Steve" I said. "Nice to meet you."
There was a considerably longer pause.
"***YOU KNOW OPENING SOMEONE ELSE'S MAIL IS, LIKE, A FEDERAL CRIME, RIGHT?***"
/r/SlightlyColdStories for more | Just for kicks I opened the letter addressed to the old guy, Nick Johnson, who had owned the house before we moved in. "We" being my lovely wife Jordan and our two lovely daughters Agatha and Dorothy.
From the looks of the letter, I assumed it was from the Home Owners Association with news telling me to paint the garage door or to cut the grass or something along those lines. I was wrong ever so wrong. I remember opening and reading that letter as if it were yesterday and truth be told it doesn't seem like it was 600 years ago.
Let me back up a little bit. I opened the letter and it was an application for immortality which I thought was a great joke letter to send out. Kind of like the chain letters that used to get passed around in the 1960's and 1970's.
Inside the envelope was an application and an addressed stamped envelope with an address for a small business in Pocahontas Iowa. I was bored that wife and kids were visiting some friends on a play date and I was also waiting for my food to get dropped off by Uber Eats. So i found a pen and started to fill out the Application.
The application had all the usual lines for name address, religion, colleges attended and work history.
Then the questions started:
Do your feet hurt?
Can you walk long distances?
Do you mind cold weather?
Do you like dogs?
Have you ever used any of the following weapons?
Spear, Bow, Atl Atl
Do you have teaching experience?
Do you like to camp in bad weather?
Are there certain foods you won't eat?
Do you have allergies?
Which of the following locations would you refuse to live in?
1)Desert 2)Mountains 3) Swamps 4)Jungles 5)non tropical rain-forests 6) ruins of ancient civilizations
Can you make your own clothing
Have you ever been a black smith
How good are you at learning languages?
Do you mind relocating every ten years?
Can you walk away from things that are important to you in a moment's notice?
I spent the next couple of hours filling out the application in great detail, it was very therapeutic, as I was recalling and unpacking some mental baggage that i had been carrying around for years. I was also using this time to and face down some inner demons that i had really never faced down.
At any rate I finished the application, signed it and mailed it off to the address shown in the stamped envelope that had come with it. As I said that was six hundred years ago.
Back to the story, about three weeks passed and I got a return letter from the same outfit that I had mailed my "Application for Immortality" to, the same bland nondescript envelope as the original application and in the envelope there was a letter with the following words.
YOU ARE IN - CONGRATULATIONS
Be nice to the humans
Learn things and teach things to the humans
Don't be sad
You will need to hide sometimes - this is very important
keep a low profile
Comfortable footwear is important
Get a dog or two
Last note - You have about 10 years left in your current life, at this point you think this is a joke. You are not going to age from this point on, look in the mirror this is what you are going to look like for eternity. The clock is ticking, enjoy the next ten years because after that point people are going to notice that you are not ageing.
I put the letter in my sock drawer as a memento or something.
I left my family almost ten years later and have been moving ever since. I didn't age and my wife aged, people were starting to wonder why I didn't age. It was time to get moving. So went out for a gallon of milk and never went back. And that was six hundred years ago.
After the current crisis calms down a little big I will come out of the mountains and wander around an help humanity crawl back up. I will teach math, writing, metalworking and maybe irrigation. That was the job that I signed up for when I filled out the application. | 2022-06-10T09:57:06 | 2022-06-10T09:17:04 | 984 | 56 |
[WP] You are an evil dragon who has gone out and ravaged a village. After slaughtering the villagers, you lay down to rest upon a pile of corpses. After a few hours of evil dreams, you wake to a small poke in your side. You open your eyes and see a brave little girl trying to slay you with a knife. | She stabs, the knife skittering over my scales.
I smile. What a perfect result, a little digestif to compliment the meal I had made of the village. I lazily lick my lips, the stench of cooked human from my bed almost entirely overwhelming the delicate scent of the creature at my side -
\- almost, but *not quite*.
I freeze, my jaws open, as a careful, warning scent enters my nostrils.
This being is not human at all. Appearances are deceptive - and they almost fooled me. Almost. But fearsome as I am, there are nonetheless some beings that even I do not trifle with - and the one who claims dominion over this little one is one that can utterly destroy me, would it so wish.
I back down. Close my mouth. Leave the little one that appears human untouched, unharmed. I could eat her, and it would kill her - but I could not long survive the price of having killed one like her.
"Little fae. Why do you strike my scales with a knife that cannot penetrate them?"
"You ate my mommy and killed my daddy!"
"...ah. Little changeling. They were never your parents in truth."
"They were my mommy and my daddy!"
I sigh. She would just *have* to be *exactly* the wrong age, wouldn't she? "Little fae, you are a changeling - swapped in for the baby they had. In a year or two, you would leave the nest, and think no more of them."
"They're my mommy and my daddy and I love them!"
I sigh. "You fake it so that they will continue to feed you, little fae. Now *begone*, for my patience grows thin."
"No! You killed Mommy and Daddy! I'm gonna kill you!"
"Not with that knife, you're not."
"Daddy said I could do anything if I tried hard enough!"
.....well, *this* is awkward.
I can't kill the changeling, without risking the wrath of the Fae Queen. In fact... I've taken her family from her, haven't I? I sigh.
It seems I'll have to find her a new family, or the Fae will find something to take from me.
"If I find you a new family, will you leave me alone?"
"No! I want my Mommy and my Daddy back!"
Right. Well, there's only one solution to this that the Fae Queen would accept, really.
"If you *insist*. Wait right there, I'm going to fetch a necromancer..." | It was the first time I have ever pause. A mere knife couldn’t pierce my scales and even it could she didn’t have the strength. Yet somehow I who had killed the bravest knights found myself stuck. What to do? Killing her just seemed like a waste but why shouldn’t I? Finally after much deliberation (which she was still trying to poke me to death all this time). I finally came to a decision. “You are brave little warrior.” I rumbled I expected her run but she held strong. “I will avenge my family!” She shouted back. I chuckled and pointed at a mountain a fair distance away. “You lack the skills to do so but the man over there may be willing to teach you. Little Warrior.” And with that I flew in the opposite direction, only to immediately double back to the mountain and kill the nearest man and take his house for my own. Using my magic I shifted into a rugged human one who looked like they had fought many of my kind. I would use her as a weapon to kill my rivals she could never kill me!
So I played the game I pretended to be a grumpy warrior and trained her in the art of dragon slaying. For 16 years she trained without rest and hunted down my rivals for me letting me expand my domain without risk. Until one day I made a mistake.
Finally she met me in my dragon form I had believed her purpose was complete it was time for her to go. And in our fight I noticed the perfect gap I had left in defense one only I could notice. But then for my second and last time I hesitated. And that moment was all it took for her to mortally wound me.
“This is revenge for all you’ve taken from me from all you’ve done!” She shouted. “Well done Little Warrior.” I grumbled out using most my strength to return to that human form I used to trick her. She gasped and dropped her sword rushing over to my dying human form. “Why? Why train me why didn’t you kill me?” I gave a soft chuckle. “At first you were to be my tool but it seems I made the most of developing emotions for you my Little Warrior. Farewell and…” and then I passed Drackneil the golden slayer of kingdoms and the sky scourge died to the love of a child who hated him.
-
His body was lowered into the ground with a full procession. My reputation gave me many perks and this was just one of them. The sermon was short and no one said any words because no one but me. One by one they left once the tombstone was erected but I remained before finally leaving a dragon tooth pendant on the marker. On the marker read. *Here lies Drackneil the Golden, slayer of kingdoms, sky scourge, dragon, monster, and loving father who died for his daughter.* I left not knowing what do now. I’d cleared out so many dragons by now the region was safe. So what next? A life of piece or maybe, I could go find a kid who was like me and guide them on the right path… | 2022-08-18T18:21:43 | 2022-08-18T17:35:59 | 18 | 12 |
[WP] You can make a lie become truth, but only one lie at a time, once it is a lie again everyone involved will know immediately. You’re on your deathbed, holding one lie as truth for decades. You know hell will break loose once you die and the lie becomes a lie, and everybody will know. | I have been a baker for many, many years. It wasn't always a passion or even something I thought I could do. I lied at a bar to impress someone and one thing led to another and here I am baking rolls and bread.
Another lie was that I had perfected that art of cake making. People believed it and flooded the store with orders for weddings, birthdays and mitzvahs. Once I even made one for a funeral, that person was either really liked or really hated as it had a festive motif.
I'm old now, pushing 80 when a younger me thought I'd suffer the family curse and die at 60. I'm doing all I can to keep living because once I pass people will know a simple truth. The truth that...... The cake is a lie. | I think they would understand why I did it. The truth is terrifying at first, but ultimately has no immediate impact, and will not for some time. But it will still change everything. Except, it did not have to, at least, not yet, and that was the reason why I did it. Maybe I was selfish, maybe I just wanted to live out my life in the world as I had known it for my first several decades of existence. But here, now, at the end of my life, knowing what I am about to unleash, I feel guilty, because I am leaving everyone else to deal with it, and I robbed them of years to deal with it, to plan for it, to come to terms with the truth of our reality. They will have that time now, and maybe they will handle it far better than I. Maybe all I accomplished was sentencing myself to live with a sense of futility for decades until my death, as I held back the truth like a dam holding back a flood. I will not be here to see, but knowing what I know of humanity, I cannot help but be terrified that the truth will tear the world apart, the truth that we are very clearly not alone in the universe. Not by a long shot. | 2022-11-18T09:05:17 | 2022-11-18T05:25:43 | 22 | 10 |
[WP] You can make a lie become truth, but only one lie at a time, once it is a lie again everyone involved will know immediately. You’re on your deathbed, holding one lie as truth for decades. You know hell will break loose once you die and the lie becomes a lie, and everybody will know. | "This sentence is a lie."
And they fucking believed it. For a century! They really did not see what is coming... I was the only Ultima Authorie, last to be asked whether it was the truth or not and I always went with "Yes.'.
So the sentence is a lie? Get over it, is the truth. Fucking hell though, once me time was through, I thought, perhaps they should be told the truth instead? Lie about it?
"This sentence is not a lie!"
Was my explanation to them, on my death bed mind you. Never seen looks like that. Likewise, they took it for the truth. This baffled me. Something in my head just clicked. How can they possibly believe them both?!
Apparently it's a thing. | I think they would understand why I did it. The truth is terrifying at first, but ultimately has no immediate impact, and will not for some time. But it will still change everything. Except, it did not have to, at least, not yet, and that was the reason why I did it. Maybe I was selfish, maybe I just wanted to live out my life in the world as I had known it for my first several decades of existence. But here, now, at the end of my life, knowing what I am about to unleash, I feel guilty, because I am leaving everyone else to deal with it, and I robbed them of years to deal with it, to plan for it, to come to terms with the truth of our reality. They will have that time now, and maybe they will handle it far better than I. Maybe all I accomplished was sentencing myself to live with a sense of futility for decades until my death, as I held back the truth like a dam holding back a flood. I will not be here to see, but knowing what I know of humanity, I cannot help but be terrified that the truth will tear the world apart, the truth that we are very clearly not alone in the universe. Not by a long shot. | 2022-11-18T08:23:40 | 2022-11-18T05:25:43 | 18 | 10 |
[WP] The world ended 20 years ago, you haven't found a living soul since then. Through some ingenuity, you call voicemails for the last 20 years to keep you company. "Hi, this is Cindy..." "Hi you reached Bob" "You know what to do at the beep" until one day "Hello...hello? Oh my God hello!" | June 23rd 2044
The heat of the summer solstice had caused some of my plants to grow thirsty; some of their
leaves having wilted under the intensity of the light through the day. It had been a bright blue sky
without a single cloud to offer its respite to my delicate friends. I dipped my watering can into a
rain barrel and filled it to the brim.
With the sun finally starting to set, I gave my green family a much needed drink.
"Here you are my poor solanum lycopersicums. You're certainly looking thirsty. And let's not
forget you, ocimum basilicum..."
Going down my lines of growing green companions until the can was dry. Speaking to each of
them in kind and making sure I give each of them some attention. Quite a few books have
mentioned how much better plants grow when you speak to them. I always wondered if that
worked on people too.
I filled my can again and began the process over on the next set and the next until all were
properly attended to. With a sigh, I set my can back down. I turned to the next thing on the
schedule.
Being blessed with such a clear day allowed my phone to charge all the way. I was looking
forward to the rather social evening I had ahead of me.
Absentmindedly, I punched in some numbers and put my ear to the receiver. While the line
buzzed I thought about who I would be and what I would say.
[Bzzzt...... Bzzzzt....]
"Hi, you reached Bob! I can't make it to the phone right now but leave your name and your
phone number and I'll get right back to ya!"
[BEEP]
"Hey Bob, it's Koa! Sorry I missed you. It's nothing urgent - I was just calling to say hey! Hope
everything is going well"
[Click]
I punched in another set. Maybe this time I'll be... Anthony.
[Bzzzt.... Bzzzzt....]
"Hi, it's Cindy!", definitely going to be the Anthony for this Cindy, "You know what to do!"
[BEEP]
"Hey babe, it's Anthony. Just wanted to see what you were up to. Plants are growing mighty big.
We'd love to see you and your pretty face tonight"
[Click]
I made call after call watching the battery drain as quickly as the sun was setting.
[Bzzzt.... Bzzzt.....]
I could hear the sound of waves crashing, albeit the sound quality was horrible, "Congratulations
fellow trav-"
[Click]
Even in an empty world those robocalls were exhausting. I had no idea people did it when the
world had actual people existing in them.
[Bzzzt.... Bzzzt.....]
"Hello...?"
The heat from the entire day evaporated.
"Hello~?", the voice on the other line repeated.
Quick, say something, "H-hello?! Yes! Hi hello!"
"OH my god, hello! What's up?"
Keep it going, "Please, don't be afraid, I'm a real person! My name is Leif!"
"Hah, no way!"
"Yes! My name is Leif and I'm in what remains of Dakota! Please, tell me where are you?" My
hand was cramping from how hard I gripped the receiver.
"..."
"Hello? Are you the-"
"HAH! GOTCHA! Did I getcha good?"
My blood which originally ran icy cold now made me flush with feelings I didn't know were still
there.
"Yoooo, but just leave a message and I'll hit ya back later! PEACE"
[BEEP]
I let it hang there in silence. I hung up the phone now stone in my hands and felt the world become smaller than it ever
has. The last bit of sun peeked over the horizon but it couldn't have been darker.
With lead in my feet, my legs dragged me to my bed. I fell into my blankets and became
imprisoned inside plush solitary confinement.
I wept. | Wishing to be immortal was the worst mistake I have ever made. If I could go back and change it, God knows I would. I remember when I rubbed that lamp, and the damn genie popped out like it was nothing.
"Hello, master," the genie said with a booming voice. "You get one wish. No wishing for love, death, or more wishes."
"Wait, what?" I asked dumbfounded. "I thought it was three?"
"Well, we changed it. What is your wish?"
I knew right then what I wanted. I was a stupid seventeen-year-old girl, and it was 1859. I wanted so badly to be able to live forever, why, I don't even know. I guess it was so I could check off everything on my bucket list or something. Thinking back, I could have just said "I wish to live until I've completed my entire bucket list." He granted my wish, then he and the lamp disappeared.
It's been 700 years since then. I've been alone 20 of those 700 years. I still remember the day it happened, it was so sudden. An earthquake. More specific, the most intense earthquake known to man, that affected the entire Earth. It was so strong, it wasn't even able to be charted. Not that it mattered. The eartquake snapped the planet clean in half, made thousands of sinkholes that engulfed buildings and families, caused massive tsunamies that took out the best of the areas, as well as huge volcano eruptions. The entire world was gone within 5 minutes. Except for me, because my wish was to live forever. Time is irrelevant, I'm starving but I'll never die. I'm exhausted but I'll never die. Thirsty like a mother effer, but I'll never die. Lonely. Lonely forever. I'm stuck in a never-ending loop of torture.
I still have my phone. Even after all these years on this singular piece of land that somehow managed to make it through the devastation, my phone is still at 100%. It never goes down. I use it to my advantage. I often find myself scrolling through my contacts to find people close to me, and I call them. They never answer, but they all have voicemails.
"Hi, this is Cindy. Sorry I can't make it to the phone right now, but I'll call you back when I get your message. Love ya! beeeeeep." Then I hang up.
"Hi, you've reached Bob. Busy right now, just leave a message. beeeeep." Hang up.
"Damn it, I'm busy, you know what to do at the beep. beeeeeep." Hang up.
Sometimes, I even leave messages. None are opened. Cindy, my ex-wife, the last one I ever had, is the most common person I call. She was my favorite wife, she was beautiful, kind, and the one that took my whole heart.
"Hi, love, it's Luna.. I, uh.. I miss you. I hate this, I hate myself. I never should have wished for immortality. I could be dancing around with you in Heaven if not for my stupid, stupid self." I cry every time I end my message. I shame myself for being stupid. She has 384 unread messages from me. I miss her.
I scrolled deeper into my contacts to see if I could find anyone else I happen to remember. Then I see her - my best friend, Julie. I had forgotten about her. I clicked her contact, saw she had her voicemail box set up, and pressed call. I set the phone against my ear, expecting her familiar voice to flutter through my ears telling me to call her back later, but it didn't.
"Hello?" a voice says shyly. "Hello? Oh, my God, hello!"
"Wha-?" I mutter. "W-Who is this?"
"What the- Luna, is that you?!"
"I- Uh, Julie?"
"Luna, what the hell are you still doing here?"
"The same as you, I guess!" I said excitedly. "Where are you? How the hell are you still alive?!"
"A stupid wish I made when I was 15!" she said." "What about you?!"
"Same! Immortality? God, where are you?!"
"Let me send you a picture!"
Not too long after, I hear my message tone. The first time a message came to me in 20 years. I opened it. The photo contained a small peice of land with a few palm trees, grass, and sand. Waves clashed the beach in the photo. It was a beautiful photo. I looked around. Palm trees. Grass. Sand. Were we on the same island? | 2022-12-21T12:38:09 | 2022-12-21T12:14:53 | 580 | 98 |
[WP] You find an old locket in some ancient ruins, with a faded photo inside. The photo is you and your SO - a photo you took ten minutes ago.
Edit: WOW guys, triple digits? Really liking the responses so far, keep'em coming. | *I... I don't understand.*
My brows furrowed in as I studied the small metal clasps and chain, turning it over and over in my hand. I looked around to see if the rest of my crew was watching, expectantly waiting for their moment to chuckle.
Matthew was fifty or so feet away, intently analyzing a clump of dirt that kept falling apart. Angela kept looking to the right, then the left, then up at the sky, like she had forgotten something and it was probably floating around in mid-air somewhere. And John, well, he was probably off rolling around in mud. Whatever.
*I don't understand.*
My head was caught in a loop and all I could do was stare. I must have not been paying enough attention to myself when Matt walked up.
"Wipe up the puddles, girl."
My eyes shot up as I scrambled to wipe my mouth and stuff my prize in the ripped coat pocket. I had forgotten to swallow for several seconds.
"What'd you find?"
"Uh.. eh.. uh.." I mumbled all the way back to the camper.
In my daze, I somehow found my way to the bedroom, locking the door behind me. Carefully and meticulously, I laid the locket down on the bed, straightening the chain and opening to the worn picture.
I fumbled for the one lonely fold-up chair and pulled it over, without removing my eyes. If I blinked, I was sure it would disappear.
I just sat there in front of it, watching. At some point, I don't know when, I had opened to the picture on my phone and placed it neatly beside the locket. It felt like I had been playing this Spot the Differences game for hours.
Time was getting away from me.
*WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!*
My eyelids opened so fast I thought I was going to lose them. And my head, God, my head.
"Come on, let's go! We only have a few days left at the site! Let's get this one started!"
The words came muffled by the door between Matthew and I. My body ached. Had I been hunched over all night?
*Fuck, fuck, fuck. Shit!*
It wasn't there! Nothing was there. I found my phone neatly placed on the nightstand, but I had been sitting in that chair *all night*.
All I could think to do was rip **everything** apart.
I started with the bed, throwing every obstruction on the floor. Then it was just a frenzy, throwing anything from the floor to the top of the mattress, things from the mattress to the night stand, from the closet to the desk...
*WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!*
"Leeeet's gooooo!"
He drew out the words slowly and emphatically. I turned the knob so fast, he was still standing there when I pushed past and booked it out the cramped camper. I vaguely remember something from his part. Maybe it was a "Hey!", maybe a laugh. But it wasn't important. I went straight for that hole.
I started moving sand furiously. Digging faster and faster, sand flying over my head and burying me, I couldn't help coughing out clumps.
"Hey honey, are... are you awake?"
*Beep.* Fuck, it's not here. *Beep.* I tried holding my breath for a second, blinking a time or two. *Beep beep.* My hands were still twitching, but this rope was cutting into my skin. *Beep.* I had to keep digging! *Beep.*
"Honey, the doctors said you were moving too much. They said you were in danger of pulling your IV out."
"M... Matt?"
| Walking along the ancient crumbling corridor I caught a glancing ray of light on top of golden lantern holder. "Hold up Maggie, look it this!" I say as I snag the locket. It was a dusty faded silver oval with a red gem centered on it and a broken latch. I held it up in the torchlight by its chain, grinning.
Maggie pushes raises her brow showing her large, blue eyes, a smile slowly spreading across her face. "Well," she says playfully, "that doesn't look like it's 4000 years old to me! Let's open it!" and she flips open the front with her finger and cranes her head towards the contents. I continue holding it, but Maggie immediately looks confused, schocked and then scared. Pointing, she tells me, "..Jose... how.. just look inside and tell me you did this..."
I frown further and hold the locket with my hand and look inside. There, faded and worn, is an impossible picture. It's a picture of us, one I had just taken ten minutes ago! I cannot think, I drop the locket and stare. "What the fuck..."
__________________________________________________________________________________
Maggie and I get the hell out of there. We run. This is why you don't go to ancient ruins in Egypt without a guide! Gasping for breath outside we look at each other. Again I say, "What the fuck! How is that possible? What is going on..."
"I don't know, I don't know.. it's like... it's not right. That can't happen..."
"Alright alright. Let's calm down, and just think about this for a second," I say, trying to placate myself as much as her. I sit on a nearby boulder, catching my breath. Maggie just slumps to the ground, gazing at nothing, eyes furrowed, shaking her head. After a moment I call to her, "Maggie, come here. It's alright, everything is good. C'mon," I beckon her towards me, and she slowly gets up walks over and sits on my lap. We hug.
"Clearly Maggie, we are super time-travelers from the distant past! It's like Doctor Who! Any moment now he'll show up and explain this nonsense, right!?" I say with a broad grin. I think I'm going insane. She chuckles, thank god, though I see tears in her eyes. What do we do now?
Suddenly though, she looks serious. "I have an idea," she says. "Let's delete the photo." Slightly bewildered, I nod and bring out my phone, handing it to her. "Alright, alright. Yeah, that's a good idea. Do it."
She flips through to the photo, and she deletes it. It's gone. Nothing happens. Of course nothing happens, this isn't some deranged tale of science fiction written by some amateur wanna-be Stephen King. What was I expecting? The wind blows some sand by as we both just sit together, pondering on the mystery locket.
__________________________________________________________________________________
We make it back near to the nearby village we are staying in. We're very tired and decide to go straight to our rooms and maybe order some delivery. Maggie wants some Chinese - whatever is not Egyptian is good, I suppose, so I order it.
The food arrives and I pay the bill with my credit card. We're watching Vice Verca on the TV, that one movie where the father and son switch places. I finish up my food and open up one of the fortune cookies, breaking the cookie open to get at the fortune.
"Pfft. Lame. I never get any good fortunes," I say as Maggie starts opening hers.
"What did it say?" she asks me.
"'You will soon be reunited with a long-lost friend.' I don't think any of my friends are in Egypt, besides you honey. What's yours say?"
She cracks open her cookie and a chain falls out. Attached to it is an oval locket with a bright ruby in the center. We scream.
At least the latch is fixed, I noticed. | 2013-10-14T21:25:48 | 2013-10-14T21:24:30 | 61 | 20 |
[WP] You live in a city full of people with powers (telekinesis, electro kinesis, sensors, etc) and everyone is ranked according to how powerful they but they can kill someone of higher rank and obtain their rank. You are rank #1 but no one knows what your power is
Edit: Thank you all so much for submitting your stories. please do not stop posting and i will not stop reading. my favourites so far have been the coinflip/luck duo and the weak telekinetic that goes for the brain lol love all the spins on powers everyone has | "Hey! That's the guy that killed my cousin! Pull over!"
*Here it comes again,* I thought to myself. I turned to face my attacker. The third in as many days. Some punk with a third-rate powerset. Probably born since the District was walled off.
I sized him up. No obvious indicators of his power. Nothing obvious on his clothes to indicate anything either.
"You're nothin'! you hear me!? Nothin'!"
I ignored him and walked closer for a better look. He pulled a gun out of his vest and shot me in the head.
---
"Hey! That's the guy that killed my cousin! Pull over!"
*Gun in the vest, go for that first. Either wants to show off his gun, or his power isn't a combat power.*
"You're noth- huh?" I cut him off as I pulled the gun out of the vest. Biometrically locked. Useless to me. I tossed it aside. I examined his response. Too stupid to be surprised that I knew he had a gun. Not surprising, I suppose. He wound up for a haymaker. I watched for any giveaways. Nothing off about his stance, no glowing motes or strange noises. I braced my self for impact, making no effort to dodge. Predictably, it knocked my head clean off.
---
*Gun in vest, something that acts like super strength, maybe kinetic manipulation?*
"Hey! That's th-" I cut him off with a thrown chunk of debris. No reaction whatsoever.
"You're dead, you piece of shit! I'll fuckin pick my teeth with your bones!" Curious. Altered dietary requirements, or just a threat? I couldn't smell anything odd on his breath, and all his teeth looked standard issue. Probably just a threat.
I go for his gun, just like last time, and throw it away. He winds up for a haymaker, which ends up being too slow to hit me. I take an experimental punch. The relatively light jab does nothing to him, but breaks my arm. *call it kinetic manipulation then.*
His next attack crushes my ribcage.
---
I reset to before his car comes around the corner and look around my environment. There's no such thing as invincible. Honestly, simple immunity to physical harm is one of the least annoying powers to deal with. Someone seemingly invulnerable might be vulnerable to poison, or radiation, or maybe just still needs to breathe. That'll do, right there. If his only power is contact-range crude kinetic manipulation, this can of... aerosol brake cleaner should do the trick. I look on the warning label. It's an older product, which usually means more poisonous. An entire half of the can dedicated to warnings not to ingest or expose to eyes. Good.
"Hey! That's the guy that killed my cousin! Pull over!"
He steps out of the car.
"You're nothin'! you hear me!? Nothin'!"
I duck toward him and retrieve his gun. He grabs for me, an attack I easily dodge. I raise the can to his face and press the trigger. He screams as the chemicals contact his soft tissues. I don't think it'll kill him but... I take an experimental kick at his side as he writhes on the ground. No reaction. Means he needs to be able to concentrate. I drag him over to the edge of the sidewalk while his driver looks on in horror. I take his head and slam his open mouth down on the curb twice. He stops moving.
It's all over too quickly for a real crowd to gather, but the driver and the little old lady crossing the street stare, wide-eyed. I don't think anyone has ever guessed what my power lets me do. Fine by me. They're welcome to keep coming. They'll run out of challengers long before I get tired of destroying them. | Crime was at an all time low in the city of New Angeles. Come to think of it, so was tourism and GDP.
Some people credited this to the genius of *Genetevolve Labs* and their breakthroughs in affordable human enhancements. Although, not everyone was pleased with the results. After a session of copying and splicing, it was often several months - or even years - before a patient actually knew what they had gotten themselves into.
For example, there was Nickolette...
After several sessions, and a freak bowling accident, Nickolette had come to the realization that she was telekinetic. She came to appreciate her new-found ability, despite the lifetime ban from *Richie's Bowleramma*. Apparently Richie's insurance refused to pay for the removal of over a thousand bowling pins from the ceiling of the establishment.
Ty was Nickolette's best friend. He had completely given up on genetic therapy until after almost two-years after his last session he stumbled drunk out into a busy roadway and was nearly flattened by a semi truck. Instead, the truck was smashed into oblivion upon striking Ty and the only injury he sustained was permanently soiled underwear.
Then... then there was Larry.
"I can't believe that douchebag is ranked #1 again." said Ty, "I mean, have you ever actually seen the guy do anything?"
"He sits all day in that damn pizza joint downtown eating and drinking." she said. "Wait, I take that back, it can't be *all day* because he only wakes up at 2:00 pm."
"Last time, the asshole didn't even bother changing out of his pajamas. And did you *smell* the guy? I mean who the hell smells like that?" said Ty disgusted.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" asked Nickolette.
"We can take him Nicky." said Ty looking over at Nickolette. "With your telekinesis, and my super strength, we could just walk right into that goddamn pizza joint and just take him down to chinatown."
"He'd never even know what hit him." she said with a whimsical look in her eye.
*One hour later at Zak's Pizza and Wings...*
"Oh shit, that's hilarious!" said Nickolette as she reached over and squeezed Larry's arm at the bar.
Ty sat on the other side of Larry and downed his second pint of beer as he slapped Larry on the back.
"Jesus that's some funny shit man, you are just too cool." he said to the overweight man with the shaggy unkempt hair, still in his bathrobe.
A man with a grimy, white shirt and loose fitting necktie approached the patrons at the bar.
"Hey guys, sorry the pizza is taking so long. I don't know what's got into the cooks lately." he said to them.
"Ah, no worries mate." said Larry, "We're in no hurry, take your time. Have another round on me guys!"
"You're too much Larry." said Nickolette.
"You know," Ty began, "my head is a little foggy but I feel like there's something we are forgetting. Like there was a reason we came down here."
"Must not have been too important,eh?" said Nickolette turning her attention back toward Larry, "So what's up with you?"
"Uh, I'm not sure what you mean love." Larry was feeling a bit creeped out at the way she was looking at him.
"You know," she was now slurring her speech, "why are you constantly ranked #1? It doesn't even look like you've had anything tweaked."
"Well," Larry was often reluctant to talk about it, but threw caution to the wind, "I dabbled around with genetic enhancement, but gave up after the results came back from the lab."
"What results?" asked Ty.
"After a few sessions, my body began to emit massive amounts of THC into the environment around me." said Larry.
"What? Holy shit, that explains so much!" said Nickolette.
"Yeah, " said Larry, "I thought about going back and tried to get them to reverse it, but... well... you know, the THC."
Suddenly Nickolette changed the subject, "I got an idea!" she said. "Let's go bowling!"
| 2014-12-18T13:17:44 | 2014-12-18T11:53:14 | 1,338 | 81 |
[WP] You live in a city full of people with powers (telekinesis, electro kinesis, sensors, etc) and everyone is ranked according to how powerful they but they can kill someone of higher rank and obtain their rank. You are rank #1 but no one knows what your power is
Edit: Thank you all so much for submitting your stories. please do not stop posting and i will not stop reading. my favourites so far have been the coinflip/luck duo and the weak telekinetic that goes for the brain lol love all the spins on powers everyone has | You want an interview ? Fine, but you're buying the coffee. I'm getting kind of sick of this god-damned urban legend. I DON'T have superpowers, no-one has superpowers. There are just a bunch of crazy people who think they have powers, who for some reason have decided that I'm some fucked up version of their messiah.
**You don't believe super-powered people exist ?**
No. I've never seen one. I've seen the doctored footage from the media. I've seen a lot of crazy people who thought they had powers. I don't know why they gravitate to me of all people. I'm just a regular guy. I put in my hours in the office, then at the gym.
**So you haven't heard about the ranking system ?**
Oh, I've heard of their ranking system all right. That's all I ever hear. What baffles me is why they chose me to be their number one, their highest rank. That the only way for people to rise in rank and become more powerful is to kill them. Does that sound sane to you ?
Then one day, some poor bastard commits suicide near me, and suddenly, they decide that I'm the number one on their hitlist.
**You are referring to the death of the Human Jet as suicide?**
Man faceplants on the ground from a hundred feet, that's suicide. It doesn't matter that he said "Up Up and Away" before he jumped off that building. That was suicide.
**The Human Jet was one of our greatest heroes, with documented evidence of his powers..**
Blah Blah Blah. I've heard that all before. I was there, I saw him hit the ground. Where the hell do you people in the media get off encouraging these people. They are a danger to themselves. Surely you must have learned your lesson after Inferno Man.
**Inferno Man was a criminal, whose control over fire rendered him a threat to the world...**
Bullshit. Let me tell you what happened when I met this so called inferno man. I was just hanging out in a cafe not far from here, when this asshole shows up in a stupid costume. He bursts in, and gives this long speech about how he's going to kill me and burn everything down.
Then nothing happened. He stood there for like five minutes, straining, and glaring at me. I don't know what I did, I just wanted my cup 'o' joe. Then he leaves, and I thought "That was weird, I'm glad it's over".
Then he comes back, with a barrel of gasoline. Who the fuck would sell him gasoline. that's beside the point. The point is that the fucker doused himself in the stuff, and then pulled out a lighter and set himself on fire. Right in front of me. Hearing him scream almost put me off my coffee.
**Yes, quite a lot of superpowered villains have died under similar mysterious circumstances in your presence**
If by superpowered people, you mean insane people, then yes. The numbers of clowns in capes who drop out of the sky near me is so bloody annoying. Not to mention the scrawny fucks who just straight up try to pick fights with me.
Oh god, there was one which was genuinely funny.
This guy came up to me with this long speech about how he is one with nature, and that he will use all of his power to destroy me. I don't know why these guys always gotta speech at me. When I punch someone, I punch'em, I don't tell 'em my life story.
He had this tiger with him. Big fucking cat. He told the tiger to get me. Moment the muzzle was off, it savaged him. I fucking split my sides.
**So you don't think you have any superpowers at all ?**
Course not. Like I said *nobody* has superpowers. At least not that I've seen, not when they're around me. | Crime was at an all time low in the city of New Angeles. Come to think of it, so was tourism and GDP.
Some people credited this to the genius of *Genetevolve Labs* and their breakthroughs in affordable human enhancements. Although, not everyone was pleased with the results. After a session of copying and splicing, it was often several months - or even years - before a patient actually knew what they had gotten themselves into.
For example, there was Nickolette...
After several sessions, and a freak bowling accident, Nickolette had come to the realization that she was telekinetic. She came to appreciate her new-found ability, despite the lifetime ban from *Richie's Bowleramma*. Apparently Richie's insurance refused to pay for the removal of over a thousand bowling pins from the ceiling of the establishment.
Ty was Nickolette's best friend. He had completely given up on genetic therapy until after almost two-years after his last session he stumbled drunk out into a busy roadway and was nearly flattened by a semi truck. Instead, the truck was smashed into oblivion upon striking Ty and the only injury he sustained was permanently soiled underwear.
Then... then there was Larry.
"I can't believe that douchebag is ranked #1 again." said Ty, "I mean, have you ever actually seen the guy do anything?"
"He sits all day in that damn pizza joint downtown eating and drinking." she said. "Wait, I take that back, it can't be *all day* because he only wakes up at 2:00 pm."
"Last time, the asshole didn't even bother changing out of his pajamas. And did you *smell* the guy? I mean who the hell smells like that?" said Ty disgusted.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" asked Nickolette.
"We can take him Nicky." said Ty looking over at Nickolette. "With your telekinesis, and my super strength, we could just walk right into that goddamn pizza joint and just take him down to chinatown."
"He'd never even know what hit him." she said with a whimsical look in her eye.
*One hour later at Zak's Pizza and Wings...*
"Oh shit, that's hilarious!" said Nickolette as she reached over and squeezed Larry's arm at the bar.
Ty sat on the other side of Larry and downed his second pint of beer as he slapped Larry on the back.
"Jesus that's some funny shit man, you are just too cool." he said to the overweight man with the shaggy unkempt hair, still in his bathrobe.
A man with a grimy, white shirt and loose fitting necktie approached the patrons at the bar.
"Hey guys, sorry the pizza is taking so long. I don't know what's got into the cooks lately." he said to them.
"Ah, no worries mate." said Larry, "We're in no hurry, take your time. Have another round on me guys!"
"You're too much Larry." said Nickolette.
"You know," Ty began, "my head is a little foggy but I feel like there's something we are forgetting. Like there was a reason we came down here."
"Must not have been too important,eh?" said Nickolette turning her attention back toward Larry, "So what's up with you?"
"Uh, I'm not sure what you mean love." Larry was feeling a bit creeped out at the way she was looking at him.
"You know," she was now slurring her speech, "why are you constantly ranked #1? It doesn't even look like you've had anything tweaked."
"Well," Larry was often reluctant to talk about it, but threw caution to the wind, "I dabbled around with genetic enhancement, but gave up after the results came back from the lab."
"What results?" asked Ty.
"After a few sessions, my body began to emit massive amounts of THC into the environment around me." said Larry.
"What? Holy shit, that explains so much!" said Nickolette.
"Yeah, " said Larry, "I thought about going back and tried to get them to reverse it, but... well... you know, the THC."
Suddenly Nickolette changed the subject, "I got an idea!" she said. "Let's go bowling!"
| 2014-12-18T13:36:09 | 2014-12-18T11:53:14 | 996 | 81 |
[WP] You live in a city full of people with powers (telekinesis, electro kinesis, sensors, etc) and everyone is ranked according to how powerful they but they can kill someone of higher rank and obtain their rank. You are rank #1 but no one knows what your power is
Edit: Thank you all so much for submitting your stories. please do not stop posting and i will not stop reading. my favourites so far have been the coinflip/luck duo and the weak telekinetic that goes for the brain lol love all the spins on powers everyone has | He came at me like all the rest. Rage, fear, adrenaline in his eyes. Hopped up on nukonarc pills; you'd have to be to come at the king. He desired my status; coveted it. I could feel the hair on the nape of my neck rise, feel a crackling in the air. An electromancer. This would be interesting.
I raise my hands. "HALT," I command. He slows his charge, confused. "We shall battle, if you choose. But first, we shall have.... some tea." He is thoroughly baffled now, but pliant. "Yes... hrmm... okay, one cup... then YOU DIE! Ahahahahahaha!" he cackles.
*1 hour later*
We emerge from the teashop, arms locked, bursting with laughter. "Hahaha my goodness Gary! She really said that!? Hooboy. Well, we were gonna... battle or something?"
"What? Oh yes, my God I'd almost forgotten! Forget that sillyness. It's been a real pleasure meeting you Bob, I really mean that."
"Same to you Gare-bear. Still in for 18 at the links Tuesday?"
"You know it Be-Bob, see ya then!'
I smile to myself as Gary saunters away. I have emerged victorious yet again, as I shall forevermore. For who could possibly hope to defeat the power... of friendship? | Hi, I'm going to tell my little story here rather quickly as I am rushed for time. Being #1 makes a lot of folks very interested in killing me, so I have to constantly remain on edge.
If there were no ranking systems, most people would assume that I have absolutely no powers. My power is a much more subtle one. But enough tension building, I'll just tell you what it is right now. I have the power of deception.
Seems pretty lame compared to some of the other powers around here -- rank #2 has laser vision for Christ's sake -- but it definitely has its uses. I can make anyone believe or do anything I want. For example, today I convinced a man with acid breath to kill himself. Needless to say, that was a pretty dark moment for me, but I've done worse.
I like to think I'm a pretty charming guy. It helps me manipulate people when I need to. My girlfriend is rank #4 in the city and rank #1 for females. She sadly has the power to crush a man's soul. Ok that's not entirely true, but she does have supersonic speed. I hope you don't think that I accidentally fell in love with the most powerful woman in the city, I planned it. She is entirely convinced that I love her and that really comes to my advantage. She'll do absolutely anything for me, and that can really come in handy for someone as targeted as me in this city. In a way I guess I do love her. I love that she will do simple things for me like robbing a bank. And I especially love the complex things: like murdering her powerful, high ranking family for me. The poor girl can't help but to be infatuated with me -- literally.
Anyways, thats the gist of how I became #1 here. Call me an asshole if you want, but that's the type of personality you have to have to remain on top. It's survival of the fittest, baby. The strong survive and the weak die.
| 2014-12-18T14:00:17 | 2014-12-18T13:12:49 | 451 | 18 |
[WP] You live in a city full of people with powers (telekinesis, electro kinesis, sensors, etc) and everyone is ranked according to how powerful they but they can kill someone of higher rank and obtain their rank. You are rank #1 but no one knows what your power is
Edit: Thank you all so much for submitting your stories. please do not stop posting and i will not stop reading. my favourites so far have been the coinflip/luck duo and the weak telekinetic that goes for the brain lol love all the spins on powers everyone has | Rank was never that important to me.
The others fought. Endlessly. For some reason, their numbers were more important to them than their humanity.
I started with the lowest rank, and I've never moved up. I've never killed a soul. But I'm #1 now, because the others are all dead.
I'm lonely. | It wasn't so much a power as it was a curse. Tell me how you would feel to die a million deaths. To wake up the day before the dominoes fell, the machination of reality that would end your life took place, and then some small nuance in the fabric of reality is altered to spare your life for a few more days, years, an eternity. Maybe your consciousness was somehow attached to every other version of you in a theoretical multiverse. Maybe history would simply rewind. You didn't understand how it worked, and felt no more in control than a rat on a wheel. At first it was truly an anguish lamentable, but over eons of human experience you've grown cold and accustomed to your own personal hell. The very world would bend itself minutely just to keep you alive, to keep you at the precipice, to keep you number one. | 2014-12-18T15:23:06 | 2014-12-18T12:57:51 | 243 | 10 |
[WP] A peaceful alien race is besieged by another race in the same galaxy. As their last planets fall and their home-world comes under threat they do the unthinkable. They ask for aid from the only known creatures more brutal than their foes in exchange for FTL technology. Humans accept the deal. | A eon we watched them. We watched them kill each other with amazement. Their violence horrified us, but we saw glimpses of peace amid the blackness of horror. Deep inside, their intentions were good, every single one of them acted on the idea that what they were doing was improving the situation of another. We watched as endless wars raged, wondering when they would make the space-travel breakthrough that would unleash them upon the rest of the galaxy. But they did not, instead they invented terrible weapons to inflict even greater violence on others in the hope of bettering their lives. So we hid them, we hid their entire system from the galaxy and they remained hidden, but now before us, we had a choice. We could knowingly unleash them on the galaxy, or we could perish.
The galactic civilizations fought a good fight, but the Hastari were too powerful, too numerous, too violent. Many generations ago, the Hastari were like the humans, considered too dangerous for the galaxy, but before the galaxy could react, they burst forth from their asteroid belt homeworld. They consumed resources at a rate never seen before. The Galactic Congress was helpless to stop their onslaught. They devoured planets in a matter of generations, growing exponentially, gaining technological experience and resources at each stop. In just a short time, the Hastari had decimated the congress to just a few backwater civilizations, and us, the hiders. Even the great Dertahs, with their armada of war ships was no match for the Hastari.
We did nothing, we hid, because that is our nature, we are the galaxies hiders. We hid the humans long ago, and instead of fighting when the hastari found us, we scurried off to another part, hiding in the shadows of black holes, pulsars, whatever we could find. The Hastari ships would always find us, and we were sick of hiding. We could not fight, but we knew who could. Our council gathered and chose me to come out of hiding. I was to seek out the humans and set them free. The Hastari did not have good intentions they argued; they had consumptive intentions. They simply wanted to expand, at the cost of the rest of the galaxy. I did not argue because I was and still am afraid, I was afraid of the Hastari because they would consume us, all of us and all that would remain are stories, but I am more afraid of the humans, because they will kill, and they will feel righteous in their killing.
I set them free ten years ago. Today I walk a free entity. I no longer hide. The Hastari were defeated in one earth year. The galaxy was amazed as this new species rose to our aide. The Hastari were stopped in their advance, and then they were pushed back, in battle after battle they were defeated by the humans, until finally they were forced to retreat to their homeworld. The galaxy was in awe, which evolved to terror as the humans did not stop with the Hastari defeat. The humans insisted that the Hastari would expand once again if left to their own devices, and they invaded the Hastari home planet. They massacred the entire species, leaving only scattered survivors. Then they turned to the rest of the galaxy, told us that they came in peace, and held out their hands, the same hands that had just completely annihilated the greatest threat civilization ever faced, with ease. They smiled and moved into the Hastari homeworld, not content to destroy the Hastari people, but they insisted on building over their history, erasing them, all while smiling and reminding us of their peaceful intentions. I’m told they have a saying on earth: “They make a desert and call it peace”. Once I thought that was just a story, but today I know it’s true. Today I no longer hide, but sometimes I wonder if I should.
| The towers were under siege. The walls were falling. The Philka were pouring through the outer gates. Their siege cannons pounded on the shields of the keep.
"Defend the Queen!" yelled the captain of the guard. Gathering what remained of the force rifles, the soldiers arranged themselves at the windows, firing down on the Philka ground troops. A few were knocked down, but their armor was far too strong. They weren't dying.
In the throne room, Queen Tehana watched the skies. Soon the *Swiftfoot* would return. It would bring either help or nothing. Her counselors had warned her against contact with the blue planet, but she had been left with no choice. Now, she saw that it scarcely mattered. the Philka had found some material on their conquest that made their armor impenetrable. They had no need of shields, and their plasma throwing siege cannons cast glowing balls of death through the skies. The Phika themselves preferred to kill with their sharp blades. What help could anyone give, least of all a people with only one planet.
She stepped out onto the balcony as the Philka arrayed themselves before the keep. Her troops were all that stood between the enemy and the innocent. The boom of a wormhole drew everyone's attention to the sky. The *Swiftfoot* had returned. Everyone saw the result of its mission. It was alone.
Her men steeled themselves for the final attack as the Philka began chanting their war song. They were preparing to charge. The Queen, however didn't take her eyes of the sky. She had seen something else. A shimmer of light. Something had entered the atmosphere. Something small. There were more shimmers.
Something large and metal slammed into the ground, right in the middle of the Philka. The impact sent them flying away and brought the chant to a halt. The sound of more impacts sounded all around.
In a flash, they were among the troops, with roaring weapons and swift movements. They were not using energy weapons, nor swords. They had something else. Then a whine of engines sounded as some kind of tiny ship flew into view, spinning, then hovering over the battlefield. The buzz of its weapons drowned out all else.
The Philka were dying. Not one by one in battle, but en mass. They were not being pushed back, they were being slaughtered.
The Queen's troops were frozen in shock. They had never seen such death, even among the Philka. The new soldiers annihilated the enemy, then approached the keep.
They were efficient, wasting no time as they cleared the towers and secured the Queen. One asked in perfect Kandarian, "Where are the civilians located?"
"In the city, behind the heavy shields." said the Queen.
The soldier nodded, then spoke into a communicator of some kind.
It happened then.
As if the sky had split open to reveal it, a monolith appeared in the sky. It was a massive ship, dwarfing the *Swiftfoot* as it slowly moved across the sky. It's enormous siege cannons fired on the Philka ships, tearing them apart with ease. Then the guns turned to the land forces.
"Is this Earth's warfare?" asked the Queen, a hint of disdain in her voice.
"Yes." said the human, "And soon, your war will be over." he pointed towards the shielded city. "They only live because of that warfare."
"I wonder how long before we are overwhelmed by you humans." mused the queen, "How long before I regret this decision."
The human stopped and stared at her. "Seriously?" he said, "We just saved your life and you're already pulling this? You have nothing we need apart from FTL tech. You're army was defeated by *iron armor* for god's sake. How the hell you invented space travel with so few natural resources, we'll never know."
"So few.." said the queen, "You mean you have more?"
"Don't worry, your majesty." said the human as he walked away, "It's a big galaxy, you won't have to deal with us if you don't want to."
"Wait." said the Queen as she followed him, "What natural resources *do* you have?"
EDIT: Story continued [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Capntal/comments/2qjh3k/the_nomads_part_i/) | 2014-12-26T10:31:12 | 2014-12-26T10:20:12 | 507 | 260 |
[WP] A peaceful alien race is besieged by another race in the same galaxy. As their last planets fall and their home-world comes under threat they do the unthinkable. They ask for aid from the only known creatures more brutal than their foes in exchange for FTL technology. Humans accept the deal. | Do you know what humans are? They are a small, bipedal creature trapped on a resource starved planet. Evolutionists would call this a typical case of a species made ruthless through internal competition. Not once in their entire existence had there been peace. Their 'civilization' began by throwing stones at 'Philistines,' and evolved to slinging lead. Yet, through this competition humans developed something beyond brutality...they developed creativity.
We're called "Greys," or at least that is what Humans called us. We had probed their planet several times, and our biologists studied them (including anatomy...I can only condone what our biologists did in their studies). We were looking for a warrior type species to help us against the fight against the Swarm. As our homeworld was besieged, we approached the humans asking for help.
Our council was afraid of giving away our weapon technology, but we were more afraid of being eaten. So, we struck a compromise where we would only give the Humans our designs for our Whirlwind FTL engines. What we were expecting was that Humans would build great ships with our engines and land on Swarm planets, just like what we had seen them do to each other. There will be a bloodbath, and two less violent species in the universe.
What we did not expect were Humans slapping our engines onto asteroids and embedding them into Swarm planets at nine-tenths the speed of light. Do you know what happens when a relativistic rock the size of a small moon hits a planet? Nothing pretty. Swarm planets fell, both warrior caste and worker caste. Nothing was spared, not even their larvae.
Just like before, the brutal Humans threw rocks. But now, they were creative about it. And now, we will reap the whirlwind we had sown. | "They shall have nothing." Was our Arbiter's words.
"They shall have nothing." Was the chant used by his followers to justify themselves.
"They shall have nothing." Was the truest statement uttered in the fifteen years of war.
The Hexams had won the war for all intents and purposes. All that remained was to capture our home of Glonia, and then our Confederacy of Peaceful Glonian Systems would be at an end. Our great civilization based on Science and Democracy would cease to exist.
So, rather than see our Confederacy annexed into the Hexam Dominion and given to some barbaric governor, our Arbiter and his followers decided "They shall have nothing."
Humans were the finest mercenaries in the Galaxy. They were highly intelligent, resourceful, and determined. It was hard to find a more staunch ally or fierce enemy than a human. It wasn't uncommon for various systems to hire human mercenary companies to tame a wild planet or to guard their space stations.
What the Arbiter wanted to do was much, much worse. Humans had been contained within their own system since shortly after their existence was made known to the other civilizations of The Galaxy. The Arbiter wanted to unleash them. Unleash them on a global scale, more than justtaking a few human mercenaries on board a ship, he *gave* the humans those ships, freeing them to spread like vermin across the galaxy.
The largest human faction on Earth (a polluted, over populated carbon based terrestrial planet), agreed to militarize and attack the Hexams on a scale never before seen, in exchange for this new technology. Nearly ten million human warriors (Of the Jarhead Clan, mostly) would destroy the Hexams entirely.
The only problem? "They shall have nothing." This was a scorched land tactic. Nothing could save our Confederacy. The Arbiter and his followers only wished to ensure that the Hexams were destroyed as much as we were. A queer sort of revenge. Give the humans free access to the galaxy, and it was only a matter of time before they ruled it all, polluted it all, and overpopulated it all.
I can only pray that the Great Forebears intervene and send the humans back to their world in ruins as they did so long ago. Maybe this time they won't repopulate and rediscover their desire to destroy and the technology to carry it out. | 2014-12-26T12:10:42 | 2014-12-26T11:03:12 | 130 | 10 |
[WP] A peaceful alien race is besieged by another race in the same galaxy. As their last planets fall and their home-world comes under threat they do the unthinkable. They ask for aid from the only known creatures more brutal than their foes in exchange for FTL technology. Humans accept the deal. | Not all humans were warriors. Not all of them invented machines and chemicals that brought death. This human was my friend.
From the beginning, I knew that some humans were artists. Some built bridges and buildings. Some explored caves. We were told all about them by our scientists. The ones who studied other life forms on other planets.
Still, most of us thought only of human warriors. Their bringers of death. At first, they were the most important part of humanity for us. We knew we needed human warriors to save us. And we knew that human warriors might eventually destroy us. We explored the problem for a long time. Then one of us suggested a solution.
A young one suggested a way for us to have human aid without having to fear them. The plan seemed simple yet far fetched at the same time. We explored the possibilities for a long time. Then the best of us made a plan and all of us followed it. Now, such a short time later we were celebrating victory. After years of losing countless lives and many planets, we were celebrating the success of a far fetched idea, concocted by one of our youngest.
I was happy for my species but I could not help but be sad for my friend, the human. She was puffed up with pride. We had been watching the celebrations together. My friend could not attend any of them in person. She had been born ill. Still she was proud of the accomplishment of her race. Her eyes were riveted to the display. As she watched the first member of the Congress of Worlds recount the victories, her lips moved as she mouthed his words.
I could only watch my friend. I knew it was almost her time and I was happy that she lived to see this. My friend turned her head to look at me. It was the last time. She didn't see the dermal poison I placed on her arm. She closed her eyes and died painlessly without ever knowing what came next.
The next day is when it happened. The final part of the plan. The first member of the Congress of Worlds spoke solemnly. He told my people that he knew it would be hard to say goodbye. I was not the only one with human friends. He thanked the humans. He told them that it was time for them to go. He nodded and the display ended. Every human dropped dead that instant.
We are a peaceful people. We rationalized this part of the plan by saying they were only copies. We built a copy of earth and filled it with copies of all of Earth's living things. The copies had no idea. The only thing different about them was a small biological kill switch embedded into their brains. At the key moment, we put the danger back into the box. No need to give the original humans any technology or unleash them out into the galaxy.
We disposed of the human copies. We destroyed the second Earth. We mourned. I am not the only one of my people who made friends with the artists, builders, and explorers of Our Earth. Sometimes when the sky is clear at night. I look up at what our scientists say is the real Earth. I am not the only one.
| May our children forgive us; for we choose servitude over annihilation. Is it not better to be second among equals, lower only to them and above the rest? Is it not better to watch the fleet of those who would enslave you burn, to watch their planets fall and their cities crumble than to see your people massacred, your holy places desecrated, your world die. We may be giving up our freedom but at least we will survive right? Yes, we will lose our beloved council, we will see Kartaloon fill will races from around the Dominion, we will cede territory to others and be forced to do trade with lesser species but we will survive. My brothers and sisters do you not wish to see the Targracians suffer for all that they have done to us, for what they did to the outer colonies for Impac, Tonar and Harkathia how many billions of us have they extinguished how many worlds have they made dim. Only the scourge of the Humans of the Dominion of Canada can lay restitution for the sins and atrocities that they have befallen upon us.
The Humans will be our ultimate weapon against Targracia, her people will weep for a million cycles, her Gods will be made to bow before the shadows and their hand, the Humans, her cities will empty and their people will know what it truly means to suffer, to suffer without hope, without mercy, to suffer at the hands of humans. Remember your history what they did to their own kind the atrocities committed against the cities of New York, Sao Paolo, Beijing, Tokyo now imagine what they would do to the Targracians a species that may pose a threat to them, even if only an imagined one. Yes my brothers and sisters we may lose autonomy but how many are truly left free in this galaxy if we do not capitulate to the Humans than to who? Should we be as the Par Madi a dead race only to be remembered in the annals of history; a lesson for those to come the consequences of those to prideful to bend to those more powerful than themselves, is it not better to bend to the Devil we know than the one we don't?
By joining the Canadian Dominion we will be given access to technologies millenia beyond our current level we will have access to their space-time gateways, our children will see parts of the galaxy that our grandfathers could only dream of. We will be able to spread far and wide to the point that even if Kartaloon should fall our people never will. As second among equals we will never know subjugation of a conquered people, only Humans themselves will be above us, and in the vastness of their territories we will barely even notice them, true our illustrious council will be disbanded and our people will be subjected to their "Democracy" but they will also be protected by their "Charter of rights and freedoms". We will be given technology to build a fleet of star ships that would be able to explore the Galaxy and protect our people, and still be backed up by the Canadian Star Fleet, we will be given voice in the Galactic Council, I have seen it myself their base inside of Sol, the base inside the heart of their sun where the representatives of the second species work together, where the Therelians and the Ic Ba Moor once bitter rivals exist together in peace.
Truth be told we have little choice in the matter, capitulation to the Humans is the only choice we have. I stand before you not to ask for your acceptance in this matter but to ask for your forgiveness for the deal has been made, by this time tomorrow the siege will be over, within an hour the full Canadian armed forces will enter Kartaloonian space and engage in battle with the Targracians. A Governor class space station will orbit between us and our third moon Today is the last day that Kartaloon exists as a free and independent world, but we still have a tomorrow and for that I will not apologize. | 2014-12-26T12:46:34 | 2014-12-26T10:50:07 | 22 | 10 |
[WP] You have died, and in the afterlife have learned that each ghost may interfere on Earth only once while in eternity. Today is the day you have decided it's time. | The air wizzed by as he traveled at Mach 4, but he didn't feel it. Neither did the heat from the Rocket's exhaust bother him. But then, He wasn't really there, in the traditional sense. He was just there enough to matter.
Most ghosts used their one chance on something small, something personal. But there were those who saved theirs for something Big, and everyone assumed Robert was one of those. Right now, a hundred other rockets were being followed by a hundred other ghosts, who had all saved their one chance in case this day came. But for Robert, this was both something big, and something extremely personal. This, more than anything, was the unfinished business he needed to right. He'd watched over them for decades, reading over shoulders to keep current on the technology. So when he reached through the side of the warhead, he knew the one critical wire to pull to prevent it from exploding.
The job done, he stopped matching speed with the now-disarmed rocket, and just watched it trail off into the distance. Oh, it would still certainly kill some people when it hit it's target, but it wouldn't destroy the city, nor would it's hundreds of cousins wipe out humanity. And that was good enough. As he faded out into the afterlife, Robert was satisfied at his transformation from God of Death to Guardian Angel. | She was on the bed. That bed my mother was far too thrilled to pick out for us just a few weeks before our wedding. That bed where we spent our wedding night, where each of our four children were conceived all those years ago. That bed where she found my cooling corpse in place of the loving husband she lay next to just hours prior. Where she shrieked and cursed in horror over me. Accusations of me leaving too soon. As if I left on purpose. As if it were a choice. As if that faulty artery was something I asked for. As if I begged God, or Fate, or the Unknown Whomever to pry my soul from that bed and leave hers behind to find me, to mourn for these three decades without me.
I sat down in a chair I don't remember having. Something she bought after I was gone, I guess. I wondered who else had sat in this room, in this new chair. Who does she know now? What has she told them about me?
I grabbed her hand, wrinkled now. Veins I never knew greeting my ethereal palm. Different, the same.
I tried, unsuccessfully, to keep my gaze from landing on the inevitable. The man laying on his side next to her. I didn't recognize him. I didn't want to.
But tonight was not about him. It was about her. I gripped that hand tight for the first time in thirty years.
I smiled, thinking of how else I might have spent this long awaited holiday. Flickering lights in some decrepit mansion, moaning and groaning and laughing to myself as its inhabitants fled. I could have gone to see my grandchildren. The picture on the nightstand tells me I have five of them. I could have gone to Australia, somewhere I had always sworn I would go.
But tonight, I returned to that bed. And tonight, I just sat. | 2015-01-08T14:17:46 | 2015-01-08T12:57:30 | 34 | 10 |
[WP] They've just invented a 500,000 frame per second video camera. The problem is that they've found something unexpected at those speeds | “Its how fast?” David asked, a skeptical tone in his voice.
“Okay, I’ll try to put it in layman’s terms.” Gavin replied, his coffee going unnoticed on the table in front of him, “Let’s say a normal camera runs at something like 24 frames per second. Ours runs much faster than that. Much, much faster. A couple hundred thousand more.”
David took a sip from his cup. “So it’s a really fast camera. I know you’ve been working on this project for a while now. Why call me all of a sudden, like its some kind of huge, crazy deal? I mean, look at yourself,” he gestured towards Gavin, “You’re a mess.”
“Because it is a big deal now,” Gavin said, reaching up, and failing to slick down his messy hair. “It was just supposed to be an experiment. First, to see if we could actually create something like this, and after that, use it to do other experiments. See how light waves work, that kind of thing… But David,” He said, leaning in conspiratorially, “I found something.”
“You found something?” David asked, his eyebrow rising. “Like what? How bugs mate or something?”
“No.” Gavin whispered back, probably not even realizing David’s joke. “Out of all those hundreds of thousands of frames, almost every single one of them were what we expected. A really, really, really slowed down video of our lab. Except for one. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second, there was one frame of… something.”
David took another sip from his cup, but let Gavin continue.
“It was pretty much a pitch black frame, and so every one of my colleagues just dismissed it, a glitch, something like that. But, I’m not only an engineer, I’m a photography nerd, and whenever you’re taking very short exposures, you need A LOT of light. And so, I treated each one of these ‘almost pitch black’ frames as a single exposure. Out of all the millions of frames, there would be a ‘black’ frame occasionally. So I merged them, which effectively 'lightened' them up… and I found something.”
Now David was leaning forward, his interest piqued. “And? What was it?
Gavin, took a breath in, preparing himself, and finally said: “It was a picture… of our lab.”
“Your lab?” David sighed, sinking back into his chair, “So what? A picture of your lab, hidden in between other pictures of your lab. Is this all you really called me over here fo-“
“Obviously it wasn’t just a picture of my lab,” Gavin interrupted with a wave of his hand, “I mean, it was the lab, but it was different. Very subtly different, but enough that I could tell.”
Confused, David motioned for Gavin to continue.
“Listen, do you know what parallel universes are?” He asked, his voice a bit shrill, and then continued after David nodded. “Well, I think I stumbled across a parallel universe. Not just peering into some crazy alternate dimension that has nothing to do with us, but taking a glimpse at something that already exists. Here,” he said, motioning with his hand at the small coffee shop around them, “A whole other world, which is here, existing, but just out of phase with us in time, just enough that we can’t interact with it, or even see it, especially when we didn’t know it even existed.”
Gavin paused and collected his thoughts for a moment. “So, I panned the camera around, and wrote a pretty basic script to collect all of these frames and mash them together. It takes a little while, but I can usually get a ‘picture’ of these frames every thirty minutes or so. When I finally got a good panoramic of the room… I saw something else.”
Gavin took a ragged breath in. His clothes were disheveled and wrinkly, and his eyes were bloodshot, and wet, as if he had been crying earlier.
“There were things in the lab, David.” He said, putting his head into his hands, and speaking quietly into the tablecloth. “They were grotesque, and just absolutely horrible. I saw my colleagues, working in the lab, just like they were on ‘my side’ of the monitor, But they were monstrosities, faces twisted in abject horror, mouths agape and screaming.”
“David,” He said through clenched teeth, his eyes moving up from the table, “If you were to see evil, you would know. Pure evil, which would only want to consume you, entirely. Physically and metaphysically… I saw evil, David, there is no other word for it.”
David reached towards Gavin, his friend of many years, “Listen Gavin, there must be some explanation.”
Gavin squeezed the tablecloth between his fingers, “That’s not all. I panned the whole room, I saw something else. I saw myself… The evil, twisted, other-me. He was holding a camera David.”
He looked back up, locking eyes with David, tears streaming down his face. “They saw me… They know we’re here now."
------
Thanks everyone for all the responses, and gold? Wow, you guys are awesome. I don't write very often, so it means a lot. Figured I'd write a little bit more inspired by this prompt. Let me know if you like it!
[Part Two](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2v4tpk/pi_frames_per_second/) | "That's just remarkable! Truly astounding!"
Mr. Hader watched the video in awe, and Nathan just stood next to him, and found himself unable to stop a huge grin spreading on his face. He was gleaming with pride.
After all his hard work and dedication, he'd *finally* completed it! A 500,000 frame per second video camera! A camera that didn't lag, had pristine quality, and didn't overheat, not a single technical hiccup. Nathan was thinking about his success, and how he would be rewarded. Only one camera, how much money would he get for it? The oppurtunities he now had! His tenacity had finally paid off, Nathan was to be a rich man. A *remembered* man.
His smile grew wider.
The recording was being projected unto a screen, and the video ceased. They both just stood, proud.
It was a simple video, Nathans 6 year old daughter simply sitting in the garden with a warm smile, on a perfectly sunny day, flailing her doll happily. Picture-esque. Lovely. It could have easily been recorded on any other cheap camera, he had the option to film whatever he could, anything more exciting,more invigorating but no, his daughter was the one he had decided from the very start. There had not been a shadow of doubt in his mind.
He had always planned it that way. Every night in the garage he'd tinker away at his plans, his blueprints, working without rest. Yet every-time he grew impatient, or thought he had hit a dead end, Nathan had simply remembered what he would do with the camera. He would give the greatest gift of all to his only daughter, immortality. She would live on forever in the historic video. People, years after, would still watch this video. She would live on.
And even now, standing next to his gob-smacked boss, with a handsome paycheck all but certain, that was the sweetest reward on his mind.
"Just stunning...it's so clear! It's like I'm actually there..." His boss Mr Hader had continued, star-struck. "You are going to be a very rich man Nathan I'll tell you!"
"T-thank you sir." Nathan replied humbly.
They watched, and watched and watched, repeatedly; Mr. Hader still as dazzled as the first time.
But it was only on about the 7th viewing, Mr. Hader had noticed something. So quick he would've missed it. Not even on screen for a second.
"Say Nathan, rewind to about 3:45...yeah yeah...pause ....righhttt... *there!*" Mr. Hader asked intuitively.
Nathan frowned a little, confused. The frame was of his daughter, looking down at her doll.
"Alright...slow it down now Nathan...*real* slow though...okay carry on..." Mr. Hader asked with a hint of fear in his voice.
Nathan felt a slight uneasiness brewing, yet pressed play anyhow.
The scene of his daughter, that would have usually lasted about half a second was playing so slow, distorted, every slight movement seemed to take what seemed like a decade: the wind on grass, hair, or anything.
Mr. Hader squinted slighty. An unearthly tension filled the room.
They watched further.
*"There!"* Mr. Hader shouted suddenly, causing Nathan to jump. "Right there did you see it? The little flash of black? Rewind, slower this time! I saw something, I did! Didn't you? *Rewind it!"*
Nathan slowly, trembling, re-wound the footage. He was now visibly frightened. Was there a glitch with the camera? Something *worse* What had his boss noticed?
"Sir wha-"
"Shh shhh, just watch..."
The footage was now painstakingly tedious, it trundled backwards at a snails pace. It didn't look natural. Everything crawling so slow. It felt like watching something from underwater.
After what seemed like an age, Mr. Hader ordered one sharp, urgent request...
"Stop."
The video paused, and they were both took aback.
They both stood perfectly still. Nathan had paused at the exactly right moment. Neither had expected to see what they were seeing.
They stared.
For a long time, they just looked. Not knowing what to do. What to say. How to react? There was a just numb sense of terror. But not panicked, instead appallingly calm.
In that single frame, Nathans daughter was looking down, looking at her doll, frozen in time. Perfectly normal. Except for one thing.
Crouched next to her, sat a blurred, dark, featureless figure. It had unfocused, wispy limbs, all contorting in unnatural shapes. It had its perfectly round, smooth head turned to his daughters rosy cheeks, its elongated arms wrapped around her sickeningly with repulsive affection.
And for awhile, they just stared.
No words were spoken after. Mr. Hader has simply looked at Nathan, who stared at the frame with tears in his eyes. Mr. Hader had tried to say something, to apologise, to comfort, but no words could leave his mouth. For either of them, there was nothing to be said.
But it was clear what to do.
Nathan had promptly carried the camera outside, Mr. Hader remaining in the office. No goodbye, no warning. Nathan had brought the camera to a field by himself. Furiously, but sternly, he destroyed the camera. Piece by piece. Ripping, beating, tearing, bending, smashing. He brought a petrol cannister, and after dousing the remains of the camera, it was set alight. The flames crackling and a thick smoke swirling up into the sky.
Nathan stood, still silent. He had gone too far. He had found something never meant to be found. His life work, gone. But he felt no regrets. There had never been a 500,000 frame per second camera...
...and now he knew why.
He shut his tearful eyes, breathing in a long careful breath. A metallic battery smell filled his nostrils.
'And there will never...' He thought. '...*ever*, be one again.' | 2015-02-06T14:36:31 | 2015-02-06T14:04:46 | 241 | 28 |
[WP] You’re a regular at Starbucks. This time you go, the lady writes "RUN" on your takeaway cup. | I blink at the cup. I blink at the Barrista. She smiles.
"Why does it say 'run' on my coffee?" I ask. She smiles again.
"Cardio" she says "it's always good to invest time in cardio fitness. You know where's a great place to get started? There's a park about five minutes walk from here, do the whole outside track and you've done a mile. There's shade, it's pretty flat...I recommend it!"
"...thanks..." I say and walk away sipping my coffee. I'm basically too out of shape to run a mile, but I can always walk more. I make a mental note to check out the park.
My coffee cup says "Read". I look at the Barrista. Same one as last time. She's a brunette, with long hair in a pony tail.
"Any authors in particular?" I ask. She smiles.
"Are you a reader?"
I shake my head. There's never time. She shrugs.
"Then start with a good newspaper. Cover to cover. You never know what you might turn up!"
Her enthusiasm is infectious and I smile back.
"Thanks," I say, sipping the coffee, "I'll do that."
I stop in for coffee after my run, feeling pretty good, with the intention of sitting outside and leafing through a copy of The Washington Post. My iPod is still reading me *The Satanic Verses* by Salman Rushdie, which is a lot funnier than I was expecting, and I'm not really paying attention to my coffee order. The take out cup says "Watch" on it. I look up, pull the earbuds out of my ears and smile at the Barrista. Her eyes are vivid and green, one eyebrow arches gracefully at me.
"What should I watch?" I ask.
"How do you feel about German Expressionism?" she asks.
"I don't," I say "but the way it influenced later directors, from Hitchcock to Burton, that's pretty cool."
That earns me a dazzling smile and those eyes iridesce. Then she frowns.
"Oh, darn it. I'm sorry, I've got your order wrong. Here, let me fix that for you."
She reaches for the cup, takes it from my hand and for an electric moment our fingers touch. She fusses behind the counter, hands me a new cup, smiles again.
I look at the cup. It says "Date?" | After a whole night sitting the in library my dissertation was finally finished, with not much time to spare as it was already fast approaching 7am with the deadline being 9am. However seeing as the university didn't open until 8am I had to somehow kill an hour, which I decided would be best at my local Starbucks conveniently located right outside of my campus, thinking nothing of it I went there to triple-check my work over my regular cappuccino in order to awaken my sleep-deprived self.
It wasn't like any other time that I had been there as nobody was there, not even on behind the counter. I tried calling into the staff room located behind the counter for Sarah, the girl who regularly served me, but also whom I had a crush for, but of course I'd never tell her.
However it wasn't Sarah who walked through the staff room door behind the bar, but a lady of which I've never seen before. I promptly asked her where everybody was, making a slight joke that is was like a ghost town in here. To which the unfamiliar lady responded with a sharp tone, "what do you want".
The only thing which I could respond with was a "Cappuccino please", as I was shaken by the atmosphere this lady was giving off. I could see her movements as she was making the coffee, and looking back I now know something wasn't quite right. That is when it happened, the cup with the letters "RUN" printed across it, it took me a while for it to register and even longer to realise that the word "RUN" was dripping with red ink... I looked up with disgust, ready to ask her what exactly was going on, that's when I saw her, that's when I saw Sarah.
The door which the unfamiliar lady appeared never completely shut as if it was stuck on something, it was Sarah. Sarah's body was stopping the door from closing, I moved to the right of the counter to get a better look into the staff room, the image that I was presented with was horrifying, Sarah's body was on the floor, pale as snow with her blood now running through the door into the bar in which the lady was standing. Sarahs blood underneath the shoes of the lady standing behind the counter with the cup labled "RUN".
I froze, I had no idea what to do, I looked down then back up at the lady who's now staring at me with the widest eyes I've ever seen, it seems as though she's lifeless, no, she is lifeless. She drops to the floor which is when I am presented with this shadowy-type figure which was standing behind her, who is it? what is it? when did it get there? Without much of a second thought I turned around and dashed for the door, in my panic I dropped everything, my wallet, my dissertation even my house keys. It's now 7:48am, and I have no idea what to do, do I return to the coffee shop. No I have to return, I have to get my work back, I have to find out what happened to Sarah.
| 2015-04-07T05:36:06 | 2015-04-07T04:31:11 | 186 | 21 |
[WP] Tell me the story of how the world ends - but told entirely in Craigslist ads | Craigslist > Men seeking Women > losangeles.craigslist.org
37/M/LA
Athletic Male seeking Sarah Connor for termination prior to birthing the leader of the resistance.
Please provide photo. My connection has been spotty since hooking up to the local service provider, but don't worry if you miss me. I'll be back.
Post ID: 4856743257
Contact: telephone
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: just now
Comments | *Newest in >for sale*
Jan 23: Sports Betting, See how easy it can be to be a winner. books & magazines - by dealer [x]
Jan 25: Between Fact and Fiction, Helping you understand the real life problems and removing the anxiety over the fictional.
Feb 23: Communication Breakdown Unleashed (MRR), When you and your loved ones lose contact, learning how to reopen that communication is key no matter the distance.
Feb 28: Surviving Assaults: A Martial Artist's Guide to Weapons, Street Violence, & Countervailing Force [Book]
Mar 13: Food Foraging For Dummies: Nibbling in Nature, prepare for the inevitable
Mar 28: I don't know who may still be here, I'm using all possible pages to find people. We're held up in a school and we are trapped, send help!
Apr 1: The Road *by Cormac McCarthy*
Dec 20: The steel coffin, Getting the dead to stay dead. | 2015-04-29T12:20:34 | 2015-04-29T09:07:02 | 21 | 15 |
[WP] Tired of abducting humans, the aliens are publicly offering free spaceship rides to anyone willing to undergo their experiments. | At the moment Marcellin stepped into the office, his face went red and his eyes threw daggers to the man who had took a perfect human apparence and was sitting behind his desk.
"- Monsieur, je suis profondément outré par votre agence de voyage ! Pourquoi m'a t-on forcé à me deshabiller avant de pouvoir rentrer dans votre bureau !?
- I'm sorry Sir, I don't speak french, could you speak english please ?
- Hein ? Comment ça vous "don't speak english" ? Je vous préviens, n'essayez pas d'esquiver ma question ! Je suis Français moi Monsieur, et j'attends des explications !
- Again Sir, I'm very sorry, but I don't understand you. We never abducted a french teacher, so I speak english and chinese only. Ni hui shuo hanyu ma ?
- Comment ?! Vous me cessez ces chinoiseries immédiatement mon petit bonhomme, et vous allez me chercher mes fringues et quelqu'un qui parle français !
- Please sir, try to understand some of the words I'm throwing at you. I just want to know if you really want to do the trip.
- Hein !?
- Do you still wanna do the trip ?
- Le fric ?
- THE. TRIP.
- Trip ? What is trip ? What trip mean ?"
While trying to keep his fake smile on, the alien grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. He drew two circles on it, with an arrow going from the biggest one to the smallest one. He almost shoved it in Marcellin's face.
"- You understand now !?"
Marcellin looked at it and his face suddendly brightened. The guy had finally brought up the topic about what place he wanted to visit for his holidays. That's why he was there after all, so he relaxed a bit, let a little laugh escape his throat and gave the guy a thumb up :
"- Ok, ok, je understand. YES ! I. WANT. GO.
- Crazy good, I'm so glad we finally made it. Now, if you would be so kind as to fill in that form.
- THAILAND !
- What ?
- WANT. GO. THAILAND !
- No no no Sir, not Thailand. Proutax.
- WHAT !?
- You're going to Proutax sir.
- Where ?
- PROUTAX !
- Proutax is there sun ?
- It revolves, somehow, around five of them, so yes, you'll get plenty of sunshine.
- What ?
- YES ! LOT SUN !
- Ok, really good. Where is ?
- Not that far sir haha.
- HOW LONG ?
- Well, if you were a beam of light, sir, that would take you just about five hours.
- What ?
- FIVE HOURS !
- Ok, good, not long. I want. But me there can what ?
- What ?
- There what possible can do ?
- Well we need humans there because we have some drugs we have to smuggle across the galaxy and we want to test the dilatation coefficient of your anal disk.
- What ?
- YOU. ASS. LOT OF JOY !"
A few smiles and winks were silently exchanged.
And Marcellin filled in the form.
| *You can catch a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar*
I read the letters on the signboard that was hung up on the deck of our craft. It had been put up to herald our new change in policy. The truth was that we had lost a lot of time. Humans may have been ancient and stubborn in their ways, refusing to change when they really needed to but at the end of they day they weren't stupid. The progressive ones among them had known of our existence for a long long time. One of them even told me they kept making documentaries to raise awareness but were often dismissed as fools. Apparently a pejorative term among earthlings "conspiracy theorists" was used to describe anyone who talked about illicit activity that wasn't covered in the mainstream media of the planet.
But it didn't really matter. Our race too had its share of setbacks. It was a good thing that the smarter individuals among us had done a much better job of organizing ourselves. If we hadn't we wouldn't have made enough progress to make inter-stellar travel a real possibility.
As a history buff, I couldn't understand why it was that we had adopted the "abduction policy" for so long. It didn't make any sense. It was easy enough for my professors to dismiss it as following the fancies of some tyrannical leaders in our not so distant past, but I wasn't convinced. It wasn't like we were humans or something.
The spaceship landed and the number on the digital display near the front of the ship showed 4123. That was the number of times we had visited Earth this year. Unlike the abduction protocol, the living room protocol was still in place. Naturally, we didn't want to be the first species in the known universe to break this policy so we landed in their backyard which for the Earth usually meant sand.
The weather was pleasant. I checked my watch and the details were adjusted to earth metrics. Lila stepped up beside me "What does it say?"
"It's nice weather" I replied. "About 57 degree Celsius"
"Huh?" said Lila.
"Degree Celsius" I said. "It's the earth metric for temperature." I paused. "Similar to degree Fahrenheit" I added hopefully.
Lila's face remained blank for a second. The she said "Oh." Then she stepped out and placed her lower right arm in the air outside. "It is pleasant" she agreed. She threw me a sideways look and then shuffled away.
I could tell she was impressed. I wasn't too bad with my numbers for a history geek.
Down by the loading dock, the crew was getting ready. The titanium cases opened slowly to reveal... wooden stalls. I looked at them approvingly. I had opposed the idea vigorously back on Memlac,but that was mostly because I thought it was too expensive.Why waste a valuable resource when wood was cheap and a plenty on Earth? The Earthlings seemed to have no problem chopping their trees down, so why shouldn't we?
But my voice had been drowned out over the sea of voices crying out that we provide employment to the few millions of Elumalais whose planet would be cast into disarray if it were not for these handouts that were to be given to them from time to time.
Now that we were here, the finished product looked terrible - which is to say it was a fairly accurate imitation of what the Earthlings produced during the stage of life that they called adolescence.
"ATTENTION A TODOS" boomed the speaker. "We set out tomorrow for the Earth camp. Get a good night's rest before then."
I knew it was a primitive earthly custom to trust one's instincts over the hard numbers that often revealed the truth. But something told me that this journey was different from the 4122 journeys that we had made before this.
| 2015-09-27T10:04:27 | 2015-09-27T08:44:41 | 115 | 29 |
[WP] When something is created (humans, fire, lotion, etc.), a god is born to reign over its domain. You are the god of what most consider to be a completely mundane object but, somehow, you are becoming the most feared.
Or revered. Both could be interesting! | Long ago I was loved.
Children would play with figures cast from my being.
Life giving water would flow across me, through pipes and tanks to the homes of my worshipers.
Women sought beauty from my colors, adorned and anointed in my holy name.
Those days are long gone.
The figures that children long adored are taken for the war effort.
Water no longer flows across my being, but that of my brothers.
The Women shun me. Calling me the beautiful poison.
My soul is melted down and recast.
No longer cast to the lovely shapes of toys, nor the utility of pipes.
No, now I am cast to the basest of forms.
Raw nuggets and spheres.
Purposed to be cast towards prey and foe.
My name is Lead. Once loved and worshiped.
Now a slave to the musket and cannon.
| The sovereign God. The god no mortal nor immortal would dare to trifle. The God everyone fears.
The God of A Bucket.
I barged through the solid gold doors as the entire room of Gods fell silent. They gazed at me with fear, envy, and amazement. Even God of the humans couldn't bare to make eye contact with me.
I walked up to the podium and place A Bucket on it. The others gasped and a few fainted.
"Within my powers!" I bellowed, the rooms full attention on me. "I allow you to hold water!"
The Gods cheered. Roses were being barraged at my feet.
"Jesus only walked on water! I let you control it!"
A few of the Gods cheered so loud their head blew clean off. The chaos was immense, the praise was even more.
I left the podium and placed the bucket in front of the God of water.
"How does it feel to be the most mundane God now. Right next to the God of salt!" I boasted striking a godly pose.
"I envy what you have managed to do." The God of water replied. "But soon they will realize that buckets fucking suck. Their oversized cups."
I quickly turned and peered over at the God of cups. He was right next to the God of bowls.
"There can only be one." I whispered.
"I know." The God of bowls mouthed back. | 2016-07-06T14:30:41 | 2016-07-06T14:15:23 | 211 | 30 |
[WP] When a child comes of age their greatest quality manifests itself as a familiar that will follow them for life. You just turned 21 and you still didn't have one, until this morning when two showed up and they terrify you. | The earliest one gets one's familiar is at 13. The latest is generally 18. The world record is something like 27. I feel bad for that guy; eight years waiting was hard enough.
Familiars are strange beings. The earliest recorded one came in the early 1800s, a great bear-like beast that followed a single man. They cannot be harmed by conventional means (they usually die with their masters, though they can be put to death under certain conditions), and they take on a variety of forms.
It's not like your familiar can do more than give you life advice and be a friend. They have a strict code not to harm others (though I've heard of some murderers and psychopaths having violent familiars), and they generally don't talk to anyone but their masters. Still, it sucks being the only one without a wise creature companion.
My friend Maya was an early bird; a day after her 13th birthday, she came to class with a bright red lizard with long tail feathers on her shoulder. "Confidence," it was called. Next was Daniel at 15; his great, shaggy, hulking beast was named "Listening." Then was Hannah with "Acuity," Kara with "Resolve," Eric with "Cleverness," and so on. And then there was poor old Emily Smith, the boring girl without a familiar.
My parents did their best to reassure me that I'd get a familiar one day. I didn't share their hope (incidentally, my dad's familiar, a large hawk). I'd seen statistics about familiars; the later they came, the more likely they were to be "undesirable" traits. Could I get stuck with "Hatred" or "Ego"? "Apathy"?
I grew distant from my friends. As they all bonded over their familiars and the wisdom they received from them, I was alone. I was jealous, but I tried not to let it get the best of me; what a familiar that would be. I distracted myself with learning, aiming for high honors and a reputation for hard work. I wasn't the smartest, but it paid off, landing me in a neat little college. Of course, I had no friends at that point, and I couldn't really make any at school.
Finally, my 21st birthday came. It was in summer before returning to school. I woke up just before dawn with the distinct feeling of being watched. And there I saw it, my familiar: a small, spiny creature sitting in the corner of my room, staring with beady red eyes. I was startled and quickly flicked on the lamp. It appeared to be a hedgehog, no larger than a softball, with a strange, long tail.
The creature spoke to me in a soft, yet commanding voice, "I am Isolationism, your first familiar. I have seen your heart and eaten away at your soul. You have suffered enough; now, you may confide in me."
I was a bit disappointed. The creature called Isolationism was a bit creepy and discomforting, and it wasn't a very desirable trait. Something stood out to me, however.
"First?" To have multiple familiars was extremely rare.
"Yes. For as you allowed me in, you created something else. As you isolated yourself, you learned to work for yourself. You are bound by no one. And for this, we are not alone."
I noticed a larger shape in a shadowy corner of the room. Tall and lithe, it appeared to be some sort of crane, with a long sharp beak and cruel claws. It regarded me coldly and silently, not so much as stirring a single black feather. When it spoke, its voice was loud and clear.
"Call me Independence."
----
EDIT: Thank you all so much for the kind comments. This is the most I've ever gotten on a writing prompt. It's been a very stressful day, so I appreciate it so much.
EDIT 2: Okay, I know it's cliche to say, but thank you so much for the gold! I am literally crying right now from the hundreds of kind responses. I've never gotten so much attention for one of my works, and it means a ton. You all have inspired me, so I want to make this into an actual short story (I might rework the first part, then add more afterward). It might take a few days, as I have exams this week, but I will do my best.
Again, thank everyone so much. It's been a rough couple days, and you all have helped me so much. | Everyone has a quality that best defines them.
I was told that when I came of age it would be there, just like everyone else. Manifesting itself into a object or a living thing that I would have with me the rest of my life. Only I'm 3 years past due and no quality has manifested itself, the only human in recorded existence without a manifestation.
Today is my 21st birthday, I was awoken by a fluffy pink cat. My mother's manifestation, lazy but caring. I scratched it's head, only to have it's claws extend and begin hissing at my dresser. "OW! Damn thing, at least jump off me before you go all feral." I chided. Slinking out of bed I got up to investigate the dresser, on the top was a watch. Black as onyx it seemed to be emanating thick black shadows off it's surface, like smoke from a fire.
It gave me chills, yet I couldn't help but admire it's beauty. I got dressed and put on the watch, it felt warm on my skin. Like it was a part of me I'd lost and was now returned to its rightful place, I felt strong but an apathy seemed to wash over me. Enthralled by the tendrils of inky dark cascading off the watch, I was shocked when I heard a small mewl coming from under my bed. Bending down, I reached under the bed to retrieve mom's familiar. Only, it felt much heavier... and was its fur ever this thick?
Pulling the mass of fluff from under the bed, in my hands I was shocked to see a baby tiger. Its fur was white as the snow outside my window and it's eyes were a piercing red. It mewled again and cuddled up next to my watch on my wrist, pawing at it gently. A calm fell over me, it was blissful. I couldn't believe it, I finally got a manifestation. Realizing now that the watch wasn't a gift, a thought hit me. "Oh god..." I said aloud, "I have two familiars?!"
Gently, I placed the baby tiger down and took off the watch. Pacing the length of my room I thought on the situation in front of me. *Ok...Ok this is weird. I have never heard of two familiars ever being assigned to a person. Then again until me, no one has ever heard of a person unable to have a quality manifest itself for them. What do they mean?! A red-eyed white tiger? A watch that exudes darkness? I've never been particularly courageous or beautiful nor have I ever been particularly mean or evil...*
Just then I had an idea, I picked up the watch and wrapped it around ankle of the baby tiger. It's fur began to change colour, blackness seeped into it's paw and it began to hiss and mewl pitifully. I watched as it scratched at the watch on its ankle. Curiosity keeping me from helping the suffering entity. As it retreated to the underside of my pillow, I snapped out of my trance and took the watch off of it. Setting the watch down, I carefully lifted the pillow and cradled the baby tiger. It was licking it's paw, now stained black.
I cried, cradling the baby tiger. I did not know the watch would hurt it, I didn't know the darkness would taint it and scar it. But I did it anyway, I let it happen. It dawned on me then that these two objects represented me, they were manifestations of my best quality. I felt warmer and more happy with tiger near my chest, yet weak and frail. I gingerly picked up the watch again with disgust. I was about to throw it away when the tiger pawed at it again.
"What are you doing?!" I yelled at it. "This thing hurt you! Why would you go near it again?" The tiger rolled onto its back, it's red eyes staring into mine and gently played with the dangling strap of the watch. I felt a warm wave wash over me, a calm I'd felt when holding the tiger with the watch on. Curious, I placed the watch back on after all it hadn't hurt me before. The baby tiger mewled happily and jumped into my arms pawing at the watch with it's stained paw. Slowly the darkness seeped back into the watch and the tiger's paw became a brilliant white again.
It looked up at me and licked my face, mewling happily and curled itself up on my lap. I felt happier than I had in years, and I scratched the little tiger's head. Scooping him up, I walked downstairs to breakfast eager to tell mom the news.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lovely prompt! If you're lost on what his quality was well I guess I can give you some insight, it's stability. I hope I did a decent job and I hope you liked the story.
I have a subreddit with other stories r/TheYogiBearhaWrites check it out if you so wish. | 2017-01-20T13:17:28 | 2017-01-20T13:00:41 | 4,354 | 120 |
[WP] When a child comes of age their greatest quality manifests itself as a familiar that will follow them for life. You just turned 21 and you still didn't have one, until this morning when two showed up and they terrify you. | Apparently, the whole reason 'familiars' (*or 'Guardians', if you're one of those people*) started showing up recently is because of a solar flare or something. Something to do with an ancient curse by the Roman god Mars, in which he cursed all souls killed in battle to serve their descendants for all their lives, or something.
Of course, I would have originally taken the piss out of you for believing in Mars, but then again, I walked past a guy who was chatting with his long-dead great-great-great-great-great-grandfather who happened to have been killed by Saracens in the second Crusades, so I can't really say much about the curse.
Point is, this solar flare recently brought some juice back into Mars' curse. It picks out one of your ancient warrior ancestors who shows an equal level of a certain trait that you have, then they follow you around and help you with stuff. So for instance, my Mum's got this one Roman Legionnaire wandering about with her, and I think you'd be surprised that it's entirely down to the fact that they're both very keen on jokes. When he first showed up, he had absolutely no fucking idea what was going on, who anyone was, where all the Mongols had gone, or about anything that had happened since his death hundreds of years ago.
That's it.
You get given them based on your strongest trait, with 'trait' being used loosely.
How tall you are, how much you like the colour green, all that.
And it picks *anybody*.
You had an ancestor who fought in the 100 Year War? Guess what? He's your Familiar because you both rather enjoy cheese.
Your grandad helped refill the Zyklon-B in Auschwitz? You're gonna get beaten up, since he's hanging around with you, now.
The other kicker is that these guys don't appear immediately. The average age at which you get one is about seventeen to twenty years old. It made my high school interesting and actually rather depressing; We were in the first lesson one day, and then this First World War Tommy appeared next to my mate Harry. Technically, they can't interrupt a lesson or tell them to leave, so this soldier (*who, saddeningly, was our age*) started hanging around with our class for the day. Then, later, we had history.
That was how this kid found out that his death wasn't in vain. He grabbed hold of Harry and began cheering, immediately not caring that he'd been shot by a Maxim gun during the Somme Offensive. The teacher recorded it. YouTube sensation overnight.
The soldier had been given to Harry since both of them had luxurious brown curly hair.
Like I say, the word 'traits' is used loosely.
I, meanwhile, had nobody.
Everybody over seventeen had some kind of warrior following them around. People used their Familiars for everything. Companionship, physical coaching, studying help, relationship advice - Hell, the government had passed a bill that lets them re-enlist the familiars of British soldiers, which means there's a good number of Zulu War-era soldiers shooting at Middle Eastern extremists (*who also have their ancestors, which is quite scary considering how most of them have descended from Russian soldiers or ancient warrior tribes*).
And yet, I had nobody.
Nobody, that is, until I was woken up by my house's entire front wall being knocked down.
I yelled, and dived out of bed just as the floor collapsed onto the top of something metal. I barely held onto a wooden support beam as a large metal object rubbed against my feet. Suddenly, the crashing noise halted.
A metal creak rang out beneath me, and I looked down.
There was an entire Sherman tank beneath my feet, and peering out of the hatch was a rather grubby looking American soldier.
I stared in utter disbelief.
My house was a wreck.
A tank was in my living room.
And apparently, I'm descended from an American GI?
"Howdy!" he called up, clambering out of the hatch and reaching up to help me stand on the tank. I gently lowered myself down, and steadied myself. The man looked me up and down, then extended a hand, grinning. "My name's Corporal Able. And you're my grandson? Handsome lookin' fella, ain't ya?"
I carefully shook his hand. As I took my hand out of his grip, I looked.
Oh my God, it was covered in oil.
"So, you like tanks, right?"
"Uh..."
I looked down.
"...I'm questioning that love for them, now."
He stuck his thumbs into the strap of his assault webbing, and rocked on his heels slightly, looking at the hole he'd made. "Well. Kinda broke your house, huh?"
I was utterly mindboggled.
"...a bit...?"
Nevertheless, he flashed another toothy grin. "Good thing I was an engineer. I helped build that one bridge to go meet the Russians. I can help fix your house in a jiffy."
I was still confused.
Even more so...
"...where did you even get this tank?"
"This tank?" he asked, looking down at the hulking green Sherman. "This tank's called 'Shelly'. My tank."
"Why's it here?" I asked. Able put one hand on his hip and scratched his stubbly beard. I could already hear sirens in the distance, no doubt about the sound of a tank crash.
"Well..." Able puckered his lips to the side slightly, and sucked air through his teeth. "Maybe...maybe it's 'cause of that time I got your grandmother pregnant with you?"
"Where does a tank come into all this?"
"Well, I brought her back to the barracks when me and my boys was stationed here, and we didn't have any lube, so I guess I just used some engine lubricant. Mixed with my white stuff, maybe? I dunno."
I nearly went pale.
"But hey!" Able leaned over and nudged me in the ribs, grinning. "Least you've got a tank, right? A tank that the military can't stop without their own ancestors, and when I was coming here, all I saw was soldiers standing with fellas in suits of armour! Let's see them crack open Shelly!"
I stared in disbelief.
I realized that I had made history: Two familiars. Nobody had ever had this before.
I also realized I was the first man to ever be descended from a tank.
I then realized I was completely naked, since I'd been thrown out of bed.
"...can...can I go put some clothes on?"
Able shrugged. "Eh. If you want. Hey, I saw this real nice looking coffee place a few blocks down. 'Starbucks', or somethin'? We should go there today."
I slowly nodded, letting out a 'S-Sure' as I ran back into my room and past the glass cases of anime figurines.
He's gonna be a bit disappointed to see I'm his descendant. | I had never known what life was like with a familiar. My parents both had them, my older brother had one, and almost every person I knew at my school had one. They'd follow their masters about from place to place disappearing occasionally when commanded. I would try to describe them, but they are all so unique it becomes almost impossible to focus one one particular attribute.
They don't talk. Or at least not that I can hear. From my perspective at the time, they just seemed to follow people pointlessly. My parents told me when I was young that they were called "familiars" because they represented something about their master. And that appeared to be true.
Cheerleaders tended to have more bubbly, miniature familiars with bright colors. The kids who had family troubles tend to has either sullen, dark familiars or beefed up fighters. I always thought it probably reflected how they dealt with their situations--something unspoken about how they carried themselves.
Every birthday I hoped one would turn up and I would find out exactly what I was missing, but year after year none showed up at my side. I liked to postulate that it meant I could be whoever I wanted to be in the future. That all my doors were still open. I wasn't cornered into a destiny. My friends seemed to think it meant I was indecisive and didn't know who I was. Of course, they only every mentioned it as a joke. It wasn't.
About my 21st birthday, I truly believed I would finally get my familiar. I could drink. I* was a complete adult--minus the insurance benefits of a 25 year-old. And everyone knows that's when you find out a lot about yourself. That night I remember drinking more than I had ever attempted before. It was my turn to take on the world.
The next morning I woke up with a terrible hangover. The sun pelted my eyes through my bedroom window like a continuous beam of pain straight to the back of my head. I got up shrugging my shoulders to stretch them out and scrunching my face so I could see. I grabbed my glasses from my bedside table and started my trek to the bathroom to face whatever hell was about to come form the night before.
I felt nauseous and unbalanced as I entered the bathroom. I threw water briskly onto my face to wake me up and looked in the mirror. I barely had time to see what was behind me in the reflection before I jumped. I turned quickly to face whatever I had seen behind me in the mirror. Nothing. My heart slowed and I started to breath again.
My turn had half-hopeful and half-frightened. Frightened that what behind me was some unexpected person like in so many horror movies. Hopeful it was my familiar finally showing up to help me figure out my life. But it was neither.
I turned back to the mirror to resume inspecting myself and began to cough. It felt like I had swallowed a cigarette whole. The room was hazy around me. I began to waft at the air to get rid of the smoke. But it didn't move at first. Finally, I stepped back and saw what appeared to be a dark ghost floating where I had been standing.
Before I could think, I heard, "Don't be startled. I'm you after all."
Had the ghost spoken to me? Should I have trusted it?
"Are you my familiar?" I almost yelled this still at the crossing point point between excitement and fear.
"I'm your doubt and fear. I'm place you go to when are uncertain and uneasy. I'm you, Brian" the words echoed in my head.
"You can't be me. I'm not a ghost or whatever you are. Is my familiar my fear? That can't be good. I haven't seen one this dark." my thoughts raced trying to grasp what was happening.
"You may call me what you want, but I am here to guide you through all your trials and tribulations. To provide you shelter from the world's troubles." its voice rang again.
Of course it could read my thoughts. This had to be the familiar. But I didn't want it. I didn't want to have to be protected form the world I was scared of my future.
"I don't need you" I exclaimed walking out of the bathroom and slamming the door behind me.
The ghost simply phased through it, but did not respond. We sat there in silence for quite a while studying each other. It had only shadows where its eyes would have been and a mouth that led nowhere and seemed to serve no purpose since it didn't use it to speak. It bobbed up and down methodically in a soothing repetitious way. Like watching a slow clock's pendulum oscillating back and forth drawing you to sleep.
I noticed the spirit turn to face the door pointing with his small arms and turned myself. The door suddenly swung open. Gusts of wind hurled frigid air into the room and the lights in the room went dark. My familiar floated in front of me focused still. From the door came a nine-tailed fox emanating heat like foxfire. The fox was majestic-looking as it pushed back the cold of the room.
"Brian you must resist him. He is not your familiar" A new female voice began to speak in my head. I peered over at the ghost floating in front of me.
"I thought I'd left you behind. You don't deserve him you deceitful worm" the ghost's voice rang out seeming to echo throughout the rest of the frozen tundra inside my apartment.
"Brian. Listen to me. He won't protect you. He will keep you form everything you're meant to be. I can show you the way."
"You will show him nothing."
At that moment, they clashed. From each appendage the ghost extended himself toward the foxfire in wisps of black magic wisps each deflected by a glowing shield. The foxfire darted to the side catapulting the ghost to the other side of the room.
"Brian come with me. We can escape his sorrow, his fear. We can be whatever we want to be" The nine-tails was stricken to floor--a result of its pause to persuade me to join.
My mind was racing trying to solve the enigmatic events transpiring before me. The ghost took hold of my hand without touching me pulling me toward the door.
"We must escape!" he bellowed pulling harder. I began to stumble in his direction.
The eyes of the fox turned green and I was pulled again the opposite direction.
"You will not take him!"
I began to regret ever wanting a familiar. Nothing was familiar about this. Nothing. Yes I feared what would happen if I didn't get a familiar. And yes I wanted to be all that I could be. Take on whatever face I felt was right in the future. But not like this. I was whole. Not this horrid combination of two singular ideas. I stood my ground.
"I will go nowhere!" I yelled. The winds around me began to swirl. The two familiars continued to pull. Was I strong enough for this? I continued to fight. Neither gave way.
Finally, I let go. I could feel myself tearing at the seams. Stuck between to pictures of myself. I felt despair and hopelessness. I had no choice, but to fall into my destiny like so many had. The cheerleaders, the fighters, the intelligent, the dumb, the bold. I had to become what I was meant to be.
And then, there was nothing.
| 2017-01-20T15:20:01 | 2017-01-20T14:02:57 | 53 | 22 |
[WP] When a child comes of age their greatest quality manifests itself as a familiar that will follow them for life. You just turned 21 and you still didn't have one, until this morning when two showed up and they terrify you. | I thought at first that it was a severed and bloated head wrapped in plastic and thrown in the stream. Morbid curiosity took over and I ventured closer to the bank. It seemed to be drifting closer as I made my to the edge. My feet sticking into the mud I searched for a branch to use to snag the plastic and keep it from being swept down stream before the police could get to it.
It was when I saw that the mass had somehow made its way half out of the water did I realize two things. The first was that it was moving on its own, hosted within it maggots or demons as I writhed and undulated across the river pebbles. The second was that I heard a voice calling to me, “We are here! We are for you!”
Panic and disgust filled my mind, but I could not look or move away. Veins and arteries were visible within the transparent membranes that I originally took for a trash bag pushed to its limits by decaying gases. With each push forward the creature pulse and lurch. A seam split across the front to reveal an evil grin of needle sharp teeth before vomiting out inflated sacks of organs.
“Please!” it screamed in my head. With the scream came a slight pressure that felt like something was reaching into my mind. Memories flashed one after the other until I felt myself reliving a moment in entirety.
I had been walking with my friend during our last year of high school. We were trudging trough two feet of snow deep in the woods when we saw movement. A massive spotted cat came running towards him. Before I could ready my rifle he told me to stop and ran to greet it.
It turns out it was his familiar. We had been the oldest people in town not to have ours until that moment. The damn thing must have walked all the way up the North Dakota from South America. It took him weeks to nurse it back to health and ended up moving away after school.
The thought clicked. This was my familiar. If it took that long for the cat to find my friend, from what distance and depth of hell did this thing crawl not to get to me by twenty-one? No not hell, the depth of the ocean. More things fell into place.
I started to speak some incantations, but without a familiar I had never been too good at remembering them. I was able to build a bubble of water to house the deep sea devil. “Please, pressure! We are hurting,” the voice said. Before I could say I didn’t know how the answers where feed into my mind.
The bubble of water contracted and the depressurized bladder of the fish shrunk down revealing a more fishy appearance. Squeezing the water further the bubble became too small, needing to be replenished by the stream. The more pressure exerted the closer I needed to get.
Once finished I held the ball of water in my hands. My familiar still had the frightful grotesque look of a deep sea creature, but it no longer fought against the minimal pressure of the surface atmosphere. “Thank you our friend. You have saved us. We are grateful to meet you,” The fish hissed in my mind.
“It nice to meet you too. I’ve been waiting a long time,” I said smiling. “I’m curious. What’s with the ‘we?’ Are you fish royalty or- OW! What fu...” A spine of the fish had been jabbed into my hand sending a burning and numbing sensation shooting up my arm. Soon I was unable to move as the toxin spread through my body. Collapsing on the riverbank the bubble of water settled next to me, and I found myself staring into the black eyes of my new familiar.
“We are two,” explained the fish as it opened its mouth again. This time, behind the bar like teeth was a fat isopod attached to the fish’s tongue. Opening the jaws wider the crustacean crawled out of its prison and onto my shirt. I watched in horror as it crawled onto my face and I was powerless to stop it. Using it’s tiny legs and pinchers it wriggled its way into my mouth. I could taste the fishiness of it as it crawled along my tongue.
I cried in silent horror as it dug into and held onto the base of my tongue. I felt chunks of flesh being bitten off and removed by the creature. There was no pain, but I could taste and feel the hot blood pouring out of the wounds until pincers clamped down to stem the flow. The disgust and blood loss became too much and I found myself slipping into darkness.
-----
Years later I understand the purpose of my familiars. I have traveled the depths of the oceans and spoken spells no human tongue can say. I know the truths of the abyss and the power of the sea.
| *For the record, I did not check the comments to see if anyone had used this idea I apologize if I have copied anyone, here we go!*
The Iridashi Companion Creator, or ICC, was created back in the year 2075, and has been creating companions or more commonly known as "Familiars" for people ever since. It was found in a study several years prior to its creation that people better fulfilled their societal role if they were accompanied by things that mirrored their most prevalent aspects. This inspired Mr. Iridashi to pursue creating one of the most revolutionary creations in the history of humanity.
All Familiars are either animals or objects. The only exception to this was when Mr. Iridashi himself went into the ICC as the first person to try his creation. The result was a human familiar with the same inventive mind of Mr. Iridashi. Together they strived to make many more of the greatest innovations of mankind. However, Mr. Iridashi and his Familiar disallowed human familiars after a troubled young man named Alvin Tannamont entered the ICC and only his murderous Familiar exited. This was later labeled the Tannamont Incident and gave birth to a small part of the populace known as the "Loners" who are against the use of the ICC, but quickly faded due to public approval of the ICC.
I am Brian Rayton and I turn 21 today. I am going to take another try at the ICC today and I have cleared my schedule even though I doubt it will be fruitful. I'm planning on meeting Rob at the Transit Hub and heading to our district's ICC facility for my appointment at 3:30 this afternoon.
Most people are given their familiar between the ages 12 and 16. The ICC puts you through this neural mapping process that will auto-reject you if it determines your brain is not properly developed and damage could be done. It is rare for someone to go as long as myself without a familiar, and, of course, we are treated accordingly.
There are bullies and people who feel we are "mentally incapable" and believe we shouldn't be allowed in our society. Otherwise, most people are fairly sympathetic and encourage us to keep trying.
Rob has been with me through the thick and thin. He was blessed with a mighty lion as a familiar at only age 12 and has always been extremely popular and successful, even through college. Every year, I hope to gain a familiar like his. Something powerful and outstanding that will allow me to excel in life. I think my failures in life have been due to my lack of a familiar. My depression, poor grades, addictions... But maybe those will all end today! Hopefully, I'll get some animal that can compete with Rob's, and I can start going to some parties. I mean, chicks dig cool animal Familiars.
I met Rob and his Familiar at the Transit Hub, and we had a pleasant trip to the ICC facility. We got here just in time for my appointment. Rob brought up how a group thought to be Loners tampered with District 6's ICC the other day resulting in the death of a kid that was only 13. Rob said that it might be a good idea to postpone this for a few weeks for things to blow over... I have waited years to feel what he feels today, and he just doesn't understand. I spent almost all of the money I got for my birthday on this appointment and I can't afford to reschedule.
I checked in and left Rob in the waiting room. He wished me good luck and I was lead back to the interface room. This is a familiar walk for me as I have done it many times before. However, there are multiple maintenance workers in a room off to the side of the interface room, but I won't be discouraged.
I was seated and I'm being connected to the neural mapper. It's a large machine that envelops the entire head except for the majority of one's face. There is a pad on one side of the room where your familiar is meant to appear. I have never seen this pad occupied, but today that will change. I will join the ranks of Rob and others that are so fulfilled.
The nurse is leaving the room. This is a pretty lengthy process that takes about thirty to forty-five minutes. It tends to feel like a dream that consists only of pure darkness.
I'm awake. This time felt different. I hope... Dear God. I scream. There is a dagger in my chest peculiarly engraved with a scene of Cain killing Abel. A hand extends and pulls the blade from my chest as I proceed to scream, and a deluge of blood ensues. I look up to see who is there and am only greeted by a human figure. In my haze of sight, I identify the perpetrator as... Me. "Why?" I ask along with a cough of blood. The Familiar responds, "What you cannot have, no one shall have." The naked body leaves the room with the dagger as I slowly fade to dark.
"Envy" I whisper and chuckle as the cold dark proceeds to overtake me. | 2017-01-20T20:29:24 | 2017-01-20T16:05:25 | 16 | 11 |
[WP] On everyone's 18th birthday at noon, one word appears in their skin, depicting their career or purpose in life. On your birthday you're staring at a clock showing 11:59am, family and friends gathered around for your reveal.
Path 1: Noon strikes, and you stare at your forearm intently. 12:01, still nothing appears.
Path 2: one word fades in slowly, followed by a second... | I sat on the couch, scraping up the last remnants of my birthday cake.
"It's almost time!" My mom shouted
I glanced at the clock: 11:59
My brother Jeremy launched a nuclear clock app and swiped it to the TV. Everyone crowded around and I held up my arm so they could see. At 11:59:50 they started counting down. "10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1!"
As the countdown finished I began to feel a slight burning sensation. I watched as the word began to fade in, as if pushed forward from beneath my skin.
"Run."
Everyone cheered, I had always been an athletic person, mom had even joked that my word would be "Olympian" on multiple occasions. As the cheers began to fall off, my arm began to burn again, more than before. I grimaced and closed my eyes, waiting for the pain to pass.
When I opened my eyes, the room was dead silent. I glanced up at my mom and saw the look of horror in her eyes. I looked down, bringing my still tender arm back up so I could read it.
"Run. Now."
Then the gunfire started. | The Life Brand is thought to be a flawless and efficient system by most of the world's population. Few oppose the mandatory injection of nanites that will one day create your Life Brand because they view the world as fair, now.
I get it, I really do. The Border Wars of the 21st century were bitter and terrifying for everyone, and then when Automatons began to dominate formerly middle and lower class workers, billions of people were displaced out of the workforce. Another war, fought for decades, eventually brought us to peacetime when a renounced Swiss doctor developed nanotech.
The political geography of the world changed. Borders were dissolved, entire governments gutted and destroyed, and everyone was classified into a career path based on the results of three different tests and a psychological evaluation. Then the good doctor developed the Life Brand and pitched it to our fledgling united government.
They ate it up like a sweet treat, and the Life Brand program was in full effect within five years. For the most part, we are better for it. We've seen no war in a decade, and Life Brand gets a chunk of the credit.
I always feared my branding day. I was always very aware of my mathematical genius and technological prowess. It didn't help to quell the fear of getting classified into a sub-optimal field for me. So it's no surprise that I felt terror and a deep sense of shame when my brand finally activated at 12:08:47 PM universal standard time. I wasn't branded to be a mathematician, an engineer, a networks security specialist...No. It was far worse than that.
"Hello, Mr. Sullivan. I'm Gemma, and I am your assigned organ requisition agent for today. Can I interest you in a last meal or a final judgement blow job?"
I really hate the Life Brand system... | 2017-03-15T22:53:41 | 2017-03-15T22:51:56 | 271 | 37 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.