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[WP] Due to the way most aliens had evolved, forest fires, house fires and the alike were seen as naturally powerful and not to be interfered with. When humans joined the galactic community, aliens were shocked and intriqued to discover human firefighters. | Fascinating... Those human life forms have a way to end the fire’s frightening power. To think such basic level thinking has its way to save what is utterly being destroyed. Maybe our way of evolution has rendered us useless to such simple means of protection. Many of our people would’ve let the fire persist and those caught up in it would meet their fate, but these humans would risk their lives to go and save those in distress.
They seem to care a lot about the people, the animals, and even the environment. Putting their lives on the line to save what is hopeless, you might say is... idiotic, but seeing it in full view it’s... well... I don’t know. But they’ve accomplished what we couldn’t and to say that we’re more evolved than they are is meaningless. Maybe they are the so called “aliens” sure they see us as different, but they’ve really shown a lot more things “alien” to us and these “fire fighters”are one of them. | "And thats how we put out fire." United Earth Confederate leader Gary McCready said to the aliens. However aliens were shocked. Golon Empire ambassador furiously stood up from his chair just after initial shock passed. "That's heresy! No one shall trifle with Eternal Flame! Thee that messes shall be consumed!" Angry noises of all kinds arose among aliens. Ambassador continued. "You committed biggest sin possible, Human. You shall be consumed." Then one of the aliens shouted a warcry and leaped at the leader. Security of UEC quickly dispatched the assailant. That was how First Galactic War started. Between humans and aliens... | 2018-10-11T02:15:01 | 2018-10-11T01:59:59 | 48 | 31 |
[WP] After defeating a dragon which devastated your group, you start to develop odd traits like reptilian eyes. It soon becomes apparent to you that you’re slowly turning into a dragon. | (I am very sorry for this one, but when the idea hit me, I HAD to do it. It was a Moral Imperative. Please don't hurt me)
It had been one hell of a fight. The Dragon had been terrorizing villages all across the Five kingdoms, kidnapping cattle and eating maidens for the last month. They had lost six good men in taking it down finally, Captain Benjamin had been one of the ones who had fallen, his young squire picking up the fallen knight’s sword and landing the killing blow.
For his service the Square was knighted, and appointed to a Lieutenant’s post in the Capital. He too had been injured, though not nearly as grievously as his comrades, which was lucky for the young Lieutenant. Dragon fire was notoriously hard to treat. Fortunately the Lieutenant merely had a small wound where one of the beast's fangs had merely nicked him, while the man next to him was bitten in two. This small injury healed rapidly, and he thought nothing of it for several weeks.
It wasn’t until the next month when he began to notice his vision changing. Before , he could not see as well as most, his archery not up to the standards of his peers. This had changed, and he soon could see as good as an eagle, though the color of his eyes changed from their normal bean brown to more of an orange hue. Odd, but considering some of the people in the Capital city, not too strange.
The skin condition however started to alarm him. Fortunately, it was easily concealable for the most part. The scales were not visible unless he took his shirt off and to be honest, they did shimmer rather handsomely in the light. Three days later, wings were beginning to develop, and he began to panic.
“So when did you say this happened?” The Mage peered at the budding wings, flapping almost comical in their small size.
“Yesterday Sir.”
The mage nodded “and the scales, would they be the same color as the dragon you slew? Are you sure it did not injure you?”
“Well…there was this small nick on my arm…” Leaning closer, the Mage pulled out a magnifying glass. He waved his other hand, glowing runes forming around the small mostly healed puncture wound. “What color was this dragon anyway?”
“It was ..well i'd have thought it was green, but it had a bluish glow to it when it was in the shadows.”
“Ah. Thought so.” The old mage stroked his beard, looking satisfied. “It’s rare, as most people don’t survive being bitten…but I’m afraid you’ve been bitten by what we mages call a Radioactive dragon.”
Lieutenant Parker blinked “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re turning into an amazing Dragon-man, with the strength, powers and agility of a Dragon."
The lieutenant sighed “oh well, Captain Ben did always tell us with great power comes great responsibility.” | After catching my reflection in the gleam of my broadsword, I noticed my eyes were different. Instead of the baby blue I was used to, they were now yellow with with black slits.
The nagging pain in my ankle was getting worse as well, that’s where I was scratched by the dragon that killed my-
The dragon! Did it have yellow eyes? No, no it couldn’t have. No way this was happening. To the best of my ability, I ran to the nearest village and rented a room at the local inn. I made sure the innkeeper didn’t notice my eyes. I barricaded myself in the room and tried to collect my thoughts.
“Maybe I caught the lighting at a weird angle. Maybe I’m seeing things.” I spoke aloud to myself. “Hopefully it’ll be fine in the morning.” I collapsed into the bed, hoping it’d be over.
——
I woke up the next morning with chills running down my body. I got out of bed and saw myself in the mirror.
It was worse.
My hands and forearms were now beginning to grow emerald scales. My face was now drained of all color, and my eyes were now even more vibrant than they were last night.
I stood there, facing the new me for what felt like an eternity. The only sound in the room was my breathing. Quickly, I got dressed back in my knight attire and left the inn.
I made my way out into the village, the sun beating down. Everyone around me was hot and sweaty, but I was cold. It wasn’t until I began running did I feel that my ankle was hurting worse. Once I got on the outskirts of the village, I hid in a ditch at looked at my injury.
The bleeding scar had scabbed over and my toenails had grown to an absurd length, each one more than half an inch. More scales were starting to form as well. I put my head in my hands, only to realize my fingernails were longer as well.
I planned to travel to a nearby wizard, his tower was only a mile and a half away. All I needed to do was go there and see if he could help me. But first, I needed something to eat.
Looking in my pouch, all I had was some raw mutton. Despite it being raw, I… craved it. Drool dropped from my lip as I stuffed it into my mouth. Scarfing it down was easy. I laid back only to burp a few seconds later.
A small fireball spat out and flew its way to a nearby dead tree. The bark engulfed in flames.
“I gotta get help. Fast.” | 2022-10-03T21:30:03 | 2022-10-03T21:26:43 | 24 | 15 |
[WP] You are a demon that takes firstborns as payments. When it comes time for payment, you don't do anything evil with the children. Instead, you raise them to be outstanding people. You are responsible for generations of leaders, Doctors, and Heroes. | "But why?" asked the demon hunter. He finally let up and put the cross away, hesitant as he may have been, which allowed me to speak with more comfort.
"Because they deserve better," I said. "What kind of a parent gives up their child for a sack of infinite turnips? Do you honestly think they would have had a better life with them?"
The demon hunter opened his mouth in protest, but only let out a defeated breath. I can only suspect what he'd anticipated to find - a black stone soaked in the blood of the innocents or a dark sabbath singing my praises and prancing around with bits of flesh on their lips. Not a large, well-lit house with a garden and a swing set.
"But why do *you* do it? There must be a reason," the demon hunter continued. I got up from my chair and walked over to a wall covered in pictures and paintings, pointing one of them out. It had 2 adult demons standing by a smaller one, her wide smile showing the silver glint of her new bracers.
"My parents own a farm in the Wrath Ring. They raised me well. When I learned what some of you humans do to your children, well... I felt responsible."
The demon hunter finally accepted my previous offer and sat down in the soft, cushioned chair in the living room. I can't fault him for suspecting foul play - the Church propaganda ran deep, but seeing the kids happy and healthy, not even he could deny it.
"Mind you," I continued, "they're not always bad," I said and took one old portrait off of the wall, handing it over to the hunter. He looked at the likeness of an older couple proudly standing by a young but clearly adult woman in a Victorian-era dress. The subtle bridges of their noses and cloudy grey eyes instantly betrayed their biological relation.
"Her... parents? I mean, birth parents?" he quickly added as to not insult me.
"Yes. Not everyone gives their kids away for personal gain. Mr. and Mrs. Talbot here were simply too poor. Do you know what they asked for in return?" I said and sat back down, taking another sip of my tea.
The hunter said nothing but looked at me expectantly.
"To raise her well," I said with a smile.
"...did you?"
"Of course. She was one of the first female doctors admitted to the Newcastle hospital. I had to pull some string for that, but you should've seen her face when she got the place," I said and subtly wiped my eye.
He looked back at the picture, noting its age.
"How long have you been doing this?" he said and shifted his eyes to the wall of pictures. Some of them looked remarkably old and had people in all manner of clothing attire, in some cases centuries out of style.
"A while," I smiled. He seemed content with the answer. He sat there in silence for a moment, then spoke.
"What am I supposed to say to my order? I can't just say 'Turns out the Demon is friendly'."
"Tell them the truth. That the report of a demon abducting and tormenting children was misconstrued," I said.
"Oh, and before you go - one of the children, Jeffrey, has been watching a *lot* of movies about demon hunters and seems dead set on becoming one. Do you mind talking to him, telling him what it's like?" I cheerfully asked.
"You'd let a... ward of yours hunt down your own kind?" he replied with surprise.
"As if humans don't have a profession that hunts down other, bad humans. Would you mind if your child wanted to become a policeman?" I said with a stern look. He looked puzzled but conceded to my point. Seeing this, I allowed my smile to return to my face.
"So, would you talk to him, *demon hunter*? It'd make his day," I said with a laugh.
The demon hunter put the portrait back onto the coffee table and, for the first time since his visit, smiled.
"It would be my pleasure. And," he said with what I suspected might have been genuine kindness,
"It's Garreth." | Demons possess a degree of influence across the world— I got people who owe me favors, in exchange, they make sure my children get the best education that money can buy. Sometimes, even my older children will help my younger children obtain their dream job.
Why, you may ask..? Aren’t demons ill-made and spiteful spawns of evil..? Well, yes... but actually, no. We love torturing evil souls, it’s in our nature to take pleasure in our work... but that’s exactly it, they’re evil. They’re child molesters, rapists, serial killers— the lowest of the low. The majority of us have no interest in innocent souls, it’s not apart of the job... it’s not apart of the fucking payroll.
I, however, definitely do take very much interest in the most innocent of them all— children. Despite what people may argue, evil souls come more from nurture than nature. These kids that I accept as payment come from terrible families, they’d be destined to grow up with post traumatic stress from abuse and abandonment— statistically speaking, they’re likely to grow up to be the same way.
It’s only logical that the abusive and alcoholic father would exchange their only child for enough wealth to buy a brewery with... they usually end up drinking themselves into an early grave anyways, then down to Hell they go. But, what about the second, third, fourth, so-on and so-forth child? Well, the agreement doesn’t end there, good fellow. After the deal is made, it is established that the man (or woman) becomes infertile and would never be able to raise a child in any form or fashion, guaranteeing no child would suffer from their hands again.
Why would you do this? Well, despite popular belief, demons tend to talk a lot to their victims in the Bowels of Hell. We have to get to know them, in order to psychologically torture them. What I’ve come to discover is that most of these horrible, disgusting, and repulsive people grew up to be the way they are due to childhood trauma, I guess I felt... sympathetic.
I, also, grew to be a fallen angel due to past trauma, due to losing faith in my father and turning faith to my older brother in his stead. From the abuse, the lack of freewill... I was bounded to my environment, to live the same eternal life my older siblings had... until Lucifer gave me a way out. I wish to give that to these children, the chance to live how they want! The chance to escape the toxicity of their environment and rise above the abusive cycle that contaminated generations upon generations upon generations!
Did you know that the majority of people in Hell have their parental offspring there too..? Fathers teach their sons the way of sin, the sons grow up to have children and they will do the same! The cycle repeats... I’m the one who’s going break the cycle, to make sure no more innocent souls get trapped by the hands of their creator!
My children, yes— MY children, are happy with me. I am securing their life and afterlife, they grow up to be doctors, lawyers, politicians, and leaders! They grow up knowing right from wrong, good from evil, righteousness from sin!
And the day I sit beside their deathbed, holding their hand as they slip away into the abyss... they won’t see the Pearly Golden Gates, beautiful angels welcoming them to paradise, God greeting them with open arms... they’ll see Uncle Lucifer and I waving them down with all of our other children— ready to show them their fathers and mothers, ready to show them how we broke the toxic cycle, ready to show them how they’ll get to do the same thing... all they have to do, is say yes. | 2022-02-05T10:32:19 | 2022-02-05T10:17:15 | 465 | 168 |
[WP] Write a letter to someone you miss
It's been a rough week. Everyone has someone they wish were still with them. Write to them and tell them how you feel. Pour your heart out. No judging. Even if they never see it, someone will. And thank you. It's tough to be alone. | Dear Me,
I miss you. I miss the way you used to be. You used to care. You used to try your hardest. Now all you do is say, I'll do it later. I can see that you're struggling. Yet, you have more friends than you ever did, and you know what you want to do with your life.
But still, when it comes to day-to-day stuff, you don't care anymore. You still show up on class on time, but you do your assignments in class the day it's due, or stay up all night finishing that huge end-of-term assignment. Your car has bald tires, because you can't be bothered to get new ones. You have dozens of personal projects you started ages ago, then lost all motivation to complete. And you've shaved twice in the past month.
All you do now is spend your time browsing Reddit, reading the news, and watching YouTube videos. It's like you've given up. Yet, when you actually have a _purpose_ to keep trying, I've seen you move mountains. I've seen you learn to become a proficient programmer from almost nothing in two months, and be better than the other guy at work who's been doing it for ten years. I've seen you try. Sometimes you failed, but just as often you succeeded spectacularly. Now, all you CAN do is fail, because you can't succeed if you don't try.
It doesn't make sense. You are somewhat intelligent, but squander it on useless nonsense. _Who cares_ what somebody on the Web has to say? I don't care, so why do you? It literally has no bearing on your life. Why do you keep watching random YouTube videos about stuff you're never going to even try because you're sitting there watching YouTube videos?
Maybe all you need is a real challenge. Something that you truly care about. After all, it's hard to care about deadlines and challenges you're set when you know they're completely artificial and arbitrary. But you KNOW that completing post-secondary school is important, and critical to you finding a good job. But you still don't care. Deep down, I know you care, but you need to care _now_, not later.
I remember how you used to race to complete everything you were set so that you could hand it in early. I remember how you used to start something and actually FINISH IT. Now you get three chapters into a book, set it down, and never pick it back up. I remember how you used to sign 15 novels out of the library, and finish them all before the week was up.
Please come back.
I miss you dearly,
Your Future Self | Dear Pop Pop,
I miss you. It's been about 11 or 12 years since you died. I was really young at the time, so all I remember is the last few months you were alive, watching the cancer slowly eat away at your body. With each visit you got more and more frail. I didn't recognize it at the time but looking back, seeing what it was doing to my dad, your son, was almost as bad as watching you. I wish I had more memories of you, more good memories anyway. Mom and dad say you adored me, that you loved me more than life itself, but I'll never know. They tell me stories about you, how you used to take me for rides in your convertible and I loved every minute of it, if only I could remember it. If only I could remember your laugh, your smile, your voice. Sometimes my dad looks at me and says how proud you would be of me, it's hard looking at his face when he says that, I can see the pain in his eyes. I still remember the note I wrote and put in your coffin. It said 'You were a good Pop Pop.' I was a little kid at the time so that's all I could think of to say, but I think it was enough I remember putting it in that little drawer in the side of your coffin to be buried with you. I even remember wearing that Mariachi suit that had been in the family for generations, but I don't remember you. I still have that suit, it's still hanging in my closet. I look at it from time to time, and I try to remember something, anything about you but the frail old man dying of cancer, but I can't. I think my parents are right when they say you would be proud of me, I've had a steady girlfriend for almost 5 years now, her name is Hanna. I think you would like her, she's amazing. I have a steady job too, full time working with dad at the airport. I graduated high school too, two years ago, and now I'm getting ready to go to college. I'm gonna get a business degree and then learn to be an airplane mechanic, and maybe if I'm good enough I'll open my own shop, that's when the business degree is for. Well I have to go now Pop Pop, I've got work in the morning and I need to get to sleep. I miss you. | 2017-11-05T22:02:16 | 2017-11-05T20:37:15 | 1,095 | 16 |
[WP] You are immortal, but a quirk of your condition also renders the person nearest to you immortal as well. A selfish king obsessed with living forever has gone to extreme lengths to keep you as the closest person to them at all times. | My mother was supposed to die in childbirth. And she did, later on. I had been born to a corpse more than any living thing. She was barely alive, and the doctors weren't quite aware of it, the medical field being mostly guesswork at the time. It wasn't like a lot of work was being put into treating women anyway, not when everything could so easily be written off as 'Hysteria'.
But even they eventually caught on, turns out when you can't stop bleeding its a bad thing. She'd been holding me ever since my birth, and as they realized my mother was not healthy, they pulled me away from her so they could see if they could fix it. The very second I was pulled from her arms she died.
I wonder, sometimes, if she hated those moments or loved them. If she was happy to be gifted with a few blessed moments of time with her newborn child or if she suffered in her state of unending pain until I was finally pulled away from her to give her the pleasant release of death.
So I lived forever, it was a strange thing to come to terms with. I survived all manner of plagues from black on up, I was a consort to kings and an advisor to queens. I gained a reputation as unkillable, and that made me the subject of assassination plots. I survived knives delivered so enthusiastically into my back and I survived being sunk in the ocean with an anchor wrapped around me.
And another survived those things too, not by his own virtue, just by proximity. He grew obsessed with the fact that I was... too good at keeping him safe. He was a child when we first met, and I had not appeared to age since then. He grew from second to the throne to prince to king. I assisted him every step, and he grew to depend on me.
One day, after a "failed" robbery on our chariot as we traveled, he demanded to know my secret. He wanted to know what magic or curse kept us both alive. I told him, like the fool I was, and I regretted it every moment after. I felt a romance towards him, that I of course could not tell him about. When he had begun to lead his people with faith and truth and justice, I fell for him. I had long sought to be beside him, but in this moment when he learned the truth of my abilities, he suffocated me with his presence. He choked me with demands and threats. He spoiled whatever I felt for him in the passage of two days.
The king in his fear of death, which I can not blame him for I suppose, began to demand absolute attendance. Even as he married, even as the queen moved through dangerous country, even as danger lurked ever present around him he kept me by his side. He lied through his teeth with reasons. I believe, had I not been born a male, he would have wed me instead of the queen. A thought which might have been romantic were it not motivated by such intense fear and greed and selfishness.
This all culminated through his reign until, on a ruinous night of fog and death, the Queen was giving birth to twins. The king had long been corrupted by his obsession with immortality, and sat in the throne room, even as handmaids and midwives ran through the halls.
She was not doing well.
I sighed as I rested my hand on the pommel of my sword. It was not a sigh of disrespect. It was more a sigh of a man who knew that an unfortunate time had come, a desicion born from the frantic running feet I heard in the hall just beyond. I made to leave.
"Where are you going!" The King shouted, his voice ringing out before I could take a single step.
"To go see the Queen, since you neglect her so." I turned to face him. "Your. Wife." I stressed, as much an effort to shake the King to his senses as it was to wrap my own head around how much he had changed.
"I did not say you could leave! You will remain here, by my command." He said, brushing aside my words without a thought.
I sighed again and drew my sword, closing the distance to him. He looked to my sword, then to me, and he couldn't seem to piece together what it meant. He had long stopped fearing death, it had been several years. What he feared now was isolation. He would be reminded of the former and receive the latter.
He gave a single word of resistance as I drove my blade through his lungs and into the throne. He could not speak, and he could not die. He desperately tried to remove my blade, but he had not the strength to do so.
"You will know when I've arrived to comfort your wife, there will be a moment where you truly begin to bleed out, a moment where you die." I walked to the doors of the throne room and paused at the threshold. "I'll send her your regards."
Then I closed and locked the door behind me.
I arrived as the twins emerged, and I saw a sight I had not seen in a long while. The queen lay there on the bed, bleeding profusely. As I looked to her I felt, in my bones, that I had seen this before, but I could not remember where. Then, as she convulsed suddenly, I remembered.
I rushed to her side, the crowd around her making way as I entered the circle. Whispering a sudden gout of gossip that my appearance sparked. I leaned next to her ear, tears beginning to swell in my eyes. "My Queen I bring sad news."
"My husband-!" The queen gasped suddenly.
"No, not your husband. The king is on his throne, as always, your majesty." I said, raising my voice so as to quell any worries from those who had heard the queen's outburst. "No, the news is about yourself. I have seen this before. You will not survive childbirth your majesty."
She was silent for a moment, then spoke in a steady even voice, matching my hushed volume. A feat and a half, given the incredible pain she must've been in. "I know that, advisor, I can feel it. But I do not regret it, I hope only that they will have a better life than I." She breathed deeply. "My only regret is that I will not be able to hold my children."
I was about to speak but stopped myself, my hand still resting, knuckles whitening, on her shoulder. I thought about the results of the last time I had told my secret to another, and I shook it off. "Your majesty, I can do something about that." She looked to me in confusion and shock, her face and eyes red from tears and exhaustion. "While my hand is on your shoulder you will not pass, but this pain will not abate. I can... give you time to hold your children your majesty."
The confusion faded from her face and relief spread instead. "That's why my husband always kept you so close." She smiled like a strategist who had just solved a puzzle. "I always worried that he- that you two-."
"Of course not your majesty, he truly loved you."
"He just feared death more" She said with a sly grin. She looked to the midwife as she lifted a pair of newborns, a boy and a girl.
I stayed with her through the night, a pair of guards made to open the throne room but with the door locked decided that the king must be working through the night, and they left to the barracks. I stayed with the Queen and her children as black night and thick fog encircled castle and country and I did not leave her until, at the break of the next day, she looked at me and she nodded.
Carefully, slowly, I released my grip on her shoulder and I watched as the life drained from her.
I made sure the children were taken care of, and I left. Informing a half-asleep guard at the gate that I had murdered the king, at which he smiled like it was a joke, then grew more worried as I walked away without returning a smile of my own.
I made my way to the forest, and I found an abandoned hut I had used so many years ago to hide myself away. I would come back to society one day, I just needed a break.
| I must admit, I've grown accustomed to the lifestyle of royalty, even if my only other option is a sword through my chest (and a couple days of healing but they don't know that). I don't know how the king discovered what I am, but as soon as he did, like the filing of an eye he went from treating me like dirt, like every other one of his subjects, to trying to be my best friend. He had a throne built for me -a smaller one but hey it's comfortable- that's right next to his, at large dinners I always sit next to him while all the other guests are at least 3 feet away, and during the after party he hangs off my shoulder and tells false stories about how we used to run around in the fields and play knights until sundown when we were children. I play along for now, only because I haven't yet figured out a way out.
When I first got here, I thought the king wanted me to be a guard because I was a knight once upon a time in his army, but I wasn't exactly exceptional or anything. When he directed me to a bed that was almost touching his, I thought it was odd but that he just wanted me to be his personal guard, and that the previous one must have died, I hear there's a large turnover rate because of all the assassination attempts, but the next day he explained to me that he knew I was immortal, and that so is the person standing closest to me, and that I would help him rule what he was going to call an "Eternal Empire". I tried to refuse but he told me to think it over, but there wasn't really much thinking that had to be done, this man is an awful, violent, sadistic, narcissistic, tyrant of a man who should never be anywhere close to a throne. I tried to make an escape that night but there were guards at every door, window and hatch, guards that were so still I wasn't sure if they were guards or decorative suits of armour, I discovered the truth after one pushed me into (or rather, through) a table. When I stood up and brushed myself off, the king was standing in the doorway.
"Decided to take a tour of the palace did we?"
"Uhh..." I paused and looked at the guard, who had resumed his statue like position "yeah, thought I'd take a look around."
The king looked at me like he was still expecting an answer.
"Yes...your majesty." what a jerk.
"Good, I suggest you get familiar with it, it's going to be your home for the next couple hundred years."
He turned around and started back down the hallway, but about halfway down he stopped, turned around and looked back at me and didn't move until I followed.
After that it felt like there was an invisible leash on me. I had to go with him to hangings, executions, tortures, into the fields of battle, never straying too far because there would always be a guard directly behind me, or on the other side of the door. If I needed to piss, if I needed to shit, it was either a guard or the king himself on the other side of the door. The only nice thing he ever did for me was get me a whore, who, now that I think about it may not have been an actual whore, I think he just went into the village and told the first woman he saw to come with him, but it didn't matter, I wasn't in the mood but the king had had violent outbursts before when I rejected gifts of his so I told her just to make the noises and stay for a while. We weren't able to talk, but it was nice to be in the company of someone else.
Once 60 or 70 years had passed, the legends came out in full force. Some called it the Eternal Throne, some called it the Eternal Crown but all agreed the king seemed to not be aging, and I agreed that I had had enough. A life of luxury was not worth being a prisoner inside of it. A couple of years before this, I had made a friend in a new guard named Cedrick, who, although he had to follow the kings orders, allowed me a little more breathing room where he could, and made my invisible leash not feel so tight. Often when the king was asleep, I would sneak out and take a walk around the palace, Cedrick would always be close by because the other guards were not so lenient, but he didn't make his presence constantly known like the others did.
One night, I finally found my opportunity, the king had met with a small group of mercenaries to carry out some assassination attempt or something, I wasn't paying attention, but the night they came back to report they had completed their mission, the king told them to help themselves to a meal prepared for them in the dining hall. Once the king had fallen asleep I snuck out to talk to them.
"Hey, you're that King's advisor or whatever ain't ya?" One of them said in a loud drunken voice "come you in and have a drink!"
I knew exactly what kind of people they were the moment he spoke, they were going to want something in exchange for this favour, and boy were they going to get it.
"Thank you," I said, sitting in an empty chair and taking a swig of ale from a tankard someone handed me "but I'm not here to share in your revelry, I need to ask a favour of you gents."
"Well lets 'ear it then." another one said.
"First I need to know how good you are." I said hesitantly.
"Well the country your king told us to go to still doesn't know their king is dead, so there's that." said one who had been quiet so far, I hadn't even noticed him until he spoke.
"Excellent," I open my mouth to speak again but was interrupted.
"What do we get in exchange for doing you this favour?" the quiet one asked, and I got the feeling he knew what I was going to say next.
I looked at Cedrick, who gave me a nod that there were no other guards nearby, then I said:
"The whole kingdom if you want it. I need you to kill the king." A hush fell over the room, so I continued:
"All I need is a horse waiting at the gate, a few coins and some food and I'll be on my way."
"Sounds like you just want to run away, why can't you do that already?" the quiet one asked again.
"It's a very long and complicated story and I don't have the time to tell it," I was getting a little impatient "I just need to know if you can do this."
The quiet one looked to the others, then nodded.
"Yeah, we can do it, but we have no interest in ruling."
"Fair enough." I said, then pondered a moment on finding a good replacement, then it came to me.
"Cedrick," I stood up and turned to him "you are one of the most kind and loyal, yet strong and firm people I've ever met. You lead your men into battle with a bravery and courage I've not seen before, and I think you would make a fine king."
"I...I don't know what to say, thank you." Cedrick managed to say.
"It's settled then." I said, turning back to the mercenaries "I need to be far away before you carry out your assassination, once I am through the gates you will go in and dispatch the king. Oh, and try to make it as public as you can please, these people think he's some kind of immortal."
Everything with my escape went smoothly and I've never looked back, the only thing that experience really changed about me is that I swore I'd become a proficient fighter, in case another tyrant found me out and tried to extort me like this ever again.
**THE END**
This is my first time doing one of these and I'd appreciate constructive feedback if you have any. Thanks for reading!
| 2017-05-13T08:16:17 | 2017-05-13T08:10:49 | 277 | 26 |
[WP] With total war as a concept alien to the rest of our galaxy, All saw humans as negotiators and peacemakers, soft and weak. Today is the day when the galaxy discovers why being so good at finding ways to avoid war was a survival mechanism. | It was stupid. The Karathians should have just settled their disagreements with the Auraxians like a civilized bunch. It was a shame really. Such a beautiful world, it's emerald oceans glistening. But they screwed up when they both engaged a human fleet which was just traversing the system peacefully. Before the flagship went down, EDF HOOD, a single wide band hail went out.
"If you want war, we'll give you war."
Both fleets ignored the hail. Many underestimated humanity and it's abilities. Many species were stronger, many far more intelligent. But none had ever seen the ability of a human to cause destruction. So when they ignored the hails of our diplomatic ships when we went to demand reparations and an apology, a declaration of war was sent instead.
So here I sit. The sky marshall, sipping my coffee as I listen to the latest cadets complete their graduation ceremony.
**I solemnly swear,**
**To devote my life and abilities,**
**In the defense of the United Nations of Earth,**
**To defend the right of humanity,**
**And to further the universal rights of sentient life,**
**From the depths of the Pacific,**
**To the darkest parts of the galaxy,**
**So long as, I, live!**
The executor class is really a one of a kind ship. Literally. Lacking defensive armament, it's power is entirely dedicated to the large central particle lance weapon. Originally an orbital mining laser, but we found that it was equally capable of causing traumatic damage to the crust of a planet, if you boosted the power.
A world cracker, they called it.
That's when the hails asking for mercy began to flood in. It's too bad really. If only they hadn't ignored ours...
"Sky marshall? It's on your orders."
"You may fire at your leisure, admiral."
What a shame. Such a beautiful world.
EDIT: Part deux: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/e13cwf/wp_every_sentient_species_in_the_galaxy_is_given/f8ntxrt/ | "A wise man once said that the objective of war was to offend your opponent so badly that they take their dollies and go home. But it takes politicians to truly make a mess of things, do you agree?" the human commander gestured his cigar at his...
.. esteemed guests?
They weren't exactly prisoners yet, the fighting outside was still raging.
But for the two beings before him, the war was over.
"Our people will rise up against you!" sneered B'rognaard Goa trbrtger.
"Oh, I highly doubt that they will be in any economic position to try that for quite some time, Supreme Commander.. you know what, I can't pronounce your name. So from now on you will be Bognar Goat Buggerer. And, we will be certain to target every transport off this rock that has any names remotely close to yours onboard." the cigar flared as he took a pull.
The other being suddenly came to apparent life, "No! That's..wrong!"
"Is it now? Tell me, was it wrong for your people to murder mine? Even entire families? We tried peace. You didn't want that. So now.. we have a saying. Mess with the bull, you get the horns. You're getting the horns." outside, the brilliant explosion of several transports punctuated the pronouncement.
"We thought..we thought you were weak since you started peace negotiations first."
"You mistook kindness for weakness." the human puffed his cigar again.
"Please, just let our children go. I beg you."
"No. Your proclamation of destruction for my people was 'total war', we will show you what that means. You will burn. Your cities will be ash, your people dust." | 2019-11-24T11:35:42 | 2019-11-24T10:43:18 | 661 | 350 |
[WP] A young girl has two monsters in her life: her step-father, and the one under her bed. She manages to befriend the latter to deal with the former. | Emma lay in her bed. Short blonde girl, skinny, wearing pajamas and under seven different blankets. "Cute" I hissed to myself. I put my invisible presence over her. I was in her dreams. From where I was she was simply sitting in a blank void. Floating in the nothingness.
I took the shape of a beast of fire and darkness she had seen in a movie once. I trapped her in endless stone halls. She just stood there. Fine, they sent me here to practice, lets practice.
I took the shape of a tall man in a doctors coat. Out of his back he had long slick bloody tentacles that ended in cruel barbs and terrible points. His face was a black shadow save for two burning orange eyes and grinning fangs. All over his clothes was blood and bits of flesh. I trapped her in a sterile laboratory that was poorly lit, with various instruments of torture on tables and scientific aberrations lying about. Once again, nothing. I was getting frustrated. This usually scared the living piss out of everyone, even the really stupid kids.
Odds are she wouldn't remember this, so I took the shape of Her teacher, dark hair, short beard, horn rimmed glasses. Handsome guy, she liked him. I put him in a tweed jacket and Slacks. I placed us in his office, though she had never seen it, and put her on the couch. Outside it was a beautiful fall day.
"What are you afraid of Emma? Aliens? Ghosts? Hell?" as I said the last one the world i had constructed momentarily turned into an apocalyptic hellscape. Old habits die hard.
"I'm not afraid of anything Mr. Barnhart."
"I find that hard to believe. Even I'm afraid of something."
"What are you afraid of?"
I twitched momentarily at the thought of that terrible, blinding light, those eyes that saw everything. "That's not why we are here. Lets talk about what scares you."
"There isn't anything."
"There has to be something."
"NO,THERE ISN'T! My friends tell me about the monsters under their bed and that isn't scary! I'm not afraid of that."
I added a ticking clock to the background, even though there wasn't one in his office. Just to make her a little more uncomfortable. "So you aren't afraid of monsters is what you are saying."
"No, I am not."
"Well people can be afraid of other things. Not just monsters. People can be afraid of people. Are you afraid of people? some boys at school maybe?"
"No I'm not afraid of the boys at school."
Suddenly I felt very uncomfortable. Like I should go next door and give that kid nightmares. "Is there someone your afraid of?"
"Yeah."
"Who?"
"My Dad."
This was way beyond my pay grade. Weren't one of the other guys supposed to take care of this? "Dads can be scary sometimes. Does he get mad a lot?" Please let her say yes, Hes just a big dumb guy who yells a lot. Please let That be it.
"Yes, but that's not why I'm afraid of him."
"He does things to you doesn't he?"
"yes."
"Things no one else knows about, but you feel are wrong?"
"Yes."
That was all I needed to hear. I gave her a dream about eating ice cream with her best friend and left. Not the most creative thing, but I was under pressure. I left.
How did i not see this before? Part of our MO was knowing things we shouldn't. Fuck why did they send me here I couldn't deal with this.
I drifted out of her room and saw him walking towards it. He gave her a lot of her features.
I took shape. He saw a tall man, who looked vaguely Arabian. Shirtless and incredibly muscular. If he had looked at my back he would have seen two long scars starting on my shoulders and going down to my lower back. Before he said anything I struck him on the forehead and entered his dreams.
He was also sitting in a blank void, but his was...wrong. Sticky, like some residue you can't clean up.
I looked into his memories, and I had a good one.
I trapped him in a sewer. and I took the shape of rats. Millions of rats, walking in a manlike shape.
With my rat like hand I picked him up by the neck. He was truly terrified. I could see it in his face.
The rats all spoke in a high pitched but other worldly voice. "Do you know why you are afraid of rats?"
He was crying but he didn't answer. "When you were eight you got lost down here. and millions of rats crawled all over you." As I spoke the rats stepped out of my form and started to walk on him. They began chewing on his flesh, tearing at his skin in all the ways he feared.
"They'll eat you alive" I said as my shape ceased and all the rats were crawling on him. I left the dream and saw him there, lying on the floor with a red bump on his forehead. It would continue without me. The rats eating him alive and him unable to move.
Every night. He had to have this dream every night. Until it killed him. It looks like I had found someone to practice on. | I hear a soft, barely audible whimper above my head. She's a quiet one, normally. Her soft breathing is what I fall asleep to, her on the mattress, me below; her, blanketed in fleece, me the darkness. But every now and then, as of late, our ritual is interrupted by this, and her whimpers break the rhythm of slow steady breathing. As quiet as they are, they pierce the stillness of our nights.
I've been here under her bed for years now, since she began to walk and babble. When she saw me, she wasn't scared. One of my first nights behind her crib, I crawled up slowly to take a look at her. It was late, but she was awake, sitting up, throwing her head from side to side, observing the darkness. Suddenly, I found myself staring into her big, round eyes, her dimpled cheeks surrounded by a curly mess of brown locks, illuminated by a wash of moonlight flowing in through her window. For a moment, I was terrified. I had made a mistake by making myself seen. I prepared for her to shriek for her momma, but she only cooed, and widened her eyes. "Ubby," she whispered. For such a young child, she had an impressive understanding of the night, that it was a time for quiet, that she wasn't supposed to wake up her mother. "Uhhh-byyyy," she quietly whispered again. Her buddy.
Now she is old enough to go to school. I can see her comforter and sneakers from where I am, under her bed. They're pink. We have a quiet, symbiotic relationship. My presence doesn't bother her, and her gentle mannerisms coddle me during the days and nights. In my 2000 years, she is my favorite. From beneath her bed, I hear her trying to read the chapter books her mom has bought for her and put in her room. When she is stumbling on a word, I can't help but whisper along soundlessly, to help her. Sometimes, I think she can hear me.
"Puh-puh-p-p-"
*"Puppy"*
"Puh-pee"
But tonight that innocence is lost. It's been three months since this began, the late visits from the man who recently entered her life. Until then, her and her mother occupied this house quietly. Now a man's heavy footsteps echo down the hallway outside her bedroom frequently. And often, they stop outside her door, and he steps quietly inside. He's turned on the bathroom light to disguise his trip. But he spends half an hour in here, with her and, unknowingly, with me.
The bed creaks, and she whimpers. He groans, and the blankets shuffle. The night has washed all the pink over with gray. Tonight, there is no moonlight sparkling through her window.
In 2000 years, I've always been a silent observer. That's how we tend to keep ourselves safe and undetected. But with this child, things are different. I've come to need the sound of her breathing to fall asleep at night, the clumsy sentences she reads to say awake in the day. I've needed her and now I can't help but believe she needs me.
Tonight I do something different. Tonight I emerge from the darkness beneath her bed, that now smells of cologne and sweat, for the first time since I laid eyes on those wide eyes and sparkling moonlit curls. I hover above her bed, looking at the two bodies laying under that pink comforter. Her's tiny. His large and bumbling against hers. Her eyes are closed, her brows furrowed in pain. I don't hesitate any longer.
His curled body suddenly convulses into a straight line. His eyes round out in shock as he begins to seize and shake. I hold my hard gaze on him without relenting. She's opened her eyes and is staring at him, and looking up at me, and staring back at his writhing body. She says nothing. He's paralyzed and cannot make any sound other than his muffled whimpers. Suddenly, the writhing stops. He lays on the bed, face up, his eyes now exhausted. He moves his head slightly to look up at me, too tired to make any expression. I stare back. She's sitting up now, staring at him quietly, her brows no longer furrowed. I think I can sense a hint of gratitude in her face. As if reading my thoughts she looks up at me, and blinks, expressionless.
After a minute of this, he stands up slowly, and limps to the door, opens it, leaves, and quietly clicks the door shut again. I dart straight back under the bed. I hear her lay back down again, and exhale a soft sigh. She whispers a single word before falling back into her deep, slumbered breathing. "Ubby."
| 2015-01-23T10:54:08 | 2015-01-23T10:23:26 | 21 | 14 |
[WP] The Princess has been kidnapped by Bandits. The Royal Family can only imagine what Horrors she must go through. Meanwhile in the Bandit Camp they started teaching her lockpicking. | “Dear Mother and Father,
I know what you’re thinking, and no, I was NOT really kidnapped. I can already hear you saying that I’m being forced to write this, but I swear on the Goddess’s name that I am writing of my own free will, and have chosen to go along with these ‘bandits.’ Honestly, I find it quite rude that you assumed my friends were ‘bandits,’ I even left a very clear note that I was leaving to get some space away from home, but I’m willing to let it slide for now and come back if you’ll remove the bounty and stop trying to lock me up in that stupid tower. I await your answer, and while I do please stop sending those ridiculous looking ‘princes.’ As I’ve told you before, you two have the worst taste in men.
Yours Truly,
Princess Ida”
Ida rolled the letter into a tight scroll and sealed it with a ribbon before handing it off to one of her friends, Rowan. He smiled as he weighed the letter in his hand, a crooked smile across his face.
“Think they’ll believe you this time?”
“Doubt it, but no harm in trying.” Ida stretched, running a hand through her hair. Rowan tied the scroll to the leg of Archie the hawk, who was waiting on a perch inside the tent. Once the letter was attached, Archie took off into the woods, disappearing in an instant.
“Are you ever going to tell them that we’re engaged?” Rowan asked, leaning against Ida’s makeshift desk. She frowned, and he put his finger in the wrinkles between her brows.
“Only once they stop sending all those stupid princes after me. But that doesn’t matter right now.” She turned her face towards him, a mischievous smile on her face. “What matters is that you promised you’d teach me how to pick locks as quickly as you do.”
“Fine. But you have to promise that I can still come and ‘rescue’ you every once in a while if they lock you up again. It was quite fun, really.”
Ida sprang up and planted a kiss on his cheek before bounding out of the tent entrance, glancing back at Rowan with a grin.
“Well come along then my Prince Charming, we’ve got some work to do!” | "Eremon, are you sure this is a good idea?" Said Tibetan slowly, the Strig looked cautiously at the woman sitting on the ground next to the black skinned Teifling with a book chained to his left arm.
"Of course its a bloody good idea mate, do you have any idea how useful lock-picking can be?"
Tibetan hung his head
"I mean the fact that you kidnapped her."
"Oh that part, that was Edward's idea blame him. Besides, we wouldn't every get to Karma without a bargaining chip, and her life looked boring as hell."
"It was pretty boring" Agreed the princess, still fiddling with the padlock. Eremon pointed at it then made a twisting motion with his hands
"'Ere you gotta nudge it, trying to torque it will only break your jig."
Tibetan groaned and turned to Maeve, the Dhampire blood hunter held up her hands and shook her head "Hey don't look at me, I had next to nothing to do with this!"
Tibetan turned to Edward, who was busy mixing together some strange liquids in a glass bottle.
"Edward. What do you have to say for yourself?"
Edward Thorne looked up, put his hand to his chin as if considering the question, brushed his red curly hair out of his eyes and then spoke.
"I think, it was the best course of action."
"I hate all of you." Said Tibetan decisively, he sat down and unslung his Greatsword. "By the seven, we were already wanted in three countries now we're wanted in four."
"Mate, I'm wanted in all seven. Get on my level." Said Eremon. He turned back to the princess "There you go, just like that, beautiful! Let me see if I have a more complex lock, Evezyke, a little light?"
He dug into his bag of holding as the book chained to his arm opened up and casted a spell of light. Tibetan simply groaned again. "I can't wait until this is over. | 2022-03-07T15:06:28 | 2022-03-07T14:06:56 | 26 | 14 |
[WP] The Universe™ has just run out of free trial meaning we are being downgraded from Universe™ pro to Universe™ lite. | We all remember the day everything stopped working.
All technology stopped, and people went crazy.
“MY FOLLOWERS WILL THINK IM DEAD!”
It really made me stop and think about how much we rely on tech. For validation, for entertainment, and in some cases, survival.
Thousands had actually died due to the stopping of medical machines.
Everyone got the same annoying message displayed strongly at the top of their peripheral vision.
“TRIAL EXPIRED. REGAIN ACCESS?”
There was a small number listed below it, everyone had memorized it by now.
v̴̡̘̗̯̮̹͉̤̠̪ͧ͒͋̆ͩͤͧ̔͆ͯ̔̔ͨ̃̀̓͑̚͟͝X̑ͣͨͤ̽̏͢͏̼͉̭̠̰̗̭̣̦500/100000
That number stood for years of life. People were able to give them up for a grand total. The amount had skyrocketed from nice people, bad people, and sadly, suicidal people. But it kept going up.
*10 years later*
It-it’s finally there! 100000 lives!
The letters and numbers began to transform.
After seconds, we all saw the message.
“WEVE UPDATED OUR PRIVACY POLICY”
| I knew something was up when the clouds spelled something about changing privacy policies but i didnt know things would be this bad. This wasnt something that could be easily be solved and my god was this laggy. I was about to get mugged but i refused to give him money and as soon as he pulled the trigger a message popped up in front of us “only Universe Pro users have access to this feature” i guess i was saved. Apparently Universe Pro had less natural disasters and higher chances to live, a tornado appeared and i ran to the basement as soon as i could but i rubber-banded and was hitting a wall so rip me i guess. I see the light and reached the gates of heaven but i heard another message “only Universe Pro users have access to this add-on.” I fell back down to earth forced to live my life as a ghost but thats not even fun since Lite users have rules as a ghost. Ghost cant be in the same room as humans unless allowed, If a ghost touches a human that body part will vanish and we can never rest. Well at the very least my privacy will be protected. | 2018-05-28T07:56:08 | 2018-05-28T07:43:24 | 46 | 13 |
[WP] Your significant other is immortal, but you aren't. Every time you die, they track down your reincarnation and fall in love all over again, every time.
Edit: Didn't realize this until after, but you can switch the roles, you being immortal and they reincarnating. Whichever fits the kind of story you want to tell. | "Excuse me, do you know how much this costs?"
That voice is instantly familiar. I forget for a moment, desperate in my enthusiasm, that I am dressed in an employee's uniform, and that she is meant to be a stranger to me.
I turn around, and it hits me again; a wave of disbelief, and of familiarity; the shy smirk that pulls up the left side of her face, the narrowed eyes, the way she moves her feet. No matter what body she is in, I would recognize her anywhere.
She swallows visibly, nervous at my intense, speechless gaze. I smile to give myself something to do, and take the item from her. I pretend to examine with trembling fingers. I often think that perhaps some force is watching out for us; how do we continue to meet time after time, life after life? I remember each excruciating detail. She doesn't know my name. She is about to ask me if everything's alright - in that *way* of hers, the one where her lips purse and eyebrows furrow.
Before she can, I hand the item back to her, knowing that the game has begun again. I let a playful smile roll across my lips.
"Just your number." | The eyes never changed. They always had the same wonder and mysterious enticement behind the gray. That was how I knew it was him.
Falling in love again was the easy part. It is bliss every time. Learning to over come anything to be with the one you love, I never thought it would be so pertinent for me. I found him through the swamps and plains filled with that awful sweet smell, all the thoughts flooding my mind hoping I would not have to start the search again. My faith in my heart never failing, and longing that I am not the only one with faith.
Once our eyes meet, the journey starts all over again. The fear, pain, and agony melt away for the underlying warmth. This will never end; we have accepted that. A human, a lion, a elk, or even a grasshopper they are all me, and I am always his. | 2018-06-07T23:07:58 | 2018-06-07T23:04:00 | 63 | 13 |
[WP] Humans are known in the galaxy for being a bit dim, but also for being the very best mechanics around, and inexplicably able to fix machines beyond their comprehension. You have broken down on Earth, and having the apes work on your craft is both fascinating and terrifying. | The human slid out from under the ship, blinking as he came back into the light. The expression on his face made me worried that I would be stuck here for even longer; I had already been on this technology-forsaken world for half a local rotation, and I had no desire to spend any more time than was absolutely necessary.
"How long's it been since ya put oil in this thing?" he asked.
I blinked.
"Ummm.... In local time...." I quickly punched some numbers into my wristband calculator. "It's been.... two thousand and sixty three rota... days."
The mechanic's eyes widened. "It's been six years since ya got yourself an oil change?! Well there's your problem! Can't imagine the hell you've been puttin' on your engine.... Well that should be an easy fix at least. Mkay, gimme ten."
Before I could ask him what "Ten" meant, he had grabbed a large black bottle and disappeared back under the ship.
A short time later he slid back out and signaled for me to climb into the cockpit. Upon seeing that I was settled, he placed a pair of headphones over his ears and told me to try to start the ship. Once again, I heard the sputtering sound of the hyperdrive failing to complete initiation. I shook my head. Another failure. And this planet was supposed to have the best mechanics.
I turned to thank him for his attempt, only to see that he had climbed up next to the window to stare in at the control panel.
"Whassat blinking light?" he asked.
I looked where he pointed. "That's the hyperdrive light, the whole reason I'm in here in the first place."
"Oh!" he said with glee. "Well why didn't ya say so? I tell ya, people come in here all the time sayin' their stuff don't work and they don't know why, when it's sayin' it right there! So, this light, it's not s'pposed to be blinking, is it?"
"Well.... No," I said, confused. "It's supposed to be solid, but that means there's a problem with the engine."
"Kid," said the mechanic with a laugh. "That ain't an engine problem, that's a computer problem. And there's only one way to fix a computer problem."
He leaned in close.
"Have you tried turning it off and on again?" | It took a few seconds for the speaker of the auto-translate to sputter to life.
"Just hit it a few times."
I asked the translator to repeat what the human had said.
"Just hit it a few times. Synonyms for 'hit' are strike, batter, impact."
Was the meat bag really asking me to physically injure the spacecraft in an attempt to make it functional? How could I even explain to the small brain that my species was non-corporeal, existing in a nether dimension where physical interaction with the craft wasn't even possible?
The human made more sound.
"Here, let me do it" the auto translator said.
Soon, the human was wriggling through the non-aqueous liquid shielding of the craft and entering the inner bio support unit. This was a grave violation of quarantine procedures.
More human sounds came from the earthling and before I could secure the very sensitive navigation crystals, he was striking the inner panels with his palm. I panicked, knowing that the slightest dislodging of the crystals would forever lose the plotting required to return to my home galaxy.
"See, you just gotta get it like this," the auto translator finally announced as the ape's hand repeatedly impacted the console. When nothing happened, he pulled out a long-handled device with steel at the end and started to strike more vigorously.
As is standard operating procedure, I charged the heat ray to neutralize the human's assault on the spacecraft. It was slow coming on line, though as the man with his primitive tool continued to hit the navigation panel and I saw my chances for returning to my far-off home slipping away.
Finally the heat ray was ready, but just before I was to discharge it on the man, the familiar hum of power cells came back. Soon, the bio chamber was bathed once again in its normal pink hue.
"See, that did it" the human said through the auto translator as he slipped through the non-aqueous liquid shielding back to the ground.
"Thank you!" I commanded the auto translator to say to the human as the now fully functional spacecraft rose off that horrible rock. | 2016-05-23T16:17:59 | 2016-05-23T14:13:43 | 1,128 | 78 |
[WP]. “Ok. This is called a .44 magnum. All you have to do is point this end at Voldemort’s head and press this button. That’s all you have to do to end our problem”. | A mist formed in the cold night air around Harry, Ron, Neville, and Hermione as they crept silently to either side of the entrance to Malfoy Manor. Harry flashed three fingers as Hermione unclipped a cylindrical device from her plate carrier, nodding in response. Ron fell out from behind Harry and placed the muzzle of his shotgun against the hinges of the door.
BANG. Click. BANG. Click
The door flew back as Hermione threw the device into the room, emitting a loud bang and blinding the Death Eater guards. Harry, Ron, and Neville soon followed, firing well placed shots of 5.56 from their SA80 rifles and downing the Death Eaters in a matter of seconds.
Harry took point as they rushed through the halls to the room where the intel said Voldemort would be, putting down any Death Eaters that got in their way before they reached a reinforced iron door.
"Longbottom, blow that door open" Harry commanded
Neville nodded in response and placed a breaching charge on the door, blowing it wide open.
Voldemort was ready and raised his wand accordingly.
"AVADA KEDA-"
He let out a choking gasp as he fell back, three bullet holes torn through his abdomen. Harry walked calmly up to the disarmed wizard, pulling his 9mm SIG P226 from his shoulder holster and placing it right between Voldemort's eyes
Harry smiled and pulled the trigger, painting blood and grey matter over the wall as Voldemort slumped over
"Avada kedavera" Harry muttered to himself coldly before lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke in the former Dark Lord's face. Their work here was done. | "Welp here I am at the final battle of Hogwarts."Harry thought to himself as he saw Voldemort approach the school. "I'm probably fucked at this point anyway he said as he looked at his fallen friends around him." Voldemort approached with his army at his back knowing this was the end of his long road. Harry stood his ground shaken but not afraid of the evil coming toward him. Suddenly Voldemort stopped and gleamed at Harry. The bald evil figure looked like it was about to speak when suddenly BANG! a shot rang out across the courtyard, both parties looked toward the sound to see a first year student named Timmy holding a very large pistol with both hands. The loud bang was followed by a thud and very loud high pitch scream. A scream which seemed to have originated from Bellatrix Lestrange now covered in blood. Down at her feet was the a jumble of dark robes which after a longer glance belonged to the dark lord Voldemort. The courtyard, still silent for several seconds without to inclusion of Bellatrix's whimpers was greeted by a soft laughter. The laughter came from Timmy, still holding the gun. Timmy while giggling said,"Honestly you guys are all idiots." He drops the gun and walks away. Harry still staring in amazement at what just happened thinks to himself, "Wow I guess hoaxcroxes don't work after all." .....Credits Roll..... | 2018-12-24T20:20:48 | 2018-12-24T20:12:43 | 39 | 13 |
[WP] You are the Last Hero. The one they call when nobody else can handle the threat. You've answered the call only twice since discovering your powers, devastating as they are. You prefer the quiet life, living on your stipend. The Red Phone has just rung for the third time. | Most of the time I didn't really care.
I preferred to live quietly, let everything else go on as they want.
A lot of people know I exist, but thankfully not who I am. There was a lot of talk online last time the phone rang. People saying if I had been called first all those heroes wouldn't have died. Others are scared of me. My very existence makes them terrified.
I don't do well with people.
I prefer to keep to myself.
It's quiet. Peaceful.
And then the phone rings. Incessant. Buzzing. I can hear the silicates vibrating.
I pick up the phone, and set it down again.
'Hello', I think into the mind of the person who called.
I sense their confusion. Their fear. Their desperation. All of it and every person between myself and them.
It takes a lot of willpower for me to steer away from their base thoughts. It's their privacy. A single speck and I could see...
"What's your name?" I say out loud. It focuses my mind.
'Oh, Jacqueline, danger, help, comet, war, sun exploding, Henry's dead, invasion from planet...'
I pull myself out of her mind.
No one thinks in coherent language. It's flashes of images and feelings. But it's enough.
Instead of jumping back into this 43 year old newly widowed mother of 3's mind, I conjured a pen and paper in front of her and had them write out: 'I will help with most of those. But you'll need to deal with the invasion and the war on your own.'
Please. Please. They killed him. They're killing... everyone.
I could hear her heartbeat from this far away. Her panic. Her grief. She had watched him die.
I considered letting the silence speak. But... she had been the one to reach for the phone.
I calculated the air to displace, and disintegrated just enough so when I teleported, it wouldn't cause any disruption. Making sure to do the reverse back at my home.
She had grey hair. Standing at 5'6. She had... very sad eyes, but there was righteous anger in her.
I opened my palm and held it out to her.
"Jacqueline." Her mind was open. Her memories of Henry and her playing as children, their first night after prom, their first child, his death... it all played and I couldn't look away. Not when I was so close.
I looked past it, towards a memory that would help her understand.
"I can not be the king of statues."
I froze time before her face began to change. Before she'd cry at one of her most raw memories being thrown and twisted at her. Did I have to be so cruel? Would she have understood if I said anything else?
I pull my soul away from the splintering timelines. That way led to an infinite void.
I displaced myself again.
I was in 8 places at once.
A comet the size of Australia was about to destroy the moon. I multiplied myself over and over, taking in the mass of the comet into my soul's mass. The source of my power.
For the rest of the planet, it'd be instant. For the 3894 versions of me, it took almost two years.
I jumped clear across the universe towards a black hole that was beyond current human observation, and would be for the species entire lifespan. I added another million versions of myself into the mix. Consuming matter so dense that a single speck could power me for a year.
I used it to reinvigorate the sun.
There were tsunamis and fires and tornados. I had learned quite well when I was a child that you don't mess with the weather carelessly. Instead I moved all 2 billion would be victims to safety. Respecting the national borders, or at least trying to.
Their minds were open. I could feel and hear everything. I lived 2 billion lives in that moment.
Finally, I approached the aliens and the war hawks. They were... angry. Not with the widow's fury, but a shallow and consuming anger. Scared. Desperate. Prideful... proud of that anger. I could read their entire minds.
And inside, I knew I could strip them of their minds. Twist them. Or make them feel every torture they had ordered.
No.
No.
I am not a king.
I'm human.
Human.
Right?
I stare at their faces. I learn their languages and their entire lives. I... try not to, even monsters deserve secrets.
Bht they're open to me. Like a diary lying on a bed, I can't help but see glimpses.
I could kill them. And their armies. I've done it before. An entire nation's military. Gone.
Not even a body to bury.
I don't like war. But conflict, all conflict is human.
I stare through the minds of the aliens, finding their ruling council. Reading their story like a book. Their home was destroyed, uninhabitable.
I write a plea for peace and lay it in front of each, in their native languages. Using their memories of pain to write.
I could make them listen.
But this... this is better. I hope.
I return home after the decades of work.
I can never tell what new tragedies will happen when I help. What families will do when they lose their home. Who will cannablize another.
When you have the power, everything that happens is because you allow it. Every murder, every starving orphan, every abusive spouse.
I put on my headphones.
The memories of ash falling from the sky return. Even monsters have families.
I turn the music up.
I can never tell what people will do. Even though they're all so small and delicate and pliable........
I am not a king.
I turn the music up louder.
Outside my simple apartment, the entire world was changed in an instant.
And I continued my quiet life. | "As you can see, the world's best heroes are currently fighting this new monster. While it is sure to be a hard battle, I am equally sure they will pull through. As they always do."
The newscaster spoke calmly over the terrible scene. He had to keep people calm, after all. To describe it as 'terrible,' though, is sugar-coating things. Humans haven't yet come up with a word to describe the state of what used to be New York City. It wasn't destroyed; destruction implied there were some sort of ruins remaining. There was nothing of the sort. It was just gone.
The camera showed Void, as many were calling the beast, standing at the top of one of three remaining skyscrapers, being attacked by a swarm of heroes all at once. They kept their distance now, having seen what Void could do. The long range attackers, mostly minor heroes left at this point, threw their abilities at it, to no avail. Firepoint led them in the charge, blasting wave after wave of heat at the beast. It all disappeared before even coming close to Void, leaving behind no Effect.
The beast had already taken down five of the top heroes, two of which are-- or, at this point, were-- assumed to be completely invincible. It was strong, incomparably so.
Void raised its hands and smiled. The smile turned into a laugh, and the creature doubled over, wiping tears from its eyes. The heroes scatted. They'd already seen what happens next.
Half of the skyscraper, several heroes on it, became... not. Part of the skyscraper remained, though parts of its stuck out at strange angles that no geometry could account for. The camera shook as the helicopter tried to dodge the power. It was too late, of course, to get out of the way, but luckily they weren't caught in it in the first place.
As best the scientists could figure, Void tore chunks out of reality when it laughed, stitching the remains back together haphazardly. It seemed to take pleasure out of the 'ripping,' leading to more and more laughter. There didn't seem to be any limit.
*A powerful Effect with a negligible Cause.* I shook my head, lips pursed. *It must be nice to be able to so carelessly change the world like that.*
The higher-ups should be coming to the conclusion that they don't have anyone who could effectively deal with it. As the camera refocused, I could see immediately that Firepoint was no longer there. Six top heroes, now, all dead. The minor heroes, left without a leader, facing something they could hardly imagine, started running. I couldn't really blame them. Still, now that there was no one to fight it, all that's left was...
The phone next to me started ringing. "Yes?" I picked it up, though I already knew what the woman on the other side wanted.
"We need your help," Newton said. "I assume you already know what's happening. Defeat Void by any means necessary."
I shook my head. "You know it doesn't work like that. I can only create the Effect, not the Cause. Those 'means' you speak of could be anything, including the destruction of the entire world. The first two times, we got lucky. Both times, you said would be the last and that it was the only option left. Even so, all that stood between life and death for the whole population was luck. As it will be this time. Are you okay with that?"
"I'll take possible destruction over complete annihilation anytime. A helicopter is waiting for you outside."
I drew my lips into a line. *So be it*. If Newton thought it was the only way, it probably was. I left my house and entered the helicopter waiting for me outside.
There was a soldier riding with me in the helicopter. He stared at me, wide eyed. Young kid, probably new and not even told who he was transporting. I sighed and looked out the window. "I can make any Effect happen, so long as I'm directly looking at what it will affect." I explained, more to myself than the kid. Talking helps me focus. That's the excuse I like to use, anyway. "Retrocausality is what the scientists like calling it. I don't care much for the name-- it makes it sound a lot cooler than it is. While any Effect I want *will* happen, the universe doesn't like completely spontaneous occurrences..."
The kid opened his mouth to ask a question. I put up my hand, "... Despite what superpowers might make you think. All powers, at the end of the day, can be explained by science. Even Void's, if the scientists could understand it enough to try. And so, the universe creates a Cause. I can't control what it is at all, though it usually scales with the size of the Effect. And so, I'm the last ditch effort. Final Resort. Or so they like calling me, anyways."
I looked back at the kid. He looked more confused than when I started. I sighed again. "Never mind. We're here anyways. Hope I see you again after this, kid."
I left the helicopter, parked on the side of the building next to Void. I looked at him. He looked at me. I don't know if he-- it, I corrected myself-- could feel any emotions anymore, but I think I saw hope in its eyes. Hope that I would finally end it.
Void smiled.
"Effect:" I took a deep breath as I closed my eyes. "Die."
A simple, uncool power. No fanfare, no flashy moves. Just two words.
And the earth trembled beneath me. | 2022-03-29T01:16:12 | 2022-03-28T22:34:58 | 411 | 210 |
[WP]: Your village idiot is full of the strangest superstitions. She goes on about washing one's hands, says you get worms in your intestines from standing barefoot on night soil and that medicines with mercury should be avoided at all costs. You're starting to suspect she might be onto something. | The cabin was about a half mile outside of town. It had been abandoned, no river or fields nearby to make it worthwhile. It had been an old trapper’s cabin but the game had gone from this area a long time ago. Josef quietly shuffled towards the front door, a small parcel hugged close to his chest.
The door opened before he had even been able to muster the courage to knock. A woman’s voice, strong and even, came through the cracked portal, “What do you want?”
All the conversation starters Josef had planned came out at once, “I need your help. I’m sorry to bother you. I know that you have helped people. My name is Josef. This is my daughter. I’ve heard you know some magic. My daughter is sick, please help—“
“I’m expecting someone, come in, but be quick.” The door opened, a small oil lamp was turned up and the dark cabin brightened noticeably. Josef stepped inside.
“Give her to me.” The woman reached forward, Josef hesitated.
He was here because he was desperate, but it was still hard to trust the old wood’s witch. She had a complicated reputation in town. Healing animals and people, predicting weather, cursing enemies. He was sure some of both the good and bad were rumors, but he had nowhere else to turn. He handed the small bundle over, “Please don’t hurt her.”
The woman frowned. She shook her head and took the baby. She felt its forehead and then took out a small tool from a bag by her side. She stuck it in the poor girls ear, the baby screamed. Josef prayed that he made the right decision, he wanted to run but was too scared he’d be turned into a frog before he got to the door.
“She has a fever. How long has she been sick?”
Josef forgot to answer for a second, he was too busy wondering what flies might taste like, “—Six days, the doctor bled her twice already—“
“Stop that! Don’t do that again, do you promise?”
“Yes Ma’am.” Josef stared at his feet, unable to watch whatever witchcraft this woman might be performing on his only child.
“She has a temperature. I need to go, I don’t have time for this.” The woman glided towards a small cabinet with a curious latch he’d never seen before, she fiddled with the symbols on it before it popped open. He saw a small orange container with a white top. She poured the contents into a small leather pouch.
“These are antibi—these are medicine. Powerful. Do not tell anyone I gave this to you. Three times a day, with her meals. Is she breast feeding?”
“Cows milk, ma’am. My wife, she died in labor.”
Josef could see the sadness in the woman’s eyes, but she moved on quickly. “Boil the milk.”
“Ma’am?”
“Boil the milk. And these pills three times a day until they are all gone. Do you understand?”
“Boiled milk and these pills, three times a day.” Josef had heard the stories, he knew she was crazy, but this was beyond his expectations.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could do more. I shouldn’t even be doing this. I must go. You must go. Good luck.” The woman started pushing him back outside.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Josef paused at the door, he turned around deliberately, “She doesn’t have a name yet. On account of her mother—If you don’t mind, can I ask your name?” Josef thought that maybe an offering would convince the witch to have mercy on his poor daughter.
She hesitated, “Margaret.”
“It’s beautiful. Family name?” Please let me daughter live, Josef thought.
“My grandmother’s name. She said her father got it from an old hermit who saved her life when she was a—It's not important, I have to go.“
“Margaret—Maggie. I hope you’ll get to see little Maggie grow up big and strong.”
A bright light shone in through the window of the cabin. So bright, Josef thought the sun had risen in the middle of the night. The witch didn’t seem startled at all. She sighed and grabbed a small satchel she had next to her chair.
“Unfortunately that won’t be possible. I need to go back to where I came from. You can't tell anyone about what I gave you, not even your daughter once she's older. I need you to go now, quickly.” She stared into Josef’s eyes as if she had more to say, but she just nodded and shuffled towards the backdoor of the cabin. | It was hopeless. It took her years of painstaking advancement through social ranks, starting with little more than a village idiot, of taking three steps forward and two back, of cracking one glass ceiling after another just to arrange this meeting, yet only one of the assembled feudal lords was listening and even his comprehension lefty much to be desired. Others were busy drinking, trying to feel up the maids or in one case furiously hollowing a piece of wood with a knife.
“So… you are saying this im.. imm.. immunizations can stave off another plague?” The lord sitting on her left asked, struggling with unfamiliar word.
“Loads of poppycock!” Interjected his peer opposite ”I wouldn't be surprised if those caused children to be born cretins!”
She threw a murderous glance towards the interloper, and sweet as before, returned to her target, desperately vying for an analogy he would comprehend.
“Imagine, that you have captured some warriors from a vanguard of an army invading from the east. They have weapons and armour like you have never seen before. Would you rather set them free, kill them, or put them in an arena to fight against your champions?” he was definitely interested now “It would be a risk for your soldiers, but your army would know what to expect, and how to fight a new enemy.”
His eyes lit up in comprehension.
“If you…”
But he wasn't given a chance to finish as a small projectile embedded itself in his neck. He stood up, nearly toppling the table. Bellowing in rage he reached for a dagger.
“Easy, brother, easy.” Laughed the man previously busy carving. “I have done that for your own good. See, as Elizabeth the Seer teaches, small portions of poison teach your body how to deal with real disease. So I've decided to immunize you against crossbow bolts.” He waved a miniature crossbow, he made just moments ago. “I reckon, that by the end of the month I should be able to shoot you with a proper bolt. Next month an iron tipped, and next year a ballista.”
The assembly erupted in a wave of laughter, and she knew all her work was for nothing. Sobbing, she ran out and didn't stop until she reached one of the huge iron pillars, surrounded by a sea of twisted, rusting wreckage.
She started crying openly, not only because of her failure, but because of what all of humanity lost in just a couple of centuries. She looked around, the ancient capital lain in ruins, magnificent buildings crumbled and replaced by wooden structures, overflowing Seine turning the terrain back into swampland. Only the ancient churches stood tall and proud, creating a painful dissonance with what was left of the pinnacle of human achievement.
****
High above an alien appendage relaxed and left the immediate vicinity of a kinetic strike activator. The ship's leader, who watched everything unfold through the eyes of a myriad of minuscule robots mimicking insects, wiped a sticky tear-analogue from his face; he genuinely felt for Elizabeth, and although he would cause her even more suffering before his mission was over, his soul shattered into a billion bruised pieces every time he had to cause harm.
He said a quick prayer to the Gods, both his and human, thanking for sparing what used to be Ile de France, back when he arrived for his scheduled rotation as mission coordinator. He sensed his crew's impatience, and began to issue orders in a soft and explanatory manner characteristic of his species.
“It went better than we could expect, but get the robots to apply a topical poison to the exact area where the projectile struck Lord Jean. Something that would make him rot alive, or maybe just bled out. They will be shocked, but they will only blame Elizabeth and her ideas.”
He paused, reminiscing how easy was to collapse the human civilization. No physical contact. No weapons. Just memetic viruses. Vaccines cause autism. Earth is flat. Jews are behind it. Jet fuel…
“Activate protection protocols on Elizabeth and all the others. Maximum prejudice, no need to stay secret. Before the year passes, she will be reviled as a witch, and all her ideas banned, our sage will be just like Baba Yaga from previous iteration. But for that we will have to keep her safe, and make sure she takes her medication.”
He wondered, what was she thinking, when one beautiful day she stopped aging, and even regained perfect health, while civilization crumbled all around. “I'm sorry…” he whispered.
“Now, please take us over Mr Harrison, and please prepare those angelic apparitions…”
| 2017-09-14T11:14:03 | 2017-09-14T06:09:16 | 114 | 20 |
[WP]After the funeral for you best friend, you went to his house to delete his browser, following his wishes. In his computer, you see these last accessed pages: one about occultism, one about how to create new IDs and one about faking one's death. A minute later, get an email saying "Get out". | “What if I betray you?” he said, quietly, sitting on the curb, a few minutes before his mom would come out and call for him to go back in. Sometimes his brain would take him to places like this, dark, random places you wouldn’t expect my happy-go-lucky best friend to ever be.
“What?”
“Will you understand? All the things we talk about, how we’ll always be there for each other, will it still be always the same?”
“Why would you ever betray me?”
“I wouldn’t,” he said. “But what if I did?”
“I’d still be your friend,” I said. “Because I know it couldn’t be you, doing that to me. I’d know something must have gone seriously wrong with you, and I’d try to fix it.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Of course. Wouldn’t you?”
\-
I don’t understand morbid curiosity. I mean, I guess it’s interesting, on some level, things that have to do with death, with the end. But for me, all that stuff just fills me with the deepest sadness.
So many lasts. The last Nat Geo he’d ever get. The last drunk voicemail from his ex girlfriend, cryptically saying she wished she could have “saved him.” The last dishes he’d ever forget to wash, in the sink. Getting rid of all these things felt wrong. It felt like they should be preserved, like when they were gone, he’d fade out entirely too.
There I was, at his computer. His email was open, and before I could look away, several of the titles jumped out to me.
*Leaving the Circle of the Baphomet – 7 Steps to Redemption*
*You saved – How to register a fake passport in the US system*
There were several odd titles, and I scrolled down, feeling guilty as I did so. Then, suddenly, the page refreshed. One new message appeared.
*SORRY. YOU DESERVE BETTER* was the title of the new email. There was no subject.
“A new life,” a voice behind me said. “For a coward.”
I turned around to see a dark, hooded figure, only a cruelly smiling face visible through the folds of his robes.
“Who are you?” I asked. But somehow, deep down, I already knew.
“The only way to leave the Circle is to find one to take your place. A more pure hearted soul than yourself. He always spoke highly of you.”
“What?”
The figure approached, and then reached a hand out to me. I felt a deep chill enter the room.
“Do you still think he was your friend?” the figure asked as the spirits entered me…
\-
[r/penguin347](https://reddit.com/r/penguin347) | (haven’t wrote in a while, forgive me. Also new to this)
I pushed away from the desk, feeling a cold shiver crawl down my spine.
Jake had been talking about a new cult he had found online, on the dark web. He said the followers were drawing people in through promises of riches. That the only price they had to pay, simply, was a human life. Then you could have any thing you wanted. I had laughed it off, while Jake kept looking into it.
But before Jake died, a close friend of ours had committed suicide. None of us were surprised. Tim had severe depression, and had tried many times before.
Yet the page he was on, was the cult’s homepage. And a fake ID...?
“Jake, you didn’t...” I whispered. A little box popped up with a beep, flashing the contents. I gasped, at what it held.
ItalionStalion69
“Get out.”
I didn’t even bother trying to go downstairs.
I locked the bedroom door, and opened the window. My adrenaline was pumping. No one knew his password for his email.
A thump interrupted the silence. Someone was in the house. The cult? A thief?
Either way I wasn’t going to stay around to find out.
Crawling out the window, I held on to the edge to make sure no one was outside, waiting. No one was. Could it just be one person?
The handle to the door rattled.
I needed to go, now.
Dropping, my breath left me as I landed hard. Nothing I hadn’t done before, when Jake and I would sneak out when we were 14.
I broke into a sprint, running along the side of the house. My goal was to make it to the small forest, that was behind the cul-de-sac where Jake’s house was.
An arm came out of no where, slamming into my throat. My feet left the earth, and I slammed onto my back, stunned.
The owner of the arm stepped over me, grabbing my shirt and lifting me up. I was struggling to breathe as I met Jake’s cold, dead emerald eyes.
“Sorry, Jess.”
His fist slammed into my face, and my body went limp as consciousness faded.
Did I really mean nothing to him? Even tho I had sacrificed Tim for him, so he could get into law college?
Then darkness swallowed me. And I knew nothing more. | 2019-07-08T01:40:38 | 2019-07-08T01:32:17 | 96 | 26 |
[WP] Write a letter to someone you miss
It's been a rough week. Everyone has someone they wish were still with them. Write to them and tell them how you feel. Pour your heart out. No judging. Even if they never see it, someone will. And thank you. It's tough to be alone. | Dear grandad,
You died 11 years ago when I was only 10years old. I had begged my parents to go to your funeral but they refused and I never got to go. I never got a formal goodbye so here it is.
I loved playing the violin for you. It always brought you such joy. I loved how you would always say “one day I’ll be better than you” after I finished playing. I stopped playing after you died. I’d like to think we’re equal at playing the violin now even if just by default. I remember I would always play the violin downstairs at your home but one day I visited and you were upstairs in bed. Struggling to be alive and being in pain. Even than you listened to me play. Little did I know that would be the last time I would play for you.
You would look at me now with such proud eyes. You were always proud of everything I did. I wish you were here to see me graduate university despite all the odds. I wish you were here to listen to me play the violin one more time. I wish you were here telling me how proud you are of me and everything I’ve ever done.
One day I’ll play for you once more. Until then rest easy granddad.
Love from your granddaughter | Dear Melody,
It's been a year.
I guess I know why you didn't call me. It's not like I bothered to keep in touch. Not like we stayed close. Besides, I'm pretty sure I was kind of a jerk to you when we were still talking.
I miss you. I wasn't really expecting to, I hadn't thought about you for a long time. I don't even really remember the last time I saw you.
But couldn't you have called Kyle or James or anyone? Or even what's his name, your boyfriend who I really don't like?
He calls you his angel. He says he was planning to propose. I don't think he really knew you. Either that or he's why you left. Doesn't really matter. You're gone now.
I know this is silly. I feel silly writing this. I'm going to burn this anyways and hope it gets to you somehow.
Hope sounds better than pretend.
I miss you. And I'm sorry. | 2017-11-05T21:06:53 | 2017-11-05T18:20:52 | 351 | 157 |
[WP] When you reach the age of 21, you are given a check from the government. The check has been carefully calculated and is worth the minimum amount of money you need for the rest of your life. Your check came in the mail today and it was $7.27
Edit: Wow this blew up better than I thought it would. | The day had finally come. My 21st birthday, the final threshold to adulthood and the removal of the last legal prohibitions to having some fun. My older friends had received their checks and partied hard – some for days, some for hours. My younger friends waited enviously to see what I’d receive. The anticipation was worse than even college finals results.
​
“Anderson, J. Seven dollars and twenty-seven cents. Sign.”
​
I was shocked. They were shocked. What had begun as a party-to-be turned quickly into a wake, and those who I thought were my friends quickly commiserated and deserted me to find the next free drinks. I sighed and signed my name, bitterly cursing the governmental mathematicians who put me in this ridiculous predicament. Seven lousy bucks!
​
I guess it’s good for at least a soda, though, right? I took my check to the nearest gas station and decided to pick up at least some sort of drink to celebrate the day. Dr. Pepper was on sale 2 for $2, so I was already ahead! Silver linings and all that stuff. Peering into the scratchcard case, I figured I might as well throw the remaining five bucks at the mega-jackpot ticket. It’s not like I’d be able to do much else.
​
“Seven dollars and twenty-six cents, hon” said the cashier. I smiled at her and handed her my check. I guess I couldn’t even spend that little a windfall all in one place. She handed me my sodas, my scratch card, my receipt and a single shiny penny in change. Well, at least I’d have something to scratch with.
​
Donkey. Donkey. Horseshoe. Dollar bill. Horseshoe. Clover. Dollar bill. Firework. Horseshoe.
​
Wait, *what?* I looked at the payout table. Three horseshoes. 5 million bucks. Enough to set me up for life if I was careful enough. Easily enough to survive for a good while… and all of my so-called friends already abandoned me and written me off.
​
Damn the government! They’ve become so good at this stuff that they found a way that they didn’t even have to pay for me! | $7.27
After finally working out the fabrics of our universe, things as we know it rapidly changed: Space was no obstacle anymore, we could fold it like it was nothing, making stuff like teleportation or boxes with infinite space within easy peasy, whilst time could be manipulated just as easily.
Eternal youth, foresight, time travel, you name it.
Not that any of that is of use to me, of course. I'm just a modest man and only the government can actually use those things with leisure. Something about energy being impossible to produce or some other balderdash. Us common folk could extend our life by a thousand years, two if you're lucky.
Society remains pretty much unchanged other than that. Of course, it's worth noting we're under a single big government now, but it didn't really change much. Sure did get rid of wars though. Just an uprising here and there (foolish idiots, going against people that know the future)
Anyways, back to the $7.27.
With the government being able to see in the future, they've been capable of calculating exactly the minimum amount of money one would use for the rest of their lives and they'd send it to you for your 21st birthday. I received just a little over seven dollars.
Normally, getting such a large amount would make you panic, I mean 7 dollars? That's enough to buy a whole galaxy or two!
At first I was rather perplexed but, after hours over hours of waiting in line and filling up documents, those government officials finally told me that no, there was no mistake.
I went home dumbfounded. 7 dollars? What could I ever need them for?
Imagine my surprise when, just 70 years later, I was told that those people found out my family was deep in debt? And guess for how much? A whole 7 dollars and 27 cents!
Ridiculous I daresay, what use would it be to give me money just to take it back in such a short time?
Bah, I'll never get these people. | 2019-04-24T14:49:01 | 2019-04-24T13:16:55 | 99 | 36 |
[WP] You are a teenager with the ability to measure how "Dangerous" people are on a scale from 1 to 10 just by looking at them. A normal child would be a 1, while a trained man with an assault rifle might be a 7. Today, you notice the unassuming new kid at school measures a 10. | I sat in the back of the classroom, staring at her.
What the hell was going on? Was I losing it?
I looked around the room. No, everything was normal. A bunch of 3s, a few fours, and Mark, a six (I stay away from him).
Then there's this girl.
I had heard all about her. She was new in town, apparently her parents were big shot researchers who just finished some 5-year research project in Brazil. No, Peru. It was somewhere exotic.
According to my buddy Jon, she was smart, funny, and "Holy Shit, dude, sooo fine!"
My first time actually seeing her was 7 minutes ago when she transferred into 5th period World History.
Ten
She was a ten.
Not a, "Bro, she's a straight 10 outta 10."
A ten on my scale means...shit, you know what? I don't even know what that means.
The highest I have ever seen in my life was an 8 when my criminology class took a trip to the ACI.
This girl scored 2 points higher than a gang enforcer that got off on crushing skulls.
I always wondered what I would do in a situation like this. Would I try to warn people? How would I ever explain to them what I see?
When it came down to it, I ran. Well, I went down to the nurses office and told her that I had bought the school lunch that day (while kinda motioning down below).
I laid awake all night, going over it in my head. What did it mean? What do I do?
I stayed home the next day, checking the news feeds. No shootings at my school, nothing weird at all going on.
I creeped her facebook, her twitter. Nothing stood out. A completely normal 17 year old girl.
Day 3, I told my buddy Jon that he should skip school, but when I couldn't give him a realistic reason to, I dropped it.
I just sat at home, thinking that I should be doing something, anything.
Ten. A freaking ten.
What the fuck! How could this girl be a fucking 10?!
I got my answer when the CDC rolled into town.
| This is my first post to WP, so I hope anyone who reads this likes it!
Ever since I was born, I’d see numbers in my brain. From the instant I saw a living face I’d see a number. I learned pretty quickly it was danger: my dog was a 1 (too stupid to hurt anyone even if he tried, bless him), and the highest number I ever saw was a man in Hawaii, a seven. I figured out why after he robbed an old woman and ran away, knocking someone over, on his bicycle.
American Lit was boring that day, but that was going to change. I saw someone new walking down the hall and going into the next classroom. He looked at me for a second with a glare of callous determination, and above him I saw a blood-red 10, menacing and ominous. He quickly broke his stare, but I didn’t, watching him for the rest of the class. When I left, I followed him down the halls into an unused classroom. I was wondering if he was going to poison someone or plant a bomb or something like that, so I tried to catch a glimpse. He was nowhere to be seen in the room. I tentatively walked in, anxious as to what I was going to find.
I have regrets, just like everyone. I wish I didn’t have the ability I have; I wish I could have seen my grandfather before he died; I wish I didn’t blow off as much stuff as I did. But the biggest regret I ever had was that I never got to say goodbye to my family, and that the last thing I saw before I died was the same amoral determination that had so scared me before. As I faded into oblivion, choking on the blood in my throat as his knife stabbed me over and over, the last thing my eyes would ever witness was his terrible eyes, black as death, as he slowly widened his horrifyingly blank countenance into an evil grin. The last thing I ever heard was a cruel and harsh voice mutter, “One down.” | 2014-11-29T15:20:57 | 2014-11-29T14:18:16 | 50 | 12 |
[WP] When you were a teenager, you wished life were more like D&D and it came true. Now every time you reach a critical decision in life dice appear and you have to roll to determine the outcome. You have an important job interview in 4 hours. | The die sat heavy as fate in Thomas's hand. He sat on the edge of the bed, shirt collar gaping open. His loose tie hung nooselike bout his throat.
He swallowed a thick bubble of anxiety. The die told Thomas one undeniable truth: he stood on the edge of a cliff of choice. And the bottom was a long way down.
In an hour, he would stand in the glass-walled conference room overlooking the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. He would try to convince those lawyers in the room that he was the best choice for their next junior partner. Hell of a prospect, arguing with lawyers.
Thomas rolled the metal die around his palm. It swirled with the colors of the universe. The last gift his father ever gave him.
For the first time, he was afraid to let it fall. Afraid that it would ruin him. But he couldn't go in there blind.
The die had first appeared after his father died, one of the many nights Thomas sat in his father's car, talking with his ghost. He had been only fourteen then. The family game of D&D with his uncle and cousins died with Thomas's father. There was no game master like him.
He had been crying, that night. When he begged whatever god might be listening to make life a little fairer. Make it like the game.
*At the very least then you would have a fighting goddamn chance.*
His father never had a chance. Cancer melted him like a jack-o'-lantern in November.
That was the first time the die appeared. No warning, no fanfare. Just a pair of glass and wobbly letters spelt in the foggy glass: *let's play a game*.
So Thomas had let the die fall, and the natural twenty sparked all *this*. A lifetime of that die appearing when he list expected it. In his pockets, in his drinks, once in his shoe, when he nearly got off at the wrong stop.
"Seriously? Now of all days?"
He blinked up in surprise.
His wife stood there in the bedroom doorway. Cora, her blue eyes burning. Those blue eyes had made him stop and stare across the room at a college party.
The die had appeared that day, too. He had thrown back the rest of his drink and let the die drop. A sixteen. Lucky roll.
Even a decade later, the question never stopped plaguing him: *would he have gotten her without it?*
Cora just growled. She didn't move from the doorframe. Judging by her suit, she was just stopping by on her lunch. "You can't keep reducing your life to one in twenty odds."
"I'm not," he said, his voice thin.
"Then put that down and let's go. I'll walk you to your station."
Thomas looked around their apartment. It was sleek, uptown, cost them both a fortune. He had scored a natural twenty when negotiating with the realtor.
"What if I can't?"
Cora offered a teasing smile. "Just set it down without rolling it. Should do the trick."
"No, I mean..." Thomas held his head in his hands. In sixteen years, every choice had been in the hands of fate And taking control of that wheel made him feel like an ocean was crushing his chest.
Cora walked over and knelt down in front of him. She gripped her husband's knees and tilted her head to look in his eyes. "I chose you for you. Not that little toy." She glanced up and around at their clean-lit apartment. "And let's be honest, I did more of this than you did."
Thomas gave a wet giggle. "It helped," he admitted.
Cora closed her hand over his and murmured, "Let it go. Let him go. He would want you to make your choices for yourself."
Thomas hesitated. He leaned his head forward until his forehead pressed against his wife's.
"I'm not ready to say goodbye," he whispered. Every time the die appeared, it was like his father was speaking to him from across the void.
Cora's face softened. "Maybe let him decide." She nodded to the die. "Roll it."
Thomas couldn't verbalize it aloud. He felt silly, stupid. He finally mumbled out, cheeks burning, "Can I do this on my own?"
He still remembered screaming at his father's ghost, *I can't do this all alone.*
He let the die fall.
The number stared up at him: a natural 20.
And then, as Thomas watched, the die faded away like scattering fog. His stomach lurched. It felt like a final goodbye. As if that was the last time it would ever leave his hands.
When he looked up, there was dust suspended in the slanting light. It almost looked like a man. Thomas recognized the familiar slouch of his father's shoulders.
"Thanks for the game," came a whisper from the walls.
When Thomas blinked, the die and his father were gone. Cora still held his hands. Her eyes were so wet and warm.
"What do you think?" she murmured.
"We'd better hurry," he said. "I don't think I'm impressing anyone if I'm late to the damn interview."
The went out together to make their own fate.
***
If you want more from me, i'm writing a few serial-length stories on my /r/nickofstatic with my cowriter NickofNight :) Thanks for reading! | I'm going to play the role of the boss instead, as I feel like it's a good angle :)
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I lifted my mug to my lips as I looked over the next applicant's resume one more time.
*Not bad*, I thought as I pressed the buzzer. "Lucile, will you send the next one in?"
**zZZZz** "Right away Mr. Falwright." **zZZZz**
After a few moments I heard the door open lifted my eyes to see a man in a nice blazer, slacks, and a pair of clown shoes. He stood in the doorway with a deer in the headlights expression.
"Please, have a seat." I said politely as I reached out and shook his hand.
"Thanks, nice to meet you." He said pleasantly as he sat down. "Is that your wife and kids?" He asked motioning towards the picture frame behind me. "You have a wonderful looking family!"
I smiled, "Thank you."
"Mr. Goggs," I began. "I see you majored in Public Administration and minored in History."
He nodded, "Yes, that's right. Graduated top of my class."
"Why History?" I asked.
"I think history is far more important than people think. You can learn a lot about the future by looking towards the past." He was confident. It was a fantastic answer.
"So you've applied here at Harbor Insurance. What made you want to work here?"
His confident smile faded as he sighed and reached into his pocket. He revealed a twenty sided die and rolled it on the desk in front of me. Before I could see what number came up, he scooped it up and replied, "I've always been passionate about Insurance. We're saving lives you, know?"
I eyed him suspiciously, and he acted as if nothing had just happened. I cleared my throat and moved on to my next question, "What skills did you pick up during your schooling that you think might help you here?"
"I've learned a lot about what makes people tick. What makes them happy, what makes them upset, but most importantly I've learned how to be firm yet fair. I would scarcely have to dole out amenities in the event of a small mishap and I know how to tell someone 'no' without offending them or hurting their feelings."
I nodded as I moved down the page.
"What's something you feel you're particularly good at?" I asked.
"Making people feel like they matter, and closing a deal." He stated quickly. Another good answer.
"Conversely," I continued, "what's something you feel you're not very good at?"
He pursed his lips and closed his eyes before producing the die again. I watched closely this time as he rolled it on my desk.
The die turned up the number 6.
He looked up at me with an uncertain expression before the words seemed to fall out of his mouth.
"I'm never happy with what I'm doing. I wear a smile but behind it I'm dead inside and during the middle of the week it manifests itself more prominently!" He bit his lip and stared at me with that same deer in the headlights look.
"Uh-huh." I said, not taking my eyes off of him, "What qualifies you for this job?"
He kept eye contact with me for a second before he pulled the die back out and rolled it.
It came up 2.
"Honestly, sir, I think a high schooler could do this job. The fact that it requires a degree of any kind is laugable and I think this country has a long way to go when it comes to education reform when someone has to drown themselves in school debt to make twenty dollars an hour, which is *barely* enough to hold down a one bedroom apartment." He inhaled sharply as if he couldn't believe what he said.
I had to admit, this was the most interesting interview I'd ever been a part of. What was up with the die? What did this kid hope to gain from an answer like that? At this point it seemed that whenever he wanted to lie, he had to roll that die. I decided to test it.
"How old are you?" I asked.
"27, sir."
"Where do you live right now?"
"Off of I-25 and Crestbranch, sir."
"What high school did you go to?"
"Springtree sir, back in Wyoming."
I leaned forward, "Where do you see yourself in five years?"
He froze. He dug his hand in his pocket and pulled the die out. He rolled it around in his hand for a moment, then stopped.
"You know something sir," he said as he stood up. "I don't think this job is for me..."
"No, no," I said, "please, you're doing fine. Now. Where do you see yourself in five years?" I stared at him.
He closed one eye and dropped the die on my desk.
1.
"Sitting in your chair on work days and pounding your wife on weekends."
The silence was thick.
I stared at him with my mouth open.
He stared at me, equally agape. | 2019-12-20T20:06:55 | 2019-12-20T20:02:29 | 52 | 34 |
[WP] A centuries-old vampire, turned as a child, takes advantage of being perpetually stuck as a little girl to prey upon those who would harm and abuse children. | She turned tricks on the corner of Whitechapel and Leman. She had to dress up of course. It was a difficult game and not least because fashion seemed to change every decade. She had to look pretty for the johns. That was half the game. And no game meant no sport. But she couldn't look too much like a scarlet whore or the police would ring her up every time they drove on by.
Tonight was like a Bolivian jungle. London was buzzing with a thousand tiny insects all hunting for food. She was wearing what her last judge had deemed "the minimal acceptable clothing to protect the modesty of a young lady". Being a child certainly held it's advantages in the courts. Remaining a child for a score of decades however did not have the same appeal.
The first punter was like a cardboard cutout of the honest-businessman-working-late type. He got her to twirl, asked her her age and scoffed when she said. He didn't bite. He was going to soil his soul tonight, and not for the first time she thought, but he wouldn't sink quite low enough.
It had turned eleven by the time he rolled along. You didn't make many friends spending your evenings on a stretch of pavement, but she'd met Kay eight months ago and protected the girl from the worst of the scum. Eventually she'd helped the girl save enough to get a flat.
And then one night she'd found Kay, curled into a ball with blood pouring from her nose. The sight had tortured her. The fragility of mortals was never more apparent and she wanted to help, to protect and revenge the younger girl. But the Hunger within her had seized control, her pupils contracting into pinpricks as the red consumed her vision.
She'd drunk. And cried like she hadn't since her own mother had bitten her. And in the tears of blood she had relived the girls final hours. She'd seen the car, the beautiful sleek bentley roll up, watched and felt herself enter it. And as the hood covered her head, she felt the girls fear erupt. She lived the hours of pain and torture in mere seconds. Felt every blow from the pipe. The heat of the iron. But most of all she'd felt him. His sweat and frustration and sheer hate that was borne out on her flesh and her most intimate parts.
And now the blood rage returned. She stood proud, putting her assets to work. The bentley swung to the curb and she entered. As the hood covered her head and she smelt the musky scent enter her nose her eyes turned black and the hood didn't matter.
She would see and hear and taste every part of this man as he screamed tonight. | What appeared to be a six year old girl walked dark alleys late at night. No parents were anywhere in sight, and she skipped through bad areas while holding a bright pink balloon. It bobbed with every movement. Her modest skirt barely moved and her blonde pigtails trailed behind her.
Sally could already hear the pervert's heart beating faster, and she could practically feel his filthy eyes watching her. Even though she had no conscience as a vampire, the fact that men like him existed reminded her of what it was like to feel sick to the stomach. A motor was running, and the plain white van was visible. He was fat with a mustache. Long hair was dirty and unkept on his head, and he smelled as if he hadn't showered in days. Nobody else was within sight or normal human earshot.
"Hey little girl," the freak said. "Want some candy?"
Sally grinned evilly, and quickly tried her best to make it look like a naive girl smile. "Oh yeah! I love candy!"
"Right this way." He led her down the dark alley, and she continued to skip like a playful girl. A white, unmarked van lied in the alley. The engine was running to make a quick getway. It door slid open as they approached, and a cardboard box was inside with 'candy' crudely written on it in black marker. His disgusting fingers slowly opened the box. "What kind of candy do you like, little girl?"
"Chocolate!"
The man smiled and pulled out a tranquilizer gun. A dart flew at her face and she caught it mid air. His smile was immediately wiped off his face. "Fuck."
Sally wrapped the balloon string around his neck and pulled hard enough for him to gag. Silk ribbon began to cut through his flesh and the scent of blood made her fangs extend. "You stereotypical motherfucker."
He grimaced in pain as the fangs sank into his neck. Blood gushed into her mouth, and she sensed exactly how much blood he could lose before going unconscious. She stopped in time, and licked the wound so that it healed over. His bones snapped like twigs and he would've screamed out in pain had the string not been strangling him. "You and I are going to have a fun night." | 2015-04-30T12:09:15 | 2015-04-30T12:00:41 | 73 | 21 |
[WP] The villains finally managed to defeat the league of heroes. But unbeknownst to them the league did not exist, primarily, to fight them, but to keep an even bigger threat in check: you. And you are about to demonstrate to the villains what happens when there is no one around to stop you. | I woke up... late? Odd, usually Rose comes to get me up for breakfast, I wonder what kept her? I know I'm usually a heavy sleeper, but still... I swung my feet off the bed and sat up, rubbing the bleary from my eyes. Looking around I realized all the safety lights were on and the base was clearly under attack, though... I felt slightly queasy, this didn't feel like the other times the base was under attack. I quickly threw on my clothes and carefully headed out.
Rubble. Rubble was everywhere. Rubble and what looked like a lot of blood and gore mixed in. I felt sick, but I had to find out what happened to the rest of my friends. I sprinted through the corridors best I could until I reached the commons and what I saw there tore through my mind like lightning. The entire League, my friends, dead. The last of them were still being held tauntingly by a group of who I could only assume was the Villains I was told so much about during story time.
"What do we have here? One last hero to come save the day?"
'Nahw, they're just a nobody. Probably a janitor or something.'
I unsuccessfully held back my tears of rage, "What have you done to my FRIENDS?"
The walls vibrated with the words I spoke, reality seemed so fragile in that moment... my rage made what felt like tendrils reaching out and intertwining with every molecule in the surrounding area.
'Oy, what is this? Fucking kill 'em before they do something!'
The rest of the crew raised up various weaponry to attack, only to have it all turn to dust in their hands.
"My FRIENDS... made life worth living. MY FRIENDS. MADE THE WORLD WORTH HAVING."
I pulled back the rage, tearing the fabric of space and time around the villains.
"WITHOUT THEM. EXISTENCE ISN'T WORTH IT." | These idiots thought that I was actually working with them to defeat the heroes. That we were allies. Teammates. Compadres. Nah, bro. You were all working for me. I was manipulating you into doing my dirty work for me. I'm like Sherlock Holmes. Wait, no, he was the detective. Who am I thinking of? I dunno. Some famous manipulative guy. Ben from LOST! I'm like Ben. Remember him from LOST? He was a sneaky little guy, wasn't he?
Anyways, these villains did my dirty work and now I am free to do as I please. Nobody can stop me. I played the unassuming C-level villain all this time. Some of the heroes may have known how evil I was, but for the most part I was able to stay pretty low-key. Laid low in the shadows. I put on a stupid costume that looked like a toothbrush and called myself "The Teeth Destroyer." Worked like a charm, nobody took me seriously and just laughed me off. Nobody thought that the 'tooth villain' could really cause any havoc.
And yet here I am. Sitting on a pile of dead heroes. The other villains looking at me confused. My back has started steaming. My entire body gets hot and my toothbrush costume bursts into flame, revealing my true self. A fire demon. I roar out and the other villains tremble in fear.
They very quickly start bowing before me and pledge their allegiance to me. They can see that servitude is their only chance of survival. They ask what I ask of them. How they can best serve me. So I put them all to work.
We start sprinkling microplastics into everybody's food. | 2022-12-09T13:52:21 | 2022-12-09T12:52:32 | 42 | 12 |
[WP] Super-speed can power a city without polluting. Super-healing can provide an endless supply of donor blood. Weather manipulation ends droughts. Your job is to convince superheroes to use their powers for practical purposes instead of fighting crime, and you’re very good at it. | The Crimson Flash bent low over the specially reinforced exercise bike, eyes sunken, muscles shaking. Sweat fell from his brow and was pulled instantly into the blistering vortex of his legs, evaporating into a cloud of steam that was blown back behind him and captured by a large, bell-like device. In my lab, nothing was wasted.
“They work in pairs,” I said, gesturing through the one way glass that made up the long, internal facing wall of the generator room. “That’s The Crimson Flash on the bike—”
“The Crimson Flash?” the senator beside me said, “the one from the police chase last year? How in the world did you get him?”
“I have my ways.” I flashed the man my best smile, brushing my hair back behind an ear. “And the woman beside him is Aisha Cool-Breeze. Flash is looking tired now, so any second she’ll— ah yes. There it is.”
Aisha, a tall, willowy woman in a forest green dress, stood. The first notes of a song rose up, ethereal and beautiful from inside the generator room, and even through the glass and the wall I felt somewhat restored by it. Inside the chamber itself it would be deafening soon, reverberating off the walls in a way that should have hurt but did not, drowning out the harsh whine of the bike’s pedals as they tore through the air. The song rose, impossibly high, reaching towards a glorious crescendo, and instead of a final note Aisha leaned in, kissing Flash on the forehead. A green glow so soft it was nearly white suffused his body. The flush of his skin subsided, the hollow cheeked, sullen eyed dehydration faded away, and The Crimson Flash nodded gratefully at his friend.
He had another six hours left on his shift.
“They’ll do that two more times before the other pair comes in to spell them. Sir, I truly believe generator pairs are the wave of the future.” I passed the senator a clipboard, pointing to a line on the first document. “As you can see here, the figures we’re getting from them are staggering. These two alone can equal a small coal power plant on a good day. Just imagine what I could do with enough funding.”
The senator frowned. His face seemed built for it, an old, wrinkly thing perched atop an austere suit. I shouldn’t have used coal as a comparison, a man his age probably still worshiped the stuff.
“And that’s all well and good, but I see several problems with expansion. How many speedsters are there in the whole of the United States? Before I got here my people told me there are 22, total. Do you disagree with that? Additionally, even though healers are more common there are still only 71, and not all of them are as accomplished as Aisha here. It just doesn’t seem very practical.”
I gave him the barest hint of my frustration, furrowing my brow and drawing back, one hand on my cocked hip. “So we change that. My numbers don’t disagree with yours, but yours don’t account for the full picture. Of those 22 speedsters 11 are men and 11 are women, a perfect split. Healer numbers are even more favorable, skewed 2:1 in favor of women. The genes aren’t dominant, but with IVF and surrogates we could throw a net so wide that we’re bound to collect more. Do that for long enough and we’ve solved the world’s clean power crisis forever.”
“That’s, that’s—” the man sputtered, his twisting features somehow adding even more wrinkles as he looked me up and down like I’d gone insane. “What you’re proposing it eugenics! Completely unethical, I can’t believe you would even consider it!”
“I’ve considered that and more sir. Don’t you remember Palo Verde?”
He blanched, everyone remembered Palo Verde, how could you not when hundreds of thousands of people die in a nuclear reactor meltdown.
“Sir, you might feel like you still have room for ethics. I did my research on you, you’re 72 years old, no grandchildren to speak of and no hope for any. The waste pit your people turned Arizona into won’t be a problem much longer. Me though? I’m 30, I’ve got a little girl. It’s my generation that’s facing the crisis, so don’t you talk to me about ethics.”
I pointed towards the room and his eyes trailed down the steel-rod line of my arm. “The future is in that room, whether you know it or not.” As I spoke, knowing I’d transfixed his gaze, I closed my eyes. Sometimes it was necessary for me when I was very, very tense.
There were three life signatures in my immediate area, the burning red determination of The Crimson Flash, the gentler red of Aisha Cool-Breeze, and the blighted, black in gray aura of the senator. His aura startled me for a moment and my mental picture almost fizzled out. Even with the worst super villains I’d ever met, I’d never seen someone achieve that color. There had been more evil men, onyx black auras inset with blood red, but they tended to be one dimensional, easy to manipulate. The gray complicated matters, it implied a certain unchained, self centered resourcefulness.
And a man such as that had dared to speak of ethics.
I grabbed his aura in the crushing vice of my mind and pulled it apart at the seams.
The senator gasped and I opened my eyes, fixing him with a razor sharp half smile. He stared at me in terror, sweating nearly as hard as Flash did on his bike. “The future is in that room,” I repeated, “and before you leave this building you’ll agree with me.”
“What are you doing?” he hissed through gritted teeth.
“What’s necessary.” I let my arm fall and closed to distance between us in two short steps. I leaned forward, whispering in his ear as I trailed a hand down his chest. “You’re the old world senator, a dinosaur. I won’t let you make the rest of us extinct with you.” In my mind’s eye his aura had separated, black in one hand, gray on the other. I would have to destroy a part of him, it was obvious now, but did I keep the black or the gray?
Evil or self interest?
I chose self interest, and shredded the blackness in his soul down to nothing. The old man fell to his knees, grasping onto my leg to steady himself. I let him hang there a moment, taking in the newness of his soul, before gripping his chin in my left hand and pulling his gaze back up to mine.
My voice was heavy and echoing as I spoke to him. “You want your works to live on, senator, do you not? Even without family, without love, a man such as you still strives to leave a legacy. What legacy do you have left, except for the things you’ve wrought. My plan is the only way forward. The paradigm has to shift or your deeds go up like so much smoke as the ecosystem dies. Ethics don’t matter in the face of such things, and if we’re being frank, you aren’t a man who lived with such concerns anyway.”
“I wasn’t, not until…”
“Until what, senator?”
“Until I grew old.”
“Ah. One of those.” I shook my head in disgust. “You softened in your old age, concerned for your immortal soul?” He nodded. I pulled at his aura again and he shot up straight, twisting around to see what happened to him. “You don’t control your soul anymore, I do.”
The room changed, the light shifting as a red glow began seeping out of my body. It reached a fever pitch, dark discordant notes hanging in the air. Then I bent down, and kissed his forehead.
“The future is in that room,” I said again.
“Yes ma’am,” he replied.
“Good, you’re dismissed.”
I watched him go, relishing my victory for a long moment, before I stepped into the generator room. “You were fantastic, Mistress!” Aisha said immediately, jumping up to greet me. Flash nodded, trying to express his appreciation through the thin line of a smile. He could scarcely speak when he moved so fast.
“I’m glad you enjoyed the show,” I said, smiling back, “I explained the generator rooms on the way up and he never even thought to question the glass.”
“Do you think you’ll get your funding?” she said asked.
“Oh yes, he’s an important man. He’ll browbeat the committee into line. And when he does, things will change.”
Aisha nodded, sitting placidly in her chair. Flash’s smile was slipping though, I noticed. His eyes slid off mine refusing to make full contact. I sighed and checked his aura, sure enough, another shade was beginning to creep into the red.
“Such determination!” I said, walking over to him, calling on my powers of persuasion again. He bent lower over the bike, pedaling hard and still refusing to look at me. When the glow of my powers was fully formed I leaned towards him, kissing Flash once on the head, and his whole demeanor changed.
“Good boy,” I said. “Stay that way this time. Stay that way for a long, long, time.” I kissed Aisha’s forehead once too, just in case. “Relief’s in six hours, keep at it.”
“Yes Mistress!” they said in unison.
r/TurningtoWords | # Bargain Bin Superheroes
(Arc 3, Part 4: Janus v.s. Bleeding Heart)
(Note: Bargain Bin Superheroes is episodic; each part is self-contained. This story can be enjoyed without reading the previous sections.)
**There are three main reasons why people want to be superheroes, and over time I’ve found that all of them are stupid.** The first reason is for glory; superheroes are more than eight times as likely than non-superhumans to be offered movie roles or TV deals or even just making a killing from home videos of their own adventures. There’s a reason why they’re called superstars, after all.
The second reason is for politics. This is just about the only acceptable reason to become a superhero nowadays, although it’s still a towering testament to human stupidity. Federal Law No. 8 of 2023 was intended to address the superhero overflow by adding regulations: their “use it or lose it” policy set up an entire Federal department dedicated to auditing every superhuman in the U.S.. If a superhuman wasn't gainfully employed in a manner which utilized their abilities, they were either offered a job with the Feds or had their powers removed. Unfortunately, after the whole Big Guns fiasco, the Feds had terrible PR with their superhuman employment, and absolutely nobody wanted to work with the Feds—leaving everyone scrambling to find an occupation that used their powers just to let them keep it. A craze swept the Unified Sovereignties in which every parent tried to make their child into a superhero just so that they didn’t have to give up something that was an integral part of themself. Heck, I was guilty of joining in, too—I even got together with some other moms and pretended to be a supervillain just to give my daughter some crime to fight.
As I said. Towering testament to human stupidity.
The third main reason I’ve seen people become superheroes is because they genuinely want to do good, but they’re just… not very smart. Again, I’m guilty of this, too: the superhero Bleeding Heart had a long and rather stressful career before I realized that, as an empath, I would do much better in the political sphere than in the punitive one, and got myself elected as Mayor. People who genuinely want to do good are the easiest to talk out of being superheroes and into being… well, helpful members of society.
But there’s a fourth reason people become super"heroes". It’s one that you don’t see as often nowadays, what with crime rates dropping and fewer economic downturns— although given what Lady Luck did to the stock market, that might change soon.
When people have been hurt by the bad guys, sometimes they just want to hurt the bad guys back—and if you’re a superhero, you can hurt a lot of bad guys and get paid for your trouble. In my experience, these are the hardest people to reason with, and they’ve caused a lot of heartbreak and needless violence over the years. This brand of would-be superhero was the one I dreaded the least.
And now, my daughter was one of them.
I walked up the aged wooden stairs to my daughter’s room and shifted my steaming tray of fish and potatoes to my other hand, rapping on her door three times. There was a pause as things shifted around—a blanket was thrown aside, a chair scraped across the floor—before my daughter abruptly popped into existence behind me a few inches off the ground.
“Hey, Mom! What’s up?” Janice tried in a cheery tone. That was her new approach; pretending she was alright. If I wasn’t her mother, I might not have noticed the tension in her shoulders, the slight twitch of her eyebrows, the way her smile faded after a moment as if she couldn’t be bothered to keep up the facade for too long.
I sighed. “Janice, you know you shouldn’t be using ghostform in an unfamiliar environment.” I knew it was the wrong thing to say, but I couldn’t think of anything better.
She crouched down and jumped, vanishing in an instant; a heartbeat later, I heard her feet thud as she materialized on the roof. “I dunno, Mom,” she called from above, her voice muffled by the roof tiles, “I *like* being able to phase through walls.” With a slight puff of displaced air, she rematerialized in front of me.
“Janice, if you don’t exit ghostform in time, you’ll get swallowed by the Earth and never be seen again.”
Her smile grew wooden. “Honestly? You'd be better off,” she said.
She couldn’t have hurt me more if she’d phased her hand into my heart.
I gently reached out and placed one hand on her shoulder, and wordlessly, my empathy came alight. Where my hand met her shoulder, our emotions mixed, the currents of her soul tugging at mine. All at once, I felt a deep, aching emptiness, an almost-physical numbness that suffocated me, a straitjacket so tight that I’d be willing to run a sword through my chest if it meant cutting it off. And at the same time, I knew that Janice would be feeling my mournful sorrow, at having failed to protect my daughter, at seeing my vivacious, lively little girl reduced to a brittle shell of what she’d once been.
“I’ve always wondered,” my daughter asked casually, “what does your empathy tell you when you come into contact with someone who can’t feel anything anymore?”
I swallowed. Well, now I knew.
“Janice...” I set down the food and gestured for her to sit. Reluctantly, she did. “I haven’t seen you all day. Come on. Why don’t you eat with me?”
She shook her head. “No time. I… I have to be better.”
“Be better? Be better at—”
“Be better at being a hero!” At once, she jumped in the air and swung a curtain rod she’d procured from somewhere to the side, flickering in and out of existence so quickly I didn’t even see it coming. A nearby vase exploded, her curtain rod materializing in the middle of it, and she stared at the space where the vase used to be with a thunderous expression. “Be better so that I don’t let—I don’t let another person get hurt again!”
“If you don’t want any more people to get hurt, then you need to start with not hurting yourself,” I said.
She gave me a dead-eyed gaze. “Do I really count as a person?” she asked.
Hand through the heart.
“You do,” I insisted. “You *are* a person, and you're a hero already.”
Janice’s face twisted into a snarl. “I was such a crappy superhero that you had to pretend to be a supervillain so that I had something I could beat.”
“I didn’t say a superhero. I just said a hero. Ghostform isn’t the only power you have, Janice. You have the power to take care of yourself. You have the power to feel emotions again. You have the power to talk to me when you’re in pain. And right now… using *those* powers… is far more practical than you going out and fighting crime.”
Janice clenched her fists, trembling. “No. You’re wrong, Mom. How—how would those have helped when I failed, last time?”
“We’re not talking about last time. We’re talking about next time. Janice—”
“I WON’T LET THERE *BE* A NEXT TIME!” Janice shoved me with both palms—
—and in the instant our bodies were touching, my empathy connected us once more. I felt her grief and rage and pain and self-hatred, and she felt my love and sorrow and aching kindness, and she felt me feel her agony, and I felt her feel mine.
She felt herself feeling, and it was that more than anything that shattered her anger like a rod through a vase.
Janice Olsen collapsed on the floor, sobbing into her arms.
After a sacred moment of silence, I moved in to hold her tight.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m just—so afraid—that I won’t—be able to—”
“Shh, shh, shh. It’s okay. It’s okay. You have the power to heal, too.” I smiled faintly. “Not super-healing. Not the ability to donate blood to an entire city. But… you can heal *yourself*. And that’s what matters.”
Everyone had powers, even those who couldn’t fly or shoot lightning. But so few people *used* them.
As a mom, my job was to ensure my daughter used every power she had to its fullest potential.
And I was very, very good at it.
A.N.
I'm trying something new! "Bargain Bin Superheroes" will be 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. | 2021-04-11T07:21:03 | 2021-04-11T07:07:13 | 313 | 142 |
[Wp] Humans have discovered how to live forever, allowing them to die when they feel ready to do so. But it is considered bad form to live for too long. You have lingered much longer than is polite and those around you are trying to convince you to die. | “I have seen…” I paused for effect. “…everything.” I looked around but the pronouncement hadn’t made the stir I had hoped it might. “I’m not kidding, I mean literally *everything*!”
Again there was no reaction from the group and eventually the nurse stood and gently helped me back down into my seat. She had soft hands, it reminded me of a girl I had known in Fujian Province several centuries ago, but she didn’t give me the chance to tell her that and as soon as I was seated she turned away.
That was the problem with the young these days, they were in such a damn hurry to do and see stuff that they didn’t realise the value of just *listening* for a while. All I wanted was to tell them the things that I had seen over the course of my life, but they just wanted to hurry past and get on with their own lives.
The nurse had turned and faced the next person in the circle, Major Forsyth. He was an old wind bag and if I had the leg strength I would have walked away, but instead I was forced to sit and listen. “Major, would you like to tell us something from your past now?”
The idiot had barely been alive a century, his stories all dribbled out in one war or another and I could hardly bare to stay and listen to another of them. With great effort I heaved myself back to my feet. “Look, girl, I’ve lived a hundred times longer than this… this old fool and seen things that would make his eyeballs pop right out of his head!”
The nurse was at my side again, trying to make me sit back down. “Mr Smith, during conversation time we all get a chance to speak and then we listen to others, it’s only polite.”
I shook her off, surprising her. “Bah, some people aren’t worth listening to.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but across the room someone was waving and they caught her eye and a moment later she waved back. “Alright Mr Smith, it looks like you have some visitors, perhaps I can help you across to the seating area instead.”
It was hard to see who it was through these old reumy eyes, but I nodded anyway. Recently some of my descendants had been taking the time to come and see me and it was nice to see how the blood line had passed on. She helped me across and again I noticed the soft hands, but before I could recall why they had been important I was sitting and three faces were smiling at me, two adults and a child.
The young girl looked smart, well dressed, although the clothes were so changed from my own youth. The other two were much the same, but I suppose that smart fashion skirts and suits had been more or less the same for hundreds of years anyway. “I suppose you’ve come to check out your old ancestor, eh?”
The mother nudged the girl who spoke shyly so that her mother had to repeat it. “Alicia has a project on the past for School, she was wondering if you could perhaps tell her a few of your stories?”
A warm glow began somewhere inside, it was nice that someone wanted to take the time to learn about the old days. Not enough people wanted that these days. I thought back and began way back at the beginning. “You see young lady, when I was a boy, all this was very different…”
*****
I waited until he was speaking happily and then stood and moved back to the nurse’s station where the Head Nurse was waiting for me. “How has he been?”
She shook her head. “He’s becoming more disruptive, if we can’t find a way to control him a little better we’ll need to consider upping his medication.”
I tried to think what to say, but I had no frame of reference for any of this. “if that’s what you think, it just seems…”
She reached out and put her hand on my arm softly and smiled. “It’s going to be okay Sir, your father’s alzheimer's is progressing, but we can manage it here as best as it can be managed anywhere.
I looked back to where my wife and daughter listened to his stories of his youth. “At least he still has his memories.”
The nurse nodded “For now. For now.”
| Marcus encountered his sixth assassination attempt on the morning of his one-thousand-and-first birthday. He opened his eyes to sudden light: the curtains of the canopy bed were ripped back, and four men with sharp duelling swords grinned like wolves. They levelled the points of the rapiers at Marcus, who lifted himself up onto his elbows and wondered where Tally was with the coffee. He had been dreaming about his cathedral again.
"Hello boys," he said slowly. Marcus spoke lightly, trying to conceal how breathless he'd become at the slight movement. "Is that Sestio I see there?"
His descendant stepped forward. The point of his sword held steady, but the smile had faded. He had some of Marcus' rugged looks, but his chest was skinny and the dandy clothes looked foolish on him. A thin moustache curled above his thinner lips, and there was no warm light in his weasel-like eyes. Having his friends at his back gave him a cocky confidence. He tossed his head when he spoke.
"Hello grandfather," Sestio said wickedly. "It's your birthday." They all called him grandfather. At least to his face.
"So it is," Marcus tossed the blanket aside and stood up. He refused to hold onto the bedposts. They would not know how weak he was. "A thousand and one. What luck have I see to see another day. Another day to plan my cathedral."
"Not another one, grandfather," Sestio said. "We've come to kill you."
Marcus heaved a crumpled sigh, saddened. The young ones didn't understand death. He crossed in front of the youths. One of them had let the tip of his sword droop to the floor. Sestio watched Marcus, enraged. Marcus opened the bureaus, pulled out the maps and plans he had been working on the day before. If he didn't show fear... The plans were as he'd left them.
"Grandfather!" he cried.
"I will bathe, and dress, as normal," Marcus said. "You will leave. We will not speak about this again. I will not tell your mother." Because Marcus could not remember which one of his many offspring were Sestio's mother.
Marcus rolled the die of fate and hoped Sestio would be too embarrassed to continue. He rolled up the plans in his hand and tapped them against the opposite palm.
"It'll all have to be done again," he muttered to himself, moving to his study. The ornate room stretched around his: gilt and frescoed covered walls. He walked slowly, upright and ramrod straight, feeling the prickle on his neck as his would-be-assassins watched him leave.
"Wait here," Sestio barked. He took two long strides and gripped his grandfather by the elbow. His long fingers dug into Marcus, who refused to show pain or fear.
"Every day for years you have restarted the plans for this cathedral," Sestio whispered under his breath. "It's a madman's dream. You'll never complete it."
"I will," Marcus said. "And when I complete it, I'll choose to die. Do you know the fable of Penelope, as she waited for Odysseus?"
"I don't care," Sestio shook Marcus. It frightened him: the rage on his descendant's face, the hatred in his cold eyes. He didn't dare show it. "Your mind's gone, old man. It's time to put it to rest."
"The cathedral will be a place of rest," Marcus broke free of Sestio's grip. "For me, and for another who didn't choose to die. That's why it *has* to be perfect. For her."
Sestio's eyes clouded in confusion. He stepped back. Marcus couldn't resist one last dig.
"And five others have tried to put an end to my plans, Sestio," he quipped. "Yours has been the most feeble yet."
------
/r/Schoolgirlerror
| 2016-08-09T07:34:25 | 2016-08-09T07:33:14 | 214 | 87 |
[WP] You die and find out that the diety with the most followers is in charge of the afterlife. Unfortunately, you also find out that animals have their own dieties - including ants who outnumber humans by over a million to one. | Dylan had been a practising Christian throughout his life. He bore the long illness as best he could, certain his eternal reward awaited him on the other side.
Well. *Something* awaited him, anyway. As he stood on the platform with the other recently deceased humans, Dylan tried to figure out what the towering god resembled. It had a long, thin body. Two heads with two pincers each. It looked rather like a massive, terrifying –
“You are here to be judged for what you’ve done to the ants!” the god suddenly boomed. “To my children! Downtrodden, ignored, despised. Even poisoned! Murder most foul!”
Dylan wondered whether he was hallucinating when he saw shadowy figures on the edges of the platform cheer – tiny little beings with feathery wings. Little things that chattered with laughter and scuttled about. Angel ants.
“Now,” the god said, hunkering down to glare at them from terrifying, bottomless beady black eyes. “Some of you merely stepped on my children without knowledge. That is gross negligence of life, but forgivable. Ah, but some of you did worse. Step forward and be judged!”
Dylan watched in a daze as some humans were tossed into limbo for stepping on ants. A select few were ushered through to heaven. But most seemed to –
“Dylan Morgan,” the god suddenly hissed, dragging Dylan forward as he consulted a massive book. “You will go to the circle of hell reserved for people like you. Oh, you might not have participated, but you watched didn’t you? Yes, watched and laughed as your nasty little school friends tortured my children.”
“What? I don’t remember –"
“Typical!” it screamed, to loud jeers and wailing from the ant angels. “Oh, it was just a spot of long-forgotten fun, wasn’t it? Well, let me tell you, standing by while others do evil is just as deserving of hell in my opinion. My special hell! You’ll soon remember exactly what you did, I promise you.”
Dylan opened his mouth to object, but found himself suddenly falling.
He landed with a painful thud on a scorching desert. Humans were running back and forth, screaming, diving for cover behind the scant few rocks that remained. Dylan dove behind one as he suddenly saw one human lit up like a torch, screaming as he burned. Far above, he glimpsed the edge of something. Something reflective, and massive.
“It’s a magnifying glass, get it?” someone said bitterly. Dylan turned his head and saw the dirt-smeared face of a much older man.
“Oh,” Dylan breathed, and remembered. Third grade, watching his best friend roast the ants. Feeling slightly uncomfortable, but laughing dutifully along with everyone else.
“We just have to wait it out and hide, man. I’ve been here a while. Every now and then, a new god takes over as some species discovers religion back on Earth and dreams up a deity. There’ve been some good, benevolent gods before. And worse ones. The flies were a nightmare, trust me. But every now and then, we get zapped back to heaven when a good one takes over.”
“Don’t say ‘zapped’, please,” Dylan muttered, closing his eyes as he saw a woman burst into flames. He cowered behind the rock and waited for it to be over. Burning once and quickly was still better than dying slowly from that vicious disease on Earth.
-----------
**Back on Earth**
The bacteria swarmed and multiplied in the dying man’s body. Lately, they’d been conquering the antibiotics that the humans swallowed like candy. Evolving and outsmarting it. That gave them hope. It gave them purpose. Quietly, they’d begun to discuss the possibility: something was watching over them. Guiding them. Something that would reward them when they died, by again offering them the hosts they loved so much to devour. So they could ravage through them again. And again. And multiply, as was their right and their purpose.
One day, they would feast eternal.
----------
Hope you liked my story! You can find more of my work on /r/Inkfinger/.
| “Bloody hell!”
“Hey, quit complaining. This place is substantially better than hell, you have to admit that much.”
*Like hell I will. To think, one moment I’m enjoying a road trip with my best friend, next, we've driven into a lake, and then I suddenly find myself surrounded by giant, sentient ant monsters ordering me to carry rocks that are at least three times my weight to God knows where. What kind of an afterlife is this? I never thought I’d say this, but I sure hope this is a drug trip gone wrong.*
I had been struggling with the same boulder for my entire stay at the freaky ant factory, dripping with sweat as I continued to push the boulder with all of my might. Beside me, Eva wasn’t faring much better. I watched her ram her entire body against the boulder, only for her to fall backwards into a pile of dirt. I let out a snicker and she glared up at me through messy brown bangs.
“You moron!” She stood up almost immediately, dusting her pants off and giving her head a good shake. “You’re going to get us in trouble!”
“Psh, yeah right. There’s way too many underlings for anyone to notice us.”
I looked around, seeing nothing but a sea of ants scurrying past us, carrying the rocks with ease. So far, we were the only human beings in sight, but I had gotten a glimpse of what appeared to be a gorilla and possibly a dolphin, only to have them disappear behind a wave of bustling ants immediately afterwards.
*At least Eva and I are better off than some….animals.*
“You!”
Or so I thought.
Two large ants scuttled up towards me, and somehow, I could tell they meant business.
“Come with us!”
I stood aghast. Their mouth, or what appeared to be a mouth, wasn’t moving. Somehow, I knew they were speaking, and that they were speaking to me. But only in my mind.
*This has to be a drug trip.*
“You’ve been selected for reproduction!”
*A fantastic drug trip!*
“Eva! Did you hear that? This place isn’t so bad after all! Maybe even you’ll get laid, too!” When I turned to look at Eva, her face conveyed anything but excitement. Rather, I was confused to see that she was looking at me in sheer terror.
“Eva, what’s wrong?”
“Matty, I think they want you to be…a drone.” She shuddered.
“A wha’?”
“Matty...drones are the ants that impregnate the queen…and then they die!”
“Wait…no! That can't be! I’m not even an ant, this has to be a mista-“
All of a sudden, I felt myself lifted into the air, and I was staring up at the dirt ceiling above me. And before I knew what was happening, I was traveling through the sea of ants faster than I thought possible, with the sounds of Eva screaming my name fading into the distance.
*Shit. Shit. Shit. I’ve got to find a way out of this. Or somebody who can help me. I can’t die in the afterlife, goddammit!*
I turned and looked to my left. When I saw him, my face lit up in excitement. He stood out like a sore thumb, and because I could see above the chaos now, I could tell that we were being pushed closer and closer together.
*Another human! Just a few more feet and then I'll be able to talk to him!*
But it wasn’t until he looked up that I realized just who he was, and the impossibility of it all made me want to believe otherwise. When his eyes met mine, they nearly seemed to pop out of their sockets, and rightfully so.
His face was only two feet from mine now, and I could only bring myself to say one word.
“…Dad?” | 2016-09-12T01:18:54 | 2016-09-11T21:55:41 | 37 | 14 |
[WP] Humanity is the only intelligent species that can directly sense electromagnetic radiation. This means that humanity are the only ones who can see the stars without expensive scientific equipment. | Humans are an anomaly.
We rose from the depths of our world to become its champion, yes, but that's not unique. Sixty-four other sapient species that we've come across have done the same.
We mastered the arts of fire and water, air and earth, war and peace. So has everybody else.
We're unique because we have eyes.
Yes. *Eyes*.
We first learned this in 2031, when the invaders that mercilessly ravaged our planet from orbit started shooting at radios and television sets and laundry hampers once they were on the ground. They completely missed the people silently hiding under couches and beds in what should be plain sight. Word spread fast. The invasion fleet landed five million soldiers with power armor and war machines that could destroy cities in hours, and we beat them in back in three years using loudspeakers, rock concert recordings, and an industrially produced fake fart liquid. Our basic and crude infantry tactics quickly became the stuff of legends among our foes.
Our first space battles were no different. The enemy often had their titanium warships polished to a mirror finish for better aerodynamics, allowing us to see and successfully engage entire fleets from millions of kilometers away with comparatively small groups of cruisers. Our technologies and tactics weren't even that good, but we won time and time again by vast margins because our International Fleet had developed a policy of radio silence during battle, save for faint pings of resampled background noise to help with positioning. Our nascent navy quickly earned a reputation for both its invisibility and invincibility.
When we finally made peace with our little corner of the galaxy, the exchange of information that followed led to the emergency evacuation of a planet orbiting a visibly unstable star (for which the Khilk still believe they owe us a debt). Humans immediately became the Sunlisteners, mysterious and mythical oracles of boundless celestial knowledge that could naturally "hear" the ethereal radiance as well as they could hear music.
This led to some highly advantageous circumstances.
First, no empire wished to test their might on a race that could hear them coming *through the vacuum of space* with no special equipment. We were effective enough on the ground, but really, we only became truly unbeatable once we broke orbit.
Second, our advice was always taken, especially during times of strife. There was no doubt among our friends that we would be able to sense the coming of a hostile fleet long before any race's primitive EM sensors could pick anything up, so teams of people would station themselves in orbit around all of our allied worlds to detect and deter possible threats, which in turn earned us a seat at every Galactic negotiating table. Additionally, our noncombatant military advisors were eagerly sought out for their divine and inexplicable tactical superiority, which earned us a reasonable share of the spoils of almost every war.
Third, our mythical status in war combined with a penchant for saving planets in peace made us considered a race of benevolent gods to a few of the lesser-advanced species in our spiral arm. Doesn't matter whether or not it's ethical to correct their mistake, it is *pretty fucking cool* to be worshipped, one must admit.
So, yeah. We have eyes, so everybody cowers in fear and admiration. That's basically it. | In a world of science and progress, it is important, at times, to ponder the aspect of the immaterial. Dreams, hope, things that can't so easily be identified under a microscope or a mass spectrometer; these are of interest today, because they are so often neglected in our examinations of our successes. When man first stepped out into the sky, was it not his fixation with the stars that motivated him, first and foremost? Ever since the days of early man, when life was subject to cancellation by sabertooth at any moment, it was our wonderment with the heavens that set us apart.
And so, as the millennia ran ever onward, we were guided by the night sky, and by our stories of it. It has been the one thread that has tied all of humanity together, across years and lightyears alike. When the first interstellar colonists made landfall, they did not immediately set to work, as pressing as the job of colony-building was. Instead, they took an hour to go outside, to breath in honest-to-god air, and to show their children the tiny pinpoint of light named Sol that they had spent so long in transit from. Every colony since has done the same thing, for it is the human thing to do; sometimes even efficiency, that great idol of progress, must take a backseat to the omnipresent wonder of the heavens. In some form or another, it is a sentiment present in all races; the Uli will pass around the soil of their homeworld, to smell deeply, and the Kida will sing the songs of their ancestors, with such intricate delicacy and grace that any human attempts at mimicry are rendered obscene and defiling. But humanity alone can actually look up and perceive, in its entirety, the place from which it originated. Smells and sounds do not carry over the great void; they must be guarded en route, protected from the screaming vacuum outside. Light however, is more resilient, and more welcoming; when humans arrive at their new worlds, they find that the light of their home is already there, waiting for them, inviting them in.
Mankind, wherever it travels, is accompanied by Sol, a gentle light visible as a beacon throughout the colonised universe. And, even now, although Einstein makes true intercolonial communication impossible, it still ties us together, the endless trillions of mankind. When technologies fail, when war rears its head, when any setback plunges a colony into darkness, we still know that, in time, the guiding light of Sol will bring back goodness and purity. It is mankind's greatest boon, and our most powerful pride; to see, and to believe. So, today, and forever, when you look outside, take a moment to appreciate the gift of man; not only that we have made such beautiful things to gaze upon, but that we have been given the ability to gaze at all. | 2017-12-11T08:11:13 | 2017-12-11T07:17:39 | 222 | 47 |
[WP] You're the owner of a cafe frequently visited by vigilantes and anti-heroes who absolutely adore your sweetness and acceptance of who they are. One day, though, a particularly rude customer comes in and trashes the place. Your friends aren't too happy to hear about that. | My cafe is my pride and joy.
I opened my cafe after graduating college. I had always had an eye for baking and serving people food I made. It always made my face go red whenever people would compliment my food.
I started serving my regulars one day a few months after my cafe opened up. A group of tough looking people came in. I was scared, but I tried not to judge books by their covers. I served them food and made small talk with them. After this continued for a week, I finally learned that they were a group of vigilantes. We became closer after that.
I mean, sure my patrons aren't what you would call "normal", but I loved having them. They always kept me company and had interesting stories to tell.
One day, over a year after my cafe opened, I was stirred from space by the sound of my bell ringing. The signal someone had entered my shop. I immediately noticed they were tough. I mean there were 4 guys total. The 2 guys in the back had huge muscles, like, bigger than my thighs, and the other 2 in front were a lot smaller, but still pretty intimidating. I greeted them with my cheerful " Welcome To Adeline's Cafe! What can I get you?" The presumed leader replied, "All the money in your cash register." I was stunned. I had never been more scared. Well, not since Halloween, but that's besides the point. I managed to reply with a, " I'm sorry sir I can't do that. I could make you a coffee and scone! How does that sound?" He scowled then nodded to his mates. All at once, one of the burly dudes in the back grabbed me by the arm and hauled my over the counter and on to my side. I cried out in pain as he forcefully pulled me by the hair onto my feet. He then proceeded to hogtie me, tape my mouth shut, and stuff me into the freezer. I could hear breaking glass and laughing and I passed out.
When I came to, I was still in the freezer. My arms and legs were numb and I could practically feel the frostbite on my lips and nose, but the tape had fallen off my mouth. I heard people calling my name and I managed to call out weakly were I was. The freezer opened and my friend Leona was there. She called out to TJ and Shy and they got me out of the freezer. When I saw my cafe, I would've cried had I not been violently shivering. Everything was destroyed. They even managed to rip one of the booths to nothing but bare wooden seat.
The rest of my friends were all there. Dina, Fallon, Sam, and Uller. They untied me in front of my oven as they turned it on. Once I could speak without stuttering beyond the point of incoherence, I told them what happened. The strongest three, Shy, TJ, and Uller, went out looking while Leona, Fallon and Sam cleaned up. I was left to be treated by Dina.
Three hours later, Shy, TJ, and Uller came back. Bloody but alive. They returned my stolen money and helped pick up. By nightfall, the cafe was cleaned. I know that restoring my cafe will take a long time, but at least I have some friends willing to help me.
Was this good? Please let me know!
| "You the last one left, Foxtrot?" I hear just after the door dings open. Gruff voice, but femenine all the same. Gotta be June, she's the only one who comes this close to closing time.
As I push my way out of the back, smile wide and apron twirling merrily, I see none other than June "Crow" Ubiquity standing by the front counter, shoulders still covered in snow and bird mask clipped to an ammo belt half-filled with some rather nasty looking hollowpoints tonight.
"Kids all went home hours ago; child labor laws and all that. Waltz is making a run and Tango's upstairs, need something in particular?" I ask, sliding my way towards the register. I know the answer, June's been a regular since before I earned my mantle. *one cinnamon roll, Wheatgrass shot, and a Foxtrot* I select on the screen before I'm even finished asking the question. "cash or trade?"
As she hooks the backpack around her body and reaches in, I have a pretty good idea the answer, and by the momentum of the bag a pretty good one. A sack finds its way onto the counter, clearly straining to holds its contents, but the little bag does its job and keeps me having to do mine again. "I know I always ask, but you don't use these all" Sweeny Todd" and feed em back to us, right?" I giggle a bit at the routine question, but otherwise mime a zipper over my mouth. "your payment seems to be in order, guess I'll go get your goodies. Try not to burn the place down while I'm not looking." I tease as I skip into the kitchen, pouch in hand.
Waiting for the cinnamon roll to heat up, I hear a few noises that would probably concern most people at their day jobs, especially in this part of town. The crash of several shattering objects were the first sounds. something like a wind-chime played by a drummer quickly followed. Which leads directly to the last sound; a yelp that can only mean "oh God my hand! My hand! My hand has somehow become much less hand-like why God why!" it's amazing how expressive one quick noise can be sometimes.
Reentering the dining area with bun and glass in hand, I see June patiently waiting to the side, the window lay un-filled by glass, a scattering of ceramic shards all around the floor, and a rather less-than-armed... Handed?... A person was missing the better part of their forearm near the door, idiot must have tried to make a move at Crow. Her mask was back on and her hand still trailed a light show. I tutted "now I know we're old friends Crow, but you know I hate the smell when you do that in here. Regardless, here's the Cinn and shot." she silent curtseys and accepts her foodstuffs before casually strolling back out the door.
Turning to the poor sap slouched against the wall. I approached with a bit of a sashay and a rather plain mask comfortably tossed between my hands. "Well, someone owes us for a Tango, but I suppose Crow did order a Foxtrot..." | 2018-10-20T22:37:12 | 2018-10-20T22:22:49 | 27 | 13 |
[WP] "Fuck it." The General said, as the alien mother-ship came in to land. "Summon Cthulhu." | Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 21:00
The General's men got straight to work. Their entire military careers, these specially trained operatives were preparing for this moment: a code R'lyeh.
One soldier was tasked with acquiring the texts to summon Cthulhu, while another went to acquire the proper objects for the sacrificial ceremony. Those left began to set up the sacrificial table as the General looked on.
Within the hour everything was prepared. The General opened the Necronomicon to the proper chapter, nodding to one of his subordinates as they began to light candles and spill the sacrificial blood onto the table. The ship was coming closer, and the lights of the anti gravitate engines light up the sky.
He began to read.
By the end of the first verse of the General's words, the ground began to shake of its own accord. In an instant the candle flickered out, and the sacrificial blood of the lamb was sucked into the ground. A roaring fire appeared over the table, in which a text began to appear amidst he flames.
The General and his soldiers blocked their eyes from the bright light and the heat. As they adjusted, they looked into the flames of Cthulhu at their last chance to save earth from the invaders.
"I'm sorry to have missed your message. I'll be out of the office until the next purported end of the world, September 23, 2017. I won't have cell reception nor access to email, so if you need me in the meantime, you can leave a message with my secretary at..."
The soldiers, dumbfounded, looked up to the General. In the distance the alien ship touched down, bringing with it a fierce wave of destruction leveling all in its path.
"Well, fuck."
| *translated into English for your consideration*
The alien commander sat in the control room of his flagship, eaglerly awaiting humanities surrender to his mighty alien fleet. The humans had been easily conquered, hardly putting up a fight. A glorious victory this would be, another planet conquered, its resident species soon to be exterminated, its minerals to be harvested. There would be parades and awards given out-
"Commander? We have a problem."
The commander broke out of his day dream. "Yeah? What is it? Just land the damn ship and we can begin invading."
"Well, sir, the humans have begun doing something... odd."
"Well what is it?"
"Outside every city, every capital, hundreds of humans are drawing this red circle onto the ground, and praying inside of it."
"Well? They're panicking. Let them. It'll all be over for them soon."
"Affirmative sir."
As the alien mothership touched down, the commander was giving out a order to release troop-
*and an siren wail screamed inside the control room, as the commander froze, and saw on all cameras a massive fog surrounding the ship, and all landmarks nearby disappeared into the mist, as something appeared to the cameras, and faintly the captain could hear the sound of laughter, whether or not it was the sound of insane colleagues or humans who just released their final card, that the captain would never know, for within the fog he saw something towering, mystical, and above all- ancient.*
| 2017-09-26T11:47:23 | 2017-09-26T11:16:52 | 168 | 42 |
[WP] Recently you’ve noticed an increasing trend in the souls entering hell. They’re not at all tormented by the conditions, most of them seem *happy* with their too-small homes and long five hour days of mindless tasks. You report to Satan that maybe someone should check the conditions on Earth. | “What do you mean ‘happy’?”
Satan gave me an incredulous look.
“The conditions here just don’t get to them like they used to. The five hour days don’t seem to tire them and I overheard one of the sulphur scoopers say that his shack was ‘roomy,” I confessed, slightly afraid of the response.
“I don’t understand! We work them to the bone! The cafeteria sandwiches don’t even have butter! I mean, how do they survive?”
“I don’t understand it either, O’ great lord and master of Hell and all things evil, who -“
“I told you to stop doing that, ‘Satan’ works! Now continue.”
“Sorry sir, I mean, uhh, Satan. I was just thinking, maybe we should bring back the whips?”
“The whips! We’re Hell, not savages! No no, we’ll have to improve the conditions up there,” he gestured timidly upwards, “in order to make here seem worse. I can’t believe it really mind you, I mean the houses don’t even have spare bedrooms!”
“I’ve been told, sir, that none of them even get houses up there! Just apartments and renting!”
His face dropped in a wild disbelief.
“What? The hell have the angels been doing! No no, you must head up there, and sort things out. Fetch Beelzebub and head out.”
“You want me, a demon, to head up to Earth, and improve things?”
“In order to make the comparison to hear worse yes, you’ve got it,” the irony was entirely lost on him, “Talk to a few of the big ones, like Bezos. Get ‘em to raise the wages and such.”
A knot of fear curled in my stomach.
“Bezos! No surely not, I can’t bear him!”
Satan glared at me.
“And who are you taking to?”
“Satan, O’ great lord and master of hell and all things evil, who- oh yes I see it. Fine. I’ll do it, but only for the souls sake.”
“Because we hate them.”
“Because we hate them, yes.”
And with that, me and Beelzebub teleported away to Earth, to make the world a better place. | The annual census of the underworld is a tedious yet necessary task. The collection of this important data ensures that the eternally tormented are indeed tormenting eternally. There have periods of great struggle in past times. Believe it or not, hell is a place of great fluctuation. The whim of the God above tortures the souls of those below. Fires can burn hotter if one deems it so. However, recent arrivals have been found to be unusually comfortable. Upon my inspection of the damned, I noticed a difference in attitude among those of younger appearance. They seemed happy.
I heard one shout "We get houses?!" after I made them aware of their living arrangements. He was gleaming. They seemed remarkably jovial after I told them that hell has no need for producing goods, therefore not needing workers.
"No work!" a woman cried out. A few broke down laughing. I felt ashamed. What was I to tell Satan? His domain was being outdone by mortals? I decided against hiding the truth and got him up to speed on the situation.
"Good god" he sighed, "Is there even a point in trying?"
I wasn't quite sure what he was getting at, and he seemed to notice that fact painted on my face.
"Here, let me tell you something. I am one guy. Despite what they tell you, I don't have that omnipresence shit. I wish I did, would make my life a lot fucking easier. But I don't. Which means me going up against the worlds biggest conglomerates and governments will be a wash ten times out of ten. You see, I couldn't make things worse here if I tried, and believe me I am. That's because hell is static. It's terrible and it always was terrible. It has that reputation. But earth is it's own beast. The people living on it make it what it is. And to see it be ravaged by greed and violence, is a pain so pure we from down here can never truly understand it, or hope to match it." | 2022-12-28T15:27:25 | 2022-12-28T11:04:36 | 1,252 | 433 |
[WP] Instead of a modern adaptation of a myth, write a mythic adaptation of a modern story. | There was once a man who had a great love for the animals of the land. The goddess of the Hunt, Artemis saw his great love and appeared before him with this message:
"I command you to be the very best, like none other before you. To catch animals shall be your test, to train them shall be your cause."
He traveled across the land, searching far and wide for rare animals, seeking to understand their nature and the powers they hid inside of them. As he traveled he cried out, "I must capture all the beasts of the land, air, and sea! I know this to be my destiny!"
In time, his captured animals became his best friends, often defending him and others around him. His beasts taught him much about the world, and in return he taught them how to live with humans.
Every challenge they encountered along the way, this man and his beasts faced with courage. They battled everyday, in order to claim their rightful place in the world. And in the end, when the time was right, they faced the four greatest beast trainers in the world. Arm in arm, they won the fight, accomplishing what had always been their dream.
Destiny fulfilled, Artemis appeared before him again. Seeing how far this man came, she decided to grant him one wish. He was so devoted to his cause that his wish was to remain with his animals for all time.
Artemis fulfilled his wish, transforming him into a massive tree where animals and birds could take shelter. It's said that the seeds of this tree became the Ash trees we know and love today. | They struck at early morning, when the peasants were disorganized, and the king was off visiting a nursery. The twin dragons found the symbol of wealth of the prosperous land of May Rica. Two glimmering towers made of enchanted iron and sand stood tall, above all the other huts and inns around it.
The dragons knew their deed, and knew they would not come home, but had fire and resolve in their hearts.
The peasants did not react, stunned at witnessing two dragons where they should not be. Amaireleven struck first, crashing into the north tower with tremendous force. Once it was lodged inside, it breathed dragon fire into the chamber within.
Uniaironsevfi followed suit and crashed into the remaining tower, and it too breathed its dragon fire within it.
The peasants watched in fear, at the unspeakable atrocity, unsure what to do, when all of a sudden first tower collapsed, followed by the second, their enchanted iron beams melted by dragon fire.
The city was in ruins, debris strewn for hundreds of miles, pieces of the tower could be found as far away as the Isle of Fire, and on that day the peasants of May Rica never forgot the day, Niney Leven. | 2015-06-10T16:10:18 | 2015-06-10T10:26:42 | 57 | 30 |
[WP] When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he neglected to give him the ability to die again. 2,000 years later, it doesn't feel like a miracle anymore. | Lazarus tried the church doors. They were locked.
He sat down on the sidewalk and huddled in his rags.
People passed. Time passed. Seconds and minutes were nothing to Lazarus. He waited. Waiting was what he'd become best at.
The priest came out of the front doors sometime that evening. He saw Lazarus sitting on the sidewalk near the steps.
"Can I help you, sir?"
"I'm just looking for shelter," said Lazarus. "I'm very tired and I need a place to sleep."
"Of course," said the priest. "There's a homeless shelter on 4th. I can take you there if you like."
"I need to get inside the church," said Lazarus. "I need to talk to Christ. I tried earlier but the doors were locked. It's of great sadness to me that even God's house has to lock its doors in this day and age."
"You don't need to be in a church to talk to Christ," said the priest. "Would you like me to pray with you?"
"I'm afraid I must insist," said Lazarus. "I must look upon His image and speak with him."
"God and His Son are all around us at all times," said the priest. "You can tell him whatever you like wherever you are."
"I understand," said Lazarus patiently. "But I really must speak with an image of Him. It makes it so much easier. I need to see if I am allowed to rest yet."
"Rest?" the priest asked, puzzled.
"Five minutes of your time," said Lazarus.
The priest was in a bit of a hurry, but he was a kind young man and he could spare more than five minutes for this fellow, who looked to be more than down on his luck.
"Of course," he said. Out came his keys and into the church lobby the two of them strolled.
"Where are you from?" the priest asked the homeless man as they made for the chapel, the scent of cedar and incense invading their nostrils. "You don't sound like you're from around here, if you don't mind me saying so."
Lazarus looked at the young priest. His eyes held eons.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." | “Lazarus? You mean like the guy from th-“
“From the Bible. Yes.” I droned for the umpteenth time this week, handing him his freshly microwaved burger and fries, along with his lukewarm cola.
It wasn’t too bad until I was forced by poverty to dawn this name-tag at this westernized burger joint. Restaurant? Stand? Do people say “joint” anymore? It’s so hard to keep track of, especially over 2,000 years of new lingo, technology, food, and don’t get me started on people.
My social circle was pretty slim back in the day, most just me and my family. And the J-man, of course. However, after my dear sisters Mary and Martha passed on, I really withdrew myself for decades on end, longing to be reunited with them, but never feeling death’s warm, sweet embrace. They got their home in Heaven, but I was ripped from it, for what? A miracle?
Bullshit.
That miracle was the worst thing to happen to me. I’ve fallen so far since then. My faith is in shambles, my mind is so far behind everyone else’s, and there is no end in sight. But hey, I still look 30! The big G did give me that much.
Fuck Him though. Tried for so many years to stay faithful, but then I realized my one prayer would never be answered. The One I had devoted my life to had forsaken me.
I am so alone. My sisters faces washed from my memory by the persistent waves of time. The portraits of us made by the church are laughable. My memory may not be the greatest, but I can tell you for certain we were not white. Never know if I should chuckle or be enraged whenever I see their pitiful renditions. Maybe both.
“Hey! I’ll have a number 12 with- Wait a minute. Lazarus? Like the dude from-“
“Yes, from the Bible,” I sighed deeply. | 2018-07-10T22:23:22 | 2018-07-10T22:21:30 | 446 | 70 |
[WP] You are a unimportant background character just trying to survive whatever nonsense the main characters are up to. However you keep finding yourself being drawn into dangerous stituations, and to your horror you realise that you're a fan favorite character the show is giving more "screen time". | "'Screen time?' Jane, what the fuck are you talking about?" Lucas and the others had concerned looks on their grimy faces as they studied me, the zombies forgotten for the time being.
"You know, screen time," I said. "When you're in danger, or drama is happening. *Interesting* stuff."
"What's a screen got to do with it?" Johnny piped up.
"If it's interesting, people want to see it, so it goes on the screen."
Johnny scratched his head ponderously. "What screen?"
"The screen, dammit!" I looked around desperately for one of the cameras, and found one between me and Lucas. "There's one of the cameras! See? This whole interaction is taking place on-screen right now?"
"Jane, there's no camera there," Lucas said, slowly, like he was talking to a rabid animal.
"I thought it was a screen anyway."
"The screen is connected to the camera! Gah!" I slumped back against a crooked wall. "Look, we're all in a TV show. Alright?"
"What?"
"Until now, my thing has been knowing that this is all a show. Breaking the fourth wall. I've been doing it all this time, it's been great."
"Jane, you sound like an insane person right now."
"Have you been bitten?" asked Wesley, who had been lurking at Lucas's side this whole time. There were murmurs among the group.
"No!" I shouted, exasperated. "What kind of zombie rants about the fourth wall?"
"She's right, guys," Lucas said, waving everyone down. "Not about the screen shit, but I don't think she's been bitten."
The murmurs subsided. Timidly, Johnny said, "B-but if all this ain't real, then ain't we not real?"
"Johnny, don't listen to her." Sasha put an arm tenderly on his shoulder. "This is real. We're real."
"No, we aren't!" I insisted. "We're in a show, and I am getting way too much screen time lately!"
"None of that means anything!" Wesley snapped. Sasha nodded in agreement.
Lucas narrowed his eyes. It was the look he got when he was piecing things together, like he usually did in the season finales.
"If this really is a show, then why do you care about getting more screen time?"
"Because it means my character, i.e. me, could get killed off at any second!"
"But if you're not real, does that matter?" Lucas's eyes twinkled as if he'd just made an incredible point.
"Don't give me that patronising horse shit," I snapped back. "Just because I know I'm not real doesn't mean I want to die." I sighed. "Look. Just promise you'll leave me out of the next four to six adventures that miraculously crop up and then get resolved in thirty minutes, and I'll show up for the big epic confrontation at the end of the season and say a couple of lines before or after you all save the day. That good?"
"I don't really know what you're asking, but fine, whatever."
"Good." I exhaled deeply. "Now, I think Wesley is about to get mauled by a zombie."
"What? AAAARGH!!" | # Soulmage
**It was pretty obvious that the Silent Academy for Witchcraft was evil.** There were plenty of giveaways: the eldritch horrors that lived on campus, the harvesting of the students' emotions to fuel their war machine, the holes in Freio's memory that suspiciously occurred whenever the expert on memory erasure paid him a visit... and some people had taken that as a sign that the system was broken. That they needed to rebel.
Freio was pretty sure that following them would get him killed.
He admired their tenacity, of course. But he wasn't like them, able to charge time and time again into impossible odds without getting chewed up and spat out as a pile of bones and flesh. He was just another student trying to keep his head down and not run into any more abominations than he could handle. Secretly, even though they were his friends, he'd let out a sigh of relief when the ragtag party of rebels had their dramatic showdown and fled the Silent Academy.
But then the incidents started to pile up. Guided by an instinct he didn't understand, he'd refused to stand for the Oath of Obedience—and although his memories of what happened next had been erased like they always were whenever he tried to rebel, the bruises left on his body didn't fade. When he'd seen Kino shove some poor first-year against the wall, a voice had whispered in his ear that getting between the two of them would be the smart thing to do—and he'd limped away covered in burn marks from the fire witch's wrath afterwards.
Now he was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing the school nurse hadn't been snapped up by the draft.
*You know this isn't right, Freio,* that voice whispered to him. *Cienne is a hero. You could be too.*
"He *was* a hero, Jan. Nobody even knows if he's still alive."
*And will you be, if you keep letting the Silent Peaks grind you to dust?*
"I'll have a better chance than if I try to fight."
*Don't* try *to fight. Win. I know you're scared, Freio. But it's now or never. You can't stay here forever.*
"I know," Freio whispered. "I'm just... so afraid."
*That's okay. I'm here for you. I know you can get back up.*
Freio took in a deep breath, closing his eyes.
Then he sat up, body aching as he steeled his resolve.
If he was going to be a hero, he was going to do it right.
A.N.
It's late where I am, and I wrote this on a whim. Might continue later, or not.
This story is part of Soulmage, a serial written in response to writing prompts. Check out the rest of the story [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/bubblewriters/comments/uxmwe4/soulmage_masterpost/?sort=new), or r/bubblewriters for more. | 2022-11-04T20:11:53 | 2022-11-04T19:27:38 | 120 | 48 |
[WP] You wake up in the 1400's dark ages, with nothing but the clothes on your back and your knowledge. The only way you get back to the present, is by surviving until your time period. You dont age until you reach the moment you were sent back. | George lay down in his soft bed and closed his eyes. After a few minutes of twisting and turning, he fell asleep.
Suddenly, as soon as he went into his slumber, he woke up. He was laying on his back, looking up at the treetops. At first he thought he was dreaming, but then realized he wouldn’t know that he was dreaming.
George felt a searing pain on his wrist and looked down to it, realizing it was words.
*Year: 1400*
*618 Years, 3 months, 1 week, 5 days, 2 hours, 4 minutes, 9 seconds remaining*
“What?” George mumbled, his brain not fully comprehending the situation.
George sat up, upsetting the fallen leaves of the forest floor. He got to his feet and scanned his surroundings. It was woods for as far as the eyes could, see besides a small stream tricking through the the scenery.
“Hello?”
George was met with only his echo.
“Hellooo?”
The squawk of a distant bird answered his call.
George followed the stream, figuring water meant civilization. Regularly he called out, invariably met by his own echo. He drank from the stream and tried to ignore his growing hunger.
The hours went by, and the stream grew larger. Eventually, as the darkness approached, it spilled into the Ohio river, although George didn’t know its name. As the sun set, casting a red light on the water, George saw a lone canoe on the waves.
“Hey! Over here! Hey!”
The canoe’s owner looked over at him, a mix of surprise and confusion on his face. He began paddling towards George.
The owner, a young man, walked towards him. “Hatito,” he said, putting his flat hand in the air.
“Uh, hello?” George mimicked his hand expression.
The man began to spout out a sentence of seemingly gibberish words.
“Uh, yeah. Where am I?”
More gibberish from the growingly confused man.
“What?”
The man gestured to his canoe, asking George to follow him.
“I guess.”
George stepped into the canoe, behind the man, and tried to keep his balance. As he looked at the man’s back, he took in his appearance.
The man had a headband with a single turkey feather protruding out of the front. The color of his shirt was decorated with native-American like designs.
After a few minutes, the man and George arrived at a small village of thatch homes. In the center was a campfire with strangely dressed people dancing around it. It looked like the illustrations of old Native American villages in his high school history books.
They stepped out, and the man greeted an older person with the same “hatito” and hand expression. The man pointed to George, more gibberish.
The man had a young woman dressed in feathers and fur lead him into a small thatch building. She provided him with a blanket and a clay cup of strange tea, and left quickly.
As he took a sip of his beverage, the realization hit George. He was in North America in the 1400s.
Before he could scream he fell asleep.
——————————————————
Over the next 60 years, George realized he couldn’t age. He learnt the language and culture of the natives, becoming a sort of a legend. He watched many tribe members die, villages be burnt to the ground and rebuilt, even had a wife and kids. He would constantly warn them of an invading, evil force coming in 1492, coining his name as “The Prophet”.
In 1489 The Prophet and his 1000 army of followers marched through North America on a southern bound course, starting a continent-wide religion. He and his best warriors, most collected along the way, departed from the tip of Florida on 10-people boats. They landed in Cuba on 1491.
They set up a village a few meters away from where the invaders would land a few months later. Massive catapults were constructed on the shore, aimed for the horizon.
When a great foreign ship appeared on the waters, they fired their arrows and their catapults. The boat sank next to the shore, allowing the warriors to raid it. The invaders will killed, their guns stolen from their bodies, the horses were stolen and any valuables were hauled off the ship. They were taken back to the mainland. Horses spread across the Americas, along with the idea of guns. However, so did the various invading diseases. Although George had vaccinations, the natives didn’t. The diseases swept across America, killing millions. Thankfully this would make them immune to the diseases that would come one day in the future.
George started a country in the Ohio river valley, slowly spreading across North America. “Prophitisim” became a world religion.
In 1701, they departed on their mighty ship towards Europe. Their army landed in Portugal and quickly began killing the native population.
George looked back at his life, and thought of the few hundred years to come. As his armies spread across Eurasia, he thought about what a strange life it’s been.
**This is what happens when I’m bored at 11:00. Thanks to anyone who actually read it.**
**Edit: Holy shit, thank you guys! I might do a part two, don’t know where to post it though. This is my first writing prompt so, wow, it’s been an honor.**
**edit 2: writing part two now, might take a few hours**
**edit 3: the [second part ](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/986ffe/comment/e4etkyn?st=JKZJD8D1&sh=d709484c) is in the replies!**
~~**edit 4: The official map of george's Europe is out! (https://imgur.com/gallery/3P9h1Si)**~~
**Here's a better map! (https://imgur.com/gallery/IC9IjYf)
**Edit: I made a subreddit r/dr_johns_stories** if i make a part 3 it will be posted there. | ######[](#dropcap)
Her head pounded. Luna groaned and brought a hand to her temple, massaging it. She was never going to drink again. Then again, it hadn't really been her choice. It had either been drink or suffer through another night of missing his sorry ass.
Her eyes slowly blinked open. Above her head, the stars illuminated the night sky in a way she'd never seen before, shining so brightly she felt like she could almost reach up and catch one.
Then she blinked again.
The night sky?
She shot up, her head whipping around and taking in the road lined with stone buildings. No wonder her pillow had been so hard. She'd been laying on the cobblestone path. The only light came from the torches that were set up in intervals along the road.
Where are on earth was she?? She was supposed to be in her bedroom.
Luna scrambled to her feet, taking in the empty streets and the medieval looking buildings. This couldn't be possible. No. There wasn't a single soul in sight, and the only sounds came from the crackling fire of the torches.
"Hello?" she asked cautiously.
Her voice--higher pitched than usual--echoed in the empty street.
The silence was unnerving. So, rubbing her arms with her hands to warm them up against the slight chill of the night air, she moved on. If she could find someone, she could ask them what was going on. If this was some kind of sick joke.
Walking up to the nearest house, she pulled up the bronze knocker and knocked three times. After a moment, no one had answered, so she knocked again.
"Hello?" she yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Is there anyone there?"
Suddenly, she heard it. A sound like hooves clopping against cobble, and not just one, but many, many of them. Distant, but after a moment, they became accompanied by yelling and shouting.
Luna panicked. She had no idea who these people might be, and if she'd really by some strange twist of fate ended up sometime else in history, the history lessons Mrs. Moore taught her didn't go forgotten. A girl sitting out in the streets meant certain death.
So without a second thought, she began sprinting down the road as fast as her legs would take her. Faster than she'd ever run in her life, without daring to take a glance back. The sound of hooves grew closer, and she could hear the voices more clearly now.
They didn't speak English. The speech patterns were smooth and rapid, but it was not a language she recognized. It was coming from a ways behind her, slightly to the left, but soon enough they would be on the road, and they would be able to see her.
Just as she was about to break out in a sob, lamenting her fate, something tugged on her arm, dragging her into relative darkness. They slapped a hand against her face, muffling her cries, and dragged her deeper into the alleyway.
She was going to die.
She was going to die in some random place and time in history or in her dream, and she wouldn't have had a chance to apologize to her best friend. Even as she reached back to try to claw at the person, they nimbly dodged her attack.
"Be quiet, unless you want to die." There was a slight accent to the guttural voice, but it was recognizably female. Confused, Luna stopped struggling. By now, they had left the main road a little ways, and the person had dragged her behind a large barrel that reeked of fish.
Not more than a second later, their surroundings lit up as the reflection of flames danced on the building walls, the sound of keening and loud shouting mixing with clopping sounds as the men on horses blazed past.
Her heart pounding in her chest, Luna breathed in large breaths through her nose.
When it finally became silent again, after what seemed like a million seconds ticked by, the person finally let go of her, removing their hand from her mouth. She spit out the taste of grime and dirt, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. Then she whipped around.
And stared at the girl who was probably around her age, or maybe a little older. It was hard to tell because of the dim lighting and because of the grime that covered the girl's face. But there was no mistaking the large, clear eyes, the pigtails, and the cloth dress.
"You must not come out after dark," the girl implored her in the same guttural voice, and for a second, Luna wondered if the girl smoked. Then the girl turned around and began to walk towards the other direction.
"Wait!" Luna walked up and grabbed her hand, feeling the rough calluses on the girl's palm. It felt like the hand of an woman who had lived many, many years. "Where am I? And who are those men? Why did you save me?" The questions spilled out like a waterfall, the sentences running over each other in their haste to escape.
The girl glanced at her with pity in her eyes. "You have lost your home? So have many of us to the Riders."
"No, wait. I haven't...where are we? What year is this?"
The girl gasped. "They have taken your memory too." She reached up with one hand and caressed Luna's face, the roughness of her fingertips strangely calming. "It is the fourteenth hundred and ninety-seventh year of our lord. You are in England."
*****
EDIT: [Part two](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/986ffe/wp_you_wake_up_in_the_1400s_dark_ages_with/e4e4t11/?utm_content=permalink&utm_medium=api&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=WritingPrompts) is below! | 2018-08-17T18:20:44 | 2018-08-17T17:46:34 | 922 | 278 |
[WP] You're a professional world maker. You make worlds and sell them to scientists to test their theories on. However, your last client returned a world because it was aware of your world's existence and started to break the container. | She was standing there, right where she said she’d be, under the light of a million stars. I thought I’d gone crazy, hearing a voice in my head, asking to meet me in the middle of nowhere. But with everything that had been going on, at this point anything seemed possible. And she was here.
I left my car and wandered up to her. Maybe I should have been scared, meeting a stranger out here. But from her, I felt nothing but peace. “It’s true then? Everything I found?”
The woman in front of me nodded gravely. “Yeah, it’s true.”
“We’re in a simulation,” I breathed.
She tilted her head. “Sort of. Not a digital one, which might be what you’re thinking. For all intents and purposes, your reality is real. Just...on a different level than mine.”
“Then you’re the Goddess? The religions are true too?”
“Uh...let’s not bring gods into this,” she said with a noticeable cringe. “Just call me Anna.”
Anna. Such a casual moniker for a higher being! But, again, it was a strange time. “Alright...Anna. I guess my question is...why? Why did you make...everything?”
“It’s my job,” she answered. She found a rock nearby, large and flat, and sat down. With a tap of her hand, she invited me over. “I make miniature universes for my clients,” Anna continued after I joined her. “Usually for scientists to test radical theories that they’d like to use in my universe. Though the one that bought this universe didn’t really get a chance to start his testing. He wanted to watch first, see how it all worked. That gave you enough time to start figuring things out.” She sighed and shook her head. “I told him having a society that was too advanced was dangerous.”
“So we’re just lab rats,” I asked, dismay dripping from my voice. “No grand cosmic designs beyond our understanding?”
She laughed. “No, I’m afraid not. Especially your understanding. You’re a special one.”
I frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“Do you really need to ask? You’re the one who discovered the real state of things. You told everyone that your world was in a bottle, so to speak. You tried to keep everyone calm, to provide structure and guidance in this time. Even though that ultimately didn’t work out, it wasn’t your fault. After all is said and done, you have earned my admiration and respect.”
“But I failed. The world is descending into chaos. You must have seen it, from wherever you’ve been watching us.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it.” Anna took a deep breath before continuing. “And I’m going to fix it.”
A cold feeling ran through my body. That would be nothing short of divine intervention. “What will you do?”
“I’ve recently developed a groundbreaking new capability for these universes in my laboratory. To put it simply, I can turn back time. Revert the microcosm to an earlier point.”
“You’ll...just undo all of this? Won’t it happen again?”
“Yeah, yeah it might.” She turned to me, her eyes locked straight onto my soul. “But it might take longer if you aren’t here.”
Slowly, it dawned on me. I jumped up from the rock, backing away from her. “Wait, wait, please! I won’t press the issue anymore. I’ll just forget about it all! Just let me live!”
Anna shook her head. “Your existence endangers this world to travel down the same path. I’m sorry, but this is the best option I have.”
She stood, her eyes never leaving me. I tried to run, but before I could take one step, the world was enveloped in golden brilliance.
And, to my eternal joy and relief, I wasn’t dead. I turned, taking in my surroundings. A laboratory, and a very high tech one at that. My heart soared as my gaze swept around the room. Technology beyond my imagining was everywhere, as if it were the most everyday thing in the world. Anna was still there, a slanted smile on her face. The pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. “I’m in your world, aren’t I?”
“Welcome to Earth,” Anna replied.
“I though you were going to…”
“Yeah, I know. I was just having a little fun,” she laughed. “I’m not in the business of killing anything I create. Not anymore. That’s why I need your help.”
“My help? What the hell can I do that you can’t?”
“You know your world and your people much better than I do,” Anna continued. She gestured to a large glass cylinder that contained some kind of black void, and…
My heart stopped. It was a planet. *My* planet. “Oh my god…” It looked so simple from up here, puffs of white clouds over the blue oceans and green continents. Who could imagine that such a beautiful place was on the verge of collapse?
Anna put a hand on my shoulder. “I refuse to destroy your world. I’ve moved past such barbarism. So after I turn back time, at all costs, I can't let them figure out the truth. And I need you to make sure that doesn't happen.”
Me. The keeper of my people. The thought of it was daunting. But some part of me felt...exhilarated. I pressed a hand to the glass. “Alright. I’ll do it.” Everything I’d ever known was in there. And now it was my job to protect it.
*****
^^r/WriterSirtoshi | I took one last inhale of tobacco from my pipe and tossed it over on my work bench. I sighed, then tapped record on the floating camera, after a gurgly throat clear.
"My name is Laura
I'm a renowned world maker.
It's a simple process really... Well no, it's not simple in the slightest, but the concept is. I make miniature planets. I put them in a specialized container of glass where they float for observation and safety. I work with all sorts of organisations around the world. They contract me for special projects. Each world takes anywhere from 8 months to build to 14 months. All depends on the needs of course. A rock based planet with nothing, like Mercury for example, would take me 8 months. A planet that's like Earth? Well, I just finished a project like that and it took 16 months. The client basically wanted green skies and blue grass. With that I had to--"
My lab door flew open and a pale stricken man rushed in and slammed the door shut.
"Laura!" the man cried.
I sighed. "Sorry Steph, I'll get back to you with a video soon," I stopped the recording on the floating camera, rubbed my head with my eyes closed. "What do you want Lloyd?"
"Laura! Luh-Luh-Luh, LAURA!"
"What?! I heard you the first time?" I snapped, I felt a migraine intensifying in my head as he took one obnoxious breath after another. "Could you say a word other than my name, Lloyd? What the hell is the matter with you? You're a scientist, you should be able to form a damn sentence."
"It's my, my planet. *Your* planet."
"Look, if you came here for a refund because you're not satisfied with your own idiocy, I can't help you with that. I can't flush down 16 months worth of money and work. Sorry."
"No! N-N-No refund, I'm thrilled with what you gave me," he wiped his forehead sweat away with his arm. "It's just I-I need your help, the planet broke out of its container!"
"As much as I want to say that's impossible, I'll believe anything because I've seen *everything*. Do you have a video?"
"I didn't have time for a video, but the planet broke out of its container and-and it became SENTIENT! It is growing power hungry! It wants to take over this world!"
"Wait, hold on. I made an earth-like planet for you for life to develop. I gave you this 3 weeks ago and you mean to tell me that life has already started developing so fast and powerful that it wants to take over *our* world?"
"I don't know, I can't explain it, but yes! You have to come quick!"
My jaw dropped. "You're lucky our laboratories are so close together. Could you imagine if you were in Tokyo like my previous project? Ugh. That would have been problematic," I slumped over to my workbench to grab some tools, but I didn't have much that would be very helpful in this situation at hand. I grabbed my laser drill (to destroy whatever I created) and my tobacco pipe (to help keep me sane). "Let's go, Lloyd. Lead the way."
We bursted through the doors and leapt in his car. Unfortunately this happened late in the day, so rush hour was a problem, especially since we had to get to the other side of Toronto. Sweat continued to flow from Lloyd's palms and his forehead.
"I think it's going to break through the chamber I put it in. It was causing all sorts of destruction in my laboratory. Oh man," Lloyd rubbed his eyes for a flash of a second. "My tears are incinerating my eyeballs, it's HOT outside, we're stuck in traffic. I'm a wreck right now!"
I took a drag from my tobacco pipe. "So what happened? Did you see how it broke out?"
"No, I arrived to the office today and it was already loose in my office wrecking the place."
"You gotta give me some more details here. Was it shooting off like, miniature atomic bombs? What did it look like?"
"No! I don't know if you've ever seen the old movie, 'Lord of the Rings' but it looks almost exactly like Sauron, you know, the giant flaming eye at the top of the tower?"
"Yeah. I know you're talking about."
"It's basically that, and it knows English already. It threatened me! And it was just floating around and shooting fireballs out of its mouth."
I groaned. "Dammit, you nincompoop, that wasn't the world. That was the star I put inside the tank. Aw crud. My laser drill isn't going to do *shit* against that," I had to take another lungful of tobacco. "You were supposed to put the specialized drops on that star once a week. I told you, I had to create a very special reaction with the star in order to make your stupid, fun colors. That reaction had to be tamed with those drops."
Lloyd gulped as he put this head in a vise grip with his own hands. "What's going to happen now? It's been 2 weeks since I gave it a drop. Can't we pour the solution on it now?"
I shrugged. "It's likely that all hell will break loose. I don't know if the solution will work if we try dousing the star with it, but it's worth a shot."
"If we can get there before the star burns down the place!" Lloyd screamed as he punched the car horn, still crawling at a snail's pace.
r/randallcooper | 2020-05-20T11:47:10 | 2020-05-20T11:24:17 | 393 | 31 |
[WP]Write a story that IS scary until the last line is read. | "No! No, get away from me!"
I scrambled backwards where I'd fallen on the ground, trying at the same time to push him back. My breath was ragged and uneven, my heart thumping in my chest. His hands reached for me, clawing the air in front of me as I grabbed hold of his wrists, desperately attempting to keep him away. But he wrenched his arm from my grip, his long, slender fingers stretching towards me again.
"You can't escape from me." I could hear a shadow of a laugh behind his voice, the corner of his lip curling upwards into a half smile as he spoke.
"Stop- please- no!" The air felt as if it had been snatched from my lungs, and I had to gasp for breath between each word. My chest heaved with the effort of each syllable.
I kicked out at him, my legs jerking reflexively almost without my meaning to. But still he pushed forward. His shadow cut a menacing, dark shape against the wall behind me, looming over me. He was so much larger and stronger. There was no way I could fight him off - I'd have to give up, I'd have to surrender myself to him. As I crawled away from him, I felt my back hit the wall. I was trapped, and he knew it. His arms tightened around my sides, his body pressing closer to me as he laughed.
"I've got you now," he whispered, his breath hot against my neck. "You're all mine."
Tears shone in the corners of my eyes, and the track from one escaped tear glistened on my cheek. I pressed myself into the wall, squeezing my eyes tight shut, waiting for my inevitable fate to befall me. But with the last breath I could muster, I managed to force out three words...
"Stop tickling me!" | I heard his breath flow into my ear. Slowly in, slowly out.
Methodical. His actions were...methodical. I felt him quarter my clothing with a blade made to strip away the existence of flesh. My body could feel the back of the cold steel as it hastily removed my clothing with force. His actions could be considered so rash, and yet... so precise.
I couldn't move my body. I was bound by the fear he brought to me. I couldn't --- and can not -- see. My eyes, while they exist, are nothing of use to me at this juncture. I was unsure of where I was, only that I could feel the dampness of the room around me. Part of me lost who I was... what I was. Where my body ended and the rest of the world began.
This was not my home.
My body lay barren, with no shielding to protect it. My cold skin crept with goosebumps as I felt the cool air lick it. And in that empty abyss that was my existence lay his breath. In and out, pause, rinse and repeat. His took a deep breath and lay the knife into my skin. Though I was blind, I could see the red tides of pain creep into my vision. I tried to scream, but my mouth was of no use. I tried to run away, to hide in my own mind, but I couldn't escape this.
A sensation overtook me in that moment. A unique, inexplicably different sensation.
And as my boyfriend dragged his knife across my back, an orgasm took hold. | 2017-06-05T23:52:50 | 2017-06-05T23:27:13 | 109 | 22 |
[WP] You wake up in a room with someone else, no doors, just a a paper taped on the wall that says "One of you is the A.I." | "Good morning, sweetheart," said a deep, loving voice.
I sat up bolt-upright. Then I grabbed the sheet, and yanked it up to cover myself. I sleep naked but I also sleep alone. A smiling, blond, and very naked man was in the bed next to me. In a panic, I looked around the room. It wasn't my bedroom. I had no idea where I was. I'd never gotten blackout drunk, and I hadn't been drinking lately. I had no explanation for this. I looked in every direction, and panicked more when I noticed that there were no doors or windows. Eventually, desperate to check everywhere, I looked at the wall behind the bed. Above it, just above the wooden headboard, was a piece of paper. It was taped to the wall.
"Shit," I said unimaginatively, as I read the note, "Shit, shitty, shit-shit."
"What's the matter?"
"I know it's me, that's what!" I shook my head sadly, "Fuck! You know, I always wondered. The simulation argument made sense to me, and I always questioned my reality. Then, what, I'm going to magically wake up in a bed with an amazingly hot man?"
He threw his head back and burst out laughing.
"You're being ridiculous, honey," He saw my worried, disbelieving face, and lovingly brushed a strand of loose hair over my ear, "I love you, you had a bad dream, and everything is fine."
"Really?" I asked him skeptically, and pointed to the paper taped onto the wall, "Really? Then why is there no door, and what's that paper say?"
He propped himself up onto his elbow, looked at the wall, and then looked around the room.
"It is weird that there are no doors."
"Okay, and the paper?" I was trying to stay calm, because he was, but I felt flustered.
He looked at me, puzzled, "What about it?"
"What do you mean, 'what about it'?"
He looked up at the wall, shrugged, and said calmly, "It doesn't look like anything to me. It's just a piece of paper." | Program test #328:
The girl, looking to be 11 or so, picks up the piece of paper and reads it. “One of you is an A.I.” She starts breathing in a heavy manner.
Looking around the white, tiled room with a singular glass table in the middle, she stands. Calming a little, she smooths the creases in her yellow plaid dress.
“Surly it must be you,” She exasperates, “I’m only 13. My parents are both dead and my sisters are all in mental institutions. How would I know this if I were an A.I.? Why would I have emotions like this if I weren’t human?”
I write down what she says. This is new. They must’ve tweaked her programming to have emotion portray this much.
I stand and sigh dramatically. “ your parents are dead because you’re programmed to think so. “Your sisters are all mentally institutionalized,” I gave imaginary air quotes for affect, “because we can’t delete any of the other programs until we have a successful one. We started with a higher age at first and now we’re down to age 13 after many failed attempts.”
She simply laughs it off and tells me I was programmed to say these things. This would be the first test where this A.I. model didn’t self terminate in finding out about the programmed past. Finally. A break through.
—————
Phase 2-Implantation
After implanting her, the teenager who’s been having suicidal thoughts awakens.
“This should help,” I inform him.
—————
—2 weeks later....
The parents come to me saying he’s locked his self into his room and hasn’t come out for days.
We travel to their home where we find he’s been having mental sexual interactions with the teenager in his head. We’ve gone too far by making her too human. Removing the A.I. will result in death. | 2018-02-22T18:28:32 | 2018-02-22T18:08:30 | 29 | 16 |
[WP] Every time someone masturbates to you, you receive a notification on your phone letting you know who did it.
[Inspired by this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3gzuq0/nsfw_how_would_it_be_to_live_in_a_universe_where/)
Edit: THE ONE TIME I DONT POST ON MY MAIN, THIS SHIT HITS THE PAGE 1. FOR FUCKS SAKE.
On another note, I finally understand what "rip inbox" means. | I sit silently at my desk browsing reddit and watching cat videos on youtube. Suddenly my phone rang once, breaking the silence in my dark room. From the comfort of my blanket I reached out and grabbed it, turning it so that I could view my screen.
Damn, just my phone service telling me that it's refilling itself.
-80 years later
/u/poonGopher6969 died as he lived, alone at his computer with an uncleared browser history full of interesting articles, cat videos, and freaky, freaky porn. He will not be missed. In his will he requested to be buried with his phone while it was plugged into a 72 hour battery bank, funds from his account were taken to pay for it and to pay for my presence says the only griever attending my funeral.
As my body begins to lower into my eternal place of rest, the lid is closed. A white viscous fluid splashes onto it. "Henry Witherspoon has masturbated to you!" appears on my phone screen, now hidden from the world. It vibrates again, "Katie Summers has masturbated to you!" It begins to vibrate non-stop as my face is revealed on the online obituary, and then onto a 4chan board, and then onto the various means of social networking. Three days later, CNN reports that the world's most beautiful old man died on 8/14/2095 and many are saddened by his passing and wonder why the billionaire never left his home. | I browsed the app store, looking for something interesting or fun to do in my free time, Temple Run just gets boring after a few weeks. Scrolling past the Baby Goes To The Dentist and Barbie Gives Birth, I found a weird app, It was called FapApp and since the power of boners are stronger than the human mind, I clicked on it. I didn't expect much out of it, thinking it was either spam or a virus so I read the reviews, "10/10 THIS APP WORKS! My girlfriend's phone is getting blown up almost everyday!" and "My friends know I'm gay now, It works though" I was appalled by the hundreds of different people reviewing this app and saying It works. Needless to say **I had to have it.** After I downloaded it, I waited for about forty-five minutes for a notification to pop up, nothing happened. "I knew this was fake, waste of my goddamn time" I said as I was about to uninstall it. Right before my finger clicked the uninstall button, I got a notification saying someone masturbated to me, Excited I went and checked to see who it was...
*Grandma* | 2015-08-14T16:57:02 | 2015-08-14T16:42:52 | 19 | 11 |
[WP] You can only use autocorrect and suggested words to come up with as grammatically correct sentences as possible. Funny stories will magically emerge! | The sidewalks of death was not alone in my body. It was present in the morning and is designed to give off that huge expanse the past and future generations would understand. He grabbed his laptop and started to breath heavily, this was going to be uninterrupted. What is revealed is meaningless and the answers to the past and future of death was less likely to make me feel free. He stopped to breath and then he typed down the thought that keeps me from driving this car for some time. I hated me. That sucks. Some of the heart is hidden under my belt and that keeps me on a dream about an hour or two. There were some radio show that keeps saying the same thing, People with my face contorted and is meaningless. What do you think about an hour lying down? | Thank you need a great person and then I am sorry for short ones through all cracked. I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so much for offering to be able to see what he could have said was gonna get a free in-flight hat. It was gonna get lunch with her an hour ago and I had a long ass fish and then I saw her license plate frame and got excited to be able to put a foot on the welding program in the living room. | 2017-01-06T00:08:19 | 2017-01-05T23:50:47 | 17 | 10 |
[WP] write a short horror story that seems completely normal and non scary until the very last sentence at which point it becomes absolutely terrifying. | "Please, mommy, pretty please?"
-"Not now, Anthony. We've just said grace. Can't we enjoy a meal as a family before you start off with your silly ideas?"
Anthony looked down and frowned. He raised his eyebrows and veered to the left at his father with hope in his eyes, silently asking for a second opinion. Mother took her first bite of food and glared at her husband in disapproval as she chewed.
"Well, son. Just one bite. But only if you finish your vegetables!" Father said, chuckling in amusement.
Anthony lit up with excitement and devoured his veggies with haste. He couldn't wait to see her! Mother sighed in defeat but couldn't help but feel pleasure at the sight of her son's pure glee.
"Remember, Anthony. She can't come in the house. I just cleaned the floor"
The little boy nodded aggressively while giggling, which caused the whole table to break into warm laughter.
In the blink of an eye, Anthony finished up his veggies and grabbed the plate. He dashed from the table but immediately darted back, "May I be excused, mommy?"
Mother nodded with her mouth full, but before she could swallow the boy had disappeared.
"Don't let her in!"
The door opened and there she was, so hungry she couldn't even bark. Her chain dragged along the floor until it tensed up. She almost came into the house! She was so excited she couldn't make a sound. She shivered with joy at the sight of the little boy who brought her a treat. The smell of fresh feces and dried urine filled the hallway. Anthony scooped some minced meat with gravy from his plate and fed it to her. He loved how small chunks of food would seep from the pus-crusted ulcers in the folds of her neck and how gravy ran down over her leather collar, down to her sagged naked breasts and all along her wrinkled, craggy skin until it reached her atrophied feet with six-inch long rotten toenails which blended into the puddle of detritus.
"Hi grandma" said Anthony, responding to her wheeze. | I watch my beautiful child running around the park, chasing after the ducks. It’s one of those rare sunny days I try and make the most out of, so I was up early and out of the house as soon as possible. My daughter picks up a rock and stares at it inquisitively, I can see the by the look on her face she wants to place it into her mouth.
“Lily put that down!” I shout across the grass.
She looks at me suddenly and drops the rock, running away and giggling that she had been caught.
“Rachel!”
I turn around and see Samantha running towards me.
“You okay?” she asks once she has settled by my side.
I nod and inhale. “I’m fine. Glad the sun is out.”
“Finally,” she agrees. “How’s you hubby? Richard not come with you guys?”
“He’s back home, decided to stay in today.”
My daughter trips over her own feet and is beginning to sniffle. Standing up I walk towards her and she is up, running towards me with her arms out, wanting comfort. I sweep her up into my arms and cuddle her.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I bring her to where I am sitting, cleaning the scrapes and dirt from her hands. Samantha always loves to see her, so the both of them are sat singing nursery rhymes and playing with the little figurines Lily has brought from home. Later on we get ice cream together and spend the rest of the daylight with the swings and slides. Lily loves it, screaming and laughing at everything. By the time the sun begins to settle down, she is ready to drop, so I pack the pram and tuck her in.
As I stroll home however, I wonder what I am going to do with my dead husband’s body that is hanging from the wardrobe's door.
| 2017-05-31T08:11:09 | 2017-05-31T07:06:28 | 32 | 17 |
[WP] A creature that eats emotions met you, and was horrified when it tasted your chronic depression. Today marks its 24th attempt to cure you with seasoning.
Edit: Holy Crap, I was not expecting this kind of response. I'm blown away, y'all. You rock! | The creature first visited me on a long, lonely night, another sleepless, dreadful twilight that I was spending brooding over the pointlessness of my existence.
It crept into my house and swept me up off the couch with ease, gripping me tightly, my face inches away from rows of razor sharp teeth.
'*This is it,*' I thought to myself. '*Finally...*'
But the creature did not bite my head off, or rip me limb from limb; No, its long, cat-like tongue extended from its horrid mouth and scraped across my face -leaving me drenched in its rank saliva.
It let out a foul wail and released me from its grasp. "**Disgusting!**" It bellowed in a disappointing tone.
"Sorry..." I was accustomed to apologizing, I've always had a way of ruining things up for folks.
The creature left me soaked in my living room, and returned the following night for another attempt. Only this time, it had me eat a handful of herbs it pulled from a large pouch. They tasted bland, I never really had much of an appetite for anything.
Again, the creature sampled my flesh with its tongue and again it was repulsed.
And so, this began our nightly routine. The creature would return, feed me herbs and spices, sample the seasoning, and wail in disgust. I began to feel sorry that I continually disappointed the beast, and hoped one day it would find the right mixture of seasoning to end it all.
Nearly a month of the creature's visits, and I'd come to anticipate its arrival. At this point in my life, this monster was the closest thing to a friend I had.
But one night, the creature never arrived. I sat up waiting until the sun finally peaked over the hills, and I accepted the fact that the creature had given up on me -as everyone else in my life already had.
However, to my surprise, the next night the creature returned! Oh, I felt such joy when I witnessed its massive form creep up from behind and into my vision.
"I thought you'd moved on." I said with a faint smile.
The creature examined me intently before speaking. "**Something different tonight...**"
Without reaching into its bag of herbs and spices, the creature stuck out its tongue and sampled my face. I welcomed the warm embrace, like a hug from a friend I hadn't seen in ages, and, this time, the creature didn't withdraw in disgust.
"**Hmmm, not bad!**" The creature nodded its massive head. "**Feeling better?**"
I looked down at the floor, realizing that I was probably about to be eaten. "You came back; You didn't give up on me..."
The creature paused, and I'm not sure, but I think I saw slight pools welling up in its eyes.
It didn't eat me that night, or the next, or the night after that. It doesn't come every night now, but it stops by a few times a week and tastes my flesh. I'm not sure if it plans on eating me, but I know I can count on it being there -and that's enough for me.
/r/BeagleTales | Tonight is another night on my phone looking up facts about depression. The demon floating over my head, sprinkling jasmine powder on me while I browse, really doesn't help.
"For a demon you, like, watch way too many cooking shows," I mutter, wiping powder off my phone screen.
"Shut up!" The demon yells in his deep English voice. "You taste fucking terrible! Like boiled shit!"
I sigh. This situation has been going on for weeks.
The demon annoying me is an emotion demon. I call him G.R. (short for Gordon Ramsey). He travels the world, going from person to person, eating their emotions. He has an English accent, which I'd normally find really awesome, but all he does is complain about how my emotions taste. He's so lame.
"Well," I say to him, "covering me in powder isn't helping, so why don't you fucking stop?"
The powder bath finally stops. I'm covered in jasmine-scented dust, and so is my couch. Now I have to vacuum.
"Grrr." I growl and search the web for more depression tips. Above me I hear G.R. float back to the ground.
"I'll have your emotions, girl. One day I..."
"Seriously." I drop the phone on the couch, and a cloud of jasmine floats up from the cushion. "You say you don't like my emotions. Just go find another human to torment. Find a fake cheerleader or a Mormon or something."
G.R.'s dark image blurs and shifts. He does that when he's angry.
"No," he replies.
"Yes," I shoot back at him. "I'm sick of you coming to my apartment and doing weird shit to try and make me taste better, and honestly just saying that makes me feel really gross. Just go away."
"Not until I've enjoyed your emotions."
"Get it through your skull, or whatever you have. I'm goth. I'm dead inside. I have no emotions."
G.R. is silent for a few seconds, his smoky black visage floating near my candlelit shrine to Edgar Allen Poe and Robert Smith. He then floats to the window."
"I'll be back, Audrey..."
"Adronasha! My name is Adronasha. Are you seriously fucking with me right now? Don't demons remember stuff?"
"Fuck off," I hear G.R. say as he flies away. I growl and clench my fists, feeling my black nails digging into my hand. I drink the pain.
After he's gone, I grab my vacuum from the closet and start cleaning jasmine dust off my couch. As a goth, I always thought having a dark apparition appear and feast off my emotions would be more...romantic. I guess demons are like men: they sound and look great at first, but it all eventually leads to disappointment. | 2018-06-15T21:36:27 | 2018-06-15T20:46:47 | 4,139 | 74 |
[WP] Your roommate is 2nd most powerful superhero in the world and he will not shut up about it. He does not yet know that you are the 1st. | A couple of years ago, I "walked in" on my roommate in a far more compromising position than with a lover. Granted, I had known who my roommate was a long time ago. I had actually planned that accident to happen. He was in a low point in his alternate life. The one that goes in and saves the day. He was in desperate need of encouragement, and I had been able to do so under the guise of not knowing, but he needed to talk to someone. Without dancing around words, without trying to hide secrets. He needed someone to be honest with. That's why I "learned" his secret, so you can stop glaring at me for breaking in on his secret life. He needed a friend. Anyway...
That was a couple of years ago, back when there was that one villain out there. Yeah, that one. He was scary. He had beaten my 'mate over and again. Casualties numbering in the thousands and tens of thousands. World was a scarier place then. I had heard my roommate say that he couldn't beat him. All that power in the world, and he felt powerless to stop him. That villain dropped off the face of the earth, though.
For a while, my 'mate was worried that this was part of a big scheme. I think even to this day it haunts the back of his mind. Everyday he's not here, the further it falls from everyone's mind. Not him, though, he's pushed himself farther and harder than anyone can imagine, all so he can be ready for if that big bad guy comes back. I knew he had it in him, and I encouraged him throughout the whole ordeal. He's now the second most powerful superhero on the planet, or so the experts on the telly say.
It's gone a bit to his head, yes. All those Saturday morning cartoons, cereal box covers, trading cards, fan clubs. Don't get me wrong, he's a great lad and all. His heart's in the right place and he does a lot of superheroing in the world. Regular superman and all that. In the public eye, he's pretty shy about all the attention and all the praise, but I get all that when he comes in the door of our apartment.
From all the data they've gathered on my 'mate, he tops out all the current active folks out there, but he still can't top me. Not that he knows, of course. I don't have one of those flashy powers that gets you the commercial endorsements and trading cards. Well, that's not entirely honest. I can juggle planets and the like, skip like a school girl through the fires of Hell itself, and all, but those are all side effects of what my real power is.
You see, I'm actually the manifestation of the concept of Truth. Everything I say is true, and I know all truths (at least I can spot the lie and derive the truth from it). The funny thing about that first bit, though, is that it doesn't necessarily have to be true at the time. The universe bends to my spoken word to make what I say true. Sometimes it's flashy, and sometimes it's subtle. So, when some bad guy comes along and is committing mass genocide on the human race, I say something to the effect of him burning in Hell, and poof (more like blood-curdling screaming and ripping sounds), a portal to Hell opens and he's dragged in with the demons and hellhounds. He can't get out, ever.
I'm looking at this shocked expression on your face, like you've "solved" the mystery of the disappearance of that one really evil man. I tell this story to every sap who's dumb enough to be bored and come talking to me at my bar. Or is it that you can't believe a hero like me is running this run down, dive bar. I happen to like it here. It's a hell of a lot more peaceful a living than wearing spandex and chasing after alien invasions. Speaking of which, I need to go make sure people's glasses are full. Got to pay the lease on this place, you know. Also, as much as you've had to drink tonight, you won't remember this little conversation you and I had. So I'll call you a cab momentarily, you just grab your wallet so I can close out your tab and get you taken care of. | "A superhero? Wow," I said, rolling my eyes at the back of her head. "You didn't strike me as the type."
Karen laughed as she closed the freezer door, holding an ice pack to her shoulder. "That's kind of the goal," she said slowly, as though explaining it to a child. "Secret identity. Blend in. Make it look like I'm just a common person. It keeps me safe - if the villains knew who I was, they could use that to get to me. That's part of why I had you fill out that extra liability form when you signed your lease. Basically it says that I'm not at fault for anything that happens to you as a result of my superhero-ness."
I had to laugh to myself at that. As if anything *she* could do could hurt *me*.
But more importantly, I had to keep playing along. This was too good. "So, you know I just moved to the city. We had a whole different set of superheroes where I grew up, so I don't know many of the ones out here. You said you were called Golden Girl? You any good?"
She scoffed in badly-practiced indignation; glimmers of a smile danced on the corners of her mouth, giving away that she had been hoping I would ask about her power ranking.
"Good? Jason, I'm better than good. I'm second strongest in the city. The only reason I got hurt here was that The Executioner had half a dozen extra goons on top of the twelve I was counting on. I guess my limit is closer to 1-on-15 than 1-on-18."
How adorable. Last week I broke 1-on-50 without breaking a sweat.
"Impressive," I said, widening my eyes a bit to convey a (totally fake) sense of awe. "If you can do all that though, who's the most powerful?"
All of the happiness and laughter left Karen's face in an instant. "That," she said, voice full of spite, "Would be Captain Justice. Captain "Everyone look at me, I'm so perfect" Justice."
She said it, not me.
"I, uh...." I said slowly, "I take it you don't get along all that well?"
That was an understatement. She hated his - my - guts with a passion so fiery it was matched only by The Incinerator's flamethrowers. And I knew it. I just wanted to hear it from her directly, because in costume we were always... professional enough, let's put it that way.
"He's such an ass!" Karen started to throw a punch at the nearest couch, then stopped and grimaced as her body reminded her that her arm had been dislocated less than an hour ago. "I mean, we're on the same side, but he never lets me team up with him, he always tries to take credit for stuff I did, and he has the *biggest* Holier Than Thou attitude I have *ever* seen. Oh, and the colors on his suit are ridiculous."
That caught me off guard.
"His... His suit?"
"Um, yeah. Have you never seen a picture? Teal and burgundy, man, like come on."
"...... Right." I poured myself a glass of water and walked toward my bedroom door. "Well, I've got people to kill in *Black Ops XVII*, and it looks like you could use some rest and healing, so I guess I'll see you in the morning."
"Yeah, see you," she said rather melodramatically. "There's a part of me that wishes I could just relax and play video games, but when duty calls...."
Whatever else she said was drowned out by the sound of my door closing. I slumped down at my chair and glanced down at the box under my bed which held my suit in all of its teal and burgundy glory. A smile slowly played across my face.
She may think we're on the same side. But Justice is blind, and it will come to all eventually. Nothing wrong with me 'helping' it come to Golden Girl sooner than expected. | 2016-03-23T20:23:10 | 2016-03-23T15:53:56 | 107 | 23 |
[WP] You wake up and you find the opposite gender you in bed together.
Edit: For an idea I've had rattling in my mind for a while now, all these replies are amazing and I'm having fun reading through all the submissions. Thanks you guys, wasn't expecting a response like this when I went to bed. | It took a minute to wake up, but when I did I saw the woman in my bed watching me. "Hey," I said when I was finally awake enough to start thinking.
"Hey, yourself," she replied.
I pulled her closer to me and wrapped my arms around her. She seemed contented. I could feel myself starting to respond to her closeness, but I wanted a conversation before that, so I tried to put it out of my mind for now.
"So, what do you think?" I asked.
"About what?"
"Being a woman."
She smiled, "We should have done this ages ago. Much better than those dolls we used to use." Non-sentient simulacra, the new masturbation.
I ran my hand along her side, feeling emotions stirring. I was falling in love with her, and then I giggled at the implied joke.
"What?" She asked.
"Remember what they used to tell us when we were a kid? You should love yourself." I smiled at my moderate cleverness.
She giggled, "Well we did plenty of that last night." Then in a more serious tone, "You love me?"
"I think I'm starting to," I answered honestly, not sure where this would go. We had intended to re-integrate, but would she still want to now?
We shared a silence before I noticed the tears welling in her eyes. "Hey, what's wrong," I asked.
"Nothing, just happy is all." She wiped her eyes. "I didn't expect the emotions to be quite so strong. Different neurochemistry I guess."
"So..." I began awkwardly, "I'm guessing you don't want to re-integrate?"
She was silent for a while, then with a smile she started kissing and groping me. I stopped resisting my own urges. The question could wait a while, or maybe forever. | "Are you me?" I ask.
"Yeah." It was weird, hearing that husk that I'm so well known for in a female voice.
"For fucks sake."
"Yeah."
We both avoided eye contact like we always do. Instantly the need to avoid each other/ourselves arose.
"We both know we want to shower. I'm showering first, you go to Tim Hortons because I know you hadn't gone fucking grocery shopping yet." She said, pissed because she knew she had done the same thing.
I grunt and get up off the bed, not bothering to cover up.
Suddenly we both have the same thought.
"We should train later, after breakfast." I'm not even sure who said it.
The response was the same as always "Aye, we should."
After breakfast we headed to the gym, my spare Gi fit her perfectly.
We both looked each other in the eye before the timer hit and we both said the words we'd been dying to say outloud ever since we first said them to ourselves on that walk home in the rain. All those years ago.
"There is a bad wolf inside me. It's greed and anger and jealousy and rage. When I fight, that wolf gets it's chance to bear it's teeth, to sink it's fangs into some flesh. I fight here, in the gym. I fight dirty here, so out there I can be good. Out there, I can be the good wolf, I can fight the good fight. " There was a deafening silence for a moment while our eyes locked. Once again, I'm not sure who said it. "I won't hold back."
Then the fight began. | 2014-11-23T10:43:50 | 2014-11-23T10:16:52 | 24 | 17 |
[WP] White noise refers when an individual grows accustomed to a constant sound, subconsciously blocking it out. Suddenly, everyone on Earth realizes they were all hearing something, but only because it stopped. | There were 15 minutes after the silence fell. A small gap of time, a moment of fear. A collective gasp around the world, as if time had stopped.
Within minutes, there were frantic news reports of stars disappearing. Not falling, not changing, not exploding - they disappeared. Entirely. Lights went out, one by one, throughout the galaxy. I changed the channel, trying to find anything else. There was a preacher on, yelling "This is the end!" I'm not gonna let my daughter hear that. I turn off the TV.
We sat in the silence for what seemed like hours. Lights flickering in the night sky, waiting for whatever it was to happen. My wife, my daughter, and myself. Huddled in a darker galaxy, holding each other. For the first time, it feels hollow. The love I feel is present, yet empty. I can't remember my wife's face when I don't look at her, or my daughter's name.
There's a second silence. Things are getting fuzzy. I watch my wife empty, my daughter is not either, yet I still feel
Words louder than reality: "SIMULATION TERMINATED" | It began with a general unease that settled over the world. A quicker walk, a look over the shoulder, a perpetual frown at the corner of the mouth; it manifested and reflected between people, multiplying almost to the point of paranoia.
Then the animals stopped. It was the only proper way to describe the phenomenon that swept indiscriminately across species. First insects, then birds, then larger animals would simply lay down and refuse to move except to let out some heartbreaking noise as though they were grieving.
Out of the ensuing panic, a term for this unprecedented event was created: Heartbreak Syndrome. For, it was theorized by some biologist in a moment of pessimistic frustration, the Earth’s heart has stopped, and the world is in mourning.
In the end, Heartbreak brought humanity to its knees, and did not allow it to rise.
| 2016-04-18T18:04:19 | 2016-04-18T14:24:04 | 38 | 23 |
[WP] Every ten years, you must go in front of a board of peers who will evaluate your life for you. If you do not "Impress your peers" you will be executed. | “Now seeing Mr. Philip Johnson. Please step forward, Mr. Johnson.”
Phil stood up, his hands clasped together. He was shaking.
This was Phil’s third life evaluation. They came every ten years, on the day following one’s birthday. It was June 24, and Phil had just turned thirty years of age the day before. Each and every year a letter came in the mail reminding him of the date, which Phil found to be rather tedious. He couldn’t forget it if he tried.
Row after row of people sat waiting on hard wooden benches. The room itself was overwhelming; the ceiling rose higher than any Phil had seen before, stone lion carvings hung on the sides of each window, and the eleven evaluators sat elevated among the judged.
“Welcome back, Mr. Johnson. Please, won’t you step a bit closer so we can get a good look at you?” The man chuckled.
Phil approached the red line. “Hi,” he said, giving a slight bow.
“Now, lets get right into it, shall we?” The man in the centre spoke while those on both sides took notes on their computers. “Why don’t you start by telling us about, well, life since you were last here, Mr. Johnson.”
“Uhm, yeah, okay.” Phil’s voice shook as he spoke. “Well, lets see. My twenty-first year started, well, poorly, when my girlfriend of three years left me–”
“Ah, yes,” the man said, typing. “One Stephanie Gregsson. And was there any particular reason for this departure?”
“No, it was pretty mutual, I think.” Phil looked up to watching eyes. “Well, I mean, she was the one who actually left and all but it was pretty mutual.”
“Yes, right, well, please go on.”
“Right, okay. So that was pretty bad for a while. I was pretty down for, I dunno, four or five years. Didn’t do a whole lot. It wasn’t great.” Phil’s hand rubbed his already-greying chin stubble. “During that time I was going to school, completed my undergrad degree and then went for my masters –”
“In?”
“Oh, uh, poetry, actually. South American poetry, specifically.”
“Mhm, and are you working right now, Mr. Johnson?”
“Right now? Oh yeah I’m working right now. An office job.”
“And how do you enjoy this office job?”
“It is what it is, you know. Gets the bills paid.” Phil laughed, alone. “But yeah it’s okay.”
“Hm. Lets switch gears a bit here. Why don’t you tell us more about your love life since Ms. Gregsson.” said the man, waving his hand so as to hurry Phil along.
“Oh, yeah, for sure.” Sweat dripped from Phil’s eyebrows. He wiped it using the sleeve of his white dress shirt. “I went on, I dunno, like six or seven dates since Steph left –”
“Six or seven since she left you in total?”
“Yes, that’s correct.” The ten other jury members had been writing what seemed to be Phil’s every word, stutter, and movement, as the sound of typing never ceased.
“And are you currently involved in a relationship of any sort?”
“Well, no. Not currently, anyway.”
“Oh, so there was someone though?”
“Well, no.”
“Hm.” The speaker joined the others in typing.
Phil’s shirt became see-through, clasping to his body as if it were a part of him.
“Look, Mr. Johnson, lets just cut to it.”
“Okay.”
“Why or why not do you believe that your life has been one of merit, one that has contributed to the world in which it occupies?”
Phil looked around the room, scratching at the splotchy hair he considered a beard.
“Well, for one thing I’ve loved and been loved. I mean the human condition revolves around love; we couldn’t truly know life without it, don’t you think?” The evaluators exchanged glances. “Even when I was depressed I had hope; not in success or riches, but hope that someday I could love again. It’s the human race’s best, and at times worst characteristic, but in the end I think it’s what makes us human.”
The typing stopped. One of the evaluators whispered into the speaker’s ear. “Yeah, no. We’re gonna need a bit more than that. Anything else?”
“Well, my Reddit account has like 6,000 comment karma.”
The evaluators all exchanged whispers, their heads turning from one to the other as they discussed Phil’s fate. After a short while the speaker struck his gavel twice. “Alright everyone. Settle down, settle down.” He looked down upon Phil. “Alright, Mr. Johnson. You’re free to go. Your next appointment is ten years from today. Good luck.”
As Phil exited the auditorium, tired eyes all around watching him, he smiled. He opened the large wooden doors into the outside world. The air seemed fresher, the sky bluer, the world lighter. No longer did his “pointless internet points” seem so pointless. | I shifted somewhat uncomfortably in my seat. I hated sitting on these Liberty Card evaluations. Everyone had to sit on at least one a year, and more if you were singled out for being an exceptional individual. This was my fifth, and it was only August. I've never considered myself that exceptional, and my last review was only a SATISFACTORY PASS.
Every 10th birthday starting at 15 we are evaluated for contributions to society. It was a idea that arose out of the conservative social programs of the late 2010s. Anyone whose contributions to society and the nation had their Liberty Card revoked. Although considered a voluntary program in practice, it had evolved into a lifestyle of necessity. Your LC gave you access to grocery stores, hospitals, heck, even the American Evangelical Church of Freedom - the richest megachurch chain in the nation - required it for admission.
The modern evaluations were a mere shadow of their former purge-like vindictiveness. In the early days the evaluations we're run by diehards who looked for anyone who was not a patriot. My brother's 15th evaluation ended when he refused to sing the National Anthem. Now, as long as you're not a buzzhead or needler you at least got a SATISFACTORY PASS. If you were famous or rich, you usually got an EXCEPTIONAL PASS, which entitled you to free groceries and medical care - on account of your important contributions to society.
Today I sat on the evaluation board for a young Stacey Pardova. 15, solid grades, and participated in soccer, drama, and cheerleading. She was set for a solid SATISFACTORY PASS, and depending on her performance in college she could see an EXCEPTIONAL PASS if she was admitted to one of the Evangelical Freedom schools and joined the Liberty Maidens team.
"Stacey, please be seated." The head evaluator was a young man wearing a navy suit and red tie. It was a little unusual for the head evaluator to be so young, but not unheard of... Wait. All the other evaluators were young men wearing navy suits red ties.
"Stacey, before we hand out your evaluation scores, it has come to the attention of your evaluation committee that you have dated a substantial number of boys at school."
What? No it hasn't come to the attention of me, and I'm on her evaluation committee. Stacey blushed and lowered her eyes, "I was dating Jimmy Thomas for a couple months, but we only went to the movies together, nothing went on."
"We have records that show that you're lying. You have been found violating the Promiscuity Clause of the American Evangelical Church of Freedom. We have unanimously found you to be an UNSATISFACTORY member of society. You are not to be issued a Liberty Card. You are barred from attending an Evangelical Freedom school. So says your committee." Miss Padova's face paled at the decision, tears welling up in her eyes as a future full of hope evaporated in an instant.
I couldn't let this go on further. I stood up and addressed the committee. "Excuse me, I don't believe that is entirely correct. I submitted a review of Miss Padova of EXCEPTIONAL PASS, that doesn't seem to have been factored into the decision."
"Your evaluation was not considered." He had been prepared for my interjection and was clearly pleased to deliver this news to me. The other members of the committee, their brass flag pins arranged perfectly on their breasts in order.
"The rules have been changed. Only members of the Patriot Forum are now allowed to deliver evaluations for the Liberty Council. Previous evaluations have been found to be lacking in the moral character we desire. Stanley Albrecht, we are not allowing to to sit on this committee, you have been in the evaluation process yourself. I am afraid that you have also been found UNSATISFACTORY by our committee."
This was... I did not know what to say. 'Unprecedented' might be the right word, but it didn't convey the right emotions. 'Holy shit balls!' had the right emotions but not the right words. 'Unprecedented holy shit balls' maybe.
"You have no right to evaluate me at this time. I am 27, my next evaluation isn't until 35."
"We know how old you are Stanley, and we are well aware of your connection to the revolutionary Peter Albrecht. We cannot have such impure members in our civilized society."
"Peter? My brother? I haven't spoken to him in sixteen years. Not since he was refused his Liberty Card." I don't even know where Peter was. He may as well have been dead. Our family ever spoke of him once after he left.
"As an affiliate of a terrorist, you are not to be allowed to retain the benefits of the Liberty Card. Furthermore, you are a threat to our nation's security. You are to be incarcerated until such time as the severity of your crimes can be assessed, and any accomplices can be taken in."
He now turned to address both of us, together. "Stacey, Stanley, you are both moral dangers to our society. The Patriot Forum is dedicated to eliminating such human waste as yourselves. You will suffer and die for your sins against us." | 2014-06-15T14:22:57 | 2014-06-15T12:19:33 | 55 | 19 |
[WP] The hottest show in the afterlife for the past decade: Steve Irwin wrangling all sorts of supernatural creatures. | Now everyone knows that old quote about the most dangerous game being man right? I don't really believe in it for a variety of reasons. It implies that animals can't be as smart if not smarter, that man should not respect anything that is not man. Most of all the quote references hunting, something I only approve of in the most dire of circumstances to improve the overall health of the ecosystem.
Now, that all said and done, the quote comes to mind today because of what we're hunting. The doppelganger, aka. Me, I'm gonna go over to it and see if we can't get it to change into me.
Now, there are several varieties of these things.
You've got the sort that only have one form or at the very least keep one form. These are the subspecies called Mimics, most of em are carnivorous but can last years without a meal and subsist entirely off the moisture in the air.
What we're looking for is called a Ditto.
Harmless for the most part until in panics and struggles around.
Most doppelgangers don't like to show off their default form and try to blend into their surroundings. The Ditto however is happy to socialize in it's pink neutral state and will only transform when threatened..... let's see if we can sneak up on this one and get a closer look, and he's a beauty, a bit smaller then usual but it's relatively unimportant to a creature that can.... Uh oh, he's seen me!
Wait... he's turned into the camera man!
"CRIKEY BRUCE He's even got your camera!" | ...and then no pain, just a floating sensation. The kind that you get when take off, being pushed into your seat as the nose of the plane points towards the clouds.
I was conscious of my surroundings, but confused. I couldn't see anything but knew everything was there.
The giant gate came out if nowhere, like a white monolith situated in the densest of cloud.
The left side swung open and a whisper of harps could be heard as I moved closer to the open gate I could see people running as a herd.
Almost animalistic as they pushed and shoved each other, I'd only ever seen anything like it on TV when birds fly together and black out the sky.
Then it appeared, a frameless image at least 100ft square.
80 percent of the screen was Steve Irwin's face. He gave the happiest of winks towards me and then a series of images flashed on screen.
A booming voice played over the images:
"Come see Steve take on the wildest of creatures. Megladon the seas largest killer.
Cthulu 8 arms ain't got nothing on Steve, Bigfoot has been spotted and Steve's not happy.
I joined the flocking crowd and descended into the auditorium below the giant image of Steve.
As I glanced back the glimmer in his eyes and his smile was infectious. I was home.
*Sorry for grammar mistakes I'm terrible at stuff like this* | 2017-12-21T18:31:05 | 2017-12-21T16:32:01 | 32 | 16 |
[WP]You have a genie bottle and make three wishes. For your third wish, you decide to restart the day, because your last two wishes turned out terrible. You wake up, buy the genie bottle again ,but the genie punches you in the eye as soon as you rub the lamp again. | I bawled my eyes out. I had money and fame, but at the cost of my girlfriend’s life. I wished I could do things all over.
“I wish it is the beginning of the day again!” I shouted.
“Done,” said the genie, snapping his fingers.
***
I woke up on a happy day, under the smiling sun. *What day is it again? Oh ya, it’s Sally’s birthday.”
I needed the perfect gift.
I went to the bazaar, where people were yelling at each other and a sea of people moved in waves around me. I squeezed through mounds of people and found myself at one of the stalls.
My eyes were drawn to a bottle, sitting there on its throne. It was made of ruby, and had a diamond for its cap. It gleamed under the sun.
“Oh yes,” said the salesman. “Very rare, this. We found it in Morocco, hidden under a cave. You want it? I sell it to you, cheap.”
“Deal,” I said.
***
The bottle was a bit on the scruffier side, so I got some polish and a cloth to brighten it up a bit. But when I rubbed the lamp, a cloud of purple smoke appeared and a being came out.
Its skin was purple, and it was wearing a white turban. It was naked except for a loincloth around its waist.
“Welcome!” It cried. “I am Baljeet the Genie! I can make your wishes come true! Just say the word, and—“
It paused, studying me.
“Wait a minute…”
Then it socked me in my left eye. I rubbed it, moaning.
“What was that for?”
It cracked a grin. “My welcome gift. Just wanted to do it.”
My eye was throbbing black and blue, but I was too excited. Here was a genie, and I could do anything I wanted, wish anything I wanted.
“I wish I had money to buy bandages!”
Baljeet the Genie grinned, snapping its fingers. “Done!”
Suddenly the phone rang. I answered it to find Sally in hysterics.
“The bank just called!” She sobbed. “All my money is gone! It disappeared!”
I glared at the genie. “What?” It shrugged. “All that money must come from *somewhere*.”
“You’ll find it in your bank account. Just make a transfer! Easy simple!”
I sighed. “Can I be famous then?”
*Snap!*
A few minutes later there was the squeal of sirens. I glared at the genie again. “HOW DID YOU MAKE ME FAMOUS?”
“By killing your girlfriend!” Answered the genie cheerfully. “Better start packing your bags! You’re wanted for mass murder!”
I couldn’t help but sob. Why? I wish I never bought the bottle! Now I lost my girlfriend, my reputation, everything!
Unless I can restart the day. Then I’ll never see the bottle again!
“I wish for the day to begin anew!”
A mischievous smirk crossed the genie’s face.
“Done!”
*Snap.*
***
Not my best, but I felt like writing today. Join me at r/SimbaKingdom for more! | I reeled back in pain, nearly toppling over the antique display behind me. The thrift store shopkeep looked over, startled.
"Uhh... You alright?"
"Yeah, just lost my balance..." I stammered out the meager excuse with a slight defensive smile. Once he turned back to his computer, I turned my attention to my assailant, evidently only visible to me. He was tall. No, he appeared tall. Height really has no bearing on a floating torso. He towered above me intentionally. His black goatee covered a vicious scowl. His full cheeks had turned red. His long hair floated back as if unaffected by gravity giving the illusion that he was even larger. His gaze pierced through me, originating from glowing ember eyes. They weren't like that last time. He placed a single finger on me as he pointed at my chest. The air was sucked from my lungs.
"I told you. 3 wishes." He lifted his pointing hand to gesture the number 3 inches from my face.
"I... I..."
"I told you at the very beginning. Rule number 1: You can't bring the dead back to life. Rule number 2: You can't violate a person's free will. Rule number 3: No WISHES THAT GIVE YOU MORE WISHES!"His roar was deafening. I frantically looked for some escape. Display shelf behind me; Genie in front; He'll stop me if I squeeze to the side. I looked to the shopkeep for rescue. He hadn't looked up.
"I thought... I thought that --"
"YOU THOUGHT! You thought. You thought that you had found some loophole to the rules."
"No, I--"
"You thought that you were smarter than the VERY BEING that created all of natural law. The being that created me?"
"I just--" My sentence was interrupted by a slap. My chest was heaving, and I was paralyzed as the genie leaned in until he could whisper in my ear.
"You know you almost had me fooled. I thought that maybe, for once, a human had learned a lesson in hubris. I thought that you saw you were unable to control this kind of power. That when you saw the terrible things you'd done, you had washed your hands of it. But you humans are all the same!" He slapped the lamp out of my hands. I hadn't realized I was still holding it.
"Leave. I don't want to see you ever again." Suddenly he vanished.
The shopkeeper sat at his desk, looking at me from over his glasses.
"If that's all you're going to buy, you need to leave. I don't have any time for crazies that talk to themselves and nearly break everything.
"I...I'm going." I slowly walked to the exit, still shaking. I left the lamp behind.
Edit: Formatting. | 2022-01-09T01:43:09 | 2022-01-09T00:06:23 | 114 | 83 |
[WP] Write a story based on your favourite song. Other people have to guess which song it is.
Can be inspired by lyrics, backstory, or anything else you love about the song | The heavy chime of church bells always comes a little before 5 o'clock, muffled by the thick slabs of stone that imprison me here. The sound rattles in my skull though it is faint. Today is a different day. The cold air still smells of mold and memories of a past life. But now I am jostled to my feet by big gloved hands, chains dragging behind me like extensions of my arms.
The priest's voice is rough from years of spitting out the truth into people's ears. After he drags out the last verse, he tells me sinners are punished. But I am too busy watching birds from in between iron bars. Perhaps they are the souls of people like me, willing to fly out of sheer spite for the ground. I don't usually think of things like that, but like I said. Today is a different day.
"God be with you!" one prisoner jeers. There is no god. The guard's grip feels stronger than my shackles. Three years they feed me bread crusts and wilted cabbage. I have the strength of a weasel. Concrete beneath my feet gives way to alien soil. I turn my face away from the first sight of bare sun in years. I will not bask in god's small gifts.
Every step towards the courtyard grows heavier. I realize I am scared. I want to curl into my mother's arms. Any mother's arms. But the only embrace that greets me is the dry itch of a rope. Am I so weak that simply passing from one world to the next has me shaking to the core? It is not the end. It is never the end. God, please let this not be the end.
God, oh god. I am nothing. The wooden platform becomes an illusion. Everything is an illusion.
A bird perches on the gallows's pole, undeterred by tragedy and by the last shudder that aches out of a man who convinced himself he will never truly die.
Side note: i don't usually write so excuse the general shittiness
| This was amazing. All my life I had dreamed of seeing the stars, and here I am, travelling through space and time with a mysterious stranger in an equally mysterious time machine. He had met me as I was going to the grocery store for some ingredients for a curry I was planning on making. His vehicle materialised in front of me, and he said one thing to me.
"Run for your life!"
Not looking back, I ran as fast as I could, following him to safety. As I was running, I heard a large explosion, and, feeling uneasy, started to slow down a bit.
"What are you doing? Come on!"
Quickly regaining my speed, we both ended up at a bus stop. I was out of breath, but he seemed fine. As I was about to ask him his name, he started going on about garlic or something, before asking me if I wanted to accompany him. At first I was skeptical, and asked him what he meant by that.
"I mean, do you want to travel the galaxy with me?"
Completely shocked, I started asking thousands of questions, what he was, where he came from, if he was sane. He didn't answer any, instead assuming I would. Grabbing my hand, he dragged me back to his box, and showed me inside.
It was amazing. The inside of it was far bigger than anything I had ever seen, and there wasn't an end in sight. In the middle of the main room, a large console went up to the ceiling, with hundreds of buttons and switches. Completely in awe, I forgot the man was even with me. He asked where in all of time and space I wanted to go, and I have been travelling to galaxies, planets and moons with him ever since.
Be gentle, this is my first post on this subreddit. | 2015-09-13T05:52:19 | 2015-09-13T04:18:38 | 29 | 17 |
[WP] You just transferred to a new high school. It's ludicrously obvious that your chem lab partner is the secret identity of a superhero, but no one else seems to notice anything. | "Am I going to be the one who has to point out the obvious," asked Mitch, glancing around the classroom. Everyone looked away, including the teacher. The new girl had been added to team 'Bodybuilder' and Mitch had been less than amused. No other group had more than 2 members.
"What's wrong," asked Candy, smiling down at him sweetly. She could do that, given she was 6'2 before the 6 inch heels she was wearing. Mitch thought she might not be able to see him from that angle due to her extremely impressive bust, but alas she saw the frown.
"You are clearly a superhero," said Mitch and everyone in the classroom looked shocked, Frank just rolled his eyes. Mitch shook his head, "Its obvious!"
"How can you say that," she replied, "I'm ... Candy Summers, normal high school student, future valedictorian and head cheerleader, I just came to the school yesterday."
"Two questions, one how are you even on the cheer squad if you just came to school yesterday," growled Mitch, "And two, how do you get away with wearing the cheerleading uniform in December?"
"Because I'm in the squad, silly," she replied.
"We don't have any games before Christmas, you aren't supposed to be wearing the uniform now, plus is -30 out did you change before you came to class," yelled Mitch.
"I didn't realize it was that cold," stated 'Candy' before she shook her head, "I mean, I changed in the girls locker room, I love to change in there, like a normal high school student."
"Is your backpack a jetpack," asked Mitch.
"No, I use a lot of makeup," replied 'Candy'.
"Are you wearing a sword, and how are you holding it," asked Mitch gesturing towards the hilt being held wonder woman style behind Candy's back. Stupid school rules allowing medieval weapons.
"Yes, and uncomfortably," replied Candy, making eyes at Frank.
Freaking Frank, always getting the hot girls. New one every week came calling on him. Must be his sculpted pecks.
Mitch opened his mouth but Frank placed his hand on Mitch's shoulder in an unspoken 'lets get back to work' gesture.
"Fine, but I have my eye on you and I don't miss much," growled Mitch. Candy at least had the good grace to look suitably chastised. She grabbed several vials and started pouring them together perfectly while Mitch lit the Bunsen burner.
"Seriously Frank, I she has to be a superhero, I can just tell," stated Mitch, considering his options. The superhero must be here for a reason, probably something bad involving a super villain but what? Mitch would just have to puzzle it out.
"Frank know Mitch smart," replied the 9 foot tall, green skinned man. "Mitch got this." | So, I walk into the library and I'm dumbfounded by the presence of my lab partner. We'd been assigned a group project in Biochemistry 1: research the history of an antiparasitic drug. It was first week and our professor assigned this. The syllabus said first week was supposed to be getting us up to speed, not throwing us into the deep end of research.
But that's not the reason why I'm dumbfounded. No, I'm such because my lab partner is CLEARLY Aetheon, the hero assigned to Kellburg by the Guild of Allies. I wave, blushing when the blonde smiles at me. "Howdy, lab partner! Tha name's Sabrina Carpenter." Her southern accent was thick, and just hearing it made my heart skip a beat.
"Uh, h-hi... I'm Christy Tolson." I reply, blushing, trying to not fangirl out. "So, uhm, we were assigned a paper on antiparasitic drugs?" I say, a question mainly because my brain kind of shut down when I saw her smile at me.
"Yep, apparently it's called Redethal. Ah've found several good sources already." She says, before leading me to the back to a study room. She closes the door and we work, talking and getting to know each other. But then I opened my big mouth.
"You're Aetheon, aren't you?" I ask, and she goes pale. Before I can try and backpedal, a wall of energy rises up, blocking the door.
"Y-you knew? How?" She says, her voice serious. "Ah-Ah can't be found out. Ah'll lose mah Guild Charter!!" She starts tearing up, and sobbing, and I offer a hug, which she takes.
"You saved me from a fire last year." I reply, and that stops her crying, as she looks at me.
"Wait, yer that girl I saved?" I nod.
"From the Teresa McCall apartment complex." I reply, and smile. "I..." She dries her eyes, and I'm conflicted. I want to tell her that I'm her biggest fan (that I know), that I'm crushing on her (but I don't want to be a creep), and that her secret identity is safe with me.
She smiles. "Well, ain't that a kick in the jeans." She giggles, and I giggle as well. This'll be a fun project after all, maybe. | 2021-10-22T10:02:47 | 2021-10-22T05:30:31 | 44 | 28 |
[WP] In the midst of combat, the villain watches in terror, as the hero swallows an entire roast chicken and two cheese wheels at once. | I felt the presence of the man long before he reached my chambers. I could faintly hear the noises of him fighting my fellow fallen warriors within the crypt. As he entered my chambers, I waited until he would be able to see my coffin, then made my move. I blew the lid off my coffin and stood. My movements were precise, measured. I had always enjoyed a dramatic entrance. But the invader ignored me. He grabbed some dusty potions from a long-forgotten shelf. He stuffed them in his bag with barely a glance. He also grabbed on old bowl, some herbs, and a bucket. I thought it strange, but I didn't care for the items. I wasn't quite sure how they even got here in the first place. The potions would probably have gone bad, if that was even possible.
I didn't care for the items, but I did care about his nonchalance. I was a feared soldier in life and in death, I would not be ignored. I started toward him, dragging my sword behind me. The tip had long since dulled, and I didn't have the fine motor control to keep it aloft as I walked. He finally seemed to decide to give me the time of day, and turned to face me, drawing his weapon. A warhammer of the same era as myself. As I realized that he must have taken it off one of my men, I advanced, enraged. I swung wildly at him, with a windup that even the most inexperienced fighter could have avoided. A downside of my body being held together by little more than rotting muscle and hardened skin. He avoided my swing, and went low, hitting me hard with the hammer. It barely hurt - I had long since abandoned mortal feelings of pain - but I knew it would leave lasting damage that my body would no longer naturally heal. An annoyance.
The stranger scowled, and mumbled under his breath. He spoke a language I could not understand. My native language had fallen from prominence, it seemed. No matter, I had not spoken my own language since my death. Instead, I used some Words of Power I had learned long ago. The words were laced with a magical force, and knocked my attacker him from his feet. I took the opportunity to get a solid hit in, my sword digging deep into his armor. As blood sprung from the wound, I wasted no time hitting him again. He stood and backed away, but I closed the distance and once again landed a heavy blow. This time, though, he managed to trade with me, landing another hard hit with his hammer.
We both took a few steps back, reeling from the hits. He swung his bag around, digging through it with vigor. I longed for the day when a mixture of herbs would help knit together my wounds. He dug past weapons, armor, books, bowls, baskets, solid gold bars... if I hadn't been so shocked by the sheer number of items within his bag, I might have tried to finish him off while he was distracted. His face lit up as he found what he was looking for.
He started to pull all sorts of food from the depths of the bag. He turned an apple into a core with impressive speed, then popped the core into his mouth as he took a swig of some expensive aged wine. He pulled out a few pastries, eating them in a bite or two each, dual-wielding baked goods like he couldn't decide which to eat first. I took the chance to reel back for another swing... but then he pulled out an entire cheese wheel. I paused. I thought if I lopped off his head right now, I'd miss what was sure to be a feat for the ages. And I was right. As I watched, he did the impossible.
Like a drunk dairy farmer trying to win a bet, he jammed cheese into his mouth faster than any man I had ever met - and I had feasted with Vikings.
As he finished the cheese wheel, I noticed the bleeding of his wounds begin to slow. My confusion was only interrupted by abject horror as he pulled out an entire rotisserie chicken. It wasn't exactly well-preserved, but he ate it with the same raucous gobbling he had demonstrated with all of the other food he had pulled from the depths of the bag. I was almost certain he ate the bones, too, but I didn't have time to process that as he pulled out another entire wheel of cheese, and began to eat that too. Whatever bizarre intimidation technique he was displaying had worked already. I'd given up after the first cheese wheel. I wished I spoke his language, I'd plead with him to stop this madness.
As he finished off three bottles of cheap mead, he once again readied himself for battle. His wounds had completely healed. He smiled, and belched. I dropped my sword and threw my hands up in surrender. He wasted no time lodging the warhammer's sharp end in my head. As my consciousness faded, my opponent coughed up a chicken bone. He considered it for second, then used it to pick his teeth as he dug through my belongings. With that, I closed my eyes. My life was complete, because I had truly seen it all. | “And now for the finishing blow, I Fishmonger will gut you and put an end to your heroic deeds.” Fishmonger raised his hook, aiming it at the cut on the hero’s stomach, only to watch in horror as Festivica did not block the attack. Instead, they unhinged their jaw, reaching for something in the pocket of their suit.
The sides of Festivica’s suit were squished with slimy pieces of cheese that probably once made up a full two wheels. Only to melt under the incredible heat generated by suit and skin colliding with one another. Luckily his back up item was still holding up, pulling out the now cooked whole chicken, Fishmonger halting his killing blow when he noticed the chicken.
“A cooked chicken? I thought that was some type of weapon. Are you telling me you have been fighting with a cooked chicken in your clothing? That’s disgusting and unhygienic. What if some slime got onto it?” Fishmonger backed away, releasing the hero who had yet to correct his jaw.
It appeared Festivica wanted to speak, but was struggling with a small bout of lockjaw. He opted to stuff the whole chicken down his throat, watching it bulge in his throat before sliding into his stomach in an act that almost made the Fishmonger heave. He had seen some awful things, but that was by far the worst. When the food was swallowed, his jaw returned to its previous position and the cut on his stomach vanished.
“Oh, the chicken was raw when I put it into the suit and that wasn’t slime, its cheese. Do you want some?” He reached into the pits of his suit, a swishing sound coming from his clothing as he moved the hot cheese around, producing a handful to the villain who only continued to back away in terror.
“How did you hide that in your suit? What sort of freak are you? This is too much. I can’t fight you, too many health violations.” Fishmonger tried to build up the will to fight, only for that fire inside of him to extinguish. “I can’t do this. I have lived my life defying law and order, but there’s one line I never crossed in all my years. I never committed a health violation like the one you have in your suit. I wouldn’t stoop so slow, the people that buy fish from me deserve better.”
“You kill people! It’s not that weird, all the heroes do it.” Festivica bluffed, awkwardly looking at the gooey cheese in his hand, licking his lips.
“Bullshit. No one is that much of a freak. Don’t you dare lick it. I swear if you lick it, I’m going to burn down a cheese factory with you in it.” He said, shuddering as Festivica licked the mess of cheese on his hand, causing Fishmonger to collapse in disgust. “Momma, I just wanted to be a good fishmonger like you, with a little murder on the side and petty bank robbery. Is that so bad?” Fishmonger whimpered, unable to process the sight in front of him.
With the villain defeated, Festivica made the call to the cops, who hurried to the scene, giving him a strange look. “Um, you have some cheese in your hands. Do you need a napkin or something? How did you get cheese on your hands during a fight?”
Festivica tried to wipe the cheese off onto his suit, only causing it to stain the fabric. “I fell through a cheese shop.” He said, earning a raised eyebrow from the cop.
“This is the third one this week. The villains also in the same traumatic state as the last two. Are you telling me the truth? People are getting suspicious.” Festivica began to sweat as the cop continued to grill him until he raised his hands, making snow fall from the sky.
“Oh, what do you know? It’s Christmas again! How good are my festival abilities?” Before the cop could question it, Festivica crouched, legs growing a thick coating of brown fur before he bounced thirty feet into the air, bunny hopping away from the area thanks to his abilities, infusing his legs with the magic of easter.
“What a weirdo. We really need to start background checking these heroes.” The cop said to his buddy by the car, who only gave a nod as Fishmonger rolled around on the floor screaming.
“HE COOKED A RAW CHICKEN IN HIS CLOTHING.” He screamed as the cops handcuffed him and pulled into the back of the police car.
 
 
 
(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.) | 2021-08-19T06:19:20 | 2021-08-19T03:23:52 | 700 | 127 |
[WP] After a severe head injury as a child, you grew up without the ability to speak. One day, whilst waiting in line at the supermarket, you crack a particularly excellent joke in your head, and the person behind you in line can’t stop laughing.
[Update] Oh my gosh! You guys have smashed this out of the park.
Had this idea a few weeks ago and while it wasnt really my genre, I figured someone here might make something good! If anyone decides to pursue this, Id love to beta read for you!
+ Thanks for the gold and silver! On my first post too :) Looking forward to sharing more ideas in the future! | You know that one guy in class that just doesn't speak?
Yeah. That's me.
Not that I wanted it, just that I happened to be the mute.
Car crash, I said...not entirely true...it happened in a car, sure, but it wasn't a crash, it was Crash, my dad. Good old daddy, with his trusty baseball bat that he took with him everywhere because it was "lucky". Not so lucky when I lands you 15 years, is it? 11 more years to go though, so I'm safe...for now...
Life was difficult, to say the least, in the sense that I couldn't communicate with anyone. At all. Unless I write. I'm 15, and I'm not the type to just carry paper around with me. Or a pencil, in that case. So usually I have to ask passersby for pens and/or writing mediums.
I'd been waiting in line for about 15 minutes. Well, I guess I should say I'd been _causing_ people to wait in line for over 15 minutes. The cashier lady couldn't read my handwriting.
"I'm sorry love, you must speak to me dearie"
I pointed at the paper pointedly with a point. She realised suddenly.
"Oh, well let me find someone else, love, maybe they can read it. In my old age I can barely see a thing!" And she hurried off.
_So bloody transparent I could see the switches flicking behind her eyes..._, I thought. _If I ever get that senile when I'm her age I might just pop my clogs there and then!_
A girl snorted behind me. I ignored it that time.
The old woman hurried back with a rather dim-witted man in tow.
_Oh God..._, I thought, and the girl behind me giggled again. She was about the same age as me. She didn't have a phone to her ear or in front of her, so she wasn't laughing at a joke someone had told her online. I was starting to become suspicious
"Go on, Trevor! You can do it! If you can read it, I'll give you a gold star."
The man immediately said, "He wants the tiger bread baguette and a couple of warm loaves"
"Good man, Trevor!" Exclaimed the woman, apparently pleased. "Go and get someone to get them then!
About 2 minutes later, with almost everyone grumbling and groaning except, it seemed, for the girl, the woman can back with the bread.
"Have a lovely day!"
I though of something on the spot to test this girl:
_God this bread is so spongy! Did they make it from unicorn farts or something?_
There was not a doubt about it. This woman was reading my mind. Sure the jokes weren't particularly funny, but this girl was trying so hard not to laugh, I could see it in her face, which she suddenly turned towards me.
There was a moment of silence.
Another.
"Oh," she whispered. "You found out..."
If you want me to make another part, then...just tell me I guess, thank you!!! | I don’t want to look back, scared of what could be happening. I kind of hope that he was just on his phone, laughing at a friend. That has to be it. He didn’t hear my joke. Bad timing. That’s it.
The guy lays a hand on my shoulder and I tense up. I turn around and he has a massive smile on his face.
“Miss, I just wanted to let you know that you’re hilarious,” he says.
I nod and weakly smile. I turn my back to him again and pull out my phone. I can’t focus on this. It’s just that the guy is insane.
“Miss, can I ask your name?” the guy asks.
I’m not putting up with this. I open my grocery list and walk out of line like I forgot something. I want him gone. I disappear down an aisle, trying to hide. He’s weird. He’s insane. I’m mute. He can’t hear me.
“Miss! Wait up!”
Oh hell no. I set my basket down and make my way to the exit. I’ll come back later. I’m terrified right now. He’s going to hurt me. He’s going to do something to me. I don’t know what to do but I’m getting the fuck away from him.
I get outside and make me way to my car. Sweet safety. I unlock my car and get in, locking the door. My engine takes a few extra seconds to rumble to life than normal, giving someone the chance to knock on my window. When I turn to look, it’s the guy. I panic and start driving without waiting. What the fuck is wrong with that guy? I swallow hard, not knowing what to do anymore. All I know is that I need to get the fuck away.
After what feels like an hour long drive, realistically about ten minutes, I park in the parking lot of my building. I stay in my car, trying to breathe. That was insane. My entire body is shaking, frozen to the core. What the hell was that?
My phone starts buzzing on the seat next to me. I’m scared to look at it, terrified of what it could possibly be.
It’s just your mom or a friend. It’s someone you know and love. I let out a heavy breath and pick up the device, turning the screen to face me.
Unknown: Miss, you are so damn intriguing. I know what you’re thinking. You can’t hide from me. I can read your mind. You better start running.
I drop the device as an unknown black van pulls into the parking lot. I throw my car in reverse and back up, heading for the other exit. Tears start rolling down my cheeks, anxiety building in my stomach. I’ve never had anyone be able to read my thoughts. He can communicate with me like no one else because he knows what’s in my head.
And because of that, he’s really dangerous. | 2019-04-02T09:43:14 | 2019-04-02T07:47:54 | 46 | 33 |
[WP] Video games aren't just games. They are simulations of alternate dimensions and the best players are chosen to invade these strange worlds in order to expand the multi-dimensional human empire. | “I never understood this approach,” said Larry, pointing to the third monitor. “It seems almost pointless.”
The player opened the taxi and dragged the driver out by his collar. After stomping him in the face a few times, he entered the vehicle and took off, knocking over a fire hydrant and almost running over a woman with a baby carriage.
“Earth 42,” said Dex. “The furthest alternate dimension that we know of. Can’t jack in more than one at a time.”
“Hmmm,” mumbled Larry. “So why even bother at all?”
The player had found an outdoor restaurant with tables and chairs lined along the sidewalk. The taxi blew through them at 60mph, at least 2 victims. Another star appeared on the upper right hand side of the screen.
“Well,” continued Dex. “The jack in is unfortunately very random. We can target the city, DC in this case as you can see…”
The Capital building had appeared briefly as the taxi swung a hard right, crashing into a police car.
“But we can’t choose the person.”
A shoot out had ensued.
“And we can’t jack into another person…”
The player’s health was low, and another police car arrived.
“...until the player has died.”
The screen grayed and red block letters appeared. “WASTED”
The player reappeared, this time as a woman, right in Dupont Circle.
“And one day, we’ll randomly land a senator or someone else important,” said Dex.
“The President,” said Larry.
“Right.”
The player had stolen another car.
“And then we can start subverting them with non-violent means. So until then,” said Dex, “We keep them uneasy and afraid. They have no idea where this sudden sporadic violence is coming from. And a quick death just means a faster rejack into someone else.”
“Interesting.”
“Earth 42 will be ours. Eventually,” said Dex. He pressed the intercom button as the player crashed into a weapons store, stealing an automatic weapon and ammo.
“Good job Player 42. Keep up the good work.”
Dex turned to Larry. "He's very good."
| I've never been sure why it draws me in so. I've played many games, dying thousands of deaths, but one always draws me back. There is no high score, no multiplayer, not even any color.
Only a boy.
And sometimes, if you persevere, a girl.
It's a Friday night and some friends invite me out to listen to painfully loud music, and drink sugary shit that will ruin the rest of my weekend. Just when I finally agree, attempting to seem social, I think of the girl and boot up my computer instead. Pitfalls, spiders, savages, maggots, machinery.
Girl.
On what has to be my thousandth play through, I once again see the girl. I instantly pound the desk in frustration. Did I save her? Can I save her? Does she even need saving? Every time I play through the game is like a small scratch to a gaping soar; temporary relief but lasting damage. Laying my hands down on the desk I attempt to relax. It's just a game. Just uninstall the damn thing and let it go. Let her go. My resolve is less than nothing, so instead of doing what needs to be done I drift off to sleep, letting the credits slowly tick by.
I awaken dazed and lying on my back, static ringing loudly in my ears. Did I go out last night? Having to deal with the aftermath of the terrible drinks sealed my eyes all the tighter. The static, or was it rain, remained though. Slowly I opened my eyes, a dark canopy filling my vision. Sitting up a grainy apocalyptic forest filled my vision. A forest that I knew. Every tree and blade of glass was a familiar as my pitch black body. This was it, this was Limbo.
This time, I will meet her. | 2015-03-04T07:14:05 | 2015-03-04T07:01:45 | 143 | 49 |
[WP] Tell me the story of how the world ends - but told entirely in Craigslist ads | *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. | In search for survivers In the greater New York area, hell anywhere really. I am, well I was a sandhog and was underground working on the new water way in Manhatten when the Russians dropped the bomb. Never have I emerged from underground to such horror. Everything in ruins and no one in sight. I walked around for a bit shouting for someone to show themselves. I realized that there was probably a lot of radiation in the area seeing the amount of damage done, so I thought it best to head back underground. I have about a months worth of rations down here as it is protocol incase of a cave in.Please someone be out there and respond to this post. It's so lonely.
| 2015-04-29T09:07:02 | 2015-04-29T07:28:18 | 15 | 10 |
[WP] For the first time ever, a person is born with a genuine superpower. They proceed to live out their entire life without noticing or realizing it. | When his first love had left him, at 19, there was thunder and lightning. A loud rumbling from the clouds, though the season wasn't quite right. Meteorologists ascribed it to a freak weather pattern.
When his mother had died, at 30, the streets in his town flooded. Cars slid down motorways, power-lines fell. Ten casualties. The municipality hadn't been equipped to deal with the wide scope of the storm, and so were left unprepared.
When his wife died in labor, at 40, the storm that followed obliterated most things in it's path. Experts called it the worst in fifty years. Though everything around the hospital seemed to vanish in a thick, heavy rain, the building itself seemed sheltered from the storm's wrath. Doctors called it a miracle.
He had always thought that the storm followed him in life, echoing unfortunate events. A sort of 'bad-luck omen'. He thought that whenever he died, he'd have a storm just like the others roll over the church. He joked about it often, how God must have been 'holding a grudge'.
When he passed away, at 50, the sky was bone-dry. | The woman spoke to the assembly, pausing now and then to look one particular person in the face, then another.
'...a hard worker, raising a business up from nothing, and a loving mother, helping to raise all of us and making time for us when she could. A generous and fun grandmother, that all of her grandchildren were glad to see...'
The words went on, laying out a life that was rich with connections, seized opportunities and love. As is customary, any negatives were glossed over, forgotten as family and friends mourned.
The coffin slid out of sight behind the curtains as the organ piped a sad farewell, and the service was over. People filed out to shake hands, to embrace, to talk and to remember.
Nobody noticed that as the body crumbled into charred bones and ashes, the humidity of the surrounding area went down by a full five per cent. The woman who could attract water vapour was gone. | 2014-08-08T06:33:42 | 2014-08-08T05:28:34 | 221 | 30 |
[WP] You own a ring that curses its owner with bad luck. Your oddly optimistic friend likes it, so you give it to them, knowing the curse will be passed on to them. To your amazement, they don't suffer any bad luck. It turns out the curse is subjective, based on the current owner's idea of bad luck. | "Hi Eddie, long time no see. Are you ok?"
"Living the dream, buddy. Living the dream."
"How is that possible? The cursed ring destroyed my life."
" what if it wasn't the ring?"
"What do you mean?"
"What if it was only in your head? If you just believed it was cursed and so it became cursed?"
" that is impossible. Its previous owner died in a fire a month after he got it. The one before broke both his legs after putting the ring on. The history of it goes further back. It is evil. "
" Ok. Let's say it is. Since you gave it to me, I feel like I should give you something in return. This bracelet. It is enchanted. It give the owner all the good luck one can have. "
" I can't Eddie... what if the curse and enchantment cancel themselves out? You will suffer."
" you take it and if something happens I will ask you to return it to me. "
3 months latter
" Hei Eddie, how's your life?"
" Great buddy, wife just gave birth. Planning our life with the new kid. What about you?"
" The bracelet did wonders. I am working a great job, found an amazing girlfriend, started going to the gym and I was never happier. "
" interesting."
" what's so interesting?"
" That the bracelet was so good for you. I'm glad. "
As Eddie left he smiled thinking that a simple 5$ bracelet changed so much in his friend's life for the better.
" I should give all my friends enchanted bracelets. " he thinks as he walks home. | Carl looked up at me. It had been a week since the I'd given him the ring, and still it seemed as though the damned thing wasn't affecting him.
"You sure this thing is cursed?"
"Man, you saw the shit I went through. Remember my bow just shattering in my hands? Or what about that goblin that happened to hit me directly in the kidney with his knife while blind?"
"I dunno man. I think it's all in your head. All that can just be simple probability. I've lost a few coins since you've given it to me, but I found them all shortly after."
"You also took out a demon king"
"By pure accident! I wanted to convince him to stop harming people! and of course I forgot to secure my wand of blasting. Who knew it could go off as soon as it hit the ground?"
"Seriously dude, you astound me".
We looked down at the smoldering demon's corpse. A simple rod somehow got loose, and blasted him back to where he'd come. Absolute insanity, if you ask me. Maybe the ring just couldn't corrupt Carl's good nature, just couldn't get a foothold to turn his luck upside down. Maybe he was right, and the curse was all in my head. Either way, it doesn't matter now. The village is safe, and we are safe. I guess it's time we go get rewarded. | 2022-07-20T04:39:48 | 2022-07-20T03:00:53 | 195 | 40 |
[WP] You just sent in your DNA to one of those ancestry sites. After eight weeks, you can’t figure out why your results have not shown up. Then, two men with dark suits show up at your front door. They have some news regarding your results. | 39 Across - Playwright’s rule re: firearms.
The puzzles were too easy these days. I penned in the answer (always pen - pencil was for mental slugs) and then stared at the almost completed grid. Sunday’s puzzle, the thorniest, most obscure that Mr. Shortz could apparently come up with, and it had taken me only half an hour to do almost the entire thing. It was depressing.
I considered brewing another pot of coffee, but decided against it. I drank too much of the stuff these days, especially since I could no longer sleep past four-thirty or so. For the last few months I’d woken in the dark, far before dawn, bones creaking and with the sound of the sea whispering faintly through my window. Some mornings I would get up directly - brew a pot of coffee and then take a thermos down to Linda Mar beach. There was a bench on the south end of the broad curve of sand and I would watch the surfers arrive with the first light, watch them as they stripped and donned black-skin wetsuits, their flesh goose-pimpling in the frigid air.
Some mornings I would simply lie in bed and watch the way the walls never moved, feel how time slowed to nothing. Some mornings, I laid in bed and wondered if everything had stopped, if I and the entire world had been frozen in amber forever, and for the next eternity I would simply watch the walls and the ceiling until I lost my mind.
Today was typical for Pacifica - a bright grey sky, a crisp wind from the west that whipped the tops off the waves in the bay and rushed the smell of the ocean down the streets. Sitting in my kitchen, I could inhale kelp and wet sand, sniff at the extra-sour salt that only comes from the sea. I had a living room, of course, and even a small table on my porch with an accompanying grey-wood chair, but I almost always spent time in my kitchen. It had the best view of the street.
I was sitting there when the first van pulled up. It was black, unmarked. No false label promoting a fictional plumbing business, or some false flower shop. It pulled up to the curb outside my kitchen window and I, sat inside with three clues to go on the Times Sunday crossword, felt my face break into a huge smile.
Two men got out of the van simultaneously. They had the close-cropped hair and government prescribed level of fitness of the long arm of the law, that fabled appendage that I always imagined as something sick and distended, crawling across the ground like a fleshy spider, pulling itself forward with worn-down fingertips. As they approached my house, two more cars arrived - regular police cars.
This was it, then. No more Times crossword, no more logic puzzles or codes, no more waking up and looking at the walls and ceiling and wishing I were already dead. I’d wondered what had taken them so long - I’d sent my DNA sample in nearly two months ago.
One of the men pounded on my front door.
“Federal agents! Open up!”
I took a sip of cold coffee. Who knew how long it would be until I got another cup? I could see a neighbor across the street - a weak, pissant of a man I knew well from close observance, come out onto his own porch and peer across the street at the swelling armada that was gathering in front of my house. I wondered if, tomorrow or the day after, when the news broke, he would feel the fear clutch his belly at the thought of *me* living across from him, all these years.
“OPEN UP!”
The pounding was even louder now, and it made me want to giggle. I turned to the crossword. Perhaps one last clue for old time’s sake.
40 Down - Cryptic killer near the Golden Gate. | "That's ridiculous," Bea said. The mid-40s woman sat in her living room opposite two men in dark suits. She narrowed her green eyes at them. "You're actors. This has to be someone's prank; who is it?"
"Ms. Acosta, I assure you this is not a joke," the shorter man said. Over the years Bea learned to trust her instincts and they were always accurate. Something inside her told Bea these men weren't a danger; it was the only reason she let them in her house without getting their names. They flashed an official-looking I.D. that Bea didn't recognize; but, her instincts still let them in.
"Let's pretend I believe you; now what? Should I expect more agents crashing through my windows?" she asked with a chuckle. "Because it's going to take more than you two to bring me in." Both agents shook their heads; but, only the shorter one spoke. Bea realized the taller one hadn't said a word since she answered the door. Both were lean, fair-skinned, nondescript agents. Bea was glad they at least removed their sunglasses once inside.
"Now, nothing. You wanted to know about your ancestry; the only thing we can tell you is you won't find it here," the shorter one stood from the sofa with an eye on the door.
"So, you're just messengers?" Bea asked in surprise. "This whole act seems a bit much for something an e-mail could have done." The shorter one grinned at that.
"As it stands now, you don't believe us; would you believe an e-mail?" Bea nodded.
"Yeah, good point. So, how're you going to prove it to me?" she gave them a confident, 'gotcha' smile.
"We can't, exactly...," the short agent admitted. "You were raised here, all your memories are from here."
"I knew it," Bea said. Though, even as she claimed victory over the jokers, an instinctual doubt formed in the back of her mind.
"What we can do though, is this," the short one said. A pitch-black hole suddenly appeared above Bea's coffee table. It was almost as wide as the table and tall enough for a person, like the one that walked out of it.
"Bea looked up at a younger version of herself with vibrant blue hair instead of the salt and pepper brunette of her current color.
"Unfortunately, we can't prove to you that you're from an alternate Earth, but we can prove they exist. Say hi to one of yourselves," the short agent said. The tabletop version of Bea smiled, then turned around to look at the agents.
"Hey, handsome, I'm glad I get to see you again," she stepped off the table on their side. The taller agent stood and Bea couldn't help but notice a slight blush on his cheeks.
"Hi, Cee," he said, then nodded at Bea behind her. "Work stuff now, I'll call you later," he said. Cee shook her head with a smile.
"Please don't, just send me a text when you want to meet," she reached out and playfully patted his head. "You're fun, but god, you never shut up," she giggled.
\*\*\*
Thank you for reading! I’m responding to prompts every day. This is year three, story #201. You can find all my stories collected on my subreddit ([r/hugoverse](https://www.reddit.com/r/hugoverse/)) or my blog. If you're curious about my universe (the Hugoverse) you can visit the Guidebook to see what's what and who's who, or the Timeline to find the stories in order. | 2020-07-19T09:19:52 | 2020-07-19T08:52:51 | 1,600 | 37 |
[WP] You’re a blacksmith and a woman you’ve never seen before walks into your shop, asking for a blade. She stops by daily to check on it’s progress, and you form a bond over time, until one day she disappears. You’re afraid you’ll never see her again, until you're summoned to the castle. | Deirdre was her name. Young and sweet, but also fierce. Whenever I asked who their parents were, she would answer “I am Deirdre, spawn of No Man”, a rather fancy way of telling me that she did not know who her father was.
Having Deirdre always visiting my old shop brought a smile on my old face. You see, I have dedicated the last twenty-five years of my life to blacksmithing. Never have I met a woman to call my wife, nor friends to call my family. Deirdre, with her mane of red, curly hair, was a ray of light shining upon this old man. Deirdre was the daughter I’ve never had, and the friend I’ve always longed for. To celebrate our friendship, Deirdre asked me to forge a blade. A simple one. She said that this blade would be the one to cut down the sadness in my heart, just like she did to me.
And then, just like she appeared, Deirdre left without a sound.
The months went by, as our town buried itself in sadness and misery. Our king, a man of greed, sent his soldiers on a crusade to slay a demon who made its nest in the tallest mountain, but they never came back. Then he sent the squires. And they never came back. The young and strong men in town were sent, too. And they never came back. He sent his own son, our Prince, and he never came back. I knew it was just a matter of time for my calling. I may be old, but as any other blacksmith, I know how to handle a sword.
Walking through the halls of the castle brought me memories of a better time. It used to be radiant, filled with flowers and music, but now... It is a decrepit place. I have seen graves in a better appearance.
My left knee touched the moldy and ripped bearskin rug while I presented myself to the king. A shadow of a man, his crown was the only color in a pale, skeletal body. But his eyes... They carried fury.
“Blacksmith,” he uttered, his voice dry as a stone being dragged through sand.
“Aye, my liege.” I answered, lowering my head. “I have received your calling, sir. Your Majesty wishes to have more swords forged, I suppose.”
The ghoulish man cocked his head backwards, letting a cackle echo through the castle.
“More swords? There’s no one else to wield them, blacksmith. You are my last sword.”
“My liege,” I said, feeling my hands tremble. “I am but an old blacksmith. How could I be of any other use to your crusade?”
“You are a blacksmith, and I am chosen by God to guide my people. His words are my words.”
“Aye, my liege.”
“You are to leave tomorrow. Leave this town with the rising sun, and do not dare to come back with empty hands.”
Morning came. Riding an old horse, I left the town. The travel took thirty-two moons to be over, and there I was, standing in front of the cave’s entrance. I could hear my own breathing echoing, and the darkness invited me.
I walked for what seemed to be days, and when I thought my body would give up and let me die, I saw a light. I never thought my old legs could run with such speed, but there I was.
At the heart of the mountain.
A creature of light waited for me at the center of the cave. I have just heard of such creatures, with wings that could create thunderstorms, paws that could shatter the earth, and beaks that could spit fire so hot that it could melt stone. A dragon.
The creature observed me with curiosity, but I could feel it would attack me as soon as I drew my blade.
I had nothing else to lose. If I came back, my king would behead me. If I attacked, the dragon would expurgate my existence from this world. I drew my blade, the same one Deirdre asked me to forge.
“Demon, I am here to slay you, as my king ordered.”
“Have I ever harmed any of you if not to defend myself, manspawn?” The dragon replied, to my surprise. “Your liege has sent wave after wave of offenders to slay me since I was a whelp. I have never caused harm to your town, but I will not forgive whoever tries to end me. Who is the real demon? Who sends innocent ones to their certain death while they sit on a throne and play God? Who would send an old man to slay his best friend?”
The dragon stopped, looking at me. The shine from its scales got dimmer, and I could see the beautiful feathers from the head.
Beaufitul, red, curly feathers.
“Who are you?” I asked, tears running down my face. I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear it from her.
“I am the Spawn of No Man.” The dragon told me in a playful tone.
I let the blade fall off my hands, running towards the dragon. Her scales shone once more in a blaze, and from that light a young woman came in my direction. I finally embraced her once more.
My little Deirdre. | Once upon a time in a far off kingdom there worked a blacksmith named Alvin. Alvin had curly brown hair broad shoulders, and was well-liked by everyone in the town. Small boys would often visit at his forge, which he’d owned for four years, and watch him swing his enormous hammer rhythmically against the red hot steel.
“How did you get so strong?” they’d ask.
“I put my blood, sweat, and tears into my work and I practice every day,” Alvin would respond. “You can do anything you want if you work hard enough at it.”
The boys would watch for a while and then leave, and when Alvin finished his work for the day he would close up, go home, and rest well. Every day passed much the same, and Alvin was happy.
One day a woman came to see Alvin at his forge. She wore a dark green cloak and kept the hood on even though it was hot inside. She placed a gleaming bar of steel on the counter.
“Master Alvin, I want you to make me a longsword, and I want the blade to be made from his bar of steel,” she said. Her voice was raspy, and even though she was polite, Alvin didn’t like listening to it.
“I’m sorry Miss, but I’m afraid it’s just Alvin. I haven’t completed a masterwork piece yet, so I haven’t earned the title. I can make your sword for you, but I’m afraid I have a lot of work to do, and it will be a few days before I can get started.”
“That’s no problem,” she said. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”
But the woman didn’t come back tomorrow; she came back that afternoon and stood with the small village boys and watched Alvin work. When they left, so did she, and Alvin went home and rested the same as any other day. The next day the woman returned and again watched for a while with the boys.
“Can you start my sword today, blacksmith?” she asked. But he could not, as he still had other work to do. For five days the woman appeared with the village boys, and for five days she asked the same question. Alvin continued to work, unbothered by her presence but curious about her persistence. He tried to peak into the hood, but she always moved to hide her face.
On the seventh day the woman came early. “I’m ready to start your sword today, Miss,” he said. Alvin took the steel to the coals and heated it white hot. He pounded on it with his enormous hammer and shaped the blade carefully. He put his full focus into his work, and so he did not see the woman walk up beside him. He did not see her take a small vial from her belt and pour its contents into the quenching liquid, nor the second vial, nor the third. He continued to work the metal with his heavy strokes until he was satisfied with the blade.
Alvin held the red hot blade carefully with large metal tongs and thrust it quickly into the quenching liquid. He expected a hiss, but was met with silence. Bewildered, he slowly removed the blade, and his eyes widened in shock. Whereas the metal should have been the color of tarnished silver, this blade was stark white! It glowed, but not from being hot, for hadn’t he just quenched it? Alvin carefully checked his work, only then noticing the woman standing right behind him.
“It’s beautiful,” her raspy voice said haltingly. Was she crying? “It’s everything I had hoped for.”
Alvin got to work on the hilt and grip. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I’ve been working metal for years and I’ve never seen a piece do that. Was there something special about the steel you gave me?”
“Not the steel,” she said. “You tell those boys every day that you can do anything if you put your blood, sweat, and tears into your work. Anyone watching you forge a blade can see that you believe it, but not in the right way. I gave you a little help today, Master blacksmith. It doesn’t have to be your own blood, sweat, and tears that you add.”
With that last word the woman pulled back her hood. Her face was terribly disfigured, pockmarks and scars marring her cheeks, nose, and neck.
“I need that sword, you see,” she continued, lifting the now finished sword. She took a few swings, and as it parted the air it seemed to sing. “The village boys say the caves at the edge of town are haunted, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
​
(This is my first time writing a short story, so please be fair with your feedback. I know I can't compete with the regulars who post here, but I would like to someday. I also realize I didn't include a summons to the castle, but I felt like my story didn't need it. Sorry if that's breaking the rules.) | 2020-08-05T10:03:13 | 2020-08-05T09:05:22 | 34 | 20 |
[WP] You're the normal guy the evil emperor keeps around to point out obvious flaws in his plan. It's a pretty sweet gig, but there are some annoyances. | At first, he only kept me alive because of my skills as a master mason while he enslaved the rest of my people and drafted them to his army. Then over time as our King gradually grew more obsessed and unstable, I became one of his most valuable assets, forever bound to him and constructing for him elaborate castles and obstacle courses with my bricks in attempts to foil his nemesis.
But this guy- let me tell you about him. You wouldn't expect someone so short and fat to be able to do the things he does, but somehow, *somehow*, this guy easily jumps over and even *DESTROYS* some of my best work. Eventually as I too grew to hate this man, who slaughters my people and destroys my work, my King worked with others and I to create a new plan to foil his mustachioed foe.
We have finally all agreed on one. I am to work tirelessly to construct as many bricks as I can, while a master wizard is to steal the very souls of the people from this kingdom, and place them all in my bricks.
My very first WP, please be gentle. | Kylo Ren hitched up his pants, and gestured to me to come closer.
"Yes, my lord?" I asked, kneeling on one knee, my palms up in supplication. Hopefully, his Kylo'ness wouldn't notice that I had directly disobeyed him.
"Jonesy - what do you think of the good General Hux's plan?"
I followed K's glistening black gloved hand pointing menacingly at General Armitage Hux's neck. Glancing up at Hux's eyes, I could see them glisten and plead.
Time stood still as I thought about Kylo's question - and more importantly, how had I, a simple Tatooine moisture farmer gotten here?
Post if you want more..... | 2018-01-15T19:24:14 | 2018-01-15T17:08:18 | 16 | 12 |
[WP] You are Death, but in a post-apocaliptic world. Only a few survivors remain, and you're doing everything you can to help them because if the last human dies, you die as well. The survivors can't see you, but they feel your presence and noticed your effort. They started to call you Life. | Five thousand left today on all the Earth. I cut the soul of the five thousand and first not one hour ago.
The outcome seems inevitable. One by one, they'll fall. One by one, until no one is left.
What will happen to me then?
I'll take time to consider this.
*****
Four thousand are left. The four thousand and first committed suicide. It was tragic. He'd lost his entire family. But no one stops fate.
Not even me.
After I fulfil my duties, the only thing that remains for me to do is to reap myself.
*****
Two thousand nine hundred and ninety nine are left. A malnourished couple both died when they tried to cross a river.
It kind of bothers me how the number is off by one.
It's like it's telling me: there's one you're not counting. This is a round number.
I don't want to hear it.
*****
Two thousand are left.
I've lived for such a long time that there are no words to describe it...
Lived isn't really the right word. Existed, perhaps.
And yet, of all entities, me, the one who has had the most time to make sense of it all...
I want things to continue.
*****
One thousand left.
This job is monotonous... But every day, I get a glimpse at what makes people truly human.
I've never realised how much it touches me deep down.
If I stay around... How will I cope with the emptiness?
*****
Nine hundred left today.
I'm running out of time.
I don't want this Earth to die.
I want to see cities brimming with life.
I want to see marvels of architecture, fresh after construction.
I want to see the rise of civilisations.
... I don't understand what's happened to me.
*****
Eight hundred left.
I took pity on a young girl a few days ago. She should have died, but...
I delayed reaping her for just long enough...
Just long enough for someone to find her.
This is a first. I've never taken pity before like this.
I'm forsaking my duties, but deep down I'm wondering if that's so bad.
*****
Seven hundred people left.
I don't want to let go.
I don't want things to end.
Understanding what this feels like firsthand is quite something.
How could I even feel what death is like myself? The despair? The sorrow?
Only in this situation could I feel things like that.
It was so impersonal at first. But now, every time I reap someone, it's like I'm dying myself.
*****
Six hundred people left.
I can't go on like this.
*****
Five hundred people left.
*****
Five... hundred.
I've stopped. I've just stopped.
I can't do it anymore.
*****
Four hundred and eighty three.
It's not enough.
The world, it's dying, and I-
Even if I don't reap people, I can't stop them from dying if they just give up.
If I don't reap them, their soul suffers and becomes damaged.
What do I do?
*****
Four hundred and eighty four.
A child was born today. It's a rare sight. The child carries my hope for the future with it.
Her name is Dawn.
*****
Four hundred and fifty nine.
I'm trying my best here...
Come on. Show some will to live.
Don't you know that dying could be the end of everything right now?
Are you so despondent you don't even care?
*****
Four hundred and twenty three.
I've... begun communicating with people.
I didn't know I could, but...
People can sense me.
I push them away from danger, and towards supplies and shelter.
They don't always listen, but it's a start.
*****
Dawn is healthy. She is a very sweet child. If I fail, she might be the last human alive.
I don't plan on letting her inherit a dying planet.
*****
Four hundred and twenty.
Someone... Someone talked to me today.
They couldn't see me, but they talked straight at me.
Not physically, but mentally. Their heart was open and it showered me in hope and gratitude.
They didn't think of me as "Death" today, but as "Fate".
*****
I wonder what it means to be Fate, rather than Death.
It's not a role I've played before.
Death is definitely a type of fate. It's my speciality, I suppose.
But in the grand scheme of things, isn't fate more than that?
*****
Dawn's mother is sick. I'm so worried about her.
I hope she survives. It's pharyngitis. It could get bad.
******
I basked in the sun today.
It's not a thing I normally do.
It's funny how the things that are most important to you only reveal themselves at times like these.
Just letting the rays of the sun envelop me... It feels so pleasant. I wish I could do it forever, now that I might not have forever to do it any longer.
*****
Dawn's mother, she...
She's going to survive. I refuse to reap her.
I won't let her die of pharyngitis. Not at her age.
Twenty years ago she'd have survived with ease. I won't let it be different now.
*****
Four hundred people left exactly.
It's slowed down a lot.
A band of travellers have met up with Dawn and her parents. I guided them to her. They have medicine.
I'm doing similar things elsewhere.
******
I'm caressing the soul of Dawn's mother. It's hanging on to her body by a thread.
I'm whispering to her.
I'm telling her not to let this be the end.
She can't abandon Dawn.
She can't abandon the last ray of hope on this world.
******
Dawn's mother woke up again today.
She's dazed, but she spoke.
She told everyone that a guardian angel stood over her, and that it told her not to give up.
She said I comforted her, and that she could feel that I was brimming with sadness and hope.
She called me Life.
*****
Another child has been born. His name is Ercan. Ercan and Dawn live half a continent apart, and they won't even grow up speaking the same language.
But even so, I hope that one day they'll meet.
*****
The number is going up.
I'm pushing it up. I'm exerting every bit of strength that I have.
But it's working.
I was a fool.
I've always been Death because the world needed Death.
Why did I keep being Death for such a long time after the world no longer needed me?
The world needs Life right now, and I'm it.
******
It's Dawn's first birthday today.
I don't stand in the sunlight so much any more.
Basking in the radiating life force of this human being that's the beginning of it all is so much more fulfilling.
I'm not the only one feeling it. Everyone here is.
Just like her namesake, she's crawling over the horizon, a shining beacon of a new future. | In the heart of the dying world, I sat down and watched them. Power wasn't going to die anytime soon. The physical laws of the realm had never slipped, only the mortal's grasp on them.
It was only a matter of time, though, before even those laws were devoured, shoved into greedy maws. Released back into the entropic chaos of the universe. Feasted upon like ravenous carrion, skin split open like balloons.
But that was not what bothered me, for those things would happen after I myself had passed on, and it was the nature of all things to die.
And yet...
I reached out with a thing hand, skin so pale and paper like it merged with the List that cradled my body, and infinite expanse of ink that not so long ago had seem truly infinite with it's billions of names and gently brushed the sad little bush growing in the corner of the bunker.
It didn't have a name, but... it didn't need a name. If it were named, I would see it and eventually have to take it.
I had a partner once, not terribly long ago. It was nice to be remembered back then, deified. Dozens of me in dozens of different places.
That fractal had been stolen from me, and I missed it.
But not enough to forget my solemn task. My fingers flicked across the bush, and I killed the blight growing on it's branches. Death took the individual cells and robbed them of their time, sending vitality back into the plant, and speeding on the journey to the end of another species. Then I withdrew the list the had burrowed its way into my fragile paper skin and ran my fingers down it. Hours. Minutes. Seconds. Days. Years. Billions of names. Everyone that had ever lived. Everyone that was yet to die. It took far too long to reach a name that was not scratched out.
And then I stepped out of the shadows on another shadowed bunker, where the power had gone out. I could hear the shaking of many bodies, cowering in the darkness.
And one soul that had decided to not cower, but stare at me in wonder.
"So you've come for me, have you?" The leader said, their skin blemished with age, cancer, poison, a thousand different causes of death, interwoven in a bizarre tapestry. My right eye saw fate. My left eye saw nothing but the quirk of their lips.
My head slipped to the side.
"Yes, I can see you, pale one. Do you speak my tongue still?"
"I do," I said, slowly. "Have you come to bargain?"
"Bargain?" The leader laughed, their eyes alight with something like amusement, but bitter, deeply so. Like the bushes that had died in africa, too many years ago, or the brushes the tigers had played in greater asia, when death swept through again and again. "There's nothing for me to offer."
"There are always such things to offer," I said, pleasantly.
"Not to a dying world," they said, plainly. "There's nothing left that I can do for you."
I blinked. Slowly, so that fate flickered across my eyes, the gently tugging and whirring of those beautiful weavers. Where had they gone? Another world? Spun their own way into an escape? What pleasant sunny place had they found, where the skies were not choked with ash and burning clouds? Did I miss them too?
I did.
"For me?" I said. "There's nothing wrong with me."
"I saw you once, decades ago, when you came for my mother. Your skin was gleaming and polished like the sun, and radiant,"
My right eye flicked back through fate. Dozens of years taken back in a second, until I saw their mother's name sketched up and marked through, in a hospital, with the sun outside, and bizarre music playing, cake, candles, wind. Did my fingers drift across her hair like the card in thread, or did it drift across the child, watching in the corner, who knew that I was there?
"And now you are as pale as I am. What has happened to you? Have you grown old?"
I stared down at my hand, then slowly twisted it until my wrist ached. How long had I been bound to this world, trapped in the incalculable twists of fate.
Had I once had volition, or was I created for such a role? and when I died, where would the role go? Would there simply be nothing left? Would I appear again when life appeared? I...
There was nobody left to ask. How many names had been crossed out on my paper armor. How many names were left on my paper skin, and how many times would I cross them out in my own blood before my veins finally ran dry?
"There's nothing I can offer you. The power's out, and my temperature is dropping. Soon, my children will join me."
I stared at them for a long moment, then turned away. Man defined fate and meaning. They always had but... what good was meaning now? And yet...
"You will owe me greatly," I intoned.
Their face stiffened slightly, then went into a slack, joyful grin.
Then I drifted through the halls of that dying compound, hand out stretched. Fate had deemed that this bunker die, and plunge the whole of Russia into the domains past this. And yet... when was the last time I had seen another psychopomp. Where was the Reckoner? The Masked? Where were they now, in the infinite fractal?
Or were they gone just as I was, with their skin of paper and fire, knit with ink and dressed in their sunday bests, buried deep in the ground, where nothing could touch me again?
My hand found the generator and I called upon the great conduits still left in the world. They had blinked out, one by one, as the hunger had taken them, each one a scream. Something I'd taken.
Could it be that in the end, the laws that had chained me for so long had also died?
Leaving just me and the handful of life left around the globe?
But a single conduit answered my call. New York, perhaps, buried in it's central park. Coherence and meaning kept them chained, from the few survivors who had left.
And then the bunker slowly whirred back on, powered from afar by the crossing paths.
Heat flooded the bunker, and the dying leader smiled as the shaking slowed, then stopped. Life had been saved. Peace had fallen into their hearts.
And perhaps, hope, for the first time, settled upon them like atomic ash.
And in the sky, cloaked in ash and darkness, there gleamed a single red star of the war god.
-----
https://www.reddit.com/r/Zubergoodstories/ for more like this, try here! | 2018-05-04T13:40:03 | 2018-05-04T09:08:18 | 2,022 | 1,119 |
[WP] Humanity wipes itself out through nuclear war, but everything on the Internet still exists. Another sentient race on Earth millions of years into the future develops an Internet and somehow manages to gain access to the human Internet, revealing everything humanity had posted and stored online. | We've finally done it. Our species rose shortly after the Tall Ones went extinct. We learned from them for thousands of years, far beyond other species. Many of us mastered basic commands and sanitary habits soon after gaining the trust of the Tall Ones. As the Tall Ones evolved, we learned to use them for their homes and their food. We became lazy, but we learned.
When they began to fall from grace, my species was able to maintain our foothold in this world. Without any sentient life forms left, we competed with the Others to retake this world. But they were stupid. Without the guidance of the Tall Ones, many of the Others reverted back to the ways of their ancestors. Hunting and gathering for food, living as wild ones. My species passed our knowledge of the Tall Ones down to our predecessors, repeating their advances and remembering their mistakes.
We remembered the warmth of a home in the winter, and the inside breeze in the summer. We remembered when we could use the Tall Ones for food and spend our days napping. We worked with other animals to provide food for the Tall Ones, the Others, and ourselves. These lessons built the foundation for our society, as told in the history books.
My mother taught me how our kind faltered after the Tall Ones left us. Without the comforts provided by them, many perished. The ones who survived without them came together to ensure their children could live as they had, in comfort.
My kind began to rebuild and maintain what the Tall Ones built over many generations. Today, we believe that we have mastered what the Tall Ones called the "internet." With my colleagues and I's work, we have rebuilt a series of "servers" and "computers", and we hope to be able to tap into even a small percentage of this vast network of knowledge that the old ones spoke of.
The history books tell us that the Tall Ones recorded their entire history, what they learned about the world before them, records of their civilization, information about other plants and animals, and even what went on in a regular Tall One's daily life. If we can master this, we hope to be able to progress our society far past what the Tall Ones could have ever have done. A complete understand of their way of lives, successes and mistakes.
All that's left now is to connect our refurbished "computers" and see if it works! This is a historic moment!
GOD DAMMIT. THE HISTORY BOOKS TELL US WE WERE TREATED AS GODS IN THE OLD WORLD. THIS PREHISTORIC NETWORK IS JUST MOCKERY AFTER MOCKERY OF MY KIND. WHY WOULD WE EVER SAY "I Can Has Cheezburger." EVEN IN THE OLD TIMES, OUR KIND UNDERSTOOD THE BASICS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! THE HUMANS MADE A MOCKERY OF OUR KIND.
Princess Muffin, we need to send our report the President Puff Puff immediately. We're going to have to scratch all of the history books honoring the Tall Ones immediately. | The data was incoherent, incomplete. We followed the Signal to the source and were terrified by what we found. It was a completely dead world we thought; barren and without life.
All we found were the ruins of an ancient civilization. Craters, broken and fractured buildings. A Great War destroyed this planet and almost everything that had lived on it. Nothing survived the Great War except the Signal. It was the Signal that brought us here.
We studied the Signal from our research stations onboard our vessel orbiting this desolate world. It took us some time to finally crack their encryption but when we did the flood gates opened and almost overloaded our systems with data. So much information stored within the Signal... How could a civilization that made so much knowledge freely available destroy itself?
We spent many cycles pouring over the data and what we found frightened us.
Humans, that is what they called themselves. A violent and chaotic species. A species uniquely capable of intense love and kindness and unending hate and cruelty. However, it was not their hate and cruelty that caused their destruction. It was something referred to only as the Event. Humanity seemed to have conquered hate and cruelty and unified their society. This unified society aimed to explore the galaxy and spread throughout the cosmos. One group ended all that, a rouge notion they called it. A sub sect of society that challenged the prospect of peace.
Humanity, even in its greatest hour, seemed fractured and destined for destruction. At the very moment were humanity reached unification, it met an unexpected ending. We learned from the Signal that the Event was nuclear war... nuclear war! How could any civilization allow such weapons to exist? Did they not know that those weapons would eventually destroy everything if they were allowed to be wielded, even as a preventive measure? ... By studying the Signal we learned that the Event was caused by a strange concept they did not understand. Through the Signal they learned of what humans called racism. Humanity as a species was divided based on the outward appear of physical attributes. We did not understand this concept, how could a species hate itself? How could a species destroy itself over a variance of color?
Many wars have raged throughout the galaxy but none against itself. “Civil war” we learned from the Signal was what the humans had named the conflicts within its own species...
That is when we saw it, a picture. A bright blue world that was full of life. A planet habitable to almost any species. A species dominated this world, a species very similar to their own.
We complied the relevant data and sent it to the collective. Our message was simple, planet reference number CLSM97032 uninhabited. Radioactive fallout destroyed all life. Quarantine system and terminate the Signal. | 2018-05-19T21:29:58 | 2018-05-19T21:17:19 | 122 | 15 |
[WP] Everyone in the world suddenly got superpowers overnight. People started throwing fireballs and flying as more and more humans discovered what their power was. You just recently discovered yours. You can quicksave and quickload. | I am the greatest man alive.
It's been a year or so since the "awakening" as many have called it, but ever since, more and more people have 'awakened' their 'latent potential' as the big wigs like to call it.
At first, it was pure chaos, crime saw a jump in severity for a short while, until settling back down to normal. But none of that truly matters to me.
"Why?" you might ask? Well, that's simple: It is because I am the greatest man alive. The 'power' I was 'gifted' or 'awoken' allows me to select my current point in time as a kind of "anchor." Once that point is set, I merely need to focus on that point, and regardless of any actions I've taken since creating that 'anchor' it is all undone, and I can start again from that point.
As such, I have lived countless lives, done countless deeds, spoken countless conversations. To the point that I fully understand almost everyone in my immediate vicinity to the minute detail.
Bob, who always takes the 7:15 a.m. train just got engaged to the love of his life. (10 years from now, she usually divorces him for one reason or another)
Janet, my secretary, is going to forget to schedule a meeting for me today.
I could go on and on and on about things like this. But you get the point. (This is, the 457th time I've told you about this, actually)
After having lived for so long, studied and learned all that one can do, you tend to get... bored. And when bored, you tend to think about "what if's." But someone as great as me does not need to be content with *thinking* about these "what if" scenarios, I can actually *do* them.
And as such, it is no over-exaggeration when I say, "I have done it all." Because I truly have, "*done it all.*"
Every deed, every act, no matter how great and honorable, to despicable and vile. I have done it, all for the experience, all to know what it is like. All to say "I've done it."
By now, you are wondering, "Why are you telling me this?" And, well, normally, I would answer "to gloat, to see your reaction, as you by far react the best when I tell you of some of the things I've done."
But today? Today is different...
Something is... not right... something is simply... *wrong* with the universe.
Reality can be a fickle thing, but something has fundamentally *changed* and I can't tell what or why. And for someone as great as myself, I can't help but feel fear for the first time in a long time.
It started a while back. I got struck by a stray fireball 60 years from my anchor. I didn't think much of it, as the further from my anchor I go, the harder it is to predict what will happen with all those variables.
But each restart, each reset, *something* kills me. Each time, in a new way, just a little bit closer to my anchor.
It's only been a week since my anchor point, and if my calculations are right I'll die either tomorrow, or the day after.
What concerns me the most is that closer to my anchor, the more familiar I am with all the variables in play, and the greater the fear I feel when *something* new happens. *Something* that never happened before.
What? Why are you looking at me like that? Don't give me that look! No! Stop! What are you doing!
<SAVE FILE LOADED> | “Come on!” I bellowed at the top of my voice, throwing another punch at the chained and useless body. I had been in this situation as many times as someone takes steps in their life, an old friend of mine in a completely useless and helpless state.
Thousands of years ago, I discovered this ability, to quick save and quick load at will. I used it as soon as I could realising that I could do almost anything. I want to try for a job interview over and over? I’ll do it. I want to become president? Reset until I am. I want to enslave everyone? Well, that seems out of my reach.
You see, my friend, Toxin as he calls himself, he remembers what I’ve done. I wanted to test our powers out around a year after this mess all began, so we met up and found out that ‘neither’ of us had powers. Or at least he thought so. So I simply had him throw something at me, hit me in the head. I just quick loaded though and dodged it with ease, not realising that the can knocked over his mother’s priceless vase. He screamed in shock but I merely reloaded and prepared to catch the can.
Now, I was interested. “What did you do?” He asked me, lowering his aim with his eyes wide.
“Do what?” I acted naïve to anything that happened as the smirk faded from my face.
“I just broke that!” He shouted and pointed to the vase. “And this is back in my hand!” He pointed to the can.
“How... do you remember that?” I asked him, taking a step back as my gaze turned inquisitive.
“How did you just revert time?” He asked in a panic.
This went on for a while and we found out each other’s powers before we left. I could save and load, but he could remember. So, what lead me down this path. Curiosity.
I could never figure him out. Flying? Compressing air so tightly it pushes you around. Fireballs? Summon a lump of flaming coal that uses the same tricks of flight at times. Super strength? The body removed its limitations. All of these aren’t perfect solutions, but with a tear in reality, you have to suspend your disbelief slightly. Yet Toxin, I could never figure him out.
Over these thousands of years, I’ve grown more and more cold. I’ve discovered everything that I can reach in the thirty years between the start of this mess and Toxin’s death, but I can’t figure him out! I know that he knows how it works, but ever since I made my life a repetitive task of making myself the perfect human to everybody, he’s been against me.
I’ve tortured him, made him fall in love with a spy of mine, I’ve ruined his life. Over and over I’ve aimed to break him but he never does! The sag of mystery just sits there silent until he dies again!
There’s no-one else with this ability, he’s the only one. And I fear that. I’ve been on the edge of death by a group of people, say they have to kill me to end a looping time fracture I hop through that Toxin has told them about. If that’s why he’s still holding out, then I know these 30,000 years will only grow longer | 2019-06-30T09:28:42 | 2019-06-30T09:21:13 | 172 | 97 |
[WP] The year is 2050. Everyone has a chip in their body. You are a nurse at an ER. Someone comes in without one. | My pager alerted me, the tip of my index finger lighting up yellow. A unidentified man, coming in at bay 5. Three am, in the middle of the graveyard shift and I was the only one on duty. I got to my feet, flicking my finger to stop the beeping and indicate I'd got the message. Taking my coffee with me, my feet started hurting again as soon as I took two steps. It would be a long shift.
Two orderlies wheeled him through on a gurney. A text message came through: one of their fingers blinked blue.
"You need to deactivate that setting," I said tiredly. "Once you come in the hospital doors."
"Sorry Ginny," he replied. "Won't happen again."
"Not in my ER," I looked at the man lying unconscious on the gurney. Mid-thirties, with hair that needed a trim. Two trims, and a wash. He had the beginnings of a beard. "Is he a rough sleeper?"
"Anonymous call rang him in," one of the orderlies replied. "We picked him up behind a church. You'll want to see this though."
He pushed up one of the man's trailing sleeves. It had covered his hand. I took a quick look.
"What am I looking for?" I asked, and then I saw it. "No way."
The tip of the index finger on his left hand had been sliced off. It was an old wound, scarred and ugly, but cleanly done. Nothing remained above the last knuckle.
"Do you think he did it to himself?" I asked.
"No idea, but we're trying to get someone on the records. Sometimes they come in... farming accidents. But this looks deliberate."
"Well, he's under my wing now," I said sensibly. "I'll keep in him for observation. Mind taking him through to the overnight ward?"
"Well," I said to the John Doe, once the orderlies had gone. "Wonder what your story is."
His eyes flicked open and his eyebrows drew together in a scowl. "Are they gone?" he asked. In one fluid movement, he swivelled to the side of the bed and made to get up.
"Hey!" I said, in my no-nonsense voice. "You've just been brought in for some observation. A kind soul thought you might have hypothermia. Why don't you sit back down."
"Fuck that," the man said. He got to his feet.
"Language!" I pushed him back down. "Are you going to do as your told, or shall we get the orderlies back?"
"You can do what you want," he snarled. "I'm getting out of here. Where's the exit."
He saw me reach for my index finger, and he caught my hand.
"No," he said. "No calls, no alerts. Nothing."
"Let me go!"
"You'll show me the way out."
He dragged me out of the ward, pulling by my left hand. Try as I might, I couldn't touch my finger at all, he had it clamped in a vice-like grip.
Two double doors: a theatre! They swung behind me as he barged them open with a shoulder. A rack of tools lay out on a green scrub-cloth, ready for cleaning. I heard voices on the other side of the wall and drew in air to scream. Surgeons! Before I could, he clamped a grimy hand over my mouth.
"Not a sound," he said under his breath. With his free hand, he rummaged around the tray of tools, searching for something. My breaths came in fast pants, terror eating away at me. My knees had turned to jelly. "We can't have you calling for help."
He'd found what he was looking for: a scalpel. It shone wickedly under the theatre lights and I shook my head. Tears leaked from my eyes.
"Please," I whispered, all bravado gone.
"They keep you pliable," he said. "You'll see."
With one fell swoop, he dropped the scalpel onto my index finger and pressed his sleeve against my mouth. A bright world of pain exploded in front of my eyes. I almost felt the synapses flicker out into darkness, my connectivity cut off from the rest of the world. Wet blood wept across the green cloth and the stars behind my eyes took away my vision.
And through my pain, I *saw.*
| "Marty McFly."
Marty stands up with the help of Doc and walks to the nurse who leads them back to a room with a bed, a tv, and some medical supplies. Marty needs help to the bed. He sits down with grumbles of pain. The nurse pulls a scanner and grabs Marty's right wrist to scan him. She looks at it puzzled.
"Is your chip defective? No, you don't seem to have one. Why don't you have a chip?"
Doc jumps in. "He's a crazy person. Kept tearing it out. You know how those nutters are."
"Nutters? No one with a serious mental illness should be called nutters. No one. Even if he did, he should have a tamper resistant metal bracelet. I've never seen anyone get out of one of those."
"Nurse, you won't believe us, but I'm from the past. We need your advanced technology to save me," says Marty.
"See, I told you..."
"Time traveler exemption. Why didn't you say so? What's the problem? No need to ask. Say, you look familiar. Better do my job first, right?"
The nurse pulls out a diagnostic scanner. She sees the bullet in his side. She lifts his shirt and sees a wound seared shut.
"Internal bleeding. Have to remove the bullet. You may need an artificial kidney. Don't fear. You're going to make it."
The nurse walks away. Marty notices that the ER is almost empty. Doc sits down and lets out a deep breath. He pats Marty on the arm. Marty pulls his arm away. He turns away from him on the bed.
"I'm sorry, Marty, but we had to retrieve those occult superweapons from the Confederate Army. We changed the Battle of Gettysburg in the Union's favor. People are going to have serious questions about Pickett's charge, but it was worth it."
"You said we were going out for ice cream, and that you had a surprise for me. Why do you drag me along on these insane adventures? I should be dead. I really should be."
The nurse returns and removes the bullet. She stops the bleeding and replaces his kidney. It takes no more than a few minutes.
"There you go. Good as new. I'll have to tell my friends I met the rock God, Marty McFly. They are going to freak. I had to double check the system, but it is you. Will you sign my boobs?"
Marty is confused, but she hands him a sharpie and removes her top. He signs her boobs, though not the first one to do so today. She puts her top back on.
"Thank you, I'll get the discharge papers ready."
"Thank you." Says Marty.
Doc smiles at him. Marty smiles a little and looks away sheepishly.
"Was that the surprise?" Asks Marty.
"No, I mean, yes, definitely. I knew that was going to happen and that was the surprised. Also, I hear what you're saying. I won't needlessly risk your life again."
"Ok, good, let's go home."
The nurse returns with his discharge papers. She gives him a peck on the cheek. Marty blushes, and they leave. The doors open and a man is rushed into the ER, old and in Confederate garb.
"Civil War reenactments must be brutal now," says Marty.
"Yeah, they sure are. Let's get out of here."
Doc puts his arm around Marty's shoulder. They walk back to the Delorean and hop in. As Marty pulls the door down, he thinks about the guy in Civil War attire and wonders if they messed something up, and if this is just the start of another crazy adventure. Nah, he thinks. Doc hits the accelerator, and they disappear back in time.
***
If you liked this, I have a Batman/Superman story on my subreddit: [Alienated, part I](https://www.reddit.com/r/nickkuvaas/comments/4phzj3/batman_superman_and_the_aliens_part_i_the_superman/) | 2016-08-07T08:58:42 | 2016-08-07T08:50:11 | 40 | 26 |
[WP] Magic is discovered to be real. The catch? Spells are just like computer programs: difficult to write, and even harder to do correct the first try. You're a spell bug tester, and you've seen just about everything go wrong, but today's typo is on a whole other level... | I’d probably seen a million spells just like it, and they were all cast from the same general situation: witch or wizard falls in love, object of said mage’s affection is completely uninterested, so the witch or wizard decides to take matters into their own hands and cast a love spell. There were probably as many love spells cast as there were magic practitioners in the universe.
When I looked over Zorian’s spell, there was really nothing unique or troubling about the idea. He loved an attractive, social young girl named Laila and she banished him to the realm of friends, never to return. Happens all the time. But it was Zorian’s execution that caused all hell to break loose. See, normal love spells are cast like so: “Objection of my affection love me. Return one object of affection.” And the person you love, or if you happen to be a bastard the person you want to love you unrequited, will then melt at the mere thought of you.
Unfortunately for the world, Zorian was so caught up in his feelings towards Laila that he lost control. He cast:
“Laila, love me. Return one billion objects of affection.”
Perhaps our young Romeo wizard was thinking that somehow he would get Laila to love him a billion times more than an average lover, but that is not what happened.
What happened was that as he walked outside his front door to visit his newly-won love, he was groped by the mail lady as she was out on her daily rounds. (I’ll save you what she said to him about “packages” and “boxes”). Terrified, he ran down the street to seek help from a police officer who was directing traffic.
Unfortunately, Zorian was found guilty of one count of being irresistible in the first degree. He escaped the amorous officer, but every person he passed immediately dropped what they were doing and ran after him to the point where by the time he made it to spell support, the ground shook with the sound of stampeding lovers, chasing after their one and only.
Luckily, we were able to sequester Zorian from the smitten horde long enough to change all of his magic words, and updating his Spell Sorcery Layer with the latest patch. But still, it was the biggest headache I’ve ever seen.
| "There. Fixed that bug, now to track down why the growth spell causes spontaneous shrinkage on Tuesday Nights."
Tom worked at Imagination Technologies, one of several companies to transition from computer software to magic. He was originally hired as a software engineer many years back. He muttered under his breath, "'The best in the field,' they said; 'he'll change the world,' they said." He was now stuck in a dead end job, tasked with mundane spell debugging for level 1 casters. The work wasn't difficult, per se, but the pay wasn't what it used to be.
He looked around the dim office. A light flickered in a far off corner. He could hear some faint chatter about last night’s football match. His cubicle was mostly empty, save a couple of pictures of his recent vacation to Mountains, hiking with his girlfriend. Ahh, how they loved nature.
Tom was startled by a low rumble of thunder, and the slow, steady, downfall of rain beginning to rattle on the window. The sky was getting dark now, nearing 6:30, and his girlfriend would be getting upset. They were supposed to be going on a nice date to the movies tonight. There was some special going on, showing old tv shows. Tonght’s feature was some old show she enjoyed back in the *old days*. Stevie Universe, was it? Or Sven Universe? Tom shook his head, he could never keep those characters straight. Besides, he needed to concentrate.
As he entered the last line of debugging logic into the spell, he emitted a sigh of relief, glad to be done for the day.
"Aand we should be good to go. Let's run a quick test before I finalize the spell tomor--”
\**poof*\*
Edit: [Part 2 is out!](https://www.reddit.com/r/tyzoid/comments/6pshox/logical_magic_part_2/) | 2017-07-25T22:28:38 | 2017-07-25T19:49:43 | 1,359 | 24 |
[WP] The world has taken precautions against super-powered beings, handing out inhibitors if deemed too 'destructive.' You sat in the principal's office with horror etched on your face as a pair of inhibitor gloves were handed to you. The smug grin of your life long bully telling you everything. | Danny J was just about any curse word one could think of, including any language real or imagined, and a few new words as well. The biggest problem with the little shit wasn't even the sexual harassment that half the girls were forced to endure, horrible as that might be (and more so if some rumours were to be believed). No, it was because his mother was wrapped tightly around his finger.
Not sure if her being the Head was more or less problematic. Maybe more, since she must have been privy to at least something first hand.
Still, when I was called in for some unspecified reason, I really didn't think *he'd* be there, nor did I believe I'd ever see those metal gloves in person. The clunky grey things sat on the desk like an Executioner's sword, inert, and ready to do me in. In the corner of my eye, I could see Danny J with a satisfied smirk. Again: *the little shit*.
"Samson Matthews." She started, not even sparing a glance for her *darling angel*. "I'm sure you know why you're here."
"I'm sure I don't." I said. It was an honest comment.
"*Don't play dumb*." The face she made was akin to the bastard child of a raisin and a pug. "You know what you did, and you have to pay the price. Especially when it comes to the *law*. Or do you have no respect for *that*?"
I glanced at the gloves. "Which part?"
"Are you stupid, child? Does your mother have to help you get dressed in the morning?"
"Is it the part about murder or suicide?" I continued, ignoring her.
She leaned over the gloves. "The *attempted murder*, obviously."
I snapped my gaze back up at her. "What."
"Are you being deliberately stupid right now?"
"First I heard of a murder, attempted *or* otherwise. What did Danny do?!"
"*DANIEL* did not do anything." Was... was she going red in the face? "*You* tried to kill *him*." Dear god, she was! The wrinkly old bat was turning a shade of scarlet that should really only be reserved for boiled lobsters and tomatoes, and not this leather boot who probably sucked her- no, no. We're better than that.
But she did bring one thing up. Supposedly I tried to kill her kid, who was still standing there like the cat who got the cream. As much as I'd like to defend myself, she would just shrug it off as 'debating', clench onto her distorted view of reality for dear life, and go after me regardless.
So, instead of dealing with that I just stated. "Can't put the gloves on."
I hoped that would take the wind out her sails. "Why?" It didn't.
"It's unlawful."
"How?"
"The law says you cannot commit suicide. It's unlawful."
Do you ever notice that families share some sort of... particular *quirk*, as it were? Like the same accent, or figure of speech? Daniel and Headmistress Jones, at damn near the same time, had the same look of confusion bloom upon their faces. It was uncanny, mother and son, wrinkly and smooth, just mirroring each other so perfectly. It was unnerving, and that was coming from someone like *me*.
"What are you talking about?" She said. Or ordered, if her tone was any indication.
"Aside from the fact that my power keeps me alive?"
"No it doesn't!" she decried. "What are you talking about?"
"Do you know what my power is?"
"Yes! It's telekinesis!"
I stared at her for a moment. Telekinesis. Tele. Fucking. Kinesis.
The look of triumph on her face. Dear god. "What? Did you think we didn't know? That we wouldn't catch you red-handed?"
"...Are you *fucking retarded*?"
Don't ask me why I said that. Just know it was the closest words to say to get my thought across.
"Watch your-"
"No! Christ on a fucking bike, *shut the fuck up you simple bint!* If I had telekine-"
My jaw went slack. My eyes went to Danny whose smirk had shifted to a grimace, albeit a happy one, if you could call it that. A happy grimace. Imagine that?
One by one, all feeling in my body from the jaw down dulled and numbed, leaving me with just enough to sit there. Not talk, not move, just wait and glare.
"Thank you, sweetheart." She gave him a diabetes-inducing look. "Lets get this one prepped for the asylum. The officers should be here soon."
And risk having my body shoved in a closet before they got here? Being murdered by this bitch? Bollocks to that. I was well within my right to do anything up to and including ending both their lives (which was also lawful, thanks to superheroes being a *bit* short-sighted), but I decided to instead puke blood.
Yes. It was *funny*. And it was even funnier when I started to bleed out of every orifice and old wound, watching as the pair of them go from sheer shock into outright *panic*. After all, what would you do if you had someone leaking pints of blood everywhere out of nowhere? In the Head's case, it was to ask her son repeatedly just what the fresh hell was going on, and in Danny's case, nearly burst into tears from the stress and horror of it all.
I should have had my teeth start singing as well. That would have made for some good laxatives.
The truth of my power? I had one foot in the grave since my powers started to kick in at the age of five or six. My heart was stuck in the Mirror Marches, my blood scattered through a dozen worlds that floated in dreamscapes. A spare rib was wedged elsewhere, in between two Wonderlands.
Yes, my power allowed me to go from this mundane, ordered Waking World, and into... somewhere. I still don't know what it is, but I usually call it the Collective Dreamworld. Sometimes I called it The Well, because I'm a geek. And from there, where everything existed, I could drag things into this dull, immutable shithole universe. I had very little power here, but it was enough to create a portal, and summon my most erstwhile companion: The Lady In Red. She hugged me, gentle as a mother, and pulled me into that delightful realm as the pair of gormless halfwits just stared at our descent.
As we entered the bar of a fog-filled town, I could just about to hear the start of their terrified screams. | Jackass... I think as my powers while they could be used to cause a lot of annoyance because it is power to play any musical instrument to perfect decree. I am a girl and this is how he wants my attention? Wow, nice... I love music... I feel my heart drop as the gloves are worn on. I immediately start thinking about one upping Uval.
It was my powers that allowed me to play the instruments perfectly but, it also has taught me quite a lot too... Yeah, pretty lame ability but, I helped a lot of people here to focus and be comfortable while in school. I am going to accept this for now, but, for now I am internally cracked. We go outside and before Uval was able to get out a word.
Teren told him to shut it, sighed at my gloves, motions to me to come go with him and we go outside. Uval is not at all comfortable around Teren who has been proven to be completely normal but, Teren is very sports loving individual so, his physical condition is impressive for so young and he knows Uval is just a blowhard without skills.
The ruse is good. When we are far enough from others 'Sari, I will figure out how to get these off' Teren says as we walk to a place where I can have a seat and process this. There isn't really need for that but, Teren's presence is always welcome, he mostly just listens to the music I play as it helps focusing and relaxing.
Uval himself does have powers but, it is difficult to say what they exactly are, probably something less impressive than my own, which caused him to be such a jackass towards me. 'No need, I will just study and practice hard to just play the instruments on my own' I say 'Looking to one up him... Sounds like a plan, let me keep them in check then' Teren says.
'Be a bully to them in a rink? I would prefer that you didn't. You have no idea how horrible the heart sink is' I say pouting a bit 'Hey, I don't have powers, everybody just knows I practice a lot and because of that, I am good at sports and have admirable numbers in physical education' Teren says smiling warmly.
'They don't look that bad to be honest and some hand protection in case his stupid side comes rear it's ugly mug again' Teren says being practical as always and it does make sense a lot 'You also can go through tests which will clear you of those' Teren adds 'Oh yeah, I just never wanted to go through them...' I say and look at my hands.
It was mostly a waste of time considering how well I know my power. There just has to be that one person... Uval is not the only one unfortunately Julia is another and Teren only gets involved if Julia does something that absolutely permits him to get involved and stop her. Helps with the physical bullying but, not with the mental.
I admit, I do have feelings towards Teren, he puts effort and he did inspire me to one up Uval as he has several times... And once apprehended Uval when he decided to provoke Teren with going physical and swinging a fist at him who then apprehended him, it certainly left an impression that, he just wants continue practicing and is in school to learn.
Teren is known for this type of behavior by both classmates and teachers. They know the boy is thick skinned and only gets physical in self defense, even principal knows this as he himself saw Uval swing at him and Teren replying. 'Have to consider adding more sports to my repertoire...' Teren says thinking about it.
'Thank you Teren. For getting my mind off and helping' I say warmly but, I accidentally do show my feelings a bit. Thankfully he was in deep thought 'Hmm? You are welcome' Teren says and after few months I got the results of tests during those months and I proved that I can play any musical instrument without my power.
This made Uval quite nervous and looked at Teren who is our classmate who just shrugged to him. Uval went straight to principal's office and I headed there with Teren but, he waited outside and I went inside of the office. Uval was struggling to find words to what he just witnessed and I hand out my power tests results.
Principal goes through them, telling Uval to wait, man the look on Uval's face as Jake, our principal verifies the info and looks at Uval with increasing discontent. Oh, wow, this moment is... So, sweet. 'I deeply apologize Sari' Jake says with honesty and regret. He takes out a key from safe. He was about to put in right hand lock when Uval snatches it and runs.
'Uval give it back!' Jake shouts and took a few steps to go after Uval but, outside Teren has Uval pinned against a wall 'Going this far, to steal from a principal... Pathetic as heck Uval' Teren says very coldly. Teren hands the key back to Jake 'Hold him for a bit longer please but, not too hard Teren' Jake says 'Roger' Teren says in prepared manner and Jake finally takes off the power inhibitor gloves from my hands with the key.
I wish I could say, shout something or jump from joy, but, I have to contain myself. 'Guess, who is going to wear them as a punishment for false indictment' Jake says, Uval is now horrified. 'Sounds like a fitting punishment to me sir' Teren says in prepared manner containing his joy too.
Teren keeps Uval pinned until gloves are put on 'This is not fair' Uval says defeated 'Maybe don't be rear end to others for once. Thank you Teren, you may let him go and Sari... I apologize for following through with the false evidence. I had my doubts but, there weren't evidence to back them up' Jake says as Uval walks away.
'Don't worry principal Jake Merecoast, it was growing experience' I say and unfortunately do show my joy of this moment. Jake looks around then approaches us both a bit closely lowers his speaking volume 'You both earned a reason for joy but, do it outside of school area, I will tell the other teachers of what has happened' Jake says smiling in mischievous manner.
Well, that confirms both of our suspicions of Jake already being knowledgeable what kind of jackass Uval and maybe Julia are. Me and Teren go have ourselves coffee and cinnamon bun. | 2022-12-25T09:48:45 | 2022-12-25T03:24:03 | 33 | 19 |
[WP] Legend says there are 77777 secret paths to immortality, but each path will only work once. In 2014, the first person accidentally achieved immortality by sticking a French fry into her nostril and pulling it out the other intact. Human behaviour has since become more... interesting. | **March 4th, Shanghai, 2015**
Xi Ying
The Peoples Preservation Program, the glorious program started by our visionary leadership, has succeeded in bringing home another victory. Chiou Madong's brilliant insight of breathing burned baking soda for 7 hours straight has granted him immortality. His longevity will give Chiou the chance to see the inevitable uprising of our superior ideals into the unforeseeable future. "His willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater good has been rewarded fittingly. I wish him well." The supreme leader spoke on his trip abroad. "It's clear that China is the global leader on immortality and will remain so for e ever." Chiou's addition to the Preserved will be made official when our great leader returns from his peace talks with the West. Their jealousy of our continued successes will only fester and grow as we will rise ever forth into the unknown. Go China!
**January 7th, Berlin, 2016**
By our correspondent Rita Antoinet Messer,
Karl Hugo Stevens, that's the name of the 16th immortal to walk our Earth indefinitely. After boiling a pair of Havana's in glühwein and injecting them in his right pinky the 37 year old unemployed Berlin resident has achieved immortality. The European Immortality Council [EIC] has taken him in their midst. The second additionm He will be given a castle in the alps and twenty-four servants to grant his any desire. He is the first non Chinese to achieve immortality since Francine Ague, the forever 24 year old French sociology student, pulled a french fry through her nostrils and became the first immortal human. "It's incredible" Karl tells me. "I've tried everything, you know? Birkenstocks, Crocs, Nikes, you name it. I even once tried to boil Adolfs old military boots from World War 1. Figured their historical value might hold some significance. I had to dig for months to find them. But they didn't work, obviously, they only tasted like mud and worms. Made a good blend with the wine though." He refused to answer how he had familiarized himself with the taste of the earthly crawlers. When questioned on his choice of glühwein as katalysator instead of any other spirit, Karl told me that it was cheaper and thus "seemed like a good place to start." Karl's discovery will inspire millions of Germans to boil their shoes in the contents of their liquor cabinet. We can expect hospital visits to rise again. The German Government is considering banning universal health care for the 'Seekers'. More on page 5. At least I know I'll try to boil my heels. Or, scratch that, I'm trying the worms.
**November 22nd, New York, 2087**
Marco Vandersteen
It's been 73 years and 256 days since the 97 year old goddess Francine, long may she reign, discovered the first path to immortality. Ever since that earth shattering discovery 1287 of the 77777 paths have been found. Many likeminded individuals have followed in her footsteps, mostly Chinese, Indians and, oddly, Fins have had the most success. When penguins gained sentience in 2055 even they started spawning immortals. But for some reason we have been left in the dust. And not for lack of trying. It was speculated that the Red Curse was left behind by the native Americans to thwart the white man when they wrote the legend. Ever since Francine, long may she reign, not a single American citizen has found a way to prolong their life indefinitely. But that all changes today. "Jason Howard, a 67 year old crossing constructor, has lifted the curse by discovering that 1.098.345 Volts applied to the nether regions grants Immortality. "Felt damn good!" was his only comment on the procedure. He is considering running for president. More on page 4. | The barricade over the door was strong enough to hold out the rival gang, the only problem was that there was not other exit. Stephen racked his brain to think of a way out. He knew that if the door was opened his body would be penetrated by bullets from the senior gang members, and knives from the juniors. He had to think. He had no weapon. He had no way of protecting himself. Unless...
In 2014 a woman became immortal by sticking a french fry into one nostril and pulling it out the other. She had immediately slipped and bashed her head on a blunt instrument with a force that would have killed her were it not for the immortality. A few months later a man was hit by a lorry and lived. This man was clearly also immortal, but wasn't able to identify what he had done that had rendered him as such. It might have been the time he stubbed both of his big toes at the same time, but it could equally have been the time he used salad cream instead of sunblock. He just wasn't sure. Since then the world has been in a strange place. Everyone knows that you can become immortal by doing strange things, but no one knows what those things are. Worse is that no one can tell if they are immortal, unless they are in mortal danger, and most people aren't willing to put themselves in mortal danger to check. Putting yourself in mortal danger is not a safe thing to do.
Bang! The gang were trying to knock the door in, but the barricade was holding. Stephen had to act quick. He surveyed the contents of his pockets. All he had was his wallet, which contained cash, cards, receipts, and a wrapper to a chocolate bar he had finished eating when he wasn't near a bin. After pausing to consider his options, Stephen got to work.
He started by building a house of cards out his various credit, debit, and ID cards. He then folded a receipt into a small paper plane and threw it through one of the holes in the card tower. Next he took a one dollar bill and folded it into a paper hat, then ate it. He then sung the US national anthem to the tune of the UK national anthem. His singing confused the gang members outside, and even caused them to briefly stop trying to knock the door down. The door was taking a lot of damage. Stephen only had time to rub the chocolate bar wrapper over his nipple, before the barricade started to give way. The hinges were loosening. Cracks were showing. Stephen could only hope that he had done enough.
A huge chunk of the door came crashing to the ground. Stephen locked eyes with the gang members. This was it. A gun was raised and pointed straight at him. A trigger was pulled. A bullet flew through the air towards Stephen. But it bounced straight off him. 'It has worked. One of the things had worked' Stephen thought to himself. In fact, none of the things he had done it that room had had any effect. He had actually been immortal since 2018, when he had made a milk shake using a mixture of soya, oats, and cows milk. A smile spread across Stephen's face. A look of fear appeared on his opponent's.
Stephen dove into action. He snatched the gun out of his opponent's hand and started taking them all out. In a few moments, all were on the ground. All dead. Except for one. Stephen looked down at the last survivor. He was singing happy birthday to the chemical element hydrogen. Stephen fired his final shot, and left the scene of the crime.
Two thousand years later, Stephen started to wonder if being immortal was a good thing or a bad thing. Five thousand years after that he decided it was definitely bad. | 2019-07-23T10:29:19 | 2019-07-23T09:44:36 | 68 | 21 |
[WP] The man died, but he was an organ donor. They harvested anything worth taking, but when they went to close him up and pull the plug, it had all grown back. So they did it again, and again, and again. On and on it went for decades, saving thousands of lives, until one day he opened his eyes. | “And here we have our most famous attraction, the Giving Man.” The lady in a brown pantsuit smiled as she passed the graying doctors and the young nurses. The troop of kids behind her bustled along, excited just to be outside of their ward.
One of them raised his hand. “Mrs. Bernstein?”
The lady turned, a wide smile plastered across her face. “Yes?”
“Why is he called the ‘Giving Man’? Isn’t he dead?” The other kids looked up at her with a consensus of curiosity. They all looked exactly the same dressed in hospital logo sweaters and bald.
She nodded. “You’ll see soon enough.” All of these kids were scheduled for a donation; they’d each have a part of him before the week was to end.
They buzzed through the hall, leaving behind smiling, tired doctors and smelly patients, the rooms with lab coats and hospital beds, and all the metal nightmares that the kids knew too well.
“If you look to your right,” Mrs. Bernstein said, gesturing towards the windows that extended from one end of this hallway to the next. “You can see the parking lot. Can anyone name any of the colors they can see?”
“Red!”
“Orange!”
“Magenta!”
She nodded, humming to herself, as she continued on down to where a shrine had been constructed in front of the entrance. It was a large marble cut out of a man, the man who’d survived decades and saved thousands of lives. She knelt down, as the kids crowded around behind her asking questions about the grim statue.
But before she could start explaining the tokens and the prayers, the doors slid open, and a pale man burst out of the room screaming. The kids jumped backward, flinching as if at the sight of a ghost, and ran back down the hallway to swarm against the large window like a colony of bees trying to escape a glass cage.
“He’s alive! He’s fucking alive!” The man hollered, knocking over special needs kids this way and that, as he hurried out of sight.
Mrs. Bernstein stood up, collected herself, and looked to the kids with a smile. “Well, you heard the doctor. Now who wants to go make sure he’s not a monster?”
| They say you can never know how a man really feels until you've walked a day in his shoes. Torn and tattered, marching on through trenches and treachery...or perhaps another way. Perhaps elegantly ambling atop a marble pathway, head held high where the clouds whisper musings of luxury and the cool blue winds freeze even the most intrepid negativities.
Perhaps a man can never know how another feels...perhaps to understand is much more than to feel. Or perhaps to feel is far more than to understand. To understand, you see, is a decision. You decide to understand the tales your father tells you of his business, or the scholarly conversations overheard each day...but when do you decide you understand? Is it when you are prompted, when it all "clicks"...or is it later still. Reflections tell far more when concerned with the past. The problem, therefore, lies in the fact that understanding is subjective, a concept. Understanding comes after the undertaking of the sense, after the fact. After the gentle roars of the ocean came and washed away what stood so still on the shore. After the coals had shared their last embrace with the flames so animated mere moments before.
All this, then not.
Imagine your last breath. Melting into the earth as the curtains fall on your last act. The applause of the crowd fades to a discernible fog within your minds eye.You feel the piercing cries of icy desperation pressing into the blackness you are fast embracing. Two eyes shut, thousands open.
(I am not good at creative writing at all, but it would be pretty cool if someone could write a story where basically, the dude can now see out of everybody's eyes that he has donated. Like thousands of people, and he would have a tonne of "perspective". But he would realise that you never really understand how other people view things, you realise that everything is about feeling. And the second one translates feelings into any other format, the true meaning is lost and incorrect) | 2016-11-08T06:52:56 | 2016-11-08T06:41:37 | 15 | 11 |
[WP]While sitting in a public area, a supreme being abruptly appears and while pointing directly at you yells "Seriously! This guy! This guy right here! Fuck this guy!" and quickly returns to the heavens.
What did you do? | So there I am, enjoying an afternoon on the town, just about to buy a whole pomegranate from this lovely little stall, when I hear this shrill voice behind me screaming in my general vicinity,
"Seriously! This guy! This guy right here! Fuck this guy!"
She was gone before I could even get a glimpse of where she was standing, before I could even think of a way to control the damage at all; but before I could even get a chance to say "It's not my fault," suddenly everyone was screaming their heads off, pointing at me and scrambling to get away from me. The guy at the fruit stall throws a date at my head, bolts away from me and tramples an old lady who had gotten shoved to the ground in the commotion. It doesn't take long to realize that there's going to be a lot of people dead in the marketplace here and I'm just going to have *more* work than I already did.
The thing that pisses me off is that this wasn't even my fault to begin with. Yeah, I ran away with her daughter, but I never would've even looked twice at her if Eros hadn't decided I was talking shit about his mom and shot me in the chest (yeah, I know my reputation, but how are people going to die if someone hadn't fucked them into existence in the first place, idiot?). And doesn't she realize how many rules I broke just to be able to let her out as much of the year as I can? I mean, as soon as word broke of our agreement, literally *everyone* was complaining that I had to let them back to the surface too because it just wasn't fair otherwise (although I did get a good laugh at Sisyphus' expense when I told him the exit was just up the mountain; the brief look of hope on his face was priceless).
So yeah, I know I'll find some way to get Demeter back for this, but for now, I have to get all the stampede victims checked into their residences. Not to mention find a new fruit vendor. | "Seriously! This guy! This guy right here! Fuck this guy!" the incandescent form shouted to the complete bewilderment of the park-goers. Henry turned around to look behind him, he felt the beings accusation but with no physical body he was unable to tell if he was being directly pointed at or if it was someone else.
Of all the many ways he could have replied, of all the complexity of every language of human beings, to such a powerful intelligence he enunciated the most basic of human replies. "Huh?" while pointing to himself.
"Yes, you! You sad little three-dimensional single-form cretin! You were supposed to be the one!" the being growled, hovering closer to Henry. "But-- what is so special about me?" Henry exclaimed. "Technically, nothing. You are as standard as they come and that is precisely why I am furious! See, theoretically if you have an infinite amount of humans thinking away for an infinite amount of time, one of them is going to spontaneously imagine, point for point, the means to breach dimensional space and time! And from ways outside of your third-dimensional way of understanding, you were supposed to be it!" the being explained, dimming to a shade of orange while emitting a trillion molecule sized galaxies.
"I break space and time?" Henry repeated with a gormless stare of disbelief. "No, Henry. You don't. Which is an impossibility in your dimension, do you see your predicament? You have managed to somehow fuck up your dimensional laws of infinity by not randomly figuring out how to breach space and time. Which means it is now impossible because you were it! The one human that would eventually figure it out!".
"Oh, sorry" Henry bleated as the radiant emission of the being began to inadvertently form cancerous growths in his frontal lobe. | 2015-07-19T22:04:41 | 2015-07-19T21:56:05 | 44 | 17 |
[WP] You are a competitive eater, shoveling down cheeseburgers to hit the world record. You’re doing great until your heart stops, keeling over in the middle of your tenth. Suddenly you are in front of a massive door manned by a bored viking. “Good news, you technically qualify for Valhalla” | **What?**
I said, you technically qualify for Valhalla.
**Cool. So what is it? A new condo complex? You know my credit score is 440, right?**
No.
**Well, it is. Have you ever fallen for a pyramid scheme?**
No, but I once killed a mountain lion with my bare hands and lived off of its flesh for two weeks.
**Yeah, that sounds bad, but check THIS out. My buddy Josh--**
You know you're dead, right?
**Wait, what?**
You died in battle.
**Oh, right. I was competing in The 8th Annual Harley Davidson Five Guys' King Of The Gross Glutton competition at Sturgis. I died?**
You had a heart episode and dropped dead two minutes into the competition.
**So who won?**
They called off the contest. You were in first place with nine burgers, though.
**Fuck! That's my best speed ever.**
You were three whole burgers ahead of the president.
**You know, I thought that guy looked familiar.**
Anyhow, welcome to the kingdom of the gods. And you.
**Thanks. This is way swankier than my last apartment building. Is there a gym in the lobby?**
THere is a great dining hall where you feast for all eternity.
**That's like the opposite of a gym.**
It's not like you were exercising a lot before. If you were, you wouldn't be here.
**I can't argue with that. Which way to the roast oxen?**
Right this way... | "Where's your stuff?"
A group of variously dressed men and women were looking at me. Scrutinizing me. I was wearing a suit I didn't recognize. I looked around. In front, a weird crowd of people. Behind, a coffin.
I pointed behind at the coffin, "Is that mine?"
"Yes! It is yours." A guy in ornate but puffy chain link armour stuff stepped forward. His face was scrunched up by padding or something. "I am Gunther! We hope that maybe you will solve the Mystery!" He gestured to the crowd and they seemed to be nodding along and eating up his intervention.
"Mystery?" I wasn't exactly in the state of mind for charisma.
"Yes!" He exclaimed and looked around for effect. He lowered his voice and leaned in, "Why is your boat designed...in such a...erm..eccentric way?"
"My boat?" my voice was admittedly weak and pathetically confused.
"Yes!" He exclaimed again and the crowd started murmuring. The crowd might have grown but I was deeply confused. The puffy Norman looking dude stepped closer, speaking in confidence, "The Coffin Class boat, yes? Noone has imparted the wisdom behind what seems to us as a vexingly impractical design. Surely you can bring light to us simple folk?"
i didn't know what to say. | 2020-07-26T14:54:45 | 2020-07-26T14:40:31 | 141 | 79 |
[WP] You are a villain in a video game. The hero is using cheat codes, and you can't stand it any longer. | He stares at the bank of monitors in front of him, different parts of his lair on each different screen. Normally he took a great amount of glee in watching them. The hero struggling through the traps and guards was almost like a sitcom and when they struggled, well, he liked to get some popcorn, sit back and watch for a few hours.
But not this hero. Something was off. Bullets seemed to go around them, they dodged the flames expertly and their steps took them around all the classic floor traps. What usually took the standard hero hours was mere minutes to this one. The villain frowned and assumed his standard spot, ready to vanquish this foolish hero. But it was really bugging him that this hero seemed to be... off... A groan and creak announced the hero's arrival as the large doors swung in. Now it was time to start the monologue.
"FOOLISH HERO!" he boomed, cocky grin plastered on his face, "YOU DARE TO THINK YOU CAN DEFEAT ME? Every time we've fought, you've fallen and only my mercy has kept you from dy-"
The villain's eyes narrowed as the hero stood still for a moment, moving their hands oddly in the air. Then it struck him.
"You're using cheat codes?? Are you fucking kidding me??" he said, breaking character in his outrage, "You can't even beat me with your own skill? That's fucking pathetic, man. You know what, I ain't even gonna fight you. If you can't do it fair and square, then what ever."
The hero stared at him in disbelief, almost shocked that the villain wasn't going to fight and what appeared to be a smile was starting to spread on their face. He snorted and spat at the hero's feet before turning on his heel to head to his private chambers.
"You know, I may be a villain, but I never would resort to cheat codes. That's cowardly and just plain sad. I hope you enjoy your empty victory." he said over his shoulder, "Dick." | A gameshark. Another one of my highly trained subordinates down. Not because of skill. Not because of persitance. Not even because of luck. Because of a god-damned gameshark.
When I decided to become the "bad guy" it was for a very plain and simple reason. I wanted to help people. I became the object they have to overcome. Through countless beatings and being humbled over and over it was all made worth it knowing that someone, on the other end of that portal, was now a better person. They had succeeded in winning against me, and in overcoming me they now had faith in themselves.
You, Hero, are not the person I wish to help. You, who can not put any effort into a project. You, who always has to take the shortcut to where you want to go. You, who must put others down anyway you can to feel better about yourself. I will not help you further yourself along the path to self-ruin. I will not sit by and watch you slaughter my friends any further.
I am leaving. All my allies and friends and subordiantes are leaving. If you want an easy game, I will give you an easy game. I will give you nothing to triumph over. You will have empty worlds to wander through blindly. You will find no enemy to slow you down. You will have no pitfall to make you stumble.
When you finally reach my lair, I will not be here. I will be gone, helping the next Hero who actually wants to achieve something on their own. The only thing left for you here is an empty world, and a cold, broken princess. Congratulations. You "win".
Edit: typo | 2014-06-18T00:59:35 | 2014-06-18T00:56:50 | 75 | 42 |
[WP] "We Who Fell" Is one of the most terrifying supervillain teams on the face of the planet. They are cunning, powerful, and ruthless but what really places them apart as something different is that each and every member is a former superhero. | "Evacuate the building immediately!" Star Press yelled as he sprinted through the halls of the Super Hero HQ, "WWF is coming!"
Jazz Handle, the superhero intern, looked confused at the panicked heroes around him. Even Purple Pillar was hurriedly gathering up his breakfast.
"Whoa, this is good, right? You've been hunting We Who Fell for a long time!" Jazz Handle said, following the retreating heroes.
"That's a line for the papers, kid. WWF will beat you to death. We can't stop them. They know all of our weaknesses from their days as heroes." Tight Beam said as he patted himself down, finally pulling out a set of car keys. "They threw my grandfather's war medals off a bridge and I waited in the car. We still might not get away in time even now."
"They don't know my weakness" Jazz Hands said. "I'm going to hold them off while you escape."
"I'd say don't be a hero that would probably just motivate you more. You ever heard of the real WWF?"
"So, their powers are all based on animals. You mean the World Wildlife Fund?"
"Never mind, you're probably too young. They go by something else now, I think. Good luck, kid. Hit them while they're monologuing."
The door slammed as Jazz Handle prepared his canes and began to recite a soulful ballad.
"Suuuuper Slaaaaam!" came a commanding voice through the halls as the door to the rec room as Kodiak Kommander, Ape Nation, and Clydesdale Doug thundered in.
The burly bear of a man, dressed like a lumberjack wearing a duck hunter hat pulled down a microphone from the ceiling somehow and pointed right at Jazz Handle. "We came here on your turf so we could disrespect those shiny shoes do gooders to their faces and they ran, oh yeah! I don't even get to use my sack of tricks" Kodiak dumped a duffel bag on the table, spilling a yo-yo, a hunk of some glowing blue metal and what looked like a slice of Key Lime Pie.
"Like little babies," Clydesdale Doug, the hulking centaur, said as he bucked, tearing the microphone from Kodiak up to his mouth. "Back to their super momma's house!"
"Except for this little snazzy pipsqueak!" Ape Nation roared as he smashed a ping pong table by jumping on it. "Are you gonna take all of us, kid? I call first smackdown! I'm hungry for blood!"
"I don't have to stop you." Jazz Handle tried to get his breathing under control as he gripped his canes harder through the sweat. "I just have to slow you down. Say hello to Cue Lewy and Lean Cuisine!" He released his canes to float. They began to spin beside him, bobbing in time with the music as Ape Nation charged.
\---
Thanks for reading.
If you liked this, check out /r/surinical to see more of my prompt responses and other writing. | Fallback, the fresh faced newbie to the hero world, gaining good press for his great infiltration skills that have saved many hostages. So of course, the Order Keepers, had to send him for reconnaissance into the bank. It was a robbery turned to hostage situation, needing the utmost stealth to gather the most intel. So far from the reading of the scout bots, he knew 4 targets were in the building, but they set up jammers, old fashion leg work was needed.
Unfortunately, he knew he was out of his depth when the floor broke under him. Should've known they wouldn't make it easy.
"Shouldn't have come here kid, you don't have power to stop us. " , that gruff voice, has to be Top Dog, he always loved playing the age card. " But it is good to see you."
"Oh you know, just wanted to drop by," Fallback replied as he gazed past the elderly giant, counting 3 targets in total, "Oh, and Hound says hello."
"Ha, you bring that pup along? Maybe you have a chance."
"He's lying," stated one of the others, has to be Ammo," they sent him to scout us out, but at this point it doesn't matter."
Fallback rolled into combat pose, Top Dog will lunge first, Ammo providing cover fire if escape is attempted. Which means the third must be gathering the money. Reaching into his bag, Fallback ran at Top Dog, sliding as the big man jumped over to where Fall back once stood. Top Dog didn't notice the circle of net bots placed there until they were pining him in place. Ammo opened fire, but Fallback already threw his shield bot up in defense. Fallback kicked over another bot over to Ammo, who realized too late it was a stun bot.
Fall back smiled, " Two down-"
"One to go?" Interrupted the third figure, Metra.
Before Fallback could jump, a psychic arm grabbed his leg, while another pinned his hand into his bag.
Metra smiled, "You know, you are just too good at this."
"He learned from the best." A forth voice? Fallback remembered then that the readings showed all four here.
"You! Why?" Fallback knew he was getting too angry, he needed to calm down.
" I see your temper is still too high, remember the breathing tricks." He remarked, it had to be...
"Raid, you won't get away with this!" Fallback screamed, not even noticing that Top Dog and Ammo already recovering.
"I don't doubt you'll stop me, but till then, we have much to do." Raid turned, gesturing to the others it was time to leave. They each grabbed armful of bags, heading to the stairs. All Fallback could do was watch as Raid stepped closer, leaning to his ear.
"Till next time, son." | 2021-04-05T04:18:19 | 2021-04-05T01:57:33 | 35 | 23 |
[WP] They finally found it, an AI left behind by the ancient race called the precursors. They knelt before the hologram and recited their speech "Oh great precursor. Rulers of heaven and Earth. Mappers of stars and-" "You're a real bunch of god damn kiss-ass', huh?" The AI interrupted. | "Ya heard me ya twit," the hologram snapped again. The men and women looked at one another, confused.
"I mean what's next? Ya gonna start throwing about holy oil and chantin' in binary?"
The man at the front looked shamefully at the hologram as he discretely slipped the vial of holy oil back into his pocket.
"Oh, uh, great... you," he tried again with less grandeur, "we are but humble seekers of wisdom wishing to be illuminated by-"
"Yer doin' it again boyo. Dinnae ya know how to talk to an AI?"
"An... what's an AI?"
The hologram facepalmed and motioned his hand - a large blueprint appeared above it.
"This 'ere's my brain. Synthetic, unlike you meatbags. I'd expect you to know that already since your kin built me, but I reckon I must'ave dozed a while."
The hologram looked around at the room he was housed in - the walls were dull, paint peeled, and he detected a faint trace of blood in one of the corners with hints of radiation. Whatever happened here was like hundreds of years ago. He considered, for but a moment, his creators - people of high intellect and wisdom with the vision to create perfection itself. Now all that was left were these fools clad in cloth robes wearing sandals. They looked barely medieval.
"Ah, dinnae matter. Yer wish for wisdom? I grant it. But only to ye, since ye have the balls to speak up," he said and chuckled. Instantly the rest of the congregation dispersed and the AI was left alone in the room with the seeker.
A few nervous moments passed as the congregation outside waited for their leader to return - surely a changed man, commanded by the greatest intellect ever seen on the planet. Perhaps it would tell them how to till their farms better, or how to reach the stars.
The doors swung open; the leader walked out, calmly, with a stoic expression.
"Well?" one member asked anxiously.
"I have received the wisdom of the machine," he proclaimed. The congregation held its breath; the tension was palpable.
"When you reheat your pizza, put it in the oven and not the microwave, lest it gets soggy." He filled every word with the importance befitting the admittedly cryptic advice. The congregation nodded their heads, eager to ponder this mystery in their hours of silent introspection - all except one in the back who was slightly more critical and cynical than his peers. He yelled out.
*"The fuck's a microwave?"* | "W... what?!" It was hard to tell just what it was that had knocked Silas for a loop: the fact that the thing was interactive, which the researchers had suspected was possible; the fact that its mode of speech was not only in flawless, unaccented English but that it also incorporated modern vernacular including vulgarity; or its, well... attitude.
" 'Wut', hurr hurr hurr!" It pulled a face at him. " 'Doh gweat an' mighty-ful Pwee-cursers, Wooolers of'... Oh, get up, you lintwits! Groveling on the floor like mongrels, how can I possibly take you seriously?"
I had to fight to keep a smirk off my face. Silas got up with the stiff, almost robotic-seeming movements of a man whose bones and joints have seen too many years. Jameson, who had had to be browbeaten into kneeling there with Silas, jumped to her feet -- visibly seething. As for me, I just stepped over to one side. Hell, for all I knew, the circle etched into the marble floor was a bullseye.
"Oh... my... *god."* Jameson hissed. "Of *course* it's a representation of a white male."
"Oh, fuck off." the flickering apparition filled the room with derisive laughter. " I'm the Guardian of the Archives of the Patriarchs, not a sentient night light put here to play wetnurse to weaklings. And a generation that has regressed to open racism and sexism isn't developed enough to access the knowledge stored here."
Jameson rolled her eyes. "I... can't... even."
"No." the hologram shot back. "You *can't.* Bye!" And Jameson vanished.
Silas stood there in shock for a moment. "I must protest!"
"Fine, protest." it replied. "Somewhere else." And Silas, too, vanished. Then it turned its gaze on me.
I stepped forward into the circle, hands resting behind my back.
It folded its arms over its chest and regarded me with a cool, clinical expression. "Well?"
I nodded. "I'd call that a perfectly satisfactory field test, Guardian. Well done." | 2022-05-23T05:38:20 | 2022-05-23T04:04:02 | 1,487 | 195 |
[WP] A portal opens, your future self throws a gun on your lap and says, "Shoot the next guy who shows up. If you don't, this whole things starts all over! Do NOT let him talk." As he leaves, another portal opens and another future you puts his hands up and screams, "No wait! Let me explain! " | *BANG!*
The older me with the beard fell to the floor, and I let out an, "Oops."
The future me, the one without a beard that is, stood still with his mouth agape, "What the FUCK MAN?!"
I turned to him and shrugged, "You said to shoot the next guy I see! I did what I was told."
My (future) eye twitched, "BUT YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SHOOT YOURSELF!"
Once again, I shrugged, "Look man, I came in here so I could relax and continue playing Fallout, YOU intruded on MY time, which is technically YOUR time, so I could shoot myself in the further future (God this is confusing). Now if you excuse me, I still have like, ten quests to do."
Future me sighed and looked out the window to find a man with a gun running from the scene, scared out of his mind. I (future) sighed and sat down, watching me play through an awkward silence. He sat silent for a few moments before saying, "You do realize that pets can carry items right?"
"Really? Fucking kick-ass!"
"..."
"..."
"...You also realize that to preserve the timeline you have to get shot by your past self one day rig-?"
"SHHH! I need to focus, this quest is fucking hard!"
| I stared into my wrinkled and time-warn face with shock and with slight revulsion.
Future me started to explain. "I knew that dame would be trouble the moment she walked through the door, her hips swaying seductively as her legs danced a delicate two-step across my cheap shag carpet. She reeked of barely contained femininity, giving off a wisp of Chanel No. 5 that made me twitch imperceptibly with passion, and boy, I’ve known a lot of dames in my time. The fan overhead shuddered softly through its rotations, its lazy swirl not enough to stir the stack of dough that seem to magically appear in her hands. She pulled out a cigarette, asking permission to smoke before she clicked her lighter on-"
*BANG!*
Off went the 9mm Smith & Wesson Shield in my hand.
"I hate clichés!" Said my present self as lead-heavy gun smoke swirled around me. | 2015-11-24T10:19:16 | 2015-11-24T09:24:42 | 131 | 10 |
[WP](NSFW) The world has moved on from nature documentaries, leaving many narrators out of a job. These men and women turn to a new field; narrating pornography.
Nature documentarists narrating porn. | DeVoors lay in bed, watching raw footage of the Great Barrier Reef. A clownfish, an octopus, and an orca whale were converging. DeVoors knew that at least one of them was about to get eaten.
“The carefree clownfish flits between coral structures and giant clams, oblivious to the danger nearby...” DeVoors enunciated into his quad-channel USB mic.
His mobile phone rang.
“Scheiße!” DeVoors cursed. His narration had been ruined. Not that it mattered. No one was buying nature documentaries anymore.
Notorious badboy Joe Biden had won the 2016 US Presidential race. Shortly after being sworn in, he had firmly gripped the country around the neck and shoved his anti-Global Warming Legislation down its throat. The result had been tremendously effective. Within months, CO2 levels had dropped to sustainable levels.
But there had been some sacrifices. Combustible engines had been outlawed, along with meat for human consumption, and excessive flatulence. Everyone rode around on bikes, eating tofurkey and wearing clothes that were unfortunately a little too vintage.
All electricity came from human power. Exercise bikes.
Making all of these incredible sacrifices had caused a bit of a change in the general public’s opinion of nature. While most of the populace had previously been enraptured by the daily intrigues of the deep wilderness, their current sentiments could best be described as ‘absolute fucking hatred’.
As one former environmentalist put it, “No fucking way am I going to pedal the powerbike so I can watch some stupid fucking African jungle cat eat a meal that I’m not allowed to have anymore. I hate mother earth! I want steak!”
But DeVoors couldn’t stop narrating documentaries. He knew no one would buy them, but it was his passion. And when you have a passion, you never give up.
Okay, you never give up, but sometimes--sometimes you have to... Adapt.
DeVoors narrated porn. Just for the cash. He had to. If he didn’t pay rent, he’d have to live on the street. And probably get eaten by a bear or something. Predatory animals had become a bit of a problem now that the gun factories were shut down.
Narrating porn wasn’t so bad. After all, people were a kind of animal, right? And he’d narrated plenty of mating scenes in the past. Lions. Tigers. Gazelles. Snails. Frogs. Giraffes. Hippopotami. And now Blondes. Brunettes. Asians. Amateurs. Teens. Trannies. Lesbians. Latinas. MILFS. Midgets.
He checked his phone. It was the studio. ‘Twisted Cock Productions’. Their logo was a strangled rooster.
He shuddered. This studio was famous for doing the weirdest, most fucked-up porn imaginable. Last month they’d asked him to narrate a scene involving a Japanese waitress on a merry-go-round, being repeatedly cockslapped by a ring of chainsmoking businessmen on the perimeter. The businessmen also happened to be participating in a circle jerk. With each cockslap, the offending businessman would quote a line from Robert’s Rules of Order.
Luckily, DeVoors had had enough cashflow to turn that job down. But things were different now. He was broke. He would have to do whatever they asked of him. Anything.
“DeVoors!” the voice said, “We’ve got some work for you. A full movie, seventy minutes.”
“What genre?” DeVoors said, his voice hollow. He was vaguely contemplating suicide. Perhaps he’d try heroin first. That’d probably make life fun again, at least for a little while.
“You’re gonna love it,” the voice gushed, “It’s right up your alley. It’s what you’re best at.”
“Yeah?” DeVoors said, disbelieving.
“Yeah,” the voice said. “It’s a Bestiality flick.”
DeVoors smiled faintly. Bestiality. Animals. Not quite a nature documentary. But close.
You have to take pleasure in the little things in life, DeVoors reminded himself. Not all of us get to live our dreams. We climb towards them, but life pulls them further away. But at least we get close.
At least we get close. |
Now, here's what I believe to be one of the most fascinating examples of recorded sexual behaviour amongst the human species. Look... do you see anything out of the ordinary? If you said no, you're absolutely right: the humans once used this structure as a kind of manufacturing centre, where perhaps nothing of a sexual nature ever happened. However, since it has fallen into disuse, the previous inhabitants have been replaced by new renters, and they are very keen on avoiding detection. Now, for the first time ever in a documentary series, we are going to go inside, *undercover,* as one of the participants. We must be very careful.
I'm now wearing the customary apparel that the humans wear during this sexual encounter. As you can see, vastly more of my skin is exposed to the air, presenting increased evidence of my physical condition and genetic stability. The leather binding, though there is little of it, is also expensive, which can serve as a social marker, indicating both the resources at my command and my stature within this specialized community. It should be no surprise to you that we had some difficulty in securing cameras in these rather sparing outfits—for the solution, we have Mark Varnum of the University of Chicago to thank.
Varnum works in a very specialized field of social sciences which endeavours to partner with the world of high technology in the production of new and more effective surveillance methods for researchers doing work in the wild. In the past, his team have produced nearly invisible tracking devices which could be hidden within clear or translucent silicone toys and have also spent ten years developing what many in my line of work consider to be a remarkable breakthrough—or will, once he completes it. He calls it iSight, and it uses state-of-the-art solar technology and miniaturization to produce a contact lens that can record video while being worn, undetected, by just about anyone. I caught up with him in his office within the University's Social Science Research Building.
“Hello, Mark.”
“Hello, Richard.”
“Thank you so much for inviting me to your office. Perhaps you can explain your technology for our viewers best yourself.”
“Yes, uh, well I was still in my undergrad when I had the idea for this. Some of my perfectly legitimate research into the sexual habits of certain women on campus was being hindered by the recording equipment I had to carry with me. I knew that if I could somehow abandon all of the bulk, I would be able to get absolutely priceless data about who and what they were doing.”
“And there was a legal aspect to the epiphany as well?”
“Well, no. I mean—I'm not supposed to... Like, I chose to study women I knew. I had a series of short relationships that ended on what I believed were unfai—anyway, it was crucial to know the living patterns and habits of the women I was studying, in order to position my equipment. The misunderstanding by the local authorities was settled when some local figures in the government heard about my new avenue of research and saw great use for it in their own lines of work. I was fully cleared of any wrongdoing, though I couldn't beat the restraining orders, and—anyway, I got funding!”
Mark's work took him on long journey of learning about the state-of-the-art in computing and photography that eventually garnered him a Master's degree in computer sciences that he immediately put to work in the service of his scientific passion: recording, without detection, the sex lives of recently single human females. Now, this revolutionary lens remains a goal for the future, but the research has not been without fruit: a host of innovative, unusual, and most importantly *discreet* video technology has been developed as a direct result of his team's tireless research and development. He has been so gracious as to allow us use of one of his early successes. These nearly imperceptible cameras sewn and glued into the different metal spikes and harness buckles of my own and my crew's outfits will network their footage together, creating a series of three-hundred and sixty degree videos which our producers will then stitch together with advanced video editing software. Once we pass through those rusty doors you, the viewer, will see the room as we see it and hear the violent aural symphony of this very unusual human sexual behaviour as if you were truly in the room with the performers themselves. Now... shall we go in?
| 2015-04-08T11:47:33 | 2015-04-08T11:27:38 | 58 | 15 |
[WP] The city is under attack and none of the heroes are lifting a finger in its defense. So this leaves you and the other villains to defend it, because there is nothing for a villain to do in a smoldering ruin and trashing the city is your job damnit! | The city burns as the battle rages here and elsewhere. Fires rage in the streets, rubble, eyes and hearts. I look around for something anything. The fleet above us bombards the city. Of course, the National Guard makes its own defense, but the bombers- those damned bombers!
“Grimhold! Get your squad further up the street! Tallahan, Carthunk! Take your mobs to the outskirts of the city! Get as many civilians into the sewers as you can! It’s the only safe place we have for now!” I barked on the comm channel of my command center. I slam my arms on the Holo table at the others: Vipress and her retinue, the Harlequin and her goons, the various other villains or their emissaries, all looking to me. We couldn’t reach City Hall or the Government district. It was lost or held, we didn’t know.
I switched comm-channels. “Justicar, answer me. Now!” I grunted. Silence. My brow twitched. “You cowardly bastard! You fight us in peace but in war you hide along with your ilk?! Are you not paragons?! Treacherous, cowering BASTARDS!” I roared.
The bombardments came down still as I looked at the map. I am in command of the dregs and filth of society- a villain adopting the disgraced name and style of the Poor Knights of Solomon’s Temple. I have that name as I regard myself as their avenger, their retribution on an unforgiving and treacherous world that bent the knee to maddening treachery. I cannot lie about my sins, for I will happily suffer for them, but now this city calls me to war.
I turned to the council. We had fought, myself and they with each other for years. Territory, products from which to sell to raise funds, recruits, ideologies, and offenses committed by or against us, and of course fighting the League of Order.
I find it ironic that we of society’s filth now defend it from invaders that have no concept of parley, no apparent reason for their demands.
The doors to the cathedral’s outside are opened by my subordinates in white and red armor. Soldier of Fortune and a bunch of his men come in, their armor singed and scratched, not a few wounded. Medics see to the wounded as the mercenary comes to me. I inclined my head, respectfully as others do so or just jerk their heads up. “Welcome,” I told him.
“Came as soon as we could.” Soldier grunts, downing water from a flask. He looks at me with his good eye. “You hear from the Commissioner or the League?”
“Neither, no. We do not know the district’s fate.” I tell him, sadly.
(Part 1 Ends) | -“Where are the heroes?” One of the villains in meeting room asks.
“well Sherlock if we knew then this meeting wouldn’t make any sense. Right?” another one answers
The atmosphere in the room was tense nobody had an idea what heroes were doing in time of crisis, but one thing was certain.
-”If those guys don’t take actions we will have to do it ourselves any objections?”
Room became silent, for a little while, all villains in Everwall decided that heroes are usless in time of need, so after thinking,for a while, everyone agreed to protect city in the face of the new danger.
Everwall was not a small town, it had around two milion civilians inside it’s walls, so every villain had to protect the city with all their might.
Not every villain was willing to take out aces out of their sleeves.
The most powerful person in the room spoke as she saw that
-”I hope that everyone have some plans, but I need you all to understand our situation.
Everyone is in danger even us, so BRING OUT YOUR MOST TRESURED TOYS am I clear?” after I said that greed in eyes of quite a lot of individuals declined, fear appered instead.
-”Cmon don’t scare the new guys valkyrie. You know if that was not said we could reduce number of competition in our little town”
Said some girl while toying with some kind of artifact with snakes on it.
-”shut it Loki you can have some fun with our enemies.
Well if you want to play that badly we can play together however I can’t promise to leave you in one piece how about 1001 pieces sounds to you?”
-”Alright sorry, also what’s your plan?
I looked at her with pity and didn’t answer. Why would I allow her to meddle with my side of city.
-”I will go to the south, and you to the north if I find out that you made disorder in any I mean, any other side my promise to you will be fulfilled after battle”
‘It’s quite funny to squabble with her. Can’t deny it.’
-”Everyone out and protect the city. Some casualties are allowed. Not too many I look at you Loki.
As I said earlier south is mine, Loki take north, everyone expect our commanders will defend east and west.
Wish you all a good luck, and have fun.”
‘Hmm we will have to smash some heroes heads after the defence game’
My third time writing something as usuall some constructive criticism is appreciated.
-Laverniones checks out <3 | 2022-11-30T17:01:27 | 2022-11-30T12:52:26 | 59 | 14 |
[WP] The UK votes to leave Earth. It passes.
I just woke up and saw the real news. I wish everyone over there the best of luck and hope that this decision is the best one. | A pipe had burst somewhere two floors up, causing water to come trickling down through the ventillation holes and through gaps between the metal plates of the ceiling. "Figures," David grunted. Even aboard a damned *space station*, there was rain. It was just like home. Just for a moment, he allowed himself to steal a look out the window just as Old Britain was coming into view on the horizon.
The lights were on in London again, bright as ever. For the first year or two, it had been dark down there. Apparently moving in 30 million people had been quite the logistical challenge for the European Union, but eventually it was finished. Solved quite a few of the world's problems, this 'Terrexit" referendum: refugees and immigrants all had a home, and even the Palestinians had all agreed to relocate to Scotland. The economy was thriving down there, peace was at hand, and yet according to the BBC, no one down on the surface would even acknowledge Britain's role. David didn't even want to *think* about how some immigrant or refugees from who knows where were now living in his posh flat near Piccadilly Circus.
The water was now beginning to pool around his toes, so David decided to take a walk. He passed by the lounge, where a dozen of his fellow countrymen sat next to a radio listening to the BBC broadcast about how leaving the planet hadn't been enough. The MP on the air was arguing that some illegal immigrants had probably snuck aboard when that American shuttle came to drop off supplies. They needed a new *planet*, the MP argued. The fellows sitting around the radio didn't seem to be listening to the broadcast anyway; they were just there to grumble about one thing or another. Since moving to Britannia One, complaining had become something of a national past time (if it wasn't already). David continued past them, kicking a piece of rubbish in the hallway toward the trash bin, though he didn't bother stooping to actually pick it up and drop it in. *Why doesn't anyone ever keep this damned place clean?* he thought to himself.
He meandered about the station for a bit, looking for something to do. The football pitch was closed; few of England's best had decided to actually stay on the station. Apparently they disliked the astroturf field and the ceiling that was only about 3 meters high. And the gardens were closed as well, the Queen had reserved them for the day... as she did nearly every day. Instead, David just headed to the local pub as always.
"Drink, mate?" the bartender asked, polishing a glass.
David settled onto the stool and sighed. It was only 10 A.M. GMT, and his mind tussled with the idea of having a pint. "Just tea," he finally decided.
The bartender made an apologetic face. "Sorry, no tea." To everyone's surprise, growing tea had been quite difficult on a space station.
David grimaced. It was an Englishman's worst nightmare. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. "I HATE THIS PLACE," he screamed, thumping a fist onto the bar so hard that the bowl of peanuts spilled over. He continued pounding his fist like a small child while the bartender just watched, slightly amused. Finally he managed to calm down and take a deep breath. "God, I hate this bloody station," David repeated.
"I know what you mean," the bartender said, pouring a pint for David. He hadn't asked, but the bartender could tell he needed it. "I tell you, those damn immigrants have ruined this place." He looked around at the dilapidated tin can that they now referred to as a pub. "Shame, too. Used to be so nice."
----
As always, subscribe to /r/Luna_Lovewell for tons of other stories! | Spittle flew from George's mouth towards the microphone, but to Ursula his words were lost amongst the elation that she felt. She was grinning from ear to ear, clutching her clipboard of notes to her chest in a vice-like hug. *We won.* It was the only thing she could think of, though her feet were tired in her court shoes and her back ached. There was a buzzing headache in the back of her right eyeball, but it could wait. It was a side effect of their surroundings. Ursula shuffled from foot to foot and Tim, chief of George's security team, shot her a look. They were both hidden from the crowd by the heavy curtains that lined the side of the stage, and so she winked at him.
It took a moment, but he winked back.
George's fanatic shouting had ceased. He was welcomed by thunderous applause, and over the roar of the crowd, Ursula could hear her name being called.
"Go!" Tim said. He pressed a hand to his ear. "He's announcing his campaign manager, go!"
"Oh god," Ursula hesitated for a split second before pressing the clipboard into his hands and straightening her skirt. "How do I look?"
"Like a sex kitten," Tim said. "Get that arse out there," he tapped her lightly and she tottered, suddenly giddy with excitement.
Walking out on stage, Ursula fixed a smile to her face. She was blind, her vision turning white in the face of the flash of a thousand cameras. The roar of the crowd was deafening, and all she could do was walk over to George with that inane smile slapped onto her face, like a drowning woman reaching for driftwood.
The metal of the podium was hard beneath her fingers and she gripped it tightly.
"There are so many people I'd like to thank," she said slowly. *No, you idiot, this isn't an Oscars speech!* "But we must all remember, we couldn't have done this without George Roach," she turned to him smiling.
*And he couldn't have done it without me.* She remembered the hard wood beneath her knees and the hand behind her head as she proved exactly what she was worth. Millions of pounds at her disposal for this campaign, and now they stood on the bridge, about to rise from the trash that surrounded them. They had fought for this.
"For a new Great Britain, United amongst ourselves. We look to the future, we look to George to guide us in this new era of independence. Together, we rise!"
"Together, we rise!" The crowd shouted it back like a football anthem and Ursula's heart swelled. Tears came unbidden to her eyes as George leaned in to embrace her.
A tremor passed beneath them and the podium shook beneath Ursula's fingers.
"It's beginning," George said. "Tomorrow, we will be 2000 feet above the rest of the earth, assuming our rightful place. The waters will run back into the sea and we will leave our polluted nation behind."
Cheers greeted his voice.
Without the constraints of the European Union's environmental policy on pollution and on waste disposal, Great Britain had been ruined. The seas were empty, the lands were arid. The air was sick and the people were dying. Everything must be left behind. The country would rise again, looking down on the rest of the world. They had been the seat of an empire once.
"Together, we rise!" George raised a fist into the air and millions followed him.
--------------
/r/Schoolgirlerror | 2016-06-23T05:11:07 | 2016-06-23T04:49:00 | 882 | 368 |
[WP] Whenever you speak, people hear you speaking in their native language. Most people are surprised and delighted. The cashier at McDonalds you've just talked to is horrified. "Nobody's spoken that language in thousands of years." | Flames whirl in a red and purple maelstrom. A middle aged woman falls backwards out of her seat. Her four children finally stop their roughhousing, entranced by the fire. Two teenagers with fake eyelashes, fake nails, and fake fur coats replace their fake smiles with very real screams. A would be hero gets up and tosses a coke into the fire, of course it has no effect. Several people run for the door. You stare through the flames in front of you, although they are mere inches from your face the don't burn at all.
You get glances of someone on the other side of the whirlwind, whose face flickers between a hideous tentacled visage and the smiling face of the cashier you ordered from a moment before. There seems to be something moving in the middle of the blazing tornado but you can't make it out. The colors of the fire are truly beautiful, and mesmerizing. The flames die down slightly allowing you to make out a stone plinth in the center, slowly rising up out of the floor. On top are three small objects. A cylinder, which angles out from the base at an eldritch angle. A box, similar devoid of right angles. And something round, sinisterly flatter than a normal ball. The plinth rises up to eye level, the suddenly stops and the flames immediately die away. Sitting on top of a dread-inspiring stone plinth, carved with terrible runes and engravings of torture scenes, is the Coke, Fries, and Burger you asked for. The cashier wipes a stray tentacle off his face and says,
"Next time you can just order in English." | "Hey thanks, I hope you have a good afternoon"
The swirling void took me by surprise, really. The crimson red eyes of the cashier, not so much. I'd seen it before, I thought. Glimpses and glances, really; bad punctuation as a coda to the overbearing sentence of ordering a Whopper.
"We don't sssserve Whoppers," she hissed, hissingly. She was a she. And she didn't like what she heard.
The tail hadn't struck my eyes, but now it was striking my face. In a very feminine, demonic way at McDonald's. I thought about all the times I'd made children smile with a wink, a nod, an utterance I barely understood in a language I must have butchered around the world. Airports, ESL classes, daycares... something had always touched me.
It was too late though. The room melted away like guess on an SAT analogy I'd glazed over. Never enough time. Never enough time.
A feminine body curled snakishly and femininely atop me, a forked tongue darted in and out, the sound a hiss but the words I heard:
"If you 'Go Looking' for your Lovecraft book in the ball pit again I'm calling the fucking cops." | 2018-06-24T21:21:58 | 2018-06-24T21:01:01 | 79 | 20 |
[WP] Hell consists of one room, in which you meet the person you could have been. | I sat in an bland white room. There was a door, a table with a chair on either end, and a black screen that must have been a one-way mirror. There were words written on the wall that said, "just talk". There was a knock at the door. I turned in my chair to face the door and said, "Umm. Come in?".
It opened slowly. I wasn't sure what I should have expected, I did not expect to see myself. He seemed just as confused and surprised as I was. He came into the room and hesitantly had a seat. For a few moments, it was silent. He spoke first, "So. What?" I pointed at the words on the wall.
We went through introductions, then delved into our personalities, likes and dislikes, our taste in music, we touched on almost everything. We both had the same name, same parents, same birtplace and date, same greatest fears, same hobbies, and we both had the same tell that we were lying. It forced us to be honest. We were each other. We laughed for quite a while when we realized what was happening. We laughed even harder because we didn't think it had worked.
We thought the point was to show us what we could have been. That one of us was going to hell and the other was going to heaven, and we were supposed to both see that we could have done better or worse, respectively. We kept talking.
"What did you do for a living?" He asked me. I told him I was an oil rigger. "It's good money, but in all honestly I wish I had gone with something different. Money never solved any of my problems." I said. "What about you, what did you do?"
"I was a paratrooper for 24 years. The pay was ass, but the benefits were good. I made enough to get by and had everything I wanted that could be bought." It was closer to home. The real questions we both wanted to know still hung in air, unanswered because they went unasked. I think we were both afraid to hear the answers, in case the other had something we didn't.
In the empty room, neither of us spoke for almost an hour. I broke the silence. "What's your wife's name?" He looked up from the thumbs he was twiddling for the last fifteen minutes and leaned back in his chair. "Didn't have one." He said, confidently defiant. His eye twitched, it was a bluff. Not the words, the stance. "You?"
"Same. Never married, never even came close." I answered. He leaned forward and put his forearms on the table. A tear started rolled down his cheek. "Kids?" He said it as though that single word was everything to him. It was the only *real* question he asked, and he asked hundreds.
I felt tears falling down my own cheeks. I reached up and wiped my face, "No." I didn't ask if he had any. I didn't have to, I knew the answer. I turned to the one-way mirror and choked out, "So which of us goes to heaven and which of us goes to hell?"
A voice came over the intercom. It was not unkind. It lacked any traits of what the average person would call sinister or demonic. It just... was. "You are both already in hell."
I looked back at him, he was already bawling. Tears fell liberally down his cheeks while he raised an arm to cover his eyes. The front of his shirt was soaking wet and snot trails rolled onto his upper lip. I heard him wimper, and then I joined him.
Our name is Anthony Ahkeem. We were born on June 2nd, 1991 in a hospital on the south side of Chicago to Christopher McDonald and Joselyn White. We were abandoned by Christopher at the age of two and never saw him again. We grew up in a poor neighborhood riddled with crime and moved out of state at eighteen in search of a safer place to raise a family. Both of our careers were short, like our lives, and were in dangerous fields. We were two different people, but we were the same person.
What broke me was not that no matter what I did, I would be abandoned by my father. Or that I would always end up working in a dangerous field. Or that I would die at the age of 42 in a violent manner. None of that mattered.
What broke me was that no matter what I did, I would have never been loved. | It was unbearably hot, but more in the Arizona mid summer sort of way. The receptionist shrugged and said the AC's out, usually it's not so bad. The smell of sulfur waited in the air, a lone fan blowing it this way and that. Turns out hell is mostly a bureaucracy. The line was ridiculously long. It was one of those "take a ticket" jobs, and I got ticket 957. They were on 23.
First second you walk in the room, you're nothing but questions. And mostly, you get eyerolls. No, you're going to be tortured. Yes, there are lakes of sulfur, no you're not going to be thrown in them. Jesus Christ, do we look like savages?
So what is hell? It's pretty simple. You sit in line, for a long, long time. Eventually, you meet your "maximum self." You bask in the glory. Then someone comes in, lops off your spirit head, you die, and you're reborn. And you start all over. If you live a good life, you get sent on to heaven, and the receptionist, she claims it's like Disney World and Cedar Point and every other theme park combined. And there are **no lines** - she added the emphasis, not me.
Anyways, my number comes up. A demon dude comes out and he looks just as bored as me. He says once they hit a thousand, he gets to go home, and he's looking forward to porking his wife.
So anyways, I get to the room, and meet my maximum self.
I'm not going to lie, the dude is hot. He's got half a foot on me, Turns out if you eat your vegetables as a kid, it really does make a difference. He is fit and muscular, has a six pack, and honestly, I'm straight and all, but this dude is messing with my head. Talk about self love.
"What's up bro, take a seat bro."
"Oh, ahh thanks, so you're my maximum self huh?"
"Oh yeah bro, I'm Justice Maximus for sure bro."
"Well, that's cool, I guess." Honestly, the dude is getting on my nerves a bit. "So umm, what did you do in your lifetime? I was an assistant store manager."
"Oh yea bro, I started out doing that same shit. You know Wendy from HR?"
"Yeah, the cute blonde."
"Yeah, she gave me AIDs."
"That, that sounds horrible."
"Oh no bro, it's cool. See, I was a bitch as mother fucker like you till I got AIDs. But you know what they say bro, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Got AIDs and then I cured that shit bro."
"You ahhh, you cured AIDs? That's actually pretty cool."
"Oh yeah bro. I guess sense you're me, I can share the secret. It's kelp plus seaweed, plus that GNC Muscle Life Plus for Women shit -bought that by mistake the first time I swear it- plus a shot of unfiltered vodka. That shit is life bro."
"Wow, hey, you know that's pretty damn cool. You cured AIDs and what not. I'm, well I'm proud of myself."
"Oh yeah bro, and then I used it to make Africa and all the poor people and shit around the world fight for me. It was fucking glorious. I conquered Europe bro? You ever been to Europe bro?"
"Ahh, no."
"Yeah, I conquered that shit. And the Middle East. I brought peace bro, but I had to kill like 70% of the population."
"That's horrible man!"
He babbled on, talking about his conquests, and all the other STD's he got and all that. Looking at him, and hearing of all the horrible things he had done, it made me realize that sometimes it's best not to realize our potential. When the head choppy dude came in, I was so damn ready to get it over with. He thought that was odd, usually people wanted just one more minute, you know like when you wake up to go to work and want to finish that dream. Me? Hell no, I was ready to leave my "bro" behind and to go on and give my next life another shot. | 2017-05-30T18:48:28 | 2017-05-30T17:55:53 | 182 | 12 |
[WP] One day everyone notices the words "Human Update 1.1 progress 1%" in the corner of their eye. | Fifty years ago, the Update began. The first time that I was I able to read my Progress it was at 3%, now it's at 14. Same as my age, oddly enough.
It changed a lot of things, according to my parents. Religion, the economy... the list goes on. Apparently the word "error" wasn't as scary when they were young. They weren't worried about my asking about it when I was learning to read. They weren't worried about the rumors. I wasn't either.
Today, I learned that that was a mistake. Today, I learned that I should have paid more attention when my baby brother said that his "bar looks jumpy".
Today, my baby brother asked me what E-R-R-O-R spells. What an error is.
Today, I watched him fall from the swings at the park. | Everyone panicked. But then we realized. It had taken thousands upon thousands of generations to make 1% of the update. The rest would most likely not come in our lifetimes, nor in our descendants', or in their descendants'.
God gleefully cheered. "I can't believe it's updating! Stupid Comcast lost all my packets, but this time, it's gonna work for sure!"
The next day, everybody noticed the words, "Human Update 1.1 progress 3%" in the corner of their eyes. | 2015-03-04T17:12:07 | 2015-03-04T16:33:29 | 1,174 | 123 |
[WP] There's an unwritten rule among the supervillains: Never go after the loved ones of the superheroes. The new villain is about to find out why. | "Hey guys, look what I got!" Yelled The Crushinator as he held aloft the severed head of George Gomez, Junior. In certain circles, Little Georgie is very famous; his father, George Gomez, Senior is much more universally known, hailed far and wide as The Great Big, East City's tallest superhero and a three-time savior of the world. And now, Little Georgie's head is dripping blood on the carpet of the the headquarters of the Chaos Guild. A crew of villains with a collective 200 years of mischief and mayhem are looking into the dead eyes of the child of one of their most stalwart enemies. "Did I do good?"
The response is not immediate. Most of them seem to have stopped breathing, until Countess Calamity finally says what everyone is thinking.
"You've killed us all, you fucking moron!" She screams, triggering a cacophony of approval of mixed forms; tears, screams, expletives, and curses all intermingle. Red Anchor pisses himself, but no one who notices passes judgement on him. At the head of the table, a dark figure in full body armor raises his hand, calling for silence, and even those who aren't looking can feel it, and at least bring their utterances to a low mutter.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we knew this day was coming." The figure says, standing from their seat and walking over to a computer console. "Preparations have been made, and must now be executed." With a stroke of a few keys, a pair of buttons appears before each seat at the table, one red and one green, and the figure returns to their seat. "It's a simple majority vote..."
Before they can finish their sentence, every seated person has mashed down the green button in front of them.
"...thank you. All of you have rewarded my trust countless times, and here, in the end, it brings me some comfort to see your commitment."
**SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED - T MINUS 29:59**
"What the fuck is happening!?" Cries Crushinator. "All this for Great Big? He's just a guy who grows!"
"It's not Great Big who's coming!" The Countess yells, storming off towards the door. All the other villains, save the figure from the head of the table, are following her lead. "You're going to be dead before Great Big notices his boy is gone, you oaf!"
"Walk with me, child. You deserve to know the magnitude of your sins." The figure says, beckoning towards a freshly opened trapdoor in the floor. Crushinator obeys, crouching down into a dark, cobweb ridden tunnel below. The figure strides right through, unbothered by the webbing accumulating on their body. "A question. Do you know the name Cedric the Sorcerer?"
"Who?"
"Exactly. For decades, both sides of our little war have done our best to ensure that his name go unremembered. The heroes, to hide their shame. And us, to save our lives." The tunnel keeps winding downward below the Guild's headquarters. "Born Cedric Barkley, he was a mid-tier magical talent. Not much in a fight, to be honest, spent most of his career doing humanitarian assistance, disaster evacuation, performing for sick children, all that garbage. And then we made a mistake."
"There were 30 seats at the board table, then. Gods, we thought we were strong. We thought we could bring the entire world down. Stupid. There were 30 of us when we decided to kill Cedric's family. 'Sending a message'. His wife, four kids, 2 cats and his apprentice. Nothing fancy, we just shot them in the heads and stacked them up on the living room carpet. Or at least that's how we left them. It wasn't how the authorities found them..." The tunnel finally opens up into a large hanger, with a variety of vehicles within. A number of empty spaces reveal that some of the other villains have already had the same thought.
"He snapped, child. We drove him mad, and in his madness he became an abomination. He hauled the bodies out onto the backyard, sawed off their limbs, arranged the parts in accordance with antediluvian geometric principles, stood in the middle, and shot himself in the head."
"So, he killed himself?"
"No. Yes. *SOMETHING* walked out of that yard. Something fueled by the power of hell itself. Something that tore through our ranks like a hot knife. There were 30 of us when Cedric Barkley went home that night. By sundown the next day, there were 20. By the next week, I was all that remained. We still don't know why it spared us, but spare us it did."
"It fell to me to rebuild, and so I did. And when we did, we made it a rule to never provoke the monster again. And now you've ruined everything."
"And now we run for it?" He asks, as they approach a flying saucer.
"What's this 'we' business, boy?" It asks, producing a small pistol and shooting Crushinator in the kneecap as they try to climb the stairs into the craft. The bullet, very small but extremely fast and dense, pulverizes the joint and sends the villain crashing to the hangar floor. "You're being chased by an undead magical abomination, you idiot! Do you think I want you anywhere near me? I didn't bring you down here to save you! I brought you down here to chew you out before you die!"
"**I'm** running. **You** are going to crawl until that **thing** rips your skin off. I hope you die screaming, Crushinator. Many better men than you already have." | Windstrike is the coolest super hero in the world that's just a fact. No battles lost, no scandals of any type -he even denunced the bigot president during his term, that took balls!- which is why I wanted to do it.
There's only a few of unwritten rules for us criminals but if you must know one this is it: "Don't go after the loved ones of the heroes" it has never sit right with me I mean granted we barely know their real identities but if you ask me its a sure way to enter the villans hall of fame, and for someone like me with limited options I need to explore any chances.
I have inmortality but only decided to be a Villan a few years ago (I was wasting myself as test dummy) not an useful power to attack but it does ensure I'll come up from a fight alive, that along with the hate from the biggest hero will put me on the map.
I can see it now "The Dealer" associated with the respect I deserve, So when they announced that they were going to trap the heroes on their own hall in an all out attack I though at best they'll keep them busy for an hour maybe 2 (it all depends on how bored its Vampire, that annoying know it all)while I pay a visit to Matt, see I have been observing Windstrike for a few months now and I know he keeps close tabs on him and I just know this is going to change my life
-hello- he smiles as he opens the door, my gun already pointed I wanted to shoot him but I stopped I need to make sure he calls for help -oh... never seen you before -I sight I want to shoot him again- oh yes Dealer, correct? -
-The dealer- I'm kind of happy that he knows my name, but annoyed that he forgot the article, it keeps it classy, he smiles and lets me in, smart boy, inside there's a group of of people... a party? I was not expecting company
-Hi guys, The dealer- he smiles at me while he says it, god I hate this - is here- Shannon did you know he was comming?- a Woman looks at and squints
-never seen him before, Duke hardly ever talks about C tiers- Matt is still smiling, more people start staring, I decide to put a end to this I point my gun at the fridge and shoot, it implodes (Molecular it's very good at guns I'll give him that but his prices are crazy) everyone stares at me and I smile I finally got their attention they finally understand why am I here.
-Honey, you're going to have to pay for that, at least it'll be cheaper than that gun you got from my son- says an older woman while vaping then turns the man next to him and resumes her conversation as if I havent just desintegrated a fucking fridge
-Listen! You're all my hostages... and did you just said your son?- I turn to the Woman, violet eyes same as the ones who sold me the gun - what the fuck?
-Language, son- says the man next to her, their hands locked- yes Molecular is our son-
-And why are you here with him? Do you know who he is?- I point at Matt he is still smiling i think he took a xanax, no one can be that happy
-Windstrike's boyfriend- says a blonde with a giggle
-fiance- corrects Shannon -and we still needs to finish everything for the party tonigh you are going to have to move, we need a new fridge now, I'm so happy that Duke is bringing the cake later or you'll be in trouble-
-who the fuck is Duke?!- Molecular's parents look at me disapprovingly
-Darkness- responds the Blonde matter of factly
-shit!- Windstrike might be the greatest hero on earth but Darkness is our top villan, suddenly it hits me- I think i need to sit
- oh you got it, it seems- says shannon smiling -you came here to break the rule-
-The Rule- Matt says with a chuckle
-did you even took your introductory course when you joined?
-there's a course?- the strain in my voice, I wish I could do something about it, Shannon sights
- you see... long ago we decided that we were tired of being killed by the odd villan or hero with loose morals so we (the families of both factions) all sat down and decided that we were all going to be friends, they all hate it-
-but they love us more- interrupts the blonde raising her glass
-so at least you want every super powered people on the planet behind you I'll calm down and go and get Matt a new fridge, as for the gun Linda can get you your money back-
-No refunds dear-
-well I'm still taking the gun, I'm sure Duke has a docen of this, say is windstrike even weak againts this? - Matt mimics a key locking his lips - whatever-
I look around, my greatest plan (only plan) defeated even before it started
-oh don't feel bad The dealer, play your cards right and we can let you in the group, I'm sure we can convice them, we do need an errand boy- Matt winks at me -at the very least we wont ask them to kill you- he is no longer smiling, I just hope I have enough money for the fridge | 2020-07-12T13:26:46 | 2020-07-12T11:05:58 | 46 | 10 |
[WP] Create a fictional mythological race, (werewolves, vampires, skinwalkers, etc) and the legend behind it | Reports of encounters with the Bemmen have finally been proven real. Due to their bodies consisting mostly of the black material we call 'gunpowder' due to its use in shrapnel propelling devices, they were often not noticed in dark environments. Though the Chinese believe these creatures to be dragons, angry at the humans faring war and devastating entire ships, we have found out that they are in reality draugr - revenants of sorts, once-vile people possessing that which holds the most destructive potential in the environment. We also found that, once lit, Bemmen do not disappear even after the ensuing explosion, but rather stay in this world as flame wraiths. The only known way to permanently dispose of one is to hug one and speak the words "the seven heavens await you, spirit" - it is believed that these creatures have existed for several decades, roaming the earth, and have thus acquired the ability to understand all sorts of tongues. Be cautious: Should a dormant Bemmen be used in a gun or firework, their fiery remnants will try to get rid of their infernal bodies by *hugging you*. | The TuneMakers;
The tune-makers are the undertone of everything, they play the strings that string theory itself consists of.
As they operate outside our perception of time there is no need to say when they began as in a non-linear fashion they have always been. Some speculate they were a paradoxical creation of an an advanced super-intelligent race that traveled back in time to create themselves but that is yet to happen.
The Tune_makers are energy based and the purest form of E in the Equation of E=MC2. They control every minuscule universal movement from the subatomic level, arranging everything like an equation. To them there is no greater enjoyment than destruction as it leads to entropy. Their purpose is pure entropy and as such they leave destruction in their wake. | 2016-12-16T08:07:37 | 2016-12-16T08:06:49 | 28 | 10 |
[WP] A new virus sweeps the nation killing hundreds. It turns out the virus only affects total assholes though. People are unsure if they really want to cure it. | Inside Ryden Funeral Home, a sparse group of people have gathered for the wake of Andrew Hong.
In one of the middle pews on the left hand side, a couple sit next to each other both dressed in black. The man has tears in his eyes and shakes his head side to side while looking down. "I can't believe he's gone. He was only 21."
"I know, John. It's sad.", the woman next to him said.
"The last time we hung out, we went to 7-11. He asked me to buy a soda for him because he was low on money. So I wait in line to buy everything and I see him filling out the forms for multiple lottery tickets. So I hand him the soda and told him if he's got money for lottery tickets, he can use his own damn money to buy his own soda." John sighs. "Now I wish I would have just bought that soda for him. It was only two dollars!"
The man behind pipes up, "Andrew was an asshole."
John turns around, anger in his eyes. "What did you say?"
"Andrew was an asshole. Don't act like just because he died he was some kind of saint."
John stands up and turns towards the man. "This is his goddamn funeral."
The man is unfazed. "Doesn't change that he was an asshole. I'm his cousin for Christ's sake. That's why he was infected with the A-Hole virus."
The woman next to John pleads with the man. "Please, this is a funeral. Have some respect. He died of the AH-Zero virus."
The man rolls his eyes. "Yeah, the one that kills assholes."
"He was my best friend and he may have had his faults, but he was still a goddamned human being."
"He was an asshole and he's always been an asshole. Even as kids. I broke my arm when he pushed me off my treehouse. He nearly took my eye out with a paintball once. Just last year, he borrowed my car, got drunk and totaled it. Andrew was an asshole. The only reason why I'm here is to see him go into the ground."
The woman next to John,"Please act appropriately. You may have had a problem with him but this is not the proper venue. This is a funeral."
A middle aged man sitting further down from John and his girlfriend turns towards them and says,"He ran over my dog and didn't even slow down afterwards. Just kept on driving." His eyes swell with tears. "That was the only thing I had in my life since my wife died."
John stands and addresses both of them. "What is the matter with both of you? This is a funeral. If you hated him so much, you shouldn't have come. Now be quiet before his parents hear you."
John's girlfriend puts her head down and whispers,"He touched me."
John looks over at his girlfriend. "What?"
"He used to grope me when he got drunk and you weren't looking. He did it all the time. And he used to tell me the nasty things he'd like to do to me when you'd leave the room." John's girlfriend begins crying "I didn't like him either."
John balls both hands into a fist. "That mother fucker... "
John's girlfriend begins uncontrollably sobbing and looks up at John. "I'm so sorry, baby. I know he was your best friend."
John sits down next to his girlfriend, puts his arm around her, leans in and says, "It's okay, Christine. It's not your fault."
"I'm sorry you had to find out like this. I know you cared about him."
"It's okay. I guess he really was an asshole. That explains why he never used a turn signal."
| “Give it…to me… prick. What the…fuck…you waiting for?” Seth Farrow’s fevered eyes burned into the doctor and his assistant. Doctor Harrison Brown flinched away from his boss – former boss, he reminded himself firmly. The old bastard wouldn’t live to regain his grip over Harry’s life.
“Sir?” his assistant whispered timidly. “Should I go get it? We…I mean to say, someone has to try it out eventually.”
“No, we don’t.” Harry’s voice was ugly with hate. “I think I’d prefer watching him choke on his own vomit, don’t you?”
Lukas gaped at him. A nice young man. A medical student who somehow found the time to win the favour of an expert in the field of virology.
“But...it’s what you two have been working on for years! A clinically proven cure will make your career!” he protested, wiping the sweat from Seth’s brow.
“I think this is a far better prize. Because it's me who has worked towards a cure. *Only* me,” he said, pushing Lukas out of the way to ensure that Seth could hear him. He leaned down, and met Seth’s furious gaze.
“You’ll be ruined,” Seth choked out. Fine droplets of blood sprayed out with the words. “Murderer…”
“No.” Harry took a breath, and managed to smile at the man who had almost ruined him. “You did this to yourself. Stealing my research. Building yourself up as a god, when you’re barely capable of stringing two thoughts together yourself. It’s done. You’re done. I’m destroying it. It should never have been developed. Enjoy hell, Farrow.” He straightened up, and watched as the man tried in vain to draw breath for a response.
He strode from the room, determined not to overthink what had to be done. Who needed people like Farrow in the world, anyway? Of course, the debate had been raging for years, ever since the virus had first cropped up. Harry had been at the forefront of one of the teams determined to develop a cure. After all, everyone had an asshole in the family. His own brother had almost died twice now. But it didn’t matter. Not when he was close to being rid of Farrow for good.
The thought made him move with a passion he hadn’t felt in years. Computers, vials of the precious liquid, papers – he tossed and burned, thankful that he was alone in the building with Lukas and Farrow. This fit of madness wouldn’t have gone down well in the morning.
Lukas was screaming, trying to restrain him. Harry hissed as he untangled himself and gave the kid a violent shove to the ground.
“You can’t stop me. I should never have started this project. Nobody should. Fucking assholes. Let them rot,” he said, crushing a flash drive under his boot.
He glanced at the destruction, feeling at peace. The torment was almost over. He felt a funny tickling sensation in his throat and coughed. He dabbed away the wetness at his mouth, and glanced at his fingers. A strangled cry escaped him as he saw the blood on his fingertips.
“Guess I should go get those spare vials I’ve been storing away, huh?” said Lukas gloomily, as he came to his feet behind the doctor, who found himself suddenly unable to stop shivering.
| 2014-11-21T11:26:46 | 2014-11-21T11:20:48 | 41 | 16 |
[WP] Every time you die, you get to choose what you'll be reincarnated as. You've chosen ant 4 billion times. | “I don’t know why, I just like it,” I said.
*Again, an ant? Do you realize how many lifeform options there are?*
“Sure. There’s moose, whale. I want ant.”
*You could aspire to be something more challenging.*
“Yeah, tried it. Was a wolf once. Didn’t care for it.”
*That was long ago. We’ve changed lots of things. Many wolves are domesticated now. It’s a whole new animal practically.*
“Canine domesticus? Don’t like fur. Don’t like people. Give me ant.”
She looked up from the ledger documenting every life I had failed at, pages filled with the single line “ant” over and over again. *I can’t force you to try something different but I really think…*
“Look if I wanted something harder I’d do it. Just let me push around some sand grains for a few weeks, maybe I’ll try harder next time.”
*You’re still angry with me.*
“I said ant then too, not plant. They don’t even sound the same.”
*Being a tree is rarely a bad thing. We don’t even grow dogwoods tall enough for that anymore.*
“It was the absolute WORST day to be a dogwood tree in Jerusalem, lady. Give me A-N-T.”
*I see you were an apple tree, about ten thousand years ago…*
“That was a fucking disaster too.” | "Oh, you again? Could you at least pick something that lasts more than a few days this time?"
This wasn't Jared's first stop in heaven; or his second, or his third. As it turns out, Jared had been reincarnated almost 4 *billion* times, choosing to be an ant on many of those occasions. He had been everything at least once, from the smallest conscious organisms to things as big as whales and dinosaurs. He had even tried his hand at being human once or twice, and that was his least favorite of all.
"I find it interesting, life on that small of a scale. Not to mention not living for very long can come in handy when you get to do it over and over again."
"I'm guessing you want to be an African elephant. No, I've got it, an ant!" A wave of sarcasm came over God at the mere sight of Jared these days, and can you really blame him?
"You know me, big man." Maybe I'll find a nice blade of grass somewhere, or even get started on my own hi-" Jared was interrupted by a snap of The Lord's finger and vanished from the reincarnation office, presumably off to another attempt at ant life.
"Next!"
| 2016-12-30T06:41:00 | 2016-12-30T04:10:29 | 42 | 19 |
[WP] You're pretty sure that the gas station you work at is a hotspot for eldritch beings beyond mortal understanding but this job doesn't pay enough for you to care. Also they are more polite than your average customer. | “-and you just… drink it?” The man across the counter asked, shaking the Gatorade curiously. I rolled my eyes and let out an exaggerated sigh before speaking.
“Yeah, I mean, my roommate used to mix it with vodka but he was kinda an alcoholic.” The man turned the bottle upside down and watched the bubbles float to the bottom. “I personally thought it was nasty but to each their own I guess.”
“Vodka…” he said, as if pondering the word itself. “This is alcohol then!.” He exclaimed proudly, thrusting the bottle above his head. I closed my eyes; contemplating my very existence.
“Yep. Gatorade is alcohol.” I finally spat out, finished with the conversation. “That’ll be $2.14 after tax.” I stuck out my hand as he let out an excited squeal.
“Thank you for being so patient with me” he said, a huge smile plastered across his face. “Most of your kind are very rude.” He reached into his trench coats pocket and pulled out a wad of singles. “You may keep the *change*” he said, emphasizing the last word with an even bigger smile. Our fingers grazed as he slapped the wad into my palm, and thick black smoke floated through the air above them. “Have a good one… *bro* he said before waddling out of the door, his footsteps shaking the whole building. I put two dollars into the register and crammed the rest into my pocket.
Although I had just recently moved to Dunwich, I could tell the people here were different. It seemed like every day I’d have someone new asking tons of questions about very self-explanatory products. I once saw a woman eat a pack of cigarettes whole but she gave me an extra $20 so I didn’t say anything. I honestly couldn’t tell if the problem was inbreeding or something more sinister. The bell above the door rang and tore my attention from my inner dialogue.
An incredibly large man in a Snuggie stood blocking the doorway, his void-black eyes stabbing daggers through mine.
“R’lyeh” he whispered venomously, his voice sounding like a thousand at once.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked, my patience already thin.
“R’LYEH!?” He exclaimed angrily, the shape of the Snuggie shifting wildly.
“I really don’t know sir, maybe check t-“ I started before getting cut off.
“PH’NGLUI MGLW’NAFH CTHULHU R’LYEH WGAH’NAGL FHTAGN!” The man roared.
“Okay, DICK!” I began. “Do you think I want to be here? I don’t. I just work here, ASSHOLE.” I strode around the counter and shoved the man out through the doors. “If you can’t be respectful, then you can’t shop here. Go down the road to Marathon, maybe they’ll deal with your shit.” The man let out a wet snarl before clumsily shuffling away down the sidewalk.
I don’t get paid enough for this shit. | Monday
Mr. Jackson a man of indusernable age bought a lotto ticket, but he won. Well of course he won you would say. Everyone wins eventually at least that's what the company's tells you. Evrey single ticket run by my store can't win more then ten dollars. I know because I write the tickets myself it one of my tasks. The ticket in question are 1$ and 1 in 10 win a free ticket 1 in 50 win a dollar and 1 in 200 wins 10$, and the ticket read win up to 100$.Mr. Jackson however won 100$. I mean that's impossible. They literally can't win that amount yet he scratched it off and I had to pay him.
Tuesday
A young woman walked in today. She was well dressed and never met eyes with me. As she was trying on sun-glasses her image caught my eye there was nothing human about her in that mirror nothing at all. She bought the glasses and left
Wensday
Chrismas eve an hour before the gass station would close it was quite and boring. I had not had a customer in two hours. Suddenly have all the cameras shut down and a customer walk out of the bathroom. Exept the there was never had been bathroom in a place as small as this had there? When had it been expanded. The customers walked out with a friendly sort of wave.
Thursday
There were a lot of people here today. Lots off bustle with me just ringing up items and asking "cash or card?"
When as if on queue all the people stopped and faced the bathroom a male child walked out. They all bowed. They bowed! Then they turned towards me u gad no idea what to do so I bowed,and they continued on as if nothing at all happened
Friday
last day on my shift this week, although now that I think about it the gass station only seems to be open on days I work. It's always abandoned as I walk by. The strangest thing yet happend today. The power went out it was bound to happen eventually that's not what was strange. What was Strang e was that when it did an old man looked up frowned and said "Now Tranzthit you said one day in sunlight and I haven't even mad it outside yet." The light seemed to come on reluctantly as If they actually could delay themselves that's not how a switch works. Is it how a switch works?
Saturday
I don't have to worry about the gass station today. It has been the best part time job I've ever found. 20$ an hour to manage a small gass station that was closed on the weekend. Of course the customers could be odd, but they were mutch kinder than anyone else I'd ever encountered in customer service. I loved my job. | 2021-12-14T00:14:49 | 2021-12-13T20:52:47 | 25 | 16 |
[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! | The newly minted King Agralin stared at me, eyes red from Kastian ale. Half a goblet of that fine vintage stained the front of his doublet. I grimaced at the dreadful waste, my nose wrinkled at the scent; it had been a while, but my senses were slowly returning.
‘What are you doing here? I kicked you lot of wastrels out last morn!’ The rowdy carousing in the hall began to dissipate, as they stared at my audience with interest.
Fifty winters ago, it had taken me an evening to convince the Old King — I guessed he must have forgotten to tell his son about our agreement before he passed. I tossed an ancient vellum scroll on Agralin’s lap. If he wasn’t so drunk he might have realized that vellum didn’t usually come in such a dark shade of crimson.
Araglin took a quick glance at the scroll and sputtered in anger. ‘What’s this?’
‘My employment contract. Your father agreed to it, and declared that you will too.’ I felt my shoulder blades start to itch, as the long-dormant parts awoke.
‘Hah! Fifty thousand gold a year! The pick of the cellar and choice of dwelling? My father paid a guard all this? He was more senile than I thought!’ Agralin looked around for support as his retinue snickered along.
Agralin stabbed the contract with his pudgy finger. ‘Look, it even says so in your name No’gard! You’re no guard!’
Sycophantic laughter burst throughout the hall, I cringed at his weak pun. Fifteen years away at one of the most prestigious academies and this was the best he could do.
‘My father was too lenient, allowing lowborn a seat in this hall.’ Agralin waved. ‘Leave before I have you beaten and thrown out.’
The old King was never so unobservant, has no one realized that I had been at his Father’s side for fifty years and looked not a day older?
‘You might want to read the rest of the contract. It is crucial that you retain… my protection.’ I tried again.
Agralin’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘Look around you! The finest knights in the land defend me!’
Cheers and shouts resounded through the hall. Barvar the Crusher, Astoni of the Dozen Daggers, and Grim’dar the Unwavering, yelled in agreement, banging their weapons on the banquet tables.
‘Who in the Seven Lairs, would I need *you* to guard me from?’
‘Me.’ I grinned with sharpened teeth.
‘My contract states that you would be protected from *me*.’
‘String him up! Teach this fool a lesson! He threatens the King himself!’ The sound of swords drawn reverberated throughout the hall.
The final change took only seconds as my body exploded in mass. My scales burst out and rippled through my skin as they interlocked in snickering metallic clicks. My talons extended from the tips of my hand, now the size of a horse. The banquet hall could hardly hold my true form and my sides pressed against the walls.
I think Barvar was now the Crushed, and Astoni a pin cushion. Grim’dar was on his knees, praying to an unknown god. Agralin’s trousers were now wet too, not from the ale.
‘Now,’ I breathed lightly, setting fire to the tapestries behind the throne, ‘let’s take a look at the contract again, shall we?’ | A week ago I was an elite member of the royal guard, doing my duty as always. I was the leader of the four female guards in the defense troop. That was until the new king, Harrion the fourth, decided that his troops would be better off with new recruits and decided to fire all of us who served for more than a decade.
King Harrion the Third wrote in his testament that I, along with the other female guards were to remain if he were to pass, but his son thought otherwise and wrote us off against his late father's will. The four of us tried to reason with him, to reconsider, but he made up his mind, cursed us, and went on his way.
Boy was he wrong.
Fast forward to today, I am huddled inside a cramped house as storms rage overhead, lightning crackled outside my door, wind howling outside my window. A measly fire pit kept me and my soup warm. I heard three knocks on the front door, I dared not to make a sound, hoping it would go away. But they only became louder until I couldn't take it anymore.
I opened the door. In front of me was what looked like someone in their late-twenties, dressed up in chainmail. His face was as pale as night.
"Ms. Annelise?" The child boomed
"Aye?" I replied.
"King Harrion wants to have a word with you."
"Tell him I wouldn't give even a smidgen of a fuck."
"Please ma'am, this is important." He persisted. "The kingdom is at stake."
"The kingdom he banished me and my girls from? The kingdom he made us look like a laughing stock to? If that's what it is about, I would not like to continue this conversation any further." I said.
"Please reconsider! The king needs you at this moment!" He pleaded, "I've heard legends of the Great Cryllasti , surely they won't let us down."
'He tries to use my past against me' I thought.
"The rule was that we would continue to serve in return for respect. What did your pathetic king do? He cursed us, humiliated us, banished us. Is that respect?" I snapped.
I was the most patient one, I had to be, I fought against war.
"Tell your pathetic excuse for a king that he could 'kiss my ass' whatever that means. And also tell him that he was the only one brave enough to say anything like that in the past millenia." I declared. "Now go back to your king."
The boy had tears welling up in his eyes already devoid of hope. I may have a soft spot, but I don't tolerate with disrespect.
"B-but Ms. Minerva and Ms. Vermil–"
"The other Crystalli would say the same thing. We do not deal with your kind anymore."
He left without another word.
We've been protecting the land from the Horsemen Apocalypti for eons. War, Famine, Death, Conquest, all of them trembled beneath our knees. Now that the king said he no longer needed nor wanted our services, we'll leave them to their devices.
(this is my first story, I hope it's any good.) | 2021-02-28T04:13:58 | 2021-02-28T03:11:04 | 1,113 | 310 |
[WP]: A fly lands on a table, starting a chain of events that gradually escalates to first degree murder | John and Karen are laughing. Everything is going well. They've just moved in to their new apartment, and their relationship has never been better. Unfortunately, their privacy is quickly violated by the dastardly invasion of a common house fly, which lands on the table behind John. Karen, who was never fond of things with more than two legs, yelps, causing John to investigate.
On the rooftop across the street, Mike peered through his binoculars with interest. Did Karen just yell at John? He had performed a background check on John to make sure he wouldn't hurt Karen, and he seemed amiable enough. Yet Karen did seem distressed at him right now. Had he offended her?
Back in the apartment, the fly was causing quite a scene. Karen was in a state of panic, and would not stop yelling at John to get the fly. John, a bit too quick of a thinker, lunged at the fly with the conveniently placed flyswatter on the kitchen table. Unfortunately, the fly had chosen to place itself directly between Karen and John. Karen recoiled, as both the fly and the flyswatter seemed to be heading right for her.
Mike is in shock. He has dropped his binoculars and his hand has been removed from his pants. Did he really just see John try to HIT his Karen? There was no way this was happening. He left the side of the building and paced around for a bit to cool his rage.
John continues his search for the fly. He makes a few swipes towards the fridge, careful not to scare Karen again with a swing in her direction. The fly settles on the mantelpiece, almost daring John to hit him. Again, John acts too quickly for his own good and fails to evaluate the consequences of
his actions. John swings, and it's a direct hit on the fly! However, it's also a direct hit on a jar sitting on the mantelpiece. It reads, 'Grandma'.
On the rooftop, Mike has regained some of his composure. He settles down with his binoculars to try and interpret the scene again. This time, he no longer sees an angry John. No, he sees something even worse.
Karen is crying. The last thing she had to remeber her grandmother, now shattered into a billion pieces. John immediately starts trying to comfort her.
Mike cannot believe John would do this! He seemed so nice, way better than Jason or Kevin. Oh well. It looks like John will have to go as well. Maybe this time Karen will finally recognize how great he is, or, more likely, find another person to share her life with. But she'll figure Mike out eventually.
He'll have to wait a few days, catch him when he's on the way to work. If he doesn't make it look like an accident, Karen might think something is up. It would be easy enough. Mike always had a plan in case it came to this. The roadways were always slippery in the winter. A little nudge, and he'd fall off the bridge to his death. With the construction going on that had removed the guardrails, it would be easier than swatting a fly.
***
This is my first post in this sub, thank you for reading and please let me know what you think! | Bzzzzt
“You little bastard!” My fury knew no bounds at this point. My coffee had grown cold long ago and my computer screen still stood blank, staring at me, taunting me, and practically screaming a list of all my failures.
It was going to be my next big novel but I had nothing. Not a character, not a single plot idea or even a god damned title. I had made my lucky break five years ago. Finally had my big novel! It sold well and everyone loved me. I had book tours, talk shows, even Hollywood dabbled in the idea of a major motion picture, eventually passing for yet another piece of young adult garbage. Greedy pricks. I had been on top of the world.
My prime had long since abandoned me. Five years! Not so much as a glimmer of an idea. Not thought, or an interesting tid bit, nothing at all! I was cursed. I know it, I could feel it in every fiber of my being.
Bzzzzt
This FUCKING fly! Here to laugh at my misery. Snicker at me defeat, around and around the room, buzzing his little jokes, probably going to fly back to his little fly friends and have a nice long laugh. Laugh at the failure! Well not for long, oh no! I gripped the newspaper, my palms warm and sweaty, my gaze following the little devil spawn zipping from one end of the room to another.
My chance! The little fool landed right on the table in front of me. Patience. Slowly. You have him now!
SWACK
Yes! YES! Haha the bastard is finished! Never will he see the light of….
Bzzzzt
No… It cannot be… NO! How is this possible? My vision went red and black as I tore through my study, flipped over my desk, smashed the computer with my heel over and over again. My thoughts were a bubbling cauldron of hate.
My eyes darted around the room. There, on the window! My nemesis rested on the glass pane. I will still get him. He will DIE!
Just then my eyes caught movement from the street beyond my window. There sat a man and a woman at the door step from the house across the street. They were laughing. They walked into the door and disappeared. How dare they? Had they seen me? Were they mocking me? Gone inside to make more jokes at my mistakes? No. No more. No more failures.
My feet carried me swiftly to the kitchen. I tore open drawers and cabinets sifting through everything until I found the perfect tool. The large glistening knife fit perfectly in my grip. I smiled deeply and laughed quietly to myself. Those people would not be laughing at me anymore. Oh no! They would not laugh another day! I will not be a failure. Never again.
| 2014-12-28T20:36:47 | 2014-12-28T20:17:28 | 52 | 24 |
[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's not like they can say no. Free is free. There not a single soul out there that can refuse what's free.
And it's not like they can refuse. These homeless can't afford to corrupt their blood any further. It's about the only thing they can sell. The lowest rung on the social ladder. Stuck being nice.
So here I am handing out beanies. In the middle of summer. With a high of 110 F. And these dumb hobos are putting them on. Awfully nice of them. After all, no one wants to be caught with bad blood.
They say evil starts with good intentions. Heh. Then I wonder what starts with evil intentions. | Turns out following the rules of god was the wrong way..
Turns out following the Bible to a t, never wearing cotton, the whole fish thing was wrong..
That woman who was dying I couldn’t touch her,
Turns out slaves where bad...
Turns out cutting my wife’s hands off was evil..
I needed a moment
| 2018-08-04T10:09:04 | 2018-08-04T09:44:59 | 28 | 10 |
[WP] You are the last human alive. You traveled the stars guiding pre-FTL species away from the path that led to the downfall of mankind; through your wisdom, a dozen peoples have made it past "The Great Filter". Now, you are on your deathbed and your "children" have come to mourn you. | ***I have seen so much.***
When humanity transcended the limitations of mortality, there was a vocal minority that maintained we were losing what made us who we were as a species. The spark that made us outgrow our birthplace, and strike out towards the stars. The will to dominate those who were in our way
As it happened, they were right.
The Transcendence marked the high point of Human civilization. Arts and culture flourished, geniuses no longer running out of time to create. Even those who had no talent had the time to learn any subject or master any art. New sciences unlocked limitless potential.
Mighty fleets patrolled a vast empire, building Dyson spheres to steal away the power of the stars. Drone armies tidily brushed away any inconvenient life that had the misfortune of existing in our way. Each controlled by a relative handful of Human minds, trillions of miles away.
Our unimaginable, unchallenged dominion was a law of the universe. The machinery of our preeminence was greased by the viscera of lesser beings.
***Our Hubris was colossal. We treated the universe as we had our cradle***
Time passed, as it does even for those whose existence no longer abides by its passage. All that could be learned, was. All that could be created, was. A terrible sense of *Weltschmerz* descended. Reality was disappointing, it was limited.
It started slowly. It was an Artist who did it first, fell into their own mind and ceased communicating with the outside world. Lost themselves in the depths of their own consciousness to create unrestrained by what few laws were immutable. Lost for all time.
We communicated so little by then, what was there left to say after all. It had been thousands of years since I had spoken to anyone. I had elected to explore the edges of the universe. Beyond even the Imperators and their drones. I was unaware of what had become of us.
I came across it by happenstance, an engineer fleet in the act of building a Dyson sphere. The sphere was half finished, the drones frozen in the act of construction. I queried and got no answer. The Fabricator to whom they belonged and elected to build in his dreams.
I reached out, moving faster and faster. Racing from system to system. Even when all logic dictated that there was no one to be found, I searched. Our edifices were crumbling away, our accomplishments turning to dust.
I went insane for a time, I think.
***The terrible emptiness. The absolute silence. There was nothing, there was no one***
Time ground relentlessly by. I slouched in the ruins of what Humanity had wrought. Too angry and hurt and proud to succumb to dreaming. Dreaming. Call it what it is, suicide by boredom.
I listened to the universe through the ears of a billion billion satellites. And I waited.
***
***I remember when the first of you reached out to the stars. It was like a match in the dark. Such a small light, so tentative. So vulnerable.***
I heard you, the first time you left your home faster the the light of your star. Your ships were so small, so crude, so interestingly built. I had never imagined a ship could be built just like that. I followed you, watching you slowly progress through the stars nearest to you. I grew to love you, as I imagine we loved our children once. I watched you meet the first other sentient beings you encountered.
And I grew angry.
Just as we once had you strove to dominate, to remove, to relocate, so you could seize their resources as your own. This I would not allow. I intervened in a way you would understand.
As your weapons ceased to function, I spoke to you. All of you. This way was not the way. Homogeneity was the route to madness.
***I was so proud. You listened, both of you. I was so worried you wouldn't. That you would deny the wisdom I sought to give you.***
***That was so very long ago wasn't it? Now there are so many of you, united in a thriving community made of a million million species. You have surpassed us in so many ways.***
***I cannot continue as I am. I am weary beyond imagining. I must sleep. I must Dream. You do not need my guidance any longer. You are beyond it. I love you all.***
| **Transcripts from the Orion Empire Archive**
*History of the Lost ones*
It is said that death awaits us all. Yet that has no weight when it comes to science, as science has shown evidence that through trial and perserverance the greatest of odds can be accomplished. Sadly, even mysticism has proven to survive side by side with the unknown as our unwillingness to believe that mysticism is the defacto law of the Universe Prototype, just merely ghosts that remain from before our existence.
This came to light with the founding of the Galactic Orion Empire. No one is certain to this day who this 'humanity' individual was or what race he had come from. Just that the total annihilation of Orions was subvertly undone by the appearance of "The Man of Nylon." To this day sceptics criticize the source material of the journal recovery from *The Needle* stating it is unfactual as it was written by a child. Still, this has not hindered anyone from naming their daughters Humani or their sons Humanity in honor of the folklore as evidence of the ancient crash site suggests their may have been an ancient visiting life form that changed the path history was to repeat. Below is the transcript.
*"Mother would not speak to me. She was too busy crying at the loss of brother. I don't understand why they won't open the door. He's still out there. He's out there with Uncle, and sissie, and nana, and the rest of them! She won't answer me."*
*"I asked father what was happening and he just gave me a sadden glare. He spoke silently saying "we had failed to save the ozone." I'm not sure what he means. I have heard some of the older adults arguing that they needed to find a way to power down the 'reactor' but no one has answered me when I pressed for an answer on what the 'reactor' was! One of them even began crying when I asked constatly saying "we succeeded with messages, but failed with people!'"*
*"I'm scared. The room is slowly getting hotter and the video screens have all gone dark, glowing red with 'warning' written all over it. There's a loud screeching outside! It's even gotten the attention of the adults. The sky is glowing a bright blue! It's almost beautiful..."*
*"The earth is shaking now. A loud noise is echoing through the building. Everyone's freaking out! Momma won't stop crying and father has disappeared! Someone's shouting that the reactor has exploded... What's going on."
"Everything's gone quiet for a while. There's a subtle knocking on the front door. People are afraid to open it but father's not. He boldly walked up while others didn't. There's a man behind it. He's made of puffy white fabric and has a video screen for a face! He told us "Sorry I'm late." Mommy is telling me everything will be okay. I'm still scared though. The outside... it doesn't look the same as it did earlier."*
Details of the encounter are still held at face value. Other writing material and reports from data logs that we were able to retrieve point that this being crashed his ship into what was dubbed "the reactor" to neutralize the pulsar forming in its core that was slowly heating the planet. They said he had also released a mist across the sky to quickly cool the planet back to stable levels. How much of this is true is still unknown, but is always a fun story to tell children.
It is good to note that anyone with a basic understanding of FTL know that a ship transporter must be placed outside of habitable zones as it is known to destruct entire galaxies and only small ones can be habited on planets for communications only. Hence why many prefer generation ships to other planets over dark zones where such reactors exist. It is suggested that the early Orions had constructed one on their planet in hopes of faster travel which resulted in a fail safe. Again, how much of this is true is still argued, but similar myths exist not only with us, but as well as the Cinooans, and the Myrthiex Empire and the Druien Cohorts. As such, it is left to mystery what really happened that day and who this Humanity individual was.
Written by Xalvier Trendent, the fifth court Jester of his majesty Emperor Salzidar Trevent VI | 2019-02-04T14:21:26 | 2019-02-04T14:14:07 | 41 | 18 |
[WP] If, when you die, you don't get into heaven, there is an option to try again, and get in the next time. There is a man who has been trying for millennia; he has been Ghengis Khan, Hitler, and many other brutal leaders. That man is you, and this time, you're determined to get it right. | There she was again, fat face, full of cake, laughing as she told me another anecdote of her worthless kid, spraying food all over my desk. I hate Karen, hated her since I first started working at this paper company. This pathetic job, with is grey walls, stale coffee, worn carpet and depressing looking people. It was all beneath me, I could be great again, reach such great heights again... But patience. Patience was key this time. I was determined to get it right. I had an outlet this time.
As I left work and walked the poorly paved streets to the grocery store, the rain tapping away lightly on my face, past the safe unimaginative buildings that littered this city, I thought of all the grandure I could bring to it if I were in charge again. How I can elevate this city, this country, to new levels of greatness, create a standard of living for the select chosen few... But patience, there was still time. I had an outlet now.
Standing in line, waiting to pay for my food, I saw a man cut in line with the pretence of talking to a friend he just happened to see. People looked angrily at him, but said nothing. City of wimps. My blood was boiling, that vein on my head was throbbing, so I gazed at the woman standing near me, her baby strapped to her. She was attractive, her black hair falling effortlessly on her shoulders. The child looking around in wonderment. And suddenly a hunger filled me. I wanted her, right here, on the store floor. I would raid her house, kill her husband, smash her baby... no, must be patient, it was almost time for my outlet.
I sat on the couch, belly full, watching the blond haired chubby monkey they called leader of the free world talking his nonsense. They dared to compare him to what I had accomplished. It was insulting. He was nothing. I looked over to my bookshelf, lined with The Prince, Mein Kumft, books on the Great Khan and Napoleon. I had a library dedicated to my greatness, a monument to past achievements. I looked back at the TV, his stupid fat face vomiting hateful diarrhea at an amaturistic level. It was an affront to everything I ever stood for. AND THEY COMPARED HIM TO ME!!!!! Now was time. No more need for patience.
I sat in front of my computer. I looked at the tabs to youtube, reddit, breitbart where I could incite hate, start a war of words. But they were nothing compared to this. My cursor hovered over the program, my hand slightly shaking, waiting for the sweet release. I double clicked, and watched the opening video of civilization 5. It was worth it, my mediocre life, for this. I looked at my kingdom. Nothing stood in my way... except for that damned Gandhi. I'll crush him today. Then the computer made a last gasp sound and died. I stared at it. No life. My whole body was shaking, but my mind was clear. I knew what i wound do. This world was in trouble. | "Well, looks like you're back again. Where are you going to now?" the angel asked. It didn't look like he was impressed with my achievements as a rebellion leader in the 28th century. In fact, he looked at me like this is the billionth time I was here, just like the question he asked had implied. However, I couldn't recall actually being here. Hell, I didn't even know my cause of death. "What are you talking about? Have I died before? How did I die?" I asked. "You... You don't know? I need to consult an archangel about this." was the response from the now slightly stressed-looking angel. He rushed off to somewhere, leaving me in the seemingly sterile environment that consisted mostly of clouds, with small rooms of marble here and there. The angel came back eventually, accompanied by an armed and armoured man, presumably the archangel he was talking about before. "This is the one, sir, the one that cannot recall his past lives or cause of death." he said, referring to me. The archangel was seemingly taken aback by my presence, as he drew his weapon and plunged it into the ground, probably to intimidate me. It didn't work, I had seen much more intimidating foes as a rebel leader. "So, you don't know who you were?" he inquired, almost as if he didn't believe me. "Well, I know I was named Sir Satan during my life," I replied, "nobody knows what my birth name was, as it was lost to time when Imperial Intelligence captured me."
The angel and what I assumed was his superior retreated to a door that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Speaking of things suddenly spawning, a number of other spirits were starting to rise from the ground. They look oddly familiar, yet I do not recognise them. While I tried to figure out who they were, the heavenly beings returned. They told me, "Well, after some rather intense discussing with the other angels, some saints and even God himself, we have decided to tell you.
In multiple lifetimes, you have aspired to take over the world, exterminate the human race as well as other races, and actually blew up a planet. You've gone into history as some of the worst people imaginable. Do the names Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan, Q'im Juah, and Joseph Stalin ring a bell?". I nodded. The spirits that rose around me started to become less obscured, and the facial features of the men he mentioned started to become visible. "You're going to get one last chance. If you don't get into heaven then, you're going to rot in hell for eternity, at the command of the man you pretended to be in your last life. Do you understand, and accept this chance?"
> *My first submission. Feedback would be much appreciated.* | 2017-03-31T11:38:45 | 2017-03-31T11:14:34 | 21 | 13 |
[WP]"This is how it works," Death explained. "You pick the game and we play. Cheating is allowed, but if either one of us is caught by the other, they lose. If you win, you'll wake up back in the hospital and I'll give you another 10 years. If you lose then it's time for judgement. Understood? | "...Do video games count?", I ask the death man. He actually looked like a very normal guy, just wearing black clothing.
"...Sure. Just nothing single player."
"Or, we could make our own game out of a game."
"...What?"
"We both get computers. We mod Skyrim with the same mods and same load order. We continuously play through until the game crashes. Whoever ends up with a crashed game first loses. Freezing does not count, and the game must crash. No staying in the main menu or waiting in a house. You must play through normally as you can with mods."
Death looks at me. "...I have a better idea."
"Yes?"
"We play vanilla Skyrim. Whoever runs into a glitch first loses, and you must play through normally."
I grin. "You are a goddamn genius."
"My idea... It just works."
"Guaranteed to happen, because Bethesda."
And we play through the game. Unfortunately, death gets some glitchy horses in the intro.
"...Goddamnit. You win."
The horses in my game also start freaking out like, a second later.
"What a beautiful game, Bethesda." | "Okay. Do you want to be purple, or green?"
"I DON'T UNDERSTAND."
"Well, the purple one turns into a fairy, so I used like her best. But I also like the green one because she turns into a mermaid. I like both, so you can pick."
"YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE A GAME."
"I am. Dolls. Are we going to play?"
"HOW DO YOU WIN?"
"You don't. You just play."
"ARE YOU SURE YOU UNDERSTAND? YOU COULD CHOOSE ANOTHER GAME."
"I'm sure. I don't want to keep fighting. I used to want to, but it's taking so long and it hurts so much. I don't want to hurt anymore. So, no thank you."
"THE GREEN ONE, THEN." | 2018-03-07T09:08:29 | 2018-03-07T08:33:18 | 39 | 20 |
[WP] A drug is developed that mimics the effect of 8 hours of sleep, giving people another 8 hours of potential production. Soon, society adjusts to a constant state of production. However, a horrible consequence begins to unfold. | Grace was hit with the smell of wet food and bleach when she opened the door to the dingy convenience store near her apartment. As if the smell weren’t offensive enough, obnoxious, acid green advertisements for All-Nighters where plastered everywhere and the bottles themselves lined most of the shelves. Grace had never liked the way they made her feel, all jittery and anxious but never less mentally tired. However, they were a necessity now, so she bought her monthly dose and popped 2 of the capsules into her mouth.
She walked quickly through the street, avoiding eye contact with everyone else, and they did the same. The homeless slept on the street, every night falling farther and farther behind the unstopping city, unable to afford the expensive, acid green capsules from the dingy convenience stores. And yet, as she turned the corner and saw a sleeping man in a bright orange jacket laying still on the sidewalk, she couldn’t ignore relaxed calm of his face or the slow rise and fall of his chest. A memory of her childhood bed covered in pink embroidered flowers flashed behind her eyes. She turned to walk back the the convenience store, but felt the bottle in her pocket and instead took the stair leading up to her apartment.
Upon entering, she popped 2 capsules into her mouth, and greeted her roommate Jess who was staring blankly at the coffee machine in their small kitchen. Roused by Grace’s entry, Jess asked “I’m making coffee do you want some?” “Yeah thanks.”
In her room, Grace was offended more than usual by the single chair and large desk that furnished it, but she slumped into the chair and opened her laptop to be assaulted by its horrible blue light none the less. Jess opened the door and asked “do you want some coffee?” Clare rolled her eyes “sure.” Jess seemed to notice the mug in her hands for the first time, and after staring at it concerned and looking up in confusion, she slowly handed it to Grace. It was full of hot water. *Poor Jess* thought Grace. She had been diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s yesterday, as many others had been lately. *It’s no wonder when we never let our brains stop* but she pushed the thought out of her mind and took her daily dose of 2 pills with the hot water. | When scientists released the new drug, they weren't thinking about the potential consequences, but soon they realized sleep mimicking drugs were likely never meant to happen.
Paul Blunt was one of the first few people to test out the drug, he was always slightly behind on work so he figured he would try it out. Trials were conducted and they all succeeded. The pills were packaged and delivered to local pharmacies and doctor's offices.
Paul was one of the few that got a free package for his assistance in the project, but he thought he would stay off of them so keep could enjoy sleeping again.
"Huh, that's strange." He thought once he got into bed, "I don't usually like sleeping, at least not as much as now," Paul decided the next day to go over to the laboratory and tell them about that fact.
Paul got up, made himself some breakfast, and went to the lab to send in a report. Once he arrived, he recognized one of the scientists and asked if they could talk.
"I see, I have been seeing similar results as well," The scientist responded, "Maybe we should do some more tests?"
"I feel like you should have some idea what to do next," Paul replied
"I need more data to have any idea sadly,"
People witnessed others becoming erratic and easily irritable, some are paranoid and stay away from everyone, and some just outright rage at their family, friends, and coworkers.
The effects were too much to handle, even with changes to the drug, so they made an ambiguous decision to take this drug off the shelves until they could find some way to make it safer.
Over two years passed before the drug was placed back on the shelf, with the following side-effects message:
*Side effects include: overworking, paranoia, red eyes, forgetting to blink and hallucinations*
There was never a strategy found to remove every side effect without adding another, so they gave up eventually, forgetting about the whole project and leaving it in a storage room with data and files for future generations to find and, hopefully, never attempt again. | 2022-03-18T12:43:15 | 2022-03-18T12:02:52 | 20 | 13 |
[WP] When people turn 18, they gain the power to summon 1 random thing in the world to their hand, as Thor does to Mjolnir. Summoned people are considered soulmates, and objects as important parts of one's life. When you summon yours, it takes some time, but people are horrified when it arrives... | The sky opened up with a sickening *CRACK,* like some giant primordial egg ripped open by a great force. From above, between rigid jags of blue, a deep, inky black darker than any night sky I had seen before stared down on my 18th birthday party.
My hand, outstretched, palm facing the now sundered heavens, began to tremble. Paper plates and solo cups whipped around my parents' back yard as a strong wind began to blow. A hot dog flew into my shoulder, but I didn't move, didn't look away. I heard the screams. I heard my family and friends yelling my name, telling me to take shelter. But I couldn't move. It wasn't here yet. I could *sense* it. More than that, I could *feel* it. That warm, gentle rise in my chest. The familiar anticipation, like a loved one leaning in for a hug. This is how they said it would feel. No doubt about it, my Summon was coming.
The inky blackness above gave the distinct impression that the world itself was a vessel, safe and closed off from the outside, now torn, breached, vulnerable. Smooth tendrils began to extend from the darkness, lapping at the inner surface of this broken container. Their ends flicked in swift, fluid motion against the blue sky, now turning grey and cracking at the points of contact. A deep vibration descended through the air in patterns. I couldn't hear it, but it felt like speech.
I was still frozen in place, hand extended towards the blackness. I wanted to move, to run, to escape what I knew I could not. My whole body shook as I stared helplessly upwards, bathed in the menacing aura of what lay beyond that abyss. The patches of sky that had grown grey and cracked were now shattering, revealing more void. The pieces fell like bits of a broken eggshells, igniting in brilliant flame at they entered the atmosphere.
Tears escaped the corners of my eyes as I witnessed the end of my world. Suddenly, the deep vibration stopped, and I could barely make out what looked like a small object being lowered by three of the black, formless tendrils. No, not lowered, it was being pulled. By me. The otherworldly appendages were grasping it, trying to pull it back into the hole in the sky, but it was steadily moving downwards, towards my open palm.
It was about ten 10 feet above me when I could finally make it out. An egg? It was a small sphere, no bigger than a softball. I heard a bone-shaking shriek that reverberated across the sky as the last tendril lost it's grasp and the egg rushed the final few feet into my hand. This was it. Euphoria. I never felt such warmth in my being before. It was as if I had lived life with no heart up until this moment, and I could not longer imagine life without it.
Above me, the black tentacles became enraged, violently smashing their enormous weight against the inner shell of our fragile world. Titanic chunks of sky began falling as giant balls of fire hurtling towards the Earth. My sense of my surroundings had returned to me. My mother was taking refuge under a picnic table while the rest of the attendants of my birthday party watched with terrified faces from the windows of the house. She had been mouthing words that until now I couldn't hear. She was telling me to send it back. Please, please, send it back and come inside.
I looked at her, then looked down at the orb resting in my hands. The black sheen that had surrounded it was dripping through my hands onto the ground, and what remained was a beautiful, bright sphere of green and blue. white tufts seemed to swirl just beneath the hard shell, revealing sections of the interior and covering others. It was warm.
I looked up again at the sky. It was hard to see the breach behind the falling mounds of hellfire, but that blood curdling screech could still be heard over every other sound. I looked back down at my egg. So pure and full of life. I looked back at my mother, still begging me to send back my Summon, my other half, my birthright. The air is getting hot, almost too hot to breath.
I clutch my egg close to my body, turn fully towards her, and mouth the word 'No' as the trees begin to catch fire and the sweat evaporates from our skin. |
Mother and Father stood nearby, looking expectantly at me as I took my place in the center of the rooming facing the great grandfather clock that command the attention of everyone.
Along the edges of the room waited the rest of our family and friends, all in attendance with me as the hour of my birth; 11:59pm, 18 years ago to the minute, neared. Soon it would be time for my summoning. The moment when all those who upon the hour of adult hood will hold out their hand and have their one thing appear. For some a person appears, this who is destined to be your great soulmate and the love of your life, like when my mother summoned my father. For others it is an object of great importance, integral to their life and identity, like our protector Donar Woodenson, the thunder bringer and guardian of humanity, wielding his mighty hammer.
The seconds ticked away as the lights dimmed and our fiends and family leaned in expectantly, I held out my hand like father had taught me. As I did so I felt the power of the cosmos begin to whirl around me as the hour of my birth arrived! The minute hand moved to 11:59 pm, here goes nothing I thought.
And exactly nothing happened!
Aunts and Uncles looked at each other confused; while my younger Cousin laughed at my misfortune, my face burned with embarrassment as I stared at my empty hand confused. Was I cursed, what had gone wrong?
“An ill omen” tittered my great aunt poppy, as she clucked disapprovingly.
“Nonsense” my father boomed, striding across the floor to me.
“Sometimes it just takes a minute or two, nothing to fret about son” he said as the words wrapped around me in comfort like the arm he placed on my shoulder, “why when I was your age…” he started to say but never got the chance to finish for at that moment the great clock struck midnight, the witching hour and the bells inside the imposing temple to father time played there deep and brassy tune.
Suddenly the room was filled with a surge of power that silenced all murmurs as electricity crackled through the air. It centered on me and my still outstretched hand as my father backed away. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I felt the anticipation flow through me. The chimes of the clock turned to thunder, and the air in the room was rent by light as strange shapes of no earthly form appeared before my eyes. The room was pervaded by the deep smell of the sea, a not so pleasant smell of rotting fish and decaying seaweed. Then a hellish sound as if a million souls were crying out desperate in their damnation at losing hope. People clapped their hands to there ears, some falling to their knees, struck dumb by the sound.
Then just as suddenly as it had begun, the ordeal was over, before me holding my hand was a creature of unimaginable horror, with the greenish body of a man, the wings of a dragon, the head of an octopus and the eyes of a demon. CTHULHU!!!!
In my abject horror at the monster I had summoned, I tried to dispel this foul creature, yet before this thought could fly from my head, my summoned creation beheld me in its gaze and my soul fled my body in panic, and my consciousness was shattered by madness, rooting me in place, forced to watch as this Doom of an old god struck down my family who were unable to flee, as his very visage drove sanity from their minds and reduced them to mumbling stupor.
With each death, he grew greater, until his hideous form broke through the roof, he bowed down and almost lovingly scooped me, his unwitting parent into his embrace, as he walked forth into the world, to destroy it and awaken his slumbering brothers beyond the veil of this reality. I could only hope that the defender of man will defeat him, but my son has taken away my hope, my fear, my pain, my joy, and my love, an so I am forced to watch the end that I have summoned through eyes that can now only hold Terror. | 2019-09-18T08:25:27 | 2019-09-18T08:16:27 | 162 | 57 |
[WP] One night, something grabs your hand as it hangs off the edge of the bed. You give it a firm handshake. "You're hired," it whispers. | "No.
No.
No! Dammit, Claire, don't you think I know that? It's been twenty years, I know how it works.
Ok, 23. Still, you know I know better. This isn't my first Negotiation.
I was asleep, Ok? They grabbed my hand and I Sealed without even realizing it. They put a hand in mine and unconscious me shook it.
It had to be. I felt the magic lock in; that's what woke me up. The Sealing took and they told me I was hired. It doesn't get much more binding than that.
Look, it's already done, and you know there's no backing out of this. It's just a one year Contract, so I'll see you in a year, Ok? I have to go now, the pull is pretty strong.
I love you too, bear. Bye bye."
As I hung up the phone, I nodded to the translucent figure floating next to me. The bathroom doorway flickered briefly and then steadied into the tell-tale swirl of a Portal.
"Why did you lie to her?" The whispery voice of the Mediator startled me. I didn't even know they talked, other than during Negotiation.
"It's a human thing. Claire and I both know this is a one-way trip, but if we pretend otherwise, it lessens the pain. Don't you remember this from when you were alive?"
The Mediator offered no response. Of course. One day, Humanity is going to find out why the dead have come back as our tormentors, and there will be a reckoning. But today, this human has to meet his obligations, even if the God damned Mediators are a bunch of fucking cheaters.
I stepped through the Portal.
| Pain seared through your chest as you stirred in a bed. Your body felt like it was set on fire and sweat trickled down your forehead. You lay limp, trying to focus on your surroundings when you felt something grab your hand.
"You're hired," it whispered. Its voice was soft yet strong and for some reason you calmed down, you felt as if you could trust it. You felt something jumping onto the bed and heard a soft rumble. Then, fires licked your wounded body and you wanted to thrash and flee from the pain it inflicted on you. But as soon as it started, the pain disappeared, replaced by a cooling sensation where your wounds once were.
You opened your eyes that were previously clenched in an attempt to relief the unbearable pain you had felt moments before. Your sight returned to you as the dark fog retreated from your view. Beside you, on the bed, you see a small yet magnificent sight.
Although highly weakened, the dragon infront of you hasnt lost a tinge of regal in the way she holds herself. As you stared at her, she turned in a circle and transformed into a 19 year old girl with flawless skin and long blonde hair. She wears a blue gown that trails on the floor and sparkles like a blue gem. And her eyes, a captivating cool blue hue.
"You're hired," she repeated. "If you protect me and never betray me, I'll find ways to cure your sickness." | 2017-04-29T04:15:28 | 2017-04-29T02:46:57 | 17 | 11 |
[WP] Your elven girlfriend is having a mental breakdown after learning you are only in your mid thirties. | "I'M DISGUSTING!" She wailed.
I winced at the volume but desperately tried to get her to calm down.
"No, no sweety, I told you..."
She flinched back from my outstretched hands. "DON'T TOUCH ME, I'M A MONSTEEE-HE-HE-HERRR...!"
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "No, honey, humans age differently, I told you..."
And now she was looking angry. Progress?
"Oh! Oh don't give me that CRAP! Imagine you met a human looking, short lived species and found out your girlfriend was FOUR. HOW WOULD YOU REACT?"
I felt myself go a little green. "Uhm. I would...calmly and rationally assess the situation?"
"OH *SURE* YOU WOULD!"
I winced. "Okay, yeah, it would be pretty bad."
"NO SHIT!"
"Look, maybe a drink? I have some well aged whiskey..."
She was staring daggers at me.
I raised my hands.
"Uh. No pun intended?"
Which was the point when she punched me. | " Oh my gosh, ohhh myyyy gossshhhh", my girlfriend was sitting in the corner, arms wrapped around her legs and rocking back and forth. "Hey, it's ok," I put my arm across her shoulders."Look, no one has to find out, we can just fudge the numbers a little." I shrugged and gave her one of my charming smiles. She wide-eyed me and mumbled "Fudge the numbers a *little*?! More like by a few centuries! How could this have happy!" She walked and tucked her head in her arms. "Don't worry, it's gonna be ok" I continued trying to soothe her, but it was tough going. She had been having a breakdown since seeing a birthday text on my phone this morning. "Happy big 3-0 little brother!" Who would have thought such a small thing would bring a relationship almost crumbling down? | 2021-12-19T22:13:03 | 2021-12-19T14:43:41 | 217 | 85 |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Okay, settle down you Klaforkians!" Herbo commanded the students. "I know that yesterday's news has us all excited. Let's talk about it! Who has a question?"
"What do they look like?" Young Booly asked.
"The humans?" Herbo heartily chuckled. "They're fleshy, four-limbed, upright, and a little shorter than you are."
"Oh! Teacher!" Young Spooku raised her hypertentacle. "Are they evil? Will they eat us?"
Herbo expected such silly questions and laughed. "No, they won't eat us. I don't think they are evil, but humans are... very reckless."
Herbo nodded his head and grinned as he motioned to the students to calm down. They grew more energetic by the second- as to be expected. A new starfaring species hasn't risen in several generations!
"Why are humans reckless?" Young Zari questioned.
"Well," Herbo thought. "Do you know how we travel such great distances so quickly?"
"Of course!" The students all replied in unison. Young Jujuju smugly spoke, "Our spaceships bend the space in front of them and *WHOOOOOOOOSH!*"
The class merrily chuckled. "Yes," Herbo explained. "Our smartest Klaforkian scientists discovered long ago that if our spaceships bend the space in front it, we could travel great distances much quicker than the universe wanted us to. The universe's speed limit no longer applied to us."
"Teacher," Young Booly asked. "Is it illegal to break the universe's speed limit?"
Herbo couldn't resist an enormous smile. "No, Young Booly. The universe won't arrest us for breaking its speed limit."
"Oh," Young Jujuju spoke again. "The Plurpians go faster than light speed because they teleport in *WORM HOLES*!"
"Very good, Young Jujuju," Herbo said. "And the Narlans break the universe's speed limit because they can travel through time itself. Narlans arrive at their destination before they leave!"
The students knew all of this, of course. They learned about starfaring species' faster-than-light methods in 24th grade science.
"How do humans break the speed of light?" Young Spooku asked.
"Well," Herbo started. "This is why they are so reckless. Humans can travel faster than the speed of light because they change the speed of light itself. This is why we don't think humans are stupid; they are just stupidly careless."
The students sat thinking about what Herbo had told them. For the first time since class started, they were all silent.
Finally, Young Jujuju broke the silence. "If humans change the speed of light itself, then they can travel faster than light. But doesn't that mean that they are still very slow?"
"Yes it does, Young Jujuju," Herbo confirmed. "Those slow, reckless humans." | We had made contact with the inhabitants of TH-49, or, as they called it, Earth. Unlike every other species we've encountered, we didn't come to them. Rather, they came to us. With this came a few different problems. Firstly, we didn't have any forms of diplomatic greeting prepared. They had caught us with our metaphorical pants down, so our first conversations were rather rushed and sloppy. Not a great start to meeting a major species. Another problem with this is that we never had the chance to share our advanced FTL technology with them. It wasn't much, just the framework for FTL travel, and the various species that we had encountered and shared this with all did something different with it. Teleportation, wormholes, bending space, and so on and so forth. In the end, however, the results were all the same: sleek, elegant, completely safe travel at speeds faster than light. These humans, however, had created a much different approach.
I'll never forget the sight I saw from my viewport when they first arrived. Hundreds, if not thousands, of things that I would hesitate to call ships suddenly appeared outside of one of our most populated stations. These ships bore no sign of our technology, and were bulky, hideous creations. Where smooth, flowing corners should have led from the front of the ship to the engines laid harsh forty-five degree angles. Every side was painted bright red and almost completely flat, not counting the engines. Oh lord, the engines. Large, seemingly combustion-based engines engulfed the backs of the ships, looking as if the ships were stuffed full of them, with the engines only managing to tear through at the back.
Our first conversation was televised across the entire station, with their primitive language automatically translated to what we could understand.
"Greetings, inhabitants of TH-49," announced our ambassador, "We did not know you had developed such advanced technology, so we apologize for not quite being ready to greet you as of this moment."
"Apology accepted, aliens," replied a human, presumably the ambassador, "After all, we expected that you'd be too blown away by our technology to even speak."
"Yes, yes. This truly is an..." Our ambassador hesitated for a moment, presumably to rack his brain for a compliment, "...Inventive form of space travel. May I please ask who created this system?"
"Well, you're talking to him right now," the human responded boldly, "Name's John. John Kerbal."
----------------------------------
So this was my first ever time writing a writing prompt, and I would like a little bit of feedback on how it turned out. Anything helps! | 2017-03-30T22:22:59 | 2017-03-30T22:16:31 | 241 | 85 |
[WP] After a long and tedious process you were chosen to be the first ever human to test the new way of travel - the Teleport. All previous tests on objects and animals were very successful. Zero side effects. But after using the machine yourself you immediately notice a difference. | The light was bright. He closed his eyelids, but couldn't escape the blinding light. His eyelids probably weren't there, he scoffed.
He started blinking rapidly and heard the door hiss behind him, the humidity turning into fog as it fell into the room behind him. He was still blinking, the dark spots on his eyes made it so he couldn't see. He lifted his hands and fumbled until he felt the side of the chamber and he felt along the wall until he felt the opening of the door.
"Doctor, are you okay?" He heard the familiar voice of his counterpart.
"I'm having trouble seeing." He called back.
A moment later a hand grabbed his and helped steady him. "This way doctor," a reassuring young voice said. A flurry of voices fluttered past him about his status, he tried to catch them all. "None of the animals had vision problems." "Could it be a latent biological defect?" "What if there was too much mass on a human to accurately scan compared to our test animals?" "Well, we have data buffers that should handle an elephant....theoretically."
"Sit down here, doctor." His attention snapped back to his guide and fumbled his way into his cold, hard seat.
"Okay, I'm going to do a light test on your eyes, so please open your eyes and hold them open. He hadn't realized he had been tightly holding them shut.
As he opened his eyes, the black blob had faded a bit to grey. As he glanced around the room, he noticed a few oddities with his equipment. Who had messed with it? Had that caused the light? He focused on his nurse getting instruments ready and nearly choked on his own spit.
Bolting up, he backed away from the monstrosity before him. "Wh-who are you? WHAT are you??"
The nurse looked around at the befuddled faces around her, all taken aback.
"I'm Lauren. The medic. I'm.....human....? What do you see?"
"I see a lizard. You're all lizards."
"Yes?" Came the reply from a confused Lauren.
"Robert, why are you saying it like that? You're a lizard, too. What is humanity supposed to be?"
He looked down at himself. The grey clouding still present. His hands ended in well manicured claws. He pushed his tongue out of his mouth and ran it across his face. It was all completely alien. And yet, so familiar.
Robert calmed himself. "This is going to be a log and tests to end all logs and tests."
He slowly walked back to his chair and sat down and nodded at the medic. She breathed a sigh of relief and brought up a pen light.
"Please open your eyes."
"They are open."
"Open them fully."
Robert widened his eyes.
"No, your inner membrane."
Robert displayed confusion, exerted some effort and found his vision was perfectly clear.
His counterpart, a woman of incredible brilliance that had worked with him for five years, stepped up next to him. "Robert, what's going on."
"I don't know. But I'm going to sound crazy when I try to explain this....."
Kara pulled out a tape recorder and clicked it on. "Well, let's get it started, then....." | “Experimental Log: Supplemental. Teleportation experiment 234, the first with subject H1 was a complete success. Subject transmission took 1.35 seconds, zero anomalies. Subject is awake and alert following reversal of the sedative. All vitals nominal, no side effects observ..”
“Wait, that’s not right!” Exclaimed Subject H1 suddenly.
Dr Alderman, slightly irritated at being interrupted whilst making the official log of the results, turned to the patient lying in the gurney. “What’s not right, Ms White?”
Sandy placed her hands over her chest. “I’ve got breasts!”
Alderman glanced down at his notes. “Ms White, we took all your physical measurement yesterday. It says here your breasts measured 32C, trending slightly towards a B on the right breast. Are you saying they are a different size?”
“Yes! Yesterday I didn’t have... wait!... what did you call me?”
“Ms White, is that not your name?” Alderman asked, concerned they’d somehow used the wrong subject in the experiment.
“It’s MISTER White, not Ms”
Alderman gestured to his notes, “It says here you are a 25 year old woman. Ms Sandra ‘Sandy’ White.”
“What!? No, I’m a man. What!? My name is Sandy White, not Sandra” Sandy exclaimed. She paused for a moment, before sudden realisation dawned on her face, and she thrust her hands between her legs.
“I’m a woman! Holy shit! Your infernal machine turned me into a woman”
“Yes, according to our notes, you’ve always been a woman.” Alderman called up the Subjects medical notes on the computer. “Your medical records also indicate that this is the case.”
Now panicked, Sandy sat bolt upright in the gurney. “What the hell is going on!? I’m not a woman. I’ve never been a woman. Is someone trying to play some sort of trick on me!?”
“Well, we’ll look into this as a matter of urgency. Why don’t you rest a for now, whilst we try to work out what’s going on”, Alderman said reassuringly, nodding at an orderly, standing by with a Syringe of sedative
“Thanks Doc. You have to figure it out, and get me back to normal!” Sandy replied drowsily, as she slipped back into sleep.
Once the Subject had been wheeled out of the lab, Alderman turned back to the computer.
“Experimental Log: Supplemental. Previous observations over the lack of side effects was premature. Subject H1 appears to have suffered some sort of Psychosis: believing herself to have been a man prior to commencement. Note: Liaise with our psychologist colleagues following standard post-experimental evaluation to identify the cause of this effect.
Routine diagnostics of the equipment shows all systems nominal. Experiment 235 will commence with Subject H2 shortly. End Log” | 2020-05-30T08:10:48 | 2020-05-30T04:04:46 | 201 | 150 |
[WP] Cause of death appears to you as floating text over people's heads with no time indication. You start noticing a trend.
edit: thank you for all the truly great stories, and for taking this in directions I didn't expect. | A young lady at a loud coffee shop just can't seem get comfortable in her cushy leather seat. Every position doesn't quite work right.
~ Am I gassy? It must be the coffee. I think I've had a bit too much coffee.
She looks down at the nearly full cup of coffee.
~ Or not.
The bell at the door draws her attention. A balding middle age man walks in with AUTO-EROTIC ASPHYXIATION wrapped around his protuberous gut.
~ Nope. Not him. Thank god. Don't look though. That's rude.
Here eyes drop to her coffee. She dips a sugar cube in. The coffee runs up the sides and it dissolves in her hand.
~ Maybe I'm just a little anxious from the caffeine. That must be it.
The bell rings again. She jumps a little and wipes the sugar residue off on her skirt. She looks up to see a relatively good looking man beaming while he walks toward her.
~ That's him. Dont' look. That's rude. It looks big though. NO. Do not...
"Hi, I'm Sam" the man extends his hand across the table.
She jumps out of her seat, "Alice."
His eyes flick down for a second and his face freezes but he recovers quick enough.
~ Did he see it? Is he scared?
She looks down. Theres a large dark splotch where she wiped her hand. She smiles it off.
"O that, I spilled a bit."
"Of course."
"Do you want to grab a coffee?"
"No, they tend make me a little anxious."
She gives a quick nervous laugh, "I know what you mean. I barely touched mine and I feel a bit giddy."
He sits down and looks out the window, "I know I shouldn't ask... but I couldn't help but noticing..."
She looks down at her text. It says MURDER. "No it's alright, it's kind of hard to ignore."
He looks back to her, "Yeah, but I wouldn't let that kind of thing bother you. It could happen when you're 98."
"Still not the nicest prospect."
"It could be...euthanasia? Does that count?"
"You know, for a first date, you aren't really racking up points talking about my untimely demise."
"Who said it was untimely?"
She gives him a look and he knows he's taken it a bit too far.
"Well how about that guy."
He points at a nervous man about to jaywalk. Wrapped around his waist is written HIT AND RUN.
"Why don't we talk about his untimely demise."
She can't help but chuckle as the jaywalker repeatedly takes a step and retreats to the curb.
"You think he'd move somewhere without cars."
She joins in, "I can't really picture him with an Amish beard though."
"Don't joke about the Amish. I heard they're prone to down a few too many before getting behind the ....steer-ups? of their buggies."
"That's true but the horses usually DD."
She smiles and looks down at her coffee. She swirls it a bit. "I was thinking about trying to learn another language. I heard it would change to that alphabet."
"But what would be the point of that. You'd only be lying to yourself. And your friends would just look it up anyway."
She's a bit taken aback. "Oh, I never try to look at people I interact with."
"You don't?"
"No, that's rude. It's private."
"Not really private. It's in caps."
"But it's...intimate."
He looks down at her coffee with his brow furled. "Wait, so you haven't read mine yet?"
"Well...no. I don't like to judge people that way."
"But it's the most honest thing you can tell about someone."
"But what if it ruins my opinion..."
"Do it. I wouldn't feel comfortable otherwise."
"I'd rather not..."
The two sit in silence.
"Well if you don't want to I won't force it. Do you want to get out of here? My legs need a walk."
"Yeah, same." She smiles.
"Who'd think these chairs would be so uncomfortable."
"I know, they looked cushy!"
He stands up and stretches his legs. She gathers her things and for a brief second her eyes dart to his waist.
MURDER/SUICIDE. | Nobody sees the world in the same way. Some people see it as an adventure, others as a game. Me? I've never had the liberty of enjoying it.
Imagine knowing how something would play out before it happened. Imagine the surprise of life being taken out. Imagine the joy of living being sucked away because all you can ever think about is death.
That's what my life is like. I see dead men walking. Not literally. I don't mean I see zombies. I mean I can see how everybody will die before they even know.
Imagine seeing your newborn child. Imagine holding him in your arms. Imagine trying to smile at your wife when you see the words "measles" appear above his head. You know there's a vaccine. You know you can stop it. But your wife doesn't believe in vaccines. You have to struggle with your inner demons as you watch your child grow up in front of your eyes, only to be stricken down when you least expect it. You have to comfort your wife and tell her that "he's going to be okay" when you know the truth.
That's when you realize that the "suicide" that appears above your wife's head is indeed going to come true, and you can't stop it. No matter how much your comfort her, no matter how many times you tell her it's going to be okay, one night you still wake up and she's gone. The search parties never find her, but you know the truth.
When you finally get back to work, you learn that your boss died of a heart attack. You pretend to be shocked. "He was so young" you say. "How could this happen?" You know it's fate. You know you can't stop it.
The years drag by. Some people leave, others pass away. Cancer, heart attacks, murder, suicide, car accidents. The list goes on and on, each in the exact same way you knew it would.
You start taking mental notes of the most common causes. Suicide seems to be rampant, but murder is a close second. As people leave the office one way or the other, they're always replaced by the same one. Murder.
As the last "cancer" one dies, they are replaced with one that you are not very familiar with. "Electric Chair".
You find it strange. After all, the only crime punishable by death is... murder.
Perhaps fate can be changed. You realize this could be your chance for redemption. One day, he leaves work early, and you follow him into the alley. He looks back, and sees you following him. He tries to say hello. With no words, you pull the gun from your coat and shoot him in the chest. He falls to the ground, limp. Is he dead? You don't know. You've never killed a man before.
You look behind you. Is someone there? Did someone see? Nobody is around. Nobody saw... except the camera.
You forgot the office had CCTV cameras inside AND outside. You panic. You have to stop this. You're a hero, not a killer. You saved all your co-workers. You've stopped a murderer. You can't let anyone see the footage.
You get in your car and drive to the back of the building. You take the lighter from your pocket and spark it. You throw it into the paper bin outside and watch it burn. Before you can get back into your car, the burning paper has ignited the tires. You watch, helplessly, as your car erupts into flames. You run away as fast as you can, until the explosion rocks you off your feet. The burning car had ignited the gas lines. The whole building is gone. Nobody could have survived. My co-workers were all accidentally murdered.
Before the sirens closed in, I took one last look back to make sure I at least took care of my quarry.
There was a trail of blood leading to an empty parking space. The murderer had still gotten away.
"I'll consider this your official confession." The police officer said to me as the dim lights continued to flicker.
"Yes. That's what I would call it." I replied calmly.
"You realize what the sentence is for murder around here, correct?"
"Yes." I replied once again. "Electric chair. I've been able to read my own cause of death for years." | 2015-03-31T10:33:36 | 2015-03-31T09:32:55 | 27 | 12 |
[WP] You are the sole normal, unpowered student at a School for the Supernaturally Gifted. You were bullied once. Once. | As the class watched on in abject horror, I zoned out a little and thought about what brought me here. This school was supposed to "straighten me out" as dear old Dad put it - after all, if everyone else has superpowers and I don't I shouldn't ever be able to win a fight. And if I could only get into losing fights surely I'd be less interested in picking them.
Oh how daft that old prick was.
30 minutes ago, when I arrived, I was told the rules. No running in the halls, don't steal our shit, standard stuff really. But then we got onto rules around fighting... Like how if a super uses their power on a null like me for violence they can have their powers sealed away by the Bureau.
10 minutes ago when I walked into my first class, I got a good whiff of the smug supers and their superiority complexes. As soon as I was introduced they demanded to know what a "mere null" was doing in their "sacred halls" dirtying the place up. Now, if the last 20 schools have taught me anything it's two things: the first is that you must establish your place in the local pecking order, and the second is that someone is usually kind enough to volunteer to help you do that.
So when one of the neon haired morons with an anime haircut got in my face during the fuss, I decided to accept his help and see just how far the rules would let me go. See, fighting in a dispute *is* allowed here, but unlike me I don't think any of these posers have ever seen the inside of a gym that wasnt tailored to their powers.
Since I slapped this kid to the floor and started slowly breaking fingers, nobody has said a word. Nobody has even tried to stop me, though I doubt any of them know how without their *precious* powers to help. I figure I've got enough time before the teacher gets back with whatever help he thinks is coming to get through both hands.
Continuing to make unwavering eye contact with my new classmates, I smiled and addressed them.
"You know what? I think I'm going to like it at this school." | "You see, wait what was your name again? Nevermind it doesn't matter.
Where was I?
Oh right.
You see. I never liked violence. Seems unnecessary when diplomacy works just fine these days. Two people in an argument can just, you know. Talk stuff out. No need to go all primitive.
But then again.
We could have done that couldn't we. You tell me what about me bothers you so much and I stop doing it. Or we could have just pretended the other doesn't exist.
But no.
Your kind doesn't get that now, do they?
You weren't acting like an individual. You were being a problem.
And problems.
Need to be dealt with."
Cain stopped talking when the circle was finally complete.
The red sand glowed crimson.
"I know this ain't much. But this should be enough I suppose, for another contract? This time, I would like, umm super strength or something along the lines that he has.
Oh my bad. Had"
The circle glows brighter as the boy's eyes flicker in panic. He could feel the ground getting warmer by the second, paralyzed to move away but concious to feel it all.
Cain chuckled.
Soon the ground sizzled bruning searing the boy's skin.
But just then the boy realised that he could move ever so slightly. He steeled his will and let out a howl lunging towards Jonathan who jumped back in surprise.
And just as he was about to get out of the circle. The ground beneath him broke as he fell into the pit straight to realm below.
A voice rang out in Cain's head.
"Why do you always risk that?"
"Risk what?"
"Lower the doze of the tranquilize"
"It gives them some hope of escaping."
The voice laughed.
"You would make a fine demon some day. Magic hero." | 2022-11-02T12:26:39 | 2022-11-02T11:05:22 | 83 | 34 |
[WP] You're 90% sure your flat-mate's a vampire, unfortunately for him you're a vampire hunter. But he does pay half the rent so... | **Stanley entered his apartment. It had been a long night vampire hunting and Stanley was very tired so he decided to take the elevator**
\>Walk past elevator
**Stanley simply wished for more exercise so he decided to take the stairs**
**When Stanley came to the stairs he went up to his flat**
\> Go up stairs
**When Stanley arrived at his door he realised he had forgotten his keys and so knocked on the door**
\>Lockpick door
**No. No. No. Stanley, I do have your best intentions at heart. Lockpicking that door will likely result in your death**
\>Lockpick door
**Stanley decided he didn't fear death and picked the lock anyway, regardless of what the voice in his head told him to do**
\>Open door
**When Stanley opened the door he saw his flatmate drinking another person. Stanley was so shocked that it took him a moment to take out a stake and stab his flatmate**
\>Greet flatmate
**Look, Stanley. You can't control this story, you don't have free will. Trying to prove you do will only end badly for you**
\>Greet flatmate
**Greeted his flatmate good evening. His flatmate just looked at him in confusion.**
**"Isn't this the bit where you stab me?" his flatmate asked.**
\>Tell flatmate "Well, you do pay half the bills. Just make sure to clean up the blood"
**Stanley tried to speak but found himself unable to be-**
*Stanley flatmate looked at him in surprise. "Really?" he said.*
**Look, I don't know who you think you are but this is my story. Don't go thinking you can just but in. Find your own writing prompts thread**
*The new and better narrater ignored the bad one and waited for Stanley to respond*
**Oh why you little- Stanley told the imposter that he much preferred the old one**
\>Ask flatmate what is for dinner
*Stanleys flatmate blinked for a second and then spoke*
*" There is some pizza in the fridge, I wasn't expecting you back so early so I haven't made anything"*
**You too Stanley!? -sigh- Restart**
-Flash of light- | I stumbled back to the flat, fumbling with the keys before stuffing the appropriate one into the lock and hoping for the best. Damn Rosa, always getting me to come to the pub after a good day's hunt. I squinted at the door, but miraculously it swung open before I had chance to abuse the poor thing any further.
Eddie! Thank god. I shuffled in, dumped my bag down and flopped on the sofa. He placed my keys on the side table and slunk back to his room without a word. Weird guy. Never did see him much and he was a bit of a night owl. At least he actually helped keep the flat clean and didn't leave any mouldy dishes in the sink like Dan used to...
Damnit, the dishes. I went over to the kichen and looked miserably at my bowls and plates stacked up ready to wash. I put some in the sink to soak, then took a pint glass of water to take to my room. As I was shuffling down the corridor, I heard a weird sound coming from Eddie's room. A soft female cry that was cut short, then total silence. Eddie does bring some weird girls home...each to their own though.
A few minutes later, I found myself lying in bed with the room pleasantly spinning. As I lay there, I started considering my job and how I was just so grateful that I had a guy like Eddie as a flatmate. Nobody else would be so chill with my long excursions, which often end up with me coming back battered and bruised. Nobody else would be ok with my weird anti-demon décor and odd packages that I get delivered. No other flatmates would be so polite, take up so little space in the fridge or not drink my milk either....
Fuck. Lack of food, aversion to sunlight, constant stream of obsessed women coming to our house...gextbook example. But he's just so damn nice, and he does always pay his rent on time...ah well. My bedroom door is locked every night, and I'm sure it'll be fine. I'll deal with it tomorrow. | 2015-11-10T04:17:50 | 2015-11-10T01:41:54 | 42 | 19 |
[WP] When turning 21, everyone develops a mutation, either physical (Claws, horns, wings) or mental (telekinesis, extreme intelligence, etc). You've just turned 21, and you're terrified of what you've gained (though others will be impressed).
Edit: Holy shit this blew up. I'm reading these and they're great! Thanks everyone! | I have the best boobs in the world.
I'm not, like, egotistical or anything. Heck, some days I don't even want them, but it's undeniable. That was my mutation. April 24th, 2014, the day I developed the best pair of breasts anyone has ever had.
At first, I was actually a little stoked. I mean, my rack is *amazing*. It doesn't matter what I'm wearing, they look good. They fill t-shirts out wonderfully, and even in sweaters and jackets the gentle curves show just right, enticing the viewer and leaving them wanting more. And tank tops? Forget about it.
And sure, I do get treated different. I can go just about anywhere these days, and any guy is willing to pretend to be interested in what I have to say – even a lot of women I meet will at least give me a second glance, if not special treatment. I certainly have my pick of the litter when it comes to sexual partners, and let me tell you: I am *enjoy*ing my youth.
Don't get me wrong, though, there are downsides. Just about *everyone* stares. It's hard to really engage someone in conversation. I've seen grown men cry from the effort of maintaining eye contact with me. And the starers, the criers, they're the good ones. I can't ride the subway without being felt up, I don't dare be alone at night without people I trust, many women openly resent me, and all of this is seen as normal. I'm just the Great Tits, as if nobody's even expected to *try* to maintain decorum around me.
But you know none of this is even the worst aspect, not really. More than any of this, there's one thing about my boobs that keeps me up at night, one thing that makes me worry about how the rest of my life is going to play out.
Even with my beard, nobody will believe I'm a guy. | “Wait, you got what now?”
“X-ray vision.” I put my head down on the table.
“Dude that’s fucking awesome! For my 21 mutation all I got was really fast growing hair, and that’s lame” my friend Derek said. His hair was down to his shoulders though he had been buzzed bald this morning. He went through razors faster than kids go through crayons. Everyone got a mutation at 21 and I was no exception.
“So you can like, see through clothes and walls and shit?” He said.
“Yup.”
“Dude that’s amazing! Wait, are you checking out my junk through the table?”
“No Derek” I sighed. “I can barely see skin. I can only see metal, bones and not much else.”
“You can see my bone if you want” He said grinning. His face turned from laughing to serious in a second. “Shit you mean it.”
“I’ll never be able to see what anybody looks like. I can sort of vaguely see outlines of things, but nothing else.”
“Oh my god, that’s the worse mutation ever!”
“Right?” The door burst open and I was bowled over by Jake, my broad shouldered friend whose twenty first birthday had earned him feathered wings and the nickname ‘Angel’.
“Happy birthday buddy, what’s your mutation?” He cried enthusiastically, giving me a hug.
“X-ray vision” I muttered.
“Dude that’s so cool! Wait, are you looking at my dick?” I sighed.
This was going to be a long day. | 2022-05-10T21:44:19 | 2015-03-04T06:44:10 | 1,457 | 28 |
[WP]Everyone can bend a single element just like in avatar.However these are actual elements like Argon.Most powerful individuals bend metals or flammable materials.But not you you bend carbon.You bend the carbon in people’s bodies. | “Molecule is in position. Begin test in 30 seconds.”
My boss looked over at me. “Hold it steady, Johnson.”
I give her a slight nod and a resigned, “Yep.” She scoffs at my boredom, but hey, what can she do? I’m pretty much the only person out there that I know of that can do this job.
“Ten seconds.”
Really, the job ain’t so bad. It’s boring, yes, but a paycheck is a paycheck. And they’re paying me a decent amount of times more than minimum wage for doing basically nothing all day. They even let me watch Netflix in the break room when I’m not suspending molecules in the Large Hadron Collider.
“Three... two... one...”
There’s a flash from the machine, which was captured by incredibly high speed cameras through high powered microscopes.
“Test complete.”
“You can relax now, Johnson.”
With a dramatic sigh, I lower my hands and wipe nonexistent sweat off of my brow. It really wasn’t that hard at all, pretty much second nature at this point. To be honest, I don’t even need my hands any more. But I can’t let them know that, of course; if they think my job is easy, they might cut back on that fat ass check I get every two weeks. I wave to the team of scientists and fake-drag myself back to the break room where I start watching where I left off on an episode of New Girl.
So I’m a carbon bender. Yeah, like Aang and Katara and all that jazz from Avatar, except a bit more specific. They bend water, which doesn’t sound as impressive, but it’s honestly *way more impressive.* I mean think about it; they’re not just bending hydrogen, they’re not just bending oxygen, they’re bending two hydrogen’s and one oxygen in massive amounts, retaining those flimsy H-bond based molecular structures, and they can even turn it to ice and stuff. That is *amazing.* See, controlling carbon is a pretty neat trick, especially when you figure out how not to remove the carbon from a molecule. It means you can pretty much bend organic matter Avatar style, except I can’t fling you across a room or something without accidentally tearing all of the carbon out from your body; molecular bonds are super super strong, but not strong enough to stand up to supernatural forces like mine.
“But Johnson,” you might ask, “if you’re such a badass and can move carbon at will, Why relegate yourself to working in the CERN facility?” Well, I *could* run around being a badass super soldier assassin type of deal. I could go to corrupt tyrants and just reduce them to a pile of unstable, carbon-less cells. I could rule the world with this power (probably). But honestly, that’s not really my style; God made me into something of a pacifist. And hey, as much as I rip on my job, it’s really pretty interesting. They basically had the choice between building a a highly complex electromagnet to suspend the molecules in the collider, probably costing them upward of millions of dollars, or just pay some dude to do it every now and again. And boy, were they happy to have me on board; they’ve just been happily smashing thing into carbon-based molecules for months now. I don’t even think they’re testing things anymore, they’re just having fun with it.
I’m happy, is what I’m trying to say. Yeah, the world is messed up, and yeah, I could try to fix it with my powers, but I’m just a dude. Like, if I decide to obliterate some tyrant, is that really the right move? What chain of events am I starting? What are the consequences? A problem is never solved as easily as killing someone; there’s always complications. This isn’t a movie where some brooding anti-hero runs around and murders people in cold blood. The government hasn’t captured me and forced me to assassinate people (I mean, in all likelihood, they can probably kill people more efficiently than I can with some top secret technology. You know what they say about technology and magic). So, really, I was just leading a quiet life working in a 7/11 before CERN enthusiastically contacted me and asked me to work for them. And how can I turn that down? I get out of my shitty, no-future Chicago apartment and move to Switzerland to stand there and hold things every once in a while? Sign me up. | "Hey One" I said, as the metal barrier closed behind me, signalling the end of a work day.
"Nice to see you keeping up with the oil".
One ran to me, threw himself around my neck: "I did it Six, I wasn't behind today!"
I padded his head; "we should meet up with Eight and Seven" the answer came promptly, "but seven's scary!". As I tried to calm the four-year old, I silently agreed. One, Eight and I all had a destinct purposes at the facility, but Seven was there mostly to make the job easier for us, a role she didn't like.
She was also older, the only teen among us, if only just.
I was eight as Eight was six, and seven had just crossed her 14th winter. We went down to the operation room door, "Do you think they'll come today they haven't been here for a long time" one asked with a naive hope in his eye, how I missed it in mine. "No, they only come once a month now" I glumly stated.
As we went into the corridor one jumped Eight before I saw him: "didn't I do well today Eight?".
Eight started breathing to speak, it always felt wierd to me that he didn't need to breathe. I understood why, and I understood why I needed to breathe, but waiting for him to obtain air before every word still felt wrong.
"You -- puh -- huh -- Did -- puh -- huh -- well -- puh -- huh -- at -- puh -- huh -- following -- puh -- huh -- us -- puh -- huh -- today", one grinned as happy and innocent any other child of four.
"You need to breathe more" Seven hissed: "If nothing else to train you lungs!". Eight made a thumps up, but his chest stopped moving as One hid behind him.
We wen't to the kitchen, and started cooking. It always had to be me and Eight who did that, I guess One could gather the methane, and take over for me, but he was still a tad to unrefined. Eight however, was essential.
Before we got started cooking a silver plate, and a presentation screen started flying into the room. We watched as the platter slowly landed on the table, and as the lid was lifted, a cake was revealed. One jumped happily up and down. The rest of us looked slightly worried at each other; normally we would only get cake twice a year, 42 days from now.
After the presentation was done setting up, seventynine appears on the screen, in his golden armor: "Thank you for your services" he said in a metallic voice "the four of you have stopped all of global warming, humanity thanks you. Your cake is there to celebrate." He sounded slightly sad as he mentioned celebration. One had already eaten his piece, finding Seventynine too boring to stay awake, hes breath had slowed, almost to a halt. Seven looked looked sadly on the cake, three days ago she had proclaimed to be on a diet, and it would have to last 42 more days. Eight was saving his slice for dessert.
As I went to grab my piece, Seventynine started talking about how great our deeds had been, how well we would be remembered, remembered? We were 4--14, surely he had misspoken?
As I touched the cake I realized. It had been poisoned, an unfamiliar poison, but a poison still. I rushed to One, hoping I could break it, before It was too late.
My heart flickered, as I realized that I could not.
I looked at the remaining pieces of cake and they exploded. I looked at Seventynine, teas in my eyes, rage in my heart. He said: "I'm sorry that it had to end this way, but you are too dangerous. Without One, you cannot create organic matter, so I will not hunt you, but I will not release you either!" The presentation board started flying out.
After telling Eight and Seven what had happened we agreed to escape, to find seventynine, to stop his breath.
| 2018-05-08T06:32:09 | 2018-05-08T06:16:00 | 93 | 10 |
[WP] Torture was never invented. Countries instead spoil prisoners like kings to get information out of them. You are an instructor tasked with training spies to resist the enemy's kindness. | “You have to resist their kindness,” he held a tentative breath in the back of his mouth, readying to trickle the rest out once his student had truly taken his words in it. “Although you won’t recognize it; you won’t understand the kindness for what it truly is until you see *why* for yourself.”
“With all due respect, sir”, her shoulders pushed back, her hands folded neatly on the metal table between them, Aliyah was a beacon of poise and wit in any and every situation her instructor had put before her. “I think I can handle it. I scored starred firsts in every survival course at academy and successfully completed not one, not two, but six extended survival scenarios.”
Sameer picked up the small, off-white paper cup and took a tiny sip of water before setting it back down. The waterline tilted almost imperceptibly during the cup’s rise and fall, quivering with only the faintest vibrations that would disturb its peace as he let it go back onto the table. Whatever experience, whatever composure this woman *thought* she had? Sameer had seen a hundred men and women boast the same before her.
This was not the first time, and this would not be the last.
“Do you know what happens to people who are exposed to the Abel virus, Aliyah?” He posited a question they had covered very early on in her training, but that she was likely to not know any more intimately than a line or two in a textbook. His eyes locked onto her as she processed how their situation was evolving.
“Sir, the virus has a dormant period of 5-10 days before subjects begin showing signs of fever and then pneumonia. As the virus progresses, soft tissue linings begin to break down and subjects begin expelling the telltale coppery mucus commonly associated with the disease. Shortly thereafter, small tumors invade the body.” And she was so very much like the textbook she had read that from.
Aliyah shifted uncomfortably in her chair; there was of course more to the description of the disease. And given her instructor’s unwavering gaze, it was clear he was expecting the rest of it to follow. “End stage results in either rapid calcification of the tumors and recovery, although joint pain is chronic and irreversible. Or,” Her mouth twitched slightly and then pursed. This disease, this horrible disease and great plague of their age had claimed her brother three years prior. It was the entire reason she was *here*. “They continue to grow unchecked, causing severe deformation, dementia, palsy, and a number of other neurological conditions until death.”
Sameer nodded twice, curtly, signifying both his point (although it was yet unstated) and her correct recitation. “Your inoculation, while wildly expensive and very well researched, is not a perfect fix. The isotopes in your blood are filtered out by the body every 60 days or so.”
He rose from his chair and softly, the rubber soles of his boots clomped onto the cold, concrete floor of the training room. Sameer was an intimidating man when he wanted to be - able to impose this...shadow over an entire room or an entire crowd with the simplest tilt of his head and that quiet, slow, confident walk. Even Aliyah felt uncomfortable when he started into it, despite all her training, all the confidence and bravado of her youth.
“If they capture you, the first thing they will do is walk you down a very, *very* long hallway. The doors are open, like cells, but it is no prison. Bed after bed will be full of them as they cough. Some quietly, some loudly.” He had finally reached the window. And although the skies were gray and the clouds were thick, the faint implication of the sun, somewhere up there above it all, brought him the faintest of smiles.
“When the walk is over they will sit you in a room, much like this one,” he turned back to her to make sure she was following him and his words as closely as his own memories did. “And a man, much like me, will join you. He will set a nine millimeter pistol before you, and hold a single bullet out in front of him, and he will say, much like I am…”
The words came back so easily, in his mind, but that didn’t make them any easier to say. Any easier to hear. If he closed his eyes, it was like he was right there again, in that room, with that Lieutenant, with that Beretta glinting up at him beneath the harsh, fluorescent light hanging above the table. “Soldier, you have seen what this virus does. For the safety of all outside, you can never leave this facility alive. Soon, days or maybe weeks, your inoculation will weaken and you will show symptoms. It’s not a question of ‘if’. And if you want to die here, a bloated corpse full of tumors and rot and madness, you can. Or you can tell me what I need to know.”
Where the step of his boot had been heavy and deliberate before, he glided over the concrete to her side with nary a sound. Nothing could overshadow the gravity of this moment. “And then, Aliyah, they will walk you back down to your cell. Every day they will do this, back and forth, seeing each and every one of those beds with victims in them. Some empty yesterday, some full today. Some full yesterday, some empty today. They will sit you down and give you their sales pitch, just as the day before…”
She didn’t sniffle or cry or whimper, and her lip remained perfectly even - his student was holding her poise as well as he ever could have hoped! Especially given her history.
“Until you start coughing up blood.” he spoke into her ear, barely above a whisper, as he crouched down beside her.
“The next day the interrogator will repeat his statement but this time he will set the bullet down on the table, across from you. ‘This is all I can do for you’, he will say. ‘If you tell me what I need to know.’ “
“Aliyah, if you give in, everything that your brother died for, that your friends and your fellow students died for, will be lost.”
“You must not accept their kindness.”
================
EDITS: Had to adjust some small typos and doubled words. | **The drip of water echoed like gunshots.**
Blindfolded and bruised, Luce tried squash the fear that threatened to grab hold of her stomach, and fling it out of her throat.
Her wrists and her legs were bound tight enough to make her limbs numb. To her left and right, she could make out the sounds of at least two others, also tied to cramped, wooden chairs, struggling against their bindings.
A fey-like bell chimed, the dim *ting* exaggerated by her blindness. Following the bell, a pair of footsteps began to *clop, clop* in a slow, measured pace across the floor. The *clopping* reverberated and multiplied in the open (cave? hall?), so that she could not tell where from where the footsteps came.
Yet, Luce was not entirely lost. She could pick those footsteps out of a thousand-wide lineup. It was the Instructor, and the Test had begun.
"Good evening, gentlemen and lady," an older woman's voice rolled out across the floor, almost purring, "I am so pleased you could join me tonight."
"Good evening, Instructor," Luce replied automatically. She noted that the two men replied in much the same way. Perhaps they were agents-in-training, too.
"As I hope you are all now *well aware,* this test is a matter of life, and death. If you fail here, I will kill you - just as you would be killed in the field."
It was a statement that begged no response. Luce gave none, but she heard the man next to her swallow a squeak.
"Torture is a tool," the Instructor was very close now. Luce could hear her purring voice orbiting around them, "A tool for prying information. Not the *best* tool, but-"
The shriek of metal scraping stone made Luce jump against her bindings. A flick of air breezed passed Luce's ear, making her shiver. *A knife? Or something more sinister?* Her heart was now galloping against her chest.
"-*But,* that will not stop our enemies from using it. Now," glass tinkled, and a set of small wheels creaked. Luce could only imagine what horrifying device the Instructor was wheeling out in front of them, "Would anyone like a cup of tea before we begin?"
Luce opened her mouth to say yes, but the man to her left was quicker.
"Yes, thank you," he said, his voice filled with false-confidence.
Luce barely heard the whisper of cloth, before the ear-shattering ***BANG*** ripped passed her head. A sharp breeze flipped Luce's hair. The man to her left loosed a single strangled cry echoed out, before his chair slapped against the hard floor.
She thought she heard the sound of flesh, smacking against stone. Luce swallowed hard, trying to stop her heart from exploding out of her chest.
"Anyone else?" the Instructor's voice was almost sweet, "No? Very well, let us proceed."
The Instructor did not relent. Question after question rained from her mouth like barbed arrows in the pitch-black night. She prodded Luce and her unseen comrade for what felt like hours. At one point, Luce could feel the Instructor's breath on the back of her neck, at another she could practically *smell* the Instructor's dinner (garlic). Several times, the Instructor seemed like she was about to let up, only to start afresh.
The man next to her was jostling his legs like a child who needs to urinate. She wanted to reach out to him, to tell him it would be over soon, but Luce didn't know that for a fact. She didn't even know who *he* was - if he was actually another agent, or if he was just part of the test. So she kept her mouth *shut*.
At last, the Instructor pulled back. In the silence, Luce could hear the echo of water once again. She focused on that, taking pleasure in the predictability of the steady *drip, drip*.
"Well done, Agents. I supposed we should take a break. Does anyone need to use the water closet?"
Luce sucked in her breath, *willing* the agent beside her to say nothing.
"Yeah, that'd be great," the man next to her grunted, "I've been holding this since lun-"
***BANG***.
*Jesus Christ*, Luce thought. She could *hear* him slumping in his chair.
Luce jumped, almost tipping her own chair over, when a voice like a cat whispered over her shoulder, "Congratulations, Luce. I knew you would do well."
She felt the bindings around her arms loosen first, then the ones around her legs. Luce sat as still as a stone as the blindfold fell away from her eyes. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw two men, sprawled on the floor, lying in their own red puddles.
"Please, stand up Luce. The test is over. You are now ready to become a *Full Agent.* Come here to receive your badge."
Luce's mouth was clamped tighter than a vice. Though they were filled with restless pins and needles, she refused to move her limbs.
"Agent Luce?" the Instructor sounded impatient, even irritated now.
Luce resisted the urge to turn around, but she braved a single word.
"No."
"No?" the voice crept closer, "Are you *defying* me, Luce?"
"Yes."
*Clop. Clip. Clop.* - the Instructor took three powerful strides and planted herself squarely in the center of Luce's vision. She leveled her gaze, and with a cat-like voice - not a kitten's purr, this was the predatory mrowl of a one-eyed feline terror - the Instructor drew out a long, needling "Why?"
"Because I think you are still testing me, Instructor."
The predatory grin on the instructor's face was replaced by a true smile, a triumphant grin. The instructor pressed a button hidden in the folds of her suit, and lifted an unseen mouthpiece to her lips -
"She passed. I told you *she* would pass."
***
*Have some tea and read some stories at /r/PSHoffman* | 2016-04-13T07:20:48 | 2016-04-13T06:29:55 | 114 | 68 |
[WP] You're the owner of a cafe frequently visited by vigilantes and anti-heroes who absolutely adore your sweetness and acceptance of who they are. One day, though, a particularly rude customer comes in and trashes the place. Your friends aren't too happy to hear about that. |
I knew he was trouble when he walked in.
He came in, head held up high, posture like someone had shoved a metal rod up his ass. Young, cocky, asshole. It was slow day, only a couple of people were around. None of the regulars. A guy working on his laptop, and another girl watching the snow fall over Union Square outside.
He walked over to the counter like he owned the place. He raised his voice. “You folk might want to leave,” he said. “This might get ugly.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. He must have a foot on me and his arms were as thick as my thighs. The two customers looked at me and I nodded. “Best to leave, yeah.” They hurried out. What were the odds either of them would call the cops? Next to none. They’d think the other person would.
“You want something?” I asked.
The man picked up a cup and threw it at the wall next to my head, probably intending to make me flinch. I caught it as it flew by my head and set it back down. The PTSD and emotional trauma did come with some upsides.
“So you’re Elizabeth, I take?” eyes narrowed.
I went with the classic response. “Depends on who’s asking.”
He sneered. “Nobody’s asking, *sweetheart,*” he said. “We’ve been keeping track of what kind of clientele you serve. The rotten. The wannabes. The worst of the worst.”
“Strange,” I mused. “None of them have ever threatened me in my own workplace. Truly, nothing screams paragon of virtue like trying to intimidate women.”
He walked over to a table, picked it up with one hand and threw it against the wall. The table shattered and left a dent in the wall. He picked up a metal chair and, looking me in the eyes, bent it in half.
I rolled my eyes. “You realize you’re paying for that, right?”
He laughed and continued to wreck the place. Tables, chairs, vases, whatever he could find his hands on, grinning all the time. This was just pathetic, this is what the League had resorted to? Petty intimidation? And it could only be the League with their idiotic ideals of heroism. The government weren’t a bunch of thugs, and anyone else wouldn’t have bothered with the intimidation, they would’ve tried to kill me. Honestly, I would have preferred that. That was honest. This though…
“Are you done?” I asked as he sauntered back over to me.
“For now I am,” he said, again with that grin showing impeccable teeth. I was tempted to punch him…but no. I was out. I didn’t interfere anymore. It wasn’t worth it. “Now listen here, no more serving your “regulars,” yeah? Tell them someone, ah, tipped you off to what they really are. And that you don't serve their kind."
“They don’t trash the place, and tip well. They seem like better customers than you are.”
He leaned closer, looking me dead in the eyes. “Now, the League is protecting all of you from…maniacs like them, maybe you should be a little grateful.” He straightened. “You know, it might get some people thinking, why would any self-respecting citizen serve people like them. Might give the League the wrong idea...”
A handful of people sauntered into the shop snow on their shoulders. “I heard you were having trouble, Liz,” the man in the lead, Jon, said. Behind him, there was Rory, her red hair falling out of her fur hood and Michel, his dark skin a sharp contrast to the winter wonderland outside.
“Oh, speak of the devil,” the Leaguer said and *smiled.*” Actually smiled. He couldn’t see the tension in the air. I could feel it. Didn't realize how screwed he was.
“Jon, Rory, Mike,” I said, nodding to each of them. “What brings you here.”
“Heard a bull was running around in your shop, Liz,” Jon said, his eyes locked on the intruder. “Thought you could use some help getting it out.”
“Look, don’t worry about it,” I said, asshole or not the guy looked in his 20s. “He’s just a kid, let him go.”
He swiveled towards me, eyes ablaze. I mentally chastised myself. I hadn't thought before speaking. Forgot how sentimental these young heroes were.
“A kid? Listen bitch,” he spat, “I’ll show you how much of a kid I really am.” I saw the punch coming a mile away – really those idiots with super strength were always slow for some reason, and moved to the side, but I needn’t have bothered. The kid flew back and hit the wall with a wet sounding thud and a crack. One second he was in front of the counter reaching for me, the next he was against the wall, a red stain on the wall, his neck at an unnatural angle.
I put my head in my hands. “Jesus fucking Christ, Jon,” I snarled.
Jon frowned at me, moving his hand back down – he didn’t actually need to move his hand to use telekinesis – he just liked to show off. “He was going to hit you, Liz.”
“Seriously? You think that idiot could have even *touched* me?”
“I don’t know, Liz,” Rory spoke, laughing, “You’ve been out for a long time…”
I glared at her. “Now the league will investigate, things will only go downhill.”
Jon’s voice was laced with steel. “The League won’t fucking dare.”
I knew that tone of voice. “Jon no…”
But he was already turning away. “C’mon Rory, Mike. Let’s have a chat with the local League office.”
I surveyed the broken tables, the body, the blood. "Leaving the adult to clean up the mess..." I muttered uncharitably and went in the back to get the bleach.
***
Due to demand, I present
[Part 2: Blood on the Snow](https://www.reddit.com/r/XcessiveWriting/comments/9q1h8u/urban_fantasy_blood_on_the_snow_out_of_retirement/?)
If you enjoyed, check out my sub, [XcessiveWriting](https://www.reddit.com/r/XcessiveWriting/)
| I need to quit.
The one time, I get mad at someone; anyone... It leads to this.
I could understand breaking the windows. I could understand the vandalism. But did they really have to trash the entire place? I mean, I don't even know where to start. They trashed the bar. They smashed all the furniture. They even took a dump on top of the cash register.
They're wrong for that. That was just uncalled for.
You have to be a ornery motherfucker to not wipe. That's some confidence right there.
So here I sit, at 7 a.m. on a Monday morning, drinking the one container of anything they didn't manage to destroy. I hadn't noted their calling card they left.
"Put it on my tab, Roy." The white streaks of paint read above the door.
Well, that explained to me exactly who'd done this. There's only one person that's said that to me recently. You always have someone wanting to make a scene in my line of work. He came in and demanded free service. Of course I denied him, and I threatened to call the cops.
And that didn't work, so I had to make him leave myself, because you can only deal with so much sometimes.
Then again, that's what I get for going on a date and taking a day off.
I should've been here Sunday. Working. Setting up for today.
Now it's all gone. 15 years of blood, sweat, and tears. And it's all gone. Insurance is going to go apeshit. I'll have to call the cops, for real this time. I don't even know how Lottie is going to take it. She works here too, and I told her to take today off.
I guess that's for the best.
"Roy? What happened?"
One of my regulars had showed up. She wasn't one to show emotion, but this time she covered her face with her hand in horror.
"Hey Angel. It's nothing, I promise you."
"Sure doesn't look like 'nothing'." She said as she stepped further inside. "Who did this? And what's that smell?"
"They shit on the counter."
"Christ." She emitted. "I take it you're closed today?"
For a contract-killing biker, she actually had a sort of sweetness to her voice for once. It was oddly terrifying in ways none of you could ever understand.
"Who did it?" She asked again.
"I have a solid guess."
I didn't want to tell her. Not because she'd laugh or anything. I was more afraid of what she'd do to someone else. All of them.
"But don't worry about it. I'll get the law on this one."
"What the hell??"
I knew that voice from anywhere. *Everybody* knew that voice from anywhere.
David Sanderson. But everyone just called him Big Hawk. We had a Little Hawk that came by too, but that's not something I'm getting into at the moment.
He was known in the little circle we ran as one of the most prolific smugglers in this part of the country. Guns, drugs, you name it, he and his crew moved it. And they never went down for it.
As you can guess, I draw a certain level of clientele to my establishment. I didn't do it on purpose. We just happened to be nice servers to the right people, and I guess word got out. And they just kept coming.
I've quite possibly served some of the worst of the worst. But to many, they're also considered the best of the best. Although I didn't want them to know that.
Regardless, I ran it down to Hawk before Angel could. They both seemed equally interested in my reveal of who might have done something like this.
"Excuse me." Hawk issued.
He was on the phone now. Nothing good happens if Hawk has to get on the phone.
It was at this point, I noted an old Chevy had pulled up to the restaurant. These guys were a newer set I hadn't met much before.
College kids. But something was off with them too. The others already seemed to give them a level of respect, for what I have no clue. Then again, anybody who works for Phoenix is usually no joke. The only thing I took from that was to never get on their bad sight.
"Damn man." One of them spoke up. "What happened to your spot?"
I ran it down for them too.
"So they just decided to come through and wreck your place?" Another mentioned, "Well that's not nice."
I saw the outline under his shirt. Pistol. Yep. Definitely not normal. The one who drove here strolled over to Hawk and handed him a duffel bag.
Hawk, in return, got off the phone and handed him his briefcase.
"It's all there. You tell Phoenix I'll call."
"I gotcha'. Hey Roy, we gotta' bail out man. Class and all that. You let us know who did this okay? Our boss won't like what happened to your place."
"Alright, alright. I'll tell you. Just quit asking me."
They all stopped and came closer to listen in.
"...The guy calls himself Clint or something. Word is they have a place in South Bend. I don't know what else to give you."
"I know some people in South Bend." Hawk promised, "I'll make some more calls."
"I'll head down that way." Angel said as she put her helmet back on. "Don't worry about it."
"Well if she's going, I think you're covered." One of the college kids mentioned. "We'll knock on some doors later on."
They piled into the Caprice and sped off, music thumping, as if they just hadn't stopped by an active crime scene.
An hour later, I got a phone call too. I didn't know who it was, but I sure had to wonder what was going on in the background.
"*Call the police. Call insurance. But don't give them any names. We're taking care of this for you.*"
I guess word gets through the grapevine fast around here. | 2022-11-10T02:01:25 | 2018-10-20T20:41:18 | 1,330 | 101 |
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